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

[Thomas Charron]

  Devils advicate responses for shits and giggles.

On 10/1/06, Randy Edwards <redwards at golgotha.net> wrote:
>
>    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.


  *nod*  Agree.  ;-)  BUT, on the other hand, it's better to have an end
user looking at that then the spew of daemons starting that most people
don't care about anyway..

   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!


  That's hardware manufacturers getting cheap, plain and simple.  Not just
in the fact that they don't need to distrubute the physical media, but they
also now no longer need support anything they specifically didnt release.

   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.


  *Nod*  And if your running anything else but that image, Acer won't
support you a bit.

   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.


  Chances are, Windows update would pick up most of these drivers, if they
aren't cheap crapass Acerific specific gear.


>    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?!


  They have.  The reboot is an age old fallback to make sure things are
clean.  Many times, you say reboot later, you're fine.  But sometimes, it
doesn't.  In cases where it doesn't, it's due to programmers who have learnt
the Microsoft Drag and Drop and don't care HOW it works way of things.
*sigh*

   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.


  As many, MANY people also learnt when libc/gcc undergoes a major
revision.  ;-)

   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.


  Programs like that are what cause me to immediatly wipe a drive I've
gotten in a new system and start fresh.  These vendors farm out via contract
applications to help them 'assist' end users, and typically, they try to be
too damned smart for their own good, and hence, slow the system to an effing
crawl.

   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!


  ...  Not the major version number, infering incompatibilities.  And
eRecovery SHOULD have warned you it depended on it.  Acerific at it's
finest.

   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!


  No, it's becouse they're the ones who drive the writing of this asstastic
software.  Chances are, eRecovery was runtime loading some 1.1 components
directly, and using a path that is no longer valid.  A software nono, but
they do it under the guise of 'A user who fugs with the OS is screwed'.

   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.


  Definatly agree there.  Nothings been updated UI wise for over 6 years.
Enter, Vista, which takes the eye candy to an extreme.

   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.


  If, of course, that's how your particular distro puts things.  ;-)  On the
other hand, it could very well be in
/lib/network/hidden/in/some/weirdlocation/symboliclink


>    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".


  God, I'm suprised you didn't hose the install.  They make these damned
'superwizard managers' so embedded with crap that getting rid of them is
nearly impossible.


>    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.


  Which is why I wipe the system.  And eff their
autoinstall/autofix/automanage software.

   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?
>

  Beside's wrappers and autowizards, neither has Linux, unfortionatly.

  Thomas
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