windows XP

[deathboy]

Dear Windows XP,

You have been a fine and stable operating system for me.

You have, over the years, supported my myriad ghetto-tech devices, allowed me to plug all sorts of vile and unusual foreign creatures into you, and have continued to perform strongly, like a beast of burden that for no readily explicable reason thinks that you should have things like a Fax service running in the background.

OK, we got over that.

For the most part, you have supported the strange and exotic filth I have plugged in, and resolutely not engaged in cascade failure, the like of which made me despise your forerunners.

You have, in fact, made me come to feel a warm and happy understanding of my PC, and how I can generally expect it to work. Months of uptime have not gone unnoticed.

But today, you decided that on a reboot, you would no longer see my fucking keyboard.

It's a PS2 keyboard, and you've been OK with that for three or four years now.

It's not even a very good keyboard. I think I got it from PC World, and it has all of those stupid buttons on the top that apparently will enhance my internet experience. In some fashion. Which is why I removed them with a screwdriver.

Things had been so good.

From time to time, I had installed things that I probably shouldn't have, and, like a patient and sadistic parent, you had reset constantly on the reboot until I renamed the device drivers. This isn't the most user-friendly behaviour in the world, but in fairness, Ubuntu hasn't got a fucking clue what to do with my Native Instruments Kore 2 control surface. Or expensive soundcard. Or, until recently, wifi nic. Swings and roundabouts.

But today, you decided that my keyboard didn't fucking work. You twat.

I'm accustomed to the reboots, I don't mind unplugging shit until you screw your head back on then plugging it all back in, incrementally.

It doesn't happen often, so we can let that pass.

But seriously. The fucking KEYBOARD.

I am mollified by the fact you let my shitty spare USB keyboard work, so I could log in.

And, when, having removed the keyboard driver, FUCKING NOTHING CHANGED, I now accept the fact that I should have removed the seemingly important MOTHERBOARD SERVICES driver that was selfishly stealing IRQ 1.

This should have been obvious. I know that now.

But while I think we've found a new balance, and we can move forward from this... dark place...

If you ever stop responding to basic fucking input devices again, I'm going to buy a fucking mac.

And I'm going to run XP under parallels, in a fucking window, so help me god.

Even if it makes me sick in my mouth a bit.

¬_¬


I hope it never gets this bad again. baby.

Don't make me hit you.

Comments

[flemco.livejournal.com]

HA HA

You say this, but have you tried Mac OSX?

It's like being raped in the ass with a stick of hallucinogenic 3-D rendering while a transvestite midget gnaws on your armpit and jacks off all over your brain.

You want a real alternative? Ubuntu.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I've tried OSX while working graphics projects, it died on its arse more often than XP (and I didn't know how to do shit).

I've been repeatedly trying Ubuntu over the years, it's nae bad, and I'm happy with it for a laptop OS but my main box needs to do some very specific 3d rendering, multi-track music apps and emulation jobs that I can't do elsewhere.

I *can* run my main dev environment (eclipse) on either a mac or linux, but the emulators we use are written native for PC, and the sequencing software I use isn't yet supported by *nix.

I will be moving to either Mac or *nix once XP ceases to be supported, though, I'm not going vista, evar.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

SPEAK NOT THE NAME OF THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

look, I'm entirely happy to run tings off of a an Atari STE or a miggy with the 1mb upgrade.

[bridd.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think by the time you "have" to leave WinXP, either Vista + SP2/SP3 will pass enough, or Windows7 will have come along and do unto Vista like Win2000 did to WindowsME.

I've found that a base reload of Vista to my dell laptop from the disc that was supplied + Vista's updates, and it runs quicker than it did supplied (none of the extra crap s/w) and quicker/more stable than the copy of XP I had setup (WTF?).

I'm not "happy" about running Vista, (Needed it for a visuals App that had an irritating arguement with the nvidia driver under XP) but can't deny it does actually run ok now.

I'd like a Mac, but I can't justify the price-tag for the sort of machine I'd need to do what I want to do :S

[redcountess]

So you're saying it's a Fellini movie? ;p

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

err, i'm betting the ps/2 keyboard or worse the actual socket's solder joints are to blame not the drivers.
(the irq 1 is the iirc the way newer OSs make IRQs extend so more than 1 device can use a IRQ)

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

wiggled and plugged and unplugged and replugged many times.

removed spurious "MOTHERBOARD SERVICES", keyboard started working without a reboot.

continued working.

driver level "issue".

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

is IRQ 9 that XP uses to multiplex IRQs, by the way. I've had THAT wrestling match before now, too :) (forcing XP to leave my sound card to its own IRQ so it will work at full speed)

[jettcat.livejournal.com]

Once you go Mac, you don't look back!

[drcuriosity]

Except when you do.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

tried it numerous times. didn't like it.

i'll get myself used to it over the next few years in time to abandon windows when only vista remains, but for now, it's just as good/bad as XP.

[it-no.livejournal.com]

At least you dont have to deal with vista like i do.

[aliasrob.livejournal.com]

I've been running Vista lately.

It's not so bad, you know.

Once you get past the taste.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

OS kisser!

[geekboy-uk.livejournal.com]

Can you do me a favour and calm my wife down over Vista's updates today please... the auto-updates that are set to manual but have harassed her constantly since boot up.

[aliasrob.livejournal.com]

The thing about Vista is - it's best not to struggle.

Just give in to it.

[geekboy-uk.livejournal.com]

XP for development box - which is how it'll stay for as long as they still run under it... Ubuntu for my server and kid's internet PC. It's difficult not to struggle with Vista, it's too unintuitive from a adminstration point of view.

[aliasrob.livejournal.com]

Administrating Vista is easy - just keep clicking "allow".

[krztov.livejournal.com]

or disable UAC and not get prompted for shit.

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

How about "Don't install it in the first place"? I have no desire to install a jumped up new master on my computer when XP happily sucks my cock.

[hauntedunix.livejournal.com]

Parallels? You fucking mental? Try Fusion instead. ;)

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I award you the Alexander Medal of Really Helping me Out with That Comment.

*salutes*

[reddragdiva]

At least it's not the Aoakley Medal.

[saffrongraphics.livejournal.com]

Seconded. I was given a Mac Pro at work last week - with VMWare Fusion so I can run my Windows apps on XP.

It's so damned beautiful. Everything plays so well together.

Amusingly, the first sign that something was wrong with my Windows box was its inability to see the keyboard. Several IT techs later, all standing meaningfully around the XP box and holding their chins in contemplative mode and muttering "Motherboard's about to screw itself", 20 kilos of shiny silver beauty appears on my desk with a shit load of software already loaded.

Fairy gothfathers do exist!

[reverend-pain.livejournal.com]

All that modern crap is useless. If you want a trustworthy OS, use Commodore BASIC 2.0.

[fross.livejournal.com]

I moved to Vista 64 a few weeks ago. Since SP1, it's actually good.

Just check you've got drivers for your audio equipment (my rme soundcard does, though my midi controller does not. Apparently they are working on a 64 bit one so I will wait).

Damn thing fucking flies now, it's so much faster.

[thecunningbison.livejournal.com]

What he said, except I made the move a few months ago.

Disable UAC and never look back. It's only faster than XP when you have a lot of graphics flying about the screen (imho.)

[vampyricmaiar.livejournal.com]

Windows has been going downhill since 3.1.

[vampyricmaiar.livejournal.com]

I hasten to add, with a SPECTACULAR downfall with ME.

[redcountess]

This made me LOL despite the domestic violence allusion :)

[megashrike.livejournal.com]

Hah, deep inside you a part of your brain wants to join us Mac users. Deep, deep down most likely.

[hexadb.livejournal.com]

Speaking of not responding to basic input devices, my Mac stopped seeing the mouse on boot several times until I removed it & re-connected it so they're not entirely immune.

As it turned out it seems that if I leave a card reader plugged into the USB socket on the end of the keyboard it won't recognise the mouse (they keyboard acts like a hub with 2 USB ports, one is used by the mouse the other had the card reader attached).

[propaganda-tv.livejournal.com]

Don't even get me started on ME it was the biggest pile of cack ever released! and sometimes I walk into a building and I see that there's a user still using (in the term using I mean struggling to stop it from crashing!)

I scream in rage untill my heart explodes with anger!

Bloody micro$oft...

But I'm coming to terms with Vista.

Which I never thought I'd ever say.

Although Vista has an intresting problem with Raided drives and and keyboards giving up the ghost randomly.

Still though touching some wood like material that serves a desk in work. my XP/Linux machines/server at home are working well. and the old Imac which is at Vickys seems to be virtualy industructable!

[mssardonicsmile.livejournal.com]

Oh Scott, how I love you. I thought I was the only one who had these problems.