Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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Also Microsoft my users have to use Chrome.

It's literally undignified and desperate how much you push Edge when all I'm doing is just choosing a default browser.

I'm waiting for the day I try to switch a user to Chrome and message pops of my house "Nice house you got there... be a shame if something happened to it. Just saying maybe you choose Edge..."

I find this odd. I've been on Windows 10 for quite some time, and aside from the initial install, when I set my defaults to Chrome, I've never been asked to switch back to Edge again.

They actually seem to be MUCH less pushy about it these days.

On the other hand, every time I go to any Google-related site in a browser that's not Chrome, the site gives pop-ups to try and push me to switch to Chrome.

No one is innocent in the browser wars :)
 
Also Microsoft my users have to use Chrome.

It's literally undignified and desperate how much you push Edge when all I'm doing is just choosing a default browser.

I'm waiting for the day I try to switch a user to Chrome and message pops of my house "Nice house you got there... be a shame if something happened to it. Just saying maybe you choose Edge..."
Lol. I currently have Chrome, Edge and IE11 running on my computer, for different purposes.

I've certainly had problems when a Windows update has been installed (automatically, without telling me) but still needs a reboot to finish. Some applications, e.g. Lightroom, start misbehaving and the reboot (and completion of the update) fixes it.
I usually recommend to my callers a full reboot at least once a week for a Windows computer, preferably every night. That's what I do, and as I think I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, I have very few problems.
 
I usually recommend to my callers a full reboot at least once a week for a Windows computer, preferably every night. That's what I do, and as I think I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, I have very few problems.

Which speaks volumes about Windows' crappy architecture. Here's an OS with a kernel based on VMS, and it still likes a restart every 24 hours? I have Linux systems that run for weeks on end (even if they shouldn't because that means I'm not installing kernel updates.) My main laptop runs Linux and a four year old copy of KDE. The laptop can stay running for weeks on end, but I have to restart KDE once a week due to memory leaks.
 
Which speaks volumes about Windows' crappy architecture. Here's an OS with a kernel based on VMS, and it still likes a restart every 24 hours? I have Linux systems that run for weeks on end (even if they shouldn't because that means I'm not installing kernel updates.) My main laptop runs Linux and a four year old copy of KDE. The laptop can stay running for weeks on end, but I have to restart KDE once a week due to memory leaks.
Possibly. I'm not qualified to comment on the architecture of Windows, and I certainly don't reboot my Mac as often as I would a Windows machine. While it's true that some people need to run reports or compile scripts overnight, most average business users just don't need to have their computer running overnight, and it's not exactly an onerous process.

Just got another call that was fixed by rebooting. This caller said that she didn't routinely shut the computer down. I gave her my standard recommendation, and the reasons for it, and she said that she'd give it a go. I hope that she has fewer problems into the future.
 
Just got another call that was fixed by rebooting. This caller said that she didn't routinely shut the computer down. I gave her my standard recommendation, and the reasons for it, and she said that she'd give it a go. I hope that she has fewer problems into the future.

Yeah, for Windows users doing a reboot is the first thing when attempting to fix a problem. For a Unix sysadmin, it's a sign of failure when troubleshooting a running system. :D
 
Yeah, for Windows users doing a reboot is the first thing when attempting to fix a problem. For a Unix sysadmin, it's a sign of failure when troubleshooting a running system. :D
A lot of people have already worked this out and do it before calling us. Some haven't. But it's okay. This particular caller just happened to be one of today's lucky 10,000.
 
I may have mentioned this before (it's a long thread), but I'm frequently surprised how many people just don't know what they've signed.

We have a form that all new staff members have to sign before they're given network access called the Acceptance of IT User Responsibilities. Most enterprises have them - it's their agreement that they will only use the organisation's computer systems in an appropriate manner. It is a legal document, kept in secure storage in HR for seven years. So before we give out a password to a new starter, we ask if they've signed this form. I would guess that more than half of the new starters I speak to have no idea whether they've signed it or not. I would bet that almost none of them actually read it before signing it.

I say I'm surprised by this, but really I'm not.
 
Which speaks volumes about Windows' crappy architecture. Here's an OS with a kernel based on VMS, and it still likes a restart every 24 hours?
First of all, the kernel is based on VMS only in the sense that it borrows many of the ideas and concepts. The execution is completely new.

Secondly, it is many many years since Windows was so unstable that it needed a restart every day.

I have Linux systems that run for weeks on end (even if they shouldn't because that means I'm not installing kernel updates.) My main laptop runs Linux and a four year old copy of KDE. The laptop can stay running for weeks on end, but I have to restart KDE once a week due to memory leaks.

You should be comparing the reliability of Windows with the reliability of the combination of Linux and your UI stack. The effect of KDE crashing on all the processes running in it isn't functionally very different to the effect of a blue screen of death on Windows.
 
Also it's worth mentioning that Windows and Microsoft Office absolutely dominate the desktop in which I work - which is the Australian Government. The department where I work has literally three Mac computers and a couple of iPads, and somewhere between 8 and 10 thousand Windows desktop computers running Microsoft Office.

So, I think the takeaway there is that if you want to work in an office environment, you will have to come to terms with the fact that you will be using Microsoft products.

I just spoke to the guy in charge of all the security guards for two major departments, which make up the bulk of our clients. I've spoken to him before and he has absolutely no clue how a computer works. No clue. Even the most basic of functions is beyond him. All he needed me to do was recreate two shortcuts on his Desktop, but he didn't know where on the network drive the original folders were stored, and wouldn't have had any idea how to recreate the shortcuts. He was lucky he spoke to me, actually, because I was the one who worked with him on these shortcuts a few weeks ago and I actually remembered where the folders were. Another operator wouldn't have known, and this particular person is not only very bad at explaining what it is that he needs, but he was also calling from a very noisy security desk at the entrance to a building with hundreds of occupants. Using speaker.

While I fixed his problem, he had a conversation with someone else, paying zero attention to what I was doing.
 
Which speaks volumes about Windows' crappy architecture. Here's an OS with a kernel based on VMS, and it still likes a restart every 24 hours? I have Linux systems that run for weeks on end (even if they shouldn't because that means I'm not installing kernel updates.) My main laptop runs Linux and a four year old copy of KDE. The laptop can stay running for weeks on end, but I have to restart KDE once a week due to memory leaks.
As in VAX/VMS? About 30 years ago I, a mechanical engineer, was abruptly handed responsibility for such a system. I HAD NO CLUE! But it just went ahead and ran for about two years until the company went out of business. I did learn a little about it, which helped me with MS-DOS. Now? I haven't a clue.
I actually had a BSOD today. Just shut it off and restarted. But that was the first restart in about 5 weeks.
 
As in VAX/VMS? About 30 years ago I, a mechanical engineer, was abruptly handed responsibility for such a system. I HAD NO CLUE! But it just went ahead and ran for about two years until the company went out of business. I did learn a little about it, which helped me with MS-DOS. Now? I haven't a clue.
I actually had a BSOD today. Just shut it off and restarted. But that was the first restart in about 5 weeks.
Hey! Ancient bearded VMS guru here! Ask me.

Also, VMS was pretty legendary for its uptime record. Typical uptimes were in the order of hundreds of days, sometimes years. The apparent record uptime for a VMS cluster is one at CERN, which we understand has been running continuously since about 1985. So that's well over 30 years.

The relationship of VMS with Windows NT is pretty close. Not Windows 95/98/Me - that was a very different development stream. VMS and NT had the same designer - Dave Cutler. Initially NT shared a lot of DNA with VMS (some of which is still there). But as with all complex and evolving OS's, while the bodywork remains sort of similar, they are both vastly changed under the hood since the 1990's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
 
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Hey! Ancient bearded VMS guru here! Ask me.

Also, VMS was pretty legendary for its uptime record. Typical uptimes were in the order of hundreds of days, sometimes years. The apparent record uptime for a VMS cluster is one at CERN, which we understand has been running continuously since about 1985. So that's well over 30 years.

Even more ancient bearded VMS guru here :)

I think you're mistaken re CERN; I think you're referring to the (possibly) apochryphal story of the Irish Railways system (see, amongst others, this thread started by me in news://comp.os.vms from 2006).

One of my biggest customers (systems are a split-site disaster-tolerant cluster in London and elsewhere in south England) currently up since July 2011 (same customer as in comp.os.vms thread, different systems (Alphas and Itaniums)).

I'm sure there are other VMS systems at the same customer that have been up for much longer than that - and many of these systems run flat-out.
 
One great feature of Vax/VMS systems in the early 1980s was that many places left the field engineer login set to default (was it field?) which was very useful in the old UK days of JANET. So a friend tells me anyway.
 
First of all, the kernel is based on VMS only in the sense that it borrows many of the ideas and concepts. The execution is completely new.

Secondly, it is many many years since Windows was so unstable that it needed a restart every day.


Yet arthwollipot said that people who restart Windows every day have fewer problems.
arthwollipot said:
I usually recommend to my callers a full reboot at least once a week for a Windows computer, preferably every night. That's what I do, and as I think I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, I have very few problems.
However, this may be a correlation/causation thing. Rebooting his system every night may not actually be the root cause of not having many problems. It's possible he does other things when running Windows that contribute to its stability.

You should be comparing the reliability of Windows with the reliability of the combination of Linux and your UI stack. The effect of KDE crashing on all the processes running in it isn't functionally very different to the effect of a blue screen of death on Windows.
While having to restart KDE once a week means having to restart my userland programs (which is a bit of a pain), it's not quite as extensive as a full system restart. KDE going down doesn't mean the entire system dies. I don't have to re-open encrypted volumes. Background processes remain running so they don't have to restart from checkpoints. RAM drives and temporary file systems (which I put into RAM) don't lose their data. Database caches are maintained, so they don't have to re-read rows from disc. A background sync of my main system to the file server won't be interrupted.
 
Listen I get that "Ye old robust days of Unix" is one of the things the IT Industry looks at with rose colored hindsight, but I'm can't get Karen in Human Resources to understand that I can't "download her some more memory" so I'm not about to try and live in a world where I have to deal with the fallout of her trying to use anything more complicated then an Etch-a-Sketch.

Unix/BSD is amazing for purely IT work that has no customer or "general user" facing aspect to it.
 
However, this may be a correlation/causation thing. Rebooting his system every night may not actually be the root cause of not having many problems. It's possible he does other things when running Windows that contribute to its stability.
This is absolutely correct. I don't think that I do anything in particular that other people don't do, but I could be wrong about that.
 
I'm sure there are other VMS systems at the same customer that have been up for much longer than that - and many of these systems run flat-out.

There was a time when reliability seemed important; I heard similar tales about HP MPE systems running for years, and I've worked on HP-UX and Linux systems that had been up for two years or more without a reboot.
 
And let's not forget that the computers that run air traffic control at busy airports and stock exchanges don't generally need to be shut down either.
 
Also it's worth mentioning that Windows and Microsoft Office absolutely dominate the desktop in which I work - which is the Australian Government. The department where I work has literally three Mac computers and a couple of iPads, and somewhere between 8 and 10 thousand Windows desktop computers running Microsoft Office.
Still too many.
 
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