Today I have successfully used the Windows recovery console from the Windows XP install CD for the first time in my life. Until now I thought it was just a cruel joke on all sysadmins by evil Microsoft programmers. The list of available commands hardly fills a single screen so there isn't much one can do which can be very frustrating for a long term Linux user.
I was installing some drivers and got a BSOD during the process. After a restart the system was unbootable, not even in safe mode, complaining about a corrupted driver file in system32/drivers. Naturally I tried the "last working" configuration from the boot menu. Unfortunately that didn't help either.
So using the recovery console I was able to copy the correct file from lastgood/system32/drivers to the system32/drivers which fixed the system. In other words the "last working" configuration contained the right files. Unfortunately this obviously isn't enough and some more secret magic is required.
So if the "last working" configuration feature was working I wouldn't have to use the crappy console in the first place. It scares me that most people on this planet use a system that
1) can break during installation of hardware drivers and result in an unbootable state
2) has totally useless restore capabilities
3) and an even more useless recovery console!
And the fact that I got paid for repairing the computer didn't make me much happier (just a little bit).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment