Windows Fails 8% of the Time 913
descubes writes "A Journal du Net article reports that about 8% of Windows sessions require a machine reboot.
The relevant quote (translated from french) is: "The average rate of failures requiring a system reboot has been measured at around 8% per session. This number varies widely depending on the version of Windows. Windows 2000 has a failure rate of 4%, and NT4 is at 3%, whereas Windows XP is close to 12%." The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."
English Version (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think that's quite it... (Score:2, Informative)
The study was originally made by Acadys and Microcost and gathered data from 1.2M machines belonging to about one thousand companies over a period of one month in seven different countries."
Emphasis mine.
Translation for lazy people (Score:2, Informative)
babelfish translation with usual mistakes (Score:3, Informative)
28% of the time devoted to the couple transport/Internet, 2% with Excel
To launch the impression
15/09/2004.
What makes the employees one to their computer? It is with this thorny that question has study undertaken by Microcost - in collaboration with Acadys - sort to answer. Year investigation whose objectifies is not to supervises the users goal who wishes to poses the bases of has reflexion around the rationalization of the costs have glances management of park.
During one month, 1 285 500 working scannés stations were near has thousand of companies distributed in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England, Italy).
First carryforward, has to use spends one average two hours and fifteen minutes per day one its dated-processing station. With time that it devotes for more than one quarter (28%) to Internet/transport couple. The remainder of time, the applications office automation, the trades applications and the Windows to explore respectively occupy 17%, 14% and 9% of the use of year employee. The 17% of the office automation applications station-wagon up into 15% for the 2% and text processing for Excel.
With company thus may find it beneficial any to modify its policy of software licence according to the use in order not to pay has complete office automation continuation principal yew the exploited tool remains the text processing. According to the study, 10 software concentrates 67% of the use. With figure which amounts even to 89% in the industrial sector, whereas it is limited to 42% At the service companies.
In more of the dated relating to the uses of the software, the FRIENDLY software (At the origin of information receuillies for the study) makes it possible to obtain figures have glances reliability of the operating systems Microsoft. Thus, the average failure misses requiring has restarting of the system is measured around 8% per session. This appears fluctuates largely according to the version of Windows. Indeed, Windows 2000 obtains has failure misses of 4% and NT4 of 3% whereas Windows XP flirte with the 12%.
Lastly, the study reveals the use of paid have glances impression. Zero paper is not topicality since 10 pages are printed one average per day and to use. They corresponds to 3 gold 4 orders of impression of which the half are intended for local printers, other half with printers networks. However, yew the cost of year reaches impression has few hundred of euros when it is carried out one has printer network, it is multiplied by five when it is carried out one has local printer, because of the consumable price of the ones.
To also note, without surprised, that 95% of the stations customers are equipped with has Windows environment, version 2000 being prevalent At the professionals. In place under 42% of the stations, this version largely replaced Windows NT 4 which counts nothing any more goal 16%. Have for Windows XP, it breads to find its public, in particular At the industrialists who choose to 83% for Windows 2000. Only the service companies cuts 5% of to their dated-processing park under general Windows XP while the average is around the 2%.
Behind all these figures, the company of council recommends several solutions to the dated-processing directions in order to rationalize to their management of dated-processing park. Among these recalls of good control, the company quotes successively the recourse to the light customer, the uses of software Open source, the optimization of the management of the licences and the increase in the duration of renewal of the material park have well have software.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
This is in a completely controlled environment, where we can use GPO to insure extra software is not installed on the machines, etc... unlike the older installed base.
Re:Biased (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:3, Informative)
Therefor these machines were being used by people with more than just a 'clue', and were probably locked down to prevent spyware installation and the like.
Re:Biased (Score:4, Informative)
I would suggest that my "per session" rate of failures in Linux is quite high. Sure, I don't get kernel panics, but if X locks badly (locking out the keyboard) then my session is pretty much gone. Rebooting X is considerably faster than rebooting the machine.
The real reason that my "per session" rate would be high is that I hardly ever log out. I run a session until something comes out that convinces me to log out (travel, new kernel, or some sort of problem). Sessions last weeks or months.
Jedidiah.
Obviously a Biased account (Score:3, Informative)
Like the linux quotes often say, I only reboot my XP box for patches and hardware updates. (which usually means about once a month for the hot fix updates)
The only guy in our group bitching about XP is the token Mac dude, who screwed up the box doing SOMETHING about a year ago and refuses to reinstall the known good corporate image. (a 10-20 minute process)
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article there were no home users involved in this. It was all company workstations from about 1000 European companies. That means it pretty much is all in managed environments with an IT dept looking after it.
The best I can find is this (excuse my babelfish translation) from TFA:
"To also note, without surprise, that 95% of the stations customers are equipped with a Windows environment, version 2000 being prevalent at the professionals. In place under 42% of the stations, this version largely replaced Windows NT 4 which counts nothing any more but 16%. As for Windows XP, it pains to find its public, in particular at the industrialists who choose to 83% for Windows 2000. Only the service companies have 5% of their data-processing park under Windows XP while the general average is around the 2%."
Which is about the best I can find for figures breaking down how the different versions were distributed. It seems like XP was largely uncommon except at service companies (and was then still uncommon), so maybe you could claim low sample size - but there were 1.2 million workstations in the total sample, so I don't think that'll wash either.
If someone with far better French than me could provide a proper translation of the relevant paragraph I would be grateful.
Thanks.
Jedidiah
How to stop "Automatically Restart". (Score:3, Informative)
He's right. In Windows XP, Click on Start/ Control Panel/ System/ Advanced/ Startup and Recovery Settings/. Uncheck "Automatically Restart".
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Bush's education improvements were fraud [cbsnews.com]
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
So, I keep my system up as much as I can for reliability, not for "ooh look! X days up without a reboot!" bragging rights.
Re:Biased (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:4, Informative)
Funny, I believe that. It does fix many problems (such as resources disappearing due to memory leaks or application crashes). Not permanently, they recur, but short of spending a few days reinstallng everything, it's the best solution.
Re:Somewhat misleading (Score:3, Informative)
The article quite clearly says that these are only workstations that we're talking about. That's desktop machines running Excel. Those generally get powered down or logged out of every night, thus ending the session (especially in coporate environments). A failure rate of 8% in those circumstances is pretty bad really.
Jedidiah.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:1, Informative)
My OpenBSD [openbsd.org] mail server had it's 4th birthday of uptime on September 3. It's an older kernel but the one remote hole (ssh) was patched and the daemon restarted without a reboot.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
It was at least 3 years and at the University of North Carolina according to this page [informationweek.com]. Search that page for "Server Missing No More".
Unless, of course, there was more than one Novell server walled in at a university for several years...
Windows XP vs Linux Driver Support (Score:3, Informative)
Get the new PC, get Windows installed, get the updates, plug the modem in and halfway through the driver install the machine would reboot. Three times I went through this. I tried the Windows native driver, the driver on the disk, and the driver from the manufacturer's website.
Note that the modem came with XP drivers and did not come with Linux ones!
After hearing for years how Linux is always playing catchup in device support, it was a sort of nice surprise to find a device that worked flawlessly on Linux and was beyond hope on XP.
Re:English Version (a better one, hopefully) (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not saying I'm a professional translator (I'm not :-) but maybe this translation by hand will make more sense than the Fish. Expect lots of typos and such, still, I wrote it in a hurry. My personal comments are in brackets. Enjoy ! Or not.
28 % of office time dedicated to Internet and e-mail, 2 % to Excel
What do employees do on their computers ? It is that thorny question that a study lead by Microcost -- in partnership with Acadys -- tries to answer. An investigation which goal isn't to monitor users but rather wishes to lay the foundations of a rethinking about rationalizing costs of managing large computer installations.
Over a month, 1 285 500 workstations were scanned in a thousand enterprises distributed in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England, Italy).
First finding, a user spends on average two hours and fifteen minutes per day on his workstation. He dedicates more than a quarter (28 %) of this time to the Internet/e-mail couple. As for the rest, office applications, business applications and Windows Explorer take respectively 17 %, 14 % and 9 % of an employee's used time. The office application's 17 % is further subdivised in 15 % for word processing and 2 % for Excel [I just can't understand why word processing was generalized while spreadsheets seems in the journalist's opinion to be Excel's exclusive domain -- Translator's note].
A business has thus an interest in modifying its software licence policy according to different use patterns, to avoid paying for a complete office suite if the main tool to be used is the word processor [Well, I suppose you could use OpenOffice.org for the rest. You could even use it for the word processor, in fact -- Translator's note]. According to the study, 10 software packages grab 67 % of uses [I'm not sure if he speaks about different uses or usage time -- Tr. note]. These numbers even go up to 89 % in the industrial sector, while they drop to 42 % in services-oriented businesses.
In addition to software usage data, the AMI software (from which the informations gathered for the study were originated) allows to obtain numbers regarding the reliance of Microsoft's Operating Systems. For instance, the average failure rate requiring a system reboot has been measured at about 8 % per session. These numbers dramatically fluctuate according to the considered Windows version. So, Windows 2000 has a 4 % failure rate and NT 4 has 3 % [This must be total BS, I've never seen such a crash-prone system than NT4 except Win9x -- Tr. note], while Windows XP is around 12 %.
Last, the study reveals employees' habits with regard to printing. The paperless office isn't poised to arrive soon, since 10 pages per user are printed on average in a day. These are distributed in 3 or 4 printing commands of which half are directed to local printers, while the other half goes to network printers. Still, if the printing cost drops to a few Eurocents when printing is done on a network printer, it's multiplied by five when it's done on a local printer, because of printer supplies' prices.
Also of note, unsurprisingly 95 % of workstations are fitted with a Windows environment, the Win2000 version being predominant in professional use. Present on 42 % of workstations, this version has largely replaced NT4, which claims now only 16 %. As to Windows XP, it struggles to find its audience, especially in industrial settings, 83 % of whom opted for Windows 2000. Only services-oriented business have 5 % of their computer installations running on Windows XP, while the total average is around 2 %.
Beyond all these numbers, the consulting company recommends several solutions to CTOs to rationalize their computer installations. Among these good practices reminders, the company successively points to thin clients, Open Source Software [I wonder if there's anyone except Microsoft who won't mention FLOSS these days -- Tr. note], licence management optimization, and longer periods between renewing the installed computers' hardware as well as their software.
Re:why the switch? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, Microsoft wanted to use us a proving ground for AD on a global scale... however, the switchover has been so painful that we still aren't fully AD enabled. Issues with major incompatibilities with WindowsXP and our in-house developed applications has been a major stumbling block.
There were also several hardware upgrades we had to do due to the increased requirements of XP over 2000 and NT.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:4, Informative)
As a matter of fact this is not the main subject of the article. The research was carried out by accadys and Microsoft throughout Europe to find out how users used their machines.(The title of the article is about the fact that 28% of user time is spent on messaging/internet -- I wonder if they calculated my time on
Finally the article concludes by saying that Acadys recommends using open source software.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:3, Informative)
Here you go:
We noted, unsurprisingly, that 95% of client stations were windows based, with professionals predominantly choosing windows 2000. In 42% of the client stations, Windows 2000 had replaced Windows NT, which failed to achieve more than a 16% footprint. Windows XP has had difficulty gaining a foothold, most notably among the industrial companies, 83% of which chose Windows 2000. XP achieved its highest userbase in the service industries at around 5% - the general average is a 2% XP installation rate.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a human translation from a French-Canadian
We must also note that, unsurprisingly, 95% of the computers are running on a Windows environment, with version 2000 being the most used among professionals. Win2k, running on 42% of the computers, largely replaced WinNT4, which now only runs on 16%. As for WinXP, it barely found a good public, especially among industrials which prefer Win2k 83% of the time. Only the service companies have 5% of their total computers running WinXP, while the general average is around 2%.
Prime example of why the STORYIES need modding. (Score:5, Informative)
I run both Linux and Windows desktops. I reboot about one every two weeks and then usually it is because I've installed a patch or program that requires a reboot to work. In general most of my apps that I run are stable and I get rid of those that aren't.
X-Windows crashes more often for me the MS Windows does. But at least all I have to do for X is restart the X server. MS Windows I do have to reboot. Both are a pain but a full reboot is more painful.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:1, Informative)
Since switching to Debian [debian.org] I've never had a crash either.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:1, Informative)
My home XP box is more like 10 days, but then thats with tons of gaming and all the associated dodgy driver upgrades that I do to try get that extra fps.
Even if I took an entire day to be a session, my work machines would be sitting around the 3-4% mark. But my gaming machine is closer to 10%.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows users obviously have a different expectation of "stable" from Linux users. In my office we have just 2 Linux machines but both are heavily used, one for C++ development.
I just ran "uptime" on them. One has been up for 99 days (I remember shutting it down to install a DVD-rom drive about that long ago) and the other has been up for 127 days. Of course I keep them both up-to-date with security patches, but since they're both Debian, that's just a matter of typing apt-get update / apt-get upgrade occasionally. No reboot needed.
Re:Puh-lease (Score:3, Informative)
XP is 1000 times as stable as 2000, but it's with this trade off: device drivers and bad hardware can crash the system.
What?
Device drivers have run in executive memory space since NT 3.1. Since when can 2k not be crashed by a driver that WILL crash XP? 2k moved the GDI into the executive, so the stability level with video drivers is the same between the two, and bad hardware will ALWAYS crash a system equally. Sure, XP's pretty stable, and I'd even argue that since it was less of a archetectural change than NT->2k was, it may even be more stable than 2k, but your sentence doesn't make any sense.
There isn't any design decision that I know of in XP that makes it less stable vis-a-vis bad drivers but more stable overall. That's bunk. In fact, XP introduced driver signing as an answer to 2k's driver issues. And no OS can escape bad hardware, period.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:2, Informative)
The instant I spent a few hundred bucks to transform it into a "gaming" machine, it became an unreliable hunk of shit.
What does Linux have to do with it? (Score:3, Informative)
If a company is running systems that have to remain up, they're going to run an OS designed for the job. A real high-availability system like Non-Stop can handle OS upgrades without downtime, and the expected uptime of an installation is the same as the lifetime of the installation: it's booted when it's installed and it runs until it's replaced.
Real-time control systems have similar requirements, though at the high end you have two live systems running lockstep so one can take over from the next, and they can be brought down for plant refurbishments (after they've cleanly brought the process to a safe halt).
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:5, Informative)
So you are saying that you never patched that server?
Granted, from personal experience, a well setup Windows machine on good hardware is pretty stable but I believe that the reason why Windows machines cannot acheive ultra long up time is due to the required reboots after certain patches, although 2000 requires less reboots than NT4 and the same thing can be said for 2003 vs 2000.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:3, Informative)
28% of time spent on messaging/Internet, 2% in Excel
A study commissioned by Acadys and Microcost measured usage of computer tools by employees in Europe. It revealed that the failure rate of a Windows system is 8%, and the paperless office is still a long ways off.
What do workers do with their computers? It's this thorny question that a study commissioned by Microcost, in collaboration with Acadys, tries to answer. The investigation is aimed not at watching users, but rather it hopes to focus attention on the materials cost of managing IT assets.
During one month, 1, 285, 500 workstations were scanned at 1 million companies in 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England and Italy).
It was calculated that each user spends, on average, 2:15 per day on their computer. More than a quarter of that time (28%) was dedicated to surfing the Internet and e-mail. The remainder of the time is spent using general office applications (17%), work-related applications (14%) and Windows Explorer (9%). The 17% of time spent using general office applications can be broken down to 15% spent in word processing, and 2% in Excel.
Companies may be interested in modifying their policies on software licensing to avoid paying for an entire office suite if the main tool used is a word processor. According to the study, 10 software applications occupy 67% of users time. This number rises to 89% in the industrial sector, but is limited to 42% in the services sector.
In addition to the statistics on software usage, the AMI software enables us to extract statistics on the reliability on Windows systems from the data collected. The average failure rate requiring a reboot is found to be around 8% per session. The number fluctuates largely around the version of Windows. Windows 2000 achieves a failure rate of 4%, NT4 a rate of 3% and Windows XP approaches 12%.
Furthermore, the study reveals how workers are using printing materials. The paperless office has not yet arrived, since employees print an average of 10 pages per day. This is broken down into 3-4 print jobs, half of which are directed to local printers, and half to network printers. Due to the cost breakdown of consumables, the cost of printing to a network printer approaches pennies per page, but this cost is multiplied by a factor of 5 for local print jobs.
It is not surprising to note that 95% of sites used Windows environments, with Windows 2000 dominating the workplace. At 42% of sites, Windows 2000 replaced NT 4, which is now used by a mere 16%. Windows XP appears to be having trouble finding a market, especially with manufacturing companies, 83% of whom opted for Windows 2000. The average deployment of Windows XP was around 2%, with only the service industry having an above-average usage of Windows XP at 5%.
The story behind all these figures is several recommendations to IT managers for optimizing their equipment management efforts. Among companies studied were successful results using thin clients, open source software and improved software license management resulting in longer life spans for IT assets, both hardware and software.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:1, Informative)
That should be 1 THOUSAND companies, not million.
Posted anonymously to avoid responding to my own stuff.
Sounds like a buncha FUD to me. (Score:3, Informative)
8% sounds kinda high to me. These systems, while they have their faults (mostly related to access of the DVD burner causing Explorer to hang or pause for extended periods), they're pretty damn solid.
In a tightly-controlled environment, even NT 4.0 can be well-behaved.
On the other hand, in "the wild", I have not yet seen a Windows system, even XP, that survives on it's own for longer than a month or two, and after that, the owner better be tech savvy, and not afraid to do OS reinstalls. Worms, Adware, Spyware, bad user habits, and just plain crappy commercial software, are all just a bit more than a typical Windows OS installation can handle.
What brings me to even post this entry is just that in my prior years of experience, Windows was always just a piece of crap. I dealt with it on a daily basis. But in the past two years, when I changed jobs, I found that you CAN engineer a safe sandbox, in which Windows can actually be reliable and useful.
I freely admit that my situation represents probably less than one one-hundredth of one percent of all Windows systems out there. But there it is. My point is, that saying "8% of all Windows Sessions Crash" is stupid. It depends on the environment, and the user, and the situation.
I can't really compare to Linux, because I don't have a whole lot of experience with Linux in "the wild". But I can say that Mac OS X is an order of magnitude more stable and robust, with minimal intervention by a tech-savvy admin.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:2, Informative)
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This is to question all the people with a "boner" for "uptime".
Is it REALLY necessary to care about client machine UPtime? It costs energy to keep a machine running. Maybe it's ok to leave your HOME machine up, if it's a new one with better efficiency then the older monsters of the 90's. But work machines, by the dozens or the hundreds, being left on just wast lots of energy, even if there is available energy on your grid. That energy is generated and fuel is consumed to present it.
That being said, all those windoze boxes with various bots, spyware, and weather bars could be "calling back home", can't they? I just yank my ethernet at home, and at work I leave my windoze box on, but also yank the ethernet. I do the same for my quasi-permitted Linux box. I SHOULD turn them off, but most of the other machines DO get turned off at the end of the day and over the weekend.
I mostly turn my machines off if I won't around for a couple hours, but sometimes, at home, I leave my laptop going if I am watching a movie on the DVD.
David Syes
Re:I'm no *nix master, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Strictly speaking, that's correct, but if you update a widely used library (e.g. glibc) then you'll still need to restart all the applications that use it in order that they use the updated version of the library, otherwise they'll still be using the unlinked-but-not-gone-until-closed version. By the time you've done that, rebooting might well be the quickest thing to do, especially if you have lots of network-reachable services that are vulnerable because they inherit some flaw from the library in question.
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Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:1, Informative)
Why is that? Might as well save the power, and given the rep of hard drives these days, saving heat and wear on the mechanicals probably outweighs any power cycle effects on the silicon.
I don't leave my TV on when I'm not using it. I don't leave my car running when I'm not using it. I don't leave lights on in rooms I'm not in, nor radios. I don't keep the microwave going constantly to save time on warming up the magnetron. I don't wear a cellphone headset constantly to save the time it takes to reach and pick up a handset.
Only someone mired in a 30-year-old mindset that a PC is actually a multi-user timeshared system supporting an entire campus that should be up 24/7 would think it odd to turn off an appliance when it serves no purpose.
Re:Perhaps is the user base of those versions? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually the article says Microcost [microcost.com], not Microsoft.
Re:Did they think... (Score:2, Informative)
VMWARE doesn't replace any of the OS does it? Just provide a simulated hardware enviroment for it?
A comment like this would lead me to believe that the instability without VMWARE is either from bad hardware, or flakey hardware drivers for non-emulated hardware.
Re:Mod parent way up Up UP! (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry. Windows will still need swap. I have 1G and I still need at least 500MB ram. I have applications that can use about 300MB, and then after they run for a while and there is no swap, Windows will complain that it is low on "virtual memory". And there is still 650MB free!! I guess it used the rest for a disk cache and doesn't want to free it for the application. Ridicules.
Zero swap craps out windows no matter how much ram you have. :(
Re:Biased (Score:3, Informative)
Firstly, no changing video settings in KDE doesn't require restarting the X-server. It behaves just like windows in that area (even has the same "accept settings" dialog with the same 15 second timelimit).
Secondly, restarting the X-Server takes about 5 seconds (depending on system load - it can take as much as 15 seconds or as little as two if you're using fluxbox) and is done using cntrl alt backspace. You also don't lose the contents of your session.
Thirdly I have had many cases where I've tried not restarting windows and it crashed on me, most notably installing office XP. I'd rather be safe than sorry with an winXP box.
Forthly, I don't see "You're running too much software" as an excuse for needing to restart. I understand that if you have the same computer doing the same thing without installing any programs you won't need to restart Windows XP or NT.
Finally, no there's no reason why if you made games in linux you'd require reboots. I've installed many games on linux without any need for rebooting. I've altered huge amounts of system files without need for restart.
Please actually use linux before you write posts like that. Ignorance is not an excuse.