Thread: Sigh...
View Single Post
Old 24th September 2009
ocicat ocicat is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,318
Default

I'm going to play devil's advocate -- take the opposing viewpoint simply to show that there is more than one interpretation to this situation. I'm leaving out names because the focus is to look at the validity of the assumptions -- not call out individuals in particular.
  • Quote:
    The customer is large, so that is tens of thousands of Windows laptops and desktops.
    This is most probably the most important point from the corporate vantage point. How are so many installations with users ranging from near ill-literacy to uber-power-tweaker to be managed? What kind of staff is needed, & how much money/resources/employees can be dedicated to day-to-day user support issues?

    I, too, have been in mega-corporations where support was done on the cheap, & reimaging was the standard answer to support issues. I recognize that I have not been employed by so many corporations such that my experience may be statistically unbiased, but I have found that in corporations where IT/development is not core to the revenue stream, funding of infrastructural support is done more meagerly than for companies where IT/development is central to the bottom line.

    I have also found that a number of non-Microsoft developers don't completely understand Microsoft's memory management & process paradigm, so application stability suffers. Not that Microsoft gets it right all the time either, but user beware of any productivity gizmo downloaded from where-ever.
    Quote:
    Since the laptop was issued, their desktop support organization has been forced to wipe-and-replace the OS image three times.
    Yup, been there. No, I was not able to diagnose the root cause either. However, I have also noticed that when I have complete control over the configuration, I fare better than when I have to contend with "corporate images" which are locked down to any degree.
    Quote:
    And, is there anyone on the planet -- including in Redmond -- who actually understands the current Windows Registry completely, and can diagnose its problems and make appropriate reparations?
    Yes, but a corporation has to be sending lots of money to Redmond where they notice. The core developers can be pulled into support issues if the account is deemed critical, but those developers aren't going to be called unless it is absolutely essential.
  • Quote:
    I like being aware of how my systems work, often I hear horror stories detailing how unmaintainable Windows is.
    Understood. However, how scalable is any management process given the number of users jggimi describes? Given that most departments don't lock down their systems such that the Internet is freely available, who can definitively say what software is installed on every system across an enterprise? Can the risks ever be quantified?
  • Quote:
    How many poorly documented services are running now by default? does anyone really know what they all do?
    If it was a question I was really interested in answering, give me Internet access along with a good debugger, & I can piece a lot together, however, it would be very time consuming. There are a number of sites along with Microsoft's documentation which can serve as aids. Mark Russinovich's Sysinternals site has been a traditionally useful site for documenting undocumented or feebly described functionality.
  • Quote:
    Have you considered a disk imaging solution something like Acronis Disk Image?
    ...
    Unfortunately, I am prevented both by Policy Group where automated governance can be applied, and by corporate policy when it can't -- from installing infrastructure software of any kind.
    Something that has to be considered in disk imaging is that clients & domain controllers negotiate magic numbers which are used in authentication. This number is not static, but re-negotiated as time passes. If a disk image contains a number which is no longer valid, then the client will not be able to rejoin the domain. Some imaging products takes this into account, but other products don't.
    Quote:
    It tells me that the effort to do diagnostics is significantly more costly and difficult and time consuming than the minimal effort expended to re-image. I'm sure the latter is completely automated. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the cost to the -user- for the re-imaging has been left unaccounted for.
    Yes. Most front-line corporate support gigs are frequently manned by newly minted degrees & certifications who are not commanding high salaries. Once they learn the ropes, it is common for them to move up the career ladder & out of front-line support.
    Quote:
    You could maybe persuade upper IT mgmt or whoever to get a site-wide license...
    In mega-corporations, unless you happen to be on a first name basis with the top management of the division, unsolicited suggestions are usually filed in the trash can. The chances for solicited comments are slim as well.
  • Quote:
    People say Windows is easy, and up to some point they may be right. But if you need to do some serious work with it, it's damn hard to get anything done.
    I did debugger development on Windows XP several years ago, & I wouldn't say that the environment was a serious impediment to progress. Our development staff had a fair amount of latitude to do as we pleased, but we also supported our own systems. Waiting for the IT folks to eventually show up to fix problems was unrealistic, & sometimes they created more problems than if we had dealt with it ourselves in the first place.

    Nevertheless, as I understand your gig Carpetsmoker, you are having to deal with people who have minimal literacy at best. They download everything conceivable off the Web, & let their systems fester until they are nearly unusable before bringing them into your shop. Without being able to reinstall (for licensing reasons...), you are left with the worst of situations. You have some justification for your comments above.
I don't pretend to have the answers, nor do I completely defend Microsoft's practices. Supporting enterprise infrastructures are not a trivial task, & desktop support is perhaps the worst to maintain. Micrsoft is not guilt-free, but the way many corporations deal with the issue (or don't deal with the problems...) makes them even more culpable.
Reply With Quote