Joshua P. Hill said on 7/12/03 at 7:28 am :
" Because XP is a hodgepodge of exceptions and special cases, tasks
that should be trivial, like moving programs and data to a new disk or
system are a time-eating nightmare. Just copying or trying to move
files is an ordeal. And stability means little when you have to reboot
every time you install a new program."
Your denial seems to fly in the face of the facts.
I didn't bother rereading what I'd written because the notion that one
has to reboot XP every time on installs a program is so patently
ridiculous it never occurred to me that I, or anybody else, would say
it. Now that you've gone to the trouble of quoting me, I see that I
did say it -- but as an obvious hyperbole. Same thing.
Course, your comment on the 'ordeal' of copying and moving files in XP
is also pretty idiotic.
Again, it's called "hyperbole," and it's a fair bet that when you use
it or any form of sarcasm or satire on Usenet some overly-literal
doofus won't recognize it. (Of course, that may be me -- I'm as likely
to be a doofus as the next guy, [Don't answer that!])
But, hyperbole aside, have you ever tried to copy a large number of
files with XP or another Windows variant? Half the time it craps out
(and /please/ don't complain that it actually really only craps out
13.935% of the time, because I find that no more reassuring than the
knowledge that death happens, on average, only once). Happened to me
just a few days ago, as I was trying to recover from one of XP's
glorious system-destroying crashes, the cause of which I won't even
print here for fear that Bill Gates will commit suicide out of shame.
The error message? "Filename too long to copy." Sheesh! If the
filename was too frigging long, why did XP allow it in the first
place? (Ah, you say, it was probably a path length limitation --
perhaps, but then it should have ****ing said so.) And, of course, the
move or copy always craps out in the middle of the operation, instead
of just copying what it can and giving you an error message, "such and
such a file could not be copied because . . . "
And sometimes those delightful files can't be erased by Explorer, and
you have to find out what they are and erase them from the command
line.
Oh, and then there are the files that get locked for reasons known
only to the world's worst systems programmers and God . . . and of
course produce the entire crap-out scenario again.
Start the copy all over again, carefully avoiding the file that won't
copy and hoping it's the only one . . . oh, I just love Windows! I
have wasted so much time on this kind of crap, and it stays the same
from version to version, because Microsoft doesn't give a flying ****
or maybe because, as a systems programmer friend alleges, the smart
programmers don't choose to work there. Windows is a tax on the
nation, on the world, on /me./
Josh
