Vista Activation

[Doris Day - MFB]

And yet insults continuer to flow freely from you:
"MickeyMouse MVP"
Your standards seem to be at least as low as those you criticize.
If you had the ability to communicate a point without the need to prop
it up with an insult, you would.
But as usual, apparently you can not.

Apparently not when it comes to dealing with a Wintard like you.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[DanS]

The difference is is that I can support a client's Linux box across
the world by ssh'ing into his box and fixing things. Can't so it with
Windoze.

That is if the problem doesn't affect internet traffic.

The same thing can done in Windows too, again, as long as the internet
works on it, using RDP/Remote Assistance.

 

[DanS]

We agree. Isn't life wonderful?

LOL!

Alias

Well, I do have decent reasoning skills and can actually process
information I am fed, fairly, and can then make a decision based on my
own opinion and the others' supplied info.

And, believe it or not, there are times when I have changed my mind about
some opinion.

In this particular case, I've been thinking going Linux for a while,
well, years actually, since I bought that distribution. I just spent
hours reading over Wine & WinLib documentation, and have been looking at
VM packages, and such. You know, intelligent research.

Next is to see what's available in driver's for my current hardware. What
got me back into thinking about is when I discovered some articles about
Beryl, and the fact that Linux/Beryl does all of this UI stuff on some
fairly low-power video hardware. It just makes no sense that with Vista
you need to have some pretty hefty hardware to see the same results. Not
that I'm into the eye-candy that much, I usually turn all of that off,
but it's entriguing (sp?) none the less.

Also, I am typically not one to insist I am right about something when I
have been actually wrong about it. I will certainly not start calling
people names, start spewing insults, and changing the requirements about
'whatever' when things don't look good for my argument.

Who doesn't enjoy a good debate that is intelligently carried out by ALL
parties involved ? (rhetorical)


Regards,

DanS

 

[DanS]

Oh Doris, the things you don't know! I'm not at all surprised. You
never were a "deep" person. Lesson #1...don't talk about things you
know nothing about.
Good advice!
Frank

Lesson #2, you can't tell someone they are wrong about something, then just
leave it at that and walk away. It would be nice for you to explain why.

 

[Frank]

Lesson #2, you can't tell someone they are wrong about something, then just
leave it at that and walk away. It would be nice for you to explain why.

You're right Dan. Obviously I don't think Ms. Day wishes to deal with
the truth and that being if the computer in question can get an Internet
connection then remote desktop can be used to troubleshoot/fix the problem.
Many of use help our relatives/friends, when needed, in this manner.
Frank

 

[Frank]

And yet insults continuer to flow freely from you:
"MickeyMouse MVP"
Your standards seem to be at least as low as those you criticize.
If you had the ability to communicate a point without the need to prop
it up with an insult, you would.
But as usual, apparently you can not.

I appears you're dealing with one of the real linux loser sickos who
must have been either fired for incompetence from MS or else couldn't
get by the application/personality profile test.
He/she/it has continually demonstrated the correct level of hatred for
all things MS to qualify as a disciple for the linux guru, RS.
Frank

 

[DanS]

You're right Dan. Obviously I don't think Ms. Day wishes to deal with
the truth and that being if the computer in question can get an
Internet connection then remote desktop can be used to
troubleshoot/fix the problem. Many of use help our relatives/friends,
when needed, in this manner. Frank

Yep, that is exactly true. (I replied the same thing anyway) but wouldn't
have had to if you had.

Now Ms. Day has one thing she can cross off her Windows 'con' list, and
one less point that can be argued.

I don't think anyone can argue that fact again, and she can't either.

 

[DanS]

As you already know Ubuntu has nothing to do with your problem.
And of course is is not a viable solution for those needing or
desiring Windows.

Of course not for those who need or want Windows, but, for many, they don't
NEED to use Windows, OR, some don't even know of any other choice. The most
popular answer would probably be...'because it came with Windows'.

If all your doing is browsing the internet, and doing e-mail, pulling
pictures off your digital camera, etc., Linux would do just fine. You can
use the same programs even, FF, Thunderbird, etc....

I know several people exactly like this. I could probably show them a Linux
desktop, without telling them it wasn't Windows, and the most they would
say is 'it looks different' than usual.

 

[Doris Day - MFB]

Well, I do have decent reasoning skills and can actually process
information I am fed, fairly, and can then make a decision based on my
own opinion and the others' supplied info.

And, believe it or not, there are times when I have changed my mind about
some opinion.

In this particular case, I've been thinking going Linux for a while,
well, years actually, since I bought that distribution. I just spent
hours reading over Wine & WinLib documentation, and have been looking at
VM packages, and such. You know, intelligent research.

Next is to see what's available in driver's for my current hardware. What
got me back into thinking about is when I discovered some articles about
Beryl, and the fact that Linux/Beryl does all of this UI stuff on some
fairly low-power video hardware. It just makes no sense that with Vista
you need to have some pretty hefty hardware to see the same results. Not
that I'm into the eye-candy that much, I usually turn all of that off,
but it's entriguing (sp?) none the less.

Beryl is so much more than simple eye-candy. It really does make using your
computer much more efficient and productive. Since Linux can have a number
of desktops (viewports they're called in Beryl), I've got it setup so that
I can rotate the mouse wheel and quickly move between viewports and the
running programs on each. Add to that something like Avant Window Manager
and it becomes a thing of beauty. BTW, I run with dual monitors making
things even better.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[Doris Day - MFB]

You're right Dan. Obviously I don't think Ms. Day wishes to deal with
the truth and that being if the computer in question can get an Internet
connection then remote desktop can be used to troubleshoot/fix the
problem. Many of use help our relatives/friends, when needed, in this
manner. Frank

Frankie Boy, Linux can use rdesktop to open a Windoze desktop. I'm not
talking about that. ssh is a far different animal. Because Linux boxes use
X server (in fact the whole operating system is based on a client/server
model), any GUI application can be run remotely. Why would I want to open a
whole desktop remotely and live with all the bandwidth that entails when I
can simply open an individual app on a box somewhere across the Net and run
it remotely on my desktop? Better, still, I can get to the box's CLI and
then have control over EVERY aspect of the remote Linux box. I can start
and stop services, edit config files, checkout logs, etc. etc. etc. Far
more powerful than a restrictive and SLOW remote desktop. Also, with ssh I
can login to different user accounts at the same time. With remote desktop
it's one user at a time. Linux unlike Windoze is a multi-user operating
system. No comparison. But then again, you know nothing about the subject.
<snort>

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[Doris Day - MFB]

Yep, that is exactly true. (I replied the same thing anyway) but wouldn't
have had to if you had.

Now Ms. Day has one thing she can cross off her Windows 'con' list, and
one less point that can be argued.

I don't think anyone can argue that fact again, and she can't either.

I just did. See my reply to Frankie Boy. Remote desktop in Windoze (which
Linux can do with rdesktop) doesn't compare to the power of ssh.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[Doris Day - MFB]

That is if the problem doesn't affect internet traffic.

The same thing can done in Windows too, again, as long as the internet
works on it, using RDP/Remote Assistance.

Can someone be working on a Windows PC while another user is remotely
accessing it from the backend and fixing problems, installing apps,
configuring things without the local user even being aware that all this is
going on? Please let me know. Because I can do that with ssh and a Linux
boxes.

Love and Kisses,
Doris

 

[DanS]

Can someone be working on a Windows PC while another user is remotely
accessing it from the backend and fixing problems, installing apps,
configuring things without the local user even being aware that all
this is going on? Please let me know. Because I can do that with ssh
and a Linux boxes.

This can not officially be done with WindowsXP but there are supposed work
arounds, but with mixed results from what a quick search turned up.

http://www.golod.com/2005/10/enabling-multiple-remote-desktop-sessions-in-
windows-xp-professional-and-media-center-edition-2005/

Reportedly a Vista work around as well which seems to be even more hit and
miss than the XP hack.

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/156341/ShowThread.aspx

MS Server O/S's with Terminal Server running supports multiple connections
natively though.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Thu, 3 May 2007 12:54:09 -0400, "Richard Urban"

Only a very small part of 1% of people who have problems would consider that
as help. They want their problem fixed. They don't want to buy a Chevy
because their Ford has a flat!

Time to get serious here Alias. Either hang out in the Windows XP news
groups, because you say you still use that, or play on the Ubuntu forums.

We always thought market share might drift due to Linux "catching up"
with Windows, but what we may see is that flow because Windows (or
rather, the strings attached to using it) become so much worse. We
may end up using Linux in spite of it not being "as ready".

In the old days, if you had a beef about MS's pricing on Windows,
you'd feel the pain of that one-off payment per PC - but that's it;
you can just walk away and have nothing more to do with the vendor, if
that is how you wanted to play it.

Today, like it or not, you are chained into an ongoing relationship
with the vendor, and the vendor unilaterally sets the rules via the
EUL"A", which they can change at any time.

Because the complexity means too many bugs to keep up with manually,
you're obliged to allow the vendor to squirt in their choice of code
whenever they feel like it. If that code is buggy and nags you about
your Windows being non-"genuine", or you miss a cheackbox and have ads
pushed at you from that UI opportunity, you just have to roll with it.

MS talks about standards, quality, and "genuine advantage", but throws
consumers to the wolves when it comes to OEM Windows, maintainability,
etc. as everything's orientated to managed IT. There's attention paid
to ease-of-use and "buzz" stuff for consumers, but that's it.

While the front of MS is boasting "genuine advantage", the back end is
pressurizing OEMs to ship disk-less "air boxes" for MS Office 2007
right now... and Windows tomorrow?

If you extrapolate the changes we are seeing now, over the lifespan of
Vista, we may well find vendor practices to be intolerable by the time
the next version comes out. I hope Linux will be ready for us by
then, and that we will be ready for Linux.

Bad vendor politics can kill a good platform.

------------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

The rights you save may be your own

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Fri, 04 May 2007 10:51:34 -0500, DanS

Good point actually, if someone is totally computer dumb and has to bring
in an 'outsider' to fix their Windows box, there's essentially no
difference bringing in someone else to fix their *Nix box.

True. It's like the apps and device drivers; where to find a good,
friendly, available Linux tech?

Windows will prolly enjoy driver and hardware support, and MS will
work hard to keep software devs on board too, but techs... may be a
different story. At some point, if consumer resentment builds up,
some techs may ride on both skis or jump over completely. Techs are
users too, and can get even more fed up than users!

MS keeps big OEMs on-side in various ways, but smaller PC builders
could get fed up and move on. They're trapped by their skill set,
i.e. the investment they've made in what they've been working with and
learning how to fix, just as disgruntled users here are trapped by the
applications they've chosen that are available only on Windows.


One wild card is the old "Net PC" model, which is being re-invented
yet again as Web 2.0 apps, e.g. as offered by Google. Personally, the
idea of having my data sitting on someone else's box is pretty scary,
but I can see users who get malware'd all the time might actually feel
safer that way. Then they could use any OS that "speaks web", pretty
much the Java dream but even friendlier to the old-school vendors who
long to do the big-iron multi-user thing again.


The other wild card is the role of advertising in IT. For many users,
Windows may be the only software or content they pay for; everything
else is free, or "free", so who's paying the piper? Advertising.

One watches MS's present ethics in familiar territory as a pointer to
how they may arrive at a green-fields environment like Web 2.0 apps or
advertising-funded services. If the approach they take is
intolerable, and the new fields are too pervasive to ignore, then two
things happen. One, the dependency on the OS may be less, as other
OSs can do the new stuff too. The other is that we may be driven to
change platforms, even if the other platforms aren't as slick.


Final wild card; at any point, the game could tilt, e.g. if Apple
re-positioned themselves as a value-added, hardware-independent Linux
with best-of-breed commercial support. I doubt if they have the guts
to grasp the nettle, though; their own pre-existing pattern of greed
will prolly lead them to DRM their OS so that only runs on their
hardware, even as their hardware becomes generic "Intel".

So Linux will count on MS blowing the platform through unacceptable
politics, and MS will count on Apple being too timid to commit to the
fray. Well, betting on stupidity has always been good odds ;-)

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Proverbs Unscrolled #37
"Build it and they will come and break it"

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Good point actually, if someone is totally computer dumb and has to bring
in an 'outsider' to fix their Windows box, there's essentially no
difference bringing in someone else to fix their *Nix box.

[/QUOTE]

The difference is is that I can support a client's Linux box across the
world by ssh'ing into his box and fixing things. Can't so it with Windoze.

I'm more interested in the differences that apply when one works on
the box directly. Can I recover data and repair the file system under
direct control? Can I manage malware without running it? Those are
THE two crucial questions when it comes to service.

If I can manage the two most common and significant problems that my
users have on Windows, and I can in Linux, then I can add more value
to Linux. My job satisfaction is better, and the quality of result
when combining user, computer and tech is better. Which sort of work
life do you expect I'll prefer?

Now it's easy to say "Linux doesn't have malware". Well, if Linux had
enough end-user consumer density to be worth my while to support for a
living, then you bet your ass it would attract significvant malware
attention too. Right now, I don't want to drive to the five corners
of the city to see my potential Linux client base, whereas I can walk
to as many existing Windows clients from home.

More to the point is that Linux has documented file systems, and the
same installation Linux CD will usually also work as a full-blown
maintenance OS. Not only that, but I can edit the equivalent of the
registry from this, using straightforward text editing tools.

In contrast, Vista forces me to use a file system that has no proper
maintenance or recovery tools; if it blinks and AutoChk irreversibly
ruins my data, I'm supposed to just accept that. If my PC gets
infected, or I think it may be infected, I'm advised to "just" wipe
and rebuild; I can't boot my OS DVD and run tools from there, out of
the box, and I can't run such tools against the HD registry.

Frankly, I'm not looking forward to 5 years of making excuses as to
why Vista can't be maintained to the standard folks have come to
expect from Win9x and XP on FATxx. It may be time to smell some
different roses for a change.

-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.