Re: Switching to Windows NT

* Ben Z Tels <optimusb(at)stack.nl> writes:
> From: bzabor19(at)idt.net <bzabor19(at)idt.net>

>> I was asked by an associate if there is a downside to switching
>> from Win95 to NT, and the only thing I could remember is that it's
>> more stable than 95.  Are there any negative trade-offs?

> Sure there is. For starters, it needs more resources (more memory,
> more processor).  Second, you can forget about alot of your old
> DOS-based software. Any games you have are probably out too (even
> the Win95 ones; in fact, ESPECIALLY the Win95 ones).

You can also forget about 16bit applications unless you know what
you're doing. And about Visual Basic apps.

> Second, if you ever have an error during the boot sequence that
> causes a stop condition, you'll never get back in (you can't boot NT
> from disk); they say you have an Emergency Repair Disk, but it's
> never worked for me. All you can do is reinstall.  And of course, if
> it DOES crash, any data you have in an NTFS-filing system (drive,
> partition, what have you) is locked away. Nothing except NT can read
> NTFS, so if you have to reinstall, all you can do is hope your data
> will still be there when you get back online.

Incorrect. There is a Dos tool called ntfsdos which will mount NFTS disks
- and Linux can mount them, too. So much for "security", BTW.

> Also, I wonder about that stability. I just went back to Windows95
> from NT after NT stopped working on my system 3 times within two
> weeks. 

I've already given URLs for detailled discriptions of NT's utter lack
of stability. But:

> Of course, for all I know, it's a problem caused by the new Media
> Player (which I had downloaded and installed every time). But
> still......

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no "but still". NT is an
operating environment that has promised "stability" for
years. However, it can still be BSOD'ed by applications. Can you not
see what this means?  An *application* killing the OS? Hello?  Do you
have a "stop payment" on your reality check? I use Linux, Solaris and
NetBSD. I have never seen any of these be crashed by an
application. In fact, I have one Linux box that was booted before NT4
hit the market. NT (and since we're talking about the Internet here, I
presume) has no telnet, it has no newsserver, it has no mailserver, it
has no webserver. It doesn't even have a decent DNS. In other words:
NT is (excuse my wording, but this is *really* starting to cvff me
off) is an immature hack. A bunch of mindless drones aka
decision-makers have been bribed and brainwashed into believing it can
come anywhere near any flavour of U*ix. Wrong. Free U*ices like Linux
or the BSD family outperform NT in any respect you can think of:
stability, security, scalabilitly, availability, support... you name
it. The P100 64MB RAM I'm sitting at now will easily outperform a P200 
NT box. And it will not crash. It will not be broken into, either. And 
the software cost me $0.

Small side note: more than 40 computers at Bonn University that
officially run under NT have been running under Linux for more than 12 
months. Yes, the administration doesn't know about it. The reason? The 
admins were sick and tired of "administrating" software that simply is 
not meant to be used. I mean: if you had a 600Mhz Alpha - would you
ruin its bonecrushing performance by installing NT? Me neither.

Robin

-- 
The One and Only Robin S. Socha
<http://www.kens.com/robin/>
Cc: me and I'll kill -9 you

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