Why Windows should be avoided.

[mushrooomprince]

Notice I didn't say "windows sux"


Windows Sucks is just very rude and says more about the person saying it than anything else.


This thread is for the Microsoft Corp guy. Let me clearify the existence of this website without typing a 2 page essay.  Two pages just isn't good for anything because no one has time to read it.  Which has been the problem with your topic posts. In other words I'm trying to keep this short and simple.


We simply see that Microsoft Windows is not good enough to be used on 90% of all personel home machines ( i'm not including servers and supercomputers ).  What has helped it spread is the fact that Dell, Gateway, HP, and Sony personal computers all come pre-installed with a microsoft operating system.  And there is NO alternative for anything else.


Because so many machines run them people don't even know that windows is an operating system.  They just think all computers run windows.  Because of that microsoft as a monopoly.  And we are simply boycotting the monopoly.

You simply say that we are wrong for not using windows.  Windows has *some* advantages over us but you never considered that Linux/Mac os/solaris might suite us just fine.  You never thought that just maybe they meeted all our needs without the viruses and security holes that make a windows machine un-reliable.


And so we encourage the alternatives.  Because windows is not the best operating system in the entire world, and so the entire world shouldn't be using it.


And just think, everytime you give money to microsoft you push yourself further and further into software-communism.

[hm_murdock]

My picture about Windows

if you won't say windows sux, I'll say it for you

[ September 16, 2003: Message edited by: Refalm ]

[mushrooomprince]

Well ... i was just trying to make my case against windows.  Maybe i did a really corny job on it.

[solarismka]

I'll just add to this......

Also many of us find Linux/BSD and Macs easier to maintain because they are so stable and a lot more secure.

Because of the community effort put forward to these great machines, you can rely on patches being put out promptly and in a timly fashion.  Also you do not have to worry about nasty compatibility issues, like finding that driver, figuring out which version for what.  Linux is more standardized so all this 'mess' is removed.

You can enjoy your computer for what it actually does and not get a BSOD and or another virii attack.

[worker201]

quote:Originally posted by mushrooomprince:

Because so many machines run them people don't even know that windows is an operating system.  They just think all computers run windows.

Sad, but true.  A girl (who doesnt know much about computers) asked the other day "So Microsoft and IBM are the only computer manufacturers, right?"  I almost had a heart attack!

Somehow, the message that Windows is not the only choice is not getting out to the general public.  I sincerely hope that all of us in the forums are doing our civic duty, what Mozilla.org calls "tech evangelism."

[Zombie9920]

Right now I'm a little bit miffed at Windows. My wife is using my P4 system to do a college assignment right now, I sold all of my old systems to a friend the other day and he gave me his junk ass HP Pavilion 6648c(he didn't want it). Anyways, I'm using the Pavilion right now. Windows XP simply won't install on this thing. It has BIOS shadowing enabled and it keeps causing the XP setup to bluescreen. Win2K setup bluescreens as well. Personally, I think this thing has damaged cache memory because of it crashing from BIOS shadowing being enabled. Here's the shitty part, the BIOS for this thing does not allow you to disable the Video and BIOS shadowing nor does it allow you to disable the onboard cache. I know this problem is not Windows related, but it is a problem with the actual computer.

Since I can't get a WinNT based OS installed on this thing I decided to install a Win9x OS. I wanted to install Windows 98SE w/98 Plus! but to my amazement my Win98SE /w Plus! 98 CD has huge crack in it. So I ended up having to install Windows ME. Well, it installed ok but the damn thing crashes every time I try to do anything. I can go use the restroom and come back with a freaking "Explorer has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" message when I come back(the computer isn't even doing anything). No matter what I do, I can't get it to stop crashing. If it isn't explorer crashing it is something else crashing. If it isn't something else crashing it is yet another something else crashing.  I don't know how MS ever got away with selling this piece of shit. Windows ME isn't even good enough to be a free upgrade for Windows 98.

Anyways, I'm at my ends with this damn thing and it's crash happy nature. I'm about ready to install Windows 95 OSR2 or install Linux on this comp. I don't think I'm going to go the Linux route because I want to have Windows(one that doesn't crash constantly) on it and I want to be able to use BeOS on it. BeOS doesn't work on Linux native file systems and Linux is not Windows(meaning it doesn't have support for the Windows only apps that I use).

My whole complaint right now is against Windows ME. After using Win9x(the worst one at that) again I can see why I went to NT such a long time ago. My overclocked P4 system has been up for a couple months right now with absolutley no crashes at all(it uses XP) and I am satisfied with it. This ME shit is junk. I wouldn't wish this crap on my worst enemy. I'm going to have to get a new 98SE w/98 Plus! CD for this thing tomorrow. Until then I think that Windows 95+BeOS is going on this thing.

I'll be so glad when she gets done with her work so I can go back to XP. I don't forsee her being done until later on tonight though(it is a huge assignment). ;( I wouldn't even dream of letting her do her work on this thing. It would crash and cause her to lose her work before she could save it.

*end of rant*

[ September 25, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]

[xyle_one]

quote: I sincerely hope that all of us in the forums are doing our civic duty, what Mozilla.org calls "tech evangelism."

I try. I have a few "converts" and have opened a few eyes to the world of choice in the last 2 years.

Viper-

WindowsME Sucks. I cant fucking stand using it. I am at my parents house for another week and that is what they use. It drives me insane. The NT Line of os's i can handle, and don't really mind using (If i have no other option, like at work).

I think the sad thing is, even when people are presented with a choice, and they understand how "evil" microsoft is, they still choose windows. Its all they know. It is going to take some time before the masses will embrace anything but windows as a desktop solution. Linux (Linux as in the distros) is on its way, and hopefully soon, we will see it become the solution, and not an alternative.

[Zombie9920]

Well, I'm on Windows 95 OSR2 w/IE 5 and the desktop update installed now. So far no crashes. I'm downloading BeOS Max 3.0 as we speak. Good riddance to ME. That bastard child OS truely sucks! I think I'm going to use the my ME CD as a clay pigeon. I haven't shot the ol' shotgun in a minute anyways(that CD gives me a good excuse to go out and shoot the gun).

[TheQuirk]

I spoke to a BeOS kernel developer a few times. I remember him telling me you can get BeOS boot using an ext2 partion. Certainly not the best FS out there, but you could make an extra ext2 partion for BeOS.

[solarismka]

quote:Originally posted by Viper:
Well, I'm on Windows 95 OSR2 w/IE 5 and the desktop update installed now. So far no crashes. I'm downloading BeOS Max 3.0 as we speak. Good riddance to ME. That bastard child OS truely sucks! I think I'm going to use the my ME CD as a clay pigeon. I haven't shot the ol' shotgun in a minute anyways(that CD gives me a good excuse to go out and shoot the gun).

Personaly I have never had a problem with winME in fact I found it more user friendly and more stable than XP, you just have to add a LOT of ram and reasonably good hard ware.


Comparing one windows to another, really is kinda stupid.  I mean its the same thing, over and over again.  Spyware, bloatware, crashware.....

No matter what version it is, and future versions are gonna be no different.  The only difference I see is that the whole OS is getting more and more restrictive.....  But what else is new.

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by -=Solaris.M.K.A=-:



Personaly I have never had a problem with winME in fact I found it more user friendly and more stable than XP, you just have to add a LOT of ram and reasonably good hard ware.


Comparing one windows to another, really is kinda stupid.  I mean its the same thing, over and over again.  Spyware, bloatware, crashware.....

No matter what version it is, and future versions are gonna be no different.  The only difference I see is that the whole OS is getting more and more restrictive.....  But what else is new.

Bullshit. They aren't all the same. Win9x is a 32-bit app that runs on top of a 16-bit OS. Win9x isn't even what you could consider an OS. DOS is the OS. A 32-bit enabled app running on top of a 16-bit OS is sure to cause reliabilty/stability issues.

Windows NT based OSes are really an OS. They don't run on top of anything. They are truely 32-bit, they have true pre-amptive multitasking, etc. Adding a ton of Ram to ME doesn't help anything really. I have 512MB in this comp. If you run Win9x(any of them) with more than 512MB the damn thing will crash..no if's ands or buts. Why? Because Win9x is an application that can't address more than 512MB. Windows NT based OSes on the other hand can handle tons of Ram(up to 4GB out of the box).

In most cases if you experience instability with a NT based OS you have dodgy hardware, a dodgy hardware driver or some corruption in your filesystem(corruption that can be fixed easily if you use NTFS). NT based OSes tend to be alot more stable on NTFS partations too. If you try using an old dodgy and junky legacy filesystem(like FAT) with an OS that is designed to run on a better filesytem you are likely to cause stability issues.

A dodgy filesystem that gets errors every time you turn around(like FAT) will corrupt files and will cause stability problems. To be honest, the only time I've ever had problems with XP is when I tried to use it on FAT32. Not only is the filesystem un-reliable but it is prone to fragmentation as well. When you add and move data on FAT it is so ignorant that it scatters bits of the data everywhere. NTFS manages to keep data rounded up as close as possible(NTFS doesn't need to be defragged very often). Fragmentation causes performance degradion and instability as well.

Another thing that hurts FAT is slack. FAT32 uses 32k clusters. It takes 96k to store a 65k file on FAT32. With 4k NTFS clusters it takes 68k to store a 65k file. It takes exactly 65k to store a 65k file using NTFS 512byte clusters, however even though 4kb clusters use a little slack the signifigantly outperform 512byte clusters on large drives. The slack difference between FAT and NTFS adds up quick when you are talking Megabytes, Gigabytes, etc.

(EDIT)Heh, speaking of using reasonably good hardware with your OS. I don't have a lick of trouble out of XP on my P4 on i865 chipset(XP doesn't give me trouble on any of the all Intel based systems I've tried it on either). A P4c w/Hyperthreading is more than reasonably good....it is practically top of the line. I bet ME would crash on it though.

This K6-2 that I'm using right now does suck balls but I don't think it is the cause of ME crashing so much because other Win9x OSes are running fine on it.

[ September 26, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]

[emh]

quote:Originally posted by Viper:
Windows NT based OSes are really an OS. They don't run on top of anything. They are truely 32-bit, they have true pre-amptive multitasking, etc. Adding a ton of Ram to ME doesn't help anything really. I have 512MB in this comp. If you run Win9x(any of them) with more than 512MB the damn thing will crash..no if's ands or buts. Why? Because Win9x is an application that can't address more than 512MB. Windows NT based OSes on the other hand can handle tons of Ram(up to 4GB out of the box) and can be modified to handle more than 4GB easily.

I got a new computer a couple months ago.  It has an Athlon XP 2000+ processor and 768 MB of RAM.  It's a dual-boot between Windows 98SE and Mandrake Linux 9.1.  Personally, when I upgraded to 768 MB of RAM, I never had any problems with the Win 98 installation.  Then again, I'm in Linux virtually exclusively now, so I haven't used my Win 98 installation for a while.  I guess it depends on the hardware.

[Zombie9920]

Your just lucky(or you didn't use it long enough to crash). Win9x doesn't handle over 512MB no matter what the hardware is.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14967.html

[solarismka]

quote:Originally posted by Viper:



Bullshit. They aren't all the same. Win9x is a 32-bit app that runs on top of a 16-bit OS. Win9x isn't even what you could consider an OS. DOS is the OS. A 32-bit enabled app running on top of a 16-bit OS is sure to cause reliabilty/stability issues.

Yes Win95 and 98 is built on top of dos NOT ME!!!!  The DOS in that particular windows in emulated!

 

quote:Windows NT based OSes are really an OS. They don't run on top of anything. They are truely 32-bit, they have true pre-amptive multitasking, etc. Adding a ton of Ram to ME doesn't help anything really. I have 512MB in this comp. If you run Win9x(any of them) with more than 512MB the damn thing will crash..no if's ands or buts. Why? Because Win9x is an application that can't address more than 512MB. Windows NT based OSes on the other hand can handle tons of Ram(up to 4GB out of the box).

So your saying 9x cann't run past 512MB?  Bullshit!!!! It actualy CAN, what you have is bad hardware!!! Windows can't run on bad hardware no matter WHAT version it is.   Check to see if your hardware is working properly BEFORE you bitch....

 

quote:In most cases if you experience instability with a NT based OS you have dodgy hardware, a dodgy hardware driver or some corruption in your filesystem(corruption that can be fixed easily if you use NTFS). NT based OSes tend to be alot more stable on NTFS partations too. If you try using an old dodgy and junky legacy filesystem(like FAT) with an OS that is designed to run on a better filesytem you are likely to cause stability issues.

Its great to see, when people who use windows OS say, that if you use this file system, you'll get less crashes blah blah blah............

No matter what version its GONNA CRASH!!! I've seen windows millenioum out perform windows XP, expecialy when it comes to network security and ease of use.  The fact is 9x will let you do more while newer M$ OS'es try to constrain what you do.  

But thats justs M$ buissness modle

 

quote:A dodgy filesystem that gets errors every time you turn around(like FAT) will corrupt files and will cause stability problems. To be honest, the only time I've ever had problems with XP is when I tried to use it on FAT32. Not only is the filesystem un-reliable but it is prone to fragmentation as well. When you add and move data on FAT it is so ignorant that it scatters bits of the data everywhere. NTFS manages to keep data rounded up as close as possible(NTFS doesn't need to be defragged very often). Fragmentation causes performance degradion and instability as well.

Another thing that hurts FAT is slack. FAT32 typically uses 32k or 64k clusters. With 64k clusters it takes 128kb to store a 65k file because it takes 2 clusters to store it(it takes 96k with 32k clusters). With 4k NTFS clusters it takes 68k to store a 65k file. That slack difference adds up quick when you are talking Megabytes, Gigabytes, etc.

(EDIT)Heh, speaking of using reasonably good hardware with your OS. I don't have a lick of trouble out of XP on my P4 on i865 chipset(XP doesn't give me trouble on any of the all Intel based systems I've tried it on either). A P4c w/Hyperthreading is more than reasonably good....it is practically top of the line. I bet ME would crash on it though.

This K6-2 that I'm using right now does suck balls but I don't think it is the cause of ME crashing so much because other Win9x OSes are running fine on it.

[ September 25, 2003: Message edited by: Viper ]

Windows can be unpradictable to say the least, I find both FAT and NTFS to be both unstable.  I see alot of people that have luck on NTFS and some with the FAT file system, in truth they are both 'dogy' file systems.  Well they would be......

But I find personaly that ME is no better than XP and no different.  I DO know that XP relys on the NT kernel and is built on that rather than 9z on DOS, however it does not make a blind bit of difference when it comes to, security, ease of use etc etc..........  It depends on the persons luck and what hardware he/she uses....... As well as if any drivers etc are currupt.........

The fact is its all the same, built on the same principle....    

Its like comparing automakers.  Each car is basicaly the same, it doesn't matter WHAT you buy.  

The only difference is 'personal' preference.  They all cost the same, they are ALL expencive, high insurance and costs alot to maintain.

No changes here eather.  It is the same thing.

[solarismka]

Actualy now that I think about it.  People compare Linux the same way.

The only difference you find with each linux distrobution is the way the package it.  

The target certain users with a set of skills, it all depends on what distro your going for and what will work for you.

I pefer Red Hat Linux, but thats just my preference.  Gentoo is good too, but that doesn't mean I personaly would use it.  

Its personaly not MY cup of tea.