Re: 5% of Windows installs crash twice or more times a day

Post #111,547 by andread 7/26/03 12:53:01 AM Reply	Re: 5% of Windows installs crash twice or more times a day That stat can't be right WIndows error reproting only works for crashed apps If the OS crashes there is no report A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #111,548 by JayMehaffey 7/26/03 1:16:02 AM Reply	Report on restart? I don't know how MS's reporting works, but Mozilla works around this problem. When you start Mozilla it checks if the last run was shutdown correctly, and if not it can report the failure. Jay
Post #111,549 by Andrew Grygus 7/26/03 2:48:26 AM Reply	Re: 5% of Windows installs crash twice or more times a day "That stat can't be right WIndows error reproting only works for crashed apps If the OS crashes there is no report" That's why they think it's only 5% [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,550 by pwhysall 7/26/03 3:28:16 AM Reply	FUD Windows XP is at least as stable as Linux on the desktop. The "Windows crashes a lot" meme hasn't been funny or true since Windows 2000. Windows bites, but not for that reason. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,551 by Andrew Grygus 7/26/03 3:44:29 AM Reply	Over 70% of the installed base is 98 or earlier . . . . and those crash quite regularly. Get a little adware / spyware on it and it'll crash so often it's unusable. I've worked with so little XP I'm not sure how stable it'll be in the uncontrolled world of small business (my clients are just begining to get machines with XP on them), but I've started seeing some odd behavior in a few XP machines, including inability to shutdown and icons that don't work right. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,552 by pwhysall 7/26/03 3:58:25 AM Reply	Not convinced. Where does this figure of 70% come from? Given that XP has been shipping on new computers for 18 months now, I'd say that the installed base is largely Windows 2000 and XP. I tend a 250-strong herd consisting of Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers and a decreasing number of Windows NT computers. Hardware failure is my biggest problem. Maxtor make the world's crappiest hard disks, and sells them to Dell. Windows 9x has been off my radar for a LONG TIME. Anyone using it for business purposes is, quite simply, an idiot. It's just not practical, and the amount of time and data lost to it outweighs the small cost advantage. Even NT4 is better. I have many, many gripes with Windows, but stability isn't one of them. Windows 9x is dead. You need to move your clients off it. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,557 by Silverlock 7/26/03 8:26:54 AM Reply	Have to agree with Peter My herd is a bit larger (~800) and is mostly 2000 with a few XP roaming here and there. OS crashes simply aren't the issue they once were. Of the last 1000 or so calls maybe 1% are related to a crash. Salt grain: I haven't done a search on our tracking database, just going from memeory. ----------------------------------------- [link\|http://www.talion.com/questionw.html\|?W] Where were you in 72?
Post #111,559 by Andrew Grygus 7/26/03 8:35:30 AM 7/26/03 11:29:59 AM Reply	Most of the world is small business and . . . . home computers. Few are XP except notebooks which tend to be new and you can only get XP now. I believe Microsoft themselves admitted something like 69% Win95/98 a couple of months ago so the real figure is bound to be higher. I have one client (one of my largest) predominently on Windows 2000. Other than that, Windows 95 is more common than 2000 / XP and most are running Windows 98 exclusively. Windows 2000 is almost completely unknown outside of companies that have a formal IT department - that means most companies. Most businesses are stretching their hardware years beyond what they used to because they've found little value in recent upgrades, and I still see some Windows 3.1 on home computers. So yes, older Windows may be off your radar, but that's hardly universal. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx] Edited by Andrew Grygus July 26, 2003, 11:29:59 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #111,618 by jake123 7/27/03 9:21:12 AM Reply	Agreed What I see around here outside large firms (ie- local businesses) is almost eclusively 98. They would need to buy new PCs to run 2K/XP, and simply aren't interested in blowing the money. If I go down to the Royal Bank, I can see 2K wall to wall (and I can see OS/2 wall to wall at TD/Canada Trust), and the local ISPs mostly have a mix of 2K and linux, but if I go into the local retail outlets, garages, and warehouses, you're looking at 98SE all the way. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #111,627 by pwhysall 7/27/03 12:34:59 PM Reply	Fools You'd think that being a small business is risky enough without betting your data on a POS like Windows 9x. No wonder so many small businesses bite the big one on a daily basis. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,629 by jake123 7/27/03 1:09:44 PM Reply	You can't underestimate the cheapness of a business owner. Nor the short-sightedness. A lot of it is ignorance, too... it's all Windows, right? They don't see the reliability differences, but they do see the price difference involved. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #111,631 by Andrew Grygus 7/27/03 2:52:50 PM Reply	We see remarkably little data loss . . . . but that's more credit to the hard disk drive makers than anyone else. Makers of Windows software have also adapted to crashing frequrently and their data handling seems remarkably tolerant. Of course, many of these Win98 based businesses have been forced by their business software vendors to put in Windows NT or 2000 servers (generally running the workstation version of the OS), or if I had anything to say about it, they have a Linux server. Bigest problem for data is the cost of backup systems. A tape drive (the only practical backup method for most), software and a weeks worth of tapes costs a lot more than the computer it's put in. The result is many small businesses really have no backup. To get around the cost problem, I promote DAT tape, which certainly isn't the most reliable, but the tapes are cheap. (< $10 vs. > $30 for everything else) and reconditioned drives which cost less than half new. This keeps the cost low enough I can acutally talk them into buying it. Getting them to use the backup system is the next problem. Someone has to change the tape daily and check the verify logs now and then to see if it's actually working. Fortunately, NovaStore makes $50 software mere users can actually understand and use. A lot of the backup packages out there are so obtuse I can barely understand them myself, and they're totally inpenetrable to a business person. And then I have clients like "Anal Stew" (alternatively "Stupid Stew"). OS/2 on all the workstations (no crash, no virus, no slimeware, no hackers, no Kazaa, no games, and the users don't "personalize" it), and two Linux servers, one of which is stand-by, automatically backed up to daily, tape backup on both servers autorun every night and checked every morning, all media locked in huge fireproof safe, and backups of critical data made to Zip 250 disk and taken home where there's a live recovery system just in case. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,633 by orion 7/27/03 4:22:39 PM Reply	Keeping older hardware and software Keeping older hardware and Windows 9X is a way of saving money. Otherwise they'd spend $600USD to $1000USD per system for new systems that can run Windows XP Pro (XP Home simply won't do for a business). If you are a small business that only nets thousands of dollars a month (After expenses), you don't want to spend a lot on system upgrades when the ones you have work well enough to get business done. You need the money for when you have a bad month or have to pay for repairs of something. Sure, if you are General Motors, you upgrade everyone to XP Pro, but if you are "Three Guys named Bob in a Garage" you stick with what works no matter how many times a day it crashes. A friend of mine who does consultant work for small companies says that he knows of some that still use DOS 5.X/6.X and Windows 3.X with a Netware 3.X client on 286 and 386 machines. They also use old 9 and 24 pin Dot Matrix printers to print. They just don't have the money to upgrade and would rather limp along on old systems and old software. Of course just because Microsoft won't support them anymore, doesn't mean that he and others like him won't. No more software upgrades, but he can make the systems run and minimize the crashes to an acceptable level with a standard configuration. Soon like 95 and NT 4.0, Microsoft will quit doing support for Windows 98.
Post #111,634 by pwhysall 7/27/03 4:26:38 PM Reply	Re: Keeping older hardware and software Please enumerate the differences between Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional that are relevant to the small business user. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,637 by Andrew Grygus 7/27/03 6:25:40 PM Reply	He he . . OK, here's one . . . . and I'm not just making this up. Future client was getting cheap computer help from kids taking computer classes at the local college. They told him "You've got to have a server, and it should be Windows 2000". Well, it wasn't really a server, just a workstation moonlighting as a server, but the kids set it up just as they'd been taught in school, with full Active Directory. So this small business client would definitely need XP Pro or he wouldn't be able to access his server. Fortunately, this never came to pass, because Win 2000 corrupted its hard disk and wouldn't boot. The client asked me, "And while you're at it could you puleeeeze get rid of that Active Directory crap?". I told him that was already scheduled, so now he runs happily on Peer-to-Peer and will be able to run XP Home when he gets his next new notebook. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,639 by pwhysall 7/27/03 6:32:41 PM Reply	Haha Just one more reason that just like you have to pass a test before you can drive a car, you should have to pass one before you're allowed to go a-tinkering with computers. No. Sympathy. (Actually, AD works really well on small domains. It's when you try to scale it to the enterprise that it's a bit of a bear) Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,643 by Andrew Grygus 7/27/03 6:45:28 PM Reply	Oh, it worked quite well enough . . Problem was, the local "power users" never could figure out how to get a new PC to access the server (and the mess they left demonstrates they tried mightily), so they had to pay me a travel charge and 15 minutes every time they wanted to move stuff around. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,688 by Ashton 7/28/03 6:52:02 AM Reply	"AD works well"___Maybe for you it does. Call me a canary for the small-biz tyro, then. I spent several sessions of several hours with that fine O'Reilly W2K Server book, in front of the console. (In connection with possibly doing some pro bono work for a local animal shelter - which had a fancy Compaq server, RAID, cha cha cha - and no local talent) Yes, I can imagine that a couple of enthusiastic wannabe \ufffdber-geek kids might.. manage to barely get off the ground with a small system. I also recall (in the fine [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=33203\| MANual] you suggested) the plethora of AD refs - an addendum to almost every task or TLA description! - which you might be looking up in order to comprehend. That book would have been 1/3 the size - were it edited for all users not contemplating AD. Note the remark of the highly pro-Beast author re "learning AD". He Said That: talking to Pros. AD seemed to me a Giant Switch, altering the relationship of everything you thought you had grokked - if turned ON. If it's true that most small biz has NO full-time Admin: I cannot imagine a MBA type coming close to managing.. let alone altering an AD network! And yes - I Am incompetent to manage networks (too) - just like the SBA guy. But I read English pretty well, even English about logic - and that was not nearly enough. The plethora of interrelated details is what cuts it (out). Maybe it's been too long.. it's hard for me, too - to remember when just pip B:=A:. /V seemed sorta cryptic. But I'd bet real money that no one without extensive acquaintance with a couple generations of M$ bafflegab, nested menus AND minutely detailed understanding of networking: could ever get AD working, (or keep-working, a pro-setup) after one random arcane glitch. I guess YM Does V, but I imagine 'AD' may have something? to do with those staying with 9x, kicking and screaming OR hiring a pricey kinda gal they have no $ to pay. Ashton I wouldn't attempt AD even for sex - let alone $ I learned from that book! Why OK, Lay on Mac Duff
Post #111,675 by pwhysall 7/28/03 2:47:50 AM Reply	Hold on a cotton-pickin' second How did the aforementioned kids install AD onto a workstation? Or do you mean that it was a workstation box with a copy of W2K Server on it? Cuz you sure as shit can't dcpromo a copy of W2K Pro :-) Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,709 by Andrew Grygus 7/28/03 11:14:11 AM Reply	Ezzakly . . . . a workstation with Win 2000 Server as it's OS. The kids "borrowed" it, of course - the cost might have been a red flag to the owners if the subject had come up. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #111,642 by orion 7/27/03 6:43:42 PM Reply	Differences between XP Home and XP Pro #1 Security is simplified in Home edition, but more complex in Pro edition. Everyone in Home edition has full control of the machine. Which as a System Administrator, you know is bad for a business when anyone can tinker with the system. #2 Automated System Recovery, being able to do a system backup and recovery from it is a good thing to have. Home edition lacks this. #3 Out of the box, Home edition has no Fax support. Isn't having the ability to Fax important? #4 Encrypting file system, got to protect those sensitive documents. Home edition lacks this. #5 Roaming profiles, not supported in Home edition. It would be nice to log onto any workstation and keep your settings, etc. #6 IPSecurity, a must have if your systems have Internet access. Lacking in Home edition. #7 File Level access security control, not found in Home edition. I'll ignore the rest of them like C2 classification (which we know is a joke anyway), and multi-processor support, etc. Loging into Domains, which was pointed out, is only needed if you have a Server and not a Peer to Peer network. Home edition lacks this.
Post #111,673 by pwhysall 7/28/03 2:36:46 AM Reply	Re: Differences between XP Home and XP Pro #1 Security is simplified in Home edition, but more complex in Pro edition. Everyone in Home edition has full control of the machine. Which as a System Administrator, you know is bad for a business when anyone can tinker with the system. By default. You can turn this off. #2 Automated System Recovery, being able to do a system backup and recovery from it is a good thing to have. Home edition lacks this. Have you ever tested this? ASR is crap - it's difficult to set up, tedious to do, and basically there's no way a busy small business person has the time or inclination to futz with it. #3 Out of the box, Home edition has no Fax support. Isn't having the ability to Fax important? Fax transmissions have dropped 50% in the past 5 years, so it's not a problem. Anyway, given that WXP Home does support fax devices, this is a moot point. #4 Encrypting file system, got to protect those sensitive documents. Home edition lacks this. Again, you demonstrate your lack of practical experience. EFS is NOT a simple file encryption system. Google for "Recovery Agent" and you'll see why. #5 Roaming profiles, not supported in Home edition. It would be nice to log onto any workstation and keep your settings, etc. Roaming profiles require an Active Directory domain and server. #6 IPSecurity, a must have if your systems have Internet access. Lacking in Home edition. Rubbish. IPSEC is barely used in LAN situations and far more often used in VPNs which small businesses are unlikely to have, given that you'd need a RAS server in there. #7 File Level access security control, not found in Home edition. I'll have to verify this, but I suspect this isn't true. I'll ignore the rest of them like C2 classification (which we know is a joke anyway), and multi-processor support, etc. Home only supports a single processor. Pro supports two. BFD. Loging into Domains, which was pointed out, is only needed if you have a Server and not a Peer to Peer network. Home edition lacks this. You missed the key words: "relevant to a small business". Which only one of the above, file-level security, is, and I'm not 100% sure that you've got your facts straight on that. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,721 by mmoffitt 7/28/03 11:47:05 AM Reply	Okay, Peter, I'll bite. This job I just took, almost all of us are running Win2K SP2. There's a bunch of VB6 apps running on all of them. No one running Win2K ever has a problem, but the XP users explorer crashes 2-3 times every other day. So, you tell me, what is the "business advantage" of XP over Win2K Pro? 'Cause I sure haven't seen any. I know MSFT enjoys advantages w/XP over Win2K, but how about their (ultimate) customers? bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #111,736 by andread 7/28/03 1:13:49 PM Reply	VB6 apps crashing on XP unfortunately not surprising XP comes with IE6 as 'part of the OS' there are incompatibilities w/ VB6 and IE6 2 yrs ago at a developer conference MS swore there would be SP6 for VB6 (the whole VS actually) this would make VB6 compatible w/ IE6 as SP5 did for IE5 there is no SP6 MS has apparently turned its back on their 2 tier strategy: some developers would stay as VS6 (VB6) others would move to .NET starting to look like a forced march A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #111,743 by bbronson 7/28/03 2:16:26 PM Reply	Do you have any cites for the incompatibilities? We (unfortunately) use VB6. As more of our customers are forced to upgrade to XP, I'm sure we'll run into this. Thanks Brian Bronson
Post #111,753 by orion 7/28/03 3:40:04 PM Reply	Re: Do you have any cites for the incompatibilities? If the VB program was compiled on an earlier OS, it will have some problems on XP as some of the components have changed in XP. I run VB 6.0, IE 6.0, and Windows 98 and I don't seem to have any problem with VB applications. I didn't try running them in XP yet, as my XP install shared the same hard drive as 98, and I had to remove it until I can afford a bigger hard drive. There seems to be a big migration to .Net these days by the big corps for some reason. I'm still stuck with VS 6.0 until I can afford VS.NET or at least VB.NET, but at least the ASP.NET is downloadable and I can try to learn that. [link\|http://www.asp.net/\|http://www.asp.net/] for more info. I hope to break out of VB one of these days and go into Java or C++, something I can use to develop on Non-Microsoft platforms.
Post #111,817 by mmoffitt 7/29/03 9:16:12 AM Reply	Hey, Peter. Since you replied to Norman and not to me, I take it that there are no advantages. Thanks, that's what I thought. bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #111,892 by pwhysall 7/29/03 3:38:45 PM Reply	Re: Okay, Peter, I'll bite. We're seeing better stability and the ability to roll-off drivers via System Restore is handy; we have some odd hardware floating around and the drivers aren't always what they could be. Group Policy is extended to cover even more things but this requires an AD domain, and hence is beyond the scope of any small business discussion. Fast User Switching is a feature that's handy for the scenario where there are a couple or three user for one box, and people don't want to go through the rigmarole of logging out. Finally, you're running VB6. Known to be ill-behaved in the context of Windows XP. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,905 by mmoffitt 7/29/03 5:15:56 PM Reply	OT: What's been your .Net experience? Before it was baked, I went up to MSFT in Chicago for a developer invite thingy where they demo'd it. I wasn't impressed, but, ... I just picked up a MSFT Press book on the .Net framework and it has come a long way since Beta 1 of VS.Net. Of course, the foo you read is always better than how things are. But from what I've read so far, this looks like a good deal. Have you deployed any serious .Net apps? If so, how'd you rate your experience? bcnu, Mikem The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism. - Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
Post #111,908 by pwhysall 7/29/03 5:19:46 PM Reply	Absolutely nuffink whatsoever :-) Hell, we're just bringing some of our projects around to the idea of C++ :-) Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #111,754 by orion 7/28/03 3:49:34 PM Reply	Don't take my word for it [link\|http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.asp\|Go straight to the horse's mouth] see what Microsoft says Home Edition is lacking.
Post #111,806 by pwhysall 7/29/03 1:37:11 AM Reply	I did, you plonker. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]

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