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Windows Fails 8% of the Time
descubes writes "A Journal du Net article reports that about 8% of Windows sessions require a machine reboot.
The relevant quote (translated from french) is: "The average rate of failures requiring a system reboot has been measured at around 8% per session. This number varies widely depending on the version of Windows. Windows 2000 has a failure rate of 4%, and NT4 is at 3%, whereas Windows XP is close to 12%." The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."
And what is the reboot rate of various Linux distros? Unless they're willing to do a comparison under the same protocols, I very much hope that no one here points to this as more proof of needing to switch to Linux, even though I know it will come up.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
This is about rebooting. A crash is not the only time Windows forces you to reboot. You say you shut down daily - only Windows users would regard that as normal.
Let me be the first to say "180 days? Wow!!!".
Just kidding. Although I do love the story about the Novell server at some University (in Florida, I believe) which had been running for several years with no reboots and no problems. One day some brilliant tech decided to look for the server and realized that it wasn't there. Nowhere to be found.
Fast forward a couple more years, they were doing construction, and found the server had somehow been put in a closet that had been bricked over - meaning that the server had been running without intervention for close to 5 years without a reboot or software updated. Go Novell! Running on Compaq hardware, IIRC.
seriouslyexcited.net
in my CS department. The amount of crow that is getting passed around is amazing these days as many are being forced to switch to Linux or MacOS X for class in the 400 levels and they realize "uhhh those UNIX guys were right about Windows." The irony of it is that we Mac users are usually very good at helping them get started with OSX.
Still, we can't blame Microsoft for a lot of the instability since there are so many users out there using terrible and/or outdated drivers. Microsoft cannot be blamed for the quality of the drivers that most Windows users have because they didn't write them.
Of course I will say this about Windows. It is nice for the first few months, but then it just begins to become as sensually appealing as a rotten piece of bait fish left on your back porch for a few days in the sun. My Macs frequently have several times the uptimes of the Windows PCs I hear about and the Windows users are shocked, "why are 8 weeks of uptime, your PowerBook is still fast and usable."
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The XP box on my desk at work has never crashed by any fault other than my own (testing funky code), but the higher end "gaming" box at home has crashed a number of times. Usually while playing a game.
Personally I blame the craptastic drivers from both nVidia and ATi. They're hell-bent on getting the most flips per flooble and the stability of the drivers suck.
ATi adds a lame new interface (which crashes) called "Catalyst Control Center" while the actual usability of the drivers is swirling down the toilet. All new releases focus on little tweaks in their $500 dollar range cards to make it benchmark fastest in Doom 3, while support for the cards people actually own dwindles.
For instance, if I try to play Doom 3 with anything higher than "Medium" settings, my machine will hardlock. Radeon 9800, no tweaking or overclocking, just the latest "stable" drivers.
This isn't an anti-ATi rant, I had the same bullshit with nVidia.
Barring a hardware faulure, it's virtually always the video drivers fault, since it actually has the power to bring down the system.
I'd say the higher instance of XP bombs reflects it's status as the current PC gaming platform.
I blame nVidia, ATi, and Microsoft for "certifying" their instable, shit drivers. Driver certification really just means your check cleared.
What can they do about it, though? I'd gladly sacrifice a few FPS for a stable machine. But when a driver release gets less "3DMarks" than the one before it, the little kids throw a fit on rage3d and other sites.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But in an enviroment filled with Google Bar, Webshots, Gator, Weatherbug and other crap, not including the pure spywear and viruses, the PCs will fail. It has nothing to do with the OS, but everything to do with stupid users, and a lazy and ineffective IT department.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
"Windows users obviously have a different expectation of "stable" from Linux users."
I've been saying this for YEARS!
A Windows user will say "uptime" and mean "time since I had a blue screen" but will NOT count the daily / weekly / whatever reboots they perform.
If Windows starts to go sluggish, they reboot. But they do NOT consider that a break in their "uptime" NOR do they consider that a crash.
# uptime
08:34:13 up 115 days, 18:12, 1 user, load average: 0.10, 0.04, 0.01
That's because I had to move it a few months ago. Everything is current except the latest kernel.
Now I just KNOW I'll see posts from Windows users talking about their "uptime" and so on. But too many of the Windows patches require reboots. Here are the scenarios:
#1. Unpatched Windows box with high uptime.
#2. Patched Windows box with low uptime.
#3. User who does not understand uptime.