Microsoft Denies Windows 7 "Showstopper Bug"

Barence writes "Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has taken the unusual step of responding in the comments of a blog posting that claimed Windows 7 was suffering from a potential 'showstopper bug'. Stories had been sweeping the Internet that using the chkdsk.exe utility on a second hard disk would lead to a massive memory leak bringing the operating system to its knees in seconds. Responding to a blog post titled 'Critical Bug in Windows 7 RTM,' Sinofsky wrote: 'While we appreciate the drama of "critical bug" and then the pickup of "showstopper" that I've seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level.' He signs off with the words: 'deep breath.'"

Comments

RAM optimization

[sopssa]

I wonder how this obviously one-sided summary even got posted -- it just sounds like a calling for bashing from people who dont read the article. Here's another snippet from Steven's response:

We had one beta report on the memory usage, but that was resolved by design since we actually did design it to use more memory. But the design was to use more memory on purpose to speed things up, but never unbounded â" we requset the available memory and operate within that leaving at least 50M of physical memory. Our assumption was that using /r means your disk is such that you would prefer to get the repair done and over with rather than keep working.

And it does make sense for two reasons:
1) Windows has to lock the drive anyways, so its better to get it done fast.
2) You CAN spend RAM. If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it. In this case chkdsk.exe will use dynamically what there is left, making the process faster. How is this a bad thing?

Rather than a bug or memory leak, this seems like an optimization.

Re:RAM optimization

[FatAlb3rt]

Optimizations aren't supposed to crash the computer.

The original report I read was full of drama, too much IMHO, and the bug could be fixed in the first service update.

Re:RAM optimization

[GreenEnvy22]

Agreed, this is a non issue, or at worst, a very tiny issue. For the very tiny amount of people out there that will run "Chkdsk -r" on a secondary partition, they may see almost all their ram used up while it is scanning the disk. If they have prexisting hardware or software glitches, it might blue screen on them. For the 90% of consumers who would never run chkdsk, and who don't have more then one parition, this is a complete non-issue.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

According to your link, the bug is already fixed. Apparently an incompatibility with chip set drivers for which new drivers are available that remove the possibility of the crash.

Re:RAM optimization

[Nimey]

Haven't read many kdawson stories?

Re:RAM optimization

[sycotic]

Have a read of this: http://www.bluescreenofdeath.org/?p=94#comment-134

 

UPDATE:
After emailing back and forth with the VP Sinofsky, it was found that the chkdsk /r tool is not at fault here. It was simply a chipset controller issue. Please update you chipset drivers to the current driver from your motherboard manufacturer. I did mine, and this fixed the issue. Yes it still uses alot of physical memory, because your checking for physical damage, and errors on the Harddrive your testing. Iâ(TM)m currently completed the chkdsk scan with no BSODâ(TM)s or computer sluggishness. Feel free to do this and try it for yourselves. Again, there is no Bug.
Thanks all.

Re:RAM optimization

[geekoid]

No, it's not tiny, in fact it could be a huge issue; however this is a chip set problem, not a win 7 problem.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

2) You CAN spend RAM. If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it. In this case chkdsk.exe will use dynamically what there is left, making the process faster. How is this a bad thing?

This sounds a lot like the Outlook 2007 discussion on Vista (and some reports on XP). Vista has "advanced memory management" and Outlook "continually asks for RAM, as long as some is available". The result? Outlook allocates ~700M, according to the Task Manager process list, while the Physical Memory free (on a 3G system) reports 6% free. Closing Outlook brings the ram free percentage up to %60. Some MS MVP said just what you said "The RAM is available, so Outlook uses it and the program responds faster, that's a good thing", completely disregarding the fact that the computer is near unresponsive to everything else. A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed". Using over 2G of RAM to open 3 emails is absurd, using 1G for texture and sound data is more reasonable.

Re:RAM optimization

[Your.Master]

Hey, but it's nothing like that. Using all of your RAM to check a disk for damage and repair it in response to a user's specific request is not like having Outlook open in the background.

Re:RAM optimization

[Hurricane78]

How could he? There are no comments from him that could be called "stories". ^^

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Excerpt from parent should be added as an update to the summary.

Re:RAM optimization

[Kamokazi]

I think it's time to dust off the 'kdawsonfud' tag!

Re:RAM optimization

[plague3106]

Ya, and the only thing we see on that blog is a screenshot of how much memory chkdsk is using. Then he claims it crashes..

Sorry if I don't just blindly believe everything on the internet.

Re:RAM optimization

[HermMunster]

The issue with updates to drivers for Vista became a big issue (and assuming Vista 7 is newer) I would suspect there will be many issues with finding updates to those chipsets.

Re:RAM optimization

[HermMunster]

I regularly put customer's hard drives into a different computer as a secondary drive and run chkdsk. Your math sort of makes it seem like 4-5% of a market isn't a lot to account for, yet that 4-5% means in terms of the OS market hundreds of millions of users. Should we let you take those support calls?

Re:RAM optimization

[bonch]

People need to stop thinking the crash is only caused by Chkdsk. It's also caused by the built-in disk check utility of Explorer.

Re:RAM optimization

[rabbit994]

Actually isn't not unresponsive, Outlook will give up RAM quite happily and it's not opening 3 emails, it's keeping your entire PST/OST loaded into RAM so you don't bitch and complain when selecting different emails is "slow to load". Therefore if you have big .PST/OST expect for it to use alot of RAM.

However, I'm sitting on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with 6GB of RAM and Outlook is using 200MB total including what's committed for use and what's it happily taking because it can. I have 457MB .OST (Exchange cached file) so wanting to load half of it's not unreasonable. Linux uses similar memory management system and I don't hear alot of complaining about it.

Re:RAM optimization

[Zancarius]

Your math sort of makes it seem like 4-5% of a market isn't a lot to account for, yet that 4-5% means in terms of the OS market hundreds of millions of users.

I believe the OP said this:

For the 90% of consumers who would never run chkdsk, and who don't have more then one parition, this is a complete non-issue.

So really, it would be 10%. I sincerely doubt, however, that this chkdsk issue would affect more than an incredibly small number of systems. In other words, the grandparent is right. It's a non-issue.

Re:RAM optimization

[jank1887]

"will use dynamically"

that's fine if the ideal dynamic utilization has zero overhead. So if I need it for something, I get it back without delay. In practice, if it adds anything to my system's ability to allocate whatever memory I need to open something else, then it sucks.

Re:RAM optimization

[Desler]

So the statement "there is no bug" is blatantly false.

The GP you are responding to never claimed there was no bug at all. What is being said is that the bug is in the chipset controller driver or somewhere else, not in chkdsk like this FUD submission is trying to claim. Maybe next time you should learn some reading comprehension.

Re:RAM optimization

[m.ducharme]

I missed the part where having all your e-mail in one big file is a good thing. I've never had any problems with "slow to load" e-mails, whether I was using an offline e-mail client or being served e-mails from a webmail address. What exactly is so good about the PST/OST file that it's worth keeping EVERYTHING in RAM for? (I'm not being entirely sarcastic here, if there's a good reason for this, I'd like to know it).

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

"isn't not unresponsive"

Congratulations! You have plumbed a new depth in illiteracy. That's a triple negative. Did you really mean responsive or unresponsive?

Re:RAM optimization

[morgan_greywolf]

The GP quoted TFA, and the final statement of that quote is "There is no Bug." Furthermore, TFA furthermore states that the bug that bug may be in the OS or the chipset controller driver, but postulates that it may not be the driver because it happens in a wide range of setups. That does not imply that the bug is in chkdsk, and does not confirm that there is no bug in Windows 7.

Why don't you learn some reading comprehension?

Re:RAM optimization

[SilverEyes]

Just postulating; faster to search?

... although Outlook search is slow... so that can't be it.

Hmm...

Re:RAM optimization

[AmiMoJo]

This obsession with memory usage is silly.

RAM is very, very cheap now, less than £10 a gigabyte. I configure my software to use lots of RAM, because I prefer a fast computer to one with lots of free memory.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier To backup?

Re:RAM optimization

[SBrach]

Next time he will get a screenshot of the BSOD just for you.

Re:RAM optimization

[minvaren]

OEM PCs with a recovery partition spring to mind here...

Re:RAM optimization

[Zancarius]

OEM PCs with a recovery partition spring to mind here...

Probably so, but how many end users are going to run chkdsk /r? How many would run it on their recovery partition? Hint: Most users wouldn't know what chkdsk is.

The article seems to suggest this occurs on a second physical drive. Other data indicates this only affects certain controller chipsets. In either case, what GreenEnvy22 stated is true; it's a non-issue.

Re:RAM optimization

[PRMan]

I assume that if you wait for the chkdsk to be done, you'll get the memory back.

Re:RAM optimization

[Blakey Rat]

This is utter bullshit:

This sounds a lot like the Outlook 2007 discussion on Vista (and some reports on XP). Vista has "advanced memory management" and Outlook "continually asks for RAM, as long as some is available". The result? Outlook allocates ~700M, according to the Task Manager process list, while the Physical Memory free (on a 3G system) reports 6% free. Closing Outlook brings the ram free percentage up to %60. Some MS MVP said just what you said "The RAM is available, so Outlook uses it and the program responds faster, that's a good thing", completely disregarding the fact that the computer is near unresponsive to everything else. A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed". Using over 2G of RAM to open 3 emails is absurd, using 1G for texture and sound data is more reasonable.

I'm running Outlook 2007 on Vista right now this instant, and it's using 92MB of RAM. Physical memory free = 57%.

Even if Outlook was using all but 6% of free RAM, why would that necessarily make your system "unresponsive to everything else?" 6% of RAM is plenty to keep your machine responsive, assuming it has a gig or more in it.

And this statement:

A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed".

Is doubly-retarded. RAM takes time to fill, yet takes no time to empty. Therefore, all software should fill as much RAM as feasible to make itself more responsive to the user. RAM isn't some physical object you "take away" from something else-- if Outlook allocates RAM than another process needs, the OS just overwrites it as needed.

Re:RAM optimization

[rumith]

What if you saw a BSOD shot there, too? That wouldn't change anything: you could claim (and be perfectly in your right, btw) that he had probably found a random BSOD pic on Google and just put it there. So sometimes, you just have to blindly believe (or blindly reject) something you read, just because proving it right or wrong is a complete waste of your time (you can't be professionally interested in and capable of verifying anything in the world, nor is that necessary).

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are a blatant troll. I really want you to start posting at -1. That will make my cum boil.

Re:RAM optimization

[Dishevel]

yet that 4-5% means in terms of the OS market hundreds of millions of users.

Hmmm.

Minimum number in Hundreds of Millions would be 200 million 200,000,000

If the largest percentage you use is assumed %5

That means that X*.05=200,00,00

That is 4 billion computers in a world with a population of about 6.7 Billion People

Seeing as we can both agree that 60% (Which is the minimum percentage allowed with your statement.))of the people on the planet don't have a computer. I think I can safely call bullshit.

Re:RAM optimization

[init100]

If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it.

That's hardly the case. Unused RAM is used as a disk cache, so that frequently read disk blocks reside in RAM instead of on disk. This makes reading them extremely fast. If applications allocate memory willy-nilly just because it's there, there won't be any memory left for the disk cache, and your system might become very slow. And if even more memory is allocated, the system will start paging stuff in and out of memory, slowing stuff down even more.

Applications should use the amount of memory they need, preferably leaving caching to the operating system. Applications generally cannot know when other processes need the RAM better, and AFAIK cannot be told to release memory by other applications in any standardized way. Not to mention that they are not told when the disk cache becomes too small, or when paging starts to occur, since the operating system reasonably assumes that memory allocated is required by the application, not just held for the fun of it.

Re:RAM optimization

[plague3106]

My crappy cell phone can take video.

Re:RAM optimization

[hesiod]

I don't want the /. eds to be Pulitzer Prize winners.

I do. I don't demand it, but it would be pretty cool if they were.

Re:RAM optimization

[XcepticZP]

I swear, you just bloody made my day!! More mod points for this AC, come on, people!

Re:RAM optimization

[HermMunster]

Actually a disk check happens quite frequently for a lot of people. I'd say the affected number is still pretty large. No, not everyone schedules the disk check but Windows will initiate it itself at times, and yes, against a second hard drive.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Most OEM machines ship with more than one partition. We need to have higher standards for MS than for other software companies, for a variety of reasons.

I get what you're saying but by using the term non-issue you're not really being clear. It's a small issue that affects a subset of people doing something specific. However, that subset includes IT professionals.

Microsoft needs to be held to a higher standard than other software publishers, for a variety of reasons.

Re:RAM optimization

[BoostFab]

wait....didn't they certified these drivers...

Re:RAM optimization

[Zancarius]

Actually a disk check happens quite frequently for a lot of people. I'd say the affected number is still pretty large. No, not everyone schedules the disk check but Windows will initiate it itself at times, and yes, against a second hard drive.

Did you read the article? It stated rather plainly that the problem was with chkdsk /r. When Windows schedules chkdsk, it's usually after a crash or improper shutdown--and it does not attempt to scan for and fix bad sectors. Never have I seen Windows perform an automatic check in this particular case on other hard disks besides the boot device. Chances are, if chkdsk is run frequently for a lot of people, they're not shutting it down correctly (pulling the plug comes to mind). If that's the case, they're going to have far more trouble than just an OS crash.

So no, I think you're wrong. Very few people manually run chkdsk much less chkdisk /r.

Re:RAM optimization

[brkello]

And it sounds like as long as you are running updated firmware, you will be happy to know it will run faster under Windows 7. Maybe I should take the support calls. Oh wait, I like my job better.

Re:RAM optimization

[Zancarius]

I get what you're saying but by using the term non-issue you're not really being clear. It's a small issue that affects a subset of people doing something specific. However, that subset includes IT professionals.

To clarify, "non-issue" wasn't a term I came up with; I was parroting what the OP said. IMO, if the likely number of people who are affected ranges in the hundreds out of hundreds of thousands--or millions--of users, it's effectively a non-issue, particularly if it can be resolved by new chipset drivers.

I do agree that MS should be held to higher standards. However, Windows is a complicated piece of software and even Windows 7 is riddled with various design and architectural decisions that should have died off in the 90s. I think it's expected that there will be problems during a large-scale rollout and it's a good thing that this particular issue was caught when it was! Fortunately, it appears there are solutions already at hand.

Re:RAM optimization

[CharlyFoxtrot]

And it does make sense for two reasons: 1) Windows has to lock the drive anyways, so its better to get it done fast. 2) You CAN spend RAM. If the whole RAM isn't used, you're just wasting it. In this case chkdsk.exe will use dynamically what there is left, making the process faster. How is this a bad thing?

Rather than a bug or memory leak, this seems like an optimization.

Here's what I wonder when people advocate using all available RAM for running programs: what happens when I try to launch another program ? Parts will have to be swapped out, and again when the new program has a genuine need for more memory. You might say RAM is cheap, but swapping is still going to be slower than being frugal with memory in the first place. Keep mine lean and mean please, especially the recovery tools because I don't know what my system is going to look like when I need those.

Re:RAM optimization

[TimothyDavis]

What - you planning on running RTM bits forever? Can't patch your machine?

Re:RAM optimization

[Bacon Bits]

I just want them to have more journalistic integrity than Fox News, The Sun, or Daily Mail.

Honestly, when did being a reporter and not a pundit become such a difficult thing to do?

Re:RAM optimization

[sycotic]

someone give this guy a cookie

Re:RAM optimization

[sycotic]

I hate to be playing the devils advocate here, but have you not heard of mbox or Berkeley mail format?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_mailbox_format

Re:RAM optimization

[sycotic]

(in regards to keeping all of your email in one file)

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question, why don't you go find out for us?

Re:RAM optimization

[Bigjeff5]

You responded to a statement saying that the bug was determined to be in the chipset driver, not the OS, with a statement that says it MIGHT be in the chipset driver OR the OS.

Brilliant.

You know people don't always have the most current information regardless of how recent their post is, right? One post was by someone who FIXED the problem on their machine, the other a conversation with a MS rep who may or may not have had the best information as well.

To put it another way, you responed to "We found out why the chair is leaning, you can see where it is cracked and bowed here and here" with "Bob from the chair store thinks it's either the leg or the floor."

Sounds retarded huh?

Re:RAM optimization

[Bigjeff5]

That's just because Outlook search sucks. You don't want to know how bad it would be if they didn't load the PST/OST into ram.

Re:RAM optimization

[KlomDark]

Well yah, but a lot of people these days have more than one computer; a desktop AND a laptop.

And a lot of people at /. have more than 10.

Oh, but a couple of them run Linux.

Re:RAM optimization

[Bigjeff5]

Good god, can't you read?

I'll break it down for you, so you can understand multiple negations.

First, start with all positives: Is Responsive

Next, the first negation: Is Unresponsive - opposite of above.

Third, the double negation: Isn't Unresponsive - opposite of above, means the same as the pre-negation statement.

Last, the triple negation: Isn't Not Unresponsive - Opposite of above, means the same as the negated statement.

It means it is unresponsive. Or isn't responsive. Or is not responsive. They are all the same.

Whether or not that's what he meant, how the hell should I know? It's English for heaven's sake! There is an exception for every rule! (even that one)

As with everything in English, not using double+ negatives is not a rule, it's a suggestion for clarity. So is the placement of complex modifiers or the "rules" for pronouns, or never using a big word when a diminutive word will do. ;)

Re:RAM optimization

[Bigjeff5]

WTF?

Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

Unused RAM is RAM that is not being used. By anything. You open up task manager and see 500mb of RAM used out of 3gb, well, 2.5gb is not being used. That is unused RAM

Where the hell did you come up with this disk cache BS? The opposite happens - the OS pulls data out of RAM and caches it onto disk when the data has been loaded but is not expected to be used for a while, or other programs need the RAM. This is called a PageFile in windows, and a Swap partition in Linux.

I don't think you have much programming background at all, or you'd know that directly pointing to addresses hasn't been done in a long, long time. Some languages, like C and others still allow it, but 99.99% of the time it is a very bad idea. It's the kind of shit you do with assembly language programing. For a couple decades now the OS has handled RAM management and address allocation, for precisely the reason you state: There is no way for an application to know the addressing needs of another application.

The only thing that is -somewhat- like your imaginary "disk caching" is Vista's ReadyBoost, which moves frequently used data to a FLASH drive in order to improve responsiveness.

Now, what you might be talking about, in a confused illiterate monkey sort of way, is the process by which the OS moves data out of physical RAM and onto disk cache (the swap or pagefile). An aggressive scheme tries to keep as much RAM free and available for quick use by another application, re-loading cached data into RAM when necessary. This was vital when RAM was small and expensive, as there wasn't much to go around it had to be rationed sparingly. The computer was less responsive than it could have been, but it also prevented memory errors popping up.

RAM is now cheap and big, so OS's are moving to take advantage of that, basically by being less agressive about what gets moved to the swap and what stays in RAM - you have 8gb of RAM, why waste time moving stuff from RAM to Swap and back again when you have 6gb free? You could have a full DVD loaded into RAM and should not suffer any issues with other programs. In no way, shape, or form does this mean the OS takes commonly used data and loads it into RAM. All that is happening, is when an application requests address space (all applications must request address space), the OS does not move them onto the disk cache unless it is absolutely necessary, thereby speeding all programs up.

Re:RAM optimization

[Bigjeff5]

You seem to be confused about what swapping is for, and what "frugal memory management" is.

Is it frugal to swap data out of RAM onto the hard disk when there is more than enough RAM available to leave the data in memory and allow new programs to access RAM?

Because that is exactly what you are suggesting.

Swapping data from RAM to hard disk is a last-ditch fail-safe that prevents the computer from crashing when it runs out of RAM. If the computer is not about to run out of RAM, why should it swap anything to disk? Who cares if you only have 10% free, when that 10% is 400-800mb? Most programs don't use more than 10mb of RAM, most big programs don't use more than 100mb of RAM, and most resource hogs don't use more than 500mb of RAM.

Please, tell me why it is a good idea to swap even 10mb of data to the hard disk to keep 2 gigs of RAM free "just in case". I'd really like to hear your reasoning behind calling that "frugal memory management".

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell did you come up with this disk cache BS? The opposite happens - the OS pulls data out of RAM and caches it onto disk when the data has been loaded but is not expected to be used for a while, or other programs need the RAM. This is called a PageFile in windows, and a Swap partition in Linux.

Please get a clue. Thanks.

And for more general information on how typical operating systems handle memory management and caching, see Wikipedia.

Re:RAM optimization

[benjymouse]

Applications should use the amount of memory they need, preferably leaving caching to the operating system. Applications generally cannot know when other processes need the RAM better, and AFAIK cannot be told to release memory by other applications in any standardized way.

That may be so for most operating systems, but since Vista, Windows apps can assign memory priorities to their allocated memory. This was introduced to counter the after lunch syndrome where a memory intensive process (e.g. a search indexer that springs into action on idle conditions) has evicted all your procceses memory while you were eating. Processes can also register to be notified when their memory is evicted and may choose to just drop the memory instead of having it swapped to disk.

A process such as Windows Defender or the search indexer can now allocate memory with a lower-than-normal priority. This will not cause higher prioritzed memory to be swapped out and this memory will be the first to be evicted when higher-priority memory is allocated.

Windows Superfetch is an example of a user-mode process which leverage this memory infrastructure to allocate memory in a speculative manner. If memory is allocated with a higher priority, Superfetch readily gives up the memory with no additional disk access.

So while most operating systems indeed do not have a standardized way to tell applications to give up memory, this is exactly what Windows Vista, Server 2008 and later feature.

Re:RAM optimization

[benjymouse]

Here's what I wonder when people advocate using all available RAM for running programs: what happens when I try to launch another program ? Parts will have to be swapped out, and again when the new program has a genuine need for more memory.

Some parts will not have to be swapped out. If the memory is not "dirty" it can just be deallocated. This is how Windows has handled dll's for ages: If a loaded dll code block made it to the front of the "standby" list it could just be discarded as loading the memory from the dll file could always be done.

Incidently, Windows Vista improved on this scheme and introduced memory priorities. This way an application - even a user-mode process - can happily consume RAM to improve its performance. If it marks the memory with a low priority and "non-dirty" (because it has a way to reload it in a fail-safe way) it *will* just be discarded when another process needs memory. On top of that, lower priority allocations will never cause higher prioritized memory to be swapped out.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Having one big data file and the OS caching it are two different things. Most of the comments here seem to assume that the app, in this case Outlook, orders the OS to cache the datafile while really it's the Sysmain background process (Superfetch, whatever you want to call it) that will cache it if the file is accessed frequently enough.

Though not publicly documented, the PST file format is said to be designed around a relational database (Source: Ontrack). Strangely, the PST/OST file format is not on the MS Open Specification Promise.
 
Now we're done with the facts, and I'll play the devil's advocate now. That it's one big file must have something to do with data consistency. Otoh, caching the file can be advantageous because querying a relational database from RAM is really fast, even without full-text indexing, and I don't see why not if you have 400 MB to spare. Searching a random word, time range, attachment name, etc. in all of your mail can be completed near instantly.
Sure, a structured... thing... on the filesystem works fine for many applications, but in that same 400 MB store, a huge folder tree with files really isn't the fastest way to access (or more important, search) data.
I personally like large files for data stores because it is easier to make a consistent backup of and it generally prevents mucking about with the filesystem.

Re:RAM optimization

[m.ducharme]

Wouldn't those formats have the same scalability problem? There's nothing in the wikipedia entries to suggest the performance benefits/pitfalls either way. I'm having a hard time imagining how loading up your entire e-mail archive is efficient, when typically a user will only ever access a small portion of that archive.

Re:RAM optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it still uses alot of physical memory, because your checking for

Microsoft Spelling and Grammar. You gotta love it!

Re:RAM optimization

[SL Baur]

I just love it when every Linux hardware problem is Linux's fault whereas with windows it's always "not a windows problem, update your driver"

Has been like that since early days of windows.

Indeed and this comment has been unfairly moderated as flamebait.

Re:RAM optimization

[FractalZone]

This obsession with memory usage is silly.

RAM is very, very cheap now, less than £10 a gigabyte. I configure my software to use lots of RAM, because I prefer a fast computer to one with lots of free memory.

I just bought a cheapo system (a little over $425 USD) that came with 4G of reasonably fast RAM...plenty for any version of Linux I am aware of, and almost enough for Winblows XP, Vista, and probably 7; given that previews suggest Win7 makes WinVista look like the pile 'o crap that it is.

Kiss hard drives goodbye, folks! Within a very few years, even storage will be entirely solid state.

Getting back to the point; software utilities such as "chkdsk" to diagnose and repair HD problems will be replaced by RAM checking solutions.

Re:RAM optimization

[FractalZone]

This sounds a lot like the Outlook 2007 discussion on Vista (and some reports on XP). Vista has "advanced memory management" and Outlook "continually asks for RAM, as long as some is available". The result? Outlook allocates ~700M, according to the Task Manager process list, while the Physical Memory free (on a 3G system) reports 6% free. Closing Outlook brings the ram free percentage up to %60. Some MS MVP said just what you said "The RAM is available, so Outlook uses it and the program responds faster, that's a good thing", completely disregarding the fact that the computer is near unresponsive to everything else. A program should never take RAM "because it's available", it should take it "because it's needed". Using over 2G of RAM to open 3 emails is absurd, using 1G for texture and sound data is more reasonable.

MS has a very nasty habit of making its software defaults benefit MS rather than any particular user, even when a cursory installer examination of the user's machine would suggest different settings.

MS wants things to be oh-so-shiny! Many of us prefer our systems to run oh-so-fast. As a rule, I never select MS's "recommended" or default options when adding, or changing, or updating software. When you consider that spyware such as WGA stuff gets installed by default in MS updates, I don't think I'm being too paranoid.

Re:RAM optimization

[iusty]

RAM is very, very cheap now, less than £10 a gigabyte

This is a gross generalisation - that price is true only for small amounts of ram (a couple of gigabytes), where you talk about 1GB or 2GB sticks, and a mainboard with 4-6 slots.

Otherwise, please tell me how can I upgrade my computer from (let's say) 8GB to 128GB for only £120.

regards,
iustin

Re:RAM optimization

[metaforest]

Average literacy in general population hovers around the 5th or 6th grade reading level (Flesch reading score of 85.0 - 100.0) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_readability_test

There has been a lot of grumbling about reading comprehension around here recently.

Two things to consider:

1. "The meaning of the communication is the result you get." Repeat this regularly as a mantra.
2. Run your postings through MS Word with the Flesch-Kincaid report turned on, and shoot for a score of 60.0 - 70.0 (grade level 8.2)

If you pedantic, armchair, english masters do so, you might find that more people respond to your intended meaning. Stop blaming "reading comprehension" to cover for your lousy "writing to be understood" skills.

Re:RAM optimization

[JohnBailey]

Indeed and this comment has been unfairly moderated as flamebait.

But then, taking criticism gracefully is a Windows problem.

Re:RAM optimization

[Thundersnatch]

An OST file is a database. One big file with lots of internal structure, like records, pages, and indexes.

Oracle, Postgresql, mssql, db2 all put terabytes of data into just a few files. This setup is a lot more efficient than dealing with millions of small files on just about any filesystem.

Re:RAM optimization

[init100]

Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

I certainly do, but you, on the other hand, do not seem to know what you are talking about.

Unused RAM is RAM that is not being used. By anything. You open up task manager and see 500mb of RAM used out of 3gb, well, 2.5gb is not being used. That is unused RAM

Certain operating system tools do not make a clear distinction between really unused RAM and RAM that is not used by applications. In the latter case, the so-called "unused" RAM is not unused at all, but rather used for the page cache.

Where the hell did you come up with this disk cache BS? The opposite happens - the OS pulls data out of RAM and caches it onto disk when the data has been loaded but is not expected to be used for a while, or other programs need the RAM. This is called a PageFile in windows, and a Swap partition in Linux.

The disk cache (or page cache) is certainly not BS. Both the page cache and swap file/partition are used, but for different purposes. The disk cache is used to cache frequently used disk blocks in the memory unused by applications, while the swap file/partition is used to temporarily free up physical memory when applications request memory but most or all is already used.

I don't think you have much programming background at all

My programming background is pretty extensive.

or you'd know that directly pointing to addresses hasn't been done in a long, long time. Some languages, like C and others still allow it, but 99.99% of the time it is a very bad idea. It's the kind of shit you do with assembly language programing.

Here you are mixing up two concepts: Virtual memory and managed code. Using physical addresses in applications hasn't been used in a long time, since they use virtual memory addresses instead. The translation is then done by the MMU (Memory Management Unit) together with the operating system, using the page tables that list which virtual pages are mapped into which physical pages (or swap areas). Even applications written in C or assembly language can not use physical addresses in any modern operating system, as they are completely managed by the kernel and MMU.

Managed code is a totally different matter. Languages such as Java, C#, and pretty much all scripting languages use managed code. Pointers are not used by application programmers in those languages, instead, programmers use another layer of indirection to access objects, such as references. These references are then mapped to (virtual) memory addresses by the virtual machine or interpreter that the applications run in.

The only thing that is -somewhat- like your imaginary "disk caching" is Vista's ReadyBoost, which moves frequently used data to a FLASH drive in order to improve responsiveness.

Disk caching as I explained it exists on all modern operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The Vista ReadyBoost is an improvement on this, since it actually preloads the flash drive with frequently used application data, enabling quick use even the first time after system boot.

Now, what you might be talking about, in a confused illiterate monkey sort of way, is the process by which the OS moves data out of physical RAM and onto disk cache (the swap or pagefile).

No, that is not what I'm talking about.

In no way, shape, or form does this mean the OS takes commonly used data and loads it into RAM.

No, the OS doesn't do that by itself, but I also never said that. What happens is the following: Each time a block is read from the hard drive (as requested by an application), it is loaded into the disk cache. This cache is made up of all RAM that is not used by the OS or applications. When applications require more heap space, the disk cache size is automatically reduced, and data in the cache

Re:RAM optimization

[init100]

That may be so for most operating systems, but since Vista, Windows apps can assign memory priorities to their allocated memory. This was introduced to counter the after lunch syndrome where a memory intensive process (...) has evicted all your procceses memory while you were eating. Processes can also register to be notified when their memory is evicted and may choose to just drop the memory instead of having it swapped to disk.

Interesting. That might be useful for some applications that implement their own caching. But most applications that I know of do not have large amounts of memory that they can do without on a short notice.

(e.g. a search indexer that springs into action on idle conditions

Clever implementations of search indexers doesn't need to run on idle conditions. It runs once when the OS is installed, and any changes after that are intercepted by subscribing to file system events, such as inotify in Linux or FSEvents in Mac OS X.

A process such as Windows Defender or the search indexer can now allocate memory with a lower-than-normal priority. This will not cause higher prioritzed memory to be swapped out and this memory will be the first to be evicted when higher-priority memory is allocated.

But what does that do to backwards compatibility? Do applications that use those features become Vista only, or can they run even if the OS does not support those features? Of course in that case, there would be no memory prioritization, but that is probably less important than being able to run the applications at all.

Windows Superfetch is an example of a user-mode process which leverage this memory infrastructure to allocate memory in a speculative manner. If memory is allocated with a higher priority, Superfetch readily gives up the memory with no additional disk access.

Sounds like a normal block/page cache, except for the speculative allocation. The prioritization may be implicit in other systems, but it certainly exists, as the block cache is never prioritized over memory allocation requests.

So while most operating systems indeed do not have a standardized way to tell applications to give up memory, this is exactly what Windows Vista, Server 2008 and later feature.

It's too bad such details won't make it into mainstream marketing. I'm not enough into Windows to read their developer news (I'm more of a *nix guy), where such information probably would show up. Such features you describe are certainly more interesting to me than animated wallpapers and translucent window frames.

What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

It seems that if you install Windows 7 on the second hard drive, it will put it's system reserved boot partition on the first drive. This absolutely boggles my mind. Now I need both hard drives just to boot my system? I discovered this when Windows 7 fucked up my Chameleon installation. Then my Hackintosh wouldn't boot into OS X until I reinstalled Chameleon from the iAtkos disc. Then I had to unplug the OS X drive and reinstall Windows 7 so it would stick to it's own goddamned drive and leave the others alone.

Bad, BAD fucking move, Microsoft. Now Windows 7 can easily fuck up unrecognized partitions on other drives during installation. I really hope that gets fixed in the final version.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except during the install it says: "the system reserved partition will be installed on the first boot device."

I remember wondering why it was 100MB myself when I saw that.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you think while using a Hackintosh, trying to dual boot a beta OS, and probably some other crap you didn't mention that you might run into a few problems? And yeah, I am sure your dual boot hackintosh is on the top of the list for a fix.

Re:What about this one?

[The MAZZTer]

I think if you use an existing partition instead of making a new one Windows will just put everything on one partition.

Anyways you could always copy the files and boot sector from the small partition to the Windows 7 one and raze the small one, then you just need to edit the BCD registry using EasyBCD or bootedit.exe to point to the correct partition on boot. But yeah those are both WINDOWS tools... but bootedit.exe should be available from Windows 7 Setup on the DVD if you mess up and can't boot into Windows (press SHIFT+F10), and fixboot.exe can install the boot sector onto any partition.

Re:What about this one?

[Joe U]

don't you think while using a Hackintosh, trying to dual boot a beta OS, and probably some other crap you didn't mention that you might run into a few problems? And yeah, I am sure your dual boot hackintosh is on the top of the list for a fix.

Hi.

On the top of your browser, there's an address bar, after the http:/// and before the next / does the word 'slashdot.org' appear?

I'm assuming yes, so seriously, what did you expect?

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone who does this often knows to only have one disk installed in the machine when installing windows in order to prevent this from happening. Windows has been doing this for ages. I wish MS would just be up front about this in the installer though.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was the same for Vista's boot loader as well and has been well documented. They make it pretty clear what will happen if you try to do what you are doing. Caveat Emptor.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you install windows, Microsoft owns your machine. You should know this by now.

It's like selling your soul to the devil and then be surprised when he actually claims it.

Re:What about this one?

[Hurricane78]

How is that new? It is that way since Windows XP, and likely even the whole NT and old Windows line before that!

I know because I have this setup with Gentoo and XP on this computer, and I think I can remember it from Windows 98 too.

Re:What about this one?

[quantic_oscillation7]

it's a feature... all your drives belong to us...........

Re:What about this one?

[Judinous]

Windows has never played nice with other operating systems one the same machine. The first rule of multiple-booting has always been "install Windows first".

Re:What about this one?

[Fyzzle]

Back when XP came out I had a bad time dual booting with anything. I guess I got in the habit of "Always install Windows first" then load up your alternate OSs

Not saying it's right, but it always works.

Re:What about this one?

[socz]

yup, thats why winders goes first, the linux and bsd. I perfer the BSD loader as its ez as pie! Also if you try to install windows last it'll destroy all the other records and its a pain to fix!

Re:What about this one?

[FudRucker]

yup, and yup to the genoo/xp dual boot too, microsoft goes to great lengths to not play nicely with other operating systems, i was hoping microsoft would change that attitude but hope is a cousin to dreams and we know both of those are not real...

looks like i wont be buying an OEM with windows7 on it later this year, the more unfriendly microsoft is to other OSs the more newegg gets my business (building my next desktop)

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

You have obviously not installed many OS yourself, and if you really believe what you are writing you should probably stop installing those you already are installing. You can control exactly where and how you want any partitions to be, so even with windows 7. It has a certain default, which is to install a 100MB, let's call it, rescue partition.

Just pre partition the disk the way you want it and you won't have that extra partition. So perhaps the bad move is on your for not knowing what you are doing and still posting as if you did.

Re:What about this one?

[PPH]

So, what does one do when one has to reinstall Windows? That happens often enough that it becomes a PITA to have to keep unplugging and shuffling drives around to keep their installer from finding and f*cking up every other partition.

Re:What about this one?

[shutdown -p now]

Windows has never played nice with other operating systems one the same machine. The first rule of multiple-booting has always been "install Windows first".

Well, at least it no longer overwrites GRUB when installing (or at least Win7 RC didn't do that) - while XP always did.

Re:What about this one?

[tjstork]

Windows has never played nice with other operating systems one the same machine

But at least Windows doesn't change the BIOS time.... Linux dutifully does that, every time...

Re:What about this one?

[lawnboy5-O]

Its NOT a Bug.... its a FEATURE! It's from M$ correct? That's the way its supposed to be...

Re:What about this one?

[murph]

I would not count on this behavior changing. Microsoft has no incentive to work well with other operating systems.

Re:What about this one?

[Blakey Rat]

Windows assumes that if you don't manually create partitions and instead tell it to do it automatically, it can put things where ever it wants. You basically told Windows "hey, just drop your stuff anywhere, thanks." on the other hand, if you had manually created a partition and then told Windows to use it, it would have.

The behavior might be slihtly sketchy, but it's not some horrible conspiracy.

Re:What about this one?

[alc6379]

So, what does one do when one has to reinstall Windows? That happens often enough that it becomes a PITA to have to keep unplugging and shuffling drives around to keep their installer from finding and f*cking up every other partition.

Generally, Windows wants to boot from the FIRST partition of the FIRST drive. There are tricks you can use to get around this-- GRUB has methods of remapping devices and partitions so Windows "thinks" it's on the right drive. But, generally, you install Windows first, to first partition of our first drive, and then install the other OSes afterward. If you have to install Windows again, generally other OS install discs come with some kind of "rescue mode" where you can re-install your bootloader. For instance, you could use an Ubuntu CD, and with a few steps, restore the bootloader you had from the menu.lst file that grub created when you first installed Ubuntu.

But, as an aside, it's been my experience that having to reinstall Windows frequently is becoming more and more of a myth. I've had my Windows XP install running now just fine since I built my machine (over 2 years now), and the Vista install I have on another desktop has been chugging along for about a year and a half. Both machines are dual-booting with some other form of Linux or BSD...

Re:What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

No dipshit, Hackintoshing has very little to do with it. As far as Windows 7 is concerned, it was simply another drive. That's all. The point of the matter is that it fucked up a partition that it didn't properly recognize. The same thing could happen to Linux installations as well. It's an ugly oversight that is NOT specific to Hackintoshes, so pull your head out of your ass.

Re:What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

My point is that the user shouldn't have to bloody worry about it. Why should I have to prepartition my drive just to keep Windows from messing with other drives? It should stick to the installation drive by default, not require extra steps to keep it from messing with other drives in the system. Plopping the 100MB system reserved partition on another drive by default means I need BOTH drives to boot, which is stupid. But yes, my bad for assuming Microsoft would do things in a logical fashion.

Re:What about this one?

[sarloth]

No. I do not see "http:///".

Re:What about this one?

[Idiot with a gun]

No. Not windows 7. If you partition your hard drive, and install windows, it will take all partitions as it's own. If the other partitions are already occupied (and it can tell that there's something there, even if it can read Reiser, Ext3, etc.), it will not overwrite. You'll need to repair grub afterward, but it's a lot less painful than discovering the partition is wrong and you need to redo everything, trust me.

Re:What about this one?

[just_another_sean]

You're missing the point. Even if you pre-partition the second drive Windows still installs it's boot loader on the first. This is not just true of 7, it's been doing this since NT 4.

Brushing aside your "you should just know how to it" bs ( I thought stuff "just works" in Windows, it's teh easy!) it goes beyond understanding the partitioning. It's about behaving in a counter intuitive way that requires discovery on the user's part. I can
naturally assume that I'll be better off partitioning my own drive. It takes a real WTF moment to realize you have to rip out one of your drives before you install Windows if you don't want the unexpected behavior of your master boot record being on a different drive then the OS. Another poster said "install Windows first, that's the rule". Fine, I get that but it's still f'ng stupid.

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

Hi.

On the top of your browser, there's an address bar, after the http:/// [http] and before the next / does the word 'slashdot.org' appear?

I'm assuming yes, so seriously, what did you expect?

I actually chuckled at this. While you're jesting, I should confess an analogous story of a friend of mine.

For as long as I've known him, he's had the unusual capacity of being able to break nearly anything he comes in touch with. Ubuntu install? Lasted 10 minutes. Gentoo install? After about 15 tries just to install the thing, he borked it in less than 5. Windows XP? Maybe a day. Windows Vista? Same thing. His Mac? I think it lasted a week. Now, to be fair, he has a penchant to fiddle with things that needn't be fiddled with, but his prowess of breaking systems is truly unmatched by anyone else. It wouldn't surprise me if the OP talking about Windows 7 putting a partition on his other drive was this friend of mine--or maybe they're related! While I've suggested he should work in the QA department of a large software company, he's always politely declined.

Worse, this doesn't even begin to take into account the problems he's had with various software. Be it Office, games (he's broken Steam and WoW both), Safari, Outlook--you name it. I think the only thing spared from his wrath has been Firefox. Though, I'm not altogether certain whether it was for fear of screwing up the one browser he can resort to in a time of crisis. :)

I've simply come to the conclusion that some people are problem prone. It was like that when I did tech support years ago--weird problems follow certain people. Aside from the dread of having to troubleshoot something weirdly unusual when that same person calls every three days, it's actually rather comical. Then again, retrospect tends to take on a rosy hue.

For what it's worth, this friend of mine has gotten significantly better over the years at resolving his issues, and he almost never asks me for help unless he's encountered something really strange. So, there is a cure: Toss 'em in the water and let them learn to swim! Just watch for sharks. (N.B. it does help if they can sort of swim first.)

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had to re-install windows 4 times in the last 2 years (system cruft and one physical crash). So your mileage may vary if you use your system for other than development and/or you use it very little you may not have to.

Re:What about this one?

[techno-vampire]

So, what does one do when one has to reinstall Windows? That happens often enough

And you don't see anything wrong with that? Seriously. Why should you have to install the same version of he same OS more than once on a machine? Since I've been using Linux, I've only had to reinstall it twice. Once because just after an upgrade I did something foolish and trashed my Linux partition and once because an upgrade didn't work out well. (The newer version couldn't find my NIC no matter what I did so I ended up wiping and reinstalling the older version. Thank Ghod for backups!) I'm not saying that there's never a reason to reinstall Windows, I'm just saying that I don't understand why you people think regularly reinstalling your OS is normal. Please enlighten me.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is a common one; Linux is setting the BIOS clock to UTC. Windows thinks its local. It is a simple 1-line configuration issue on pretty much all distros. Use Google, it is your friend.

Re:What about this one?

[tixxit]

Microsoft doesn't sell hardware, they sell software. A person who buys a license and runs it on a Mac means just as much to Microsoft as a person who runs it on a Dell. I would say they have all the incentive they'll ever get.

Re:What about this one?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Anyways you could always copy the files and boot sector from the small partition to the Windows 7 one and raze the small one, then you just need to edit the BCD registry using EasyBCD or bootedit.exe to point to the correct partition on boot. But yeah those are both WINDOWS tools... but bootedit.exe should be available from Windows 7 Setup on the DVD if you mess up and can't boot into Windows (press SHIFT+F10), and fixboot.exe can install the boot sector onto any partition.

And then they say Linux is difficult?

Re:What about this one?

[idlemachine]

But yes, my bad for assuming Microsoft would do things in a logical fashion.

s/do things in a logical fashion/acknowledge that any other operating system even exist/

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

No, your point seems to be that the way your want it is somehow the way a user wants it. A normal user definitely doesn't worry about it. So that point is moot.

Apparently you fail to see why this partition is there in the first place, but it is for the very common scenario of using bitlocker on a laptop. By doing it this way it enables a "not knowing user as yourself" to enable bitlocker without repartitioning the drive in the future.

Design is choosing, what is right for one person is wrong for the other. This choice was apparently wrong for you, but I am pretty sure it is right for a lot of people.

I leave it up to you to explain why this is necessary on a bit locker system.

And apparently in your setup your MBR/active partition was on another drive. If you wanted them to be separate than you tell windows installer to do so. I believe most users just wants it to work and plug into the current boot menu they have.

Anyway, windows normally creates the system partition on the same drive if there are no other bootable drives. If you have more than one boot loader on your system you apparently an advanced user and know how to handle this, if you are not your likely glad to get it booting. Note that Windows only supports dual booting other windowses, this is what the installation process is geared towards.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got http://slashdot.org.goatse.cx/, counts?

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

As far as Windows 7 is concerned, it was simply another drive.

You raise really good points. There is one unfortunate thing in the behavior of Windows' installation process when it comes to drives it doesn't understand. But first, an example:

Let's assume that you're installing Windows on a system with two hard disks. On the first disk exists Linux or BSD. You plan on using the bootloader to boot Windows (off the second disk). The second disk is blank. When you attempt to install Windows to the second disk, it will alert you that it needs to make changes (i.e. wipe the bootloader) on the first disk. It's possible a situation like that might result in unexpected changes, but it's not difficult to resolve--simply load a live CD and replace the bootloader. (At least, this prompt would occur with Windows XP--I have no idea with Windows 7 because of a habit I've acquired. Keep reading.)

However, I've never actually had windows make any unexpected alterations to anything other than the disk I was installing to. Perhaps it's partially thanks to a healthy dose of paranoia; whenever I install Windows to a dedicated disk--really, whenever I install any OS, I have a habit of unplugging all the drives I don't want to touch. As you alluded to, since the OP clearly didn't take such precautions, he sort of got what was coming to him.

Maybe my measures are a little excessive, but when I'm dealing with the prospect of having to reinstall several OSes just because of a stupid late-night mistake, a typo, or maybe a software bug, I'd rather take the time to make sure it can't happen. Not that this method isn't fraught with complications--it's possible to unplug the wrong drive. But, that's why you check it first to make sure it is the one you want to wipe!

So yes, you're exactly right. The OP really should have taken greater precautions with his data. It would've saved him a reinstall.

Re:What about this one?

[jpmorgan]

You realise, of course, that without taking extra steps of reconfiguring your BIOS or installing grub or some other bootloader, you need BOTH hard drives to boot anyway? BIOS will be looking for the bootloader in the MBR of the first drive.

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

Well, at least it no longer overwrites GRUB when installing (or at least Win7 RC didn't do that) - while XP always did.

Funny, I just wrote up something about this in my last post. You must've been reading my mind! (Although, I didn't exactly experience it with Windows 7.)

Generally, I install other OSes to their own drives. In the XP days, it'd attempt to overwrite grub (or other bootloaders) on drive(s) you weren't installing XP to. Talk about ridiculous! Though, that may have been an artifact of the other drive being reported by BIOS as the primary. I'm not wholly sure.

As a consequence, I've never gone passed that lovely little warning in XP's loader without unplugging everything except the drive I install to. Paranoid? Absolutely. I hate reinstalling things. To me, it's better to spend a few minutes taking some precautions than having a nasty surprise.

I do realize installing to separate partitions might be easier, but hard disks are cheap as are external enclosures. Plus, if I don't like something, I can always treat myself to having another back-up disk/extra space/experiment disk/etc.

Re:What about this one?

[DurendalMac]

My point is that Windows should automatically put the system reserved partition ON THE DRIVE TO WHICH IT IS BEING INSTALLED. I cannot think of a conceivable reason for a single installation of Windows to spread itself across two different hard drives by default, thus requiring both drives to be present and functioning to boot the system. I should simply be able to select the drive, tell it to go, and not worry about it. Please explain to me why it's necessary for Windows to do this by default.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to play nice. It is called the awakening of competition law. Also in the US not that Bush is gone. It is a bit like Cato's famous words against Cathargo. Ceterum censeo Catharginem esse delendam. Microsoft's vendetta against competition law will be fought back.

Re:What about this one?

[Magic5Ball]

Why should I have to prepartition my drive just to keep Windows from messing with other drives?

Because installing multiple operating systems falls into the "expert" category of usage of the products involved? And because it reasonable for Microsoft to assume that individuals who attempt to operate their computing tools in an above-power-user manner by customizing disk partition layout are capable of making intelligent choices about such details inside or outside of the installer tool (as an "expert")?

The application logic here isn't far removed from what RHEL-derived installers do by default on similar hardware configurations, that is, make enough data/swap/root partitions to hold the important stuff, and put boot and GRUB where it will work. In both cases, the vast majority of the target customers do not "have to bloddy worry about it" because the defaults are sensible, and are available to the user during the installation. Anyone who has gone out of their way to do custom things to their disks and partitions should have already critically thought about and understood what their desired final partition and system configuration will look like before embarking on an OS install.

If Microsoft has any fault here, it's for not putting documentation about the behaviour of one of their pre-release products in a sufficiently blindingly obvious location in front of the user so that even self-proclaimed experts are forced to read and understand how the product's characteristics may vary from each of an unlimited number of different users' expectations.

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

I believe you are missing the point.

Windows will install the boot loader on the drive that the BIOS will boot first, which is fairly obvious, unless you have a boot loader on another drive then it will plug into that one, which is also fairly expected behavior. You don't have to rip your drives out you change the order in the BIOS.

If you are dual booting you should know how those things work before embarking on that journey or let someone that does know help you.

If you know the complexities of booting a system the choices made in the installer makes sense and takes no user discovery.

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

Well apparently you don't understand how the BIOS boots your machine then.

If you want that, then make sure the drive you are installing on is your boot drive. It is intuitive that windows will install itself so that it will boot up on the machine you are installing it on. Unless you believe that figuring out how to swap boot orders in the BIOS (and before that you had to swap cables) is more intuitive.

Re:What about this one?

[PRMan]

It's true that some people are more problem-prone. My Dad could break ANYTHING. Lawn mowers, about every year and a half. Vacuum cleaners, about every year (although now he has had a Dyson for about 3 years and only repaired it twice). Not to mention can openers, dishwashers (my mom wouldn't let him do dishes anymore unless he did them by hand).

He missed his calling. He should have been in quality control.

Re:What about this one?

[Bohiti]

In my experience, its less necessary for me than is for my friends and family. Their Windows life cycle usually is something like:

I give them a fresh install.
They install iTunes+Quicktime+Safari
They get a new printer and let the CD that came with it install all 15 services
Install questionable game
Get adware
I come over, clean adware.
Upgrade iTunes, adding the fancy new apple service no one needs
Upgrade HP Printing suite, adding fancy new HP service no one needs

...I could keep going...

In the end there are 50 processes in Task Manager that have nothing to do with that my friend or relative wants to use their computer for. I could spend a weekend cleaning it off, but at that point its more straightforward to just start off fresh.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

The IBM PC boot process involves booting from the first hard drive first, unless you change it in the bios -- not many people know how to do that, specially not those who aren't computer literate. Plus many bios only let you choose the order of boot without specifying which of your disks is supposed to be started from, first! So if you want windows to start seamlessly when installing it on a second hard drive, you need to modify the bootstrapper of the first drive. My guess is that windows also modifies the bootstrapper of the second drive in case you remove the first one (this would require testing).

Re:What about this one?

[thetoadwarrior]

Well, at least it no longer overwrites GRUB when installing (or at least Win7 RC didn't do that) - while XP always did.

That's a bug and will be fixed in Win 7's first service pack.

Re:What about this one?

[amicusNYCL]

Generally, Windows wants to boot from the FIRST partition of the FIRST drive.

Even though I'm a programmer, I don't consider myself particularly apt with regard to installing or setting up an OS (thankfully, XP is drop-dead easy to install and configure in general), but my previous XP machine was running for several years while booting off my H drive. I had a habit for a while of taking whatever drives I had in my previous machine and just throwing them into my new one, so C, D, and E were various hard drives from previous machines (some with Windows directories still on them). F and G were a CD and DVD I think, and then H was my new SATA WD Raptor. Ran fine for years, and I probably wouldn't know how to use something like GRUB if I was given TFM for dummies. I finally forsook(?) my old drives when I got a nice big RAID array for my new machine and just copied all the previous drives to my "old hard drives" folder.

But yeah, like you, reinstalling Windows has sort of become a thing of the past. I use my machine for development at home, games, email, internet stuff, audio/video etc, don't even run a virus scanner or software firewall, and don't seem to have any noticeable problems. It sort of makes me wonder what the people who say they keep needing to reinstall are actually using their machines for. I can only imagine that they're porn surfing with IE. It's getting to the point that by the time I would consider reinstalling Windows to be a good option, my hardware is probably out of date and I'm wanting new stuff anyway.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I unplug my Linux drive whenever I install Windows.

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

Plopping the 100MB system reserved partition on another drive by default means I need BOTH drives to boot, which is stupid. But yes, my bad for assuming Microsoft would do things in a logical fashion.

To be fair to MS, if a user knows enough to know they have two hard disks and enough to know how to install a second hard disk, they should know how to pop the case open and unplug the one they don't want anything to happen to. Frankly, it'd be a good habit to have, even if you were installing software anointed by Steve Jobs himself.

Re:What about this one?

[SilverEyes]

Damn Catharginians...

Yeah, yeah... I know. A typo. And another one. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I don't think it's that famous...

I'm not sure where I'm going with this comment, must be the go home signal from my brain

Re:What about this one?

[techno-vampire]

but at that point its more straightforward to just start off fresh.

And then, of course, they reinstall everything they "need," and they're back where they started. Seriously, I'm not talking about people like that, I'm talking about computer geeks who routinely reinstall Windows on their own boxes and think nothing of it. I once knew a man who insisted that NT 4 was completely stable, but he still reapplied the latest service pack every month because if he didn't, his system started crashing. It's that mindset that I just can't understand.

Re:What about this one?

[jim_v2000]

"So, what does one do when one has to reinstall Windows?" Reinstall GRUB noob.

Re:What about this one?

[jim_v2000]

95% of users don't install Windows, much less a second OS. The other 5% should know enough to pull it off successfully.

Re:What about this one?

[just_another_sean]

That's also BS. I can set my BIOS to boot from any drive I want. Windows always picks the first drive's master boot record to install it's loader no matter what the BIOS settings are. I've been through this dozens of times, including with Windows 7 and you're wrong. Try it, set your BIOS to boot from your second hard drive and then throw in the Windows install disk. It will overwrite the master boot record on your first drive without giving you the option to change drives or even skip that step so you could use a fdisk /mbr to avoid it.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the part where he explained it allows one to use bitlocker late in the game?

Re:What about this one?

[Junior J. Junior III]

It seems that if you install Windows 7 on the second hard drive, it will put it's system reserved boot partition on the first drive. This absolutely boggles my mind. Now I need both hard drives just to boot my system? I discovered this when Windows 7 fucked up my Chameleon installation. Then my Hackintosh wouldn't boot into OS X until I reinstalled Chameleon from the iAtkos disc. Then I had to unplug the OS X drive and reinstall Windows 7 so it would stick to it's own goddamned drive and leave the others alone.

Bad, BAD fucking move, Microsoft. Now Windows 7 can easily fuck up unrecognized partitions on other drives during installation. I really hope that gets fixed in the final version.

To Microsoft, breaking $OtherOS when Windows installs *is* fixing THEIR computer, which they kindly allow you to use.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the same issue with GRUB on multiple systems.

The explanation is "BIOSes are buggy, so we just do whatever the fuck we feel like."

Re:What about this one?

[Hatta]

Sure they do. Linux is the only operating system on my home computer. Someday a game may come out that I think is worthwhile, I'm open to installing Windows 7 then. If I can't do that without damaging my Linux install, they don't get my money.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that people who reinstall Windows because of "system cruft" are simply being lazy - it isn't that difficult to keep your system clean, perform preventive maintenance, that kind of thing.

Re:What about this one?

[xtravagan]

If that happens you should look for a new BIOS that enumerates your drives properly. Your bios is likely buggy or you are doing something wrong..

But once again your go ahead and decide that something is not working because your systems haven't been working. For me, it works like it should and I have 4 drives in my machine and 2 external CF cards, plus 2 USB bootable drives, so in total 8 drives windows can play with, works fine. I have 2 different windows version running on the first and second harddrive.

But dual booting is not what it used to be any longer, VMs is more or less commodity and much easier to manage.

Re:What about this one?

[catbertz]

Completely agree with you on this. Its ridiculous to have to hide other drives for a sensible install.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It seems that if you install Windows 7 on the second hard drive, it will put it's system reserved boot partition on the first drive. This absolutely boggles my mind. Now I need both hard drives just to boot my system?"
Uh, it's done that for a while now...
Earliest memory is XP.

I agree that it's kinda silly though.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyways you could always copy the files and boot sector from the small partition to the Windows 7 one and raze the small one, then you just need to edit the BCD registry using EasyBCD or bootedit.exe to point to the correct partition on boot. But yeah those are both WINDOWS tools... but bootedit.exe should be available from Windows 7 Setup on the DVD if you mess up and can't boot into Windows (press SHIFT+F10), and fixboot.exe can install the boot sector onto any partition.

When I tell Mac OS X to install on a particular partition, that is the partition it gets installed on. No muss, no fuss, no bother.

If I want to boot from a different bootable partition, I change the Startup Disk in System Preferences; or I hold down the Option key as I boot.

Nothing to mess up. Nothing to have to recover from if you do mess up. No worries about parts of the OS being somewhere else.

Why does Microsoft make Windows so hard?

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, it is dumb.

But, Ubuntu's partitioner is no smarter (wiped out the first 512 bytes of my NTFS partition, making it inoperable), however. And I accept that I screwed up when using tools that are fairly dangerous to data.

Re:What about this one?

[kirillian]

Actually, I have found that I NEED to install Windows more often on my development system - something about my boss saying "drop everything, I need you to find me something to do this, RIGHT NOW". So, I drop everything, download about 20 things to my desktop to test, install them all, compare them. Then he calls back and says, "Where was that other thing that I asked you to work on? What do you mean you've been trying to find me that program? Didn't you already have something ready for me BEFORE I even asked?!?!?"

The conversation proceeds something like that...

Anyway, after a while of rushing between this and that, installing such program and whatnot, and uninstalling junk and trying to make eclipse work (God, who invented that hunk of junk?!?!?!?), I eventually have a less than ideal development environment, and, rather than spending 12 hours trying to diagnose and fix it, I just spend 2 hours and completely recreate it.

However, I agree. My personal system stays pretty clean and I've never reinstalled it (except for installing Windows 7 RC1) since building it.

Re:What about this one?

[kirillian]

Um...are you talking about Frank? He's just paranoid. We don't pay attention to him - he doesn't really count.

Re:What about this one?

[GravityStar]

Dude, the master boot record on the first drive is the one the BIOS loads. And of course a install process for a operating systems sets itself up to be booted.

Next you would be telling me that if Windows didn't do this that it would be user-unfriendly to the people not running multiple OS's but with multiple hard-drives.

Make up your mind. Not just you, but all of you MS haters. It's not that I like Microsoft, but goddamn, some of the bitching that happens on this site is waaaay over the top. And inconsistent. I suppose that is because MS is a big target.

Just remember, every time a comment like the parent is posted, it's like a nagging girlfriend is saying, "I want to go hoooooome."

Re:What about this one?

[SilverEyes]

Imaging? Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage, or you can try this (it worked well for me for image backups) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en

Re:What about this one?

[indi0144]

nah is not paranoid it's common sense.. the only thing that have f***ed up my systems are precisely the errors at O.S. install time. Why do we need to install 2 or 3 diff boot-loaders-calling-bootloaders-calling-bootloaders when most motherboards come with a F key function to choose the boot disk?

Windows fail hard on messing with other partitions and drives on install, thats well known.

Re:What about this one?

[blackest_k]

Some ones already suggested disk imaging but a few virtual machines could help you out. nice clean install x 2 , use one to install the junk and then copy the other to replace the now messed up install.

You might even do the same for your development environment provided the performance is still acceptable.

A few Gb of hd space has to be worth less than a couple of hours of your time.
   

Re:What about this one?

[Nyder]

um, dude, i hate to say this, but the fault is yours.

MS didn't assume anything, you did.

I have Windows 7 on a second disk and it didn't install a 100mb parition on the first disk.

Why? Because i'm not a stupid git who doesn't know shit about computers and let any installer run "express".

Your best bet is to stop using computers, because they are obviously smarter then you.

Re:What about this one?

[Nyder]

okay, here's a little computer lesson, for free.

In the Bios you can set which harddrive is first to boot off of.

If drive 1 is first, and you install the OS on drive 2, it's going to put a bootloader on drive 1.

Why? Because thats how your system is setup, and when you boot up, it checks bios, sees it needs to go to disk 1.

If you do NOT want it to do that, you go into bios and tell it to boot of the Drive 2.

is that stupid? No, you are.

Am i being harsh? nope, just tired of sfb's like you not knowing shit and bitching. seriously, learn something about what your bitching about.

Re:What about this one?

[geirnord]

This a typical non-issue blown way out of propotions on /. Every OS out there running on PC hardware, be it Linux or Windows, do this to a certain level. Due to the BIOS POST method, every OS has to install a way to bootstrap the system on the first harddrive in the computer, as set in BIOS options. This could ba a small boot sector, mbr-loader og a full fledged partition as W7 likes it. It has been this way since early times. Linux does it. Windows does it. OSX, well I don't give a crap about OSX...

When you have a multi disk system, and chooses to install the OS on a drive other than the first, it has to work this was. There is no other way. If you do not know this, or get this, please continue to install OSes. You will then cause people to need more of my services as an IT consultant to fix you're borked up work.

Re:What about this one?

[Zancarius]

Windows fail hard on messing with other partitions and drives on install, thats well known.

+1, Insightful on that.

And yeah, you're right--perhaps it's common sense. It's just a shame that some people immediately set out to shield themselves from blame and point their finger at the OS. Certainly, the OS is partially to blame! But, just a few extra minutes to pop the case and unplug a hard disk can save a heck of a lot of time.

Another example is if you have two disks: /dev/hda and /dev/hdb; they have identical partitions. /dev/hdb is Windows, /dev/hda is some flavor of Linux. You neglect to unplug hdb and type: mke2fs -jq /dev/hdb1.

Ooops. Or heck--let's forget the -q option and answer "yes" anyway!

I almost did something similar one evening and caught myself before pressing ENTER (this was before I got into the habit of unplugging devices I didn't want to touch). So, I really have two habits: 1) Don't make hardware or major configuration changes REALLY late at night unless absolutely necessary and 2) unplug.

Re:What about this one?

[murph]

I doubt that you (and I) represent enough of a market to make it worth their while.

Re:What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you unplug your other OS drives during installation of a new OS for the first time? Thats pretty much standard practice for me, if I'm installing a new OS I've never tried before, I don't assume anything will work properly. ALWAYS remember Murpheys law mate :)

7 Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the official Windows 7 bashing thread.
Please bash here...

Re:7 Bashing

[godrik]

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/windowspartition

my pleasure.

Re:7 Bashing

[n30na]

I prefer smashing

Re:7 Bashing

[frozentier]

Actually, I haven't seen a single person bash Windows 7 in this thread.

Re:7 Bashing

[cichlid]

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/windowspartition

my pleasure.

Funny, this will crash linux if you don't have a /dev/windowspartition file (as most won't). It will create a regular file by that name and then fill the root partition (100% full given that you're running as root). Oops.

Big Linux fan but been there done that :-)

Re:7 Bashing

[godrik]

I didn't wanted to write a complete script to make that joke that could have lost non bash speaking reader. It leads to the question : is there an easy way to detect windows partition ? Is checking for NTFS enough ?

I am not sure you will crash the system by filling all the disk. Sure most applications won't like it, but the system should stay alive.

Re:7 Bashing

[Zancarius]

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/windowspartition

my pleasure.

He said bash, not clobber!

Re:7 Bashing

[Zancarius]

It leads to the question : is there an easy way to detect windows partition ? Is checking for NTFS enough ?

I'd imagine you could read the partition type from the raw disk itself if you were so adventurous.

Re:7 Bashing

[Yazeran]

Well you can at least fill /var without the system crashing, sure some programs do not work right (and fails in odd ways) but the system as a whole stays alive...

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer

Thank you, early adopters

[Em Emalb]

Seriously. You good folks get to hunt bugs, leaks, hacks, etc, and the rest of us get to have the benefits of your hard work.

Thanks.

Of course, I run OS-X and XP in VM on a MBP :P but some of my users don't.

We plan to adopt Win7 when XP is pried from our cold, lifeless hands. Or MS stops supporting/patching it. Will almost certainly skip right over Vistard.

Re:Thank you, early adopters

[socz]

that's what I did! I skipped vista like windows ME! I just recently installed 7 on my HTPC because of WMC and it works great! Just recently decided to give it a go on my old laptop (P4 2.4GHz, 512MB ram POS ATI GPU) and it actually runs good. It says my system rating is 1 based on the lowest score but my highest was 4.9 (hdd) and 2nd highest 3.1 (CPU) lol

XP, FBSD and SuSe ran great on it, so it's time to play with 7 on here.............

Big deal

[FlyingBishop]

Don't run chkdsk before patching. If you need to run chkdsk before a patch comes out for this, I think you should take a look at your hardware, and then reinstall Windows.

Though if you were planning on using the beta until you can no longer handle the random shutdowns, this might be an issue. But then, that's probably a feature.

Re:Big deal

[Zancarius]

Don't run chkdsk before patching. If you need to run chkdsk before a patch comes out for this, I think you should take a look at your hardware, and then reinstall Windows.

The article implies the problem is with chkdsk /r and several other posters farther up the comments section have pointed out that this only affects certain chipsets. Perhaps more interestingly, this issue purportedly only affects the RTM, not the beta or RC.

Nonissue

[Seth Kriticos]

If it is really such a serious bug, than it will be fixed with the first installation and following windows update. (or OEM patches).

No sane person runs a vanilla installation of windows.

Actually, in the first months when win 7 gets released, a lot of even more serious bugs will surface (because of the wide exposure). They also will be fixed and integrated in the update service. It's known that the first months of release is always the release test and fix cycle.

This is just how things go.

Disclaimer: I don't like windows, this is just an objective view.

Re:Nonissue

[edcheevy]

There's no doubt in my mind more bugs will surface with the much wider install, but if this site is correct Windows 7 is already close to 1% of the OS market, a respectable install base for an unreleased OS.

Re:Nonissue

[Seth Kriticos]

Ignoring your number for a moment and asserting they are right,

the current user base are technically inclined folks (you have to make some effort to get it before official release) who manage to avoid specific bugs that will show up when millions of monkeys start to bash the system (OEM's install and sell it to regular Joe/Jane).

You really want to imply that those two testing environments have anything to do with each other?

Re:Nonissue

[edcheevy]

Obviously they are not perfectly analogous. But current (more technical) users are also more likely to correctly report bugs. In addition, not all of the current users are techies. Speaking only for myself, I have migrated a number of friends/family to Windows 7 RC because there were running Vista. *shudder*

Re:Nonissue

[segedunum]

No sane person runs a vanilla installation of windows.

Errrrr, yes they do. Organisations the world over do not install lots of individual Windows updates unless one or two are absolutely necessary. They always (if they're sane) create a build from the known vanilla install and then service pack increments as they become available so they always know exactly what is installed on all their systems at any given time.

However, since it will be many, many years before most organisations upgrade again then it's all academic really.

Re:Nonissue

[edcheevy]

While I'm on the subject of W7 bugs, I've said this before and I'll say it again: be wary of Homegroup. It's great when it works and it usually works, but it can destroy all it touches if it gets upset.

/twocents

Re:Nonissue

[Zancarius]

This is just how things go.

Disclaimer: I don't like windows, this is just an objective view.

Objective views are hard to come by, but I think you deserve a lot more credit (certainly more than the current +4, informative--someone give this man an extra mod)! Your points can be applied to pretty much any industry, any software, and any major roll out.

Re:Nonissue

[MtViewGuy]

In fact, because nobody has yet started duplicating the retail, OEM or system vendor versions of Windows 7 final release for retail or OEM sale, it's very likely that Microsoft may "slipstream" in a fix before large-scale duplication of the Windows 7 installation DVD-ROM disc starts, probably in middle September 2009. This is why MIcrosoft right now is watching for any possible final showstopper bugs to show up now that the OEM's have a chance to look at essentially the complete version.

Arcane?

[Snowblindeye]

From TFA:

The issue [...] involves a fairly arcane process used to check for problems in a particular disk.

So chkdsk is an 'arcane' process now? I've gotten used to the mainstream press always trying to dumb down anything even remotely technical, but shouldn't cnet be a little bit better? Guess not.

Re:Arcane?

[Itninja]

They meant arcane as in 'mystic'. Because chkdsk is a mystical process *POOF*!

Re:Arcane?

[Anonymous Coward]

So chkdsk is an 'arcane' process now?

What, you think it belongs in the nature, shadow, or fire schools?

Re:Arcane?

[Colonel Korn]

From TFA:

The issue [...] involves a fairly arcane process used to check for problems in a particular disk.

So chkdsk is an 'arcane' process now? I've gotten used to the mainstream press always trying to dumb down anything even remotely technical, but shouldn't cnet be a little bit better? Guess not.

Well it is specific to running chkdsk /r on a secondary hard drive, but you're right.

The two real reasons it's not a problem are Windows Update and the fact that this is caused by a buggy Intel chipset driver that's already been fixed.

Re:Arcane?

[DrgnDancer]

"chkdsk" isn't an arcane process. "chkdsk -r" on this particular chipset employs an arcane process to do an in depth check for physical problems on the drive. In other words, this bug: only affects people running "chkdsk -r" on a secondary hard drive, with a particular chipset, who have not update their chipset driver, and is caused by an arcane process within the un-updated driver. I'm hardly a Microsoft apologist, but this seems like a Hell of a tempest in a teapot to me.

(As a side note, anybody know how capitalization works when a sentence begins with a reference to a command? Changing the first letter to a capital actually changes the name of the command, at least in Unix, so it seems like the wrong thing to do.)

Re:Arcane?

[SilverEyes]

Not sure how it works with options -r -R, I believe this is dependent on the program. However, capitalization is irrelevant in Windows as Windows is case insensitive.

Re:Arcane?

[Magic5Ball]

(As a side note, anybody know how capitalization works when a sentence begins with a reference to a command? Changing the first letter to a capital actually changes the name of the command, at least in Unix, so it seems like the wrong thing to do.)

Make a house style or pick from something already established? If you follow the rule that chkdsk is not a native English word, it would be italicised to indicate so, and wouldn't change capitalization for the sake of being in our language. However, it's commonly the case that proper names beginning with non-capital letters are routinely both capitalized and not (but never in the same publication). So, at the beginning of a sentence, Mr. Foo de Bar can be referred to on subsequent mentions as "de Bar supports Baz" or "De Bar supports Baz" or "DeBar supports Baz" depending on the publication. In North America, entertainment media run into this for artists with unusual renderings of their names, rather than for other kinds of newsmakers with non-capital first letters in their names as would be more frequent in Europe. For the disk utility known as "chkdsk", my instinct would be to preserve the case but otherwise indicate through typography (bold, underline, typeface) that it's a command to be typed literally, or that it's a proper noun through quotation marks on first mention, depending on context.

Also consider looking at some style manuals and the rules adopted by the Klingon Language Institute for their English language publications since upper and lower case letters can appear almost anywhere in a word or sentence in the latin alphabet representation of that language. Similarly, look at how proper names of First Nations objects, events, processes and locations are rendered in latin print since those more than occasionally lead with punctuation marks.

Re:Arcane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is case insensitive.

... and it's not very nice, either.

Re:Just me.

[navygeek]

Yeees. That's not bashing at *all*

trying to remember...

[pwolf]

when was the last time I used chkdsk... can't remember. i guess i'm ok!

Payback is a...

[gklinger]

Dear Microsoft,

It sucks when people spread FUD, doesn't it?

Re:Payback is a...

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post should have been modded Insightful, rather than funny, imnsho.

chkdsk sure has problems on windows 7 RC

[Ilgaz]

If you use windows, you sure know the chkdsk /f command which normally defaults to C: and if your system definately has a disk problem, it will act really bad. Solution? chkdsk /F with Windows key+R

When you chkdsk /f in certain situations like after installing software, it does act very interestingly at boot time and claims there is a problem caused by a recent installation so AUTOCHK won't be able to continue.

BTW MS, you still keep AUTOCHK registry entry up and running? For what? Easier rootkit installation? Is there any kind of abuse left which has not been applied on the AUTOCHK including defragmenters?

As I flame them, I would of course report the issue if someone gives me a URL for easy bug reporting. like bugreporter.apple.com . I can`t stand to their bangalore template monkeys powered forum.

You don't optimize disk utilities that way.

[Ilgaz]

I really really hate referencing Apple but guess what? Apple does allow insane amounts of caching in fsck_hfs but for some reason (!) it defaults to comical low , something like no cache.

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/fsck_hfs.8.html (-c argument)

Why? Because system already has disk corruption issue, it could be also related to memory corruption. Also, thing runs on journaled volume with huge help from journal file. One should also admit how clever they hide it from `let me fix a working thing` type of user. Diskutil doesn't have that setting enabled in no kind of form (including hidden pref), plain fsck doesn't have it. It is _only_ fsck_hfs which can be only run giving a direct device name like /dev/disk0s3

On a machine which needs a very fast recovery and HD mechanism was suspicious, I have went up to 4GB. Obviously, it did everything in RAM and machine was 16Gig ECC Quad G5.

This

[Anonymous Coward]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1327339&cid=28971949

Re:Windows = Has Major Bugs

[heffrey]

Million lines of code?! Are you crazy? My 5 developer app has 600,000 loc windows xp reportedly had 35 million i'd guess 7 has over 50 million.

Re:Since when ...

[Desler]

The problem was never with Windows to begin with:

UPDATE: After emailing back and forth with the VP Sinofsky, it was found that the chkdsk /r tool is not at fault here. It was simply a chipset controller issue. Please update you chipset drivers to the current driver from your motherboard manufacturer. I did mine, and this fixed the issue. Yes it still uses alot of physical memory, because your checking for physical damage, and errors on the Harddrive your testing. I'm currently completed the chkdsk scan with no BSODÃ(TM)s or computer sluggishness. Feel free to do this and try it for yourselves. Again, there is no Bug. Thanks all.

http://www.bluescreenofdeath.org/?p=94#comment-134 Yay kdawson fud articles!

Proper facts please

[xtravagan]

I just don't understand why you can't post correct factual posts, is that so hard??

On my machine, with 12GB of memory it uses up 10GB, I still have over 1GB of free memory (10%), the computer is not sluggish and working fine.

If you get an BSOD from this, you should know that it most likely comes from a driver that has not been verfied under low memory scenarios, which is a prerequisit for being WHQL certfied. It is also part of the Driver Verfier supplied by MS.

To me this seems like a good design, if you have surface scanning the HD (like once in a life time) it is very likely that you don't want to do much else with the computer any way.

I will run this on a low end hardware too, as it is a good way to test that your drivers are in order, but it is very likely not at all connected to chkdsk.

Maybe those that experience BSOD, experience them when they play games too? I guess that's the OS fault too.

I guess yesterday when I ran "gmake -j" on a single core SuSe Linux machine, and it entirely stopped responding, I lost med SSH connections and could barely navigate it through the console is a much better option =)

Re:Proper facts please

[Desler]

Because kdawson is slashdot's resident FUD artist. If he actually posted factual stories that didn't contain overblown anti-Microsoft FUD he'd be fired.

Re:Proper facts please

[DaveV1.0]

Nah, he wouldn't be fired.

He would just choke on his own vomit.

Re:Proper facts please

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, he wouldn't be fired.

He would just choke on his own vomit.

Suprisingly, I think that might be a better outcome....

Re:Proper facts please

[Anonymous Coward]

vomit or bile?

Re:Proper facts please

[Anonymous Coward]

On my machine, with 12GB of memory it uses up 10GB, I still have over 1GB of free memory (10%), the computer is not sluggish and working fine

Yeah, ever since everyone on the planet put 12GB in their Windows boxen, this is a total non-issue.

All of you whiners should just pay to put ridiculous amounts of memory in your PCs and quit yer bitchin'.

What?

[tjstork]

This sounds like more of an invented problem than a real one.

I have three hard drives in my machine, one IDE and two SATA. I change the order of the drives from my BIOS and put Windows 7 on one of the drives.

When I want to boot to a different drives, I flip the drive order in the BIOS and that way no OS sees any other. I have Linux on one drive, Windows Vista on another and Windows 7 on the third, and each has its own little world.

Why even worry about boot loaders and the like, when its so easy to pick a drive to boot from in the BIOS, and disks are so relatively cheap.

Re:What?

[Magic5Ball]

Don't you have a "Press F12 to select boot device" prompt somewhere between the memory test and the bootloader that would save a bit of time? Are you doing more in the BIOS than just change the boot order to prevent the Windowses from finding each others' drives through hardware enumeration at runtime? Are you elsewise abusing the way that XP and Vista bless secondary hard drives?

Re:What?

[Zancarius]

When I want to boot to a different drives, I flip the drive order in the BIOS and that way no OS sees any other. I have Linux on one drive, Windows Vista on another and Windows 7 on the third, and each has its own little world.

Same here, except I use grub to boot between the different drives (yes, it's possible). If you were a little more keen on bootloaders, I'd suggest you should give it a try as it'll save having to screw with BIOS--if your BIOS isn't terribly old. I used to do the BIOS flip ages ago. It gets old fast, although it is also foolproof.

I suppose you're right--never trust software to do the right thing. ;)

Re:What?

[Zancarius]

Don't you have a "Press F12 to select boot device" prompt somewhere between the memory test and the bootloader that would save a bit of time? Are you doing more in the BIOS than just change the boot order to prevent the Windowses from finding each others' drives through hardware enumeration at runtime? Are you elsewise abusing the way that XP and Vista bless secondary hard drives?

Not all machines are like Dells nor are all BIOSes created equal. For example, I tend to use Intel's reference boards at home, and they don't have an F12 option to select a boot device. I'd imagine tjstork's circumstance is similar to mine.

Really, it only takes about 5 seconds longer to go into BIOS and change the drive order and you're not likely to do it every boot. If booting between OSes were more of a concern, it's easy to install grub on one disk and use it to manage booting between all three. But if tjstork is happy with using BIOS, I can't see any reason why an extra key or bootloader would make much of a difference.

Re:What?

[timbck2]

I suppose you're right--never trust software to do the right thing. ;)

And the BIOS isn't software?

Re:What?

[Zancarius]

I thought about that before I hit reply. One would've thought I'd learn by now someone would nitpick in spite of the intent behind my post. But, no matter. I'll know better next time to follow my instinct and be far more specific in my posts.

To answer your point: Yes, BIOS is comprised of software, and I think you can largely expect it to the the Right Thing (there are notable exceptions, but for the sake of argument let's assume it does) versus some random bootloader. For the purposes of system integration, most people tend to view it as a hardware component--or a component of hardware--that is significantly different from fix storage, like hard disks, where software would normally be kept. Likewise, we don't tend to view DVD drives as a software component even though they contain embedded firmware.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

sounds like a QA problem

[Ralph Spoilsport]

someone should have caught this LONG ago. Duh.

Re:sounds like a QA problem

[xtravagan]

They did, and it is by design.

Re:sounds like a QA problem

[Desler]

Except the bug was never with chdsk to begin with. It was a bug in a chipset controller. Way to fall for the FUD.

Re:sounds like a QA problem

[Desler]

That should be chipset controller driver.

Rather than Deep Breath...

[Anonymous Coward]

He could have signed off by getting up from the chair...well...uh...uhh...where is the chair?

Here's how you bash Windows

[argent]

C:\> posix.exe /u /c /bin/csh -l
Welcome to the Interix UNIX utilities.

DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
% bash
bash: Command not found
% pkg_add bash-3.0.0.9.2-bin
[...]
% bash
bash-3.0$

Done!

Oh I thought this would have been the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard anything about this being fixed:

http://www.hardwaretricks.net/2009/05/07/windows-7-slammed-with-proof-of-concept-rootkit/

Re:Windows = Has Major Bugs

[AmigaHeretic]

Million lines of code?! Are you crazy? My 5 developer app has 600,000 loc windows xp reportedly had 35 million i'd guess 7 has over 50 million.

No, I think he meant there's a million lines of Bugs in the code. :-)

Wondering if this is still an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hardwaretricks.net/2009/05/07/windows-7-slammed-with-proof-of-concept-rootkit/

Drama llamas

[Runaway1956]

Some drama llama found a potential problem, posted to a blog, upset the idiots who don't know any better, and has been proven to be an ass. Nothing more to see here, move along, get off my lawn.

Did they fix the installer bug yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one where if you attempt to install onto a previously created NTFS partition from an earlier version of Windows it will fail inexplicably?

Windows installing onto the boot drive

[YesIAmAScript]

This is always the case.

It's due to a limitation in how the BIOS in your machine works. Virtually none can boot off any drive other than the 1st IDE device. So if you want to boot off a 2nd drive, you really boot the first sector and loader (sectors 1-62, LILO/GRUB style) off the 1st IDE device then continue off the other drive.

To do it any other way wouldn't work with any machine out there except perhaps EFI machines.

Like the Vista network file copy "showstopper"

[zerofoo]

When Vista was released, we couldn't copy a few 16k files from our servers in under an hour. I have a hard time believing that Microsoft did not catch this bug during internal testing. Network file copy is a fairly important and frequently used function. This is a "showstopper" for anyone that uses a network file server, yet Microsoft shipped the product anyway.

I don't think a "showstopper" bug exists that would cause Microsoft to delay shipment of a product. Their motto appears to be "ship early and patch often".

The smart money waits for Windows 7 SP1 or SP2.

-ted

The real issue: Some people are running scared

[benjymouse]

First a few facts

1. chkdsk.exe is a disk checking and file-system repair tool. Most users will never know about it.
2. The chkdsk functionality kan be invoked through Windows Explorer as well. Some users will find this tool if they deliberately are looking for it.
3. chkdsk.exe with the /r oprion (and *only* with the /r option) has been designed to allocate most of the available physical memory, but always leave at least 50M free. This is not a memory leak. It was a deliberate decision because using more memory will dramatically speed up the surface verification/repair process. Note, it will allocate from available memory, i.e. already allocated memory will not be forced out into paged/virtual memory. If this was a leak the allocation would go on and on, cause more and more swapping until the system trashed itself to death. But it's not. The system remains responsive and the memory is freed when chkdsk ends.
4. The crash condition appears to be an unrelated issue with chipset controller drivers. Propably this issue becomes more pronounced during periods with intensive disk usage and/or low memory conditions. It is not caused by chkdsk, it is a driver/controller issue which has been reported to be fixed by updating drivers to the latest version.

No, the real issue is that Microsoft appears to be slated for a massive success with Windows 7. At this point some Microsoft detractors will leap upon any issue in an attempt to spoil the party. In this category you find Randal C. Kennedy of InfoWorld who leapt on to this issue with blatant disregard for any facts. Even if the original blogger and mr. Kennedy were so stupid as to believe this issue was a memory leak and that it caused the crash, by their own account it would only manifest itself under very specific circumstances:

• chkdsk.exe must be invoked with the /R option to perform a surface scan/repair (this is the most radical option).
• chkdsk.exe must be invoked for a non-system partition (chkdsk must dismount the drive/partition - using /r on the system drive requires chkdsk to run during boot instead).

So, even if this was a bug, only users with

• 2 or more drives/partitions,
• one non-system exhibiting suspicious behavior to warrant a "surface scan".
• users able to find and launch the tool

No, this whole bruhaha has a distinct smell of desperation about it. And kdawson is - as usual - all to happy to assist.

No, Not a showstopper at all!

[Anonymous Coward]

This bug, doing a checkdisk on a second drive, and having a built in utility bringing the operating system to its knees in seconds is not a showstopper bug, not at all. No. Its, its.....an undocumented feature! Yes! We have found that archiving data to a second computer (single disk) is much much more secure than using a second hard disk on the same machine. In order to prevent people using two hard disks on the same computer, we added in this failsafe feature which strongly informs the uses that what they are doing is potentially catastrophic. Windows 7 was never designed as a data archive operating system with multiple hard disks, therefore, we do not expect to hear any customer feedback, except from those moronic geeky types who should all be using Unix or Linux anyway. Having cast ourselves as computing overlords, we expect welcome from our new computer underlings. Well?.....

The real showstopper bug...

[ConceptJunkie]

... is called "Windows XP".

This is no surprise

[Master of Transhuman]

Chkdsk always ends up eating the machine anyway. You could never do any useful work while it was running, and why would you want to? You're checking the frickin' disk!

The problem we have these days with 1TB hard drives is that ANY check of the hard disk is going to take the better part of a day. The hard drive manufacturers need to come up with on-board diagnostic system that can report results to the BIOS or to their own diagnostic software within a reasonable time frame.

Although I suppose drives are sufficiently cheap now (Toshiba 1TB drives go for $90) that ANY discrepancy in the hard drive warrants replacing the drive. But then, of course, you have to COPY all that data onto the new drive.

Industry needs to start dealing with the time-eating problem of repairing file systems and failing hard drives. Maybe everything needs to be "RAID 5" in some sense - without the multiple disks.

Re:This is no surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean something like SMART ? More information on it is available here also....

I have a question...

[hairyfeet]

And the questions is this: Can somebody that is familiar with the Chkdsk tool and its inner working on Windows 7 tell me how it compares to Spinrite? in Win9x through WinXP I have run chkdsk in the past with buggy drives and come up with squat, whereas with Spinrite I could run level 3 or level 4 and while it would take what seemed like an eternity it would find the bad spots and mark them offlimits.

So how does it compare? Is the new chkdsk able to catch those surface errors better than before? Because while I still have the spinrite my boss bought me in 05, it would be nice to have a built in tool for those times I don't have my discs handy. I preordered the $50 Win7 HP so I'll get to play with it in Oct (I know you can download now, but I already have WinXP 32 and XP X64 which rocks BTW and just don't have room ATM) but any info that will give me a heads up would be useful. So how about it, is the new chkdsk good? Or is it better just to take the time to Spinrite it?

Well the Harsh REality of Win7

[gearloos]

The real world reality I have experienced with Win 7 is not the glamor everyone hypes. This thing is simply another Microsoft Product with all that implies. Yes it's junk. I tried it on one box running nothing more than Warhammer Online (which works well in XP) and after 3 days of no issues it began to crash. At first every couple hours then every hour then every 10 minutes untill after a week of this, I could not start the game at all. I also have it on a virtual machine. Almost the same problem except that is my day to day general use VM. I started seeing things like Firefox suddenly won't start or Photoshop would hang. Enough of this crap. When I have to, I'll use XP, otherwise, I'll just be on my Fedora Box or my Macbook Pro when traveling. I'll pass on giving Msoft any more of my hard earned money.

Vista was a bug

[lanner]

Vista, in it's entirety, was a showstopper bug. That didn't stop Microsoft from shipping it.

Re:Windows = Has Major Bugs

[heffrey]

Oh ha ha ha

the one in the name?

[Tim4444]

so, what? they're just going to call it "7" now? i wonder if that count includes windows 1 and 2... sorry, couldn't resist

Wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Microsoft, you're paid so stupid shit like this doesn't happen. Prove that you're dependable, and then maybe customers will actually want to pay for your products.

what about relatives that dont know

[Anonymous Coward]

what about relatives who cant stop themselves trying out the top 100 warez on tpb and let their son install everything he wants. then you'll end up with so much malware its faster to reinstall and thats including the 3hr windows update required (slowish adsl internet), less of a pain than stuffing about with virus scanners.

W7 will be a piece of crap...

[mtthwbrnd]

Look, we all know that W7 will be a piece of crap like all of its predecessors. I can hear the army of the Microsoft faithful telling us how radically different it is going to be from 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista... I am sure I have missed a few hundred others! Always there is the hype and the promises ... and then someone puts it in a laptop and the swearing begins, then the billions of bug fixes will come out followed by some stupid DRM program like Genuine Advantage which will only affect people who actually paid for the piece of crap - the others having hacked copies which ignore the DRM. I have not used a Windows since mid-XP, my life is so much less stressful now!

"Critical Bug"

[DataCabbitKSW]

The whole "critical bug" was only with a specific chipset, and specific chipset drivers from what I have read. Even then it wasn't sure-fire to happen. It is hardly a "showstopper" and is fixed with updated drivers. It is a bug, for sure. However it is hardly a critical bug with Windows 7. This can likely be fixed with a small patch to chkdsk, and issuing a driver update option (through Windows Update) once the new version has been certified. I fail to see what the big fuss was over. For those who haven't tried out Windows 7, you can still get the Release Candidate for free from Microsoft until August 20th: http://tinyurl.com/9agzvs . If you are anxious to get the final version of Windows 7 before the October 22nd release date, you can always sign up for MSDN or TechNet Plus (it was released to them yesterday, see here: http://tinyurl.com/mpgp4h ).