Windows Vista WTF



  • 7Zip only comes with a gui on windows, and that gui is a multiformat archiver just like winzip, that supoprts zip, tar, gz, and many other formats along with 7z.



  • @dlikhten said:

    PerdidoPunk -- You are by far the ONLY person I've known to have no vista problems. Its like the 1 in a million shot that your XBOX 360 wont break in some way. somebody is bound to not have a problem, I say with your luck... play the lottery you will win!

     

    Regarding Macs, I don't use them, in fact I think MS is evil but Apple is just one step behind waiting for MS to roll over. The sh** they did with the iPod... nobody I know (and i know quite a few ppl) had their iPod last longer than 4 months at a time without breaking... at least the first time. (1st generation was probably the most sturdy)

     My friend did mention this:

    "Windows Vista needs 2gb of ram and then it flies, otherwise it performs like crap"

    And my response to that is... Linux (with compiz or beryl) has niftier features than vista visually, much more effects, much cooler stuff, AND it performs better WITHOUT the need for such high ram. So by example, we know that it is doable to make a system look good, and perform well. I am not saying Linux > Windows (yes i am) but I am saying that you can't claim that vista does something so phenomenal that it REQUIRES such high hardware.
     

     Vista on my two machines is working fine, and my Xbox 360 has never failed.  I've also never won the lottery.  Ever.
     



  • @Kyanar said:

    @dlikhten said:

    PerdidoPunk -- You are by far the ONLY person I've known to have no vista problems. Its like the 1 in a million shot that your XBOX 360 wont break in some way. somebody is bound to not have a problem, I say with your luck... play the lottery you will win!

     

    Regarding Macs, I don't use them, in fact I think MS is evil but Apple is just one step behind waiting for MS to roll over. The sh** they did with the iPod... nobody I know (and i know quite a few ppl) had their iPod last longer than 4 months at a time without breaking... at least the first time. (1st generation was probably the most sturdy)

     My friend did mention this:

    "Windows Vista needs 2gb of ram and then it flies, otherwise it performs like crap"

    And my response to that is... Linux (with compiz or beryl) has niftier features than vista visually, much more effects, much cooler stuff, AND it performs better WITHOUT the need for such high ram. So by example, we know that it is doable to make a system look good, and perform well. I am not saying Linux > Windows (yes i am) but I am saying that you can't claim that vista does something so phenomenal that it REQUIRES such high hardware.
     

     Vista on my two machines is working fine, and my Xbox 360 has never failed.  I've also never won the lottery.  Ever.
     

    Kyanar,

    Same here, I have only heard of minor issues, and I have yet to actually work on an issue that wasn't a PEBKAC.

    And yes, I have multiple Linux servers and Windows servers. Not to mention desktops and laptops of both varieties. 

    dlikhten,

    You have proved to be nothing but a MS bashing troll who throws around third party rumor and conjecture as fact.

    At least when someone like asuffield (who is obviously biased) bashes MS, he at least tries to make a sane and rational argument. I can respect his opinion since he tries to provide something valuable to the conversation.

     "Windows Vista needs 2gb of ram and then it flies, otherwise it performs like crap"

    I have seen Vista run on 1gb of ram (and less, but finding < 1GB is difficult these days) and perform all necessary tasks quite well.

    But on the speed side, people (especially trolls) seem to forget that Vista is designed to be the OS for the next 5 years. No one is forcing you to reinstall your crappy Pentium III box with Vista. Wait a year, and all these performance goons will disappear as the hardware catches up, and the service packs come out. Or just turn Aero off, and set everything up to look like XP did. Not exactly difficult to do.

    This is the same FUD that was piled high around the release of every other Windows release. The only difference is that there are more forums and blogs for people to troll around on proclaiming how vastly superior *nix is to anything else. If you like it so much, by all means, go use it. But please stop the same old song and dance. You are not going to 'convert' anyone. Especially around here.

     



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    At least when someone like asuffield (who is obviously biased) bashes MS

    I have to work with Windows and Linux systems on a daily basis. I know exactly which ones cause me endless problems and which design flaws are responsible for these problems. I also know how they could be fixed, and which ones accept the fixes that I supply.

    Yes, of course I'm "biased". Because I'm fucking pissed off at having my time wasted by this unnecessary crap. I'm not some journalist trying to find some kind of "neutral" viewpoint, I'm the guy that gets called when it breaks and is expected to fix it. That means I get to have an opinion on the subject based on my experiences, rather than trying to pretend that I don't (who believes those clowns anyway?).

    Or just turn Aero off, and set everything up to look like XP did.

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.



  • @asuffield said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    At least when someone like asuffield (who is obviously biased) bashes MS

    I have to work with Windows and Linux systems on a daily basis. I know exactly which ones cause me endless problems and which design flaws are responsible for these problems. I also know how they could be fixed, and which ones accept the fixes that I supply.

    Yes, of course I'm "biased". Because I'm fucking pissed off at having my time wasted by this unnecessary crap. I'm not some journalist trying to find some kind of "neutral" viewpoint, I'm the guy that gets called when it breaks and is expected to fix it. That means I get to have an opinion on the subject based on my experiences, rather than trying to pretend that I don't (who believes those clowns anyway?).

    Or just turn Aero off, and set everything up to look like XP did.

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.

    Again, I can respect your opinion on that, although I don't feel sorry for you and I think you are just whining. 

    But hey, we all need a place to vent, so whatever. And no, I am not saying you need to be neutral.

    But at least your argument is rational and based on first hand experience. It is a little tiring when someone comes in and says MS sucks! Linux rulez! lolz! Why? Because someone I know said they needed 2 GB of RAM! And I am not smart enough to install windows, but I installed linux once!

    Cmon... complain all you want about Windows, but the simple fact is that it is the OS for the lowest common denominator. That is it's purpose. If you can't install and use it, you should be using computers period.

    Enjoying it or hating it... well that is your opinion that you have every right to have.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Cmon... complain all you want about Windows, but the simple fact is that it is the OS for the lowest common denominator. That is it's purpose. If you can't install and use it, you should be using computers period.

    This is bullshit,and you know it. Of the many millions using computers today only a small percentage would even dare to try because they have no clue how it works. It i magic to them and the IT-staff are wizards and witches that bu some bizarre power Understand what happens in the beast. I do IT support on and off for a non-IT company(and not a small one), and Ive seen enough of it to KNOW this is the case.

    Windows can be sensible and safe if it is locked down castrated and USED by professionals, its a pit of misery for users and administrators alike when that is not the case. There will always spyware to clear, there are things depend on each other in unpredictable ways, there are the registry clutter and a pain of moving ones profile. And theres more for all the special uses that PC-s get these days... Constantly changing security model breaks legacy applications. You just cant run some stuff made for 98 on XP without granting the user full admin on the whole box. Raw access  to hardware is made near impossible without a full driver and its so much worse in Vista... You cannot keep what you had paid for without staying behind in time.

    Vista is what it was made to be, a bloat-ware OS for those that do not have the skills to replace or the wits to avoid it, made to LESSEN your options of what you can do with instead of increasing them. It may be the standard to those. A clean start, they say... It may even survive and improve. But Linux is already in your Linksys routrer and in Eee-PC and in  your heart monitor and and your internet Caffe machines. And there are many more to come just because Linux costs nothing to develop for, nothing to tinker with and for.

    A lowest common denominator is a system that you hand to the user and it works for them without having to do anything they do not understand. And I have done it, but only with Linux, for a user without a clue of what that box is, to someone who had to be explained very carefully that that the TV like thing with the picture is not the computer, the black one under the desk is and that also needs to be turned on for it to work... But she got what she wanted. She does her internet banking, she uses MSN and Skype to communicate with her children and she can play solitaire on her screen. That is enough. No confusing firewall pop-ups, now slowing anti-virus scans, a UI in her native language and a link on her desktop that runs VNC when I need to see her screen to help her when shes in trouble... But I seldom need it, I can do all I need over SSH. For free. Windows can never be that.

    It is very cold to assume that people who do not understand the machine should be kept away from the flow of the information that today you need a computer to access. It's like saying that if you do not know how to fix a broken bus or have a license to drive it, then you should not be allowed to ride it. I'm sorry, but you just very much  pissed me off with that attitude.



  • @death said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Cmon... complain all you want about Windows, but the simple fact is that it is the OS for the lowest common denominator. That is it's purpose. If you can't install and use it, you should be using computers period.

    This is bullshit,and you know it. Of the many millions using computers today only a small percentage would even dare to try because they have no clue how it works. It i magic to them and the IT-staff are wizards and witches that bu some bizarre power Understand what happens in the beast. I do IT support on and off for a non-IT company(and not a small one), and Ive seen enough of it to KNOW this is the case.

    Windows can be sensible and safe if it is locked down castrated and USED by professionals, its a pit of misery for users and administrators alike when that is not the case. There will always spyware to clear, there are things depend on each other in unpredictable ways, there are the registry clutter and a pain of moving ones profile. And theres more for all the special uses that PC-s get these days... Constantly changing security model breaks legacy applications. You just cant run some stuff made for 98 on XP without granting the user full admin on the whole box. Raw access  to hardware is made near impossible without a full driver and its so much worse in Vista... You cannot keep what you had paid for without staying behind in time.

    If your goal is to run applications made for Windows 98, why would you not run Windows 98? Why not on a VM? Upgrading to Vista and complaining it broke a Windows 98 application is silly. Most apps that have been broken were poorly written to begin with. I have many Window 98 era apps that still run fine in XP and Vista. If they write to a protected directory like c:\program files or c:\windows or have hardcoded paths, or do not detect and adapt to the OS version (etc, etc, etc) you are using, you can hardly consider that MS's fault. People complained that pre-Vista Windows wasn't very secure. MS takes steps to strengthen security, and the same people complain. Hmmm.

    Vista is what it was made to be, a bloat-ware OS for those that do not have the skills to replace or the wits to avoid it, made to LESSEN your options of what you can do with instead of increasing them. It may be the standard to those. A clean start, they say... It may even survive and improve. But Linux is already in your Linksys routrer and in Eee-PC and in  your heart monitor and and your internet Caffe machines. And there are many more to come just because Linux costs nothing to develop for, nothing to tinker with and for.

    Again, Vista is the OS for the masses, made to run for the lowest common denominators. This is why MS will always have the market share, and Linux will always fall behind. Stupid users will always out number 'power users'. I like Linux just as much as the next person, but people need to remember what it is and what it is not.

    A lowest common denominator is a system that you hand to the user and it works for them without having to do anything they do not understand. And I have done it, but only with Linux, for a user without a clue of what that box is, to someone who had to be explained very carefully that that the TV like thing with the picture is not the computer, the black one under the desk is and that also needs to be turned on for it to work... But she got what she wanted. She does her internet banking, she uses MSN and Skype to communicate with her children and she can play solitaire on her screen. That is enough. No confusing firewall pop-ups, now slowing anti-virus scans, a UI in her native language and a link on her desktop that runs VNC when I need to see her screen to help her when shes in trouble... But I seldom need it, I can do all I need over SSH. For free. Windows can never be that.

    I am glad this worked out in your isolated case. I would not be dropping a Linux box into most of the end users hands I have experienced.

    You cannot log in remotely to Windows? For free? To provide assistance? That is news to me. Remote desktop and Remote Assistance always worked just fine for me. Has always worked better than VNC for me too... Imagine that.

    It is very cold to assume that people who do not understand the machine should be kept away from the flow of the information that today you need a computer to access. It's like saying that if you do not know how to fix a broken bus or have a license to drive it, then you should not be allowed to ride it. I'm sorry, but you just very much  pissed me off with that attitude.

    If you read the entire thread to which I am referring, you will see a few rants about how hard it is to use and install Windows, and how easy Linux is. This is what I am referring to. So perhaps I worded this poorly. However someone who can come onto a forum and tell everyone about how they cannot install Windows, and how it wont run without 2GB of RAM because their friend had that problem. No they haven't actually tried any of this, and sure they don't seem to be intelligent enough to install Windows, which has to be one of the easiest things you are going to find to do. That kind of person really shouldn't be using computers, and certainly shouldn't be posting FUD on forums.



  • @asuffield said:

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.

    Personally, I like Vista.  It works well, and I've done about 30 installations of it so far.  That said it does have quirks, and you are absolutely right, MS initially screwed up a simple thing like copying files.  Of course, this has already been patched and now works much much better.

    That said, I'd like to see them add one more account type to the list: Developer.  This would be one step above their current Administrator group and would completely bypass the whole account elevation shit.

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.  Of course, this would require xcopy style deployment of software.

    I'd go with Driver updates requiring administrator access; but everything else from software installation, hardware changes, etc would be either controlled by group policy or allowed by type of account (power user...)

     



  • @Kyanar said:

     Vista on my two machines is working fine, and my Xbox 360 has never failed.  I've also never won the lottery.  Ever.
     

     

    You lie... you won the lottery multiple times!

    I have an xbox 360... 5th one, and one of the controllers broke too.

    1st one had hardware issue causing crashing

    2nd one same

    3rd one broke once i opened the box

    4th one worked... ring of death

    5th one current.

    This is in a span of... 4 months. I shoulda not gotten it. NOT TO MENTION that I could not back up my XBOX saves anywhere not even on a memory card when I had to exchange the hard drive.

    Whenever I have windows problems, I boot into linux as my dual-boot and fix the problems.

     

    Get this about windows file permissions:

    I used my external hard drive at work, and copied a file onto the drive... Went home, decided the file is no longer necessary and tried to delete it. Mind you I am as high permission as I can give myself being the administrator of my entire home network. Guess what? I am not the user that I am at work so therefore I cannot delete the file from my external drive. Period. No way to even change permissions to it since the user who put it there was a local admin for another machine... Sigh

    booted into linux and wiped that damn file. I say all comps should have a linux dual boot just incase windows has a hick-up.
     

     



  • @clively said:

    @asuffield said:

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.

    Personally, I like Vista.  It works well, and I've done about 30 installations of it so far.  That said it does have quirks, and you are absolutely right, MS initially screwed up a simple thing like copying files.  Of course, this has already been patched and now works much much better.

    That said, I'd like to see them add one more account type to the list: Developer.  This would be one step above their current Administrator group and would completely bypass the whole account elevation shit.

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.  Of course, this would require xcopy style deployment of software.

    I'd go with Driver updates requiring administrator access; but everything else from software installation, hardware changes, etc would be either controlled by group policy or allowed by type of account (power user...)

     

     

    Thats the idea of multiple-user operating systems... Root has full access. Any non-root user without sudo password cannot touch anything which they don't have access to. So you do whatever you need in your /home/username/ directory and your wife has the /home/wife/ directory. She can't screw the system up no matter how hard she tries unless she has root password. Same applies to you. Only when root password is used is anything nasty possible.

     However "RootKits" are programs that bypass this security... Thats a security hole NOT a flaw in the system design.

    Windows XP does not have this idea, you need a really limited account and then the user has SOME limitations as to what they can do. Its not quite the same... Windows XP is meant as: One user per machine, Multiple users in the same domain.
     



  • Learn to use proper quote splitting...   

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    If your goal is to run applications made for Windows 98, why would you not run Windows 98? Why not on a VM?

    This should be obvious!  Have you tried to secure a 98? It cannot be done! File systems have no rights, everybody is an admin and joining a proper MODERN win2003 domain is just not  what it should be... All this apples for VM aswell  plus the added complexity for the poor simple operator who has to use it...

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Upgrading to Vista and complaining it broke a Windows 98 application is silly. Most apps that have been broken were poorly written to begin with. I have many Window 98 era apps that still run fine in XP and Vista. If they write to a protected directory like c:\program files or c:\windows or have hardcoded paths, or do not detect and adapt to the OS version (etc, etc, etc) you are using, you can hardly consider that MS's fault. People complained that pre-Vista Windows wasn't very secure. MS takes steps to strengthen security, and the same people complain. Hmmm.

    Oh? It is not Windows fault is it?  They change the security architecture and take away all options for doing the things the old way via administrative override. Its bad design right there. How could a legacy application written in 98 era and no longer developed have foreseen the future OS-es? No, it could not and it should not have to. Setting administrative right to a single application is a necessary risk sometimes that all *nix OSes have recognized for a log time... Why is windows so blind to it? Strengthen the security, off course! But security does not come from making the ADMINISTRATOR dumb and blind and unable to do what needs to be done. It comes from distinguishing administrators from users and administrative actions from using the computer. There Vista has taken the right step... But it STILL fails to provide an override AFAIK.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Again, Vista is the OS for the masses, made to run for the lowest common denominators. This is why MS will always have the market share, and Linux will always fall behind. Stupid users will always out number 'power users'. I like Linux just as much as the next person, but people need to remember what it is and what it is not.

    No it isn't. Its confusing and slow and unpleasant to the masses, its appealing to those few who it works for. I agree that the "stupid users" will always outnumber power-users but why is Vista so hostile to them? All those "security" questions, all that DRM silently robbing them of their rights and not the least of all that toll on performanc at the expense of eyecandy and more confusing dependencies. You like Linux? Then I'll let you on in a little secret, I will tell you what Linux is not. Linux is not a ready thing. I can be made into what YOU want it to be. If you do not want to be the maker then you can take something somebody else has made for themselves and everybody who might need it... Sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn't...

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     
    I am glad this worked out in your isolated case. I would not be dropping a Linux box into most of the end users hands I have experienced.

    Oh? Why? what is it that you fear will hinder them? That it is different? It certainly is... all new is.  Vista is too. The users I know do not even know what a filesystem (or a path to file for that matter) is... They just have myDocuments and Desktop, both right there for Linux also as home folder and  well.. Desktop, just another folder...

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    You cannot log in remotely to Windows? For free? To provide assistance? That is news to me. Remote desktop and Remote Assistance always worked just fine for me. Has always worked better than VNC for me too... Imagine that.

    Yes. You can. Ive used it. Ive used several remote help softwares for windows really. But remote assistance is not the same as having full control over management without kicking out or hindering the user in doing their work. And have you actually tried to instruct a really simple user to INVITE you to remote assistance over the phone? Belive me, Its not an easy feat. Dameware is good for Windows, but costs money.  VNC is a bit problematic with rendering and quality but works cross platform and once installed, the server runs and no further is needed from the user. So you see, I DO know what I'm talking about.

     @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    If you read the entire thread to which I am referring, you will see a few rants about how hard it is to use and install Windows, and how easy Linux is. This is what I am referring to. So perhaps I worded this poorly. However someone who can come onto a forum and tell everyone about how they cannot install Windows, and how it wont run without 2GB of RAM because their friend had that problem. No they haven't actually tried any of this, and sure they don't seem to be intelligent enough to install Windows, which has to be one of the easiest things you are going to find to do. That kind of person really shouldn't be using computers, and certainly shouldn't be posting FUD on forums.

    Installing Windows XP on a modern PC  is hard for someone without IT background, you can not deny that, with  the need for a floppy to get installer to know SATA drives(Why no support for USB sticks is anybody's guess, they were mainstream and floppy near dead by the time XP came ). Installing Vista... Never done it myself honestly, but installing all OSes is the same these days. Not easier nor harder, just presuming that you know what you do and what a partition is as long as your drives are recognized OK.

    I would not say one bad word if Vista would be worth its price... XP almost was... Vista isn't, Its a piece of BETA grade bloat-ware from all that Ive seen and read. Ive seen Vista run on a modern brand new laptop running from a clean install. It idled after startup on 480MB of RAM! No anti-virus, no bundled software, nothing else but pure Vista. The hardware is not there for the OS to consume, its there to allow the employees to do their work for applications they use. After that my boss quickly made sure that Vista on all machines coming with Vista business edition can be downgraded to XP legally and thats what has happened to all of them. Thats how bad it is. And that is no FUD. Ratios of lovers and haters among users at forums are 1 against 100 or so... Perhaps open your eyes and see, as I said above,it is not for the masses, It is for the rare few it does work for... And that FUD you refer to... The hearsay starts from somewhere. There is a problem with Vista and your blind refusal of it is just as much FUD as anything they say.



  • @dlikhten said:

    ...

    Whenever I have windows problems, I boot into linux as my dual-boot and fix the problems.

     

    Get this about windows file permissions:

    I used my external hard drive at work, and copied a file onto the drive... Went home, decided the file is no longer necessary and tried to delete it. Mind you I am as high permission as I can give myself being the administrator of my entire home network. Guess what? I am not the user that I am at work so therefore I cannot delete the file from my external drive. Period. No way to even change permissions to it since the user who put it there was a local admin for another machine... *Sigh*

    booted into linux and wiped that damn file. I say all comps should have a linux dual boot just incase windows has a hick-up. 

    1) You boot into Linux to fix Windows problems? I have to say I am intrigued, please tell us more about what kind of problems you are having that would be easier to fix from Windows (besides you not knowing how file permissions work).

    2) So you are saying that Windows correctly enforced your file permissions, and you think IT is the problem?



  • @dlikhten said:


    booted into linux and wiped that damn file. I say all comps should have a linux dual boot just incase windows has a hick-up.

    I always have Linux live CD handy at work.

    a) memtest, included on most live CD-s its an essential hardware debugging tool

    b)Talkative kernel. When theres a failing drive or whatever the kernel always lets me know, right there and then what failed... with error codes and multitude of I do not belive is possible to get from Windows...

    c) True root power to command the system.

     
    d) separating hardware bugs from windows bugs.
     



  • @clively said:

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.

    That does utterly nothing to help the vast majority of compromised computers: the home desktops where the whole family use the same account (on XP with admin rights at that), don't install updates, browse carelessly, and install bucketloads of crap. There is no 'administrator' to 'hit the reset button'.



  • @death said:

    Learn to use proper quote splitting...   

    No thanks, I don't really care that much...

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    If your goal is to run applications made for Windows 98, why would you not run Windows 98? Why not on a VM?

    This should be obvious!  Have you tried to secure a 98? It cannot be done! File systems have no rights, everybody is an admin and joining a proper MODERN win2003 domain is just not  what it should be... All this apples for VM aswell  plus the added complexity for the poor simple operator who has to use it...

     It sure sounds like from your requirements you are talking about running Windows 98 apps on production machines with end users... That would be TRWTF. Anything mission cricitical should have been fixed a long time ago. Windows 98 is no longer supported. That was was not a sudden shock to anyone. There was plenty of notice.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Upgrading to Vista and complaining it broke a Windows 98 application is silly. Most apps that have been broken were poorly written to begin with. I have many Window 98 era apps that still run fine in XP and Vista. If they write to a protected directory like c:\program files or c:\windows or have hardcoded paths, or do not detect and adapt to the OS version (etc, etc, etc) you are using, you can hardly consider that MS's fault. People complained that pre-Vista Windows wasn't very secure. MS takes steps to strengthen security, and the same people complain. Hmmm.

    Oh? It is not Windows fault is it?  They change the security architecture and take away all options for doing the things the old way via administrative override. Its bad design right there. How could a legacy application written in 98 era and no longer developed have foreseen the future OS-es? No, it could not and it should not have to. Setting administrative right to a single application is a necessary risk sometimes that all *nix OSes have recognized for a log time... Why is windows so blind to it? Strengthen the security, off course! But security does not come from making the ADMINISTRATOR dumb and blind and unable to do what needs to be done. It comes from distinguishing administrators from users and administrative actions from using the computer. There Vista has taken the right step... But it STILL fails to provide an override AFAIK.

    Microsoft has issued best practices to developers interested in them for a long time. When followed, backwards compatibility was not hard to achieve.

    In Vista, you can run in 'Compatibility mode' and check 'Run as administrator' most apps should run perfectly fine if they were not programmed by flaming retarded monkeys.

    Here is a nice, simple How-To for you: http://www.maximumpcguides.com/run-software-in-application-compatibility-mode/

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Again, Vista is the OS for the masses, made to run for the lowest common denominators. This is why MS will always have the market share, and Linux will always fall behind. Stupid users will always out number 'power users'. I like Linux just as much as the next person, but people need to remember what it is and what it is not.

    No it isn't. Its confusing and slow and unpleasant to the masses, its appealing to those few who it works for. I agree that the "stupid users" will always outnumber power-users but why is Vista so hostile to them? All those "security" questions, all that DRM silently robbing them of their rights and not the least of all that toll on performanc at the expense of eyecandy and more confusing dependencies. You like Linux? Then I'll let you on in a little secret, I will tell you what Linux is not. Linux is not a ready thing. I can be made into what YOU want it to be. If you do not want to be the maker then you can take something somebody else has made for themselves and everybody who might need it... Sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn't...

    I have yet to meet a common user who is honestly confused, and considers UAC prompts 'Hostile'. I have heard some people say 'I don't need them, let's just turn them off. If I have a problem, we can just restore, I only browse the web anyway'. In which case you can turn all of it off. Linux IS different, precisely because it is NOT an out of the box, ready to run product. Microsoft has different goals. Microsoft cant tell everyone "Whoops, we messed up, just open the terminal, run these commands, and recompile the kernel." they have to make concessions to make things as seamless as possible. Does it always work? No. But their goals are 100% different.

    Here is another How-To for you: http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     
    I am glad this worked out in your isolated case. I would not be dropping a Linux box into most of the end users hands I have experienced.

    Oh? Why? what is it that you fear will hinder them? That it is different? It certainly is... all new is.  Vista is too. The users I know do not even know what a filesystem (or a path to file for that matter) is... They just have myDocuments and Desktop, both right there for Linux also as home folder and  well.. Desktop, just another folder...

    No, I just don't feel like playing tech support for the rest of my life. When I give a Windows box to someone, 90% of people can use it (albeit with some fucktardery) but that is hardly my concern. Point, click, work. I have used Ubuntu (pretty much the most out of the box distro I have seen so far) and I cannot say the same for it. It is maybe 90% to that point from my experiences. But I would still not do it. Because if I give them a Windows box, they can talk to any of their friends/coworkers/whatever and relate stories, and learn. Not true with Linux. My grandma isn't going to be talking Linux on IRC tomorrow. I go for the path of least resistance with people like that.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    You cannot log in remotely to Windows? For free? To provide assistance? That is news to me. Remote desktop and Remote Assistance always worked just fine for me. Has always worked better than VNC for me too... Imagine that.

    Yes. You can. Ive used it. Ive used several remote help softwares for windows really. But remote assistance is not the same as having full control over management without kicking out or hindering the user in doing their work. And have you actually tried to instruct a really simple user to INVITE you to remote assistance over the phone? Belive me, Its not an easy feat. Dameware is good for Windows, but costs money.  VNC is a bit problematic with rendering and quality but works cross platform and once installed, the server runs and no further is needed from the user. So you see, I DO know what I'm talking about.

    If I gave/sold someone a computer I give/sell support on, I make sure to set up my own administrative user, with remote desktop enabled for it. I also make sure their home network is set up to allow the connection. There is no reason I would want them on the computer when I am providing support over RD. If I want to give them a tutorial I will use remote assistance, since you can show them on their screen.

    As for the rest of your argument, I don't see it. RD is fine for anything you could ever need, and it is a check box away. No harder to setup/use on a remote computer than in Linux. 

     @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    If you read the entire thread to which I am referring, you will see a few rants about how hard it is to use and install Windows, and how easy Linux is. This is what I am referring to. So perhaps I worded this poorly. However someone who can come onto a forum and tell everyone about how they cannot install Windows, and how it wont run without 2GB of RAM because their friend had that problem. No they haven't actually tried any of this, and sure they don't seem to be intelligent enough to install Windows, which has to be one of the easiest things you are going to find to do. That kind of person really shouldn't be using computers, and certainly shouldn't be posting FUD on forums.

    Installing Windows XP on a modern PC  is hard for someone without IT background, you can not deny that, with  the need for a floppy to get installer to know SATA drives(Why no support for USB sticks is anybody's guess, they were mainstream and floppy near dead by the time XP came ). Installing Vista... Never done it myself honestly, but installing all OSes is the same these days. Not easier nor harder, just presuming that you know what you do and what a partition is as long as your drives are recognized OK.

    Admittedly the floppy disk problem does suck... however any installation medium I use has all current service packs and necessary drivers slipstreamed into it. It is not hard at all to do, and makes the whole process a lot quicker anyway. And no, I have seen a lot of complete idiots successfully install 98, 2k, XP and Vista. So I don't think this requires an 'IT background'. Although the smarter users are generally the ones who DON'T try and reinstall themselves and ask people for some help. They could accomplish it, but rather not take chances. When they don't know what they are doing.

    I would not say one bad word if Vista would be worth its price... XP almost was... Vista isn't, Its a piece of BETA grade bloat-ware from all that Ive seen and read. Ive seen Vista run on a modern brand new laptop running from a clean install. It idled after startup on 480MB of RAM! No anti-virus, no bundled software, nothing else but pure Vista. The hardware is not there for the OS to consume, its there to allow the employees to do their work for applications they use. After that my boss quickly made sure that Vista on all machines coming with Vista business edition can be downgraded to XP legally and thats what has happened to all of them. Thats how bad it is. And that is no FUD. Ratios of lovers and haters among users at forums are 1 against 100 or so... Perhaps open your eyes and see, as I said above,it is not for the masses, It is for the rare few it does work for... And that FUD you refer to... The hearsay starts from somewhere. There is a problem with Vista and your blind refusal of it is just as much FUD as anything they say.

    Once again, another person pretending like they know something more than MS, and using their new favorite word: "Bloatware". The memory usage in Windows Vista is not news. But it is also not what you seem to think.

    Here is a good article on it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @dlikhten said:

    ...

    Whenever I have windows problems, I boot into linux as my dual-boot and fix the problems.

     

    Get this about windows file permissions:

    I used my external hard drive at work, and copied a file onto the drive... Went home, decided the file is no longer necessary and tried to delete it. Mind you I am as high permission as I can give myself being the administrator of my entire home network. Guess what? I am not the user that I am at work so therefore I cannot delete the file from my external drive. Period. No way to even change permissions to it since the user who put it there was a local admin for another machine... Sigh

    booted into linux and wiped that damn file. I say all comps should have a linux dual boot just incase windows has a hick-up. 

    1) You boot into Linux to fix Windows problems? I have to say I am intrigued, please tell us more about what kind of problems you are having that would be easier to fix from Windows (besides you not knowing how file permissions work).

    2) So you are saying that Windows correctly enforced your file permissions, and you think IT is the problem?

     No i am saying that if I was to leave my job (not able to log into my job's account) i will NEVER be able to delete that file.

    When you plug a device into a computer you are running the risk that that computer now controls that device. ROOT should be able to modify it! The administrator should have full control of the computer. If I am not in full control of my computer than who is? And that whoever will fix my problems then if I have them right? If microsoft wants to control my computer... no problem, as long as they fix all my problems free of charge and immediately. Otherwise they can piss off and let me control it.

    So far whenever there is hard drive corruption, windows mostly fails to fix or recover files. Boot a knopix cd and you can recover most of your data (has been done many times) HOWS THAT? Windows can't even recover it's own proprietary, secret, non-disclosed, file system while linux had it reverse-engineered and can!

    Also when I say problems I don't mean OOOH MY FILE IS SOMEWHERES WHERES IS IT? I mean I have hardware issues and I need to figure out what issues. Say your stick of ram is bad, PLEASE tell me how you will find this out?

    Windows: Blue screen of death -- What went wrong? nobody knows, computer just WONT START PERIOD.

    Linux: Memory Test -- Thats right, memory test and it will tell you you got a bad stick. shock hardware breaks?
     



  • No, I just don't feel like playing tech support for the rest of my life. When I give a Windows box to someone, 90% of people can use it (albeit with some fucktardery) but that is hardly my concern. Point, click, work. I have used Ubuntu (pretty much the most out of the box distro I have seen so far) and I cannot say the same for it. It is maybe 90% to that point from my experiences. But I would still not do it. Because if I give them a Windows box, they can talk to any of their friends/coworkers/whatever and relate stories, and learn. Not true with Linux. My grandma isn't going to be talking Linux on IRC tomorrow. I go for the path of least resistance with people like that.

     

    To that I say the following: When I installed windows for anyone I know, there is ALWAYS a problem. And I doubt that I want to teach my 80 year old grandfather about how to deal with UAC, hell just click OK, OK, OK, OK. Its what most people do...
     



  • While everyone has been fighting *nix vs Win, I've accomplished the following:

    1.  Learned how to make stuffed mushrooms and tom yum soup.

    2.  Saved on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

    3.  Took cardboard boxes and plastic containers to the recycling center.

    Please keep going.  It's very entertaining, engaging, and enlightening.
     



  • @dlikhten said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @dlikhten said:

    ...

    Whenever I have windows problems, I boot into linux as my dual-boot and fix the problems.

     

    Get this about windows file permissions:

    I used my external hard drive at work, and copied a file onto the drive... Went home, decided the file is no longer necessary and tried to delete it. Mind you I am as high permission as I can give myself being the administrator of my entire home network. Guess what? I am not the user that I am at work so therefore I cannot delete the file from my external drive. Period. No way to even change permissions to it since the user who put it there was a local admin for another machine... Sigh

    booted into linux and wiped that damn file. I say all comps should have a linux dual boot just incase windows has a hick-up. 

    1) You boot into Linux to fix Windows problems? I have to say I am intrigued, please tell us more about what kind of problems you are having that would be easier to fix from Windows (besides you not knowing how file permissions work).

    2) So you are saying that Windows correctly enforced your file permissions, and you think IT is the problem?

     No i am saying that if I was to leave my job (not able to log into my job's account) i will NEVER be able to delete that file.

    When you plug a device into a computer you are running the risk that that computer now controls that device. ROOT should be able to modify it! The administrator should have full control of the computer. If I am not in full control of my computer than who is? And that whoever will fix my problems then if I have them right? If microsoft wants to control my computer... no problem, as long as they fix all my problems free of charge and immediately. Otherwise they can piss off and let me control it.

    So far whenever there is hard drive corruption, windows mostly fails to fix or recover files. Boot a knopix cd and you can recover most of your data (has been done many times) HOWS THAT? Windows can't even recover it's own proprietary, secret, non-disclosed, file system while linux had it reverse-engineered and can!

    Also when I say problems I don't mean OOOH MY FILE IS SOMEWHERES WHERES IS IT? I mean I have hardware issues and I need to figure out what issues. Say your stick of ram is bad, PLEASE tell me how you will find this out?

    Windows: Blue screen of death -- What went wrong? nobody knows, computer just WONT START PERIOD.

    Linux: Memory Test -- Thats right, memory test and it will tell you you got a bad stick. shock hardware breaks?

     

    ...

    /ThisComputer/Administrator  != /ThisOtherComputer/Administrator

    Otherwise you could just copy the file to a new computer and sidestep any available security/permissions. As the local Administrator of this computer, I should not have full control over a file from someone else's computer. Otherwise network access would become a bit sketchy, and a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool.

    Of course a linux startup is a great way to check hardware. I don't argue that. But bad RAM is hardly a 'windows problem'. Nor is a bad HD.

    You want to diagnose a crash, BSOD, bad memory?

    http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

    By far not the only way to do this, but usable all the same.

    I don't care that you use Linux as your preferred tool, but you seem to think your bad HD, bad RAM, and other hardware issues are a 'windows problem'.

    This might explain half your difficulties.



  • @dlikhten said:

    No, I just don't feel like playing tech support for the rest of
    my life. When I give a Windows box to someone, 90% of people can use it
    (albeit with some fucktardery) but that is hardly my concern. Point,
    click, work. I have used Ubuntu (pretty much the most out of the box
    distro I have seen so far) and I cannot say the same for it. It is
    maybe 90% to that point from my experiences. But I would still not do
    it. Because if I give them a Windows box, they can talk to any of their
    friends/coworkers/whatever and relate stories, and learn. Not true with
    Linux. My grandma isn't going to be talking Linux on IRC tomorrow. I go
    for the path of least resistance with people like that.

     

    To that I say the following: When I installed windows for anyone I know, there is ALWAYS a problem. And I doubt that I want to teach my 80 year old grandfather about how to deal with UAC, hell just click OK, OK, OK, OK. Its what most people do...
     

    Or, you could turn it off it bothers you. But I agree it is much easier to complain than to do a simple google search...



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    /ThisComputer/Administrator  != /ThisOtherComputer/Administrator

    Otherwise you could just copy the file to a new computer and sidestep any available security/permissions. As the local Administrator of this computer, I should not have full control over a file from someone else's computer. Otherwise network access would become a bit sketchy, and a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool.

    As the local administrator of this computer, I should have full control over a file on any drive directly connected to it. It shouldn't matter who created a file on a drive, or what computer they created it on, if I plug a drive into my machine (whether by USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI or whatever).

    If I want to write files to a drive and them NOT be readable by anyone else, the only meaningful thing for me to do is encrypt them.

    Also, please explain how "a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool." Unless you boot from it, as with a LiveCD, then you do indeed bypass all permissions on the local machine.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Here is a good article on it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.

    Regarding Superfetch, it's unfortunately not that simple. Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it. Basically once you open a file, Vista holds onto it in RAM forever, regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off. More about my dealings with Superfetch here.



  • @Welbog said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    Here is a good article on it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.

    Regarding Superfetch, it's unfortunately not that simple. Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it. Basically once you open a file, Vista holds onto it in RAM forever, regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off. More about my dealings with Superfetch here.

    So far as I can see from your rambling you list three problems:

    1) Turning Superfetch off does not actually stop the behavior. Every source I have read seems to disagree with you. Your mileage may vary, but I would look at what individual apps might be causing this. You say:

    " Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it."

    Sound like all you are doing is looking in the task manager at memory usage. The cache will be reclaimed as needed. Just like when SuperFetch is running, if the system appears to only have 50mb of free RAM, and you request 100mb, you will get 100mb. Superfetch gives it up. This is the same thing Exchange Server's store.exe has always done.

    2) No configuration. I agree with their no configuration approach. It is either on or off. If you launch an app that needs more RAM, it can use that RAM, and SuperFetch reconfigures it's memory space.  Will it hurt performance in heavy gaming? Absolutely. Just turn it off. You wouldn't want it to be running at 10% superfetching anyway! That would be stupid when running a game. A quick batch file would do wonder to turn this off, launch your game, and then turn it back on when you are done.

    3) "I also can't say, "Shit, Superfetch. If I'm running a game you'd better back the fuck off so it can run properly."  -- See my batch file suggestion above, extremely easy to implement.

    From reading blog entry I can see a clear lack of understanding how this service works, so I will just point you in the direction where you might learn something more about this. 

    http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

    I don't expect you to read it, but you could probably really benefit.

     

     



  • @m0ffx said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    /ThisComputer/Administrator  != /ThisOtherComputer/Administrator

    Otherwise you could just copy the file to a new computer and sidestep any available security/permissions. As the local Administrator of this computer, I should not have full control over a file from someone else's computer. Otherwise network access would become a bit sketchy, and a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool.

    As the local administrator of this computer, I should have full control over a file on any drive directly connected to it. It shouldn't matter who created a file on a drive, or what computer they created it on, if I plug a drive into my machine (whether by USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI or whatever).

    If I want to write files to a drive and them NOT be readable by anyone else, the only meaningful thing for me to do is encrypt them.

    Also, please explain how "a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool." Unless you boot from it, as with a LiveCD, then you do indeed bypass all permissions on the local machine.

    If you store anything on any non-secure media (such as a secure file server) the only true means of securing the data is encryption.

    The purpouse of file access is so that the following is true:
    [Note it is even best practice to not allow root to even log into X-Windows!!! This way you are guaranteed that root does not go online and allow any spyware to run itself as a superuser!
    1) The current user cannot screw up the system unless he has the admin password, in which case the current user is the admin.
    2) Any program the current user starts (or starts due to virus/spyware) cannot screw up the system (unless this is admin, in which case that user should not be going online as a non-limited user)
    3) In a multi-user system (such as a college unix box with multiple terminals) no user can see the private files of another user (again unless you are root)

    If I, user X, stores a file lets call it foo.txt with important information for myself on a USB card in linux in school, come home and want to open foo.txt (which happens to have my class schedule) and I want to open that file up in windows, give me one good reason why that should be denied? I obviously stored it on a media so i can transport it... so think about it now! Obviously I don't care about security of that file when it comes to transporting it from my linux at school to my windows at home. Same goes for work to home. When you store something on removeable media I ASSUME (i can be horribly and massively wrong on this one) that you have one of two purposes: To transport the data, or to backup data, both of which need cross user access!

    Now a usb card that I plug into my unix terminal should only be accessible by me (thats LOCAL access management) but if steve takes my card, unless its encrypted he should have the ability to read it. Otherwise he just uses a different OS and reads it anyways, but thats a SECURITY mentality flaw: You feel like you are protected but in reality you are not.
     



  • @death said:

    Learn to use proper quote splitting...  

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    No thanks, I don't really care that much...

     

    Obviously. And you really don give a flying f*ck about any poor sod that may be interested to read this mess. Truly user friendly.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     

    It sure sounds like from your requirements you are talking about running Windows 98 apps on production machines with end users... That would be TRWTF. Anything mission cricitical should have been fixed a long time ago. Windows 98 is no longer supported. That was was not a sudden shock to anyone. There was plenty of notice.

    You really are clueless are you? You know nothing of the reality of every day IT life outside self-contained world of manufacturing IT where the actual use of its products happens? There are still DOS systems in use in production solutions, NT4 and all other variants are not rare either built into solutions that were built complete, some unsupported for more than a decade. And the support people are expected to keep them working until keeping them costs more than buying new. We may hate the old runts but we still must keep them working against dumb users, against failing hardware against the fact that nothing new is supported...

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     

    Microsoft has issued best practices to developers interested in them for a long time. When followed, backwards compatibility was not hard to achieve.

    Yeah... And then theres real life. Not all works, nothing works predictably etc... 

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    In Vista, you can run in 'Compatibility mode' and check 'Run as administrator' most apps should run perfectly fine if they were not programmed by flaming retarded monkeys.

    Does this lift the restrictions from direct access to hardware ports that was lost in NT? And you can set that to an application and let a non-admin user excecute that as an admin? Or do you have to be admin to do that when you run it as it is in XP? 

    I can use google to find my own howtos should I need them. I pray to all gods of IT so that this would never happen...

       

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    I have yet to meet a common user who is honestly confused, and
    considers UAC prompts 'Hostile'. I have heard some people say 'I don't
    need them, let's just turn them off. If I have a problem, we can just
    restore, I only browse the web anyway'. In which case you can turn all
    of it off.

    Whats the point of a system security that you can turn off completely?
    In my mind its the TRWTF here... Security should be tunable, yes, but
    make extended (anoying) security and make it then possible to just
    switch it off simply beats the purpose. The user, without rights should
    not be prompted for elevation, only notified that there was something
    that did not work due to lack of such elevation. and incident logged. Oh, and I just browse the web thing... The web is a dangerous place...

     

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     

    Linux IS different, precisely because it is NOT an out of
    the box, ready to run product. Microsoft has different goals. Microsoft
    cant tell everyone "Whoops, we messed up, just open the terminal, run
    these commands, and recompile the kernel." they have to make
    concessions to make things as seamless as possible. Does it always
    work? No. But their goals are 100% different.

    Yes. Goals are different. Microsoft wants continued inflow of your money and so it assumes that you are an idiot and must be at all costs prevented from any action that suspiciously looks like shooting yourself in the leg. Linux community wants freedom. Freedom for a root to shoot its foot off all it wants if the root is stupid or just curious how it feels and can it be mended. Linux itself wants nothing from you except perhaps that if you find fault in it either report it or stop complaining and fix it, if you have time and the skills that is... and FYI kernel is the last thing to break in a modern Linux system.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

     

    No, I just don't feel like playing tech support for the rest
    of my life.


    You don't feel like it? You will have no choice in the matter  regardless of the OS you offer with some people or you will soon gather a very nasty reputation. And the only thing a person truly has is reputation.



    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    My grandma isn't going to be talking Linux on IRC tomorrow. I go
    for the path of least resistance with people like that.

    Ive been trying to tell you but you do not listen. At the level of your grandma, there is no difference between windows and Linux. The difference starts a little higher than that. when you discover drive letters  and configuration and other "advanced" things. And the price...

     
     @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Admittedly the floppy disk problem does suck... however any
    installation medium I use has all current service packs and necessary
    drivers slipstreamed into it. It is not hard at all to do, and makes
    the whole process a lot quicker anyway. And no, I have seen a lot of
    complete idiots successfully install 98, 2k, XP and Vista. So I don't
    think this requires an 'IT background'.

    Slipstreaming eh. IT lingo there, no common user understands what it means. And the complete idiots who installed who successfully installed the aforementioned OS-es... If you can call someone that has figured out how to boot from CD an idiot, then I do believe you've never seen an idiot in your life.

     

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.

    Linux has done caching in all available ram as long as I remember. Its nothing new to me as a concept. The vista task manager shows Physical memory usage % automaticaly without cache(look at the status bar in of the window in your link). I ignored the free count and looked at the used count FYI. Its most common newbie question in Linux world for people from Windows too...



  • @Liquid Egg Product said:

    While everyone has been fighting *nix vs Win, I've accomplished the following:

    ...

    Please keep going.  It's very entertaining, engaging, and enlightening.
     

    :D Well, I have completely avoided falling into my book addiction by it so yes, Its entertaining. Verbal sparring practice. 



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    You boot into Linux to fix Windows problems? I have to say I am intrigued, please tell us more about what kind of problems you are having that would be easier to fix from Windows (besides you not knowing how file permissions work).

    It is the way to reset a lost or damaged local administrator password. That's the only one I can think of offhand, but it's invaluable. 



  • @dlikhten said:

    @m0ffx said:
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    /ThisComputer/Administrator  != /ThisOtherComputer/Administrator

    Otherwise you could just copy the file to a new computer and sidestep any available security/permissions. As the local Administrator of this computer, I should not have full control over a file from someone else's computer. Otherwise network access would become a bit sketchy, and a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool.

    As the local administrator of this computer, I should have full control over a file on any drive directly connected to it. It shouldn't matter who created a file on a drive, or what computer they created it on, if I plug a drive into my machine (whether by USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI or whatever).

    If I want to write files to a drive and them NOT be readable by anyone else, the only meaningful thing for me to do is encrypt them.

    Also, please explain how "a USB stick would become the ultimate cracking tool." Unless you boot from it, as with a LiveCD, then you do indeed bypass all permissions on the local machine.

    If you store anything on any non-secure media (such as a secure file server) the only true means of securing the data is encryption.

    The purpouse of file access is so that the following is true:
    [Note it is even best practice to not allow root to even log into X-Windows!!! This way you are guaranteed that root does not go online and allow any spyware to run itself as a superuser!
    1) The current user cannot screw up the system unless he has the admin password, in which case the current user is the admin.
    2) Any program the current user starts (or starts due to virus/spyware) cannot screw up the system (unless this is admin, in which case that user should not be going online as a non-limited user)
    3) In a multi-user system (such as a college unix box with multiple terminals) no user can see the private files of another user (again unless you are root)

    If I, user X, stores a file lets call it foo.txt with important information for myself on a USB card in linux in school, come home and want to open foo.txt (which happens to have my class schedule) and I want to open that file up in windows, give me one good reason why that should be denied? I obviously stored it on a media so i can transport it... so think about it now! Obviously I don't care about security of that file when it comes to transporting it from my linux at school to my windows at home. Same goes for work to home. When you store something on removeable media I ASSUME (i can be horribly and massively wrong on this one) that you have one of two purposes: To transport the data, or to backup data, both of which need cross user access!

    Now a usb card that I plug into my unix terminal should only be accessible by me (thats LOCAL access management) but if steve takes my card, unless its encrypted he should have the ability to read it. Otherwise he just uses a different OS and reads it anyways, but thats a SECURITY mentality flaw: You feel like you are protected but in reality you are not.
     

    And if you stored it without any kind of extraneous permissions on the file, you should have no problem. If you have a problem it would be because of those permissions. 

    If you are on one computer and designate the file to have read/write permissions ONLY to /thisdomain/me. And then you try to open that file as /someotherdomain/you. It is going to experience problems. If you designate the permissions to be Everyone, with read/write access you are done. I have never seen or heard of this happening, but I would guess that is likely because I cannot imagine anyone using NTFS on their USB stick.

    Sound like you are using NTFS on your USB stick, and you are not factoring in permissions.

    Next time use FAT and pay attention to permissions.

     



  • @dlikhten said:

    If I, user X, stores a file lets call it foo.txt with important information for myself on a USB card in linux in school, come home and want to open foo.txt (which happens to have my class schedule) and I want to open that file up in windows, give me one good reason why that should be denied? I obviously stored it on a media so i can transport it... so think about it now! Obviously I don't care about security of that file when it comes to transporting it from my linux at school to my windows at home. Same goes for work to home. When you store something on removeable media I ASSUME (i can be horribly and massively wrong on this one) that you have one of two purposes: To transport the data, or to backup data, both of which need cross user access!

    If you've formatted the USB stick as an NTFS drive, then that's exactly what will happen. The userid the file is stored as by the machine at school will be completely unknown to your home machine and you'd be denied permission to access the file, unless you're running as an Admin at home. And even if your usernames are the same at work/home/school, the actually on-disk ID bits will still be different, as your numerical user ID is hashed together with system- or domain-specific keys to create the actual on-disk ID bits.

    You can still take ownership of the files on the key, but then you lose the ownership permissions from the school system, and have to repeat the take ownership bit there once you go back the next day.

    This'd be why most keys are shipped with FAT32 or FAT16 (for ancient small ones). Try explaining to Aunt Tilly why "her" file has to have its ownership changed from "her" to "her" before the family perogie recipie is accessible again.
     



  • @MarcB said:

    @dlikhten said:

    If I, user X, stores a file lets call it foo.txt with important information for myself on a USB card in linux in school, come home and want to open foo.txt (which happens to have my class schedule) and I want to open that file up in windows, give me one good reason why that should be denied? I obviously stored it on a media so i can transport it... so think about it now! Obviously I don't care about security of that file when it comes to transporting it from my linux at school to my windows at home. Same goes for work to home. When you store something on removeable media I ASSUME (i can be horribly and massively wrong on this one) that you have one of two purposes: To transport the data, or to backup data, both of which need cross user access!

    If you've formatted the USB stick as an NTFS drive, then that's exactly what will happen. The userid the file is stored as by the machine at school will be completely unknown to your home machine and you'd be denied permission to access the file, unless you're running as an Admin at home. And even if your usernames are the same at work/home/school, the actually on-disk ID bits will still be different, as your numerical user ID is hashed together with system- or domain-specific keys to create the actual on-disk ID bits.

    You can still take ownership of the files on the key, but then you lose the ownership permissions from the school system, and have to repeat the take ownership bit there once you go back the next day.

    This'd be why most keys are shipped with FAT32 or FAT16 (for ancient small ones). Try explaining to Aunt Tilly why "her" file has to have its ownership changed from "her" to "her" before the family perogie recipie is accessible again.
     

    Right. Thank you. 

    File permissions 101.

    Glad I am not the only one who see the WTFery in complaining about this. PEBKAC



  • @asuffield said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    You boot into Linux to fix Windows problems? I have to say I am intrigued, please tell us more about what kind of problems you are having that would be easier to fix from Windows (besides you not knowing how file permissions work).

    It is the way to reset a lost or damaged local administrator password. That's the only one I can think of offhand, but it's invaluable. 

    I would agree with that, I have used a dual boot machine for many issues over the years. My only argument is to his term "Windows problems" since he has clearly stated they are all hardware problems.

    One might even argue that forgetting your administrator password is a PEBKAC more than a 'Windows problem'. But that is neither here nor there.

    And just for reference, a bootable windows install CD will be able to recover this for you through the recovery console. I have been guilty of both.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @MarcB said:

    This'd be why most keys are shipped with FAT32 or FAT16 (for ancient small ones). Try explaining to Aunt Tilly why "her" file has to have its ownership changed from "her" to "her" before the family perogie recipie is accessible again.
     

    Right. Thank you. 

    File permissions 101.

    Glad I am not the only one who see the WTFery in complaining about this. PEBKAC

    Yes, and now please transport files over 4GB, dvd images, backups etc on that storage. You cant. FAT32 has a filesize limit of 4GB. Believe me, its not fun. I once upon a time tried to do videoprocessing on Win98. DV file of 4GB is about 10 minutes long. I had to process a theater show of 70 minutes.  Not fun to cature bit by bit and then merge seamlesly...



  • @Welbog said:

    Regarding Superfetch, it's unfortunately not that simple. Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it. Basically once you open a file, Vista holds onto it in RAM forever, regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off. More about my dealings with Superfetch here.

    If that were true, how could anyone get anything done in Vista at all? There's a few bajillion files opened up merely by booting. If Vista never released them from RAM, then it'd be near impossible to even get to the desktop, as more than a few gig of data are shuffled around during boot up. 

    Just because some (or nearly all) RAM is marked as being used by Cache doesn't mean it's forever unusable until the next boot, Windows can and does and HAS TO release cache space for use by programs. Vista isn't any different in this than any other modern OS. They ALL will suck up
    unused ram for disk cache, and release it back when needed.

    My 2gig Linux box is currently reporting only 16meg free ram. Ouch... but then I look one line farther down and see that once cache/buffers are removed from the equation, there's really 1.65gig free. Golly gee willickers... Much better sounding. 

    In other words, if your system is reporting only 16meg free out of your 6gig, then try running something that uses more than 16meg. In your world, you'd get an "insufficient memory" error. In everyone else's world, the system cache will magically shrink by however much is needed, and woah, lookie there... it's the program that was started, running just fine!
     



  • @death said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    @MarcB said:

    This'd be why most keys are shipped with FAT32 or FAT16 (for ancient small ones). Try explaining to Aunt Tilly why "her" file has to have its ownership changed from "her" to "her" before the family perogie recipie is accessible again.
     

    Right. Thank you. 

    File permissions 101.

    Glad I am not the only one who see the WTFery in complaining about this. PEBKAC

    Yes, and now please transport files over 4GB, dvd images, backups etc on that storage. You cant. FAT32 has a filesize limit of 4GB. Believe me, its not fun. I once upon a time tried to do videoprocessing on Win98. DV file of 4GB is about 10 minutes long. I had to process a theater show of 70 minutes.  Not fun to cature bit by bit and then merge seamlesly...

    And were you too dumb to understand file permissions, lock it down on a user name, and transfer it outside the domain?

    Did you then sit there and rant and rave about Windows on a forum afterwards?



  • "And just for reference, a bootable windows install CD will be able to recover this for you through the recovery console. I have been guilty of both."

    Thats one I want an how-to link of some sort for. AFAIK you cant even get to the recovery console if you don't have some admin account on the box... 



  • @death said:

    "And just for reference, a bootable windows install CD will be able to
    recover this for you through the recovery console. I have been guilty
    of both."

    Thats one I want an how-to link of some sort for. AFAIK you cant even get to the recovery console if you don't have some admin account on the box... 

    Been a while since I had to do this, but I believe this is how I did it:

    http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

     



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @Welbog said:
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    Here is a good article on it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.

    Regarding Superfetch, it's unfortunately not that simple. Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it. Basically once you open a file, Vista holds onto it in RAM forever, regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off. More about my dealings with Superfetch here.

    So far as I can see from your rambling you list three problems:

    1) Turning Superfetch off does not actually stop the behavior. Every source I have read seems to disagree with you. Your mileage may vary, but I would look at what individual apps might be causing this. You say:

    " Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it."

    Sound like all you are doing is looking in the task manager at memory usage. The cache will be reclaimed as needed. Just like when SuperFetch is running, if the system appears to only have 50mb of free RAM, and you request 100mb, you will get 100mb. Superfetch gives it up. This is the same thing Exchange Server's store.exe has always done.

    2) No configuration. I agree with their no configuration approach. It is either on or off. If you launch an app that needs more RAM, it can use that RAM, and SuperFetch reconfigures it's memory space.  Will it hurt performance in heavy gaming? Absolutely. Just turn it off. You wouldn't want it to be running at 10% superfetching anyway! That would be stupid when running a game. A quick batch file would do wonder to turn this off, launch your game, and then turn it back on when you are done.

    3) "I also can't say, "Shit, Superfetch. If I'm running a game you'd better back the fuck off so it can run properly."  -- See my batch file suggestion above, extremely easy to implement.

    From reading blog entry I can see a clear lack of understanding how this service works, so I will just point you in the direction where you might learn something more about this. 

    http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

    I don't expect you to read it, but you could probably really benefit.

    I read the article, and what it says it does is basically exactly how I would expect it to work. However, in practice I know it doesn't work this way. It's supposed to free itself up as soon as RAM is needed, but my multitude of "out of memory" errors with Superfetch enabled somehow seems more real to me than what an article says. I've watched how the "Cache" RAM behaves with Superfetch on, while running a game. The game (in this case, TF2) would normally take up a good amount of RAM at startup to load its splash screen. When Superfetch is on and has had time to fill its cache, the splash screen doesn't load, and WMP (running in the background) will often tell me that it can't play the next file in its playlist because there isn't enough memory available.

    If I turn Superfetch off, this problem still exists. My cache is still full, and it doesn't recede quickly enough when my games and applications request it. Yes, it does recede, but not enough. When Superfetch is on, it fills its cache. When Superfetch is off, all of the things it's loaded into the cache remain there, until they're cleared out when something need more RAM. This means that your batch file solution isn't going to work. Turning Superfetch off will improve performance (since it's not taking any CPU cycles to move files in and out of memory), but it doesn't solve my immediate no-sound problem at all.

    Now I'm sure you don't believe me, but this is my experience with Superfetch. I like the idea, personally. If it worked the way you and that article say it does, then I would truly love it. But it doesn't, at least not for me. Maybe my Superfetch is broken, somehow. Or maybe it's working the way it was designed and you're the one who's mistaken about how it works. I'm not going to make that judgement. I know that I've run tests about Superfetch and have ruled out all other possibilities regarding what was causing my issues. I know how it works on my machine. I invite you to be more open minded about the possibility that it's not as perfect as you think it is, or to show me what's wrong with my setup.



  • Also, if memory serves me, the recovery console's password by default is 'admin' and you can reset the local admin password there as well.



  • @Welbog said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    @Welbog said:
    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    Here is a good article on it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

    It is called SuperFetch. Like just about all of the other features in Vista which may or may not be desirable to certain people, you can turn it off. Just turn the SuperFetch service off.

    Regarding Superfetch, it's unfortunately not that simple. Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it. Basically once you open a file, Vista holds onto it in RAM forever, regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off. More about my dealings with Superfetch here.

    So far as I can see from your rambling you list three problems:

    1) Turning Superfetch off does not actually stop the behavior. Every source I have read seems to disagree with you. Your mileage may vary, but I would look at what individual apps might be causing this. You say:

    " Turning Superfetch off stops Vista from violently consuming all available RAM, but it doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of "cache" RAM once a file has been loaded into it."

    Sound like all you are doing is looking in the task manager at memory usage. The cache will be reclaimed as needed. Just like when SuperFetch is running, if the system appears to only have 50mb of free RAM, and you request 100mb, you will get 100mb. Superfetch gives it up. This is the same thing Exchange Server's store.exe has always done.

    2) No configuration. I agree with their no configuration approach. It is either on or off. If you launch an app that needs more RAM, it can use that RAM, and SuperFetch reconfigures it's memory space.  Will it hurt performance in heavy gaming? Absolutely. Just turn it off. You wouldn't want it to be running at 10% superfetching anyway! That would be stupid when running a game. A quick batch file would do wonder to turn this off, launch your game, and then turn it back on when you are done.

    3) "I also can't say, "Shit, Superfetch. If I'm running a game you'd better back the fuck off so it can run properly."  -- See my batch file suggestion above, extremely easy to implement.

    From reading blog entry I can see a clear lack of understanding how this service works, so I will just point you in the direction where you might learn something more about this. 

    http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

    I don't expect you to read it, but you could probably really benefit.

    I read the article, and what it says it does is basically exactly how I would expect it to work. However, in practice I know it doesn't work this way. It's supposed to free itself up as soon as RAM is needed, but my multitude of "out of memory" errors with Superfetch enabled somehow seems more real to me than what an article says. I've watched how the "Cache" RAM behaves with Superfetch on, while running a game. The game (in this case, TF2) would normally take up a good amount of RAM at startup to load its splash screen. When Superfetch is on and has had time to fill its cache, the splash screen doesn't load, and WMP (running in the background) will often tell me that it can't play the next file in its playlist because there isn't enough memory available.

    If I turn Superfetch off, this problem still exists. My cache is still full, and it doesn't recede quickly enough when my games and applications request it. Yes, it does recede, but not enough. When Superfetch is on, it fills its cache. When Superfetch is off, all of the things it's loaded into the cache remain there, until they're cleared out when something need more RAM. This means that your batch file solution isn't going to work. Turning Superfetch off will improve performance (since it's not taking any CPU cycles to move files in and out of memory), but it doesn't solve my immediate no-sound problem at all.

    Now I'm sure you don't believe me, but this is my experience with Superfetch. I like the idea, personally. If it worked the way you and that article say it does, then I would truly love it. But it doesn't, at least not for me. Maybe my Superfetch is broken, somehow. Or maybe it's working the way it was designed and you're the one who's mistaken about how it works. I'm not going to make that judgement. I know that I've run tests about Superfetch and have ruled out all other possibilities regarding what was causing my issues. I know how it works on my machine. I invite you to be more open minded about the possibility that it's not as perfect as you think it is, or to show me what's wrong with my setup.

    Superfetch would definitely need to be off to play memory intensive games. That is no surprise to me.

    As for turning it off, and it still not allocating? I have not seen that behavior, and anytime I have seen or heard of someone turning SuperFetch off, they report success.

    As far as: " Turning Superfetch off will improve performance"  All I can say is no it won't.

    I bet you always manually set your virtual memory properties too don't you?

     



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    And were you too dumb to understand file permissions, lock it down on a user name, and transfer it outside the domain?

    It looks like a crossbreed of an insult and a sentence... I get the insult part but what the rest means I don't have a clue. But, lucky me, I do not have those concerns. Backups are the worry of others.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Did you then sit there and rant and rave about Windows on a forum afterwards?

     I do not rant. Or rave. But even if whatever you said worked around the issue. Because the whole thing, to the root is, well, to my mind rotten. Linux has faults too you know, and I acknowledge them. It is a chaotic world often, with only a few lines of stability in it... and sometimes things break and newest of things may not always work... and riding the bleeding edge may hurt at times... But my whole point is that Linux today gives more and takes less than the newest Windows. Now Vista seems destined to become the second ME. An yes, some liked ME too.



  • @m0ffx said:

    @clively said:

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.

    That does utterly nothing to help the vast majority of compromised computers: the home desktops where the whole family use the same account (on XP with admin rights at that), don't install updates, browse carelessly, and install bucketloads of crap. There is no 'administrator' to 'hit the reset button'.

    What's your point?  Besides we were talking about Vista (not XP).  Out of the box it will configure automatic security updates, and the uac with IE 7 does a decent job protecting against malware.  That said, the only help for people who insist on installing coupon software or games they happen to find on the internet, is education.  It will never be with a "newer" "better" OS.

     



  • @dlikhten said:

    @clively said:
    @asuffield said:

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.  Of course, this would require xcopy style deployment of software.

    Windows XP does not have this idea, you need a really limited account and then the user has SOME limitations as to what they can do. Its not quite the same... Windows XP is meant as: One user per machine, Multiple users in the same domain.
     

    umm. I never said anything about XP. But since you bring it up, XP was marketed as a multi-user windows desktop OS.  That said, XP is multiuser in the sense of somewhat separating multiple user accounts from each other, but unfortunately, they didn't go anywhere near far enough.



  • @death said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    And were you too dumb to understand file permissions, lock it down on a user name, and transfer it outside the domain?

    It looks like a crossbreed of an insult and a sentence... I get the insult part but what the rest means I don't have a clue. But, lucky me, I do not have those concerns. Backups are the worry of others.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:


    Did you then sit there and rant and rave about Windows on a forum afterwards?

     I do not rant. Or rave. But even if whatever you said worked around the issue. Because the whole thing, to the root is, well, to my mind rotten. Linux has faults too you know, and I acknowledge them. It is a chaotic world often, with only a few lines of stability in it... and sometimes things break and newest of things may not always work... and riding the bleeding edge may hurt at times... But my whole point is that Linux today gives more and takes less than the newest Windows. Now Vista seems destined to become the second ME. An yes, some liked ME too.


    Actually if you are following the rest of the thread, this was an insult completely aimed at this comment:

    @dlikhten said:

     

     No i am saying that if I was to leave my job (not able to log into my job's account) i will NEVER be able to delete that file.

    When
    you plug a device into a computer you are running the risk that that
    computer now controls that device. ROOT should be able to modify it!
    The administrator should have full control of the computer. If I am not
    in full control of my computer than who is? And that whoever will fix
    my problems then if I have them right? If microsoft wants to control my
    computer... no problem, as long as they fix all my problems free of
    charge and immediately. Otherwise they can piss off and let me control
    it.

     

    Take it how you want though, it was in the form of a question, after all.



  • Oh, About the admin password reseting, It does not come from the Repair console at all, Its a back door in the repair install procedure and it sounds like damn slow way of getting the password reset...



  • @clively said:

    @dlikhten said:
    @clively said:
    @asuffield said:

    I can assure you that copying files is no faster with Aero turned off (always the first thing I do). It's just plain broken, probably in the kernel or filesystem driver.

    Or, even better, fix it so that account elevation is never needed.  I think multi user OS's should be kind of like VM ware.  You have the host kernel, and each user gets their own "sandbox" to do whatever the hell they want.  If they let spyware run rampant, fine, just keep it isolated from the kernel and allow an "administrator" the capability to easily hit the reset button on that user's account.  Of course, this would require xcopy style deployment of software.

    Windows XP does not have this idea, you need a really limited account and then the user has SOME limitations as to what they can do. Its not quite the same... Windows XP is meant as: One user per machine, Multiple users in the same domain.
     

    umm. I never said anything about XP. But since you bring it up, XP was marketed as a multi-user windows desktop OS.  That said, XP is multiuser in the sense of somewhat separating multiple user accounts from each other, but unfortunately, they didn't go anywhere near far enough.

    Look, obviously dlikhten is not operating the same plane of reality as the rest of us.

    I mean c'mon! Shouldn't you be able to override NTFS permissions simply by using a different machine?

    And obviously windows has ALL SORTS of problems that require Linux to be dual booted on the same machine... like bad RAM, and bad hard drives! Stupid Microsoft!



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Superfetch would definitely need to be off to play memory intensive games. That is no surprise to me.

    As for turning it off, and it still not allocating? I have not seen that behavior, and anytime I have seen or heard of someone turning SuperFetch off, they report success.

    I've seen it first hand. Very, very irritating. Turning Superfetch off does nothing. Having it not turn on at start up is what fixes most of my problems.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    As far as: " Turning Superfetch off will improve performance"  All I can say is no it won't.
    In theory it won't. In practice it does. Either I'm wrong or you're wrong. If you can offer a better explanation for my performance gain after disabling Superfetch, then I'm all ears.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    I bet you always manually set your virtual memory properties too don't you?
    While I was hunting down my out-of-memory errors, that was one of the first things I verified when I was having the error. You need to stop making assumptions about how I use Windows and start being more open to the possibility I'm actually reporting an error and have actually applied my professional-IT knowledge into trying to find its cause and resolution. Stop assuming I'm a stupid user. I don't assume that you're bad at your job, so stop assuming the same of me.



  • @death said:

    Oh, About the admin password reseting, It does not come from the Repair console at all, Its a back door in the repair install procedure and it sounds like damn slow way of getting the password reset...

    It is also possible IIRC from the recovery console, using the default password of 'admin' if it wasn't changed and forgotten.

    ...of course I posted that right after my other method... but whatever.

    Fact remains, it is possible without linux which is all I was suggesting at the time. No one is making you use it.

    Would you rather it was EASIER to reset your admin password??!! I always felt either method was a little too easy for my comfort...



  • @death said:

    Yes, and now please transport files over 4GB, dvd images, backups etc on that storage. You cant. FAT32 has a filesize limit of 4GB. Believe me, its not fun. I once upon a time tried to do videoprocessing on Win98. DV file of 4GB is about 10 minutes long. I had to process a theater show of 70 minutes.  Not fun to cature bit by bit and then merge seamlesly...

    There's plenty of apps that can transparently split files into chunks. Heck, even Zip and Arj support that. Chop the files up, stuff 'em onto the key, take it wherever you have to, then undo the split. Not that big of a deal.
     



  • @Welbog said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    Superfetch would definitely need to be off to play memory intensive games. That is no surprise to me.

    As for turning it off, and it still not allocating? I have not seen that behavior, and anytime I have seen or heard of someone turning SuperFetch off, they report success.

    I've seen it first hand. Very, very irritating. Turning Superfetch off does nothing. Having it not turn on at start up is what fixes most of my problems.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    As far as: " Turning Superfetch off will improve performance"  All I can say is no it won't.
    In theory it won't. In practice it does. Either I'm wrong or you're wrong. If you can offer a better explanation for my performance gain after disabling Superfetch, then I'm all ears.

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    I bet you always manually set your virtual memory properties too don't you?
    While I was hunting down my out-of-memory errors, that was one of the first things I verified when I was having the error. You need to stop making assumptions about how I use Windows and start being more open to the possibility I'm actually reporting an error and have actually applied my professional-IT knowledge into trying to find its cause and resolution. Stop assuming I'm a stupid user. I don't assume that you're bad at your job, so stop assuming the same of me.

    Reporting an error is one thing, trying to tell everyone on a forum that Vista is broken because of (a potentially isolated) error you have may or may not have found is another thing.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    Reporting an error is one thing, trying to tell everyone on a forum that Vista is broken because of (a potentially isolated) error you have may or may not have found is another thing.
    Other than my Superfetch issues, I love Vista. You seem to misunderstand my standing here. I'm only talking about Superfetch which, in my experience, is an absolutely horrible implementation of a very good idea.


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