I think that they have excellent, skilled programmers working on Windows...
... and I also think they get sadistic pleasure out of tormenting their users. As a Windows user myself*, I frequently get frusterated with the stupidity of the Windows operating system. However, this story takes the proverbial cake.
I was playing "ctrl-alt-del roulette"** with a friend of mine, who was getting a huge kick out of it, because he is a mac user, when a message pops up saying something to the effect of: You have one minute to save all your work and prepare for shutdown.
So I frantically save my homework I'd been working on previously, and try to get a screenshot of the error message (I was too late). Meanwhile my friend is rolling on the floor, doubled up in laughter. Once my computer had shut down, I started to think. Why would my computer randomly do this? That question had an easy answer: I had deleted some important thing. However, I was still wondering: How could my computer remain usable enough to allow me to save my work for a whole minute, and yet still not allow me to abort the shut down? I don't think it was really struggling to stay alive for that crucial minute, if so the error message would have been more frantic: "OMG!!!1 Teh compuetr are teh no worxorz! sAVE yuor stuf huryr!!!!!!!1" It even gave me a fancy countdown sequence to zero in the little window of doom.
Anyone have an answer for a Windows user such as myself? If not, can I please have a cookie?
*Please let's not get into a "Macs are more better!" "Nuh-uh!" thing here.
**What, you mac users haven't heard of it? You simply force quit applications while blindfolded until someone crashes the computer. Great party game.
I was playing "ctrl-alt-del roulette"** with a friend of mine, who was getting a huge kick out of it, because he is a mac user, when a message pops up saying something to the effect of: You have one minute to save all your work and prepare for shutdown.
So I frantically save my homework I'd been working on previously, and try to get a screenshot of the error message (I was too late). Meanwhile my friend is rolling on the floor, doubled up in laughter. Once my computer had shut down, I started to think. Why would my computer randomly do this? That question had an easy answer: I had deleted some important thing. However, I was still wondering: How could my computer remain usable enough to allow me to save my work for a whole minute, and yet still not allow me to abort the shut down? I don't think it was really struggling to stay alive for that crucial minute, if so the error message would have been more frantic: "OMG!!!1 Teh compuetr are teh no worxorz! sAVE yuor stuf huryr!!!!!!!1" It even gave me a fancy countdown sequence to zero in the little window of doom.
Anyone have an answer for a Windows user such as myself? If not, can I please have a cookie?
*Please let's not get into a "Macs are more better!" "Nuh-uh!" thing here.
**What, you mac users haven't heard of it? You simply force quit applications while blindfolded until someone crashes the computer. Great party game.
Comments
Ok well I understand where you are comming from... but there is just two things I'd like to say:
1) ctrl-alt-del roulette is a BIG no-no! Don't just kill services if you don't know what they do. As a Semi-Windows user I know that any MS user worth his salt knows which process/service is which and how not to kill off the wrong one. Sure if you see "connectionToPr0n.exe" you can end its life without a worry but you need to learn who does what in windows land before you play God with processes' lives.
2) Welcome to AI
*Do you have any idea how fscking stupid that is on the part of the OS designers??????*
Dear *LORD*.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, DUMB!
Originally posted by Kickaha
--snip--
*Do you have any idea how fscking stupid that is on the part of the OS designers??????*
--snip--
No. It is there for "power" users who know what they are doing. It is no different then the "ps -A" + "kill -9 [PID]" we could use.
Windows just lets you do your dirty work in less keystrokes.
Is it triggered the same way one would kill off a normal app?
Yes to either = fscking stupid.
"Okay, there are 10 switches on your dashboard, which run your headlights, your windshield wipers, your radio, and one that blows up your engine. Which is which? Oh, just play with them, you'll figure it out..."
In many earlier OS, from Win9x to OS9, a crash could sometimes lock up the whole system.
Crashes under some versions of OS X (been a while since i had one
"Blah has experienced a fatal error and will terminate immediately.
The system and all other application will be unaffected.
Would you like to continue Y/N?"
The first time i saw that i remember cheering for Unix foundations.
Force Quit of even the finder is something you'd never do before OS X, now 'tis no big thing.
Stability is good.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
its getting tough to tell the sarcasm from the just plain sad
In many earlier OS, from Win9x to OS9, a crash could sometimes lock up the whole system.
Yup, but even under the instability what was OS9, we were never handed the ability to randomly kill off *NECESSARY* processes for the OS to continue.
I mean, really, how stupid do you have to be to screw this up so badly?
Good lord. This is precisely the sort of thing that MS excels at...
"Let's give the power users the ability to kill off any process!" <- OK, fine.
"Let's give the average user the ability to kill off applications that hang!" <- OK, fine.
"Since these are just the same thing, let's make them look the same and have the same UI, with no warnings!" <- Stupid.
Note that Cmd-opt-esc only shows you the application level processes. To really get into the guts, to kill off necessary processes, you have to know more about the system. Think of it like an entrance exam... if you don't know *how* to do it, you probably shouldn't be *trying* it. An easy and simple interface is an important goal - as long as it doesn't hand the user enough rope to hang themselves without warning.
You do a disservice to yourself and to every other PC user connected to the internet if you do not keep your OS and virus protection up to date and clean off any infections immediately.
Contact your AntiVirus software manufacturer.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Is it available to the average user with no warning?
Is it triggered the same way one would kill off a normal app?
Yes to either = fscking stupid.
"Okay, there are 10 switches on your dashboard, which run your headlights, your windshield wipers, your radio, and one that blows up your engine. Which is which? Oh, just play with them, you'll figure it out..."
No, a warning is given before you comfirm the process kill. The average user skips over the warnings and just clicks ok. Also note that non-admin users can not kill system processes, they can only kill ones that they have started, but the defult user is an admin user unless otherwise changed.
and
Yes, it is in the same context to which one would kill off a normal app, but if you know what you are doing (and which app to kill) why would this matter?
a + b + c = fscking stupid to present it to the user in that fashion. I mean for cripes sake, make it at least a *little* harder for the average user to not shoot themselves in the foot. Repeatedly.
Oh but wait. That would gut the multi-billion dollar MS *support* industry. Can't have *that*. Grrr.
However, it would have to be done through the Activity Viewer, not the standard force quit dialog (people complained about this some time ago too). The Activity Viewer app also by default presents only the user processes, and you have to choose to display "all processes" or some superset of the user processes, and then kill the process (double clicking doesn't work any more either) and confirm the kill. Sounds complicated, but actually I do find Activity Viewer to be a nice app in Panther. I leave it in my Dock.
I think that they have excellent, skilled programmers working on Windows..
OK
In Windows land, things are not as clear cut as you'd like them to be. If you were gonna "fully separate" the OS and the apps, would you let users kill and restart Windows Explorer easily, or not? That's something I need to do every two weeks.
On the other hand, both on the "better kinds of" Windows and on OS X it would be very, very wise to make an admin account and an user account, and only use them for the uses they are for. Mebbe both OS's should actually guide the user to do that?
Originally posted by Influenza
You do a disservice to yourself and to every other PC user connected to the internet if you do not keep your OS and virus protection up to date and clean off any infections immediately.
Ah, that explains it. Thank you.