Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Today I remembered why I don't like Windows

Over the last five years or so I've really grown to love Linux as my day to day operating system of choice. I switched to Ubuntu back at the 9.04 release and haven't really looked back. As the other computers in the house started to experience issues, I replaced the bloated, slow, virus infested Windows installs with linux. I've come to like the Linux Mint variety and use my desktop of choice, Mate. After playing the the bleeding edge versions I now stick with the long term support (LTS) releases.

I even replaced Windows on my wife's laptop some years back, initially just on a live USB stick, to see if she liked it and it did everything for her. Since it did, it brought life back to an old, slow laptop. She's since gotten a Acer C720 Chromebook, which is awesome for her needs (internet consumption) and paying bills and writing up a resume.

There's only one computer left in the house running Windows, the home theater PC in my theater room. It remains on Windows mostly out of laziness and because I tend to believe if it's working, not to fix it. It has been running Windows 7 for about five years and has been running well and without major issues. It runs my Plex desktop app which is really all I use, plus the occasional look at a trailer or video on Youtube.

I was this latter use that led me to discover that my antivirus protected Windows computer, protected by a well respected antivirus brand I might add, was infected with some form of virus. The virus made it terribly difficult to use the internet, as it opened extra browser windows, redirected links, and conducted all sorts of other hyjinks with my system.

So I checked that my antivirus was operating, it was, and the definitions were up to date, supposedly there were no updates, but the date was more than a year old. I came to find out that my antivirus now required a subscription to get new definitions. This is ridiculous to me, to pay through perpetuity for basic security. Aside from being connected to the internet, this computer is really used for nothing by watching movies. If Windows hadn't been so full of holes, I don't see how it could have become infected. 

Anywho, I loaded the free AVG antivirus which discovered the viruses, removed the offending files, and after a couple of reboots, I was virus free. I then went into the installed programs to find that whatever virus I'd become infected with had installed about four programs that I didn't want, need, or even know what they do. So I got rid of those in short order. 

What this taught me was that I need to keep a better watch on this system, I hardly ever do any maintenance on it, so I'm partially to blame here. But it also reminded me how I haven't had to deal with any of these virus related issues on any of my Linux-based systems. I also, while sitting watching a progress bar cross very slowly on the only source of entertainment in the room, remembered how great and easy the remote administration options are in Linux. I set up all my systems to allow secure shell (SSH) access, so I can access them all remotely from my main desktop. I update them all multiple times a week and use this access to do all my troubleshooting from the comfort of my office chair. 

In spite of how little I like dealing with typical Windows issues, today's problem was relatively easy to fix, and I was up and running again in about an hour, virus free. I was really tempted to just blow the Windows installation off the drive and fully convert to Linux. However, I didn't, partly out of my aforementioned laziness, but mostly because I think I like still having one bare metal Windows (i.e. not a virtual machine) computer in the house. If for no other reason than to keep my Windows troubleshooting and repair skills in shape. Because there's no end to the complaints and issues people bring up with their Windows computers. :-) 

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