One more annoying thing about Windows

Ok, today's annoyance: I moved the computer around (actually, I moved all the furniture in the study around, but that's another story).

When I plugged everything back into the computer, I didn't bother to make sure I plugged all the USB cables back into exactly the same port they came out of.

Upon booting into Windows, I'm greeted with the "found new hardware wizard", and my (USB) keyboard & mouse don't work. A hard reset later, and at least the k/b & mouse work, but I still get Windows asking me to install drivers for my TrackIR5. Which was already installed & working prior to the move...

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. It seems that Windows decides that because this piece of hardware wasn't plugged into that particular USB port, it must be a new piece of hardware that needs new drivers installed, and not at all the same as the one that was plugged into that other USB port at the last boot, and which isn't on that other port any more...

Grrr...

If only my games were playable on Linux.

I don't suppose anyone knows how to get ArmA II (Steam version) & SupCom working via Wine?

Windows vs Linux, part 9,457

Something occurred to me the other day.

I had booted up the Windows 7 Release candidate, and was running various update programs & the like, installing the latest version of Firefox, etc etc.

Then I thought, "Hey, I might log on to Warcrack & have a quick game".

Only one slight problem - I haven't installed World of Warcraft on Windows 7 RC yet.

And when you're looking for a "quick game", you don't want to have to install WoW before hand. We're talking 6 CDs for the original game package, then another 4 CDs for the Burning Crusade addon, then a DVD for the Wrath of the Lich King addon, then about 2.5 gigabytes of assorted patches. Yes, it takes frikkin' hours...

Then it occurred to me - if I was using my Kubuntu Linux install, and I wanted to upgrade from Kubuntu 8.10 to 9.04, for example, I'd just hit the "dist upgrade" button, go make a cup of tea, and when the upgrade had finished, I would just fire up WoW & play. I wouldn't have to reinstall all of my apps just because I upgraded the operating system files.

Yet another example of the robust Unix-inspired design of Linux, and the not-so-robust nature of Windows. A lot of that has to do with how the apps are installed, though, from what I understand. With Linux, apps install all of their files into one directory, with maybe a single text-based configuration file somewhere else (/etc/config for many, I think). User-related data files are stored in the user's home directory (/home/). When you upgrade the base operating system files, you don't have to touch the program or home directories, so that stuff is still there & works fine (unless, maybe, you have an app that doesn't want to work with a newer version of some core OS files, which as I understand it is pretty rare in Linux).

Windows, on the other hand, has a system where applications are stored under C:\Program Files, but all of their configuration information is stored in a single, massive, configuration database that's common to both the operating system and every app installed. It's called the registry. You might also have "shared" library files that are installed to C:\Windows\System32 or similar places. You will also have some other configuration information & files saved to C:\Documents and Settings\ and/or C:\Documents and Settings\ as well.

Of course, when you install a new version of Windows, the first thing that goes is the registry. And everything in C:\Windows & subdirectories. If you were to do a Windows upgrade, a lot of that info would be kept, but nearly every computer-savvy person out there will tell you that upgrading Windows is a bad idea, and you should always do a clean install, either by wiping the hard disk or by installing onto another clean partition. This is to avoid problems with corruption of the registry file, mostly, as I understand it. Which highlights another problem Windows has - the registry generally fills up with all sorts of crap over time, and is quite likely to become corrupted in some fashion over a period of three years or more. If you've got a Windows install that's still working after five years, it's a rare beast (the best I've managed is three and a half, and that machine got a corrupted registry on the very day I was trying to show it to a potential buyer, requiring a complete reinstall).

So the recommended method of upgrading Linux is to just upgrade your OS files, and everything else will (most probably) still work fine.

The recommended method of upgrading Windows is to wipe your hard disk and start from scratch, reinstalling every single application, utility, and addon you use.

Hmm...

Methinks the folks at Microsoft need to work on that.

Initial thoughts on Windows 7

Well, I got around to installing the beta earlier in the week. It was a relatively painless process. I had a spare hard disk (it used to be my data store, but 160GB just isn't enough these days, so I bought a 750 for that), and just pointed the installer to that after booting from the install DVD. It took about an hour, all up, including downloading updated drivers for my Nvidia vid card & the onboard sound.

The only hitches were (1) that it picked the wrong monitor to assign as my primary (oh, yes, let's use the 17" screen as the primary, and the 22" as the secondary, that makes sense!), and (2) I couldn't see my WinXP drive anywhere in Windows Explorer.

Both were easily fixed - the Nvidia control panel let me swap the screens, while the disk management console (when I eventually figured out how to access it) let me assign a drive letter to the WinXP partition. I think that might have been an issue because it was a "C:" partition too. But there's no problem accessing it in Win7 now.

Generally, it works well. The GUI is different - the new task bar is much more usable - more like the Mac OS X dock. I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the new start menu, but that's because I've barely used it.

Armed Assault & World of Warcraft both work well, as does Firefox (including sharing the same profile - bookmarks, toolbars, etc - between the versions installed under Win7 & WinXP). I haven't run into any show stoppers yet. For beta software, Win7 is pretty good.

So, while I'm not entirely happy about the DRM / content protection side of things, that's not really an issue so far, as (a) I use VLC to play all of my media, (b) I don't actually have a Blu-Ray drive or discs, and (c) I can always boot into Linux... :-D

Actually, there's another issue - the Win7 installer overwrote the GRUB boot sector, so I'll have to boot off a disc to restore GRUB so I can boot into Linux.

Anyway, it's good to know that there will be a functional version of Windows for my gaming needs after WinXP goes the way of the dodo (which I believe is officially at the end of January - although you will still be able to get it in some OEM systems until May or June).

Heh, this is funny...

Found this via ITwire.com.au this morning.