LET LOOSE! (invites to M$ bashing)

[Cuddles]

Since no one else wants to start a thread on this, and, I know, everyone wants to let loose, sometime...

Here's the place to do it!!!

Whats your worst Microsoft experiance, whats your worst dissaster, was it in support, in the product, in the hardware, or software???

It would -also- be nice to see responses that show where M$ has failed, and LINUX, has worked, too (not so much Knoppix specific either, any Linux, this is, The Lounge, so, kick off your shoes, and let loose!)

Ms. Cuddles

[danielsan]

It is really difficult to pick my worst disaster. I've had so many of them. I've reinstalled Windows more times than I can count. Luckily for me, I back up all data, so I lose nothing but time. But if I had to pick one, it would be the time I found adware on one of our MS Exchange servers (this server had about 6k mailboxes on it). That was bad, logging into a server only to find popups. I didn't know who I was more upset at, MS or the moron who was surfing the web from the server. I won't go into the rest.

I actually rebuilt my Windows machine two days ago. I couldn't boot into it. Instead of fussing with it, I decided to rebuild since I was on that same build for about 6 months. Knoppix was able to transfer important files from the Windows partition to my jump drive.

[CytoTech]

Well, when i was in hardware tech support with customers demanding support for their M$ software and ending up helping them and reinstalling the whole OS thing in the process was like selling my soul to the devil and my worst experience. i hate our schedule, the customers pretending to know everything was bad, we did not have enough day-offs, our superiors demanded us to take in more calls everyday was slave labor, the compensation we get was a bunch of paper bills that others call money don't mean a thing anymore. how ever, all of that was gone, along with the good salary, but i won't trade my normal saturday, sunday day-off to anything. :P

[maxIT]

Almost a month ago I've repartioned some pcs at work planning they'll hosted both linux and winxp (with that I've ever work with), but no change I've had to reinstall xp in my repartioned hard disks, while linux (knoppix and debian_net_install) not kind of issue gave me. So after an hard day to try install winxp without succes and a night that bring suggest... I've make the big step, only linux for me!
I've meet linux in knoppix a year and half ago and by this summer is the only os in my pc at home, at work managing many shared pcs with other windows abitué/users I've planned a dual booting transient year before definetly migrate to linux but windozz had encourage me (hehe) to make it now!!

[sakiZ]

I recently had a sound card die on me. The weird part was it always continued to work as long as the computer would boot up. But because it was faulty, the computer would sometimes not boot. I know this now. But when I was in the middle of my not-booting often-freezing up computer, I was going nuts trying to figure out what was going on.

M$ was no help whatsoever. Everything would check out fine when the computer was running.

Linux on the other hand was a big help. It was during the boot process that I noticed I was getting error messages when the sound module would load. Ah ha!

Once I pulled the sound card all was back to normal. If I had not seen the sound module loading error during the boot process, I could have easily and wrongly concluded I needed something like a new mobo.

But this points to something important that I like about Linux. It consistently gives you more, WAY more information about what is going on in your system. This is where M$ could improve a lot.

That makes at least 3 areas where M$ needs to improve. 1. security. 2. Performance 3. Providing system info.

Oh, and they could lower their prices!!!

Linux has them beat in those areas.

sakiZ

[Cuddles]

I have lots of horror stories, mine only come from Windows 95, and then Windows98, after about 5 years of dealing with Win98, I moved away, and over to Linux. All of my stories come from those days, and, I never "moved on" to the newer installs of Windows; ME, 2k, XP, etc... I used to install, and use NT at the place I worked at in Utah, so, I did have some stories from those bouts, but, not so many "horrors", so to speak...

I do have a "colleague", that with the "horrors" they are having with XP, they are "ripe" for moving to Linux - I have since given them a Live CD version of Knoppix v3.4, Kanotix BH9a, so they can "tinker" with it. I could provide a lot of stories from them, at least they would be from a "current" offering of what OS Microsoft is selling. Or, I could bore people with "old" stories of Win98...

Well. my "friend" was using XP, and after installing XP numerous times, because of virus attacks, hard drive crashes, and the "blue screens", from what I hear, you have to "buy" a license to install your XP CD, and you only get "so many" installs for this license. When you use them up, you have to buy another license, to continue to install your OS. So, you guessed it, they exceeded the number of license installs they had with the purchase of the licence, and was looking into the cost to buy, yet another license, so they could re-install, there OS, yet again. Appears the reason they have begun to look into Linux, is, the license cost has gone up, more and more, and they were looking into "alternate" Operating Systems. They had been watching the progress our computer systems have been making with Linux, the costs we have had to pay for, any license fees, and the icing on the cake, the security, and up times, that our systems have attained, booting, and running, with a Linux OS.

I think they are having some problems with the "differences" of Linux, and the transition isnt going as smoothly as I had expected. I think they are looking into getting another license with XP, and have "shelfed" my Live CD's, for future exploring, but, they have the OS's in-hand, which is, a start. Possibly, more horrors of dealing with Windows XP, may, lead them, more, to the Linux side. But, only time will tell.

Other, possible, reasons for "ditching" my attempts to moving them over to Linux, could be, the fact that I am the only person they know, that run Linux, even though I had told them about both of Knoppix's and Kanotix's forums, and even, the irc chat rooms for them, as well. I am quite sure, that, if I could sit with them, watch, and help, them install a Linux OS, walk them through some of the "hurdles", they could, easily, make a transition, I do not have the time to commit to doing this, on a personal, and one-on-one basis. If I was retired, had all day to provide the time, it wouldnt be an issue, but, I dont. I barely have the time to run through the forums, and get into irc chat, as it is now, all with my work, which, unfortunately, doesnt have anything to do with computers, as that stands. I wish I could get back "into" my field of work, even if it is a low-end job of just backing up computer systems, it would at least, be in the computer field again... Oh well, such is life...

As for Win98, I kept my system cleaned of sites, only sites I knew of, and, I didnt "go around" a lot. Almost a daily task of cleaning out my cookies, downloaded junk cache, and registry hacks. Until my significant other took over the second PC I had... then, I had to keep that system constantly in check. That system had numerous attacks of menu bars, installed programs, desktop programs, spy-ware, and registry attacks... With the amount of work I had to deal with, I located a nice "shareware" arsenol of programs to make the task easier; Spy-Bot for spy-ware and registry cleaning, and AVast for the many trojan and viri attacks. Failed attempts of "nailing down" Internet Explorer from accepting anything it receives from a web site, had me enabling AVast within IE, and daily running of Spy-Bot, just for the security issues, and for the uptime, we never saw more than a day of continuous running the systems, without having to do daily reboots. With Linux, we see, both systems running more than 30 to 60 days of continuous usage, and no reboots. Firefox is holding back the cookies, and clamav is watching the viri attacks from the MS running emails we get, mostly spam, which, Spam Assassin is diligently throwing away as we receive them. Life is good

Ms. Cuddles

[sakiZ]

Until my significant other took over the second PC I had... then, I had to keep that system constantly in check. That system had numerous attacks of menu bars, installed programs, desktop programs, spy-ware, and registry attacks... With the amount of work I had to deal with, I located a nice "shareware" arsenol of programs to make the task easier; Spy-Bot for spy-ware and registry cleaning, and AVast for the many trojan and viri attacks. Failed attempts of "nailing down" Internet Explorer from accepting anything it receives from a web site, had me enabling AVast within IE, and daily running of Spy-Bot, just for the security issues, and for the uptime, we never saw more than a day of continuous running the systems, without having to do daily reboots. Firefox is holding back the cookies, and clamav is watching the viri attacks from the MS running emails we get, mostly spam, which, Spam Assassin is diligently throwing away as we receive them.

This sounds exactly like me at work, where this is exactly what I have to do to keep malware at bay using Windows at work. It is my end of day routine to scan for malware, etc. It takes 20 minutes -- everyday. Switching to Firefox Beta 2 has helped a lot. It's an ongoing BATTLE! We had to resort to configuring email for zero attachments. Then my boss got a different unpublished email account so vendors could send us graphics.

OTOH, at home, I NEVER have any problems like this. Linux has NO problems in these areas. Windows XP now behaves better because it is totally OFFLINE! Ha! Trouble is I rarely use it anymore.

sakiZ

[Cuddles]

I neglected to mention, the reasons our systems are running a lot more smoothly, and less security issues; i.e. the attacks, emails, and web surfing stuff - is contributed ONLY because we ONLY run Linux now... If I ever got a job, and that job was in the computer field, and, I had the "power" to interject what OS was run within that company, including the "big wigs", it would be converted to Linux - solely... I am quite sure the decision could be "emphasised" to the "upper-mucky-mucks", on the simple "savings" issue... As for the techs, they would know the real reason, security, stability, and the availability of being able to "lock down" the systems from outside attacks...

As for the "users", they would just need to "deal with it"... This decision would be made on many facits of reasons, security, uptime, connectivity, open source, available packages, and for the "biggies", cost. If I can be weened from the dominance of M$ OS's, software, and even, hardware, I am quite sure, anybody can. If software doesnt exist to support whatever the company needs, then, we may just need, to hire some programmers, or developers, to deal with the lack of packages in Linux, but, I wont deal with the hassles, horrors, that I dealt with on a "home" networked Win OS, on a "company" size topography, not without the help of Linux

I am sick and tired of having to re-install Windows systems, fix inadiquacies, sniff out problems, downtime, and constant attacks and security holes, with any Windows OS... The company should be made aware of what they should know they are using, and having to deal with. With this knowledge, the decision is quite simple, Linux.

Enough distro's are in the world, to make "which" Linux to use, a lot easier... Stable Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, and then, the, cutting edge... ( for the developers and coders )

/rant off
enuf said,
Ms. Cuddles

[Kowood]

I actually have more success installing games with Cedega than on Windows....Heh...The whole interface not registered thing happens. Hehe.

[chris-harry]

^^its because the games are craked? aint they... (joke joke)

oh... i spent like 2 days, installing windows on properly, firewall.. getting updates, installing SP2...etc... oh, i forgot... it toook 1.5 days updating counter strike source... (i wish this was a joke)... i got about 45 minutes game play before i was well too tired to even care about playing any more (i died too many times)...

tried to reboot the next day... AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHH!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEH!!

well, i couldnt boot... :P

and now linux is back on it... :P