[KLUG Advocacy] Windows stability

[Adam Williams]

> First on the upgrade issue.  Even though there is often an upgrade
> path I do not EVER recommend that alternative!  There are things that
> just do not upgrade well (or sometimes at all).  I have seen a number
> of things get seriously munged up in an upgrade.  I think most of it
> is due to the registry.  The registry is probably the BIGGEST problem
> in Windows right now.  

Nah, that has got to be DLLs.  Can we PLEASE have version libraries?!  I
mean, their whole DLL situation is a joke,  a problem UNIX solved ages
ago with a simple solution like:

libgmodule-1.2.so.0 -> libgmodule-1.2.so.0.0.10
libgmodule-1.2.so.0.0.10
libgmodule-2.0.so.0 -> libgmodule-2.0.so.0.200.1
libgmodule-2.0.so.0.200.1


Wow, two versions of the same library install simultaneously, and the
linker just gives the application the most appropriate one.  

<Insert moment of silent reflection concerning the elegant beauty>

Then the registy is the number TWO biggest problem. :)

Your right about upgrades though, generally a bad idea.

> Second, stability is MUCH improved.  I have seen installations of
> servers that crash regularly but I think that is mostly due to ebcak
> (error between chair and keyboard) errors of the installer (windows
> expert????).  I have systems I have put in place that I have not seen

True,  I've been able to get a NT 4.0 server to stay up for six months
at a time.  The term "expert" is used far to librally in the Windows
world.  And I'm not one.

> go down at all.  I am running XP for my main workstation in my
> classroom right now and it is very stable.  

I've also found XP to be very stable.

> With that said, there are a number of problems in Windows that are
> mainly in the server environment.  Active Directory is a piece of
> (Opps I made a pledge to stop using that kind of language)....  It is
> unstable, awkward to setup, flawed in its basic design concepts, very
> limited in functionality, and difficult to troubleshoot problems in. 
> It is MOST difficult to recover from catastrophic failures of
> servers, escpecially for domain controllers.  

You already know I agree with you on this one.  They took krb5 and LDAP,
two wonderfully flexible and robust technologies, and obfuscated them
with a bunch of RPC crap and binary encodings.  Sheeesh, its like they
paid someone specifically to do it wrong.  But never attribute to
malevolence what can be explained by incompetence.

> I also recommend a rebuild of Windows computers every 6 to 18 months
> depending on how often software is installed/removed.  The registry
> gets VERY full and unstable.  It is almost impossible to fix.  I have
> noticed a 200 to 300 percent improvement in performance after a
> rebuild because of the clean registry.  

I've found the same to be true with roaming profiles.  It is best just
to dust them occasionally.

> Currently if you are doing multimedia stuff and do not want to buy a
> MAC (the BEST platform for multimedia production stuff!!!!) then
> Windows has more tools available for it than Linux.  I have yet to
> find a good video editing tool that is powerful and easy to use. 
> Then there are the tools for post production work and special effects
> that I have found nothing for on Linux!  Playing multimedia is not a
> problem for the most part (except for encoded DVD)

Oogle does encrypted DVDs very well, out of the box.  Of course, that
technically might be illegal.