[mso] Re: Definitely back on topic - Outlook problems (again!)
- From: "Greg Chapman" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 09:02:57 -0600
I'll put my $.02 behind that. Wiping a drive is a lost opportunity for
learning. Of course, when your job is doc preparation and not PC repair,
well, it makes sense to just get it over with. But don't folks just wind
up with a lingering worry about not knowing what caused the problem so
they don't have to experience it again?
There are others amongst us who'd I'd never, ever make the recommendation
to wipe the drive yet they seem to be the ones most ready to do so. These
are the programmers who do things like continually breaking binary
compatibility and experience ever worse PC performance. Rather than learn
what *they* are doing to their PC's and their customers' systems with
their poor practices, they'll wipe a disk and start over in a heartbeat.
Yet, if they've given up hope on the system already, why not throw away
the fear of things like the registry and take the opportunity to at least
monkey around in the registry without fear? Why not learn to track your
own projects through successive updates of a component GUID? Why not learn
how to read the VBP files to see the inheritance chain at work? Why not
learn how multiple versions of Word can be controlled through adjusting
the localserver32 path in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{000209FE-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} (the GUID
for any Word.Basic call) and when those multiple versions might produce
unpredictable results due to the shared or common components? It's this
knowledge that people *haven't* given themselves to understand the
vagaries of DLL hell, for instance, how it works and, resultantly, how to
avoid problems.
The registry is actually a pretty safe place to work when Office is giving
you fits since very little of what you must do for Office has anything to
do with the software that drives the hardware. At worst, you'll cob up
your Office installation a little further. And, the part that heals is the
part that the setup routine modifies anyway.
2 of my desktop systems at work are on their 3rd year of operating, my
laptop is ending its second year and my home desktop is entering its
second year of operation since experiencing a corrupted boot sector. It's
using the same data set that was on it before doing a rebuild of the OS
install (yes, it was a real restore followed by installing the OS over the
existing files so the registry is almost 4 years old on this machine). I
agree with you, rebuilds are very rarely actually needed and every time
you do one you are admitting to yourself that you're willing to miss the
education. That's not an insult and it's not unacceptable...but it's a
fact! The advice to rebuild is for convenience's sake and not really
because it's necessary.
Greg Chapman
http://www.mousetrax.com
"Counting in binary is as easy as 01, 10, 11!
With thinking this clear, is coding really a good idea?"
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dian Chapman
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 8:36 AM
> To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [mso] Re: Definitely back on topic - Outlook
> problems (again!)
>
>
> I must add that I'm really amazed with folks who are
> constantly wiping their
> HDs to clean it out cos' they have so many conflicts.
>
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