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For a long time I’ve wondered at how horribly limited a basic windows install is. It is basically th OS, a crappy browser, a really crappy editor, a couple of basic games that look like they were written by anjunior level programmer, and a media player. Some home versions would also have a stripped down version of word. Everything else was a separate thing you had to buy. Want anything beyond a basic word processor? Sorry but you have to buy MS-Office. It didnt even really have anything more than a really primitive batch language. I hesitate to call it that given how primitive the shell is.

Compare it to what you get with a typical Linux system and it’s embarassing.when I install from any major Linux distro, it comes with just about everythimg you could ever want, like web servers, media servers, a full office suite, (or more than one if you prefer). It will have a full featured shell (again, with several options) and also all the tools you could ever want to handle data, like sed/awk/grep. It is such an embarrassment of riches, that the sheer volume of choices available is itself somewhat intimidating to some folks.

Then, there is how routine patches are managed. Every major distro has a modern software management system built in to assist you in installimg software from known repositories. Some are better than others, but they all run rings around anything Microsoft has. I recently installed a fresh copy of MS-Windows 7. After the initial install, that prompted me at several different times to make decisions and enter stuff, it prompted me to install a bunch of “critical” patches. I cant remember the exact number but it was several hundred. Then it rebooted, and propted me to install more critical patches. Then it rebooted, and prompted me to install more critical patches. I thin thwre were 4 separate sets that had to be installed sequentially after rebooting.

Now, compare that to a linux install. I’ve used several different distros, and they all prompt you for all the configuration stuff right up front. You can then walk away from the install until it is done with the installation. Then you reboot, maybe answer ancouple of othernquestions, and you are good to go. When the system tells you you have updates, you say OK, then continue doing stuff until it’s done, or you do what I normally do and go to bed. That way, when you get up, your computer is ready for you. An initial rebootnis normally advised because you will have updated your kernel. Do that and you dont have to worry about it until there are more updates a few weeks, or longer down the line.

Even for distros that update more frequently, reboots are not necessary except for kernel updates. Even for those, there is generally no reason not to wait until you are ready for bed.

Microsoft’s patching is astoundingly primitive in almost every way imaginable. Not only is the process not pleasant, if you have any programs that are not from Microsoft, they arent covered by it. Note thatnall of the headache mentioned above was for nothing more than a base OS install.

I’m really amazed that serious professionals can take microsoft seriously.

Sorry about the rant, but my recent experiences freshly reminded me how bad MS-Windows really is.