BSOD (was: Re: Examination of a Linux Gui, w/color commentary)

[bmcculley at rcn.com]

Derek Martin wrote:
>
>On Sat, Feb 28, 2004 at 03:33:17AM -0500, Dana S. Tellier wrote:
>>     And I have to be honest with you, I don't know where
*you* see blue
>> screens anymore, but in all of the environments I've done
support lately, I
>> haven't seen any blue screens; there are still plenty of
other problems, but
>> the old BSOD argument doesn't really hold much anymore.  
>
>FWIW, I see blue screens almost every day where I work, in a
school,
>where all of the PCs are running Windows 98....  There are
still a
>gazillion or so PCs running that abomination.  And though recent
>versions of Windows may be better, my XP installation crashed
on me
>about a week ago in like fashion...  It's only happened once,
but I've
>only had it installed for about a month.
>
>Sigh.

My most recently experienced corporate environment ran more
current MS desktops, the classic BSOD was not evident although
there were occasional system hangs and app lockups.  Generally
fairly solid, although still far from perfect.

OTOH I *hate* my home XP system (shared with wife and
daughter, I've been told I reconfigure on pain of painful
death).  It seems to be unable to multitask, and slow, and
less than perfectly reliable.  I'd blame the HP hardware
except even without looking I'm fairly sure there are probably
only a couple of ICs on the mobo, and I don't think Intel
would have left as many rough edges as this thing shows.  So
by process of elimination it's the WinXP being lame brained. 
Maybe someday I'll install a second hard drive so I can make
it boot Linux without risking the family's ire, or explore
booting a CD version when my free time becomes copious enough.

Point is, Microsoft is getting much more reliable, and using
the hackneyed cliches like BSOD undermines credibility with
the experienced MS users who know that the stereotype is outdated.

-Bruce McCulley