Ran into Microsoft

Well... I ran into a prime example of Microsoft 'programming'

The new guy here has never used Linux and has jumped right in. He couldn't get the RARP daemon working so he rebooted the machine. Well, it still wasn't working and he looked around and discovered there was not config file for the RARP daemon.

It's too bad that Microsoft has managed to brainwash so many users into thinking that rebooting is a normal troubleshooting step.

I dread to think about the XP generation.

I was fixing an XP loaded laptop today, and it was in a terrible state, despite being almost brand new, and unmessed with by the owner. Constant 'fatal error please report this to microsoft' boxes that would attempt to connect to the internet, which could crash again, give another error, etc etc.

To search files to backup before wiping and installing 2k, I tried to use the search tool. The search tool opened, a little comic of a wizard said a blank speech bubble in the corner of the window. The search tool then refused to work with more errors.

So, in desperation I click on the little comic Wizard. The wizard then presented me with a golden chalice and smiled. Then the machine froze.

I am not making this up.

Really, XP is so bad sometimes it's surreal. I wonder what bizzare habits the users will pick up?

That's the Wizard saying it's time to get drunk, because the machine is FUBAR!

Drinking from goblets? Fear of wizards?

Tsu Dho Nimh

What was wrong with it?

There was something wrong with it?

[XP laptop going horribly wrong]

I know you're joking but... yep. Definitely. Something MASSIVELY wrong with it. I've never seen an XP system fall over like that.

*boing*

Light just dawned. I *have* seen a system go down like that. Namely, mine. Beta video and audio drivers on a beta copy of XP. That fatal error box comes up when the system goes down with a hardware-fault blue-screen, and when it comes back up again it asks you to send a diagnostic trace to Microsoft.

Which leads me to believe that the hardware and/or drivers are buggy.

As it's a laptop, this could be problematic to fix.

hehe They should of called Erik

The empty wizard box may be a give-away on a virus. I saw a vicious attack at a site, and the first clue was empty dialogs and such. The virus/trojan/worm/whatever was replacing system files one-by-one with empty copies.

Sounds like he's probably having a memory problem to me. Of course with XP, it can start to behave like that after installing some indigestible piece of software too. Older scanner and CD software seems to often be incompatible with XP.

Looks like you got over it!

Your OE is trashing quotes again. Maybe you should write a new one.