Mission Impossible

	vs
a.k.a. "Finding a stable OS: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE"

Chapter 1- Windows

I am a professional IT developer and have been into the "Computers Revolution" for the past 15 years (the days of SPECTRUM ZX).

During the early 90s I decided to leave home-computing behind, get rid of my ATARI 520ST and buy a PC (80386DX).

I started my PC experience using Windows 3.1, spoiled as I was from ATARI's simple but stable graphic environment.

During my first close encounter with Windows I discovered a number of totally irrational things:

When you turned the power on, you had to wait for the other operating system to load (DOS) and then you had to type "win" to get into the graphical interface. This process took (and still takes) a lot of time. Still, I see why it would not be possible to put the Windows OS into the PC's ROM (we would still be working with Win3.1).

What I could never figure out is why I had to wait if I wanted to shut down my PC as well! I mean, OK, on startup the OS (Operating System) had to load from the hard disk. On shutdown??? After a while I learned about swap files and the background-processes that needed closing first. Nevertheless I'm still very reluctant to admit that this is the way things should be. I find it hard to believe that people are so happy that the new motherboards shut down the computer "automatically" when you choose Start, Shutdown the computer, even if they still have to wait until the screen goes blank! And what about the times when Windows can't shutdown because of some "Program that stopped responding"?

What the heck? I still remember the good old days (even on PCs using DOS) when you simply pressed the On/Off switch and left... Why couldn't some genius from Microsoft, or from a motherboard manufacturer, come up with a routine that handles the file-closing when I press the On/Off switch. I really don't want to wait "while Windows is shutting down" and I definitely don't want to issue the same "order" three times (1. Start- Shutdown,2. "Are you sure?", 3. press the On/Off switch). I've read somewhere about the car-OS analogy. Think of how you would feel if, in order to turn off the engine of your car, you should first turn the ignition on (Start) then off (Shutdown). Then the car would ask for your confirmation, after which you would be forced to wait until the car stopped its mechanical parts one by one and finally you would then then be in a position to turn the ignition key (otherwise you might cause irreparable damage to the engine). I'll get back to the car analogy later.

Back in those Win3.1 days I started working with MSOffice (Word 2, Excel 3) and discovered that I must be really dumb because the application would fail every now and then. Most often when the application failed, Windows also crashed and I got the blue screen, which I later discovered is called a GPF (General Protection Fault). I always thought that it had to be something I did. Right? I mean the computer only does what it is told to do, nothing more. And even at the time of its death, the OS was kind enough to inform me of the fatal error I produced (Exception error address, flags etc.) so that I could better myself and not do it again .

But as I said, I was too dumb (and still am in many cases) and I really could not grasp why pressing the 'Print Preview' button murdered my OS.

Then Windows 3.11 came and a lot of networking problems were resolved as this was the first Windows environment that supported "connected" PCs. So what if I had to "map a network drive" for every resource I wanted. So what if almost noone had a LAN back in those days. It was still great! And besides I didn't know that UNIX had been doing this networking trick for decades (I told you I'm dumb).

As the years passed, my personal "certified kills" record increased, together with my knowledge on Windows and their interworkings. When Windows 95 first appeared, it looked as if the OS managed to tell me more with its dying breath. That's when I first discovered that perhaps it was not ME who, without any remorse, murdered the OS repeatedly over the years. How else was I to interpret "WINWORD.EXE has caused a page fault in module %^$@#4", or in kernel.exe or in a DLL or somewhere?

Then again I had to be the one who forced MS Word to kill the OS. So, if I'm not a murderer than I'm an accomplice at the very least!

As my experience grew and I was upgraded from "rookie" to "novice", I discovered that sometimes the OS committed suicide. How else could I explain the fact that even when I didn't do anything the OS kept dying ("crashing" is the expression). But if it was not me causing it then, why should it be me now???

I stopped myself from running out of my front door shouting "I am innocent, I am innocent" literally at the last minute!

The years kept coming and going and the belief of my innocence grew stronger and stronger. I knew it was not me. By 1996 I knew Windows and their applications more than all of my friends and colleagues put together. I even started working providing Desktop Support, although it should be named Desktop Users' Psychological Support! Most of the times I could do nothing more than reassure the users it was not their fault and they should revert to the backup copies ("What? You haven't kept backup copies?").

I knew Windows 95 were not very stable and that things would get better with Windows 95B (also known as OSR2).

When OSR2 was released I did notice an improvement, primarily in disk access but also in stability. The fact that it still crashed for no apparent reason didn't put me off from becoming a big fan of Win95b.

Then came Win'98. They were even more stable. Now, when MS Word 97 crashed it didn't kill the OS (well, at least sometimes it didn't). You could press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and End the dead task (winword). OK you lost all your work in 75% of the cases and part of your work in the rest but at least the OS survived. Or did it? At a closer examination one will discover that in most cases when an application crashes it does not close all the processes that keep on running in the background, sometimes causing chaos. But what can you do? The application died, did you expect that everything should go smoothly, just because the OS was (barely) alive?

Moreover, using the car analogy, I found that it was very suspicious that because my car-horn broke down the machine should die. Or that because the horn died my car couldn't get over 40MPH (miles per hour).

I started becoming more and more suspicious and that's approximately when I discovered that EVEN when MS Word didn't crash, it still left processes loaded in the background. In fact, I discovered that this is something almost all applications do. If you don't believe me, run SYSMON (Start,Run,sysmon), look at the memory reports, then run and close a number of MS applications and run SYSMON again.

Yeap, it is true! Everytime you turn the aircondition on (and off), or sound the horn, or use the electric windows you lose 5MPH off your top speed. The only way to regain those 5MPH is to pull over, turn the car off and then on again (not to mention wait a couple of minutes for the engine to work again).

So, what was the solution? It was 1999, I was an IT professional, providing a bit more than psychological support for the users and it was time to take the next big step. Upgrade to Windows NT. I've heard everything about how stable Windows NT were, that they used a completely different kernel (something like the nucleus of a human cell) and this characteristic made it almost fool-proof.

Now tell me the key word in the previous sentence. Well done!!! It is "almost". When I first installed WinNT on a new PC, I discovered that I couldn't hear any sound, which was a bit weird as I did have a soundcard installed(Avance Logic). OK, so WinNT are not completely plug&play (others call it "plug&pray") so I went to the Avance Logic WWW site and downloaded their drivers.

I installed them and restarted the PC which went absolutely berserk and refused to boot. To cut a long story short I had to change the soundcard, the network card, the hard drive AND the motherboard (apparently my NT had a grudge against the VIA chipset) before I could work with the oh-so-stable OS.

And yes, even if my first impression was totally negative, Windows NT are much more reliable than Win95/98. So what if I have to wait three times more than I was used to with Win95/98 both on startup AND on shutdown. So what if my Internet Explorer keeps inviting Dr.Watson over(actually a grave-digger, not a doctor- he only reports dead/dying applications)? It is still better than using the "three finger salute" (Ctrl+Alt+Delete).