Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Windows Vista

Windows Vista (or whatever it will change name to seven times before they ever release the thing) is approaching and a lot of people are focusing on what it can do and what it can't do. What they don't seem to take account of is the history. People who complain that MS has given them a bad run in the past are told they are pessimists and that this is the time when everything will be perfect. I've heard that at least five times now, so will I be upgrading to Vista?

Would you buy again from a butcher that, five times, has sold you a bit of what he assures you is "the best beef in the world" only to discover that when you get home it tastes like old boots?

Not a chance.

DOS I adored. It worked. It was powerful. It was simple. It was fast. It did the job.

Windows 3.1 I gladly bought into and began to love. It was small, simple, worked and worked well. It was easy to use and just pretty enough without needing too much from the hardware (386 with 2Mb RAM).

Windows '95 was then thrust onto me by peer pressure; it was okay but nothing special. There was a lot of frills on an OS that was basically a 32-bit version of Windows 3.1. It was also very buggy. '95 OSR2 didn't help matters at all.

Windows '98 was pushed into my hands because '95 was such a disastrous attempt at trying to push a '98-style OS out too early. It improved next-to-nothing. '98SE came out and you were asked to pay again for it. Yeah. That's going to happen. It fixed a few of the problems and introduced a few new features, but nothing that anybody actually NEEDED at the time.

Windows ME I looked at and quickly became a disaster (things like major components of Windows supporting '98, 2000, XP but not ME... .Net anyone?). It was '98SE-with-knobs-on and didn't manage to do anything particularly exciting.

So from '95 to ME, there were very few, very small improvments in an OS that incorporated at least three major paid-for upgrades (as in major release versions, not just updates) over and above the base price. It was then that I told myself that I would not upgrade any further without good reason. My computers worked, it had cost an awful lot of money to get that far and I hadn't seen much improvement in my actual productivity over previous versions. They all ran the same software, at the same speed, with the same features, with little or no improvements in the areas that mattered - stability, compatibility with older software and hardware support.

Okay, '98SE+ incorporated USB mass storage properly and a nicer driver model but in essence it also killed ISA cards stone dead without giving people a say in the matter... is it really that hard to support a standard that was still in use at the time, had stabilised and standardised itself on things like hardware autodetection, and still works to this day in the Linux kernel which has a much stricter requirement on what stays in the kernel? To be in Linux, the hardware has to be stuff that's used, has support from several programmers willing to change their code constantly, work in the kernel at all times and get updated in line with everything else, from people who are not getting paid to do that job. Anyway...

I stuck to '98SE and I spent most of those years chasing Windows Updates, free antivirus, utilities to manage the computers, anti-spyware, etc.etc.etc. Windows 2000 I skipped entirely - it removed support for a lot of my then-current hardware and only provided a small stability bonus. XP was a "necessity" to run one single game that I wanted on one single machine and has also turned into more hassle than it's worth. XP I see as basically a games console - a bloody complicated and annoying one at that.

I didn't pay for XP, it came with a second-hand computer I was given, one thing I was glad of. XP offered me nothing over 98 except more restrictions, more problems, and much less system transparency - even the filesystem was relatively unreadable outside of XP without expensive utilities (though that's not so much of a problem now but still it's hard to correctly write to NTFS without buggering something up).

Despite several methods of recovery in case of system problems (Recovery Console, Safe Mode, System Restore), it was still perfectly possible to total a machine by installing an official update that would take more hours to fix than the computer was worth. Suddenly, I needed Ghost around constantly whereas before I'd only ever re-installed Windows '98SE from scratch once (and I later found out how I could have fixed that too). It wasn't something the average Windows '98SE user could do but I brought that OS back from numerous permanent blue-screens, booting problems etc. without having to worry that I wouldn't get the system back up and running.

There isn't going to be another chance for MS. This isn't blind MS-bashing, I've just had enough. There's posts on this blog telling you how I kept my own personal '98SE machine in tip-top condition from it's release to mid-2005 and even recommending that people stay with it.

I've always noticed it and never give it a second thought but now I can see the trend in MS OS's:

- More new features that I won't ever use and just get in my way. I end up turning half of them off within the first few days, the rest as time goes by and discover they are causing me problems. I end up setting half the settings to Classic or some other sort of compatibility or failsafe mode because that's how I liked it. Control Panel was prime candidate in XP, along with Autorun. Also disabling of things like power-save settings and screen blanking.

- More restrictions, barriers and brick walls, each of which stops me doing something I WANT to do and can CURRENTLY do. Connection limits, raw sockets, driver signing, not having to activate, the list goes on.

- More time and money, not just on the OS but its supporting programs to get it into a vaguely useable state. Anti-spyware, anti-virus, firewall (because the MS ones I won't trust to be any good from experience and may well be the next anti-competition case against MS), startup controls, Ghost (because, again from experience, the chances of any type of system restore working as it should are extremely minimal). Again, the list could be endless.

- More integration with stuff I don't want (starting with IE and WMP). I don't want stuff connecting to the net unless I SAY so and unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary (i.e. it's a web browser which has been asked to connect to a website by me personally, or an autoupdate that I'VE scheduled to autoupdate). I don't even LISTEN to music, and I certainly don't want rubbish trying to get album covers and other nonsense from the internet just because I'm testing a drive with an Audio CD. I don't want my browser to even be ABLE to execute code directly in the webpage, or choose a search engine without asking me what one I want to use.

- Nothing that I absolutely *need* when it comes to upgrade time. My computer does lots of stuff already. What can I do in Vista that's totally 100% impossible in 98SE, XP or Linux? If you discount hard-coded restrictions and programming laziness, nothing. Vista is not a quantum computer conversion - it still does the same old stuff the same old way.

- Missing or just starting to introduce a lot of obvious stuff that SHOULD already be in the OS (**why** do I need a completely seperate, non-MS utility to tell me everything that's loading at Windows startup? Why have I gone from Windows 3.1 to Windows XP without MS incorporating such a simple, useful utility? Why can I not also click a button that LOCKS anything else from inserting itself into startup and kill half the spyware/viruses in one fell swoop? And yet they are bundling rubbish like media players and internet browsers that I DON'T want at all and have never even used)

- Still playing catchup to other systems. A database of your files that updates in the background and you can use to locate your files quickly? Got it, except my one doesn't slow the system down when I'm using it like Find Fast and the other MS "inventions" do. Admittedly MS may well be ahead in terms of hardware driver support but considering my Linux machine doesn't NEED half that new hardware and won't do until it's properly supported under Linux anyway... where's the incentive?

I quit Windows about a year ago hopefully forever. I was tired of my computer not doing what I tell it to. This is my biggest, absolute killer for not running Windows... if I say shutdown, you will shutdown, if I say delete that file, just delete the damn thing... I'm not an idiot, I know what I'm doing. The chances are that if I force a shutdown, there's a reason for it. It may not be an important one - I may be rushing to go out for the evening and want to make sure it's off - but that's not for you to decide. Unless I'm going to do permanent, irreparable damage just do what I say, and even then just make sure I'm AWARE of that. My OS of choice will *not* argue or crash or wait for every program on earth to voluntarily allow me to shutdown unless I ask it to.

I'm tired of having to be at the forefront of technology just to browse a simple web-page at a decent speed. I'm tired of "limitations" like XP Home's connection limits, raw socket limitations etc. when there is no technical or practical reason why they have to exist. If my OS is capable of it, it should offer it. It should not say "I COULD but... I'm not going to let you until you pay me money". It's like running a shareware operating system, except I've already paid for it.

I've worked as the only support for many years for a few hundred XP, 2000, 2003 and older machines and yet have only ever used XP on one laptop personally (my "games" machine) and on my girlfriend's computer (it came supplied with the computer and it was easier just to leave it on there for her... she had to "learn" Windows 2 years ago so learning a Linux desktop isn't a big problem at all... it's just easier for when she wants to play The Sims and other rubbish). Windows is "easy" until you need to maintain the thing and then it becomes a nightmare. My choice of OS at home reflects just how good Windows is - I work with Windows all day long, even recommend Windows systems and yet I won't touch it with a bargepole at home any more. On another note, the more broken Windows is, the more money I make because I have to then be paid by numerous schools to fix it for them. And I get paid by the hour. ;-)

I've lost count of the number of computers I've brought "back from the dead" by removing viruses, spyware, too many startups running, etc. When a user can sit at a new, fully-patched, antivirus-ed, antispyware-d machine and, without intent and within a matter of minutes, infect the machine so that it barely loads up in half-an-hour, taking hours to fix, is when I give up on that machine. What a user does SHOULD NOT affect the machine as a whole, only that user... even as a "limited" account on Windows you can wreak havoc.

Windows has an after-the-event method of fixing problems - once the virus is on there, and lots of people have also got it, some company might send out an update that may or may not catch all variants and won't help control the damage the virus has caused. Vista even includes special integration for antivirus apps. Do people not realise how ironic it is that the OS that "invented" the problems with modern-day viruses and spyware even has a special place that you can install anti-virus into so that it will integrate nicely? It's like having a car that comes with an easily accesible tool specially designed with the sole purpose of putting the wheels back on should they fall off on the motorway. So reassuring.

(Yes, DOS had viruses. DOS was back in the era of one-user full-admin home computers without sharing of disks or internet access and was a design disaster from the start... at least it bloody worked though. Sensible people had worked out in the 70's that that was just a stupid idea for multiple-users or internet-facing machines. Windows caught up with them in Windows XP/2003.)

There is actually a page on a website belonging to a Linux security enchancement package called SysMask that actually allows you to upload ANY bash, C or perl script. When you do, it compiles it, runs it and shows you the output! It will voluntarily and automatically run ANY code that ANYONE asks of it as an ordinary user because it's so sure of it's security, just to prove how good it is. This is on the same bloody server that runs their own website where you can download this code for free. It's never been taken down.

Like this site, I want before-the-event fixing - even IF someone runs some dangerous software deliberately, researching the latest holes, it can't affect the machine as a whole, can't destroy other people's files, can't put me in a state where I have to hope I have a recent image/backup. I don't trust Vista to do this... Windows 2000 was supposed to stop this. As was XP. As was 2003. Backups are for restoring files after unavoidable hardware damage - nothing else.

Now, on Linux, the damn computer actually bloody does what I ask of it. I don't have to be too careful about checking licensing for the software I install because it's *all* GPL or free (yes, I still check that it's GPL or otherwise free, though)... I'm not distributing my changes so it's all free for however many computers I want. No more license-counting, no more fighting activation systems that think they know better, no more serial codes, no more.

I used to spend HOURS on Windows hunting down decent freeware to get stuff done without having to shell out even more money but now I don't have to fill every system I own to the hilt with third-party freeware just to get the damn thing into a usable, secure state. It actually comes with everything I need, by default, installed securely.

At aboslute worst, an automated update command (one that WORKS, does it when it's convenient FOR ME, doesn't force updates that are dangerous and doesn't kill one machine or another on a regular basis) keeps me up to date. Rollback? How about a complete uninstallable plain TAR archive of every update I've ever installed, along with a copy of every single package ever installed on the machine? Any package I want, I install. I don't have to con the software into thinking it's NOT installing over a later version, not already been uninstalled, requiring the original setup disk etc.

It's also quite difficult (without doing something incredibly stupid and deliberate while logged in as root) to ruin the actual software on the machine. Windows relies on so much being intact to even boot, Linux just wants any half-recent kernel boot disk to get to a fully functioning command line and repair system (including uninstalling/reinstalling/upgrading/downgrading any single software package individually on the entire machine).

I get to choose what software runs without some arcane registry entry loading up something I'm not aware of, and am not even sure if I need it at all. Same for "services". Additionally, if I want a ten-second boot, I can have one. If I want flashy graphics, I can have them. If I WANT to boot into a command-line only environment, I can. I have that choice available. And you know what? From that environment I can control every single setting that I could control within the GUI if I wanted to. For every user. Without learning hexadecimal or what arcane GUID in the registry it's stored it under.

I can actually TRUST linux, from it's filesystems to it's hardware support to the individual software components to the firewall. I know that someone isn't going to say "well... we COULD let you have five users connected to your shares BUT we're not going to LET you". If something said that, the source code wouldn't know what had hit it after I'd put it back the way **I** want it. You're *my* computer, you can only do what you are told to do and **I** am the one in ultimate control of every single piece of software on my machine. If that means editing source, so be it. If that means I want to voluntarily install some binary (and therefore risk incompatibility, forced upgrades and undiagnosable problems) to get my job done, that's fine.

I don't have to feel like a criminal because I want to use one OS on two computers. I don't have to check in with mothership every time my motherboard changes (which is quite often because the only thing that's constant about my machine is it's data - the drives change, the hardware changes all the time; I've still got data from my DOS days on my current hard drives).

There's very little hardware I own that Linux doesn't support, and all of that is non-essential and easily replaceable (one USB IrDA adaptor, one 56k Winmodem out of eight). I don't need to have drivers on hand for each and every part of it, or a checklist of which manufacturers bothered to pay MS to get their drivers certified and which didn't. I don't need to worry about the drivers interfering or only being able to run them with the most horribly annoying pieces of GUI software known to man (HP printer drivers, some of the arcane school-specific hardware I have etc).

If I get a crash, there is something real, something productive that **I** can do about it. Someone, somewhere will be vaguely interested in finding out why my machine crashed and, hopefully, fixing it. There are constantly new free upgrades to try out, there are config files to play with, there is source to look through, there's one of the most complex debugging systems known to man sitting on my computer already waiting to find the exact spot that something crashed and why, there are many unique, discrete components that can be eliminated one at a time to diagnose and I can even single step individual changes to the kernel to find out which one caused my problem (git bisect's etc.).

I don't get (and could easily discover anyway) obscure problems like a certificate in a JAR file associated with a famous piece of UPS monitoring software expiring and thus killing the entire system without warning or a single error message, taking 100% CPU and stopping approximately 50% of programs from running at all.

Who knows, I may even be able to code a fix myself without having to wait a year for the manufacturer to even acknowledge my problem.

And at the end of the day, there's nothing I can't do on my machine that I ever wanted do on Windows. In fact, most of the tools I use now are so much more powerful it's saddening to think of the time that I've wasted trying to find Windows programs that could perform the same tasks. I **liked** batch files, I **wanted** to tweak every entry in my AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to get the most out of my very expensive hardware. I want to be able to choose and change between using my RAM for virtual storage, caching my drives when I organise all 500Gb of data on them, displaying a GUI so that I can get work done etc.

My hardware is, to put it bluntly, crap yet expensive (to me). A 1GHz serves all my needs but may well have cost me two years-worth of donated/disposed of hardware (which means several "free" jobs fixing other people's computers and a lot of effort and petrol), plus several hundred pounds of my hard-earned money plus the time and effort to get it working how I want it.

When £1000's of hardware is sitting there and telling ME that it won't do something because I haven't phoned Microsoft or haven't bought the right version, I find it diabolical that my most expensive appliance in the house is not controlled by me.

Windows 3.1 I bought into, 95/98 I used and tolerated for a LONG time, getting many useful hours out of it. By the time '98 was obsolete I'd fallen for MS's spiel far too many times and was getting tired of computers. An OS actually nearly put me, a computer fanatic, off of computers. I didn't believe in or buy 2000, or XP, or 2003 and I won't be doing the same for Vista.

I'll still have to use it, in work if nowhere else, but I'm hoping that I'm going to have made the right move here by moving away from cash-driven OS's to ones that are driven by a yearning for freedom, control, pride in their work and technical prowess. Not that it's got a new glass interface that looks cool.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

**why** do I need a completely seperate, non-MS utility to tell me everything that's loading at Windows startup? Why have I gone from Windows 3.1 to Windows XP without MS incorporating such a simple, useful utility?

I think Microsoft introduced an msconfig.exe utility to do this in Windows 98.

Anonymous said...

"There is actually a page on a website somewhere belonging to a vendor of a Linux Security package that actually allows you to upload ANY bash, C or perl script. When you do, it compiles it, runs it and shows you the output! It will voluntarily and auotmatically run ANY code that ANYONE asks of it as an ordinary user because it's so sure of it's security, just to prove how good it is. This is on the same bloody server that runs their own website where you can download this code for free. It's never been taken down. If I find the link again, I will post it."

Linux Sysmask
http://wims.unice.fr/sysmask/doc/

Anonymous said...

To be fair (I'm by no means pro-Microsoft), the 95->ME problems you listed are years ago.

You've got to give them credit for Windows 2000. It was a great improvement. Microsoft's teams did great things there.

Windows XP with activation will always be a gripe of many people, as will the Microsoft's attitude to security (recent WMF flaw patch-time anyone?).

WRT "tweaking" autoexec/batch files, why shouldn't the system be tweaked from the very beginning? Why can't the system do this itself? Even so, Windows reg-hacks still exist, so I'm not sure why you raised this.

Linux distributions aren't without their problems. Hell, Fedora Core and its default yum sources/handling of timeouts cause me headaches. Debian's nice, but just not polished enough. Gnome runs like hell, KDE too. Where's something that runs as fast as Explorer.exe?

Vista has copped a bad rap for its DRM with Media files. Fortunately, it is mostly the media making a big fuss about nothing.

While I'm not saying I'm happy in Compulsorily paying for Windows licenses (ouch), there are a lot of things Microsoft has done right.

Windows also has the added benefits of having a decent font system. Try to get your fonts looking decent in X. You'll be there for days.

We can only hope Linux distros keep getting better. Once I can find a distro that will be as useful as Windows on (for eg) a Celeron 1.5Ghz, I will be quite impressed.


Cheers.

Anonymous said...

I hear ya! Couldn't agree more! I'm working to get rid of as much MS Windows as I can... I finally made the switch to Linux on my Laptop...

An old VAIO 700 MHz machine which was as fast as molasses at 0 C... It's not the fastest thing around yet, but is much more responsive. And when it isn't, the GUI or (preferred <G>) CLI can tell me what is going on...

I cannot understand there are still software developers that standardise on Windows SQL server (or -shudder- MSDE), when there's platform independent solutions like Oracle and MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.

I'd have shed the Windows server at the office for a Linux only server solution, if it wasn't for that one software package (the Accounting software!!!) that requires a MSW based SQL server!

I want control back of my machines, and Linux gives me that control! So what if MS DRM will not work on Linux because they (MS) refuse to license the DRM for Linux... If enough people start using Linux, MS's DRM will become obsolete. That's what I call a double-whammy!
(And even better: No Sony rootkits for Linux! And even if there were, they'd never have a chance as a non-root user)

The way MS envisioned it, it would be they that decide what I can do on my computer! I don't think so!

Power to the people!

--FP
(Former MSCE+)

Anonymous said...

Your comments are very interesting. As a Windows and Linux user I can certainly see that your viewpoint has merit. What I do find somewhat uncomfortable however is that you are happy to comment on how poor Windows operating systems are, yet happy to recommend that clients use it. Is it that the financial rewards from doing this outweigh your ethics?

I'd welcome your comments.

Ledow said...

I think Microsoft introduced an msconfig.exe utility to do this in Windows 98

An obscure hidden utility that also does a lot of other stuff and isn't even given on the start menu on a clean instal. I don't think the early versions even managed to show ALL startups which makes it a bit worthless (although I've just looked at the Win2k3 one and it looks like that might do).

Good point, well made, though.

Linux Sysmask
http://wims.unice.fr/sysmask/doc


Thanks. Edited it into the article.

What I do find somewhat uncomfortable however is that you are happy to comment on how poor Windows operating systems are, yet happy to recommend that clients use it. Is it that the financial rewards from doing this outweigh your ethics?

First, I'd like to point out that I am not, never have and never will, make a commission on software/hardware/vendors that I recommend to people professionally, in any way shape or form. I'm not a salesman - I give people what they want.

Schools seek out my advice on an hourly-rate basis which also includes technical jobs such as installing and maintaining networks, websites etc. I make no money, directly or indirectly, other than that hourly rate.

If a school asks me to recommend software, I do so. If they have constraints, I take them into account. This automatically puts 90% of schools into an MS-only bracket as they need to be able to run all sorts of Windows-only software, from their compulsory finance packages that the boroughs insist upon, software for their specialised courses and programs for the kids.

This, on the whole, is software which (despite my best efforts to prove otherwise) does not run at all or very well under Wine or other methods. The schools also always require something that "anyone" can manage once they have finished with my services, which means Windows-only in our MCSE-filled world, unfortunately.

There are Linux-only schools, but they have voluntarily limited themselves to a small niche of software which is suitable for them. Most schools that seek my advice do not have that luxury and have huge investments in software archives that are not able to run smoothly via a Linux desktop.

I would LOVE to be able to move a school onto Linux but I haven't yet come across one for whom it's suitable.

My ethics are much bigger than anything that comes into my wallet, which is one of the reasons that schools will pay for me - they know I am completely independent and have no interest in selling them anything.

If a school asks me to recommend a vendor, I choose the one who's given me the best service professionally (delivery, support, pricing) and have no affiliations with them. If a school gives me constraints, however, this limits what I can recommend.

Quite often, I'm asked to recommend a certain batch of items given that the school has X amount of money/tokens/vouchers/credi and has just recieved a catalogue from company Y - this means that half the time I (or the schools) can't even choose freely between suppliers.

I know your comment was intended light-heartedly but I feel strongly against those who put their commission over their customers. If a customer wants something you don't do, recommend somewhere that does do it - without bias.

On a side-note, in UK schools, RM has twice the monopoly that MS has. Virtually all UK schools are RM - locked in under support contracts (even negotiated on a per-borough basis so you some schools have a choice - borough support and RM or no support at all).

RM systems are horrible MS-based systems "designed for schools". In reality they have one product that they push and push and push until a school/borough caves or doesn't know better. Compared to RM, a move to Microsoft is an improvement.