I don’t often do any tech support on Windows computers. In fact, I do my best to avoid it as much as possible but there are these seemingly unavoidable moments when I have to work on a Windows machine. In many ways, I think it’s good for me as it keeps me appreciative of the Linux technology of which I have become accustomed. It also helps me realize that those little nitnoid annoyances in Linux are nowhere near the annoyances of using Windows.
In my opinion, since its inception, the registry on a Windows computer has seemingly been the Achilles Heel or weak point, often prone to corruption. Since my days on Windows 98, I would have issues with the registry and I became a pro with using Norton tools to maintain my Windows system. It would also get me increasingly annoyed with the system which eventually brought me to using Linux.
Back to my Windows problem… When trying to install some software for testing on a particular Windows machine, it would just refuse to install. Not only would it refuse to install but it would also delete the installer file, so I wasn’t able to try it again until I transferred this rather large file back to the computer. I found this very bizarre. The “expert” I consulted was no help, there was no error report, at least, nothing that would be helpful. I could not find a way to get some sort of verbose output on the failed installation. My lack of expert help and impatience to do research coupled with my “fond memories” about my past experiences with Norton lead me to first try a registry cleanup.
Boy-howdy is there a lot of shady looking “fix-your-computer” free software out there. It seems like you are out swinging in the breeze, navigating through a sea of unknown to find something good and not make things worse from the myriad of utterly dangerous-to-install software. After some searching, I found a piece of software that didn’t look shady but rather really quite legit, called CCleaner
It was like a bastion of hope in a sea of dodgy, advertisement-riddled promises of making your computer 500% faster. CCleaner was very clear about what it did and how they made money. I didn’t need their premium product, just something to patch this system well enough to conduct the software tests.
Not a very big download, thankfully, and it installed without any issue and no enticement for anything other than its own offerings. Upon launching CCleaner, the controls are very straight forward, I just had to “Scan for Issues” than “Fix selected Issues…” It even gave me the option to save a backup registry, in case the whole thing blew up, but the reality was, this was my last ditch effort before wiping the whole system.
The cleaning process was MUCH quicker than I expected and once it was done, I thought I would give the machine a quick reboot, of which was successful. I once again transferred this software that I still needed to test and tried the installation once again.
Success!
I was able to test the software, take my notes and make the recommendations. Unfortunately, not long after the test, the Windows machine started acting up again and I had to wipe it and have Windows reinstalled anyway but CCleaner gave me the few extra days necessary to complete this necessary task.
Final Thoughts
Wow, am I glad I don’t pay for Windows! I am truly amazed people are okay with using it. I guess if you are okay with shelling out cash for software to maintain the machine or “experts” to administer it, it is fine but that is not acceptable arrangement for me. This experience reinforces why I really believe in owning your technology and your technology not keeping secrets and telling you what it is doing. This further bolsters my reasons for using Linux. I appreciate how it tells you what it is doing and makes it easy to get into the nuts and bolts of it when necessary.
After this experience, I am even more grateful for openSUSE Linux. If I could only install openSUSE on that rather beefy hardware… one can dream.
