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Mac users will understand what I am about to say. Windows users won't have a clue.
   technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Goodbye, old paint! Windows heads off to pasture, and won't be missed


Oct. 29, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   When a power glitch disabled the two main computers I use for writing, research, audio and video editing and mail, I was in big trouble. I took the newest computer, a Macintosh G4, to Applied Technical Systems, where I'd purchased it, and asked the technical staff to fix the problem in whatever way they could.
   As I mentioned last week, ATS did a superb job. They retrieved all my files from the disk, repaired it and put me back in action. (The cost was minimal, too. I paid $64.)
   As a veteran PC hacker, I decided to fix my Windows 2000 PC on my own. The main problem -- the fact that the hard disk wouldn't let Windows boot up -- proved impossible to solve using Windows itself. In other words, I was unable to get the operating system to boot up, and so I obviously couldn't get it to fix things.
   Each time I booted from the original Windows 2000 CD, the Windows installer tried to access a file of some kind on the hard drive. It couldn't do that because the drive's file tables had been messed up. So I was stuck in a loop. I couldn't boot up into Windows normally and couldn't boot up using the emergency method devised by Microsoft.
   On a hunch, I got out the installation CD for the commercial version of the Be operating system, which I knew would install on just about any PC. The BeOS installer saw both of the drives on my wounded PC -- the main drive, which had the bad file structure, and the second drive, which I had been using for temporary video files -- and immediately asked which of the drives it should use for an installation,
   I chose the second drive and installed BeOS. The Be operating system found all the files on the half-dead main drive and recovered them intact. I copied them across our home network to my secondary Windows PC, used only for emergencies.
   For the rest of that evening I forgot my troubles as I switched that PC's e-mail, writing, music listening and Web browsing to BeOS. I installed the latest Mozilla browser for BeOS, grabbed some BeOS freeware for MP3 playing and encoding, installed GoBe Productive, a Microsoft Office-like suite, and left Windows behind.
   I also left something else behind. Mac users will understand what I am about to say. Windows users won't have a clue. Listen up.
   Like Mac OS X and Linux, BeOS is immune to Windows viruses and Windows security holes. When I say "immune," I mean it is totally unaffected. It doesn't need antivirus software; there are no BeOS viruses. The computer worms that steal e-mail addresses from Windows computers (by the tens of thousands each day) can't get out of their holes in BeOS.
   So how is that different from Mac OS X? We expect Apple's Macintoshes to resist Windows viruses. All too often, we assume that "PC" means "Windows PC." In the case of a BeOS PC, of course, such an assumption would be wrong. The same assumption would be wrong in the case of a Linux PC, too.
   Can you enjoy a PC and avoid Windows entirely? Of course. I reformatted my big PC's main drive, put my Windows 2000 installation CD back into the box and went online with the BeOS Mozilla to look for audio and video files. (BeOS is better at audio and video than any current OS.) I left the main drive empty for future requirements.
   I transferred all my primary work to my OS X Mac. The BeOS PC is for the fun stuff I like to do on my off hours. This winter I'll add Linux to that computer and make it a dual-boot PC.
   Do I miss Windows? Ask me instead if I miss viruses, crashes and the brats in Bratislava who ping my computers looking for a Windows security hole. Ask me if I miss watching my computer phone home to Microsoft asking permission to reinstall something.
   Big Brother, be gone. I feel like a free man at last.