I’m killing time. Right now I’m waiting for updates and downloads to complete on my office work computer, a machine that I went to great trouble to make bulletproof. For example, I run a top-end Intel SSD and have a disk image backup.
Today, my machine gave me a BSOD after uninstalling a troublesome program. Acronis Enterprise Server. So, just to help people who might have issues or are considering using this program, I though I’d write about it while I wait for the updates to complete, since Acronis forced me to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional.
This is one of this cases where a program started out great, then as corporate weaslism takes hold due to the success, the program becomes more bloated, fragmented, dependent on more libraries, license tiered, and overall more difficult to manage and less rewarding in actual use.
At my office we used to love this program, because it had a great feature that allowed you to image your disk to a state where windows didn’t have anything except the generic/basic boot drivers installed, allowing you to image to another mobo/processor combination. This days are long gone and we’ve relegated Acronis to the scrap heap because it has become an enterprise level mess in more ways than one.
I still had Acronis on my main work machine, but this morning the background program for it started doing weird stuff, utilizing a lot of CPU space. My usual checks for malware/virus came up zero, and I had no explanation for why the Acronis background server program was using a lot of CPU cycles. So, I decided to uninstall it.
Big mistake, HUGE mistake.
After uninstalling Acronis, I found I was in a boot loop, and right after the Win7 animated logo, I’d get a BSOD. Safe mode – same thing, and attempts at OS repair (using Windows tools and third-party tools) came up with no success at all. I also thought it might be related to a recent bungled Microsoft patch which causes a BSOD boot loop after Windows update installs it and the user reboots for the first time, and downloaded the removal tool as a bootable ISO to burn to CD. No joy there either.
I’ve never had the de-installation of a program hose the operating system. Never.
It makes me wonder what sort of “tentacles” Acronis attached to the OS without telling me. So, needless to say, Acronis is now permanently off my list, especially since I had used it as a backup program to keep a disk image. My backup image included the Acronis program, so since trying to remove it caused the problem in the first place I was in a no choice situation – a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro was the only way forward.
I spent the entire morning on the mess Acronis created, and I’ve not got a single thing done today other than deal with that mess.
After a fresh install of Windows 7, which gets me back to the desktop, but of course I have a lot of work ahead putting programs and files back into place, along with 147 Windows updates, and likely more after that.
I know many of you will throw out the standard gloating snippets like:
- Get a Mac
- Run (pick your distro) Linux
- Run FreeBSD or CentOS or some other OS
etc…
…with tales of fantastic other-worldly levels of reliability, so let me just say in advance that until this incident, I have had wonderful reliability with Windows 7 and I have far too much invested in programs and systems to move. So, those aren’t options for me.
Thanks for killing time with me while I wait for the updates to download and install.
I have to reboot now to finish. See you in a few hours.
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“Andi Cockroft says:
May 9, 2013 at 11:21 pm”
Indeed. IBM MVS, upgrading from 24bit addressing to 31bit. What could I possibly do with multiple 2Gbyte address spaces?
It looks like no-one has mentioned snapshot.exe yet. It’s really bare-bones, but it has saved my bacon in more than one occasion. Here’s a link to its intro page:
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/intro.htm
If you figure out how to do this, could you uninstall the car alarm on my old Camry?
I’d hate to disappoint you, so yes, run Linux if you want reliability and bulletproofness. NO version of Windows has been bulletproof. XP and 7 are simply the best of a generally bad lot, although they are both a lot better than their predecessors or successors.
I’ve been using Linux at this point for almost 20 years, eighteen as a primary interface. Over that entire time my machine(s) have been hacked precisely one time, and that was more my fault than the OS’s. When I say “my machines”, I mean not only personal machines but entire departmental networks of machines.
OS bugs in linux are far from unknown, but bugs of all sorts get fixed VERY quickly in most of the important distros. Compare that to 6 month or longer lag times between when exploits for Windows are discovered and when MS gets around to patching them…
Macs aren’t bad, either. I know a lot of sysadmins who run macs. I know remarkably few who run Windows anything as their OS of choice.
rgb
kadaka (KD Knoebel),
Just because my website is hosted on a Russian web server doesn’t make it less legitimate or infested with malware. It’s 100% HTML5/CSS3 compliant and I don’t host/embed/engage in peddling malware – it would be stupid and Google and other web search engines would instantly remove me from the … top of their search results.
Just because you’ve found just one (!) outdated clause doesn’t mean the entire article is outdated or wrong.
Sounds like you a hypocrite.
Best regards, the author of this website.
Mr. Watts, which version (and build) of Acronis were you running?
“kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: That’s borderline outright baldfaced lying, possibly only true at the beginning. I well remember when M$ released the bloated Vista beast, decreeing that much current iron would have to be scrapped as incompatible as M$ insisted on transforming the PC into an anti-personal “anti-piracy” corporate spying machine. The hue and cry was loud, with makers complaining bitterly of changing hardware to conform to Vista.”
So Microsoft did not release system requirements when Vista was released? What new PCs being sold at the time would not work with Vista? All of the same hardware “scrapping” applies to Windows 7 and Windows 8. You seem confused and need to read what I said clearly as I did not claim they made their operating system work with every piece of obsolete hardware but every PC sold – directly implying new PCs. The rest of your rant is unsupported conspiratorial nonsense.
“That’s the real truth about the M$ monopoly, new version comes out, hardware makers must conform to M$. Not the BS you’re shelling out.”
Microsoft cannot make any PC maker conform to anything. PC makers choose of their own free will to sell Microsoft operating systems and thus meet the system requirements. If the system requirements were prohibitive to selling new PCs then PC manufacturers would not use Windows. Your ignorance on this subject is a prime example of why so much information online about this is wrong. The minimum system requirements for Windows Vista were very low,
800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) CPU
512 MB of system memory – RAM
20 GB hard disk with 15 GB of free hard disk space
Super VGA (800 x 600) graphics card *
Internal or external CD-ROM drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
The minimum system requirements for Windows XP were ridiculously low,
233 MHz CPU
64 MB of RAM
1.5 GB of available hard disk space
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
“And even at the beginning, to get the market share, did M$ make their OS work with every PC sold? Hell no. No one who has had to search for days to find a working device driver would ever buy that crap. Before XP, before even ME, even when 95 was a revolutionary product, it didn’t work with every machine. There were hardware and software incompatibilities up the wazoo. I ran Norton Utilities because it would catch the many machine freezing or BSOD crashing incidents and keep the system running.”
Name the hardware that met Windows 95’s system requirements that would not work. I built hundreds of Windows 95 machines with varying hardware and it all worked so long as you had the right drivers. I fixed even more by replacing defective hardware and getting compatible drivers. It is nonsense that Norton Utilities was required to keep it stable.
“You boldly toss out a link to a Russian site? You must really trust your virus protection! Either that or you’re drumming up business for those who fix hosed systems…”
Why are you being irresponsible and lying that the website is dangerous simply because it is coming from a Russian URL? Are you usually this irresponsible with your information? Using your bad advice, people better not visit this Russian news site, http://en.rian.ru/
And of course it is all a conspiracy theory why hardware makers don’t make drivers for Linux.
Explain how an operating system is “forced” onto a new PC. Do you not understand how markets work or is every Linux proponent this ignorant of economics?
“Steve C says: But, further up that same page …
“I want to make one thing crystal clear – Windows, in some regards, is even worse than Linux and it’s definitely not ready for the desktop either.”
The post is by a Linux developer with limited Windows experience. The problem with his post is Windows is already on just about everyone’s desktop.
“registry (a chaos and a single point of failure – most Windows failures are due to registry)”
Actually this is not true and Windows has kept backup copies of the registry since Windows 95. System Restore was added in Windows ME ect….
For the lay user, Windows is still the best desktop software. I trained with the Z80 in the Airforce in 82, I fixed 8086 and 8088, I trouble shot windows 3.11, windows for workgroups. Through time I use winxp for my office, super stable. Windows 2003 and 2008 server and Novell 5.11 and 6.1 for firesharing and apps. Slackware and Daibian for internet mail and website. I’ve been down 3 times in 18 1/2 years but not more than 3 hours.I manage 32 servers over 4 plants in 4 international countries. Everything has it’s place and no eggs in the same basket. By the way, if you use SCSI drives for your servers, you’ll get 10 years of dependable service unlike SATA, EIDE and ESATA which last 3 to 4 years.
Robert
There is a difference between ‘broken code’ and code that has potential for hacking (vulnerabilities is the term).
That so-called ‘broken code’ you cite ONCE passed some level of operability, and even some measure of regression testing.
The script kiddies and the sites they (and you?) visit are the ones who are much more vulnerable than I.
Oh, and I have scanned for root-kits in the past, and probably ought to more often.
Again I do surf with Chrome, which auto-updates, as well as updating Adobe’s various products (including Flash) … then there is Java, bugging me even now to update (again!) …
.
“I don’t think so Tim”, -er- I mean Dave.
When was the time you inventoried all executing/resident tasks on your PC (or PCs)?
When again? I didn’t hear you …
.
PS. The plural of Typhoid Mary” is “Typhoid Marys” (checked against multiple references).
.
And yet, you offer _no_ alternative(s) in the same class (free). Overlooking tools from the ‘horses mouth’ even (assuming one has an Intel processor), such as:
Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool
http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-031726.htm
“If the operating system cannot be loaded, a bootable Linux* version is available for you test the processor. ”
Remember Poptech old chum, I recommended (basically) a field ‘triage tool’ (ala Swiss Army knife), not a full complement of what one would find in a full-up ‘operating room’ … even Dell (my choice in PCs) supplies various diagnostics for their MoBos for free on their cust support website (for the Optiplex series: again, my choice) …but _not_ every vendor does …
PS memtest86 is on the UBCD as well.
One would think having posted the caveat (copied/reposted below) EARLIER would ward-off these oft-repeated and self-assuming ‘warning’ messages (to whom? the general, assembled reading masses?) … maybe it’s a (non-)reading and non-comprehension problem? At any rate, I don’t look to accrue a following who might walk in my footsteps when I’m stating what it is that I’m doing (or not doing) in any given or particular circumstance.
The previously over-looked (or probably unread?) caveat :
Of course not, but I’m a responsible, knowledgeable adult (and engineer and techie) and I am plotting my own course and destiny based on my assessment of my needs, wants, desires, and technical requirements and am willing to work with the trade-offs to ‘get there’, thank you very much.
Remember (from a post right here at WUWT the last day or so):
“Consensus is the pathway to bliss.”
.
Put in terms of “pints of blood”, what did that (the upgrade) work out to be (cost-wise)?
.
From Artem S. Tashkinov on May 10, 2013 at 11:17 am:
I have been keeping track of the addresses used by the assorted highly questionable email spam that makes it to my inbox, also paying attention to the (windoze) virus outbreak warnings and countries of origin. Russia is a hotspot.
Seriously, I could blacklist the entire .ru domain from my inbox, set the ad blocker to likewise reject anything from any .ru site, and not lose a single thing worth seeing besides increasing system security.
Hey, does anyone out there know how to set a browser and/or computer to never send any information to a certain address, like *.ru? So if a computer does get infected, it still can’t “phone home” sensitive info?
Now that you mentioned it, I gotta check it.
Document in question:
Passes HTML5.
Passes as CSS Level 3.
Web site start page:
HTML5 error.
Passes as CSS Level 3 but with 3 similar warnings: “Property -****-border-radius is an unknown vendor extension”
Come to think of it, controlling malware by slipping some “extra” info into an innocuous web document, which would be ignored by the browser as superfluous, would be rather ingenious.
You should be aware that HTML5 is not yet a W3C standard, but only a “Candidate Recommendation”, thus implementation is not guaranteed, especially of all features.
I only bothered to check two. That one, which showed you were wrong. And the stupid thing about Linux’ “questionable legality”, which is crap, of which your link went to some message board whining about mpeg codec licensing fee or some such nonsense, which is crap.
I checked two, it was wrong on two. I summarized the document’s total whining to my satisfaction. Why should I go further?
“_Jim says: There is a difference between ‘broken code’ and code that has potential for hacking (vulnerabilities is the term).
That so-called ‘broken code’ you cite ONCE passed some level of operability, and even some measure of regression testing.”
Every piece of code that is patched, originally passed some level of “operability” what sort of ridiculous argument is that? It was they failed to test for that was broken. Being able to be maliciously exploited was not an original design feature of the code, thus it is broken and a patch is released. So again your argument is invalid.
“The script kiddies and the sites they (and you?) visit are the ones who are much more vulnerable than I.”
You don’t visit websites that use ads? You can get infected on ANY website when things like the ad servers get hacked, http://www.pcworld.com/article/141358/article.html
“_Jim says: When was the time you inventoried all executing/resident tasks on your PC (or PCs)?”
What is your point? Malware can pretend to be anything it wants on your PC or be completely invisible (rootkits) – you have no idea unless you scan it. Unless you are trying to troubleshoot something or increase performance there is no reason for him to do this.
Paul Jackson makes a good point about SW that mucks with Windows at low level.
Theft-tracing SW may do that.
Some SW weenies do it when they don’t need to (a bunch of two-year-olds).
SW problems lead people to avoid upgrading – many organizations avoided Vista but adopted 7 once somewhat proven (Intel was one of those IIRC).
I wouldn’t embrace a new version of Windows until after the first service pack, which apparently will be available for Windows 8 late this year (perhaps under a new name, c/w some UI improvements for non-touch uses).
“And yet, you offer _no_ alternative(s) in the same class (free). Overlooking tools from the ‘horses mouth’ even (assuming one has an Intel processor), such as:”
I never said it does not have some useful tools on the CD, my point is it has multiple tools that do the same thing, instead of just the best ones, which will be confusing to just about anyone. The Intel CPU diagnostic is not a bad utility and definitely better than nothing but it is still not as thorough as commercial diagnostic products.
“Remember Poptech old chum, I recommended (basically) a field ‘triage tool’ (ala Swiss Army knife), not a full complement of what one would find in a full-up ‘operating room’ … even Dell (my choice in PCs) supplies various diagnostics for their MoBos for free on their cust support website (for the Optiplex series: again, my choice) …but _not_ every vendor does …”
Again, the problem is most people will have no idea which tools to use and not understand that it does not include full system diagnostics. Dell diagnostics again are better than nothing but they miss memory issues that memtest98(+) will catch.
“The previously over-looked (or probably unread?) caveat : Of course not, but I’m a responsible, knowledgeable adult (and engineer and techie) and I am plotting my own course and destiny based on my assessment of my needs, wants, desires, and technical requirements and am willing to work with the trade-offs to ‘get there’, thank you very much.”
This implies that you know this is a responsible thing to do while you will not find anyone with experience in the IT or security industry suggesting any such course of action because it is irresponsible. The only reason things like botnets exist is because people either do not apply security updates, do not have an antivirus program installed or their antivirus program is outdated.
” kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: Plus, some of what this document says is just plain WRONG. For example, Hardware section: 7. Intel has refused to support Linux on its Clover Trail platform.
Quick Google later, from Sept 18, 2012: Intel Clover Trail Will Support Linux After All. Your “2013″ anti-Linux doc doesn’t even have the facts right for the end of 2012!”
Clearly Intel did not originally plan to support Linux with Clover Trail, http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205462/idf-intel-says-clover-trail-will-not-work-with-linux
No one is going to perpetually research these issues for changes, though I see no reason why it would not be corrected if brought to his attention. As an example: the author has already posted here, is aware of the issue and has rectified it.
“kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: I only bothered to check two. That one, which showed you were wrong. And the stupid thing about Linux’ “questionable legality”, which is crap, of which your link went to some message board whining about mpeg codec licensing fee or some such nonsense, which is crap.”
The “message board” is Slashdot. Are you new to the Internet or just tech sites? ROFLMAO!
And the Linux codec issue is not “crap” but legitimate,
http://www.datamation.com/article.php/3689726
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/post/legit-linux-codecs-in-the-us/
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/70035.html?wlc=1274437690
So legitimate an issue that Canonical (Ubuntu) licensed H.264,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/05/canonical_h264_video/
VMware’s ability to easily and reliably copy and clone an O/S is light-years ahead of any other tool. Note though, that if you want to copy to another host, then you will need VMware on the destination machine.
At home, I run several O/Ss on a VMware server ( four different flavours of Linux plus Windows Server 2008 R2), each with separate O/S and data virtual disks. For each Virtual Machine, I backup the O/S disk as a straight VMDK (single virtual file) copy. For the VM’s large data partitions I use file backups from within the virtual O/S. I could rant on for ages about the facilities my VMware server has given my family, but I’ll refrain.
Re Jim and Poptech’s argument about patch updates – I have to side with Poptech on this. The most vulnerable aspect of an O/S are the known security flaws. Publicly released security patches are used by criminals to discover and exploit those vulnerabilities within days of the patch release.
If those flaws aren’t patched on your machines within about a week of the public patch release, you can expect them to be exploited – prompt and regular patching is even more important than running anti-virus (but you should run anti-virus too).
From Poptech on May 10, 2013 at 12:25 pm:
Of course not, they were released beforehand.
After the loud and noisy retooling period among the hardware makers, there were many machines sold as “Vista Capable”, barely working slugs at the “minimum system requirements” you’ve listed. To get the Aero interface and anything beyond bare functioning required the “Vista Premium Ready” level, which was the real “minimum standards”.
Come on, it played out like a huge bait-and-switch. Buy Vista Capable, then buy the upgrades to use Vista. And if you upgraded components like video cards, you might have been buying some more to get stuff Vista would agree to work with. Even Wikipedia notes the problems.
Heck, I even remember seeing the PC’s at Walmart selling with XP but “Vista ready” with free upgrade when it became available. One of those and a few hundred more bucks might actually get you a PC that really was running Vista in a meaningful way, if you only needed memory.
True, dat. M$ commands, hardware makers submit or die.
Yup, they can voluntarily decide to go out of business. Some have.
A. They conform to M$ system requirements like vehicle makers conform to gasoline, it’s just about the only thing out there to run in their iron, it’d be suicide not to do so.
B. PC makers do have a choice, sell with M$ installed for about $100 or so added on the price tag that the consumer doesn’t notice,
or sell without M$ a little cheaper, but condemning customers who want M$ to spend $200 to much more for a full retail version they have to install themselves. The second option guarantees ticked-off non-customers. First option is the easy path.
You must have forgotten all the “magazines” for system builders, selling hardware and software. The joys of having a generic ISA half-size VGA card, identified as having a “Trident” chipset, figuring out which if any of the included drivers will work, and what settings you have to tell Device Manager to use to get it to play nice with the hardware…
And the Hayes-compatible internal modems!
You nailed it, “…it all worked so long as you had the right drivers.” But finding the drivers! Oh, what a godsend sites like DriverGuide were, to finally have a central repository, at a time when the “right driver” may have been one furtively sent by email to a desperate user by a sympathetic tech support person who “liberated” it from testing…
Well 95 wasn’t so bad, but I needed it for ME. About, what, once a day minimum, “…intercepted a crash…”
Why would you think that? Linux is a small market on the PC side, the market incentive isn’t there to devote resources for Linux drivers. Of course the Linux community can make their own drivers, but they’d need the full hardware specs, which the makers are loath to release as it gives too much insight to their competitors. Etc.
I’ve already explained it a few times, not my fault if you can’t follow it, especially as it’s somewhat obvious you’re deliberately refusing to understand it. It’s how markets work, and it’s the economics of it.
But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and share with an old “pro” like you the sleight-of-hand that is the standard experience of M$ pre-loading from the ordinary consumer’s viewpoint:
Do I get the computer that gives me Windows for free, or the computer that’s cheaper without Windows but I’ll pay hundreds later to get Windows then?
(Of course astute readers will realize this is a false choice. You can’t find PC’s or laptops at Walmart that don’t have Windoze pre-installed. There is no choice.)
kadaka, my linux servers all have Russia, North Korea, Nigeria and China blocked. Completely. As in, ANY attempt to connect from those countries is ignored. Nothing incoming, nothing outgoing. And the country list from IP is updated weekly. Sure it’s not perfect, but the attempts I’m seeing at getting in through ssh or scanning for known exploits are about 1/50th that of a honeypot server I keep active.
I agree, blocking access to and from known lawless places makes good sense.
But it’s not even all about the bad guys, those countries have large numbers of computers that are hopelessly exploited, so they act as relays to remote controllers in other places. You NEED to have and maintain some sort of tools to keep your computer safe. I seriously wish MS would stop making me reboot my computer, my Debian systems update hot and keep going. Currently over 400 days on one of them.
However, regarding HTML5 and CSS3, it’s completely acceptable and currently good practice to include the vendor-specific border-radius and other tags. HTML5 and CSS3 just ignore tags that they don’t recognize, for example if the browser recognizes “border-radius” it ignores “-moz-border-radius”. Tags it doesn’t know at all are just skipped, as they should be.
The most compliant browser is currently Chrome. FireFox, contrary to it’s reputation, has numerous things that don’t work properly. Opera is the last thing I worry about, it’s just buggy as (insert phrase)… which will change when they re-release it as Webkit, so not a big deal. IE10 is finally mostly on track, unfortunately IE is always the one that needs to be detected and worked around. Maybe if MS would do like virtually every other browser developer and stop thinking their code will be good for 10 years it would be different.
I liked and used Vista right from Beta. Then again, I also had a new QuadCore computer at that time, and the OS didn’t bog it down to nothing like some people experienced. Win7 took the good parts of Vista, threw away the slowest, most poorly implemented, and has a very efficient kernel.
We’re all still paying for the amateurs that took over the computer industry during the early 80s. Many things were reinvented, the wrong way, in the name of getting decent performance out of low powered hardware. Many of the names you recognize, many of the computer industry billionaires, did things wrong because they were making it up as they went. Arrogance and greed took care of the rest. Security was not an issue for Win95 because when it came out the Internet was still IRC, infant WWW, email and a few other Unix tools. The most mind-boggling part of early Windows versions was they they left ports open by default. Remember the one that popped up a message? That was a holdover from closed Windows networks, and those ports should have been closed by default.
Yeah sorry, more ranting.
From CodeTech on May 10, 2013 at 8:50 pm:
But it’s honest ranting, and was informative, so nothing to be sorry about.
“kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: Of course not, they were released beforehand.”
Then I do not understand your complaint. Either you know how to read system requirements or you don’t.
“After the loud and noisy retooling period among the hardware makers, there were many machines sold as “Vista Capable”, barely working slugs at the “minimum system requirements” you’ve listed. To get the Aero interface and anything beyond bare functioning required the “Vista Premium Ready” level, which was the real “minimum standards”.”
More unsupported nonsense. “Retooling” – ROFLMAO! What special tools were needed to install hardware that met Vista’s requirements? If the PCs did not work as advertised PC manufacturers would not be able to sell them. Are you still confused on how markets work?
You keep talking about things you have no idea about. Aero Minimum System Requirements;
800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) CPU
512 MB of system memory – RAM (Integrated UMA Graphics not supported) *
64 MB Windows Aero-capable DirectX 9-class graphics card **
* 1 GB of system memory (RAM) is required with Integrated UMA Graphics to use the new Aero interface.
** Supported resolution up to but not including 1280×1024 on a Single Monitor System.
The recommended requirements of Vista Home Premium (most common option for home users) were;
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) CPU
1 GB of system memory – RAM (Only 256 MB can be used for Integrated UMA Graphics Memory)
40 GB hard disk with 15 GB of free hard disk space
128 MB Windows Aero-capable DirectX 9-class graphics card
Internal or external DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
“Come on, it played out like a huge bait-and-switch. Buy Vista Capable, then buy the upgrades to use Vista. And if you upgraded components like video cards, you might have been buying some more to get stuff Vista would agree to work with.
Heck, I even remember seeing the PC’s at Walmart selling with XP but “Vista ready” with free upgrade when it became available. One of those and a few hundred more bucks might actually get you a PC that really was running Vista in a meaningful way, if you only needed memory.”
Were PCs sold as Vista capable unable to run Vista?
Who is responsible for the PC purchase that they make?
“True, dat. M$ commands, hardware makers submit or die.”
Do PC makers choose to sell systems with Windows operating systems on them?
“Yup, they can voluntarily decide to go out of business. Some have.”
Which major PC OEM “voluntarily” decided to go out of business?
“A. They conform to M$ system requirements like vehicle makers conform to gasoline, it’s just about the only thing out there to run in their iron, it’d be suicide not to do so.”
So PC makers cannot choose to use another operating system? So car manufacturers cannot choose to sell a car that does not run on gasoline? Or could it be PC manufacturers sell what consumers want to buy?
“B. PC makers do have a choice, sell with M$ installed for about $100 or so added on the price tag that the consumer doesn’t notice,”
How would a consumer not notice the cost of $100? If this was true all a PC manufacturer would have to do is sell a PC with say Linux for $100 less. Why don’t they? Could it be that it does not actually cost PC manufacturers $100 to include Windows and could it be there are other concerns with selling a PC with Linux installed?
“or sell without M$ a little cheaper, but condemning customers who want M$ to spend $200 to much more for a full retail version they have to install themselves. The second option guarantees ticked-off non-customers. First option is the easy path.”
So PC manufacturers are just intentionally ignoring a market of selling PCs with no operating system? Could it be that consumers want an operating system installed when they buy a PC? Everyone who makes these silly arguments has never actually sold PCs to consumers in their lives. Your rants make no sense.
Name the hardware that met Windows 95′s system requirements that would not work. I built hundreds of Windows 95 machines with varying hardware and it all worked so long as you had the right drivers.
“You must have forgotten all the “magazines” for system builders, selling hardware and software. The joys of having a generic ISA half-size VGA card, identified as having a “Trident” chipset, figuring out which if any of the included drivers will work, and what settings you have to tell Device Manager to use to get it to play nice with the hardware…”
It is very easy to identify which Trident chipset it is by reading what is silk screened on the chip,
http://www.freewebs.com/kastrioth/Trident-TVGA-512Kb.JPG
There was no special settings just Windows 95 compatible drivers.
Even generic OEMs from Taiwan included driver discs and CDs clearly marked with Windows 95 drivers. Of course if you were trying to install Windows 95 on obsolete hardware it was up to you to make sure that the hardware was either already supported in 95 or there were drivers available.
“And the Hayes-compatible internal modems!”
Windows 95 came with support for various standard modem types.
“You nailed it, “…it all worked so long as you had the right drivers.” But finding the drivers! Oh, what a godsend sites like DriverGuide were, to finally have a central repository, at a time when the “right driver” may have been one furtively sent by email to a desperate user by a sympathetic tech support person who “liberated” it from testing…”
If the hardware is not supported by the OS or there are no compatible drivers then you did not use that hardware – It was not complicated. For instance I never had a problem with various CD-ROM drives until I tried to utilize a specific Panasonic model. After being unable to locate Windows 95 drivers that worked I tried tech support, they blamed Microsoft which was obviously ridiculous as all their competitors had drivers available – guess what I didn’t use Panasonic CD-ROMs anymore and their competitors got plenty of business.
And you should always go to the OEM or chipset manufacturer for the correct drivers.
It is nonsense that Norton Utilities was required to keep it stable.
“Well 95 wasn’t so bad, but I needed it for ME. About, what, once a day minimum, “…intercepted a crash…””
More nonsense. Windows ME was simply an upgrade to Windows 98SE and again needed Windows ME compatible drivers. Every issue I saw with ME was related to defective hardware or someone trying to use Win95/98 drivers.
“Why would you think that? Linux is a small market on the PC side, the market incentive isn’t there to devote resources for Linux drivers. Of course the Linux community can make their own drivers, but they’d need the full hardware specs, which the makers are loath to release as it gives too much insight to their competitors. Etc.”
How is this an argument? Hardware manufacturers do not want to freely give away their private information?
“I’ve already explained it a few times, not my fault if you can’t follow it, especially as it’s somewhat obvious you’re deliberately refusing to understand it. It’s how markets work, and it’s the economics of it.”
You failed to explain how any company is forced to do anything.
“But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and share with an old “pro” like you the sleight-of-hand that is the standard experience of M$ pre-loading from the ordinary consumer’s viewpoint:
Do I get the computer that gives me Windows for free, or the computer that’s cheaper without Windows but I’ll pay hundreds later to get Windows then?
(Of course astute readers will realize this is a false choice. You can’t find PC’s or laptops at Walmart that don’t have Windoze pre-installed. There is no choice.)”
This is because their is no market for PCs without an operating system installed. Those who build their own systems will naturally by the OS separate and you don’t have to pay retail if you buy OEM versions. People usually have no idea which version to buy and overpay for the Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate additions when they will never use the added features;
http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-7-whats-the-difference-between-the-editions
For instance, Windows 7 Home Premium OEM is only $99. No one is making you buy any PC or Windows, it is your choice.