OSDev.org

iansjack wrote:I'm not saying that rare bugs don't occur, just that - with no other information - this is not the most likely explanation. For every anecdote that you relate of rare Windows bugs I could give you links to a dozen posts on Tom's Hardware (for example) where people have screwed up a Windows installation by installing Linux alongside it.

So either is possible, but it is not reasonable to jump to the conclusion that the only explanation of this behaviour is a bug in Windows.

Yep. You can even drop your laptop on the floor while installing updates without seeing any immediate ill effects and then after the mandatory reboot you can start having odd problems. The first idea might be that the updates didn't go well. The actual problem can be a damaged file, which was cached in memory before the reboot, which is why everything kept working for a while.

Kazinsal wrote:

iansjack wrote:(except, possible, that Ubuntu managed to corrupt a Windows installation on the same computer)

Which it will happily do because it will ignore an NTFS partition saying "please don't mount me unless you plan on restoring saved system state first" and then go ahead and start screwing around with the filesystem. The saved state gets corrupted, and the next time the Windows install tries to boot, the whole thing goes down because some system it didn't know about decided to ruin its known good system state.

He explicitly doesn't auto-mount his Windows partition from Ubuntu because his Ubuntu home partition is encrypted and he doesn't want to risk accidentally copying anything from there to his unencrypted Windows partition. And whenever I've tried to mount a hibernated/"fast boot"/dirty Windows partition, I've been given a big warning about how dangerous this is and, as far as I can tell, no way to ignore this warning. (Note also that Linux filesystems are generally much more resilient to mounting when dirty, and you can happily mount a dirty/hibernated ext3/ext4 filesystem read-only with no problems.)

zdz wrote:And those two panics you had with Linux, those would have never happened on Windows.

Of course not, because the Windows root filesystem cannot reside on an NFS server, and instead of running out of RAM and crashing Windows will lock up as it thrashes frantically.

zdz wrote:A Windows Update Bugcheck will usually end up with an option to roll back that update at the next boot - starting with Windows 8(.1?) you won't even get to the loading screen and a message telling you about this will appear. I can't guarantee it will always do this, but I've never seen it not do this.

I'm glad you talk about this like it's some great fault-resilience, but perhaps you should rather think about why you get "Windows Update bugchecks" so often. (And while you're at it, think also about why you get updates so often as well.)

onlyonemac wrote:perhaps you should rather think about why you get "Windows Update bugchecks" so often.

That's easy - you don't.

And while you're at it, think also about why you get updates so often as well.

That's even easier. It's because Microsoft care about security. This is a distinct difference from OS X, where known security holes often go unchecked for years. If you choose the right distribution (Gentoo) Linux can be as good as Windows in this respect. And you will get just as many updates on Gentoo as you do on Windows. Two operating systems that take security seriously. Some other Linux distributions are not so good in this respect.

If you don't get frequent updates of your OS you should think carefully why this is. Laziness is the likely explanation.

iansjack wrote:

onlyonemac wrote:perhaps you should rather think about why you get "Windows Update bugchecks" so often.

That's easy - you don't.

Clearly he gets them often enough to remark that they "usually" end in a certain way and that "I've never seen it not do this".

onlyonemac wrote:

zdz wrote:A Windows Update Bugcheck will usually end up with an option to roll back that update at the next boot - starting with Windows 8(.1?) you won't even get to the loading screen and a message telling you about this will appear. I can't guarantee it will always do this, but I've never seen it not do this.

I'm glad you talk about this like it's some great fault-resilience, but perhaps you should rather think about why you get "Windows Update bugchecks" so often. (And while you're at it, think also about why you get updates so often as well.)

I don't get bugchecks at updates, I just know the feature is there. And it is a good fall back mechanism. Windows targets more platforms than any other OS and the variety of configurations can be considered infinite. You can't test for all of that and you never know when some faulty driver may not work after an update. It's OK to be able to roll back an update.
Why I get so many updates? I get only the updates I want. And again you are ignoring that your favorite OS does the same thing with updates, only it doesn't offer any option for a safe and easy roll back. Ubuntu asks me to update something more often than Windows

zdz wrote:Windows targets more platforms than any other OS...

Rolling on the floor, howling with laughter, scaring my coworkers. Please, discuss features to your heart's content, but do stick with the facts and don't add advertising crack.

I don't know which OS is taking that particular trophy (as it depends on how you define "more platforms"), but it's neither Windows nor Linux. NetBSD, most likely, or some embedded OS.

onlyonemac wrote:

iansjack wrote:

onlyonemac wrote:perhaps you should rather think about why you get "Windows Update bugchecks" so often.

That's easy - you don't.

Clearly he gets them often enough to remark that they "usually" end in a certain way and that "I've never seen it not do this".

Most likely cause is that he has some hardware problem. Flakey RAM is a common source of BSODs or kernel panics. Next most likely is that he's screwed his Windows installation somehow. I could easily make a Linux system do the same.

But anecdotal evidence from a single third party really isn't any sort of evidence.

Solar wrote:

zdz wrote:Windows targets more platforms than any other OS...

Rolling on the floor, howling with laughter, scaring my coworkers. Please, discuss features to your heart's content, but do stick with the facts and don't add advertising crack.

I don't know which OS is taking that particular trophy (as it depends on how you define "more platforms"), but it's neither Windows nor Linux. NetBSD, most likely, or some embedded OS.

Oh, you know what I ment by that, don't get so upset about it.

zdz wrote:Windows targets more platforms than any other OS and the variety of configurations can be considered infinite.

In addition to targeting as many desktops and laptops as possible (which is almost every desktop or laptop these days), Linux also targets mobile devices, embedded systems, servers, and supercomputers. Microsoft have been trying to edge into the mobile devices and more recently the embedded systems industries, but Linux has unambiguously been targeting those platforms for far longer.

iansjack wrote:Most likely cause is that he has some hardware problem. Flakey RAM is a common source of BSODs or kernel panics.

How about the Windows XP system that spontaneously started performing filesystem checks and then giving a BSOD almost every time it was booted, after I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to cause this (including but not limited to installing/upgrading software/drivers, reconfiguring any hardware/software, leaving the system for long periods of time without booting it, installing updates, or going online and downloading malware)? Or the other Windows XP system that between being shut down and booted up again somehow managed to move explorer.exe from C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe to C:\WINDOWS\system32\explorer.exe, thereby preventing explorer.exe from running at login, a problem which took me about a week to figure out? You're going to blame it on malware on a computer that hasn't been connected to the internet since the antivirus was uninstalled? Perhaps you'd like to think about why malware is such a common problem in Windows anyway?

iansjack wrote:

onlyonemac wrote:Let me tell you what I do know:

Agan, I'm afraid, you are just continuing to demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about Windows. NTFS has had a full set of fine-grained access permissions at least since Windows 2000 and no doubt before that.

Then where were my ACLs in Windows XP Home Edition? Are you going to tell me that, in addition to having to pay for a basic piece of software needed to use my computer, I now also have to pay extra just to get a basic security feature that I have and use every day on my Linux systems?

Oh guess what, I just discovered that there's no way to open a second shell session inside an existing "command prompt" window in Windows! Or if there is, it doesn't come up when I google "windows open new prompt in existing window". Why on earth does every instance of the command shell process have to be tied to its own window? WHAT HAPPENED TO SEPARATION OF CONCERNS???

onlyonemac wrote:Then where were my ACLs in Windows XP Home Edition?

I can't help you with you inability to configure simple security settings in Windows. I note that you confess to being unable to do so properly on any version of Windows. There are several good books on Windows that might help you.

Are you going to tell me that, in addition to having to pay for a basic piece of software needed to use my computer, I now also have to pay extra just to get a basic security feature that I have and use every day on my Linux systems?

No, of course I'm not going to tell you a mistruth.