Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10
- Thread starter TragicMonkey
- Start date
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Wudang
BOFH
The built in Windows zip or compression function is pretty poor. It doesn't implement some compression algorithms used by WinRAR and 7zip etc. As Arth is working for government they may not be allowed to install them.
That's compressed with the Windows 11 built in compressor - I also have WinRar installed and I use that as the default application to open archives.
I do agree that many programmes these days do better with their file sizes but it's quite surprising how many don't.
I do agree that many programmes these days do better with their file sizes but it's quite surprising how many don't.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
We have 7zip in our SOE.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Our SOE is now completely Office 365/OneDrive based. Every user's individual OneDrive capacity has been set to 100Gb - after all, who would ever need more storage than that on their personal drive?
Right?
Right?
Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
That's not the true justification. The TRUE justification is...
[IMGw=500]https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/assets/images/australias-banknotes/next-generation-banknotes-program/100-ngb-full-serial-side.jpg[/IMGw]
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Storage is cheap. Everyone knows that.
Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
Just not on Azure.
novaphile
Quester of Doglets
But backup is expensive.
Sadly I've heard far too may times folk claiming they don't need back-up because it's "all on the cloud".
You may find it a tad interesting - using RAR5 via WinRar rather than the Windows' built in compressor reduced the file by a further 12kb, so pretty much another ten percent.
I mentioned this is another thread a while back but I decided to sit down and develop a good backup plan for my home PCs and devices and sort of hit a brick wall.
My primary PC is a gaming laptop running Windows 10 (now Windows 11).
I... didn't have anything to back up. I don't mean anything I didn't want to back up, but I didn't have anything I COULD back up.
My Steam Game Library is all on the Steam Servers. My Documents are all Google Docs. My Movies/Music are all Amazon and a spattering of other services, all web bases.
I had maybe 10, 15 gigs of actual meaningful locals files that I just synced to Google Drive as a backup.
I thought about making a backup image of the actual hard drive but it's goddamn Windows. I have an OS ISO on a thumbdrive and I can install Windows in 20 minutes half asleep.
My secondary laptop is a Chromebook. My secondary gaming device is a Steam Deck. My primary reading device is a Kindle. My phone is an android. There's no way to "backup" any of those things in any real sense of the term beyond the inherent "cloud" backup each of those devices is based around.
It would just be super if one of our "Essential, can't live without out, every single atom in the universe will stop and explode if we don't have this software RIGHT NOW." pieces of medical software wasn't dependent on a Microsoft .NET framework from 1,987 years ago that Microsoft stopped supporting 1,986 years ago.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Heh. My department is currently congratulating itself because we successfully persuaded someone to write something in Visual Basic 6 to life-support a dying process that simply must be continued exactly as it has been since 2002...even though that process was created as a workaround to get A and B to communicate and A and B have both long since been replaced.
Analogy: we're translating English to German back to English because long ago we had a German speaker somewhere in the building. They're long gone but the translator demands the workflow continue.
I'm currently right now scouring the internet for a good, standalone exe file for Microsoft CLR types for SQL Server 2012 because it's the prerequisite for another prerequisite for a third prerequisite the program we are actually trying to install needs to run.
I need Microsoft Report Viewer 2012 (no longer supported) but that needs Microsoft System CLR Types for QL Server 2012 (no longer supported) but THAT needs Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 which I can't install because the installer says it's already part of my OS and it is no longer supported.
And I'm only hoping that when all of those are (somehow) installed the actual installer will work and stop asking me for perquisites.
At this point I'll be zero percent shocked if I'm asked to install RealPlayer and AOL Chat.
I need Microsoft Report Viewer 2012 (no longer supported) but that needs Microsoft System CLR Types for QL Server 2012 (no longer supported) but THAT needs Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 which I can't install because the installer says it's already part of my OS and it is no longer supported.
And I'm only hoping that when all of those are (somehow) installed the actual installer will work and stop asking me for perquisites.
At this point I'll be zero percent shocked if I'm asked to install RealPlayer and AOL Chat.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Yikes. It's not going to stop until you have dogs turning a spit in the basement to power a brass-cylinder thinking engine!
Blue Mountain
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
This sort of crap is why I prefer to build my stuff on open source tools, with some care taken to ensure long-term viability. I have Perl programs and shell scripts I wrote twenty years ago running on my computers. MySQL/MariaDB and Postgres don't break their APIs every five years. And if you really, truly need an older version, chances are you can get a binary in an archival repository somewhere, or attempt to compile it from scratch. (Unfortunately, lots of libraries move forward and deprecate old functionality, so there's no guarantee the program will compile cleanly and link.)
Heck, if you need an old release of Linux, chances are you can find that in a repository, too. Unfortunately it may not run well on modern hardware.
I have a very useful picture viewer on my system (xv) and the last official release was 3.10a back in 1994—almost 30 years ago. But because the author made the source code available, and there's sufficient interest in the program still, I can run a patched and updated version on my computers in 2023.
I can probably unpack a tar archive compressed with gzip that was created 30 years ago, while a backup made with proprietary software from a company that went out of business three years ago could well be inaccessible forever.
There's a reason that Windows is unknown in spaces outside of business, like the software that runs the internet, embedded systems, small computers like routers and smart TVs, mainframe computers and supercomputers. It's way too dependent on the whims of one company that appears to be genuinely hostile to its users.
novaphile
Quester of Doglets
Re backup...
I still have tapes hanging around from my tape drive, which contain, amongst other historical relics, a full copy of a friend's PhD.
Now I have a NAS a tiny little unit, smaller than a toaster, that has a couple of terabyte drives in it working as a RAID. I back up stuff to that.
Photos are on my phone or camera SD cards, backed up to the linux box, which is backed up to the NAS.
The reality is that I probably don't need any of this, but I have all those things for other reasons, so may as well do some backing up.
More valuable stuff (like encryption keys) are also backed up into encrypted database files on flash drives, which are in various locations. So even a house fire wouldn't wipe me out.
I'd expect a work environment to be much more complex (mine certainly was) with formal off-site backup facilities and live failover sites.
I still have tapes hanging around from my tape drive, which contain, amongst other historical relics, a full copy of a friend's PhD.
Now I have a NAS a tiny little unit, smaller than a toaster, that has a couple of terabyte drives in it working as a RAID. I back up stuff to that.
Photos are on my phone or camera SD cards, backed up to the linux box, which is backed up to the NAS.
The reality is that I probably don't need any of this, but I have all those things for other reasons, so may as well do some backing up.
More valuable stuff (like encryption keys) are also backed up into encrypted database files on flash drives, which are in various locations. So even a house fire wouldn't wipe me out.
I'd expect a work environment to be much more complex (mine certainly was) with formal off-site backup facilities and live failover sites.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
I'm with JoeMorgue. I wouldn't be particularly upset if every electronic device I own suddenly melted into puddles of radioactive goo tomorrow, without backups.
Except of course inasmuch as I would have to replace them. And clean up the goo. Hazmat is expensive.
Except of course inasmuch as I would have to replace them. And clean up the goo. Hazmat is expensive.
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