Rant against autostart/ISV - request to Microsoft | The Coffeehouse

raptor3676

Hello everybody

In the last week a couple of friends has came to me asking to check ther laptops/notebooks for a number of reasons. Some them thought they had viruses in ther systems. The common history for all the cases were the ridiculously large number of process started by default at power. With the absolute worst case the one I saw today (and of course the trigger of this post) with 36 entries in the RUN registry key!!!! Holy Sh*t!!!!!!!!! The laptop lasted 8 full minutes before being usable. It was a brand new Dell laptop running Vista! Please spare the rant against Vista: my laptop is a Dell too, it's a year and a half older and starts and becomes usable well under the minute. Last time it was a netbook running XP. that poor thing needed like 4 minutes to become usable, after that it also could be used as a oven!

Someone needs to start a page where we users can black list the worst useless applications that take our valuable resources without permission! For instance:

-Adobe Acrobat Startup?? oh come on Adobe! if you want you acrobat user to startup fast make LIGHT not fake it is faster by loading uselessly pages at start up, that then just sit there like if I read PDFs 24x7. Thanks FoxIt reader for being there.
-Dell so called administratsion tools. They have 3 different application to control the laptop!!! Give me a break!!! why the applications can't be shortcuts in the start menu? why the updater needs to be running there in the UI?
-Apple/Google Updaters: Don't these guys in its infinite knowledge know about something called: Scheduled Tasks??? Dumb4sses!!!
-Java Update: the same as above.
-Mouse providers... can't recall the exact name of the maker. But is the one that places an icon in the system tray showing where I put the finger in the mouse pad!!!!! For crying out loud? do I really need see where I'm placing my finger if I where blind I don't be even using a mouse!!! That why only I install the defualt windows drivers.
-Antiviruses: McAffee, Norton. Oh those really grinds my gear! do they really need 2 or 3 services running. Also don't they ever heard of scheduled tasks? I just found an installation of Panda that triggered a full system scan at log in!!! no wonder why that laptop needed 8 minutes!
-Nvidia/ATI/Intel: Do you neeed up to 3 programs and a service besides the video card driver to control your hardware? windows have enough shortcuts in its UI and I don't need that many places to control it, let alone a program just to hear for keystrokes!!!
-Microsoft: sorry guys you too... Office Groove, do I need to "collaborate" always if I want to collaborate I surely start the program. The same goes to Messenger. I know where to find it.. there's no need to lunch it at log in. If you want to start fast... well make it lighter!

Jesus! this post already too long but sure you get the idea.

So please MS. Do something to warn users about such software. Some how force ISV to use new stuff (remember triggered services?)
I think is too late for the request but please MS remeber one of the Win7 mantras: "Return the power to the user", you already don't allow to place shortcuts in the super bar. Please offer a way to easily spot problematic programs during startup to easily remove it.

Charles: I know you looking at this. Do some one at MS though of a way to stop/prevent this? MS is loosing people for this situation they don't even know the bunch of crap they I running in ther machines they just say Windows is slow.

enough rant,
Raptor

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

Quick Start applications and services are pretty annoying for the most part. They're a very selfish concept and ultimately hurt the computer user at the benefit of the individual software vendor. But then again Microsoft does the same thing; they just hide it much better than the competition.

Auto-Updaters are hugely important. Particularly with Adobe Reader, Flash Player, and Java all being potentially exploitable right now. My main issue with those is that they are implemented assuming the machine is restarted every morning which isn't how a lot of computer users work these days (e.g. Hibernate, Sleep, 24/7 Power-On).

magicalclick

For Messenger, you can turn off autostart. Good thing, my startup is cleaner. Bad thing, I usually forgot to turn it on LOL. And worse, I set it to Appears As Offline, hahah. The Win7 big messenger status does help though.

This is why I hate those pre-installed computers, tons of crapwares. My computer is clean and backup at cleanest state. And my number one rule, never install anti-virus, the worst resource hungry junk ever. You know the funny thing is when you get virus, you get one, not even anti-virus can save you, especially when suscription is expired. And usually user will get careless when they think they are protected.

giovanni
...

Raptor,

I feel your pain: the other week we installed SolidWorks in our office (we are moving to 3D!) and the thing runs an updater at every log on (no way in the UI to turn it off) that requires admin privileges! Good design for €6000!

You know what the reply was from customer support? "Turn off UAC." Thank you, UAC is telling me that you are writing poor software, please stop blaming others for your poor design.

ZippyV
Fired Up

I installed a new Dell pc a couple of weeks ago. As it was a business computer there wasn't so much crapware on it except for Windows Live and a couple of trial applications. The good thing was that the recovery cd (which was actually just a normal Dell branded Windows cd) didn't contain the crapware and created a clean install.

section31
OutOfCoffeeException

In reply to ZippyV

#Mar 5th @ 2:30 AM

I agree, the most autostart stuff is crap.
But there also some apps that I need during the day but not immediatly after login. So it would be nice to have lazy loading autostart. Like start when the sytem is idle or create a mockup of the app and start the actual app when it's requested by the user.
For example I have dictionary app sitting in the background and waiting for the Control+~ key event in order to translate the string from clipboard. But I don't need this program right after login and maybe not the whole day. So for me would be fine if the mockup process would start my dictionary on first use.

magicalclick

In reply to giovanni

#Mar 5th @ 2:29 AM

LOL WTH, why would anyone needs admin power to check version updates? LOL I don't even know how to do that intentionally.

raptor3676

In reply to giovanni

#Mar 5th @ 2:29 AM

Absolutely,

And the stuff about Admin Rigths for stupid tasks... I just another sample of the outregeous incompetence of some ISV! Last year I hear a someone complaining about it's company application not being able to run in Vista... You know why? Those 4ssh0les install the program under Windows/System32 and the installer don't ever offer an alternate location (.ini files are located in that folder too). They sure must have the IQ of an amoeba.!!

So I feel your pain too Big Smile

raptor3676

In reply to section31

#Mar 5th @ 11:18 AM

Sure,

Eventually user mayfind a application they need in background and if it is required is a good thing the OS supports that. The thing rarely something is really needed at start up.

So I'd be happy if Windows somehow treat autostart locations as "more priviledged" and by defualt nothing gets there. Yes yes I know "incompatibility"! but if ISV can't handle that... send ther developers back to school and throw their software away.

Apple/Adobe/Dell/Sony/McAffee/Norton are all big names someone would think they will provide good products not at the expese of our resources.

HP/Epson/Lexmark/Cannon... have you installed the software for printing in one those? System services, Systray applets, non sense UI, damn you all! what I want to print!!! it is not rocket science! the spaceshuttle requires less software to make it to orbit!

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to raptor3676

#Mar 5th @ 12:15 PM

Well I got a notification yesterday of a new update to the Dell Support Centre (via email, because the Dell support centre doesn't check for driver updates. I have no idea what it does.) The fun part was the description ....

kettch

Windows can sometimes tell you when there is a new version of apps that cause a crash, but it would be nice if this were a more complete feature built into the update application.

It would be cool to have an app be able to provide the updater with a web service, RSS feed, etc. It would make this whole process a lot easier.

figuerres
???

In reply to giovanni

#Mar 5th @ 2:29 AM

6k and they tell you to turn off uac? that's where I would tell them the app does not meet company standards and return it.

I know that may be hard to do with some special apps but that's one way to get them to take notice....

do you have a support contract with them? use it to log the problem as a product defect and tell them it's a priority.

giovanni
...

In reply to figuerres

#Mar 6th @ 7:53 AM

Yep, it is hard: there are only a handful of powerful 3D cad applications that are affordable (that is below 10k). We use SolidWorks because our suppliers work with it already and because it is the de-facto standard for this type of industry... Unfortunately most small businesses are run with no security in mind, so UAC is unknown to most users. I will raise my voice, but I doubt this will be addressed any time soon…

androidi

In reply to giovanni

#Mar 5th @ 2:29 AM

One solution is to have their installer install the updater into task scheduler with "run as admin" flag set. Potentially easy to do yourself too, I have to use this with RivaTuner to adjust the cooling fan levels, I can live with couple degreees of extra temp to get rid of excess noise.

raptor3676

In reply to androidi

#Mar 7th @ 3:12 PM

What I do in such cases is to install those legacy/poorly written applications is to install'em in non protected folders, for instance c:\old_programs. that way I don't have to disable UAC and, at least in x86, I get folder virtualization.