DEFENESTRATE this - feed up with computer operating systems

Emedia Professional, August, 1999 by Dana J. Parker

I know there are those who will snort in derision at the Windows incompetence I'm about to reveal; let 'em. Back in the day, I was the Annie Oakley of software troubleshooting: I could replace a cycle clutch in a Selectric typewriter, and I could lock a six-foot dish on to a geosynchronous satellite signal by dead reckoning.

And maybe that's why I'm a firm believer in keeping things that work because it's often easier to fix something than to install and learn to use something new. And to me, anointed arbiter of standards, anything that doesn't reasonably support that approach is, well, substandard. So it is--or should be--with operating systems. By the time you read this, I will have accepted the inevitable and installed Windows 98. It's not because I need Windows 98, any more,, than I needed Windows 95. It's because I tried to reinstall Windows 95, and was unable to do so.

I'd heard the stories; if you encounter a problem--any problem--with your Wintel machine, tech support will tell you to reinstall Windows and the problem will go away. I share domestic and office space with a person who reinstalls Windows the way others change their sheets. He blithely downloads plug-ins and utilities, installs new software and operating systems just to see how they work, and reformats his hard drives and fiddles with his IRQs and DMAs. Eventually, of course, something goes seriously wrong and he spends days getting his systems back up.

In contrast, once I get something to work, ]! leave it alone. I don't download promiscuously and rarely add programs. I don't have the time or desire to explore all ,of the obscure INIs and DLLs and Registries of my operating system. As a result, I've never had to reinstall Windows 95--until now. Eager to try out a new Web-connected DVD-ROM application, I tried to run the setup and got the error message, "setup.exe is not a valid Win32 application."

After years on that end of the line, I know the sufferings of tech support people and am reluctant to bother them unnecessarily. But call I did, and sure enough, that was the diagnosis: a Windows file that dealt with UDF volumes was corrupted. Reinstall Windows.

The result was disaster. The system went from DVD installation errors to complete failure, with blue screens, cold boots, warm boots, End Tasks, and Safe Modes aplenty in between. The final, most frustrating symptom was a restored but locked desktop with a dialog box that told me to close the program that was not responding--Windows Explorer. Every time I closed it, it started itself again, and locked. Endless loop. As a last resort, I tried to install Windows 98 from the DOS prompt but couldn't do that either. The beast wanted 80MB of hard drive; I had but 40 to give. Stymied, I gave up and went shopping. While I was gone, the resident intrepid troubleshooter got Windows 95 up again, but didn't solve the "invalid file" problem--and I lost my CD-ROM drivers to boot. I can now free up 80MB for Windows 98, but I can't help but feel that I've been railroaded down this upgrade path.

I wonder whether such problems are more frustrating to a novice computer user than to a former field and tech support engineer like myself. No doubt the novice just assumes she's stupid, when she really isn't. In contrast, I know that it's stupid to design software or hardware with the assumption that it will never have to be repaired. Ironically, this was one of the reasons why I've only owned one Macintosh--the case could only be opened with a special Mac-cracking tool, while I could build and reconfigure a PC with one screwdriver. Compare this with today's Mac G3, which features a one-finger, easy-open CPU case. While Windows now rivals Mac for inscrutability, at least Apple's made progress in physical accessibility.

If the error I encountered is such a common one, and if the fix is such a generic one, why can't the geniuses at Microsoft create a special option on the install disc for reinstalls? Ideally, this program would be a utility that would examine the Windows files and fix the ones that are corrupted. How hard could that be? And with all the wonderful advances and resources and features and ease-of-use you're forced to read about while anxiously waiting for the latest bloatware to "intelligently" configure itself, why is it that the install program cannot be made to recognize that when you're replacing the existing operating system, that space should be counted as available space?

Maybe throw in the option to move the existing system to a temporary location on another drive, from which it can be restored if something goes wrong in the installation. I'd take this over any number of those insufferably smarmy "Office Assistants" in Word 97. But that would force Microsoft engineers to acknowledge that there are situations in which the Wintel platform can reach such a decimated state that no backup programs can be used.

Suffice it to say that it was an experiment in frustration that left me with a poignant understanding of how Microsoft achieved the dubious distinction of being the only company to be more hated than an agency of the federal government. Sic 'em, Janet!