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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they've tested, the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers."
Did it detect the problem that Windows was installed, and recommend replacing it?
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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 There's 6 branches of Windows to do right now (98, ME, 2k, XP, 03 server, Vista), and most of them are rather outdated.
But really, can we really say how bad this tool is by it not catching somewhat out of date drivers?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...is good at advising to upgrade out of date drivers if they cause problems.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();
...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
where exactly does the review say that?
the author's major complaints against the tool seem to be:
it sounds like the author's evaluation that this program offers non-fixes for non-problems seems like a pretty accurate one. he does give the program benefit of the doubt and states:
i think they were just expecting what MS tried to promise--a program that would actually help troubleshoot computer problems. but in the end, Microsoft's PC Advisor Repair Tool suffers the same problem as other PC repair programs--they don't work.
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 $99.99? Cancel or Allow?
Windows Firewall: "PC Advisor Repair Tool is trying to reach the Internet. Block or Unblock?"
Windows Defender: "I noticed you are running a program called "PC Advisor", Windows Defender does not recognize this program. Would you like to remove or disable "PC Advisor"?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
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
An athiest is like an atheist, except dyslexic. They don't believe there is a dog.