Rant: My recent laptop purchase: Windows revisited...

[Randy Edwards]

   So I recently bought a new laptop. I don't really need one so I bought a 
cheap Acer model. The laptop came with WinXP Home edition.

   I have to confess, I don't use Windows on a daily or even weekly basis. I'm 
lucky that way. :-) In fact, I've avoided XP almost totally. Sure, I've 
played with it, but it's not like I know it well. So with the new laptop I 
figured I'd partition it as a dual-boot machine just so I could keep and play 
around with XP.

   The first thing that hit me when I booted XP was how bad the initial 
Windows graphic is. It sucks. It's grainy and shitty looking! Com'on, this 
isn't the video hardware. If Microsoft has to run in VGA or some lo-res 
screen, they should use a graphic that doesn't show how grainy the screen is. 
But I'm being picky.

   I was amazed that despite me owning a legal copy of XP there was no way I 
could generate a Windows CD/DVD. It's amazing that the licensing bullshit has 
gotten this bad. Why do people put up with such abuse? I seriously thought 
about going to some site and downloading a bogus copy of XP Home just so I 
could have a CD of the software I'm legally licensed to use. Amazing!

   Instead, I opted for Acer's system backup routine. That worked to create a 
DVD image of the machine, but it includes all of Acer's software and the 
install options aren't as flexible as they should be. But either way, I have 
an image.

   My next step was the most amazing of all -- updating Windows.

   Believe it or not, Acer includes the "wrong" video driver with this 
machine! (And for the record, no, that isn't why the Windows boot logo looks 
so grainy.) So I had to go to Acer's web site and download new drivers. Lots 
of new drivers.

   This was a tedious, mindless, but time-consuming process.

Step A. Download driver.
Step B. Open the zip file and extract the driver.
Step C. Run the driver's install program -- mindlessly click "next" on any 
prompt.
Step D. Possibly reboot!
Step D 1/2. Clean up the newly-installed driver's zip and other files.
Step E. Goto Step A and repeat the process for the next driver. Repeat lots of 
times.

   I could not frigging believe it! I killed way over an hour doing this 
stupidity!

   And reboot?!?! Every time I watched the BIOS count its memory on a reboot, 
I had an immediate, strong memory: THIS WAS WHY I HATED WINDOWS 95! And then 
every time that memory was followed by the question: Why haven't they fixed 
this?!

   My XP adventure was off to a rocky start.

   Updating Windows itself was a dream in comparison. Windows Update almost 
has the functionality of apt-get or Linspire's Click-N-Run.

   But since I've happily forgotten more about Windows than I care to 
remember, the next issue was my big mistake.

   During the Windows Update Microsoft told me that I should upgrade to .NET 
version 2. No problem, I thought. This partition is already shit, so we might 
as well install more shit into it.

   But looking at the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs dialog, I noticed 
that I now had .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 installed. Why do I need both, I 
wondered? So I uninstalled .NET 1.1 thinking I would keep only the "latest 
greatest" privacy-raping bloatware.

   I learned that was a mistake on the next reboot.

   When Windows came up, it complained gave an incomprehensible error message 
with only an OK button to respond. No "details" or "help" button, just OK. A 
search on the Internet told me that the complaining program was 
Acer's "eRecovery" program -- the one that made my initial system restore 
DVD.

   I also learned that eRecovery depends on .NET 1.1. So I guess I shouldn't 
have uninstalled that.

   WHAT THE F**K?! Doesn't .NET 2.0 provide .NET 1.1's functionality? Why 
didn't the system tell me that removing a "dependency" would hose eRecovery. 
This is stone-age computing technology!

   So I proceeded to reinstall .NET 1.1 and -- of course -- rebooted. But 
guess what?

   That's right, it still didn't solve the problem! eRecovery still gave an 
error message and it wouldn't run. Amazing stuff, this Windows software! Now 
I know why there are so many MSCE's around -- with software like this, 
they're needed!

   So I mentally ignored the error message I got at boottime on my new laptop 
and proceeded to explore the system.

   I was amazed at how some of the icons on the system tray looked like 
garbage. Hey, this box was running at 1280x800. The KDE desktop looked sharp 
and pretty (remember, this was a dual-boot machine; more on the GNU/Linux 
install in another blog entry). Considering that this was "commercial" 
software, it didn't have the polish and eye candy I was expecting. The vast 
majority was fine, but some areas looked shoddy. I'd excuse that for free 
software, but this was the best commercial software that capitalism could 
offer. But again, that's a picky thing.

   Next I had to set the MTU of my wireless network link to 1452. Silly me, I 
figured that would be buried in a dialog box under an "advanced" button 
somewhere -- after all, this was the GUI of XP!

   I was naive I learned.

   To set the MTU -- obviously a techie thing, but not unheard of -- you have 
to fire up the Registry Editor. Then you have to dig down through upteen 
frigging folders to a location just east of Timbuctu. Then you have to create 
a new key and add in a value of 1452. It took 10 times longer than Debian's 
method of editing /etc/network/interfaces and adding "mtu 1452" with a text 
editor.

   After some more reboots, I got tired of that eRecovery error message 
popping up and decided to "solve" the problem. I figured a reinstall of the 
eRecovery software would fix things up. Nope -- no luck. Acer must think that 
eRecovery software will be the "next big thing" because you can't download it 
from their web site -- it must be "too special".

   So I did the next best thing. I figured I'd uninstall it. So I uninstalled 
all of the Acer software -- that'd fix it, right?! Nope. No error messages, 
but I'm guessing that the eRecovery software didn't uninstall.

   How do I know that you ask?

   Because on the next reboot, I still got the same error message!

   Go figure! But hey, I used to teach MCSE classes! I know I can get rid of 
that. So I fired up the good ol' Registry Editor again. 10 minutes later 
after searching for every instance of "eRecovery" and deleting any key 
containing it, I rebooted. No more incomprehensible eRecovery error message!

   I doubt that is from the Acer or Microsoft best practices manual, but WTF?!

   After all, I'm a legal Microsoft Windows XP Home edition licensee -- so I 
can just do a "system restore" with my DVD that I created. Whoo-hoo! It's as 
pleasureable as getting junk mail from the local appliance store or answering 
telemarketing calls.

   But despite the "pleasure" of "owning" XP and the "fond" memories it 
brought back, how come I think XP is only Win2000 with a different "theme" 
and that the Windows computing world has barely progressed since the Windows 
NT/98 days?


-- 
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, 
in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who 
are cold and are not clothed." -- US President Dwight D. Eisenhower