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Originally Posted by Redo /img/forum/go_quote.gif
You've confused me, a whole lot. Simply put the more you load on your computer, the more programs you run at once, the more conflicts occur. No matter what operating system you're running, there are problems that can come to be. Fixing these problems is real maintenance, not letting problems rule your computer usage.
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You're talking about a different problem here, essentially the phenomenon known as
DLL Hell (it's called that inside Microsoft too, btw), though of course it can include various types of conflicts, such as registry conflicts, etc.
For the most part, this is not a problem in OS X. Programs don't have installers or uninstallers. To install, you drag an icon to your hard drive. To uninstall, you drag that icon to the trash. Files don't get strewn around your system. There is no monolithic binary registry. On Windows machines, the more programs you install, over time, the slower your system gets due to cruft. When I still used Windows regularly, I had started using VMWare images to trial install software before installing it on my main system, because I hated the 6-month routine of reinstalling the OS and my key apps so everything would be fast again. This doesn't happen on OS X, which is one of the things that makes it fun. You can try out new software and get rid of it without having your system slow down. Again, I've never reinstalled the OS on either of my OS X machines, I've tried hundreds of programs, and my systems are still clean and fast.
On Windows "Registry cleaners" and programs like "Crap cleaner" don't solve the problem either; often they cause more problems than they solve. It's just a poorly thought out, ancient system. Windows would benefit from a bundle system like OS X uses.
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| Running bloated software to tell you it did something while it really did nothing important is the misconception (eg anything Norton). In fact, these "maintenance" programs are the biggest problem with peoples complaints of Windows based systems. They slow your system down and cause lots of conflicts. Macs fortunately don't come loaded with all the bloatware like what Dell or HP does. At least not right now. |
Oh, I agree with you. Especially about Norton on Windows systems. I loved the recent article where they found that Norton Antivirus slowed Windows systems disk access for small files down by 10 times.
But you can't fault the users. The users are often trying to do what's right by buying this type of software. My father used to run *both* Norton SystemSuite and McAfee whatever suite because he wanted to be secure and protected from viruses and spyware. Of course the two systems conflicted, particularly the firewalls, and caused no end of slowdowns and problems. Users are generally well-intentioned, but it's dumb to expect everyone to have to understand how to maintain their system, any more than it would be smart to expect average car users to have to personally change the oil filter regularly.
But as long as Microsoft (and other companies) can make money selling subscriptions to services like Windows OneCare, there is very little incentive to improve this situation for the average user. Quite the opposite -- there is economic incentive for it to continue.
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