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Microsoft Quietly Previews PC Advisor Repair Tool
notthatwillsmith writes "On Friday, Microsoft invited members of the Windows Feedback Program to try out a preview of a new application, the Microsoft PC Advisor. The new tool promises to 'continuously monitor your PC for problems and give you the solutions to fix them, in real time.' After testing on several Vista machines with a variety of problems, Maximum PC has written a full report on the Microsoft PC Advisor. The short version? Like every other 'PC Repair' tool they've tested, the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers."
A couple weeks ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, Barack Obama -- the messiah himself -- came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was busy and in any case I was sure the secret service wouldn't even let me shake his hand.
As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as his cock -- or at least as I imagined it!
I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a liberal democrat and had been on the Obama train since last year. Of course I'd had fantasies of meeting him, sucking his cock and balls, not to mention sucking his asshole clean, but I never imagined I would have the chance. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of Barack Obama, the chosen one.
Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?
I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled.
I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big half nigger cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was that Barack Obama wasn't there to see my loyalty and wash it down with his piss.
I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit. It's even better than listening to an Obama speech!
Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.
I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.
I often think of Barack Obama dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful democrat.
Did it detect the problem that Windows was installed, and recommend replacing it?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is what it would be like, if the majority of people were athiests.
ATHIEST KID: Mom, I'm going to go fuck a hooker.
ATHIEST MOM: Okay, son.
ATHIEST KID: Afterwards, I'm going to go smoke pot with my friends, since it's "not addictive."
ATHIEST MOM: Okay, come home soon!
The athiest kid leaves the room. The father comes home from work several minutes later.
ATHIEST DAD: Hey!
ATHIEST MOM: Hi, honey! I'm pregnant again. I guess I'll just get another abortion, since "fetuses don't count as human life."
ATHIEST DAD: Okay, get as many abortions as you want!
ATHIEST MOM: Oh, and don't go in the bedroom.
ATHIEST DAD: Why not?
ATHIEST MOM: There are two gay men fucking eachother in there.
ATHIEST DAD: Why are they here?
ATHIEST MOM: I wanted to watch them do it for awhile. They just aren't finished yet.
ATHIEST DAD: Okay, that's fine with me!
Suddenly, their neighbor runs into the house.
ATHIEST NEIGHBOR: Come quick, there's a Christian outside!
ATHIEST MOM: We'll be right there!
The athiest couple quickly put on a pair of black robes and hoods. They then exit the house, and run into the street, where a Christian is nailed to a large, wooden X. He is being burned alive. A crowd of athiests stand around him, all wearing black robes and hoods.
RANDOM ATHIEST: Damn you, Christian! We hate you! We claim to be tolerant of all religions. But we really hate your's! That's because we athiests are hypocritical like that! Die, Christian!
THE END
Scary, isn't it?
This tool seems to be made to improve user experience for non technical users and the whole review goes on and on that technical user could already do these things by himself.
That MS would surely get in trouble for this, but MS could very well use a repository, along with MD5 hashes of recommended programs.
They could provide what we Linux users have with Synaptic and dpkg. They could provide "MS Legit Software", "Driver Repository", "3rd party Software", and "GPL and derivatives". There's 6 branches of Windows to do right now (98, ME, 2k, XP, 03 server, Vista), and most of them are rather outdated.
But really, can we really say how bad this tool is by it not catching somewhat out of date drivers? Where exactly can a bot get the filename for the specific driver you need? nVidia, ATI, and Intels websites are rather hard to find drivers IF you screen-scrape.
You appear to be trying to install Firefox as your primary Web browser. I've deleted the downloaded installer and alerted the authorities. Is there anything else you'd like to do today?
If you have to use a whole bunch of programs that consume a whole chunk of the computer's processing power just so that the computer can function properly, then something is damn wrong with it, on the very basic level.
I mean, wouldn't it be easier to fix the reasons of those common problems if they're so common, than it is to make some bizarre problem-solving applications?
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
...is good at advising to upgrade out of date drivers if they cause problems.
I've had it diagnose a bunch of dodgy drivers with success before; I'm not quite sure what the angle on this tool is.
throw new NoSignatureException();
The tool did NOT find the problem that was causing their crashes. Which was that their video drivers were to versions behind.
What the tool DID "find" was mostly meaningless (empty IE's temp folder and such).
Just what i'd expect from microsoft.
Take the most annoying, derided aspect out of every piece of software they've ever made, turn it into a stand-alone app, and make it apply to your whole computer.
"it looks like a virus has infected me, your helpful system-fix program! would you like some help with that?--Or WoUlD YoU LiKe To Go To HeLl"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
...so it's time to add another. ;-)
The REAL problem is that these tools have a different agenda to the end user. The end user just wants the damn thing to work. The vendor wants to sell them more software, do a security theatre dance around the PC. The geek coding isn't able to step back and work out what the user will and won't understand (and none of these tools have really good help explaining the technical gibberish in plain English). So what these tools invariably do is just throw up technically correct but obscure messages that the user just clicks to get rid of. Half the time if the user does bother to take the suggested action, the outcome is bad because the software was never smart enough to make the decision, and the end user just never understood the problem in the first place.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Okay, I'm going to make a post here that falls into two parts.
Firstly, this is a pretty useful utility for those that aren't very computer savvy. Everyone knows that most "slowness" can be resolved by simply maintaining the computer every now and again. Clearing temp files, defragmenting, cleaning off viruses, trojans, and other malware. So for the people that are prone to these types of problems, this is a pretty useful utility.
Their alternative is either "the friend" whom has now grown up and gotten a real IT job and doesn't want to be bothered by them, or Best Buy's GeekSquad who will try and tell you your ram is broken and your hard drive died, all the while copying your personal album off of the PC to their internal servers.
Now, the more "OMG anti M$" side of the argument is that Microsoft needs to do something to help improve its image with consumers. Right now, consumers just don't like Windows. In fact, quite the opposite is true. There is a growing movement of disdain for Windows. While every day normal Joe might not care either way, the people he or she asks for computer purchasing advice does care.
Microsoft, after years of keeping hands off on a lot of issues with Windows due to the whole "antitrust" thing, is finally taking charge and trying to improve their image with their software. A "We Care(tm)" approach to a person's computers. That not all Windows is good for is viruses and spyware and Microsoft is actively trying to help its users.
Doing the above, at least Microsoft hopes, may improve confidence and trust in the company.
Either of the above ways you wish to look at it, it's a free utility. It's useful, provides some recommendations about your computer, and provides some help to users who otherwise would just get frustrated.
It also has some sort of built in advertising tool that I'm not sure what exactly is there for since there are no "Offers" available yet.
It seems to be someone who's more "ATHI" than anybody else, but what's exactly an ATHI?
I'm getting a bit frustrated waiting for the industry to realize they need to make those applications a little more interactive.
For example, from the article, the tool suggested a number of IE fixes when the primary browser used on the system is Firefox. The tool detecting the default browser is easy, but IE may still be used while not being default.
The solution: just damn ask the user, does he use IE despite it's not the default browser. Just make the process more like a dialog, let the user add some input to the process.
When a collection of solutions is formed, don't just spit them to the user, but ask him what problems he has, what apps he uses, and dynamically trim/modify the proposed solutions according to that. It's still faster than waiting for an actual person to show up and fix the problems, and that person would still ask the user a lot of those questions.
The same tools that were being discussed before, called Vista Gurus, that wander around Best Buy stores and try to convince people how good Vista is?
Am I missing something?
It's free ... it's by Microsoft ... and anything which puts purveyors of useless "fix your PC" utilities out of business is OK by me.
No sig today...
The new tool promises to 'continuously monitor your PC for problems and give you the solutions to fix them, in real time.' After testing on several Vista machines with a variety of problems, Maximum PC has written a full report on the Microsoft PC Advisor.
PC Advisor: "I noticed you are running Vista. That is probably the reason for your variety of problems. Would you like to downgrade to Windows XP, for this limited time offer of $99.99? Cancel or Allow?
Windows Firewall: "PC Advisor Repair Tool is trying to reach the Internet. Block or Unblock?"
Windows Defender: "I noticed you are running a program called "PC Advisor", Windows Defender does not recognize this program. Would you like to remove or disable "PC Advisor"?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Clippy:
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
[btuxed0.org],
The thing that seems to not be addressed is that this tool is specifically targeted for a small number of people. The software itself is not "beta", however the issues and problems that it searches for and repairs should be considered beta. The whole point of releasing this to a small, specifically invited group of people is to fine tune and make the detection and repair database much more useful before it is ready for the general population. The following is taken directly from the invitation email:
"As part of this study, you would download and install the Microsoft PC Advisor application and provide feedback on the impact on your Windows Vista PC through 3 brief surveys over the next 6 months"
For a product that is at least 6 months away from being released to the general public, this article is no more than a misrepresentation of the goals of the software at this point in time. And as the "invited" users use the tool, they will have the chance to provide feedback to help improve the capabilities of the utility.
That being said, this tool will never be a useful tool for power users that already know how to tweak their systems and update software, and the final release database may not be much better in the end anyway. But if that is the case, write an article at that point Will Smith, not when a product has barely begun building a database and is on an invitation only basis. I like to bash Micro$oft as much as anyone else, but this article is FUD. I'm guessing that Will had this passed along to him from a third party with some missing information, at least I hope, it is the worst piece of "journalism" I have seen from the man.
Marcaen
Lite is straining There a8e only purposes *BSD is has run faster All major surveys recent Sys Admin tthey are Come
it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers
Funny, my Linux install updates these!?!
This problem has already been solved. The Sparkle library provides easy standardized self-updating functionality to OS X apps. How does it check for updates? It simply accesses an appcast, an RSS 2.0 feed that has one item per update with an <enclosure> tag pointing to the download. The technology is neither Sparkle-specific (although the particular format Sparkle uses is), nor is it complicated. People just have to use it.
Yeah, scraping ever-changing site layouts to determine software versions is bad but the problem is trivially solved through the use of a standardized (even if ad-hoc) interface. Microsoft could easily just add an appcast client to WU and have programs register their appcasts with WU on first launch. If the <enclosure> tag doesn't point to a Microsoft certificate for the file the update is marked as "uncertified" and if the tag points to a certificate that doesn't match the file after both have been downloaded the update failes with a security warning and the user is advised to wait a few days for news from the vendor and update manually if necessary. It's essentially a decentralized, limited version of a package manager requiring very little work from MS.
Then they just need to add querying capabilities to WU (available to Administrator-level accounts) and repair software can actually try to determine whether the drivers are up to date.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
If M$ had an automated tool that made Vista work, Vista would simply work. They would, you know, push it out in a "Windows Update" like other patches. Why go though this silly game where you tell the user to go get things from vendors? A good tool would say, "you need x, y, and z. check those you want to install", like every GNU/Linux distribution does. Non free software won't ever have a comprehensive tool like that and M$ would not know what to do with it if they did have one.
M$ is a stumbling zombie. All they can do at this point is fuck things up. Someone put a stake through the company's heart please. Next week should be nastier than last week for the soft, ring the bell and watch them go to zero. No product, no value, game over.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Something else to natter at me. Does Microsoft realize that, when we were talking about new popups that Windows could defecate onto the screen, we were just kidding?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Actually, this is how it would really be like if the majority of all people were atheists:
ATHEIST KID: I'm flying to planet Zebulon to fuck a hooker. Because we atheists can fly. Through space.
ATHEIST MOM: Okay, ATHEIST SON.
ATHEIST KID: Afterwards I'm going to smoke rolled up plastic foil with my friends because our super-lungs can handle any kind of toxic smoke and we want to rub it in the Christian guys' faces.
ATHEIST MOM: Okay, son. Don't accidentally kill too many innocent bystanders.
The atheist kid leaves the room. The father comes home from work several minutes later.
ATHEIST DAD: Hey!
ATHEIST MOM: Hi, ATHEIST DAD! I'm pregnant again becauce our super-gametes were too super for both the condom and the pill.
ATHEIST DAD: No problem; like always we'll abort by going back in time and zapping the ovum with the X-ray laser vision all us atheists have, which I'm pointing out for no reason at all.
ATHEIST MOM: Oh, and don't go into the bedroom.
ATHEIST DAD: Why not?
ATHEIST MOM: Superman and Batman are making out in there. Again.
ATHEIST DAD: You really should produce your movies elsewhere.
Suddenly, their neighbor runs into the house.
ATHEIST NEIGHBOR: Come quick, there's a Christian outside!
ATHEIST MOM: We'll be right there!
The atheists quickly put on a couple of black spandex outfits with an "A" logo. Then they exit the house and fly into the street where a twenty meter tall heavily armored combat Christian is tearing up the neighbourhood with its shoulder-mounted "Stigmatizer" nailgun. The atheists combine their powers to emit a deadly laser beam that vaporizes the Christian in a huge cross-shaped explosion.
RANDOM ATHEIST: Damn you, Christian! We claim to be tolerant of all religions. But we really hate yours! That's because we atheists really got the short end of the stick by only getting immortality, flight, time travel, X-ray laser vision, telepathy, telkinesis, super-charisma, untold riches, dashing good looks and the ability to understand British English while you got nailguns and dyslexia! Die, Christian!
THE END
Super-scary, isn't it?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Seriously devote that time and those resources to making the target system more hardened more resilient instead of giving me another monitor that sucks up CPU and RAM to give me some flashy lights and blinky things to impress me that you're serious about my welfare. The best system is a dumb box that just works 100% every time all the time, forever.
inventing excuses abysmal sales and and help us! Feel obligated to deliver. Some of
Somebody who is "a"-typical is not typical. Somebody who is "a"-theistic is not theistic. Theistic people believe in the existence of one or more gods.
The global economy is undergoing a general meltdown, but you're actually sitting there rejoicing at the fall of MSFT (along with everything else) and using it as proof that they're finally dying?
GOOG is also down something fierce, should I start screaming to the four winds that they're a "stumbling zombie"? What about IBM, down to 4-year lows? Are they dying too?
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
They choose to spy user more (possibly asking for money later) instead of fixing their OS.
Even Apple with dedicated and trusting userbase can't dare to offer such thing. Apple has almost hidden from user "Send system information to Apple" in "System Profiler" (in Utilities). What it does is produce a XML file, bzip2 it and send that plain compressed file to Apple without and cryptic stuff. A complete opt-in thing promises nothing! That is the way to go. You can't promise user to "enhance".
If MS suspects third party stuff (devices) for Vista problems, they should travel to the building providing these:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/default.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHQL_Testing
I have seen 20% CPU using WHQL certified network drivers, programs certified by MS developed by people who doesn't really know how MS Installer arch works etc.
While spending my time writing this, MS already knows a lot about the users computer. They just make it official now. Also they have stolen concept of http://www.pcpitstop.com/ (lame looking but clean). PC Pitstop _does_ suggest really meaningful things in return.
Going through your posts, and its surprising you have been so under the radar with this one twitter. But alas you yet again made a mistake of using the under the radar accounts to shill yourself and of course recently exposing yourself with "M$" twitter identifiers both in this and the other post you made on this article
Twitter sockpupet shilling again people
Proceed to karma hell!
Please GPL your OS, then people will fashion fully functional tools.
You would still be able to charge tons in support (who will people prefer to support Windows?...)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Are you seriously telling us that MS could not develop a protocol to validate drivers?
It would be as simple as asking a copy of a given driver in order for your product to obtain MS seal of approval, then MS would keep a database of all drivers and compare that against whatevere it is in your own computer.
With companies like Intel, Nvidia, HP, Asus and other big manufacturers this should be an smooth, automatic process.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So here we have another piece of software that will eat up my CPU cycles and run innoculously in the background (ha ha). Doesn't Vista run bloody slow enough?
My web domain.
If my drivers are working, why would I want to update them? If the new driver has a bug fix I need or a new feature I need, then fine.
I've been working in a computer shop for a while now, and believe me when I say that most of the click-happy people out there that download every new version of every driver in their system end up with broken systems.
Those who have been in the "consumer" software space for a while might remember CyberMedia First Aid, a total piece of shit program for Windows 95 that actually launched Telnet when prompting the user to grab a file via FTP. First Aid 98 improved on things a bit, but not much.
There was also Symantec's short-lived PC Handyman that did the same thing as the Microsoft PC Advisor but also included instructional videos, an NLP interface sitting on top of an inference case base, and limited functionality tie-ins of Norton AntiVirus and Utilities.
Obviously, neither caught long term fire with the public. I'm not sure why Microsoft thinks PC Advisor will be any different.
"the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious"
Like the obvious apostrophe missing?
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
PC Repair Advisory Tool
SURELY NOT!!!!!
I wonder if it also uninstalls itself then?
I've found to have your pc run most quickly and efficiently simply delete or disable all the Microsoft craplets like this.
A sticker applied to the front that says "wwww.linux.org". Problem solved.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not everybody who puts a dollar sign in Microsoft is a twitter sockpuppet.
Read this post before you decide. Personally, I think if twitter typed this...
...his keyboard would spontaneously combust.
MSFT up 18.6% for the day. How are you going to explain that to your sponsors?