Epic Microsoft Fail

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

 I am really f*cking tired of Microsoft operating systems, and I'm even more tired of proprietary vendors that write software that runs on Windows. I've seen unparalleled levels of software fail today.

So imagine a program installer, that hangs at 85%. I thought it crashed, so I killed and re-started the install. Same thing. Only noooo.... it hadn't crashed. It spawned a confirmation dialog to tell you it registered a file, you just had to click OK. Except it spawned it BENEATH the main installer window, not on top of it. And the installer window is full-screen, so the only way to get to the OK button is with ALT-TAB, you can't do it with a mouse. EPIC F*CKING FAIL! Microsoft takes at least some of the blame for allowing vendors to pull off sh*t like this in the first place. If a program is allowed to run full-screen, there's no escuse for allowing it to spawn a window beneath itself, especially if that window contains information necessary for the program to operate. This is why I run macs at home.

On an unrelated note, I found out today that our department will officially be skipping Windows 7 as an OS. The same resolution was passed on Vista a few years back (rightly so), and now the axe fell on Windows 7 as well. Looks like it's 5 more years of XP for us. Their justification: a custom departmental database uses a forms server that is ONLY compatible with IE6, and there's no money to upgrade the application server and re-write the app. Due to this, everybody, even us techs, are banned from running any browser that's not IE6, including any Mozilla flavor. If I so much as run firefox from a self-contained file on a thumbdrive, I'll get a nastygram from $headcheese in my email within a few minutes. Yes, we have a script that detects a firefox process on any machine and reports it to $headcheese.

Comments

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

Oh, and when I say "no money to re-write the app", I don't mean no money to hire a student assistant to barf out some PHP code. After bringing in a consulting firm to analyze the project, we got a quote of $2.5 million to bring this app "into the 21st century".

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

interns

[tanetris.livejournal.com]

After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring in a consulting firm to analyze the project, we got a quote of $2.5 million to bring this app "into the 21st century".

Fixed that for you.

Thank heaven it wasn't "into the 21st century and beyond!" That's an extra million. And takes about half as long to become obsolete.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

That is, they would charge $2.5 million.

Someone competent might take a few months, or even less, writing an interface that handles forms on a real browser and translates to and from the custom system.

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

Sucktacular. :(

If the script doesn't check for it, you could try running a VM for that sort of thing. It's not that bad here, but they do web monitoring at the firewall. I do have my web traffic proxied through an ssh connection, just in case. :D

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Speaking of virtual machines, the OP can almost certainly run XP w/IE6 on top of Windows 7 via Windows VM.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

built in Windows Emulation environment in Windows 7. Is very cool.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Don't even need a seperate license

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

[tauren-wardrums.livejournal.com]

Has anyone tried running Chrome?

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

I don't know if the script specifically checks for Chrome, Orca, Opera, etc. Whad I do know is that the policy states that "no alternate browser shall be installed or used on any computer for work or non-work related purpouses." Even if I install something else, it's a violation of our policy, which is strictly engforced. As you've probably guessed, things like Flash are a no-no as well (and you bet we have a script that checks for flash!)

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

That phrasing seems to imply that you'd be clear - at least by the letter of the law - to install other broswers, but never run them. Silly and childish, I know, but, well, so are they.

[jecook]

While we have IE6 as a company standard, A good portion of the folks in IT run firefox.

Oddly enough, most of our servers have IE7 installed. Go figure.

[pyrtolin.livejournal.com]

Well there's this option now:
http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/

It's still IE6, really...

[jesus1310.livejournal.com]

This sounds like less a problem with microsoft operating system, and more with your work hating you and wanting you to die a horrible death.

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

Your company's code is so screwed up that it can't even run in IE8 compatibility mode?

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

So, no money to upgrade the app, and they're willing to run the risk of no MS support or paying through the nose for it for the next 5 years? Fucking ridiculous.

They could use terminal services to run crappy IE6 for the app. And seriously IE6 isn't *that* different - I bet the coding effort would be relatively trivial.

As for MS and bad app installers, obviously you've not installed certain apps via a vendor-supplied GUI installer on Linux *cough*fuckingqualitycenter*cough* *cough*fuckingSAPr3*cough*

[devilish69angel.livejournal.com]

sounds like $bighospital i used to work for...epic fail

[taiki.livejournal.com]

as a mac enthusiast myself I was wondering how running a mac would solve this problem then I realized Expose would help here.