From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: George Michaelson To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] fortune-worthy Message-Id: <20031219011316.4a31382e@garlic> In-Reply-To: References: <0ee94df7f05f52bd669c2ea5b87ea998@9srv.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 01:13:16 +1000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: a997f274-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > I have a friend who has been doing server/user support for > windows/linux/novell for about five years. His latest job > is for a school system that is windows only. This past > weekend he claimed that he's "going to the darkside." After > a few moments of awkward silence he explained that XP is > heads and tails above all other MS operating systems in terms > of support. Secured properly with third party lockdown > software, it apparently just "works." Our finance package, written to work on Windows 2000, died on XP and on XP with patches required for security. yes. XP is much better. XP has some rational behaviours. XP will be firewall on with SP2. ignore the bouncy gui, the lipgloss, looking at the core engineering its better, its complex, its huge, but within those compellingly non-better constraints it is better :-) but just works is over-stating it. there is much which doesn't just work. IPSEC to unix for instance. wireless roaming can be fraught. Everybody is badly affected by Centrino, more Intel wierd shit lockin. Office is getting way way way way way too complex. I think M$ trying to End-of-life Win98 is going to be very amusing. I doubt if this will boost sales in China. pirate XP will persist for much time. -George