Comments on: The Wonderful Wacky World of Windows https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/ Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:45:43 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: Stephanie Z https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521555 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:45:43 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521555 Actually, we call it the Spinny Pizza Wheel of Death. As far as I know, it has no official name.

]]> By: Todd https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521554 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:08:57 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521554 “[T]he Spinning Beach Ball of Death”

So that’s what it’s called.
Hilarious!

]]> By: Eric Lund https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521553 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:26:51 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521553 Apple.

Not necessarily a solution. On multiple occasions, after plugging in a USB drive, I try to open it in a Finder window and get the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. (This is under Snow Leopard, which is the latest and greatest version of MacOS.) Oh, and the Relaunch Finder thing has never worked for me–if the Finder goes into a nonresponsive state, I have to save all of my other work and then restart the computer, usually via a three-finger salute.

]]> By: Annette https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521552 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:10:43 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521552 I get that on the computers at school when I plug in a USB drive. I click “NO” and go on about my merry way. It seems to make no difference at all. (And they wonder why we ignore all those windows warnings.)

]]> By: Julie Stahlhut https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521551 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:03:40 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521551 I prefer to classify Windows as “anti-productivity software.”

]]> By: Todd https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521550 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:18:01 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521550 Another data point supporting my Unified Theory of Windows: For any given operation, Windows will function in the manner that maximizes the user’s inconvenience.

]]> By: Marko https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521549 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 06:51:26 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521549 Could »just« be an autostarter installing an encryption tool for the USB drive.

The funny thing is that the architecture XP/Vista/7 improved a tiny bit in the respect that they usually don’t need restarts for that. But those standard installers (I’m looking at you, InstallShield) signal the need for reboot anyway.

Then there’s oodles of apps that don’t react to system notifications like »something’s changed« (new printer driver, new font just installed etc.). If the OS propagates those WM_MESSAGEs and too many apps ignore it, it’s safest for an installer to suggest a reboot. Sigh.

During the past decade, OS X and free software around GNU/Linux improved a lot as well in that respect; 3 Macs here, one with Snow Leopard (Mac mini), one Ubuntu (iBook G3), one SuSE 7.3 (SCSI-Power-Mac).

]]> By: Paul Murray https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521548 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:28:10 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521548 Apple.

]]> By: george.w https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521547 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:58:29 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521547 There may be some other evil at work. USB jump drives with U3 technology sometimes strand our professors in a pickle. It works on their office machine, and they copy the PowerPoint to it, get on a plane, fly halfway across the country, put it into a Windows machine and BZZZZT! Sorry, you need at least Power User access to “install the software”.

I keep a U3 remover handy, and encourage profs to let me nuke U3 off their jump drives before they start using them.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521546 Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:45:53 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/08/09/the-wonderful-wacky-world-of-w/#comment-521546 The photo is from just under a year ago, and I was using a computer maintained weekly by a major university’s IT department. Yes, it was XP but it was not the old copy of XP I’ve got on my evile windows computer on which I run exactly one piece of software (that old install can actually open a thumb drive without rebooting!)

So the behavior can’t be explained by anything being wrong other than windows itself being an out of control useless operating system that should be considered dangerous by anyone who comes near it .

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