But, to expand on the theme of unfairly blaming Windows:
Most users apparently have no idea how to maintain their machines. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> If they were houses the sink would be overflowing with years’ worth of dirty dishes, the lounge-room would be packed with overflowing ashtrays, empty beer cans, discarded pizza boxes and smelly socks, most of the light globes wouldn’t work, none of the doors and windows would ever be locked, etc etc. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohh.gif" alt="" />
Run SpyBot on most computers and there would be anything from a handful of "junkware" files to several hundred. I was in our local computer shop one day when they hit their record for a machine brought in for maintenance – a massive 6,401 pieces of junk reported by SpyBot!! And of course the various drivers on many machines are way out of date too...
On the hardware side the picture is equally messy. Computers are not like a gearbox where you turn the input shaft x times and the output shaft always rotates y times. They are electronic machines, and the components such as CPU and RAM are not expected to be 100% perfect – only to perform within a certain percentage ‘tolerance’. So, for instance, your cheap RAM will work fine most of the time, but under certain load demands from the software it can act a little flaky or expose a weakness. Similarly, if the voltage supplied varies a bit then components may behave unreliably. Often you will get away with it, but sometimes a crash can occur. And then you’ll usually blame Windows! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />
Cheap power supplies are notorious for causing problems that provoke "blue screens of death" as are fluctuations, ‘brown-outs’ and spikes in local electricity supplies (put a proper voltmeter across your domestic supply for a day and see how big the variation really is!).
I used to have 4 Windows machines doing some research calculations. They ran night and day for months on end without stopping. Unsurprisingly, Windows never crashed, but it was interesting to see the difference in hardware behaviour.
Two of the machines were built from ‘identical’ components throughout, yet one CPU always ran 5 degrees C or so hotter than its twin, and one was faster than the other. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Sure Windows isn’t perfect but it’s not as bad as it’s often painted. (And, hey, even a magnificent combination of brains, charm, wit, talent and good looks such as myself isn’t entirely 100% perfect!!) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/stupid.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/freak.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
