Microsoft - their software can be annoying sometimes
By: John McFarlane
<john.mcfarlane@rockfloat.com>
This document was originally created on 09/27/2005
Last updated:
09/27/2005 @12:16
Abstract:
This document will show how to explain to someone that Microsoft
has some annoying stuff goin on.
Table of Contents:
- File name limitations
- Default image type during cut and paste
- File renaming includes the file extension
- Deleting an empty directory can take forever
- The default windows XP Start Menu
- Defragmentation, still?
- Command line interface
- Cannot write to file because it's being used by some process
- Back in the day I paid $1,000 for W2k server
- Hardware support (standard stuff, like nics)
- Visual Source Safe
- System recovery
- File system searching stinks
- Task manager is not responding
- Antivirus software slowing things down too much
- No one likes all the security patches
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MSDN search is poopy
- Dotnet typing
- Filesystem searching
- Changelog
- Conventions used
1. File name limitations
The current NTFS filesystem has some messed up file name limitations. For example,
on Windows XP examine the following:
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Valid file name: ;.]-=(fo'$%@~)^o& fr.txt
Invalid file name: .svn
2. Default image type during cut and paste
Ever hit "print screen" and pasted into word? Yea, you get an awesome
bitmap. Nothing funner than getting screenshots from users (each of which
is 1.2m) in bitmap format filling up your inbox.
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3. File renaming includes the file extension
Have you ever hit F2, or right clicked "rename" and noticed that
you have to select the name of the file with your mouse or keyboard
before you can change it... else you need to type the extension again?
I guess this one's prolly unreasonable, but I find it annoying.
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4. Deleting an empty directory can take forever
I've had times when it takes 30 seconds to delete an empty directory.
A person could argue that my machine was unhealthy at the time, but geezle.
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5. The default windows XP Start Menu
Enough said.
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6. Defragmentation, still?
NTFS still requires manual defrag?
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7. Command line interface
I know most would completely disagree with me here, but try to get
alot of work done during an emergency over dialup (if that's all you've
got) using the current cli. Word has it Vista might have something much
improved.
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8. Cannot write to file because it's being used by some process
It would be nice to have something to tell you what process is
using the file. Maybe lsof for Windows?
I'm sure something's out there but I haven't seen it yet.
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9. Back in the day I paid $1,000 for W2k server
I was having an install problems, so I called for support. The call was going to
be $250 just to get someone on the line, and I just got back from the store spending
1k? That was annoying.
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10. Hardware support (standard stuff, like nics)
A while ago I installed W2k3 Standard Server on an HP D530 (P4, year old maybe)
and I could't get the network card to work:
Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet for HP
I'm sure I was doing something wrong, but it suddenly started working after I
installed drivers from the manufacturer. That's annoying to not have such
a typical driver. What makes it even worse, I didn't have a cdrw or a floppy
in the computer. Yes, I used a freeking USB floppy to get the driver on the
computer. Just for kicks, I popped in a Knoppix disk and was surfing the net
after one keystroke (enter). I know Windows has awesome support for the latest
webcam or USB game or whatever, but this was W2k3 server, I just wanted the NIC
work.
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11. Visual Source Safe
Come one, no way it's still this bad.
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12. System recovery
I on several occasions have either had my machine fail to boot, or I've
observed someone else in the same situation. What are you supposed to do
if it won't boot? In fact, I think it was my W2k Server that I paid 1k
for that wouldn't boot.
PS: The recovery console is not a valid solution
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PS: The recovery console is not a valid solution
13. File system searching stinks
There's not really a good way to search for files that have "bla"
in the filename, and also contain the contents "wooo".
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14. Task manager is not responding
When you can't kill an application or process, please don't tell me
the only resort is to reboot. Actually, there's a neat little program
called kill.exe that works much of the time. Please include it by default,
and provide something else when it also isn't able to stop something. It
is really annoying to loose work you've done in autocad or somethign, because
IE locked up.
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15. Antivirus software slowing things down too much
It's really frustrating when you are in the middle of composing an email or
word processing document right when Mcafee/Norton start to scan things.
Suddenly it takes 25 seconds for each keystroke to render on the screen. Why
does it seem like I never suffer from that with my non work computers? Ah, I
know why.
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16. No one likes all the security patches
MS computers usually need to be patched and rebooted monthly to stay secure.
There are plenty of other operating systems out there that seem to avoid this.
Thru obscurity you retort? Maybe, but it's still annoying.
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17. Microsoft SQL Server
Don't get me wrong... it's a great product. I've developed on it for a long time
now. But can we please, please stop calling it: "sequel"
It should be wrong somehow for Microsoft to brand their product off of a language. I know, I'm gunna release my next application and name it: C#, or TCP/IP
It's cool to say that your product is a SQL server, but it's not cool to say it's SQL. SQL is a language, not a database engine!
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It should be wrong somehow for Microsoft to brand their product off of a language. I know, I'm gunna release my next application and name it: C#, or TCP/IP
It's cool to say that your product is a SQL server, but it's not cool to say it's SQL. SQL is a language, not a database engine!
18. MSDN search is poopy
As dominant as Microsoft is, and as much as you pay for their products
I would like to think their web based support was better. Try searching
for "xsl find last element in node" on:
and compare the results. Which one does a better job of pointing you towards
an example of how to print the last element of an XML node using XSL? I guess
it's not fair to compare Google and Microsoft, it's just annoying how hard it
can be to find support on Microsoft's site (remembering I paid them for it)
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19. Dotnet typing
Sure being strongly typed is good, and sure loose typing can be nice... but this
is just wrong(vb.net):
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Dim a As String
If a = "" and a Is Nothing Then
Response.Write("wtf?")
End If
20. Filesystem searching
One day I was getting a dotnet exception where "something" was looking
for a particular version of a DLL that I don't have. I needed to determine
what DLL was the culprit. My first instinct was to search thru the
vb.net project files to see which one had a reference to the offending
DLL. I'll walk you thru it:
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- Search for *.vbproj from the root of C
- Wait for it to pull back the results
- Copy the search results to another directory for full text searching
- Receive: "Cannot copy file: Cannot read from the source file or disk"
- Search again, this time also specifying the "word or phrase" as part of the search criteria
- Note start time: 10:32:48
- Get some coffee...
- Results come back: 10:34:59
- Wonder if: "Search is complete. There are no results to display" is accurate or not
- Send a particular .vbproj file to notepad to pull out text that's assuredly there...
- Search again, this time knowing that > 0 results should be found
- Note start time: 10:37:01
- Results come back: 10:38:10
- Wonder if: "Search is complete. There are no results to display" is accurate or not
- Do search again, using the exact file name as the target of the search, and also use the version [1.1.5000.27677] as the "word or phrase" (which I know is in the file)
- Wonder if: "Search is complete. There are no results to display" is accurate or not
- Start to get really frustrated
- Try to brainstorm on how to get access to grep, as Cygwin isn't installed, and I'm not allowed to install it
- Search for *.vbproj again. Then try to copy results [excluding shortcuts] to another folder
- Receive: "Cannot copy file: Cannot read from the source file or disk"
- Wonder if Visual Studio 2005 somwhow has a lock on one of the project files I'm trying to copy
- Close VS2005 (takes about 2 minutes to close)
- Realize the copy problem is being caused by the search results containing many references to .vbproj files by the same name. You may wonder how this can happen? Try "branching" with Microsoft's Team Foundation Server - each branch must have it's own directory to hold the working copy. You can't just "switch" to another branch using a single working copy.
- Starting to run out of ideas...
-
Give up, mount the filesystem via another computer and
immediately find what I was looking for:
You might notice that I used Cygwin, not a Linux box. I did this only as an excercise to get to the data I needed using only Windows. In fact I had to reboot from the Gentoo partition of my laptop to the win32 partition simply to get what I needed using only Windows.# find //host/d\$/projects/ -name *.vbproj -exec grep "1.0.5000.26660: {} \; - *sigh*
This document was originally created on 09/27/2005
Conventions and tips for this howto document:
- This document assumes you prolly have an unhealthy degree of bias already
- So maybe my spelling/grammar isn't the best
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