Warning! Do NOT apply XP SP 3!

[Jack Simth]

AgentZero said:
I do have to say though, that other than Windows Update, I've never had any serious problems with any of my Windows machines. I think part of the problem is, and I don't mean to sound like more of an elitist d-bag than usual, but I know how to take care of my computer. I don't mean things like defragging, AV (haven't had a resident AV in 4 years ), or firewalls, but rather I avoid doing things that I know will cause problems down the road.

I've been asked to have a look at plenty of computers that are fumtu, and the vast majority of the time I find things like multiple different AV programs, a few firewalls, a dozen different music players, a plethora of CD/DVD creation software, and a multitude of programs the user doesn't even know the purpose of. And then these same people blame Windows and/or Microsoft for all of their woes. Yet strangely enough, if I ask them if they think a car with 4 different tires and a V6 engine with an extra three pistons welded on and the exhaust manifold piped into the turbo charger would run very well. Inevitably I get an answer along the lines of "Of course not, what kind of stupid question is that?" And when I follow up by asking whether they'd blame the manufacturer if they'd performed those modifications themselves, I usually get the same answer.

I find it a bit funny that the same people who would never dream of putting oil in the gas tank or KY Jelly to lubricate their engine seem to have no compunctions about performing equally damaging acts to their software, and then blaming Microsoft when it goes pearshaped. Although I suppose one great advantage I have is that I'm the only one who uses my computer. If more than one person is using the computer, one might as well consign themselves to a format/re-install every six months, at least.

I suppose another part of it is that the hardware in the vast majority of home computers is ****e. I know most people on this forum are quite happy building their own machines, but most people just go out to Best Buy and get the cheapest machine that'll do the job they want. Of course, such machine's specs are designed purely to answer the 3 Big Questions most people have when buying a computer: What kind of processor is it? How big is the hard drive does it have? How much RAM does it have? And sometimes: What kind of graphics card does it have? People rarely ask who made the hard drive or the RAM, what type of motherboard is in there, and more importantly, what type and who made the power supply. Which means that these tend to be where the people who build the computers cut corners.

Then you have people coming back to the store a few months later claiming (and I've heard these all myself), "Windows burnt out my power supply", "Windows corrupted my RAM", "Stupid Microsoft fried my hard drive". Could the problem be that you have a $30 power supply, 2GB of RAM that didn't cost more than $10, and a 500GB hard drive that only added $20 to the price tag? No! It must be Microsoft!

Do note:
You can install several music players and sets of CD/DVD creation software just fine on a Linux box. For that matter, a Knoppix CD comes with several sets of both pre-installed and linked in the start menu. A few different internet browsers, too.

The computer I'm working on was previously a Vista box. The second time I had to do a factory restore in a month (and I seriously installed exactly two piece of software - Firefox and (the second time around) a CD burner) I was basically just using it to browse the net. Otherwise, all software was factory installed.) I installed Linux, instead.

Haven't had a problem since. I've even got a copy of the OS on a second drive, all ready to go, in case my hard disk crashes.

Now, granted, the thread's primarily about XP... but still...

AgentZero said:

No, Windows isn't perfect, and sometimes Microsoft can be a bit of a collective douchebag but there's still a pretty hefty list of things they not only get right, but get right better than Linux and/or Macs.

Hmm... I suppose an /endrant is appropriate here.

A hefty list of things they get right better than Linux or Mac?
Other than marketing, and as a consequence, software market share, can you actually name three of significance?

[Fyron]

Jack Simth said:
Do note:
You can install several music players and sets of CD/DVD creation software just fine on a Linux box. For that matter, a Knoppix CD comes with several sets of both pre-installed and linked in the start menu. A few different internet browsers, too.

You seem to have missed the point. It wasn't that multiple music players or disc burners will break the system (they won't, unless they come from the likes of Real Media), it was that the users had no idea what they were doing, and installed everything under the sun. This always includes all sorts of malware apps that are the real culprits for system instability. It should be noted that the software that comes on a Knoppix CD (itself a pretty piss-poor OS compared to real Debian or K/Ubuntu) has been well-tested and vetted before inclusion. The distro makers don't just grab random pieces of software off the net and put them in, as the users that AgentZero is complaining about do. If you only install well-made software on a Windows box, you'll have no more trouble than only installing well-made software on a *nix box. If you download and install every random piece of software on a *nix box, you will break it just the same as a Windows box.

[Jack Simth]

Fyron said:
You seem to have missed the point. It wasn't that multiple music players or disc burners will break the system (they won't, unless they come from the likes of Real Media), it was that the users had no idea what they were doing, and installed everything under the sun. This always includes all sorts of malware apps that are the real culprits for system instability.

And yet, the music players, antivirus, firewall, and cd/dvd burning programs that are the ones he specifically listed - stuff that generally comes, not from random downloads off the net, but from boxes sold in stores. So I gave a counterexample where the offical stuff doesn't do that.

Fyron said:
It should be noted that the software that comes on a Knoppix CD (itself a pretty piss-poor OS compared to real Debian or K/Ubuntu)

Sorta. Knoppix is designed primarily for system recovery type applications, or demo disks where you're not sure what system you'll be using for the demo. As such, it's designed to run off the CD. If you actually tell it to install, it gives you a couple of options, and lists Debian as recommended. Which it will then walk you through doing.

I recently installed it on my uncle's computer. I started with attempting to install Ubuntu, but that one ran into an error (related to a missing hardware cable for the clock, I suspect, but I didn't fight with it enough to actually prove that - he basically just uses the box to browse the net) while Knoppix didn't have any issues.

Fyron said:
has been well-tested and vetted before inclusion. The distro makers don't just grab random pieces of software off the net and put them in, as the users that AgentZero is complaining about do.

And yet of the items he listed, most of them come in boxes from stores, professionally sold.

Fyron said:
If you only install well-made software on a Windows box, you'll have no more trouble than only installing well-made software on a *nix box. If you download and install every random piece of software on a *nix box, you will break it just the same as a Windows box.

Actually, to break a *nix box, you pretty much have to use the root password at some point (or interrupt the boot sequence in a particular spot to arrange for root permissions without the root password, but most people don't know how to do that). Windows defaults to the only account being an administrative account, which causes issues as basically everything ends up running with administrative-level permissions, so any old program on the box can do mean things to the box.

[Fyron]

Jack Simth said:
not from random downloads off the net, but from boxes sold in stores

AZ didn't specify what the software was, so this seems to be a dubious supporting argument. I doubt that a system with a ton of different media players and disc burners had many of them come from a store, simply because that tends to get really expensive to purchase, and there are so many freely available on the net (even if some are limited feature versions). Even dumb people have only so much money to waste.

Actually, to break a *nix box, you pretty much have to use the root password at some point..

So what? Any home user is going to have the root password for their box, and put it in when it asks for it. An illiterate user won't magically be protected by user permissions, cause he will figure out how to grant them when the box wants them to. That sort of security is merely an illusion of market share; if Linux were to magically gain a large market share, there would be tons of malware and other poorly authored software for it, getting installed on people's machines.

Windows defaults to the only account being an administrative account, which causes issues as basically everything ends up running with administrative-level permissions, so any old program on the box can do mean things to the box.

Which is why MS put UAC into Vista... You have to explicitly press the OK button when software does something requiring admin privileges, even as an administrative user. Obviously it isn't perfect, and dumb users will click OK anyways. Such access protections help with drive-by installers and such, but they do nothing to stop users wanting to install the latest Bonzai Buddy. This is not something you can fix in any technical fashion, regardless of OS. It requires user education.

[Azselendor]

For all the love Apple gets from it's fanbase, it's truely undeserving of it. Some of apple's policies are down right draconian. If Microsoft pulled the crap they did, Microsoft would be getting bent over a table by Anti-Trust suits.

For example.

I can only use iTunes to load music onto my ipod. Other 3rd party MP3 players allow for USB connections and 3rd party softwares.

Apple includes additional software in it's updates. The infamous Safari-bundled with quicktime and itunes updates.

Apple Patent Mongering.

Itune's online store carries different music prices in different regions. In fact, the EU is on their *** about it.

Songs purchased on itunes may not work on anything but an ipod. A known anti-competitive practice once used with juteboxes and IBM used with system mainframes and microsoft used with servers.

Apple Lisa pricing. If you bought one, you know what I'm talking about.

iPhone is restricted to 3rd party developers, locking out independent programmers and businesses.

Many key software packages that run on apple products can only be obtained from apple or apple-owned subsidiaries.

I can go on.

[Suicide Junkie]

Fyron said:

This is not something you can fix in any technical fashion, regardless of OS. It requires user education.

A technical solution could work, if you allow for invasive surgery.

[Fyron]

That's the wrong kind of technicality, and you know it!

[AgentZero]

A hefty list of things they get right better than Linux or Mac?
Other than marketing, and as a consequence, software market share, can you actually name three of significance?

Things they've done better than Linux:
1. Ease of use. Linux is not easy to use for people not already well familiar with how computers in general work, and slapping a GUI on top of it doesn't change this. When I wanted to do something as simple as install the video drivers for my new graphics card, I wound up having to recompile the kernel. A PITA, but no big deal for me. Linux still has far too many operations that require mucking around with the command line that are simple point & click operations in Windows. And trust me, when you're trying to convince an elder sibling to switch over to *nix, and she winds up finding instructions to get her printer working that include a sneaky "rm -rf /" while running as root, well you might as well tattoo Windows4Life across her forehead at this point.

2. Consistent Support. With 99% of the problems I've had with Windows that were Windows problems, and not some other software/hardware not behaving itself, I've found the answer to in Microsoft's Knowledge Bank. The remaining 1% I have found no answer to, anywhere, ever. Try Googling any number of common *nix problems, and you'll find a huge variety of answers, most of which (from personal experience), don't actually work for one reason or another. There's no consistency of language either, even within a single distro, which can make finding the solution to your exact problem nightmarish. Windows problems, on the other hand, generally take me no more than a 30-60 seconds to find the relevant webpage, because Microsoft uses a consistent language to describe problems, which makes it far easier to find solutions.

3. The "Just Works" Factor. I plug my MP3 player into my XP box, it pops up and tells me it's found new hardware and installed drivers for it. Ditto my digital camera. And my external hard drive. I do the same in Ubuntu... Nothing happens. It's not until I start fiddling around in the CLI that I actually get some useful error messages, and eventually get things up and running. And in the dozen or so Linux distros I've tried, I've run into similar problems, and programs that fail to load without giving an error, and programs that crash with no error, and it's not until I haul open the terminal and start fiddling that I actually find out what's wrong. So I could even say that even when things don't work, they don't work, better, in Windows.

As for Macs:
1. Right click, lol. Well, in seriousness, with all of Apple's vaunted "intuitive interfaces", I've found people with little to no experience with computers tend to figure out how to do things in Windows quicker. I've worked in a few places where people had the option of using either Macs or PCs, and inevitably, those least familiar with computers wind up on the Windows boxes. Note that I'm not referring to people who have only used Windows, I'm talking about those who have never owned a computer, and have only limited prior experience working with them. I don't really understand it myself, I'm actually quite fond of the OS X UI, but I've been told plenty of times that it's, "Nice, but only makes sense after someone explains it."

2. Developer Support. I've run into employees of EA, Ironclad, Relic & Rockstar (They all have offices quite near where I live), at a variety of social gatherings. Inevitably, I wind up asking them about the dearth of games on Macs & Linux. Everyone I've talked to has given my some variation of "Apple won't play nice" when it comes to Macs, and nothing but a thousand-yard stare when I prod them about Linux. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but from talking to these people it seems as though there's more than just market share behind the reason so few developers put out Mac versions of their software.

3. Letting you do whatever you want. Yes, a lot of people fubar their systems because of this, but that's more down to personal ignorance than any particular flaw with the OS. Have you ever tried to make a Mac do something that Apple didn't think you'd need to do? Holy crap. It will just fight you every step of the way, bringing to bear it's full arsenal of lockups, power downs and refusal to boots in an attempt to stop you from doing something as simple as enable support for writing to NTFS partitions, as I discovered on Friday.

Now of course, there are plenty of things that Macs and Linux do much better than Windows, otherwise I wouldn't be running Linux on my laptop, or have a dual-boot set up on the desktop. But the fact remains that there are a lot of things that Microsoft does very well, and it irks me a bit when I see people condemning MS for things that aren't it's fault, when there are plenty of perfectly good reasons to condemn them for that are their fault.