Is there a way to combat Windows rot?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-01-28 03:21pm

Dahak wrote:
The Kernel wrote:Why would you want to purchase XP pro? It has no features related to preventing Windows rot. Indeed, the only extra features in XP pro are corporate networking related and multiprocessing support. Otherwise it is identical to XP Home.
Because XP home doesn't allow for a better control of the OS and keeps you out of some things, and others aren't even in it.
I wouldn't touch the home edition with a 10'-pole.

Yes, XP Home is essentially Windows for Morons. It's nice if you want an OS where you have a lot of lower-level stuff completely hidden from you. And it's cheaper, costing $199 USD. However, it's rather crippled compared to XP Pro.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-01-28 03:32pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Dahak wrote:
The Kernel wrote:Why would you want to purchase XP pro? It has no features related to preventing Windows rot. Indeed, the only extra features in XP pro are corporate networking related and multiprocessing support. Otherwise it is identical to XP Home.
Because XP home doesn't allow for a better control of the OS and keeps you out of some things, and others aren't even in it.
I wouldn't touch the home edition with a 10'-pole.
Yes, XP Home is essentially Windows for Morons. It's nice if you want an OS where you have a lot of lower-level stuff completely hidden from you. And it's cheaper, costing $199 USD. However, it's rather crippled compared to XP Pro.

Anything that is hidden in XP Home by default is easily correctable right after installation. If you two want to pay and extra hundred bucks for a settings default that you can change post install, be my guest.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-01-28 03:35pm

Actually Home physically lacks many of the interfaces needed to configure several of its "features". It has almost as many features as Pro, but you can't make them run (or in some cases, stop!)

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-01-28 03:37pm

Can't almost anything be fixed with sufficient use of regedit?

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-01-28 04:13pm

I also think it can be fixed with a blank CD-R, a CD burner, and a KNOPPIX ISO, Crayz.

P.S. You kickin that infection yet? I hope so

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-01-28 04:14pm

I have KNOPPIX already, Ein

And I'm slowly getting better, but I still feel tired as hell.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-01-28 04:20pm

Crayz9000 wrote:I have KNOPPIX already, Ein

So do I (in fact I'm getting a new version[ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu] as we speak

Crayz9000 wrote:And I'm slowly getting better, but I still feel tired as hell.

Good to hear. No one ever deserves to go through that shit. Well, except DaRkStAr or Lameway...

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-01-28 04:55pm

The Kernel wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Dahak wrote: Because XP home doesn't allow for a better control of the OS and keeps you out of some things, and others aren't even in it.
I wouldn't touch the home edition with a 10'-pole.
Yes, XP Home is essentially Windows for Morons. It's nice if you want an OS where you have a lot of lower-level stuff completely hidden from you. And it's cheaper, costing $199 USD. However, it's rather crippled compared to XP Pro.
Anything that is hidden in XP Home by default is easily correctable right after installation. If you two want to pay and extra hundred bucks for a settings default that you can change post install, be my guest.

Several things are not just hidden, but plainly missing in their entirety.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-01-28 07:23pm

XP Pro.

Its been about 1.5 years since I last formatted, and its been running perfectly since. Haven't tried the Home Edition, though I know it does have less features.

Remember, you don't have to pay

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-01-28 08:18pm

Pu-239 wrote:Or abandon windows completely if games eat up too much of your time and you need to get work done to not fail in school .

I have no job, I'm not in school. Right now my life consists of masturbation and sd.net.

I. Need. Games.

Sokartawi · Post by **Sokartawi** » 2004-01-29 05:19pm

Windows 98SE works fine for me, had a gaming PC with a 2 year old partition, and even in the last months I could keep it going for days without needing to reboot. Usually had "only" one crash a week at most.

DirectX 9 killed it, and after it became too unstable and I had to reformat I pulled it apart because I needed the hardware in other PCs and had no more room for yet another case.

And yes, I played games on it. Diablo 2, Freespace, I-War 2, Pre-AOS Ultima Online (in 2D, the 3D client is just one big memory leak), Unreal Tournament, Morrowind, DOS games... You name it. Oh I have only had ONE CTD ever from Morrowind anyway, which was when I deliberately tried to get it to crash, since a lot of people complain about CTDs with that game.

Anyway, using good hardware helps a lot, well, their 'good' drivers are, and NOT upgrading your drivers every week or changing your hardware when you don't need to also seems to help, since overwriting your old drivers still seems to cause mess. I personally only change drivers when I reformat or when a game can't run properly.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-01-29 05:29pm

Faram wrote:
EmperorMing wrote:I'm already headed that way. Or back to 98SE.
Get W2K

Better support for hardware, has USB support and is still updated from MS.

The problem, I think, is that W2K Pro is really expensive, and thus most of us can't get it ::Coughs:: legally. Though W2K doesn't have Mickeysoft's Pay Forever activation scheme, so if you can find it OEM on eBay (quite possible, actually,) then get it.

And on the balance, it is the finest OS produced by MS. It isn't as bloated as XP Pro is (though a few of XP's features would be nice to have), doesn't have activation, and if you're in a running in a quiet update-free interval from MS, you can get uptimes exceeding weeks or months with it.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-01-29 05:39pm

Sokartawi wrote:Windows 98SE works fine for me, had a gaming PC with a 2 year old partition, and even in the last months I could keep it going for days without needing to reboot. Usually had "only" one crash a week at most.

DirectX 9 killed it, and after it became too unstable and I had to reformat I pulled it apart because I needed the hardware in other PCs and had no more room for yet another case.

And yes, I played games on it. Diablo 2, Freespace, I-War 2, Pre-AOS Ultima Online (in 2D, the 3D client is just one big memory leak)

This reminds me. If there was ever a reason to flush ME down the toilet like the steaming turd it is, that's it. In Windows ME, everything leaks memory. It leaks it at an astonishing rate. Of course, Win9X in general is known for memory leaks, but ME has so much bloat attached to it, that the problem is painfully obvious.

If you must stay with ME or Win9x, pick up a good freeware/shareware RAM cleanup utility, such as the old Rambooster program (type "Rambooster" into Google, it's the first page that comes up,) or this bit of software. Both of which will flush out physical memory and mop up whatever leaked.

If you pick up a utility like that, then it is possible to get uptimes of a couple of weeks with ME or 98SE, though Windows rot will still catch you in the end.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2004-01-29 05:53pm

[n00b] eeerrr... Windows rot ? [/n00b]

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-01-29 06:01pm

2000AD wrote:[n00b] eeerrr... Windows rot ? [/n00b]

Install a nice app like Office 97, remove it and reinstall = Instant ROT

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2004-01-29 06:19pm

Faram wrote:
2000AD wrote:[n00b] eeerrr... Windows rot ? [/n00b]
Install a nice app like Office 97, remove it and reinstall = Instant ROT

But what is Windows rot? I don't want t fuck up my com just to find out!

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-01-29 06:21pm

2000AD wrote:
Faram wrote:
2000AD wrote:[n00b] eeerrr... Windows rot ? [/n00b]
Install a nice app like Office 97, remove it and reinstall = Instant ROT
But what is Windows rot? I don't want t fuck up my com just to find out!

Simply put, its when Windows, most notably the registry, gets filled with junk. Often when you uninstall stuff, bits get left behind, and build up to clog the machine. Its partly the fault of software manufacturers, who don't write good uninstall programs.

Its mostly a problem with Win9x OS's. 2000 and XP have little, if any problem.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-01-29 06:23pm

2000AD wrote:But what is Windows rot? I don't want t fuck up my com just to find out!

Gradual loss of preformance, Strange hangs, apps that works fine and one reboot later can't start etc etc etc.

I blame it all on two things.

1. Central database in windows = registry. Plain Sux and gets corrupted.

2. Badly written applications that writes -dll's in windows\system32

Sokartawi · Post by **Sokartawi** » 2004-01-29 07:06pm

One thing I don't get is why games need to put so many entries in the reg. Usually they are in there in at least 4 places. Ok, might need an uninstall entry. But why all that other stuff? So the autoruns can see if you have it installed or not when you put the CD in? So the manually downloaded patches can find it? Unnecessairy trash... Luxuaries you DONT NEED! One entry can do that, and when thinking about it, we don't need that stuff anyway! I can start the game myself, and I can point the patch to the directory myself...

Spoiled youth nowadays...

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-01-29 07:16pm

Sokartawi wrote:One thing I don't get is why games need to put so many entries in the reg. Usually they are in there in at least 4 places. Ok, might need an uninstall entry. But why all that other stuff? So the autoruns can see if you have it installed or not when you put the CD in? So the manually downloaded patches can find it? Unnecessairy trash... Luxuaries you DONT NEED! One entry can do that, and when thinking about it, we don't need that stuff anyway! I can start the game myself, and I can point the patch to the directory myself...

Spoiled youth nowadays...

Poor design by the developers.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2004-01-29 09:08pm

Gandalf wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Gandalf wrote:Thankyou good sir.

Is XP Pro expensive?
It is $299 USD, and it cannot be installed on multiple machines unless you buy multiple licenses (the $299 pays for a single license.)
That's $555 AUS!?!?!?

Fuck.

Hell no, try ~$230 AUS including GST (From here).

Crayz9000 wrote:Can't almost anything be fixed with sufficient use of regedit?

The problem is all that admin tools that run on XP pro and do not have a version included in XP home will not run on XP home.

Its not so much the features are crippled but there, but crippled & large chunks not there.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2004-01-29 10:28pm

Sokartawi wrote:One thing I don't get is why games need to put so many entries in the reg. Usually they are in there in at least 4 places. Ok, might need an uninstall entry. But why all that other stuff? So the autoruns can see if you have it installed or not when you put the CD in? So the manually downloaded patches can find it? Unnecessairy trash... Luxuaries you DONT NEED! One entry can do that, and when thinking about it, we don't need that stuff anyway! I can start the game myself, and I can point the patch to the directory myself...

Spoiled youth nowadays...

Per user settings (I really get pissed about modern games which dont natively support multi-users)
Installation info (reference counting on shared dlls, etc)
CD protection crap(generally forced on by the publisher, or upper management of the dev company)
Misc settings

And since you need methods to read the registry anyway, you might as well use it.

Personally, one of the longhorn demos showed the Registry being mapped into the file system(Technically todoable via the arcane voodoo known as Shell Extensions with Win95 onwards). Sweet!