The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

timiteh — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:31:12 GMT

I knew that the fact that Microsoft rushed the Xbox 360 would hurt them soon or late.

They should have pushed back the Xbox 360 release back until they are able to pack in HD DVD as well as having the hardware reliable and quite enough.

Now it is too late.The damages are done and they will end the last of this generations of consoles.

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Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:29:55 GMT

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re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

DRWAM — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:11:23 GMT

Thanks Waethorn. OneCare it will be. I can also right it off on my taxes as I need it for work. That's about a 50% discount for me.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

Waethorn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:51:53 GMT

"That's 81 MIL USD too"

I guess at the time, that was a lot.

No longer though. The Canadian dollar is on par, sometimes fluctuating higher or lower from day to day.

"OneCare finished fixing the job! $49/yr for 3 computers is a good deal as the free McAfee from Comcast didn't work. But you warned me before."

You get what you pay for. I haven't seen OneCare being offered by ISP's for free yet. Norton 360 is the best competitor to OneCare from a feature standpoint, but it sells for much more money.

Although Paul is smart about what he does online, and recommends free antivirus software like AVG, I can't recommend it - I see too many virus-infected machines come in for service that also have AVG installed and up-to-date. AVG's rating on antivirus review sites has slipped below OneCare too. OneCare gives you more features, but doesn't suffer from bloat-worthy performance that Norton and McAfee suites do.

It's also easy to buy - 1 product that does everything, and it's ALWAYS an online subscription regardless of how you buy it, meaning you ALWAYS get full program upgrades, unlike Norton or McAfee.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

DRWAM — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:47:02 GMT

That's 81 MIL USD too. I am afraid that Siemens may want more, as they are usually more expensive. What hurts is we are led to believe that Siemens product is more compatible with some of the GE system components, than GE! We'll see if they keep this affordable, otherwise, the 'digital hospital of the future' just may take a lot longer to create than expected...that is until it's affordable.

PS. OneCare finished fixing the job! $49/yr for 3 computers is a good deal as the free McAfee from Comcast didn't work. But you warned me before.

Thanks,

Doc

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

Waethorn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:51:44 GMT

"81 million bucks" ??!? WTF?

I do know that Lakeridge Health here never spent that much on a software package.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

DRWAM — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:43:36 GMT

Tried spinrite, but they're dead. I had backups anyway. Onecare took care of the rest of that pesky Virtumonde.

Our Hospital system has 3 hospitals and some outpatient stuff. My hospital has 433 beds. We were going all digital with GE until recently when GE could not integrate everything to our satisfaction and wanted 81 million bucks. We are waiting on a quote from Siemens, but they tend to be pricey too. This is a big blackeye to GE. We were to be a show site for them.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

bw106 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:32:26 GMT

Yeah this whole RROD thing with the XBOX360 really left a bad taste in my mouth regarding Microsoft and it's gaming platform.

I've been an gamer all my life from the days of NES to now. I stood in line at my local Sams Club to get the 360 when it was first released. Looking back it was a thing I regret. I've since had three different 360s get the RROD. MS said they fixed the issues, but they didn't. Luckily Sams Club has a solid return policy (something like 2 years after purchase) with no additional fees. I was able to exchange my systems everytime for brand-new systems - it didn't matter they all broke.

After the third one broke I simply returned it and traded-in all of my 360 games as well as the HD-DVD drive w/movies. I now use the Wii and PS3 - no issues with either one of those!

I never thought I would buy a PS3, but after this MS ordeal, Sony has gained a customer for life.

Those of you who want a laugh regarding the XBOX360's lack of utilizing media such as BluRay, check this video from Sony's new Metal Gear Solid game ...

www.ps3fanboy.com/.../spoiler-metal-gear-solid-4-insert-disc-2

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

Waethorn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:30:22 GMT

"The hospital system still has a problem updating their servers as two head IT people quit"

If they're a good size, they should be looking at large-scale management application products such as System Center. It's easy to manage thousands of systems from a single management console app.

As for your drives, if you need data off them, try SpinRite.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

DRWAM — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:18:26 GMT

I found a few free utilities and it left two remnants. Now I just installed OneCare. Thanks for the info. It's funny how Ad-aware claims to fix this, but didn't even detect it. Also, this is purely my own fault. I could have done the same with a Mac if I downloaded, then installed one of those few malware programs, which is how this happened. Those drives were dead and I knew it was going to be futile to try to resurrect them. Well, at least the fix was pretty darn easy. I still may upgrade IE or my OS. The hospital system still has a problem updating their servers as two head IT people quit, so I need to wait a little more.

Thanks,

Doc

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

Waethorn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:02:04 GMT

@Doc:

Plasmas don't have to be always bad. Pioneer is, well, the pioneer of plasma technology. They have a lot of R&D (read: money) invested in plasma technology. So does Panasonic with their Viera line, which are gorgeous! Most companies don't know how to do plasmas right, so they've switched to making LCD's that are easier to manufacture, but not always as good, hence the difference in price. Getting a good LCD can cost as much as a good plasma. Don't let your bad experience with PDP's make you think the technology is flawed. I've heard of similarly bad experiences with LCD's (and projection TV's too, mind you).

"At the end of the day each of these companies if held accountable for the quality of their finished product."

So did you similarly blame Apple when they released virus-infected iPods?

"[Microsoft] sells most of its OS licenses to OEMs who assume most of the responsibility for the OS."

That's correct. Support is handed off from Microsoft to the OEM. The end-user can't go to Microsoft for direct support unless they a) add Software Assurance to the OEM product, or b) pay for pay-per-use support incidents or a support contract. Microsoft has several guidelines for licensing by the OEM, but as far as bundling extra bungware that cripples many machines on the market, OEM's have required those options for branding and "value-add" reasons. Microsoft essentially washes their hands of end-user problems caused by the OEM, and so they should. OEM 3rd-party software and poorly-written device drivers are the 2 most common causes of Windows problems over the years. When you remove those 2 factors from the equation, Windows is a very stable and reliable OS. Vista will even run fine as an "internet-box" or cloud-computing machine on 1GB of RAM, so long as it isn't a name-brand system with all of the crap.

"Anyone have a magic bullet, aside from upgrading to IE 7 or reinstall XP?"

Have you ever thought about sandboxing that legacy internet application using virtualization technologies so that you can use the latest updates for Windows? Windows Application Virtualization (aka SoftGrid) would seem to be the best fit.

You could always use Virtual PC too, but you'd need to pay for licensing a second copy of Windows to run inside that VM.

However, if you have Software Assurance for a Windows client license, you can utilize Windows Vista Enterprise, which includes support for 4 simultaneous virtual machines running on the same hardware. You don't have to run Windows Vista inside the VM's though - you can use Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000 with legacy support because Software Assurance includes Downgrade Rights. You also don't have to pay for those VM licenses because they are included with SA. Virtual PC is always free. I'm not sure if you're required to run Windows Vista Enterprise as the host OS, but I do know that you can use any combination of legacy Windows client versions in those VM's, up to 4 virtual licenses. Your host OS firewall with the latest security updates (Vista Enterprise in my scenario) will filter malware like that virus before it gets to the VM's as long as you use the "Shared Networking" feature in Virtual PC. You should still protect your VM's with some kind of "light" antivirus though. AVG or Avast should be enough for those.

Aside from that recommendation, try this:

http://safety.live.com

This is the Microsoft malware article on that problem:

www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

BTW: Windows Live OneCare detects and removes that malware too.

Also, the latest Windows XP security updates are designed to close the security flaw that Virtumonde uses (not just IE7). An up-to-date firewall also prevents it too. It would seem that your security suite is not configured properly if it's getting on your machine.

re: The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall

UnnDunn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:28:04 GMT

I think it's a tad bit unfair to lambast Microsoft like this. Xbox 360 is the first project of its kind that Microsoft has ever embarked on; an extremely complex hardware device of their own design. Xbox doesn't count, since that's just a hacked-up PC in an SFF enclosure.

They made a rookie mistake. I'm not ready to condemn them for that. They are doing all that is reasonable to make it right with their customers, and successive iterations of the 360 have been steadily quieter and more reliable. And aside from the reliability and noise/heat issues, nearly everything about the console displays the meticulous care and brilliant execution one would associate with an Apple product.

Unless Microsoft are asleep at the wheel, next year's "Jasper" iteration of the 360 should mitigate the reliability and noise issues to the point where they are no longer issues. Maybe then all of the bitching and moaning about RROD can finally stop.