Seeing one of the Windows/Mac commercials

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

particularly the one whose picture is enlarged in the center reminds me of
something I have noticed in Vista for a long time entiltled "Computer Cart"
that is appearing on major networks in the US today.

It reminds me that Event Viewer is not only nearly worthless in Vista, but
it is substantive proof that the developers and PMs on the team need to get
outside onto a real street and talk to real people.

I have always recommended Event Viewer frequently as a potential place to
fish for errors that might not show up on the desktop, or might be
particularly quick so that you can't see them, or might be particularly
cryptic. After almost two years with Vista, I have concluded that no one on
the team that works with it at Redmond ever gets out doors onto a real
street with real people.

Many many of the messages say precisely nothing. More than 90% of the links
say that there is no solution yet. This is for problems the magnitude of an
IE crash, or a major crash or an unexpected shutdown.

You have to wonder if people who know how to use Event Viewer and have read
the blogs on it find it next to worthless, how helpful it's going to be to
the bell shaped curve of Vista buyers if they know it exists at all.

I conclude they are just as well off not knowing it exists. MSFT has a very
long way to go in the erra of Ray Ozzie hopping jets to tout the virtues of
Web 2.0 in getting real time error messages translated for people.

In Vista they continue to ignorantly put these messages into ectopic,
metastatic logs that the average user is not going to find in the first
place, let alone interpret, and I'd like to bet that the average man or
woman in a super market checkout line doesn't understand HEX or have HEX
interpretation tools the way rocket hopping millionare Charles Somogyi
does. The reason I make this analogy is that MSFT takes the tac that people
understand cryptic error messages hidden in far flung logs. Even when they
can find the logs, they aren't going to unerstand the cryptic messages in
the logs.

Why do you think someone like Darrell Gorter or Vinny Flynt at Redmond asks
you to send the logs. It's because they know damn well you aren't going to
be able to either interpret them or have the tools to do so.

Many of the error messages are written in Hexidecimal. They need tools and
training for even MSFT computer engineers to decipher them.

Apple has an appropriate commercial. The Windows character who also
appears on Jon Stewart says he doesn't know what the error messages mean.
Neither do 99+% of MSFT end users nor some of the IT Pros/CTOs who manage
enterprise IT departments.

MSFT's approach to error messages is so out of touch with reality that it
would be like a medical doctor spouting some of the more abstruse medical
terms and lingo to a patient without being available to make any real world
common sense explanation for the patient to put into use.

MSFT needs to jump on this problem that they have done little constructive
to correct in nearly 26 years. They didn't improve it in Vista.


CH

Chad

As one who studied Event Viewer reports extensively in Windows XP I
agree that the new system has made it very difficult to see what is
happening. There is an overload of different ways to see Reports and
when you look at one it is not always easy to figure out the
significance. It has to be said, however, that not too many people
knew how to get the most out of the XP Error Reports.

With the new system you can get a Report which continues to be
reported long after it has ceased to be relevant. Thus I had a
Network Card which was malfunctioning. It prompted a solution which
would not install. I found another network card and removed the
original card. I installed the replacement. Problem solved. However,
I continued to get reminders of the solution for the orignal card,
notwithstanding the card was no longer installed. Last night I
deleted the report so hopefully an end to the redundant message.

The introduction of Vista seems to have resulted in some new Stop
Error bug codes but are any details published? Not that I can find!
Microsoft are so slow at publishing information about Errors. Even
incomplete information would help.


--


Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Chad Harris" <vistaneedsmuchowork.net> wrote in message
news:O$HemyuhHHA.5052@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Seeing one of the Windows/Mac commercials
>
> http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
>
> particularly the one whose picture is enlarged in the center
> reminds me of something I have noticed in Vista for a long time
> entiltled "Computer Cart" that is appearing on major networks in
> the US today.
>
> It reminds me that Event Viewer is not only nearly worthless in
> Vista, but it is substantive proof that the developers and PMs on
> the team need to get outside onto a real street and talk to real
> people.
>
> I have always recommended Event Viewer frequently as a potential
> place to fish for errors that might not show up on the desktop, or
> might be particularly quick so that you can't see them, or might
> be particularly cryptic. After almost two years with Vista, I
> have concluded that no one on the team that works with it at
> Redmond ever gets out doors onto a real street with real people.
>
> Many many of the messages say precisely nothing. More than 90% of
> the links say that there is no solution yet. This is for problems
> the magnitude of an IE crash, or a major crash or an unexpected
> shutdown.
>
> You have to wonder if people who know how to use Event Viewer and
> have read the blogs on it find it next to worthless, how helpful
> it's going to be to the bell shaped curve of Vista buyers if they
> know it exists at all.
>
> I conclude they are just as well off not knowing it exists. MSFT
> has a very long way to go in the erra of Ray Ozzie hopping jets to
> tout the virtues of Web 2.0 in getting real time error messages
> translated for people.
>
> In Vista they continue to ignorantly put these messages into
> ectopic, metastatic logs that the average user is not going to
> find in the first place, let alone interpret, and I'd like to bet
> that the average man or woman in a super market checkout line
> doesn't understand HEX or have HEX interpretation tools the way
> rocket hopping millionare Charles Somogyi does. The reason I make
> this analogy is that MSFT takes the tac that people understand
> cryptic error messages hidden in far flung logs. Even when they
> can find the logs, they aren't going to unerstand the cryptic
> messages in the logs.
>
> Why do you think someone like Darrell Gorter or Vinny Flynt at
> Redmond asks you to send the logs. It's because they know damn
> well you aren't going to be able to either interpret them or have
> the tools to do so.
>
> Many of the error messages are written in Hexidecimal. They need
> tools and training for even MSFT computer engineers to decipher
> them.
>
> Apple has an appropriate commercial. The Windows character who
> also appears on Jon Stewart says he doesn't know what the error
> messages mean. Neither do 99+% of MSFT end users nor some of the
> IT Pros/CTOs who manage enterprise IT departments.
>
> MSFT's approach to error messages is so out of touch with reality
> that it would be like a medical doctor spouting some of the more
> abstruse medical terms and lingo to a patient without being
> available to make any real world common sense explanation for the
> patient to put into use.
>
> MSFT needs to jump on this problem that they have done little
> constructive to correct in nearly 26 years. They didn't improve
> it in Vista.
>
>
> CH

Gerry--

There have been a lot of complaints on the new Event Viewer which is more
elaborate, and I'm sure MSFT feels is more specific and versatile but my
complaint whether in XP or Vista is centered on the total lack of
communication in the majority of messages, and the comical situation that
when you click the links now provided with all Vista messages, most of them
say "no information is available on this error."

Monitoring Event Logs in Windows Vista
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/art...ows-Vista.html

Event Viewer
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window....mspx?mfr=true

Vista-Event Viewer Changes
http://thelazyadmin.com/blogs/thelaz...r-Changes.aspx

Managing the Event Logs with MSH
http://thelazyadmin.com/blogs/thelaz...-with-MSH.aspx

Better troubleshooting capabilities with Windows Vista's Event Viewer
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...1-6108150.html

CH


"Gerry Cornell" <gcjcvis@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ufruf2whHHA.4872@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Chad
>
> As one who studied Event Viewer reports extensively in Windows XP I agree
> that the new system has made it very difficult to see what is happening.
> There is an overload of different ways to see Reports and when you look at
> one it is not always easy to figure out the significance. It has to be
> said, however, that not too many people knew how to get the most out of
> the XP Error Reports.
>
> With the new system you can get a Report which continues to be reported
> long after it has ceased to be relevant. Thus I had a Network Card which
> was malfunctioning. It prompted a solution which would not install. I
> found another network card and removed the original card. I installed the
> replacement. Problem solved. However, I continued to get reminders of the
> solution for the orignal card, notwithstanding the card was no longer
> installed. Last night I deleted the report so hopefully an end to the
> redundant message.
>
> The introduction of Vista seems to have resulted in some new Stop Error
> bug codes but are any details published? Not that I can find! Microsoft
> are so slow at publishing information about Errors. Even incomplete
> information would help.
>
>
> --
>
>
> Regards.
>
> Gerry
> ~~~~
> FCA
> Stourport, England
> Enquire, plan and execute
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Chad Harris" <vistaneedsmuchowork.net> wrote in message
> news:O$HemyuhHHA.5052@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Seeing one of the Windows/Mac commercials
>>
>> http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
>>
>> particularly the one whose picture is enlarged in the center reminds me
>> of something I have noticed in Vista for a long time entiltled "Computer
>> Cart" that is appearing on major networks in the US today.
>>
>> It reminds me that Event Viewer is not only nearly worthless in Vista,
>> but it is substantive proof that the developers and PMs on the team need
>> to get outside onto a real street and talk to real people.
>>
>> I have always recommended Event Viewer frequently as a potential place to
>> fish for errors that might not show up on the desktop, or might be
>> particularly quick so that you can't see them, or might be particularly
>> cryptic. After almost two years with Vista, I have concluded that no one
>> on the team that works with it at Redmond ever gets out doors onto a real
>> street with real people.
>>
>> Many many of the messages say precisely nothing. More than 90% of the
>> links say that there is no solution yet. This is for problems the
>> magnitude of an IE crash, or a major crash or an unexpected shutdown.
>>
>> You have to wonder if people who know how to use Event Viewer and have
>> read the blogs on it find it next to worthless, how helpful it's going to
>> be to the bell shaped curve of Vista buyers if they know it exists at
>> all.
>>
>> I conclude they are just as well off not knowing it exists. MSFT has a
>> very long way to go in the erra of Ray Ozzie hopping jets to tout the
>> virtues of Web 2.0 in getting real time error messages translated for
>> people.
>>
>> In Vista they continue to ignorantly put these messages into ectopic,
>> metastatic logs that the average user is not going to find in the first
>> place, let alone interpret, and I'd like to bet that the average man or
>> woman in a super market checkout line doesn't understand HEX or have HEX
>> interpretation tools the way rocket hopping millionare Charles Somogyi
>> does. The reason I make this analogy is that MSFT takes the tac that
>> people understand cryptic error messages hidden in far flung logs. Even
>> when they can find the logs, they aren't going to unerstand the cryptic
>> messages in the logs.
>>
>> Why do you think someone like Darrell Gorter or Vinny Flynt at Redmond
>> asks you to send the logs. It's because they know damn well you aren't
>> going to be able to either interpret them or have the tools to do so.
>>
>> Many of the error messages are written in Hexidecimal. They need tools
>> and training for even MSFT computer engineers to decipher them.
>>
>> Apple has an appropriate commercial. The Windows character who also
>> appears on Jon Stewart says he doesn't know what the error messages mean.
>> Neither do 99+% of MSFT end users nor some of the IT Pros/CTOs who manage
>> enterprise IT departments.
>>
>> MSFT's approach to error messages is so out of touch with reality that it
>> would be like a medical doctor spouting some of the more abstruse medical
>> terms and lingo to a patient without being available to make any real
>> world common sense explanation for the patient to put into use.
>>
>> MSFT needs to jump on this problem that they have done little
>> constructive to correct in nearly 26 years. They didn't improve it in
>> Vista.
>>
>>
>> CH
>