windoze 10

I have the same sense of wonder in reverse ..... perhaps because we don't all march to the same drummer?

Time for

The business model of the IT trade led by near-monopolies like Microsoft is "It if ain't broke, break it!"

They forget, fail to realise or wilfully ignore the simple fact that if the uses and requirements of the machine do not change, there is no need to change the machine. Do I need an up-to-the-mark CNC machining-centre in place of my conventional machines, to make the same parts for a model steam-engine? Hardly. The task has not changed and both would handle the work, in their own ways. MS though strives to make you change everything every couple of years or so, for identical tasks.

Also, having used MS systems from MS-DOS to (briefly (WIN-10) at work and later, at home, XP and the MS Office programmes allied to it, marked MS' peak of usefulness and quality, and even then they were by no means perfect.

WIN 7 is not too bad, 8 was very unpopular although really only WIN-7 with pictures instead of names on the desk-top (according to the dealer trying to sell it!).

W10 looked and proved, cheap, gimmicky and messy. I had been careful to use the "Custom install" with the small virtual button rather than "FULL" or whatever it labelled the BIG one that gives MS full access to your computer use. I soon took MS' offer to revert to 7, but it took me the evening to recover the half-dozen or so web-site registrations 10 had deleted.

Sometimes I wonder what real differences there are from one edition or so-called "up-grade" to the next. After all, a computer can only work in a certain way to perform a given task, and most so-called "improvements" or "up-grades" seem only to be tinkering with the screen layout and hiding menus, to annoy the users.

I'm not a computer expert by any means, but I too have gone through the various versions of Microsoft from the early DOS, and now unfortunately to Win10. I had no choice in the matter as my laptop with Win7 died and the new one came with Win10.

I was perfectly happy with Win7, it would take all the software I had bought over the years including MS Office 97, Photoshop etc. I could use my scanner and A3 printer without any problems. Win10 will not let me load any of them, and the other equipment is now redundant! The Win10 word program works when it feels like it, and when I'm writing anything, including this, the curser moves around my script and inserts at random what I'm writing. It's a constant battle to keep everything where it should be. My photos suddenly duplicated for no reason when I transferred them onto my new computer, and with so many I have no way of deleting all the copies, some of which have 3 duplicates!

If anyone has had similar problems and has any solutions I would be most grateful to hear from them. I for one would be very happy to revert to Win7.

For those wanting to revert to windows 7, one can download an ISO image of the installation disc from various sites on the internet. The version I have does not even ask for a code to be entered during the installation process. I have disabled the internet capability and just use it for software which doesn't have a Linux equivalent (old photoshop program and some games). I use Linux for all internet activity, as well as the Libre Office writer and calc and playing DVD,s etc.

I have a friend who is chief IT technician for a large hospital trust who swears that XP was the most reliable

I was personally running a DOS based spread sheet quite happily on Win 7, my laptop updated itself to Win10 and I had to get a new spread sheet. I now use Libre Office

Roy

I too was faced with upgrading/replacing both equipment and software when XP reached end of life. Rather than subscribe even more to Microsoft's coffers, I decided to move to Linux Mint. Currently I use a DOS based database via DOSemu as if it were a Linux program, and an old but perfectly satisfactory for me Win32 bit CAD program via Wine which also performs as if it were a Linux program albeit with a couple of oddities, both of which are easily got round. I was already using Firefox, Thunderbird, Libre Office on XP, so the data transfer to the Linux versions was achieved without problems. This left an early version of Paint Shop Pro which was more or less satisfactory under Wine, but has now been replaced by Gimp, a much better program.

I did increase RAM to 2GB, but that was all, and I'm still using hardware many years old, indeed the laptop I'm using at the moment is almost 12 years old.

I've never looked back since escaping from Microsoft's clutches.

Peter G. Shaw

Now if you want to talk about an OS that should have been terminated at its inception cast your memory back to windows 2000 or ME now that was a horror story !

I went from that to XP to vista to win 8 ( until i killed my hard drive and had to replace it ) then installed win 7 .

I then build a new tower with i7 cpu ,ssd and as much ram as the board would take . I had a copy of win7 so thought i would install that as win 10 was only fairly new and i like to wait until the bugs get ironed out before upgrading , damned computer loaded win7 ok and i updated it then after all the updates were installed it spits out a message that win7 wont work with some of the features of the new cpu or chipset ( hyperthreading i think ) so the pc will never reach its full potential so i ended up with win 10 whether i wanted it or not .

It seems to me that microsoft tried to keep up with Android and IOS when they developed win8 with its apps and they have been trying to fix it ever since , win 10 to me seems nothing more than an amalgamation of win7&8 with a few tweaks to make it look different .

Speaking of updates - my ipad has had 3 or 4 OS updates in a week , it is now IOS 13 iirc and it is beginning to annoy me !

I will one day try linux and a few other operating systems , maybe running them on some of the new single board computers that are around these days - maybe !

A recent Win 7 update has added an address bar to my bottom bar on the screen, what is this?

Clive

2000 (aka W2K) was the best until XP, it was the first consumer version to be based on NT, I believe. I loved it.

Windows ME (Millennium Edition) was very poor, but don't confuse the two of them!

Neil

RMA - I use Doublekiller to get rid of duplicate files. There's a free version or a paid-for Pro version with a few more features. It can be a bit daunting if you are not computer-savvy, but approach it slowly and methodically and you should be OK. You can run it from a memory stick as it does not need to be installed on your PC.

You can find it here.

Another option is CCleaner, which has a duplicate detection tool, but it is nowhere near as powerful as Doublekiller.

If you look in "settings", "system" and go to "about", it will tell you which build you are running. The one you want is 1903, and should be easy to get.

I was simply inferring that neither were as good as XP - well I don’t think so anyway 😀

I wonder what the reaction of the general public would be if MS brought back that annoying little bike riding paper clip or the stupid dog 😫

Edited By XD 351 on 03/10/2019 02:02:35

Windows 8 was a major disappointment for Microsoft in that it failed to get them into the Smart Phone / Tablet and embedded market. This is the big money future, not desktops and laptops. The Windows 8 user interface was designed to work on both small form-factor devices and full-size screens. Unfortunately, it suffered the fate of many other engineering compromises. It thoroughly annoyed conservative customers like those comfy with the look and feel of XP while simultaneously failing to impress the youth, or Smart Phone makers looking deeply at Windows 8 as a technical and commercial platform for innovative development.

Ubuntu hit much the same problem; their smart-phone style interface also upset the conservatives, many of whom jumped to Mint, which is Ubuntu with an XP-like interface.

Today Microsoft and Ubuntu have both backed off. The big winners were Apple and Android, now sharing about 50% each of a market selling 1.3 billion devices a year. Microsoft's offering is bundled with the 'others' totalling less than 0.1% of sales, ie like Nokia, they've been wiped out.

Technically, Apple's IOS and Android are both UNIX based. IOS has it's roots in Berkeley UNIX, and Android has a Linux core. Using Linux as the core of a smart-phone or embedded system makes a lot of sense, it's security is more solid and the code is open source. The user interface isn't anything like XP, there's no keyboard, mouse, drop down menus or command line. Instead users swipe a touch sensitive screen and bark orders at it : 'Alexa, play David Bowie'. Excellent stuff, but not what I need. Even if everything else worked, a big screen is needed for CAD.

Nigel remarked: 'They forget, fail to realise or wilfully ignore the simple fact that if the uses and requirements of the machine do not change, there is no need to change the machine'. Thing is, when you're making a living from selling software, customers like me and Nigel are a pain in the butt - we don't spend the money needed to keep them profitable. As we're a dead-loss, they have to look for opportunities elsewhere, which means constantly finding new things to do. It's a good thing in the sense that my pension depends on their success! Problem is, continual growth isn't sustainable. The ideas of Greta Thunberg and Nigel may be closer than they realise...

Dave

Thank you, I'll check it out. Is there any commitments because it's free?

Interesting history, but I haven't a clue what UNIX is all about, I just want something that works and doesn't have a mind of it's own! Please don't bring that silly young girl into this!

RMA,

Unix is an operating system, just as Windows is an operating system. Both do the same job of acting as an interface between the user, ie you and me, and the hardware of the computer. Although they do it differently, you and I do not need to know how it does it, simply that it does, after all, do you know how Windows works at the basic level? And, more to the point, do you need to know?

As Dave/SOD says, Mint is Ubuntu with an XP-like interface, and that is how I use Mint. Yes there is the, to some people, the dreaded command line interface (CLI), but you generally do not need to use it, just as in Windows, there is, if it's still there, the command line interface known as DOS. How many people actually use DOS? And in any case, in my limited experience of Mint, whenever I've needed to use the CLI full instructions have been given which is perhaps as well considering my lack of familiarity with it.

I actually completely agree that there is no necessity to upgrade just for upgrading's sake, and this why my equipment is many years old, as my software, and yet it does everything I want quite satisfactorily, ok, sometimes a bit slowly, but for heaven's sake, it's not that long ago when I had to prepare data for submission to a mainframe computer, and wait for the program to run overnight, yes, overnight, so what does a few seconds matter here and now.

And I quite agree, little children should be seen and not heard!

Peter G. Shaw

I also agree - I use XP, Win7 and Win10 here along with different types of *nix and Mac OS - however being a computer nerd I get often asked questions along the lines of 'I use XP and my new printer won't work' or 'I have a new PC that came with Windows *** and now my old software won't work'.

Keeping old systems running depends upon you being able to freeze them in their entirety - as soon as you need to replace one part you can start to get issues.

But this isn't just a Windows issue. Apple upgrade as often and while their systems may seem to stay more stable they don't have to deal with the huge number of independent third party hardware and software suppliers that Microsoft do. To go onto the App store compatibility is checked - it is not at all like that on a PC! - and it doesn't last forever - I have a Mac Mini that is PPC based and won't run OSX 10.5 or later and a Classic Mac SE30 that is restricted to MacOS 7. Both still work fine with their own software and hardware many years after they were superseded.

So XP was an improvement on previous versions ?..... what will Microsoft think of next?

Maybe a way of repaying us for the torture they heaped-upon us with win8 😁.

If you dig deep enough into c/ drive you will find the basic operating system Core to be the same since xp all they have done is tart it up with mostly useless features and sell it of as a brand new OS .

I run my pc showing the desktop and not the start menu and i copy links to the desktop or toolbar for any of the apps that are on the start menu that i might use - not a fan of tiles or apps that constantly change info or images - i find them distracting . In a strange sort of way I’m setting it up so it is more like what i was used to with xp or win7.

Edited By XD 351 on 03/10/2019 18:50:02

Me too with my Win-8.1 .... but I let Classic Shell do the work

(It's pretty much Win-7 underneath anyway).

Edited By Bandersnatch on 03/10/2019 19:00:39