simple question

[Wim]

Why does XP bother to ask the user whether is wants to end a 'dead' program
now when a positive answer to such a request does not appear to provoke any
response from the system corresponding with this particular action?

(in other words, when I say 'End now', I want it to end _NOW_ and not at a
time when XP thinks it's more convenient). Always makes me wonder just who
is in control, me or the machine

Wim

 

[ras]

You don't give any specs so just have to guess but I'd say you have other
things going on. Either you have spyware that has slowed your system or you
may need more memory. When you hit the 'End Now" button it should close
fairly quickly. It sounds to me like you have too much happening at once.
I would guess the memory problem would take care of this.

 

[Wim]

You don't give any specs so just have to guess but I'd say you have other
things going on. Either you have spyware that has slowed your system or
you may need more memory. When you hit the 'End Now" button it should
close fairly quickly.

I'm not expecting 'fairly quickly', I'm expecting 'now' when it (no I
actually) says 'now'. I guess what I'm looking for is a XP-equivalent to
kill -9

But thanks for your answer anyway

Wim

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

XP is isolating the program from everything such no collateral damage will
occur..

 

[Wim]

XP is isolating the program from everything such no collateral damage will
occur..

Don't understand I'm afraid. Why isn't the program 'isolated' from
'everything' to begin with?

(for example, when IE dies on me, and starts (!) shutting down, it also
impacts the performance of other programs (like my dvd-player))

Wim

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Wim

Very few programs work in perfect isolation, and all require various
elements of Windows in order to perform that tasks asked.. an OS is not just
a pretty desktop.. it contains many of the background services that enable
an application to do whatever it does.. where DOS brought all of the
components together such that they were flying in loose formation, Windows
has attempted over the years to integrate each component much more tightly
and make better use of each component..

So, when using a grinding wheel, would you expect to be able to change a
worn one while 'on the fly'?.. hardly, as you have to wait for it to stop
and cool a little maybe.. OK, so you can see no obvious working parts in a
computer, but there is still a winding down process.. I don't know if you
ever ran Win 9x/ME, but if you did, you would know that a crashed
application generally resulted in a crashed OS.. XP may sometimes take a few
to recover and dump the offending app, but that is surely better than losing
everything as one would during the inevitable Win 9x reboot..

No, it is not always foolproof either.. if XP is hit hard enough, it will
fall, but it takes a whole bunch more to bring it down.. give the system a
chance..

 

[Wim]

Wim

Very few programs work in perfect isolation, and all require various
elements of Windows in order to perform that tasks asked.. an OS is not
just a pretty desktop.. it contains many of the background services that
enable an application to do whatever it does.. where DOS brought all of
the components together such that they were flying in loose formation,
Windows has attempted over the years to integrate each component much more
tightly and make better use of each component..

Which seems to be a disadvantage once totally unrelated programs (from a
users point of view at least) seem to effect each other when one of them
dies.

So, when using a grinding wheel, would you expect to be able to change a
worn one while 'on the fly'?..

Of course not. But we are not talking about changing the CPU on the fly
here, or the harddrive, but simply stopping a process which _ideally_
shouldn't effect others. It's not like I was expecting everything to keep
working once I shut down the OS itself. When the indicatorlights on my car
malfunction I do not expect the engine to quit on me for even a second.

hardly, as you have to wait for it to stop

and cool a little maybe.. OK, so you can see no obvious working parts in a
computer, but there is still a winding down process.. I don't know if you
ever ran Win 9x/ME, but if you did, you would know that a crashed
application generally resulted in a crashed OS..

I remember well, and I had the same grievances back then. Sure a lot have
things have improved since then, but this thing just keeps bugging me


XP may sometimes take a few

to recover and dump the offending app, but that is surely better than
losing everything as one would during the inevitable Win 9x reboot..

Sure, but since MS have been putting out OS for 20 or more years now I would
have expected them to come up with a system where my browser is not effected
by my dvd-player and vice versa

No, it is not always foolproof either.. if XP is hit hard enough, it will
fall, but it takes a whole bunch more to bring it down.. give the system a
chance..

Well, since XP is our corporate standard I don't have much choice here (and
I still consider XP to be a better userplatform than most opensource OS's).
My original point came out of the usual impatient frustration when I tell a
system to do something and it doesn't react right away (but more like when
it 'feels' like it)

Wim