D
Darrel
This SHOULD be a request for help, but it's going to be
more of a rant. The worst decision I ever made in my
small business was to upgrade my small network from
Windows 95 to Windows 200o Professional.
Not that 2000 isn't a better, more stable platform ...
it's just that - along with fixing things that they broke
in earlier versions, Microsoft (or as I now call them the
Clowns in Redmond) have added what seems like 412
unnecessary layers of complexity to jobs that SHOULD be
simple. Now to most of you guys, what I'm complaining
about will be simple stuff - things that seem to you like
falling off a horse, but that's because you guys live and
breathe this stuff and you take it for granted. All the
problems involve networking other PC's.
In Example #1, I go to a Win 98 system on the network and
attempt to connect to a SHARED FOLDER on the 2000 system
in Map Network Drive) I find the system via network
neighborhood, find the folder, and go into the dialog that
says "connect as another user." In that dialog box it
asks for the user name and password, which I type and it
accepts and allows me to connect to the folder. However,
on reboot of the Win98 system it continually asks for the
password to the Win2000 system. EVERY TIME. Three days
of reading the documentation (almost all pages of which
require that you have experience in other areas not yet
explored) does not explain this phenomenon. After talking
to some people who had been through this before, a great
number of hoops had to be jumped through to create auser
on the Win2000 system that HAD NO PASSWORD so that other
systems could connect via that user name at logon. Talk
about a security hole! Plain and simple, without anyone
defending the Clowns in Redmond ... if a dialog box
for "connect as another user" has a PASSWORD box, then
damnit that password IS TO BE REMEMBERED! PERIOD!
Example #2 is that after upgrading a desktop Win98 to
Win2000, the printer on that PC that was happliy shared
before is no longer accessible to the Win98 PC's. Every
time you try to print (or even use Network Neighborhood to
look on the Win2000 PC for the printer) you are asked for
a password .... and ..... NO password ON that Win2000 PC
is acceptable! Setting up full permissions on the Win2000
PC for EVERYONE and GUEST doesn't help.
Will I eventually get this fixed? Probably. Will I ever
again look forward to a new version of Windows? No. I
have concluded that the man who wrote "immitation is the
sincerest form of Miscrosoft" was correct. MS Dos 6.22
was the last technology in which the Clowns in Redmond
were not over their heads.
I am now officially 100% a fan of Linux! Why? Because
100's of people, working in their spare time, contributing
for FREE are able to build a system that is faster, more
straightforward, more secure and still easier to use than
Microsoft. Why? Because they don't have a single
monolithic vision of how the whole electronic world needs
to be and "to hell" with anyone that thinks otherwise.
There. I'm done. DO I feel better? No.
All I wanted was to share a damned printer.
more of a rant. The worst decision I ever made in my
small business was to upgrade my small network from
Windows 95 to Windows 200o Professional.
Not that 2000 isn't a better, more stable platform ...
it's just that - along with fixing things that they broke
in earlier versions, Microsoft (or as I now call them the
Clowns in Redmond) have added what seems like 412
unnecessary layers of complexity to jobs that SHOULD be
simple. Now to most of you guys, what I'm complaining
about will be simple stuff - things that seem to you like
falling off a horse, but that's because you guys live and
breathe this stuff and you take it for granted. All the
problems involve networking other PC's.
In Example #1, I go to a Win 98 system on the network and
attempt to connect to a SHARED FOLDER on the 2000 system
in Map Network Drive) I find the system via network
neighborhood, find the folder, and go into the dialog that
says "connect as another user." In that dialog box it
asks for the user name and password, which I type and it
accepts and allows me to connect to the folder. However,
on reboot of the Win98 system it continually asks for the
password to the Win2000 system. EVERY TIME. Three days
of reading the documentation (almost all pages of which
require that you have experience in other areas not yet
explored) does not explain this phenomenon. After talking
to some people who had been through this before, a great
number of hoops had to be jumped through to create auser
on the Win2000 system that HAD NO PASSWORD so that other
systems could connect via that user name at logon. Talk
about a security hole! Plain and simple, without anyone
defending the Clowns in Redmond ... if a dialog box
for "connect as another user" has a PASSWORD box, then
damnit that password IS TO BE REMEMBERED! PERIOD!
Example #2 is that after upgrading a desktop Win98 to
Win2000, the printer on that PC that was happliy shared
before is no longer accessible to the Win98 PC's. Every
time you try to print (or even use Network Neighborhood to
look on the Win2000 PC for the printer) you are asked for
a password .... and ..... NO password ON that Win2000 PC
is acceptable! Setting up full permissions on the Win2000
PC for EVERYONE and GUEST doesn't help.
Will I eventually get this fixed? Probably. Will I ever
again look forward to a new version of Windows? No. I
have concluded that the man who wrote "immitation is the
sincerest form of Miscrosoft" was correct. MS Dos 6.22
was the last technology in which the Clowns in Redmond
were not over their heads.
I am now officially 100% a fan of Linux! Why? Because
100's of people, working in their spare time, contributing
for FREE are able to build a system that is faster, more
straightforward, more secure and still easier to use than
Microsoft. Why? Because they don't have a single
monolithic vision of how the whole electronic world needs
to be and "to hell" with anyone that thinks otherwise.
There. I'm done. DO I feel better? No.
All I wanted was to share a damned printer.