A Windows Rant 7

[Glenn9999]

This does have something to do with the topic, but I notice that it seems Windows presents itself as a continual obstacle to getting my work done. I've pondered back and it seems I'm always trying to troubleshoot a problem, or reloading my system, or doing some other thing other than productive work because Windows won't allow me to be able to do productive work, much of the time.

If this is the general case, then why does business, in general, tolerate it? Or anybody? This really has always been the case since Windows 3.1 days, so I can't say it's been a recent thing.

Things that crash all the time? Windows XP? Ding! Windows ME? Ding! Windows 98? Ding!

 

[gurner]

'Stevehewitt' seems to have it, Windows is no flakier than any of the others as long as it is setup right.

They all have thier plusses and minuses, but this may seem a little Windows orientated, but it is my salaried set/area so i know it. But Linux is extremely good for the pure geek/techie

I saw some text once about 'never' trusting configuration wizards. Read Laura Chappell's Truth#8 here

http://www.packet-level.com/archives/archives10.htm

(SteveHewitt) "If your company is dedicated to high security and has no room on the network to listen to end users needs to make the business more productive then I have to assume you're working for the military - as even banks have a large number of Windows servers."

You hit the nail with this one

(pmonett) "99% of all virus and zero-day stuff concerns Windows. If you know that a specific car brand stands a 99% of being stolen the day you leave it parked outside, are you going to buy it ? Don't think so. Yet manager the world over trust Windows to house their business-critical data, even though there are other, much more secure choices that do not cost more.
It's crazy."

Bit of a generalisation, yes 99% may effect Windows, but thats coz there's more. if of the 6.5 Billion people on Earth, the equlivalent amount in percentage terms that Microsoft currently has in the OS market of about 80% (i think, unless its gone up or down) were to go to People in the shape of BMW cars! of course the breakin/theft rate would sky rocket as there would be more to choose from, the knowledge of known vulnrabilities would spread through the IRC channels across the world, if someone cracked the encryption algarithoms of the key fob e.t.c. (might have been done from all i know)

'They' want to create as much carnage as possible, because in some misguided reality they think they're 'sticking it to the MAN/System/Big Brother/any synonm for society/democracy/business/life e.t.c. so the biggest target, with the most commonly traded code, vulnrabilities, e.t.c is M$ Windows

Also, Windows doesn't need rebooting 90% percent of the time with things like software installations e.t.c. as much as people seem to think. If the software won't run straight after an install, without a reboot, is mostly looking for a newly installed service to be running or something

The longest run i saw of a Windows server was 4 1/2 years, for one never exposed directly to the internet, so only had selective updates applied. Amazingly it was an SMTP relay/logger between several offices and between the main bank of internet facing filters and internal exchange servers, it was in a secondary DMZ with just about every sevice disabled and every port barr 25 locked down.

As for Directory Services, Windows Active Directory from the perspective of administration, control, ease of use, and transparency (if you apply a bit of nouse, 'brain power' for the Americans , and learn how it works properly) is the best for any techie in any organisation regardless of size, who wants to concentrate on the WAN/Internet/Linux web server/ part of the network, as this is the most under attack.

Since the later days of the IT/IS/.com booms e.t.c. where directors, shareholders, anyone with a bit of money or so on, wanted the next big thing, the internet revolution, e.t.c. got thoroughly shafted by IS/IT Consultant types commanding extortionately high figures.

(it still goes on in miss guided corners) but there has been and still is a rebalance which is leaving the techie with more responsibility/work but with a more realistic salary package (I.e. a recruitment firm advertising £65k for a Windows Consultant is taking the piss, and is earning money based on how many phone calls they make, I'm not saying these jobs don't exist, but they'll be one hidden away at some high flyer law firm in the City, that 'you' won't know about, and the role will need 10-15 years of active experience of global blah de-blah de-blah in a fortune500 and so on, but a thousand Recruitment Firms will be advertising variations of this job, with less facts, more salary, on a 1000 and 1 jobsites)

Anyway, I digress, I was trying to say, our workloads are going up, Active Directory redresses the balance for us, and makes 'us' more productive, as well as the user

AD is most productive from the users perspective from what I have found, yes especially with SharePoint, Office, Exchange, ISA, and so on. But its a directory service, accessible (albeit not open ) by 3rd party development, so it is also well integrated by people other than M$ (I will agree with the bad software issue tho, there is some shockingly bad software for Windows by 3rd parties, but this is where you employ testing!)

Us, you, techies in general, in the test lab or on Virtual PC/VMWare, are 'what does this do?' 'what if i try this?' 'whats this?' e.t.c. in the live environment should not allow access, let alone rights to change any part of the server infrastructure, barr using pre-assigned file shares for storage and so on.

But the user is

"I don't care how it works, as long as it works!"

Our job is to make it work and prevent 'them' from breaking it (AD Group Policy and the ability to centrally roll out updates/virus definitions is great for this too)

A Military sub-siduary i 'went' to once, was run by a screaming banshee Linux nut, who couldn't see beyond his blinkers that the way the system was running, and how administratively disjointed it was, meant it took 5 times longer to do anything, compared to at least moving/consolidating the mail structure and user accounts to a top down AD and Exchange infrastructure, would reduce the work load by 500%+, remove the need for extremely rare £50k *nix techies and replace them with very readily available £25k Windows Techies

The Security worries he kept labouring on about, are purely down to the quality of your admin staff, a system run by an amateur/fiddler is no more or less secure with Windows OR *nix

Cheers (bit of a rant in places, typed off the 'cuff as it were based around a laff at the comment about the military, but hope it made a point)

Gurner

(apologies for grammer and spelling)

just look at this shocking cabling i just found

http://www.dooberrywhatsit.myzen.co.uk/DSC00109_sm.JPG

'now which point did you say wasn't working?'

 

[Kozusnik]

That's funny. I hadn't seen the Military comment.

Actually I work in Healthcare. In the states, it's probably watched as closely as Military information as far as security. We now have to abide by the HIPAA laws (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

As far a Win vs. Lin. I'm stuck using both. I can't claim to be an AD master, but I know that it feels easier for me to created and configure users in a Lin env. I have more control.

I work in systems...AS/400 (Hospital Information System, Payroll, Accounting, etc.), Linux runs the HL7 interfaces, AIX for Lab, and we used to run VMS for Radiology. When it was on VMS, I was the admin. Although we had too many users for an Alpha 133 with 192 MB of RAM, the box and app typically ran fine. Now it's on Win. The vendor can't seem to make it work correctly for us. There are too many flaws in the app. I'm not saying the OS, I'm saying the app. That being said, it seems to be a trend that we buy an application and the damn thing doesn't work right. This seems to be the norm and everyone accepts it. However, I download Open source software for Linux and have absolutely no problems. I can even customize it further if there are features I want or don't want.

Maybe this discussion should be good programmers vs. bad ones.

Our interface application CAN run on Win, Lin, AIX, HP-UX, and I think some others. Would I run it on Win? Hell no. Our test env used to be that way. I had several problems with it. I reloaded...still problems. I loaded Linux...no more problems. I just went through training on the latest version of the software. The trainer had us install on Windows. Woo-hoo, it only locked up twice in one week (well 4.5 days). I can't have that. I take the phrase "Mission Critical" very seriously. I can't take a chance that data is not available. Since switching all boxes to Linux, I've had 0 problems. Coincidence, maybe.

Also a forms design app on Windows. It's a piece of crap. It loses patient data and has frequent slow downs. We purchased a new box for the next version. 8 cpus, and 16 GB of RAM...for a forms program!!!

Oddly enough, just yesterday, I was talking with our Network admins about Windows and Office. They're wanting to push more Linux and Openoffice. One is starting to play with VMWare, SuSe, Ubuntu, and LTSP. I was shocked. I wasn't pushing for it as much 'cause I thought they would be offended and completely opposed. They're tired of the pricing and maintenance involved to keep things running. They've come to the dark side!!!

Hopefully Microsoft can learn from Novell how to better their OS. Maybe there will be better interaction between the OSs. I'm not holding my breath. Now that M$ is in bed with a Linux distributer, I expect the lawsuits for IP infringement to fly.

Whether or not their OS works for me is moot. I don't trust them and probably never will.

Mark
"I was born a pessimist and I'm going to die.

 

[Kozusnik]

See what happens when I don't get enough sleep...that should be "Healthcare Information Portability and Accountability Act".

Sorry, I'm sick today and have been up since 3:30am (it's now 6:00am).

Mark

 

[toolmantwo]

KOZUSNIK,

Have you found that Linux is faster and more stable that XP in internet applications?

 

[philhege]

It oughta be. XP's a workstation OS and is not designed to host Web apps, so apples and oranges to you. I suppose you really mean Windows Server 2003 (latest release/service pack, of course).

Really, this "My OS is better than yours" dreck should have hit the road a long time ago. Especially since you can't find a benchmark that 1) is unbiased and 2) gives both OSes and apps a level playing field. You can't find one because Microsoft won't allow it. NB: Veritest doesn't pass either of my conditions.

Phil Hegedusich
Senior Programmer/Analyst
IIMAK

http://www.iimak.com

-----------
I'll have the roast duck with the mango salsa.

 

[imstillatwork]

I agree with Phil here.

Anyone that wants to see *nix fail will show results that make it.

Anyone that wants to see Windows fail, will produce results to make it, also.

One thing that does bother me is when people confuse application stability with OS stability.

Kevin

http://www.lot-o-nothin.com/cfml/

Phase 1: Read the CFML Reference
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit!

 

[SaishuHeiki]

(SteveHewitt) "If your company is dedicated to high security and has no room on the network to listen to end users needs to make the business more productive then I have to assume you're working for the military - as even banks have a large number of Windows servers."

While I understand the point you are trying to make, I have to insert my own experience here.

I served in the US Army as both an interrogator and a military police NCO. There were a few non-MS proprietary OS's for field gear, but all of the boxes on base I *ever* saw (and worked with - I was always tapped as the company IT go-to-guy) ran Windows.

The Army runs Windows for the same reason as any other company. The non-geeks are already comfortable with it, and it provides the illusion of security.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

It is easier for an intellegent person to "play dumb" than for an unintellegent person to "play smart". - gbaughma

 

[gurner]

i often wondered if the US Army used Windows, dunno why, just seemed to make sense, maybe some preconceived Army/Microsoft alliance seemed to be obvious.

the UK MoD, runs for the most part, from what i can tell, Linux

Windows is far more prevalent in 'other' departments/organisations from what i gauge

They all provide the 'illusion' of security, but they all have thier plusses and minuses

Anyone that wants to see *nix fail will show results that make it.

Anyone that wants to see Windows fail, will produce results to make it, also.

Gurner

 

[Kozusnik]

I also agree with Phil. I depends on what the webserver is serving. ASP might be faster on Win. PHP maybe faster on Linux. If you can compile your code from source, it will be faster than anything.
I personally use Linux due to several reasons.
1. Windows is easily hacked, I've been doing since 3.1. I'm not saying how, but if you search a little, you'll find a few python scripts capable of injecting vnc into a windows machine and accessing the desktop.
2. Linux is open and free. I can change the OS as I see fit. Maybe not good for non-programmers, but out of the box, it's still perfectly usable.
3. My uptimes for Linux have far surpassed my experience with Windows uptimes. Just got a call today for a Pharmacy server which needed rebooted. A PHARMACY SERVER!!! Not acceptable.
4. I got used to it. Once I was fed up with Windows/M$, I found an alternative. I like it better.
5. I like developing in Kwrite (notepad in Win). I have programmed in VB. I don't like it as well. I'm used to the colors in kwrite. I don't need a gui telling me you need to end the line with a semi-colon.
6. I can automate things in Linux easier. Create perl script, schedule in cron. Forget.

I'll say, use what you like. I prefer an OS that I can download for free, pay nothing for anti-virus that I don't need, leave it running for years, etc.

Here's a funny side-note. My daughter got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas today. iTunes isn't made for Linux (as far as I know). The files are in a propietary format. I'm charging it right now...so I'm typing this message on XP. Ironic huh? I'll go back to Linux when I'm done.

Later all,
Mark

 

[Stevehewitt]

Very true Mark, including most of those points.

Thankfully (IMHO) MS have listened to your points in the last few years with some being addressed in Windows XP and the majority addressed in Vista. (Although the free one won't be happening anytime soon and I refer to the earlier points about the apps rather than OS in regards to the uptime point! ;-))




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson