Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Question about Microsoft windows

Aug 26, 2014 3:34PM PDT

I am curious about Microsoft Windows. So I have a few questions.

Microsoft Windows needs an antivirus program because it is in danger of getting viruses.

Microsoft Windows also needs anti malware protection, antispyware protection..

Windows needs firewalls to protect from hackers.

Windows needs registry cleaners to clean the registry which gets messed up from installing and uninstalling software.

Windows has a defragmenter for defraging the hard drive which does get pretty bad over time.

Windows also needs a good cleaning program for the hard drive.

Microsoft requires the latest computers to run their latest operating system. The old computers just wont work with the newer Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft requires to much memory and system resources.

Microsoft requires you to constantly install drivers for various hardware.

My question is,

Why would anyone use such a crappy operating system if you need all this garbage just to keep it running?

A better question, why would people actually pay for it?

There are way superior operating systems available for FREE that are open source.

Linux does not need anti virus software because Linux does not get viruses.
Linux does not need a registry cleaner because nothing gets written to the registry when installing software. So there is nothing to clean.
Linux does not need a defragmenter because the Linux hard drive does not become fragmented.
Linux also does not need anti malware, anti spyware or firewalls or hard drive cleaners. Linux does not get that junk into its system and the Linux system is designed so secure that a firewall is not even necessary.

In Linux you dont have to worry about drivers. You plug your hardware in and it works. That's it. Everything works. Webcams, printers, scanners everything. You never need to install drivers because everything you need is already there.

Linux is so system friendly even a 20 year old computer can be brought back to life after installing Linux.

Other than that Linux looks just about the same as Microsoft windows. Its really hard to see the difference. Except you don't have all that other garbage installed that is needed to keep microsoft running.
Unlike Microsoft that cost hundreds of dollars, Linux is free and available all over the internet.

So my question is why are people still dumping money into an inferior operating system when Linux is much better, easier to use, more stable, more secure, and FREE? Is it because they have never tried anything else?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
re: Linux is not immune either. "The Slapper"
Aug 27, 2014 10:32AM PDT

The Slapper worm impacted Linux web servers running Apache. The worm
was able to propagate due to a security issue in OpenSSL version
0.9.6d and older.

The issue was solved almost immediately back in 2002 with the patching
and subsequent release of OpenSSL version 0.9.6e. There is no risk of
the Slapper worm to any modern version of Linux and OpenSSL.

One instance in 12 years that infilitrated a server is a long ways from having to install anti virus software on an operating system because of virus threats as you have to do on Microsoft.

- Collapse -
OK, 2014?
Aug 27, 2014 10:38AM PDT
- Collapse -
No computer is immune
Aug 30, 2014 10:20AM PDT

Linux is more solidly put together than Windows. When a vulnerability is found it is usually patched quickly.

Windows sometimes does not get patches for weeks, even for problems many believe are serious. Sometimes one fix opens up yet another vulnerability. Windows is so complex under the hood that it is amazing it is not hit more often. It is getting to be old hat to see the list of patches being installed on my system, most of which mention a vulnerability that will let an intruder take complete control of my computer.

Windows is so complicated even the lowly clipboard frequently fails to operate, popping up a notice that it is in use by another program. The clipboard runs as a service and all of those services interact.

I have had man Mac people tell me that Macs just don't get viruses. The last I heard there were several bugs out there causing trouble.

- Collapse -
Linux has two inbuilt clipboards
Aug 30, 2014 11:10PM PDT

You can hilite and copy, then hilite another area. The first hilite can then be pasted with right clk and paste. The second using the middle mouse button. There's also clipboard program one can install which lets you clip multiple areas and then go and paste into whatever one is working on at multiple spots.

- Collapse -
Plus
Aug 27, 2014 11:40PM PDT

Plus the days of the virus on any OS are more or less over. It takes too long to write an effective virus, which is usually countered swiftly by AV companies, regardless of the OS. Plus the level of skill needed to write a virus is something the average computer user doesn't have anymore. Most of the so-called "hackers" out there are just using a single program that someone else wrote and a few people contribute plugins for against new vulnerabilities.

The viruses of old were sort of like a juvenile prank, putting shaving cream on someone's hand while they're sleeping and then get them to try and scratch their face, that sort of thing. These days it's all about making money. Either loading a user's system down with garbage that will redirect search requests to some site that will kick back money to the person in charge, encrypting the entire drive and demanding a ransom, silently sitting and watching for any passwords you might enter into secure sites and getting a copy of the password before it's encrypted and sent to the site, or even just creating very well done facsimiles of sites like PayPal and convincing people to log in using that site.

It's a business these days. There's no more of this big bad virus coming along to wipe out your computer, it's about trying to make money off of you. Social engineering techniques, in particular, will work equally well on Linux as they will Windows or any other OS. You trick someone into thinking they're logging into one site when it's really another and it doesn't matter what the underlying hardware is you're doing it from.

The whole "no viruses" argument is little more than a red herring these days. Has been for about as long as the argument has been around. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to be trotted out by someone who is just regurgitating a list of talking points provided by someone else and hasn't done any actual independent thought on the subject. If I were to speculate, I'd say it's because the regurgitator knows considerably less about the topic, and computers in general, than he (let's face it, it's almost always a guy) would like to think.

Case in point: Viruses for all operating systems were in rapid decline even before Windows XP, which moved all Windows users to the much more secure NT platform, made them considerably more difficult to create. Viruses tended to rely on the ability to access the hardware on a whim, which they could do on the old DOS based Windows versions, but not with XP. XP and later, like any other modern OS, will strictly enforce the rule about using the kernel as a broker when dealing with the hardware. However, as stated, even before that they were rapidly diminishing in number because fewer and fewer people had the necessary skill to write them. In the early days of computing, you had to be something of a programmer to make your computer do anything. There wasn't all this off-the-shelf software to choose from, so you wrote your own. Eventually these people grew up, matured, went to college, got jobs, wives, kids, a mortgage, and at the same time you had the birth of the modern operating system which was a platform for building programs on. I'm not talking just a built-in BASIC interpreter, I'm talking a clearly defined set of APIs which represented ready to use and well tested code modules that developers could use to keep from having to reinvent the wheel every time. This resulted in more and more off-the-shelf software becoming available, so the average computer user was able to get by with a much lower skill set. They didn't need to know anything about programming anymore, just type this command or (later) click this icon and things happen.

There's probably a sociology graduate thesis or two in that topic, since I've only barely scratched the surface. Nonetheless, it's still more than enough to blow the whole "no viruses" argument out of the water and demonstrate quite handily that the person using the argument has not given it any thought whatsoever and they're just using someone else's talking points. To anyone even just paying lip service to doing due diligence, it would be pretty obvious that the number of viruses for Windows has dropped to basically zero over the last decade. Even Symantec has come out saying that the AV program is dead because there's no more need for it to exist.

Next time, Bob, might I suggest just smiling and patting the children on their head before telling them, "That's nice. Why don't you go play with your friends now?"

- Collapse -
linux virus history
Sep 6, 2014 10:35PM PDT
http://www.unixmen.com/meet-linux-viruses/

"There exists a conventional wisdom that Linux viruses are non-existent entities. For most Linux users this might be surprising that Linux viruses do exist! Though not in wild, and they are so less in number (when compared to counterpart OSs) that they can be counted on fingers! "


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

Linux implements a multi-user environment where users are granted specific privileges and there is some form of access control implemented. To gain control over a Linux system or to cause any serious consequences to the system itself, the malware would have to gain root access to the system.[2]

In the past, it has been suggested that Linux had so little malware because its low market share made it a less profitable target. Rick Moen, an experienced Linux system administrator, counters that:

[That argument] ignores Unix's dominance in a number of non-desktop specialties, including Web servers and scientific workstations. A virus/trojan/worm author who successfully targeted specifically Apache httpd Linux/x86 Web servers would both have an extremely target-rich environment and instantly earn lasting fame, and yet it doesn't happen."...The use of software repositories significantly reduces any threat of installation of malware, as the software repositories are checked by maintainers, who try to ensure that their repository is malware-free.


Most problems arise and are limited to browser and email program hacks, which aren't the Linux system itself. For instance, the same browser hack that affects a windows machine using Firefox will probably also affect that browser on Linux.
- Collapse -
I would be remiss if I didn't at least
Sep 6, 2014 10:55PM PDT

give the other side of the story. Wink

http://www.cknow.com/cms/vtutor/number-of-viruses.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/

"Sure, there are Linux viruses. But let's compare the numbers. According to Dr. Nic Peeling and Dr Julian Satchell's Analysis of the Impact of Open Source Software (note: the link is to a 135 kb PDF file):

"There are about 60,000 viruses known for Windows, 40 or so for the Macintosh, about 5 for commercial Unix versions, and perhaps 40 for Linux. Most of the Windows viruses are not important, but many hundreds have caused widespread damage. Two or three of the Macintosh viruses were widespread enough to be of importance. None of the Unix or Linux viruses became widespread - most were confined to the laboratory."

So there are far fewer viruses for Mac OS X and Linux. It's true that those two operating systems do not have monopoly numbers, though in some industries they have substantial numbers of users. But even if Linux becomes the dominant desktop computing platform, and Mac OS X continues its growth in businesses and homes, these Unix-based OS's will never experience all of the problems we're seeing now with email-borne viruses and worms in the Microsoft world. Why?.......(see article)

- Collapse -
No, they are not malware free but...
Sep 7, 2014 2:44AM PDT

Unix and Linux were designed from the ground up as multi-user networked systems. Security was built in from the start.

Windows was designed as a single user system. It was later adapted with LAN Manager to work on a network. Until recently Windows did not have an active firewall, at least nothing the user could see. Now it has an inbound firewall but that does not prevent Trojan horses from sending packets outbound.

The networking system changes ever version or two such that older Windows systems are not network compatible with newer ones. I can drop a Linux box on my network and find everything. I can communicate with mostly everything. A new Windows box may see the older Windows boxes but communications may be restricted to one way or it may not work at all.

Windows has hacked and patched and kludged to force things to work, things that were designed into Unix and Linux from the start. I suspect many of the infections suffered by Windows computers come about because someone found a vulnerability in one of the modules that fit with the others to make things work. Once that is patched another vulnerability is found and exploited.

As Microsoft continues to lose focus it is likely that Linux and the Mac will gain market share, and thus become bigger targets for malware. The Mac is built on Unix which, along with Linux is notoriously reliable and secure. I suspect that when there are infections they will require a lot of ingenuity and they will do considerable damage, but they will be rare.

As safe as Mac and Linux are I would still want a security suite for them. That would be the last line of defense and hopefully something that would keep the new Mac I am drooling over running smoothly.

Yes, after working with Microsoft from DOS 3.1 through Windows 8 I am eyeing the Mac ever more closely. If Windows Version 9 is no better than Version 8 I will definitely make my next machine a Version 10, as in OS-X. I am getting more than a little tired of waiting for dozens of updates to install and configure themselves every week or two, only to learn there are yet more vulnerabilities that would allow an outsider to gain total control of my computer.

- Collapse -
Well first of all you need drivers to run
Aug 28, 2014 5:57AM PDT

hardward which hardware vendors create. The vendors create the drivers that talk to Windows. See you have Dell, HP, Asus, Toshiba and many other and they have hardware companies that use many components from companies like Seagate, Realtec, Intel, Soundblaster, ATI, Nvidia. Apple for example uses all the same components in the same type of pc.

Hardware companies create things before they are in Windows so the next Windows those new things are added. Example USB 2.0, USB 3.0, IDE to SATA drives, New Nvidia and ATI graphics cards, Touch screens, high resolution screens, Wireless, Bluetooth.

Microsoft is a Software company that daps into a little bit of software. Apple is a hardware company that supplies an OS for their hardware. Apple OS doesn't have to support the hardware components that MS does.

Linux has about a million different flavors its hard. I've installed 3 or type on virtual machines and I tried to find a visual developement. I search for a couple of days and found out well they have develop tools built in just type in these commands well it's different depending on which Linux you have.

Windows is everywhere. You have support everywhere. You have software that you just install.

Viruses also have grown up back in the day PEOPLE would create viruses to make others lives miserable. Those Viruses wer spread using floppy disks. Then we advance to the internet and as PEOPLE invent new ways to attack our computers through holes that MS allows you to do things on the interent new threats have bee created.

Software not uninstalling all it's components isn't MS's fault it's the software developer's fault.

MS writes the OS and about 50 other companies products are containin that computer. Then another brand has 25 components that are different from the first company.

Then we have the laptop built in china or Asia and sent her with our company brand placed on it.

I wouldn't consider Linux better, (It's different yes) , Its definitely not easier or stable. Secure is a relationshipe between how many are attacking a product and how many actually break the security. Hackers find it easier to make people lives worse whrn they attack windows or Android. Why because there are more people using Windows or Android

- Collapse -
You are not entirely correct, but...
Aug 29, 2014 2:09PM PDT

There is no perfect PC. Even the Mac, which has thousands of people worshiping at its altar, is prone to failures and it is susceptible to viruses and malware.

The Mac is a Unix computer. Linux is a spin-off of Unix and very similar. Both are super reliable. Both are susceptible to viruses, malware, and rootkits. The reason you don't hear about it so often is that the Mac and Linux have a low percentage of market share. The bad guys are looking for the greatest number of computers they can infect easily and that would be Windows.

There are other reasons that Windows is more susceptible than Unix or Linux. Windows has many services running to make things happen. They appear to run easily but in reality they require a lot of action under the hood. There are differences in how some functions work in different versions of Windows, which is why windows devices cannot always interact with different version Windows devices on a network. Even the lowly clipboard is now a service, and it frequently has problems doing a simple cut and paste operation.

All it takes is for a Windows service to become infected and some really bad things can happen. Once a vulnerability is plugged another will be found. Windows uses all sorts of tricks to make things appear to happen easily so plugging the leaks can be difficult. Unix and Linux simple run as designed. There are far fewer services, or daemons, running and they are understandable. But don't kid yourself. ANY computer is subject to viruses and malware, however, some are better at resisting them than others.

All computers should have a firewall to prevent incoming data from entering the system if it could be problematic. The firewall can also block outgoing communications from unknown programs, which can eliminate Trojan horses. If you have a Mac or Linux you probably have a firewall. Windows has had one for inbound traffic for several years.

The Registry is unique to Windows, thank goodness. The Registry is a complex database with hundreds of thousands of entries, making it the perfect place to hide things. Much of what is in there is SSIDs, which start and end with { } and have 32 or more characters in between. Who can know what all of that is? A malware writer can bury all sorts of things in there. The Registry is what allows a click on a file to open it in the correct program and to remember the settings from the last time you used that program, but it can take 50 or 100 megabytes for all of that to work. Unix and Linux can open files with a click and they can do many of the things that the Registry does. They do it with .Conf files and other flat files that are simpler and much more manageable.

The file systems used by Unix and Linux are better than Windows at keeping the hard drive de-fragmented. New Windows file systems are taking care of that problem but as is typical of Windows it is being done much later and with more confusion than with other file systems. It works but there can be some problems along the way until Microsoft gets it all debugged.

All computers need to be concerned with drivers. Updates of Linux have been known to mess up hardware until the drivers are corrected, and this can be more problematic than with Windows. There have been some botched Mac upgrades. Even so, the upgrade process for Unix and Linux is simpler than with Windows, in large part because there is no Registry or a collection of services to contend with.

- Collapse -
I just have to say
Aug 31, 2014 1:46AM PDT

I just have to say that while I'm sure you mean well, your post is absolutely riddled with technical errors.

First off, Linux is not a spin-off of Unix. It's a completely separate OS that was modeled after Unix, but it shares absolutely no ancestry with Unix. Linux is more or less what you would call a clean room reverse engineering. It's the only one of its kind, at least that I'm aware of. All the BSDs, including Mac OS X (which is based on FreeBSD) can trace their history back to 386BSD which in turn can trace its origins back to the original BSD Unix. Whether or not BSD Unix is officially a Unix I leave to people who really need to get a life to debate. There was a lawsuit, AT&T Bell Labs lost, it happened like 30 years ago, time to let it go.

Next up, have you ever seen how many services (or daemons as they're called on Linux) are running after a default install? Plus, this is the generally accepted way of doing things and is taught in computer science programs the world over. You break your program up into small manageable components to do a specific task that you can debug the crap out of quickly and easily. Then every time you need to do a particular task you run that bit of code. It also reduces the overall amount of code. In object-oriented programming parlance, this is called encapsulation. It means something slightly different in terms of OOP, but it's the same theory applied in a slightly different way. From a software engineering standpoint, Microsoft is doing things more or less exactly right and Windows services are also analogous to Linux kernel modules. There's no clear distinction between what Windows service might be the same as a Linux daemon or a kernel module, they're all lumped in together, but the fact still remains that Microsoft is attempting to keep all user level code out of the kernel proper and allowing it to interface with the kernel via services. Technically both Windows and Linux should be following the Mach kernel design, where this whole idea is taken to a higher level, but as Apple found out quickly with the early versions of OS X, there are serious performance issues with the Mach kernel design so it's kind of a tradeoff.

Linux is in no way simpler than Windows and the whole market share explanation for why Windows gets targeted more is based on an extremely oversimplified understanding of the computer industry and the history of both operating systems. Linux is designed to be a Unix-like operating system and Unix was designed to be a multi-user operating system that was connected to a network 24/7. When Linus was developing Linux early on, he had the benefit of 20 some odd years worth of Unix development experience to draw from (not his own, collectively) such as the POSIX API and all the various attacks that had been launched against Unix systems in that time. DOS and later Windows, were designed specifically for the PC, which were intended to be islands unto themselves. No networks and no more than one user, who owned the machine most likely (as opposed to Unix servers which were tens of thousands of dollars and that's in 1960s to 1980s dollars, so probably hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars today). Since the person using a PC (which, remember, stands for Personal Computer) was likely the owner, they were given absolute free reign to do whatever they wanted with it. If people wanted to use Windows in the workplace, Microsoft created Windows NT for that. It was mutli-user and allowed for network admins to lock it down pretty tight.

But all of that is really an academic discussion for people who have too much time on their hands to debate. The days of the computer virus and worm are gone, now it's all about making money. First off, you have the general regression of computer skills in the average user. In the early days people had to know how to do some basic coding to make a computer do anything, because all your computer was was a bit of hardware and a BASIC interpreter. Then along comes the age of platforms, like DOS, where now you start seeing APIs: Prepackaged, well-tested and ready to use chunks of code that save you, the developer, from having to recreate a lot of common code. That makes it possible to have software you can buy in a store and install so now you don't necessarily need to know how to program to use a computer. As time has gone by, this general trend has increased and the number of people who have both the skill and desire to write a virus is practically zero. Which is further hampered by the fact that now all versions of Windows in regular use enforce the rule about going through the kernel to access the hardware, just like Linux.

Then people figured out in the late 90s and early 2000s that you could make money off of this stuff. You don't want to destroy someone's computer, you want to have some program sitting silently in the background. It started with companies like KaZaA (remember that name) bundling programs similar to Seti@HOME and allowing the company to sell off access to your computer's CPU to do some distributed number crunching for other companies. Kind of sleazy, but also very pedestrian compared to the depths people have taken it to now. Funneling people to sites where a person gets a cut of revenues, the latest fad of ransoming access to your system, keyloggers stealing passwords and bank account info, etc. Why waste your time just deleting files or something when you could be making money?

Moving along...

While the registry is unique to Windows, the GNOME configuration system is often criticized for being very similar in nature to the Windows registry. Also, the Windows registry is NOT a complex database. It dates back to at least Windows 3.1 before home computers were capable of handling a complex database. It's a very simple flat file database. That's part of the problem. Back in the early 90s when Windows 95 was being built, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea for replacing the old .ini file system, but over time it's become more and more of a liability.

Also, while you're correct that file associations are stored in the registry, you're leaving out the key bit that associations are just a matter of convenience for the user. I can create a file association to open any file I want with any program I want, but if that program doesn't know how to read that type of file, it doesn't do me any good. IBM and Apple tried to do something different, having the OS pick the program based on the file format rather than the extension, but that required a lot of overhead and third party developer buy-in which just never really happened. Plus it presents you with the problem of what if I have MS Word and LibreOffice installed and both can open Word documents.

And of course the drawback to having individual configuration files is that every single program is constantly reinventing the wheel. There's no rule saying Program Y has to do their configuration the same way as Program X, so you wind up with as many different formats as there are programs. One program may use "true" and "false" while another might use "1" and "0" to represent the same thing. Plus there's a high performance overhead associated with opening and closing a file and text files are the worst of the lot. You're multiplying that overhead across every single program, whereas Windows can keep the registry loaded into memory at all times and just do periodic dumps back to disk.

Your argument also completely ignores how most Linux distributions have started using SystemD now, which replaces a lot of the old .conf files or even the .rc files with its own custom format. There's been some serious scope creep going on with SystemD as a single program becomes increasingly monolithic. It's sort of like svchost.exe on Windows, only on an even bigger scale. It's basically on its way to becoming one uber service for the whole of Linux. So like the Windows registry and services all rolled into one.

Defragmentation is another one of those issues that is no longer an issue for virtually everyone. Disk throughput is not the limiting factor in performance probably 95%+ of the time. So it doesn't matter how fragmented the filesystem might be, it's not impacting performance to any significant degree. About the only times it has any effect at all is boot times and starting a program (and technically booting is starting a program). Once the OS or a program is loaded into RAM, fragmentation levels don't even factor in. So every time I see someone getting their panties all in a bunch over this I feel pretty safe in the assumption that the person is a poser. They're just slightly less clueless than the next person, but think they're some kind of titan of knowledge because they can repeat (incorrectly most of the time) something they saw someone else say and only half understood (if the rest of us are lucky). Used to be people would tell you never to install more than 512MB of RAM because computers only came with 256K of L2 cache. They'd tell you you would take a performance hit because 256K wasn't enough to store all the memory addresses. It was true in the literal sense, but it also ignored one very key detail. Uncached RAM would still be hundreds of times faster than the alternative of the HDD. Sure it might be thousands of times faster if it were cached, meaning there was a performance hit, but you would still have a net performance gain by adding more RAM.

Finally, upgrading Linux is just as easy/difficult as Windows. There's plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong in either scenario, but the vast majority of the time it goes off without a hitch. Technically speaking, there are probably far more opportunities for something to go wrong with Linux since so much of the supporting code is third-party. The Linux kernel is just one tiny part and clearly you never lived through the a.out to ELF, Libc5 to Glibc, or LILO to Grub transitional periods where upgrading a Linux system was extremely difficult and it was generally easier to just wipe the system clean and start over. I doubt you even lived through the XFree86 to X.Org transition and the X11 to Wayland transition is gearing up and looks like it'll be a boatload of fun for everyone, plus there's the ongoing SystemD transition.

- Collapse -
Thanks for the corrections.
Aug 31, 2014 5:52AM PDT

You are correct. Linux is entirely new code modeled after Unix. The two are very similar, however, which is why I mentioned the relationship.

I am not a Linux expert, in fact, I am quite the novice. I do not know all of the daemons that are running. I do know that Microsoft has services for all sorts of things in order to get them to appear to work seamlessly. While it is good practice to use common services, as you mentioned, it seems Microsoft does a lot of maneuvering under the hood to get things working. Subsequent versions will handle those functions differently, which can result in software compatibility issues.

Linux and Unix were designed as multi-user networked systems. Windows was designed as a single user system. Early versions were difficult to network but now that is not an issue. Microsoft has had many different methods of networking, which makes different versions of Windows incompatible with each other. For example, when I wanted to move files from my wife's XP system to her new Windows 7 system I could only copy them in one direction.

Some versions of Windows can't see Windows computers of other versions on the network. In bygone days I used the IPX networking protocol, which let me see all of the computers on the network. With IP only computers of the same version were visible and it was not possible to transfer data between the different versions. I have never seen that problem with Linux.

IBM called their new system the Personal Computer, as opposed to a mainframe computer. Until the PC was released small computers were called Micro Computers. My first one was a Vector Graphic. There were others made by Imsai, Cromemco, Ohio Scientific, Godbout, and may others. The machines using CP/M and the S-100 bus had a power supply large enough to run a small streetcar system. They had 15-20 card slots and there could be problems getting cards from different manufacturers to work together.

Windows NT 3 was amazingly difficult to get working when it first came out. We had a number of gurus where I work who could spend a week or more getting an NT box to work. There would be problems with drivers, hardware, and more. Just getting a CD drive working could be a challenge. NT version 3.51 was mostly useful and NT 4.0 worked well.

When I called the Registry a complex database I was referring to how it is laid out. Perhaps complicated would have been a better term. Yes, it is made of flat files but there are all sorts of key trees, many of which are difficult to understand. There are sets of keys for each user. There are sets of keys for different hardware configurations. Some key trees appear to be duplicated many places.

I have always wondered how Linux / Unix could open files based on their file type. The Registry seems well suited to that sort of thing. I was not aware of SystemD, but that makes it sound as if Linux is slowly moving in the direction of Windows, whereas Windows is trying to simplify some things. I used to joke that "Linux? That's the Windows you don't have to reboot every week" but that is no longer true. At work we have Linux servers that hang or slow down and need a reboot, while our Windows servers seem less prone to needing a reboot.

In the early 2000s I used to open a Unix command window from my NT command console. I would living in a world of the Windows GUI, a Unix command line, and the Windows command line. One day I typed the file listing command, ls -l, and immediately realized I had done wrong because I was using the Windows command line. The system hung for a minute or so and then produced a Unix style listing of the files in that folder. Windows also has an etc folder, where it keeps the hosts file and other files. The ls command on Windows does not work now but it is curious that it did then.

I have done only a few Linux upgrades and those were on home systems, nothing complex. At work our Unix team is getting ready to upgrade Red Hat, which should be quite an operation. We have hundreds of physical and virtual Red Hat servers. These will likely be done in place, after much testing in our development lab.

A Windows version upgrade can be very traumatic, often requiring a total reformat. If it is not always mandatory but it is advisable as the Registry will change and a bunch of old stuff will be left behind otherwise. At work we usually upgrade our Windows software when the hardware is being replaced.

- Collapse -
Such is the way of things
Aug 31, 2014 11:00AM PDT

Such is the way of things.

Linux has made changes at various points in its history which require a clean break with the old system. One of the inevitable realities of software development is that no matter how well you map things out ahead of time and how carefully you design things, sooner or later the software will go in directions that may not have even been possible when you started. For a long time, Linus railed against supporting more than one CPU in Linux since he intended it to be more of a hobbyist OS for individuals, but eventually he caved and spent several years doing little more than working on making sure the kernel could work on multiple CPUs. Something that ended up paying off when multi-core CPUs came around, but back when Linux was first being developed in the days of the 386, no one could have foreseen that we'd have 2-8 core CPUs, not counting hyperthreading. No matter what you do as a developer, the program will eventually take on a life of its own if it survives long enough and go in directions you never anticipated. Trying to retrofit everything later can be a challenge. If possible, you scrap the entire codebase and start fresh, but sometimes that isn't a viable option, so you just have to do the best you can.

Your Windows networking problem isn't anything particularly new and the solution is well known. Each computer needs to have an account with the same username and password, that's all there is to getting it to work. I'm not sure what the logic was behind that, but I'm sure it made sense at the time. Programmers tend to be an extremely logical bunch and everything they do is for a good reason, but sometimes that's the problem. Everyone else isn't quite so logical.

There are also a few ports of the GNU tools to Windows, which someone probably installed on the machine you used and got an output from ls. Cygwin I think is the name of the most popular one, assuming it's still around. Haven't checked in years.

But it will be interesting to see what happens with SystemD on Linux. The developer behind it apparently is not all that well regarded by the "old guard" of Linux, which includes Linus. A couple months ago Linus went on one of his characteristic profanity laced rants about the poor quality code from this developer causing problems with the kernel. Then as I generally understand it, there are maintainers of some long-standing staples of the Linux world who aren't interested in making their program work with SystemD for whatever reason, so then the SystemD developers decide to recreate that functionality themselves, causing the massive scope creep of the project. SystemD seems to be liked by users because of how it can simplify a lot of things, but is not doing such a good job of winning over support from developers and admins who are less than happy with the opaque nature of the program when trying to debug issues, I see a lot of complaints about there being a lack of a strong and consistent versioning system, there's little documentation up to and including what changed between versions... The project seems to be run like the personal fiefdom of a couple developers, which wouldn't be such a big issue if most of the major distributions hadn't already started using SystemD or at least offering it as an option. When you pride yourself on an OS built on the idea of open and shared code, having this sort of black box that controls a lot of the interactions between the kernel and user level programs doesn't seem like such a good thing. Time will tell I guess.

- Collapse -
Tell us how you really feel!
Aug 29, 2014 2:58PM PDT

You have a big hard on against Microsoft, so here's a little reality. First Windows doesn't cost "hundreds of dollars" I bought a new powerful PC with lots of memory and 2GB hard drive for less than $400 including Windows 8.1. Next you have to be a real geek to use Linux and I don't have time to go through a steep learning curve, and last despite all your negatives, with a little care Windows works just fine with tons of cheap or free programs. So I and about 90% of the PC world are perfectly happy with Windows.

- Collapse -
Disagree
Sep 2, 2014 1:41AM PDT

While I disagree with the OP's method and language, you're wrong.

Lots of non-geeks use Linux - it's actually very easy to install and run. It's nothing like Windows, but it's certainly not difficult these days.

Windows doesn't work "just fine" - well, if it works fine for you that's good, but I can't make it work well. Took me hours recently to install drivers for an Android tablet because there's a particular precise method that you have to use instead of all the other methods Windows offers. I'm always having problems with Windows. With Linux, I install it and it just runs. That's pretty much the reason I use Linux, because it's easier to use.

On Windows, 'free' programs give you shareware notices, try to install browser toolbars, expire after 30 days, force you to wait for a nagware notice to disappear on startup, etc. You nearly never get that on Linux. When I first switched over, that was one of the things that I realised: Most things are free with no strings attached. No strings attached. At all.

90% of the PC world uses Windows, but I can tell you now that many are unhappy with Windows. They are just locked into using it. If 90% of PC users were happy with Windows, there would not be so many jokes about it.

- Collapse -
People are definitely locked into Windows.
Sep 2, 2014 9:43AM PDT

Linux is easy to use. I have installed it a number of times. The problem is that there so many versions (distros) of it that there is no standard. KDE and Gnome kept things together to a degree but some distros, such as Ubuntu, are using their own GUI.

I don't know how you would install Windows on an Android tablet. Android is a totally different operating system. Windows normally installs easily, although not quickly, and with some care it runs well. The problem has been that they are installing dozens of patches ever week or two and if your laptop is not used for a while you may wait an hour or more for the updates to finish. The updates tend to break some things, too.

Some Windows free programs such as Adobe Acrobat try to install tool bars and other utilities. That is the fault of the publisher, not Microsoft. Most people do not read the installation prompts so they don't know to choose a custom installation to avoid the crapware. I had one commercial product install some sort of viewer program totally unrelated to the software I had bought. I found out about it when the firewall challenged it.

Norton offers the Ask tool bar. At least they make it plain that it is an option and they do promote it but they do not force a drive-by installation. As for the Ask tool bar, that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Ask was no good when Jeeves still worked there and it is not gotten any better.

Recently I searched for information about a piece of malware using Duck Duck Go, which aggregates searches from several providers. This was a product that ostensibly had a purpose but was in reality adware. I received plenty of information about the problems it causes and how to remove it. The only hit from Ask was from the company's Website, touting the benefits of this program.

Windows is in a curious position. Everyone uses it because everyone else has it. Why does everyone else have it? Because everyone uses it. People are afraid to try something else. That has changed. WIth the introduction of Windows 8 the functionality and elegance of Windows went away, replaced by dozens of tasteless two colored flat tiles, some of which jump and jiggle and wink and scroll text. Windows 8 was designed to be like a tablet, even though most of the 1-2 billion Windows users have a laptop or a desktop.

Windows 8 has a desktop option but that has always been downplayed. Even when you use the desktop mode you are still faced with no easy way to find your programs since the Start feature was removed. It is also no longer simple to pin icons to the task bar. The tile mode does not support multi-tasking and it minimally supports multiple windows, both of which are what make Windows, well, Windows. The elegant shading and translucent effects have been replaced by a lifeless two color scheme, ostensibly because that is how tablets work.

Windows 8 is not an intuitive jump from Windows XP or 7 and there is no legacy mode to allow making the transition. If someone wants a new computer they are going to face a steep learning curve. At that point they have to decide if they want to stay with Windows or investigate other options. When you are the market leader you really do not want to give people that option, let alone force them into it, but that is exactly what Microsoft has done.

The most obvious replacement for a Windows computer is a Mac. You can get two PCs for the price of one Mac but Apple has been lowering the prices for their lower end models to where there is not as much of a difference any more. I don't need stunning graphics for my Word and Excel documents but I do need a machine I can use without having to deal with jumping, blinking tiles and weekly updates that take 1/2 hour to install. I know many people who are making the move to a Mac and I am looking very hard at one myself. If Windows version 8.2 or version 9 is no better than what Microsoft offers now my version 10 will be a Mac OSX, not Windows.

Windows 8 is a ticking time bomb for Microsoft. Much bad will has already been derived from it. The major fallout may not occur until people tire of their Windows 8 systems and decide they have had enough of Microsoft. Windows 8 is probably the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft.

My son's wife laptop died and needed replacing. He could not bring himself to buy her a Windows 8 machine so she is now the very happy owner of a Mac notebook. From all the good things I am hearing from the two of them. I may be the next family member to join the Mac crowd.

- Collapse -
Linux Mint
Sep 6, 2014 11:05PM PDT

I too use Linux a lot, even more lately than Windows. The Mint series( Linux) can be set up to look almost identical to Windows, I have fooled several friends with it on one of my laptops..it is in my opinion, as easy to use as Windows, for most purposes. Oh and I forgot to say, it is free.

- Collapse -
Here's my guest account
Sep 7, 2014 3:19AM PDT
- Collapse -
Hmm, I would have guessed you are the "Ubuntu Generation"
Aug 29, 2014 9:59PM PDT

Let me say up front that Linux ix a good system, which doesn't suffer from some of the baggage that Windows does. It was, after all, Bill Gates and not Linus Torvalds who said the internet would be a passing fad!

That said, Linux has, indeed, made the breakthrough in the server market, especially for web servers, in no small part due to the quality and capabilities of the Apache family. But on the desktop? I don't think so. Just recently, someone asked Linus what he wanted for Linux going forward? His answer? The desktop.

Today it's true, you can pick up Ubuntu or one of its derivatives, put the DVD in the drive, answer a couple of questions, go make a cup of coffee and come back to a working Linux system. But it was not always so. Much of today's relative simplicity owes its origin to Lindows (for those who remember) that introduced the idea that Desktop Linux could run around the hardware and install the drivers and also premiered the first practical "Click and Run Warehouse" for installing applications along with all their dependencies with a single click of the mouse, an application store in the making!

Prior to that, fighting drivers, especially for scanners and modems, was a nightmare and you want a wireless network? Good luck with that! Similarly for tracking down application dependencies.

And please don't kid yourself that Linux cannot be attacked by the hackers - it can. It does have the benefit of being designed as a multi-user online system from the outset, unlike Windows but it isn't immune. But there is a much bigger reason that Desktop Linux isn't hacked as much as Windows - it doesn't have a big enough market share to make it worthwhile.

I'd like to see Linux breakthrough on the desktop - it certainly isn't for lack of opportunity following the user push back on Windows 8. I think Jack Wallen, an ardent Linux fan, who writes for the Techrepublic/ZDnet/CNET group put it very succinctly recently. He said "Linux is developed for the Average Linux User; it needs to be developed for the Average User.". I think that says it all.

- Collapse -
The reason is quite simple:
Aug 30, 2014 12:17AM PDT

Linux is too difficult for the vast majority of computer users to become comfortable with.

I am a long-time Unix guy going back to the days of its forerunner Multics in the early '60s, Although I am as comfortable as anyone is with Linux, and have several Linux boxes in my home, I use MS Windows on my primary computer and for the production of all my work because it is easy to use and drivers are always available for any device.

And do not think that Linux is invulnerable. It is merely not much of a target for hackers because the installed base is so small. You really have to know what you're doing to configure a Linux box securely, but your chief protection stems from the fact that hackers don't care about you.

You obviously do not know what you are doing if you believe that Linux boxes should not be installed behind a firewall. And yes, you DO need drivers, and they are frequently unavailable unless you write them yourself.

Remember, the first piece of malware was the Morris Worm, which affected Unix installations.

- Collapse -
I have you beat by a year
Aug 30, 2014 11:20PM PDT

the first virus I got was the "stoned" or "Marijuana" virus. It was boot sector and AV solutions were in their infancy. I had to use debug in DOS on the MBR to find and cripple it. When AV got better it later found some non harmful remains of it I'd missed using Debug. My first virus. I will never forget it. Wink

- Collapse -
Re: Linux
Aug 30, 2014 8:16PM PDT

I happened to read another post about Linux (using Linux to move files from a hard disk of a dead compuer) just today: http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6122_102-625902.html?messageId=5609028#message5609028

The interesting part:
"If that person needs help with that, then they can find the nearest Linux User Group by doing an on line search using a term like "Kansas City Linux User Group", for instance. Just substitute your own town or state (or even country if outside the US and you can't find one, otherwise). There are also plenty of on line help forums for Linux in addition to the help forum for each Distro."

This reminded me of a friend who - long ago - was a member of something like our local "Atari users group". It was long before Internet existed, so they had to do with a monthly newsletter (he was the editor) and meetings to discuss the latest news, the latest tricks and the nice and useful programs the members made.

Did you ever here of a "Windows users group"? I didn't. That proves my point: Windows is for everybody, Linux is for the hobbyist. Nothing wrong with that, of course, so I join Steven saying "Enjoy yourself".

Kees

- Collapse -
Generally speaking
Aug 31, 2014 12:36AM PDT

Generally speaking, something has to be out of the "mainstream" to require some kind of user group. If everyone used Linux in schools and at work, what would be the point? Information on the topic would be plentiful and easily accessible. It's when you get off into the weeds that you need more help.

Though with the rise of the Internet, I suspect in-person user groups are a dying phenomenon.

- Collapse -
There are plenty of Windows forums
Aug 31, 2014 4:54AM PDT

Search for a Windows problem with Google and you will find plenty of forums. They just are not called "Users' Groups". Microsoft has its own forum, which sometimes has real answers to questions, not just referrals to yet another Web page that points to a KB article that references a bulletin....

Just beware of forums that keep trying to get you to download the latest drivers or run a system scan. The more frequent the requests for you to do a download or a scan, the sooner you should leave the site. You don't know where those drivers came from or what they contain. You have no idea what that scan will do to your system. Some of them will report dozens of problems on a brand new machine, which require that you buy a service or software to fix them.

Use common sense when going to a forum or a helpful Website. For example, Duck Duck Go uses several search engines to search for one term, displaying all results in one place. Google and Yahoo frequently turn up solutions for the malware name you entered whereas Ask will take you to a site touting the benefits of that software.

- Collapse -
Kees was talking about
Aug 31, 2014 5:01AM PDT

Kees was talking about in-person gatherings.

- Collapse -
There are those, too.
Aug 31, 2014 8:33AM PDT

Here in the Washington DC area we have had the Capital PC User Group for decades.

There used to be many more in the DOS days but user groups have been on the wane. I have seen a few for things such as Joomla and Drupal but those groups are small and very local.

Then there is the motorcycle club known as the Harley Owners Group - HOG.

- Collapse -
You forgot to mention
Sep 2, 2014 1:44AM PDT

You forgot to mention this part of what you quoted: "There are also plenty of on line help forums for Linux in addition to the help forum for each Distro."

Linux User Groups are not very popular. It's the online forums and wikis that most people go to for help.

- Collapse -
Tired old post
Sep 2, 2014 1:30AM PDT

I'm a Linux user and I know that a lot of people could switch to Linux.

However, your post is tired. The word has been spread about Linux. People know it exists, they mostly know that it doesn't get viruses, but they don't switch because they are locked into the Windows ecosystem. Sometimes they've locked themselves into it. Evangelical posts such as yours will not help the situation.

Also, your description of Windows as "crappy", while true, is not going to win you any fans. People, for some crazy reason, seem to like Windows 7. Lamely insulting Windows while trying to push Linux will do more harm than good. And it's OLD. I heard it when I was starting Linux 9 years ago, and it had been going on for a while before that.

And finally, your description of Linux is wrong. Linux has most drivers, but to say that "everything works" is a simple lie. You do, occasionally, need to install drivers. I don't think you'll be doing much work on a 20-year-old computer (1994) even on Linux; you might be able to run a simple router or do some text editing, that's about it. And it is NOT "hard to see the difference" in the look between Linux and Windows - major Linux distros look very different to Windows.

I can't fault your choice of operating system, but your method of spreading it is very bad.

- Collapse -
Facts
Sep 3, 2014 12:16AM PDT

1. Viruses of today can be avoided by smart computing. Back before the internet viruses were distributed on Floppy disks. Basically viruses are installer by executing a executiable. Spyware and Malware are a bigger concern today. No OS is 100% virus protected not even Linux. In fact Android is one of the worst.

http://www.linux.org/threads/malware-and-antivirus-systems-for-linux.4455/

2. Routers are a firewalls which hide your IP addresses from the internet. Firewalls are just extra protection and have nothing to do with WIndows. Firewalls block from people getting on your network.

3. Registry - Well registry cleanup is needed because the 3rd party software has flaws not MS. Some software by 3rd parties does a good job of cleaning registry.

4. Defragging - Well I have a SSD and defragging can damage it.

5. Not sure what you are talking about a cleaning program?

6. MS works as a partner with the Computer industry. If the hard drive industry changes from IDE to SATA drives then MS has to support it. Touch screens were invented then MS added touch screen ability to windows.

7. Drivers are completely independent of Microsoft. The OEM's add the drivers based on the components they install. Infact in Laptops OEM's modify drivers for their hardware and the actual drivers from the device manufacturer won't work. HP printer drivers tell WIndows how to talk to HP printers and those are completely 100% supplied by HP.

People pay for MS because it's the industry leader.

Linux

1. 7 of the best Linux firewalls - I guess people are wasting time writing firewalls since they aren't needed.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/7-of-the-best-linux-firewalls-697177

2. All computer systems can suffer from malware and viruses, including Linux.
http://www.linux.org/threads/malware-and-antivirus-systems-for-linux.4455/

3. Linux registry cleaner - BleachBit

http://lwn.net/Articles/313679/

4. Disk Fragmentation
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Defragmenting-Linux

Finally your using the term Linux well which linux?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions

1. Ubuntu
2. Mint
3. Debian
4. Open Suse
5. Rosa
6. Just add another letter of the alphabet to Ubuntu (edubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu Etc.)

I could type all day.

I downloaded Mint and installed and could fing a development language that was had an interface. They seem to all be commanf language based.

I tried to downloaded browser and it told I could DL but what type of Linux was it. I tried till I got it right. Then i found some part of the OS and i had to use a command language whose syntax was based on what type of linux I had. That again was try until i succeed.

I just wanted a visual C compiler

- Collapse -
Don't feed the trolls
Sep 4, 2014 12:52PM PDT

Don't feed the trolls is something that comes to mind here. It's pretty obvious the OP just put up a bunch of the same tired arguments that for some reason Linux fanatics seem to think are effective because it fits into tunnel shaped echo chamber. What might actually impress people is showing how Linux can do this, that or the other thing more efficiently than Windows. Of course there simply aren't too many situations where that is true.

There might be the odd exception here or there, but these types of Linux users are always individuals. Almost always male, single and very likely not attached romantically let alone have much in the way of actual responsibilities in life generally. So you'll find that they're often at either extreme in life: Too young to have had that first full-time job, or the retired types who now find themselves with a lot of idle time on their hands that they don't know what to do with. I suppose lately we have the long-term unemployed who have made Linux their soap opera after burning through all their other usual sources of entertainment. Because let's face it, those of us who have a full-time job know how much of a time-suck it is. When you're not working you're probably sleeping and you might have 3-4 hours of free time a day. How empty must your life be to have to be to have to fill it by arguing over topics where the horse is not just dead, it's a sticky pile of goo? Unless you're the sort who enjoys just winding people up for no reason.

I like Linux, used it for several years in its relative infancy when you actually had to know something to both install it and use it. I used it as my exclusive desktop OS for most of the Windows 95 days, all of the Windows 98 days and well into the twilight Windows Me days, but eventually I just couldn't justify spending 5-10 minutes going out of my way to make sure something was in a format Windows users could use or spending a couple hours a day researching every hardware purchase I was thinking of making to see whether or not it would work with Linux. I'd come home tired from a day at work and just want to spend it relaxing playing a game, which I couldn't really do with Linux. Still can't for the most part. I really tried hard too, investing a lot of money in game consoles so I could decouple the computer from gaming, but there were a lot of PC games I wanted to play, so...

These are the things that the Linux zealot just can't wrap their heads around. Microsoft doesn't dominate a lot of markets because it's the best technical solution, it's a combination of providing a highly consistent experience that is "good enough" and being absolutely worlds better than the other guys when it comes to high end commercial software.

Look at gaming. Windows dominates gaming because of DirectX, plain and simple. Is it the best API out there? Not even close, but it provides a consistent API for doing both audio and video. OpenGL is only video so you need to try and find some kind of audio library. Linux has plenty, which is the problem. No matter which one you pick, you'll get a bunch of fans of the other(s) complaining... Loudly, because you didn't pick theirs. Plus maybe you pick wrong and the developer of your chosen library decides to stop development on it. Great. Now either you get to assume responsibility for further development and risk potential GPL "contamination" of your game code, or you have to rip out all the code for that library and swap in code for a different one. Let's just say you want to develop your basic GUI program, not even a game. Even just sticking to the major options there's Qt and GTK+. Then you can optionally use the KDE libraries or the GNOME libraries, but you can't really do both without making a lot of extra work for yourself. If you go with KDE, your program looks like crap on GNOME and the reverse is also true. The other option is to basically roll your own GUI toolkit like Mozilla and Open/LibreOffice did, which then brings a whole new set of problems.

You could then look at Linux from more of a server angle. Sure, if you're willing to invest a couple dozen hours into learning each individual program, you can cobble together some pretty impressive setups, but in a world where you might be paying some sysadmin $50-100/hr, that adds up quick. If they need a couple of weeks just to familiarize themselves with the program and then probably another few months to really get the hang of things, that's a not insignificant investment you've made as a business. Plus, sure Linux may be free, but it sucks at the high end. The way people get around this is by chaining together several Linux boxes into a cluster. Even assuming you had a bunch of old computers sitting around in a closet somewhere, so the hardware and software was free, the electricity it costs to run them is not. Nor is the extra load on any AC units you have set up in the server room. Plus there's the added time and effort required to maintain several low-powered systems compared to a single high-powered system.

Then never underestimate the power of having a phone number you can call for support in the professional world. It's a truly magical tool that is like a trump card in the game of pass the buck when something goes wrong and management is out for blood. When you have non-technical managers, something like, "I called Microsoft and they can't even fix it" is an invaluable excuse. Plus, compared to companies like HP and Oracle, in the enterprise space, Microsoft is extremely competent and efficient. You think Microsoft nickels and dimes you, wait until you see some of the crap HP and Oracle will try and pull. The airlines should be taking notes on how to more efficiently screw over customers from these guys. Oracle routinely gets sued for failing to deliver on large contracts they basically made bald-faced lies to get. If you have followed the Oracle v State of Oregon pre-trial "action" you'd know that the claims made by Oregon echo those of dozens of other governments, universities and enterprises across the country and probably globe. You'd think spending $250K on a couple new servers and enterprise level software to go with it would entitle you to some support, but you'd be wrong. Support costs extra... A lot extra. Same with updates. Those you have to buy a subscription for. In comparison, Microsoft is a breeze to deal with and fairly cheap too. They provide a nice centralized management interface and consistent overall experience.

It's not quite as clear cut a picture as a lot of Linux users like to try and make it out to be, and I personally chalk it up primarily to the fact that most Linux users today don't really understand these topics. They just regurgitate things they heard somewhere else. If they knew anything at all about these topics they wouldn't make the posts in the first place because they'd know it's little more than a vastly oversimplified representation of the situation.