Sadly, Microsoft doesn’t see the user account control system as a bug. Sigh. Still, having done tech support for Vista, and then set up and rather extensively either used or seen used the system afterwards, if that’s the only thing I have to complain about–and so far, it is–it can’t be too terribly annoying. Particularly considering I’ve already found the off switch. I’ll take it. Now, if Microsoft wouldn’t mind too terribly not breaking what, at least for right now, is a pretty damn good Windows experience, that’d be really super extremely awesome. Since it’s Microsoft, and it’s Windows, and we all know both their histories, I’ll go ahead and start queuing up technically related rants. In the meantime, this is making me want to upgrade *my* machine. That… could get problematic.
I have a long and complicated history with Windows XP’s service pack 3. Mostly, it consists of me installing it and it doing all manner of bad things to the machine it’s installed on–like, for instance, being partially responsible for the temporary breakage of an internet connection. Recently though, I’ve noticed a slightly disturbing trend. Machines older than mine and less stable than mine are taking SP3 with little to no problem and even less headache. And I’ve personally seen it installed on one with plenty of other problems of its own–hello, less than stable IE 8. So there was definitely something out to get me–now I had proof.
After exiling SP3 from my machine for being pretty much a complete and total failure, I’d also a while later gone ahead and got rid of Eset’s Smart Security product for a whole host of other, unrelated reasons I’ll get around to posting at some point in the maybe not too distant future. That fixed a few dozen other slightly irritating, but not ultimately hindering, problems. After seeing SP3 crop up on some of these machines and ultimately not cause mass amounts of destruction, I decided just before I came down here to install it again on mine. I took that opportunity to test IE 8 out on a non-frankenputer as well, but I’ll save that for when I figure out what about the offending machine is making it break. And, surprise of surprises, it didn’t result in extreme amounts of bloodshed, or physical damage to the computer.
So, after much of the getting pissed with Microsoft for making yet more work for me, and after confirming not once, but five times that SP3 did not, in fact, break me severely on install, I officially withdraw any cursing, swearing, or overall snarkish remarks directed at Microsoft on its behalf. Instead, I shall officially aim those remarks at Eset/Nod32, and add them to the 50 billion others I’ve had plenty of time to prepare and direct at the offending antivirus manufacturer. But don’t worry, Microsoft still has much for me to snark about–I still have to figure out in exactly how many pieces they’ve managed to break .net framework on this machine, which may or may not warrant a separate entry. But SP3, at least so far, is not as evil as it looked a few months ago. Good job, MS. Now fix your framework, goddammit.
So in between getting things settled up for Christmas, and taking Jess (samari76) out for her birthday, I’ve had a bit of an opportunity to do some technological geeking. I’ve been toying with the idea of installing a local copy of various versions of Linux, mostly for the awesome factor that would go with it. That, plus trish is rather curious to see exactly what the system looks like. So with mucho assistance from Mike (lightvortex), I got my hands on an iso of Gentoo, A.K.A. my OS of choice. Burned two live CD’s, one for my eventual booting/possible installing, and one so Trish can look at it on her own schedule and optionally install it when she decides it’s something she’s got time to dink around with. If I ever do get around to installing Gentoo locally, I’ve still got the HP laptop sitting in the other room that’s been in a sort of semi-state of retirement since about September/October of last year, when I got my hands on this machine. I’m giving serious thought to plunking Gentoo on that machine, and taking the Orca screenreader for a test drive. Thought about a couple others, but from doing my own poking around Orca’s got the most publicly available documentation/information on it. I’m not *overly* impressed with its selection of speech synths, but considering it’s free software, plus is completely and totally open source, I don’t see that being a permanent problem. If it turns out I actually enjoy locally using Gentoo,I may do exactly the same thing with the desktop here; ditch the copy of Windows and subsequent copy of JAWS for Windows I have on here, and stick Gentoo in its place. God knows there’s about 40 billion equivalent programs I can use to do the same every day things I do on here while using that particular OS. Now I just have to muster up the nerve to actually take the plunge. One of these days I’ll let loose with my Windows versus Linux post. But for the moment, I’ll just leave it at Linux will pwn j00. And yes, Rox’e (pawpower4me), it even pwns your macs. Like wo.
Microsoft, musings, tech stuff, Windows | November 14, 2010 by James | 
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