I ran across an “unofficial” list of proposed fixes for Windows XP SP2, so if there’s a bug or hole that’s been bothering you, see if it’s on the list. Ethan, who is apparently maintaining the list, says that he’s going to keep it up to date as SP2 comes closer to beta.
however… in the last time, i am more concerned about the features microsoft will add to windows then the one they will fix. i hope they start to get away from their strategy of “closing down your environment” and start to work on a os wich does what i need and not what i should not do.
Who cares? Linux is still better.
Again a thread tainted by linux zealots. How surprising
Oh my god… BeOS use to have that… it’s ripoff… oh baby, my dead OS was SO ahead of it’s time..
Who cares if Linux is better?
If you didn’t know this site is called osnews.com not linuxnews.com.
Did they fix the one where the registry gets corrupted on poweroff because of the disk not having finished emtpying its cache?
If you haven’t had the joyous experience of a ‘STOP c0000218’ at bootup then perhaps this article would be enlightening
http://www.tek-tips.com/gviewthread.cfm/lev2/67/lev3/70/pid/616/qid…
I only mention it because my Win2k system went down with this one this very morning. Easy to fix, but still a pain
It does seem that the registry is a pretty bad implementation of storing system settings, but what’s the alternative? 8,000,000 text configuration files scattered across the hard drive?
Has anybody ever come up with a better implementation than the above two?
“t does seem that the registry is a pretty bad implementation of storing system settings, but what’s the alternative? 8,000,000 text configuration files scattered across the hard drive?
Has anybody ever come up with a better implementation than the above two?”
I’m going to try and get this right, but nobody flame me if I’m wrong, just state why. If I recall, MS didn’t really intend application designers (other than themselves) to mess with the registry. The registry was intended to mainly of various Operating System settings, etc, and application developers could use their own .ini and config files for their particular program. However, once developers got ahold of the registry they couldn’t resist using/abusing it at every turn. Of course, not much can be done about it besides MS locking off the registry somehow.
Linux on the other hand has just the opposite problem. There is no central repository. Every program just tosses its garbage far and wide across my harddrive. Not only that, but depending on the distro these programs and files will be in a different place! This is really, really annoying, in fact, I would say it is right up there with linux’s worst qualities.
What should be done? I think a happy medium would be nice. If somehow linux distros could get what microsoft originally intended to work, that would be great! Have a small “registry” where the key OS config files are kept. I am talking about all of the important base packages. Kernel, X11, readline, all middleware, etc, etc. And then let applications keep their config files in whatever place they are installed.
I believe that would ultimately be the best solution, but it will never happen.
I notice Microsoft still haven’t updated the OpenGL ICD mechanism, and still won’t allow anyone else to do it. If it weren’t for the OpenGL extension mechanism we’d all be screwed.
>> “What should be done? I think a happy medium would be nice. If somehow linux distros could get what microsoft originally intended to work, that would be great! Have a small “registry” where the key OS config files are kept.”
GConf
>> “I notice Microsoft still haven’t updated the OpenGL ICD mechanism, and still won’t allow anyone else to do it. If it weren’t for the OpenGL extension mechanism we’d all be screwed.”
That’s one of my many reasons to leave the MS OS.
They promised to deliver an updated version of OpenGL 1.2 a long time ago, and we’re now at version 1.4 already..
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Try Mac OS X. In the application directory is an XML configuration file. The developer is asked to place program configuration information in the application file. If you want to support user settings then they should go in ~/Library/Application.
Ok, here’s my problem. I have windows XP Pro, and I use Remote Desktop connection as a ‘remote control’ for using winamp. The problem is, when I login remotely, it can’t find the sound drivers and doesn’t think i have a sound card installed. When I login locally though, then use RDP, it works fine. Anyone know if this is addressed at all with XP SP2 proposed things. I really couldn’t decipher if it was there, or if they even know about it.
Stop being such an idiot. System based configuration sit in /etc application go in /usr/local/etc (on FreeBSD).
What is the alternative? how about break up the registery into its five key components and instead of in binary, why not XML?
yo dude.. ever used a Linux distro before? “scattered far and wide” is barely scratching the surface of the frustration Linux users encounter every day when trying to configure the OS. GConf is just a hack. XML is used in OSX because Apple developers value ease of use over speed of the applications.
Breaking up the registry into separate XML hives isn’t exactly a great idea unless you really want your OS to parse five huge XML config files at startup.. ever wonder why OSX takes so long to boot? There’s part of the reason.
Convert a Windows XP to Linux. When will that feature be added? I’m sure a registry hack could be added.
Joe
Actually, the reason why OS X boots so slow is not because it takes time to parse a XML file (trust me on this). UNIX traditionally is slow to boot, even on Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris, whatever your type is, it is slow to boot. I sincerely doubt that XML has anything to do with the slow boot speed.
As I recall, NetInfo’s database, the win-registry equivalent, is not in XML but in a binary format… which isn’t exactly and open thing despite the fact that cli parsers are included with OS X as well the gui tool.
Lately they have been pretty sedate. During the holidays, when there were in their hormonal hubris we got more colorful comments like:
Linux and Windoz boot-up when you turn on the power – they got that off of BeOS!!!
BeOS has configuration files and has them all in one place – your harddrive. Every other OS stole that from us.
BeOS supports keyboards… etc… etc… etc…
Just point me to /etc and that is all I need to know to inrder make this box dance on it’s toes.
I’m going to try and get this right, but nobody flame me if I’m wrong, just state why. If I recall, MS didn’t really intend application designers (other than themselves) to mess with the registry. The registry was intended to mainly of various Operating System settings, etc, and application developers could use their own .ini and config files for their particular program. However, once developers got ahold of the registry they couldn’t resist using/abusing it at every turn. Of course, not much can be done about it besides MS locking off the registry somehow.
I don’t agree. Nowadays you should use store settings in either the registry or the user’s home folder. The registry is for data < 64KB, the rest should go into the home folder. Ini-files in windows or the application folder is NOT good.
Look at the “Designed for Microsoft Windows XP” specs for more info.
> What is the alternative? how about break up the registery
> into its five key components and instead of in binary, why
> not XML?
aeh… SPEED?
…and I forgot to say: SIZE
my registry already has about 10 megs -> imagine this being an XML file?
how about break up the registery into its five key components
But it is already broken up?? Look in \windows\system32\config and your home dir.
(Assuming a recent MS OS)
Well at least we know winXP is headed in the right direction, when the greatest debate about a proposed set of patches for it, only includes pontification on reg entries.
I want to know when they are going to release Gameboy AdvanceXP, with a free T3 remote connection.
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/daangel6/Flash/DaAngel.html
not being too technical, here’s one thing i really like about linux.
i like the fact that a users settings are in ~/.dot_files and very few user-settings are in /etc and /usr/local/etc. i know these are the places for sysadmin settyings like whether Mozilla will use anti-aliasing and so on.
on unix if something goes really wrong with an application, i just delete the .dot_files and they are regenerated. some application will even regenerate only the missing corrupt files. unix developers know this. and they know they can’t touch any deep settings with user privilieges.
now – when something goes wrong with a windows app i can’t do anything about it. the registry is fragile. i daren’t edit it. well not too often. uninstall – reinstall? well, as we all know, the windows coders leave junk in the registry and elsewhere. so reinstalling often reuses the corrupt settings, to worse, the “registry-writing” code is so dumb that it breaks the registry further. sometimes i have to install software in a given order – else the registy goes into a state the apps don’t like. yuk.
seriously – this is one of the biggest reasons I use unix ver windows. windows has all the drivers, win2k is stable enough for me. its fast enough too for my needs. but its not a _managable_ OS.
i love the fact that if i’m experimenting with alpha- or often-updated software, i can do relocatable installs. install to /opt/app_v1, /opt/app2, etc… i know of no way of doign this in windows. ok – most installshield type installers say “where do you want to install the app, cprogram files” … but i _know_ from bad experience that this is not the end of it. its not simple and transparent enough for me to have a good feeling about installing stuff.
simpliscity, generality, and isolation is good.
forget speed – next year we’ll have a systems faster than you could ever have imagined. stability and managability now, speed will come itself.
t
now – when something goes wrong with a windows app i can’t do anything about it. the registry is fragile. i daren’t edit it.
The same thing can be said about Linux. A clueless user have no idea what the dot-files do. Worse, all the files are in different formats. The windows registry is more uniform.
uninstall – reinstall? well, as we all know, the windows coders leave junk in the registry and elsewhere. so reinstalling often reuses the corrupt settings, to worse, the “registry-writing” code is so dumb that it breaks the registry further.
well, as we all know, the linux coders leave junk in $HOME, /etc, /usr/etc/, /usr/local/etc and elsewhere so reinstalling often reuses the corrupt settings, to worse, the “config-writing” code is so dumb that it breaks the system further.
See, it works both ways.
sometimes i have to install software in a given order – else the registy goes into a state the apps don’t like. yuk.
Eh? Can you give an example?
but its not a _managable_ OS.
For you, probably not. How easy is it for a windows user to manage linux?
Simplicity is nice but in this case it places the workload on the user. Things like the OS should be able to do on its own. Geeks love to do everything by hand but the remaining 99% computer users do not and they should not have to.
Danlu,
Have you ever used a Linux based OS? or are you just
guessing you are right?
apt-get install / apt-get remove
and if you would like or can, you can even specifiy where and how
code is being placed on your Linux / *BSD machine.
Besides that, if my whole $HOME was filled with over 800 GB of
your so called “junk” files it would not affect my Unix OS, it would not become unstable, slow or unmanagable this is the oppostite under Windows. The more programs you install the more problems will occur.
I was interested by some of the posts here. I think it’s probably a little unfair to call GConf a “hack”, but the existing strategy with Unixen could certainly do with a revamp at some point. I personally do think XML is a good move, can anyone really prove that XML introduces a significant overhead? If so, why is it becoming an integral part of almost every vendor’s strategy – including Microsoft? I’d like to see some qualifying benchmarks – our computers these days are more than up to the task of crunching through a few embedded tags surely. The good thing about XML is that it can be checked against a DTD for integrity, not to mention its obvious readability and portability.
But never mind the storage mechanism, that would be easy to change if it was abstracted by a consistent set of interfaces to manage configuration settings. So I thought this link was pretty interesting: http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html
Particularly, toward the end of the article, Miguel de Icaza shows his vision of using Bonobo to abstract Unix management tasks. Pretty impressive I reckon, it would make good management tools a lot easier to write and portable. Furthermore, if the data storage mechanism needed to be revised it could be done without breaking all and sundry. Also, just imagine a virtual “etcfs” filesystem mounted at /etc which would provide a reasonable level of backward compatibility during such a transition.
This is one of the reasons I’ve really taken to Gnome over KDE recently, aside from all the arguments about desktop friendliness. Is it only Miguel that is serious about addressing some of the less palatable aspects of what is otherwise a very strong system, I wonder?
Sure, I have used a number of Linux distributions and started with zipslack five years ago or so. I’m not guessing.
apt-get install / apt-get remove
I have not used Debian but I have heard a lot about apt and it seems really nice.
I guess you argue that installation and uninstallation is simple on Linux, right?
Well, I agree but I think most windows programs are even simpler to install because you don’t have to use the command line. Most users can’t handle such things.
* Double click on downloaded icon.
* Follow instruction.
* To uninstall, use Add/Remove programs.
You can’t blame the OS if the installation program leaves junk on the system. I can probably make an .rpm or .deb that leaves junk everywhere and maybe removes some other files instead.
and if you would like or can, you can even specifiy where and how
code is being placed on your Linux / *BSD machine.
That’s nice but you can do that on Windows too.
About the 800GB stuff:
I will never claim you can cram 800GB of data in the windows registry. It’s like a database and huge databases are slower than small ones.
However, it’s as possible as in linux to have a great deal of junk files in the home dir without any unusual slowdowns. Without being a system programmer, it’s probably safe to say that filesystem operations are slower in huge directories than small ones for any OS.
Much easier. Follow that with the Unix way. MS’s registry is a very bad implementation although I find RegCleaner helps me erase some of those rubbish entries left via poor program uninstallations. Still, the amount of crap one has to go through maintaining Windows properly is annoying.
Heh, the same day i read your post, my main computer decided to reboot every give a blue error screen at the end of its splash screen and then reboot. I can’t read the error, but I believe it is the same error you posted about. Thanks for the link!
That’s one of my many reasons to leave the MS OS.
They promised to deliver an updated version of OpenGL 1.2 a long time ago, and we’re now at version 1.4 already. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Actually, they only promised to deliver an update to OpenGL in a later service pack, shortly after Win2K was released. They have until the day before it’s EOL’d before we can technically call them liars. Regardless, SGI completed and handed over the sourcecode for the update over two years ago.
I maintain that Microsoft should be prosecuted for abusing its control of the DDK’s. Direct3D (as a component of DirectX) is openly advertised as being a standalone API by Microsoft, yet they’re using their control of closed API’s and legal trickery in an artificial attempt to freeze OpenGL. Thankfully this strategy has had little long term effect.
I have always thought that storing application preferences in the registry was idiotic. I can easily backup (or edit) and .ini file, but how does the average person backup a registry key? BeOS did it best with all settings files in one location. Uninstalling a program was as simple as deleting the folder it was in, along with the setting file. If you left the setting file there, then it was no big deal.
because some posts ago, somebody said not to matter about speed since it will all change in the next year(s)…
…i have heard this so often years ago – but also programs become bigger, and already fast programs become even faster with new hardware.
Just compare the XUL interface from Mozilla to a native one.
I have seen it on a HyperThreading Pentium 4 with 3.06 Ghz and it seems slower than the native one on a P3 800.
So where is the point? You will ALWAYS notice a difference between slow and fast programs. So speed IS important.