Re: Switch from AIX to NT???

I am constantly reading about people blue-screening their Windows NT systems several times a day. About people demoting their NT systems to desktop duty in favor of Linux. That a freely available OS is seen as more reliable than MS's flagship is a sad statement. If Windows NT can't handle simple desktop duty without crashing, what business does it have as a server? I would say claiming that several crashes a day is normal NT behavior paints a poorer picture of the user than of Windows NT. Typically, blue screens are caused by device drivers that are faulty. Since MS has had enough of taking the blame for other vendor's drivers, it instituted a certification program. If a driver is certified (WHQL cert.) then it can be part of the HCL -hardware compatibility list. Only drivers/hardware/etc. on this list have been guaranteed to be tested with extreme loads. Memory, object and resource leaks are the main reasons that many admins have to constantly reboot their otherwise normal NT servers every few days. But every leak has its roots in sloppy programming. Memory leaks are the most common, with COM and DLL leaks just behind. Apps must ask NT for resources and NT grants them with the understanding that when they are no longer used, they will be returned. The problem is that most programming languages used to create Windows apps have no function for automatically de-allocating unused resources. So if the programmer forgets to do it, you have a leak. Once again, I will add my usual disclaimer that I am not lauding the performance of NT over UNIX, I'm just saying it's not as bad as many of the strictly-UNIX-heads make it out to be. (I know I'm gonna hear it for this-why don't I just stay in my cave...) M. Karl & Betty Schendel <schendel@kbcomputer.co To: informix-list@iiug.org m> cc: Sent by: Subject: Re: Switch from AIX to NT??? owner-informix-list@iiu g.iiug.org 10/26/00 10:39 AM Please respond to Karl & Betty Schendel In article <8t9mgt$nn4$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, thamus <thamus@my-deja.com> wrote: [snip] > Linux has better performance (depending on the application). > But NT works, and it works well. I can do anything on NT > that I can on unix, just in a different manner. > Why does this cause so much anger? Because NT *doesn't* work, not well at all. It makes an OK desktop, compared to win95 say, but as a server it's unreliable, aggravating, slow, obstructive, tedious, and annoying. All I have to do to just about any NT machine to get a blue-screen-of-death out of it, is simply *sit* in front of it for a couple days...even if I'm working from my laptop and not touching the NT machine.