Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, 

Sure, bloat my OS code with printer drivers. I'll take that over having 
six disks of printer drivers distributed with each application any day.

 > people actually
> wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with 
> filenames intact),

Never really had a problem with that...

> oh, and an endless list of cases where people 
> "tried" to make something run on alternatives, but MS changed theirs in 
> some way that either broke the alternate, or broke their code "on" the 
> alternate. 

Well, sure.  Even in the cases where that was deliberate, I'd still say 
"well, duh."

>>> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic 
>>> standardization to internals, and commands.
>> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
>>
> Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP is 
> a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which 
> where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces.

Yes. If you take advantage of bugs or undocumented interfaces, or bypass 
the API to try to do the same thing yourself without using the API, then 
when the API gets upgraded, your program breaks.

It's not like nothing got rewritten since System 7 either. This is all 
normal computer stuff that happens on every operating system and 
application and framework everywhere.

> The other half are cases 
> where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do 
> it any more. 

Sure. See above. If you want a multi-user system, you can't take a 
single-user application and expect it to run without giving it undue 
privileges.  I mean, heck, even POV-Ray had to get beaten over the head 
before it stopped writing per-user configuration into per-computer 
directories. How long was Windows doing multi-user systems before Vista 
finally said "OK, enough, really, you have to deal with multi-user 
configuration"?

Things that are actually written to the documented APIs port 
surprisingly well. If you write your own INI file parser, don't expect 
the next upgrade of Windows to put your stuff in the right place in the 
registry for you.

> They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically 
> making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. 

In what way are they making it hard?

 > Sure, it will still
> *run*, usually, but its fairly clear that, if they could, they would rip 
> out all those old libraries and bury them, never mind what inconvenience 
> it might cause anyone.

And this differs from the desires of every single programmer inheriting 
a legacy system in what way?

>>> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right 
>>> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a 
>>> Chevy frame.
>> I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under 
>> Windows, yes?  I was wondering why that was.
>>
> Sorry? Are you saying all of those just had some bits of code lopped 
> off, some new code tacked on, then recompiled, because... I get the 
> impression its a *tad* more complicated than that most of the time.

No. I'm saying none of those programs "flat out refused to work" on any 
OS, including Windows and variants of UNIX.

> Mind you, you get some of the same with Linux, depending on if its X, or 
> some other GUI you are running, but I get the sense that the gaps you 
> have to leap are "slightly" less cavernous.

Well, yes, so? And putting a Ford headlight in a Ford car is going to be 
much easier than putting a Ford headlight in a Toyota. (Note that there 
used to be two kinds of headlights: Round, and Square. Now there's a 
whole bunch.)

 > Besides, now you are talking
> about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher 
> level than the "core" systems.

I haven't any clue where your analogy is supposed to be going. You seem 
to be arguing that since cars are built from physical parts, Windows sucks.

> Which version? lol Seriously though, forgive me if I would prefer to 
> avoid MS in my critical life saving devices. ;)

I certainly would too. But then, I'd avoid Linux in those same situations.

IME, hardware is much flakier than software. I have about 40 Linux 
servers I'm controlling right now. Between the colo "testing" their 
generator and frobbing the power on and off, the bakery dumping a 
50-pound bag of flour into the fans, the brand new expensive Dell 
servers just deciding the disk controller doesn't exist any more, I've 
had way more crashes than anything in software causes.

I've also worked at companies where the servers were running Windows, 
and they just never died unless the hardware did.

Indeed, the worst OS I've used is actually Solaris, where we had to 
rearchitect a number of services to account for the bugs in the OS that 
would (for example) not reap processes spawned by cron such that even 
kill -9 didn't stop them, or write file data over top of the inodes just 
because the disk got busy.

So I don't know what kind of professional experience you've had with 
long-running Windows machines, but "drunken sailor on marbles" is far 
from my experience.

> Ok, its not that bad, "anymore". It was, not that far back. 

I had no problems with keeping Win2000 servers running indefinitely. We 
had them locked down in a different state, with the only access being 
remote unless you wanted to hop on a plane for a couple hours.

That's 8 years back, now.

Sure, DOS could get locked up pretty easily. WFW worked surprisingly 
well for the time and the power of the machines it was on.

Try running Unix on a machine with no virtual memory, no memory 
protection, and the kernel in the same address space as the user 
programs, and see how well it runs.

> argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
> for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
> can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
> Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
> shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 

Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP 
by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?

 > Or an
> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
> security. 

What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?

> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
> of control I *used to have* over my system. 

Like what?

> XP, is kind of getting on my 
> nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
> up at this point.

Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems 
it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."

The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
something dangerous.

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can 
> drive any car of any manufacturer.

No more true than with OSes, I think. Try driving a school bus, an 
18-wheeler, a formula 1 race car.

It's more like "once you know how to work one Windows app, you know how 
to work them all", or "once you know how to work one MacOSX app, you can 
figure out how to work all the others."

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message

In article <47fbacee$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, 
> 
> Sure, bloat my OS code with printer drivers. I'll take that over having
 
> six disks of printer drivers distributed with each application any day.
>
Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there, not the bloat in Linux, 
which at its most bloated looks anorexic by comparison. lol
 
>  > people actually
> > wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with
 
> > filenames intact),
> 
> Never really had a problem with that...
> 
Well, it didn't come up often, but some times...

> >>> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
 
> >>> standardization to internals, and commands.
> >> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
> >>
> > Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP i
s 
> > a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which
 
> > where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces.
> 
> Yes. If you take advantage of bugs or undocumented interfaces, or bypass
 
> the API to try to do the same thing yourself without using the API, then
 
> when the API gets upgraded, your program breaks.
> 
> It's not like nothing got rewritten since System 7 either. This is all 
> normal computer stuff that happens on every operating system and 
> application and framework everywhere.
> 
True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff was so deeply buried in 
the first place though. Try, for example, writing your own program, 
which doesn't use IE core or export to wsh, so that it can a) run 
scripts, b) use "createobject" like COM support *and* also correctly 
bond those objects connection points to event managers. Two years I have 
been looking for a solution and all I have gotten is "Well, why no just 
rewrite everything in .NET, .NET is magical (never mind it seems to have 
some similar problems), or 2-3 articles involving work arounds, none of 
which supply useful example code, but just babble about theory and how, 
"If you are as skilled and well versed as I am, implementing this 
wizbang solution should be trivial!". Uh, yeah, that *kind of* why I 
went looking for answers, because some of us don't have leet skillz. lol

Even knowing, in theory, all the bits that make it work, I can't find 
any damn way to use it, without practically rewriting the entire program 
I want to do it in from scratch, and then, it might still not work. Bad 
enough when you don't document unknown interfaces, but to intentionally 
make every single library so that it *prevents* people from being able 
to use the documented interfaces to do anything but use early bound 
objects... That is just perverse.

> > The other half are cases 
> > where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do
 
> > it any more. 
> 
> Sure. See above. If you want a multi-user system, you can't take a 
> single-user application and expect it to run without giving it undue 
> privileges.  I mean, heck, even POV-Ray had to get beaten over the head
 
> before it stopped writing per-user configuration into per-computer 
> directories. How long was Windows doing multi-user systems before Vista
 
> finally said "OK, enough, really, you have to deal with multi-user 
> configuration"?
> 
> Things that are actually written to the documented APIs port 
> surprisingly well. If you write your own INI file parser, don't expect 
> the next upgrade of Windows to put your stuff in the right place in the
 
> registry for you.
> 
Yes, yes, I can understand that. Tha isn't the problem though. Its not 
privilege levels that are being screwed up, its stuff like the patch 
that prevents you executing certain types of packets on a network, which 
only inconveniences the hackers, but, in some configurations/networks, 
also hoses certain tools use to do determine what is wrong with your 
network. And then there are issues like deciding that no one is going to 
care if you make 99% of all games prior to Vista stop working, because 
you think you have a *better* solution for sound support than 20 years 
of sound card manufacturers, and it doesn't actually try to support the 
old method. Sure, lots of processing power. But, are you *sure* that 
**no one** is going to be trying to use any of it for other things 
"while" playing the games that need that sound?

Look, we can go back and forth all day about why they decide to do some 
things, how its bad, or not bad, etc. Just saying, if you are the guy 
that needs something to work the way it did, and not the other 90% who 
don't know a phone jack from a cat5e jack, some of this stuff is a pain 
in the ass when they start messing with it.

> > They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically 
> > making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. 
> 
> In what way are they making it hard?
> 
Umm. Other than buying the full compiler because they decided that the 
"free" version would only support the newest version, there is the fact 
that MFC was a bonehead design to start with, and its not easy to recode 
any of it to work under a different library. Mostly, in my case, its 
that I never had a reasonably up to date copy of MS' compiler, so I 
would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
written in something that they don't freely support. Which seems wacky 
to me. You would think that writing the .NET system and releasing it 
would cost "more" than dropping the 10+ year old MFC libraries on a 
website and saying, "we don't support this anymore, but for that that 
want it, here you go." They are going to charge me for the stuff that 
obsolete, but not the newest stuff?

Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at 
the price tag. lol

>  > Besides, now you are talking
> > about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher
 
> > level than the "core" systems.
> 
> I haven't any clue where your analogy is supposed to be going. You seem
 
> to be arguing that since cars are built from physical parts, Windows suck
s.
> 
No, I mean that I was talking about core features, while you are talking 
about a layer higher than that. Its bound to be easier, within limits, 
to rewrite something where 90% of the function is "in" the application 
and its only a few interfaces and the display that need tweaking. Its a 
bit more serious if the heart of your application is relying on some 
core feature working, which doesn't work the same on the new OS, or come 
close enough to patch over.

Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of 
worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
different "versions".

> IME, hardware is much flakier than software. I have about 40 Linux 
> servers I'm controlling right now. Between the colo "testing" their 
> generator and frobbing the power on and off, the bakery dumping a 
> 50-pound bag of flour into the fans, the brand new expensive Dell 
> servers just deciding the disk controller doesn't exist any more, I've 
> had way more crashes than anything in software causes.
> 
Got an external HD with similar issues. Power goes out, I have to reboot 
for some reason (something messed up Halo so bad I had to reinstall, 
after rebooting, since it froze solid), and the drivers and drive 
monitor both insist that its unformatted... Not as bad as insisting it 
doesn't exist, but geeze... Oh, well, they hosed the backup software on 
it anyway. It doesn't backup anything not in its "approved" list, 
including settings, databases for your browser and email, etc... Oh, 
and, just to be real jerks, they don't sell an upgrade that *does* work 
like the older version that did do all those things. WTF?

> I've also worked at companies where the servers were running Windows, 
> and they just never died unless the hardware did.
> 
> Indeed, the worst OS I've used is actually Solaris, where we had to 
> rearchitect a number of services to account for the bugs in the OS that
 
> would (for example) not reap processes spawned by cron such that even 
> kill -9 didn't stop them, or write file data over top of the inodes just
 
> because the disk got busy.
> 
Gah.. Ok, that is just nuts. Yeah, if someone can manage to fowl up 
something that is *usually* stable, they will find a way to do it.

> So I don't know what kind of professional experience you've had with 
> long-running Windows machines, but "drunken sailor on marbles" is far 
> from my experience.
> 
Oh, Windows 95 worked great, so did Win3.1, as long as I was careful 
what I let it patch over. XP has been good so far. 98... Lets not talk 
about it. lol

> > argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability
 
> > for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we
 
> > can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave?
 
> > Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
> > shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 
> 
> Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP
 
> by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?
> 
Because, its like having a goon sitting "inside" your house telling you 
what *you* are allowed to do sometimes, instead of standing "outside" 
the house, to protect you from the real problems. Sure, some people 
*need* the goon, since they are not too bright and will do dumb things. 
I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time, 
even when I know that it will work. Its almost as bad, but less 
intrusive, than the stupid paperclip thing they had/have in certain 
applications.

>  > Or an
> > admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of
 
> > security. 
> 
> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
> 
Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no 
one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly 
XP).

> > Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
> > of control I *used to have* over my system. 
> 
> Like what?
> 
Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to. I haven't 
run into it recently, since for the most part the case where you needed 
to do those things where ones where it was just easier to find some 
other way to solve the problem. I am not going to go into a list, since 
its been a while since I used either OS, and I don't remember half the 
annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you 
could only change the setting via regedit though).

> > XP, is kind of getting on my 
> > nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fe
d 
> > up at this point.
> 
> Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems
 
> it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
> to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."
> 
> The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
> MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
> confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
> great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
> something dangerous.
> 
lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. Frankly, I am 
running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I 
know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too 
much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing, or situations where 
a sudo would solve an issue real easy, but where only logging out and 
back in as admin would fix in Windows (and having to close down 
applications that I either don't want to, or can't afford to if they are 
doing something, like BeyondTV. Mind you, once in a while you get one of 
the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with, and you 
don't even realize it happened until the next morning when you find that 
a) the applications you had open are all closed and b) what ever you had 
it doing overnight never finished... There doesn't seem to be a "let me 
fracking reboot when "I" want to option. Instead it keeps popping up 
ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
frell you!!

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there,

I was too. I guess you never actually used DOS or something.

> True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff

What "stuff"??

> "while" playing the games that need that sound?

Don't even *start* talking about sound being poorly supported on Windows 
until you've made sound work on Unix.

> don't know a phone jack from a cat5e jack, some of this stuff is a pain 
> in the ass when they start messing with it.

I agree. Of course. I'm just disagreeing that this is unique to one 
operating system, or even that it's avoidable.

> would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
> written in something that they don't freely support. 

So, by "hard to support", you mean "commercial."  Come on, it's not 
*that* expensive.

> Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at 
> the price tag. lol

Well, why are you even supporting Windows, then? It's a commercial 
product. If you want to work on stuff for free, there are excellent 
alternatives available.

> No, I mean that I was talking about core features, while you are talking 
> about a layer higher than that.

I'm not sure what you consider a "core" feature. Me, it's starting a 
program, reading and writing files, using internet connections, normal 
windows widgets like scrollbars and text entry, etc. I have zero problem 
moving my core programs between Windows and Linux with appropriate 
libraries underlying.

> bit more serious if the heart of your application is relying on some 
> core feature working, which doesn't work the same on the new OS, or come 
> close enough to patch over.

Well, yes.

> Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of 
> worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
> different "versions".

I disagree. Where's /dev/mt?  Do you have /proc under Solaris?

And again, I point to autoconf as a trivial counterexample. Take a look 
at all the things autoconf can configure, and tell me which of those are 
hardware related, and which you're unlikely to need in a "core" application.

> Oh, Windows 95 worked great, so did Win3.1, as long as I was careful 
> what I let it patch over. XP has been good so far. 98... Lets not talk 
> about it. lol

Yeah, some of the older OSes could have problems if you installed 
crapware. If you didn't, no problem.

>>> argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
>>> for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
>>> can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
>>> Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
>>> shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 
>> Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP 
>> by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?
>>
> Because, its like having a goon sitting "inside" your house telling you 
> what *you* are allowed to do sometimes, instead of standing "outside" 
> the house, to protect you from the real problems. 

The analogy police are on their way. You've been warned.

How does this differ from UNIX saying you're not allowed to delete 
something out of /bin for your own good?

> Sure, some people 
> *need* the goon, since they are not too bright and will do dumb things. 

I think it isn't that they aren't too bright. It's that they know 
nothing about how the computer works.

> I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
> having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time, 
> even when I know that it will work.

It's asking permission to elevate your privilege. If you're running as 
administrator, you're already doing something wrong, so complaining that 
you're being annoyed by the warnings is kind of silly, methinks.

>>  > Or an
>>> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
>>> security. 
>> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
>>
> Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no 
> one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
> packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
> even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
> work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
> recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
> griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly 
> XP).

I expect they actually have a different interface of some sort for 
creating those alternate packets, and people are griping that it 
changed, but that's just a guess.

>>> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
>>> of control I *used to have* over my system. 
>> Like what?
>>
> Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
> even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to.

Sorry. "Admin user" in 95?  Impress me by explaining what you're talking 
about, given that Win95 is a single-user OS.

> annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you 
> could only change the setting via regedit though).

And UNIX is better at this, is it? ;-)

>>> XP, is kind of getting on my 
>>> nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
>>> up at this point.
>> Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems 
>> it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
>> to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."
>>
>> The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
>> MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
>> confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
>> great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
>> something dangerous.
>>
> lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. 

Um, it does. It's called "runas".

> Frankly, I am 
> running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I 
> know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too 
> much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing,

You'd be surprised, actually. I mean, unless you've got really old 
crappy software.

> or situations where 
> a sudo would solve an issue real easy, but where only logging out and 
> back in as admin would fix in Windows 

Why would you log out just to log in as administrator? Just lock the 
screen, and log in while the other user is still logged in.

> the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with,

Never had that happen. The worst I get is the little yellow shield in 
the corner saying "please let me know when I should install these patches."

> There doesn't seem to be a "let me fracking reboot when "I" want to option. 

Of course there is. Or do you think people have production servers all 
over the internet randomly rebooting on patch day?

Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the 
week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let 
me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."

> Instead it keeps popping up 
> ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
> frell you!!

If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise) 
stopping the windows update service.

"Gee, this CD player keeps playing this CD over and over! It's driving 
me nuts!"
     "Did you try stopping the CD player?"
"Oh. No. Didn't think of that."

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message

In article <47fc18a3$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there,
> 
> I was too. I guess you never actually used DOS or something.
> 
I have. Yes, things could crash in it, and in later years changes to 
sound cards (like ones where the firmware needed to be hotloaded to the 
card, so took up a bigger chunk of memory), it got to the point of being 
damn annoying to work with. In some ways it was still easier to deal 
with. lol

> > True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff
> 
> What "stuff"??
> 
I gave you an example. IE's object support. I have read lots of 
documents, books, etc. on the subject and it *should* take about 10 
lines of code to do it, if you use raw C++ without anything but the COM 
libraries, but half the other libraries, which make coding applications 
easier, put steel doors and brick walls in between you and the code to 
do it, nor, unless some of the code they leaked a while back involving 
IE included the code for this, is there clear documentation of how the 
hell you actual use it. Its buried, deep in the bowels of the libraries, 
such that it automates so much stuff "for you" that you can't do a damn 
thing with it. .NET's solution wasn't BTW to give you access to the 
original core either. In that you "cast" events, i.e., redirect the ones 
your own application can't handle to a function that *maybe* can, if you 
know how to code it right. Only one problem, you still need to know how 
to figure out where the event came from, and thus what to do with it, 
and its *still* easier to do that at compile time than at run time, so 
you *still* can't replicate the object support in IE simply.

And all for what reason? Because they don't want to provide a system 
call in any library that would support binding event connection points 
to event sinks, unless the compiler did it for you. Argh!!!

> > "while" playing the games that need that sound?
> 
> Don't even *start* talking about sound being poorly supported on Windows
 
> until you've made sound work on Unix.
> 
Oh, give me a break. Sure, there may be issues, especially with newer 
cards, but we are talking about basically throwing out *years* of 
working hardware, in trade for something that won't even support, 
without the help of someone that doesn't even *work for* Microsoft, or 
the card manufacturers, *any* sound, since the library replacing the 
original system doesn't provide legacy support for functions and methods 
that have been standard in drivers for, well, since fracking DOS, when 
they first started writing device drivers, instead of just letting the 
software talk to the sound card. This isn't a case of, "well, they made 
some changes to the driver design, so old drivers won't work." Its a 
case of, "We don't want you to even use any of the cards you ever 
bought, except as a sort of more powerful version of the speaker clicks 
used in the Tandy."

There is a huge difference. As huge a difference as when the day they 
created the first Soundblaster card and people where "asked" to use it, 
because it produced better sound. That isn't even the excuse this time. 
There is no real evidence the new design *can* produce better results, 
and they are trying to force it as a "requirement" for new games, not an 
optional one for if the designer thinks it would work better.

> > would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
> > written in something that they don't freely support. 
> 
> So, by "hard to support", you mean "commercial."  Come on, it's not 
> *that* expensive.
> 
> > Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at
 
> > the price tag. lol
> 
> Well, why are you even supporting Windows, then? It's a commercial 
> product. If you want to work on stuff for free, there are excellent 
> alternatives available.
> 
Going to cover both of these at one time, since your contention makes no 
damn sense. They are "phasing out" all prior libraries, and giving away 
the compiler for the "new" one, .NET for free. The only thing they are 
"asking" you to pay for is basically some better IDE features, their 
help library, which is online for free anyway, and *legacy* library 
support. So, my objection is the assumption that I would want to pay 
them 2-3 times what I already paid for the OS, to get a bunch of stuff I 
don't necessarily need, or can already get from them for free, just so 
that I have the legacy support for some application someone else 
wrote... The complaint isn't that its commercial, the complaint is that 
if all I wanted to do is code for windows, I wouldn't need to buy it 
anyway. Its only the fact that I am trying to fix, or convert, something 
in an older legacy library that make it *necessary* to buy the full 
product in the first place. To me this makes about at much sense as if 
they decided to add support for old 3.1 applications, but then told 
everyone that they had to pay $500 for the addon to do so.

> > Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of
 
> > worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
> > different "versions".
> 
> I disagree. Where's /dev/mt?  Do you have /proc under Solaris?
> 
Ok, we can agree to disagree then. I said, "isn't likely", not, "isn't 
possible".

> How does this differ from UNIX saying you're not allowed to delete 
> something out of /bin for your own good?
> 
Wasn't aware that there was a huge threat of someone "outside" your 
system deleting /bin, or that simply not letting you delete things that 
are stupid to delete was on the same level as, "I am sorry, but despite 
the fact that it won't have an effect on the OS at all, and the language 
appears to allow it, we won't let you do it anyway, because *we* think 
that you might not know what you are doing, or that you might not be the 
one doing it."

But, what ever.

> > I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
> > having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time,
 
> > even when I know that it will work.
> 
> It's asking permission to elevate your privilege. If you're running as 
> administrator, you're already doing something wrong, so complaining that
 
> you're being annoyed by the warnings is kind of silly, methinks.
> 
No, in the specific case I was trying to do something it had **nothing** 
to do with privilege levels. MS deemed it more likely that some 
*outside* entity would be using the feature to do bad things with your 
computer, without you knowing, so disabled it for *everyone*, regardless 
of if you where Admin, or fracking God. You don't even get a warning. It 
just flat out doesn't work, when the same identical thing on earlier 
patches of XP, earlier versions of Windows, and even *nix "does" work. 
If you didn't read the patch information and know what it was and why 
they did it, you wouldn't have any clue why the program didn't work, 
what Windows was doing to prevent it working, or why the same, or 
virtually the same, code worked on *every other* OS on the planet. That 
is just bloody stupid imho. It doesn't even have the common decency of 
popping up an error dialog that says, "Due to changes in service pack 
blah, program X's attempt to do Y has been disabled."

> >>  > Or an
> >>> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind o
f 
> >>> security. 
> >> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
> >>
> > Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no
 
> > one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
> > packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
> > even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
> > work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
> > recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
> > griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly
 
> > XP).
> 
> I expect they actually have a different interface of some sort for 
> creating those alternate packets, and people are griping that it 
> changed, but that's just a guess.
> 
You would be wrong. You just can't do it anymore. They changed it so 
that the packet management in Winsock, or some other key component 
detects that the packet doesn't "look" like its big enough, contains the 
right sort of data, or "something" when using certain protocols, then 
simply doesn't send it, without warning, without an error, and without 
any indication that it didn't work, other than the discovery that the 
application isn't doing anything any more.

> >>> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
> >>> of control I *used to have* over my system. 
> >> Like what?
> >>
> > Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
> > even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to.
> 
> Sorry. "Admin user" in 95?  Impress me by explaining what you're talking
 
> about, given that Win95 is a single-user OS.
> 
Sorry, got confused about which OS I was talking about. lol Point being, 
you just couldn't change them *period*.

> > annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you
 
> > could only change the setting via regedit though).
> 
> And UNIX is better at this, is it? ;-)
> 
At least in *nix you probably can find information on "how" to change 
it. Some of the stuff in 95 where settings you needed to change to make 
even stuff like networking work right, with certain situations, but 
where the "setting" wasn't available from "any" control panel or 
application installed, nor was their a "default" setting in the registry 
for it. I have no clue how people even figure out what half the damn 
settings where that I ended up tweaking to make the OS run better.

> > lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. 
> 
> Um, it does. It's called "runas".
> 
Neat. Had no idea that was there. Makes things nicer. Though, I suppose 
if I didn't want to lose my mind trying to use it I might have to 
install the Bash copycat CLI they came up with. Trying to do anything in 
DOS, never mind Windows 'Run', which is basically the same thing, 
without about 500 DOS utilities that a) don't come with the OS anymore, 
or b) never did, but where written by PC-Magazine, was always a 
nightmare. Worst day of my life was when I realized that 4DOS didn't 
work right with 98. lol So much nicer, with a wonderful text file lister 
built in, etc... Sigh.. Never could figure why, even today, Windows 
basic method of dealing with large documents is either to a) send it 
through "type", with "more", b) try and fail to load it (all at once) 
into Edit, or c) try, and previous fail, to load it in notepad... 4DOS's 
built in loaded one "page" at a time and showed it, so that only what 
you "needed" was in memory at any given moment. Loved that command...

> > Frankly, I am 
> > running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I
 
> > know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too
 
> > much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing,
> 
> You'd be surprised, actually. I mean, unless you've got really old 
> crappy software.
>
Might be OK. I have found "some" stuff that oddly insists on only 
installing as single user though, which kind of gets annoying. Right 
now, as a super user, I just move the icon from "my" user to the main 
directory for programs, it maybe asks if I am sure I want to let all 
users get to it, and bam, there is it. Still, I have had some annoyances 
with the My Documents folder, some things *cleaning it up* and deleting 
files it shouldn't, which is why I moved it, and now, some older 
programs (and even newer ones that don't recheck the location when 
accessing files), looking in the "old" location. Had that problem with 
Yahoo! Widgets, which *is* supposed to be XP compatible, but had that 
bug. It *assumed* that once it knew where the files "should be", they 
should always be there. Problem was, when I mover the folder location, I 
"lost" access privileges to the original location for those files, so it 
was trying to aggregate all widgets to some place it didn't have access 
to, and due to a stupid bug, it would delete the file anyway (or maybe 
loaded it, got ready to copy it, deleted the original, then tried to 
save the file to the disallowed location. How ever it was doing it, it 
fowled things up royally.

Bound to happen though, when someone changes your security model and 
half the people writing for it don't think about the fact that the 
folder "can" be moved.
 
> > the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with,
> 
> Never had that happen. The worst I get is the little yellow shield in 
> the corner saying "please let me know when I should install these patches
."
> 
Yeah. I need to adjust mine back to that. Got annoyed with having that 
show up, when the patch took hours to download. Dialup remember... It 
was easier to "let it" install and do things, than have to deal with it 
when I finally realized it "had" patched. lol

> Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
> reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the 
> week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let 
> me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."
> 
What is it with people that use Windows that they tell you where to 
change a setting in the control panel, by referencing it as though its 
an option *in* the main page of the control panel? They do it on 
websites too. The real method is like, "open bing in the control panel 
and select bong, then pick the ding tab.", but all they give you is "Go 
to Ding in the control panel and change these setting." I just don't get 
it...

And don't bother being more specific. I figured out where it was. lol

> > Instead it keeps popping up 
> > ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No
 
> > frell you!!
> 
> If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise) 
> stopping the windows update service.
> 
Which I don't really want to do... Now, the damn update service for 
Arcsoft, which came with my camera.. That I disabled, then when it 
wouldn't *stay* disabled I finally deleted the fracking thing. Stupid 
thing would crash if it came up and no internet connection existed for 
it to update over, and you had two options, "disable" or "don't bug me 
for the next 7 days", and, like I said, "disable" didn't seem to work at 
all. Oh, and it was a service, but for some damn reason there was no 
"disable" or "turn off" option in the service manager, unlike with many 
of the others. I hate third party programs that "should" be helpful, but 
only manage to be a severe pain in the ass. Its not like they could 
have, I don't know, had the relevant application check for updates, like 
"most" of the ones I use...

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Don't even *start* talking about sound being poorly supported on Windows 
>> until you've made sound work on Unix.
>>
> Oh, give me a break. Sure, there may be issues, especially with newer 
> cards, 

No. I'm talking about 25 years of UNIX not supporting sound properly. 
How long ago did UNIX start supporting sound when logged in from an X 
terminal? How long ago did UNIX start supporting mixers?

Trust me. I worked at Bellcore in the 90's. UNIX didn't "support" sound 
for long, *long* after Windows did.  And it's still a kludge on Linux.

Yes, Vista fucked up sound, but they did it on purpose.

>> Well, why are you even supporting Windows, then? It's a commercial 
>> product. If you want to work on stuff for free, there are excellent 
>> alternatives available.
>>
> Going to cover both of these at one time, since your contention makes no 
> damn sense. 

I don't see what's nonsensical about it. If you're making a commercial 
product and that's why you need to support Windows, then shell out the 
$100 and recoup it with your first couple of sales. If you're not 
planning to sell the results, why are you complaining that Windows 
development software is expensive? It's a hobby. Use Linux. :-)

> product in the first place. To me this makes about at much sense as if 

Makes sense to me. They don't want you developing to old APIs. The 
longer people use the old stuff, the longer they have to support it. If 
it isn't worth money for you, it's not worth them supporting it.

>> How does this differ from UNIX saying you're not allowed to delete 
>> something out of /bin for your own good?

> Wasn't aware that there was a huge threat of someone "outside" your 
> system deleting /bin, 

You'd be surprised. cf "the Morris worm" for example.

> or that you might not be the one doing it."

That's really the problem, I think. There are way, way more people using 
Windows who don't know what they're doing than there are people using 
UNIX who don't know the difference between "firefox" and "firewall".

> You would be wrong. You just can't do it anymore. They changed it so 
> that the packet management in Winsock, or some other key component 
> detects that the packet doesn't "look" like its big enough, contains the 
> right sort of data, or "something" when using certain protocols, then 
> simply doesn't send it, without warning, without an error, and without 
> any indication that it didn't work, other than the discovery that the 
> application isn't doing anything any more.

'k.

> I have no clue how people even figure out what half the damn 
> settings where that I ended up tweaking to make the OS run better.

They either ask someone at Microsoft, or they figure it out the same way 
they find buffer overflows. :-)

> Neat. Had no idea that was there. Makes things nicer. 

Google for "Windows command line" and find a whole bunch of good stuff. 
Also, read the documentation for "find" and "for" in the CLI, which do a 
lot more than you probably know.

Now, if I could find a command line to "eject" a USB device, I'd be 
happy. :-)

> Yeah. I need to adjust mine back to that. Got annoyed with having that 
> show up, when the patch took hours to download. Dialup remember... It 
> was easier to "let it" install and do things, than have to deal with it 
> when I finally realized it "had" patched. lol

No. Set it to download, then inform you. Then you can just turn off the 
machine, and it'll install the patches as it shuts down.

>> Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
>> reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the 
>> week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let 
>> me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."
>>
> What is it with people that use Windows that they tell you where to 
> change a setting in the control panel, by referencing it as though its 
> an option *in* the main page of the control panel? They do it on 
> websites too. The real method is like, "open bing in the control panel 
> and select bong, then pick the ding tab.", but all they give you is "Go 
> to Ding in the control panel and change these setting." I just don't get 
> it...
> 
> And don't bother being more specific. I figured out where it was. lol

The icon at the top level of the control panel is called "automatic 
updates". It's a one page panel with three radio buttons. I fail to see 
how my description was confusing?

> 
>>> Instead it keeps popping up 
>>> ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
>>> frell you!!
>> If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise) 
>> stopping the windows update service.
>>
> Which I don't really want to do...

Uh, why not? Note I didn't say disable it. I said stop it. Then it wont 
bug you, until you reboot, which is all it's going to do until you 
reboot anyway.

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:34:51 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Now, if I could find a command line to "eject" a USB device, I'd be  
> happy. :-)

http://quick.mixnmojo.com/usb-disk-ejector
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/RemoveDriveByLetter.aspx


-- 
FE

Post a reply to this message

Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:34:51 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Now, if I could find a command line to "eject" a USB device, I'd be 
>> happy. :-)
> 
> http://quick.mixnmojo.com/usb-disk-ejector

You wouldn't believe how long I tried to figure out what to google on 
Microsoft's site to find which function will do that. :-)

-- 
   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."

Post a reply to this message

In article <47fe4fba$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Yeah. I need to adjust mine back to that. Got annoyed with having that
 
> > show up, when the patch took hours to download. Dialup remember... It
 
> > was easier to "let it" install and do things, than have to deal with it
 
> > when I finally realized it "had" patched. lol
> 
> No. Set it to download, then inform you. Then you can just turn off the
 
> machine, and it'll install the patches as it shuts down.
> 
You shut off your computer? Didn't know you could do that... lol But 
seriously, mine is always on and up, since I work odd hours, may be 
running things I need to keep going, or even downloading a torrent, 
etc., all of which are a bit hard to do if you turn it off all the time. 
The only time I ever reboot, never mind turn it off, is to 
update/upgrade something, or there is a big storm over the city and 
leaving it on risks frying it.

> >> Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
> >> reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the
 
> >> week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let
 
> >> me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."
> >>
> > What is it with people that use Windows that they tell you where to 
> > change a setting in the control panel, by referencing it as though its
 
> > an option *in* the main page of the control panel? They do it on 
> > websites too. The real method is like, "open bing in the control panel
 
> > and select bong, then pick the ding tab.", but all they give you is "Go
 
> > to Ding in the control panel and change these setting." I just don't ge
t 
> > it...
> > 
> > And don't bother being more specific. I figured out where it was. lol
> 
> The icon at the top level of the control panel is called "automatic 
> updates". It's a one page panel with three radio buttons. I fail to see
 
> how my description was confusing?
> 
No it isn't. On mine its "Performance and Maintainence", then "System", 
in which there is a tab which is called "Automatic Updates". Now, if you 
have a link to the "systems" control panel on your desktop, like someone 
that makes changes there a lot might do, then yes, it would be. ;)

This is, of course, one of the fun things about Windows. Nothing is ever 
where you, never mind they, left it. lol

> >>> Instead it keeps popping up 
> >>> ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No
 
> >>> frell you!!
> >> If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise)
 
> >> stopping the windows update service.
> >>
> > Which I don't really want to do...
> 
> Uh, why not? Note I didn't say disable it. I said stop it. Then it wont
 
> bug you, until you reboot, which is all it's going to do until you 
> reboot anyway.
> 
Well, yeah, that is true. Not something that would have normally 
occurred to me though. Mute point now anyway, its now set back to, 
"Download, but don't install until requested." 

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

In article <47fe854e$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> > On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:34:51 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> Now, if I could find a command line to "eject" a USB device, I'd be 
> >> happy. :-)
> > 
> > http://quick.mixnmojo.com/usb-disk-ejector
> 
> You wouldn't believe how long I tried to figure out what to google on 
> Microsoft's site to find which function will do that. :-)
> 
Know the feeling..

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message