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 The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."

Comments

Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[garcia]

For once some of us don't have to RTFA! Now when we look at the numbers we go ooooh, look MSFT is teh suxx0r! But look at which versions of Windows tend to fail. NT at 3% and Win2k at 4%. NT and Win2k are being run by people with more of a clue than those running XP. XP was aimed more at the home market while NT and 2k were not nearly as much.

So, maybe the article tells more than the blurb, but it would appear to me that the reason that XP crashes more is that the people who are running it could be partly at fault (ie worms, trojans, poor hardware choices with outdated drivers).

Personally I use 2k at work and XP at home (for my Windows machines) and I can't remember a crash for either. Work is a bit of a stretch as I do shut it down daily but the XP machine hums along just fine without problems.

YMMV.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of reading Microsoft sponsored research that attempts to make Windows look better than it really is.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[ShizCakes]

I came here to say exactly what you said. The amount of clueless people downloading spyware, viruses, and just general crap onto thier computers is ridiculous, and I'm suprised that the failure rate isn't higher. However, 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, I think that the numbers would be drastically reversed.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

I have a Windows 2000 Server and a Windows 2000 Professional machine that I swear to GOD I NEVER have to reboot, unless I'm installing some piece of hardware/software that requires it.

I think at one point I had the server up for ~180 days straight, I was amazed at the totals in the "process run-time" in Task Manager.

Windows works great, for people who know how to use them. (Same can be said for Linux, Mac, etc).

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[aurelian]

Personally I use 2k at work and XP at home (for my Windows machines) and I can't remember a crash for either.

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.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Tenareth]

Our entire user base (Over 1000 machines) has been moved from WindowsNT Workstation and Win2k workstation to Windows XP as a global rollout for our company (40,000+ machines). Given the same userbase, and same admins building the machines we have seen XP behave much worse than NT or 2000 ever did.

This is in a completely controlled environment, where we can use GPO to insure extra software is not installed on the machines, etc... unlike the older installed base.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[mrchaotica]

Fine, don't RTFA, but could you consider reading the summary, maybe?

gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies

These weren't home users!

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Welsh Dwarf]

I suggest you do RTFA, or at least try, all these machines were in a buissness context, and the largest proportion of XPs were in firms that specialised in computer consultancy (SSII in French) .

Therefor these machines were being used by people with more than just a 'clue', and were probably locked down to prevent spyware installation and the like.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

In the MS world, 180 days is a miracle. In the *nix world it's rutine.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[linsys]

"I think at one point I had the server up for ~180 days straight"

You say that like it's some accomplishment, well I guess it is for a WinBox, but in My World (*nix world) I would be very disapointed if my boxes where up any less that 180+ days!

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[gbjbaanb]

what's so wrong with shutting down daily?

If you have your PC at home, you shut down at night so you can save electricity, and stop the noise from the fans.

If you're at work, sure you have less incentive to shut down, except to save electricity again. (save the planet, man)

Personally, I leave my w2k work box running all the time, but even then it gets shut down for the weekend.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[bastardadmin]

"Windows works great, for people who know how to use them. (Same can be said for Linux, Mac, etc)."

You've hit the nail right on the head, and done it without any OS-based zealotry.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[galaxy300]

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.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[fitten]

I have (and have had in the past) many Win2K boxes and Windows XP boxes that run 24/7 except for forced reboots from software patches and/or hardware installation.

One Win2K server I helped maintain had a better uptime than most of our Suns and other Unix boxes. Mostly because it was well protected from the 'net and we didn't patch it.

As far as other OSs, my Linux servers also run 24/7 and have a high uptime. However, as of late, we've been notified (by the various distribution patch notification tools) of more software patches than on Windows by a long shot. My SuSE 9.1 Professional box, for instance, hasn't gone a week without at least two patch sessions for the last two months, but only a few of those have required reboots (kernel patch).

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[glenrm]

Well I set up a Intel Raid drive setup under XP Pro and have suffered several blue screens of death. Another issue I am having is XPs DVD-RAM driver won't recognize some FAT32 disks that were formated under 2000, this happens at random some disk work others don't, never had this problem under 2000. So far from perfect...

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Coryoth]

came here to say exactly what you said. The amount of clueless people downloading spyware, viruses, and just general crap onto thier computers is ridiculous, and I'm suprised that the failure rate isn't higher. However, 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, I think that the numbers would be drastically reversed.

According to the article there were no home users involved in this. It was all company workstations from about 1000 European companies. That means it pretty much is all in managed environments with an IT dept looking after it.

The best I can find is this (excuse my babelfish translation) from TFA:

"To also note, without surprise, that 95% of the stations customers are equipped with a Windows environment, version 2000 being prevalent at the professionals. In place under 42% of the stations, this version largely replaced Windows NT 4 which counts nothing any more but 16%. As for Windows XP, it pains to find its public, in particular at the industrialists who choose to 83% for Windows 2000. Only the service companies have 5% of their data-processing park under Windows XP while the general average is around the 2%."

Which is about the best I can find for figures breaking down how the different versions were distributed. It seems like XP was largely uncommon except at service companies (and was then still uncommon), so maybe you could claim low sample size - but there were 1.2 million workstations in the total sample, so I don't think that'll wash either.

If someone with far better French than me could provide a proper translation of the relevant paragraph I would be grateful.

Thanks.

Jedidiah

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Scarblac]

Luser, trying to run a command you don't know as root.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Ec|ipse]

Problem is, it looks like IT departments are controlling it. You'll notice from the article that it mentions that,

1. "The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand
2. companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."

These aren't home users, these are businesses that should have IT staff monitoring or looking at them regularly.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[ThosLives]

The reason I don't shut down isn't because I need to keep running or want to waste power. While it is true that shutting down when I don't use my computer would probably save me some electricity dollars, the startup wear-and-tear on the hard drives and even electrical components is greatly reduced by leaving a system on all the time. Parts tend to fail a lot less frequently if you turn them on and leave them on...it's actually surprising the stress you put on even solid state devices during power-on/power-off transients (you ever notice how light bulbs typically burn out just as you turn them on or turn them off? There's a reason for that... check out what happens to current through a simple R-L circuit during step transitions in voltage.). This concept is true even of light and heavy machinery - it's why jet engines are rated on number of start/stop cycles in addition to hours in operation, and why most large industries don't like to stop and start their plants.

So, I keep my system up as much as I can for reliability, not for "ooh look! X days up without a reboot!" bragging rights.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Gumph]

What is wrong with shutting down at night is the ENORMOUS amount of time Windows 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!

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[1u3hr]

Many clueless users believe that rebooting fixes many problems

Funny, I believe that. It does fix many problems (such as resources disappearing due to memory leaks or application crashes). Not permanently, they recur, but short of spending a few days reinstallng everything, it's the best solution.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[scum-e-bag]

Having played with win98 for the first time in nearly five years, and getting a BSOD during the install process, yesterday, I can say that you are correct. XP/2k actually work as the MS marketing dept says they will... mostly... mostly... they come at night... mostly...

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[UranusReallyHertz]

Even more so with the new fluid dynamic bearings in newer hard drives. The only time they actually wear is when they are started and stopped, otherwise there is no actual contact between the bearing surfaces and so they can theroetically last forever. I read about a 100 year old hydroelectric turbine that used the water as a fluid bearing that had no significant wear and was predicted to last at least another 1000 years.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[hb253]

I've been using personal computers at home and at work since the early 1980's. Of all the computers I've used in that time, I shut off every one on a daily basis and have never had a failure of any kind.

However, I've had a few servers that stay on all the time lose a hard disk after a restart due to power failures, or other infrequent power downs.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[knick]

Or...perhaps, laptop users? I tend to find my laptop battery dies if I leave it running in my bag overnight..

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[grub]

It was at least 3 years and at the University of North Carolina according to this page. Search that page for "Server Missing No More".

Unless, of course, there was more than one Novell server walled in at a university for several years... :)

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[mgv]

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.

Not true - I'm a mac user, and I shut down alot. Every time I a finished at the laptop I shut down the lid. When I'm ready to work again I have to do a start up - I start by lifting the lid up.

Pretty much the same really.

Not.

Michael

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[geordie_loz]

I'd be interested to know just what you were doing when it crashed. My system tends to be stable unless I'm farting around with low-level stuff or drivers..

My XP box is pretty stable, but I have had it blue-screen (although it is a nice shade of blue in XP), a few times, doing fairly normal things..

I update regularly, and would say that XP seems more stable that any version of windows I've used. But I don't really use it that often, only the odd time when I must use windows and wine does not suffice.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[LoneGunner]

Even in corporations where there is an IT staff, I see computers brought in all the time full of spy-ware and viruses so, you can't say that since there is an IT staff there won't be any problems. In our own environment we used 2k for a few years, and now use XP. I never reboot my computer unless absolutely needed, it runs 24/7. I do development with VS, flash, Photoshop, and several other environments. With 2k I would have to reboot at least once a week to keep things stable sometimes more than once in a day. With XP I only reboot once every 2 weeks to once a month. In my personal experience XP is a much more stable environment.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[peawee03]

Well, download F@H and give it a purpose!

Yeah, I understand the point you're getting at. I personally leave my zd7000 running 24/7 because most of the time I'm leaving it to do a render overnight or something. Most PCs in offices ought to be based on Transmeta or Via low-power CPUs anyway, seeing all they do is web surf, word process, and remote sessions.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Stargoat]

I've been working with XP, 2000, and Windows 98 in a business environment. In an enterprise business environment, where IT controls the PCs, and people who install Yahoo Search Bar and other webtastic crap are fired, the O/S run great. A single, well built build with a good and constantly updating AV program will not fail 8% of the time. That's a load of horse dung.

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.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[frp001]

I'm tired of reading Microsoft sponsored research that attempts to make Windows look better than it really is.

As a matter of fact this is not the main subject of the article. The research was carried out by accadys and Microsoft throughout Europe to find out how users used their machines.(The title of the article is about the fact that 28% of user time is spent on messaging/internet -- I wonder if they calculated my time on /.)
Finally the article concludes by saying that Acadys recommends using open source software.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[a7244270]

If someone with far better French than me could provide a proper translation of the relevant paragraph I would be grateful.

Here you go:

We noted, unsurprisingly, that 95% of client stations were windows based, with professionals predominantly choosing windows 2000. In 42% of the client stations, Windows 2000 had replaced Windows NT, which failed to achieve more than a 16% footprint. Windows XP has had difficulty gaining a foothold, most notably among the industrial companies, 83% of which chose Windows 2000. XP achieved its highest userbase in the service industries at around 5% - the general average is a 2% XP installation rate.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Phisbut]

If someone with far better French than me could provide a proper translation of the relevant paragraph I would be grateful

Here's a human translation from a French-Canadian

We must also note that, unsurprisingly, 95% of the computers are running on a Windows environment, with version 2000 being the most used among professionals. Win2k, running on 42% of the computers, largely replaced WinNT4, which now only runs on 16%. As for WinXP, it barely found a good public, especially among industrials which prefer Win2k 83% of the time. Only the service companies have 5% of their total computers running WinXP, while the general average is around 2%.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[hopethishelps]

With XP I only reboot once every 2 weeks to once a month. In my personal experience XP is a much more stable environment.

Windows users obviously have a different expectation of "stable" from Linux users. In my office we have just 2 Linux machines but both are heavily used, one for C++ development.

I just ran "uptime" on them. One has been up for 99 days (I remember shutting it down to install a DVD-rom drive about that long ago) and the other has been up for 127 days. Of course I keep them both up-to-date with security patches, but since they're both Debian, that's just a matter of typing apt-get update / apt-get upgrade occasionally. No reboot needed.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[stratjakt]

Nope, I've stressed the living hell out of the CPU, RAM and chipset. The videocard is the weak link, it brought all my troubles with it.

The instant I spent a few hundred bucks to transform it into a "gaming" machine, it became an unreliable hunk of shit.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[tsa]

Since switching to Debian I've never had a crash either.

Hm. My Linux system (Slackware) crashes regularly. About once every 5 years.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[networkBoy]

What's funny is our IT dept. reccomends that we install the google toolbar for it's pop-up blocking. I simply used Firefox instead, but can not access any intranet sites with it. So for the internal stuff I use IE.
As to the crashing, my XP laptop and Win2K home machines need about a reboot a week on average. My linux boxes and my Win2K "server" (client build) which sees little to no console activity, run for weeks and up without reboots, and all the reboots I've neede to do were because of me.
This leads me to believe that the bulk of Windows is fine and that explorer and the other UI programs are the source of most problems (sans spyware).

-nB

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Mycroft999]

What's really amazing is how users who consistantly move their task bar to another edge of the screen and can never remember how to move it back, can get around all the safeguards of a managed system and screw it all up.

The computers we have here at the jail are locked out of almost everything. The only two things the average user can access is a terminal program and MS word. Yet these same people, who cannot tell the difference between a monitor and a CPU, manage to find every chink in the armor. They manage to gain access to the internet, play games, and in general screw up the whole operating system.

They may be idiots when it comes to computers, but never underestimate the users abilities to circumvent all your best laid plans of managing the computers they use.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[blazerw11]

About once every 5 years.

Re-installing because a new version of Slackware came out is not a crash! :^)

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[networkBoy]

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?

Sadly this is more true than anything. Everyone expects that the IT depts. are watching over everything and will fix all ills. If the (general non-geek) userbase realized how much they hold their own computing destiny in their own hands they would have far less problems.
-nB

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[smallguy78]

and the type of people impressed by those brags aren't normally the type of people who you want respect from...

I remember a statistic in a Bill Bryson book saying that 2% of the US's yearly electricity use is from workstations left on over night.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[The Spoonman]

where there are IT depts and such supposedly taking care of the machines, I think that the numbers would be drastically reversed

I would disagre, as most IT people have little more clue than users. I say this not to be a prick, but because it's true. I've met so very few people in the last 20 years that really, really know what they're doing and have good troubleshooting skills. How often do you hear from an IT person "Ooops, it bluescreened, that means it's time to reboot!"? No, if you got a bluescreen, that's a friggin' error message. Read it and find out what went wrong. I'd also argue that these clueless masses of IT folks think that reboots are the cure for all problems. If you're forced to reboot a machine, that machine has a problem....FIX IT! If you can't fix it, it's not MS fault, it's yours. You don't need the source code to figure out what's wrong, just a brain.

Boy, that ended up being more ranty than intended. :)

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Pieroxy]

Windows users obviously have a different expectation of "stable" from Linux users

Very obviously, a post from *one* slashdotter along with your opinion is enough to generalize windows users against linux users. I am just sick of the "windows can't get the same uptime as linux". This is bullshit and everyone knows it, or you are just an ignorant of the Windows thing, so please stop talking about it.

I had a Win2k server in my garage during the last 3 years. It has rebooted 4 times: 3 power outages, one hardware change.

Period. Installed and running during that time:

. Lots of P2P
. Webserver
. Mail server
. CVSnt
. NetTime
. DynDns update service
. Lots of MPEG-2 encoding for overnight encoding (can't sleep with my PC on)
. I probably miss a few

So please, stop trolling next time.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Ryokos_boytoy]

Driver certification really just means your check cleared Well said

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Bull999999]

I had a Win2k server in my garage during the last 3 years. It has rebooted 4 times: 3 power outages, one hardware change.

So you are saying that you never patched that server?

Granted, from personal experience, a well setup Windows machine on good hardware is pretty stable but I believe that the reason why Windows machines cannot acheive ultra long up time is due to the required reboots after certain patches, although 2000 requires less reboots than NT4 and the same thing can be said for 2003 vs 2000.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to say that his windows wouldn't need so many reboots if he turned it off every time he was done using it, so that it is always freshly booted every time he tries to use it?

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[chunkwhite86]

I have a Windows 2000 Server and a Windows 2000 Professional machine that I swear to GOD I NEVER have to reboot, unless I'm installing some piece of hardware/software that requires it. I think at one point I had the server up for ~180 days straight, I was amazed at the totals in the "process run-time" in Task Manager.

I sure hope this wasn't on any kind of a network. Last year, Microsoft had 60 (yes, SIXTY) security patches released. That's more than one per week. And yes, each one requires a reboot of the server. Sounds like you and your 180 days are a sitting duck for hackers.

I've got an OpenVMS cluster that hasnt been rebooted since 1999 and an IBM AIX box that's been up since 2001. They just work. Fact is, Microsoft does not have an enterprise-class operating system when every security patch requires a reboot, every device driver install requires a reboot, and every application install requires not only a reboot, but that you close all other running applications during the install. That's just not enterprise level. For these reasons, anyone who uses a Windows server for any sort of 24/7 mission critical application, is just an old-fashioned idiot.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[peg0cjs]

Here is my attempt at a translation.

28% of time spent on messaging/Internet, 2% in Excel

A study commissioned by Acadys and Microcost measured usage of computer tools by employees in Europe. It revealed that the failure rate of a Windows system is 8%, and the paperless office is still a long ways off.

What do workers do with their computers? It's this thorny question that a study commissioned by Microcost, in collaboration with Acadys, tries to answer. The investigation is aimed not at watching users, but rather it hopes to focus attention on the materials cost of managing IT assets.

During one month, 1, 285, 500 workstations were scanned at 1 million companies in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England and Italy).

It was calculated that each user spends, on average, 2:15 per day on their computer. More than a quarter of that time (28%) was dedicated to surfing the Internet and e-mail. The remainder of the time is spent using general office applications (17%), work-related applications (14%) and Windows Explorer (9%). The 17% of time spent using general office applications can be broken down to 15% spent in word processing, and 2% in Excel.

Companies may be interested in modifying their policies on software licensing to avoid paying for an entire office suite if the main tool used is a word processor. According to the study, 10 software applications occupy 67% of users time. This number rises to 89% in the industrial sector, but is limited to 42% in the services sector.

In addition to the statistics on software usage, the AMI software enables us to extract statistics on the reliability on Windows systems from the data collected. The average failure rate requiring a reboot is found to be around 8% per session. The number fluctuates largely around the version of Windows. Windows 2000 achieves a failure rate of 4%, NT4 a rate of 3% and Windows XP approaches 12%.

Furthermore, the study reveals how workers are using printing materials. The paperless office has not yet arrived, since employees print an average of 10 pages per day. This is broken down into 3-4 print jobs, half of which are directed to local printers, and half to network printers. Due to the cost breakdown of consumables, the cost of printing to a network printer approaches pennies per page, but this cost is multiplied by a factor of 5 for local print jobs.

It is not surprising to note that 95% of sites used Windows environments, with Windows 2000 dominating the workplace. At 42% of sites, Windows 2000 replaced NT 4, which is now used by a mere 16%. Windows XP appears to be having trouble finding a market, especially with manufacturing companies, 83% of whom opted for Windows 2000. The average deployment of Windows XP was around 2%, with only the service industry having an above-average usage of Windows XP at 5%.

The story behind all these figures is several recommendations to IT managers for optimizing their equipment management efforts. Among companies studied were successful results using thin clients, open source software and improved software license management resulting in longer life spans for IT assets, both hardware and software.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[poot_rootbeer]

You say you shut down daily - only Windows users would regard that as normal.

No, most normal people turn their appliances off when they're not being used. Home computers are no exception.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[spooky_nerd]

I think it's great that Linux can run that stable. But really, outside of bragging rights, does it really matter that your computer is up that long? I'm not trying to bash either side, but there are very, very few cases (IMHO) where a computer needs to be up for 99 days without a reboot.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[nocomment]

uhm no, you have spyware, that's the problem. The googlebar blocks pop-ups from webpages. IF the pop-ups aren't being blocked, then the pop-ups aren't coming from the pages. Go download spybot. Once that has finished, go run the free panda virus scanner http://www.pandasoftware.com/

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[isomeme]

One would hope you could hit amontillado.unc.edu to find out.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Arker]

Well my Win98 box wouldn't have drug their stats down at all. Of course, the key to that is a clean install where IE and all of it's many components have never touched the HDD. And, of course, rebooting it between once and twice a week. If the uptime gets too long, it definately gets buggy, but it's quite rare for it to actually crash on me - by windows standards of rare at least. I have plenty of exposure to XP, and it doesn't seem any more stable. The figure from this study is congruent with my experience.

Of course the only time I've seen Linux crash was when I had motherboard components failing, and my Mac only locks up about once a year (and almost never gets shut down or rebooted - logging out and back in always seems to be sufficient to fix it when it gets wierd.)

But I have to agree with another posters suggestion - I think that the instability in Windows is primarily from IE, and all the other little things that tie into it. Without that, even Win98 can be reasonably stable (meaning at least as stable as XP, which most people seem to consider 'stable enough' for a desktop or game machine - not stable enough for critical server tasks of course.)

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[tompaulco]

If I download all kinds of stupid spyware and adware and run stock tickers and weather watchers, then I should expect to have degraded system performance. However, I should not expect this to cause the OS to crash. An OS is supposed to MANAGE programs, not be AFFECTED by them.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Chicks_Hate_Me]

I don't believe that it takes a lot of electricity. After I had my server running in my house, my summer bill "jumped" from $15.00 to $16.00. I think the monitor is the biggest electricity hog (and since mine was a Linux server, I didn't have one.)

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[davidsyes]

What I find to be a problem is file locking on excel sheets. F'ing excel, whenever it encounters an open file in use by another user, it also prevents ie or the file explorer from spritely or expeditiously drilling into the network or local files. This is TRULY annoying

----

This is to question all the people with a "boner" for "uptime".

Is it REALLY necessary to care about client machine UPtime? It costs energy to keep a machine running. Maybe it's ok to leave your HOME machine up, if it's a new one with better efficiency then the older monsters of the 90's. But work machines, by the dozens or the hundreds, being left on just wast lots of energy, even if there is available energy on your grid. That energy is generated and fuel is consumed to present it.

That being said, all those windoze boxes with various bots, spyware, and weather bars could be "calling back home", can't they? I just yank my ethernet at home, and at work I leave my windoze box on, but also yank the ethernet. I do the same for my quasi-permitted Linux box. I SHOULD turn them off, but most of the other machines DO get turned off at the end of the day and over the weekend.

I mostly turn my machines off if I won't around for a couple hours, but sometimes, at home, I leave my laptop going if I am watching a movie on the DVD.

David Syes

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[E-Rock]

Ok. Here we go. I don't want google for searching. I already have a wonderful tool that lets me to in line searching on the address bar, mostly for google, but it's a lot more flexible. Because of this, I hide the google toolbar, just like I hide the Adobe Acrobat toolbar and the Links toolbar. Unfortunately this has the side effect of stopping the pop-up blocking.

Oddly, once it has blocked a popup from a site for the first time, it seems to continue blocking it even when the toolbar is hidden. This is what gave me the impression that it was just inconsistant.

Like a lot of bugs, it's not really the app, it's not the computer, I'm just not using it like the developer expected.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[The Spoonman]

To quote The Donald: "You're Fired". You are exactly the kind of person I was referencing in my post.

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.

Yes, there are two easily accessible: called "Google" and "The MS Support KB". I'll give you a hint: that long string of numbers in the upper left-hand corner is your error. Put that in the KB, and you'll generally get an answer or 25. You don't have to put in all the leading zeros (0x0000007b becomes 0x7b). Put that in with the word "Stop".

Well, the machines problem is probably simply the fact that it's running Windows.

No, the machine's problem is simply that its support staff has no idea what it's doing.

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 thus the reason you're fired. If I had you on my staff and you uttered those words to me, you'd be out of there so fast your head would spin. How long does the user suffer every week because of those blue screens? 10 minutes? 20? Add it up and you'll see that a few hours work is worth the time. Regardless, if it's taking you half a day to solve a bluescreen issue, you shouldn't be working second level support.

Sure, if you're blueing regularly

Define "regularly". I would define regularly when it comes to blue screens as "once". Weekly is unacceptable and constant. Blue screens are a Windows last resort. Something has happened on the machine so bad that the OS has to shut it down lest any further damage takes place. That doesn't happen with a proper install. It's up to YOU to figure out what happened, and fix it. I've never once encounted a bluescreen that I couldn't fix, therefore the problem is with you.

chalk it up to Windows overhead, remember to save your work regularly, and get on with things.

Spoken like a true professional. I'm sure your boss goes to bed every night and thanks his stars he was lucky enough to land someone like you. It's your responsibility to fix problems. When problems come up, and you don't fix them, you're shirking your responsibilities. Grow up, learn and take some responsibility for a change.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[ccoakley]

An OS is supposed to MANAGE programs, not be AFFECTED by them.

True unless the program is not segregated from the OS memory footprint (like a driver, or a debugger that allows poking all memory locations). These programs generally require administrator priveledges to install (and setuid patented equivalent to run). Unfortunately, 90% of programs on windows require admin install, and for no good reason. They spew dll's in system directories instead of application local directories, write to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER, or simply use restricted API functions instead of less capable alternatives.

I'm not absolving Microsoft of all of their sins, but most crashes are caused because most windows applications do not follow the microsoft guidelines, and users still install unsafe programs. As an analogy: if all Linux software required kernel.h and required setuid to run, it too could take down your linux box if it crashed. However, most linux programs do not require such priveledges, and if one does, the user generally tries to find an alternative program. So some of the blame should be shouldered by the developers of the applications and the users who install them.

Of course, on the flip side, any linux development guide will tell you that you do *not* put kernel.h in userland programs. Microsoft makes it very developer friendly to do the equivalent (by providing better documentation on all of the naughty stuff I stated above). Well, they've changed on that recently, but they can't erase all of the old articles and books that teach the bad form.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[shinehead]

I have two Netware 4.x machines at work that have an uptime of over 800 days each, no kidding.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[jayp00001]

As a consultant I spend a bulk of my time re-educating "IT Staff" that a reboot of a windows OS is not the proper way to troubleshoot or resolve a problem. IT folks reboot windows systems because they can and it's reletively harmless compared to powercycling a Unix system.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[The Spoonman]

Hold on there, killer, I disagree. Do you use Windows?

No, I use BeOS on every machine, both private and corporate.

Yes - but the blue screen is indicating that the OS is no longer stabile - you DO NEED to reboot.

No, the bluescreen is not "indicating", it is TELLING you that the machine (OS, software & hardware) is unstable and you need to find out what it is and fix it. Rebooting only gets rid of a bluescreen for a short while. If a machine bluescreens, the bluescreens will come back until you fix them. Prime example: my home machine started bluescreening. Read the error, did some research, and confirmed that my HD was dying. Drive Imaged over to a new drive, bluescreens stopped. Interestingly...I installed Linux on the old drive to see if the drive was recoverable, and the machine core dumped. What a surprise, not a problem with the OS at all!

MS error messages contained in blue screens is sometimes cryptic at best.

So? Most error messages are cryptic at best, that doesn't mean you don't take the time to learn how to read them, or figure out how to fix the problems they're indicating. To do so is simply lazy. And, MS doesn't hold a patent on cryptic error messages. Those from Linux can be twice as obtuse. Of course, their support is usually better: "If you can't figure it out, you shouldn't be using Linux" always solves problems.

Researching a blue screen message can often point to a bug in an application, or in the OS itself.

Well, yes, that would be the point of an error mesage. Funny that, huh?

I've had MS give me indications that I may have older drivers. Downloaded the newest vesions just a day or so prior. Sometimes the advice is just wrong.

Yes, it is. So? Then stop taking their advice and learn to fix problems on your own. I've called MS 3 times in the last 12 years. All three times they were a last resort and all three times they couldn't give me an answer. Save the dollars and learn.

There's not always something else that CAN be done on a Win box.

That's almost true. In the past 20 years, I've encountered exactly ONE problem I couldn't fix, and to this day have no idea what the problem was. It actually occured on two machines:

The machines were running Windows 98. The user would log in, and then get an error: "SHLWAPI.DLL has caused and invalid page fault in explorer.exe". Explorer would never load, and the user couldn't use the machine. (I'll save you the time, shlwapi.dll is a component of IE). Here's where it gets interesting: if another user logged into the machine, the machine worked fine. If the user logged into another machine, the machine worked fine. If I made the user a domain admin (temporarily), the machine worked fine. It was only if THAT user logged into THAT machine as a user. Profiles were not enabled in Windows. We did end up reimaging the machine, and she was the first to log into it, and got the same error. All previous conditions applied. I ended up just swapping her machine with her neighbor's since they were imaged and identical. Never did figure that one out, even when it occured to another user. Same solution, and it never happened again in the two years I was there.

In any case, that was an isolated and singular situation, every other problem, I've fixed. I don't leave a machine until it's FIXED. Reboots and defrags are not repairs.

You're certainly right, reboots are not the answer for ALL problems. But they are solutions (and pretty darm good ones at times) for the weird, occassional problem. Reboot, log-in, run your app, and you're fine for days.

No. You still have a problem, you haven't fixed anything. I tell my users: "if something happens, reboot once. If it happens again, call us. If it happens again within the next six months, call us. Otherwise, it's a one-time random thing. Anymore frequently than every six months is not rand

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[cft_128]

I think it's great that Linux can run that stable. But really, outside of bragging rights, does it really matter that your computer is up that long? I'm not trying to bash either side, but there are very, very few cases (IMHO) where a computer needs to be up for 99 days without a reboot.

It is essential that our servers stay up all the time, that goes without saying, but I also leave my laptop on all the time. I hate having to reboot as I lose the state of my work environment: what files I had open and where, what logs I was tailing, the specific command history for terminals, what web pages I had open, etc. I reboot typically on average about avery 3-4 weeks, usually because of an OS patch. I could use some other technologies (like using VNC connection to a server that is stable) but I don't have to and I really like it.

HTPCs (Home theater PCs) also require almost indefinite uptime - you don't want to have to boot a PC to watch TV or a movie, and a crash while watching a movie is not acceptable. I've heard many stories on HTPC forums of people spending days and weeks attempting to track down causes of intermittent crashes. As HTPCs get more prevalent I can only see long uptimes getting more important.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[Alibi]

The research was carried out by accadys and Microsoft throughout Europe...

Actually the article says Microcost, not Microsoft.

Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions?

[yerfatma]

At the risk of sounding like I'm defending MS, note that in your case you've had one continuous 4 year session. If it ever crashes, your OS has a really shitty failure rate. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

3rd attempt

[paulhar]

I get about half way through starting my reply before Windows crashes on me caus

Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was just normal to reboot 35 times a day.

English Version

[WhatsAProGingrass]

English

Biased

[-kertrats-]

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.

Re:Biased

[Coryoth]

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.

I would suggest that my "per session" rate of failures in Linux is quite high. Sure, I don't get kernel panics, but if X locks badly (locking out the keyboard) then my session is pretty much gone. Rebooting X is considerably faster than rebooting the machine.

The real reason that my "per session" rate would be high is that I hardly ever log out. I run a session until something comes out that convinces me to log out (travel, new kernel, or some sort of problem). Sessions last weeks or months.

Jedidiah.

Re:Biased

[GoMMiX]

Windows average uptime.. listed in days... Linux average uptime... Should I list this in days, months, or years? Seriously, though, I've had Linux servers running and used frequently that were not restarted for upwards of a year or more -- and even then it was because of a flood, power went out - generator was submerged (so obviously shut off), and UPS's ran out of power after 20 mins = everything got rebooted. I have 'never' had to reboot a Linux system because of various parts of the OS or other programs not functioning properly which would be fixed by restarting the machine. I don't care if you're a Windows lover or a Windows hater, everyone knows if something doesn't work right in Windows -- restart, it just might start mysteriously working again. I know of no other OS that behaves this way. Not that I care, really - I like both OS's. I personally perfer to use Linux, but everyone at my company is 50 year old women - when it comes to the thought of training them on how to use Linux... forget that!

Re:Biased

[YetAnotherDave]

event viewer sometimes gives useful info on a few MS apps (exchange, for example) but most third-party apps give nothing there. Neither does word, for that matter, and it's _always_ buggering things up on my PC...

Re:Biased

[in4mation]

Well, biased or not, but for whatever reason, I find that I have to reboot WINXP/NT a lot more often than I do Linux. Eventhough I patch and install a lot more software on Linux systems than I do on XP/NT. And I'm running XP, NT and Linux as a mix of workstations and servers. But I won't advocate switching to any platform!!! Let people choose what they want and they will learn from their choices.

Re:Biased

[Fizzl]

I find this comment offensive. Ability to learn depends more on intelligence and attitudes than on age or sex.
Right...
So you would happily take a job if the description was just "Teach a bunch of 50 old ladied to use Linux"?

Re:Biased

[strider44]

You don't know very much about linux do you? I read that there's only three things that you need to restart linux with. One of them would be updating the kernel (surprise surprise). Installing a new bootsplash or changing the boot settings is another (though I'm not sure that actually counts - you aren't forced to restart if you don't want to). I suspect there may be one or two more though I haven't found them in my years of using a linux system.

Firstly, no changing video settings in KDE doesn't require restarting the X-server. It behaves just like windows in that area (even has the same "accept settings" dialog with the same 15 second timelimit).

Secondly, restarting the X-Server takes about 5 seconds (depending on system load - it can take as much as 15 seconds or as little as two if you're using fluxbox) and is done using cntrl alt backspace. You also don't lose the contents of your session.

Thirdly I have had many cases where I've tried not restarting windows and it crashed on me, most notably installing office XP. I'd rather be safe than sorry with an winXP box.

Forthly, I don't see "You're running too much software" as an excuse for needing to restart. I understand that if you have the same computer doing the same thing without installing any programs you won't need to restart Windows XP or NT.

Finally, no there's no reason why if you made games in linux you'd require reboots. I've installed many games on linux without any need for rebooting. I've altered huge amounts of system files without need for restart.

Please actually use linux before you write posts like that. Ignorance is not an excuse.

My Windows has never crashed

[deathcloset]

after all, no boot, no crash!

A feature!

[doktorstop]

It's a feature, not a bug! Rebooting 1)cleans up memory 2) makes you do something useful 3) makes you aquanted with the hardware 4) teaches you elementary computer skills

Somewhat misleading

[dtfinch]

If you leave your computer running until it needs a reboot, your "failure rate" by their definition is 100%, even if you reboot only once every 6 months.

Re:Somewhat misleading

[Coryoth]

If you ues a computer as a server, you generally leave it running until it fails somehow, or until you've upgraded it. If you're using it to run applications, you probably turn it off every night, and clean up a lot of gunk in the process.

The article quite clearly says that these are only workstations that we're talking about. That's desktop machines running Excel. Those generally get powered down or logged out of every night, thus ending the session (especially in coporate environments). A failure rate of 8% in those circumstances is pretty bad really.

Jedidiah.

Re:Somewhat misleading

[mankey wanker]

That's right.

My own experience is almost never having to reboot on WinXP Pro. I have 3 machines running all the time and except for some hardware or software installs that may require a shut down or warm reboot they just run 24/7. My media server is XP pro and it never dies - and I'm running it on an old POS P3 with 512 RAM. Myself, I think XP Pro is extremely stable - not perfect, but stable.

I think casual users versus knowledgeable users is a big factor here in the study. A properly managed box can run for a really long time without interference. Some may claim that the degree of knowledge required to "properly manage" a WinXP Pro box is too high a threshold for the casual user - so that might be true, but the same is true of Linux and most OSS.

Personally, I don't see that as a totally bad thing. People should have a solid understanding of what is going on with their boxes. Once upon a time I knew far less and my satisfaction as a computer user suffered for it - I was a clueless idiot and bad stuff was always happening to me because of it. Now I know at least something about what I am doing and I am a far happier user - stuff almost never goes wrong.

Somebody should do a new study on knowledge as relates to satisfaction of use of a product. I just bet the more you know about something the happier you are in relation to it. Satisfaction comes from knowing the product inside and out - because while you may become familiar with the product's shortcomings you will also come to know how to easily work around those shortcomings to get what you need out of a given product.

I don't think that's quite it...

[indros]

Because if you notice the sampling in the post (rtfp?), it states:

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."

Emphasis mine.

Not all cleanly installed updated boxen though eh?

[DaLiNKz]

One does need to wonder under what conditions those computers were in. My Windows XP boxes hardly ever crash, and if so usually its a hardware failure (Video card overheats, processor overheats [welcome to Florida!]). All the computers we have at the college run Windows XP, specially tweaked to keep students doing school work [not dorm boxes] and will clean themselves up when they are rebooted.. these boxes too usually never fail unless its hardware, and operate all day with many different users per day. I also wonder, since my views are somewhat cleaned by our nice IT folks at the college, what these computers they monitored were like. Was there ad-ware on a few? A few viruses maybe? It happens, and IT can't always be there to fix those problems.

My point simply is usually its not Windows XP faulting for me, its something else not getting along with it. Be it [insert]ware, or hardware issues. Good example is I hardly ever reboot this computer, it has easily gained weeks of uptime, usually only shutting down due to thunderstorms taking out the electrical lines.

The most important message here...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is that the windows faliure rate is INCREASING.

babelfish translation with usual mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

28% of the time devoted to the couple transport/Internet, 2% with Excel

To launch the impression

15/09/2004.

What makes the employees one to their computer? It is with this thorny that question has study undertaken by Microcost - in collaboration with Acadys - sort to answer. Year investigation whose objectifies is not to supervises the users goal who wishes to poses the bases of has reflexion around the rationalization of the costs have glances management of park.

During one month, 1 285 500 working scannés stations were near has thousand of companies distributed in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England, Italy).

First carryforward, has to use spends one average two hours and fifteen minutes per day one its dated-processing station. With time that it devotes for more than one quarter (28%) to Internet/transport couple. The remainder of time, the applications office automation, the trades applications and the Windows to explore respectively occupy 17%, 14% and 9% of the use of year employee. The 17% of the office automation applications station-wagon up into 15% for the 2% and text processing for Excel.

With company thus may find it beneficial any to modify its policy of software licence according to the use in order not to pay has complete office automation continuation principal yew the exploited tool remains the text processing. According to the study, 10 software concentrates 67% of the use. With figure which amounts even to 89% in the industrial sector, whereas it is limited to 42% At the service companies.

In more of the dated relating to the uses of the software, the FRIENDLY software (At the origin of information receuillies for the study) makes it possible to obtain figures have glances reliability of the operating systems Microsoft. Thus, the average failure misses requiring has restarting of the system is measured around 8% per session. This appears fluctuates largely according to the version of Windows. Indeed, Windows 2000 obtains has failure misses of 4% and NT4 of 3% whereas Windows XP flirte with the 12%.

Lastly, the study reveals the use of paid have glances impression. Zero paper is not topicality since 10 pages are printed one average per day and to use. They corresponds to 3 gold 4 orders of impression of which the half are intended for local printers, other half with printers networks. However, yew the cost of year reaches impression has few hundred of euros when it is carried out one has printer network, it is multiplied by five when it is carried out one has local printer, because of the consumable price of the ones.

To also note, without surprised, that 95% of the stations customers are equipped with has Windows environment, version 2000 being prevalent At the professionals. In place under 42% of the stations, this version largely replaced Windows NT 4 which counts nothing any more goal 16%. Have for Windows XP, it breads to find its public, in particular At the industrialists who choose to 83% for Windows 2000. Only the service companies cuts 5% of to their dated-processing park under general Windows XP while the average is around the 2%.

Behind all these figures, the company of council recommends several solutions to the dated-processing directions in order to rationalize to their management of dated-processing park. Among these recalls of good control, the company quotes successively the recourse to the light customer, the uses of software Open source, the optimization of the management of the licences and the increase in the duration of renewal of the material park have well have software.

Re:babelfish translation with usual mistakes

[Mephie]

During one month, 1 285 500 working scannés stations were near...

Whew! Thank God. I thought it was just my scannés stations.

No way...

[jmcmunn]

I find it hard to believe Windows XP crashes 12% of the time. I run XP at work and at home. Here at work I am building, compiling, crashing code, running about 20 things at once and I almost never need to reboot. I shut down on weekends, and sometimes at night to save the company some dough, but I rarely need to reboot.

At home, I play games, surf the web, write in MS Office...all of the typical things a normal user would do. Plus I do things that a "power user" might do. Newsgroups, Irc, nothing too great...and I NEVER reboot. I would say on average I need to reboot about once a month when Seti@home decides to get flakey or something. Does that count as needing to reboot...after a month!!?? Then I guess it needs to 100% of the time.

If people need to reboot 12% of the time, then they are doing something wrong. It's not the OS, but more the user in my opinion. XP is a stable system, and does a good job of keeping my machines running.

Win98, however, I would say needs a reboot 50% of the time. The other 50% you have no choice and it dies without a reboot.

Re:No way...

[danharan]

Well, seeing how they calculated crashes per session, your crashed session rate would be about 20% (1 crash per month, 50 work weeks in a year). It is odd to calculate it that way, since with more reliable machines you might leave them on until they crash or you power down, leading to higher numbers. The most reliable system could have a 100% rate of crashed sessions.

It might be more appropriate to keep track of how often people need to reboot.

Re:No way...

[ceeam]

I find it hard to believe Windows XP crashes 12% of the time

On the other hand I find it hard to believe that:
- 90+ percent of people really use MSIE
- People do program w/ C++ for living
- Voting results are indeed real

Well, that just tells that you and me are different from the general populace I suppose. :)

Re:No way...

[danila]

It's not a problem that you have this understanding of a comment on Slashdot - there is plenty of room in the bottom, as Feynman once said, and there is plenty of space at -1 for comments such as your. The [widely acknowledged] problem is that moderators mistakenly agree.

The story showed the facts - that a research carried out (with the help of MS) on 1285000 computers showed that among those with WinXP 12% of sessions required a reboot, while the numbers for other OSes was less. That was a fact. Now your comment that you "find it hard to believe", followed with some personal anecdotes, is idiocy. There is time and place for personal experiences and this time is not when you discuss a large survey. There is zero relevant information in your post, because it's obvious to everyone that there are always probability distributions - there are computers that require a reboot more often and those that require it less often. Any intelligent person realises that there are more factors than one (OS) and that hardware, software, usage patterns, networking environment, etc. are relevant too.

But facts are facts - if a random user (assuming the sample was representative) has WinXP, he is likely to reboot in about 12% sessions. A Win2k user is likely to reboot in about 4% sessions. Your comment is irrelevant. Period.

Unfortunatley

[rwven]

Since SP2, the driver support has gone kapoot or something and about 30% of the time i have to reboot now because my vid card goes nuts and gets the refresh rate all wrong or something of that nature... I'm in that "should i just drop it altogether" stage....

Only 8%?

[FTL]

My value is 100%. Both for Windows and for Linux. The reason is that my computers are always on. The only time I reboot is when it crashes. So that means _every_ session ends with a crash.

Of course the big difference is uptime. My Windows (98) box has been up for 48 hours and is starting to feel sluggish, whereas my Linux box has been running for 4 months.

What do we know?

[Lucas Membrane]

What's a 'session'? They give me XP at work. Not my idea of a good time. I reboot XP when I don't understand what's going on, but usually I don't know if XP has failed. It seems to have some problem with degradation of the management of some resource (maybe memory) over very long sessions (a week or more). Then, when the machine gets sluggish and recalcitrant, I reboot. But maybe it's just the network admin spying on my machine or something that I don't even see. Damfino.

Re:A bit too high..

[Zog The Undeniable]

The figures make perfect sense if you consider NT is on SP6a, 2000 is on SP4 but XP is only on SP2. Give them time to work the bugs out etc.

Given that XP isn't just Win2K SP5 but is in fact Win2K with an awful lot of extra chrome tacked on, it was never going to be more stable to begin with.

My French is rusty ....

[rogerz]

... but if the article does not quantify this failure "rate" as mean-time-beetween-failure (MTBF), then the statistic is worthless. 8% of "sessions" requiring reboot is meaningless, without defining how long is a session.

Define "require"

[bastardadmin]

I would be interested to know what passes for a required reboot.

Quite often it was an issue of restarting a service that "required" a reboot.

Then there are the times when the "required" reboot can be achieved by (heaven forfend) logging off and logging on again.

Windows 2000 was definitely better at cutting out spurious reboots than XP. Someone made a point about the user bases for the OSs being different... I would point out that a fair number of large corporations use XP Pro on the desktop, primarily because it is even more manageable than Win2K Pro under AD, which kind of sinks the idea that XP was designed as a home user's OS.

What really mystifies me is the low percentage of Windows NT4 sessions that require reboots... WTF.
I worked with that OS for years and that just doesn't seem right to me.

Translation from French

[scotay]

My French is a little rusty, but this article claims that XP is a hamster and NT4 smelled of elderberry.

Obviously a Biased account

[Matey-O]

We've got 1200 workstations and another 250 servers. Moving to a managed XP/windows 2003 server environment with the usual seasonings (virus scanning, hotfix management) GREATLY improved our system stability and reduced Helpdesk calls.

Like the linux quotes often say, I only reboot my XP box for patches and hardware updates. (which usually means about once a month for the hot fix updates)

The only guy in our group bitching about XP is the token Mac dude, who screwed up the box doing SOMETHING about a year ago and refuses to reinstall the known good corporate image. (a 10-20 minute process)

The Windows users are eating plenty of poultry

[ShatteredDream]

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."

Re:The Windows users are eating plenty of poultry

[krray]

It's the Windows die-hards that I find amusing to watch in the various offices -- with few exceptions (AutoCAD) when their system dies it will be replaced with either a Linux based or a Mac. *Every* Mac convert has come up to me, about a year later, and expressed how happy they are with it once they "got it" ... and that they've purchased a Mac for their home use too.

The statement of not blaming Microsoft for the instability brought about by bad/outdated drivers is horse puckey and a REALLY bad excuse. If the software is failing then IT, and it alone, should fail and be disconnected/ignored by the OS. With Microsoft a bad font can (and will) bring down the ENTIRE house of cards. So yes, I very much place blame squarely on Microsoft's shoulders and due to their inabilities Win2K was the _last_ release that I'm forced to still support.

In the trial days (releasing "other" OS' out to the remote user base) it became very obvious very quickly what was going to happen to the help desk (nearly gone :). Remote Windows users were almost always having some issue, lockup, hang, or crash of some sort. The Mac users ... almost never call.

Bottom line: we're now spending less on licensing, less in support costs, and less in user counter-productivity...which does mean we've had more $$$ to hire a few more people (yeah, that much in savings) to work on what we do in our business.

With Windows you'll find yourself constantly fighting or babying the computer -- with the Un*x's the computer just works for you.

Nice title Mr.Taco

[Mordaximus]

"Windows Fails 8% of the Time"

No. 8% of Windows failures require a reboot. Big difference.

Re:Nice title Mr.Taco

[braindead]

• "Windows Fails 8% of the Time"

  No. 8% of Windows failures require a reboot. Big difference.

Well that's one interpretation, but I don't think that's the most direct one. Reading the article segment again ("Ainsi, le taux de panne moyen nécessitant un redémarrage du système est mesuré autour de 8% par session"), I would parse it as follows: "Ainsi, le taux de (panne moyen nécessitant un redémarrage du système) est mesuré autour de 8% par session". In english: the average rate of (bugs requiring a reboot) is 8% per sessions.

I think that means that 8% of the sessions encountered a bug that made a reboot necessary. After all, if they were measuring which fraction of bugs make a reboot necessary (as you are suggesting), why would they measure that "per session"? In that case they would not say "par session" but "par bug".

And, before you flame -- yes, I do speak the language.

But what were they running?

[pcardno]

My laptop, running Win2K is up and running around 12-14 hours a day and I can't remember it ever crashing. I only got this laptop after moving jobs to a project management one. My previous job within the same company, using the exact same image of Win2K, involved a lot of development in Websphere using IBM's WSAD, and I'd see a crash/blue screen at least twice a day.

I'm fairly sure that if you left a Windows box up without ever touching it or running anything on it it'd work 100% of the time. It's all down to circumstances.

------
Guns don't kill people, rappers do!

How to stop "Automatically Restart".

[Futurepower(R)]

He's right. In Windows XP, Click on Start/ Control Panel/ System/ Advanced/ Startup and Recovery Settings/. Uncheck "Automatically Restart".

--
Bush's education improvements were fraud

Re:Puh-lease

[Cheeze]

I run XP home version on my home workstation, and it's been pretty stable. I have had a few crashes, but it's better than win2kpro.

I think it's all how much you use it and how you use it. I run windows 2k servers and linux servers at work, and the win2k servers are fine as long as you don't have to touch them. That conflicts with MS's bug releases though. Everytime I update, I have to reboot. 9 time out of 10, the servers don't have a problem rebooting, but every now and then there's some failure that prevents it from operating correctly. I have had the same problem with linux also, but those are usually much easier to fix, since you can just pop out the drive and plug it into another machine (and not have to go through hardware detection again).

win2k3server is much more stable than win2k, but you still have the same problem with the updates. Rebooting a server to apply a security patch might not be a problem if you have one or two servers, but if you have a room full of servers, windows patching is your full time job.

At least linux will allow you to stop a single service, reconfigure or upgrade it, then restart the service. There should not be a reason to reboot a server to apply an Internet Explorer patch.

what rubbish...

[JaJ_D]

...I'm using windows and it hasn't cra

Not Killing Process/Programs?

[asdfasdfasdfasdf]

THis is a bit misleading, I think. I run some of the most crashworthy programs you can imagine on XP. 3D apps with beta drivers, AVID editing software, After Effects-- all things that are known for their crashiness, but it's VERY rare that I have to reboot. I do, howevever, ocassionally have to kill a process. Many users may not know how to find the misbehaving process and kill it. So they do what they know how to do-- hit the reset switch.

Ocassionally, while running Doom3, I might hard lock-- My office isn't well insulated, and my machine can get pretty hot when stressed.. Plus I'm running hacked drivers on my video card, so I don't really blame anybody but myself. Otherwise, I cannot remember the last time I HAD to reboot other than software/driver installation.. (And driver installation doesn't always require that anymore...)

This level of stability, in my experience, is virtually the same in Linux.. It runs programs that ocassionally crash, or you have to kill em, and you can get hardware video lockups causing a reboot if you try to do "daring" things (which most people don't do because of the lack of games/3D apps for linux.) I'm not trolling here, just trying to objectively compare the situation..

I think this is just part of computing-- and maybe all OS'es can do a better job of recognizing what apps are really crashed, and helping the user dispose of them a bit better.

Format Invervals?

[glpierce]

I wonder about format intervals. I know that after 6-18 months, my XP box can degrade to the point of requiring manual reboots constantly. A reformat/reinstall typically brings me back to ~95%.

Try asking Eliza about it

[RedLaggedTeut]

[foobar@localhost /usr/bin]#./eliza "rutine"
Since when do you have this obsession with rutine ?
[foobar@localhost /usr/bin]#./spellcheck -c "rutine"
bad word "rutine"
Nearest replacement: "routine"
[foobar@localhost /usr/bin]#./man -psychic rutine
You might mean "uptime"
[foobar@localhost /usr/bin]#uptime

What is worse, is the 20 minute rule

[tod_miller]

Infected in 20 minutes

Out of the box home windows xp has on average 20 minutes (if on a uni network, much less) before it is taken over.

corporate networks should all now be firewalled... shouldn't they?

Windows XP vs Linux Driver Support

[Lord Byron II]

I bought my dad a new pc and while I was waiting for it to arrive, I took some of the accessories for his machine that I had bought locally and tried them out on my Linux box. All worked flawlessly, including the usb dialup modem.

Get the new PC, get Windows installed, get the updates, plug the modem in and halfway through the driver install the machine would reboot. Three times I went through this. I tried the Windows native driver, the driver on the disk, and the driver from the manufacturer's website.

Note that the modem came with XP drivers and did not come with Linux ones!

After hearing for years how Linux is always playing catchup in device support, it was a sort of nice surprise to find a device that worked flawlessly on Linux and was beyond hope on XP.

Re:No way...(consider this)

[gosand]

I find it hard to believe Windows XP crashes 12% of the time. I run XP at work and at home. Here at work I am building, compiling, crashing code, running about 20 things at once and I almost never need to reboot. I shut down on weekends, and sometimes at night to save the company some dough, but I rarely need to reboot.

Crashing and requiring a reboot are two different things. I use XP at work too. I have ZERO spyware on it. It is for work, I use it for work only. No button bars, no cute apps. The only thing I use personally on it are Opera, PuTTY, and an old version of Winamp. I have to reboot about twice a week.

If people need to reboot 12% of the time, then they are doing something wrong. It's not the OS, but more the user in my opinion. XP is a stable system, and does a good job of keeping my machines running.

I have a good idea why my system needs to be rebooted, it is some of the apps I run - mainly certain Rational tools. Sure, on Win98 it would blue screen and crash. XP will just slow to a near halt or start behaving very oddly. Reboots are part of Microsoft OS maintenance. If there is a problem with your machine - reboot. SOP, everywhere I have been.

Even if XP is stable, if it allows applications to bring it down and make it unusable, then the PC isn't stable - period. If the OS can't control it, then it is the fault of the OS.

Hey, I have problems at home on my Linux machine too. Apps will cause X to freak out, and I have had to reboot because I don't know how to cleanly shutdown X remotely or from a console. I am sure there is a way, it just happens so infrequently I haven't bothered to find out. Sometimes Opera will crash X, or if I am messing around with settings on Mplayer, it will freeze it. I used to have problems with my Xfs (font server) crashing all the time, but that was on my old system (Redhat 7.3). I think that may have caused some of the problems with Opera freaking out. I just upgraded to Mandrake 10.0 a few weeks ago, so hopefully that is all straightened out. But my uptime at home is usually VERY long. Not to start comparing, but it usually gets rebooted only when the power goes out or something. In fact, my web server has been up since the last power hit, 118 days ago. Before that, it was up over 230. :-)

Reversed

[tgv]

As in 100% - 12%?

Re:English Version (a better one, hopefully)

[wsapplegate]

I'm not saying I'm a professional translator (I'm not :-) but maybe this translation by hand will make more sense than the Fish. Expect lots of typos and such, still, I wrote it in a hurry. My personal comments are in brackets. Enjoy ! Or not.

28 % of office time dedicated to Internet and e-mail, 2 % to Excel

What do employees do on their computers ? It is that thorny question that a study lead by Microcost -- in partnership with Acadys -- tries to answer. An investigation which goal isn't to monitor users but rather wishes to lay the foundations of a rethinking about rationalizing costs of managing large computer installations.

Over a month, 1 285 500 workstations were scanned in a thousand enterprises distributed in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England, Italy).

First finding, a user spends on average two hours and fifteen minutes per day on his workstation. He dedicates more than a quarter (28 %) of this time to the Internet/e-mail couple. As for the rest, office applications, business applications and Windows Explorer take respectively 17 %, 14 % and 9 % of an employee's used time. The office application's 17 % is further subdivised in 15 % for word processing and 2 % for Excel [I just can't understand why word processing was generalized while spreadsheets seems in the journalist's opinion to be Excel's exclusive domain -- Translator's note].

A business has thus an interest in modifying its software licence policy according to different use patterns, to avoid paying for a complete office suite if the main tool to be used is the word processor [Well, I suppose you could use OpenOffice.org for the rest. You could even use it for the word processor, in fact -- Translator's note]. According to the study, 10 software packages grab 67 % of uses [I'm not sure if he speaks about different uses or usage time -- Tr. note]. These numbers even go up to 89 % in the industrial sector, while they drop to 42 % in services-oriented businesses.

In addition to software usage data, the AMI software (from which the informations gathered for the study were originated) allows to obtain numbers regarding the reliance of Microsoft's Operating Systems. For instance, the average failure rate requiring a system reboot has been measured at about 8 % per session. These numbers dramatically fluctuate according to the considered Windows version. So, Windows 2000 has a 4 % failure rate and NT 4 has 3 % [This must be total BS, I've never seen such a crash-prone system than NT4 except Win9x -- Tr. note], while Windows XP is around 12 %.

Last, the study reveals employees' habits with regard to printing. The paperless office isn't poised to arrive soon, since 10 pages per user are printed on average in a day. These are distributed in 3 or 4 printing commands of which half are directed to local printers, while the other half goes to network printers. Still, if the printing cost drops to a few Eurocents when printing is done on a network printer, it's multiplied by five when it's done on a local printer, because of printer supplies' prices.

Also of note, unsurprisingly 95 % of workstations are fitted with a Windows environment, the Win2000 version being predominant in professional use. Present on 42 % of workstations, this version has largely replaced NT4, which claims now only 16 %. As to Windows XP, it struggles to find its audience, especially in industrial settings, 83 % of whom opted for Windows 2000. Only services-oriented business have 5 % of their computer installations running on Windows XP, while the total average is around 2 %.

Beyond all these numbers, the consulting company recommends several solutions to CTOs to rationalize their computer installations. Among these good practices reminders, the company successively points to thin clients, Open Source Software [I wonder if there's anyone except Microsoft who won't mention FLOSS these days -- Tr. note], licence management optimization, and longer periods between renewing the installed computers' hardware as well as their software.

Re:My take...

[Coryoth]

I always log out of KDE at the end of the session (*), but my machine (home-office workstation) normally stays up until it has to be hardware-serviced or I want to upgrade the kernel. I maxed this in about 100 days. X never locked me up badly, at least not since Xfree 3.1 or (ie, a long time ago).

I'll have to agree there actually. Most recently even when a program has managed to lock X up, it still respects Ctrl-Alt-F1, from which I can kill the offedning program(s) and X bounces back happily. I guess this is the equivalent of Ctrl-Alt-Delete and using the Task Manager in Windows. The Linux method (while less user friendly) has the advantage that you drop right out of X, and hence have full control of your machine again. Trying to haul up the task manager when the GUI is locking can be rather difficult sometimes.

Jedidiah.

Re:why the switch?

[Tenareth]

The company decided that support would be easier if the entire international company ran a single image, allowing for global rollouts of software more easily. This was partially created by some problems with some major rollouts on a global scale because of different versions of Windows behaving so differently.

Also, Microsoft wanted to use us a proving ground for AD on a global scale... however, the switchover has been so painful that we still aren't fully AD enabled. Issues with major incompatibilities with WindowsXP and our in-house developed applications has been a major stumbling block.

There were also several hardware upgrades we had to do due to the increased requirements of XP over 2000 and NT.

How Many Of These Were Avoidable?

[theManInTheYellowHat]

Of the reboots that were done how many could be avoided by knowing how to get out of what caused the lockup? I know that the average user just does a reboot to get the problem solved when ending a task might get them out of a jam.

100% of the time

[razmaspaz]

Technically I get a failure after every session. I never reboot (at home or work) unless there is a failure. Those failures may be weeks apart, but they are failures that terminate sessions. If they are harvesting info from 1.2M computers there is no way that they are analyzing the cause of the failure. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't investigate the cause of the reboot or the uptime before the reboot. (The areticle mentions neither) Allow me to propose a different scenario for Windows. One more like mine. Most PC users at work happily go about their day and shut down their computer at the end of it. They experience a failure maybe 1/50 days. People like me push their computer to do alot and never reboot it. I experience a failure 1/1 times, but only every 7 days. Others genuinely have problems with their pc and when they reboot their system fails immediately upon restart creating a higher than average or 10/10 failures in a single day. All of these come out to 8% failures. I did no math here...just guessing on the average.

Prime example of why the STORYIES need modding.

[nlinecomputers]

If every a story itself was a troll this one is it. I hate Windows too but the story is misleading as Taco refers to it. It only 8% of windows FAILURES need rebooting as the solution not an 8% failure rate.

I run both Linux and Windows desktops. I reboot about one every two weeks and then usually it is because I've installed a patch or program that requires a reboot to work. In general most of my apps that I run are stable and I get rid of those that aren't.

X-Windows crashes more often for me the MS Windows does. But at least all I have to do for X is restart the X server. MS Windows I do have to reboot. Both are a pain but a full reboot is more painful.

Re:Puh-lease

[erikharrison]

XP is 1000 times as stable as 2000, but it's with this trade off: device drivers and bad hardware can crash the system.

What?

Device drivers have run in executive memory space since NT 3.1. Since when can 2k not be crashed by a driver that WILL crash XP? 2k moved the GDI into the executive, so the stability level with video drivers is the same between the two, and bad hardware will ALWAYS crash a system equally. Sure, XP's pretty stable, and I'd even argue that since it was less of a archetectural change than NT->2k was, it may even be more stable than 2k, but your sentence doesn't make any sense.

There isn't any design decision that I know of in XP that makes it less stable vis-a-vis bad drivers but more stable overall. That's bunk. In fact, XP introduced driver signing as an answer to 2k's driver issues. And no OS can escape bad hardware, period.

Yes, but what was running on the machines?

[Zerbey]

I run Windows XP at work, I've been running it since early 2002. The 12% figure seems artificially high to me. Yes, XP does fail but by my estimate it only seems to fail on me once a month or so. That would be about 3% of the time by my calculations. Windows 2000 was comparable, maybe twice a month it would freeze up enough to require a reboot.

Windows 98 (not SE) was less than this, I only rebooted my Windows 98 box every 2-3 months. About 2.5% of the time in that case. Windows 95 crashed 3 or 4 times a day :)

So, if you factor in adding patches, I maybe loose 1 hour of work per month due to faults with the OS.

I think the main reason my Windows boxes stay fairly stable is because I don't install a great deal of software on them. I only install Office (Microsoft), A virus scanner, Gaim, Firefox, Thunderbird and a few apps I need for my job. I also keep up to date on patches, and do housekeeping tasks like keeping my disks defragmented.

Most of the unstable Windows boxes I've seen are the ones that have been overloaded with a ridiculous number of apps, most of them the silly ones that come on cereal packets :) One notorious box I had to repair took 45 minutes to load due to the sheer number of stupid apps the user had loading up (stock quotes, desktop weather, a dancing fish, Gator, football score app, etc. etc.... what a waste).

I'm not saying Windows doesn't have its flaws (I think everyone would be happy to forget Me!), but if used sensibly it's not *that* unreliable.

As a comparison, my Linux servers have maintained a 100% uptime so far as crashes are concerned. The only thing that's knocked them out in the last 12 months has been due to Hurricanes. My Linux desktop (KDE), however, crashes about once every 2 months. So, from a desktop perspective at least, Linux is about as reliable as Windows XP.

Yeesh

[Beelub]

Anyone who has to reboot Windows during 8% of their sessions really needs to find someone who knows what they're doing to set up their box for them.

Windows (especially XP) is damned stable if set up right.

-ANY- OS is damned unstable if not set up right.

What does Linux have to do with it?

[argent]

I mean, Linux is a commodity OS with a patchy history and no special attention paid to high availability. My own experience with Linux is that it's maybe average for low-end UNIX these days. But even "average" means "multi-year uptimes are not unusual".

If a company is running systems that have to remain up, they're going to run an OS designed for the job. A real high-availability system like Non-Stop can handle OS upgrades without downtime, and the expected uptime of an installation is the same as the lifetime of the installation: it's booted when it's installed and it runs until it's replaced.

Real-time control systems have similar requirements, though at the high end you have two live systems running lockstep so one can take over from the next, and they can be brought down for plant refurbishments (after they've cleanly brought the process to a safe halt).

Re:A bit too high..

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Let's have some fun with a simulated SAT question!

Windows 2000 is to Windows XP as:

1. Win 3.1 is to Win 95
2. Win 95 is to Win 98
3. Win 98 is to ME
4. Jango Fett is to Boba Fett

Linux reboot rates - my experience

[asimulator]

My RH 7.1 box at work seemingly lives forever; I've rebooted the machine for "therapeutic" reasons after 180 days' uptime.

My RH WS3 box on the other hand wants a reboot every few weeks. It doesn't crash, it doesn't lock out but it slowly becomes sluggish (99+ % idle time, ever increasing load, ...)

I power down my other linux boxen when I'm done, so I never clock an uptime longer than a few hours.

OTOH, the laptop running XP has never crashed on me yet.

You are wrong

[adiposity]

Plain and simple, there is no way XP is "1000 times as stable" as Win2k. It's not even *more* stable than win2k. I have been using Win2k for a very long time, and I am still waiting for XP to be good enough to switch. There are a few features of XP that I'd like to use, but I'm not willing to give up the stability of my 2000 box.

Now, upon what are you basing the assertion that XP is 1000 more stable than Win2K? My understanding is that both have a similar kernel design / driver interface. In fact, many Win2K drivers work fine on XP and vice-versa. It seems probable that Win2K is actually *more* stable, since it has had longer to mature and has had more service packs. Granted, most of those fixes have probably gone into XP, too, but the newer features of XP may not be as clean.

I have to agree with you about drivers in general, however. They are pretty much the only thing that has ever caused me problems with Win2k / XP. The one thing about XP that seems worse is its scheduler, which seems to lock up the system occasionally for about 5-10 seconds while using explorer.

Maybe you meant 2000/XP are 1000 times more stable than Me/98? Because that makes a great deal of sense. 2000 has never been considered an unstable OS, IMO, by those who know how to use it. XP simply continues the tradition, although I think it has dropped back a bit.

-Dan

Re:This has become accepted

[Zarf]

isn't the whole point of Windows supposed to be that it is easy to use and easy to administer? Isn't that why it's supposed to better than UNIX?

Easy is in the eye of the beholder.

People don't use Windows because it's better. They use it because it's easier. It's easier than having to learn something new. It's easier than having to install new software. It's easier than having to think about choices. It's just easier.

It's easier to reboot 12 times. Easier to just use Office. Easier to just reinstall the OS. Easier to just not care.

People don't vote because it's easier not to vote. Easier not to make up their minds... easier to just complain.

Change is hard work. Even if it's good change. Change is stressful even if it's change for the better. Change is not easier than just suffering with what you know. Learning is hard work.

Mod parent way up Up UP!

[khasim]

"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.

Re:Mod parent way up Up UP!

[cheekyboy]

what shits me is windows with 512 meg ram, and after running some apps etc... doing some usefull stuff, only use say 300meg ram at most, but it still thrashes the HD when swapping from FIREFOX to VSTUDIO to THUNDERBIRD to NERO. Yes all those apps suck a lot of ram, but my total ram usage is NEVER above total real ram in the system, so windows is too stupid to realise "hey stop caching so much shit that only gets loaded once and rarely, keep the APPS in ram, dont PAGE them out"

How the hell do we force windows (xp/2k) to stop paging apps out to SWAP when it really doesnt need to, and also how to tell it NOT to cache so damn much, id like to configure caching based on folders/applications to define inclusions/exclusions just like a firewall. I want a firewall for my ram :)

I insanely HATE how firebox gets paged out to swap when not used and minimized, can mozilla team just hack/tweak their code someone to force most of it not to swap out, or use none-pageable ram allocations?

Situation 2.
XP with 256 meg ram, ZERO swap/vm. Boot up minimum services/setup, using 150meg free unused).

Why not just leave everything in ram, and page out stuff thats used least often based on historical usage not just the last few hrs. Dont cache everything from the HD, only really frequently used stuff and *ALL* desktop/menu ICONS, damn why is a 3ghz PC load 50 icons worth 100kb so slowly? Pathetic C++ code????? what is it?

Is it a case of "bugger it, 1gig ram is $100, cheaper than using good coding/design" ?

Re:Mod parent way up Up UP!

[gnuman99]

Is it a case of "bugger it, 1gig ram is $100, cheaper than using good coding/design" ?

Sorry. Windows will still need swap. I have 1G and I still need at least 500MB ram. I have applications that can use about 300MB, and then after they run for a while and there is no swap, Windows will complain that it is low on "virtual memory". And there is still 650MB free!! I guess it used the rest for a disk cache and doesn't want to free it for the application. Ridicules.

Zero swap craps out windows no matter how much ram you have. :(

Re:Mod parent way up Up UP!

[glitch23]

My g/f says I have terrible up time...I mean....nevermind.

what time span?

[night_flyer]

4, 8 & 12% of what?

my Windows 2k box at work has been running since (thinks about when the last power outage was) May... so am I to be expecting it to be out of commision now for 15 days really soon?

Re:I'm no *nix master, but...

[GreyWolf3000]

Patching applications does not require a reboot in Linux. Ever.

I don't know why it does in Windows--or why applications require that you restart after their initial installation.

I think the reason that rebooting is such a problem in Windows is because the culture around it has embraced rebooting as a catch-all solution.

When I used to run Windows, I never would let applications restart, and I rarely had problems with it. And that was in the Windows 98 days :)

User Error

[ddelrio]

I'm surprised to hear so many people agree with this study. You'd think the slashdot crowd would be able to keep a simple OS like Windows XP from constantly crashing. If 12% of your sessions end in a reboot, you're doing something wrong.

Sounds like a buncha FUD to me.

[jafac]

I develop a product for a desktop system that's tightly managed in terms of software that's installed, user's rights are sharply curtailed, and the system is on an isolated network. The OS is Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with Service Pack 6a.

8% sounds kinda high to me. These systems, while they have their faults (mostly related to access of the DVD burner causing Explorer to hang or pause for extended periods), they're pretty damn solid.

In a tightly-controlled environment, even NT 4.0 can be well-behaved.

On the other hand, in "the wild", I have not yet seen a Windows system, even XP, that survives on it's own for longer than a month or two, and after that, the owner better be tech savvy, and not afraid to do OS reinstalls. Worms, Adware, Spyware, bad user habits, and just plain crappy commercial software, are all just a bit more than a typical Windows OS installation can handle.

What brings me to even post this entry is just that in my prior years of experience, Windows was always just a piece of crap. I dealt with it on a daily basis. But in the past two years, when I changed jobs, I found that you CAN engineer a safe sandbox, in which Windows can actually be reliable and useful.
I freely admit that my situation represents probably less than one one-hundredth of one percent of all Windows systems out there. But there it is. My point is, that saying "8% of all Windows Sessions Crash" is stupid. It depends on the environment, and the user, and the situation.

I can't really compare to Linux, because I don't have a whole lot of experience with Linux in "the wild". But I can say that Mac OS X is an order of magnitude more stable and robust, with minimal intervention by a tech-savvy admin.

Re:Sounds like a buncha FUD to me.

[prshaw]

>>Worms, Adware, Spyware, bad user habits, and just plain crappy commercial software, are all just a bit more than a typical Windows OS installation can handle.

And this makes Windows a piece of crap?

There isn't an OS that can handle all of that. I can write crappy software that will cause problems on almost anything. Worms? They are availiable for just about any (if not all) OS there is. Bad user habits? How can an OS do anything about that? If I want to run as root, is that RedHat's fault? Spyware, keyloggers, network sniffers and all of that is just the user running programs. The OS (ESPECIALLY MICROSOFT) had better NOT tell me what programs I can run on my machine! I want to download and install 6 copies of Gater it had better let me. And it's not the OS's fault if I do. It's not the OS's fault if I do it and don't know what I am doing.

There are many reasons an OS might be a piece of crap. Hard to code for, missing functionality, OS itself have access violations, hard to use, and on and on.

But the reasons you gave just prove the OS is popular, not a piece of crap.

That's strange

[DaveCBio]

I worked at a game development company for 5 years and XP was the most stable OS I had ever used in all that time. My reboot percentage on XP is far, far below 12%. I know it's anecdotal, but my experiences contradict their results.

Re:I'm no *nix master, but...

[cowbutt]

Patching applications does not require a reboot in Linux. Ever.

Strictly speaking, that's correct, but if you update a widely used library (e.g. glibc) then you'll still need to restart all the applications that use it in order that they use the updated version of the library, otherwise they'll still be using the unlinked-but-not-gone-until-closed version. By the time you've done that, rebooting might well be the quickest thing to do, especially if you have lots of network-reachable services that are vulnerable because they inherit some flaw from the library in question.

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Re:This has become accepted

[Ahnteis]

Meanwhile, what else is there? Linux? Don't make me laugh. Linux has it's uses, but average-user-desktop is NOT one of them.

Macintosh? Pay waaaay more and can't run most wal-mart/etc software.

It's all well and good to delude ourselves into thinking there's a viable alternative, but for most people there simply isn't. How about focussing the energy spent bashing windows into making linux useable?

Re:Did they think...

[prshaw]

And how would you explain 98 being more stable under VMWARE?

VMWARE doesn't replace any of the OS does it? Just provide a simulated hardware enviroment for it?

A comment like this would lead me to believe that the instability without VMWARE is either from bad hardware, or flakey hardware drivers for non-emulated hardware.