el peregringo

I’ve just spent several hours trying to do a clean install of my father-in-law’s pc. It’s a POS Fujitsu-Siemens something or other, and after I found the original restore discs which came with it, I figured it would be a simple matter to boot from the CD, reformat the drive, and re-install.

So, the first time through, near the end of the installation, it failed saying that it found a file in an incorrect format on the CD. So, I reboot and start over again. This time instead of failing, it put up a dialog at the same spot saying that it needed me to insert the service pack 2 CD to copy a particular file–of course that was the CD that was already in the drive. Clicking OK after locating the file allowed the installation to continue.

I was then presented with a dialog asking me to create the user accounts. I created one for my father-in-law and one for me. No where did it ask me to create passwords for those users, just to name the accounts. After the reboot, there we were at the log in screen. One problem–no passwords for either account and no attempt to log in was successful since no passwords had been assigned (nor did an empty password work).

Another reboot and a complete format and reinstallation. Only interestingly, this time around, following exactly the same steps as before, I am presented with entirely different dialogs along the way. This time I am asked to name the work group and assign an administrator password. That didn’t happen the first time through. Furthermore, this time at the same point where it failed the first time, and asked me to locate the file the second time, we sailed right by with no dialogs at all.

This time around, however, I only created one account instead of two. Rather than stopping at the log in screen, the installer logged in the single user automatically without having to enter any password.

Are the windows engineers actually as frigging retarded as they appear to be? Raw linux installations are easier than this–and far more consistent. Mac OS X installations are of course about as straight forward as one could imagine.

So after another battle with winblows, I am left once again with nothing but questions. Retarded engineers/designers at MS? Retarded users who put up with this shit? The only way I can figure any of this out is that I know that by definition, 50% of the people I encounter any day are of below average intelligence. That explains 50% of the market share this POS has, but I’m baffled by what the other 30% are doing. Are they honestly that many sado-masochists on the planet?