RE: Win Stability - Was RE: iSeries V5R1 Benchmarks - Wow

When I installed CE Express V4R5 on our NT4 SQL Server 7 system last year,
it replaced the mdac version required for SQL 7 with a very old version of
mdac shipped with V4R5 Express. The NT server continued to work fine, booted
and everything, but I couldn't transfer data from the AS/400 to the data
warehouse on the SQL Server after installing CA Express. I removed CA
Express and installed the old client, tracked down the mdac versions
involved and got the installed version of mdac on the server up to the right
level and all was well again. My main concern with IBM's software was that
CA Express V4R5 (the latest at the time) had such an old version of mdac in
it.

Don't get me wrong here, I am hugely impressed by the iSeries and OS/400,
and the reliability of the system. I wouldn't necessarily have the same
level of confidence in a Win2K server, which is why we continue to use the
iSeries. Perhaps Win2K hasn't caught up with OS/400, but I think it's doing
very well for an OS that doesn't run on a controlled hardware environment.

But...
I am also very impressed with Win2K and NT4's stability. I agree that Win9x
was shaky, but it was not supposed to be rock solid reliable, but highly
compatible. As soon as I could I moved to NT4 and thence to Win2K and have
had no real OS problems. Sure I have had program crashes, but I've only had
to 'big switch' NT4 a couple of times, and I've never had a problem on Win2K
that I couldn't solve and still have the machine run. I like the fact that
with OS/400 I can kill an errant job without affecting the rest of the
system, and I can do this with Win2K Task manager as well.

I think a poorly coded program can play havoc with the best of operating
systems, and it's not necessarily the fault of the OS.

Apologies if we're getting off topic here; and no, I'm not related to Bill
Gates ;-)

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: jpcarr@tredegar.com [mailto:jpcarr@tredegar.com]
Sent: 22 May 2001 13:23
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Win Stability - Was RE: iSeries V5R1 Benchmarks - Wow

Oh,  You mean a program running on your PC's OS trashed your PC's OS?   So
on the iSeries to do the same thing,  I  would have to write an RPG program
that would Trash OS/400 ??   ;-)

I never liked CA,  ain't it great that was yesterday,   Today and Tomorrow
is the Browser.

John

>Strangely, despite the AS/400/iSeries' superb reliability, IBM Client
Access
>(various releases etc) has been the biggest pain in the neck we have ever
>seen. It trashed one of our machines, and is always the first Windows
>program to crash. Even odder is that NT and 2k can happily survive these
>Client Access tantrums.
>Gary


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