Bill Gates and Microsoft... A lot of people hate it and saying Bill Gate is gay and so on. But why ?
Well what he did is he invented something, started a company and made Windows. Yes he does earn A LOT of money on it, yes it is the most used operating system at all, yes he DOES implement some programs like MSN Messenger that can't be removed (easy) that some thinks forces them to use it.

But again, they made Windows so userfriendly, almost everyone can figure out the basics. Push on the start button go in the menu programs where all your programs is and start a program.
And a lot will be able to install etc. Windows XP on an empty harddisk, if they only read what is written on the screen and if they dare to try. I know my father doesn't dare to try, but if i formatted his harddisk and he read what was written he could do it.

There is other alternatives, Linux and Unix and so on. Many of them is free, and open source (So that other users can improve them) That means that if a user finds a securitybug it would be faster to fix it, because everyone that knows about it has a chance to fix it. Where if we take Windows only Microsoft has the sourcecode and only them can make changes.

MANY of the security holes in Windows has been fixed (Although there is a lot left) and users would just have to update windows to secure themself. (Windows update makes it all for you) And many of the victims for virus attacks are people who hasn't updated their software wether its anti-virus, firewall og windows. Or else they just fall for the trick "Open this file and your windows will never be able to crash" and they do... And its a virus.

You don't have to chose Windows, there is other operating systems. Windows is just expensive... You can get support on Windows, but not at all OSs like Linux.

You don't HAVE to chose msn Messenger but you can use it, you can install other software instead.

I read today that china changed their operating systems in the goverment to linux, so there IS other operating systems.

So what excactly is the problem ?

Heh just my opinion, what do you mean ??

Cya
-Quane

I don't see what the big deal is anyhow. I like micorosoft.

I just think people are jealous because of how rich he is.

I don't like Bill Gates for his business practices. He did not, in fact, invent anything. He bought Windows from Xerox way back when. Microsoft itsself as a company has some really shady practices.

Consider backward incompatability. If one person in your office upgrades to office 2003, the whole office is going to, because the code behind the formatting changes. Word 2000 can't view Word 2003 files unless Word 2003 selects to save them in a special format. And even that doesn't always work out right.

This is from a really great website (link will be below):

Whenever Microsoft spies yet another potential market which it thinks is ripe for taking over it generally announces its intention to move aggressively into that market. Microsoft frequently announces new products for these markets that they will ship soon regardless of whether or not they have any genuine interest in actually shipping said products. What this frequently leads to is that people stop buying software in this market because they want to wait for the Microsoft version. Unfortunately if Microsoft sees the market drying up they usually just walk away and never deliver their promised products. The end result is that the small software companies in these markets take a very big hit and frequently go under while consumers end up without their promised product.

also

Did I mention that Microsoft's products tend to be full of bugs? I'm sure you know this if you've used any Microsoft products to any great extent. It's pretty sad that people have accepted things like rebooting daily because the OS crashed as a part of computing, but that's probably because they haven't seen the alternatives.

System administrators who have had experience with other operating systems know that Windows is a nightmare to maintain. For a taste of what these people must suffer through read this insightful usenet posting by one frustrated sys admin. He describes some inexplicable problems that crop up in Windows and the vastly inadequate support that Microsoft provides when they arise. Especially interesting to note is the catch-22 that Microsoft puts its users in by refusing to give technical support when the user follows the instructions in Microsoft's own "knowledge base".

Here's the website: http://#microsoft.com/content/whatsbad.shtml

The main page has all kinds of info on Microsoft alternatives and the like, too. Give it a read!

People are just jealous. I don't have any compatability problems. We just use 2000 for everything!!

Its the business practices that put me off most. See something you like, buy out the company (and hence intellectual rights), sack everyone from the small company get your own (normally temporary contracted) work staff to finish the job. (then end the temporary contracts until the next wee guy gets bought up!

On another note...At the company I work at, the software we're creating accesses a Microsoft Access database (I know, I know, the next version will be using Oracle or SqlServer). For some reason, the new version we were putting together, which used Access 2000, would create these HUGE databases compared to what Access 97 did.

We had to do a little research on what in our code could be doing this, and how we could correct it. Found our info in the support forum on Microsoft.com. Access 200, every time you access the database, creates a 4k table that it deletes after you are out of the database. However, it does not stop allocating this space when it's done with the table. It keeps adding 4k every time you access it, and we are accessing the database hundreds of times every minute!

There was a solution, though. Microsoft has a tool which allows you to "compact" the database, making it look at its self, figure out what's been deleted and actually delete it, then stop alocating space for it. Unfortunatelly, this can often cause database corruption, thereby completely destroying your information...

Originally posted by GlobalMind
People are just jealous. I don't have any compatability problems. We just use 2000 for everything!!

What's there to be jealous of? Yeah, he has a lot of money, but what does that matter if it doesn't make you happy? He's UBER paranoid, because he screws so many people over and expects the same thing to be done to him.

And of course you don't have compatability problems if you use 2000 for everything. The problem arises when you have to order a new computer. They charge you for the software liscenses when the send it to you, but typically will only sell it with Microsofts latest, buggiest versions of software. Then you're faced with an option: Buy another software liscense so you can load 2000 onto it, or just own the one liscense and make everyone else upgrade...

Bigger companies have a really hard time dealing with this.

Originally posted by junglejake
Microsoft has a tool which allows you to "compact" the database, making it look at its self, figure out what's been deleted and actually delete it, then stop alocating space for it.

This is a great utility. We've used it for years.
I'm a Access 97 user myself. It's awesome. SQL is tough to learn. I'm trying my hardest to get proficient with it, as out company is also switching to SQLserver.

Actually my Windows is rather stable, it's weird because like everyone knows Windows will in the most cases get unstable in a couple of months and you probably have to reformat if you want it to run without errors... My Windows XP has now been installed for like ˝ year or so and running fine. (It's like a car, you have to change oil and stuff)

My cousin told me that every times you search on your harddisk for files (Windows search function), Windows will send some data to Microsoft? Is that true? Because that I am against, first of all it takes some of my bandwith (I know i can't fell it) and then what about my privacy. I don't know if it's real.

Wow I see alot of alternatives, didn't know there was SO many I think Bill Gates was just smart, had a bright business plan and earned hella lot money on it.

-Quane

I really have no problems with a Microsoft OS, I'm running Windows 2000 Professional right now, and it works like a charm.

There are other options out there, as mentioned earlier. Unix costs too damned much for a person to use it at home, Linux can be downloaded for free, but the downloads are huge. I personally am a fan of the many variants of Linux OS, particularly Mandrake 9 and Red Hat 7 and 9. Red Hat 9 eats way more system resources than it should, but oh well.

I think my biggest thing is the pricing that Microsoft charges for their Office software. I like Microsoft Office, it's what I was taught to work with, and it does work well. I also use OpenOffice.org software whenever I can, in most applications it works just as well, it just takes a little time to get used to using.

Linux does offer updates to their OS, but with most variants of it, you are only entitled to updates if you PURCHASED your copy rather than downloading it, or having a friend burn it for you. When it comes down to it, Red Hat 9 Deluxe or Professional or whatever costs the same as Windows XP Professional, so it comes down to preference.

I will say that I fully back any companies that believe in open source, such as the Linux distributors. Every copy of Red Hat comes with the OS source code, and you are free to edit it if you feel the need to. Microsoft, however, will have your balls in a vice if you're caught reverse engineering one of their products because you want to see what makes it tick.

POSTED BY junglejake

Consider backward incompatability. If one person in your office upgrades to office 2003, the whole office is going to, because the code behind the formatting changes. Word 2000 can't view Word 2003 files unless Word 2003 selects to save them in a special format. And even that doesn't always work out right.

I use Office 2003 for almost everything, and haven't had any problems when attempting to view or edit the files on a computer running Office 2000. I don't save the files in any special format, if it's PowerPoint it's still a .ppt, if it's Excel, it's still a .xls. Maybe I've just been lucky with backwards compatibility though.