Starters.
You hate vista (windows 6 build 6000/6001) becuase.... you don't know how to configure it.
Really? What if I told you I completed the MCDST and MCITP programs with 0 study and 0 classes? (and have held MCSA/MCSE with Security, Messaging, etc.. specialties prior, all with 0 classes). Don't assume what I do for a living, let alone Windows is not my prior platform (although the Linux infrastructures I build often control WinPE boot, deployment, etc... as well as it almost always runs atop of Linux-based w/proprietary hypervisor, VMware ESX Server). I have understood Windows internals far better than any other consultant I've run into, other than the few developers I know from Digital, Microsoft, etc... over the years.
My favorite? .NET. We in the UNIX world
loved the .NET security model. The problem? Microsoft didn't adopt it, except for select web applications. Duh, that's what Java already does. Oh, wait, that's right, it's called .NET and C# because Microsoft won (in a lawsuit) the right to the Java 1.1 codebase (they later relicensed Java 1.4 aka "Java 2" for .NET 2), but lost the right to call it "Java" in another case. They didn't adopt any of the security model for the OS. I personally cornered one of Microsoft's core architects on that in a public debate, and damn if he didn't fess up that it wasn't going into Longhorn well before release.
Also, you hate windows since 3.11, got it.
I hate DOS-based Windows. I implemented and supported OS/2 and then NT instead from the very late '80s to when NT 3.1 first came out in '93.
When Gates fucked NT in 1994 by pushing "Chicago" (DOS 7 / Windows 4), NT was forever fucked. They took a good Win32 API and OS platform and utterly destroyed its base and API. Win32 today is nothing like Win32 then, and MSIE is all over everything in the core OS when it shouldn't be.
Also, don't knock lack of 64 bit support. That was majority of fault for the damn manufacturers and partially on Microsoft for not implementing cheese dick drivers.
Microsoft own, damn tool base is a x86, data aligned ignorant, mess of compilers and libraries.
Their own Office team is a great read on how horrible their codebase is for porting off of x86 to something like PowerPC. They have never and will never have sustainable codebase in OS or applications. And it starts with their tools.
Hell, I knew a lot of the guys at Digital that developed a lot of NT, and they constantly complained about Microsoft's utter lack of using the functions, and preferring legacy DOS interfaces. Nowdays, Microsoft outsources so much they don't even have architects that can control it.
Their one, short-lived security head in 2003 flat out stated that Windows was not designed for the Internet, and he had his head chopped off for being honest and wanting to fix the problem.
If you did ride the XP 64 bit wave, like I did, you'd know. Now with the beta of windows 7 (or how you put it windows vista 2), did you notice some changes? I sure have. Main thing.... compatibility, and UAC.
The UAC is a result of "Chicago"
ignoring the inherit MAC/RBAC (Mandatory / Role-Based Access Controls) that were fucking built into Win32 and NT 3.1 from Day 1.
Because DOS 7-based Windows 95 had no such concept (let alone no separation of kernel-user, let alone continually shunted the processor between Real86 and Protected386, no different than 386Enchanced mode prior -- proven by Caldera in their filings), every Microsoft application ignored it.
That's why
no application from Microsoft itself
never passed their own, "Designed for Windows 95 / Windows NT" logo suite. They had to change it. Because the samn Visual tools were still built for DOS and a lot of legacy, Win16 and not the pure Win32 API. They even tried to get Win32s adopted "early on" and their own application teams ignored it.
That's why NT has been fucked ever since.
For the self-fucking timer, ha! I've ran xp, stable for 4 years. Not only that, but even w/o a blue screen during those 4 years. Take MCDST, those classes will tell you all about apps, for xp.
Dude, see above. I took the exams without the classes. I've been doing NT since the 3.1
alpha. Yes, alpha. That's because of the relationship I had with Digital and other engineers by the nature of the software I ran for engineering purposes.
For NTFS, great file system, not one issue period.
Bullshit. There are so many inherit design flaws with tying Security IDs (SIDs) to the System Accounts Manager (SAM) that until NT 5.1, you could not safely move NTFS filesystems between different NT/2000 systems if the local SAM didn't match. That was one of the things early "Cario" technologies addressed, by moving the SAM to a network-wide impementation, hence the original NT domain model.
I now question if you even understand the basics of NTFS, the serious flaws in its original design, and the features added to the NTLM protocol over Lan Manager prior. If you don't, I highly recommend you read the Samba documentation, because it will take you on a full tour of the protocol -- browser, controller, domains as well as newer authentication, directory, etc... where Microsoft fucked up, fixed it, didn't fix it right, fucked up again.
Also, kinda really skeptical that Firefox crashes windows xp/vista/7 by just running, or so it sounds with your 3-4 reference to it running noscript (yet again a simple config edit can fix that).
Huh? My point was that because of certain automation in MSIE that
cannot be disable, even if you disable ActiveX and Javascript, MSIE still lets some run. Otherwise you'd break many automations in the Windows executive, especially with Outlook and other details.
So my suggestion was to run Firefox + Noscript to
avoid and
guaranatee that you don't execute any scripts except those that are from sites you trust (like FreeOnes).
But this thread isn't about why Windows sucks, Firefox, or User accounts, it's about restoring lost data.
And yet the best way to self-fuck Windows is to use MSIE to surf porn, let alone as an administrative user, and no, UAC doesn't catch many things.
That's because running MS Office itself on Windows is a "privilege exploit." I invite you to read documentation on what functions are used when MS Office runs on top of NT 5, 5.1, 6 and even still in "7". It bypasses many controls.
This, again, goes back to their damn history on
not actually implementing their own security models in the OS. First it was the inherent and most excellent MAC/RBAC from day one in NT 3.1. Then it was preferring DOS APIs that were finally added to NT 5.0 (2000), drastically improving application compatibility over NT 4.0. Now it's the damn UAC that is largely a "false sense of security" because many, select functions bypass it, including several calls discovered in MS Office.
Fact #1, Last restore point - OEM Restore point
Tip for next time, Create Restore Points for windows, every few weeks or whenever you install a new App.
Agreed.
Fact #2, Nothing is deleted - except for Registry values / Kernel
Tip, look at above posts, there was a link for some freeware, go try it, it can't hurt. Make sure that you set a restore point/disk image before you try to retrieve data.
I also stated that it can't hurt.
Also, if you are feeling cheeky, go run regedit, and add the values you need back to the registry (notice this is beyond normal user, don't try unless you have a how to, or an example). If not try to find MSI files to fix your registry for you.
Have you ever tried to dump a full tree in from a .reg file before? Dude, the registry is a fucking mess.
Hell, there was so much non-standard crap that went on between NT and "Chicago" that they couldn't even standardize where user profiles went, had all sorts of issues with MS IE, etc... One company, two groups that stomped on each other. That's the mess that created what we have today.
For prevention of this in the future:
Fear of corruption, make a disk image of your C: partition after you make a good restore point, so you have a full backup of your HDD.
Agreed!
In my case, I use a set of Linux utilities to do this, because the 3rd Gen Linux LDM/NTFS stack is pretty damn good now at imaging, movnig and restoring LDM/NTFS volumes.
On DVD's?? Well with prices, I'd say no, it's cheaper to repartition your HDD (note my above post), or go buy a internal 500GB/1TB/1.5TB HDD I think it's worth the money.
Dude, two things:
1. If it's a hard drive, connected and read/write, it can be corrupted
2. DVDs are easy to keep in a box somewhere else, and take a crapload less shock than a 3.5' drive.
There's nothing that says you can't use both -- a hard drive for full backup and DVD-R for the most critical stuff that fits on a single disk. In fact, they are quite complementary.
BTW, I recommend 2.5" drives over 3.5" drives when it comes to portable or removable storage. They can take 10x the shock, so far better for portables. Virtually all enterprise drives are now 2.5". 15Krpm has always been sub-3" platter, and everyone has now moved to 2.5" for 10Krpm+. The result is that 2.5" is getting more commodity, and they are far more reliable for porting. All of the datacenters I've worked in over the last 2 years have gone 2.5" disc, even for just more commodity 5400-7200rpm (in addition to all 10-15Krpm drives always being 2.5"), because of that size and environmental tolerance (with a greatly reduced rate of failures).
Fear of Data loss, my god, image the disk, and make a direct copy of it, and never use that copied HDD ever, ever, again. I mean unplug it, and store it in a safe deposit box in Switzerland.
Agreed, although also remember that commodity 3.5" drives are not ideal for storing long-term. If you've ever had to "knock" a drive that has been sitting to just break up its dried out lubricants, you know what I'm talking about. 3.5 drives are designed for several uses per week, no more than 8-14 hours continuous, to keep the annual, failure rate to 2.1% (aka MTBF of 400K hours).
Hate windows, Go buy MAC or install Linux, or that snappy OS2 Warp.
Huh? I don't 'hate' Windows. However, in my business, it's not what my clients use much, or it's always running atop of Linux (e.g., VMware ESX Server).
If you have skill, go install MAC OS on a PC,
Not! Apple regularly updates code to prevent that. If you want MacOS X, buy an Apple.
and edit the configs. Have fun, it takes a lot of time. Linux might be your cup of tea, especially if you want to play with WINE, or want to learn.
Why would I play with WINE?
If I'm going to run Windows apps, I'm going to run Windows. If I'm going to run MS Office, I'm going to run Windows. Running Linux to emulate Windows is
stupid. Run Linux
only if you are going to run native Linux apps, with rare exceptions.
Now there are several advantages to many Open Source apps. The Mac world has been waking up to OpenOffice.org over the years because document compatibility is better across platforms than MS Office is between Windows and Mac, by far, especially with even older MS Office documents. But it wasn't native Aqua. Now with OpenOffice.org 3, it is not only Aqua native, but now includes a Solver and basic VBA -- two things Microsoft yanked from MS Office 2008 for MacOS X, and pissed a lot of even their loyalists off. Again, I have met some of the Microsoft Office for Mac team over the years, and they absolutely hate how horrible and unportable the code is, which is also causing issues with porting to Win64. It's also one of the reasons they had to come up with OOXML, to "encapsulate" binary objects as BASE64 in between XML tags -- long story. ODF v. OOXML is a no-brainer, ODF explains a lot of legacy MS Office tags better than OOXML, and had 100x the scrutiny of OASIS and other organizations before it ever hit ISO, but that's another argument.
So if you're going to "consider" Linux, first consider running the many open source apps on Windows, and get your data over to open formats. Don't just "jump in" and run Linux and have to deal with all that change at once, let alone do
not try to emulate Windows. Linux is
not a better Windows for Windows apps, and
never will be. About the only exception is for very, very old Windows apps where Microsoft has broken the API, but WINE can be tuned to emulate any variant of Windows -- in their, own words -- "bug for bug." But that's only useful for select, old, Windows apps, not anything in the last few years that definitely run on current Windows.
That's why I highly recommend Firefox + Noscript for your surfing, especially since MSIE allows a lot of things via key functions through. I have run into this over and over and over in financial networks and defense installations, and application-level filtering at a gateway only does so much.
Here's my :2 cents: Use a C: partition for XP around, hmmm 25GB. That is the recommended number, use it. Secondly, go search Maximum PC, and find all the tweaks for xp that you want. Then create a system restore point on your PC, then disk image C: partition. This way when you get an error, you have a great copy of everything, that is stable. Just an Idea, use it if you want.
I agree, entirely.
A lot of vendors offer Windows software to do this, and it's worth the cost. Make that copy of the C: filesystem and regularly update it so it makes restoration each. Separating out the D:, to keep C: smaller, is also ideal, and segments well. I didn't disagree with that.
For the more tech-savvy and with some Linux exposure, there's everything you need built into Linux to support a lot of OSes. That's why some of the most popular (and often free) "LiveCDs" for repairing and otherwise helping Windows are often based on a Linux stack.
