Just thought I'd mention I've successfully finished my first two programming projects in Windows XP last week. The first one was writing a client to communicate with a server using time protocol RFC 868. The second one was typing a 'Hello World' program given to me on a handout into the computer and adding my name as a header. In case you're wondering about the order.... don't ask

Edited by Mr Creosote at 20:44 on November, 10th 2003

There is a rumor they're already planning such a step: More Windows Pools

Speak to his boss and ask him/her if they dare do something that could result in an increase in support calls.

I talked to one of the support guys today. He told me most support calls they get are exactly the same all over again: "How do I set up my e-mail client?"

As stated before, that is already possible.

As for the general point (aside from the example):

They dont need to change serious things to log a support call.

A dumb user could inadvertantly change the menu from XP AOL fluffy style to the old style and think 'Shit what have I done?? how do I change it back??? I need to log a call".

I dont have statistical proof at hand, I cant prove it, but I gaurantee you , calls would increase.

Edited by fretz at 21:41 on November, 04th 2003

Wrong. As clearly stated before, I was only talking about completely non-critical settings to be 'liberalized'. Like for example the system colours or fonts. None of this causes any 'support calls' in the Unix Pools at university, even though it's possible and used a lot. I've never said normal users should be able to change any serious things.

OK, you get the job as IT manager for the university and you get your 1st years budget. It allows for 5 support staff, the same as the previous year under your predecessor.

You change the config of all the university's box's you have to a more liberal config to suit your liking.

Support calls increase by 30% (which they will, because users on the whole are dumb and will change things they shouldnt, even if it isnt security orientated, they will change things and think "shit, ive broke it, I should log a support call")


You - "I need another 2 support staff"

Powers that be - "Why?"

You - "because we are getting 30% more suport calls

Powers that be - "Why?"

You - "Because I relaxed the admin rights on our standard XP install"

Powers that be - "Your sacked, eediot"

Giving reasons instead of just saying "that's how it is" would be nice. On both counts.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 21:24 on November, 04th 2003

Reality

Your forgetting that 95% of users will not have written a PHP forum before the age of 21, will never have used a command prompt and probably think C is just the third letter of the alphabet. The majority of users have to be assumed to be a pain in the ass.

If you were responsible for the universities IT budget would you offer a more liberal XP config? If you answer 'Yes' then, no disrespect, but you are certainly not suitable to manage the universities network.

Urban legend.

It isnt a matter of choice, its a matter of commercial viability, business continuity and the man at the top keeping his job by 'smoke and mirrors'.

If your running open source throughout your network and/or a whole caboodle of various packages etc, when the chief resign's or gets run over by a bus, finding a suitable replacement who can hit the ground running is an almost impossible task. Provide the Board with a network using MS throughout at the desktop level and either MS or Novell at the server level and you can find a qualified replacement within days.

Edited by fretz at 21:16 on November, 04th 2003

That is why I'm starting to familiarize myself with the UI more than two weeks before I'm actually supposed to start. See, I'm not that stubborn

While this is of course true, it's still stupid, because what do they care as long as I get the job done and stick to the guidelines of programming style set up by the company?

Actually, I'm not. Programming is a necessity for my studies, but I'm moving more into the direction of hardware. Putting that aside, I still don't think you're right. More than 90% of all system administrators and other IT people are prejudiced against Windows! That doesn't mean they'll refuse to work with these systems. It just means they'd probably prefer something else if they had the choice. And seriously: How can anyone who has had the chance to look deeper into a Microsoft system not be prejudiced against them? Rare case indeed.

Restriction to one desktop / being restricted from tweaking UI and looks: I agree with NetDanzr there. The more comfortable I am with my working environment, the more productive I am. That's pretty obvious. So while I certainly will be able to get the job done with Windows XP, using the ugly standard colours, macro fonts which only allow me to see ten lines of program code at once and one single desktop which is immediately flooded with lots of windows, tweaking as much of these points as possible to my preference would not only make me a happier 'worker' (also important in companies), but also a more productive one.

No, of course, there are way less computers than students at the university, and at peak hours, it's hard to get any at all. However, there certainly is a way to change such shallow settings which don't influence system security, integrity or stability (what the administrator should be worried about) at all, on a 'network user basis'! That'd make my customized desktop available to me every day by default, no matter on which computer I'm sitting. Hell, it even works on the HPUX computers - and that is many years old!

Even though I use XP for my own personal computer, I like using the Unix machines more for dev stuff. Unfortunately the VHDL design programs are only on the XP platforms... it also makes a huge amount of windows which is incredibly hard to deal with. Plus, you can't have two projects open at the same time

The Computer:People ratio here must be at least 2:1 though

Thats true when you go to work every day and sit at the same desk, in front of the same computer.

Even though German higher education is way ahead of Britain I cant image they each have their own PC. In a hot-seat envoironment its Alcatraz all the way!

Not really. Changing the display settings in WinXP does not affect the whole computer, only the individual user settings. I know from my own experience that the wrong interface can seriously decrease my work productivity, so a good employer would direct their admins to leave as much of the computer open as is feasible, and encourage the users to tinker with the settings, in order to maximize their productivity.

Make the most of the learning experiance. You better get used to it, because once you start to earn a living from doing it you will be 'forced' into many things you may not like, or may feel can be done better.



If your paying someone to do the work, you can call it silly and dictate to them they must do it your way. No disrespect but I imagine you will be the one being paid, rather than be the one paying others. If the boss says it needs to be done in 'development environment xy', the you do it in 'development environment xy'. No buts.



If your serious about persuing software development as a career then you need to drop that attitude immediately. The world uses windows, you cant change that. 90%+ of software commisioned is written for the Windows platform, and while a good proportion of dev tools are cross platform, some are not, and when in the real world you are thrust into a project where you are 'forced' into using MS product, you cant turn round to the client and say "Sorry, XP's crap, give me a Linux version of 'development environment xy' and I'll do the project", minions like us dont get them choices unfortunately. Live with it.



Agreed, but irrelivant.



If your worried about that, youve got problems



I appreciate thats frustrating but back in the real world - thats a necessity and a good thing, and nothing differant to any other worthy network orientated OS. The more lock-down an admin can control the better.

How many PC's are there at your university? Imagine how the spotty IT Support guy would cope if every PC he got called out to had a myriad of differant settings etc.

Edited by fretz at 23:54 on October, 29th 2003

This is so true! That's actually what I always tell people the other way round

The problem is just that I'm forced into this learning experience. I have no personal interest in it at all! Try to imagine my situation: I'm perfectly happy with the HPUX terminals we have at university, and I also find my way around the Windows 2000 machines in the offices. Now, in my third year there, they're forcing me into this - and even without any proper reason! It's a regular programming job, but they insist I'm using the 'development environment xy' which runs only on these Windows XP machines - how silly is that?

Taking this situation into account, I'm really trying my best. Sure, I have lots of prejudice against this OS, but most of the things (such as spyware and all) don't matter in this case, since it's not my own computer. I also still don't believe it's a good OS, but that's for another day to discuss. I'll just say that it would be impossible to tweak it as much as Linux, because of some obvious facts, such as forced choice of DE and WM, as well as UI. But even using it is not exactly made easy, for the reasons mentioned above. I'll add one more: How am I supposed to work on a big project requiring many, many things to be open at once when I have only one desktop?

If I could tweak the interface a bit more (as I said, this 'classic mode' already helps tremendously!) and also could get away from this horrible look, most of my problems would already be gone! And that's where it gets really frustrating: As it turned out, I don't have the rights to do that! All I get is this ridiculous message about contacting my administrator when I try. So as useful the site you linked to may be in general, it's of no use to me. I'll still be stuck in this world of huge boulder-like icons drawn in clashing colours

Straight out of the box XP will appear crap, especially to a user such as yourself. If I were you, I would clear your mind of any preconceived ideas you have about MS and their OS and embark upon the project as though it was your first Linux install having never heard of MS or Windows before - there's a learning curve you need to go through to get the best from it.

IMO - NT4 was a very good OS, I'll happily argue that point until I'm blue in the face. XP is nothing more than the NT4 kernal with improved interoperbility and, sadly, 272 layers of glossy furry bits. Remove the glossy furry bits and you have the very stable NT4 that plays games - no bad thing.

If you put as much time/effort into tweaking XP as you did installing your first Linux distro, you never know, you may even grow to like it.

I dont think any of the following points are relevant to your issues exaclty but you should do them all the same. This is a good place to start -

http://www.monroeworld.com/pchelp/xptweaks.php