Windows Vista WTF
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@Welbog said:
@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.Based on your one test case with no concrete results.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@Welbog said:
Shrug It's all the data I have, and from my point of view, given everything I know and have observed, my results are rock solid.@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Based on your one test case with no concrete results.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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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Superfetch would definitely need to be off to play memory intensive games. That is no surprise to me.
"memory intensive games".
You mean "games".
A good game consumes much memory. Other games, in my book, are usually not worth the trouble. Or maybe 10 minutes' worth.
So why would I have SuperFetch on at all ever, given that I regularly play with myself a little?
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
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
Would you explain how these two sentences are not diametrically opposed? Why turn off SuperFetch if it doesn't do anything for really heavy software (games) so as to improve performance?
Semi-tangential and greenish reply to the Codinghorror article: if SuperFetch fills you up good, and if I'm correct about how RAM works, won't that mean the RAM is charged continuously and is extremely active? Isn't "empty RAM is wasted RAM" just as dumb as saying "an unused CPU cycle is a wasted cycle"? An unused cycle, after all, does not exist. It cannot be wasted. Empty space cannot be wasted if you don't have things to put in it. Electricity, on the other hand, is very much wasteable.
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@MarcB said:
@Welbog said:
You weren't paying attention to what I was saying! This is what is happening on my machine! Preventing Superfetch from running at boot has solved that problem.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.
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!
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@dhromed said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Superfetch would definitely need to be off to play memory intensive games. That is no surprise to me.
"memory intensive games".
You mean "games".
A good game consumes much memory. Other games, in my book, are usually not worth the trouble. Or maybe 10 minutes' worth.
So why would I have SuperFetch on at all ever, given that I regularly play with myself a little?
SuperFetch is good for aggressive prefetching in everyday usage. For games that require a lot of memory to run, this might be unacceptable. If the games run slowly, turn SuperFetch off and try again. It is that easy.
@dhromed said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
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
Would you explain how these two sentences are not diametrically opposed? Why turn off SuperFetch if it doesn't do anything for really heavy software (games) so as to improve performance?
Semi-tangential and greenish reply to the Codinghorror article: if SuperFetch fills you up good, and if I'm correct about how RAM works, won't that mean the RAM is charged continuously and is extremely active? Isn't "empty RAM is wasted RAM" just as dumb as saying "an unused CPU cycle is a wasted cycle"? An unused cycle, after all, does not exist. It cannot be wasted. Empty space cannot be wasted if you don't have things to put in it. Electricity, on the other hand, is very much wasteable.
Turning SuperFetch off doesn't increase performance. It will just stop the aggressive prefetching that is good for desktop apps and multitasking. Performance is actually lost. But when you have a game that is going to rely on quick and demanding allocations of RAM, SuperFetch would more of a liability.
Unused RAM is indeed wasted RAM when you consider it could be used for prefetching to speed up applications.
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@Welbog said:
You weren't paying attention to what I was saying! This is what is happening on my machine! Preventing Superfetch from running at boot has solved that problem.
How am I misreading? "Turning SuperFetch off ... doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of 'cache' RAM"? "... regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off."?
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@Welbog said:
@MarcB said:
@Welbog said:
You weren't paying attention to what I was saying! This is what is happening on my machine! Preventing Superfetch from running at boot has solved that problem.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.
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!Then contact Microsoft support. Bitching about it here isn't going to do you or anyone else any good.
As an 'IT guy' you should be able to relate to that. The desktop you setup for me doesn't work... but I am not going to say anything to you. I am just going to walk around the office and tell everyone how stupid you are.
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@MarcB said:
@Welbog said:
I'm saying that as I'm using my PC, with Superfetch disabled, my "cached RAM" counter only increases. System files loaded at boot may or may not be a part of that. If I leave my PC on for a long periods of time, the cached RAM fills up much the same way it does when Superfetch is on (except much, much slower). When the cached RAM is nearly full (when I have between 10-20 megs of unused RAM left), and I try to run a game or play music, I can't. I get out of memory errors, or sounds and videos don't load. I have no way of purging the cached RAM, so I have to reboot. It's like having a memory leak. Thankfully in typical use I reboot more frequently than my cached RAM becomes a problem; however, it happens often enough to be irritating.You weren't paying attention to what I was saying! This is what is happening on my machine! Preventing Superfetch from running at boot has solved that problem.
How am I misreading? "Turning SuperFetch off ... doesn't stop Vista from not letting go of 'cache' RAM"? "... regardless of whether Superfetch is on or off."?And yes, the cached RAM does recede when requested. It just doesn't recede enough for anything to benefit. Since I can run my ~600-1000 MB games, obviously the RAM is being freed. However, the games still fail to load their videos and sounds properly unless that RAM is free to begin with. This is the case on my PC. I've monitored RAM usage very closely while trying to figure out what was causing my memory problems. This is actually what is happening. I know it doesn't fit with what Microsoft says Vista is supposed to do. That just means that Microsoft is either lying, or there's an unknown bug in my install. In either case, this whole memory-as-cache implementation in Vista is worst implementation of anything I've ever seen.
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Then contact Microsoft support. Bitching about it here isn't going to do you or anyone else any good.
I have a work around, and honestly I didn't know that I was the only one with these problems. Maybe I should submit a bug report about it.As an 'IT guy' you should be able to relate to that. The desktop you setup for me doesn't work... but I am not going to say anything to you. I am just going to walk around the office and tell everyone how stupid you are.
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@Welbog said:
That just means that Microsoft is either lying, or there's an unknown bug in my install. In either case, this whole memory-as-cache implementation in Vista is worst implementation of anything I've ever seen.
Right...
And because that desktop you set up for me doesn't work the way I think it should, and despite me not having talked to you about those issues so we can work through them...
I am still going to go around and tell everyone how stupid you are and this is the worst computer I have ever seen someone setup.
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@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
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@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
When the file owned by the domain admin is on a storage device (USB in this case, but it could just as well be an internal drive) which is then connected to a different computer that is not on the domain.
I come from a Linux background; my expectation is that local root/admin has full control over devices connected to the local machine. I would not expect local root to have full control over network shares, but that is not what we are talking about.
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@m0ffx said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
When the file owned by the domain admin is on a storage device (USB in this case, but it could just as well be an internal drive) which is then connected to a different computer that is not on the domain.
I come from a Linux background; my expectation is that local root/admin has full control over devices connected to the local machine. I would not expect local root to have full control over network shares, but that is not what we are talking about.
So in other words, I should be able to run over to any server in my domain, grab the HD out of it, plug it in to my laptop and have complete 'root' access to it?
That is what you are proposing?
Sounds pretty awful to me.
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And for the record, yes I understand how easy it would be to access this data anyway. I just hardly think that it should be made easy at the normal OS level.
Windows XP should not be able to mount any NTFS volume it wants and do whatever it wants through explorer.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
So in other words, I should be able to run over to any server in my domain, grab the HD out of it, plug it in to my laptop and have complete 'root' access to it?
That is what you are proposing?
Sounds pretty awful to me.
No! It sounds pretty freaking CORRECT! If one has PHYSICAL access to your server to grab the disk you are f*cked anyway unless the one grabbing it does it with authorization and knows what one is doing in witch case(ie, a complicated data recovery) thats what is SUPPOSED to happen. If something is to be secure without physical security it needs to be encrypted. Period. You really think some file system rights are any hindrance to an attacker? How hard do you think it is to read the filesystem without paying any heed to ACL-s at all?
Edit: Yeah... Do you really think that is security? It only hinders legitimate use and does nothing to hinder an evil intent. No wonder we have DRM and other stupid nearsighted wastes of resources like that... Get a clue: Windows is not the only os on the planet that can read ntfs.
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@death said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
So in other words, I should be able to run over to any server in my domain, grab the HD out of it, plug it in to my laptop and have complete 'root' access to it?
That is what you are proposing?
Sounds pretty awful to me.
No! It sounds pretty freaking CORRECT! If one has PHYSICAL access to your server to grab the disk you are f*cked anyway unless the one grabbing it does it with authorization and knows what one is doing in witch case(ie, a complicated data recovery) thats what is SUPPOSED to happen. If something is to be secure without physical security it needs to be encrypted. Period. You really think some file system rights are any hindrance to an attacker? How hard do you think it is to read the filesystem without paying any heed to ACL-s at all?
As I point it in my post above yours, I DO understand that physical access would equal domination. However, there is no reason why Windows XP or Vista should ignore NTFS permissions on a mounted volume.
And if you read about the subject you will find out that is exactly how it works. Therefore my original argument that dlikhten is an idiot and should understand what he is doing before complaining about how much Windows sucks still stands. Right or wrong, this is how it works. You cannot blame Windows for your lack of comprehension.
And once again... Who would format the USB stick they use to haul around random files in NTFS? WTF?
I can imagine special cases... sure. But for normal usage it sure seems pretty retarded.
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Do you own an external portable storage disk, one of those large ones? Thats one pretty damn common case. Ignoring the rights? It should not ignore them! It should ADJUST them to take into account the machine it is attached to... If there are no specific user rights, just groups, then map the groups to new host, leave specific rights as is, give ownership of everything to local admin... I think something along these lines would actually make sense... Not as it is now.
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@death said:
Do you own an external portable storage disk, one of those large ones? Thats one pretty damn common case. Ignoring the rights? It should not ignore them! It should ADJUST them to take into account the machine it is attached to... If there are no specific user rights, just groups, then map the groups to new host, leave specific rights as is, give ownership of everything to local admin... I think something along these lines would actually make sense... Not as it is now.
What exactly is your point?
You don't agree with NTFS, fine. We get it. How does that relate with the original point that that dlikhten doesn't understand the way this works?
Just because you don't agree with something, doesn't mean it is broken.
Again PEBKAC. dlikhten didn't understand how NTFS permissions work, and is blaming Windows for that. <thicksarcasm> I mean who in the world understand NTFS of all things! </thicksarcasm>
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I agree with MasterPlan.
All these computer gods here, and they can't figure out how to friggin' install Windows.
Sure, the latest hardware won't have drivers "out of the box" for XP, but the last release CD of XP was a few years ago (SP2). I'm sure a linux version from back then didn't support the latest hardware either? Why? Because it didn't exist then.
You are willing to bitch and moan on this forum for hours, or spend days tweaking your linux install, but you won't take the bloody time to research, download and slipstream drivers onto your XP CD?
If you want to keep Windows bashing, please find proper arguments that can't just as easily be applied to any other OS.
That said, I'm not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole, and it's not because of 'installation issues'. It sucks for a whole raft of other reasons.
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@Quinnum said:
I agree with MasterPlan.
All these computer gods here, and they can't figure out how to friggin' install Windows.
Sure, the latest hardware won't have drivers "out of the box" for XP, but the last release CD of XP was a few years ago (SP2). I'm sure a linux version from back then didn't support the latest hardware either? Why? Because it didn't exist then.
You are willing to bitch and moan on this forum for hours, or spend days tweaking your linux install, but you won't take the bloody time to research, download and slipstream drivers onto your XP CD?
If you want to keep Windows bashing, please find proper arguments that can't just as easily be applied to any other OS.
That said, I'm not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole, and it's not because of 'installation issues'. It sucks for a whole raft of other reasons.
Thank you.
In addition to your comment about drivers, not only can you dl the drivers manually and/or slipstream the drivers, Windows will also search windows update for the driver at install time if it can.
Not to mention just about every device sold comes with a driver disk/cd.
I don't have Vista installed on any of my home machines either. I have Ubuntu, Ubuntu server, WinXP and Server 2003. All of which run well. I love to use linux. But I am not about to troll forums bashing MS's products, throwing out incendiary ignorance everywhere I go.
If you love Linux, and hate Windows, that is great. But you can keep it to yourself. No one cares.
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@KenW said:
Windows requires better hardware and more RAM than Linux because it's designed to be used by more, less computer literate people than Linux is, plain and simple. Linux would be really great if everyone on the planet was comfortable working at the just-slightly-better-than-a-DOS-prompt-but-with-higher-security level. Unfortunately, the average Mom & Pop at the local deli, or the average school teacher, building maintenance man, or middle school student don't fit into that category.
With the added ease of use comes greater complexity, and with greater complexity comes more overhead.
Linux is fine for people who are tech geeks. For the average user (including the majority of business users), Linux will never be an option. It's much too hard to get anything done.
And yes, I have worked with Linux. However, as I said, the majority of business users (and therefore businesses) are Windows-based, and since I code for a living I work with the platform that the customers are working on.
And with regards to MS being evil, how can an inanimate corporate entity be evil? MS is a business, and it's run like a business. There's no good or evil involved. Sure, the strategic choices made sometimes aren't what I'd consider to be right, but it's just that: a strategic choice. It's not a struggle between good and evil that good is losing. It's business.
The whole idea that usable programs naturally require more resources than non-usable programs is plain wrong. Sanely configured Compiz is more usable and configurable than Vista Aero, yet it doesn't use more resources. Totem is dead simple to use, yet it doesn't need 160 MB to play an MP3 like Windows Media Player sometimes does (due to mfpmp.exe hogging). Opera is comparable in usability in Firefox (some say it's better, but I haven't tried it, and I like my extensions), yet it uses less memory and CPU. Adobe Reader 5.0 in most cases does the same job as Adobe Reader 8.0, yet the latter is more intensive. This is not an objectively true correlation, it is a correlation true in MS software.
Also, with added ease of use comes LESS complexity, isn't that what "ease of use" means? <stupid analogy warning>Refrigerator is easier to use than a computer, yet the refrigerator is less complex.</stupid analogy warning>
I also challenge the opinion that having a package manager is redundant because most Linux apps are crap (this is the essence of what was said earlier). I'll say: OpenOffice.org, Inkscape, GIMP, Evolution, Thunderbird, Firefox, Compiz, I think there is more than one application that can hardly be considered crap, so the package manager is usable.
'There are new distros being created because the others don't work' - huh? You could as well say that new versions of Adobe Photoshop are created because the previous ones don't work.
clively: I don't have a comp sci degree, and yet I managed to install Ubuntu on the aforementioned tablet with most Tablet PC functionality working. This is not exactly about having a knowledge of the system, but willing to expend some energy to search the forums for help. Installing it on a regular desktop system is even easier. When it comes to dead open source projects, you have forgot that not all commercial software is successful, or has its bugs fixed (let's take IE as a shameful example). It's just not that visible, because there are no publicly accessible bug trackers for commercial software...
Linux is not perfect, but it's not garbage either. Even MS is not stupid enough to deny that - see bribery, committee stuffing and brain-dead talking in the OOXML standardization push, bribery to replace Mandriva on Classmate PCs for Nigeria with Windows, purposeful Office ODF lock-out, anti-Linux patent FUD campaigns without specific claims... MS is regarding open source a threat. If it was useless, they wouldn't expend energy doing that.
I suspect you may be just seeking a confirmation that what you do is the Right Thing, and that your platform of choice is the best for everyone but a limited number of people you are not interested in catering to anyway. I have an impression that this is a common affliction, and not limited to Windows people.
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@Tweenk said:
@KenW said:
Windows requires better hardware and more RAM than Linux because it's designed to be used by more, less computer literate people than Linux is, plain and simple. Linux would be really great if everyone on the planet was comfortable working at the just-slightly-better-than-a-DOS-prompt-but-with-higher-security level. Unfortunately, the average Mom & Pop at the local deli, or the average school teacher, building maintenance man, or middle school student don't fit into that category.
With the added ease of use comes greater complexity, and with greater complexity comes more overhead.
Linux is fine for people who are tech geeks. For the average user (including the majority of business users), Linux will never be an option. It's much too hard to get anything done.
And yes, I have worked with Linux. However, as I said, the majority of business users (and therefore businesses) are Windows-based, and since I code for a living I work with the platform that the customers are working on.
And with regards to MS being evil, how can an inanimate corporate entity be evil? MS is a business, and it's run like a business. There's no good or evil involved. Sure, the strategic choices made sometimes aren't what I'd consider to be right, but it's just that: a strategic choice. It's not a struggle between good and evil that good is losing. It's business.
The whole idea that usable programs naturally require more resources than non-usable programs is plain wrong. Sanely configured Compiz is more usable and configurable than Vista Aero, yet it doesn't use more resources. Totem is dead simple to use, yet it doesn't need 160 MB to play an MP3 like Windows Media Player sometimes does (due to mfpmp.exe hogging). Opera is comparable in usability in Firefox (some say it's better, but I haven't tried it, and I like my extensions), yet it uses less memory and CPU. Adobe Reader 5.0 in most cases does the same job as Adobe Reader 8.0, yet the latter is more intensive. This is not an objectively true correlation, it is a correlation true in MS software.
Also, with added ease of use comes LESS complexity, isn't that what "ease of use" means? <stupid analogy warning>Refrigerator is easier to use than a computer, yet the refrigerator is less complex.</stupid analogy warning>
I also challenge the opinion that having a package manager is redundant because most Linux apps are crap (this is the essence of what was said earlier). I'll say: OpenOffice.org, Inkscape, GIMP, Evolution, Thunderbird, Firefox, Compiz, I think there is more than one application that can hardly be considered crap, so the package manager is usable.
'There are new distros being created because the others don't work' - huh? You could as well say that new versions of Adobe Photoshop are created because the previous ones don't work.
clively: I don't have a comp sci degree, and yet I managed to install Ubuntu on the aforementioned tablet with most Tablet PC functionality working. This is not exactly about having a knowledge of the system, but willing to expend some energy to search the forums for help. Installing it on a regular desktop system is even easier. When it comes to dead open source projects, you have forgot that not all commercial software is successful, or has its bugs fixed (let's take IE as a shameful example). It's just not that visible, because there are no publicly accessible bug trackers for commercial software...
Linux is not perfect, but it's not garbage either. Even MS is not stupid enough to deny that - see bribery, committee stuffing and brain-dead talking in the OOXML standardization push, bribery to replace Mandriva on Classmate PCs for Nigeria with Windows, purposeful Office ODF lock-out, anti-Linux patent FUD campaigns without specific claims... MS is regarding open source a threat. If it was useless, they wouldn't expend energy doing that.
I suspect you may be just seeking a confirmation that what you do is the Right Thing, and that your platform of choice is the best for everyone but a limited number of people you are not interested in catering to anyway. I have an impression that this is a common affliction, and not limited to Windows people.
I don't think KenW or anyone else is/has been saying anything against Linux. But Linux != Windows. They are very different. You use the right tool for the right job, and you use the tool that fits your hand the best.
The only argument anyone is getting is about the people who troll forums and say "M$ sucks! Use Linux!". These people are idiots.
Plain and simple. Use it, love it, worship it. But just like your religion, STFU about it. No one needs to hear anyone preach about Linux. I know what a great tool it is. But I also know it is not going to replace Windows. Love that or hate that, that is how it is.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@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.
This only works if you know the password. The usual case I have to deal with is the one where the password is not forgotten, it's broken due to Windows mangling the database, to the point where neither winlogon nor the recovery console will accept it. It has always amused me that the best thing to do at this point is boot a linux CD and run the repair and password change tools.
The same problem on any other platform (including macosx and all the unixes) I can fix in about five minutes with no tools or external software, simply by booting to a root console instead of the login system.
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@m0ffx said:
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
@m0ffx said:
When the file owned by the domain admin is on a storage device (USB in this case, but it could just as well be an internal drive) which is then connected to a different computer that is not on the domain.
I come from a Linux background; my expectation is that local root/admin has full control over devices connected to the local machine. I would not expect local root to have full control over network shares, but that is not what we are talking about.
Yes, but that's because Unix/Linux file ownership is a very simplistic affair. A file owned by root is UID 0, and it's the same UID 0 on pretty much every other Unix system out there. A zero here is a zero there is a zero everywhere. Ownership data on a Windows/NTFS system is totally different. It's not stored as your "simple" ID number, whatever number your account happens to have. It's stored as a hash of your ID number, *AND* the ID number of your system. If the machine in question is part of a domain, then that system ID number is constant across all systems in the domain. In other words, an Admin account isn't creating a file with the Windows equivalent of UID 0. It's creating "0+long random number".
Your home machine's Admin account will essentially NEVER have the same unique user ID bits that the Admin accounts on (theoretically) every other Domain or system in the universe have. So why couldn't the home Admin account delete the file created by the work Admin account? Because "Admin/Local Machine" has a different set of ID bits on the disk than "Admin/Work Machine" does.
That being said, you *CAN* use your local Admin account to force an ownership takeover of any of these files. It's exactly the same as chown on Unix boxes. The original ownership bits are replaced with whatever you want. In this case, it'd be replacing 'Administrator/m0ffx Work System ID" with "Administrator/m0ffx Home Box". Still Administrator account name, but now with your home system's ID bits as well.
Try it sometime... take an NTFS drive from one machine, and stick it into another (let's not cheat and used two machines ghosted/cloned from a common source). See how far you can get accessing/modifying files on that "foreign" drive without having to force changes in ownership.
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@asuffield said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@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.
This only works if you know the password. The usual case I have to deal with is the one where the password is not forgotten, it's broken due to Windows mangling the database, to the point where neither winlogon nor the recovery console will accept it. It has always amused me that the best thing to do at this point is boot a linux CD and run the repair and password change tools.
The same problem on any other platform (including macosx and all the unixes) I can fix in about five minutes with no tools or external software, simply by booting to a root console instead of the login system.
I agree. But every once in a while you get lucky and someone asks you to recover their password, and the recovery console actually works.
I guess it all depends on if you have a Linux CD or install near by or not. Typically I get those kind of questions as an "oh by the way" at a friend or family members house, where I am lucky if I can find a Windows install CD nevermind a Linux Live CD.
Having a Linux install nearby can definitely bail you out at times though!
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@MarcB said:
@m0ffx said:
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't
delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks
that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept
of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.@m0ffx said:
When the file owned by the domain admin is on a storage device (USB in this case, but it could just as well be an internal drive) which is then connected to a different computer that is not on the domain.
I come from a Linux background; my expectation is that local root/admin has full control over devices connected to the local machine. I would not expect local root to have full control over network shares, but that is not what we are talking about.
Yes, but that's because Unix/Linux file ownership is a very simplistic affair. A file owned by root is UID 0, and it's the same UID 0 on pretty much every other Unix system out there. A zero here is a zero there is a zero everywhere. Ownership data on a Windows/NTFS system is totally different. It's not stored as your "simple" ID number, whatever number your account happens to have. It's stored as a hash of your ID number, AND the ID number of your system. If the machine in question is part of a domain, then that system ID number is constant across all systems in the domain. In other words, an Admin account isn't creating a file with the Windows equivalent of UID 0. It's creating "0+long random number".
Your home machine's Admin account will essentially NEVER have the same unique user ID bits that the Admin accounts on (theoretically) every other Domain or system in the universe have. So why couldn't the home Admin account delete the file created by the work Admin account? Because "Admin/Local Machine" has a different set of ID bits on the disk than "Admin/Work Machine" does.
That being said, you CAN use your local Admin account to force an ownership takeover of any of these files. It's exactly the same as chown on Unix boxes. The original ownership bits are replaced with whatever you want. In this case, it'd be replacing 'Administrator/m0ffx Work System ID" with "Administrator/m0ffx Home Box". Still Administrator account name, but now with your home system's ID bits as well.
Try it sometime... take an NTFS drive from one machine, and stick it into another (let's not cheat and used two machines ghosted/cloned from a common source). See how far you can get accessing/modifying files on that "foreign" drive without having to force changes in ownership.
Very well described!
But I foresee a whiny "Yeah but all operating systems should operate just link *nix or they are broken!" in your future.
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@Welbog said:
'm saying that as I'm using my PC, with Superfetch disabled, my "cached RAM" counter only increases. System files loaded at boot may or may not be a part of that. If I leave my PC on for a long periods of time, the cached RAM fills up much the same way it does when Superfetch is on (except much, much slower). When the cached RAM is nearly full (when I have between 10-20 megs of unused RAM left), and I try to run a game or play music, I can't. I get out of memory errors, or sounds and videos don't load. I have no way of purging the cached RAM, so I have to reboot. It's like having a memory leak. Thankfully in typical use I reboot more frequently than my cached RAM becomes a problem; however, it happens often enough to be irritating.
I would suggest then that your Windows install is seriously buggy and is leaking resource handles left and right. Fixing this involves Universal Microsoft Cure #2 (Reinstall). I've never seen a Windows install (on many many many boxes I've had to deal with) where the cache would "stick" like you're saying. But I have seen plenty of cases where some app leaked resources and you'd suddenly loose the ability to do something, like play music or a video, because the relevant pool of file handles was exhausted and tied up by the buggy app.
Don't forget that in many cases, apps which can't load due to a lack of available resources (video/audio/whatever) will just report a generic "out of memory" error, even if there's still plenty of physical ram and/or swap left.
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First, may it be said that I do not thing Microsoft is evil, or that Windows is useless. I do think M$ to be neglecting the interests of the customers for its own in products they try to sell and to be guilty of overpricing the Windows to the point that it looks like a daylight robbery for something that is essentially a beta product. I like XP but I'm not blind to its shortcomings either.
I love Linux for what it is today, also a permanent beta, but for free, but what it can and will be. Its ultimate saving of development costs, you take what is done, you improve on it for yourself and all benefit. It is open to adapt to anything, to even run on on your toaster. No, it will not most likely "replace" windows on PC but the day PC architecture will be replaced by something new and better Windows will become fully obsolete and unable to move on without humongous cost for building it from scratch... Its protocols and legacy may live on but on multitude of new platforms there will be Linux. For all of them because it was available easily for adapting and through it for saving resources. Look around, it is already happening.
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@MarcB said:
Universal Microsoft Cure #2 (Reinstall).
I'd try a Repair first. Fixed things for me with a hosed USB driver.
Re: permissionsI think next week I'll bring my external HD to work, which is formatted as NTFS. See what happens under "dumb", simple circumstances: copy it, take it back home, edit it.
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@dhromed said:
So why would I have SuperFetch on at all ever, given that I regularly play with myself a little?
Quoted for (childish) amusement.
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@PJH said:
@dhromed said:
So why would I have SuperFetch on at all ever, given that I regularly play with myself a little?
Quoted for (childish) amusement.
Baited!
You missed the other one I put in. ;)
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@dhromed said:
I'd try a Repair first. Fixed things for me with a hosed USB driver.
Last time I did a Repair it completely hosed the network settings and it wouldn't let me log in to repair them, because it wanted to reactivate first. Of course, this happened on Friday evening, when the local MS office already closed (activations only work Monday-Friday 8h-16h, how nice), so I had to make an international call to get Windows reactivated.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
Because my local computer is NOT part of any domain... Explain to me how I can delete a virus file stored on my external HDD which just happened to have been written by my work computer? Just hypothetical situation here... No? No ideas? Awwww... I guess linux to the rescue huh.
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@dlikhten said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
Because my local computer is NOT part of any domain... Explain to me how I can delete a virus file stored on my external HDD which just happened to have been written by my work computer? Just hypothetical situation here... No? No ideas? Awwww... I guess linux to the rescue huh.
Right, but as MarcB has explained. You are not the owner of that file, so no you SHOULDN'T have been able to delete the file. However it is trivial to become owner of the file and delete it.
You lack any knowledge of NTFS permissions. Don't blame Windows for that.
Linux has nothing to do with this, except that you use it as a crutch because you are incapable of spending two minutes learning about the way permissions in the Windows world work.
That being said, if you have no idea what NTFS permissions are, and you don't like using Windows, why did you choose NTFS for the storage medium you are complaining about?
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@dlikhten said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@m0ffx said:
@MarcB said:
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.
Read dlikhten's post #141116
He was running as the Admin at home, and still couldn't delete the file owned by the Admin at work. If you or anyone thinks that is desirable behaviour, then you at the very least have a concept of what 'Admin' means that is vastly different to mine.
Remind me again how a local admin should override a domain admin?
Because my local computer is NOT part of any domain... Explain to me how I can delete a virus file stored on my external HDD which just happened to have been written by my work computer? Just hypothetical situation here... No? No ideas? Awwww... I guess linux to the rescue huh.
And to specifically answer your retarded question...
First hit returned in my google query:
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@dhromed said:
@MarcB said:
Universal Microsoft Cure #2 (Reinstall).
I'd try a Repair first. Fixed things for me with a hosed USB driver.
Re: permissionsI think next week I'll bring my external HD to work, which is formatted as NTFS. See what happens under "dumb", simple circumstances: copy it, take it back home, edit it.
Yea "Repair" is another bogus POS that MS invented. Sure in linux you can revert to an older kernel and by default configuration changes always store a backup so if you f-up your xorg.conf you can just get it back, but lets face it... you can screw your computer up so much that its easier to re-install. It just happens. Rare for linux, not rare for windows.
Why re-install for linux: Your RPM manager accidentally uninstalls x-windows and you have no way of accessing a forum to try to manually re-install X... nor do you want the headake of figuring out waht packages you need. (cough fedora core 8)
Why re-install windows: You didn't re-install windows in the last 3 months. OR you tried and failed to install a printer driver therefore you cannot uninstall it, therefore you can't install the printer driver again (yes this happened, my co-worker spent 1 month trying to get his printer working, reinstalling windows literally solved it). OR spyware bloated your registry... or even just programs you installed/uninstalled.
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@dlikhten said:
@dhromed said:
@MarcB said:
Universal Microsoft Cure #2 (Reinstall).
I'd try a Repair first. Fixed things for me with a hosed USB driver.
Re: permissionsI think next week I'll bring my external HD to work, which is formatted as NTFS. See what happens under "dumb", simple circumstances: copy it, take it back home, edit it.
Yea "Repair" is another bogus POS that MS invented. Sure in linux you can revert to an older kernel and by default configuration changes always store a backup so if you f-up your xorg.conf you can just get it back, but lets face it... you can screw your computer up so much that its easier to re-install. It just happens. Rare for linux, not rare for windows.
Why re-install for linux: Your RPM manager accidentally uninstalls x-windows and you have no way of accessing a forum to try to manually re-install X... nor do you want the headake of figuring out waht packages you need. (cough fedora core 8)
Why re-install windows: You didn't re-install windows in the last 3 months. OR you tried and failed to install a printer driver therefore you cannot uninstall it, therefore you can't install the printer driver again (yes this happened, my co-worker spent 1 month trying to get his printer working, reinstalling windows literally solved it). OR spyware bloated your registry... or even just programs you installed/uninstalled.
I have never needed to reinstall Windows on any machine I have run as a normal machine. I have had boxes that I test all sorts of beta software and other hazardous software on, and yes I would typically ghost and reinstall these as needed to keep a fresh slate. I would have done that in any OS though.
Now with VMs I never need to do this.
If you really spent a month on installing a printer driver in Windows then once again, PEBKAC. You ridiculous claims are what proves this to me. Sure, we have all had our fair share of PITA stories with getting printers to work.. but these are almost always a direct problem with the printer manufacturer. Installing/Uninstalling/Upgrading a driver is ridiculously easy. If their driver sucks, MS cannot help that. You saying reinstalling Windows fixed further pushes the issue that obviously the third party driver was at fault, and Windows worked fine.
Same thing for software you might be installing. Install something that bloats your computer, or is poorly written and doesn't uninstall correctly and blame Windows? WTF?
Really... just go use Linux and get off your high horse. TRWTF is someone who claims to know what they are doing, and still has all these noobie issues with WINDOWS.
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@dlikhten said:
Your RPM manager accidentally uninstalls x-windows and you have no way of accessing a forum to try to manually re-install X...
Why don't you?
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OMG, can I rate this thread lower than a 1?
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@belgariontheking said:
OMG, can I rate this thread lower than a 1?
Maybe you could ask dlikhten to boot into Linux and do it for you.
Must be another Windows problem!
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
I have never needed to reinstall Windows on any machine I have run as a normal machine.
Neither have I.
I'm curious what (the hell) people do to* their computers that it requires an aggressive format & reinstall every [3, 6, 9, 12] months.
*) to, not with
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@dhromed said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
I have never needed to reinstall Windows on any machine I have run as a normal machine.
Neither have I.
I'm curious what (the hell) people do to* their computers that it requires an aggressive format & reinstall every [3, 6, 9, 12] months.
*) to, not with
They probably dual boot into Linux, and "fix" Windows (read: hardware) problems with little to no understanding of how Windows actually works.
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@belgariontheking said:
OMG, can I rate this thread lower than a 1?
Why would you want to do that? This is the best discussion ever! I know I'm learning from it, and so should you.
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@dhromed said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
I have never needed to reinstall Windows on any machine I have run as a normal machine.
Neither have I.
I'm curious what (the hell) people do to* their computers that it requires an aggressive format & reinstall every [3, 6, 9, 12] months.
*) to, not with
In the old days of 3.1, '95, '98 that was common practice for a developer because of dll hell. 2k fixed almost all of that, and even XP can run just fine for years without a reinstall.
At this point the only reasons I can think of to do a reinstall is if you typically install / uninstall a lot of programs. However, that isn't due to a Microsoft problem. Instead it's because most of the installer software fails to clean up after itself and leaves crap in the registry and on the file system. Even then, it's just to clear up some drive space.
After wading through the past 4 pages of this thread the Real WTF is apparent. A number of people claim to know what they are doing and flat out don't. The side trips into NTFS permissions and password issues are prime examples.
If you are supporting any MS product then you really should figure out how it works instead of buying into the koolaid of competitors, or worse, applying hearsay from previous OS's to current ones. Hell, if you're a support or operations type person then you should know everything you can about the products used in your company whether that be *nix or windows. So, take a class or buy a damned book and honestly learn something.
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@clively said:
In the old days of 3.1, '95, '98 that was common practice for a developer because of dll hell. 2k fixed almost all of that, and even XP can run just fine for years without a reinstall.
At this point the only reasons I can think of to do a reinstall is if you typically install / uninstall a lot of programs. However, that isn't due to a Microsoft problem. Instead it's because most of the installer software fails to clean up after itself and leaves crap in the registry and on the file system. Even then, it's just to clear up some drive space.
Or, apparently, if you are too dumb to properly install a printer driver like dlikhten.
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@dhromed said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
I have never needed to reinstall Windows on any machine I have run as a normal machine.
Neither have I.
I'm curious what (the hell) people do to* their computers that it requires an aggressive format & reinstall every [3, 6, 9, 12] months.
Sometimes, after awhile, windows just starts running slower. I've had times when I have tried to keep my machine clean as a whistle, but still find windows getting slower over time. I sometimes reinstall to get that speed back or to just clean out my system from any junk that I might have. (If I don't know about it, do I really need it ? )
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@clively said:
If you are supporting any MS product then you really should figure out how it works instead of buying into the koolaid of competitors, or worse, applying hearsay from previous OS's to current ones. Hell, if you're a support or operations type person then you should know everything you can about the products used in your company whether that be *nix or windows. So, take a class or buy a damned book and honestly learn something.
You learn what you use. I have known every windows since Win 3.1 very personally. I know their worth and their pains. I may not know everything about them but I know enough to make an educated guess when something new comes up about what it is and and where to go when I need to know if I'm right. That is enough. Part of being a good support person is knowing where a systems limits and faults are. I believe I have a clue about that. Learning something for learnings sake is waste of time and brain resource. Nobody can know everything. Theres no point trying to achieve that.
Windows has many design faults. Some of them are price paid for the seamlessness, some are due misplaced priorities, some due to being constrained to backward compatibility and some are just plain stupid errors and misconceptions.
XP had its share of stupid errors but they became evident soon and were patched... The rest of the kinds of problems were all at same level, nothing really stood out. It worked and after servicepacks it did what it was expected to do to get the job done without wasting more resources than it should.
And now theres Vista. And the apparent and undeniable misplaced priorities and misconceptions multiplied by price and complexity make it a no-sale immediately. The resource hogging, eye-candy, that is fortunately optional, and DRM, that sadly isn't, for efficiency trade-off, the anoying and thus toothless UAC, the destabilizing and restrictive driver level DRM to plug the analog hole that can never be plugged, the activation squeeze down that means very little to the pirates and bites the honest user most. I know of quite a few people pirating XP because Vista came preinstalled to their new machine and they found it unusable... I, a professional who could make it work problems or no problems, wont touch it even with a six foot pole until I professionally have no more choice in the matter and there are many others that think like me. Arguing that a product like that is a success is bizarre to me.
Oh, and how I read it, everybody who spoke abut file rights understood them, they just found the way it worked wrong by design. Is that so hard for you to accept that they disagree that you must resort to calling them stupid?
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@death said:
Learning something for learnings sake is waste of time and brain resource.
WTF?
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@death said:
@clively said:
If you are supporting any MS product then you really should figure out how it works instead of buying into the koolaid of competitors, or worse, applying hearsay from previous OS's to current ones. Hell, if you're a support or operations type person then you should know everything you can about the products used in your company whether that be *nix or windows. So, take a class or buy a damned book and honestly learn something.
You learn what you use. I have known every windows since Win 3.1 very personally. I know their worth and their pains. I may not know everything about them but I know enough to make an educated guess when something new comes up about what it is and and where to go when I need to know if I'm right. That is enough. Part of being a good support person is knowing where a systems limits and faults are. I believe I have a clue about that. Learning something for learnings sake is waste of time and brain resource. Nobody can know everything. Theres no point trying to achieve that.
Windows has many design faults. Some of them are price paid for the seamlessness, some are due misplaced priorities, some due to being constrained to backward compatibility and some are just plain stupid errors and misconceptions.
XP had its share of stupid errors but they became evident soon and were patched... The rest of the kinds of problems were all at same level, nothing really stood out. It worked and after servicepacks it did what it was expected to do to get the job done without wasting more resources than it should.
And now theres Vista. And the apparent and undeniable misplaced priorities and misconceptions multiplied by price and complexity make it a no-sale immediately. The resource hogging, eye-candy, that is fortunately optional, and DRM, that sadly isn't, for efficiency trade-off, the anoying and thus toothless UAC, the destabilizing and restrictive driver level DRM to plug the analog hole that can never be plugged, the activation squeeze down that means very little to the pirates and bites the honest user most. I know of quite a few people pirating XP because Vista came preinstalled to their new machine and they found it unusable... I, a professional who could make it work problems or no problems, wont touch it even with a six foot pole until I professionally have no more choice in the matter and there are many others that think like me. Arguing that a product like that is a success is bizarre to me.
Oh, and how I read it, everybody who spoke abut file rights understood them, they just found the way it worked wrong by design. Is that so hard for you to accept that they disagree that you must resort to calling them stupid?
You are being stupid again I see.
We all understand your dislike of Windows. But no one cares. Don't use it.
That said, you and 'many others like you' not using it does not make it unsuccessful. You know why? You are a very small percentage of the market. MS is still raking the money from Vista in hand over fist. You can say what you want, but as long as MS considers it a success, it is one. There is no one else that can judge that, especially you.
This is the same crap morons spewed all over the place when 2k came out, and when XP came out. Your arguments all have little to no validity, everyone can see that.
Do everyone a favor and just go use something else, and let the rest of the world make their own choices. The rest of us are intelligent and capable enough to decide if UAC is worth it to us or not, and shut it off if we don't like it. Same thing with Aero. As for DRM, I cannot argue this, because I don't care. Never had a problem. Doubt I ever will. But when I do, I will handle it like a grownup, not cry that MS sucks, and Windows is a failure because I don't agree with something they did.
But I could always read slashdot and digg and reiterate the same useless, ignorant, invalid arguments too I suppose...
