18 Jan
2010
18 Jan
'10
6:09 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
I wasn't always one of its developers. And it's
not like I *know* of
every bug in the system and carefully step around them to avoid crashing
my personal boxes at home. I work on a very small component of Windows,
it's ridiculous to think that I use the vast majority of it any
differently than a casual user. Hell, I file bugs against it all the
time when testing private builds...
Is bad management really a problem there? I suppose it is
everywhere, but I guess I've never heard about this.
Vista was _definitely_ the result of bad management. Can't speak to all
of MS's other problems, though.
I'm primarily talking about XP. In my (very small) circle of local
friends, I've seen three XP reinstalls happen since the beginning of
the year.
I'd suggest getting a decent antivirus on them (AVG does a good job, as
do the Microsoft offerings). If they're falling to pieces for reasons
other than malware, then something's very wrong.
You're citing ONE virus? The last Windows box I reformatted had
HUNDREDS. Come on, man. You said "viruses wouldn't exist," primarily
due to "smart people
working on software." I pointed out that UNIX had a huge virus, despite
many smart developers working on it. That was my only point in saying
the above -- viruses will always exist, no matter what.
It's always
been (if you're talking about the various hives). The
registry has also has had its own security model, so bad apps running in
low integrity can't read/write stuff they might be able to exploit.
Agreed.
I've not yet seen 7 in person. Is it really that much faster? In my
experiences, yes. Machines I'd never have put Vista on if you
paid me run it well (I have an 8-year-old Acer tablet running it right
now and it's very nice.) Maybe a bit slower than XP.
Thanks. I kinda doubt any of it was your fault.
Probably not :)
- Josh
On Jan 17, 2010, at 11:24 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
I was
rebutting your point about *usability* here. Usability (i.e. look
& feel, etc.) is subjective. I address stability & performance elsewhere.
Is it really? I guess I just don't
understand why the discussion
keeps popping up seemingly out of nowhere all the time. (This topic
started on a discussion of the value of a PDP 8/L.)
That is a very good question. ;)
Usability is subjective, and people tend to like
what they're
accustomed to, so it does seem more like a religious argument there.
Well, *some* people only like what they're accustomed to. I point
again at stability, viruses, and performance. Am I accustomed to
non-Windows OSs? Yes. I've never been a regular Windows user. But I
like to think that I have better judgment than to bash something
simply because I'm unfamiliar with it. I have real data points. I've had no stability problems with my
Windows machines in years,
aside from the occasional driver issue (raises a fist in anger at
Creative Labs). Then again, I don't administrate high-load servers
so I can't comment from the trenches there.
And you also happen to be one of its developers. Software is most
stable when used by the people who wrote it. This is why big
programming shops have testing groups that are not comprised of the
people who wrote the code. Again,
present company excluded...I've seen your work, and in my
opinion, you seriously know what you're doing. If the other Windows
developers had even half of your level of clue,
There are lots of smart developers at Microsoft. Never underestimate
the ability of management to screw with the ideals of developers. (I
have had some *really good* managers in my time, but these are offset
by the *really bad* ones...) it
wouldn't need to be reinstalled every time you turn around,
If you're truly needing to reinstall Windows at all often, you're
doing something wrong. (Unless it's Windows 95, in which case keep
at it, I guess.) viruses
wouldn't exist,
I know, old history, but the Morris worm infected what OSes? Written by what smart people? Viruses will
always exist as long as
humans are writing operating systems and software -- people do make
mistakes and buffers get overrun or information gets leaked.
It's true, yes.
Microsoft unfortunately does not have a good
track record here
(they did not learn from history), and I'm not going to attempt to
candy coat it. We do try to make things better, I think for the most
part we are heading in the right direction. We still have far to go.
Agreed on all points.
Windows 7 runs users as unprivileged by default
(about time) and
Internet Explorer 7/8 actually runs at even lower privilege than that
(it does not have permissions to write to the filesystem or registry
except in blessed locations, etc...) so even browser plugins that are
vectors can't do any damage (other than possibly crashing the browser
process.)
Is it true the the registry is broken into separate parts now? (Not that this excuses Windows. Why all user
accounts until the
middle of this decade were in the Administrators group is beyond me.
Well, I can guess -- most software pre-NT assumed a user could do
anything since it wasn't written for a networked, multi-user system.
Management decreed "thou must be backwards compatible" and so *poof*
every user has to be able to do everything. And as a result, most
Windows software is written to assume it can do anything (and thus
*has* to run as an Admin).)
That particular management decision gave us easily 90% of the
world's viruses, and more than half of today's spam. That guy should
be beaten. Badly. and it
wouldn't be so damn slow...which are three problems a long
list of other OSs, some UNIX and some not, simply don't have.
Vista was damned slow. (I'm sorry.) Windows XP or 7 runs snappily
on my underpowered netbook. (I know, it's no 486, but then, Solaris
doesn't run well on that either :)). Please
forgive me for jumping up and down about it, but this week
I'm squarely in the middle of a fairly large "pleaaaaase rescue me
from Windows hell" migration and it is giving me one heck of a
headache. If I bill the poor guy for all the time it's taking
(thanks to proprietary crap and other shameless lock-in attempts)
I'd put a really nice chain of stores out of business, so I'm ending
up eating most of the hours myself.
Best of luck. Sorry for your pain. Hope none of it is my fault :).
-Dave