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What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop
f0dder:
I did found problems, especially on Win XP and Vista. I had plenty of things broken e.g. TCP/IP reg fix that is available for both XP and vista when net crashes to reg corruption of the entries, I am sure you are aware of it. I can dig out few more reg edit fixes out there, in fact I had one bunch saved as file when I used XP Pro SP2 to use them after fresh installation. I don't have this on Windows 7 because those problems are pretty much solved on 7 but with windows XP SP 2 that problem is still possible to replicate. I don't know how you guys are saying that after Windows 9x, system is much stable in terms of reg performance because it's not for me.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are you saying the registry tweaks (i.e. registry settings that are perceived to improve system performance, while often being snake-oil) that worked on XP no longer work on Vista and Win7? Or does your "net crashes to reg corruption" mean a BSOD causing corruption of the hive-files, and thus a completely broken Windows install?
Since installing Win2k (the first NT I've really used), 99% of the BSODs I've seen have been caused by flaky hardware, bad 3rd-party drivers, or myself messing around with kernel-mode debuggers or driver development. I can't recall seeing a BSOD that was caused by MS code, but I'm pretty sure there's been a few. In those 10+ years. While a BSOD does mean losing whatever unsaved open files, I've only seen filesystem corruption in a very few instances - that was with ATI video drivers. Those caused extremely nasty FS corruption, though, bad enough that I had to run filesystem recovery software. Had 3-4 of those before I realized the drivers were insanely lame and couldn't handle LargeSystemCache=1. And as late as June 2012, AMD/ATI video drivers prevented system-wide ASLR.
But please do elaborate on the problems you mention above, as I'm genuinely confused as to what you mean.
I used the Pro edition upto 2010 and after 2010 I used selective VS for web development. Prior to that almost every VS edition used to interfere with the ,NET framework which I updated and patched beyond default VS bundle. e.g. ,NET 3 and onwards. I had debugger closing my programs (this includes treedb, cintanotes and few other programs) bugging every single application and opening debugger for them. Never had this problem on your side? I wonder how you turned off debugger after VS installation to keep it from interfering with other applications and default .NET framework.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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I've never had the debugger "interfering with other applications". If a program crashes, yes, I'll get the option to attach the debugger and do post-mortem. But that's not the debugger interfering, that's the 3rd-party program crashing, for whatever reason. Rather than blaming VS, perhaps it's the 3rd-party program that's stupidly programmed and making unguaranteed assumptions, and then crashing when implementation details change in a later .NET version? (not that I'm saying .NET is bugfree, though, I've filed a couple of bug reports on it myself. Quite esoteric edge-cases, though.)
I don't know which part of my post people are picking up to imply "no security holes on osx". I am just comparing it with windows and on that comparison I had very few complaints on OS X in terms of patching (explained above) and the official updates, where you know how good windows performs.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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*shrug* - Windows update has (almost) always worked pretty well for me - it really doesn't like running out of disk space, though, but I'm not sure I can really blame it for that. I've had coworkers with bricked systems after OSX updates (to be fair, that was upgrading to a new OSX version rather than just a regular update, but still.)
mahesh2k:
I did found problems, especially on Win XP and Vista. I had plenty of things broken e.g. TCP/IP reg fix that is available for both XP and vista when net crashes to reg corruption of the entries, I am sure you are aware of it. I can dig out few more reg edit fixes out there, in fact I had one bunch saved as file when I used XP Pro SP2 to use them after fresh installation. I don't have this on Windows 7 because those problems are pretty much solved on 7 but with windows XP SP 2 that problem is still possible to replicate. I don't know how you guys are saying that after Windows 9x, system is much stable in terms of reg performance because it's not for me.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Are you saying the registry tweaks (i.e. registry settings that are perceived to improve system performance, while often being snake-oil) that worked on XP no longer work on Vista and Win7? Or does your "net crashes to reg corruption" mean a BSOD causing corruption of the hive-files, and thus a completely broken Windows install.Since installing Win2k (the first NT I've really used), 99% of the BSODs I've seen have been caused by flaky hardware, bad 3rd-party drivers, or myself messing around with kernel-mode debuggers or driver development. I can't recall seeing a BSOD that was caused by MS code, but I'm pretty sure there's been a few. In those 10+ years. While a BSOD does mean losing whatever unsaved open files, I've only seen filesystem corruption in a very few instances - that was with ATI video drivers. Those caused extremely nasty FS corruption, though, bad enough that I had to run filesystem recovery software. Had 3-4 of those before I realized the drivers were insanely lame and couldn't handle LargeSystemCache=1. And as late as June 2012, AMD/ATI video drivers prevented system-wide ASLRBut please do elaborate on the problems you mention above, as I'm genuinely confused as to what you mean.-f0dder (September 06, 2012, 09:56 AM)
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I mean reg corruption,not tweaks. Remember WINSOCK issues? Yes. I am talking about some of these reg level corruption of the entries which makes XP or vista unusable. Upto Vista, it's easy to find that problem. As for BSOD, had that problem after patching uxtheme.dll which we need while changing the themes for XP. It has nothing to do with reg but performance issue you wanted to see is there when you do modify shell stuff. To be honest, never had video driver issues, unless ofcourse it was from the hardware of HP (no complaints to MS for that).
I used the Pro edition upto 2010 and after 2010 I used selective VS for web development. Prior to that almost every VS edition used to interfere with the ,NET framework which I updated and patched beyond default VS bundle. e.g. ,NET 3 and onwards. I had debugger closing my programs (this includes treedb, cintanotes and few other programs) bugging every single application and opening debugger for them. Never had this problem on your side? I wonder how you turned off debugger after VS installation to keep it from interfering with other applications and default .NET framework.I've never had the debugger "interfering with other applications". If a program crashes, yes, I'll get the option to attach the debugger and do post-mortem. But that's not the debugger interfering, that's the 3rd-party program crashing, for whatever reason. Rather than blaming VS, perhaps it's the 3rd-party program that's stupidly programmed and making unguaranteed assumptions, and then crashing when implementation details change in a later .NET version? (not that I'm saying .NET is bugfree, though, I've filed a couple of bug reports on it myself. Quite esoteric edge-cases, though.)-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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Here's how I found out debugger issue. I installed the fresh XP and vista on different machines. Then used the typical programs without any problems. And after installation of VS, observed the problem with debugger. It has mostly due to .NET and the debugger issues IMO. So it's definitely not third party issue. Yet to find out how to get over that. But As I am not doing much VC/Sharp development, it's not needed for VS 2010 onwards. Web dev VS doesn't interfere with other programs. Also mind telling me how do you get rid of all reg entries when you install VS PRO? I have yet to figure out complete removal of VS without leaving some traces behind.
I don't know which part of my post people are picking up to imply "no security holes on osx". I am just comparing it with windows and on that comparison I had very few complaints on OS X in terms of patching (explained above) and the official updates, where you know how good windows performs.*shrug* - Windows update has (almost) always worked pretty well for me - it really doesn't like running out of disk space, though, but I'm not sure I can really blame it for that. I've had coworkers with bricked systems after OSX updates (to be fair, that was upgrading to a new OSX version rather than just a regular update, but still.)-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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It didn't worked for me upto vista. Patch list and security fixes keeps on increasing once we have VS installed. Windows 7 on the other hand is never showed the upgrade and patching problems.
Stoic Joker:
For some reason installers for .NET applications have a tendency to (occasionally) replace key .NET framework files as part of the install routine. There is an XML patch that I've had to reinstall over 30 times in the past year ... Simply because the EMR software that several of our clients use insists on "updating" (e.g. borking) this perticular patch every time they do an update.
f0dder:
I mean reg corruption,not tweaks. Remember WINSOCK issues? Yes. I am talking about some of these reg level corruption of the entries which makes XP or vista unusable. Upto Vista, it's easy to find that problem.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 10:16 AM)
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Never ever heard about it. I had BSODs on my nforce4 motherboard when trying to use nvidia's "hardware" firewall (which was a retarted piece of crap, requiring a full install of an apache httpd in order to manage settings locally... :rolleyes: ), and I've had BSODs from third-party firewall, VPN and antivirus products. Some of these seem to show winsock as the problem, but that's only if you look just at the top-level driver in the BSOD, not if you study the actual minidump with WinDbg. Also, I've never had filesystme or registry corruption from any of these "normal" BSODs. Got more information on the issue?
As for BSOD, had that problem after patching uxtheme.dll which we need while changing the themes for XP. It has nothing to do with reg but performance issue you wanted to see is there when you do modify shell stuff. To be honest, never had video driver issues, unless ofcourse it was from the hardware of HP (no complaints to MS for that).-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 10:16 AM)
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Sure you didn't use some dodgy software to patch uxtheme, which installed malware on your machine? I've had it patched on XP, XP64, Vista64 and Win7-64 without trouble. It would be a very weird cause of BSODs, since it's a usermode DLL.
Here's how I found out debugger issue. I installed the fresh XP and vista on different machines. Then used the typical programs without any problems. And after installation of VS, observed the problem with debugger. It has mostly due to .NET and the debugger issues IMO. So it's definitely not third party issue. Yet to find out how to get over that. But As I am not doing much VC/Sharp development, it's not needed for VS 2010 onwards. Web dev VS doesn't interfere with other programs.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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I still kinda doubt that has anything to do with "the debugger" (unless the 3rd party software software refuses to run on a machine with developer/debugging tools installed) - but it could very well be that the software simply doesn't work with some versions of .NET runtime libraries... whether the particular VS versions upgrade or accidentally downgrade them. If there's one thing I've learned in my years as a developer, it's that you first blame yourself, then 3rd party vendors, and only then start suspecting Microsoft. Often saves your some embarassment :-)
Also mind telling me how do you get rid of all reg entries when you install VS PRO? I have yet to figure out complete removal of VS without leaving some traces behind.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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Haven't looked at it, and honestly don't care - as long as the leftovers don't cause any trouble (which they haven't). Sure, it's not aesthetically pleasing that junk gets left behind, but even some megabytes worth of data wouldn't really affect the system.
It didn't worked for me upto vista. Patch list and security fixes keeps on increasing once we have VS installed. Windows 7 on the other hand is never showed the upgrade and patching problems.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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Are you saying that updates failed to install, or that there were too many updates for your liking?
Haven't had much trouble with Windows Update except when running on heavily modified Windows versions. Sure, every once in a while I have to install updates a few at a time for whatever reason, as installing everything fails. Not a big deal, sometimes I have to compile programs from source on Linux, because default packages sometimes have conflicting dependencies, which luckily always turn out to be default settings I don't need. Fortunately it's been long enough that I can't remember any particular details, just like it's been long enough since I've had problems with Windows Update :-)
For some reason installers for .NET applications have a tendency to (occasionally) replace key .NET framework files as part of the install routine. There is an XML patch that I've had to reinstall over 30 times in the past year ... Simply because the EMR software that several of our clients use insists on "updating" (e.g. borking) this perticular patch every time they do an update.-Stoic Joker (September 06, 2012, 11:47 AM)
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Annoying. "xcopy" installs, or custom installers? MSI based installers are at least supposed to make sure that doesn't happen (but I still loathe their insanely slow speed).
mahesh2k:
I had BSODs on my nforce4 motherboard when trying to use nvidia's "hardware" firewall (which was a retarted piece of crap, requiring a full install of an apache httpd in order to manage settings locally... :rolleyes: ), and I've had BSODs from third-party firewall, VPN and antivirus products. Some of these seem to show winsock as the problem, but that's only if you look just at the top-level driver in the BSOD, not if you study the actual minidump with WinDbg. Also, I've never had filesystme or registry corruption from any of these "normal" BSODs. Got more information on the issue?-f0dder (September 06, 2012, 12:10 PM)
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Not BSOD due to reg but was because of the theme patching and shell related changes. In case of reg issues, most of them were related to the WINSOCK and other network related issues. I can't specifically point to the issue because I used to patch that using the reg fix for Winsock. Without that fix, It was hard to connect to the net. I am not sure if it was because of driver issue or say some malware? For some reason system was not usable without those reg fixes (most of them were released by MVPs), I hope you remember XP days with regular fixing of broken stuff.
Sure you didn't use some dodgy software to patch uxtheme, which installed malware on your machine? I've had it patched on XP, XP64, Vista64 and Win7-64 without trouble. It would be a very weird cause of BSODs, since it's a usermode DLL.-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 10:16 AM)
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No. I used to play with TGTSoft's uxtheme.dll which was released by them for community. StyleXP isn't alive anymore but I am sure their community themexp.org still has that uxtheme.dll for patching the shell. Without this it was not possible to change themes freely on XP at that time. Had BSOD during these changes.
I still kinda doubt that has anything to do with "the debugger" (unless the 3rd party software software refuses to run on a machine with developer/debugging tools installed) - but it could very well be that the software simply doesn't work with some versions of .NET runtime libraries... whether the particular VS versions upgrade or accidentally downgrade them. If there's one thing I've learned in my years as a developer, it's that you first blame yourself, then 3rd party vendors, and only then start suspecting Microsoft. Often saves your some embarassment :-)-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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Well it worked fine without VS, so I can't take the blame. It worked Okay for sometime with VS installed so 3rd party software can't be blamed until .NET had clashes so surely MS has to be blamed here for this. lol
Are you saying that updates failed to install, or that there were too many updates for your liking?-mahesh2k (September 06, 2012, 09:41 AM)
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Some updates with KB fixes for .NET and other VS components failed to install and sometimes had startup issues with them as well. Especially on vista, but never had startup related issue on XP with those KB Fix updates.
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