Walter Bright wrote:

> John Demme wrote:
>> Yes, yes.. I know windows has user home directories, but since most applications use the registry instead, it's not worth much.
> 
> 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.


I never understood Windows command line users... You're all just screaming for bash or some other nice Unix shell and apps... Every time the Windows command line comes up, it should be accompanied with a giant ad for Unix. Even on the rare occastions when I program for Windows, I do all the development in Linux then run the compiler and program in VMWare!

~John Demme

In article <e0h9cu$1kf$1@digitaldaemon.com>, John Demme says...
>
>Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> John Demme wrote:
>>> Yes, yes.. I know windows has user home directories, but since most applications use the registry instead, it's not worth much.
>> 
>> 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.
>
>
>I never understood Windows command line users... You're all just screaming for bash or some other nice Unix shell and apps... Every time the Windows command line comes up, it should be accompanied with a giant ad for Unix. Even on the rare occastions when I program for Windows, I do all the development in Linux then run the compiler and program in VMWare!
>
>~John Demme

For what it's worth, I've gotten by with the win32 GNU utils for a while now (*highly* reccomended for windows devs).  If for no other reason, it helps me stay to a unix command set rather than type 'ls' and wonder why nothing is happening.  And then there's always cygwin, but that's a bit overkill under most circumstances.

As for the issues with spaces in file/directory names, cmd.exe (NT shell) understands using "foo bar" for delimiting text when all else fails.

I've found the above to be a big enough "band-aid" to get around without having bash or tcsh to use.  I spend most of my time in an editor anyway. ;)

- EricAnderton at yahoo

Walter Bright wrote:
> At this point, it was apparent that tech support had no idea why this was happening, and I was beginning to worry there was either a rootkit installed, or there was just creeping corruption going on. I gave up on Microsoft tech support, and decided to reinstall Windows.

Turns out, I did have a trojan rootkit on my system. arrgh!

Walter Bright wrote:

> Turns out, I did have a trojan rootkit on my system. arrgh!

It's more and more problematic... from Slashdot today.

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/31/0741221.shtml

As a test, I've a rootkit installed on an Windows machine from 3 years, and it's still undetected. ;-(

If you are running a business, THAT is a BIG REAL concern for Microsoft...

---
P

Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

> It's more and more problematic... from Slashdot today.
> http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/31/0741221.shtml
> 
> As a test, I've a rootkit installed on an Windows machine from 3 years, and it's still undetected. ;-(

Some of the newer VM-based rootkits are *impossible* to
detect from within the system. You need some other means...
(I've found that booting from a Live CD usually works OK.)

> If you are running a business, THAT is a BIG REAL concern for Microsoft...

But it seems that neither Microsoft nor Apple is up for it ?!?
I'm not sure I would bet my business on any one single company.

--anders

Anders F Björklund wrote:

> But it seems that neither Microsoft nor Apple is up for it ?!?
> I'm not sure I would bet my business on any one single company.

Sorry for my poor english...
What I was meaning is that I'm starting to feel nervous storing sensible data on a Windows machine...

---
P

In article <e0io88$22jc$2@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...
>
>Walter Bright wrote:
>> At this point, it was apparent that tech support had no idea why this was happening, and I was beginning to worry there was either a rootkit installed, or there was just creeping corruption going on. I gave up on Microsoft tech support, and decided to reinstall Windows.
>
>Turns out, I did have a trojan rootkit on my system. arrgh!

Any idea how that happened / made it onto your system? (it has me worried that virus scanning didn't pick it up).

- Dave

Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

>> I'm not sure I would bet my business on any one single company.
> 
> Sorry for my poor english...

No, I found it to be perfectly readable.

> What I was meaning is that I'm starting to feel nervous storing sensible data on a Windows machine...

Only just now ? Felt that way for years.

--anders

Walter Bright wrote:
> Juan Jose Comellas wrote:
> 
>> At some point in the past, the only way to be able to be certified
>> "Windows-logo compatible" was if you used the registry to save your
>> program's settings. I guess they wanted to make it really difficult to
>> switch computers without reinstalling. The registry is probably the worst
>> abomination to come from Redmond and it's the cause of most of the problems
>> Windows has.
> 
> 
> The registry problem also prevents me from upgrading to new versions of Windows. Microsoft complains that a lot of people refuse to upgrade Windows, but this is a big reason why. After all, if you've been running for years and you've lost your original install CDs or the registration code, you'll *lose* your apps when you upgrade.

That's why it's likely that once my W2k doesn't cut it anymore, I'll throw Windows entirely out.

I will miss the overall smoothness, Word outlining (which I'm probably the only person on earth to seriously depend upon), Excel UI with all the small details ok, and some Windows-only old apps I still use.

But XP is too much for me, and certainly their next Windows apalls me.

Besides (at least for an IT pro), the amount of new stuff to learn will approach that of switching to Linux anyway. And once on Linux, the stuff you learn is usable decade from decade. (But hey, this is like trying to explain what's the big deal in using an HP calculator.)

pragma wrote:
> In article <e0e94k$41o$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Lars Ivar Igesund
> says...
> 
>> pragma wrote:
>> 
>>> Also, linux is not without its warts too.  I'm having a hell of a
>>> time trying to get it to support Nforce3 from a floppy install -
>>> AFAIK, it can't be done w/o some serious hacking or using a CD
>>> instead.
>>> 
>>> - EricAnderton at yahoo
>> 
>> That is more of a case of nVidia sending out cease and desist
>> orders to those trying to create open drivers. Instead you have to
>> use their binary blob that's usually less stable (and definately
>> harder to debug for the communities.)
> 
> 
> Ahh, hence why the "forcedeth" for Nforce3 (the netboot driver disk
> has it for Nforce2) seems strangely absent from things.  And I
> thought they simply turned their heads while it was being developed?
> 
> I tried mucking around with that download, but it looked like it
> wanted to build a new kernel, rather than just spit out a module to
> use.  I found that quite odd.

It seems they have to have a change of boss -- and a serious decline in sales, before they understand that it's _cooperation_ with Linux folks that will save their butt.

The day comes, only let's hope it's sooner tha later.