registry team mailing list archive

[Tom <1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi :)

Windows Users are not always capable of installing a simple program.
>From my experiences i would estimate that perhaps 10% or less are
capable. However, when they move to a linux system and eventually find a
package manager they seem to feel a lot safer and more capable.  Windows
users that cannot/dare-not install a simple program are unlikely to grok
virtualisation and it's superiority over a dual-boot.  There are even a
lot of linux users that have not really appreciated the benefits of
virtualisation yet.

Windows is not an easy system to navigate around or back-up.  Give an
average Windows user a camera, lets say a Kodak camera and let them try
to get their photos onto their computer. There are various different
packages in Windows that make this easy for them, "Put the CD in the
drive and click 'next'" or sometimes just plugin the camera and
'magically stuff just happens'.  Now try to find where those photos are
kept in the file-system.  Another example is when a Windows user sets up
lots of templates for a package such as Excel (obviously a fairly
advanced user!).  Try finding those in the Windows file-system!  While
you & i may know where those are generally kept it is not intuitively
obvious and even tho i know where they are likely to be it is still a
pain to dig around the system trying to find all such things even where
the Windows user has bothered to let me know they have used a particular
device/package in a certain way.

As an example, my aunt paid a well-renowned data-recovery service
(nothing to do with me) to transfer ALL 'her stuff' from her old machine
onto her new one.  After a quick flick around her machine was happy that
everything had been copied over.  She wanted me to find a good home for
her old machine but i advised her to hold onto the machine for 3 months
and we had an argument because she was 100% certain that everything she
wanted had arrived on her new machine. 2 months later i got the
inevitable email asking me where all her photos were.  Luckily i had not
been allowed to touch either her new or old machine so it was clearly
not some sabotage on my part.

Another example, a company wanted me to reinstall Windows on various
ancient old machines with inadequate ram (512Mb didn't cover all
packages they typically had open at any one moment, one of which stated
clearly that it needed 512 minimum on it's own). They made a big fuss
about not copying any files from the machines existing file-system
"because everyone saves everything to the server". About a week later i
was expected to magically produce all the files that had been stored on
the machines.  Luckily i was able to do this because i had disobeyed the
direct order from my boss and had backed-up the systems on my own
machine at work.  The result was that i got fired because i had
disobeyed direct orders.

So, Windows users do not always know where they store everything.  Even
professional computer services don't always know.  Simply copying the
contents of their equivalent of "/home" is not adequate for ensuring
everything is copied between one install of Windows and a new install of
whichever OS (in linux the rsync command is good at even retaining the
permissions of the transferred files).

Yes, people 'should' use a separate hard-drive or even just a separate
partition for storing data but that is incredibly unwieldy in Windows.
In linux of course we can just move the /home folder onto a new
partition and setup fstab to use it as part of the normal file-system.
In Windows you have to hack the registry or put up with constant
annoyances with short-cuts (links) that don't quite work reliably.

Wiping an existing install of Windows and replacing it with linux
ensures that any lost data is seen as a problem created by linux
(unfairly but that's the perception). That is one reason we hear FUD
about lost data.  Of course if Windows is reinstalled and data gets lost
then people don't talk about that often because they then feel it shows
them up as bad computer-users, also it's difficult for them to
understand or express clearly.  Blaming linux is easy for them.

The simplest work-around when installing linux is to setup a dual-boot
(perhaps set grub to a very short time-out so they don't see the menu if
you must).  Of course Windows does not easily offer this option either.
Since the Windows license/product-key can be used twice on the same set
of hardware, both with Windows as a dual-boot and with Windows in a
virtual machine you could try that but wiping an existing install on a
machine where the user doesn't know where all their own data is seems
unnecessary.  Personally i would avoid installing Windows at all, my aim
is to get people using linux, not Windows.

Perhaps give it a few months before asking the person whether they still
ever use Windows and ask them if any stuff appears to be missing.
Otherwise it's just chalk up another person spreading FUD (probably
behind your back) about how it is linux that lost data, not their bad
usage and certainly not Windows fault for scattering stuff around in
obscure places.

I feel i should apologise for using the term linux instead of gnu&linux
or gnu/linux.  It is in common usage though and adding "gnu" to the
front seems to persuade people that it is better to stick with Windows
because at least no-one objects to saying Windows. Despite the FSF
saying that the OSes should be referred to as "gnu divided by linux"
(gnu/linux) i feel that it somewhat inaccurate too.  It is really "gnu
added onto linux" or "gnu with linux" or "gnu and linux".  Since
Torvald's doesn't make a fuss about such pettiness we get a few people
trying to force us to use gnu/linux but really i think we have more
important issues to concern ourselves with, such as increasing the
percentage of gnu&linux users.

Making things unnecessarily complicated is not helping, we have to deal
with "what is" rather than the way we would like things to be.  Part of
this surely has to be to show that we can work with existing systems?
(Which is another thing that Windows cannot offer.)

Regards from 
Tom :)

-- 
Microsoft has a majority market share
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