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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 The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."
I know it's very en vogue to hate Microsoft here, but let's be honest. XP is 1000 times as stable as 2000, but it's with this trade off: device drivers and bad hardware can crash the system.
I've been using XP since the Devil's Own gold disc was out in August 2001, and I've experienced a failure exactly one time. It was due to a bad, unsigned driver.
On the other hand, I have had several reasons to reboot my Windows servers, but in truth, I've had to reboot my Linux servers too. Windows 2003 is a HUGE improvement, and at the same time, my newer Linux servers run for ages without so much as a second glance.
My Linux desktop has lots of applications crash, and frequently - X crashes semi-regularly, and my applications are frequently hit or miss.
The only reason XP needs a reboot more frequently is this: people don't know what they're doing. They don't apply patches, they don't have current AV or spyware protection, and they reboot as the first measure of troubleshooting.
I love Linux, and I want Microsoft to get crushed in court, but I know crap when I hear it. Windows is not as bad a product as it used to be, plain and simple.
"What is wrong with shutting down at night is the ENORMOUS amount of time Linux takes to boot up!!!! Leave the PC on but set power saving to something sensible, that way you can save money on electricity and be up and running in the morning without the obligatory 5 min wait!" Windows isn't the only OS in the world to be slow at booting. Of course it doesn't really matter if you boot it less than one time per day.
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Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
if we were to take a look at the professional usage only, where there are IT depts and such supposedly taking care of the machines
That is a funny joke, yes?
Is there a legible version somewhere?
Is there a babelfish something somewhere that'll translate BSOD into English? Because most of the error messages I've seen there have been spectacularly unhelpful.
"If you're forced to reboot a machine, that machine has a problem...". Well, the machines problem is probably simply the fact that it's running Windows. Some Windows crashes are caused by fluxes in the Earths magnetic field, or vibrations from a truck passing by outside, or other equally screwy and unforseeable causes. If a user is getting bluescreened once a weeek, it seems kind of silly for me to take the machine offline for half a day, and scratch my head and run tests and peruse knowledgebase and then do something that might fix the problem, or might make things worse.
Sure, if you're blueing regularly, or if you blue every time you click a certain button, you've got a problem that needs looking at. If you're blueing once a week or so, with no rhyme or reason as to cause or preliminary symptoms... chalk it up to Windows overhead, remember to save your work regularly, and get on with things.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
It's not even *more* stable than win2k.
Sorry, but that's retarded. It should have been obvious that I was stating an opinion and using hyperbole, not asserting that some study showed it to actually be 1000 times more stable. Your statement seems to imply you have some sort of factual proof. Of course, though, you don't. You just think that because YOU had better results with Windows 2000, natch, the rest of the world does^W should too.
Quit being a blowhole. Microsoft made something more stable, and if you're too much of an asshat to turn off theming and benefit from the stability, that's your own fault.