[ale] Belay that, OT, jre7u71 winXP won't install/update

[Ken Cochran]

Problem now with car sw is the now-unsupported deployment
platform, with resulting losses.  The car support industry
would be well-served by moving to (auditable) F/OSS/*ix
platforms.  I wonder sometimes if (at the macroeconomic level)
the plaintiff bar will sooner or later require that.  From my
(admittedly seat of the pants) experience in the last coupla
decades or so, the overwhelming majority of car problems I
see stem from the electronics, rather than the mechanicals.
And it's usually a "mechanical" problem with the electronics
(i.e., connectors, solder joints, circuit components).

Thanks, now that the trusty old beloved t41 is gone {sniff},
am looking for reliability and easy service *and recovery* 1st.
Recurring problems I have with M$ in general and vista & later
(customer machines) more specifically, other than it being
Just Crummy Anyway are:

- Computers don't come with recovery media.  Ok, cost reduction,
  but recovery partition is inadequate - what if I have
  to replace/upgrade a HDD?  And I haven't yet found a
  download option for, say, making a boot/install thumbdrive.
  Methinks this is most likely a M$ licensing issue.

- OS is fragile, updates have a way of failing, corrupting
  the update "database," blocking further updates & requiring
  a reinstall to fix.  Which of course, erases all the
  *customer's* files & installed applications.  And that
  doesn't always fix it.

- Reinstalling the OS wipes out the entire HDD.  In the case
  of that old t41, OS recovery would erase the entire C:
  drive but that machine was partitioned into others & recovery
  didn't touch those.  Other makes I've encountered (servicing,
  Dell & HP mostly) erase/reinstall things back to factory,
  including the adware.

{sigh}  -kc

> Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 08:29:20 -0400
> From: David Millians <millia at panix.com>
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: Re: [ale] Belay that, OT, jre7u71 winXP won't install/update
>
> On 10/17/2014 2:35 AM, Ken Cochran wrote:
> > Well, I don't realy think XP {shrug}, but CE is a possibility.
> > OTOH, with the exception of a pretty simple OBD scanner for
> > OSX, I've never seen a computer-based car scanner, that was
> > not deployed on (what appears to be *stock*) XP.
>
> Car stuff is like educational software: they wrote it once, for a
> particular box. Why would they need to update it?
>
> > I remember
> > reading here that Sony and Toshiba are to be avoided due to
> > driver support flakiness.  (Always heard Toshiba was 'bout
> > the last remaining "good" one.)
>
> Interesting. I rank things like this, based on personal experience:
> Dell
> Toshiba
> Asus
> Acer (really, one of you change your name.)
> Compaq/HP
>
> I put it as compaq/hp because I had experience with some Compaq Craptops
> that have made me permanently reluctant to use them. Current work
> portable is an HP, and it reminds me that even though the hardware may
> be good, it's assembled in a way that makes it much harder to repair.
>
> Dell is like an old mid-60s Mustang with a mini-V8: easy to repair and
> lots of parts available. Not as fancy as others, but I don't like fancy.
> Toshiba is like a cheaper mid-60s car. I had no bad experiences.
> Asus are a little better than Acer. The acers are fine for the price.
>
> I've no long term experience with Thinkpad in the past decade, but I
> can't argue with the dozens of positive reviews I have read. They're
> usually just that bit too expensive for schools, alas.
>
> Sony. Pffft.
>
> Really, pfffft. Go away, Sony,
> David