Beginning Anew

Well, this will be post number 100 to this blog. Pretty sad really, seeing as how I've had this thing for nearly two years. I'm a bad blogger. I know.

I'm sitting in the office right now waiting on a file to download because once again I've tried the new Windows Vista, and as much as I have tried to make it work it just doesn't. Busted. No-Go.

Ok, first, it does look pretty sharp.. I mean it's got some pretty nice features that around service pack 2 will probably be great. I'll be waiting til at least SP1 to try this again. The problem is that the new "Aero Glass" feature actually runs as a service (read: a separate program). This service crashes every time I highlight text, which if you've ever seen me read a site on the computer you'll know that I highlight the paragraph i'm on in case I get distracted.

Second: Playing media in any player, be it WMP 11; Real; Winamp; Streams in proprietary players; etc STINKS

Let me say that again it STINKS.. You can thank (at least partially) DRM or Digital Rights Management which essentially is MS sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong. This nice little program makes my media players hang, and even with 2gb of RAM it makes processor use go to 100% and just stay there until you open task manager and force the process to end.

Sigh... I had higher hopes for this one... but i'm downloading an ISO of Freespire Linux to try out as a dual-boot when I format and re-install XP later this afternoon.

Labels: 100th Post, Microsoft, Vista, Windows

This morning, I had the conversation that I end up having with every new employee who is moderately computer saavy.

"No, I won't give you administrator privileges. It's bad policy, it gives you too much access to things you don't need and you will break it eventually if you are admin. Not going to happen"

I was then informed (by that wonderful "i'm joking, but i'm not really joking" tone) that the user would annoy the crap out of me until I did.

"Feel free to come by and let me know what software you need installed, they pay me to maintain these machines, I don't mind."

So it took all the way until this afternoon before I get the e-mail.

(Paraphrase) Since i'm not administrator, I can't put shortcuts on my desktop (end paraphrase)

That's all well and good, except that it is in no way the truth. A guest user (which has virtually no privileges) can put shortcuts on the desktop. Now, they won't be there when the user logs off or shuts down the computer, but it will place one on the desktop during that session.

Anyway, i'm rambling.. sorry.

So, I walk down to the users office and here is where I am validated...

"I guess it won't let me move it because it's in my system32 folder".....
...
...
...

That's right... he was screwing around in the folder that (as administrator) deleting, renaming or possibly thinking bad thoughts about a file can corrupt and damage the entire OS.

And THAT is why users can't be administrators....

Geez.

Labels: BOFH, users, Windows