Why Micro$oft And Their Products Suck>
Recommended Reading
And if you still think that Micro$oft products are worth anything, read
these horror stories.
Where Did You Want To Go Today, Anyway?
There are two main reasons for hating Micro$oft and their products:
Technical ones and political ones. Even if the technical ones were
removed (most of them never will), there remain enough reasons not to buy
any Micro$oft product.
Technical
I have several years of experience with all major Windows versions.
Here are my conclusions.
- Windows95 sucks.
- It crashes every 30 minutes on average. More often when legacy
16 bit applications are run, less often with 32 bit applications.
- I heard that it even crashes when nothing is going on for hours
on the computer.
- A crash can easily result in a system with corrupted data.
Even worse, if no system components are affected, the corruption
may go unnoticed for a long time.
- A crash can corrupt the disk so much that only reinstallation
helps. I've experienced three reinstalls within half a year and I
don't think this is an exception.
- It consists of the most braindamaged mix of 16 and 32 bit code that
can be imagined.
- As an extra bonus, it has all the problems common to all Windows
versions.
- Windows NT sucks king size.
- It is ridden with bugs, most importantly security bugs, and
memory leaks. NT 4.0 wasn't even usable before service pack 3.
- It's an administrator's horror trip. It cannot be maintained remotely
without additional tools. It may totally mess up the user profiles
which can only be restored from backup. The domain concept shows
a significant lack of understanding about networking.
- It doesn't scale. There are attempts to run it on 12 Pentium Pro
processors and 512 MB of RAM. Every UNIX server outperforms this mess
easily, with much less RAM and less CPU power.
- It crashes much less frequently but is still not reliable.
NT servers are rarely up for more than a week. Would you trust
any important data to such a system?
- Easy to manage? Bullshit! The beginner-friendly GUI not only
impedes the more advanced users. It also suggests that everyone
can manage NT. The truth is that it invites you to do things
without knowing what you're doing. Configuring NT is configuring it
incorrectly because of this. What does a user do when a message like
"You locally stored profile is newer than..." appears? He selects
yes or no, and it's probably wrong.
- As an extra bonus, it has all the problems common to all Windows
versions.
- Windows CE sucks.
- The Windows CE API is a subset of the Windows 95/NT API so it's
not compatible.
- I've already seen differences in the behavior of API functions
of CE and NT. This means you can completely forget about compatibility.
- There are plans to use CE in consumer products like washing
machines. Until now, these machines were crash-proof. But this
might change, considering the general state of Windows products.
How about a "General Protection Fault" in the control
panel of your washing machine? What happens to your laundry if it reboots?
- So, do you really want to buy a product that contains Windows CE?
I certainly don't. All attempts of Micro$oft to get their crap
product into this market should be defeated by ignoring these products.
- The same holds for the cars whch are controlled by Windows CE.
Do you want to reboot Windows CE after you've hit a tree at 65 mph?
- Windows 3.1x sucks.
- When it appeared in 1991 there was absolutely no reason to keep
messing with 16 bit code. Still, Win3.1 does, with few exceptions.
This results in severe restrictions and problems, stability
(not existing), security (not existing), limited resources, and
many more.
- As an extra bonus, it has all the problems common to all Windows
versions.
- Windows 3.1 can be executed in the DOS box of Linux and FreeBSD
where it sucks slightly less.
- Windows 3.0 is dead. Luckily.
Here are some common problems of all Windows versions.
- It is a single-user system. You simply need a multi-user system
to get security. For NT multi-user software exists but costs a great
amount of $$$. On UNIX you get this for free. Unfortunately most commercial
UNIX vendors base their prices on user licences. If you don't like this,
get Linux or FreeBSD which are both free of licence fees and superior
to NT anyway.
- It is limited to the Intel PC platform. OK, NT runs on some other
platforms, most notably Alpha, but this is doubtless the most stupid
way to waste a computer's power.
- "Stability" is a word unknown to Micro$oft. Since they rather want to
sell new products than fixing the old, every hacker can easily intrude into
or crash an NT machine. Not even speaking of Windows95 or Windows 3.1x
here.
- It wastes resources without care. A NT workstation with 32 MB of RAM
is useless. With 48 or, more commonly, 64 MB it still creeps when several
applications are running. Copying or removing files with the Explorer
displays ultra-braindamaged animations which slow down the operations by a
factor of 2 or more (I didn't measure it). Copying in the command
window is much faster. Copying under UNIX is even faster because of the
better filesystem.
- Oh, and the famous file sharing problem! Nothing more effectively
impedes work than not being able to read, copy or remove a file while it is
in use by another application.
- It may destroy your data. I've seen the following under NT: Cut a
directory tree in the explorer and try to insert it in another directory
(this is a simple and common "move" operation).
If one file in the tree is in use, then the operation will fail because
of the file sharing braindeadness mentioned above. But where are the
files you have cut out? They aren't in the target directory. They aren't
in the original directoy anymore, either. Nor are they in the wastebasket
(because the original directory was on a Netware volume?). Bad luck.
- The registry is a brain damaged design. A single error in the
registry file may render the complete configuration unusable.
There was only a rudimentary registry in Windows 3.1x.
- It doesn't coexist well with other operating systems or boot managers
on the same disks. The behavior of the DOS or Windows installation routines
is, mildly speaking, rude.
- Installing an application or driver may render other components
non-functional. This is because Micro$oft messed up DLL versioning
royally. DLLs which only differ slightly in version number may have
an incompatible API or just crash applications which ran with other
versions of the DLL. You generally cannot keep several versions of a
DLL simultaneously because they often all have the same name. Anyway,
the system (and consequently, all applications) seems to be unable to
request a certain DLL version.
- Every user may corrupt or manipulate the system, delete other
user's local files, and so on. This problem seems to be reduced
on NT but there's no reason to trust it.
- Windows is not only crap but also very expensive. People only don't
realize this at first because the costs are hidden:
- Windows comes bundled with a new PC most of the time. Read a
catalogue of a software vendor to see what you could save if there
were no Windows on the PC.
- Additional tools and programs without which Windows would be
even more unbearable than with them. Even if they don't cost much,
it sums up.
- For private systems the cost of installing everything over and
over and never getting to work it right is naturally not measurable.
For companies which have a "Windows hotline" for their employees
this can add a high number to the costs.
- Many add-on products by Micro$oft or other vendors have per user
licences. This is not a bad thing in general, but better systems
have these products or features included in the base system.
- I haven't seen anybody programming Windows who likes it.
Some users may like it, but no programmers.
This is because it is a very unfriendly system. It does a lot of things
behind your back and it is hard to obtain any information on what it does.
The look and feel is stolen from Motif and NeXT, but made more ugly
(arguably) and illogical (obviously: just try to work with it and you
will soon ask yourself "Why can't I...").
And the applications?
- They generally suffer from creeping featurism, code bloat,
slowness, incompatibility (to standards, other vendor's products,
Micro$oft's own products, and even other versions of the same products),
and bugs.
- They cost a lot of $$$. When they appear to be less expensive
than competing products, you haven't taken into account the cost of
installing and maintaining them, buying more RAM and bigger hard disks
to run them, and recovering from data loss.
- New versions are released to present more features and to have a
reason to increase the version number. High version numbers suggest
mature products to the customers (especially more mature than the
competition) but for Windows software it's simply a lie.
- New releases generally don't fix the bugs of older releases.
Bug fixes for older releases are not available as Micro$oft only
wants to $ell new products. One example is Visual C++ 1.52. The latest
version was 1.52e which still contains a lot of bugs. But Micro$oft
considers this version outdated and doesn't maintain it anymore.
Newer versions of Visual C++ may have fixed these bugs (and introduced
twice as many new bugs) but are no longer able to generate 16 bit
programs.
- It's only recently that service packs are available for selected
products. I don't know if the competition forced Micro$oft to do so,
or it was simply a matter of easy distribution by downloading the
service packs from their website (which greatly reduces costs for
Micro$oft and makes their customers pay once again). The service
packs generally have the quality of beta software, so the customers
play beta testers for them and even pay for it (with their time and
download costs).
- One notable exception seems to be Encarta. This program gets a lot
of praise. But do you want to
spend your money on a product of a company which doesn't care about
you? Wake up. There are good alternatives.
The main reason for these deficits is that Windows is broken as designed.
This means Windows was a braindead design to begin with. Every aspect of
Windows could have been done better. Nearly every feature in Windows was
designed to be wrong. This can partly be explained by the burden of 16 bit
software that had to be supported (who told them they had to?). But political
decisions play a greater role.
Political
- As I already mentioned, Micro$oft doesn't care about bug fixes,
stability, data integrity, and security. At least if you are a private
customer you can be sure they don't care a crap about your problems.
If there were a money back warranty for Micro$oft products they wouldn't
have made a single dollar during the last years. They actually do something
for their business customers but this doesn't free the end users of any
problems.
- Most Windows features are taken from UNIX systems but implemented
in a way that makes them incompatible.
- Rather than adhering to existing standards, Micro$oft has invented
their own, eg. COM/DCOM versus CORBA. COM is windows specific while
CORBA is available on all platforms. Go figure. The same might happen
with the hype language Java. Apparently, Micro$oft has plans to make
their own version (with the so called WFC class library), and doing
away with the security features inherent in the original Java from Sun.
- If you buy a NT server (you shouldn't) you are tied to Micro$oft
and can't get rid of it without considerable effort. This is because
several services like the IIS (Internet Information Server), Exchange,
BackOffice, and whatnot, are tightly coupled to the Operating System.
It's clear that this cannot increase the reliability of the server.
Micro$oft claims that this gives better performance. But other systems
which don't rely on such a tight coupling perform better and more
reliably without needing as much CPU power and RAM than NT.
- Micro$oft tries to dominate the market. Not only they put as many
obstacles in the way of their competition as they can (see below),
they also try to reach dominance in new markets, especially in the
multimedia market.
- Micro$oft always has tried and still tries to kill the competiton.
Whether all their steps are legal is questionable. They are certainly
not fair.
- One of the results is that is difficult to buy a PC with which no
Micro$oft product is bundled. When I bought a notebook, I didn't find
a single offer without Windows95 included. Perhaps I didn't look hard
enough. But I think it's a shame that you have to pay the bastards
even if you plan to throw away their product and use other
systems (eg. Linux) exclusively.
- Can you trust your business on such a company? I wouldn't pay them
a single cent. They should not get any reward for their practice.
Quotations
- UNIX has an excellent air condition. No need to open Windows. (from the
Net)
- Linux rules.
- Microsoft SELLS you Windows, Linux GIVES you the whole house. (Rogier Wolff)
- Who needs Gates in a world without fences? (unknown)
- Get rid of WinCrap95 and WinCrap NT. (me)
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Created by hjb
Updated 1999-04-29