More reader concerns about a Microsoft-funded study

Readers continued to send me their thoughts on a recent newsletter reporting on a Microsoft-funded study that compared Windows 2003 Server and Red Hat (Microsoft won, basically). A few readers didn’t have all-bad things to say about Microsoft, while others continued to question the test’s methodology and funding.

“I am amazed at how many folks still cite the ‘blue screen of death’ as a stability issue,” on Windows systems, one reader wrote. “It is so rare to get blue screens nowadays – usually related to a hardware [issue] in which you’d get a kernel panic if you were running Linux … Microsoft did a lot of work with the spooler service in Windows 2003 including moving it from kernel space to user space to make it so a printer driver could not bring the system down … The administrator has the responsibilities of making sure that drivers are stable by testing or by only installing signed drivers. And that is true no matter what [operating system] you are using.”

One reader responded to another reader’s previous comments on the possibility that Microsoft designed Windows XP to not cooperate with Samba, a Linux-based service for hosting Windows clients.

“I think Windows 2003 is just about the best thing [Microsoft] has put out,” this reader says. But, “faster than Linux? … I’ll say yes on some things and no to others. Remember – when M$ tests, it usually tests on things optimized for [Microsoft]. As for the Samba issue [of not playing well with Windows] yep … Bill is NOT playing fair. He is definitely rigging his programs to not work with the standards base or Samba 3 wouldn’t be doing what it’s doing. I agree with the other reader/writer. Something is amiss.”

The last person to send me a message on the issues put it simply: “In the report, the caveat says it all. I would prefer that benchmarks were not paid for by any of the participants. This testing may be flawless, but it certainly looks tainted because of sponsorship.”