Windows woes

[John Demme]

*trying to resist... trying to resist...* *breaks under the pressure*

I've found the key to using Windows is to not.

Walter Bright wrote:

> A few days ago, Outlook Express starting acting flaky - my account names
> were forcibly converted to 1, 2, 3, etc., and retyping in the correct ones
> refused to stick. Then, windows update started failing with useless
> messages consisting of 8 digit hex numbers.
> 
> So I thought I'd try Microsoft update tech support (which is free for
> update failures). They asked me to send them logs, which I did. Then, came
> an endless series of "try this ...", which usually involved unregistering
> a dozen dlls, rebooting, starting/stopping services, reregistering them,
> renaming system files, booting in safe mode, wiping directories, deleting
> files, rebooting, rebooting, all to no avail (except the 8 digit hex
> number would change).
> 
> Then came the exhortation to run a virus scan, with a couple links. The
> symantec virus scan crashed after a half hour. The other one completed,
> and found nothing.
> 
> At this point, it was apparent that tech support had no idea why this was
> happening, and I was beginning to worry there was either a rootkit
> installed, or there was just creeping corruption going on. I gave up on
> Microsoft tech support, and decided to reinstall Windows.
> 
> Do you know it takes THREE HOURS to install Windows from scratch? Gads,
> you install XP from the CD which requires rebooting several times, then
> again from the XP SP2 update CD (rebooting n more times), then you log in
> to Windows update and update/reboot 4 or 5 more times. Why can't Windows
> Update download everything at once and reboot only once?
> 
> So now I've got Windows reinstalled. Now comes the dance of reinstalling
> everything else. The worst is, of course, Outlook Express which completely
> loses track of everything after a reinstall. I have a crib sheet of most
> of the settings, but even so, there's no way to restore which newsgroup
> files are read/unread. I also use the undocumented method of finding which
> gawdawful directory O.E. squirrels the files away in (all in deeply nested
> hidden directories with 80+ character tty noise filenames) and
> saving/restoring the dbx files manually.
> 
> Most of the other apps aren't too bad, if you were smart enough to keep a
> crib sheet of all the serial numbers, registration numbers, and funky
> passwords. The whole job takes about 12 hours.
> 
> Morals of the story:
> 
> 1) Keep a crib sheet of all the settings, passwords, serial numbers,
> registration follderalls, etc.
> 
> 2) If you're going to provide an update program, fer cryin out loud, make
> it a monolithic program that doesn't depend on everything else in the OS
> working perfectly. After all, when you need it, it's probably because the
> rest of the system isn't right. And if the update program itself is
> corrupted, then tech support can just send you a new one.
> 
> 3) If you're writing an app, don't require it to be reinstalled if Windows
> is reinstalled. DM programs don't need to be. Store your configuration in
> some text file that can be saved/restored. Please!
> 
> 4) If you're going to need to muck about with the system registry, do it
> like Quicken does. Quicken has a menu item "Backup" which, amazingly
> enough, backs up all its settings and crud to a file you specify. Then, I
> reinstall Quicken from the CD, hit "Restore" and give the file name, and
> it fixes itself. Quicken is full of horrible design choices, but at least
> they got that right. No other app I've used does that.
> 
> 5) Never, ever install anything with DRM on it on your work computer. DRM
> often involves rootkits, installing new drivers that destabilize your
> system, etc. This includes most game software. Use a separate computer for
> DRM, one that you won't mind regularly reinstalling Windows on.
> 
> There, I feel better now <g>.