Is Windows Easier - Part 2

Just like my last post I want to bring to light that Windows can be just as complicated as Linux, under the same conditions, by sharing some of my experiences.

In Fedora if you want to install firefox, you select add/remove software from the menu. (and if your using KDE desktop it has a search the same as Vista/Windows 7). Find firefox, by search or click on the internet group, select it and click apply. It will install firefox and will show up in your menu system.

In Windows if you want to install firefox. You go to the firefox website, click the download link. Open it and go through the series of steps to install it. (I won't list them here as most have installed software on windows)

This is the ideal environment and both Fedora and Windows are just as easy to use, install, and generally live with.

Now when problems hit:

Last night we all sat down to play some games on Windows 7. The first game we plugged in was Hunter Hunted. We hit "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows your're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher." We tried troubleshooting with the windows compatibility modes, ultimately gave up after 15 minutes of messing with it.

Then we tried You Don't Know Jack. This wasn't looking too promising. We tried other games and got a combination of this message, the game installer crashing, and hardware wasn't fast enough. (might be able to play that game after the 3d nVidia card replacement shows up)

After 1-2 hours of messing around, two of our potential gamers quietly left and went to bed. Well Lillian passed out on the couch waiting, Kimmy went to bed.

So I convinced Henry to play Starfleet Command with me. Our first attempt at installing the game ended with the installer crashing. But we by-passed the auto run and started installing the game directly. Clicked on the game and it crashed. So we poked around in the game settings and found a configuration program. This configuration program fixed our problem and we got the game started. While Henry was practising on the game I started to load the game on my work computer, which was running XP. It ran on XP with no problems.

But do you think we could get the two copies to talk to each other. We first tried the TCP/IP direct connection. It wouldn't even register. So we started disabling firewalls, as I figured they were the problem. We got the game to go further but still not far enough to play. So then I remembered I used to play this game using IPX. So we installed IPX on the XP machine, but Windows 7... ummm where'd it go. Seems there's no native IPX support, and we couldn't find it fast enough from Novell. So we went back to messing with the TCP/IP. In the end after 1-2 hour of messing with it, Henry logged out of Windows 7 and went to bed.

So I thought I'd go play the game a bit before bed. I logged into my profile on Windows 7, and game crashed. I could not get it started. Frustrated and fed-up I went back to my Linux machine and played there.

So my point... again!

Windows may or may not be easier to use than Linux. -- I personally think they are equivalent -- But when things fail, you can have just as much a mess in Windows as you can in Linux. I'm sure there's a way to get these games working by installing wrappers, copying files manually, or some other hacker trick. Point is Windows just got much more complicated that the general point and click.