So I'm in the shower - where most of my great thinking is done - and it occurred to me that with all my experience in the corporate world how much I hate the corporate world.

The reason for this is that they don't get things done. They can't. The corporate world is so tied up with red tape that it's impossible to get things done despite best efforts.

But even if you removed the red tape you still wouldn't be able to get anything done on account of the IT infrastructure. Windows doesn't work therefore how can anyone using it work either?

That seems to be a bit of classic Windows bashing and you'd be right but that's because it's true. I'm a computer engineer for a company called Datacom and I work predominantly on Windows systems. I do the odd Mac job but not as much as I'd like - he says just coming home from doing a Mac setup.

We have huge clients and we are there fixing their systems every day at some point. Although we only do hardware specifically, it's replacing hardware or installing hardware where we run into software issues, which means having to force Windows to actually do something. What I'm about to tell you is NOT in any way shape or form an exaggeration. I wish it was but it's not. It's this truthfulness that makes it all the more depressing.

Interesting Problem: Framme

When I was based at NGC in Taranaki I had a job to install a program called Framme which NGC uses for their pipeline maintenance and designs. It's a powerful app and an impressive one to see in action. But then they decided to upgrade it and there was a problem. It seemed to install alright but when they went to use a feature of the program that they NEEDED to use the program crashed. Reinstalls of the app, rebuilds of the machines, trying on other machines, ALL had the same problem. Guess what the cause of the problem was? Go on guess. I bet you can't can you. Neither could we and neither could the developers of the program. Then a post on the developer's forum came along and blew us out of the water. The problem was caused by a single file being set to Read Only by the installer. In doing so the application couldn't write to that file when it needed to and crashed. We wasted over a month trying to work this out but I can't imagine how long it took this one guy to find that one file in the over 25,000 files that are installed by the application. That dude needs to be given the Victoria Cross or something.

There was one saving grace in all of this. NGC uses Novell and Novell has an awesome tool called XenWorks which has the ability to distribute packages on a user basis. We snapshotted the app including the changing of the permissions on the file and had no problems distributing the app to the required users. Thanks Guy-with-too-much-time-on-his-hands and thanks Novell for allowing us to get things done. Screw you Microsoft for making an installer package that is too easy to corrupt files rendering applications worthless.

"I Want To Shoot Someone" Problem: Belkin USB KVM

This problem is NOT about the Belkin KVM. It did nothing wrong. I tried to tell this to my collegue who was at the point of wanting to shoot someone because of this "f..ing KVM". So what cause this problem? Windows, more specifically the fact that Microsoft allows sysadmins to block access to the USB ports but also because Microsoft designed Windows to not play nice with USB.

A little background on how Windows treats USB different to... well every other OS on the planet. In MacOS X and pretty much all forms of UNIX OSs and even those not based on UNIX, they will watch ports for a piece of hardware to be attached. They will then see if they have those drivers and if not will ask for them to be installed. They then keep monitoring the ports. Now if a user removes that device from a USB port and plugs it into another one the system doesn't care. Same hardware, it still has the drivers, therefore it just uses those. Oh no, not Windows. Windows doesn't monitor ports. It recognises something is plugged into it then goes through the driver thing but if you remove it from one port and put it into another...

"Oh hello, you're a new device I need drivers for you. Do you have them?"

"What? What? No I'm not new, I was just moved to another port."

"But you can't be because I don't have drivers for you on this port."

"Why do you need drivers reinstalled to talk to me on this port? You have drivers for me being used on the other port just use those."

"I can't. That's not allowed."

"What? WHAT???"

And so on goes the communications. Can anyone here spot the difference?

And so we come to our Belkin client. ACC has blocked access to the USB ports for the users. User needs USB access to connect up KVM whose USB port acts as a??? USB HUB. What does Windows need to get this running. I'll give you a clue it starts with D and ends with someone wanting to shoot someone because they don't have rights to install them. That's right Drivers.

Which leads to a biggie. This one is such a huge mess of a system designed by Microsoft that if you collected all the faeces from every human, animal, insect, bird, fish, and everything else on this planet that makes the stuff, you still wouldn't have a pile that would be as big as this problem.

The Lack Of Communication Communicator Problem: Palm Desktop and ActiveSync

This is a moron software design issue made by morons because morons rule this planet (at least the 95% that insist on using Windows). When I first came across this problem it was also when I was based at NGC. I solved this problem and so far as I can tell I'm one of the very few who got a successful application snap under Novell working. I don't know of anyone getting such a thing done under Windows Server.

You have a Palm or Windows Mobile device and you wish to install it on a machine that is connected to a network that has group policies that prevent a user from doing this.

"That's easy" I hear you say "you simply log into the machine as an administrator and then install the software. It will then be ready for the user."

WRONG. You couldn't be more wronger than a wrong thing on the wrong day of the wrong week of the wrong month of the year Wrong Wrong.

For every OTHER software this would generally be true. But oh no, Plam Desktop and ActiveSync decide to buck trends and screw you harder than than a big man called Bubba while you're in the slammer. You see the software needs to be installed as the user so that they have access to that app. Wow. Letting a user with NO rights to install apps install an app so that they can use that app? Have you ever seen a vehicle right before it's about to hit another one? You know it's not going to have a happy ending. Well that's exactly how this scenario is going to pan out.

There's a number of ways to fix this problem. The obvious is to tell them they can't use it because Corporate policy sees it fit to not trust you as far as you can be thrown therefore thank you come again... actually don't.

The second is to give the user temporary admin rights to be able to install this application. This I have come to the conclusion is not as easy as it sounds because there are always proper channels to go through and guess what that involves. I'll give you a clue it starts with R and ends with you wanting to shoot someone because they won't give you the access you require when you need it... That's right it's red tape. Even then Palm Desktop has an issue because some bright spark - by which I mean moron - decided that users will write to the Palm directory on C: drive which users have been prevented by corporate policy to write to. Visualise car crash.

You could install the software as admin, copy across the files from the admin account profile to the user's profile, then change the permissions on the directory so everyone has access to write to it (there will be more wanting to write here trust me). This will work but is a pain in the bunghole.

Here's the best approach although it's not without its problems. Install the software as admin and then copy the shortcuts from admin profile to user's profile. Make a directory on the users home drive and point the software to that directory.

The obvious time waster problem is resolved if you use Novell to distribute the application because it can set all this up automatically.

Oh but that's only about 2/3rds the pile of steaming bum chocolate of a mess this software has. You see, if you throw USB into the mix you will find that the full fury of mangled up yesterday's food comes into play because chances are you forgot to undo the overeager user's actions by removing the device from the USB port didn't you? You will now find that the device will refuse to be seen by Windows. Why. Why is this? I refer you to previous problem. Windows doesn't monitor ports and therefore does not see that said USB device is already attached and thus does what it's good at... NOTHING. However, unplugging the device then plugging it back in will cause Windows to wake from its siesta and do something... begrudgingly of course but it will do it... so long as you have administrator priviledges.

BANG!!!

So how does all this mess of a thing compare to working with MacOS X? Surely it's not that bad is it? Thankfully the stress inducing mess of the above - which is only a small amount of the problems faced by Windows admins - is pretty much non-existent.

Install an app and that app will be installed into a directory whereby if a user has access to that app that app is available to that user. No missing shortcuts, no poorly privileged files or folders, just an app that can be accessed.

As I mentioned, the USB/FireWire/Ethernet/Audio ports etc are all monitored by the system constantly for changes. Yes you may need to unplug and replugin to get the system to notice the hardware but you don't need to install drivers if the drivers are already there. The issue with the Belkin KVM would NEVER happen under MacOS X and most UNIX based OSs either. Set it up once and it's all ready to go. This includes Palm Desktop which incidentally works well under MacOS X including BlueTooth and instead of dumping everything into a folder on a drive that by all rights will be prevented from being written to, Palm Desktop on the Mac puts everything into the user's Documents folder where they have no rights problems.

Speaking as a Systems Engineer with around 10 years experience, MacOS X is by far and away the easiest system to administer for. It's easier than Windows and it's easier than Linux. From a support perspective it's almost a perfect system.

It allows you to get things done because it doesn't bog you down with policies that treat users like criminals. It doesn't break when you move something from one port to another. I can tell you the fun I've had with desk moves with USB keyboards and mice. This is so bad that I've officially refused to do hardware installs at certain sites, leaving that up to other engineers. I've got better things to do with my time than to fight stupid policies that prevent me from doing my job. For anyone who thinks that we in IT have a great life where we play video games and surf the Net all day... you'd be right but we need it to clear our minds from the complete and utter Vindaloo Induced Mess that is bestowed upon us everyday by a system that is designed to prevent you from actually doing any real work. Like I said, all of this is not made up to make it sound like our job is a living hell. I don't think Dante, Shakespeare, or Orwell could ever imagine the complete and utter bollocks we Windows engineers have to put up with.

So the next time you see your IT person walking around muttering to themselves and looking like they are about to stab someone, sympathise with them because they just want to get you working but they can't because people higher up than then who hardly have the intelligence to turn a damn computer on are setting policies that prevent them from helping you out. Don't get angry with IT, get angry with management.