Windows rot?

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2003-01-29 08:08pm

I've heard a few times about the Windows OS decaying over time. What causes this, and how can you spot it?

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-01-29 08:09pm

You spot it by looking for a performance decrease.

Eventually, the hard drive gets cluttered up, etc...

Malecoda · Post by **Malecoda** » 2003-01-29 08:14pm

Mike explains it very well. It's been a long time since I read it so I don't know exactly where, but you can look around Stardestroyer.net just as well as I can.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-29 08:15pm

Malecoda wrote:Mike explains it very well. It's been a long time since I read it so I don't know exactly where, but you can look around Stardestroyer.net just as well as I can.

The Rants on his homepage.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-01-29 08:16pm

Just using Windows 9x causes it. It's not as bad on Win2000. XP, I don't know, don't care, I'm not using that piece of garbage until I absolutely must.

What it is is just performance degradation, as well as slowly deteriorating stability.

On Windows... I heard Win 98 couldn't have an uptime of greater than so many days (like 80 or something like that) and I was wondering just what made Windows crash after that amount of time.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-01-29 08:18pm

It's when the install of Windows degrades with time from everyday use and is made worse by installing and uninstalling programs. Unclean uninstalls, dll conlifts, patches overwriting the wrong stuff, it all adds up.

I generally believe in a business environment a machine should be wiped clean once a year. Not always easy to do, but thats my opinion.

Windows rot is one of the reasons a good ghost library is so usefull to Windows admins.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-29 08:48pm

You have to understand how Windows works; instead of being segregated, every piece of software sticks its fingers into two shared places: a central store of DLL files (usually in the Windows directory) and the system registry. They write innumerable keys into the registry, mostly hidden from view. Many of them need to update the DLL's that are in the Windows directory, so they do this without asking. After you've installed enough software on a Windows box, it's almost inevitable that registry keys or DLL files are stepping on each others' toes.

Add to that the fact that uninstallers rarely remove all of themselves from the registry, and the registry basically runs every damned thing and is in memory all the time, and you can see the problem. Install 500 different pieces of software on a Windows box, and then see how well the machine runs.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-01-29 08:49pm

I rarely go a day without rebooting my Windows box three or four times. Of course, the fact that it is 5 years old may have something to do with it...

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-01-29 08:53pm

About the only solution is either occasionally rebuilding the machine or having an expertise in programming and spending a few days every other month just cleaning up your registy and .dll files.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2003-01-30 12:36am

Raxmei wrote:I've heard a few times about the Windows OS decaying over time. What causes this, and how can you spot it?

It's a notorious problem in Win9x. What happens is that you keep writing stuff to the registry and programs you install overwrite the shared DLLs. Eventually your registry gets cluttered and full of errors, and your shared libraries start to do things the programs calling them aren't expecting. At which point the OS's performance starts to degrade and it crashes more and more often, which causes even more damage to the registry and corrupts even more of your shared data until you're forced to reinstall the OS. Occasionally, the problem gets so bad, a simple reinstall won't do. You end up having to scrub the hard disk and start fresh.

*sigh*

I've been rot-free since about April of last year. But my current install of WinME is starting to decay like a five-day dead corpse. And I just when I was getting used to one or two week uptimes too.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-01-30 12:44am

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Raxmei wrote:I've heard a few times about the Windows OS decaying over time. What causes this, and how can you spot it?
It's a notorious problem in Win9x. What happens is that you keep writing stuff to the registry and programs you install overwrite the shared DLLs. Eventually your registry gets cluttered and full of errors, and your shared libraries start to do things the programs calling them aren't expecting. At which point the OS's performance starts to degrade and it crashes more and more often, which causes even more damage to the registry and corrupts even more of your shared data until you're forced to reinstall the OS. Occasionally, the problem gets so bad, a simple reinstall won't do. You end up having to scrub the hard disk and start fresh.

*sigh*

I've been rot-free since about April of last year. But my current install of WinME is starting to decay like a five-day dead corpse. And I just when I was getting used to one or two week uptimes too.

You use ME?

I hear it was so bad that Microsoft refused to acknowledge that they made it.

ReinnResauq · Post by **ReinnResauq** » 2003-01-30 01:10am

Uraniun235 wrote:Just using Windows 9x causes it. It's not as bad on Win2000. XP, I don't know, don't care, I'm not using that piece of garbage until I absolutely must.

What it is is just performance degradation, as well as slowly deteriorating stability.

On Windows... I heard Win 98 couldn't have an uptime of greater than so many days (like 80 or something like that) and I was wondering just what made Windows crash after that amount of time.

Days? Days on Windows 98? Hah, I get minutes, a couple of hours if I'm lucky. In fact, about every 6 hours or so, I get a total 'Oh Shit' crash where *every single program* running fails for no reason at all. In fact, 98 totally corrupts every year sometime around April or December. This is compounded with the fact that I have msn internet service, too, which makes things far worse.

Windows is one of the worst things to happen to this world...worse than GW, worse than Jerry Falwell, worse than disco. Now, if you'll excuse me, Windows is getting tempermental now. No, you stupid computer, keep that application running!

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2003-01-30 01:18am

Shinova wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Raxmei wrote:I've heard a few times about the Windows OS decaying over time. What causes this, and how can you spot it?
It's a notorious problem in Win9x. What happens is that you keep writing stuff to the registry and programs you install overwrite the shared DLLs. Eventually your registry gets cluttered and full of errors, and your shared libraries start to do things the programs calling them aren't expecting. At which point the OS's performance starts to degrade and it crashes more and more often, which causes even more damage to the registry and corrupts even more of your shared data until you're forced to reinstall the OS. Occasionally, the problem gets so bad, a simple reinstall won't do. You end up having to scrub the hard disk and start fresh.

*sigh*

I've been rot-free since about April of last year. But my current install of WinME is starting to decay like a five-day dead corpse. And I just when I was getting used to one or two week uptimes too.
You use ME?

I hear it was so bad that Microsoft refused to acknowledge that they made it.

Yes, oddly enough I do. I've had better experiences with ME than most people. And it has some features that Win98/98SE lacks. So as a result, my desktop uses ME. My laptop OTOH uses Win2K SP2. Windows 2000 is a great OS for portable computers. It's stable, it has many of the device drivers, and it was built for networking. (Really nice to plug my laptop's NIC into the local intranet and immediately get an IP and access.) I may move my desktop to Windows 2000 though.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-01-30 01:20am

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Raxmei wrote:I've heard a few times about the Windows OS decaying over time. What causes this, and how can you spot it?
It's a notorious problem in Win9x. What happens is that you keep writing stuff to the registry and programs you install overwrite the shared DLLs. Eventually your registry gets cluttered and full of errors, and your shared libraries start to do things the programs calling them aren't expecting. At which point the OS's performance starts to degrade and it crashes more and more often, which causes even more damage to the registry and corrupts even more of your shared data until you're forced to reinstall the OS. Occasionally, the problem gets so bad, a simple reinstall won't do. You end up having to scrub the hard disk and start fresh.

*sigh*

I've been rot-free since about April of last year. But my current install of WinME is starting to decay like a five-day dead corpse. And I just when I was getting used to one or two week uptimes too.

Whats funny is I think you and I are probably the only people still using ME. Personally I've had a pretty darn good experience with it and right until when I started redoing my hardware has it given me any problems. Before that I was accustomed to month long uptimes.

McNum · Post by **McNum** » 2003-01-30 07:40am

I'm an ME user, too. Somehow I manage to keep it going... It's a tricky Windows to keep stable. However, IF you finally get it stable it's one of the better versions of Windows.

My ME box here gets a reformat once every 1.5 to 2 years. Did so wth every PC I had. Really helps stability.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-30 08:53am

One thing I discovered a few weeks back was that windows 2000 really, really doesn't like having the motherboard changed on it. Doesn#t like as in won't even boot in safe mode... Windows 98 still booted, Linux still booted but win2k was dead as a dodo. Bastard thing.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-01-30 11:58am

McNum wrote:I'm an ME user, too. Somehow I manage to keep it going... It's a tricky Windows to keep stable. However, IF you finally get it stable it's one of the better versions of Windows.

My ME box here gets a reformat once every 1.5 to 2 years. Did so wth every PC I had. Really helps stability.

I'm usine ME as well. I had a problem early on with it but since then I've kept up with the updates and have only had one minor problem that I was able to fix with system restore.

The original problem did something that knocked the resolution so far out of wack that a couple of icons took up most of my screen. Dell tried to tell me it was a virus.

Funny, the same thing happened to two other people I know who had ME. Since it's been stable I like ME.

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-01-30 12:06pm

Windows ME was possibly the best OS I've used (Save from dos)

the windows beast was forged within the firey grasp of dos and there and only there may it be destroyed...

Right now I'm using Xp pro and so far during the 12 years in using computers, I've never had any problems whatsoever with os's...perhaps it was luck?.

What kind of bugs were you all getting?

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-01-30 12:18pm

My box primarily runs XP, and I left two and a half gigs to run critical programs on my old 98SE, thus essentially creating a dual-boot machine. Frankly, I miss my old, reliable DOS.

Code: Select all

C:
CD \WORDSTAR
WS

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-01-30 12:30pm

jegs2 wrote:My box primarily runs XP, and I left two and a half gigs to run critical programs on my old 98SE, thus essentially creating a dual-boot machine. Frankly, I miss my old, reliable DOS.
Code: Select all
C:
CD \WORDSTAR
WS

Code: Select all

 C:
Deltree windows

Problem solved

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-01-30 03:28pm

not allowed to blatantly bash MS.[/code]

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-01-30 03:37pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:One thing I discovered a few weeks back was that windows 2000 really, really doesn't like having the motherboard changed on it. Doesn#t like as in won't even boot in safe mode... Windows 98 still booted, Linux still booted but win2k was dead as a dodo. Bastard thing.

Windows 2000 is more picky due to it's drivers - they tend to be more specialized (e.g. you might see "Generic IDE driver" or something in W98, but "VIA Bus Master Controller" in W2K). IIRC, Linux is similar in that it doesn't have specialized drivers either.

If you're upgrading your motherboard to a different chipset line (e.g. from SIS -> VIA or Intel -> VIA) chances are it simply won't work if you merely put the new motherboard in. There is a way to do it, but it's somewhat complex.

As for my experiences, I upgraded my computer under W2K and had no problems (from a KT133 -> KT266A chipset)

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-30 03:55pm

Yup I went from a VIA to a SiS chipset and it just wouldn't boot period. Didn't have a chance to do any driver fiddling before the changeover as the reason I had to change was because my old mobo was broken. Utter bastard it was. Lost quite a few files that were inside my documents and couldn't be accessed from other OSes.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-01-30 04:01pm

See I just went from the old KT100 to the nForce2 and ME didn't even pause on me.

Larz · Post by **Larz** » 2003-01-30 04:55pm

I use ME, any fool can use 2000 or XP with finesse, it requires a truly artistic fool to master ME... and a lot of intuition what to ignore.

Person "... What just failed"
Me " huh...."
Person " A screen popped up saying something has failed "
Me" hmmm... *reads message, hits return a couple of time, waits, hits esc several times rather harshly, smiles* there, fixed"
Person "But you didn't do anything about the problem..."
Me "Its just trying to decieve you, nothing to worry about, trust me..."

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

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