30 Jun
2004
30 Jun
'04
12:40 p.m.
Eric Dondelinger wrote:
Two month ago, my girlfriend's father called me because his Win XP
preinstalled Aldi PC (with a Pentium 4!!!) became very slow with many
disk accesses. The system was a year old. I saved his data, reinstalled
everything. The result was *very* impressive. Before the reinstallation
the system wasn't usable anymore.
Especially the NT based systems suffer from this problem. DOS was almost
immune against this type of aging (for filesystem aging there was a
defrag program). Win 3.11 was based on .INI files and didn't have a
registry!
The registry based Windows systems age very quickly when you often try
out new programs.
Hmm... they *do* want to use that
printer/scanner/copier or digital
camera they buy. Getting those to work with their computer is an
administrative task. They do it on Windows.
On some Linux distributions, that's also a matter of a very few
mouseclicks. Not so on many others - to which I'd count, say,
slackware, gentoo, debian.
Don't think so. Windows is much easier. Under Windows users usually have
full administrator rights. Additionally they just have to follow the
camera's manual and insert the driver CD. That's all. Here is another
anectotical story: Before going to Englang for studying my sister needed
a laptop. I recommended an iBook. Very easy to use. Several month later
she wanted to connect a the neighbor's USB printer to her laptop.
Basically, it was very easy. MacOSX recognizes everything automatically,
the driver CD wasn't even needed. For security reasons (MacOS X is Unix
based!), there was a popup window asking the administrator's password,
before installing the printer automatically. Guess what: They waited 6
hours before deciding to call me to ask the password! They thought it
would be an error, because on the neighbors Windows machine something
like this was not needed. It wasn't even mentioned in the printers
operating manual!
I have already
seen this. There are people who buy a new PC after 3
years, because their old PC has got too slow. Not slow compared to new
technology or too slow with new demanding software. No, it has got much
slower than it was 3 years ago with the same software in absolute terms.
We all know that this is because of the aging Windows installation with
filesystem fragmentation, dead registry entries and unused DLLs. These
people do not know that they can reinstall Windows because they have
never installed it. They think that the processor becomes *tired* after
3 years!!!. Like an old car engine with a high kilometrage!
That sort of user exists, no doubt. But most users will still
ask some relative or friend first before going out to buy some
new computer. Let's also be honest and say that the problem
you're talking about is being cured (at least partially) with
the NT based systems, as the roots of much evil lay in DOS/Win9x. If we're already bashing Windows slowness,
let's not forget that
other cause: virus/worm/trojan infections, and their pseudo-cure
$Big_Vendor antivirus software.
Right.
Patrick Kaell