Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Nested fly-out menus are a usability nightmare

The Old New Thing — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:07:41 GMT

And not just for novices.

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Norman Diamond — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:52:59 GMT

Glad to see I'm not the only hater of recovery partitions. Now hoping some others in Microsoft read this blog entry. Disk Administrator prohibits deletion of system partitions and boot partitions because Windows can't run without them. Disk Administrator prohibits deletion of recovery partitions and hibernation partitions because, well, Disk Administrator says that Windows can't run without them. I took a hard drive out of a computer that used to run Windows 98 and had a hibernation partition which that computer's BIOS had used, and put the drive in a USB case. Disk Administrator obediently deleted the old C and D partitions so I could create a brand spanking new partition on the now-USB disk, but that hibernation partition absolutely had to remain in a place where it would never be used again.

Regarding the suggestions to let Windows Update connect to vendors' sites, I thought they meant that the ActiveX control which executes in Internet Explorer on the client machine (100% CPU for several minutes in Windows 2000) would make those connections. Sure it would be necessary for Microsoft to provide some configurability in the control but Microsoft's servers wouldn't have to connect to millions of vendors' sites. On the other hand Windows Update has already brought me some drivers so Microsoft's servers already are providing some.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:26 PM by J. Edward Sanchez

> why there was a "COMPUTE!" magazine but

> no "WASH!" magazine:

Yeah, but there are Consumer Reports and Better Homes & Gardens and stuff like that, and there are zillions of "DRIVE!" magazines.

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

BryanK — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:20:56 GMT

Yeah, I know nobody uses it; I think that's because frankly, it's so dang hard to get it to work right (either that, or nobody knows about it).

I've been having some issues with it related to the current SID -- apparently only the user that starts the BITS service has any access to it at all. Except the automatic updates service has access no matter what, which I really don't understand. (I don't remember the error anymore either; I've been working on other stuff lately. The thing that I wanted to use BITS was going to be internal only, so it's not that big of a deal for us.)

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Igor — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 07:15:18 GMT

BryanK, nice to hear that. It seems however that nobody uses it. For example while your anti-virus updates its definitions you can't surf. What is even worse is that you have to have active services or processs which sit in a loop asking "Is it the time to update? Is it the time to update?" for each updateable thing you may have installed on your computer. Start with anti-virus, then anti-spyware, quicktime, adobe acrobat, photoshop, real player, and the list goes on...

We need universal place to deal with all that. One list to rule them all.

To Raymond:

Funny how nobody noticed that fAIL thing. Someone who designed that dialog had their Caps Lock on and held Shift while typing the message text. Maybe changing capitalization means something really bad has happened? ;)

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

BryanK — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:13:38 GMT

Igor/James: Vendors can already hook into most of the automatic updates stuff. There's a documented API for access to BITS. The rest is just adding jobs to BITS and periodically checking their statuses.

Now, it might be good to have a similar hook into the Automatic Updates service, so you could add servers to its list. But the "don't use all my bandwidth" stuff is already coded into BITS, at least.

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

marlinj — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:28:59 GMT

Nice multi-topic thread.

1. (Not having seen this suggested yet tells me there's probably some horrible gotchya which I've avoided so far only through luck, ignorance, and the blessings of god, but...) Why not jam the old drive into the new box, boot from an XP install CD, and do a repair install? Hardware gets detected and installed/reinstalled, so drivers are handy, but the only the NIC is critical. Everything else can limp along on defaults until you're back on the wire. Original OS files tend to replace the updated ones, so you'll get to spend some time with Windows Update, but nothing to worry about as long as you get a firewall between you and the internet first. And as a bonus, your apps and most of your user preferences survive the process.

2. I thought the increasing commonality of XP-MCE was just pre-Vista stock reductions. (Why MCE was OS SKU instead of a application is probably a secret only known by the dark lords of marketing.)

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Igor — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:19:56 GMT

>For one thing, they know what an operating

>system is, and what it is not.

Seems that you don't.

>the best OS

Linux is not an OS, just the kernel.

Unix being a full blown OS (without having usable and intuitive graphic front-end) is debatable.

IBM mainframes run what? Don't make me laugh, please.

>Arguing for DOS drive-based filenames...

C:\ under Windows or /mnt/C in Linux/Unix -- which one is better? I chose C:\ over /mnt/C crap any day.

In Windows and even in DOS you can SUBST long path with drive letter:

C:\Users\master>subst W: C:\Users\master

C:\Users\master>dir w:

Volume in drive W is XP64

Volume Serial Number is CC4C-820D

Directory of W:\

09/25/2006 09:06 PM <DIR> .

09/25/2006 09:06 PM <DIR> ..

09/25/2006 08:45 PM <DIR> Start Menu

10/19/2006 06:35 PM <DIR> My Documents

09/25/2006 09:06 PM <DIR> Favorites

09/25/2006 08:45 PM <DIR> Desktop

09/28/2006 05:21 AM 0 Sti_Trace.log

1 File(s) 0 bytes

6 Dir(s) 3,742,232,576 bytes free

Can you do that in Linux/Unix? Or you have to type this:

/mnt/C/Users/master

Each time you want ot access it? Yes I know you can start typing and press Tab, but you can do that in Windows too so it is not some serious advantage.

Moreover, mounting a drive inside of a directory was always annoying Linux/Unix feature for me especially when I wanted to check how much free space I have. Nowadays you can do that in Windows too but not many people use it, guess it is not that usefull feature after all.

Dealing with removable drives is also a PITA in Linux/Unix. instead of DIR E: it is ls -l /mnt/cdrom or whatever your distro is using for access, which of course wildly differs from one distro to another.

The only thing Windows needs IMO is better/more reliable journaling. I have seen NTFS filesystem trashed too many times due to simple power failure in the middle of writing operation.

As for the / thing. I believe that Windows hierarchy is more logical than Linux/Unix.

In Windows root is My Computer. That makes sense because all devices are connected to it. It is counter-intuitive to mount CD or DVD or any removable drive contents inside directory on your hard drive because it leads you to believe that files are already there.

"Let's see, I am copying files from one HDD directory to another HDD directory so I can remove this USB drive... damn!"

Next time before saying "it is obvious which one is better" you should be first try to find the flaws in the system you are praising.

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Steve — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 04:43:50 GMT

My experience with IBM mainframes, Unix (inc. Linux), and Windows has led to the conclusion that the Unix people were and are the smartest; and have built the most robust, the most usable, and generally, the best OS. For one thing, they know what an operating system is, and what it is not.

FWIW, / is the root designator on Unix. It's just another invalid character in Windows filenames. Arguing for DOS drive-based filenames over Unix filesystem hierarchy is just silly. It's obvious which is better.

Raymond, you sound like you're getting wrapped a little too tight these days. You're starting to act like you think you're responsible for every comment.

I read every word of the original article, and I have no idea where the fAIL message came from. Maybe I'm dum.

[Right before the fAIL message, I wrote "The evil icon chicanery is particularly gruesome because... I get this." So I said up front that hte evil icon chicanery was responsible for the dialog box. And then the next sentence after the dialog box is, "Good job there, stupid evil icon program," so I once again point the blame at the stupid evil icon program. As for the / -- the point is that saying "Let's make a new set of rules that are incompatible with the old rules" may make you feel good, but it's not a plan. If you don't care about compatibility then you may as well say "Ditch Windows and switch to Linux." And maybe you want to say that, but don't disguise it as "making a change to Windows". -Raymond]

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Igor — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 04:36:09 GMT

>The original proposal was "Let ISVs hook into Microsoft Update"...

Raymond, people want to say that the current situation is bad:

1. Each program we use has it's own update feature.

2. Said feature is usually buggy, unreliable and requires additional space and resources.

3. They usually don't have resumable downloads or QoS management, they hog your bandwidth completely and they often nag you with dialog boxes.

So what people are proposing is to have an API which software vendors could use to check for update on their own registered update site using windows update service which is already running in background on almost every computer.

That would cut their costs on developing update schemes -- they would just have to register their server with Microsoft and to change update to use Windows API instead of custom code.

Benefit for the end users is obvious -- they get streamlined update process and less clutter in the system tray.

[Now I'm completely confused. First you say you want to check the ISV's site, but then you say you want to use the Windows Update service, and other people say that this can be done without any ISV software inventory information being sent to Microsoft (but that's what Windows Update does)... Preparing patches for Windows Update is a very complicated undertaking since users can choose to install one patch but skip another. The patch permutations grow rather quickly. I suspect ISVs wouldn't want to support that degree of customization. They probably just want "Take all the patches or none. No mixing and matching." -Raymond]

re: Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

James — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:53:46 GMT

The update problem should be easy to solve if you stop regarding/building the Update tool as a web site, instead having a set of repositories for Update to poll for relevant updates.

It shouldn't be "the Microsoft site" scanning the PC anyway - rather, it should be an update tool running on the PC which scans the system it's running on, comparing against whatever update servers have been registered. The ISV still needs to trust Microsoft software - but if they don't, why are they writing Windows apps in the first place?

[The original proposal was "Let ISVs hook into Microsoft Update". You're proposal appears to be "Don't let ISVs hook into Microsoft Update." -Raymond]