I need to stop going to computer forums....

[Jeff]

For me XP was an increasingly unreliable spiral of death, plagued with erratic instability and wild performance fluctuations. Once I installed Vista all the problems stopped and my PC now "just works". There was a slight learning curve and there have been a few minor issues but overall I find Vista to be a damn solid OS and generally quite ignorable, which is how things should be.

Now, I know I am an IT guy, have been for awhile now. I am not saying I know EVERYTHING there is to know about Windows, Linux, and networking either. I do try to learn as much as I can. I will also say XP is not perfect. BUT.....

Seriously, unreliable spiral of death? Erratic instability?

I really have to wonder What The Fuck people are doing to their systems to cause these types of issues. This is but one example of the sort of shit that I come across on a daily basis.

And believe me when I tell you that my employer has got to have some of the most retardedly inept computer users on the planet, and even their computers aren't that screwed up.

I can almost hear Jeff (DJ) and Jeff (JBroll) wincing at the stupidity on these forums I visit, sifting for some resemblance of information. Please guys; do yourself a favor; don't visit any computer forums. You'll thank me for your sanity!

The only reasonable computer forum I go to is.....on SS.org. On a musicians' site. :chris:

 

[TomAwesome]

Having a handful of really geeky friends is way better than an internet forum.

 

[Naren]

Yeah, I never really understood that either. I've had XP on 4 computers, Vista on my current main computer, and I've really had no problems with either. I have relatives and friends whose computers crash all the time, get infected with viruses, or something even worse, and I just don't get it... I've used a total of 15 OSes by now (I've been using computers for about 15-16 years) and the only OS I've completely hated was Windows ME. That system was a nightmare. I bought a new computer around 2000 or 2001 that had it and I formatted the harddrive after about 1 week and then installed Windows 98.

 

[Scali]

I think the problem is that computer systems are too complex for mere users to pinpoint the cause of their problem. The OS is an easy target, especially if it's called Windows, with its history of instability and Microsoft's shady business practices and all that.

I dunno, perhaps it's because I'm older, or perhaps because my first steps in the land of computers were not on a PC, and my first steps on a PC were not with Windows... But my experiences are not like most people's.

I went to Windows NT reasonably early, because that's what they used at university, and it had huge advantages for developing software (it was far more stable than the 9x/ME branch because it was a proper 32-bit OS, not a GUI built on top of a pimped version of DOS).

Where I saw people's PCs crashing and corrupting left and right, I rarely had a problem that wasn't induced by malfunctioning hardware (or its drivers).
With XP they finally moved that technology into the homes of people. But for me it was already very common that Windows just ran without problems for ages.

Certainly a Windows installation can still be unstable, but unlike in the 9x/ME days, it's no longer a problem at the core of the OS. These days it's usually bad drivers, broken hardware, or the installation messed up because of a virus or because the user broke the OS.

I tried linux and some other alternative OSes... and I've been 'alternative' since day 1, because I didn't start out on PCs in the first place... But perhaps I'm too old for it, or I'm too knowledgable to buy into the hype... because to me, Windows is the most solid, best performing, most reliable and easy to use OS... and the others are just failed attempts. Seeing people still bashing Windows in 2008 makes me just that bit more sad about mankind in general.

 

[cev]

Yeah, I really wonder what people are doing wrong with Windows. I've had my current XP installation since March and I don't think it's crashed once

Actually, as a user of both OS's, I crash Linux WAY more than I crash Windows.

 

[Kagami]

I will say one thing. Try installing an OS on my Athlon XP box it'll freeze half-way through, lol...I've never had my Sony T250 laptop crash though, not once. I do believe in hardware issues, but most of the time it's people doing stuff.

 

[Jeff]

I will say one thing. Try installing an OS on my Athlon XP box it'll freeze half-way through, lol...I've never had my Sony T250 laptop crash though, not once. I do believe in hardware issues, but most of the time it's people doing stuff.

well yeah, of course there are hardware issues. HP is proof of that

 

[Kagami]

well yeah, of course there are hardware issues. HP is proof of that

depends on how expensive my 9000s work great

 

[hairychris]

IT pro here... who doesn't own their own PC, hehe, although admittedly that's changing so I can home record. I'll probably stick a Linux build on it too because we use SuSe in our corporate environment and I don't know enough about it.

Anyway, having supported *deep breath* MS/PC Dos, Win 3.x, IBM OS2 1.3 - 2.x, Nt 3.51 - 4, Win 95/98 and XP user environments the bloody operating systems seem to have got needlessly complicated, to the point where any issues are easier to resolve by re-imaging a machine then actually do much troubleshooting. The registry in 95 was the start of that... no more ini and cfg files...

Glad I got out of the support game, to be honest! And yes, I'm an old git.

 

[Scali]

If you want to do home recording, then linux is a poor choice if you ask me. Aside from the fact that only a few selected distributions actually have low enough latency for realtime audio recording/processing (the linux kernel doesn't have low enough latency by default, unlike Windows or MacOS for example, and requires some experimental kernel-patches), the support for audio software and hardware is lacking.

OS X or Windows are the standard choices, with standard software like Logic, Cubase and Sonar, which support a wide variety of hardware and plugins.

 

[Jeff]

If you want to do home recording, then linux is a poor choice if you ask me. Aside from the fact that only a few selected distributions actually have low enough latency for realtime audio recording/processing (the linux kernel doesn't have low enough latency by default, unlike Windows or MacOS for example, and requires some experimental kernel-patches), the support for audio software and hardware is lacking.

OS X or Windows are the standard choices, with standard software like Logic, Cubase and Sonar, which support a wide variety of hardware and plugins.

I agree completely. I love Ubuntu, but recording on it has been an absolute bitch, and quite honestly the open source apps really suck. Ardour is okay, but pales in comparison to Reaper and Tracktion (I know some guys have been using Reaper in WINE, but still....). Hydrogen just plain sucks, even though I have gotten it to work with EZ Drummer samples.

So off to OSX I go.

 

[NixerX]

I lol'ed because I know this to be true.

 

[Lee]

I hated ME, but that was probably the first computer I had. I'm not a fan of my Dad's new Dell that has Vista on it, and he's not either. It "asks too many damn questions" in his words

Moral of the story: OSX ftw!

 

[rahul_mukerji]

For all the complaints Vista has, its proved quite reliable for me so far. I run bea weblogic 9, eclipse, dreamweaver (CS2), Sony Acid 6.0, xampp, tomcat, joomla!, and wordpress on it and it hasn't crashed once so far. And performance is great too. Its running home premium edition.

XP has given me a great run too. Minimal crashes (generally due to hardware driver updates).

Not like I'm a power user, but I do small time design, music editing, video editing and work off weblogic. I think thats way more than most people who complain do. No issues so far !

But here's an interesting episode I had recently: I fixed a computer (read reinstall) for some people who had severly messed up their system. I asked them how they managed to do this to their system and I found out they opened an email with an attachment from someone they never heard of . They figured someone sent them an email so they must've been trying to communicate with long lost friends .

 

[El Caco]

I did not really hate windows until I started using OS X, the key difference for me is Windows forced me to learn about computers and it's not very forgiving to the ignorant. I like the fact that the more I use OS X the more ignorant about computers I am becoming.

 

[DomitianX]

Probably 99% of the problems people have with windows is people either not installing patches and it getting infected, installing stupid little piece of software in the hopes it will make their lives easier in some stupid way, or they click on pop up windows on the web randomly without thinking of the ramifications.

I have two computers for my mom. One at her house, and another at my house with a clean install of Windows that I give to her when her current one is screwed up because my brother decides to install limewire, surf porns sites and agrees to everything so he can see naked chicks. He doesnt care. I rotate them out ever few months.

If people wouldnt click on spyware/adware/virus/trojan shit it would be fine.

Most modern computers with relative stable hardware with a patched system are only as smart and reliable and the user controlling it.

Dont install the game that came with your box of cereal, dont click to have your system cleaned of Spyware by some random web ad, dont install stupid shit to see porn.

Granted if you do that I will make less per year on other people stupidity because I charge people to get rid of that crap, but I will have more free time as well. So its an even trade.

 

[El Caco]

Or you can just use OS X, run no antivirus/antispyware, look at porn, let your kids click on every flash game and video they can find, never do any maintenance and have the computer work better now then when you installed the OS 18 months ago

 

[Thomas]

Probably 99% of the problems people have with windows is people either not installing patches and it getting infected, installing stupid little piece of software in the hopes it will make their lives easier in some stupid way, or they click on pop up windows on the web randomly without thinking of the ramifications.

I have two computers for my mom. One at her house, and another at my house with a clean install of Windows that I give to her when her current one is screwed up because my brother decides to install limewire, surf porns sites and agrees to everything so he can see naked chicks. He doesnt care. I rotate them out ever few months.

If people wouldnt click on spyware/adware/virus/trojan shit it would be fine.

Most modern computers with relative stable hardware with a patched system are only as smart and reliable and the user controlling it.

Dont install the game that came with your box of cereal, dont click to have your system cleaned of Spyware by some random web ad, dont install stupid shit to see porn.

Granted if you do that I will make less per year on other people stupidity because I charge people to get rid of that crap, but I will have more free time as well. So its an even trade.

If a user is able to ruin the operating system, then there is a serious flaw in that system. In a well-designed operating system, a user is not privileged to make critical, system-wide changes that will screw things up.

The whole mentality that anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software is necessary to keep an operating system secure is disturbing. I'm talking to you, Windows. I'm using XP on my laptop for school work, and I refuse to install any of it. If something goes wrong, I'll wipe it and start anew. I have another operating installed also which is stable and secure, something I can rely on.

 

[El Caco]

I wouldn't go that far Thomas it will not be long until OS X users have to run a security suite and I wouldn't go online without a firewall.

 

[Thomas]

I wouldn't go that far Thomas it will not be long until OS X users have to run a security suite and I wouldn't go online without a firewall.

I very much doubt that will happen, and I have no idea what you are basing that statement on. If it does happen, OS X will certainly lose much of its appeal. Not to me, though, as I use it for music-related programs only. Also, its built-in firewall configuration utility is not the same as a third-party application that you will most likely have to pay for in order to keep your system safe.