Deskman.exe
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

One of the reasons I linux is that almost everything is transparent (plain config text files). It makes it so much easier to understand what's going on.

Hi Everyone

I switched to Linux 3yrs ago for home computing. I still have to use Windows at work, where
we have constant security upgrades, constant virus scans, and big brother tracking what we do.

I use Windows 7 for gaming at home. I have a separate hard drive for windows and a bigger one for Linux, and dual boot by selecting which hard drive to boot from in grub.

I only have two games that I play so far. Everything else is Linux on my laptop and my desktop at home.

I have had some problems with Linux, but I seem to have caused them myself. Otherwise
Linux has been a great operating system for me for the past 3yrs.

Vanessa

That's the one single thing that I like the most as well. When I want to change something or need to fix something, it's so much easier to read and edit a text file than to search for 4 hours getting a bunch of false leads to a bunch of "hotfixes" and reading a thousand pages in the "microsoft knowledge base" (what an effin' misnomer!) that seem like an exercise in double-speak .......just to ultimately have no fix. With linux I was able to build my own OS from source with LFS in 2 days. I've spent as much time trying to figure out why Vista suddenly told me I had no network card after 2 years and ultimately having to just reinstall.

Linux in my opinion is MUCH easier to use than M$, is much freer and you don't have to pay $320 for it. You do have to pay that much for M$ WinBloze just to have your computer turned into a telescreen, its user into a slave and M$ into Big Brother.

Lots of reasons, but I'll list the resent ones.

A friend of mine's computer got a virus, young kids downloading stuff. Anyway, after fighting with XP for half a day, I finally found the name of it and removed it. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a firefox that worked and an IE that didn't. Lo and behold, my friend used IE and didn't know how to use firefox.

Well, I figured I might as well update the system while trying to remove spyware, malware, hijackers, viruses, and whatnot. Which when I tried different methods of doing so, I started chuckling this sadistic little laugh, for what do you know, couldn't use IE, couldn't use autmatic updates (same prob), and what do you know, couldn't use firefox (Did I mention it worked?).

So therefore I went to one of my ol haunts and tried to get help. Yikes, the help there had turned into a robotic group of "We will hold your hand"'ers and "STOP! Only a team member can help you"'ers. (Which if I didn't know any better I'd say that some MS technicians had infiltrated a friendly, helpful community. I have a MS tech in my family, he's not that friendly or helpful).

Anyway, I haven't gotten any meaningful help from anyone there, as of yet (Got plenty of indirect help, though). However, I've done a few extra things on my own. Created a new user account (Limited, whatever the heck that means in MS terms), So IE works, to a certain extent, now. Which "if only" I can find the *cough* config file for the main user (Whatever the heck MS calls a .profile file), then I can slowly disable things until IE works and I can update the system and finalize the malware/etc removal...But, NOOOOOOooooo, it ain't that easy...Hell finding something malicious in the registry is like finding a...Nope, that's the wrong analogy. A needle in a haystack is easy, just get a magnet, or walk all over it barefooted, the registry is more like trying to understand DNA with only a GED.

<End incoherent rant>

Simply put, I like linux......

First error: Malware can never be "removed" 100% reliably. That's true for ALL of todays systems. There are to many things malware CAN do to hide and even open backdoors and there's nothung more dangerous than using a system that appears to be working normally, but in fact carries an open backdoor for some criminal.

So, for linux, windows, any other system: When you find malware, it's backing up user data and doing a fresh install of the whole system.

Hehe, second "error" . Well IE8 isn't that bad any more and rendering got REALLY good, but I still have the impression mozilla fixes vulns somewhat more quickly.

Windows is NOT linux For system-wide configuration files, look in %SYSTEMROOT%\Users\All Users (or something similar, don't have windows running right now) and for system-wide registry settings, \HKLM\Software would be the place to look for. Some configuration settings are also found as policies (start mmc, add the local policy snap-in), as they could be distributed in a windows domain. But, as your problems were created by a malware, it's unlikely you can find them all.

After all, it's a good example that you need a similar degree of knowledge to solve windows problems as you need for linux. People tend to underestimate that and many linux users only started to learn some internals of their system on linux.

Hmm, Microsoft's deskman sucks, but there are better alternatives. I found http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/ one of the best. If you are using windows 7, you could like Dexpot with the "SevenDex" plugin better for giving a user interface consistent with the win7 taskbar.

Fair enough. I don't use Windows much any more, but at least it has a facility for multiple desktops. I don't like how they force to to use US English regional settings, though :/.

Stability, ability to configure whatever I want, lots of documentation, no viruses (yet), everything is freeware (or almost everything, but I don't use GNU's shareware).

The worst part is a package management.

My favorite things......
1. Installing all most anything from yum or apt (simplest)
2. Bash shell gives so much functionality
3. No often rebooting
4. Almost no need to update system to work fine..
5. Not increasing temp directory
6. No need to clean registry(as there is no registry)
7. I have compiz in Linux(coolest)
8. No defragment,viruses,trojans etc.
9. Stability
10. Highly Configurable

I agree with the people who says it gives you freedom, cause you can ,use it, tweak it, modify it, experiment it, distribute it , still not satisfied get yourself a new one.



But for me i simply love it, OH MY GOD I SAID THAT !

Initially it was the modularity and simplicity of the whole thing.

Hmm..lessee...

The freedom of choice (as many have stated above ), the ultimate flexibility, the central software repos (well, for most except Slackware ), etc.

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