Re: Mmmm nobody want to give me an answer here
- From: "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:22:36 -0600
<snip>
tryon wrote:
Of course some newer apps are going to require more power to let
the system runs as smoothly as before, but that's only if the apps
are started. You gave a good example with the office suite. Now if
you have installed/uninstalled -which almost always leave some
registry/folders « crap » behind- there's a lot of things we know
the default uninstaller doesn't clean up very well, you have to do
it on your own and not all the tools necesary to do so are included
in xp, and would you need these tools in the first place, shouldn't
it be automated?. That's one of the issue with the way the OS works
that bothers me.
75% of geeks prefer manual cars, (the reasonning here is that its
give us more control but requires more work/harder work), but the
general population simply wants something that works. (from Why
Software Sucks by David S Platt)
They don't want to learn how to clean their registry / defragment
their HDs / uninstall the mess a software leaved behind / tweak
their os / launch the cleanup utility / any other task a geek might
consider as « basic system maintenance ». Around 12-14% of the cars
in the US are sold with a stick shift.
An OS performance shouldn't rely on a task the user know nothing
about and don't wanna get involved in. That's, I think, another
basic design flaw.
Why not offer to automaticly schedule such tasks?
Why not defragment the HD when it's idle ? (as some 3rd party
vendor offer) Why consider the user responsible for performing OS
maintenance tasks because of the choices that were made when it
twas design/created?
Of course if you install windows XP by itself without any
additionnal peripheral/driver/program and let it run by itself for
10 years it will probably have no problem what so ever during this
period of time.
The fact is that's not what an operating system is for and it's too
simple to simply blame it all on the end user (I recognize that
they deserve part of the blame though, as Bruce Schneier said : «
The user's going to pick dancing pigs over security every time »).
I know that device drivers and 3rd party programs are not in
microsoft's control but they still managed to correct some of these
concerns in their recent OS even if they don't have direct control
over them. Providing a uniform model that doesn't allow a driver to
crash or slow down a whole system -as often as it used to- is a
good start, which was only introduce in vista as far as I know.
I'm glad to hear that didn't cause you any issue, but it is a
well-known fact that the registry becomes unusable very quickly as
stated by mr. Gates when refering to the « uninstall » section of
windows xp : « Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows
that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry
is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it
is all crapped up» (see his 2003 memo to Jim Allchin)
Why let such a thing happen in the first place ?
Why allow something so important for the inner working of this OS
becomes unusable ?
When in the design of the OS this choice happened and why ?
An OS is not to be used alone so it's the ecosystem around the OS
and the way the OS handles it that matters to me. In this case I
think the system maintenance necessary when installing/uninstalling
lots of software shouldn't have to be understood or even done by
the end-user in a manual manner, it doesn't make sense at an
usability stand point.
What part of the OS let this lack of maintenance becomes a problem
in the first place? I believe the XP UI (especially the way to run
maintenance tasks) has very much to do with it.
You are refering to common sense, I'm sorry but what we, so called
computer profesionnals, called « intuitive » isn't for most people,
becuase they haven't learned what a plugin or an active x is and
they shouldn't need to in order to be safe on their computer.(part
of the UI, especially dialog box are responsible for that fact and
also the lack of sandboxing, I think) The fact that the webrowser
is so deeply inside the OS creates multiple possible cross-over
that, I think, shouldn't have occur in the first place and the user
should always have the decision to let the browser interacts with
the OS or not.
Of course and I agree with the fact that the more you maintain
something, the longer it will stay fit, but the user isn't
interested in maintaining their os, they wanna use softwares. The
maintenance tasks should be mostly automatic and easy to reach.
(sorry but hiding the clean up utility isn't really bright. It
could have been done the same way than when the OS ask us if we
want to remove old icons from the desktop. E.g., it might have
asked us if we wanted to defragment/clean up the disk once in a
while) That's for me another major design flaw in usability, but
not in the inner workings of the OS itself which is what I'm
looking for.
They don't want to and shouldn't have to do those things as this is
almost all related to the way the OS is build and the end-user
shouldn't be concerned with such details. For example most
unix-like OS don't require defragmentation as often as fat/ntfs and
the user shouldn't have to be aware of this particular design
choice in NTFS.
Ok so you think it's ok if the usesr « have to understand some of
the inner-workings (ever-so-slightly), so to speak, to make sure
[they] properly maintain this piece of equipment ([their] Windows
XP system.) » ?
That wouldn't be a basic design flaw in your eyes, forcing your
using to understand the way the os is build?
The user doesn't know it and doesn't care, once again. Most will
even try to uninstall malwares with microsoft malware removal
tools, spybot or adaware, but most « good » malware will left the
system in a state unusable once it's removed as they bury themself
deep inside windows. Most of the time, the user come to us with an
unusable system and we have to reinstall it all over.(sometimes due
to this lack of maintenance that shouldn't have been his job in the
first place) An OS that let the user install programs that might «
kill the OS » so easily is for me a flaw in itself as there's no
way to remove everything this apps has installed simply by removing
it which is what an end user would expect to be able to do.
Malware aside, another usability issue with the OS (and IE) would
be when installing a suite of applications it sometimes install a
toolbar almost automaticly (you have to notice the checkbox at the
bottom) and IE will never ask you if you really want to install it
or not. I very often come around computer that have 2 to 3 of these
toolsbars and the user isn't eve naware of it and never knowingly
allowed them into their system, so I think it's unfair to blame
them for everything, the OS should have some protection feature to
protect the users from things running on the computer. (that has
partially been resolved since, with UAC and the whole
do-not-run-apps-as-an-admin issue, but it was still present in xp)
Users don't want XP, they want to get the job done by using
software.
Users don't care about their OS the way you seem to think they
should and they don't because they got lifes to live.
I'm wondering what part of the OS itself (not the end-user part) is
responsible for most of the problems when using the softwares. Most
people aren't geek and won't maintain their PC themself, that's a
problem we all have to face as a community (yep I'm using microsoft
product too you know) and all I wanted to know is what was done
wrong (or what might have done better) in XP in term of how the OS
was structured inside-out. I know that asking people - and MVP so
it seems- on a microsoft discussion group isn't probably the best
idea ever but still I wanted your profesionnal point of view on the
inner working parts of the OS and not the discussion on what the
users are doing wrong and the discussions that you never had any
issue with your OS.
In the end - yes - I believe if somone is going to use somehting - they
either have to learn how to maintain it or be willing to pay someone to do
it for them.
Cars - they don't change their own oil, go get themsleves
registered/inspected, get their own tune-ups and clean themselves of the gum
wrappers and other assorted items you let get on the floorboards.
Homes - they don't paint themselves, change their own loacks when sold, dust
themselves, repair the A/C and plumbing, and so on...
Lawns don't mow themselves. The mail doesn't just 'appear. in your mailbox.
Your bills are not jsut all automagically setup to pay for you out of some
magical account where money just appears without you doing anything.
Microsoft can up and die for all I care. I support all sorts of OSes every
day - and everyone of them has their problems and even if I combined the
best of all of them - I would have problems with the new OS. The weak link
is that no two people who might use the system are the same and no two
people will likely (therefore) ever react the same so any automated
features/cleanups/etc I build in could do something said user might not want
or could actually be devestating to them.
You cannot solve this problem with software for *everyone*. I have at least
one customer who can take a computer that somone else has been using with
the same rights as them with identical jobs and although the other person
did their job for over a year without a single issue using the same setup -
this person will have an issue within a week.
Maybe the registry design sucks, maybe the way third party installers use it
as a personal dumping ground causes it to be that way. Whose problem is it
that some apps do not uninstall properly? Take Norton as an example - they
have created a Removal Tool to cleanup after their own apps - if they had
just written in the features of that tool into the uninstall portion of the
original apps - they wouldn't need that removal app, eh?
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
.
- References:
- Why windows xp becomes very slow after a few months-a year?
- From: tryon
- Re: Why windows xp becomes very slow after a few months-a year?
- From: Shenan Stanley
- Why windows xp becomes very slow after a few months-a year?
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