March 30, 2006
Sean Kelly wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>> The bug with the Windows home directories, and why I don't use them, is they insist on putting spaces in the directory names. This hoses us command line users.
> 
> It's possible to move home directories with a bit of hacking, though some programs do seem to hard-code path names when they shouldn't.  I tried renaming "Program Files" as well, but with less success.  Even MS apps seem to expect stuff to live there no matter what the registry says.  Ultimately, I just gave up on the whole experiment as too complicated to be worthwhile.
> 
> 
> Sean

I think trying to rename those directories after an installation is too tricky. It's asking for trouble.
The best and safe way is to change them as a Windows installation option. I did this manually through the unattended install options for my XP installation, 2 years ago, making C:\Program Files -> C:\Programs, and C:\Documents and Settings -> C:\Home .

I planning a new XP installation when I do a PC upgrade, somewhere in the summer, and for that I'm planning to use http://www.nliteos.com/ (Kyle mentioned it too). It's *very* convenient, as it can create an installation CD setup with those unattended options, with service pack and hotfixes streamlined, with various windows options pre-configured (like options for file explorer, IE, search, theme, etc.), and some other features too.



-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D
March 30, 2006
Walter Bright wrote:
> 
> 3) If you're writing an app, don't require it to be reinstalled if Windows is reinstalled. DM programs don't need to be. Store your configuration in some text file that can be saved/restored. Please!
> 

I totally agree. I never got why applications feel compelled to use the registry all the time, and I abhor those who pollute the system by unnecessarily installing dlls and whatnot on the system.
If someone thinks that's only practical for small/simple apps, I point them to the fine example of Eclipse.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D
March 30, 2006
Fredrik Olsson wrote:

>> The morals of the story: computers ARE NOT for everybody yet now in
>>  the 2006, even with dumb-oriented systems as Windows XP. You
>> choose with which harshness you want to live with when choosing an
>> OS depending on the time you have and the tasks you'll be
>> performing on the system
>
> I beg to differ, we have Mac OS X. A unix for pretty much everyone.

Mac OS X is only partly UNIX, though ? And not for the poor ;-)
There are *several* reasons to chose one of the alternatives...

Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, etc.

One is the lack of open source, or choosing your own hardware.
Another is the recent number of security issues, on Mac OS X ?


I happen to like Macs, but they're clearly not for everyone...
Mac OS X is something of a strange hybrid (MacOS and OPENSTEP)

So nowadays, I'm platform agnostic.

Fortunately, GNU and Linux runs fine on both of my machines,
so I can always dual-boot into that when I tire of OS X / XP ?


I think it's sad, really. Computers *should* be for everyone.
And here I think that Mark Shuttleworth is on the right way...

--anders


PS.
I remember when Apple introduced the Xserve. One slide said:
"simplicity and elegance of Unix, power and stability of Mac"
I found that particular translation (to Swedish) was hilarious.
March 30, 2006
Anders F Björklund wrote:
> I think it's sad, really. Computers *should* be for everyone.
> And here I think that Mark Shuttleworth is on the right way...

Shuttleworth on the right way... definately!
March 30, 2006
Lucas Goss wrote:

>> I think it's sad, really. Computers *should* be for everyone.
>> And here I think that Mark Shuttleworth is on the right way...
> 
> Shuttleworth on the right way... definately!

To be specific, I was talking about the Ubuntu Manifesto:

"The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit."

Don't think that defending freedom means that you *can't* charge for it.
Just because the source code is available, doesn't mean that you can't
sell a packaged and supported version of the software. Works for RedHat?
(and you can still build and customise their software, as you see fit)

I might not use Debian or Python myself, but that's different :-)

--anders
March 30, 2006
Anders F Björklund skrev:
> Fredrik Olsson wrote:
> 
>>> The morals of the story: computers ARE NOT for everybody yet now in
>>>  the 2006, even with dumb-oriented systems as Windows XP. You
>>> choose with which harshness you want to live with when choosing an
>>> OS depending on the time you have and the tasks you'll be
>>> performing on the system
>>
>>
>> I beg to differ, we have Mac OS X. A unix for pretty much everyone.
> 
> 
> Mac OS X is only partly UNIX, though ? And not for the poor ;-)
> There are *several* reasons to chose one of the alternatives...
> 
> Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, etc.
> 
> One is the lack of open source, or choosing your own hardware.
> Another is the recent number of security issues, on Mac OS X ?
> 
Lack of open source I would not agree on, pretty close to all major open source projects out there works on OS X as well.

The hardware and price I agree on, mostly because I chose Mac not for the hardware but purely the software :/.

As for the security issues I have a feeling that the press have blown it out of proportions. With not a single virus in the wild for five years, the first one is big news. But comparing that to the thousands available for "other operating systems" is not quite fair :).

> 
> I happen to like Macs, but they're clearly not for everyone...
> Mac OS X is something of a strange hybrid (MacOS and OPENSTEP)
> 
> So nowadays, I'm platform agnostic.
> 
And personally I like it because of the hybrid thingie :). I tried using Linux as my main workstation, and had it working for close to a year. I think it was best phrased by BCS:
"Unix, is novice hostile... Windows, is expert hostile"
I find that OS X positions itself in the middle; easy enough to get the what ever the daily routine puts in front of me, and hard core enough to  do the tweaking when I like to.


I think most peoples trouble with OS X and "not unix enough" is that they are familiar with Linux, and OS X have more BSD roots.


> Fortunately, GNU and Linux runs fine on both of my machines,
> so I can always dual-boot into that when I tire of OS X / XP ?
> 
> 
> I think it's sad, really. Computers *should* be for everyone.
> And here I think that Mark Shuttleworth is on the right way...
> 
> --anders
> 
> 
> PS.
> I remember when Apple introduced the Xserve. One slide said:
> "simplicity and elegance of Unix, power and stability of Mac"
> I found that particular translation (to Swedish) was hilarious.
March 30, 2006
Deewiant wrote:
> 
> I've renamed Program Files, and it's actually rarer than I would have thought
> that programs want to install to C:\Program Files. Of course, this requires that
> you change some registry keys to point to your directory instead of the default.
> 
> The one "big" case I remember was that the ATI Catalyst video drivers wanted to
> put something there - I can't remember what it was - and they also tended to pop
> up with errors when I tried to force them into my D:\Programs directory. This
> was reason enough for me to switch to the third-party Omega drivers, which have
> worked fine.
> 
> Other than that, only one or two programs have wanted, by default, to install to
> C:\Program Files, but it's hardly troublesome to just manually tell the
> installation program where you want it.
> 
> Using a different path for My Documents is far more painless. Even Microsoft's
> own Tweak UI (for Windows XP) lets you change that:
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
> 
> The only trouble is that you still end up with "My xxx" in your My Documents
> folder, regardless of what you name the latter. Nothing's forcing you to use
> those directories for anything, though.

I did this quite a while back (in windows 2000 IIRC) so things have likely improved since then.  At the time, I was trying to replicate a Unix type layout in Windows, so "Documents and Settings" was renamed to "home" and "program files" was renamed to "bin."  It *almost* worked, but enough things broke to make it inconvenient.  I'd be willing to give it another shot, but not until I have reason to reinstall Windows :-)


Sean
March 30, 2006
Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> 
> I think trying to rename those directories after an installation is too tricky. It's asking for trouble.
> The best and safe way is to change them as a Windows installation option. I did this manually through the unattended install options for my XP installation, 2 years ago, making C:\Program Files -> C:\Programs, and C:\Documents and Settings -> C:\Home .

Very cool.  I didn't know this was an option in the unattended install.

> I planning a new XP installation when I do a PC upgrade, somewhere in the summer, and for that I'm planning to use http://www.nliteos.com/ (Kyle mentioned it too). It's *very* convenient, as it can create an installation CD setup with those unattended options, with service pack and hotfixes streamlined, with various windows options pre-configured (like options for file explorer, IE, search, theme, etc.), and some other features too.

This would reduce reinstall time a great deal.  Thanks for the tip.


Sean
March 30, 2006
In article <e0g4n2$1ts9$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Fredrik Olsson says...
>
>For Windows I must say that Windows 2000 is the best OS Microsoft have put out there. Quite stable, and much more lean than XP, that always caught me as a resource slurping Telletubies edition of Windows 2000. I think there is a reason why Windows 2000 identifies itself as Window NT 5.0, and XP as NT 5.1...
>
>
>// Fredrik
>

Fredrik, since I've only used Windows Pro 2000 at work, and I've used Windows (Home and Pro) XP for both home and work, it's been my experience that 2000 died too often and needed to be rebooted, plus it ate up main memory very quickly, boot times were longer, and etc.

Plus, I'm very much into PC games, first on the C64, then on MS DOS v4.01+ and above, with Windows v3.0+ installed. So I've been very slow to be pulled into the NT side, and when Windows 2000 was released I stayed with Windows 98 SE, and held out for Windows ME (boy was that a mistake!). Anyway, in my mind Windows XP is the best of both the DOS based Windows and NT, and it's great for playing games!

David L.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
 "Dare to reach for the Stars...Dare to Dream, Build, and Achieve!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------

 MKoD: http://spottedtiger.tripod.com/D_Language/D_Main_XP.html
March 30, 2006
Fredrik Olsson wrote:

>> One is the lack of open source, or choosing your own hardware.
>> Another is the recent number of security issues, on Mac OS X ?
>>
> Lack of open source I would not agree on, pretty close to all major open source projects out there works on OS X as well.

I meant for the operating system itself... That *other* projects work
on it is not really a major feature of OS X, but it is rather useful ?
(I still miss a few of the major ones on Mac OS X... Like GTK+ 2.x ?)
A few the core components are still open source, but far from the most.

> The hardware and price I agree on, mostly because I chose Mac not for the hardware but purely the software :/.

I am actually rather happy with the older Apple hardware I have owned.

> As for the security issues I have a feeling that the press have blown it out of proportions. With not a single virus in the wild for five years, the first one is big news. But comparing that to the thousands available for "other operating systems" is not quite fair :).

No, but Apple could *quickly* have a scenario just like Microsoft's...

> I find that OS X positions itself in the middle; easy enough to get the what ever the daily routine puts in front of me, and hard core enough to  do the tweaking when I like to.

I changed my dual-boot Mac OS 9 and Linux into a Mac OS X workstation,
which has worked pretty good. But now I am thinking about changing back.

> I think most peoples trouble with OS X and "not unix enough" is that they are familiar with Linux, and OS X have more BSD roots.

Many people that were used to NextStep and OpenStep also had problems with that OS X is not Unix enough. They don't understand the Mac side.


I don't think the threat for Mac OS X users is less than any other OS.
And unless it is taken seriously, it could lead to some serious grief.

--anders