Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Here's what's wrong with Windows - 8.1 and others

Two days ago, I tried running DISM to restore the original image of Windows to the operating system, and after maybe 15 minutes of seemingly doing the process as it should, by scanning the system files consecutively in twenty-percent segments, graphically illustrated on-screen by a dotted line advancing across from zero to one hundred percent, and completes its whole scan, it then after all that, pops up a message that it was unable to find its source files!

For those unfamiliar with DISM, it is an integral Windows tool whose full name is Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool, and it has a list of optional choices of actions long enough to choke a horse, as they say. And theoretically it can use Windows Updates if you're connected to the Internet at the time, to get from Microsoft a fresh and clean and correct copy of your operating system's mostly-hidden files and folders, with the object of the exercise being to clean up any corruption or contamination in your system files, which might be interfering with the normally-expected performance of your computer.

That's a great theory - and I'm not trying to be sarcastic - but only when it works, and for me, this past two days, it hasn't worked at all! Yet, normally, it works just fine. Further research reveals that it needs permission from your Group Policy to actually go on line via Windows Updates to download a fresh system image from Microsoft.

That presents me with two more problems: (1.) How did it somehow fail to maintain its permission from Group Policy in the first place; and (2.) What do I do to restore that broken link in the chain? - and (3.) Why should I have to do all this in the first place?

Let's think about that number (3.) for a moment. I'm not a programmer, and I can't write my own code, except for a couple of short instructions in HTML which is now being phased out in favor of a more advanced version. I'm just a regular ordinary schmuck who got the program by buying a copy like anyone else. That in turn raises the question "Why am I now expected to be capable of repairing a Microsoft operating system I didn't have anything to do with building in the first place?" An operating system, may I add, that if properly assembled shouldn't require its users to suspend their normal activities on it for two days, while trying valiantly to read through multiple obfuscatory question-and-maybe-answer community 'help' forums, in which all too many of those helpers seem to be insufficiently-trained ESL students having real difficulty differentiating between their elbows and their asses!

My Point: When I buy a new car, I don't have to know how to build the thing before I can start using it, and when it breaks down, I don't have to waste days trying to diagnose its problems in order to fix it myself. It comes with a warranty, and the folks who sold it to me are more than happy to fix it for me, because they want me to come back there for my next new car later on.

Microsoft could easily rig that DISM tool so that it could begin by verifying your legitimate user key codes, and then link itself to Windows Updates when those are confirmed, and get busy downloading and repairing your deployed Windows system image - without all this goddamned bullshit !

There hasn't been a Windows since Windows 7 that has worked smoothly, effortlessly, and especially consistently without glitches or interruptions for patching or repairs. Microsoft is so busy trying to be everything to everybody they're in real danger of being nothing to nobody, because their standards of performance aren't sufficient to satisfy their users.

And that's my rant for today, Kiddies - and I really wish Satya would read this "love-letter" from one of his devoted but disgusted customers. If Windows was some brand-X open-source conglomeration of random bits and pieces, I might expect frequent fuck-ups, but not from a company like Microsoft. I won't accept that! It's just not good enough.  

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