Operating Systems and Crappy Code

I rarely rant about stuff, but this one’s a bit too much to go unmentioned. I’ve got Vista Business running on my desktop (nearly 4 months now)… Haven’t had much trouble with it except for the Creative sound card drivers that are just one step away from completion and have been so for the past couple of months (so no accelerated/hardware sound support). That is, until Saturday, when I tried to write a DVD and noticed that my DVD writer had just “vanished” from My Computer.

Firs thing I check is, of course, the Device Manager console. I see it there, along with my other DVD-ROM unit, both with a yellow exclamation mark and a message stating “This device cannot start (Code 10)“. Wow! Now that’s new. One day before it was working just fine. Now I’m starting to think what the problem might be, and start playing with the cables in order to get to the bottom of this. First, I find that it’s properly initialized in the BIOS, then the IDE cable turns out to be fine as well, and so does the IDE port on the motherboard. I check it on another system (with WinXP), and it works just fine. :neutral:

I start google-ing the issue, and find out many similar problems, with very different (but totally useless) solutions. Seeing that I had a busy weekend, it’s just this morning that I got to continue with my “research”. And where does that lead me? Amazingly enough, it appears that me installing QuickTime (and iTunes along with it) on Friday is the main cause for the problem. Apparently, Apple’s iTunes (!) has some compatibility issues with Vista, which makes optical drives stop working… :!:

All right, now I uninstall this, and then I tell a few people about how funny all this is, noticing how Apple’s “awesome” developers could pull this off… And this is where I wanted to get:

<rant>

What I’m told (by more than one person) is that it’s not Apple that’s the “guilty” one here, it’s Microsoft and their (immature) OS! I mean, come on people! Since when does the OS have to “fix” poor coding skills?! And going on… should making sure that every piece of (crappy) code runs be a part of the OS’s core features? How come well-written apps work like a charm on Vista, some even without the need for elevated privileges, whereas the ones written by wannabe-devs just keep crashing graciously?

Bottom line: since when is support for poor code a measure of the quality of an Operating System? :shock:

</rant>

:roll:

2007
04/02
CATEGORY
Life
Microsoft
Rant
Vista
60 comments
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  • http://www.tudy.ro Tudy

    Pai e. Dar nici sa nu ridici in slavi Apple ca ce bine isi fac ei treaba. Isi fac treaba, da, ca interesul e tot comercial… Si-ti baga pe gat iTunes chiar daca tu vrei doar QuickTime. :roll:

    Si fac asta chiar daca stiu ca pe Vista treaba asta poate genera probleme mari. That was my point.

  • http://andreimaxim.ro Andrei

    Nu acesta a fost „point-ul” tău. Tu vorbeai de sisteme de operare şi „crappy code”.

    Referitor la X-ul din Mac OS X, ţin să subliniez că m-am referit strict la „bunătatea” sistemului de operare, nu la performanţe brute. Simt că sunt de un număr de ori mai productiv pe Mac decât pe PC/Windows (şi mult, mult mai productiv decât pe PC/Linux) dintr-o serie de motive: uşurinţă în configurare, performanţă, interfaţa grafică, aplicaţiile disponibile, etc. Că este o apreciere subiectivă, perfect de acord. La fel de subiectiv e un benchmark pe un PIII cu 256 MB RAM care rulează Linux cu XFCE vs. Windows Vista. Şi discuţiile pot continua.

    Sincer, mă aşteptam să priveşti situaţia din perspectiva unui developer, nu a unui user căruia i s-a stricat jucăria. Dar înţeleg, e extrem de frustrant să ajungi în astfel de situaţii :)

  • http://www.tudy.ro Tudy

    Pai “s-a stricat jucaria” din cauza unui produs al carui cod a fost scris aiurea si despre care se stie ca ajunge sa genereze probleme… insa produsul continua sa fie bagat pe gat user-ilor. O sa incerc noua versiune, sa vad daca tot asa face. :)

  • EpsDel

    Pai nu asa face si Microsoft? :grin:

  • http://www.tudy.ro Tudy

    Nah, Microsoft a antrenat userii sa faca asta si singuri… :D

  • Marian

    “Dar nici sa nu ridici in slavi Apple ca ce bine isi fac ei treaba. Isi fac treaba, da, ca interesul e tot comercial… ”
    Vaaai, ce oameni meschini… fac produse bune ca sa ia banii la oameni pe ele…

  • http://www.tudy.ro Tudy

    O fi facand ei produse excelente, nu zic nu. Dar mie deocamdata iTunes mi-a lasat un gust cam amar.

  • EpsDel

    Din moment ce esti computer – savvy nu stiu de ce te plangi. Ai rezolvat problema pana la urma. In consecinta acum poti sa-i ajuti pe altii care au aceeasi problema sa o rezolve.

  • EpsDel

    Ma intreb unde e Chris sa fie de partea ta, Tudy? :smile:

  • http://www.tudy.ro Tudy

    Pai am rezolvat. Si am zis si cum. Uninstall. :D

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