The spectrum of those using Microsoft software in general, and Windows in
particular, is very broad; my intent for this post is to speak to the users
who do not lie towards the endpoints of this spectrum. I realize ahead of
time that this is going to be a long post (perhaps mostly off-topic in this
thread), but I'm posting it here anyway. I see many kinds of anger in
microsoft.public newsgroups, and I, too, need a moment to vent now and
again.
I believe that the original poster wants a clean reinstallation and has no
other medium onto which the backup can be saved. For myself, I no longer
consider freshly installing any of the 21st-century versions of Windows onto
anything other than a completely-wiped hard drive. I no longer use upgrade
Windows products, either. The post-9x versions of Windows are way too
complex, and their issues way too numerous, for me to have confidence that
post-installation problems (within a reasonable time interval) could not be
a function of pre-existing conditions. My rhetorical question is, "Why
skip eliminating *any* potential factors over which you have control when
the end goal is to reduce the number of issues overall"? This question
becomes less rhetorical in the light of how often a clean reinstallation of
Windows turns out to be the easiest solution at the end of the day. It's
easy when you're ready and waiting, that is.
Kevin's rhetorical question makes an important point, also. It is no longer
reasonable to rely on floppy disks for system-backup purposes if you are
using any 21st-century version of Windows because it's definitely too much
useless disks and wasted time when something goes wrong. (I recall swapping
many floppy disks using the pre-21st-century versions of Windows, and some
of those memories are not-very-happy times. In hindsight, it was stupid for
me to have waited nearly three years after writeable CDs became available to
begin using them.)
After 20+ years of Microsoft experience, I'm convinced that the best way to
go with Microsoft software today is mindset, preparation and priorities --
in that order.
Mindset: Train yourself to be satisfied with the basic functionalities that
work for you, and forget about glitches related to cosmetics, the loss of
bells or whistles, and all of the *minor* irritations that Microsoft must
now pass from one version to the next. This is hard to do because we want
both what we pay for and our expectations (all the way from "faster and
easier" to "Wow") to be reasonably met. But, Microsoft's flagship product
has become a run-away locomotive; Windows has evolved beyond the ability of
any team at Microsoft to get a handle on it. Yet, Microsoft's business plan
does not evolve as a "partner" in support of Windows. To stay one step
ahead, Microsoft continues to aggressively seek out market share practically
anywhere they sense opportunity for potential profit or some degree of
revenue stabilization, and they continue to do it in the absence of certain
foundational considerations. As long as Microsoft continues to try
assimilate so many acquired technologies and ideas into Windows to market
some integrated, seamless be-all-for-all OS concept, Windows becomes more
complex, and the relative coding errors increase. Try to get used to it.
This strategy also leads to misguided development-resource shifting. (An
acquaintance at Microsoft's Redmond campus told me in late August that one
might get the impression that Vista is "already obsolete" if they were to
see some of the priorities being allocated to Microsoft's next vision of
Windows features versus some of the priorities being given to address what
remain as serious issues with released products.) I view the overall
situation as a vicious cycle, and I force myself to deal with it every week
through mindset, preparation, and priorities because I do not really have a
choice of platforms.
Preparation: Keep reminding yourself that loss of even basic functionality
*will* happen, probably proportionate to your setup and usage. You *will*
eventually experience some degree of disaster. If you're busy, then it may
be a few times per year. Get ready now. Take a serious look at your setup,
and plan ahead. If you do not have an external hard drive, start saving
money today to buy one. If your system cannot archive to CD or DVD discs,
then you might consider that hardware upgrade, instead; don't make the same
stupid mistake that I made by putting it off. Be organized. Start putting
together a disaster-preparedness kit; get your drivers archived with notes
and instructions, keep your passwords handy, find backup software you like
and use it weekly to protect what's important to you. Your computer usage
might call for more extensive preparation. I've saved several of my old
systems from the past two decades, and I still use them. If you're lucky
enough to have more than one computer, then dedicate your major tasks to one
system or the other, not both. There are four computers in my place that
are on almost every day. Three more get turned on once a month or so. I
use separate computers for financial transactions, for play, for trying
experiments (eg: freeware, shareware, Vista). Should I be embarrassed that
I set up a dedicated laptop for responding to SPAM? I'm not embarrassed to
say that most of my postal correspondence and database work is done on a
Hewlett-Packard 486 desktop with a 16MB hard drive running Windows 3.1 on
DOS 6.22, MS Word 5 and some version of dBase. Windows 3.1 is lightening
fast for very basic computer work. Within 45 seconds of sitting down, the
new document is open, the address is typed, and the envelope is coming out
of the printer. Works 8 on my 2.16GHz TOSHIBA with 2GB RAM and Windows XP
might still be launching. After reading this far, I hope that you get my
point.
Priorities: Which of the following two situations is more worthy of
attention? Some pop-up taskbar notification balloons in Windows Vista still
appear behind the taskbar at times when you really need to know what they
say, along with 649 other irritating bugs and issues. Roughly 650* children
under age 12 died from easily-preventable causes in developing countries
during the 45 minutes that it took for me to type this post. Now do you get
my point?
~ Mark
*extrapolated from 1997 World Health Organization data based on annual
non-HIV mortality estimates
