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The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

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Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#61

Post by kl4m »

pritambaral wrote: post #43
agwa wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I kill -9 in Linux, the application is dead, gone... doesn't hang, doesn't sit there frozen. Wrong. If a Linux process is blocked in an uninterruptible system call (typically for disk I/O), it cannot be killed, even with -9. I have been unable to cleanly shut down Linux systems in the past due to processes getting stuck in this state.

`kill -9` on a process blocked on a syscall does kill the process, it just doesn't clean the process up. The result of SIGKILL-ing (i.e., killing with -9) a blocked process is a zombie process. Zombies are dead, right?

I don't remember ever seeing Linux create a Zombie(Z) when a process is KILLed while in the (D) state. It just stays alive, stuck in D state.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#62

Post by dozzie »

pjc50 wrote: post #47
pritambaral wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`kill -9` on a process blocked on a syscall does kill the process, it just doesn't clean the process up. The result of SIGKILL-ing (i.e., killing with -9) a blocked process is a zombie process. Zombies are dead, right?

With a suitably wedged NFS process I believe you can get a process that is stuck in D even if you `kill -9` it.

You're right, signal delivery does not interrupt an atomic operation, so if a syscall takes unusually long time (like network filesystems sometimes cause), the process hasn't received its SIGKILL yet.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#63

Post by sz4kerto »

cm2187 wrote: post #45
bradford wrote: post #10

I started at MS during Vista and I've been involved (sometimes tangentially) with Windows ever since. This is all my opinion, but It's been very interesting seeing the decision making process change over time. If I had to summarize the change, I'd say that it's evolved from an expertise-based system to a data based system. The reason why eight people were present at every planning meeting is because their expert opin…

Microsoft introduced a high level of non-opt-out telemetry. That's what is controversial more than the telemetry itself.

On desktops, yes. Other companies have been moving everything to the web, where telemetry is easier and more thorough.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#64

Post by kabdib »

And they still managed to fuck it up in the latest version of Windows Server; logging out of the GUI is perilously similar to shutting down the system. Oh, you get some more warnings, but I can easily see muscle memory doing the wrong thing.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#65

Post by Clubber »

pavement wrote: post #29
ajross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't purely a software engineering mess though. The PC architecture for "off" is a mess at the hardware level too. I mean, long ago you just had a physical switch on the power supply. But then filesystem authors invented buffering and that wasn't safe anymore. So now there were two ways to shut the machine off: the "safe" way and the old way (where the "old" way was still available via e.g. holding the power bu…

If I don't like what a computer is doing, I will frequently just yank the plug, pull the battery, flip the circuit breaker, and fuck the rest. All this buffering and fault tolerance is bullshit at the consumer level. If the disk's file table gets fucked up, then let it burn. I'll format the disk and re-install your stupid operating system as I see fit, whenever I want, and keep my actual data safe and sound far away…

I remember working at a rather large company (that you've heard of) in the 90s. It was a guy's sole job to reboot all the NT server every night for stability.

A common practice (I believe from MS) was to have C: dedicated to your OS and D: dedicated to everything else. The logic being: a rebuild would be a lot less complicated.

Ah the good ole days.

FWIW, I usually do a complete Windows reinstall every 6 months or so.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#66

Post by chipperyman573 »

sz4kerto wrote: post #63
cm2187 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft introduced a high level of non-opt-out telemetry. That's what is controversial more than the telemetry itself.

On desktops, yes. Other companies have been moving everything to the web, where telemetry is easier and more thorough.

The problem is that Web exists in a sandbox. They can collect data about my usage of their website, full stop (large sites like Facebook and Google get around this, but that's not really telemetry). With desktop there's no way of knowing what's collected with "telemetry"

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#67

Post by Clubber »

nxc18 wrote: post #50
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, removing safety from MS Office devs has led to a pretty significant quality and security decline. Pretty much every Office version we upgrade to is tested to hell and back and we usually delay adoption for three years. By then its barely functional after three years of service packs and hotfixes. We just migrated 100 people to 2013 and are still finding issues. Worse, this mentality spread to update…

Microsoft fired a huge number of their SDETs (and they no longer actively recruit them). Since then, I've seen a huge decline in quality among office and windows. Devs will tell you they're just as good as testing as the testers, but I don't buy it. Also, if you're a dev, do you really like testing enough to give it just as much attention as you do feature implementation? Again, I don't buy it.

Yes, I'm a dev and I know I don't have the patience for testing. Devs tend to only test happy path, or just off of it. I didn't realize how unexpected software can be used until I attended one of our company's user groups.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#68

Post by Clubber »

dingo_bat wrote: post #23
whowouldathunk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on the Windows team. Things are very different now. Source control especially: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/05/24/the-large... It still takes a lot of political effort to change primary UI features though. And I think that's a good thing.

> It still takes a lot of political effort to change primary UI features though. Hasn't prevented the travesty that the win10 UI is, though.

I like the Windows 10 UI. It's a lot better than 8 and 8.1. I like it better than 7 too for the most part.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#69

Post by 0xbear »

pjmlp wrote: post #60
0xbear wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be out of a job by your mid-40's. I suggest you reconsider your decision to not "progress your career".

Thankfully the rest of the world is not like SV.

I'm not in SV. Just a general observation. Younger people know _how_ to do things, but they don't know _what_ to, and even more importantly what not to do.

As you age, you will discover that junior devs are much faster at accomplishing well defined tasks, but, as a rule, utterly helpless with anything open ended/complicated/requiring foresight and experience. Your value will be in helping them navigate things they can't navigate themselves.

Re: The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)

#70

Post by chrischen »

zyamada wrote: post #46
andrewfong wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but now you get to bicker about how to structure the A/B test and whether the results are statistically significant.

"Based on the data collected, most users seem to prefer..." is better than, "Based on my training and personal experiences, I think users would prefer..." It is a lot easier to come to a common agreement on something as objective as statistical significance when compared to personal feelings and opinions.

Subjectviely interpreted objective data...
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