This week I'm on the road attending IPSCon in Chicago for my company. And as happens with system crashes, my Vista Business laptop chose this moment to lose its brains and suddenly stop working. It crashed, its broken. Vista boots but doesn't load all the typical start up programs and other than Windows Explorer, Firefox and Notepad, virtually no other Vista features I've tried works. Can't bring up the control panel or Windows Update, can't run Office software, Internet Explorer won't connect to any sites, OneCare is toast and I can't start the Windows firewall, so I'm wide open to attack on my hotel network... not sure what else I can't run but its safe to say that Vista is working barely well enough to post here on my blog. Thank God for my Blackberry -- at least I can get email that way. Next steps are to boot up in safe mode with networking and see if any more features are accessible that way.
Of course, this happens on the road where I can't rebuild my system or reload any software. Its like tieing a rope between your ankles and trying to run the 440. It can be done, but only by using baby steps. I've got to wonder, is the problem a result of Microsoft Tuesday updates or some other aborant software? I've had a Windows Update cause problems before. The last time, I came down in the morning just in time to see my laptop rebooting after the updates and then, boom... Word lost its brains and wouldn't run anymore. After spending a good amount of time trying figure out what happen and how to get it running again, I just reinstalled Office in order to get whole again and regain my workday productivity.
After experiencing this Vista meltdown, I mentally asked myself; Will catastrophic system crashes be a thing of the past when applications are virtualized or live in the cloud? Would the impact of this crash be greatly lessened if my applications lived in the clouds? Would the OS be so much less complex if my apps lived in the cloud, lessening the likelyhood of a system crash? I've got to believe I'd be more productive right now if I was using Google Apps, rather than Office software that won't run on my crippled machine.
Right now, I wish it was five years from now and I was running my apps in the cloud. I could use my HP laptop recovery partition to get back to a stable install and be up and running in no time. Maybe the crash wouldn't have happend at all.
I wish it was five years from now.
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Mitchell Ashley is CEO and Chief Strategist of Converging Network, LLC, providing product and technology strategies to emerging technology companies. A serial entrepreneur, Mitchell has created many successful products and services in the networking, security, convergence, Internet and IT industries. In addition to blogging for NetworkWorld, Mitchell regularly blogs at TheConvergingNetwork and co-hosts the widely popular Still Crazy After All These Years podcast.
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Vista crashing
Hi Mitchell,
Here's an idea. Microsoft could put core OS on ROM memory. You know on a cartridge so they could still milk us for upgrades. Memory is so cheap now why not?
Of course the core would have to be professionally written i.e efficient, compact, etc. like the old cartridge based games of the 80's....oh well it was an idea.
M.