I need to switch to Linux... BAD (rant)


First off, I want to say that I can't switch to Linux quite yet. I still use Premiere and After Effects to make my videos, and would lose access to a large portion of my steam library if I made the switch. Dual booting is also very slow, and I don't want to have to switch between 2 OSs every time I want to do different tasks (I would have to record video / audio in linux, and then do graphics in Windows). When I can finally get Resolve to install correctly on Ubuntu, Eevee integrates a few more key features, and Steam's proton gets a little better, I will make the switch in a heartbeat.

Now the rant.



I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 in the three years I've used it, unless you count the slight licensing hiccup I had when I upgraded my Motherboard / CPU, but that was resolved quickly. Things worked more or less how they should, and even though I really like different flavors of Linux that I've used on my laptop, there was really no reason for me to switch. That is, until about two months ago.

Back around late October the fall update was sent out and made headlines due to it causing a lot of users to lose files and access to important data. Thankfully for me though, the update didn't install, and instead would take 30 minutes every shutdown to "install updates," then another 30 minutes starting up to "install updates," then would fail and spend another hour "removing updates."

After weeks of trouble-shooting myself figured I'd contacted Microsoft Support because they actually might know something I wouldn't, but apparently that was just wishful thinking. After having them remote into my computer and do the generic "disable / enable all the services thing," they apparently always do (it's literally the first thing they did when they fixed my licensing issue as well. Took them an hour, and the correct solution was just "reactivate the license from their end"), the tech then opened Powershell and attempted to type "DISM.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth," into the command line.

I am not exaggerating when I say it took this Microsoft Help Agent 10 solid minutes to type this in. After telling him repeatedly that I already tried this and it didn't work, he kept trying to copy and paste it, but leaving off the DISM part at the beginning, meaning I actually had to tell him to stop and TYPE IT IN FOR HIM! This session ended in him basically just telling me to reinstall Windows because they had no clue why this was happening and it was my fault for building my own computer.

Fast forward to December. I had a break in freelance work, which meant I finally had a solid block of time to reinstall Windows. I spent about 3 days reinstalling all the software, programming libraries, audio plugins, etc. and getting everything configured back to where I left off. I then tried to record some test audio, and my microphone sounded like a transistor radio.

Usually this is a simple fix: You go to audio device properties and change the sample rate, except for some reason when I go to do this the properties window crashes. This wasn't just happening with my AT2020 but also with any microphone I plugged in, which means this is clearly a Windows issue. Again, being dumb and thinking Microsoft can help, I posted to their forums, to which the official support reps immediately just blamed Audio Technica and didn't even try to help me troubleshoot.

After two days I ended up finding the solution on my own. It was an issue with the new UWP audio settings app, and all I had to do was search "audio" in the start menu, open up the old Win7 style properties, and change the setting that way.



Anyways, sorry for the rant. Not something I normally do, but I'm a little boiling right now after all this, so I just had to get it off my chest. Good news is, I got my microphone working so I can finish up my next video, which should be coming soon.

As always, see you next time
- Zach

Comments

  1. Looking forward to your next video, especially now that Animation Nodes is (kinda/sorta) workable in Blender 2.8!

    ReplyDelete

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