Why I still hate Windows

I've posted many times over that I used to be an avid Windows and Microsoft supporter, mainly around the Windows 95/98 days. However, after being introduced to Linux, I soon realized that Linux surpasses Windows in many ways, especially system reliability.

I am a partial owner of a business that solely uses Linux, except for one machine that still has Windows 2000 Server, whose only purpose is to run Quickbooks Pro. That machine has provided a plethora of problems over the years, although somehow it has managed to stay alive. Meanwhile, our Linux servers have provided us years of reliable service, allowing us to focus on promoting the business. A few of the main (repeating) problems I've experienced with the Windows 2000 server (running Service Pack 3 and all of the latest Microsoft patches):

- Sometimes when logging on, the Windows blue background will come up, but explorer.exe will not load completely and the taskbar and desktop never show up. The fix: to reboot the server and everything will work like magic after the reboot.

- When using VNC server to access the server remotely, the WinVNC service will sometimes completely locks up and cause the whole system to become unresponsive. The first response is to restart the WinVNC service. Ahh, but there is a caveat to that. I tried restarting the service but it would hang on "stopping" the service, and it would never really restart the service completely. So, the next step would be to end the process for "winvnc4.exe" (the WinVNC service), however that cannot be done either, because it runs as "System" and trying to end the process even as the Administrator account, provides the error "access denied". So, the fix: to reboot the server with a hard power off/on (system will hang and never restart if we try to do a soft reboot under the start menu).

- And finally, today I came across yet another anomaly. When trying to access the server remotely (with PCAnywhere -- I gave up on VNC as no version of VNC would work reliably), the keyboard was stuck with caps lock on, and I could not get the password typed in to log in. The fix: reboot the server and it worked fine after that.

These basic problems just should not happen. This is not the only server that I've seen them happen, either. I've never ever had these sort of problems in Linux. I've been using VNC server for years, most recently using x11vnc (which I would like to add is rock solid and 100% reliable). Never have I had so many problems as I've had with the Windows systems. I'm planning on (soon) to replace this old and dying Windows 2000 machine with a Fedora 13 or CentOS 5.5 system running Quickbooks Pro in Wine. I know that will be a reliable system for many years to come.

Talkback

Microsoft apologists will certainly jump in here to say "It's your own fault, you're running such an old version of Windows". Their "solution", presumably, would be that you should have paid Microsoft more money to "upgrade" to Windows Server 2003, then even more money to "upgrade" to Windows Server 2008, and simply hope that the problems you are having would disappear somewhere along the way. So the general theory is that the whole world should just blindly and unquestioningly give unlimited amounts of money to Microsoft, ignoring any and all mistakes they make along the way. We should all be happy and thankful that Microsoft blesses us with their poorly developed, very mediocre, bug-riddled "software"

That is one more excellent reason to hate them. Every last one of them.

jw 9/7/2010
J.A. Watson 9 July, 2010 07:00 Reply

I'm not an unmoderated fan of Microsoft, either, but the point here is that the world has changed since 2000, even if Windows Server 2000 hasn't. The level and sophistication of internet threats is beyond anything that could have been expected ten years ago, and I don't think it's unreasonable to pay someone (Microsoft, in this case) to develop software defenses for such an old system. This is nothing to do with the question of whether there were too many bugs in the original software.

We drive a 13 year-old car. Its an old Merc, and we drive it because we like it. And we fully expect to be told, when it goes wrong, "what do you expect - it's a 13 year-old car!". Obviously, software doesn't wear out in the same way that the most expensive parts of an old car always will.
bigdaveonline 9 July, 2010 13:36 Reply

Thanks for the comments, Jamie. You are right, we are running an older version of Windows, and we did not want to re-buy another copy of a new Windows license and add extra expenses to the situation. It's costed us enough time and money wasted for troubleshooting alone. Ironically, support for Windows 2000 will expire in just a few days so we will definitely have to address this soon.

Some may jump in and ask if we've tried to fix the problems, and the answer is yes we have. We've spend too much time already trying to update drivers, install patches, test different versions of VNC and VNC settings, and yet have not been able to fix the issues. The Windows Event logs provide nothing of value towards these problems, so essentially we are stuck with it for the time being.
apexwm 9 July, 2010 13:42 Reply

@bigdaveonline : I've heard this excuse before, I've been told that hardware "becomes tired". But I don't buy it. We have a few legacy Linux servers that are the same age as the Windows 2000 server, and none of them have had any problems of the sort. They've needed hardware maintenance of course over the years, but software wise they have never failed or provided any quirks like Windows has. In this case the issues on the Windows 2000 server have been going on for a while, even shortly after it was set up back when Windows 2000 was the current version of Windows available. This is why I posted the issue, because I've seen this type of consistent behavior with Windows over and over, and there is a pattern. This is just one example of many that I've personally experienced over a wide range of scenarios.
apexwm 9 July, 2010 13:51 Reply

My wife uses XP (because she needs windows to run the excellent OCAD map-making package). I have to help her occasionally and hate it. I recently bought a very nice new Dell Latitude E6410 laptop computer, on which I intended to use only linux. But since I could not buy it without MSWindows, I chose windows 7, having heard that it is much better than predecessors. I managed to shrink it, leaving most of the space for linux (Fedora 13), and have spent some time trying it out.

I still hate windows. My reasons include: lack of multiple virtual desktops (I use 10 on linux), lack of 'focus follows mouse' and impossibility of typing into a partially covered window, impossibility of pushing a window upwards off the screen leaving only a few lines of text visible, not being able to use patterns when doing things with files, and several more, listed on my windows-hates.html web page on www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc

What really amazes me is the number of highly intelligent professors of computer science who put up with the dreadful restrictions when giving presentations that require them to switch between applications. On linux I just prepare the demos on different virtual desktops and switch instantly between them using the keyboard.
(Not all linux window managers make this equally easy. But at least there is a choice I use Openbox or CTWM.)
aaron.sloman 12 July, 2010 16:34 Reply

aaron.sloman : I think people are just used to putting up with Windows problems, as if they just feel that they are normal. I think the main problem is that they just don't realize that there are better alternatives like Linux. If you look around, there is a pattern of users out there that prefer Windows and some that prefer Linux. Those that prefer Windows, have used Windows for years and are comfortable with it, and its problems. Those that prefer Linux, have used Linux enough to know its ins and outs, and by comparison realize the flaws of Windows and stay away from it.
apexwm 13 July, 2010 18:04 Reply