Invisible wrote:

> 
> http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070331
> 

That's a pretty accurate view of Vista.

Of coruse, I just got jabbed with another of those sharp spikes the 
other day, attempting to load help for a program. Apparently they've 
dropped support for the old-fashioned winhelp. Which means programs that 
  use the old help system (there are plenty of them) won't show any help 
files...

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> That's a pretty accurate view of Vista.

;-)

I love the way the chair is *hurting* him, and yet he still defends it, 
and still tries to mutilate his body to fit into it. That's so deep, man!

> Of coruse, I just got jabbed with another of those sharp spikes the 
> other day, attempting to load help for a program. Apparently they've 
> dropped support for the old-fashioned winhelp. Which means programs that 
>  use the old help system (there are plenty of them) won't show any help 
> files...

What, no helpfull message telling you *why* it's not displayed? OK, 
that's pretty bad...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:

> 
> What, no helpfull message telling you *why* it's not displayed? OK, 
> that's pretty bad...
> 

No, no. It gives a helpful message telling you why it doesn't display. 
The best part is the user feedback buttons:

Was this article helpful?
(Yes) (No) (Doesn't Apply)

No, it wasn't helpful. It would be much more helpful had I actually been 
able to read the help to some esoteric setting in a program I rarely 
use. Thanks!

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Phil Cook wrote:
> Yeah worked well with XP; people are people. If you told someone they 
> should run as a LUser, but some of their programmes might not 
> work/install

The real problem is the vast numbers of specialized crap programs out 
there written by people who don't know what they're doing (i.e., experts 
in what they're doing rather than experts in programming).

Ten years later, it really should be normal for people to be writing 
software that runs as a normal user even if it installs as administrator.

I have a program that tracks real estate. It has a per-machine license 
key that it stores in the per-user registry ("because it's a per-user 
license. And it would break too much to fix it"[*]). Which means you 
cannot install it as administrator and then run it as a normal user. You 
have to run it as the same user that installed it. This is a 
multi-thousand-dollar program, too. But it was written by a goob who 
doesn't understand even the basics of writing usable programs, let alone 
advanced stuff like installers.

> The latest wonder is that Media Player won't start unless "run as" 
> Administrator, doing a search reveals others with this problem and the 
> curernt solution is to unistall any 'suspect' media players. 

So why blame Media Player? Why not blame the people who can't even write 
a codec that works without admin privs? :-)


([*] Don't you love people who argue "It isn't broken. Besides, it's too 
hard to fix."  Sorry I didn't call you back. I didn't get your voice 
mail. And you didn't leave your phone number on the voice mail.)
-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Stephen wrote:
> I does on my old XP laptop and that is where I usually shutdown or
> hibernate from.

It depends whether you have the win2000-style logins or the winxp 
five-icon login stuff enabled, I think.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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And lo on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:58:00 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Yeah worked well with XP; people are people. If you told someone they  
>> should run as a LUser, but some of their programmes might not  
>> work/install
>
> The real problem is the vast numbers of specialized crap programs out  
> there written by people who don't know what they're doing (i.e., experts  
> in what they're doing rather than experts in programming).
>
> Ten years later, it really should be normal for people to be writing  
> software that runs as a normal user even if it installs as administrator.

I completely agree and yet...

> I have a program that tracks real estate. It has a per-machine license  
> key that it stores in the per-user registry ("because it's a per-user  
> license. And it would break too much to fix it"[*]).
> ([*] Don't you love people who argue "It isn't broken. Besides, it's too  
> hard to fix."  Sorry I didn't call you back. I didn't get your voice  
> mail. And you didn't leave your phone number on the voice mail.)

'It's too hard to fix'
'So you admit it's broken'
'No'

Heh.

> Which means you cannot install it as administrator and then run it as a  
> normal user. You have to run it as the same user that installed it. This  
> is a multi-thousand-dollar program, too. But it was written by a goob  
> who doesn't understand even the basics of writing usable programs, let  
> alone advanced stuff like installers.

I'm sure I've mentioned someone getting a demo CD of a new game. Their kid  
tried to install it on XP (as a LUser) and wondered why after just  
clicking on the Next buttons, as he normally did, it wouldn't install.  
Default installation directory - c:\program files\company name\game name.  
IIRC even after changing that it didn't want to work because it couldn't  
write to the system registry.

>> The latest wonder is that Media Player won't start unless "run as"  
>> Administrator, doing a search reveals others with this problem and the  
>> curernt solution is to unistall any 'suspect' media players.
>
> So why blame Media Player?

Puts on User hat - "Because that's the programme that's stopped working,  
the other ones are fine"

> Why not blame the people who can't even write a codec that works without  
> admin privs? :-)

Yeah I am; I'm just wondering which one it is.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook wrote:
> I'm sure I've mentioned someone getting a demo CD of a new game. Their 
> kid tried to install it on XP (as a LUser) and wondered why after just 
> clicking on the Next buttons, as he normally did, it wouldn't install. 
> Default installation directory - c:\program files\company name\game 
> name. IIRC even after changing that it didn't want to work because it 
> couldn't write to the system registry.

Well, yeah, installing software is often going to need admin privs. 
Given you only do that once per program, I don't have too much trouble 
with that. Of course, given it's a demo, you'd think they'd manage to 
make it so you could play it without "installing" it. On the third hand, 
given it's a demo, how much effort do you think management wants to 
spend on developing and testing it?

> Puts on User hat - "Because that's the programme that's stopped working, 
> the other ones are fine"

Well, sure. But you know what you're doing.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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And lo on Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:56:25 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> I'm sure I've mentioned someone getting a demo CD of a new game. Their  
>> kid tried to install it on XP (as a LUser) and wondered why after just  
>> clicking on the Next buttons, as he normally did, it wouldn't install.  
>> Default installation directory - c:\program files\company name\game  
>> name. IIRC even after changing that it didn't want to work because it  
>> couldn't write to the system registry.
>
> Well, yeah, installing software is often going to need admin privs.  
> Given you only do that once per program, I don't have too much trouble  
> with that.

Except it was going to be installed by one user for one user, as a LUser  
anything they install shouldn't be able to change anything systemwise and  
in this case shouldn't *need* to change anything systemwise. Given that  
this was also a U-certificate type game demo should it really need an  
admin to install and possibly run?

> Of course, given it's a demo, you'd think they'd manage to make it so  
> you could play it without "installing" it. On the third hand, given it's  
> a demo, how much effort do you think management wants to spend on  
> developing and testing it?

To the extent they want to be able to sell the full game, which in this  
case they didn't.

>> Puts on User hat - "Because that's the programme that's stopped  
>> working, the other ones are fine"
>
> Well, sure. But you know what you're doing.

Only if I change hats.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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> To get task manager I usually right click on the task bar at the bottom 
> and choose it.

Ctrl-Shift-Esc

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> Hmm I think it has something to do with the user account settings and 
> how you log on, on my gf's laptop she has that list of users with the 
> little pictures to log on, but I have the normal logon box.  ANd of 
> course on hers pressing C-A-D brings up the task manager instantly, but 
> mine doesn't.

Control panel. User accounts. Choose a task... Change the way users log 
in. Enable "use the welcome screen" checkbox.

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