Because people like you are completely ignorant of Windows and how it works. You are all living in a fantasy world - Your own little propaganda circlejerk, where you shoot your loads of falsehood at eashother and gobble it up with big smiles.
Ofcourse! Because people don't have bad experiences with Windows! Now it all makes sense! If you ever do have a bad experience with Windows, blame yourself and your shabby seven years experience! Maybe in ten years time you'll know more and you won't ever have any bad experiences with Windows again!
I think themacuser knows that there are two sides to every coin (even if he kinda said otherwise), so stop with the shit-speak please.
I might qualify as "like themacuser", but I'm not "completely ignorant of Windows and how it works". Is there a slight possibility that maybe you're ignorant of how Windows
doesn't work, and that's the main difference between us? Or maybe you've never had a single problem with Windows?
I've used Windows for over seven years, if I'm completely ignorant of how it works then so is most Windows users with seven years of experience (I'm quite-curious about how things work (especially, and especially how computers work)) with it. And let's not forget that good operating systems don't require you to be completely alert as to how they work (for most people, that'd be quite the challenge).
After using Windows for seven years, I didn't like it. Had some bad experiences with it, didn't like it. themacuser also stated that he had bad experiences with it. Is there a problem with that?
themacuser brought up some good points and justified at least the general idea of what he said in the beginning (I wouldn't be so sure that he/any sensible being believes that Windows doesn't have a single thing going for it - even if that's what he said).
Well then you must really hate linux and BSD.
That's not right, it's down to the distribution. He sure as hell won't like Slackware or NetBSD, but he might like Ubuntu or DesktopBSD.
Tell me Mr. Windows expert. What exactly do you need to "tweak" in Windows to make it work?
Where the hell have you been the last seven months? There's been alot of arguments against Windows since my arrival, and the general response Windows supporters give is (this doesn't count for the things Windows lacks, e.g. decent memory management and a half-decent firewall) "oh but if you disable X it's not so bad" (e.g. Internet Explorer and ActiveX). Aloone_Jonez even posted a long post about how to make Windows more secure.
Just try running a Windows system with default everything (so there's no tweaks. Although I don't know exactly what themacuser meant by "tweaks".), get it on the internet (you can update Windows, I presume), do some crap with it, and see how it handles. For a start, you're using a superuser account, so you're seriously vulnerable. ActiveX and Javascript will be enabled in IE too, you're more vulnerable, and you are seriously FUCKED if you land on the wrong website.
I don't know what you or themacuser mean, exactly, by "work", but Windows without any tweaks is not a safe place to be, so at this point I don't give two fucks how it "works" (whatever that may mean).
Conclusion: If, for whatever retarded reason (most reasons I got from people for using Windows are retarted, in that they don't use it because it's better than the competition. But then Microsoft is a monopoly, so what's to be expected?), you must use Windows, TWEAK IT (or suffer)! I shouldn't have to say that for a good operating system, and I don't have to say it for most GNU/Linux distributions I've used or Mac OS X.
EDIT:
Tell me Mr. Windows expert. What exactly do you need to "tweak" in Windows to make it work?
@themacuser, you don't need to answer that question,
toadlife already mostly did.
H_TeXMeX_H, I said I'd tell you how to keep a Windows box clean.....here ya go....
How to keep your Windows box secure
* Do not log on as an administrator. Create a limited account for yourself and USE IT religiously.
* When something doesn't work under your limited account, find out why it doesn't work and make the proper adjustments.
If in the rare case that you have a program that can't run under a limited account, make a shortcut that launches it under an admin account
* Install updates regularly
* Refrain from using Internet Explorer
* Run AV
* Run some sort of firewall (software/NAT router/etc) that blocks unsolicited connections from the internet
How to keep your Windows box stable
* Instead of bitching about them like a baby, learn how to troubleshoot windows kernel panics ("Blue screens")
Like linux and BSD and jsut about any other MODERN OS, OS crashes in Windows are almost allways caused by faulty hardware or drivers. If you are getting random reboots, do the following:
1) Log on as an admin
2) Right click on "My Computer"
3) Click on the "Advanced" tab
4) Click on settings by "Startup and recovery"
5) Uncheck the "Automatically Reboot" checkbox
Now, instead of rebooting, you computer will display a pretty blue screen with lots of informative information when it crashes. Use the information and Google to toubleshoot your problem. If your blue screen doesn't point to a specific driver, then you might have bad hardware. memtest86 is a good open source app for testing memory.
* Make sure all of the latest drivers for your hardware are installed.
* See above in the security section about not logging on as admin.
Buggy programs can sometimes do things by accident that will hose your system. Running them as a non admin will keep badly written programs from doing nasty things like corrupting your registry or deleting system files.
* Back Up your system state every once in awhile.
Sometimes when you install a new driver, the install doesn't go so well, or the driver just plain doesn't work and it will cause your computer to bluescreen on boot. backing up your system state using the built in backup utility before installing new drivers is a good way to revert back after a failed driver install. Safe mode should keep the dodgy driver from loading at boot. The neat thing about backing up your system state is that is creates a backup of your registry in "C:\WINDOWS\repair" that you can restore from the recovery console... (by copying the files over to "C:\WINDOWS\system32\config") so if you system get REALLY hosed and even safe mode doesn't work, you can still go into the recovery console and restore a known good copy of your registry.
[rant]
Don't bitch like a baby when something doesn't work under your limited account. I hear this all the time from Windows users when someone tells them to not log on as admin. "But so and so doesn't work unless I'm admin!!" the whiny botches say. Well tough shit. You run Windows, not OSX. You asked how to make your machine secure. If you don't like the answer then shut the fuck up and use linux or buy an Apple! Lots of things do not work in linux/unix under regular accounts without having to adjust permissions or set SUID bits. Linux users don't log on as root to do their emailing/porn-surfing in linux just because certain apps they use neet root or a SUID bit set...why should Windows users?[/rant]
