How to avoid Windows 10

[LigH]

Microsoft is going to enforce what it previously offered as recommendation: Upgrading Windows 7 .. 8.1 to Windows 10 for free. Not everyone enjoys that. The consumer protection organization in Germany (Verbraucherzentrale) already admonished and will now sue Microsoft for this enforcement.

So what shall you do when you don't want to?

Some people go radical and change the Operating System.

Others can counter the measures by disabling the "GWX" (Get Windows X) updating system in several places. There are a few tools available, as well as documentations to do that manually. Most important is setting the Windows Update to manual download, to avoid getting surprised by a sudden loss of up to 6 GB. Also important is a registry key to disable the upgrade:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001
But fighting the reminder/downloader (KB3035583) is Sissyphos work. And deleting tools and download directories, once they are present, requires some administrative knowledge too. Can it be done in a few clicks?

My first convincing find was the GWX Control Panel (http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/) which removes/changes several files and registry settings, and also offers to install a monitor service which watches over important places Microsoft might silently revoke, like it does with KB3035583: You may have it removed from the list of updates to be offered, but next time it is offered again.

Which alternatives can you recommend?

[pandy]

https://github.com/szotsaki/windows-telemetry-removal

[smok3]

If you haven't go 'radical=change the os' yet, this is the time imho.

[vivan]

My first convincing find was the GWX Control Panel (http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/) which removes/changes several files and registry settings, and also offers to install a monitor service which watches over important places Microsoft might silently revoke, like it does with KB3035583: You may have it removed from the list of updates to be offered, but next time it is offered again.

Which alternatives can you recommend?Of all things it does it should also
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001Which is what I did 3 months ago (plus DisableGwx) and I've never seen any upgrade prompts ever since.

[huhn]

Which alternatives can you recommend?

upgrade to windows 10 i guess.

i understand that "forcing" doesn't feel nice at all. i understand that this is a huge problem for user who can't really deal with the update and just want there system as it is. a casual user for example.

see this as an huge security update and move on

[pandy]

see this as an huge security update and move on

Prove it. Personally i don't see how OS being in early beta development stage may offer me "huge security update"
Personally i never experienced security better than from Windows NT 3.51 on next NT versions albeit i never had any security issues with Windows 2000 or XP whatsoever - i think is rather to be self aware how to avoid problems than blindly rely on new OS functionality.

http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why-windows-10-sucks.html

[Atak_Snajpera]

Did you know that m$ in win10 tracks even how often you open images in os? Win10 is not a security update. This os is filled with telemetry on every layer. Besides win10 is still in early alpha/beta stage.

[StainlessS]

Any body tried ReactOS recently, Any Good ?

[LigH]

Not recently. The last time I tried it in VirtualBox, graphics were not reliable, and the shipped file/system manager was confusing. I don't have a spare PC to try native installation with real hardware drivers...

[feisty2]

Any body tried ReactOS recently, Any Good ?

maybe going straight to Linux is better if that's what you want..

[StainlessS]

I've got a couple of P4's with 2nd OS partitions that could be temporarily handed over to ReactOS (or a couple
of P4's in pieces that could be given over indefinitely), maybe I'll try the current ReactOS alpha on one of them.
My still all time favorite was W2K.

My No#1 PC has Ubuntu on 3rd OS partition, still hate the Giraffe and Aardvark type app names ("This package installs the Aardvark application",
yeh, but 'what the hell is Aardvark', is what I'de be thinking).

Think I'll DL ReactOS today.

[pandy]

Think I'll DL ReactOS today.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=reactos-04-rc1&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ReactOS-0.4-RC1

[StainlessS]

Thanks Pandy, a very nice 94MB ISO on sourceforge, gonna give it a go :)

[huhn]

Prove it. Personally i don't see how OS being in early beta development stage may offer me "huge security update"
Personally i never experienced security better than from Windows NT 3.51 on next NT versions albeit i never had any security issues with Windows 2000 or XP whatsoever - i think is rather to be self aware how to avoid problems than blindly rely on new OS functionality.

http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why-windows-10-sucks.html

it's longer supported?
of cause self awareness is all. if it comes to security.

and at the rest.
you don't like forced updates: disable windows update which is a fix for your general issue to.
you don't like be spy'd search for XP anti spy. the issue was always there and there was always a fix for that so nothing new...

[Atak_Snajpera]

you don't like forced updates: disable windows update which is a fix for your general issue to.
You forgot that win10 is still in beta phase so disabling windows update service is not a perfect solution either.

you don't like be spy'd search for XP anti spy. the issue was always there and there was always a fix for that so nothing new...
New builds tend to reset those changes. It is constant cat & mouse game...

Win10 is not required even for games since Vulkan 1.0 API should be ready within this month. Source 2 engine from valve will run only on Vulkan. Support for this api is also planned in Unity3D and Unreal Engine 4.

[jones1913]

maybe going straight to Linux is better if that's what you want..
I agree with that, but if you depend on windows specific software (like most applications discussed in this forum) and have never used linux before, then you'll have a hard time porting your workflows to linux.

I've got a couple of P4's with 2nd OS partitions that could be temporarily handed over to ReactOS (or a couple
of P4's in pieces that could be given over indefinitely), maybe I'll try the current ReactOS alpha on one of them.
My still all time favorite was W2K.

I'm in any case curious how good or bad certain applications currently run on it (Avisynth? :) ).

However, if you need to run M$-Works 3.0 you're in luck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IYVA9naieY :D

[LigH]

Going to Linux may be a kind of solution for some. For others it may be too much trouble trying to make Windows-only tools run on compatibility layers (e.g. WineX) or finding and getting-used-to cross-platform alternatives (e.g. VapourSynth instead of AviSynth).

[huhn]

You forgot that win10 is still in beta phase so disabling windows update service is not a perfect solution either.
I don't get this "it is still in BETA". newer builds mostly add new features.

New builds tend to reset those changes. It is constant cat & mouse game...
yes the major builds will do this and not only this. it's very annoying to say it friendly.
Win10 is not required even for games since Vulkan 1.0 API should be ready within this month. Source 2 engine from valve will run only on Vulkan. Support for this api is also planned in Unity3D and Unreal Engine 4.

direct 12 is coming what so ever and it will be used. the XBOX is using it so most console ports will use it.

using avisynth(installing plugins) on windows 10 is a pain but there are workarounds to bad they are needed...

the new "security" settings on the C:\Program Files folder are just ridiculous.

[manolito]

upgrade to windows 10 i guess.
see this as an huge security update and move on

What a joke... :mad:

Mentioning Microsoft and Security in one sentence is ridiculous, those two are mutually exclusive.

The well respected German cryptography expert Rüdiger Weis recently held a speech at the annual CCC (Chaos Computer Club) convention. Here's what he had to say about Win10:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/32C3-Kryptologe-warnt-vor-dem-Botnetz-Windows-10-3057063.html

(Sorry the article is in German, but some participants in this thread are German, others have to use Google Translate)

Win10 is one huge BotNet... I love this


Cheers
manolito

[Atak_Snajpera]

direct 12 is coming what so ever and it will be used. the XBOX is using it so most console ports will use it.
Latest port from XBONE Tomb Raider uses DX11 instead of DX12
DX12 will be used mainly by studios sponsored by m$ (for example fable or killer instinct). Moreover after 6 months we still have zero games running on this api. I really do not understand why gamers jumped on this train so fast?
Rest of the studios will stick to high-level DX11 api or we'll switch to Vulkan. DX12 does not guarantee big profit since only 30% of gamers have win10 installed.

[vivan]

using avisynth(installing plugins) on windows 10 is a pain but there are workarounds to bad they are needed...Pain? I've been using W10 since insider times and had no problems with avisynth whatsoever.

[luquinhas0021]

Turn Windows automatic updates off. I do this. When I will search for updates, starts the download of Windows 10, then I press "Stop Download".

[huhn]

Pain? I've been using W10 since insider times and had no problems with avisynth whatsoever.

you are not allowed to right data in the default plugin folders. and of cause there more than one workaround.

Windows 10 fällt für den Berliner Kryptologen Rüdiger Weis unter die Lehrbuchdefinition für ein Botnetz, das Computer infiziert und Rechnerdienste vermietet. Die Begriffsbestimmung besage, dass "fremde Leute ohne Genehmigung auf meinem System Code ausführen können", erklärte der Professor auf dem 32. Chaos Communication Congress (32C3) in Hamburg. Dies treffe auf Microsoft aktuelles Betriebssystem zu, da der Nutzer darunter Updates allenfalls noch verzögern, aber nicht mehr verhindern könne.

hier hab ich aufgehört...

[Groucho2004]

I don't get this "it is still in BETA". newer builds mostly add new features.
Only Alpha builds should add features. A Beta is usually feature complete and only meant to have bug fixes.
However, over the years these definitions have become more and more obscured, probably for commercial reasons.

[manolito]

hier hab ich aufgehört...
(This is where I stopped...)

May I ask why? Too hard to understand?


Cheers
manolito

[huhn]

you can stop update for easily 6 month plus, yeah even forever.

this is just spreading fear. this is the typical response form people that didn't understand how bad the AVG user is with computer.

you just have to run one of the thousand tools out there or stop the update services...

this comes up over and over. and it fine to cry about this. windows 10 is not flawless at all.

Latest port from XBONE Tomb Raider uses DX11 instead of DX12
DX12 will be used mainly by studios sponsored by m$ (for example fable or killer instinct). Moreover after 6 months we still have zero games running on this api. I really do not understand why gamers jumped on this train so fast?
Rest of the studios will stick to high-level DX11 api or we'll switch to Vulkan. DX12 does not guarantee big profit since only 30% of gamers have win10 installed.

it needs a little bit more than 6 month to create a AAA DX12 game and don't forget the game was released with fallout 4 so it is way older.

and valve has no other way than using VULKAN. they are selling linux based steam boxes.

[manolito]

you can stop update for easily 6 month plus, yeah even forever.

this is just spreading fear. this is the typical response form people that didn't understand how bad the AVG user is with computer.


You should know that only users of Win10 Pro and above can defer (not disable) automatic updates. Users of Win10 Home are left out.

You seem to subscribe to the philosophy that the average user is just plain stupid, and for this reason Microsoft should be in control of the computer, not the user.

And for the tools you mention to disable automatic updates in Win10, yes, there are many of those tools, but employing one of them is a breach of licence.

Ina Fried, at re/code, received an unambiguous response from Microsoft (finally!) when questioned: “The license terms for Windows 10 require Automatic Updates be enabled as a part of keeping our customers secure and delivering Windows as a service.”

The EULA statement says:

6. Updates. The software periodically checks for system and app updates, and downloads and installs them for you," reads the EULA's section 6. "You may obtain updates only from Microsoft or authorized sources, and Microsoft may need to update your system to provide you with those updates. By accepting this agreement, you agree to receive these types of automatic updates without any additional notice.


So you have to become a hacker / pirate to make your operating system halfway secure... Thank you very much, indeed.



Cheers
manolito

[huhn]

going to services -> windows update -> disable is hacking?
so let it be.

[Fullmetal Encoder]

I'm not quite sure what all the outrage is about. Why not just upgrade and stay on top of the privacy options provided in the UI? If you are willing to edit the registry to disable updates in your current OS then why wouldn't you be willing to make registry edits in Windows 10 to neuter the telemetry functions? And while I can see some contending that Windows 10 offers security improvements over its predecessors (depending upon how you look at it) it's not rational to me to hold that over the years there are no worthwhile improvements to be found. As for telemetry itself, that kind of data collection is already being done in Windows 7, Windows 8.1, through Google services, MAC OS and Apple products and services... From what I've read the real privacy concerns are only warranted for those testing updates that haven't been released to the general public yet as Microsoft's EULA terms are expanded for those agreeing to test those updates.

The only real objections I can see for the average user would be concerns about the data being collected and made available to security agencies on a personally identifiable level or software that the user KNOWS simply will not work with Windows 10.

[Groucho2004]

The only real objections I can see for the average user would be concerns about the data being collected and made available to security agencies on a personally identifiable level or software that the user KNOWS simply will not work with Windows 10.
To that I would add the atrocious user interface (since W8) where MS made the half-assed attempt to combine a desktop and a mobile OS.
That's where I draw the line, my last Windows OS will be 7.

[Nullack]

Theres allot of sensationalism going on here. Im older than many of you, and have been involved professionally in systems level stuff for decades. I'm not a 20 year old geek who just discovered the wonders of GNU or whatever else in college.

The reality is that GNU / Linux / BSD like *NIX OS's are very good for specific server situations, including super computer applications. However, as a desktop OS they are all horribly broken. A desktop OS needs to do far more than a server OS. There is lots of reasons, most of them are found at http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com.au/ The intelligent and open and honest people involved in the free open source world know this too, and have contributed a fair bit of detail to sites like linux haters. Cudos to them for being objective, cos fixing weaknesses and problems is about "achieving the year of the desktop" that *NIX has been dreaming of for decades.

The only reliable and truly widely useful desktop OS's are either Windows or MacOS.

I get some people dont like Windows turning into a service offering. Fair enough.

However, to say Windows 10 is full of spy ware and that Microsoft dont understand security, is really just 1990's era claims. Microsoft *in a measurable way* has better security in windows than MacOS. Thats a fact. Microsoft has spent billions on a secure development methodology and has hardened Windows significantly from the 1990s era. Windows 10 has been certified for use in classified installations in many countries. In many countries, it is federally approved for sectors such as defence to hold various levels of classified data and systems. Including leading western worlds at high security clearance levels. Its just absurd to sprout nonsense that Windows 10 cant be effectively locked down and MS is secretly in a conspiracy to scr** the world over and spu on everyone. People who claim that are just conspiracy nutters with no professional insight into the reality of the situation.

If people say they dont like the out of the box privacy setup for Nan and Pop at home, well OK, thats a more reasonable comment. But it can be fixed.

You guys being sensationalist could do with some deeper and more mature thinking on this topic.

[StainlessS]

In just a few days (12th Jan) Remix OS alpha version will be released, Android for DeskTop machines.
http://liliputing.com/2016/01/install-remix-os-on-any-pc-to-run-android-as-a-desktop-operating-system.html

Started out as Linux on desktop, mutated to Android on Tablet/Smart Phone, and then back to DeskTop again.

[pandy]

it's longer supported?
of cause self awareness is all. if it comes to security.


Please define support... most of us use OEM version of Windows which is NOT supported by Microsoft but by OEM i.e. usually by nobody except yourself.

Side to this - i work so many years on various Windows, never for over 20 years called any vendor (also Microsoft) for support.

Windows XP is supported till 2019, i assume that Windows 7 may be supported way longer then Microsoft claim.

Windows 10 marketing strategy is classical example of FUD...
I reject this approach by definition.
i rather prefer to remove internet connectivity from machine and use older Windows than go for new DRM spyware money extorting new Windows 10.

btw i tried to install Windows 10 on a few machines i use as testing machines also to check how they behave with my company products - mostly it was HP notebooks like 8440p/6930p, i've try 3 different Windows 10 builds, never succeeded - drivers not exist, software not work (for example Edge browser), OS is practically unusable (unstable, slow etc).
Windows 10 is early beta - if you have plenty of time and you are willing to perform voluntary work for Microsoft then Windows 10 is OK, if you don't mind loose time and data then Windows 10 is fine but if you are not this kind of person then i would advise to avoid Windows 10 at all possible cost even accepting fact that you will be not able to play latest game in DirectX12 (which is only one thing new in Windows 10).

btw - i still use machines with Windows 2000 connected to network - guess what - P3 733MHz, 256MB RAM - they work without viruses (no online realtime antivirus installed but regular antivirus checking) - hilarious is to see how responsive those machines are working many years constantly without reboot (one works constantly without reboot over 3 years)

Believe me - i don't think that old Windows have more security holes than latest Windows 10.
Use decent firewall, don't install bad software (healthy way of using computer is best protection ever made).

In just a few days (12th Jan) Remix OS alpha version will be released, Android for DeskTop machines.
http://liliputing.com/2016/01/install-remix-os-on-any-pc-to-run-android-as-a-desktop-operating-system.html

Started out as Linux on desktop, mutated to Android on Tablet/Smart Phone, and then back to DeskTop again.

Well... this is another long story - why Linux is not good for your desktop unless you are masochist... http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

And yes - i wish that Linux based OS can be good alternative but sadly i must say we are far from this - maybe we need something else than Windows and Linux (and yes i know how this sounds and how unrealistic this is).
Linux is good for servers but definitely is not god for: desktop, embedded and mobile. Maybe 1 OS can't be good for everything (same apply to Windows).

[StainlessS]

Tried ReactOS, would not boot, something about it not being able to find the Hive (registry).
Dont think it liked being installed on 2nd partition.
Well, had enough for now, maybe I'll have another go in a few days.

[jones1913]

The reality is that GNU / Linux / BSD like *NIX OS's are very good for specific server situations, including super computer applications. However, as a desktop OS they are all horribly broken. A desktop OS needs to do far more than a server OS. There is lots of reasons, most of them are found at http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com.au/ The intelligent and open and honest people involved in the free open source world know this too, and have contributed a fair bit of detail to sites like linux haters. Cudos to them for being objective, cos fixing weaknesses and problems is about "achieving the year of the desktop" that *NIX has been dreaming of for decades.

Windows is "horribly broken" too in some areas. The perfect OS does not exist.

The most articles on the blog you have linked dont look very serious to me. (even the blog title)
Like written from someone who is frustrated that things dont work on linux as he is used to from windows.

If I had written down all problems and inconsistencies encountered on windows systems over the years then I could probably fill a blog with 100s of pages too. :)

.......
Only some numbers: Top 50 Products By Total Number Of "Distinct" Vulnerabilities in 2015 (http://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-products.php?year=2015)
About W10: Microsofts Windows 10 Botnet (https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7291-microsofts_windows_10_botnet#video)
But anyway, even the hardware today has security flaws: Trustworthy x86 laptops? There is a way, says system-level security ace (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/31/rutkowska_talks_on_intel_x86_security_issues)
.......


Well... this is another long story - why Linux is not good for your desktop unless you are masochist... http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html


Hehe a very compehensive list without exaggerations and whining, seems Im a masochist... :D

Tried ReactOS, would not boot, something about it not being able to find the Hive (registry).
Dont think it liked being installed on 2nd partition.
Well, had enough for now, maybe I'll have another go in a few days.
Still alpha stage he? :p

[manolito]

@ Nullack

Theres allot of sensationalism going on here. Im older than many of you, and have been involved professionally in systems level stuff for decades. I'm not a 20 year old geek who just discovered the wonders of GNU or whatever else in college.

So from your professional history I assume that you also must be a proven expert in system security...


Windows 10 has been certified for use in classified installations in many countries. In many countries, it is federally approved for sectors such as defence to hold various levels of classified data and systems. Including leading western worlds at high security clearance levels


Could you please backup these statements with some facts? Which countries? Which "leading western worlds at high security clearance levels"?


Fact is that you can find a lot of articles where public organizations and authorites give out warnings or have started investigations about the Win10 security.


12.10.2015
Companies and authorities reject the usage of Windows 10 currently from (Opinion of the Bureau Working Group on Data Protection and IT Security, September 2015)

Who installed Windows 10, so accepted the privacy policy from Microsoft that the manufacturer provide significant rights, especially if the installation is performed by using a Microsoft account. (1) In this privacy policy is explicitly pointed out that, depending on the services and features utilized a variety of data, including demographic data (eg age and gender), contacts and relationships, location data, contents of documents, photos, music or videos will be collected. (2) Under the terms of the service contract of the user occurs even in certain circumstances the rights to this information to Microsoft from.



The best Windows, so is Microsoft for version 10, which shipped since the end of July. At the same time hailing it criticism of the security, meanwhile, authorities in Germany, the Switzerland and Russia check whether the operating system with existing data protection legislation is compatible. The reason: The group who assumes the default privacy settings unchanged, gives access to many personal details.


These are ugly machine translations, you can find the original articles here:
http://www.e-recht24.de/news/datenschutz/2015-08-28-06-19-09.html
https://www.gi.de/index.php?id=97&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1904&cHash=d52cb3b5e0d30a92805a6de9065733c8


Cheers
manolito

[smok3]

Actually I think Linux will get a fresh chance as desktop due to various reasons (steam would be one) and not exclusively due to ms update/spy policy. I do also think a nicely configured Linux WM beats OS X desktop/shell in many, many, many aspects.

That doesn't make it perfect desktop, but "desktop" definition varies by user anyway.

p.s. Don't try to get me into some OS flame war please, I don't care that much.
p.s.2. In any case, my future OS will have two things installed by default:
- 0 spying
- get updated when told

[pandy]

Hehe a very compehensive list without exaggerations and whining, seems Im a masochist... :D

Main problem is lack of standardization and as direct outcome Linux based systems are not considered as valuable market for HW vendors.
Classical example are 3D graphic cards but there is many similar examples...

I have opportunity to see Linux in embedded devices from two main vendors for consumer market- Intel and Broadcom (but not only). Those companies creating hardware and providing pre-configured Linux - nothing works correctly (truly), even USB (as outcome you ends with corrupted flash drives) - this is not even problem for binary blobs but general problem that Linux have severe limitations to be used as operating system in real time embedded devices even if from marketing perspective it is very tempty as this is free OS ready to be used but truth is more complex...

Good list for Linux problems http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

Actually I think Linux will get a fresh chance as desktop due to various reasons (steam would be one) and not exclusively due to ms update/spy policy. I do also think a nicely configured Linux WM beats OS X desktop/shell in many, many, many aspects.

Lack of good HW drivers prevent Linux to be good desktop OS.

[smok3]

That list, well, he is probably right about certain stuff, but the other 70% is questionable at least.

Lack of good HW drivers prevent Linux to be good desktop OS.

I wouldn't generalize that.

My 10 years old scanner is working just fine (out of the box, win7 don't have drivers for it), also my old wacom (out of the box). The canon selphy printer is a problem, actually cups seems to be hard to use < Just an example of things.

About video tearing, I have installed at least 10 Debian desktops and only one had uncurable tearing problems (and I have almost zero knowhow about xorg). Tearing seems to be a common problem on Win7 machines as well.

About documentation: Arch is said to have best wiki in the world.

About apache/php/mysql < My old ubuntuserver has gone to at least three dist-upgrades and I can't recall any involved manual reconfiguration, but that has nothing do with a "desktop" in the first place.

Stuff about case-sensitivity is just stupid.

I'll stop here.

And so on, basically probably most stuff in that article can be either overthrown or at least softened.

The problem for me is lack of Premiere/After effects like software, so I keep my OSX alive for now.

p.s. A much more interesting article from the same author
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html

[manolito]

p.s. A much more interesting article from the same author
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html

Thanks smok3 for this link, gives me a lot of ammo for discussions about Win10... :devil:

And Nullack should definitely read this article, too...


Cheers
manolito

[huhn]

let's have a look.
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html

Windows 10 is a beta quality release (at the time of writing, i.e. as for August, 2015):
Microsoft hides the information about Windows 10 updates, so oftentimes you won't even know what certain updates are aimed to fix or improve. Also Windows 10 updates may have unintended consequences and unannounced changes in behaviour (it's already been confirmed).
windows 10 exclusive?
Many users report that their sound card stopped working after upgrading to Windows 10.

the alpha got major problem with sounds cards most of them where realtek cards. windows 10 driver fixed this issue before the release of windows 10.

should microsoft now write audiocard driver?
new operation system new driver it is that simple.

Windows 10 updates/upgrade can send your PC into an infinite loop.

this is windows 10 exclusive and no source?
In certain cases Windows 10 may kill your display if you are an unlucky owner of a laptop made by Alienware, LG or Samsung.
see here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-nvidia-whql-drivers-are-killing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/
***EVOLVING UPDATES WILL BE POSTED HERE***
Some people are coming here looking for help and answers. We cannot provide either one right now because we don't know why it is happening, but having to sift through unrelated discussions is not good for people looking for help. Short of reprogramming EDID information to the LCD EEPROM the display panels on the affected machines are ruined. Theoretically, it should be possible to fix them. From a practical perspective, it is beyond the skill set of most to attempt it, and buying a new display is the likely solution. Unfortunately, the problem may return and destroy the replacement display unless drastic measures are taken to eliminate the cause, which has been loosely identified as several of the latest GeForce drivers in combination with Windows 10 and/or fully updated Windows 10-ready systems.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-nvidia-whql-drivers-are-killing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/

terrible issue of cause but highly unlikely the doing of the OS.

You've got no real control over crucial features of the OS:
let see.
Windows 10 will have no service packs which means it will always be a work in progress and you are a perpetual beta tester.

so because windows 10 is using new build instead of services packs it is a beta?

Forced upgrades you cannot opt out of (and Microsoft have borked quite a lot of them recently so prepare to see your Windows die after installing a new portion of updates - actually Microsoft has already borked one update, read horror stories about KB3081424).

you can opt out of it... i don't have to post one of these tools or?

Safe Mode has become impossible to access unless you've booted into ... the running OS which totally defeats its purpose. Also Safe Mode is hidden behind almost a dozen of steps vs. a single F8 key press on boot in every Windows version from 95 to 7.
uefi quick boot limitation. windows 8 supports uefi quick boot too. that's why it isn't listed here.

but there are "workarounds": http://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

and it still works on windows 10 you just need an bios PC and a normal HDD and windows 10 will not boot to fast.

Windows 10 features terrible UI inconsistency, not limited to:
Two kinds of fonts antialiasing (ClearType v2 for classic applications and some awful dirty grayish shit for Modern apps).
All kinds of varying visual decorations and styles (some people have discovered up to seven varying styles in Windows 10).
Absolutely dissimilar classic and modern (PC settings) control panels.
Different fonts faces and sizes all around.
Different styles of settings for modern apps.
Absolutely different context menus and their appearance in different applications and apps.

Terrible hardly configurable appearance, dubious design choices and extremely limited functionality (vs Windows 7/XP):

Two Control Panels with absolutely zero thought given to how they differ and why each one should be used.
Some Control Widgets are spread between the two Control Panels which is utterly confusing (e.g. Users Management).
No Windows classic UI for windows decorations. Windows decorations can hardly be configured at all in Windows 10.
An awful choice of colors/palette.
some of it is a taste question but the control issue is true.

just try to change the speed of your mouse or disable mouse acceleration.
changing the refreshrate is "funny" too.
there are a lot more issue like this.

Absolutely awful, childish and amateurish icons as if we live in the era of 8bit displays (only rivalled by those in Windows 3.1 from 1992). Windows 2000 in 1999 looked better than Windows 10 in 2015.

http://itvision.altervista.org/files/windows-10-icons.png
where did he got that screen from? the beta?

the current icon are these: http://abload.de/img/whateverpqz84.png

you don't have to like them but they do there work.
calling this childish isn't really matured.
A big number of Windows 10 apps are still NOT on par with their classical counterparts from Windows 7/Vista/XP (many features are missing or many options are not configurable).

no example?
so maybe maybe not.

The start menu is an unusable abomination. Applications are listed as a list which is nigh impossible to scroll.

scrolling issue? this is working like every other window with an scrolling option.
and if you don't like scrolling you can click on 0-9 for example and choice the letter where you want to go...

Windows 10 sucks terribly if you are an unlucky user of a metered Internet connection:
there is a great update feature for metered internet connection. but yeah don't read it to an end i guess. i mean it has an extra option to send data over the internet so it is pure evil i guess.
It features huge mandatory system and apps updates (you cannot disable them, you can only postpone the system reboot after their installation).

i don't have to repeat that you can disable windows update.

As if it wasn't enough, Windows 10 gets downloaded automatically if you run Windows 7 or 8.1. We are talking about 3 gigabytes of data some people absolutely do not need.

yes a new build is over 3GB but see above.

It uses your free bandwidth to distribute updates to other users nearby you.

yeah great feature!

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/windows-update-delivery-optimization-faq

the local network feature is just awesome!

With Wi-Fi sense enabled anyone you have in your Skype, Outlook or Hotmail contacts lists — and any of your Facebook friends — can be granted automatic access to your Wi-Fi network as long as they're within range.

i can use a DMZ in my router and can give everyone full access to all my data on my PC. so my router is now evil? because i can do this?


A newly created user profile weighs over 300MB (!) while containing zero (!) information about the user.

this is more terrible than it sounds.

Hi

We're setting things up for you.

it does this for every new user: https://youtu.be/JqpCVJw0E7A?t=282

just amazingly stupid!

don't worry it does this for every new build too!

A newly created user profile is populated with all the default apps instead of giving the user a choice.

see above.

Microsoft has lost its mind and they now desperately try to foist/force Windows 10 on unsuspecting users. Oh, it's now official: they will forcefully install it everywhere they can in 2016.

this is a windows 7-8.1 issue not a windows 10 issue.

Thanks smok3 for this link, gives me a lot of ammo for discussions about Win10... :devil:

And Nullack should definitely read this article, too...


Cheers
manolito

i guess it is better to find your own bullets by using windows 10 than reading and quoting stuff like this. the internet is a very unreliable source...

you will find enough bullets by using it so don't worry. windows 10 is everything but perfect.

[pandy]

That list, well, he is probably right about certain stuff, but the other 70% is questionable at least.



I wouldn't generalize that.

My 10 years old scanner is working just fine (out of the box, win7 don't have drivers for it), also my old wacom (out of the box). The canon selphy printer is a problem, actually cups seems to be hard to use < Just an example of things.

About video tearing, I have installed at least 10 Debian desktops and only one had uncurable tearing problems (and I have almost zero knowhow about xorg). Tearing seems to be a common problem on Win7 machines as well.

About documentation: Arch is said to have best wiki in the world.

About apache/php/mysql < My old ubuntuserver has gone to at least three dist-upgrades and I can't recall any involved manual reconfiguration, but that has nothing do with a "desktop" in the first place.

Stuff about case-sensitivity is just stupid.

I'll stop here.

And so on, basically probably most stuff in that article can be either overthrown or at least softened.

The problem for me is lack of Premiere/After effects like software, so I keep my OSX alive for now.


Well in fact situation is even more complex - but allow me to disagree with Your opinion that we can't generalize - bad or faulty drivers are big issue in Linux world and if you add to this lack of standards (video, audio for example) you will end in CPU driven machine where literally millions of transistors are not used at all as HW acceleration is not used.

Linux to be desktop need standardization, some centralized body that will prevent atomization common in Linux world.
This must happen before attracting HW vendors and customers attention - without this Linux will stay OS for enthusiast not for mass user market.
I can't accept situation when i can't use expensive graphic HW as video HW acceleration not work and best approach is to use HW as dumb frame buffer.


p.s. A much more interesting article from the same author
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html


Provided this link (original not redirected) here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1752273#post1752273


the alpha got major problem with sounds cards most of them where realtek cards. windows 10 driver fixed this issue before the release of windows 10.

should microsoft now write audiocard driver?
new operation system new driver it is that simple.


Isn't Microsoft requested WHQL to solve this problem? As such i don't get why suddenly this is an returning issue...

Once again - i've tried to be not biased by prejudice and installed 3 different Win 10 builds on some machines for example HP EB 6930p/8440p - and there was lot of problems preventing me to use such machines even for tests - from my perspective Windows 10 is early beta stage and personally i have no time to support Microsoft in testing as i don't like new Windows look and feel.

[smok3]

literally millions of transistors are not used at all as HW acceleration is not used.

Latest hardware will not work as it should (at least not on the 1st month) due to obvious conflict of interests (Commercial companies will not reveal their latest stuff on first day and similar, also 1% of market-share is not that interesting (to produce proper 3rd party blobs) = chicken and egg again).

But even if this 3rd party blobs were released, there is a bunch of users that would refuse to run that (yes, there is another non-technical point of view).

But you are being very vague, afaik gpu rendering works fine with Blender (but I will not claim, since I actually don't have 1st hand experience (both of my linux render-sheeps are pure cpu)), also nvidia h.264 decoding is playing nice with say mpv.

In Debian there is now pepper-flash which is supposedly working great with iceweasel, dunno about hw acceleration. < if we assume that youtube is an important part of desktop.

some centralized body
Why, you want another unity or gnome-shell unholiness? It is hard to imagine weekend programmers to work for "centralized bodies" of any kind, I certainly wouldn't. There is Ubuntu, Fedora if you wanna go that route, so vague again, plenty of things to pick.

[Chetwood]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/32C3-Kryptologe-warnt-vor-dem-Botnetz-Windows-10-3057063.html

(Sorry the article is in German, but some participants in this thread are German, others have to use Google Translate)

Or they simply watch the video (https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7291-microsofts_windows_10_botnet#download) which also has an English track.

(This is where I stopped...)
May I ask why? Too hard to understand?
Or it already was enough BS for him to not want to switch?

I'm not quite sure what all the outrage is about. Why not just upgrade and stay on top of the privacy options provided in the UI?
Cause they are spread all over the system and turned on again with new updates and I don't have time to waste on this BS?

Im older than many of you, and have been involved professionally in systems level stuff for decades. I'm not a 20 year old geek who just discovered the wonders of GNU or whatever else in college.
Arguments from authority generally suck but this one is especially funny since you don't know sh!t about other people's age here.

[foxyshadis]

using avisynth(installing plugins) on windows 10 is a pain but there are workarounds to bad they are needed...

the new "security" settings on the C:\Program Files folder are just ridiculous.

It's been the same since Vista. I haven't installed it in the default folder since then, but aside from that there are so many ways to adjust the folder permissions that it shouldn't be a constant annoyance. Since avisynth will execute arbitrary code, maybe it's not a terrible idea to have some protection, but almost every third-party program will (including ones that install themselves in permission-free %appdata%, like Dropbox), so it's a lost cause already.

let's have a look.

Basically every complaint seems to come from the pre-release, and ignores everything that was fixed or dialed back in the final release. I have a few complaints, but by and large it feels like a solid improvement over every version of Windows to me. But then, I'm not exactly the customer of a thread about avoiding it at all costs.

[pandy]

Latest hardware will not work as it should (at least not on the 1st month) due to obvious conflict of interests (Commercial companies will not reveal their latest stuff on first day and similar, also 1% of market-share is not that interesting (to produce proper 3rd party blobs) = chicken and egg again).

But even if this 3rd party blobs were released, there is a bunch of users that would refuse to run that (yes, there is another non-technical point of view).

But you are being very vague, afaik gpu rendering works fine with Blender (but I will not claim, since I actually don't have 1st hand experience (both of my linux render-sheeps are pure cpu)), also nvidia h.264 decoding is playing nice with say mpv.

In Debian there is now pepper-flash which is supposedly working great with iceweasel, dunno about hw acceleration. < if we assume that youtube is an important part of desktop.


Why, you want another unity or gnome-shell unholiness? It is hard to imagine weekend programmers to work for "centralized bodies" of any kind, I certainly wouldn't. There is Ubuntu, Fedora if you wanna go that route, so vague again, plenty of things to pick.

First shot http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=win10-nv-ubu1504&num=1

Add to this increased power consumption for Linux...
I understand that this is related to drivers quality but... with lack of standardization Linux will be never sufficiently attractive as mainstream desktop OS.

Niche for enthusiast for sure it is more than OK but real hardcore enthusiasts not using GUI at all - txt console (remote terminal) is all they need.

If you can create standardization without centralized point - fine for me... but this not happen and that's why Linux will be never considered as desktop OS.

Side to this there is many other things directly affecting Linux desktop experience...

[Nullack]

I’m super busy so I don’t have much time to respond but suffice to say on the questions asked:

1. What Microsoft is doing is really not substantively different to what Apple or Google are doing with cloud, with targeted advertising etcetc
2. People should know that what is posted on the internet is not formally vetted by qualified persons. There is even statements from the flat earth society on the internet, who believe our planet is flat…..And specifically with Windows 10 these suggestions the OS is spying on all your local files is just absurd. That’s tin foil hat conspiracy nutter talk. The reality is that Microsoft is under intense scrutiny from not only nation states (especially in Europe who have a history of being anti MS) but also privacy advocates and similarly issue motivated groups.
3. Simple steps can be made to turn off systems aspects for privacy conscious users. It isn’t hard to publically look up for example what nation states are doing to configure their windows based systems to handle sensitive information, or indeed federally classified information. Like simply going to the Australian Signals Directorate’s website and looking at the unclassified version of their recommended security controls (http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/ism/) would provide basic info on stuff like, don’t upload to the cloud, only stick with approved Cipher suites, make sure to retain ownership and access control of all classified data etcetc
4. I get the point that there is no perfect OS. But to suggest that cos Windows has issues, that its more or less the same level of desktop experience as the Linux desktop, really isn’t a true comparison. The only viable desktops are MacOS and Windows. Linux desktop is a bug ridden user experience that has all sorts of problems beyond the thing its good at – Linux is good at command line server stuff. Just look at the fragmentation in the graphics stack and it’s an architectural mess from X, wayland, gnome, KDE, ubuntu’s stuff….Free open source video drivers are effectively useless for real work and the propertiary binaries from AMD and Nvidia receive stuff all attention next to their Windows counterparts. Video acceleration under Linux is a convoluted and confusing mess of configs and bugs. X is fundamentally broken for modern times and various factions on how to fix it for the modern world is full of arguing camps who despite being very few people, cant seem to work together on a common architecture and have implemented feature incomplete and immature code in their own little patch as distinct groups.

Cheers guys

[Chetwood]

1. What Microsoft is doing is really not substantively different to what Apple or Google are doing with cloud, with targeted advertising etcetc
Hey, look. Other's are behaving as jackasses too!

[huhn]

there are issues with windows in general and there are new issues with windows 10.

there is nothing wrong to be against these issues.

but these "windows 10 suxxs why" lists are filled with a lot of outdated nonsense and this doesn't help anyone.

[smok3]

If I knew nothing, I'd conclude from this thread that all 3 are evil/sucks (Win, OSX, Linux), which is probably the most politically correct conclusion.

[huhn]

the search for the lesser evil like always

[LigH]

I guess most Windows users can't avoid switching to Windows 10 eventually. But we can try to postpone it until there are more reliable tools to protect us from the most blatant features of WorldDominance™... ;)

[huhn]

i guess this fix is what you searched for first:
http://www.wintotal.de/tipparchiv/?id=2220

the DisableOSUpgrade part of course.

[raffriff42]

I have Window 8.1 and have avoided Windows 10 nag screens, hidden downloads etc by turning off automatic updates completely. This also avoids annoying reboots at inconvenient times. I go to Windows Update manually every so often, and carefully examine every "important" update (the others I ignore). If the update does not have a clearly stated purpose - and is something I want - I do not install it. I Google periodically for known intrusive updates and uninstall them (if present) and hide them from future Windows updates.
KB971033
KB2952664
KB2990214
KB3021917
KB3022345
KB3035583 "Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1"
KB3044374 "Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10"
KB3058168 "Update that enables Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 KMS hosts to activate Windows 10"
KB3068708
KB3075249
KB3075851
KB3080149 "Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry"
KB3083710
KB3112336
Stop: Diagnostics Tracking Service
DisableOSUpgrade (see post #1 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=173049))

[Wilbert]

Is disabling GWX not sufficient (see first post of this thread)? Works for me.

[raffriff42]

Is disabling GWX not sufficient (see first post of this thread)? Works for me.I wish I had seen this before I did all the other things....

[chainring]

I'll be leaving this little tidbit of a great utility here.

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Specifically, http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/GwxControlPanelSetup.exe

edit: Oops, damn, that was on the first post at the bottom. I have to learn to read the whole post. Regardless, GWX Control Panel does a good job of nuking the Win 10 stuff from Win 7, 8, 8.1.

[LigH]

Hehe ... thank you for confirmation. ;)

[movmasty]

If you haven't go 'radical=change the os' yet, this is the time imho.
Do you think that so many ppl, home users specially, were on windows if there would have been any Real alternative?

Linux is a bad toy, Mac OS needs that you change all your PCs,
ReactOS have been in development since 20 years, that could become also 40...

Wondering why not any state in the world produced some real, free, alternative to m$.

[smok3]

Do you think that so many ppl, home users specially, were on windows if there would have been any Real alternative?

Short one: yes.
Longer one: I don't know.
Even longer one: Good question.

Again: not interested in vague opinions or OS wars, but what most people do is usually wrong (at least my experience).

[movmasty]

Short one: yes.
Longer one: I don't know.
Even longer one: Good question.

Again: not interested in vague opinions or OS wars, but what most people do is usually wrong (at least my experience).
Like vote for Hitler, or join the ISIS?......ok

But who would install a pay version of Virtualdub exactly the same as the free?

Windows has many bad spots,and for low commercial reason,
e.g: if one version of windows is perfectly functional, who would install a new version in the short time?
You would keep a good OS for 10/15yrs,
m$ wants you to change every 3 yrs....

And this is also the reason why it would be easy to do better, also Microsoft could do better if wanted to do.
But none did

Torvalds took a paycheck from Microsoft shortly after that launched Linux ...
The odd fact is that also strong states like France, Germany and even China didnt do.

[hello_hello]

I haven't read through the whole thread but I did find myself wondering.....

Slowly software support for XP is coming to an end. Well.... if a new version of software doesn't run on XP as expected there seems to be less and less interest in fixing it. I've asked "why" a couple of times, and the reply usually mentions Microsoft ending XP support and a quote from the Microsoft security rhetoric handbook. Never about the number of people using it though.

Not that I'm complaining as such, because I get it. The world has to move on etc etc, but I was reading about ReactOS today and found myself wondering.... what if the majority of developers of free software supported it? What if they said "okay, I'll make sure my software runs on Win7 because that's what most people use, and I'll make sure it runs on Win10 because not everyone has a choice, but I'll also make sure it runs on ReactOS". I wonder how hard that'd be..... relative to maintaining say, versions for Windows and Linux, or versions for Windows and OSX and Linux etc.

I ask, because I don't write software, so I don't know. Maybe it's a very naive question, or maybe it'd be the path leading to a time many of us could ditch Windows forever and never have to install Win10. All I want the OS system to do is be an OS and run the software I want to run. It's a fine line at times, but I've no interest in my PC being a portal to the Windows Marketplace any more than I was interested in Active Desktop or having my files display like internet links in Explorer. All I want is an OS, which of course isn't much good without software that'll run on it. Just some thoughts....

[StainlessS]

but I'll also make sure it runs on ReactOS

That really is the job of the ReactOS devs, not other application devs.

(An application should not really be aware that it is not an M$ OS it is run on, but of course there will be ways to tell)

[Asmodian]

All I want the OS system to do is be an OS and run the software I want to run. It's a fine line at times, but I've no interest in my PC being a portal to the Windows Marketplace any more than I was interested in Active Desktop or having my files display like internet links in Explorer. All I want is an OS, which of course isn't much good without software that'll run on it. Just some thoughts....

The problem with this line of reasoning is that DOS 5.0 is an OS that runs the software you want to run. If there are very useful new features in a new OS software developers will want to use them. I would hate to restrict developers to only use features that were available in DOS 5.0.

This holds true for Microsoft's newer OSes as well. Do not assume that the only new features in Windows 10 are the MS Store or Cortana. There are new features for developers as well and not using them to maintain XP compatibility is going to limit what developers can do (or they have to do a lot more work for the same functionality, work that could have been improving the software in other ways).

An OS that never changes is not going to be good in the long term, the pace of change is starting to slow down but we are still very far away from understanding everything an OS can and should be. It is still early days when it comes to humans understanding the potential of software. We are sure to try bad ideas but you have to take risks and make mistakes to figure out what works.

To me an open source OS really does make the most sense for the long term, otherwise the desire to make money will probably corrupt functionality. Saddly it needs to be the default OS, like Windows is now, to actually work well (drivers, applications, etc.). A catch 22 type problem. :p

[manolito]

One of the problems IMO is that MS makes the operating system as well as the development tools for this OS. Amost everyone who develops for Windows use Visual Studio. And I see this as a conflict of interest.

One of the reasons why some software does not work under XP any more is that the devoloper also uses the latest updated version of Visual Studio, and XP support is disabled there by default. What I am saying is that in many cases the missing XP support is not because the developer used some new features in the OS API, but because he was too lazy to tick XP support in the compiler options.

I sure agree with hello_hello about what an OS should be and what it should not be, but I probably belong to a dying species. If MS had published something like Win10 thirty years ago, the public outcry would have been enormous. Too bad that people have gotten used to IOS and Android for some time, so it seems OK for most to get spied upon.


Just my 2 cents...
Cheers
manolito

[Asmodian]

I sure agree with hello_hello about what an OS should be and what it should not be, but I probably belong to a dying species. If MS had published something like Win10 thirty years ago, the public outcry would have been enormous. Too bad that people have gotten used to IOS and Android for some time, so it seems OK for most to get spied upon.

If MS had published something like Win10 thirty years ago people would have been amazed and, if there was hardware that could run it, everyone would have used it. Win10 compared to Win1.0? :p

I agree that there is a conflict of interest with Microsoft trying to make money with their OS (beyond the licence fee) but there really are things that XP (or 7) cannot do well. Staying on XP forever would not be good, XP will be as useful as Win1.0 is now eventually.

We have to have evolving OS environments. I think too many people got used to computers when XP was the only OS because it was the main OS while computers went from somewhat rare to ubiquitous. Now people are not used to changing OSes.

[movmasty]

but there really are things that XP (or 7) cannot do well.
e.g: if one version of windows is perfectly functional, who would install a new version in the short time?
You would keep a good OS for 10/15yrs,
m$ wants you to change every 3 yrs....
They dont want them to do well.

XP if well maintained could last better until now,
and now would be the time for a new OS,
but we have had 4 new OS from ms, 5 counting 8.1

[huhn]

and each of these 5 OS have brought us new possibilities.


thanks to vista we got DXVA2. support for 23p just to count some of them.

[manolito]

And all these improvements would have been possible without a new OS, it's just that M$ did not want it this way...

I still remember how they wanted us all to upgrade to Vista just to be able to play BluRays. Turned out that a simple third party UDF 2.50 driver was all you needed.

[hello_hello]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that DOS 5.0 is an OS that runs the software you want to run. If there are very useful new features in a new OS software developers will want to use them. I would hate to restrict developers to only use features that were available in DOS 5.0.

I realise there's a fine line between what could be considered OS "architecture" (for want of a better description at the moment) and the software running on it. There's no point software developers re-inventing the wheel over and over if they can use a functionality of the OS.

I guess what I was originally referring to was the various attempts Microsoft have made over the years to use Windows as a portal to Microsoft-Land, or when they wanted to use IE to own the internet etc. Remember when installing Windows involved being hassled to sign up for a passport account? None of it has ever worked. I wonder if that'll change eventually. I hope not. I just want an OS.

An OS that never changes is not going to be good in the long term, the pace of change is starting to slow down but we are still very far away from understanding everything an OS can and should be. It is still early days when it comes to humans understanding the potential of software. We are sure to try bad ideas but you have to take risks and make mistakes to figure out what works.

The computers on The Enterprise appear not to run Windows. In fact I don't think I've never seen a sci-fi show set in the future where a computer runs Windows, so I take comfort in that. ;)

I sure agree with hello_hello about what an OS should be and what it should not be, but I probably belong to a dying species. If MS had published something like Win10 thirty years ago, the public outcry would have been enormous. Too bad that people have gotten used to IOS and Android for some time, so it seems OK for most to get spied upon.

I tend to look at a mobile device and a desktop PC as two different worlds, so what I'll put up with for one isn't necessarily what I'll tolerate for the other (although that doesn't mean there's plenty about Android I don't like), but maybe I'm the previous generation now, or people have short memories when it comes to Microsoft, and the lines between the desktop and mobile PC are becoming more and more blurred, and Microsoft has the coattails of an OS such as Android to ride upon.... in respect to what they can get away with.

We have to have evolving OS environments. I think too many people got used to computers when XP was the only OS because it was the main OS while computers went from somewhat rare to ubiquitous. Now people are not used to changing OSes.

For me it's kind of the opposite. I've been through upgrades since Win3.1 (very briefly, mostly since Win95) on my PCs, and often also my family's and friend's PCs. Back when if the PC ran properly after you installed Windows and the necessary drivers you were doing well. Then, if after installing all your software, everything still worked, you made a sacrifice to the gods and an image of the system for when it stopped working properly a week later. Every OS/software upgrade was an adventure. I probably even enjoyed it a little 20 years ago, but now I just want to use the damn thing, which is one reason why I've been hanging on to XP with bleeding fingertips.
Apparently the next Windows upgrade is supposed to put my PC completely in the hands of Microsoft and let them see everything I do. That in itself is one massive leap from XP. It probably is time to move on, and if Win10 worked just like XP, ie it didn't force me to apply updates or spy on me and as a bonus it was free.... I'd be running it already. As I said though, I'm probably the previous generation now.

and each of these 5 OS have brought us new possibilities.
thanks to vista we got DXVA2. support for 23p just to count some of them.

Couldn't Microsoft have introduced those features for XP?
I mean.... they'll have to do just that for the rest of time won't they, given Win10 is apparently the last version of Windows?

Anyway..... they were all just some thoughts. It seems I'll be using Win7 for the next few years, and during that time I'll have to work out what OS I want to migrate to, because at the moment, I really can't see it being Win10.

[manolito]

It seems I'll be using Win7 for the next few years, and during that time I'll have to work out what OS I want to migrate to, because at the moment, I really can't see it being Win10.

+1

Right now I stick with XP on my desktop, and for my notebooks I use Win7 plus an alternate XP installation. And it always amazes me again and again how much faster these notebooks feel under XP.


Cheers
manolito

[huhn]

Couldn't Microsoft have introduced those features for XP?
I mean.... they'll have to do just that for the rest of time won't they, given Win10 is apparently the last version of Windows?

and who pays the developer for these feature? and no i'm not sure if they could have done that without doing the same as windows 10 is doing right now.

there is now a different way to make money.

[hello_hello]

and who pays the developer for these feature? and no i'm not sure if they could have done that without doing the same as windows 10 is doing right now.

there is now a different way to make money.

Every new PC comes with a Microsoft tax. The question would be whether Microsoft makes money from upgrading existing Windows PCs because that currently requires the user to buy an upgrade. If generally people aren't doing so, and I suspect the fact Microsoft are now giving away Win10 for free might indicate they don't, it wouldn't make much difference.

I'm not sure if there's a different way to make money now than there was ten years ago. Most of it's "been there, done that" for Google, so maybe it comes down to PC users in general finally achieving a level of apathy that allows Microsoft to do what they like.

The way Microsoft is making that money now from Win10..... we wouldn't have even contemplated the possibility of considering letting them get away with it ten years ago. Now we're expected to dump XP for it or our software won't work. I think that's the difference.

[huhn]

you forget the windows store.

[hello_hello]

What makes you say that?

[movmasty]

and each of these 5 OS have brought us new possibilities.


thanks to vista we got DXVA2. support for 23p just to count some of them.Could be done in a service pack...
Anyone think that Vista was really a new OS? And in fact was a commercial flop,
Win7 is quite good, 8yrs after XP
Who bought the win8 CD realized then that he needed the 8.1 cd
And do you remember win98/win98SE ?
As usual only 1 out of 2 OS changes by ms is any good, but could be done with a service pack,
but ms insists to throw out an OS every 3yrs...

I imagine the stomach pains for "5 years without a new OS" after XP :D

I am on an old(2009) pc with XP, both OS and cpu still do their job,
im getting a new pc, and asking to have Win 7 on it,

[movmasty]

and who pays the developer for these feature?
Now dont tell me that m$ is short on money! :thanks:
With half the revenues than they had ms would be still a super wealthy company

We are talking about monopoly here, and exploitation of users, serfdom. :o

[hello_hello]

Someone over at the VideoHelp forum pointed out this article today.

Skylake users given 18 months to upgrade to Windows 10
And next generation processors, including Intel's Kaby Lake, won't be supported in old Windows (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to-upgrade-to-windows-10/).

First Microsoft release Win10 to discourage me from upgrading the OS, now they're using it to try to prevent me from upgrading the hardware too.

Oh well..... it's been three years since I've run Windows update for XP and the sky still hasn't fallen. I guess for a while I'll have a similarly pleasant non-updating experience when I'm running Win7.

[Groucho2004]

Oh well..... it's been three years since I've run Windows update for XP and the sky still hasn't fallen.
I usually make a custom image with nlite for my XP install CDs including SP3 and post SP3 updates. The latest updates on my current install are from 01/2011.
No, I don't use AV software and no, I don't get malware, viruses, etc. except once, "blaster" worm (~15 years ago) which was solved in 5 minutes by restoring a Ghost image.
It remains a mystery to me how people catch worms and other crap despite using "fully up-to-date" Windows 7/8/10 and constantly running AV software.
I guess I'll eventually have a similarly pleasant non-updating experience when I'm running Win7.
Ditto.

[hello_hello]

I wasn't planning on upgrading XP on the older PCs as I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars to do so when I'm happy with XP anyway, but I was thinking today....
If the new PC has to run Win7, and I'd probably prefer to run the same OS on all the PCs in the house, maybe it's time to start looking at garage sales and pawn shops for old junker PCs I can buy for next to nothing for their Win7 licenses.

[Groucho2004]

I wasn't planning on upgrading XP on the older PCs as I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars to do so when I'm happy with XP anyway, but I was thinking today....
If the new PC has to run Win7, and I'd probably prefer to run the same OS on all the PCs in the house, maybe it's time to start looking at garage sales and pawn shops for old junker PCs I can buy for next to nothing for their Win7 licenses.
I recently bought a W7Pro64 license for just 20 Euro. I guess I'll get another two, who knows how long these will be available...

[LigH]

I just read that the support for newest CPU generations by Microsoft may only be certain on newest Windows Versions (e.g. Windows < 10 may not work well on Skylake and following generations)... will PCs get the average life spans of gaming consoles now? Mass purchasing power is finite! — Oh, scratch that, Apple already refuted this law. ;)

[foxyshadis]

Couldn't Microsoft have introduced those features for XP?
I mean.... they'll have to do just that for the rest of time won't they, given Win10 is apparently the last version of Windows?

Anyway..... they were all just some thoughts. It seems I'll be using Win7 for the next few years, and during that time I'll have to work out what OS I want to migrate to, because at the moment, I really can't see it being Win10.

At what point does a bundle of new features turn into a new OS? Microsoft isn't going to let you update quartz.dll (DirectShow) plus random pieces of the new video driver framework for 23p without updating everything else to a stable configuration that they test. Even XP isn't XP, SP2 was a big set of changes and you still see the occasional calcified guy refusing to update past SP1; meanwhile Win7 is universally acknowledged to essentially be Vista SP2. All the major Linux distros have moved away from a free-for-all and toward having only security and minor functionality package updates between major OS releases, so there's no reason Microsoft should go the other way since people are demanding more integration as the OS becomes more complex, not less.

[hello_hello]

At what point does a bundle of new features turn into a new OS?

I don't know, but it's Microsoft saying Win10 will be the last version of Windows, not me. :)

[huhn]

Could be done in a service pack...
Anyone think that Vista was really a new OS? And in fact was a commercial flop,
Win7 is quite good, 8yrs after XP
Who bought the win8 CD realized then that he needed the 8.1 cd
And do you remember win98/win98SE ?
As usual only 1 out of 2 OS changes by ms is any good, but could be done with a service pack,
but ms insists to throw out an OS every 3yrs...

I imagine the stomach pains for "5 years without a new OS" after XP :D

I am on an old(2009) pc with XP, both OS and cpu still do their job,
im getting a new pc, and asking to have Win 7 on it,

Now dont tell me that m$ is short on money! :thanks:
With half the revenues than they had ms would be still a super wealthy company

We are talking about monopoly here, and exploitation of users, serfdom. :o


think about this.

BTW. it quite funny when people are switching to windows 7 now. now it is good enough right?

I don't know, but it's Microsoft saying Win10 will be the last version of Windows, not me. :)


yeah because they switch to making money from the store.

new windows version are simply called build 11099.

such a new build is installed over the old one. so it just marketing with the name. the OS will change like never before and that faster than ever before.

[manolito]

BTW. it quite funny when people are switching to windows 7 now. now it is good enough right?

People are switching from XP to Win7 because they often do not have a choice. A lot of software which folks rely on suddenly stops working under XP...

Recently my banking software started to give me nag screens that I use an unsupported OS and I should upgrade it. There is no technical reason for this, it's just Microsoft's lobbying.

And for many folks the more they read about the wonderful new world of Win10, the more they realize that in comparison Win7 doesn't look that bad after all.


the OS will change like never before and that faster than ever before.

And it also will screw up your installed software faster than ever before... :devil:


Cheers
manolito

[Sharc]

I recently bought a W7Pro64 license for just 20 Euro. I guess I'll get another two, who knows how long these will be available...
Good move. It paves the way to the PRO version of W10 when you decide to change.

[foxyshadis]

Recently my banking software started to give me nag screens that I use an unsupported OS and I should upgrade it. There is no technical reason for this, it's just Microsoft's lobbying.

Users always seem to think this. From the developer side, there are plenty of good reasons: Adding support for any new OS features (like DXVA2 or newer crypto in Vista+) means having two separate paths to write and test and debug, which is absolutely a technical reason, and even with exactly the same code, older systems have to be kept around to spend more time testing on just to make sure it's still fully functional, that something that works on everything newer didn't somehow break on an old system hardly anyone still uses.

The closer to console development software gets, with a single hardware platform, the faster and less stressed programmers are.

[hello_hello]

BTW. it quite funny when people are switching to windows 7 now. now it is good enough right?

It has to be when there's no other choice. There aren't any XP drivers for the newer Intel chipsets.

such a new build is installed over the old one. so it just marketing with the name. the OS will change like never before and that faster than ever before.

Imagine what it'll be like when build 11353 installs overnight without asking and your start menu has gone again because Microsoft have decided you don't need one.
Previously when they did something like that in a new version of Windows, nobody used it, so they were forced to re-think the next version. There won't be another Windows ME, or another Vista, or another Win8. No more versions of Windows that flop because they're bad or people don't like them. You'll be using them anyway, and they'll just be called something like build 22765.

I'm not against upgrading. I get it. XP is old and had it's day and I've had a pretty good run with it. In fact to be honest, I'm fairly sick of looking at it. There's just been no incentive for me to upgrade until now, and right at the time when I would have (XP support ended, building a new PC), even if somewhat reluctantly, Microsoft released a new version of Windows I dislike the thought of so much I'm going to go out of my way to avoid it, even if it means I'll eventually switch to Linux or maybe even ReactOS. If only Win10 had been the new XP instead of something that puts your PC in the hands of Microsoft and spies on everything you do. I'd be running it already.

[hello_hello]

At what point does a bundle of new features turn into a new OS? Microsoft isn't going to let you update quartz.dll (DirectShow) plus random pieces of the new video driver framework for 23p without updating everything else to a stable configuration that they test.

Given Microsoft are moving away from DirectShow, I wonder which Win10 build will take quartz.dll away, and how much warning you'll get?

[hello_hello]

Good move. It paves the way to the PRO version of W10 when you decide to change.

I wonder how long there'll be a distinction, before eventually it's just the version of Windows Microsoft decides to let you run?

[Ghitulescu]

Strange hysteria ...

It appear that most people consider that their windows XP won't work once its official support ended.

In medicine this would have been identified as hypochondria.

Well, the officila support for my 98SE ended much earlier, that of my W2K also, but neither my music PC nor my tablet ceased to function.

[hello_hello]

Strange hysteria ...

It appear that most people consider that their windows XP won't work once its official support ended.

How'd you come to that astounding conclusion? Did you reach it after realising many of us still run XP despite the fact official support has long since ended?

Are you blissfully unaware it's not just about XP working, but the software you wish to run on it?
Are you not aware of the fact newer hardware doesn't have XP drivers?

In medicine this would have been identified as hypochondria.

That'd be a fairly dumb diagnosis.

Well, the officila support for my 98SE ended much earlier, that of my W2K also, but neither my music PC nor my tablet ceased to function.

Ahhhhh.... now I see. We must all run a PC dedicated to playing music and this thread's restricted to discussing them.....

[manolito]

Users always seem to think this. From the developer side, there are plenty of good reasons: Adding support for any new OS features (like DXVA2 or newer crypto in Vista+) means having two separate paths to write and test and debug, which is absolutely a technical reason, and even with exactly the same code, older systems have to be kept around to spend more time testing on just to make sure it's still fully functional, that something that works on everything newer didn't somehow break on an old system hardly anyone still uses.

The closer to console development software gets, with a single hardware platform, the faster and less stressed programmers are.


Ok, I should have been more specific...
My banking app is browser based. The bank did not complain about the browser (still good old Opera 12), they nagged me about WinXP. And the only reason for this is that they want to cover their ass.

In case some bad guy plays Man in the Middle and steals money from my account then they want to be able to say that I was using an unsupported and insecure operating system so it will be me who is responsible for any damages. The burden of proof will be upon me to show that my computer was secure.


Cheers
manolito

[movmasty]

BTW. it quite funny when people are switching to windows 7 now. now it is good enough right?
Was good from the beginning, 8 years after XP, that is almost the time for 3 new OS at the usual speed, still could be done a couple of years later.
Vista was a cosmetic change, 8 and 10 a regression.
if an OS is good, what could you do of new after 3 years?
Tell me what in the 10, through 8-8.1, could not be implemented into 7.(or even XP)
The real changes were from the 1 to windows 95(10 years)
then to XP(6 years)
Since then really no dramatic changes
But i understand that after 10 years some refresh could be justified,
the CD itself gets old.

-
PS. if they take away DirectShow, would be a good reason to upgrade :D

Ever wondered why VirtualDub is nearly perfect for VFW, but to have an almost good one based on DShow you must pay 400 bucks at least.

PPS. well, they could do even worse than DirectShow :o

[pandy]

People are switching from XP to Win7 because they often do not have a choice. A lot of software which folks rely on suddenly stops working under XP...

Worse - open source began ignoring WinXP (and this is purely marketing decision as compiler is guided in makefile to not use XP API).

I'm example of such guy that is forced to move to Windows 7 not because i want but because i must... - still prefer Windows 2000 and can't understood why XP need almost 3 time more memory to work with same speed as Windows 2000. What kind of technology in XP is so revolutionary that require 3 times more RAM with no increase in processing speed...?

Windows 7 is even bigger fail on this - 2GB for 32 bit system alone and 3GB for 64 bit system - i see frequently people using 64 bit system on 3 - 4GB physical RAM HW... Why? You anyway have no RAM to support application that require more than 2GB RAM... and Windows is so slow when swapping RAM to HDD...

So what is so revolutionary in modern OS that require 3 - 4GB RAM to provide same processing time? Security? (i don't know how huge code can be better on term of security from significantly smaller code - i can only explain this that it is secure because is new so hackers didn't yet started digging seriously on it).

[LigH]

and Windows is so slow when swapping RAM to HDD...

The slowest part about swapping is the HDD access, not the OS.

So what is so revolutionary in modern OS ... ?

Just as example: The fundamental support of modern multi-core CPU architectures and SIMD instructions (I doubt Win2K would still run without problems on CPU generations of the last year, not to mention outperform Vista+ in every place).

Yes, true, XP already supported multi-core CPUs too; but you had to have one of those present during the installation already so the matching kernel would be installed (I remember how I installed XP in VirtualBox on an uni-core system, and it still used only one core after I changed the number of emulated CPUs from 1 to 2 or 4).

And there is also a collection of hardware I would not dare to use under such obsolete systems. Using SSDs under XP was already a kind of risk.

[Ghitulescu]

Are you blissfully unaware it's not just about XP working, but the software you wish to run on it?
Does this software equally start to malfunction? :) :)
Are you not aware of the fact newer hardware doesn't have XP drivers?
Which new Hardware is extra needed in order that a functional system to continue to work after MS ceased her support for XP?
Ahhhhh.... now I see.
Finally http://www.tapeheads.net/images/smilies/bravo-1.gif
We must all run a PC dedicated to playing music and this thread's restricted to discussing them.....
Creating music.

Now to the point.
It was already bad when people moved to the new OS just because it was new and not for its merits whatsoever.
But it is infinitely worse when someone forces people to a OS made to spy on people as its main purpose.

To my point.
I don't think it's a big investment to have a secondary computer wherein all the software and hardware are fine tuned to a particular purpose - and therefore any upgrade (or downgrade) is unnecessary.
Disclaimer: This does not apply in or for Australia.

[filler56789]

What kind of technology in XP is so revolutionary that require 3 times more RAM with no increase in processing speed...?

The eye-candy for the n00bs :D

[hello_hello]

Does this software equally start to malfunction? :) :)

I can't believe your still wanting to argue about this.
Yes, if you update software and the new version doesn't run on XP, it could be considered that it doesn't work.
There's more and more of it. Even simple utilities like MKVToolNix and L-Smash no longer work on XP. And yes, before you state the obvious, the old versions will continue to work, but sometimes you don't want to run an older version. I don't think the last MKVMergeGUI version for XP will mux h265, or if it does, there's been several changes.

Which new Hardware is extra needed in order that a functional system to continue to work after MS ceased her support for XP?

USB3 for one.
As per my previous example, if I want to mux h265 I probably need a newer OS than XP. That could be wrong.... I'm going from memory, but it's just an example. Should I not use x265 for encoding or should I think about upgrading? And what about h265 hardware decoding and 4K video? I need a new video card for that and there's no XP drivers.
Bits of MPC-HC have started falling off when it's running on XP, but while it's still quite usable, it'll need to be updated at some stage unless the old PCs are only ever used for older video formats. I want to use at least one of them primarily as a media player though. Despite the fact PCs weren't originally intended for that.... etc. etc.

Finally http://www.tapeheads.net/images/smilies/bravo-1.gif

Really? Even the sarcasm went by unnoticed?

Now to the point.
It was already bad when people moved to the new OS just because it was new and not for its merits whatsoever.
But it is infinitely worse when someone forces people to a OS made to spy on people as its main purpose.

Hence this thread.

To my point.
I don't think it's a big investment to have a secondary computer wherein all the software and hardware are fine tuned to a particular purpose - and therefore any upgrade (or downgrade) is unnecessary.
Disclaimer: This does not apply in or for Australia.

What's different about Australia?

[hello_hello]

Anyway.....

As part of my efforts to avoid Win10 I thought I should have a look at this Linux thing. It's very early days but I'm happy so far. I installed Linux Mint KDE on the old dual-core and so far nothing's been particularly hard. I've never used Linux before and never installed it before so this is all new to me.

It looks like there's no Linux drivers for my old capture card, so I may need to keep an XP partition for some things, but the software manager has been installing software for me including Wine and PlayOnLinux.... partly because I still have no idea how to install it myself. PlayOnLinux installed foobar2000 for me and it works perfectly. Even the Windows command line encoders still work from the foobar2000 folder. I kind of expected they wouldn't.

With my confidence boosted by the initial foobar2000 success, I'm going to try installing all the other Windows software I normally use. If it all works, great, it'll mean I can get back to using the PC normally a bit faster, and if it doesn't then I'll look for Linux alternatives. I probably will for most of it eventually, but for the moment I'll try installing the Windows software first.

I must say I went into this with no optimism. I'd planned on experimenting with other distros too but I'm happy with Mint so I mightn't bother. I expected this to cause considerable grief but it's been fairly hassle free. I've wasted a hell of a lot of time, but it's "finding where things are and how stuff works" time, and almost no "it won't work as it should" wasted time and probably less time than I wasted trying to make Vista usable after I first installed it. I was planning on installing Win7 on the new PC when I build it, but if Linux keeps refraining from giving me grief on the dual core I mightn't bother and convert to "all Linux". Unless I need a Windows partition on one of the old PCs for a particular reason, old PCs I have even though I live in Australia (reference to my previous post). If anyone's considering Linux as a method of avoiding Win10, I'd recommend trying it. I'm glad I did so far.

PS. One thing I've been happy about..... since Win95, maybe earlier, Windows has treated it's users like they're stupid. Generally the first thing I do after installing Windows is disable the stuff Microsoft assumes I'm too silly to go without.... AutoPlay, user account control.... that sort of thing. So far, Mint has managed to walk a fine line between letting/helping me do stuff, but without making me feel like it thinks I'm clueless. There's been a password prompt now and then, but aside from that it doesn't have any "are you sure you want to do this" prompts to drive me nutty. I can even copy downloaded files from the other PC and open them without warnings about the evils of the internet and viruses, or whatever that ridiculous Microsoft annoyance is (I disabled it long ago, so I can't remember exactly).

[Nullack]

What I find ironic is all the folk who have been fished into the click bait crazy areas of the internet which amongst UFO and secret alien government conspiricies clicking on the click bait fills these users with a bunch of FUD surrouding claims Windows 10 secretly spies on all your files...Then they go and complain about how Windows is all so evil and its time for a better OS in linux....Well its standard in Linux to not backport new kernel features into old ones. So on that platform, your forced to update to get support for new hardware and so on. Windows *has had decades of binary compatibility in many areas and stable long term APIs*, Linux is famous for changing the goal posts with the latest fashion and being awful at retaining backwards compatibility. In Linux, your basically forced into regular updates if you want new features to the OS cos they dont generally backport, and secondly if you want to use new hardware your more than likely going to need a newer kernel. And only then, do the real problems with Linux start which is Linux's problems as a desktop OS. Need some cool infrastructure for an enterprise of a super computer OS, go Linux. But beyond the kernel / cloud / headless server stuff its pretty much an amateur hobby fest of experiments / arguments between factions for certain products / incomplete user experiences. Perhaps worse of all, Linux desktop is unsecure. X is badly insecure. Serious linux servers dont run X for good reason. If you put X onto the linux kernel to run a graphical desktop, youve just killed the security of it. Yes, you can even alt tab out of the lock screen in many desktop environments on Linux......

The simple thing is, you can still use Windows even if you use the most stringent privacy policies including holding federally classified data from various nation states. Just configure to how you want it, and restrict yourself to the consequences of it like not having offsite cloud backups and so on.

Or, cudos to you if you want to convert to Linux for desktop use and who knows, if a million more dedicated souls like you worked away on it day and night, maybe one day it will be an awesome desktop experience. Till then, Ill use it at work for what its good at, thanks very much.

[hello_hello]

Or, cudos to you if you want to convert to Linux for desktop use and who knows, if a million more dedicated souls like you worked away on it day and night, maybe one day it will be an awesome desktop experience. Till then, Ill use it at work for what its good at, thanks very much.

I don't need lots of backwards compatibility when it comes to running Windows software these days. I've got a few old programs I still use. One's called "xxxxxx 2000" to reflect the fact the last update was to give it compatibility with Windows 2000. It runs on XP and you can coax it into running on Win7, but these days there's plenty of old, and some unused, PCs in the house, or I can put XP on a partition etc if need be, but mostly the software I use is designed to run on newer Windows.

That's been one advantage of using XP for so long. No backwards compatibility required, and it's not like it was back in the 90's when there was generally only one PC in a house running one flavour of Windows.

It's early days for me so I'll wait to see if I'm in store for lots of horror. Although realistically, the PC could explode and it'd cause me less stress than the four years of using ActiveSync to sync my Windows Mobile device. ActiveSync..... that was the ultimate in software backwards compatibility. It consistently failed to work properly no matter what version of Windows it was installed on.

If this was ten years ago, my switching to Linux would eventually cause the PCs my family members own to switch, and most of the PCs belonging to friends that I maintain. Generally, they'd run what I use. I don't do much of that any more though, so chances are I'll only drag one or two PCs belonging to other people with me and over to Linux.

[manolito]

Thanks hello_hello for sharing your experiece with Linux Mint...

So far I have only played with Linux from a couple oif Live DVDs (mostly Knoppix), and I always liked it.

What I am mostly interested in is how well Wine or PlayOnLinux support my indispensable Windows software. That would mainly be Video- and Audio Converters, some light programming tools like AutoIt, and some audio editing tools like WaveLab. If I could get these tools to work without too much pain, then I would switch to Linux pretty soon.

So please continue sharing your experience with your Linux installation...


Some folks mentioned that you will need a current Windows to support modern hardware. I believe that this has not so much to do with the operating system itself (i.e. Microsoft), but that the manufacturers of the mainboard or the graphics adapter do no longer support older operating systems.

But there are certain manufacturers of business hardware who still provide excellent support for older operating systems. Santa brought a Lenovo ThinkPad T410 (manufactured in 2011), it has a fairly modern Intel Core i5 CPU. And I was pleasantly surprised that it was a breeze to install XP on it. Lenovo still provides all the necessary XP drivers for it.


I'd like to add another comment about the statement that WinXP does not support SSDs. This is plain wrong, XP does not support TRIM. It is also wrong that an SSD will die a premature death if it is not "trimmed" regularly.

All Intel RAID adapters do not support trim, and if an SSD is retrofitted on an Apple, there is also no TRIM. And you cannot find any reports that SSDs malfunctioned in these scenarios.

If you want to use TRIM under XP, no problem, all SSDs you can buy come with their own maintenance software these days. Plus on current SSDs their garbage collection is quite advanced which reduces the benefits of trimming considerably.


@Nullack:
The simple thing is, you can still use Windows even if you use the most stringent privacy policies including holding federally classified data from various nation states

I already asked you before to back up this statement with some solid facts. So far there are a couple of European countries which started an investigation on Win10 because they suspect that it violates their data protection laws.




Cheers
manolito

[hello_hello]

It looks like Microsoft is changing their IE support policy too. Or is this old news?
Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates, as shown in the table below: (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle#gp/Microsoft-Internet-Explorer)

And here's me still running IE7. Well, when I say running, I run it now and then to clear out the crud that accumulates in the temporary internet files folder, despite the fact the only time I open IE is to to clear out that folder.

I did try upgrading to IE8 a couple of times when installing XP but there was always an issue. It'd either get stuck in "first time running" mode or it wouldn't run at all.

[manolito]

This is true, it's not old news...

It always makes me chuckle if someone uses the words "Microsoft" and "Security" within the same sentence. For a long time IE has been a synonym for "unsecure".

Since IE is so tightly interwoven with the operating system, the Temporary Internet Files folder does slowly get bigger even if you never use IE for Internet browsing. I use CCleaner regularly to purge this folder, no need to actually run IE for this task.


Cheers
manolito

[hello_hello]

Thanks hello_hello for sharing your experiece with Linux Mint...

So far I have only played with Linux from a couple oif Live DVDs (mostly Knoppix), and I always liked it.

What I am mostly interested in is how well Wine or PlayOnLinux support my indispensable Windows software. That would mainly be Video- and Audio Converters, some light programming tools like AutoIt, and some audio editing tools like WaveLab. If I could get these tools to work without too much pain, then I would switch to Linux pretty soon.

So please continue sharing your experience with your Linux installation...

I think you're safe on the audio converters front, assuming they're command line. foobar2000 uses the standard Windows command line encoders and I just copied them to the foobar2000 folder on the Linux PC and they worked fine. QAAC.exe, ffmpeg.exe. NeroAacEnc.exe FLAC.exe etc.

Avisynth and MeGUI are fairly high on my list for testing. Is there any particular software I can test for you?

I can't use First Cap (http://firstcap.software.informer.com/) on Linux and life is a misery without it (although it only runs on XP anyway), so I'll have to try to set up a Macro program to replace it. I currently use AutoHotKey but maybe there's a native Linux program? I've never used AutoIt.

It's a bit of a slow process as I'm just playing around when I have some time or nothing important to do.
Rather than sidetrack this thread, here's my "installing Linux" thread at VideoHelp. I'll keep updating it and posters there have contributed with advice.

My (almost) 1st time installing Linux (http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/376468-My-%28almost%29-1st-time-installing-Linux)

[hello_hello]

But there are certain manufacturers of business hardware who still provide excellent support for older operating systems. Santa brought a Lenovo ThinkPad T410 (manufactured in 2011), it has a fairly modern Intel Core i5 CPU. And I was pleasantly surprised that it was a breeze to install XP on it. Lenovo still provides all the necessary XP drivers for it.

I think it's mostly a chipset driver issue at the moment. I'm fairly sure there's no XP drivers for the current Intel chipsets, and possibly the previous generation, so it might depend on the chipset inside etc.
Nvidia were still supporting XP until somewhat recently, so a 2011 laptop should be fine for Nvidia XP drivers if it needs them.

I don't know much about what other chipset and hardware manufacturers are doing as far as XP support goes. I haven't been paying attention.

[Nullack]

Ive got allot of time into linux desktops for various reasons. I said I dont like it and I dont, but for various reasons I've had to deal with it over the years.

All the projects that are native to *Nix or are cross paltform work well. So thats ffmpeg, mpv etcetc. Compiling it yourself seemed worth it to me even for x64 builds - specifying your own specific compile time options makes a difference in things like ffmpeg I found.

Video acceleration off GPUs was a drama but has steadily got better - I think its fair to say it isnt as robust as DXVA2 but the various offerings such as vaapi and vdpau are more useful than in the years past

Not having a strong decryption capability for recent masters in bluray is a hassle, there is no real substitute for AnyDVD HD on Linux

Ofourse, no bluray menu support either. Well VLC in an alpha state, but its an alpha :cool:

Ive had allot of problems with Linux based NVE's including the same NVE as what Tarintino famously used on occasion for his own films

KDE / plasma seems to be unreliable (atleast on the gpu hardware Ive used) but I found Gnome 3.x to be improving in reliability. For awhile both of them were awful for reliability.

Generally I found production released kernels to be reliable and terminal level stuff to go fine. The main things were making sure to tuse the right kernel version, get the partitioning solid for your drive mountings and to learn basic shell commands/scripting. Linux really shines under simple headless stuff.

[Nullack]

It always makes me chuckle if someone uses the words "Microsoft" and "Security" within the same sentence.

I think this was true in the 1990s and so on. Since, billions have been poured into Microsoft's secure development lifecycle and in fact the entire company was told to stop developing, and use the new methodology following training. To say Microsoft didnt turn it around, really is to ignore reality.

For example, 75 CVEs last year in 2015 for the Linux kernel. Thats allot guys. THen remember, you need a *distirbution* not just a kernel. And a *desktop distribution* needs far more code in it than just a simple server. When you add up all the difference packages in a distribution, linux actualy has worse records than either apple or MS. That isnt to say its not trustable. It is. And Linux is good at patching quickly, though I am aware of a recent case of a vulnerability thats been around for three years....That aint good irrespective of what your favourite OS is fellas :D

I think if your hard core about security, you dont run Linux, you run BSD and lock it down with very tough admin policies.

[hello_hello]

Not having a strong decryption capability for recent masters in bluray is a hassle, there is no real substitute for AnyDVD HD on Linux

Will it run in Wine?
I'd forgotten about AnyDVD. Oh well..... I think it was inevitable I was at least going to dual boot XP or Win7 on one of the PCs for the "only works on Windows and I can't live without it" software.
I'll try installing AnyDVD though. You never know.

[manolito]

I think this was true in the 1990s and so on. Since, billions have been poured into Microsoft's secure development lifecycle and in fact the entire company was told to stop developing, and use the new methodology following training. To say Microsoft didnt turn it around, really is to ignore reality.


Yeah, it can be hard to shake off a reputation you once earned...

But I do remember that the latest advisory not to use IE from the German BSI (Federal institution for IT safety) is less than a year old...


Cheers
manolito

[smok3]

@hello_hello: About avisynth, I started something here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=172951
https://github.com/brontosaurusrex/postbang/blob/master/misc/avisynthOnLinux.md
(apparently I was using wrong QTGMC plugins, but the rest should hold water).

[filler56789]

..........

I think if your hard core about security, you dont run Linux, you run BSD and lock it down with very tough admin policies.

This.

[hello_hello]

I'm not sure "security" and Microsoft spying on everything you do are the same thing. It'd be possible to have a "secure" computer that still talks to Microsoft.

I'm not stressed about "security". I don't run any "security" software on XP. I'm not crazy about the Microsoft spying aspect of Win10, but Microsoft forcing updates on my PC without even telling me what they're for...... there's the line in the sand for me. Am I the only one who's been using a PC long enough for several Microsoft updates/upgrades to have caused problems? I doubt it, and when it comes to "trustworthy computing" Microsoft have proved with the tactics they're using to force Wind10 upgrades they can't be trusted. And they reinforced that by re-enabling the Windows "spying" users had disabled through Windows Updates. Even Android asks permission to update and I'm free to say no, yet people are giving the manufacture of their desktop OS permission to do whatever they like to their PC.

Microsoft has never, ever cared about what their customers want. They only care about what's good for Microsoft unless they're forced to do otherwise, such as fix Vista, or make Win8 usable. Win10 proves that hasn't changed and given everyone's busy installing the last ever version of Windows, what little leverage the customer had has all but disappeared. How are you going to choose not to use the next Vista when Microsoft will install it without asking your permission?

[pandy]

The slowest part about swapping is the HDD access, not the OS.

When OS behave like memory hog then i blame OS that swapping is required - this is main problem - abusing resources and as outcome swapping is required when on previous OS version everything was fine.



Just as example: The fundamental support of modern multi-core CPU architectures and SIMD instructions (I doubt Win2K would still run without problems on CPU generations of the last year, not to mention outperform Vista+ in every place).


This is kind of joke or what? NT support SMP from NT4.0 time, new instructions support doesn't require 3 times more RAM to be used (and sorry for being non developer) i assume it is also not a problem to add this to kernel...
Decision to make it not work is marketing not technical...


Yes, true, XP already supported multi-core CPUs too; but you had to have one of those present during the installation already so the matching kernel would be installed (I remember how I installed XP in VirtualBox on an uni-core system, and it still used only one core after I changed the number of emulated CPUs from 1 to 2 or 4).

And? How frequently you swapping CPU's from single core to multiple core?


And there is also a collection of hardware I would not dare to use under such obsolete systems. Using SSDs under XP was already a kind of risk.

So... it is not possible to update driver responsible for HW?
Amazing... drivers and kernel can't be updated, it must be completely new, with RAM requirements 3 times bigger than before only to run 5% faster and because of caching...
Sounds like good marketing strategy...
Btw it was possible to use USB even on NT4 (commercially available USB stack so please don't tell me that it was not marketing decision to make XP and Vista and 7 and 8 and 8. and 10).

I can tell you what happen in MS as i observe same behaviour in company i working for.
there is a bunch of new managers with something like so called 'soft skills' - generally they are morons capable to read but not capable to understand, sometimes they are after some MBA courses (so called university) - they believe in this kind statistic: 'If one women is able to deliver baby in 9 months then 9 women's should be capable to deliver baby in 1 month', so they have great idea - we need to hire more developers - usually from some country like India (no offence guys, You are great developers but without practical skills to solve practical problems in nice and efficient way).
At some point a new marketing strategy is born - this is called renting software for monthly/annually subscription and force people to move to this model - they think that blackmailing people and extorting such money is a good idea and soon it will be a wide stream of money flowing to company... instead improving product they prefer to start everything from new (of course they pretend this is new)... i can continue this story but...

This is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonaldization

Instead fixing product, convince customer to buy new one - if customer doesn't want to buy a new - force him to do it.

Soon we will start missing old style managers like Gates or even Balmer...

[LigH]

pandy: More aggressive arguing is not equal to more correct arguments.

I will agree in one point: There is a relation between the availability of more RAM and the requirement of more RAM. New software will push new hardware will facilitate new software... and up the spiral. It is certainly more prominent for games (why else do we need 3+ GB video cards?) than for operating systems, but the amount of graphical effects and use of 3D accelerator features already for desktop window managers is certainly higher in Vista+ than in NT/2K, many users prefer a pretty surface, which needs more RAM and 3D API support. I know a few applications which rely on having the Aero design enabled, they may even crash when disabling designs. And I don't understand the reason. They are not even very graphically intense (e.g. a ChessBase GUI). Hardware manufacturers won't mind the turnover support by software updates. :rolleyes:

Regarding drivers: They will only help up to a specific level. They may offer access to devices; but the logic how to use them optimally may be beyond the driver level (e.g. to exempt SSDs from defragmenting, and to support trimming as a feature specific to this technology); optimal support for modern hardware (not just minimal access) may require support from both sides of a programming interface; and one side is the OS kernel.

[Ghitulescu]

What I find ironic is all the folk who have been fished into the click bait crazy areas of the internet which amongst UFO and secret alien government conspiricies clicking on the click bait fills these users with a bunch of FUD surrouding claims Windows 10 secretly spies on all your files...
I bought a factory new computer with W10.
I connected to the internet, and I had in a few minutes 160 MB of data sent over the network.

I might understand that it was send a query to new drivers and updates, and therefore the download to be huge, but 160 MB of sent data?
Then they go and complain about how Windows is all so evil and its time for a better OS in linux....
Yes, this is true. Whenever a new version of Windows appear, the heavily criticised existing version becomes suddenly good and the new one the incarnation of all evils.

...lots of bla bla...

The point of all this is first the stability of a system then the usability. If the system is unstable, its usability also suffers.

I know that a stable computer running windows is greatly unknown to most people - but for 20 years I have not one but several. The trick is simple - install the OS in a customizable way, place only the software that is needed to work on this computer or the purpose of the computer, do not connect it to the net, and be happy.

Installing codec packs over codec packs, various trialware, downloaded things, illegal software, all kind of games, legal or not, is the recipe for a broken system.

While it is possible to reduce the spy activities to a minimum, the knowledge of this varies sometimes with builds (not only with versions) and it is over the capacities of the normal citizen.


Linux is an alternative to windows. Meanwhile there a millions of versions, several desktop managers, various incompatible repositories, and of course an unknown philosophy. Unknown to the windows user.

I configured computers for linuxes and linuxes for computers since modprobe was mandatory for installing a graphic card. Now this once the biggest hurdle was made a kids' play, everyone should install linux, for most distros and minidistros come with many preinstalled applications. I understand that even UEFI is no longer a problem these days.

I never had any issue in the last 10 years since I use linux on my internet computer. It is since 2005 in the same configuration (the support ended 2008) and works as in the first day. Try this on any windows system when the booting NTFS HDD has less than 10-15% free space :)

What's different about Australia?
Well, it's populated with ... erh ... you :) .

PS. One thing I've been happy about..... since Win95, maybe earlier, Windows has treated it's users like they're stupid. Generally the first thing I do after installing Windows is disable the stuff Microsoft assumes I'm too silly to go without.... AutoPlay, user account control.... that sort of thing. So far, Mint has managed to walk a fine line between letting/helping me do stuff, but without making me feel like it thinks I'm clueless. There's been a password prompt now and then, but aside from that it doesn't have any "are you sure you want to do this" prompts to drive me nutty. I can even copy downloaded files from the other PC and open them without warnings about the evils of the internet and viruses, or whatever that ridiculous Microsoft annoyance is (I disabled it long ago, so I can't remember exactly).
The point is two-fold.
Users are indeed stupid. And become more and more more stupid, each day.
And two - considering that some actions are irreversible, a sort of check is used to prevent the "impossible". Even systems designed by smarter people for smarter people have such methods designed to prevent the accidents - "Are you sure you want to launch a nuclear attack against Melbourne?" Crikey mate, it should have been Moscow .... damn spell corrector :) Where's Undo? :) :) "Bad command or file name" :)
I'm not sure "security" and Microsoft spying on everything you do are the same thing. It'd be possible to have a "secure" computer that still talks to Microsoft.
It depends on the definition of "secure".
I'm not stressed about "security". I don't run any "security" software on XP. I'm not crazy about the Microsoft spying aspect of Win10, but Microsoft forcing updates on my PC without even telling me what they're for...... there's the line in the sand for me.
So it's a secure computer or not a secure computer?
Am I the only one who's been using a PC long enough for several Microsoft updates/upgrades to have caused problems? I doubt it, and when it comes to "trustworthy computing" Microsoft have proved with the tactics they're using to force Wind10 upgrades they can't be trusted. And they reinforced that by re-enabling the Windows "spying" users had disabled through Windows Updates. Even Android asks permission to update and I'm free to say no, yet people are giving the manufacture of their desktop OS permission to do whatever they like to their PC.
Probably it's the time, late of course, to read the EULA.
By accepting this agreement, you agree to receive these types of automatic updates without any additional notice.
So if you do not want any automatic updates, you're breaching this agreement and you must de-install windows.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Forget about Win10 and this stupid locked dx12. Vulkan api 1.0 is around corner!!! DX12 will die soon. Vulkan has full support from amd,nvidia,intel...

Even m$ is not promoting their api lately.

[movmasty]

And here's me still running IE7. Well, when I say running, I run it now and then to clear out the crud that accumulates in the temporary internet files folder, despite the fact the only time I open IE is to to clear out that folder.

I did try upgrading to IE8 a couple of times when installing XP but there was always an issue. It'd either get stuck in "first time running" mode or it wouldn't run at all.
I succeeded to install ie8 with sp3,
but also the 8 gives much unsupported messages on the net,
whats the point to use ie? Firefox does well on XP.

[hello_hello]

The point of all this is first the stability of a system then the usability. If the system is unstable, its usability also suffers.

So what I said about software no longer working..... you're going to ignore that and move on to discussing system stability?

Just to clarify..... when you described the discussion as a strange hysteria because most people think XP won't work once support ends, even though it's long ended and many of us still use it, you were actually referring to a system stability hysteria?

I know that a stable computer running windows is greatly unknown to most people - but for 20 years I have not one but several. The trick is simple - install the OS in a customizable way, place only the software that is needed to work on this computer or the purpose of the computer, do not connect it to the net, and be happy.

Meanwhile, in the real world, people install and uninstall software regularly, they connect to the net, and a stable computer running Windows is something with which most of us are quite familiar, either under the name of "fresh install", or "restored image".

Installing codec packs over codec packs, various trialware, downloaded things, illegal software, all kind of games, legal or not, is the recipe for a broken system.

Five stars for tangent creation, but this is doom9. Installing codec packs? Something about choirs and preaching comes to mind.

The point is two-fold.
Users are indeed stupid. And become more and more more stupid, each day.

You last post doesn't contradict that.

And two - considering that some actions are irreversible, a sort of check is used to prevent the "impossible". Even systems designed by smarter people for smarter people have such methods designed to prevent the accidents - "Are you sure you want to launch a nuclear attack against Melbourne?" Crikey mate, it should have been Moscow .... damn spell corrector Where's Undo? "Bad command or file name"

Until of course, the messages become so commonplace/annoying people get into the habit of clicking through them without thinking. I'm sure that's how the majority of adware and spyware ends up on PCs.
I'm certainly smart enough to know if I want to copy a bunch of files to an external USB hard drive without needing a confirmation prompt to make sure I didn't copy and paste them accidentally.

It depends on the definition of "secure".

So it's a secure computer or not a secure computer?

It depends on your definition of "secure" doesn't it? :)
Comedy gold.

Probably it's the time, late of course, to read the EULA.

So if you do not want any automatic updates, you're breaching this agreement and you must de-install windows.

In which alternative reality did you interpret my comment about forced updates as a need to read the EULA?
Late of course? Did I say something that implied I've installed Win10? Maybe my XP hysteria confused the issue, because I'd be offended if I thought there was a universe in which that made sense.
So just to clarify..... it's to do with agreeing to the EULA, or not agreeing to it? If so, that's quite a lucky co-incidence.... because it's also the topic of the thread..... "How to avoid Windows 10".

[Ghitulescu]

You intentionally miss all my points and your tactic is to split word by word and take them out of their context.

It doesn't matter.

because it's also the topic of the thread..... "How to avoid Windows 10".

The simplest way of not upgrading to w10, because it cannot be forced upon, is not to allow the computer have a source of w10, like CDs/DVDs and/or internet nearby. Even then, the windows pre-10 asks one about one's agreement on this installation. Annoying, but possible.

It is my understanding that after the install of w10 the updates and upgrades and patches and KBs will be installed without any user consent.

PS: I had to install w10, so I answered yes, because my wife updated by accident the original w8 to 8.1 and I lost every convenience I got from XP. She also regretted this but there was no possibility to revert it back to w8. So far and since we do not use the computer otherwise than browsing the net, after disabling the 10 worst security issues, w10 is not that bad.

Microsoft may have my shopping habits :)

[Groucho2004]

The simplest way of not upgrading to w10, because it cannot be forced upon, is not to allow the computer have a source of w10, like CDs/DVDs and/or internet nearby.What would be a safe distance from CDs/DVDs and/or internet? ;)

[pandy]

pandy: More aggressive arguing is not equal to more correct arguments.

Sorry, my apologies - it was not my intention to sound aggressive but rather express annoyance triggered by product low quality.

I will agree in one point: There is a relation between the availability of more RAM and the requirement of more RAM. New software will push new hardware will facilitate new software... and up the spiral. It is certainly more prominent for games (why else do we need 3+ GB video cards?) than for operating systems, but the amount of graphical effects and use of 3D accelerator features already for desktop window managers is certainly higher in Vista+ than in NT/2K, many users prefer a pretty surface, which needs more RAM and 3D API support. I know a few applications which rely on having the Aero design enabled, they may even crash when disabling designs. And I don't understand the reason. They are not even very graphically intense (e.g. a ChessBase GUI). Hardware manufacturers won't mind the turnover support by software updates. :rolleyes:

Large amount high resolution textures require large RAM - this is outcome of typical game developers approach - novelty of a game is build around textures and object complexity.
If you add to this lack of pursuing for new techniques (such as procedural textures) then you end in the middle of few or more GB's.

Luckily for us something need to change with 4k and higher resolutions and with VR reborn - it is quite clear that such madness can't be continued as we can't implement required computational power in silicone due physics limitation.


Regarding drivers: They will only help up to a specific level. They may offer access to devices; but the logic how to use them optimally may be beyond the driver level (e.g. to exempt SSDs from defragmenting, and to support trimming as a feature specific to this technology); optimal support for modern hardware (not just minimal access) may require support from both sides of a programming interface; and one side is the OS kernel.

All this is related to the file system driver and HW driver... and i believe that all this functionality in total will not occupy more than few MB as such drivers are low size due required performance and stability.
AFAIK NTFS is still poor in terms of file fragmentation (or rather is poor in avoiding file fragmentation)...
New GUI in Windows is also simplified (such a marketing trick to create impression that minimalistic flat windows are fancy when simply it is only one way to deal with mobile devices power limitations and it was extended beyond mobile devices to desktop one).
From my perspective there is no modern OS with elegance of CDE or NextStep...

[Ghitulescu]

... is not to allow the computer have a source of w10, like CDs/DVDs and/or internet nearby.

What would be a safe distance from CDs/DVDs and/or internet? ;)

I meant far enough not to be at the immediate reach of the hand :) it depends on how strong one is against tentations :) :)

At least within EU a software company (including M$) is not allowed to sell products that cease to function after a certain time. So M$ could not force people to install a new version or otherwise XP, Se7en or w8 will not work anymore until the upgrade to w10 is accomplished. But if one agreed upon the EULA, he waives this right. And some many more.

[Groucho2004]

At least within EU a software company (including M$) is not allowed to sell products that cease to function after a certain time.
Indeed, this is not going to fly within the EU and rightfully so. I already mentioned it, MS can go f*ck themselves with an oversized baseball bat. I use my OS for which I paid as long as I want to.

[hello_hello]

You intentionally miss all my points and your tactic is to split word by word and take them out of their context.

Rubbish. Claiming "out of context" is one of your standard go-to defences right after your argument falls over completely.
I quoted almost everything you wrote in reply to me, in order, except for the part about your Linux experience.
I understand your points. A succession of attempts to justify your claim of hysteria and everyone suffering from hypochondria.

The simplest way of not upgrading to w10, because it cannot be forced upon, is not to allow the computer have a source of w10, like CDs/DVDs and/or internet nearby. Even then, the windows pre-10 asks one about one's agreement on this installation. Annoying, but possible.

Microsoft are making it harder to say no by giving the impression "no" is not an option.
Microsoft takes the gloves off, pushes Windows 10 upgrades even harder (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/219541-microsoft-takes-the-gloves-off-on-pushing-windows-10-upgrades)
If you believe what you're saying it's somewhat comical. The simplest way to ensure you don't end up with Win10 is to not use your PC as you normally would. ie connected to the internet. What's your definition of "simple"?

It is my understanding that after the install of w10 the updates and upgrades and patches and KBs will be installed without any user consent.

For the Home version, but once everyone's running the last version of Windows, Microsoft can change the rules whenever and however they want. I suppose you could continue not connecting your PC to the internet as I heard that's a simple option....

PS: I had to install w10, so I answered yes, because my wife updated by accident the original w8 to 8.1 and I lost every convenience I got from XP. She also regretted this but there was no possibility to revert it back to w8. So far and since we do not use the computer otherwise than browsing the net, after disabling the 10 worst security issues, w10 is not that bad.

I've used Win10 for all of 15 minutes on my other half's laptop, so I have no real opinion as to what it's like to use, but my PCs do more than just browse the internet, so the idea of Microsoft being able to change my OS without my knowledge or consent horrifies me. Not only because I don't trust them to get it right, and I'm confident any change they make to my PC would be for Microsoft's benefit and not mine, but because I think I should have the right to choose.

I'm surprised they're getting away with what they're doing. They talk about development costs and maintaining multiple versions of Windows etc, but seriously, do they expect people to feel sorry for them? It must be hard maintaining a billion dollar monopoly when the only real competition is older versions of your own software. All Microsoft is trying to do is eliminate that competition too. For my benefit, no doubt.

[foxyshadis]

It looks like there's no Linux drivers for my old capture card, so I may need to keep an XP partition for some things

Don't bother with a partition unless you want to play DX9 games. Virtualbox can forward all of the incompatible devices to a VM, where they can be managed by an XP (or 7) install instead. Virtualbox in general is a lifesaver for me, I went from 3 boxes to one laptop at home and similar at work, although I use Win primary and Linux second.

I bought a factory new computer with W10.
I connected to the internet, and I had in a few minutes 160 MB of data sent over the network.

How much of that was Windows, and how much of it was OEM crapware? OEM software spammed the network just as much on XP, I made the same measurements when we got a batch of new Dells back in 2005 (although it was less then, since the internet was much slower).

[hello_hello]

Don't bother with a partition unless you want to play DX9 games. Virtualbox can forward all of the incompatible devices to a VM, where they can be managed by an XP (or 7) install instead. Virtualbox in general is a lifesaver for me, I went from 3 boxes to one laptop at home and similar at work, although I use Win primary and Linux second.

Awesome! I'll add Virtualbox to the top of my "check it out" list.
Thanks.

As a general rule, is it better to run Windows software in Wine rather than a virtual OS, assuming it runs in Wine?

[manolito]

I do not have much experience with VMs, but from what I've been reading it should even be possible to convert an existing XP or Win7 installation into a VM which you then can just "play" under a VM host.

This sounds very tempting to me because I usually spend a lot of time to optimize and tweak my Windows installations. Then the question is if VirtualBox or VMWare player would be the better option to play such a VM. The VM files themselves should be compatible.



Cheers
manolito

[LigH]

Yes, you can convert a partition to a "virtual hard disk" file (with MS tools: disk2vhd). Other Virtual Machine suites have their own converters.

Wine is just a compatibility layer, providing Windows system functions under a different OS. It is not a complete Windows kernel. Not all applications for Windows will find Wine sufficient, some might call rather undocumented functions or try lower level access, they may fail.

[hello_hello]

I do not have much experience with VMs, but from what I've been reading it should even be possible to convert an existing XP or Win7 installation into a VM which you then can just "play" under a VM host.

This sounds very tempting to me because I usually spend a lot of time to optimize and tweak my Windows installations. Then the question is if VirtualBox or VMWare player would be the better option to play such a VM. The VM files themselves should be compatible.

As a side note, have you tried NLite? It makes it pretty easy to "pre-tweak" and you can create a fully unattended installation CD that'll install Windows with your tweaks already applied. You don't have to use it to remove Windows components, but it can, and you can add service packs, drivers, patches, and upgrade files for IE or WMP. I've only used it for XP installations myself, but I haven't used an original XP CD in years.

I just finished setting up VirtualBox. Installing it on Linux Mint (the software manager will find and install it for you) and then installing XP in VirtualBox took about 45 minutes all up. I haven't installed any software on XP yet but it appears XP's Device Manager can see my old TV tuner/capture card, so hopefully I'll be able to use it that way. I haven't checked everything, but the capture card is the only unknown device in XP's Device Manager and it has working USB and audio.

In case you didn't see the link I posted earlier I'm still chronicling my Linux experience here (http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/376468-My-%28almost%29-1st-time-installing-Linux). So far, the advice has been relatively helpful and hopefully it'll be a source of info for someone else.

I'm still optimistic about a total switch to Linux (XP in VirtualBox aside), even if it'll be a fairly gradual process in respect to testing software etc. I've barely started, but I think in my head I'm already past the point of no return, as long as I don't hit any major road bumps along the way.

[raffriff42]

I do not have much experience with VMs, but from what I've been reading it should even be possible to convert an existing XP or Win7 installation into a VM which you then can just "play" under a VM host.

This sounds very tempting to me because I usually spend a lot of time to optimize and tweak my Windows installations...You're talking about "Physical to Virtual" or "P2V."

You need VMWare Converter (https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=converter), which is free if you jump through some registration hoops. It works very well, and yes it works with VirtualBox as discussed here (http://www.sysprobs.com/physical-virtual-virtualbox-virtualbox-p2v). For XP (and Win7 I guess) you may encounter an activation issue as soon as you boot up, as most Windows licenses are tied to the hardware. I had to re-purchase a couple of XP Pro licenses :( but now my old machines will live forever with their complex configurations (IIS+ASP+MSJVM(!?) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine) etc) intact.

[StainlessS]

Me loves dis thread.
Hello, hello-hello,

Me just done download !inux Mint 17.3,
You gave me incentive to retry, mucho grassy ass.
Life without Windows does no longer seem such an impossible dream.

Mobile:

[Nullack]

Mint has an old kernel. Once you get the hang of it, try another more current debian based distro I say. Theyre mostly the same in debian based circles - just usually different desktop environments e.g. Cinnamon, Unity, KDE, gnome 3 etcetc. At a wider level beyond debian the package based (not source like gentoo) distros are really only different in terms of which package manager, e.g. pacman, apt, rpm, yast and which desktop environment. But I still stand by my statement that desktop linux isnt very good its immature and lacking many features. In time maybe it will be awesome.

[Ghitulescu]

Linux is nice for things any Android tablet is good.

However, most software an enterprise and/or freelancer uses are not working under linux, but only in windows. For some of them WINE may be a solution. For others virtual machines and emulators. However, my current knowledge nobody managed to run paid software under linux.

At least Macs are provided with many useful paid software for professional music, book and movie authoring and composing.

I doubt people went to linux to avoid w10 and sharing the main interests of this forum, will stay longer there. Surely, downloading and converting between MP4, MKV, AVI and Divx and playing them back onto linux is possible. Also people that cannot rip a DVD because they have not the latest version of AnyDVD will have no chance under linux.

Serious projects are however untenable.

PS: an Adonai told me earlier that people need new versions, new software, new drivers, new everything.
Indeed, there are people always wanting something new. But needing? Only if what they have does not work.
And a new major version of windows not only requested new hardware but also dropped the support for the older ones. Should I throw my Avid rig I paid a few grands because I want to upgrade to w10 for free? And buy another rig, equally expensive? And now when Scenarist was discontinued, should I risk to damage my old functional computer for upgrades? Even connecting it to the internet?

[feisty2]

However, most software an enterprise and/or freelancer uses are not working under Linux

don't agree with the "enterprise" statement, there are enterprise level very high end programs that only run under Linux
like this one: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/flame-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/flame-sysreqs.html

[ts1]

For you newbie Mint users https://mintguide.org
Also if you use open source gpu drivers mesa-git has native Direct3D 9 support, or install it for ubuntu based systems from this (https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers) ppa.

[Ghitulescu]

don't agree with the "enterprise" statement, there are enterprise level very high end programs that only run under Linux
like this one: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/flame-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/flame-sysreqs.html
We do, too, but we develop the software in-house.
I also know some town halls that use linux and openoffice.
But these are only counter-examples.
I don't know any law, except those of physics, that oes not have a counter-example.

[StainlessS]

Just installed Mint 17.3 (EDIT: Cinnamon Desktop Edition), currently posting via Firefox from within Mint.
Quite a painless process really, auto connected via my 300Mbps TP-Link Wifi to my 4G Mifi device.
Looking forward to a little exploration :)

[WorBry]

Hey StainlessS, welcome to the "L side".

I've been running Mint KDE (now) 17.3 and Kubuntu 15.10 (both AMD 64 versions) side by side for about 2 months now, with Win7 (64) on a separate SSD. No problems at all.

I upgraded to Win 10 for just 5 days before (still) unresolved NAS (WD MyBookLive) access issues forced me to roll-back. Status on that, if anyone is in the same boat:

https://community.wd.com/t/windows-10-cannot-access-my-book-live-with-file-browser/141176

Despite going on to restore a full disc backup that I made of Win7 before the upgrade (i.e. before installing the KB3035583 that harbors the Win10 upgrade widget), I started to get this pop-up nag every time I signed into MSN Outlook, whether on IE11 or Firefox:

http://i.imgur.com/HKS4tjf.png

Sure, the pop-up can be X clicked away, but the fact this nag only appears on this PC and after I rolled back to Win7 bugs me.

I'm now doing all my web-browsing, emailing and Skyping from within Linux, whilst watching how things develop with Win10 over the coming months.

Must say I don't like their increasingly FUD strategy. Check this and the embedded radio interview with Microsoft Marketing Chief Chris Capossela (27-32 mins into the interview).

http://betanews.com/2015/12/29/microsoft-explains-why-its-pushing-windows-10-so-aggressively-spoiler-its-to-keep-you-safe/

Yes, he actually says that "Use Windows 7 at your peril " :eek:

That's not scaremongering, that's actually a threat. Empty maybe, but who knows.

[StainlessS]

Sure, the pop-up can be X clicked away, but the fact this nag only appears on this PC and after I rolled back to Win7 bugs me.

Hardly a good fix, but you could easily knock up an AutoIt script to wake up every second or so and if the nag window exists, automatically click the little 'x' (there is also I think a function key which could be sent instead to activate the 'x') button to close the window.

I'm gonna take it easy with Mint, not gonna get too into it all at once.

EDIT: You might also check Task Manager to see if some weird executable appears when nag is displayed, and try temp delete of file (making backup), maybe worth a try.

EDIT: Could use this as basic template, just need to use the AutoIt window tool (dont recall its name) to find out the window ID
(or just locate using some text in title), if Window exists then just send the relevant Function key, I'll look up the key and assist in
creating script if you are interested. :- http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=173010

[WorBry]

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'd prefer not to meddle and just take the "passive avoidance" approach for now, keeping a foot in both camps. Plus I find browsing in Mint/Kubuntu a bit snappier than Win7, and I'm in there a fair bit at the moment tinkering with KDenLive and the likes. So it's not a big deal really.

But what a ridiculous state of affairs that one has to resort to such measures to try and keep Microsoft out, whether already in Win10 or "kicking the can down the street", as Capossela puts it, by staying with Win7. What sort of company rubbishes one of it's most successful and abiding products. Desperate tactics. Sure Microsoft have been guilty of "FUD devices" before, but this puts it on a whole new level. Says a lot about the "new corporate culture" under Satya Nadella that Chris Caposella enthuses about, rather unconvincingly, in that radio interview.

And what's the end of it? Will we see a point where all consumer level computing hardware is either Microsoft or Apple dedicated, quite probably in the form of cloud-served workstations, with no scope left for the Linux desktop ? I hope not, but I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in the linux basket either.

Sure some might say "Accept the technology for what it will do for you, and be aware of the risks", but when it's not exactly clear what the real risks are and what are marketing fabrication, how can you really make an informed choice.

As concluded in another article I read recently:

"But the time for transparency is running out. By 2018 Microsoft aims to have one billion devices running Windows 10 and with that comes truly global reach and insight. The world deserves to know exactly what it is signing up for…"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/01/06/windows-10-spying-secrets-revealed/#5c6944cf2fd5

(If the link opens to the Forbes Welcome page, click the Continue to Site countdown button at the top right to open the article)

This is a product after-all, not a government program......or is it ? (as James Burke, quirky presenter of Tomorrows World used to say) - Twilight Zone theme plays in the background.

If I sound like a Windows-hater, I'm actually not. Had that pesky pop-up not appeared, and bothered me into probing further, I probably would have been content to just wait until a proper fix comes up for that NAS access problem (encountered by many) and have another go at the upgrade. But now that I have taken a more than usual interest in the roll-out of Win10, I just don't like the way they going about it, and will probably hold out until it becomes clear that I have no choice. Sad, huh ?

[Nullack]

Guys, I realise many of you considering linux for the first time are doing so out of wanting to search for greener pastures, and thats cool, but honestly many of these complaints for doing so, the reality is Linux is worse at it than Windows. Specifically complaints about backwards compatibility and MS stopping support for new chipsets and other aspects of new hardware from windows 7 moving forward. You will learn as you progress your Linux knowledge that Linux is far worse than Microsoft about backwards compatibility. In fact, very rarely is any device driver or key new feature from the latest kernel release ever backported into older distributions. And then a specific distribution does do this, like with Ubuntu backports, its officially unsupported and usually pretty unstable. This is why Mint as a distro tends to be a problem - because it uses an old kernel and hence theres lot of non supported stuff with it.

With MS now saying for new hardware like the coming Kaby Lake, for the chipset support MS is only supporting Windows 10, that's actually what Linux has done for more than a decade fellas.

When it comes to privacy, I actually found it far easier to turn off OS stuff in Windows 10 than what Apple does with MacOS, and Im still researching how I tell Google to respect my privacy and I'm reading I may find I cant ever get to that point with Google stuff (im still researching the truth of those claims). Please dont suggest that Linux distro's like Ubuntu are privacy OK out of the box either - some simple reading on amazon and internet based searches in Ubuntu will show privacy problems by default there too.

[smok3]

@Nullack: you mean newer hardware is supported badly?

(My 10 year old wacom tablet and cheap scanner are working out of the box, none will work by default with win7)

Nobody suggested that Ubuntu is something that one should run.

[Nullack]

I mean that backports arent done generally in Linux, and if they are done, in say the case of the Ubuntu backports repository, they arent supported. So what MS is doing with only Windows 10 support with for example Kaby Lake only on WIndows 10, is entirely consistent with what Linux has done for more than a decade.

[LigH]

Already mentioned that a few pages ago:

I just read that the support for newest CPU generations by Microsoft may only be certain on newest Windows Versions (e.g. Windows < 10 may not work well on Skylake and following generations)...

Linux seems to have some issues too, yet; I read an article in a PC magazine about a new laptop with issues regarding energy saving, fan noise, and video playback even. These CPUs seem to be different enough to require special kind of support. Drivers will be developed, but if kernel changes are also required to support them optimally, Microsoft may only apply them to W10+.

[Ghitulescu]

Linux seems to have some issues too, yet; I read an article in a PC magazine about a new laptop with issues regarding energy saving, fan noise, and video playback even. These CPUs seem to be different enough to require special kind of support. Drivers will be developed, but if kernel changes are also required to support them optimally, Microsoft may only apply them to W10+.

Linux has these issues for a long time now.
A few years ago someone "whistled" about secret deals between MS and hardware manufacturers, wherein the latter were required not to provide linux drivers for their products in exchange for the MS certification. Luckily, some of these decices work with generic drivers directly talking to the main chips of the product (like it was the case with sound and video cards before windows).

Solving these incompatibilities are problematic for many people and may turn them back to windows or mac.

And linux is not 100% immune against espionage. But at least it won't spy itself on you, and some holes may be closed (some webpages will refuse to launch, though - a nice trick to find the public offenders :) ).

[Asmodian]

Linux seems to have some issues too, yet; I read an article in a PC magazine about a new laptop with issues regarding energy saving, fan noise, and video playback even. These CPUs seem to be different enough to require special kind of support. Drivers will be developed, but if kernel changes are also required to support them optimally, Microsoft may only apply them to W10+.

Linux would only apply them to the newest version as well, I think that is all Nullack was saying. If you are annoyed you need to update your OS to Windows 10 to get support for the new hardware the same is true when using Linux.

Having issues with the kernel being too old or too new for a particular driver or software package is a very common problem when running Linux, in my experiance.

And linux is not 100% immune against espionage. But at least it won't spy itself on you, and some holes may be closed (some webpages will refuse to launch, though - a nice trick to find the public offenders :) ).

I wouldn't be so sure, what Dash (default in Ubuntu) does seems pretty much identical to Cortana as far as privacy concerns go.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2141952

[SeeMoreDigital]

Out of interest, have any of you guys who are running Windows 10 installed the free version of an application called CCleaner?

It offers it's own version of 'Uninstall' which unlike the Win10 version provides the ability to remove Microsoft's awful default apps such as; maps, groove music, 3d builder, etc ;)


Cheers

[jones1913]

I mean that backports arent done generally in Linux, and if they are done, in say the case of the Ubuntu backports repository, they arent supported. So what MS is doing with only Windows 10 support with for example Kaby Lake only on WIndows 10, is entirely consistent with what Linux has done for more than a decade.
Do you expect that all new features are backported to older kernels? Correct me but I think this is not common in software development. Whats backported are security updates, even the old kernel 3.2 get still security updates.

Linux would only apply them to the newest version as well, I think that is all Nullack was saying. If you are annoyed you need to update your OS to Windows 10 to get support for the new hardware the same is true when using Linux.
This is not comparable, on Windows you have to upgrade your complete system, on Linux you can simply ugrade the kernel and the rest of your installation remains intact.
How the kernel update works is depends of course on your chosen linux distribution.

Having issues with the kernel being too old or too new for a particular driver or software package is a very common problem when running Linux, in my experiance.
I think today the situation is slightly better than a few years ago. Mostly I see problems with proprietary graphics drivers.

I wouldn't be so sure, what Dash (default in Ubuntu) does seems pretty much identical to Cortana as far as privacy concerns go.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2141952

Thats not Linux' fault, its Ubuntu's fault. It applies only to their Unity desktop, and in contrast to W10 it can be disabled with a few clicks...

[Asmodian]

This is not comparable, on Windows you have to upgrade your complete system, on Linux you can simply ugrade the kernel and the rest of your installation remains intact.
How the kernel update works is depends of course on your chosen linux distribution.

I have had this go very very bad before, maybe it is better now (depending on the distro, of course)? Anyway it isn't super straight forward and Windows 10's upgrade from 7 or 8.1 has worked very well for me. It seems pretty similar really.

Thats not Linux' fault, its Ubuntu's fault. It applies only to their Unity desktop, and in contrast to W10 it can be disabled with a few clicks...

I was simply using it as an example, just because it is Linux doesn't mean you can be sure it isn't doing something similar. It isn't that hard to disable it in Windows 10 (http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-in-windows-10/) either.

[hello_hello]

Me loves dis thread.
Hello, hello-hello,

Me just done download !inux Mint 17.3,
You gave me incentive to retry, mucho grassy ass.
Life without Windows does no longer seem such an impossible dream.

I'm glad to be of inspiration.

I know it'll be a long process, but I'm not in a particular hurry. Most of the negative Linux comments I've read are criticisms of Linux as it is today, or based on it's history etc, and while perfectly valid, I'm looking at it differently and mostly concerned with what the criticisms will be in 2020 and how familiar I'll be with using it by then (I think that's when Win7 support ends). I can run Win7 on my main PC until at least then, probably longer, or run it in a VM on Linux along with XP, and if it takes me five years of playing around with Linux in my spare time before I have a working (for me) setup, at least I'll have a working alternative to Win10 when I need one. If not..... I guess I'll feel pretty foolish..... but already I can do the basic stuff..... surf, email, listen to music (foobar2000 runs in Wine), and share files with Windows computers on the network. I just need time to become familiar with a new OS and experiment with different software.

My Linux experience is based on one distro I've been using for all of ten seconds, but as an OS I think I already prefer Linux Mint KDE to Windows. It seems remarkably good for an OS relatively few people run. I wonder where it'll be in 2020, especially if more than a handful of us attempt to switch before Win7 support ends..... rather than run Win7 solely as a way of postponing an inevitable Win10 upgrade.

[smok3]

^ That's the spirit IMHO, mint is a good nooby distro and whatever learned should apply more or less directly to entire debian branch.

[Nullack]

KDE recently went through a prod release for bug fixes and minor enhancements that I think youd find useful. I think as you progress mate with Mint, youll become more interested in what other distros have to offer. One of the best KDE Linux experiences is Opensuse. Or if you wanted to stick with Debian based package management like you have know with Mint, you can go further up the Debian tree from Mint to Ubuntu to Debian direct running say the Debian stretch test repos for more current software. IMHO Mints biggest problem is poor patching from uostream - theyre way behind in linux kernel releases for example and that many people who try to use Mint dont have a working experience if they have newer hardware.

[WorBry]

They're at it again. Now planting Windows 10 upgrade nags in critical security updates:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042155/microsoft-windows/windows-patch-kb-3139929-when-a-security-update-is-not-a-security-update.html

[4Dude]

[videobruce]

I'm still dealing with Win7 in spite of using Winreducer EX-70.

I tried Linux Mint Mate, but gave up on it due the the ridiculous lack of printer support and other reasons. Almost like buying a vehicle than had no tires and had to use a very rare size almost no one makes.

[raffriff42]

Good Old Games (gog.com) is starting to run a disclaimer:https://www.gog.com/game/flatout_2
Please be advised that Windows 10 operating system will receive frequent hardware driver and software updates following its release; this may affect game compatibility.

Yeah, it might: no software or hardware can be said to be "Windows 10 compatible" in the long term. Granted, bit-rot is everywhere (by which I mean, software and hardware updates slowly making your old programs unrunnable) but Windows 10 is bit-rot on crack.

Also, I'm sure GOG (and Steam, and iTunes, and Amazon, and Netflix...) are not happy about the oncoming Windows Store business model.

[LigH]

So hey, let's just switch to Linux as target OS for gaming: Windows 10 will emulate Ubuntu (http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ubuntu-on-windows.html), like a reverse WINE. :rolleyes:

[raffriff42]

So hey, let's just switch to Linux as target OS for gaming: Windows 10 will emulate Ubuntu (http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ubuntu-on-windows.html), like a reverse WINE. :rolleyes: Windows 10 will not emulate Linux exactly; it will support the Ubuntu front-end with the Windows backend.

Like the "Windows POSIX subsystem" back in the 90's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem

or "Windows Services for UNIX" in 00's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX

this one is similar, and it's called "Windows Subsystem for Linux"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux

except this time it won't suck... right?

[Atak_Snajpera]

My first convincing find was the GWX Control Panel which removes/changes several files and registry settings, and also offers to install a monitor service which watches over important places Microsoft might silently revoke, like it does with KB3035583: You may have it removed from the list of updates to be offered, but next time it is offered again.

Which alternatives can you recommend?
Yes I have alternative for you.

You can easily block GWX.exe with this entry in registry.

Run cmd.exe as administrator and then execute this command
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\GWX.exe" /v Debugger /t REG_SZ /d rundll32.exe /f

After reboot gwx.exe won't start. Any calls to GWX.exe will be redirected to rundll32.exe (43.5 KiB). rundll32.exe does nothing without extra parameters. (It basically acts like DoNothing.exe program)

To unblock GWX.exe
reg.exe delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\GWX.exe" /f

Advantages
1) No need to use external applications (security)
2) No need to run monitoring process in background

[LigH]

Today (note the calendar date!) the German magazine CHIP reports (http://www.chip.de/news/Windows-10-illegal-Downgrade_91392152.html) that the free but forced Windows 10 upgrade has been ruled illegal due to unfair competition, and Microsoft was sentenced to have it revoked during the coming 3 months... Including altered GWX messages displaying the opposite content than before.

[WorBry]

Interesting.....although suspicious. I'm afraid I don't speak German. So, who is it exactly that has made this ruling ?

Even if it's a prank (no reports of this "breaking news" elsewhere today), there have been complaints about the Windows 10 upgrade installing automatically, without permission, on some computers?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/15/windows-10-automatically-installs-without-permission-complain-users

Some other recent articles of interest:

"Microsoft backtracks on Windows 7 support deadline"

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3046032/windows-pcs/microsoft-backtracks-on-windows-7-support-deadline.html

And meanwhile... on the orchard side of the fence:

"Apple designing its own icloud servers to avoid surveillance"

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-designing-its-own-icloud-servers-to-avoid-surveillance/

[StainlessS]

Worbury, there is something about it here on Wikipedia:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

[Brazil2]

Which alternatives can you recommend?
Never10
https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

[WorBry]

Worbury, there is something about it here on Wikipedia:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

Nope, can't see any mention of this Windows 10 upgrade ruling there either - I must be missing something very obvious :rolleyes:

Edit: Oh I get it now - mis-spelling WorBry as WorBury. LOL, good one - you got me there.

[LigH]

The German article about the sentencing of MS to downgrade Windows 10 upgrades again was of course an April Fools' prank. Of course ... because which jurisdiction would dare to sentence the real government behind the government, the Almighty Profit? Remember, America brought us the "Free™" market economy (free from social responsibility).

[Katie Boundary]

My Windows XP system never bugs me about upgrading to Windows 10 :)

[LigH]

Resistance is futile...

http://frupic.frubar.net/shots/33621.jpg

;)

[Groucho2004]

Resistance is futile...

http://frupic.frubar.net/shots/33621.jpg

;)
Awesome. :D

[filler56789]

Resistance is futile...

http://frupic.frubar.net/shots/33621.jpg

;)

Translation:

INSTALL NOW <Y/Y> ? :devil:

[LoRd_MuldeR]

http://cdn3.spiegel.de/images/image-988322-galleryV9-hqki-988322.jpg

:p

[Brazil2]

http://cdn3.spiegel.de/images/image-988322-galleryV9-hqki-988322.jpg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMPeTrHNX1U

[StainlessS]

HoHo, great link Brazil2 :) :) :)

EDIT: I had to go back and watch a couple more times, fabulous.

[Brazil2]

More 'fun':

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36157806

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10s-built-in-search-now-supports-bing-and-microsofts-edge-exclusively/

[LigH]

^LoRd_MuldeR...

Imagine you are a pro gamer showing your skillz on a Twitch live stream to about 130,000 viewers, when suddenly you get a head-shot by your OS (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/04/windows-10-updates-ruining-pro-gaming-streams)...

Now I'm expecting regular memes what else Windows 10 will interrupt.

[Groucho2004]

I'm glad I bought a few Win7 Pro licenses for less than 20 bucks a pop before they won't be available any more.

[LigH]

Time is running out ... but just before you decide to upgrade anyway, Microsoft will already schedule your upgrade without your explicit consent (http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-schedules-upgrade-to-windows-10-without-users-consent-504095.shtml), so you won't forget.

[foxyshadis]

The surefire way is to do what I did -- just don't ever have enough C: space. In the end, I had to clear off 16 GB or so before I could get the update.

[WorBry]

So is Never10 not a secure safeguard ?

Never10
https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

[Groucho2004]

The surefire way is to do what I did -- just don't ever have enough C: space.
My c: partition has 64 MB. I guess I'm safe? :D

[LigH]

The surefire way is to do what I did -- just don't ever have enough C: space.

In this case, it was a wise idea to partition the harddisk... :D
__

64 MB? ... :eek: Makes me wonder how Windows could get installed at all. Because the boot partition is usually mapped as C:.

[Groucho2004]

64 MB? ... :eek: Makes me wonder how Windows could get installed at all. Because the boot partition is usually mapped as C:.
I have Windows on d:
Partition c: is just a FAT12 minimal DOS partition with Symantec Ghost on it. I know I could run Ghost from a stick, it's just a habit to partition my drives this way.

[LigH]

Understood. Probably not the worst idea, there will be some stupid malware trying to infect C: and failing... ;)

But MS can be stupid in just the same way. I know a PC where upgrading from IE9 to IE11 failed because the default "Program files" directory was redirected in the Registry. This results in IE11 closing immediately just when its window appears.

[mandarinka]

Understood. Probably not the worst idea, there will be some stupid malware trying to infect C: and failing... ;)

But MS can be stupid in just the same way. I know a PC where upgrading from IE9 to IE11 failed because the default "Program files" directory was redirected in the Registry. This results in IE11 closing immediately just when its window appears.

Yeah, I would expect troubles to happen. At one point for example LibreOffice was impossible to install on such configs outside of C: (as in, not expecting the scenario at all and implicitly putting stuff into C:\, install failing). Many programs are probably not handling small non-OS C:\

[Groucho2004]

Yeah, I would expect troubles to happen. At one point for example LibreOffice was impossible to install on such configs outside of C: (as in, not expecting the scenario at all and implicitly putting stuff into C:\, install failing).
The portable version of LibreOffice (or any other portable software) doesn't have any problem with that. I love portable programs, pretty much everything I use is portable (or, if it wasn't portable I made it portable :D).

Many programs are probably not handling small non-OS C:\
In that case I wouldn't use it since it probably is crap anyway. There are morons who hard-code "c:\program files" in their code and if that doesn't exist the "software" fails.
Other idiots assume that there is ample space on "c:" and use it as a dump for temporary files. Early versions of Sun Java did that.

One of the most important axioms for software developers:
"Assumption is the mother of all fuckups"

[StainlessS]

My first 3 partitions are all C: drive :) [well P3 is currently Linux Mint, but would be C: if MS installed on it].

EDIT: I use XOSL boot controller (can install on any partition [even logical partition, but MUST BE in 1st 128GB of drive])
and you must install OS with all other primaries hidden so they are all drive C:, XOSL hides other MS boot primaries
when specific partition chosen to boot.
XOSL is old, but still my favorite means of OS selection, also not as brain dead as using MS boot control which is
a complete non-starter as far as I'm concerned.
In XOSL, you can temporarily un-hide an alternate MS OS partition so that maintenance can be carried out on it [where it
will be given a non C: drive letter], or to recover data from a broken OS before reinstall.

EDIT: Incidentally, you can run Ghost32.exe from an alternate (to target) Win OS partition [usually most convenient way].

EDIT: There is also another little MS nicety that I HATE, when it installs eg MSOCache to a non drive C:, I will not have
any of that stuff on MY DRIVES, C: is OS and Office and stuff like that, everything else is MINE and liable to be reformatted
or whatever I choose, keep your hands off my drives MS. [and why do I need copies of everything on hard drive anyway ?].

[filler56789]

There are morons who hard-code "c:\program files" in their code and if that doesn't exist the "software" fails.
Other idiots assume that there is ample space on "c:" and use it as a dump for temporary files. Early versions of Sun Java did that.

IrfanView assumes that the drive letters A: and B: cannot be anything better than "floppies". Prassi ONES doesn't detect a CD/DVD drive that uses one of those letters. M$ Office 97 had its issue with the Tahoma font, when this latter was installed outside of %windir%\Fonts. MP4Box cannot create directories, but it checks the (non-)existence of the output folder only "after all is almost said and done"...

[LigH]

Now I'm expecting regular memes what else Windows 10 will interrupt.

http://frupic.frubar.net/shots/33770.jpg

Resistance is futile...

:o

[jones1913]

I suspected it for some time, M$ products can be bad for your health:

"Lives could have been put at risk by pushy upgrade" :eek:

Even in remotest Africa, Windows 10 nagware ruins your day: Update burns satellite link cash (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/03/windows_10_upgrade_satellite_link)

[Sparktank]

I've just been assimilated. :(

I was in the middle of a game and then it just restarted on me. I spent about an hour updating and re-installing things.

[huhn]

kill windows update. not that hard.

[Atak_Snajpera]

I've just been assimilated. :(

I was in the middle of a game and then it just restarted on me. I spent about an hour updating and re-installing things.

This will block GWX and automatic os upgrade.

Run cmd.exe as administrator and then type these two lines.
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /v DisableOSUpgrade /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx" /v DisableGwx /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

[Sparktank]

This will block GWX and automatic os upgrade.

Run cmd.exe as administrator and then type these two lines.
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /v DisableOSUpgrade /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx" /v DisableGwx /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Thanks, I'll do this on my laptop. That one still runs on Win7. It's far too old to learn anything new.

[LigH]

^ Never10 or GWX Control Panel will probably include these registry changes too. And contain additional features to avoid or at least report if Windows Update might possibly "fix" these changes...

[4Dude]

I read on another VBB site Im on someones computer was being hijacked and he just TURNED IT OFF during the upgrade....... When he turned it back on it said "UPGRADE FAILED..... REVERTING TO YOUR OLDER OS" which he was happy of......

[LigH]

Microsoft already got sentenced to pay (http://gizmodo.com/woman-wins-10-000-from-microsoft-after-unwanted-window-1782666146) (warning: gizmodo)

[GMJCZP]

More food to feed this topic:

Here. (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to-upgrade-to-windows-10/)

[kypec]

"Voluntary" offer to upgrade should not be declined - see http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2016/06/09/0793-an-offer-you-cant-refuse-ww/

[LigH]

http://cosgan.de/images/smilie/frech/o030.gif — That made my day! One of my favourite web comics...

[Ghitulescu]

I understand that in one month this thread will be [SOLVED], as the update will no longer be free and therefore not enforceable.

[GMJCZP]

And then, what about the Skylake CPU in 2017?

[Ghitulescu]

I do not understand the problem :)

My music computer still uses Windows 98 and it continued to work even 10 years after the support for this old version ceased.

Meanwhile the PIII has not "evolved" into a Skylab, it simply stayed, biblically, unchanged. :) :)

[LigH]

Windows 10: Microsoft launches intrusive full-screen upgrade reminder (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/04/microsoft-windows-10-full-screen-upgrade-notification-pop-up-reminder)

Doesn't it resemble the BSoD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death), somehow?! :rolleyes:

[nevcairiel]

Windows 10: Microsoft launches intrusive full-screen upgrade reminder (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/04/microsoft-windows-10-full-screen-upgrade-notification-pop-up-reminder)

Doesn't it resemble the BSoD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death), somehow?! :rolleyes:

It resembles the metro start screen if anything, and more precisely the setup screens you get after installing Windows 8/8.1 that guide you through setting a PC name etc.

[LigH]

Well, OK, the setup routines are in blue as well. I just took a joke from a German "conspiracy" blog (http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=a984ad08) here. Together with a huff about the fullscreen mode.

[huhn]

i guess some people like this stuff:
https://oddshot.tv/shot/GamesDoneQuick/Uzo0ZaoQ0ZZH0brd50jorJBn

[nevcairiel]

i guess some people like this stuff:
https://oddshot.tv/shot/GamesDoneQuick/Uzo0ZaoQ0ZZH0brd50jorJBn

Just to be safe, thats fake, someone modified their cutscene to have some fun. ;)

[Motenai Yoda]

Just to be safe, thats fake, someone modified their cutscene to have some fun. ;)

and get some views and subscribers

[huhn]

and get some views and subscribers

yeah terrible people...

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick

[JarrettH]

The performance is nicely improved even on my old Core 2 Duo machine, and I like the navigation changes in Windows Explorer. I mean you better just update - you're going to be running it at some point - then it won't cost you $150 later

[Atak_Snajpera]

The performance is nicely improved even on my old Core 2 Duo machine, and I like the navigation changes in Windows Explorer. I mean you better just update - you're going to be running it at some point - then it won't cost you $150 later

Nope. I prefer oldschool OS over newschool Service.
Difference between Win7 and Win10 is much smaller than between XP and Vista.

[StainlessS]

Linux Mint 18 "Sarah" released (June 2016, Cinnamon & Mate versions):- https://www.linuxmint.com/
ReactOS v0.41(Alpha),(May 17 2016):- https://www.reactos.org/
Remix OS v2.0 (30 June 2016, Android on PC):- http://www.jide.com/remixos

EDIT: Cinnamon is really not such an uncomfortable change from Windows.

[raffriff42]

ReactOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS) seems like a good long term solution, in combination with WINE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)). Let's get off Windows forever.

Start donating money to these projects, in large amounts. If you can, donate labor: code, testing, documentation etc
https://www.winehq.org/donate
https://reactos.org/donating

[LigH]

Possibly another reason not to upgrade to W10:

You can't turn off Cortana in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (http://www.pcworld.com/article/3100358/windows/you-cant-turn-off-cortana-in-the-windows-10-anniversary-update.html) ...but you can lessen her awareness

Fortunately I don't usually need a headset with microphone for a desktop PC if I don't videochat regularly. But mobile devices will always have one. Can you hear the secret services org...?

[huhn]

it can still be disabled.

nothing wrong with kicking windows 10 ass for this change but it's not forced at all.

[Brazil2]

it can still be disabled.
How ?

[manolito]

The German computer magazine C'T just published 2 .reg files which turn off Cortana either system wide or just for the current user.

Save the following files with the .reg extension and execute them...

GoAwayCortana_systemwide.reg
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
"AllowCortana"=dword:00000000

GoAwayCortans_currentuser.reg
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
"AllowCortana"=dword:00000000


Cheers
manolito

[Atak_Snajpera]

It looks like Windows 7 is still more popular in US than "free" windows 10.
http://i.cubeupload.com/qaE4hH.png

[Brazil2]

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US177798806&recNum=20&maxRec=75273&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=&queryString=ALLNAMES%3A%28Microsoft%29&tab=PCTDescription

[Wilbert]

This has to do with Windows 10 how?

[raffriff42]

For us non-lawyers (explains the patent in plain English)
Microsoft Wants to Watch Over Whatever You’re Doing to Offer You Better Search Results
http://wccftech.com/microsoft-just-got-another-reason-to-watch-everything-you-do/

...I assumed they were already doing this. Just like Google does.

[Brazil2]

This has to do with Windows 10 how?
Application Number: 14736080 Application Date: 10.06.2015
Publication Number: 20160275194 Publication Date: 22.09.2016

IPC:
H04L 29/08
G06F 17/30

Applicants: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
Title: (EN) QUERY FORMULATION VIA TASK CONTINUUM


The search engine (e.g., Bing™ and Cortana™ (an intelligent personal digital speech recognition assistant) by Microsoft Corporation) uses contextual rankers to adjust the default ranking of the default suggested queries to produce more relevant suggested queries for the point in time. The operating system, comprising the function of mediation component, tracks all textual data displayed to the user by any application, and then performs clustering to determine the user intent (contextually).

For example, in a Windows™ OS ecosystem of devices, which can include two or more Windows™ devices such as a Windows Phone™, a Surface Pro™ tablet, and Xbox™, etc., the OS of a given device gathers and monitors the information from the non-OS applications engaged on the given device, and communicates with the operating systems of the other devices to enable the OS of each device to have a “global awareness” of the contexts of the other ecosystem devices. These separate device contexts can then be computed to derive a global user context of the ecosystem.

While the user is using applications, such as OneNote™, Word™, Outlook™, PowerPoint™, Spotify™, etc., the mediation component 102 of the OS 104 captures signals from data streams 302, such as a text steam S1 (e.g., plain text displayed to the user), an OCR stream S2 (e.g., text recognized from images), an audio stream S3 (e.g., recognized audio from the currently playing song), and other streams, then at 304, clusters the signals into contextual concepts (high-level words which define what the user is doing and/or may be predicted to do. The use of high-level words preserves user privacy.
Wow! Privacy!

[foxyshadis]

Our long national nightmare is over, the Windows 10 upgrade is gone, and this is not the general "let's complain about Microsoft" thread. There's a whole subforum for that.