Archive for August, 2006

Newsflash! I’m an administrator

5 years ago
by reggie in

Ok so I finally got tired of hitting the remind me later button when asked
if I wanted to download the Windows desktop search update when starting
Outlook. I valiantly tried this on my x64 desktop only to discover that
there isn’t a 64 bit build available. No problem, my laptop is XP SP2 so
this should be a breeze.

Near the end of the install, this message pops up. Access denied. Huh? It
had asked me if I wanted it to close Outlook automatically (I said yes) so I
figured that Outlook had disobeyed (it had). I forcefully closed Outlook
and tried again. Bzzt. Access denied. Hmm. Ok, must be some files in
use. Reboot. Bzzzt. Access denied.

After some googling, running Regmon, and trying unsuccessfully to turn on
verbose logging (which I now remember is STILL on), I got it installed. The
problem? Some of the registry keys under HKCR did not allow administrators
to read or write them. You read that right. The most powerful entity in
the universe (on this computer) can’t read or write those keys. So my
question is “who the hell is supposed to write them if users and
administrators can’t?”

Newsflash Microsoft! Administrator means I can do ANYTHING I want on my
computer. A small warning might be in order but I should not be disallowed.
Now we can argue about whether running as admin is smart but the fact
remains that as long as I am running as administrator, I should not EVER
have security issues with what I am doing.

Ok, I’m calm now. Sanity can resume….

Wow Outlook sucks as an IMAP client

5 years ago
by reggie in

Yes we’ve all known this for some time but it just boiled over for me
this morning. I’m here at building 20 on the Microsoft campus getting
read to begin the August VSIP dev lab and I had about 50 emails that I
needed to process. This should be an easy procedure. Delete a few,
read most, reply to some, etc. There’s but one problem. We are not
using Exchange so Outlook can’t manage to behave. It sometimes just
“goes away” when you click on a folder. Oh it usually returns about 10
minutes later but how frustrating is that?

For some time now I’ve had this working system where when I’ve had a lot
of email to process I shut down Outlook and fire up Thunderbird. I
can’t really stand staying with Thunderbird because I enjoy having my
calendar and to do items on my smart phone too much but it’s really
frustrating knowing that Microsoft could write a good IMAP client if
they wanted to. I’d almost respect them more if they would just come
out say that they are intentionally going to build a crappy IMAP
client. Then at least you could say they suck honestly.

Pure desire?

5 years ago
by reggie in

I just read the press release
on Microsoft’s new “Vista Industrial Design Toolkit” and
really want to applaud Microsoft for this.  It’s really shameful
that with as many great hardware companies as there are building computers,
that Apple still kicks the crap out of all of them.  Are all the artistic
people working at Apple?  Yes, I know that the biggest problem is the
unwillingness to spend the R&D money it takes to build a truly innovative
case, however, Apple has shown that people are willing to pay for that. 
With this move, Microsoft is taking a stand that computers can and should start
being cool.  Still, when my computer starts being an “object of pure
desire” it’s time to step away….

 

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