Okay, I've had it. No more Windows administration. I've been saying that for quite some time and in fact I haven't taken on any new clients that use it exclusively for several years now (except for clients who paid me to migrate away from it., of course...) But of course, I didn't want to leave existing clients who used heterogeneous networks out in the cold, either. So every once and a while I would be setting up an XP station or troubleshooting some Wintel box.

While that was unpleasant enough, it was just part of the job. But during the last three days I and a client of mine had the unfortunate experience of going through Windows hell together. The story is longer, more gruesome and above all even more boring than my FreeBSD incident the other day, so I won't get into any details.

Frankly, any version of Windows gives me the creeps in one way or the other. And eventhough I usually get the desired results in the end, it a) takes much too long (that might of course also have to do with the fact, that my expertise with Windows is limited and stems largely from the times when I still administered NT Server boxens) and b) the time spent solving the problem is exceedingly unpleasant and c) little or nothing is learned by it.

Comparing this to troubleshooting Mac or *NIX problems I find that I always have two results: for one thing the problem is solved and secondly I've learned something about the underlying system. For example, my FreeBSD stunt with Erdgeist taught me heaps about the build process in general and I have a deeper understanding about the whole setupand file structure of UNIX in gerneral.

After todays session though, all I really learned is that this particular machine cannot run Windows 2000 (two separate install media bluescreened on us, cost us two hours), that Windows 98 SE will wipe out the entire freaking DRIVE rather than the partition you chose for installation if you innocently let it "erase files from previous operating system" and how to order proprietary recovery software for EUR 180,- that will create 2Gb "recovered" Excel files and uses an IE-only eCommerce system.

I guess I'll start looking for a Windows admin to team up with. Let him (or her!) deal with it... Anybody interested? Let me know!