Enough already! (was: Re: MS Laugh-In)

From: ajp166 <ajp166_at_bellatlantic.net>
Date: Wed Oct 18 21:06:54 2000

From: Kevin Stewart <stewart_kevin_at_hotmail.com>


>Ok, can we stop this? 1) It's irrelevant 2) OS-bashing does NOTHING
>positive. 3) It's Microsoft, not M$ or microsh*t 4) It's Windows, not
>winblows, windoze, etc.


Actually it's MICROS~1 ;)

>Windows has its useful places in the world, as do Linux, VMS, *BSD,
MacOS


No it's taken the world some place it shouldn't go. While the idea and
over all
plan is good it's execution is there the comments arise.

I manage 40 clients running w95osr2.1, minimum of one crash a week.
Uptime
is measured by TBI, that's time between Installs due to it's propensity
for eating
itself. For w95osr2 that's about 10 months. W98se has the record for
not even
running on a engineering machine that ran Autocad for years without
grief. A
raft (nearly 50mb) of patches later from MS and a list of vendors later
it's nearly
stable.

>and others. What works for you works for you. I'm currently using an NT
4
>box (my main workstation) that sits alongside 20+ Mac, *BSD and Linux
boxen


I do too, much better once they got to SP4!!! However add IIS or worse
office97
and it's not nearly as solid. Dont forget SP1 and SP2 for Office97. I
use it
but while IE/OE are installed I try not to use them as they have
demonstated
weakness and are a huge security hole. Without MS apps it's acceptable.

>and goes through a Linux firewall to my cablemodem. Linux has crashed on
me
>< 5 times, mostly when I'm screwing around with code and make a stupid
>mistake. NT has crashed < 5 times as well. This box (A celeron
433/96/8gig)


No news there. The difference is in linux you can see where and why, w9x
its all too difficult to diagnose. Then again any system where you can
write/modify the kernal code is susceptable to crashes. Linux doesn't
suffer
from putting the Video driver in the most unprotected place where errant
apps can munge it and kill you (winNT4).

The upside is a ODBC for NT that really works is only $4000 after
spending
a bomb for all the other stuff to make a "real server" using it. Or
running
an app and needing support and having the vendor expire before the
warrentee.
Linux and FreeBSD have a few warts but open code is at least fixable.

Ever deal with NT domains? Their fun. Try and get a server to
participate
in a domain. Ever try to create a PDC when one pukes and there is no
BDC ( a legacy issue) but now you have to have one? It's simple,
reinstall EVERYthing as you can only get that choice at install time.
Dont forget to install IIS, do it later and it much not participate in
the
SAM, split domain secuity that results is loads of fun when you
needed a server yesterday. IIS can be fun, server can do file services
but wants a password for a simple web page because it split the
domain internally somehow and the web pages done have "permissions".

Ever try and track the service packs and hotfixes for NT4? I have the
complete
set of some 13 CDroms for 3.51, all patches and fixes. I gave up trying
for NT4, If I have to bridge the Intranet to the Internet you can bet a
proxy
server/firwall and content filter will be there.

Then there is the little problem of IntenetExplorer, the virus back door
that does. Any server apps you write have to be written for it as those
aimed at all other browsers are different. Add to that OutlookExpress
another virus barn door that can't figure out how to produce nicely
wrapped text at 80 characters or any other line length that may be
reasonable.

Why use it... have you ever tried to move from servers running NT3.51
to linux with a W95 client base? A real test of sanity and recreating a
small raft of code. Worse yet is doing it the NTway and finding all the
3.51 code is useless under NT4. then you have the problem of W95
network logins if there is no "domain". No secuity on the 'net either.

Now do you understand the frustration? Tis better it's vented as humor
as the alternate is serious fault finding.

Allison
Received on Wed Oct 18 2000 - 21:06:54 BST