Last night, I was called in to check on a friend’s Vista-PC, which kept showing blue screens of death, at sporadic moments. The error-codes were just a collection of numbers and letters, and a Google-search just revealed that it could be a ‘hardware or software problem.’

I’m not going to go into the problem here, but I’ll just say that we tried to run the Windows system restore disks, which crashed half-way through, in the midst of formatting the drive. Vista PCs have, as you know, not been sold with the actual installation-CDs, though I understand that this is a right right now and the owner will go to the store and ask for them. After which, I will install Vista (my first time), as well as all the apps she needs for her productive day.

I’m angered that things like this are still happening! Having been a Windows user since 3.1, the only version that I’ve never had problems with was 2000, and XP now runs fairly good too. Vista, I’ve never tried, but I understand there were some driver-related problems, much like the 64-bit version of XP.

Typically, diagnosing and repairing a system like my friends will cost several hundred euros, if not more. And that is… if the store actually knew what it was doing! The error-codes, as mentioned, don’t point to a specific problem, and they previously suggested replacing the hard-drive, which she did and which didn’t fix the problem. Right now, the way I see it, I’m going to be installing a new Vista on it, the drivers, and the software. I’ll see if that holds. If it doesn’t, I’ll assume it’s a hardware-problem, and one piece of hardware will have to be removed after the other, to diagnose the cause.

Total time used to fix: 1 hour last night, 2 hours Vista CD pick-up, 2-3 hours installation & restore. And that isn’t counting that there’s 3 people involved, some gasoline, not to mention the months of trauma that she’s been experiencing through this problem. As well as whatever store-time + hardware-replacement-costs may be involved.

But why does it have to be so hard????!!!!! It really mystifies me how much of mess the open PC-architecure, in combination a fairly open ecosystem of hardware & software, is. You literarily have no idea, if there’s a piece of dust on a RAM-stick, if there’s a faulty driver, if an app is causing the mayhem, or if the problem is a Windows-update that went wrong. And, in case you are wondering, this is a HP-machine.

So, I ask once again, what the frustration-cost of Windows is? In my estimation, it’s pretty damn high, and I already suggested to them to get a Mac. It may be 50% more expensive and non-upgradeable, but the fact that I don’t have to worry about things like BSODs, is priceless.

I should disclose that I’ve been a Mac-user for 3 years now, which was both a hardware- and software-based decision.

Vincent

Like

Unlike