Linux don't care...

Say for example, Windows won't let you delete or back up an open file. Even if you wanted to easily create a snapshot of a volume and back up an open file in a consistent manner, it's not that easy.

Linux don't care...

In fact, a recent question I was asked in an interview pre-screening, was whether you can delete an in-use logfile and if that space is automatically marked free by the OS?

The answer to that is, no. On Linux, a file can be deleted when it's in-use. The file will disappear from the FS, but the handle to the file will remain open, and in fact, the application will continue to write to the file even when its hard link count is now exactly zero! That log file will actually appear in the /proc filesystem under that process' PID, in its list of open files. In order to actually delete the file you need to close the file handle. This is done in various ways depending on the application, but it can usually be triggered quite easily, and as a sysadmin, you should why and how you should do this.

UNIX expects you to be a competent and knowledgeable sysadmin, and this has the advantage of creating a very predictable environment with few exceptions to basic tenets laid out as a contract of sorts

I like that.

I like being treated like an adult.

Windows Gripe #38

The built-in arp command on Windows will not take a hostname as an argument, you must specify an IP. In contrast, Linux will let you specify a hostname and it will do DNS to get an IP and then report the MAC of that IP, eliminating a step.

Perhaps Microsoft did this because conceivably you could have a machine with 2 or more IP addresses, and Windows wants to make Really Sure™ that you want the MAC address of that particular IP.

This will be the first article in which I mention Windows' "Really Sure™" technology. You know, the one where you have to click 12 times to get through an install Wizard, and you are asked 2x if you really, truly, deeply want to delete that file. If you don't trust yourself, or you have a multiple personality disorder, Windows Really Sure™ will save your bacon.

Or it'll result in you and your friends blindly clicking any "OK" "Yes" "Confirm" and "Next" button that you see.

Windows Really Sure™Technology

This will be the first article in which I mention Windows' "Really Sure™" technology.

You know, the one where you have to click 12 times to get through an install wizard.

Or you are asked 2x if you really, truly, deeply want to delete that file.

If you don't trust yourself, Windows Really Sure™ will save your bacon.

Or it'll result in us and our friends blindly clicking any "OK" "Yes" "Confirm" and "Next" button that we see. I think it's the more the latter.

Can't suspend backups with wbadmin

Did you know that Windows Server 2008 and later include a new wbadmin.exe that replaces ntbackup.exe.

Thank goodness, right? Because ntbackup.exe fostered the creation of a whole backup software industry based on its inadequacy as a backup tool.

Having used wbadmin.exe, I have to say, I was initially impressed with Microsoft's renewed commitment to bringing universal OS and server features that should be part of the OS back under the auspices of the OS designer.

The fact that basic backup had to be outsourced to a 3rd party software vendor was silly in the first place. Linux for example includes LVM2 to do snapshotting already, and so many adequate backup tools like rsync, rsnapshot, dd readily available.

I'll go into wbamin in another post but for the time being I wanted to point out that while testing other backup software it's impossible to suspend wbadmin from doing its thing.

Even in the CLI, you simply can't pause backups. Look in the Task Scheduler, and you'll find no mention that wbadmin is even set to run at all!

In fact the only way to preemptively cancel Windows Server Backup is to delete the entire backup schedule, at which point your previous backups are kept until you go to start the schedule again and Windows will format and delete your accumulated backups on the fixed disk you have been using! Talk about unintuitive and dangerous!

So basically you can't suspend backups at all with wbadmin. Your only option if you don't want to lose your backup history is to wait until the scheduled job start, and issue 'wbadmin stop job' at the CLI, and you must remember to do this shortly after every scheduled backup starts!

Here are some pointers to MS:

• Include webadmin in the Task Scheduler
• Allow suspension of backup plan in the GUI or at least CLI
• and as an extension, don't delete the previous backups and require running the backup wizard from scratch again
• Warn the user with a taskbar warning or something when backup is suspended

And for you, faithful sysadmin, keep on your toes, make sure wbadmin has got your back.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Batch Uninstallation

One of my biggest gripes with Windows 7 is how long it takes to manage the install and uninstall of software packages.

I can be assured that when receiving a new Lenovo notebook for a client for example, I will spend 30 "active minutes" and 30 "waiting minutes" simply removing software I don't need--and babysitting the Windows installer. That's an hour of time when my average site visit is 4 hours in length, what a waste!

This is a job that should take 30 seconds of active time and maybe 5 minutes of waiting.

So, the Windows installer framework in Windows Vista and later:

1. Has no concurrency (seems MS has still not figured out how to handle shared libraries and dependencies)
2. Is doggedly slow
3. Assumes I am too dumb and my time is worth nothing

Constrast to Windows XP

In Windows XP, application vendors often had uninstall links in their Programs folder on the Start Menu, allowing you to simulate some kind of concurrency.
In Windows 7 the trend seems to be that applications remove the uninstall links from their Start Menu folders, you must use "Programs and Features" in Control Panel.

Using uninstall links allowed you to work around the problem of uninstalling multiple programs at the same time.

The New Framework

The Microsoft Install framework is "too smart" and will not let you modify two software packages that both use Windows Installer, and this is just a real bummer.

Not to mention that Windows Installer is just damn slow, and insists on "Collecting the required information for like 5 minutes while there is no sign of the dialogs actually doing anything, and no disk or CPU activity. "Please wait while the current package is being configured." It seems like the developers at MS wrote this as part of their installer code:

if package.is_installing():
  package.wait(5);

in an endless loop.

The Proper Solution

Contrast this with most Linux package management systems' process for removing firefox, gimp, libreoffice in one fell swoop:

Arch Linux
pacman -R firefox gimp libreoffice

Debian
apt-get remove firefox gimp libreoffice

Ubuntu
sudo apt-get remove firefox gimp libreoffice
CentOS
yum remove firefox gimp libreoffice

Do What Mac OS X does

Or we can even use Mac OS X and drag the applications from the Applications folder to the trash bin and get it over with. Thanks, Apple!

More time = more money

But after all this, the realization hits me: Microsoft is helping me to make money by bumping up my billable hours. To my clients: honestly, it's not me being slow, it's MS!

There is one way to address this, by writing a script to do the in

wmic product where name="" call uninstall /interactive:off

from softwaretalk.info.

But there are flaws like half-removed programs, and there is no concurrency, you still have to uninstall one-at-a-time.

*Sigh* someday MS will get a clue.