Windows NT Insanity

Let me simply note for the record that the designers of Windows NT have now wasted another 5 hours of my life. Today I spent the afternoon — from noon to 5 p.m. — reinstalling Windows NT and the MapGuide server that drives the mapping functions on www.gov.pe.ca. By my count, I had to wait for Windows NT to restart sixteen times in total.

Windows NT needs to be reinstalled every time you blink. Change the computer name, restart. Change the IP address, restart. Install some software, restart. Uninstall some software, restart.

It’s as if the designers assumed users would buy their computer, install the operating system once, and then use the computer in that state forever. At least I hope that’s what they assumed, because if it was somehow considered okay to have users wait 5 minutes every so often for Windows NT to get its bearings, well, that’s a sad reflection on their design goals.

In any case, install went off generally without a hitch (which is unusual) and we should be back in the MapGuide business shortly.

Comments

Ken's picture
Ken on February 1, 2003 - 00:10 Permalink

I missed the Mapguide section of www.gov.pe.ca while it was down, those aerial photos are nifty.
That is one of many excellent features on that site.

Christopher's picture
Christopher on February 1, 2003 - 03:13 Permalink

I assume that article was guest-written by Giuseppi Brienio? (Having said that, Two-Ell is back on one of his periodic swings [rampages] to Linux (this time the secure enGarde distro) and I’m having a lot of fun with it. Remembering back to abandoning Mac in ‘91 still hurts, but, hey, NT has achieved this funny thing: folks still stay there even when the opposition’s free.

anon's picture
anon on February 1, 2003 - 17:15 Permalink

While Windows NT is probably one of the most difficult operating systems to work with left (ever tried to install a new device on it), Windows 2000 is really a great product, and requires far less hassle when being set up than NT.

This post is certainly not meant as a Linux v. Microsoft one, I think most reasonable people realize both have their place.