North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Annoying dynamic DNS updates (was Re: someone from attbi please contactme ...)

  • From: Michael.Dillon
  • Date: Mon Sep 29 05:04:44 2003

>Unfortunately, telling end users to disable a default setting is
>rather difficult these days. 

Not if it's done the right way using the right language. 
For instance...

------------
Did you realize that your computer is probably wasting
precious bandwidth and slowing down your Internet
connection because of the wrong default setting?
You can fix this problem and take back control of
your connection with this small utility which resets
the dynamic DNS settings to stop wasting your bandwidth.
Go to http://0xdeadbeef.example.com/noddns.html
and start surfing free.

And don't forget to tell your friends too!
-------------

In other words, Windows users don't typically change
settings themselves but they do download small
utilities that do nothing other than change
one or two registry keys.

>Back in beta days, the official explanation given was that the DNS
>updating was a "value add" and that it would never be disabled as
>a default as a courtesy to corporate customers.

Corporate customers are smart enough to tick off a DDNS option
during install or to automate the entire install process with
a custom install script for their site. But MS is so big that
the people making this decision probably had no idea how their
product is really used in the real world.

> larger ISPs ought
>to include this "fix" as an option with their installation CDs. Alas,
>we get back to the ongoing debate: adjust user prefs for them, for
>their own good... or get the vendor to cooperate?

Both. 
Create and distribute a tool that fixes the problem. Make sure the
tool can run windowless as part of an ISP or corporate install
script. Then sit back and watch while MS assimilates the 
functionality of this new tool in a later release.
--Michael Dillon