I Really Hate Windows Sometimes

http://www.devtopics.com/i-really-hate-windows-sometimes/

by blazzerbg • 17 years ago

17 23 17 years ago

chrischen• 17 years ago

Yea I remember the days of obscure hacks and fixes for windows. The good thing is that lots of people use windows, so eventually you'll find it. But I can honestly say I've never had to do any weird hacks since I've switched to mac.

blazzerbg3• 17 years ago

...but there is a little pride when you are able to "put hands into" any OS.

This is the way always is and expected to be ....

etherael• 17 years ago

very first thing i had to do when I tried a mac mini before it didn't feel like I'd contracted some kind of motor neurone disease was install some dubious hack (If I recall correctly it was called iMouseFix or somesuch). And the default schemes pissed me off, I messed with them a bit trying to make them less eyesore-esque but gave up after realising magnifique (sp?) themes were just bad hacks also.

This whole "it just works" thing never ceases to confuse me.

Gave up, went back to linux, never again considered a return.

fauigerzigerk• 17 years ago

Reminds me how my Ubuntu wireless stopped working because an automatic update installed a new and broken driver. Ah and all the songs on my ipod were deleted without warning because I had plugged it into "the wrong" computer.

Seems nothing is ever going to save us from ignorance and complexity. There's no escape, at least when it comes to operating systems.

billswift2• 17 years ago

KISS - Keep It Simple and Succinct.

I really wish I could find a Linux 1.2 that was just updated for new hardware and bug-fixes; hell, even an updated Windows 98 would be better than the current alternatives (including Ubuntu which is a royal pain).

windsurfer2• 17 years ago

May I ask what you want specifically? There are tons of distros out there, one may serve your needs.

jrockway• 17 years ago

s/Sometimes//

Ben65• 17 years ago

I don't want to sound like a Mac fan boy here, but if (when) things like this happen the Genius Bar will help you right out. I know there have been cases where they don't help, but they're good for 90% of the problems that come in.

blazzerbg3• 17 years ago

the issue with almost every other than Windows OS is that there are limited community support. Most of the *X OS has good and straight support but only on certain places, MS may be has the most grasping marketing strategy - make people talk about his products everywhere and value them. This is valid not only for OS but for every product especially for programming languages and tools..... Everybody can try to search issue on Mac/Unix/Linux and for Windows #.... Statistic is not result from fact that there are less issues on OS but talks how much people are familiar and actually using one OS.

unalone• 17 years ago

I'd say other than Windows OS and Mac OS X. I haven't had a Mac problem that other people couldn't solve. Three cheers for standardization of hardware/OS, I guess.

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

My favorite is the windows automatic restart when left unattended after certain updates. Back in College, I had this program that allowed me to snag released tickets to our basketball team (it was first come first served after release) for lots of friends. I went out and windows updated -- on the biggest game of the year.

blazzerbg3• 17 years ago

Murphy's laws "If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong"

kaitnieks• 17 years ago

Yes, this. I'm a happy windows user (probably a minority here) except for this bloody feature. And the fact that every time windows updates are downloaded I have to review them to make sure they don't contain some kind of genuine validation checker that won't benefit me in any way except probably make my windows copy illegal by mistake.

skolor5• 17 years ago

Updates are particularly difficult to get right. For something that requires a restart, you have two main options: restart the computer for the user, or wait for the user to restart on its own. You run into two problems if you wait for the user: Many never actually restart, and if you let it trigger on Shutdown also, then you'll have the problem of users turning on their computer and having to wait 20 minutes for all 200 updates they haven't been bothering with to install.

As far as automated updates go, they should be requiring the user to acknowledge the "Restart now?" box, and nag the hell out of users until they acknowledge it somehow.

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

Yea. I would be fine if it popped up and said "Restart Now." as a modal dialog box that had no other option than "Yes".

cia_plant• 17 years ago

Why should a system update ever require you to restart your computer, though?

dougp• 17 years ago

The automatic restart caused us no end of difficulties at my work. We were running long running data loading integration test scripts on windows boxes. Nothing worse then finding out that the script that was supposed to run over the weekend made it 8 hours then the machine rebooted to install updates.

skolor5• 17 years ago

There's a regedit/GPO that should be applied on any system like this. The key is in Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update (under GPO), and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate (Some place in there, I'm on 7 right now and can't find what it would be on XP).

It is particularly strange that it would happen over the weekend. Updates should be downloaded and installed only on Tuesdays, unless you set it otherwise. If your scripts are running every weekend, why not set the machines to update on Mondays?

I Really Hate Windows Sometimes

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