Clarification on windows experience: I work in an office full of windows experts, so while I'd say I can more than hold my own, I also don't fit into either of the more experienced categories.
I've gone into the registry once or twice to remove branding from the title bar in Internet Explorer, but only while reading instructions. On a professional level, when customers used to ask about removing the branding from their copies of IE when I worked for Bigpond, we initially told them it was unsupported, but when that raised issues of monopoly we referred them to our back office who would email the instructions on how to do to the customer.
When I used to work in 2nd level software support I was rootling around tweaking things in the registry all bloody day. But not any more, not for two years now. I don't even care what came after win2k, as I don't have to think about it.
I am the office Windows expert mostly due to the relative ignorance of my colleagues. They're generally better with applications than me, but when it comes to recovering lost folders, mapping drives and editing what file type opens with what application, I am the guru...!
I'd like to add that I'll probably be putting out a plea for help regarding editing registry entries as I'VE got a conflict issue RE: Easy CD Creator 4 vs Windows XP.
The only way to resolve it is tweak the registry but the whole thing freaks me out.
regularly tweak / play / add / delete registry keys manually or via code as required, since forever. Beta tester of Win95 and 2k - found some faults too! - so reasonable aware of the internal concepts (have even visited Redmond, nut then lots of people have ;-)
Clarification: it depends what you mean by 'windows experience' - are you referring to (a) writing kernel level WDM P&P drivers, (b)administrating an extensive windows network or (c) changing a subheading style in Word?
(a) I'm your man (b) I can hold my own (c) I break out in a cold sweat and run screaming. There are some things that man* was not meant to know.
* 'man' as in 'mankind', in the absence of some more gender neutral term springing to mind
Actually I have made a couple changes but only when following step-by-step instructions, so doesn't really count.
In my troubleshooting guide to life, I tend to do: 1. Restart 2. Check everything's on, attached, and Windows admits that 3. Download new drivers and patches and stuff 4. Find David
I haven't played with a registry entry at all since moving in with conflux...
To clarify my answers: I've edited a Windows registry entry, but only under guidance from someone else who knew far more about it than I did; and I'm only cnsidered the office Windows expert in comparison to a bunch of middle-aged guys who are strictly two-finger-typists without a clue between them - therefore not much of an expert at all!
I would say the number of people who can only "hold their own in Windows" is disproportionately high as compared to the people who've edited the registry.
Isn't registry-editing not supposed to be something you need to do by hand under any but the most extreme circumstances?
If so, why are all these perfectly normal users finding the need to do so?
(Those are rhetorical questions. Feel free to answer with rhetoric.)
To clarify my answers, it could best be said that I am an ex-Windows guru; I haven't used any Microsoft products in about five years, so I know nothing of 2K or XP. The greatest amount of Windows knowledge I had was for 3.x, as when my dad got a laptop for business use it came with MS-DOS, and as he had no interest in using it and gave it to me (my parents are Apple people and my mother gets discounted Apple stuff for being an educator, so my dad was fine with the IIGS), I installed 3.0 as soon as it came out. I had to support 3.x and 95 when I was still doing tech support, and I had 98 on my own machine before I blew it away and installed FreeBSD. I've probably forgotten most of what I knew, but if I sat down with the ones I have used it would probably only take a few hours to get re-acclimated and if I sat down at the new ones it might take a day or two.
OTOH, in comparison with Aidan, I'm still a Windows guru. ;>
My windows skills are not strong. I was considered the Linux guru in my research group (High Performance Computing) - I'm not sure I agree with that assesment of my abilities. I've been avoiding learning anything about windows (but I hear XP is a real OS). I occassionaly muddle through a bit of debugging on windows for my friends.
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"Yes, but I'm woefully out of practice at Windows admin and haven't done anything like that for a while."
Actually I'm a horribly lazy home admin, but that's largely beside the point.
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C.
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I am the office Windows expert mostly due to the relative ignorance of my colleagues. They're generally better with applications than me, but when it comes to recovering lost folders, mapping drives and editing what file type opens with what application, I am the guru...!
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The only way to resolve it is tweak the registry but the whole thing freaks me out.
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Can make windows do many things, but would rather administer an AS/400 or, in fact, telephone switches than Windows.
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(a) I'm your man
(b) I can hold my own
(c) I break out in a cold sweat and run screaming. There are some things that man* was not meant to know.
* 'man' as in 'mankind', in the absence of some more gender neutral term springing to mind
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In my troubleshooting guide to life, I tend to do:
1. Restart
2. Check everything's on, attached, and Windows admits that
3. Download new drivers and patches and stuff
4. Find David
I haven't played with a registry entry at all since moving in with
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Isn't registry-editing not supposed to be something you need to do by hand under any but the most extreme circumstances?
If so, why are all these perfectly normal users finding the need to do so?
(Those are rhetorical questions. Feel free to answer with rhetoric.)
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OTOH, in comparison with Aidan, I'm still a Windows guru. ;>
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My windows skills are not strong. I was considered the Linux guru in my research group (High Performance Computing) - I'm not sure I agree with that assesment of my abilities.
I've been avoiding learning anything about windows (but I hear XP is a real OS). I occassionaly muddle through a bit of debugging on windows for my friends.