Death to Bill Gates...

Started by Harvey Birdman, October 10, 2007, 10:47:02 AM

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Harvey Birdman

I had an image rendering on my wife's desktop machine for about 40 hours. Last night her machine automatically downloaded the latest from Windows Update, then automatically rebooted itself. The rendering had just finished the GI sample pass.


Dark Fire

I've never heard of Windows automatically rebooting after an update. However, I have seen it nag about rebooting a lot, and there seems to be no way of turning that off...

Isn't Bill Gates becoming significantly less invloved with Microsoft anyway? It seems pointless to kill him now - those days are over...

dhavalmistry

actually this has happened to me a lot.....specially in vista....it would just download and install the updates and restart the comp without the user permission....although you can change the settings....

it also happens in xp where it would download and install updates without user permission and would popup the dialog box saying windows installed the updates and needs to restart and it would give you 1 minute to react to that dialog box every 15 mins and if nothing is done within 1 min, it would restart the computer and loose the rendering in progress....

I have broken 1 set of 5.1 speakers and 2-3 keyboards broken into two pieces and keys flying everywhere.....
"His blood-terragen level is 99.99%...he is definitely drunk on Terragen!"

Harvey Birdman

DarkFire - Yeah, like D says, it's a matter of settings. She had her machine set up to download, install and reboot if necessary, all automatically. I hadn't realized that. And as for Bill... it would be purely symbolic. Stringing up Balmer et al just wouldn't be as emotionally satisfying.

;D


D - I'm afraid the keyboard on my desktop machine took a bit of a pounding.

;D

dhavalmistry

Quote from: Harvey Birdman on October 10, 2007, 01:08:19 PM
D - I'm afraid the keyboard on my desktop machine took a bit of a pounding.

;D

not just one....2 of them....
"His blood-terragen level is 99.99%...he is definitely drunk on Terragen!"

rcallicotte

<sniff>  Did I hear someone say something about the end of M$?  What?   :P
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

efflux

It's best to disable automatic updates. I don't even have my Windows machine connecting to the net. I do that on my Mac and Linux and no anti virus software needed. It's also very rare to ever need to have to reboot on either OSX or Linux. The whole MS stranglehold is turning into a tragedy. Linux is vastly superior now but so many software developers say there is no demand for Linux versions. It's a vicious circle. It'll take things like wine to make a difference so people can use their Windows version apps on Linux. Microsoft do not care whatsoever about creating a good product only using all their resources to fight against better products but this can only go on for so long.

Harvey Birdman

I'm currently working on a grant proposal to port a portion of my calculus software from Win32 to Java so I can take advantage of JOGL. I originally developed a web-delivered sample a few years back but had to use Windows and ActiveX because at the time it was the only reasonable means of delivering GL content over the web. With JOGL that's changed, and I'm hoping I can get funding to do the work. I've already talked with a textbook publisher about licensing the final product for use on their site.

It'd be sweet to be able to really move commercially to Java; if I get the funding it'll give me a chance to explore the performance of a Java-based version of my stuff, at someone else's expense.

Lucio

Quote from: Harvey Birdman on October 10, 2007, 10:47:02 AM
I had an image rendering on my wife's desktop machine for about 40 hours. Last night her machine automatically downloaded the latest from Windows Update, then automatically rebooted itself. The rendering had just finished the GI sample pass.



That's exactly the same thing that happened to me yesterday... I was rendering on TG2 for an architectural work, left the machine, and when I returned everything got lost, PC rebooted and a lot of wasted time >:( :)

Cyber-Angel

Would it not be better for the IT industry as a whole to disband Microsoft as a Body Corporate, demolish there corporate HQ live on TV and make their Intellectual Property Portfolio Open Source, just an idea any way.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel

Harvey Birdman

Quote from: Cyber-Angel on October 10, 2007, 06:35:13 PM
... demolish there corporate HQ live on TV ...


I'd pay to watch that! What the hell; I've probably paid for an office or two there over the years.

:D

Will

Now now Microsoft is a simple, fun loving corporation that has matured over the years has grow into a profitable Global Superpower, sentient computer system, The Matrix, supplier of certain products that other major economic shareholders can't do with out.
The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

old_blaggard

Yeah, Microsoft's monopoly is pretty scary.  There is an online magazine that contrasts Apple, Microsoft, and other big computer companies, and it's well worth a look at some of its articles:
http://test.roughlydrafted.com

Edit: Wow... apparently it has moved to a new location over the past 24 hours :P.  I updated the link.
http://www.terragen.org - A great Terragen resource with models, contests, galleries, and forums.

Oshyan

#13
Quote from: old_blaggard on October 10, 2007, 07:18:20 PM
Yeah, Microsoft's monopoly is pretty scary.  There is an online magazine that contrasts Apple, Microsoft, and other big computer companies, and it's well worth a look at some of its articles:
http://test.roughlydrafted.com

Edit: Wow... apparently it has moved to a new location over the past 24 hours :P.  I updated the link.
*Ahem*, to be clear that is not a "non-partisan" (as it were) site, the author is something more of a Mac advocate/appreciator. To call it "intensely biased" might be a bit much, but still... ;)

And as much as Microsoft's monopoly has its drawbacks, I really don't find it "scary" at all, and I think it's frankly irresponsible to ignore the value of such broad standardization that it has brought. Even Apple has benefitted from it through sheer market force. With Apple as essentially the sole relevant and mainstream desktop computer alternative, they have enjoyed a virtual secondary monopoly. Imagine if the computing industry continued as it was before Microsoft became dominant - 1000 flavors of hardware and software, few compatible with each other. Apple would have a lot harder time getting software developers to favor them with broad competition like that. And if they did succeed, it's possible they would now be the monopoly MS is, only with locked-in hardware you could very safely bet on much higher buy-in cost.

So yeah, MS is evil and all, but it has also made our modern computing world a remarkably convenient place, despite the bugs, crashes, blue screens, whatever. I'll take Windows XP over 100 flavors of "DOS" any day.

- Oshyan

efflux

Apple are certainly the only alternative if you wants lots of working software but on the PC, Microsoft have an extremely unhealthy monopoly. They can produce a garbage OS now and not care. I have two PCs here, mostly sitting redundant because when I bought my Mac I simply hardly ever used them. My Mac has not had a single glitch or problem in almost 3 years. The OSX desktop is fantastically simple and easy to use. The Windows desktop is a bloated joke. The thing that angers me is the my PCs are actually great machines. I spared no expense when building them. I know them to be brilliant because I have used Linux which is simply vastly superior to Windows. after having payed with Linux for several years I installed Ubuntu ages and this system has been rock solid problem free. Ubuntu is a landmark distribution which gets better and better. So easy to install Linux these days, it makes a Vista install seem ridiculous. Linux can be totally customized to however you want it. There are so many problems with Windows I couldn't even begin to list them. For a start you have to start replacing lots of the MS apps after you install it. iTunes, Firefox etc. As far as TG2 is concerned I'll give you one example. The Windows colour dialog is a joke compared to the one on Mac and we need this system colour tool for TG2. You shouldn't have to replace any of these tools.