Posts tagged Windows
One of the things OS/X does right
Feb 21st
I’m writing this on a 2008 Macbook Pro that I dual boot between Snow Leopard and Windows 7. I spend most of my time in Windows but occasionally I pop into SL to test something out or use iMovie to edit some video. From time to time, when OS/X boots, you get this nice System Update dialog that explains that some installed software on your system needs to be updated. Here’s a shot of the one I just got.
What’s interesting to notice is that it is listing non-Apple products as having upgrade available. My Epson printer drivers and Microsoft provided remote desktop client software are both listed.
Why can’t Microsoft do this? Why do I have to manually check for upgrades for products like this?
Keeping a system fully updated is the easiest way to keep things running smoothly. Microsoft does a nice job of this with system level patches and hardware components, but it does nothing to help keep my products updated. Windows 7 gets a lot of things right but this one goes to OS/X.
Do I have a third choice?
Feb 2nd
So, a while back I started this series called KISS. This stood for Keep It Simple Stupid which is an age-old phrase commonly applied to computers. I posted several times about areas where Windows really breaks this rule. While I’m not announcing the revival of that project, I did recently run across another instance I thought would be fun to share.
Now, this is something I’ve seen many, many times which is actually a sad confession. Sad because it shows that Windows users really can use lame UI for years and not even really notice it. We are just used to crap.
So, yesterday I was setting up a new Windows Server 2008 R2 box in VirtualBox (a killer VM product if you don’t already know) and came to the following screen during setup.
So, let us be clear. This is a brand new machine (VM) and my two choices are Upgrade and Custom? Huh? First, there is nothing to upgrade so is it even a choice? So my other choice is Custom (advanced) which sounds like I want to do very advanced things like partition the drive, etc. Why is there not a ‘Simple Install’ option? Linux has this. OS/X has this.
Oh, and before you comment that this is a server install so the user is likely quite technical, the Windows 7 and Vista install was just like this. Yes I am a geek so this dialog has never tripped me up but what would my mom do with this dialog? I know what she would do. She would call me.
