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Windows.. this is about the last straw.
Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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I'm going to ignore for the moment the fact that I've spent almost two weeks of company time diagnosing why only two out of >10 iPhones cannot sync to their Exchange through the ActiveSync protocol.

No, this is much closer to home. My Windows 7 PC has been running for years on the same install. It's gotten worse here and there but it's been fine.

A month or two ago, the WiFi started crashing all the time. I thought it was my WiFi cards so I got more.. but now they stopped working completely. WLAN service apparently stopped... and it refuses to restart. I look in the Event Viewer and IP Bus Enum service cannot be started because it SYSTEM lacks the privileges for "Local Launch." So I have to find the bloody Active Directory UID, track down the bloody DCOM entry (oh, and there's no search, so enjoy scrolling through thousands of entries) to find it, to add the permission. I get there, and guess what! DCOM config is actually unable to modify DCOM entries. That's right. Only "TrustedInstaller" is allowed to make changes to the Active Directory Objects. So all you have to do, is find the exact UID of the DCOM program in regedit, right-click and change the permissions by your self. OH WAIT, you can't do that because you don't have the rights to it. You have to "take ownership" of that entry before you can add admin/your-account to the registry entry for DCOM, so that you can then add the privileges back to the service.

Run through all of that, reboot. Simple!

... Except WiFi still doesn't work.

I'm livid. At this point, I'm running my "wifi" through a bridge from my computer -> ethernet + crossover adapter -> Windows 8.1 work laptop -> my home wifi.

Why the hell should I pay for Windows when I have to tear out the insides to get it to work? At least with Linux there are docs for everything and tools for finding things. Even if the programmers were stupid, I can recompile Gedit to remove that stupid Control+D = Delete line shortcut (instead of duplicate, like Notepad2/Notepad++), or use LDPRELOAD to completely remove stupid security measures from XEvent.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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The largest problem I had with Windows was when I installed Mandrake Linux back in 2003. When I booted into Windows later, something between grub and NTLDR screwed up in the process. In the end I solved it, without internet access (the dial-up ISP I used required propriety Windows software, and the Windows installation was inaccessible...) or much (read: just enough to test drive Linux without deleting system32) prior IT/computing experience, by having grub boot into the recovery partition.

There were plenty of other pains with XP (though none as severe), but since Vista, I've only dealt with hardware issues.

From the horror stories nearly every Windows user posts about, I suppose I'm pretty lucky.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Gideon Weems
Member #3,925
October 2003

Quote:

Hey, Windows. It's been a while. How are you doing? I'm just going to put in an SD card, formatted on a Linux box as FAT32. You shouldn't have any problems with that, right? ... Easy does--wait. What's going on? What are you doing??? NO WINDOES THAT DATA WAS IMPORTANT>

Bruce Perry
Member #270
April 2000

Let's face it, every OS will give you problems. Computers are just too complicated. They also promise too much (to programmers). "You want some extra memory for your leaks? Sure, I've got some for you. Oh by the way, it's now tomorrow." All things considered, I've found Windows 7 pretty good.

By the way, think twice before upgrading to Windows 10.

--
Bruce "entheh" Perry [ Web site | DUMB | Set Up Us The Bomb !!! | Balls ]
Programming should be fun. That's why I hate C and C++.
The brxybrytl has you.

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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It seems all commercial software is moving towards a subscription model. Adobe, JetBrains, Microsoft, so many others I can't think of off the top of my head... Why can't I just purchase Version X and upgrade when I want to, if ever? Now I have to pay regularly. Cool, I get updates for as long as I pay... but as soon as I stop, I can't use the software anymore. So what was the point..?

My Windows 7 license on each computer I've paid it for comes to $4 a month (approximately $450 over a combined 114 months, but I'm pretty sure I didn't pay $150 a license, was probably more like $70 a license, if that). Can Microsoft offer me an equal product for $4 a month using a subscription model? Actually, I can answer that right now: no! Now I have to deal with the hassle of accounting for $4 a month, on top of every other reoccurring bill or service I use.

I refuse to use Adobe products for the same reason. And now that JetBrains jumped the shark, I most assuredly won't be purchasing any of their .NET tools I was hoping to in the future.

Subscription software models are simply anti-consumer. I can understand if your software depended on continued development and maintenance costs (MMOs being a relevant example), but that's a different ballpark. Even if you consider security fixes and other patches as "continued maintenance costs," considering Microsoft essentially supports software releases for X years, the cost should be reflected in the license (and I'm sure it is).

Regardless of how much I dislike Linux for general computing, if Windows moves to a "subscription model," I'll be moving on from Windows. To some BSD distro, haha!

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
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Computers are just too complicated.

Computers are complicated. The difference is, the entire protocol and app structure is right in front of you on Linux.

In Windows, the admin isn't even an admin. TrustedInstaller has higher privileges which means if a windows package breaks a permission you have to hack your own computer to be able to fix it.

I've run into plenty of ridiculous Linux issues but at least Linux is free, and gives you 4 different ways to solve a problem. You can always change your kernel version, your window manager, your drivers and kernel modules.

Linux B.S. recently:
- Remapping keys in modern Linux is pathetically stupid. I literally bricked an entire laptop trying to remap the keys. xmodmap is depreciated. No more simple "I want this scancode to mean this key." Nope. They want you to modify keyboard layouts in a directory of hundreds EACH capable of INCLUDING the other one. And if you make ONE mistake like a typo? The entire keyboard functionality is disabled. You can't log in. You can't even use graphical interfaces because even the GUI keyboard programs use the same service. All I wanted to do was map fn+up/down/left/right to home/end/page-up/page-down.
- USB -> Ethernet adapter from eBay. It detects it but won't load a driver. All I have to do... is get the source for my kernel version, replicate my exact settings, and then compile some Chinese manufacturers code into it. This really isn't Linux fault, but more a WTF-China moment.

Feel free to chime in everyone with any of your computer B.S. The more and more I get into advanced IT... the more advanced things seem to break. :o There's no way I'd even be able to diagnose a DCOM service with insufficient system privileges two weeks ago. Yet at the same time, I can't help but feel like this is useless information that won't matter in five years and I'll have used up my brain on nothing.

Another Windows B.S:

- Windows 2003 Small Business Server. Can't access many SSL websites BUT NOT ALL. Turns out XP/2003 doesn't include SHA2/.X509 certificates without a hotfix that doesn't come through automatic updates. So after taking down a live server over lunch, it's still not fixed. I load up the certificates and DigiCert's ROOT CERTIFICATE is listed under deactivated. Something happened, or someone was a jack!@# and has deactivated/revoked the DigiCert root certificate so anyone signing with them fails to connect. I can't even figure out how to un-revoke a cert yet.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
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I think I'm getting out of fashion.. I used to experiment with stuff couple years ago, especially with Linux. Now I just got my Win7, which I try not to update regularly. And.. To be honest it just works.

Last time I tried to get Linux running, I couldn't get all my monitors to function, that's because 3 are connected to an AMD's R9, and one more to a GTS 450. Apperantly it is quite a pain to get going under any distro of Linux I came by. But overall, I agree the config is rediculus. It does work in Win7, fairly easily.

jhuuskon
Member #302
April 2000
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I work in industrial maintenance and we have briefcases upon briefcases of proprietary programming and diagnostic cables and adapters.

Every now and then a manufacturer changes the physical connector of their diagnostic interface without modifying the electrical implementation just to keep selling new programming cables, or devise an entirely new protocol over an existing connector with no forward or bacward compatibility on either end.

We have a separate laptop on the side specifically for those esoteric devices. Those devices regularly depend upon legacy compatibility layers, implement a proprietary USB interface where serial communication would do, do weird shit with the registry, install PITA license manager tray programs, etc. Not to mention the programs and gadgets cost insane amounts of money.

All these reasons amount to why I welcome our new Beckhoff overlords. Their programming cable is standard CAT5 and their tool stack is distributed for free and run inside Visual Studio Shell.

You don't deserve my sig.

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

That reminds me.

1 The moron in IT before I got here decided to shut off the NETBIOS service in windows on the domain controller. Well, it turns out that all group policy had failed on the server because it could no longer access its own group policy files in the sysvol. Exchange couldn't talk to the domain controller. Everything ran on cached credentials till they expired and everything began randomly blowing up into a fireworks explosion of user errors. This is the second business in a year that I've been to where the sysadmin didn't even know how Kerberos works.

That's not windows fault but geez, is everyone in IT a complete moron?

2 I forgot what I was going to say. Haha. Though speaking of old prop tech. Almost all the label printers here are parallel port. Many require XP or earlier.

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
avatar

Windows 7 was always pretty good to me. Although it did finally stop working properly after about 10,000 security updates. (Why is it so hard to patch software??) An upgrade to Windows 10 seemed to fix it. I barely use Windows, but 10 doesn't seem to be too bad (compared to 8.x).

Linux gives me the least amount of major problems in the areas I care about, but I definitely have gotten used to its quirks.

Chrome v Firefox is an interesting thing. It seems like every 3 months one of them doesn't work very well. e.g., Lately Chrome has been freezing up for about 1 minute after unlocking the display. ??? It started happening on all three of my machines after the same updates, so I'm sure a future one will fix it.

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
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I use Chrome since it's public release. I'm fine with it, although from a fast browser(& yes it WAS faster than FF then) it has become a resource devourer, though nowdays with an appropriate PC I can't care less. It is silly how couple tabs consume some 3 GB. And a 100% of a core here & there when something fucks.

Gideon Weems
Member #3,925
October 2003

Let's face it, every OS will give you problems.

This is true. Linux has its quirks; they are just a different set (like Matthew says).

No more simple "I want this scancode to mean this key." Nope.

Xmodmap can do this with the keycode command. Use xev to see keycodes.

jhuuskon said:

I work in industrial maintenance...

I do, too. The place I work has an old laptop, as well, just like the one you mention. If manufacturers would release code, third parties would gladly update the drivers to run on modern systems, but no. Such is not to be.

Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010

I cleaned an old Windows-XP laptop the other day. There were both "IE 7 Beta 2" and "IE 8" installed. I thought I might have installed IE 7 to have an IE 7 available, so I removed it. Had IE 6 then. Ooops, it was probably incremental, although it appeared as two different programs. So I thought I could remove IE 8 and do a clean reinstall (what was I thinking?).
Unfortunately, at next boot, all that could be made to appear was Task Manager which complained it couldn't start "explorer.exe" because of some missing .dll - every few seconds. Copied the file from another XP install I had lying around. Now I could login again and had actually succeded in killing IE for good. But that meant parts of the control panel were now crashing. Tried to download IE: No version was "suitable" for the system. Ended up running a checking tool and then I could reinstall IE 8 through Windows update. Ah, good old days...

I've liked Windows 7. I'm not going to pay monthly bills for software until There Really Is No Alternative. >:( IMHO, all this is just a sign that there are not enough new features on offer to make consumers actually want to buy new versions.

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
avatar

Yeah well, they can't progress as they did before. They are able to offer clouds though. And well, they both aren't willing to go out of business AND they kinda have some legitimacy to charge a lil for cloud usage. Nowhere near what they plan to charge, so let it beat: Higher market share for Linux. I don't mind.

piccolo
Member #3,163
January 2003
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Hardly the last straw. I am sure you will take more much move.

wow
-------------------------------
i am who you are not am i

Chris Katko
Member #1,881
January 2002
avatar

Actually, Microsoft is back-porting all of their new Windows 10 DRM to Windows 7 and 8--including disabling programs Microsoft deems to be 'pirated'. Legally own Diablo 2, but download a torrent for convenience? Enjoy your ban.

I'm about ready to try a full switch. I'm actually really starting to love Ubuntu's Unity... I hated it at first but God, the virtual desktop buttons are so insanely intuitive. I'm finally more productive UI-wise than I am on Windows (and I'm fast on Windows). People watch me doing stuff and just stand there agasp. I run separate "topics" per virtual desktop and have related data sources side-by-side with a half-screen of that desktop. So, folder left, Google docs right. Next screen has a full screen excel sheet. Next screen has a half and half wireless diagnostics and packet logs--or whatever I need. When I'm at work/a client, I use one virtual desktop for any personal notes and can switch fast enough that people aren't going to be reading anything.

I just found out that FL Studio runs fine in Linux with Wine (though I haven't tested all my 3rd-party VSTs). So the only thing left is games... and I'm probably fine dual-booting for them since my SSD means booting takes ~7 seconds. I'm already running Windows 7 VM INSIDE Windows 7 so I can play two copies of the same game at the same time. I've got a 40" 1080p screen--and a tiny room--so it's often easier to run two instances of Diablo 2 or System Shock 2 than it is to run two computers at the same time for my Wife and I. It's pretty fun split-screening everything. But back to the point, Windows 7 in a VM runs fine, so it'll run fine from Linux.

I need to make a full inventory of the apps I run. I can leave another box aside for Windows-specifics like Windows-only temperature sensors and the like. I can't remember if Wireshark on Linux supports promiscuous mode.

I've got a piece of !@#$! laptop running Windows 8.1 for work. Other than games and music, there's no magical need for me to be running Windows. I love using Google docs for docs/spreadsheets whenever possible because you can show audit logs and publish any document to a public web URL with a single click.

One area I do need to consider is the fact that my monitor is BGR (which means 99% of programs who assumed RGB was the only format become hard on the eyes), as well as getting ClearType to work correctly. My eyes aren't what they used to be.

[edit]

Hey, you Windows 10 guys. I just found out that Windows 10 apparently has a bug where it corrupts wave files on FAT32 partitions... which a pretty big problem for SD card users. Surely it'll be patched, but be warned. It corrupts them the second you plug them in, without any writing required!

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2015/8/15/problems-with-windows-10-corrupting-wav-files-on-fat32-formatted-media

-----sig:
“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

raynebc
Member #11,908
May 2010

EFS for FAT32 file systems? What the hell, Microsoft? At least Microsoft can share the blame of that WAV corruption bug with a third party's implementation of the WAV format.

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
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You mean the OS writes stuff to a mem stick without a warning?

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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After working professionally on Microsoft stacks for 8 years nothing surprises me anymore. You will have problems on a GNU/Linux OS too, but those are mistakes or unforeseen incompatibilities, not malicious intentions. They will in time be fixed, especially the more people (and especially the more businesses) they affect. The only things stopping you from fixing it yourself are time, motivation, and/or expertise. The amount of stupidly core things in Windows that are broken beyond workaround is ridiculous. If you've ever attempted even something so simple as shell scripting in Windows then you've probably damaged your forehead. There's no good reason things are this broken. They're broken because the vendor is greedy and most people in the software industry are incompetent. That doesn't mean that you have to be incompetent too.

Windows 7 works pretty well because billions of dollars have been extorted towards its continued development over the past 3 decades. And most of all because hardware vendors support it. Of course, they don't all support it well, but they support it much better than they support *nix. And yet *nix is still capable of out-performing Windows in many benchmarks and keeping up elsewhere. In large part because Microsoft puts profits ahead of everything, including making software simple and reliable. They simply could not ever be as big as they were if they had done it legitimately.

Don't hold onto Windows for gaming. That's no longer an argument unless you're unfortunately at the mercy of a game vendor that is also evil. Steam for Linux, while also unfortunately proprietary, runs great in Linux these days and many games are supported. More are likely to come as Valve pushes their Steam boxes into production. There's essentially a Linux-based game console very much nearing release... It shouldn't be long before Linux support rivals that of Windows support.

Even when there isn't a native port of software for Linux you'd be surprised how good Wine is these days. I've successfully run Skyrim on not all that impressive hardware at comfortable frame-rates. There's a good chance that what you want to run will run in Linux if it isn't ancient or dependent on hard-coded hacks in the Windows kernel (when software is popular enough, Microsoft programmers will hard-code hacks into the OS to make those buggy programs work properly... the definition of bloat-ware).

Linux is much more efficient to work with, and the professionals that offer their volunteer services to offer support for the *nix ecosystem are infinitely more experienced and knowledgeable than even the most experienced Windows gurus. There's no doubt what will be powering machines for the foreseeable future, and it isn't Microsoft-based... It's not Apple-based either. Now let's just make sure that we don't let any corporate or political interests take control over it and ruin it on us.

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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The only way Linux will become as popular as Windows is if a newer iteration of Windows runs on the Linux kernel.

There will never be "The Year of the Linux Desktop." Linux devs care virtually nil about the general purpose end-user. The distros who do, like Ubuntu, are essentially ridiculed.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

type568
Member #8,381
March 2007
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No need "more", just popular enough. Like Android & Apple. Every major vendor has a supp for both. Many already do supp Linux, but.. Most don't.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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The only way Linux will become as popular as Windows is if a newer iteration of Windows runs on the Linux kernel.

There will never be "The Year of the Linux Desktop." Linux devs care virtually nil about the general purpose end-user. The distros who do, like Ubuntu, are essentially ridiculed.

General purpose end user stuff is already user-friendly in a GNU/Linux desktop. The main applications that are needed by these users is a Web browser (90% of their usage) and office software. It's already very user-friendly and fully featureful.

Ubuntu is ridiculed for being the Windows of the Linux world: it spies on you by default, it makes it trivially easy to grant a regular user root privileges, etc. Ubuntu is a step back in the wrong direction. Ubuntu's developers are happy to add misfeatures to the system that benefit them instead of the user. That's why it's ridiculed. If we wanted that we already have Windows and OS X.

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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Somewhat correct. Most users would at best need a locked-down tablet, something with Windows RT (deprecated now, I believe, though) or iOS. A desktop is a waste, in all honesty, and a laptop isn't much better.

Interestingly enough, Android devices are prone to malware, so your average user would probably be vulnerable if they used a Linux-based operating system on a tablet.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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One of the major problems with Android (and iOS) systems is that despite having varying degrees of permissions "stores" and users alike are ignorant of them. Naturally most applications for these platforms request full permissions in order to harvest data and spy on users. Android is not Linux. It's not that it's impossible to secure such a system. It's that the for-profit vendor incarnation prioritizes convenience and spying over privacy and safety. Applications that request too many permissions should be flagged to users as dangerous within the storefront. It would discourage users from installing them, and discourage application developers from abusing client devices.

There's probably more needed as they'd simply adapt, lazy users would just ignore the warnings and encourage their friends to do the same, and everybody would continue doing what they're doing... I think the permissions need to be much more fine grained. We need to analyze legitimate uses for hardware accesses and wrap the hardware in restricted APIs with limited access for specific purposes. It would be neat if the VM could actually keep track of where data is coming from, flag it as "private" with varying degrees of precision, and prevent it from "leaking" outside of applications which haven't been granted explicit access to do so.

There are legitimate uses for privileges, but I shouldn't have to trust Joe Developer to not abuse it once I've given it to his software. I should be able to say, "OK, you want to make it convenient for me to do X on my device, which doesn't require communicating with any networks or other applications, etc., so you can do ONLY that with this data."

Erin Maus
Member #7,537
July 2006
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The biggest security issue is the person operating, maintaining, or developing the hardware or software. Every one of us fleshy meatbags is vulnerable in some glaring way. Nothing can be done to resolve this, other than eliminating the human factor. This is impossible right now.

If you're completely asocial, have no friends or family or coworkers, leave no personal details on the internet (e.g., so no social media accounts), and provide no identifying information to third parties without complete verification of their authenticity, well, if I (as some hypothetical hacker) wanted your information badly enough for some nefariousness purposes, you'll bend given enough persuasion (which may come in the form of physical violence if all else fails). This is the "best-case" scenario in being secure.

Most of us are not this best-case scenario. You have friends or family or coworkers. They have friends and family and coworkers. So on. Generally, one your immediate relations is squishy enough to give out crucial information (hey, I'm looking for a present for Bob, do you know his favorite book? hey, I'm with Generic Organization(tm), and I need to contact Bob, can you provide me a working [number/address/email]? on and on...). If your immediate relations are ideally "secure," then one of their immediate relations probably won't be, and at best, you simply slow down the nefarious hacker.

And then there's a majority of people who can be persuaded to provide critical information, or blackmailed if persuasion is ineffective.

No average user gives the first crap about permissions or general security guidelines that would eliminate the majority of problems they encounter. In turn, they won't do their duty. You give enough Joe Users a Linux box and they'll all screw up their systems or become a part of some botnet as Linux becomes a viable target.

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X on Joe User's PC, it doesn't matter. Android, Windows, iOS on Joe User's phone or tablet, it doesn't matter. They will open themselves up as an attack vector simply by using the device.

---
ItsyRealm, a quirky 2D/3D RPG where you fight, skill, and explore in a medieval world with horrors unimaginable.
they / she

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