XP Fail

My XP install is effectively hosed. Complete failure to boot (fixed with some knowledge and a *lot* of luck), all copies of UPP considered viruses (including archived and untouched copies), failure of windows update, not to mention several long-running issues involving mysterious cpu/disk usage (not virus related afaict) and random crashes (graphics related but not app or driver version specific).

I read from the Book of Ripley: "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Windows XP Startup Items

Well my XP login time has got ridiculous, not to mention something killing the tray ("notification area" if you're being strict on terminology) the first time I log in which means I have to log out and back in again for things to work. Anywho, let's see what has sneaked into my startup list since the last time I cleaned it out... Sorry about the size of this post btw.

IMJPMIG: This is "used to simplify the input of Asian characters in the Microsoft Office suite". I don't input Asian characters, nor do I use MS Office. Goodbye to that then.
TINTSETP (x2): Again an IME related thing, but apparently a bit more important. I'll keep it until I find out it's irrelevant to me.
asrunhelp: Something ASUS related. Seems to be under review at various process description sites. It can stay for now.
NvCpl: If you're not using an nVidia card beware, a virus uses this name. My own copy here is a legit service (unneeded though and will come back every time you install new drivers). This one can go I think.
nwiz: As above, this can go too.
Acrotray: Acrobat nonsense. Never found it useful, never will. Go away and stop re-adding yourself.
[no name]: No command being run either. This can go.
Center: Great name guys... Anywho, this is used for ASUS WLan cards. Not necessary then and I don't even have one anymore, so definitely not needed here. It goes.
qttask: A good reason not to use Quicktime, just keeps coming back. Not needed, kinda pointless, it goes.
DragDiag: ADSL modem utility. I use an ADSL router at the moment, so this can go (I actually manually close it every time I log in, so this'll be a nice change =P ).
InCD: I don't use InCD stuff, so this can go. I've never trusted on-the-fly writing of CDs/DVDs.
NvMcTray: Something from nVidia. I don't really care about it, so it can go.
W: Erm.... gone.
MSMSGS: Go away, stop coming back. I renamed your directory so you can't run anyway.
ctfmon: Language bar and alternative text input for MS Office. I use none of the things in that sentence. Goodbye.
Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher: Speed my ass. Gone.
Adobe Gamma: See above.

That looks to be all. I've skipped over the ones important to the applications I use. What starts up with Ubuntu for me you ask? Well there's... erm... there's gotta be one thing at least hasn't there? The network manager applet? A few agents to help me out? GDM?! It's all hideously outweighed by the hundreds of services and processes that my Windows sessions spawn. Ah well, it gives my HDD and RAM a workout I guess...

Vista Zip Support

Taken from here and based on Vista's support for creating a zip file with your choice of contents, I assume XP might be a bit worse (after all, they've had many years to fix it up).

I captured a Process Monitor trace of the compression of a single file and counted the associated operations. Just for this simple case, Explorer opened the target ZIP file 14 times, 12 of those before it had actually created the file and therefore with NOT FOUND results, and performed directory look ups of the target 19 times. It was also redundant with the source file, opening it 28 times and querying the file’s basic properties 17 times.

[...]

Zipfldr.dll, the Explorer file compression DLL, was in most of the stack traces, meaning that the compression engine itself was ultimately responsible for the waste. Further, the number of repetitious operations explodes when you compress multiple files.

Optimisation needed much?

MSN Fails

Is there any official explanation for why MSN Messenger deletes mp3s if you get sent them and try to open them by clicking the link it gives you (the alternative being to navigate to your downloaded files folder)? It says it's potentially harmful and just goes ahead and deletes it, no asking the user, it just does what it feels like. Now I could understand it for executable files, but why mp3s? Executable files, by the way, are not deleted, you just get the potentially harmful warning.

I wonder why I'm gradually not using any MS software?

Sales Calls

The other day I got the sort of sales call I like (if I have to put up with any at all). It went something like:

Caller: Hi, I'm calling on behalf of BT. How do you access the internet at the moment?
Me: I have ADSL
Caller: Are you happy with your service, or would you be interested in switching?
Me: I'm fine with it at the moment thanks.
Caller: Ok, have a nice day.

Nice, short and to the point, let's see more of this please.


On a more annoying front, it's the turn of Windows again. Sometime overnight my machine in the lab grabbed some updates off Windows Update. I didn't know the automatic service was running, I'll sort that out soon. Once it had done this it decided that the computer needed a restart. Of course, in the view of the update client it can't wait or things might explode, so it happily just restarted the machine. Thanks, but what about the webpages and documents I had open, any work I was doing (luckily I do save obsessively) and just random things I had open to leave notes for myself or for amusement? Did they really need to be sacrificed on the altar of the updates that required a restart so desperately they couldn't even wait for me to come and confirm it?

More Fail From MS

Why am I not surprised by this? Install the beta Office 2007, do lots of productive work with it, forget the trial is about to run out and proceed to lose most of the functionality. Ok, no problems, just reinstall an older non-beta version and keep working... Problem. You've saved your work in the new shiny XML based format that the old versions don't understand. Ok, you can still use the beta to open the documents, maybe you can re-save out in an old format... Nope, it expired so you can't do anything with it, they only gave you the opening ability in order to taunt you. Wonder how much productivity is going to be wasted accidentally with this?

Yes, I know, use Open Office =P Point is MS don't provide an easy solution to a problem of their own making.

Also, if you do decide to use Vista then keep an eye on your northbridge temperatures. Just a tip.

Problem unrelated apparently, but I'll still moan about Vista anyway :-)

Which Vista

It's a hard choice, but personally I'd go with XP SP2 or Ubuntu.

The True Cost Of Vista

Required reading. I know it's long and there's more paranoia and spin than there has to be, but the basic points made are very relevant.

These days there are far too many words without actions. Sony rip their customers off and shred companies like Lik-Sang and people bitch and moan about it, but then they go out the next day and buy Sony products. Linksys ship buggy and incompatible wireless router products and they get bad reviews, but you can guarantee they still ship in the hundreds of thousands. When did we become a race of people who are so desperate to spend our money that we are willing to have any piece of sh*t shoved down our throats? Somewhere it has to end, and I for one am willing to at least make the effort.

Right now I'm making this vow: I will not buy any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, I will not use Vista, and I will prioritise my PC hardware purchases such that if it employs the frankly retarded measures noted then it will be at the very bottom of my list.

So there you have it. MS can be assured I will not be paying anything for their new flagship product. The film companies can be assured I will not be buying the content that is so precious as to require a complete removal of common (and business) sense. The hardware companies can be assured that if they allow MS to dictate to them what they are and aren't allowed to make then I will most certainly not be giving them my cash (after all, that's what the whole world revolves around isn't it?).


Edit:
Just in case MS didn't see this one coming, a suitable quote:

The HDCP scheme will serve to make the illegal product the most full featured and least restrictive, and thus the most attractive to the consumer. Add in the expense of buying new equipment to view the legal content (when existing equipment is perfectly capable) and the performance drain imposed by in-line encryption/decryption and they've put out the biggest incentive to piracy yet.

On an (almost) lighter note, I can so see this happening:

An interesting potential security threat, suggested by Karl Siegemund, occurs when Vista is being used to run a security monitoring system such as a video surveillance system. If it's possible to convince Vista that what it's communicating is premium content, the video (and/or audio) surveillance content will become unavailable, since it's unlikely that a surveillance center will be using DRM-enabled recording devices or monitors. I can just see this as a plot element in Ocean's Fifteen or Mission Impossible Six, "It's OK, their surveillance system is running Vista, we can shut it down with spoofed premium content."

How about this scenario? A tech support employee at a cable tv company gets fired for browsing porn on company time. Before leaving he leaves a program running on one of the servers that streams out a key revocation list to every device listening to the broadcasts. This list is composed of random keys being generated and sent as fast as the network allows. Before it gets discovered and removed a huge portion of people lose the ability to view premium content on their devices (or even have the devices completely disabled).

XPensive Software

Recently I've been getting much more enthusiastic about using Linux, having used Fedora Core something (4?) the summer before last while working on a project for the Cogent Computing ARC and doing a lot of work over the last few months with Gumstix (which come with some Linux distro, can't remember what) and Ubuntu. Then there's Knoppix which I'm using in its LiveCD form as a host system to develop my own distro based off of the guide at Linux From Scratch. Basically, I'm thinking of migrating almost all the things I do over to Linux in some form or another, possibly only keeping Windows (specifically XP, not Vista, see below) to play various games on and stuff. Besides, all the useful tools are written for Linux anyway...

This decision has been helped slightly by my discovery of various items in the Vista EULA, as mentioned here (3 pages for you =P ) and here, and I won't even go into the "Trusted Computing" nonsense or the related insane pushing of DRM at the system level (right down to the hardware itself).

As a side-note, I'd like to point you to this purely because I hate iTunes with a vengeance.

Anyway, I think that's enough to read for now. My feelings towards Windows have moved very fast towards dropping it recently, and that doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon.