cheryl -
you are reinforcing my point - MSFT's own applications are as likely as anyone else's to create problems. But if you think this user is describing an OS hang, you are probably wrong.
I would be willing to bet that I can debug that one without further data. The user probably installed Office - 98, 99, or 2000, doesn't matter - then selected IE as his browser, then selected Word as his e-mail editor. Those are the defaults, that's what most people do.
Unfortunately for Office users, this choice means that anything in the chain which hangs up - for instance a flaky remote access or internet link - will also keep word from executing... a "feature" of the integrated office suite.
A sufficiently savvy user could bring up the task manager, determine the hang-up (which is most likely the dial-up link failing to release pending I/O from the browser after a link failure) and kill anything in the chain - that would release the rest of the programs. A less sophisticated user could just kill word, or even just log off and log back on. None of that would take down the OS... and none of it is an OS problem.
I do that all the time in Unix - despite my near-perfection as a programmer, I sometimes write code that hangs up. Go to another session, find the process which is hung, and kill it...
And your comment about MVS and VMS is quite true, although I think you were being sarcastic -
I see it ALL OVER THE PLACE with ALL THOSE MACHINES FROM DEC that everyone seems to use these days. Gee, it's almost as popular as MVS.
There are in fact a large number of machines running VMS in financial, manufacturing, and insurance accounts, and those same accounts almost certainly are running MVS on a mainframe somewhere... and those are in applications which Solaris is not reliable enough to run. Don't take my word for it, talk to some SUNW account managers who work the financial or insurance industry. Your ignorance is showing... |
