There! Over the hump...

[altivo]

And it's only Tuesday. All cabled. All internet access stations functional to spec. Two word processing stations to be installed, but that's software only. The catalog kiosks are no rush, they can be done over the next week or two and are likewise software only.

And it works. The filter does what it's supposed to do (filters aren't that great anyway, but the old one we were running was almost useless), the print accounting functions, the time tracking works.

Just one little problem, and it's not with the hardware or the software. I spent weeks working this stuff out to meet the requirements set forth by the boss, including considerable effort to keep the internet stations from being used for word processing, because there are other workstations for that purpose only. I had to get the software vendor to make some specific changes for us, I had to define two whole extra desktops and session types.

So... The director sits down and in 30 seconds manages to get into the word processor. I see how she did it, I tell her I can prevent that. "No, I like it. Leave it this way." Gah! All that wasted effort. I could have just left it active.

At least it's working as planned, the vendor is providing genuine support (as in ten minute response to e-mail queries or requests,) and, best of all, the prior vendor is completely out of the picture. We also agreed today to eliminate the (near useless) tech support consultants that we have been paying outrageous hourly fees for. If I don't have to support Comprise software, I'm willing to be responsible for the network myself. Much of the fiddly stuff is being eliminated by getting Windows off as many workstations as possible.

Two headaches I'll have to deal with: the consultants never created a network diagram, and the network hubs are patched near randomly rather than in a systematic way. That needs reworking. And two crucial servers are running Windows 2000, and will take some time to switch to Linux or something else more reliable. (Not by any means XP.) It may not be possible to switch them, because they have to run support software for the Watchguard firewall and the Cisco, as well as other such "stuff" that assumes the whole world consists only of Microsoft. That means I'll have to dredge up a good book on managing Win2000 Server. Eww. Any suggestions? I haven't seriously dealt with Microsoft server software since NT 5.0, and hoped never to do so again.

Comments

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

*noses* Tivo. I have a Win2000 Server training book from New Horizons fromw when I took a class there a few years ago. It might be useful to you if yuo stick with your current software.

Storm

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think it shameful how much the IT industry relies on "what everyone else is doing" rather than what really makes sense. That's how I once inherited Netware, and spent six years justifying dumping it. It's how I got the ghastly public workstation management system that I've spent three years getting out of here. And it's why I'm stuck with Windows 2000 to do a job that would be much cleaner with almost any form of 'NIX. Probably another three to five years to get that out of here, as in, when we have to replace the hardware. We're always stuck with dubious trash because "we spent X thousand for it, now we can't afford anything else" even if the alternative is nearly free like Linux.

So I'll be sticking with Win2000 for a while I'm sure. Is that a book designed to go with a classroom course or is it something that stands on its own? What I really need is practical advice. The pitfalls, the list of must-do maintenance tasks and the list of don't do its even though Microsloth tells you to...

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

*ears perk forward and he flicks his tail back and forth as he listens to you* Sounds like someone is in a mood tonite. :P

In regards to the manual I think it would stand on it's own to a point. However, I don't have it in front of me to look over and see if it would do you any good.

Sorry about the typos in my comment before. I really should have been wearing my glasses. :) If you are not off to bed soon then hop on the muck or ICQ or something and nose me. Might be able to figure out if the manual will help or not if we actually talked and not passed comments back and forth.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

As you probably deduced, I did go right to bed after that. When it comes to anything Microsoft, yes, I'm already in a mood. They long ago lost my confidence and support.

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

*nods* I figured you did and I was not far behind you. I will be around later today after work and after I look at a house if you want to talk. Probably be back to the hotel after about 7pm or so.

*noses* I did have to mind my tongue last night though. I get a bit weary of hearing windows bashing, specially when I have so few problems with it. Granted I know it is not the best game in town but still....

Talk to you later stallion. Have a good day at work.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

My problem with Windows and with a lot of other commercial software products is that I don't like being treated like a helpless "patient" instead of a legitimate user. Microsoft does NOT know what is best for me. I have enough experience to know what I need and want, and they seem to get in the way all the time trying to make me conform to THEIR idea of what I should be doing (most of which is related to making more money for them and selling their own products.) The software vendor should not be dictating my workflows and operations. It is their job to conform to my needs, not the other way around.

Instead what we have today is businesses who "do things the Windows way" because it's the path of least resistance. Maybe its because I grew up with an IT industry that developed homegrown solutions that fit like gloves. Somehow I just can't accept the one-size-fits-all philosophy of Microsoft.

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

*nods* I will be around later this evening if you still want my help. Otherwise I am going to back out of this one Tivo. Good luck.

Storm

[typographer.livejournal.com]

Do I lose status in your eyes if I admit a certain nostalgia for Netware?

It was the first network I had to administer, what can I say?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have nostalgia for IBM mainframes, MVS, TSO, and command line editors too. But no, I wouldn't go back to that environment.

Tell me you'd rather have Netware than TCP/IP and SMB file sharing, and yes, I'll wonder what you missed in the question. But nostalgia is not the same as really wishing to go back in time.

I'm nostalgic for fried chicken and Sander's ice cream parlors and the Good Humor truck too, but I'm not about to take anyone's offer that I go back to the 1950s to actually live.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Ummm, 'Tivo ... Windows2000 is NT 5.0. :p I think you probably meant NT 4.0.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*sees the avatar* Awwwrroooooo *cough cough* meow *cough*

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Awrrooo. :)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I can't help it every time I see that avatar I have to howl.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's all Microsloth: hubris, arrogance, and underhanded interference with your goals.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

WinXP isn't bad, you just have to know all the little tricks and things to get it to run AOK. I run our little home network and ensure all the computers are running fine, but it took me a little while to learn all the ins and outs and what you could switch off, shut off and remove :)

WinXP user since 2001
OS crash free days: 1825 and counting.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

I've never had XP and I've had to deal with thousands of its crashes doing tech support for it. XP pretends to be Win2k, but its actually more WinMe. :/ Not to mention the licensing is completely unacceptable ... essentially, you are paying Microsoft to own your computer and surrendering your own ownership of your own computer.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

WinME was the last of the old windows line. WinXP is based on NT I forget all the details but I did learn it in a breakdown of OS origins class thingy. I paid microsoft for one liscence 2 computer use. I've found XP crashes are more to do with third party software and non optimisation of the system.

I keep telling myself to build a linux box but linux tends to be good for computers used for only a couple of things and has a fairly steep learning curve. Not to mention so many different versions and releases how does the average user know what to get?

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

My experience doing tech support shows it to be XP. It seems to have WinMe's crappy driver support and eliminates many serviceable controls to the point the device manager in XP is utterly useless for diagnosing problems.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Its probably all that old support for Legacy devices.
Shouldn't you be looking at the logs in event viewer?

Well anyhoo I've had a grand old time with XP and only had to install it twice. Both times were when I changed hard drives, although one was when a deathstar died on me, and the other was a re-image so thats not really a reinstall.

I must be doing something right :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

linux tends to be good for computers used for only a couple of things

Nonsense. I use Linux as my desktop OS and it serves all the same purposes that Windows or MacOS do. I prefer it because there are no secrets. Nothing is proprietary, and if you want to dig, you can find out how and why absolutely anything works. Security support is better because there are so many people working together, and most importantly for me, it follows international standards instead of trying to dictate them or ignore them when it feels like it, which is Microsoft's primary fault. Linux grew up from UNIX roots, and UNIX was designed to be user maintainable, to serve multiple users quietly, to multitask without crashes, and to integrate networking seamlessly. By contrast, Windows grew from a single-threaded environment and has patched on bits and pieces to adapt to multitasking, networking, threading, and multiple users. At the same time, it often appears to ignore standards just in order to be different and proprietary (much as Novell Netware did.)

UNIX style systems do have a steep learning curve for users who have grown up with the Windows philosophy. I agree with that. It's unfortunate, and rather like having learned to drive with an automatic transmission, so that learning to operate a clutch and manual shift seems frightening and uncomfortable. Yet I suspect you can understand that analogy and know the advantages to being able to control something in finer degree when you need to. On the other hand, UNIX isn't quite as scary as it was 15 years ago when I had to learn it. There is much more support and much better documentation now, and Linux distributions do a good job of providing default setups that actually work (which was the problem originally: you had to know how to set up a UNIX system before it was usable as an end user desktop system.)

Linux itself has a single primary release thread and is carefully guided. What you probably see as many "versions and releases" is the distribution system. With the exception of RedHat/Fedora, which has gone commercial and is wandering off out of the mainstream, and Gentoo which also appears to be leaving the standard environment, the distributions are packaging. They offer different user interfaces to configuration and maintenance, primarily, while still using the same kernel and devices that all of Linux uses. It's all Linux, definitely. But Slackware offers something closer to traditional UNIX configuration via text configuration files, while distributions like Debian or Ubuntu try to be more comfortable for the Windows user who wants to do everything through the GUI and have the OS track maintainance and updates for them.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

What do you think would be good to start me off in Linux? Debian? Ubuntu?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's a question you might want to refer to linuxfurs though you should expect some battling between folks with individual favorites. I prefer Slackware myself, but I'm a UNIX veteran now and I'd rather just say "this is what I want, give it to me immediately."

If you are accustomed to Windows and primarily a user of the graphical interface, then Ubuntu or Debian are good choices to get you right into a setting that will at least look largely familiar. Fedora will also do that, but I don't like it because it deviates frequently from standard setup procedures and even drivers. Most distributions give you a choice of environments for XWindows, which can reconfigure itself like a chameleon. If you want it to look just like XP, it can. Or Windows 95. Or MacOS X. I haven't seen an Amiga or Atari environment, but I'll bet it could be done. Provided you have the RAM and processor power, KDE gives a graphical environment that looks like XP but is far richer in terms of choices and applications provided by default. I generally choose the XFCE environment because it is stripped down and efficient. FVWM2 looks like Windows 95SE, while several others look like the original UNIX XWindows or other OS settings.

I'm a command line guy myself, and even in MS Windows I always have a console window open so I can just give a command instead of having to clicky-draggy-clicky-clicky a dozen times to get the the menu option I need.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Not to mention so many different versions and releases how does the average user know what to get?

I suggest trying a few LiveCDs. (http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I dislike being forced to use GUI interfaces to do things that I could do faster and more clearly by simply editing a configuration file.

I really dislike having configurations hidden in a massive monstrosity like the "registry" that even Microsoft itself doesn't quite understand, at least to judge by my experience dealing with their tech support.

I absolutely hate having configurations buried in proprietary crap that they won't even explain or divulge, and being told "Don't mess with this or we will stop your support completely."

I had severe problems at a past job with NT corrupting its own registry. It happened on multiple machines, without explanation, and the only fix was to delete user definitions and recreate them entire, losing the user's desktop and settings every time. I fought and fought with Microsoft over it, they kept denying that it was possible, but they had no way of examining or diagnosing the supposed corruption. Their own error message when the user tried to log on was "Registry is corrupted. Consult your system administrator." Login was blocked or the user was logged in but with default settings. End users do NOT like this.

They finally admitted that they knew there was a problem, but they weren't going to address it. It seemed that only MMX processors were affected, it had something to do with memory management, and, well, too bad.

That was the end of any sympathy on my part for Microsoft.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Just put one foot in front of the other and dredge up the book.

Then again, you noted the excellent support services you've been
getting, call them up and chat..."Hey, listen, I have this
problem, can you help?"

What the hell, all they can do is say no.

In fact, I want that as my epitath; "All They Can Do Is Say 'No'" ^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The excellent support is for the suite of Linux-based applications that we bought. Those folks are Canadian (yay!) and don't seem to suffer from the American "farm it out to India" corporate mentality. I can't ask them to support my Windows 2000 servers, they have nothing to do with their product.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

Windows doesn't have to completely suck. There are a number of open source replacements for old MS standbys that are now available for the Win32 platform. If you're feeling brave, you can compile a lot of great programs for yourself.

My work network is entirely Win based. (I need to learn your powers of convincing) But I've removed all but the essential services from all the servers and things seem to work pretty well for the most part.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm looking for, something that will identify the services and processes and tell me what is really necessary and what I can kill with impunity. Microsoft is not at all helpful in that respect, and it doesn't help that these servers were man-handled by a consulting firm that always did whatever Microsoft or any vendor told them to do, without questioning it, or that the server was actually given over to remote admin access by the one vendor I trust the least. Their private processes are in place, and even after I thought I had stopped all of them, their unwanted software continues to function. They provide no "uninstall" procedure or documentation.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

I've always found this guy's site to be helpful.

http://www.mdgx.com/w2k.htm

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that does look handy.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

If MS's latest anti-copy scheme can be smacked down, and spyware can be destroyed, so can these processes be removed with some time spent. You can try Googling every service name in the Task Manager, and the ones that appear to be from said vendor should then be searched for in the registry to get exact file locations. A few taps of Delete later, and your machine should be ... not exorcised, but at least be a bit better off.

Of course: SYSTEM RESTORE POINT before doing any of this, m'kay? ;-)