Windows Servers

What Makes Windows Deteriorate Over Time

davestechshop.net — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:58:07 GMT

I've been using Microsoft Windows since version 3.1. One consistent issue I've faced is that the operating system becomes degraded in some way with normal use over time. Usually, after about a year of normal use I have to reinstall WIndows - and that means reinstalling all my applications and reconfiguring all my personal preferences and customizations.

Over the years and over all the versions of Windows since 3.1 through the latest the specific issues that have resulted in forced re-installations have been different. But some common symptoms include these:

An existing software application stops working or works incorrectly -- and very in-depth debugging fails to reveal the problem. The application works on other systems, just not on my system. Nothing except a re-installation seems to solve the problem. I recently experienced this issue with my password manager software. The developer worked very hard with me and we could not resolve the problem. Reinstalling Windows finally fixed it.
A new software application refuses to install. This recently happened to me with a new development environment from a major vendor. Their software runs well on millions of computers - just not on mine. Reinstalling Windows was the only solution we found and that worked.
A service pack or other update will not install. This recently happened to me when installing Service Pack 2 from Microsoft. The service pack would not install. Microsoft generously offered help, but ultimately the solution was once again to reinstall Windows.
Windows stops booting up with a message that the kernel is missing some DLLs. It will not even boot into safe mode, etc. Some people might be able to diagnose these errors better than me, but I inevitably decide to endure the pain of a re-installation rather than try to debug/resolve kernel errors.

Each time I have to re-install Windows it feels like I'm being kicked out of my house. I spend a lot of time working on my computer -- indeed, my wife says I live there.

What would happen if, after getting a plumbing leak under your house, the plumber tells you that you must move out of your house, tear down the house and build a new one in its place, and eventually you can move back in, but you will have to redecorate all over again and move all your possessions back in from storage and all that stuff? Now, what would you think if this happened to you every 12 to 24 months?!

That's how I feel about being forced to re-install Windows approximately every year. The intense part of this re-installation takes a couple days; but then it seems to require about two weeks before I have everything completely back like it was. I don't mind the work, but I hate the fact that it is unproductive work. It isn't creative. I'm not moving ahead - I'm simply getting back what I already had and was happy with (except for the fact that it stopped working!).

Fifteen months ago I was faced with re-installing Windows on my desktop computer for about the hundredth time. I decided to install Windows Server 2003 as my desktop OS. I set it up so that all my data and as many of my settings as possible (including my complete Windows profile) were on my file server. I hoped that running Windows Server 2003 as my desktop would give me the kind of stability and reliability we often see in real Windows servers.

The Windows servers I typically work with professionally do not degrade over time like Windows on the desktop does. I've seen Windows servers that continue to run well for years. I want Windows on my desktop to hold up over time that well.

I enjoyed using Windows Server 2003 as my desktop OS for about a year. I was very careful with it. I never had a virus infection. I never had a single piece of malware infect my system. I was very selective about which applications I installed. I spent a year treating my operating system with great care. However, in the end, my fate was the same. I was forced to re-install Windows. Why does this happen?!

This time it was actually 15 months between installs, but that's only because I endured a malfunctioning operating system for at least three months before I found the time to re-install Windows. Once I did re-install Windows I realized how poorly everything had been working. Application after application suddenly began doing what it was designed to do again. That's nice, but I really want to know how to prevent Windows from deteriorating over time.

Is the degradation of Windows due to installing and uninstalling applications? I know Windows servers generally have a fairly stable set of applications. I also know that experience tells me to be very careful about installing new applications because this can often lead to problems. At the moment I feel installing and uninstalling applications is the primary suspect in Windows's degradation over time. However, there is no way to avoid installing some new or upgraded applications over the course of a year or more. I minimized the applications I installed, but I still suffered a serious deterioration in WIndows functionality that led to a forced re-installation (and all the related pain).

People often point to malware, viruses and other threats from online activities as the reason for Windows degradation over time. In my case I am confident this is not the reason (and I tested for this with the best tools I know of). What else could it be?

Other sysadmins point to lack of maintenance as the culprit. This includes things like neglect of disk defragmenting, tons of temporary files piling up, etc. As you can probably guess, I'm well above average when it comes to taking care of my system. I don't think lack of maintenance explains why I have to reinstall Windows every year (or two at the most). Plus, my servers don't suffer the same fate as my desktop. My home file server (running the same Windows Server 2003 operating system), for example, just runs and runs and runs. I actually do less preventive maintenance on it because it never gives me any problems. Why is it that the same operating system, cared for by the same person, but used on the desktop craps out after a fairly short period of use?

Installing hardware device drivers can often cause problems, but I approached this area much the same as new software applications. Over the 15 months I used my last installation of Windows I only installed a few new USB devices. I made no other hardware changes. Plus I had not made any changes at all recently. I don't think device driver problems explains what happened to me.

I would love to hear from anyone who has figured out to to prevent and avoid the Windows degradation that is so common. Everyone seems to have experienced it. No everyone has experienced it as frequently as I have, but I use my computer all day long every day.

I'll conclude this article by saying that my most recent re-installation was much less painful because of some key changes I made last time this happened to me. These are:

I put all my personal data on my home file server. Sure there was a cost in setting up a home file server, but it was worth every penny!
I wired my house with CAT6e and installed a GigE switch.
I set up a roaming profile and stored it on my home file server. The price for doing this is a longer start up and shut down time in Windows, but again I feel it was one of the best changes I have made considering that Windows on the desktop deteriorates over time.
I took My Documents (and My Pictures and all my other stuff) out of my profile and stored it directly on the file server.
I set up email with Google. I still used Outlook and POP3, but I left copies of all my mail on Google's servers. While I was re-installing Windows, Gmail saved me. In fact, I'm not sure I'll go back to Outlook - at least not in the same way I relied on it before.
I moved all my favorites/bookmarks online (Spurl and del.icio.us).

This time, I took a couple more steps in addition to those listed above.

I set up a home application server, for one. This server will run all my productivity applications. I will access it via RDP 6.0 (so I can have my high resolution dual monitor experience) from my desktop. I will strive to keep the set of applications very stable. I will not access the Internet from this box (except for Windows updates and a few limited situations). I won't plug USB or Blue Tooth devices into this box, and I won't install new hardware unless there is something I can't avoid. I probably will run Visual Studio as well as Office on this box. Doing development on it concerns me a bit. Maybe I should have a separate development box, but that seems impractical for several reasons. First, I use the Office apps together with Visual Studio quite frequently. Second, I'm already at a ridiculous level of complexity for a single user. (After all, why should a single user have to have a desktop, a file server, an application server and a GigE network just to achieve some level of reliability? I simple want Windows to stop crashing and deteriorating over time.)

The other step I took is to more fully embrace Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005. I will be using these virtual machines extensively for testing any new application I may be considering installing on my desktop (or application server). I'll be using them for development work as much as possible. And I have a Virtual PC VM set up for all my online activity. It has an undo disk enabled and I virtually never commit the changes. I find that I can get a lot of online work done and save the results of my work and then simply close the virtual machine and undo all the changes. That way my virtual machines stays nearly as fresh as it was the day I first installed Windows. I do have to plan for installing updates and doing other maintenance. I simply do that work in a session where I don't browse the web, then I close the VM and commit the changes.

The virtual machines do have some limitations. For example, they don't have video support for dual monitors or high resolutions. I don't think you can burn CDs or DVDs from within a virtual machine. They don't use all the power of modern CPUs. They aren't suitable for gaming. The list goes on. Therefore, a virtual machine cannot completely protect me from the problems I have experienced with Windows degradation, but I think they will help.

What other suggestions can you think of?

I hope that the next time I re-install Windows on my desktop (or any of my personal servers) will be due to my own decision to upgrade, not because I'm forced to re-install due to deterioration of the operating system.

Checklist for Moving to A New Webserver

davestechshop.net — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:08:53 GMT

Does anyone have a checklist of the things they do when moving client websites to a new server? This is a quick list I threw together from memory. The next time I do this, I will keep exact notes and update this post. This info applies to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS) hosting account running Windows 2003.

If you have a similar checklist, please leave me a link.

As you'll see below, I set up some very limited access user accounts and there are a few extra steps because of this.

rename all standard user accounts such as “Administrator”; and make sure “Guest” account is disabled
change Remote Desktop Connection port (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759 -- ONLY takes effect after a REBOOT!)
set up Windows firewall on new server. Add exceptions for:
1. RDC (custom port)
2. FTP
3. HTTP
create a special very limited Windows account for FTP use.
get FTP working on new server
1. set up logging and upload folders for FTP
create folder structure on new server. Here are some examples I use on a system with three drives:

D:\InetPub\Subtext
D:\SQLData\Subtext
E:\SQLLogs\Subtext
E:\Logs\WebLogs\websitename.com
E:\Settings\IIS (for config files, etc.)
Etc.

install NTFS Link and set up junctions for Community Server as per http://blog.davestechshop.net/archive/2006/10/22/CommunityServerMultipleCommunities.aspx
add Windows user account for LimitedWebAccount and make it a member of IIS_WPG on web server
add read permissions for LimitedWebAccount account to:
1. C:\WINDOWS\Temp (and maybe C:\temp) for LimitedWebAccount account
2. Logging folders
3. Website folders
install MS SQL
1. add login for LimitedWebAccount account
Add custom trust policy as per http://blog.davestechshop.net/archive/2006/11/12/CustomTrustLevelForCommunityServer.aspx or http://blog-howto.com/archive/2006/09/24/CustomizingTrustLevelPolicy.aspx
create config files for IIS web sites and app pools on existing server
edit IIS config files:
1. change server name
2. change logging folder
create database backups on existing server
copy website applications (CommunityServer, DNN, Subtext, etc.)
1. zip up all stuff on existing server
2. FTP it to new server
add security login for LimitedWebAccount to MSSQL
restore databases to new server
add custom app pools in IIS (use config file)
1. set app pool Identity to LimitedWebAccount account & set password
add web sites from config file (after checking edits for new server)
copy website applications
edit web.config files for db connection string and folders
Set up backup jobs
Set up offsite backup (FTP transfer)

Ubuntu Linux Vs Windows Vista--The Battle For Your Desktop

davestechshop.net — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:57:00 GMT

Is Linux finally ready to take on Windows as a desktop OS? We tried out both Vista and Ubuntu on individual PCs to see which works better. Here's who won.

By Serdar Yegulalp, InformationWeek
April 27, 2007
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201179

The prevailing wisdom about Linux on the desktop runs something like this: "I'll believe Linux is ready for the desktop as soon as you can give me a Linux distribution that even my grandmother can run."

For some time, the folks at Ubuntu have been trying their best to make Granny -- and most everyone else -- happy. They've attempted to build a Linux distribution that's easy to install, use, configure, and maintain -- one that's at least as easy as Windows, and whenever possible, even easier. As a result, Ubuntu is one of the Linux distributions that has been most directly touted as an alternative to Windows.

In this feature, I'm going to compare the newly-released Ubuntu 7.04 (codenamed "Feisty Fawn") with Microsoft Windows Vista in a number of categories. To keep the playing field as level as possible, I'm looking wherever I can at applications -- not just in the sense of "programs," but in the sense of what the average user is going to do with the OS in a workday. Sometimes the differences between the two OSes are profound, but sometimes the playing field levels itself -- OpenOffice.org, for instance, is installed by default in Ubuntu, but adding it to Vista isn't terribly difficult.

I tried to stick whenever possible with preinstalled software, although this rule sometimes had to be bent a little -- for instance, to see what backup solutions were available for Ubuntu through its own software catalog.

Also, while I was tempted to compare Vista's Aero interface to the Beryl window manager (which has a similar palette of visual effects), I decided that pretty graphics, while nice, had more to do with personal preference than efficiency. In addition, Beryl isn't installed by default in Ubuntu, and Aero isn't available on all PCs.

In each case, I've tried to look at practical benefits rather than theoretical ones -- what works, what doesn't, and what you have to do to get certain things done. I should also note that, despite being a big fan of Vista, I've tried to keep my enthusiasm for it from overriding my judgment. Everyone needs something different, and not everyone needs (or wants) Vista -- or Ubuntu -- so I've done my best to keep my mind, and my eyes, wide open.

Installation

Most people never have to deal with installing Windows on a new PC, since Windows typically comes as a preload. The few times you have to install it yourself, though, the whole thing needs to be as painless as possible. To that end, I installed both Ubuntu and Vista on three different test machines:

A Sony VAIO VGN-TX770P notebook computer, with 1GB RAM, an 80GB HD, and an Intel 915GM shared-memory integrated graphics controller.
A dual Opteron desktop computer with 2GB RAM, a 320GB HD, and an ATI Radeon 9550 graphics controller. (This is my day-to-day computer.)
A Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 session running on the desktop system, with 512MB RAM and a 16GB HD.

Vista and Ubuntu have roughly the same installation procedure. Pop in the installation disc, boot the computer, and run the setup process (which can take an hour or more). Both OSes let you manually choose disk partitioning schemes for an existing disk, or have the computer wipe everything down and sort things out.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) The Ubuntu install process can work automatically (i.e., erase and repartition an entire hard drive as needed), or you can manually edit partitions. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's setup process is mostly automatic; however, there are some useful disk-management tools if you need them. view the image gallery

If you wanted to install Windows XP on a computer that used a mass-storage controller with no drivers available for it on the installation CD, you had to place the drivers on a floppy and go through a bit of rigmarole to get them working. Vista has improved this process enormously: You can read drivers needed for installation from any attached mass-storage device, like a USB drive.

This is particularly important in my case, since my desktop machine uses an integrated Silicon Image SiI3114 SATA RAID controller which has no drivers on the Vista setup DVD. I had to download the drivers from the manufacturer's Web site; once I did, I was able to provide them on a USB drive during Vista's setup routine. Ubuntu, however, detected the SiI3114 automatically at startup and had drivers ready for it. Other people haven't been as lucky, though: Folks who used the HighPoint HP370 controller under 6.10 had issues getting Ubuntu installed.

If you attempt to install Ubuntu on a system where Windows XP is present, the Ubuntu Migration Assistant will attempt to import your files and documents from your XP installation. IE settings, wallpapers, user avatars, and the contents of the My Documents / Music / Pictures folders can all be imported this way. Unfortunately, one key piece of the migration puzzle, e-mail (not just e-mail client settings, but the contents of one's e-mail), isn't fully supported yet. The Ubuntu people are working hard on it.

One of Ubuntu's biggest positives is its "live CD" mode. Boot the CD and you can run a full, working copy of Ubuntu directly from the CD without installing anything on the host computer. Obviously you won't get the full range of functionality possible with Ubuntu when you do this (you might not be able to persistently save files or settings, for instance), but you can get a very good feel for how things work without actually committing yourself completely to the OS.

You can also use this live-CD feature to perform system recovery to some extent. (Ubuntu 7.04 does have read/write support for NTFS partitions, although it doesn't support encrypted files or security groups.) The closest thing Vista has to something like this is the ability to install a full working version of the OS on a computer without a Vista license key, and to try it out for 30 days (extendable to 120).

Both operating systems include a few utilities on the CD itself. Ubuntu's install CD includes a self-test to determine if the disc has any burning errors and a memory test routine (the venerable Memtest86+). Vista includes a memory test as well, and the ability to restore the system from a backup, but no integrity check for the installation media -- for instance, if you downloaded and burned it as an .ISO from MSDN. You can also boot to a command prompt to do some basic recovery work -- get access to hard disks and CD/DVD drives, for instance.

Finally, I mentioned at the top of this section that most of us deal with Vista as a preload and will probably install Ubuntu manually. That said, it is possible to buy a computer through some PC vendors with Ubuntu preloaded. System76, for instance, offers Ubuntu 6.10 as a standard preload, and some of the other major vendors (Dell, for instance) are making noises that they might start offering some distribution of Linux as an option. It's not clear whether they'll offer Ubuntu, but it's one of the better candidates

The Winner:

Ubuntu has a slight edge here, if only because it can be run directly from the CD and tried out non-destructively.

Hardware And PnP Support

Ubuntu makes it far easier to deal with hardware than previous, less user-friendly versions of Linux did, but only up to a point. The most common types of hardware and usage scenarios are handled the best, but the further you drift from that, the more complicated it gets. At its worst, Ubuntu's way of dealing with hardware often involves manual hacking to accomplish things that ought to be trivial (and in Windows usually are).

Vista's way of dealing with hardware is pretty centralized -- the Device Manager lets you browse all the installed hardware in a system, manage each device's driver and configuration, and so on. Ubuntu has a device manager, but it's just a static list, and can't be used for configuring devices per se. To do that, you often need to edit a configuration file, and the exact file to edit may depend on the type of device.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Many of the actions for PnP devices in Ubuntu are controlled through the Removable Drives and Media Preferences window. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's Device Manager keeps all the information about installed hardware in one centrally-managed display. view the image gallery

The way printers are handled in Ubuntu can also be tricky, but I think this part says at least as much about hardware makers as anything else. In my case, I was using the HP LaserJet 1000, which uses a non-standard protocol that had to be reverse-engineered by Linux users to make it useable in that OS. Ubuntu had drivers for it, but they didn't work -- I had to dig around in the Ubuntu wiki for information, then download and compile a properly-updated set of drivers before I could print. Vista, by contrast, simply used the existing XP drivers provided by Hewlett-Packard (since no Vista drivers are available).

I give the Ubuntu (and Linux) people points for completeness, but I have to retract them for the sheer aggravation required to get it working. To be scrupulously fair, a generic PostScript printer will typically work as-is, but those of us whose devices aren't that universally supported may have to go through a similar ordeal.

Generic Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices in Ubuntu fare a lot better, but there are still some shortcomings. Most devices like cameras, external hard drives, or storage cards are recognized as-is when you plug them in. Ubuntu also has a central interface for handling PnP device events: the Removable Drives and Media Preferences console. Here you can set behavior preferences for removable storage and CD/DVD discs, as well as many other classes of removable devices: cameras, PDAs, printers, scanners, and input devices.

However, it's not like Windows where you can pick a device type and then assign one of a number of predefined actions from a menu; each device action is just a reference to an executable. And the default action didn't always run: when I plugged in my scanner (a Canon CanoScan N1240U), the default scanning application, XSane, didn't launch. That said, I launched XSane manually and it identified the scanner immediately and worked fine with it. A Dell A920 multifunction printer (made by Lexmark), however, wasn't recognized by XSane at all -- so a lot of what is and isn't supported often comes down to how much information about the device is available or has been provided by the manufacturer.

Power management, in both Vista and Ubuntu, is another topic about which there's been plenty of controversy. I could name about as many people in both camps who have had power-management issues, and I could name about as many more who haven't, so I will simply describe my own experiences. With Ubuntu, suspend and resume, as well as hibernate and resume, did work on my notebook, albeit very slowly. In Vista, the same functions worked as well and took a great deal less time. My desktop would not enter sleep mode in Ubuntu, although it did hibernate; Vista, however, slept and woke up without a hitch. So I suspect people's mileage will vary across the board.

The Winner:

On the whole, Windows still deals with hardware more elegantly and efficiently than Ubuntu.

Software Installation

Ubuntu has two basic ways to deal with adding software: the the Add/Remove Applications tool (easy) and the Synaptic Package Manager (for experts). Add/Remove Applications lets you search the entire directory of applications recommended for Ubuntu -- dozens of programs in 11 categories -- and install them with little effort. I added applications like Adobe Reader and the Thunderbird mail client without too much difficulty. It all compares pretty favorably to Windows's Add/Remove Programs system, which should be familiar to everyone reading this. (Linspire's CNR digital software delivery service is also set to be offered for Ubuntu in the future.)

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Ubuntu's software management tool plugs you into a hand-picked, searchable repository of applications for Ubuntu, organized by licensing. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's Add/Remove Programs panel probably served as the inspiration for Ubuntu's software management console. view the image gallery

Ubuntu also tries to simplify the process of adding programs that aren't installed through the above-mentioned package manager systems. For instance, if you insert a CD, Ubuntu attempts to detect the presence of valid packages on the disk, and offers you the chance to install them.

Another Windows-like feature in Ubuntu is the ability to set preferred applications for certain common functions -- your default Web browser, mail reader, or console application. Unlike the Removable Drives and Media Preferences console, though, the choices you can make are available from an existing drop-down list; you don't have to provide the name of a specific executable, although you can if you want to. Vista's way of handling the default programs issue is a little more central, via the Default Programs section in Control Panel; there, you can set defaults by program, file type, or protocol.

One thing I liked about Ubuntu was the way you could browse in the Add/Remove Applications list for free software hand-picked by the Ubuntu community. The closest thing in Vista is the Digital Locker feature, where you can purchase software online and download it in a protected fashion. In addition, a number of free / trial programs are available through their system (such as the free version of AVG Anti-Virus).

The Winner:

It's a tie. Both operating systems show much the same centralization and efficiency in dealing with applications, protocols, and programs.

Networking / Web Browsing / E-Mail
Network setup in Ubuntu, both wired and wireless, was quite easy. My notebook's wireless adapter was detected and worked fine; all I had to do was supply my network name and I was in business. One thing that did worry me was how my unconfigured wireless card seemed to try and seek out whatever available connection there was without notifying me -- at first it attempted to connect to a neighbor's unsecured wireless base station before I redirected it back towards my own.

Both Vista and Ubuntu also let you create network profiles, although the way they're managed is markedly different. Ubuntu only lets you switch between profiles manually; Vista is semi-automatic (it makes a best guess to determine where you are), but can be manually overridden. Network connection sharing, though, is much harder to set up in Ubuntu than it is in Vista, since there's no GUI interface in Ubuntu for doing such a thing. I was able to connect to Vista's shared folders from Ubuntu, but you need to do so via a username/password combination that's valid on the Vista system you're trying to access.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Ubuntu's default e-mail client is Evolution, which contains calendaring and contact management; it's not hard to switch to another client (like Thunderbird) if needed. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's default e-mail client, the newly-designed Microsoft Mail, sports a calendaring application but is, on the whole, still highly limited. view the image gallery

Web browsing is another area where the playing field is relatively level between operating systems, thanks to the general success of Firefox. Firefox is loaded as the default browser in Ubuntu, and if you don't like Internet Explorer in Vista, you can swap it out for Firefox (or most any other browser written for Windows). The behavior of Firefox on both platforms is remarkably similar; in fact, I was able to get support for Flash plugins in Ubuntu by simply pointing Firefox at a Flash-driven page and letting it download the needed components.

Ubuntu's default e-mail client is Evolution, which connects not only to POP accounts and conventional Unix mailboxes, but can also talk to Exchange servers (via Outlook Web Access) and has a built-in PIM / calendaring / appointment system. Vista's Windows Mail application is a heavily rewritten version of Outlook Express, with a stripped-down calendar/appointment application, Windows Calendar, on the side, and integration with Vista's search system. If you want more sophisticated calendaring or a full PIM, you'd need to upgrade to Outlook -- so Ubuntu has another edge here in terms of what's possible right out of the box.

One thing I did have a fair amount of trouble with on both platforms was importing mail from another program -- especially e-mail from Windows. Evolution was allegedly able to import a .CSV mail file exported from Outlook, but the import somehow ended up reading everything as contacts, not e-mail. I eventually used a third-party program called Outport to move e-mail from Outlook into Evolution -- with some limitations, so I'm not sure if the problem lies with Outlook's CSV export or Evolution's importing.

Microsoft Mail had its own share of problems: The only way to import e-mail from a file was by importing from an Outlook Express store directory, or from a copy of Outlook already installed on Windows. If you have existing e-mail stores, be prepared for a migration hassle in both cases.

The Winner:

Windows, but only by a hair. Windows has a bit of an edge in terms of sharing network connections -- but both platforms have possible mail migration complexities.

Word Processing

The widely-touted OpenOffice.org suite is installed with Ubuntu by default. OpenOffice's strongest points are that it provides many of the features of Office ( if not the latest-and-greatest features) without the price tag. Most of the problems that people have reported with OpenOffice involve translating existing Office documents that have a lot of complex elements in them.

To that end, if you're considering moving to OpenOffice from Office and working with existing files, make sure the documents you want to work with can be read first. I tried a variety of documents exported from Word 2003 and had no trouble opening and re-saving them in OpenOffice's native formats, although admittedly they weren't very complex.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) The free (and highly touted) Microsoft Office contender OpenOffice.org is included with Ubuntu as a standard feature. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Sadly, Vista's WordPad word processor is the same application it's been -- for what feels like decades. view the image gallery

One other thing that Office migrants might need to be aware of is some slight behavioral differences in OpenOffice. For instance, in Word, the default action for the Ctrl+Up Arrow / Down Arrow key is to move the cursor up or down a paragraph. In OpenOffice, it moves the current paragraph up or down. Granted, this can be changed, but it means that much more retraining. I also toggled off some of OpenOffice's other default features, like the function that attempts to automatically guess what word you're typing and suggest a possible completion for it -- it's more annoying than handy for someone like me.

On the Vista side, it's not hard to add OpenOffice manually -- especially since the only word-processing program that comes with Vista is the relatively feeble WordPad, which hasn't been updated in any significant way for years. It's suitable for only the most basic of word processing tasks. I've wondered for a while why Microsoft doesn't just include Word 97 or one of the other out-of-support-lifetime versions of Word as an installable freebie with Windows. I also hardly need to mention that the full version of Word (or Office) is a major expense.

The Winner:

Ubuntu, because it comes with OpenOffice -- although that can be added to Windows easily enough.

Indexing / Search

A criticism that's been leveled at Vista is that the indexed search system is not really exclusive to Vista, and that it's been possible to do the same thing in XP by adding easily-available third-party software. True, but with Vista you don't have to do that; it's shipped with the OS; and the search function is integrated with the OS in many useful ways.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Ubuntu's indexed search function compares favorably to Vista's search in that it returns results for many file types (including metadata in images). view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's search system has a high degree of integration with the Windows shell, including the ability to add metadata on the fly. view the image gallery

I can't count the number of times I've used Vista's integrated search to look for something I knew was somewhere in my mess of mail or documents, and I usually had what I was looking for in seconds. The other great thing about this feature is that it's a framework onto which other applications can build: Adobe Acrobat, for instance, can register PDFs as a searchable document type with the system. Searches can be saved and reused, and files synchronized for offline storage can be added to the index.

Ubuntu's indexed search system, called Desktop Search (it actually uses the Beagle search engine), is not installed by default but can be easily added through the program manager. Once installed, it augments the Ubuntu's default search function, and indexes and searches a fairly broad range of document types. The indexing includes metadata (i.e., ID3 tags or image tags) and the results come up quite fast.

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find out how far along the indexer is (i.e., whether or not the search you're conducting is incomplete) without dropping to a command line. Also, one thing I missed in Ubuntu -- and which was in Vista from the git-go -- was the ability to edit or examine a file's extended metadata directly in the shell, and that metadata is a big part of how I find things with the file system.

I'm willing to concede that not everyone will use or get the most out of Vista's native search system, but those who do (me included) will find it hard to live without once they've gotten used to it. Ubuntu's version of this is also quite impressive and useable, though.

The Winner:

Vista, for having its search function integrated from the ground up through the shell and the OS.

Multimedia

Ubuntu comes configured by default with several programs for multimedia: Sound Juicer, for ripping audio from CDs into the FLAC or OGG formats; Rhythmbox, for organizing music and creating playlists (the closest thing to Windows Media Player, really); Serpentine, for authoring audio CDs; and Movie Player and Sound Recorder, which are self-explanatory.

Playing MP3s, however, is not something you can do out of the box. It wasn't immediately clear what I could do to fix that, but after some research I found a separate codec pack (called the Gstreamer Plugins package) which solved the problem. Evidently Ubuntu can't be distributed with the MP3 codecs due to licensing restrictions.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) By default, Ubuntu divides music ripping, CD authoring, and playback among different applications, but they all work really well. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's Windows Media Player does a great job of dealing with hundreds or even thousands of albums on the same PC. view the image gallery

Pop in an audio CD and Sound Juicer fires up automatically. By default it just rips CDs to your home directory (/home/), so you may want to create a specific music folder somewhere for it to copy to, which is what I did. Once I got everything set up with the right folders, though, it was a breeze to rip new music to the system and have it automatically identified. Discs that had Unicode metadata showed up correctly, too. This last part is actually pretty important to me, since I have a lot of music from China, Japan, Korea, and other countries that might use non-ASCII song or album titles. There's iPod support through a plug-in; other music devices are essentially handled as large removable drives.

Vista's multimedia components consist of Windows Media Player 11 (WMP) -- best for playing music or whatnot while doing other things -- and Windows Media Center, which is useful if you're using the PC as the center of your entertainment system. WMP has come a long way since its earlier, clunkier incarnations, and version 11 has a lot of things I have come to like. For example, I have a pretty large music library (over 100GB) that I keep ripped to the PC, and WMP's indexed search system lets you find a particular artist or song very quickly. One drawback to WMP is that out of the box it only rips to Microsoft's own WMA format, WAV, or to plain old MP3; the patent-free AAC and Ogg Vorbis formats aren't natively supported for ripping.

The Winner:

Another tie -- the functionality of the default multimedia programs on both platforms is about even.

Image-Editing / Picture Management

One of the oft-repeated selling points for Vista has been dealing easily and readily with massive amounts of digital images, i.e., one's photo collection. You can do this by adding and managing industry-standard metadata to images, which is not only available through Vista's indexed search but through the included Picture Gallery application.

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Ubuntu's F-Spot application has some of the same features as Picture Gallery, but they're not implemented with the same degree of elegance or ease. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's Picture Gallery deals well with importing, tagging, and processing thousands of images or more at once. view the image gallery

The best thing about the Gallery is also one of the best things about Windows Media Player: You can throw thousands of images into it, add tags to them en masse, and organize them quickly. There's also a great deal of usability and finesse in the way the Gallery works -- for instance, if you select a range of images that only have a certain tag applied to some of those images, you can apply that tag to all (or none) of them with one click. Some image types (like .PNG) are not taggable, however, but that's not Vista's fault.

Ubuntu's F-Spot photo manager has some of the same flavor as Picture Gallery, but it doesn't have the same level of polish yet (it's only listed as being revision 0.3.5). For one thing, F-Spot forces you to wait if you want to import a great many photos at once; with Picture Gallery, importing folders can be done passively in the background. It's also not as easy to attach tags en masse or select groups of images quickly, and while there are some nice things in the user interface (for instance, a timeline view for images), they're not implemented as effectively as they could be.

Vista still doesn't have a better native picture editor than the lamentable Paint. This isn't hard to fix, though; the excellent Paint.NET is free, installs with little hassle, and provides most of the features people need from an image editor.

For picture editing, Ubuntu comes with GIMP 2.2, a very powerful Photoshop-like application that unfortunately suffers from a very unfriendly user interface -- although a third-party add-on, GimpShop, fixes that issues fairly well.

The Winner:

Again, 50-50 -- Vista for its Picture Gallery; Ubuntu for having a better native image editor than Paint.

Backup / Restore

It doesn't make sense to trust your data to any operating system unless you can back it up and restore it safely. Ubuntu and Vista have markedly different ways of handling backup. Vista has a native file-and-whole-system backup tool which has been the subject of a good deal of well-directed criticism. Ubuntu has a number of different backup tools in its software library, of varying degrees of polish and requiring different degrees of expertise.

The most straightforward of the user-friendly (as opposed to something invoked from a command line) Ubuntu backup tools listed in the catalog is probably Konserve, which sits in the system tray and backs up any directory to any other directory (including a remote network repository or FTP site) in the form of an industry-standard .tar.gz archive. You can set up any number of backup profiles and have them run on schedules or on-demand, and you'll be notified if a backup attempt fails (for instance, if the external drive you've been using for backups is offline).

Ubuntu Linux		Windows Vista
(click image for larger view) Ubuntu's Konserve program is a simple directory-to-directory backup that works across a variety of media, including FTP. view the image gallery		(click image for larger view) Vista's backup tool has been derided for having some terrible limitations, but what does work, works really well. view the image gallery

One problem is that it doesn't seem possible to filter files to be backed up; it's everything in the source directory or nothing. Also, each backup set is complete; the program doesn't have an explicit option to perform incremental backups. (I also looked at the Keep Backup system, which had a similar set of options but also many of the same limitations.)

Vista's backup tool has a few things I hate and a few things I love. The biggest problem is the way it defines backup sets -- what you're backing up -- which is not very flexible. When I wanted to back up everything on my main drive except for a certain kind of file, I found I couldn't do it. But what does work, works well -- I've kept rolling backups of my main drive for several months now, and it's saved my bacon more than a few times.

Also, Vista's backup function now has a feature people have demanded for a long time: a full-system backup and restore utility. I've used it and it does indeed "just work"-- all you need to do to restore the backup is boot the Vista CD and plug in whatever media you backed up to.

One other function in Vista which I've grown fond of is shadow copies -- the ability to revert to an earlier point in time for a particular file on a given drive without having to dig out a backup. Shadow copies do take up space on a drive, but Vista reserves space for shadow copies based on the total amount of available free space, and you can always erase old shadow copies if you don't feel you need them anymore. I don't believe Ubuntu has anything similar to it.

I should point out, however, that restoring shadow copies and the full-system backup and restore are only available in high-end editions of Vista. In Home Basic, for instance, you don't even have the ability to schedule automatic backups.

The Winner:

A tie, but only because both platforms fall short in some ways. Vista's roster of backup features aren't available in every SKU of the product; Ubuntu doesn't have anything like Vista's shadow copy system and its user-friendly backup tools are pretty rudimentary.

Conclusions

So how do Ubuntu and Vista shape up against each other?

To be honest, there's a lot about Ubuntu that impresses me. The out-of-the-box software available with the OS is well-chosen, and the Ubuntu community folks have made a good effort to support the vast majority of the things people do with their PCs. The fact that Ubuntu is free is of course another big motivator, especially if you've already blown your budget for a PC on hardware alone.

But there's at least as much about Ubuntu that I find disheartening or frustrating. There are still too many places where you have to drop to a command line and type in a fairly unintuitive set of commands to get something done, or edit a config file, or -- worst of all -- download and compile source code. For a beginner, this last is the kiss of death, because if compiling code fails, a beginner will almost certainly have no idea what to do next.

To be scrupulously fair, the situation isn't always much better in Windows: Most people find the idea of spelunking the Registry to be about as unappealing -- although the Registry does enforce at least some degree of consistency in the way configuration data is stored.

What Do You Think?

If you're a Windows user, are you considering Linux or is Vista still in your future? If you're a Linux user, do you think more individual users would be comfortable switching to an open-source operating system? Leave a comment at the InformationWeek Blog and let us know.

Another area where Ubuntu still needs improvement is documentation -- not just the online help manuals, but Ubuntu's own prompts and dialogs. Some of the wording in the installation texts assumes knowledge of Linux that might not be in evidence, and some things are so skimpily documented they scarcely seem to be present at all. For example, the entire section on printing in Ubuntu's online documentation for version 6.10 is essentially a link to LinuxPrinting.org and the Ubuntu Wiki Printer page. The user-prompt problem has been improved a bit since 6.10, but it's still something that needs continual attention.

Ubuntu's user-contributed Wikis are often useful, but they're inconsistent in terms of what's covered and how, and they also often assume knowledge on the part of the reader which may simply not be there. By contrast, Vista's own plain-language documentation for many common system functions has been improved a great deal since XP, and they've implemented a system where contextual help can be supplemented with newer on-line material. (That and they've also made it easier to access the discussion groups used for peer-to-peer support.)

Ubuntu works best at handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff, the kinds of applications that don't need a particular operating system to run well. Admittedly, the applications themselves aren't tied to any one OS anymore; you don't need Windows (or Linux) to run a good word processor, and you don't need Linux (or Windows) to have a good Web browser. Vista, on the other hand, has a level of completeness and polish in many small respects that some people find it hard to do without -- the way hardware devices are handled, for instance.

The very best thing about Ubuntu, in my opinion, is the fact that you can boot the CD and try it out in a totally non-destructive way. If you're curious about whether you can make a clean break (or at least a partial one) from the Windows world, burn yourself a copy of the CD, boot it, and try it out. Just remember that there's still a fair amount about Ubuntu that doesn't quite pass the Granny Test -- but they're working on it, and for some people they may have already passed it.

The Last Word:

Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff. Vista has a level of completeness and polish that some people find it hard to do without.

Running svn_load_dirs.pl on Windows

davestechshop.net — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:12:27 GMT

I use Subversion for source code control. Today, I attempted to run svn_load_dirs.pl on Windows and I was initially greeted by an error message similar to this:

<output>
Directory e:\libs\loadpng-1.0 will be tagged as 1.0
Please examine identified tags. Are they acceptable? (Y/n) Y

Checking that the base URL is a Subversion repository.
Running svn log -r HEAD file:///svn/vendortest/vendor/loadpng
'@SVN_BINDIR@/svn' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
E:\bin\dev\svn_load_dirs.pl: svn log -r HEAD file:///svn/vendortest/vendor/loadpng
failed with this output:

Press return to quit and clean up svn working directory:
</output>

I searched on Google and didn't find much except this message, which had no reply. So I opened up the Perl script and noticed that the line containing this code seemed to be the problem:

my $svn = '@SVN_BINDIR@/svn';

I changed it to this

my $svn = 'C:\Program Files\svn\svn-win32-1.3.2\bin\svn.exe';

That fixed my problem. BTW, if you are starting from scratch with this, you'll need a Windows diff utility and it must be accessible from the path, and you'll need ActiveState Perl. After installing Perl, I copied diff.exe into C:\Perl\bin.

You can get svn_load_dirs.pl from the Subversion Repository. (Grab svn_load_dirs.pl and the readme.)

Don't forget to check out the relevant section of the Subversion book if you need more info.

IE7 - Publisher Could Not Be Verified

davestechshop.net — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 17:04:12 GMT

After installing IE7 I started getting greeted by a series of dialogs with the title "Open File - Security Warning" and the message "The publisher could not be verified - Unknown Publisher". The message also mentioned that the application did not have a valid digital signature.

What's interesting about this is that Firefox is set as my default browser and furthermore, neither IE7 nor any other web browser were open when I was getting these warning dialogs. This was happening immediately after logging in, while the applications in my system tray were being loaded.

It turns out that some of the applications I run are stored on a mapped network drive.

I searched extensively on Google and I tried a lot of suggested solutions, but none worked. Finally, I found this solution and it did work. I am reproducing it below. Thanks eatyummypuppies.

"The publisher could not be verified" prompt running executable from network
Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 11:40 am
Windows Vista Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by eatyummypuppies (1 messages posted)

This isn't a question but a tip. I feel the need to post it somewhere because I've been looking for the answer (half-ass-edly) for years. (I finally just figured it out on Vista, but I'm sure it applies to XP SP2 also.)

Problem:
Running XP SP2 or higher, you try to run an executable located on another machine on your network. Your accosted with a prompt: "The publisher could not be verified". You are forced to confirm that you wish to run this program... every time you run it.

Solution:
Run gpedit.msc

Go to User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Attachment Manager

Add "*.exe" to the "Inclusion list for moderate risk file types" setting.

"This policy setting allows you to configure the list of moderate risk file types. If the attachment is in the list of moderate risk file types and is from the restricted or Internet zone, Windows prompts the user before accessing the file. ..."

In other words, this allows you to run an .exe from the Intranet zone without a prompt, but it will warn before running one from the Internet.

(If you Google, a lot of people are instructing to add *.exe to the list of low-risk file types, allowing .exe files to execute from anywhere on the internet. A lot of other solutions that simply don't work are floating around as well.)

Drop Failed for User - Error MSSQLSERVER 15421

davestechshop.net — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:45:33 GMT

In a SQL Server 2005 database, I was having a hard time deleting a user I had created.

I kept getting this error:

The database principal owns a database role and cannot be dropped. Msg 15421.

MSDN and Google were not helpful on this error. Ater lots of search attempts I kept coming up empty:

I spent some time looking through various dialogs in SQL Server Management Studio. I was unable to find the problem - probably because I am not as familiar with the UI as I was with Enterprise Manager.

I finally wrote a script that helped me identify for which role the user was listed as an owner. Here it is:

select dp2.name as role, dp1.name as owner
from sys.database_principals as dp1 inner join sys.database_principals as dp2
on dp1.principal_id = dp2.owning_principal_id
where dp1.name = 'DeleteMe'

In the last line of the script, make sure you specifiy the user name and not the login name. 'DeleteMe' is the user name I want to delete. See the screen shot below:

After running this script, I found which role had my user listed as owner.

With that knowledge, I opened the role dialog in SQL Server Management Studio and changed the owner to 'dbo'. Below is the before screen shot.

The owner should be changed to a principal other than the one you are trying to delete. I used 'dbo' as shown here:

Once this change was made I was able to delete the user I wanted to get rid of.

Microsoft Office for Linux 'inevitable'

Dhanur Ved, LLC — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:58:20 GMT

vnunet.com is reporting that Microsoft Office for Linux is inevitable. It's an interesting read. I'd love to hear Microsoft respond.

What is the future of open source on Windows?

davestechshop.net — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 13:11:12 GMT

I use the Windows OS right now, and I have for a lot of years. However, there was a time (a couple years around the 1990 timeframe) when I actually succeeded in running my PC with zero Microsoft software.

I ran DR-DOS, Borland Quattro Pro, Lotus Word Pro, and a bunch of other quality (for the time) non-Microsoft software. I was happy about this.

Later, when I studied computer science in college, we used unix at school and it was at this time that I first loaded Linux on my home PC. I again made an effort to see how far away I could get from Microsoft products.

Unfortunately, I found that life without Microsoft was not nearly as productive as life with Microsoft (circa 1997). Getting things done counts for a lot in my life. After I carefully analyzed my individual productivity, I made the decision to use Microsoft products -- strictly for pragmatic reasons. I wouldn’t say I really liked Microsoft products, but I used them because doing so made me more efficient.

Around 2000, I got interested in the .NET Framework, and Microsoft started impressing me with their products for the first time. In the years since then I have often found myself using a PC with nothing but Microsoft products on it. The irony of this didn’t go unnoticed.

But Microsoft seemed to be doing things differently with the shared source and with what I perceived to be better quality products all around. Plus, I was impressed by all the top-notch engineering talent that joined Microsoft. As people like Anders Hejlsberg, Stanley Lippman, and Herb Sutter joined Microsoft, my attitude toward Microsoft became very positive over that timeframe.

And when I recently read eWEEK Labs Bakeoff: Open Source Versus .Net Stacks, I thought the combination of Windows and open source might be the best of both worlds. My rationale was based on several factors:

In eWeek’s tests, three of the open source systems on Windows were among the leaders in performance and reliability. eWeek actually stated, “For some businesses, this will truly be the best of both worlds”.
Using Windows still has an efficiency advantage for the average person, in my experience. It is easier to obtain software, to set up new hardware or software, and to just get various stuff done. In fact, Visual Studio is a great productivity tool for developers and it is hard to find a better (or even equal) IDE on other platforms (so I’m told by people who use both).
The .NET open source community has seemed to have a lot of momentum behind it recently. There are a lot of great projects out there – many of which I have found I would not want to be without.

Just at the point where my optimism about the Windows platform in general, and open source on .NET specifically, was reaching an all-time high, some concerns began to appear. The demise of NDoc was one of those. But Microsoft’s willingness to apply its embrace, extend, exterminate mentality to the .NET open source community is what alarms me the most.

[UPDATED] As a developer on the Microsoft platform, I want and need a rich open source community around me. The .NET open source community benefits developers like me in many ways, some of which include:

The open source projects fill small (or large) product gaps and feature gaps;
A diversity of open source projects provide learning opportunities for developers in the community through several avenues, including direct participation or even just passive examination of the source code;
Free tools provide an entry point into the world of Microsoft technologies for those who otherwise might never consider getting started on this platform;
The open source projects provide camaraderie - the whole Microsoft community is strengthened through friendships and relationships that grow out of this community. People enjoy working in a community where they know others.

If I am going to devote my career to Microsoft technologies, I would like to have 100% confidence that Microsoft will not act with scorn or derogation toward the .NET open source community. That community, together with the continued shared-sourcing of the CLI, is a valuable and necessary element of my Microsoft-centric developer career. Recent events have made me question whether Microsoft will allow that .NET open source community to thrive the way it has been in the past. (Will Microsoft feel threatened after eWeek's article pointed out that open source .NET IT stacks "will truly be the best of both worlds?")

One of my options is to load up Ubuntu on one of my machines, just to explore the other options available to me.

Another option I have is to speak out and let Microsoft know that it needs to show.NET developers that Microsoft will do more than simply tolerate .NET open source. Microsoft needs to strongly embrace .NET open source. Here is one idea for how Microsoft can show us they are completely over the its embrace, extend, exterminate mentality when it comes to .NET open source.

Here are a couple blog articles on this topic that are worth reading:
• More Tool Stagnation to Come?http://www.developerdotstar.com/community/node/542
• Will Microsoft Subsume Open Source?http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/07/27/will-microsoft-subsume-open-source/