Why it is time to lose
microsoft windows

It is sad, but recently I lost my affection for Microsoft products. I have fallen for a rival...
I first heard of Microsoft back in the early-eighties, but not for PC software. I am fairly sure it was Microsoft's name associated with a game they published for the Dragon 32 called "caterpillar attack". In 1989 I encountered IBM 286 PC's (even a 386) running MS DOS, and the addiction began. I wrote my first C programs on DOS. To shorten a long story, I studied computer science (and physics), got a job, saved up, and, inspired by Doom, I bought a second hand 486 DX50 (50 MHz). I remember at the time it cost a pretty penny to upgrade from 4 to 8 MB RAM. This machine had windows 3.1 and I was hooked. OK, Windows crashed a lot, but it was there. My next machine was a Pentium 133 MHz with Windows 95, which I thought, at the time, to be awesome.
Keeping up Moore's law, I purchased a Pentium 500 windows 98 box (and even programmed a windows gui 3D graphics program on it) and got a new job, where I discovered Windows NT. I liked NT, it was a bit more stable.
One disaster of Win 95 and NT was the registry. The registry makes it a nightmare to copy programs from one hard disk to another. OK, this helps to prevent piracy, but it also makes buying a new computer an absolute time-killer, because all the apps have to be re-installed from scratch. Linux, thankfully, has no registry, and so does not suffer from this problem. Another problem with the registry is that hardware and software settings are held in it, hence if the registry is corrupted, your entire machine is in dire trouble. My friend, a developer no less, did this when he tried to back up his registry and ended up executing a registry file by mistake. He had to rebuild his machine from scratch, costing the company a lot of money in lost productivity. Lastly, the registry makes installing and uninstalling programs more risky and more difficult. Over time the registry fills with junk. This is called registry bloat.
Since then I encountered Windows 2000, yawn. A problem with windows at around this time is that Microsoft, in its efforts to won the web, intertwined its browser application (Internet Explorer, or IE) into the operating system itself. Not only is this extremely bad engineering practice, but it means that when I.E. crashes, it often brings the entire operating system down with it. Unfortunately, IE crashes a lot. (Cure: use Mozilla or Opera).
Then there is the problem of MS loading apps into memory when Windows starts up, so that the apps appear to start more quickly when fired up by the user. This is a waste of RAM, and degrades overall performance. As some bright spark memorably pointed out, it is like keeping your car running on the drive overnight so that you don't have to start it in the morning. This is why MS IE seems to start up quickly - it is because it is already hogging your resources, even if you never use it. You cannot prevent this. This was one of the many early signs that Microsoft do not want you to control your own computer. At about this time, my affection for Windows was draining away.
Another example is Windows XP that MS, not you, have "super-user" rights to your operating system. It is a bit like buying a car, only to find that the manufacturer will not let you drive it on fast roads.
Ah, Windows XP. In January 2002 I bought an Athlon box with Win XP preloaded on it. Win XP has "Product Activation", which basically means I had to ask Microsoft permission to install it on my computer. At any time, if they get suspicious that I am doing something illegal, they can stop my operating system from working. Or they can deny me permission to install it on a new machine. To say that this is an attack upon my freedom is an understatement. Basically, your computer does not belong to you, it belongs to Microsoft.
I've come to dislike the Windows look and feel, and XP has the worst yet. I do not find it a pleasure to use Windows, and I love operating systems.
Then there are all the security problems with Microsoft software. They say that they have "trusted computing" but this is hot air. Worms and viruses attack windows systems at a frightening rate. The slammer worm alone brought down the servers of the mega-corporation I work for, the servers of the Windows boxen of my ISP, and the networks of none other than Microsoft themselves.
The never ending Windows patches that I have installed on my XP box seem to have slowed down Windows XP. It used to be reasonably quick, but these days it crawls along like a snail on ganja. Windows security would be an amusing joke if it didn't cause such hassle.
Then there are the crashes. Even since I stopped using IE, XP mysteriously freezes up on me. I am very careful about how I use Windows, but even then I have a crash every few days. Even if I don't suffer a fatal crash, I have to reboot the machine because after a few days the system has slowed down to the point of being almost unusable. I don't allow Windows to send bug reports because I do not like MS collecting information about me.
Did you know XP contacts a Microsoft server every time you use file explorer to search your local hard disk? I am not happy when my operating system contacts servers over the internet without asking my permission. As for which information gets sent, Microsoft claims it is nothing important, but how would I know? XP could be excessive spyware for all I know. But Win XP is a black box, it is difficult to know what Windows is doing with my information. When you run Microsoft Windows, your compouter is owned by them, not by you. This is my deepest objection to Windows.
I have objections to Microsoft the corporation too. MS have never innovated, only copied. Their business practices are illegal (as proven by court cases) and destructive. MS seem to be the fuel behind the scam that SCO are perpetrating against Unix/Linux, having recently bought SCO licences. I suspect the world would be a much better place without them.
It is time to move to Linux. That is the subject of different articles.



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From:	some guy	Subject:	Windows	2004-08-06 21:15:42

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