How to spot a Windows fanboy 16 February, 2007 — Stuart Brown

Clinging desperately to sinking ships

Posted in Quick Posts
Tagged with: im, windows, vista, fanboy

I was chatting to a friend (and long-time Windows supporter) on MSN earlier today - he was looking for a utility to extract .RAR archives on Windows. I thought there was an obvious (and easily obtainable) option - but, apparently not so much.

Identities have been changed to protect the stubborn.

• Bill: Hey, have you got a RAR decompressor?
• Me: Not installed. Why not just install the trial edition of WinRAR?
• Me: http://www.rarlab.com
• Bill: I can't stand WinRAR - every time I've installed it it's f***d my computer, and I've had to reinstall Windows.
• Me: Works fine for me. Maybe you had a bad experience?
• Bill: I wish everybody just used .ZIPs or .CABs - they're supported natively by the OS
• Bill: Is there anything else that can decompress .RARs?
• Me: Not sure. Maybe some freelance apps
• Me: Perhaps you should try this: http://www.ubuntu.com
• Bill: Ok...
• [pause]
• Bill: Hey! That's an OS!
• Me: Yeah. Supports RAR natively and everything.
• Bill: I'm not using Linux. Every time I've used it it crashes on me and needs reinstalling again.
• Bill: Gives me a 'Cyclic' error or something and nothing but a black screen until I resintall
• Me: Sounds like a hardware problem - HDD on its way out perhaps?
• Bill: Dunno. I'm not installing Linux though - I prefer Windows
• Me: Even though you have to reinstall every time you install WinRAR?

I never did get a satisfactory answer to that question...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing Windows - I'm pro-Vista and a Windows user myself (amongst a plethora of other operating systems) - but sometimes it pays to be OS-agnostic. If my install of Windows played up as much as my acquaintances' apparently does, I'd switch to Ubuntu in a flash.