Is it too much to ask...

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » November 14, 2003, 1:02 pm

I'd like for my computer to work every fucking day when I turn it on, unless I've done something to it or a piece of hardware has failed.

What the hell is wrong with MS? I don't want a new desktop, webserver, music player or chat program. Keep your latest RIAA humping, security bug inducing PoS feature to yourself. Fix the fucking base OS, preferably before you ship it, or at least before the next one ships. I shouldn't be that difficult, and wouldn't be if the products weren't such bloated, convoluted monsters.

I wish I could charge back lost hours to MS. They owe me about $150 just for this morning.

noel · Post by **noel** » November 14, 2003, 2:06 pm

What OS are you running, what hardware do you have, and what applications do you run? Honestly, I run XP on my home system and laptop and I never, ever have a problem.

Most of the XP issues I've seen are with either crappy hardware or people running shitty applications that don't behave the way they're supposed to.

Sorry you're having problems.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » November 14, 2003, 3:01 pm

I wont say XP isn't a "bloated, convoluted monster"... But I will say I haven't had any problems with it. I've been running it 6 months and I think I've pnly gotten one blue screen and maybe 2-3 lockups.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » November 14, 2003, 3:10 pm

I was pissed and venting a bit, it took me an hour and a half to get my wireless card recognized (again) this morning. I ended up having to find and delete all the files and edit the registry to get rid of it completely to reinstall it after fighting with the "hardware wizard" in vain.

Not a very good rant

It's Win2k Pro on a Compaq Armada. Most of my problems are likely a combination of HW and software errors. Windows will just flat out stop loading and be unloadable\unrepairable twice a year, sometimes after patches, sometimes not. I lose PC card wireless and docking bay HW items about every 3-4 months and have to make them work again.

I've lost a disk a year since I've had it, one keyboard nipple and one LCD screen. Contrasted to 4 years and no issues on my old Dell that recieved much harder usage.

noel · Post by **noel** » November 14, 2003, 3:56 pm

Aabidano wrote:It's Win2k Pro on a Compaq Armada.

I think I see the problem now.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » November 14, 2003, 3:58 pm

First thing I would do is see if you can upgrade to XP Professional, by that I mean check to make sure their are drivers for that laptop.

Second... buy a Dell laptop next time

I just got a new D600 which replaced my old CPXj. Never had a problem with either so far as my company but more RAM and a larger HD in my old one and gave it to my wife. I can't say enough good things about every Dell business product I've ever used. I use to love Compaq but the past couple years all I have seen is bloated prices and so so quality

Marb

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » November 14, 2003, 6:06 pm

Aranuil wrote:
Aabidano wrote:It's Win2k Pro on a Compaq Armada.
I think I see the problem now.

Yeah, ummm, I'm going to have to (cringe) side w/ MS on this one. It's not their fault your hardware is shit =)

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » November 14, 2003, 7:33 pm

I'll agree Compaq sells crap, it's my work computer I don't have a lot of options. They're buying Toshibas now... XP is the first MS OS I haven't had issues with at some point, and it's chock full of security holes but that's a given from MS. I can't run it on my work computers, that's another rant entirely though

Contrasted to my production\lab systems that run Solaris, HPUX and proprietary OSs, uptime is usually in years (nearly all redundant 48v telco boxes). We hit 99.9999% uptime on a couple of our product lines this year

noel · Post by **noel** » November 14, 2003, 7:39 pm

Aabidano wrote:...and it's chock full of security holes but that's a given from MS.

It's only chock full of security holes if you don't patch it, and keep it up to date.

PS Really like the new Avatar.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » November 14, 2003, 7:45 pm

Aranuil wrote:
Aabidano wrote:...and it's chock full of security holes but that's a given from MS.
It's only chock full of security holes if you don't patch it, and keep it up to date.

PS Really like the new Avatar.

Umm no, it's full of security holes period. Just because they haven't developed an exploit/patch for them doesn't mean they're not there...

Ahh, work machine.. that sucks, and Toshiba are as bad =( At least the ones I've had to work on were.. IIRC the 8200 needed a laundry list of drivers to be installed on windows 2000, in a specific order, and with a reboot between each driver, or it wouldn't work reliably/at all. And yes.. all 12 reboots were completely necessary (did my own lab testing to check..)

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » November 14, 2003, 8:36 pm

Patching the patches for the patches doesn't make it secure when you've got well over 10,000 undocumented system calls, most of which are or can be easily tied into RPC, etc.. You've got a nearly insurmountable problem. It's just sloppy, labyrinth code. Without starting over with a completely different programming paradigm and a different compiler\library setup it's never going to get any better either.

It's not in the least bit modular, many pieces replicate functions from other areas and can act independantly futhering the problems of isolating your security\other issues.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » November 15, 2003, 4:09 am

step 1: headbutt compaq

step 2: get a computer that works

step 3: achieve enlightenment.

weee.

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » November 17, 2003, 1:27 am

Truant wrote:step 1: headbutt compaq

step 2: get a computer that works

step 3: achieve enlightenment.

weee.

Yeah..it's weird...

Some computer manufacturers just make crap computers. Anyone remember Packard Bells?

I thought that Gateway made decent computers...Boy did I find out the hard way...My computer so far has it's quirks (a lot of em...recently I had to replace the HD cable because my HD started to Click...) but my wife's (essentially the same stuff) completely died like twice. Once, her HD started to die and I had to get her a new HD...(Not the only time I had to reinstall everything...) several times her computer would restart for no reason, and sometimes it would just simply give lots of odd error codes (like access violations, etc.) After about the 4th time reinstalling everything for her, I gave up and got her a new HP computer. This was about 2 months ago... no problems yet.

My computer on the other hand also had problems. I had to get a new HD as well, and reinstall...

In short, when I get a new computer, it will NOT be a Gateway.

-=Lohrno

Truant · Post by **Truant** » November 17, 2003, 6:28 pm

My first computer was a Packard Bell. I haven't purchased a manufactured computer since.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » November 17, 2003, 6:46 pm

MS is full of holes because every little hacker wannabe gets a free copy of the OS to dick with on any computer they buy....if you have several million people pounding away at a program, holes are going to be discovered.

As for your PC always working, hell, toasters break and they are an order of magnitude simpler than any PC. I'm amazed the damn things work as often as they do.

Lohrno · Post by **Lohrno** » November 17, 2003, 7:45 pm

Fallanthas wrote: As for your PC always working, hell, toasters break and they are an order of magnitude simpler than any PC. I'm amazed the damn things work as often as they do.

Toasters break because they get very very hot, and have cheap springs/latches. They're not very complicated, but the parts they have I think are several orders of magnitude less reliable, and cheaper in quality than computer parts.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » November 17, 2003, 7:59 pm

Possible.

Any time you put several million parts inside a case and expect it to work forever you are doomed to fail though.

That's before the software hacks get a hold of the thing....