SORTED :) Windows After XP Sux big time. [Archive]

StainlessS

23rd October 2018, 02:32

All A.O.K now, thanx all :)

Having recently 'upgraded' to W7, I'm trying to get to grips with the W7 weirdness, probably due to permissions and UAC.

I was wondering if there has been some tutorial posted on-site for taming said 7.

Manolito posted this some time ago
Because Windows did indeed improve up to XP (with the exception of the Millennium version which came out after Win98SE). After WinXP everything went downhill. Win8 and Win8.1 was a joke (at least for users without touchscreens), and Win10 is an absolute nightmare for me. Leaves Win7 which is not too bad, but only after tweaking dozens of things to make it resemble XP. This includes turning off this stupid UAC, tame this whole permissions thing, disable Virtual Store (I want to know where my files REALLY are stored). Also getting rid of the built-in ZIP support, installing Classic Startup Menu, make Windows use the DS source filters which I have installed instead of the crappy MS filters, and some more...

After applying all these tweaks I can live with Win7. But MS is actively working to put Win7 into the position WinXP is in now. Just read that their upcoming Office 2019 will need Win10. Once they succeed in making Win7 unusable I will certainly say goodbye to MS. I hope that ReactOS will be ready by then...
https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1832703#post1832703

One weird prob I'm having is when I right click avs file and load into VDub2, on pressing VD2 avs script editor F7 (save and refresh) key, it just stops responding altogether. Also, in MeGUI, it simply hangs before showing the Aspect Ratio preview window.
(above with VD2 and MeGUI x86, have not as yet even tried x64 where I anticipate even more problems).

I currently have Classic Shell installed (which fixes that god awful Windows Explorer jumping about thing when you click on a folder). Unfortunately the explorer is still bloody awful in comparison to the XP edition. It is hard to believe that W7 Windows Explorer has survived so long without its bugs and peculiarities being squashed.

ReactOS is due to be released at v5.0 (end of this month) finally with NTFS read and write (currently read only, but hack in registry to get write to work).
Also, Libre Office is getting quite good now, who needs MS Orifice 2019. (Last for XP v5.4.7.2)

Any advice/suggestions greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Offsite page on disabling Virtual Store:- https://interworks.com/blog/dsmith/2011/09/21/disabling-windows-7-virtual-store/

EDIT: Where Manolito refuses to use any plugs that will not run on a PIII, I will not use plugs that will not run under XP
(as I still use XP on multiple machines, at least P4).

EDIT: I run as an administrator, and would prefer to keep UAC if possible to tame it.

manolito

23rd October 2018, 04:39

For taming Win7 UAC there is a software called TweakUAC. There also is a software called "CacheMan" which has an option to tame UAC. I tried both, but my conclusion was to disable UAC altogether. I do not need to be babysitted and protected from myself, at least not by M$.

For the Win7 start menu I use the older Classic Shell v. 3.5.0. It provides a lot of options to tweak the Explorer appearance, works for me. But basically I try to avoid Win Explorer, I use Total Commander instead.

One essential thing for Win7 is to have a utility available to grab permissions for files and folders by right-clicking a file or folder in Explorer. I use an older REG script (which unfortunately is language dependant so I won't post it here). And since users can screw up their Win7 installation pretty bad by using such a tool it is also essential to have the "acl_repair_utility_for_vista_7.zip" readily available.

To make the DirectShow Filters usable under Win7 there is the Filter Tweaker Tool by CLSID. I chose the more radical approach to disable the Preferred Filters in the Registry altogether. Delete the content of these keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectShow\Preferred
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectShow\Preferred (obviously, x64 OS only)
Of course you need to grab the permissions first. After this Win7 will behave exactly like WinXP when it comes to DirectShow Filters. Whatever filter has been installed last will get the highest merit.

For us retro XP users (and even more retro using Non-SSE2 CPUs) I started an ever growing list of the latest software versions which do still work under XP and/or Non-SSE2. This includes Google Chrome, VLC Player, X264, CCleaner, MalwareBytes, LAVFilters, MKVToolnix, FFmpeg, AVIDemux, MakeMKV, MP4Tools and some others...

Cheers
manolito

johnmeyer

23rd October 2018, 06:17

This is very timely for me. My main computer is dual boot, with two separate drives, and the "other" boot drive was Vista, which I upgraded to Win7 about five years ago.

However, like StainlessS, I find Win7's Explorer just plain awful. I keep telling myself that one of these days I'll take the time to fix Win7 so I don't have to work around all the incredibly stupid changes that were made, for no reason, and with no improvement.

Not once have I ever used Win7 and then, when I returned to XP, found myself saying, "I really miss that [name a feature] in Win7."

I've had to fix computers that have Win10 installed and that O/S is so bad that if I am ever forced to use it, I'll either switch to Mac, or simply use Linux.

I look forward to any additional hints people might have for how to make the Win7 UI work as efficiently as XP. I still can't believe how badly they broke the basic file search capability that was in Windows since Win 3.0 was introduce in May of 1990.

StainlessS

23rd October 2018, 06:31

OOOOoooo, already some good stuff posted, plenty for me to explore in the morn (well, its 06:28 now so maybe a bit later today).
Thanx guys :)

I still can't believe how badly they broke the basic file search capability that was in Windows since Win 3.0 was introduce in May of 1990.
So its not just me that thinks search is now totally crap :)
[EDIT: I thought that RaffRiff posted some self written search tool on-site, but maybe was someone else].

EDIT: I'm sure that someone recently posted that Windows 7 was the best ever M$ OS, wonder what he/she/it was smoking.

EDIT: I until recently used the old trusty XOSL boot manager, unfortunately it now fails to work for some reason
(I generalized the W7 install and got rid of the System Partition),
Got it multibooting (with only single OS so far, ie W7 on Partition 2) using Plop! BootManager, would maybe prefer some other
but 1TB boot drive has only 27 sectors per track (rather than eg 63 needed for GAG boot controller).
Got several more boot controllers to try, not looking good so far (I so miss XOSL already, it was lovely).
EDIT: It is important for me that the boot controller be totally independent of any OS, as I like to be able to image
an OS and swap and change whenever I want without any horse poop.

Time for bed said Florence, Boing said Zebedee.

hello_hello

23rd October 2018, 09:54

I currently have Classic Shell installed (which fixes that god awful Windows Explorer jumping about thing when you click on a folder). Unfortunately the explorer is still bloody awful in comparison to the XP edition. It is hard to believe that W7 Windows Explorer has survived so long without its bugs and peculiarities being squashed.

Try an alternative file manager. The free version of xplorer2 is much better.
https://www.freewarefiles.com/Xplorer2-Lite-_program_111070.html

It's dual-pane, each pane can have multiple tabs like a browser, and each pane can have it's columns configured individually. It can be configured to startup in it's previous state, but I prefer to disable that and create several tabs open to often used locations and save the configuration so it always starts up that way.

A file manager without dual panes is soooooo frustrating. It also has a feature which I think might be similar to the breadcumbs annoyance of Explorer, only it works better. Each tab shows the full path and it's clickable. Left click takes you to the location in the path you clicked on. Right click gives you a list of all the subfolders for that location.

Best as I can tell, the free version only comes in a 32 bit flavour, but I think the only limitation there is it can't be configured to replace Explorer on 64 bit Windows. Not that it matters. I've always used it separately and it still incorporates Explorer's context menus.
It also appears the latest version (I haven't used it yet) has a ribbon interface, but you can switch to the classic menu bar.

There's a tree view similar to Explorer's but I don't use it much so I have it hidden as I'm still using a 4:3 monitor.

https://i.postimg.cc/LqBgrHpD/xplorer2.gif (https://postimg.cc/LqBgrHpD)

Atak_Snajpera

23rd October 2018, 12:30

@StainlessS and others
If you hate windows 7 (the best windows version in my opinion so far) then you will love windows 10 aka SpyingService10 ;).
BTW. It is funny that you managed to hibernate yourself so long on that outdated NT5.1 OS.

Your beloved ReactOS still is only a NT5.x clone. You won't be able to run many apps compiled for NT6.x

Seedmanc

23rd October 2018, 12:59

Funny, while I learned to like W7 (after all I switched to it some 5-7 years ago and didn't really reinstall it since), and I'd never go back, I can understand OP because i'm having the same feelings now about W10 and how terrible it is compared to W7. Though mine might be caused by the fact that I have a very old W10 version and it might have gotten better since. But updates are cancer and bring destruction, so I avoid them, fortunately it's not my primary OS.
But that essentially means it's not a matter of a windows version but merely of breaking habits and switching from a well-tuned OS installation, molded after your own usage patterns to a new one that'll require a comparable amount of work to achieve a usable state. Something similar should happen when reinstalling the current OS from scratch as well, hence I'm not doing it at all. Besides there's the proper SSD support and that's important if you want to manage large videofiles.
Can't really comment on React other than it being a meme OS.

Somehow I've never heard of Virtual Store and it never bothered me in all these years. Looking at the folder now, it's empty. Maybe it was disabled in my bundle.
Not sure why'd you use Virtual Dub's editor instead of AvspMod, I dropped VDubMod's editor the moment I learned about the specialized one.

Any particular problems with the default ZIP handler other than it not displaying image thumbs? I use Pismo File Mounter when I need to access archive contents without extraction. I'd also recommend installing the Link Shell Extention (http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html) to manage NTFS capabilities from inside the explorer.

lansing

23rd October 2018, 14:43

One weird prob I'm having is when I right click avs file and load into VDub2, on pressing VD2 avs script editor F7 (save and refresh) key, it just stops responding altogether. Also, in MeGUI, it simply hangs before showing the Aspect Ratio preview window.
(above with VD2 and MeGUI x86, have not as yet even tried x64 where I anticipate even more problems).

This looks more like a machine fail rather than a problem with the OS because I couldn't reproduce your issue on my win7 and I doubt that anyone would to able to.

Revan654

23rd October 2018, 18:15

This looks more like a machine fail rather than a problem with the OS because I couldn't reproduce your issue on my win7 and I doubt that anyone would to able to.

^This or the whole meltdown / bytecode fix. On older systems the bytecode has slowed down systems.

StainlessS

23rd October 2018, 19:58

I guess that I should really read up on W7, I hate reading since my eyes got dodgy.
Is one supposed to install everything with "Run As Administrator", even when one is an Administrator ?

Think I'm gonna go back to base image (just generalized [bcd made to run from current drive rather than specific drive], and updated
via WSuS OffLine, and a few basic settings, got my beloved Windows 95 Red Tiles set up as background (I find it restful on the eyes), and also dumped all of that pinned to taskbar stuff and replaced with QuickLaunch bar, switched off taskbar button grouping + other stuff incl Windows Classic [not that awful XP Classic]).

Incidentally, I use netspeedmonitor v2.5.4 by Florian Gilles, there seems to be later versions, dont know why I use the older version, maybe just for XP,
I even use it on Windows 10 Tablet/Laptop, but have to install in compatibility mode, works fine. The thing I like about it is it sits on taskbar and gives a simple
text readout of up and down speed for Mobile Wifi, I dont usually bother tracking other stuff. Also can track volume usage, but I switch that off.

I dont find W10 that bad apart from the horrid update habits, I've learnt that there aint no point in trying to do anything when its busy updating,
but I only have W10 on tablet/laptop and would I think find it totally disagreeable if I had in on desktop.

I'll have to try out Total Commander again, some time since I used that, except on Android. Xplorer2 I already have, and quite liked.
I use Classic Shell v4.3.1, I used it on Vista (which I only booted up about a dozen times after config, XP upgrade @ £160.00 down the toilet, and felt
like a right toolbag having fell for that con trick, M$ is yet to be forgiven).

ReactOS, is looking to include part of the ShortHorn project stuff which implements Vista API's, dont know if will be included in next release in a few days.
Last install was about 100MB, so somewhat smaller that the bloat it is to replace, think I'll install for real the next offering, see if it runs Avisynth OK or not.

EDIT: Linux Cinnamon Mint is a real nice and easy path into Linux, not too disorienting for the Windows user,
but gonna take a look at both LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and Gentoo as well, which is a source based distro,
everything is optimised for your particular system. (also uses the old system init stuff [forgot what its called] so
is similar to Android which also uses it).

TheFluff

23rd October 2018, 20:45

Windows 7 extended support ends January 14, 2020. You should have gone straight to Windows 10. Also, don't bother trying to turn every OS into Windows XP, it'll just make it worse and you'll never be satisfied because it's not the same. Accept the differences, get used to it and move on.

StainlessS

23rd October 2018, 21:13

Windows 7 extended support ends January 14, 202
Guess I'll have it for the next half dozen years or so, then Linux and ReactOS will be the norm, M$ is destined to come a cropper,
seem to have lost the plot a bit.

I guess the only reason that I dont find W10 too bad is that I only really use it to wander around the internet when in pub.
I'm a lot more forgiving after a dozen or two beers.

TheFluff

23rd October 2018, 21:49

Windows 10 Pro is fine these days. It works. It certainly had no shortage of sorta broken things at launch but you should never be an early adopter of operating systems anyway (but then again you shouldn't refuse to upgrade for over a decade either). Also, the general consensus is that Microsoft has gotten a lot better over the last few years, to the point they've basically swapped places with Google in the public perception. Google is now the giant soulless all-encompassing monopoly full of douchebros, while Microsoft is embracing open source and making their products cross-platform. At least half the developers I know are now using Visual Studio Code on MacOS X. The times they are a-changin'.

StainlessS

23rd October 2018, 22:12

I ain't tried W10 Pro, just got Home Premium (think that's how its described), I preferred 1709 which was the first version I tried,
dont like the way it seems to be exploding in size (I only got 32GB MMC storage, and is currently occupying about 12GB or maybe a bit more,
was considerably smaller when I got the machine). Dont know what takes the space, above size is after deleting all of the old version windows stuff
and also some secret (hidden) folders, I believe its gets quite a bit smaller if doing a clean install (maybe bout 4GB smaller).
Feel sorry for those with 16GB lite systems, which have a bad time where update screws up due to lack of space and leaves m/c in useless condition,
where clean reinstall is only option.

I dont see M$ as any kind of saints but have to agree with the public perception change, Google are scarily omnipotent,
I dont like latest Android versions either, gonna try take my Moto G and Sony Xperia Z2 back to KitKat when I get around to it
(at least the SD card **** up is fixable in KitKat).

johnmeyer

23rd October 2018, 23:36

BTW, StainlessS, I assume you know about the update that forces Win7 to upgrade itself to Win10, without your consent. Several years ago I had two grown men call me, crying, because they could no longer figure out how to get anything done because their computer had upgraded itself to Win10.

Upgrades you do NOT want to install, in order to keep Win7 include:

KB3035583
KB2952664
KB3021917
KB3123862

This may be less of an issue, now that Win10 is not a free upgrade, but a couple of years ago, this was a huge issue.

Emulgator

23rd October 2018, 23:41

I can second all what Manolito, hello_hello and johnmeyer found.
Going the similar route since I was forced to use Win7 because of newer hardware.
After first purchase it took me more than 8 weeks to go from cursing and not believing my eyes
to finally obtaining a more, now beautifully responsive Win7, looking like Win2000,
handling long lost, old, simple and beautiful software together with the recent stuff without locking me out.
And besides, 5 XP systems still perform beautifully here for those tasks that need XP
(e.g. NikonScan, which will never see an update because the scanners are not produced anymore, now worth a fortune.
VCD, SVCD, rarely needed, but hey: never compiled to work on anything past XP,
Refillable Printers, which will never see any update because manufacturer wants to see them dead.
some tailored measurement software which will never be updated beyond XP.)

On one of my used replacement laptops poor previous owner had traded his Vista64 for W10.
He must have been so discouraged then that he sold quickly for very cheap.
For me it came in as a nuisance which lasted 5 days, then I got rid of that.

Classic Shell, Total Commander, getting back Quick Launch and many more tweaks...
It is possible to tailor W7, but definitely wasn't a quick task for me.
In the end I took over almost all ownership, then permissions from "System" until I locked "System" out too much.

So welcome to the club, StainlessS and many thanks for your continued work to make ends meet !

FranceBB

24th October 2018, 03:13

I have Linux as my main OS (Fedora), but I do have virtual machines with Windows.
The first one is a clone-disk of my old Windows XP (I've been using it since 2002 and I moved it from hardware to hardware 'till now).
I use XP for pretty much everything, including Avisynth, and it has all the updates, a modified kernel and it's PAE aware (which means that can use up to 64GB of RAM, even though I have 32GB only and I assigned it 10 GB).
The second VM is a clean Windows Server 2019 install with the "latest and greatest" version of Visual Studio that I use to code.
For all the other things, I just use Linux, which is great... even though it does have some issues popping up every now and then and I report them to Red Hat (but that's the price to pay for not paying for RHEL and using its beta - Fedora -).
I do think that XP can be useful 'till April 2019, when the support will end.

johnmeyer

24th October 2018, 04:02

And besides, 5 XP systems still perform beautifully here for those tasks that need XP
(e.g. NikonScan, which will never see an update because the scanners are not produced anymore, now worth a fortune.
VCD, SVCD, rarely needed, but hey: never compiled to work on anything past XP, ...This is OT, but if you still do a lot of scanning with your Nikon scanner, Ed Hammrick's Vuescan is infinitely better than Nikonscan and, if you have a big project, it will let you batch scan.

I've put about 20,000 slides, color negatives, and B&W negatives through my Nikon film scanners over the past 15 years and couldn't have done it without Vuescan.

BTW, I also got the batch slide loader attachment. This lets me scan 30+ slides at a time, without having to do anything.

manolito

24th October 2018, 05:21

One nasty Win7 64-bit bug I forgot to mention:

If you transfer large files using the native Explorer Copy routines to an external USB3 drive (formatted with NTFS), you may get corrupted files. There will be no error message, you might only notice the corruption much later when the original files are no longer available.

https://superuser.com/questions/685525/files-get-corrupted-frequently-while-copying-to-external-hard-drives

Microsoft knows about this error, but they flatly refused to fix it. The only workaround is to NOT use the native file copy routines. Use TeraCopy or Total Commander or any other file copy software which uses its own copy routines.

Cheers
manolito

StainlessS

24th October 2018, 10:25

Mani, I saw no mention of problems with specifically USB3.0, only USB 2.0 (in a link to MS site via your link), bit scary and seemingly still no resolution.

Anyways, not a surprise that NTSC produces problems, it is after all known as "Never Twice the Same Color", and makes for a lousy file system. :)

From the MS link (longish single page thread):- https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/13a7426e-1a5d-41b0-9e16-19437697f62b/windows-7-64bit-corrupting-altering-large-files-copied-to-external-ntfs-drives?forum=w7itproperf
On TeraCopy
I also experienced the problem with Teracopy, when I enabled an option which is off by default: "use system write cache".
So suggests keep default switched OFF Bolded Teracopy option, otherwise same problem as in native copy.

EDIT: I downed Teracopy v3.2.6 from home site, seems that there is a v3.3 beta knocking about, did not see that on home site, suggest avoid.
I also downed TotalCommander 32 bit, as 64 bit was pinpointed in MS linked thread as more likely source of problems.

I have Linux as my main OS (Fedora), but I do have virtual machines with Windows.
The first one is a clone-disk of my old Windows XP (I've been using it since 2002 and I moved it from hardware to hardware 'till now).
I use XP for pretty much everything, including Avisynth, and it has all the updates, a modified kernel and it's PAE aware (which means that can use up to 64GB of RAM, even though I have 32GB only and I assigned it 10 GB).

Would above suggest that your XP is 32 bit with PAE and also maybe Service pack 2 (or was it 1), I thought XP32 originally supported PAE
but supposedly because of possible bad drivers, M$ revoked PAE support. Perhaps you kept it at SP2(or 1) and just applied updates after that without the specific SP3 service pack (and without whatever quick fix that voided PAE). [Also, if above true, how do you avoid upsetting those programs that demand SP3+, simple reg hack perhaps]

EDIT: Just noticed that W7 is blocking downloaded files, Right click on properties and see
"Security: This files came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer",
will have to stop that,

Run
GPEdit.MSC
User Configuration
Administrative Templates
Windows components
Attachment Manager
Do not Preserve Zone information in file attachments Enabled # Stop file blocking

Atak_Snajpera

24th October 2018, 12:25

Wolfberry

24th October 2018, 13:24

Microsoft released the Windows 10 October 2018 Update to “seekers” on October 2nd during its Surface event, completely skipping the Release Preview ring of the Windows Insiders program. However, that didn’t go quite well, as many problems began arising for users who were updating to the newest version of Windows 10.

Source (https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-october-2018-update-build-1776317-heads-to-slow-and-release-preview-rings/)

I agree that Microsoft skips the Release Preview ring is not a good idea and indeed cause many problems.

But I also agree with TheFluff that Windows 10 Pro is fine these days, just not upgrade immediately when a new release is available.

ChaosKing

24th October 2018, 13:37

And it's not like we never had Win7 update problems... I actually install Redstone updates as soon there is an RC available, nerver had problems. And I feel like I will have problems as soon I forget to make a backup before a big update :D

FranceBB

24th October 2018, 22:17

Would above suggest that your XP is 32 bit with PAE and also maybe Service pack 2 (or was it 1), I thought XP32 originally supported PAE
but supposedly because of possible bad drivers, M$ revoked PAE support. Perhaps you kept it at SP2(or 1) and just applied updates after that without the specific SP3 service pack (and without whatever quick fix that voided PAE). [Also, if above true, how do you avoid upsetting those programs that demand SP3+, simple reg hack perhaps]

I just use a modified kernel with PAE unlocked. You can find more on MSFN - Windows XP (http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/34-windows-xp/) section where I usually post.
There are many interesting things like the One Core API (http://www.shorthornproject.com/onecoreapi.html) which is a set of kernel-calls redirected or implemented from scratch to run new programs on Windows XP.

TheFluff

24th October 2018, 22:30

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-windows-10-1809-bug-zip-data-loss-flaw-is-months-old-but-microsoft-missed-it/

Service10 will NEVER be fine because M$ does not give a s#!t about bug reports from insiders! Since launch end user is a tester.

cool meme bro

spoiler alert: all software is broken as shit (https://danluu.com/everything-is-broken/)*, if you think anything else is better it's only because you don't notice the bugs, either because of habit or because of your particular usage patterns. or it's because of some particular myopia you have, i guess. win10 isn't meaningfully more or less broken than win7, but it'll get updates that fixes some of the broken stuff for longer, so you should use it.

* aerospace is a possible exception. their shit is probably broken too but at least it fails safe

e: i mean you could certainly argue that you don't like certain aesthetic aspects of win10, such as the app store, but you can, like, just not use those parts?

johnmeyer

24th October 2018, 23:04

Win10 is death by a thousand cuts: the UI is totally different, making it impossible to do things that I memorized since May 1990 (Win 3.0 launch date); Explorer operates totally differently, breaking many things beyond the search problems I already mentioned; it has far more "nanny" aspects which Win7 already started introducing, meaning that it stops you from doing things (e.g., requires permission to open some programs) and makes permissions far more intrusive.

I could go on, but since I use both XP and Win7 every day, and after doing this for three years, still can't stand Win7, and since Win10 is 10x worse than Win7, it would make it impossible for me to get anything done.

In a nutshell: I feel like a genius when I use XP; I feel like a complete noob when I use Win7.

TheFluff

24th October 2018, 23:12

manolito

25th October 2018, 03:34

also, uac is good. execution prevention is good. limited permissions are good. don't disable them. the world is a scary place these days. if you're an experienced computer toucher, you probably don't need antivirus, but don't disable uac. you are human. you will fuck up, sooner or later.

All of this only applies if you don't make backups regularly. And if you do not make backups then all of this "Nannying" stuff will not really protect you, it will only give you a false sense of being protected. At the cost of not really being able to control YOUR computer. The M$ philosophy is that the computer really belongs to THEM and not to the user, they decide what users can do with it and what they can't.

johnmeyer

25th October 2018, 06:20

hm, it's almost as if you train yourself on using something, you get better at using that thing??? makes u think....

you acquired a skill for using a tool that is now no longer in widespread use. it's still a useful tool for doing the things you used to do with it, but there are now also new tools that work differently. if you don't want to use them, that's fine, but don't claim the new tools are useless because you refuse to learn how to use themSome software is well-designed; some is not. Win10 is not.

One thing I learned back in the 1980s (when I was in the middle of things): some software is easy to learn, and some software is easy to use. Win10 went overboard trying to make it easy to learn, but in the process, it became hard to use.

Finally, I strongly object to product revisions which change things just for the sake of changing them. We used to call this "putting your scent" on the software, meaning that the programmer wanted to have his/her personality imprinted on the software, but without actually accomplishing anything useful. I'm still looking for even one useful feature in Win7 or Win10, but I haven't found a thing that, when I go back to XP, I find myself missing it.

I did say in my earlier posts that I use Win7 almost daily and have for many years. I know it well enough to dislike it. Win10 I've only used when called upon to fix other people's computers. I've watched over people's shoulders as they use it, and it is indeed a pig when it comes to doing things quickly and efficiently.

TheFluff

25th October 2018, 13:02

All of this only applies if you don't make backups regularly. And if you do not make backups then all of this "Nannying" stuff will not really protect you, it will only give you a false sense of being protected. At the cost of not really being able to control YOUR computer. The M$ philosophy is that the computer really belongs to THEM and not to the user, they decide what users can do with it and what they can't.

my dude, i think you might be slightly overreacting just a little bit to having to press a "yes i'm sure i know what i'm doing" button every once in a while

you can trivially override all of these things i mentioned, they just warn you if you're doing something weird. you can still install whatever kernel mode thing you like, if you insist. no need for the tinfoil hat.

by the way, backups won't save you from a moldavian keylogger stealing your credit card number, and i sure hope you have your backups set up in a way that doesn't expose them to things like cryptolocker. also, restoring backups is a far bigger pain in the ass than having to click "yes" every once in a while.

Some software is well-designed; some is not. Win10 is not.

One thing I learned back in the 1980s (when I was in the middle of things): some software is easy to learn, and some software is easy to use. Win10 went overboard trying to make it easy to learn, but in the process, it became hard to use.

ah, the power user argument. yes, it is true that things like (for example) well-designed keyboard interfaces can make you very fast at navigating computer programs, for the price of having to train yourself on the interface.

that design paradigm is almost completly dead today. certain professional applications still adhere to it, but the vast majority of applications don't, and this thread is a very good illustration of why: the user becomes inflexible. once you've invested the time in learning the interface, switching to another interface is seen as a huge barrier and most people flat out refuse to do it. i have several colleagues who once upon a time learned to use a text-mode editor like vim or emacs, with the result that they (in their own words) are completely unable to switch to any other editor or IDE. using a vim-like keymap for e.g. visual studio code just "feels wrong" and so they accept the inconvenience of (for example) not having an interactive debugger in their editor. sure, they edit text faster than i do, but i don't think they're really any more productive than i am in the long run.

it's similar to learning the dvorak keyboard layout - sure, you (probably) become a bit more efficient at typing, but it's at the expense of never being able to use another person's keyboard. learning an interface is an investment, and investments come with a certain penalty to flexibility.

Finally, I strongly object to product revisions which change things just for the sake of changing them. We used to call this "putting your scent" on the software, meaning that the programmer wanted to have his/her personality imprinted on the software, but without actually accomplishing anything useful. I'm still looking for even one useful feature in Win7 or Win10, but I haven't found a thing that, when I go back to XP, I find myself missing it.

dan luu (whom i linked above) has a fairly nuanced view of the ui compatibility argument (http://danluu.com/ui-compatibility/) that you might possibly be interested in. not saying this to be combative, i genuinely think it's an interesting read and i can see both sides of the argument.

StainlessS

25th October 2018, 13:28

Mani,
does you got this thingy here:- "acl_repair_utility_for_vista_7.zip", seems to have been from deviant art dead link.

[EDIT: When searching online,] I did find the God Mode thing (which I think I once found when I was using Vista for a very short time), is just a folder which if you open it, provides a quick access list of sys config shortcuts all in one place. Tested and works on both W7 and W10, does not work on XP.

ie Create folder on desktop (or wherever) called "admin.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}" (excluding quotes),
thats it, enjoy your new deity status.

I strongly object to product revisions which change things just for the sake of changing them.

M$ probably feels that everything has to change so as to justify charging big bucks for a new OS, if it dont change, then
you would feel as you forked out lots of Wonga, just to get the same thing that you already had.
(What really hurts is when they change things & provide you with something sub par in comparison with pre existing functionality)

EDIT: It also provides them with questions for MCSE type exams (@ ~£100.00 each), eg "What is the new name for xxx in the fresh and exciting Windows zzz Ultimate ?". [MCSE Win2000 consisted of 7 exams @ £90.00 each circa 2004, so probably about £100 or more now].

real.finder

25th October 2018, 14:24

I do agree with TheFluff

I was hate win 10 but after I use it I see it good, I was winxp user and I was like it and then switch to win7 for last years since winxp no longer support several new things but I never like win7, but now I kinda like win10, Especially features in Task Manager and how it get new gpu usage in recent updates

johnmeyer

25th October 2018, 16:42

Thanks Fluff. Great post. I'll take a look at those links.

manolito

26th October 2018, 00:12

Mani,
does you got this thingy here:- "acl_repair_utility_for_vista_7.zip", seems to have been from deviant art dead link.

Hi StainlessS,
this link still works for me:

https://www.deviantart.com/asilaydyingdl/art/ACL-repair-utility-for-Vista-7-182330082

The "Download" button is at the top right of the page. If you still have trouble downloading it, lemme know, I can upload it for you...
Make sure to read the updated Readme file in the archive. Under a 64-bit OS you need to edit the file "Reset.cmd", the same goes for a system locale other than English.

Re Win7 search from one of your previous posts:
The FileSearch Classic tool by RaffRiff is available at SourceForge. Works well, only issue I found is that upon uninstalling the Explorer right-click shortcut is not removed. Plus there is no German translation (and I am too lazy to do it...)
I now use FileSearchEX, it feels much faster to me. But it is not free.

Cheers
manolito

StainlessS

26th October 2018, 00:34

Cheers Mani, Damned if it didn't work this time, no problem at all (have rebooted in between, don't know if relevant).

Thanks for the RaffRiff link (he aint been about in some time, hope he's ok).

NiSoft, SearchMyFiles is pretty reasonable if I remember correctly:- https://www.nirsoft.net,
NOTE, you will probably get Anti-Virus type +ve's on eg NirSoft's Password Recovery type tools, but then you have to expect
that and is quite normal, NirSoft utilities are legend, clean and free of all malware (provided that you get em' from NirSoft).
Nirsoft is the source of the UsbDeview utility, which many (incl M$ I think) bundle in tools kits.
Here some Video/Audio related tools:- https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html#audio_video_utils
InstalledCodec, has I think been posted on-site a number of times.
EDIT: SearchMyFiles has been recently updated, x86 and x64 versions.
Most NirSoft tools available in many Languages.

Here a GUI Util "ResetPermission", which gets 6 hits on VirusTotal.com (although two of them are for ****PUP (potentially Unwanted Program)
and so no real surprise there either. The site (authors site) also provides source for the app, Comodo (my Anti-Virus thingy), produces nothing bad.
lallouslab.net::ResetPermission:- http://lallouslab.net/2009/06/14/resetting-ntfs-files-security-and-permission-in-windows-7/
NOTE, The author provides a Password for unzip, probably to stop false +ve antivirus from immediately deleting zip file.
Password="lallouslab". (just in case you miss it on the download page)
I ran the GUI util on XP (where I have Comodo running) and no alarms (although I did not click any buttons, did not wanna screw up XP
without cause).

From VirusTotal:- https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/297453e02cf08ab2274f3a9e77aeb7e4c1fe4352a2adbeb100d549440485de09/detection
Two Community votes, both give Thumbs Up.
EDIT: Actually 12 +ve hits out of 66 (not 6 out of 33), they are listed in pairs(I just counted lines).

https://i.postimg.cc/m2Dks6PZ/Reset-Permission.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

VoodooFX

26th October 2018, 09:22

There is my personal semi-organized batch script I run after Win7 install:
https://pastebin.com/JJn3t1JU

Removes/disables all crap, and tweaks windows to my needs. Don't run it blindly if you do some fancy stuff on network, tweak it to your needs, there is some comments at more important parts.
To disable activity logging (it logs every key you press...) you will need SetACL exe.
Don't run it on Win10, as it's WIP for Win10...

StainlessS

26th October 2018, 21:58

Nice script Voodoo, I'll give it a bash after checking out what all of the fixes do, I think I noticed one or two that might cause problem for me.
Some of the fixes you do, I sometimes fix via GPEdit.msc, Group Policy settings.

EDIT: Although GPEdit.msc dont work for me in Windows 10 home Premium, I managed to install GPEdit.msc (not usually included
in Home Premium) but settings seem to be simply ignored.

EDIT: This posted elsewhere by a real nice chap [EDIT: Re: Windows 10 Update too big for tablet]:- www.linxtablet.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=3042&start=10#p17314
Dont think I've seen this anywhere on-site, so am posting here.
If you switch on display of hidden system files and see directory $GetCurrent, it contains remnants
of a previous update (not removed until 30 days after update [or so it is said, but seems not to be the case, nor is it removed
by disk cleanup]), mine was about 4GB in size, after reading below linked page, I deleted mine and now have 4GB less rubbish
on my C: drive.
How-To Geek: What Are the $GetCurrent and $SysReset Folders, and Can You Delete Them?
https://www.howtogeek.com/308301/what-are-the-getcurrent-and-sysreset-folders-and-can-you-delete-them/

After deletion of $GetCurrent, I currently have 20.1 GB free of 28.5 GB on my 32GB mmc, C:\ drive.
[I recently went back to Macrium reflect backup of 1709, after attempted install of Cinnamon Mint x64 on USB failed].

EDIT: I also disabled Hibernation saving about 1GB (invisible file hiberfil sys will disappear from C:\):-
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/support-software/How-to-disable-Sleep-Mode-or-Hibernation-793/

EDIT: Free up space to install the latest Windows 10 update:-
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4013876/freeing-up-space-to-install-the-latest-windows-10-update

EDIT:
C:\Windows\WinSxS not properley cleaned up by Diskcleanup,
Jan 7 post, http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-3610993/disk-space-update.html
Via Administrator Command Prompt (without quotes):- "Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup"
Removes some un-used (outdated) files.

I updated from 1709 to current 1803 and now have 15.7 GB free with only a few programs installed.

EDIT: I also wanted to install GpEdit.Msc (Group Policy Editor) to disable Fast User Switching (plus some other stuff), and
found this (posting here so I can find it again):-
Easily Install Group Policy Editor (GPEdit.msc) In Windows 10 Home Edition, See the link GPEdit Enabler for Windows 10 Home Edition
https://www.itechtics.com/easily-enable-group-policy-editor-gpedit-msc-in-windows-10-home-edition/
Above runs a simple batch script which extracts it from an archive already present in Windows 10 Home (works also for W7/8/8.1 apparently).
EDIT: Forget about GpEdit on Windows 10 Home edition, it dont seem to set the policies (leastwise not the ones I've tried).

TheFluff

28th October 2018, 01:00

Yeah, you don't get group policies in Win10 home. There's a reason I specifically said Win10 pro. The home editions are a good deal more locked down.

e: also: https://decentsecurity.com/#/holiday-tasks/

StainlessS

28th October 2018, 01:13

Yeah, but is it just a case of setting something in the registry to switch on policy processing.
I have GpEdit installed from within a W10 Home archive, and it does seem to edit the settings, they just dont do seem to do anything.
It dont really matter anyways, there are I think reg fixes to achieve pretty much anything I'm likely to wanna do with it.

StainlessS

28th October 2018, 03:54

Yo guys, dunno what happened but no problems with either VDub or MeGUI now, all going A.O.K (at last not freezing).

So, thank you all for suggestions etc, me a happy bunny, but still gonna go back to base image and see what happens,
but not just yet.

Thanx. :thanks:

EDIT: It still sux, but at least its not freezing now.

VoodooFX

28th October 2018, 21:07

If you have pre ~2015 hardware I wouldn't install Win7 with Meltdown & Spectre fixes. It can slow down your PC up to ~20%.

StainlessS

28th October 2018, 21:35

Thanks V, yes a little before 2015, an old Dell Optiplex 780 DT, Q9550 2.83GHz, 12MB Cache, 2nd Gen Core 2 Quad, 45nm.
12GB DDR3, 1TB boot drive, 2TB Data, both Sata III, but on Sata II machine.

EDIT: Its a bit limited for expansion cards, I happen to have a Low Profile (needs be this unless some kind of dell expansion
thing) nvidia GeForce GT 210, maybe I'll try it, maybe not, not decided yet.
Also need to get USB 3.0 expansion card, maybe need PCI express for that instead of video card.

If infected by Spectre etc, I would just reinstall a base image and so is no real problem, just a bit of a nuisance.

EDIT: Backup drives connected only on demand, (I also disconnect from internet when not in use).
I never auto update anything, dont like to be alarmed if I see some furious activity on the internet,
I also switch off System Restore (very first thing I do on a virgin setup), and will not tolerate any interference
of OS regarding 'MY DATA' drives, anything stored on my data drives by some software gets deleted immediately
that I see it, even if I have to reinstall the offending (usually M$) software [usually requires temp removal of all drive letters
excl OS drive C:].
Dont really know what 'TimeShift' (or whatever its called) is, but sounded a bit like System Restore to me, so that got
immediately disabled after update to W10 1809.

StainlessS

29th October 2018, 02:56

Well deary me !, damn thing went all cock-eyed again, but we found the problem.

It was an install of Avisynth v2.60 standard that fixed the problem for me, and un-froze stuff.
Re-install of Avs+, brought back the problem, and after trying with "AvsMeter AvsInfo" (which was also Freezing its nadds off),
I narrowed it down to this plugin, "AvsFilterNet.dll" :- http://www.mediafire.com/file/4cf2fmyb603c0mc/ProblemDLL.7z/file
Not sure which thread I got it from, maybe MysteryX thread, or the Avisynth_overlay [EDIT: AutoOverlay] thing (most likely I think, [in devs forum]).

Screws up only avs+, not avs standard. Strangely, I can load an avs in Vdub2, but not refresh (save and reload, freezes),
also slips AvsMeter a Micky Finn under avs+ (but not avs standard).

Here tis under avs standard:
https://i.postimg.cc/bYRB3Hgn/Avs-Filter-Net.jpg (https://postimages.cc/)

EDIT: That was with otherwise empty plugins directory under avs+, the other plugs in image are installed via avs standard.
avs was just installed with avs+ plugins directory remaining in-situ.

EDIT: That is v2.60 avs standard which was ok (not 2.61 alpha, which I have not tried).

EDIT: With avs standard installer, got some kind of "did the program install correctly" type dialog box come up,
(I said yes), and no problems. Dont think same box came up with install of avs+, perhaps related.

EDIT: Just checked, same plugin dll installed on XP and is currently encoding a clip without issue (MeGUI/Avs+).
Perhaps there is some kind permissions problem contributing to the freeze on W7.

StainlessS

10th November 2018, 00:23

As my yesterday post in News Forum seems to have been rejected by the all-knowing-moderators, I post this here as was previously mentioned in this thread.

ReactOS v4.10 released 6 Nov 2018:- https://www.reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0410-released

Applications tested,:- https://reactos.org/wiki/Tests_for_0.4.10

I shall at some point install on M/c and try see if Vdub2, and Avs+, MeGUI et al works, or not.

Katie Boundary

1st December 2018, 13:04

What a coincidence. My World of Warcraft game time expires, so I switch back to my XP x64 partition, come back here for the first time in weeks or months... and you're all talking about XP.:rolleyes:

Back in August, I posted a similar thread to this one on the ReactOS forums. it got quite a bit of attention: www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17436

The short version is, XP was the last halfway decent version of Windows, Vista/7/8/10 are all trash, and stuff like Classic Shell can't even fix half of what's wrong with them.

The last time I built a computer, I chose older parts specifically because XP drivers existed for them. I don't regret that decision. I've also said on Facebook that as Windows keeps getting worse and worse, and Linux and WINE keep getting better, Linux will eventually be better at running Windows software than Windows itself will be... if it isn't already.

I do agree with TheFluff

I was hate win 10 but after I use it I see it good, I was winxp user and I was like it and then switch to win7 for last years since winxp no longer support several new things but I never like win7, but now I kinda like win10, Especially features in Task Manager and how it get new gpu usage in recent updates

Most of those are definitely words.

StainlessS

11th December 2018, 22:23

Manolito,

Further to your suggestions for file explorer on Win7/10, got me a few here that you may like to try.

Q-Dir (Quad Explorer):- https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir
Tiny size.
Freeware, No source code.
Very Active Development (Dec 2018).
W98 -> Win 10, x86,x64. (install or portable)
Nice Quad window explorer (changeable number and layout at push of button).
Very Good I love it.
##################
Double Commander:- https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/
Open Source, very active development (Object Pascal).
Cross Platform, Install and Portable, x86,x64.
Compatible to Total Commander plugins. Double Commander Plugins available(some with source):- https://github.com/doublecmd/doublecmd/wiki/Plugins
Dont like default fonts, but easily changeable.
##################
Multi Commander(updated Aug 2018):- http://multicommander.com/
Free Personal, Commercial, Government. Optional donation.
About 7MB,.
Duel panel.
Win XP -> W10, x86 & x64, Install & Portable.
Extensible via scripting/automation and plugins, SDK availble (no source code).
Active Forum.
Seems very good.
##################
Explorer++:- https://explorerplusplus.com/download
No longer supported (source code available, cpp).
Windows x86,x64 Portable only.
Pretty good single pane.
##################
Windows File Manager (WinFile)
The Windows File manager was originally released with Windows 3.0 in the early 1990s.
You can read more about the history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Manager_(Windows).

WinFile on GitHub:- https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile
Binary:- https://github.com/Microsoft/winfile/releases

Open Sourced by MicroSoft(April 2018) (Updated for Win10/10.1, June 2018).
Changed from original source to compile in recent Visual Studio and run on recent Windows.
Windows W98->W10, Portable, x86,x64.
Requires VS CPP 2017 Runtimes.
Basic and portable, familiar to many.
##################
6 Best Free File Managers Alternatives To File Explorer:- https://fossbytes.com/best-free-file-managers-windows-10-alternatives/

26 best file managers for Windows:- https://www.slant.co/topics/2404/~best-file-managers-for-windows

I love the Q-Dir one, and both Commander's could well be useful.

EDIT: Above the ones I liked out of about 10 of the best.

johnmeyer

12th December 2018, 02:25

Thanks!! Sounds like Q-Dir is your top pic. I'll give that a try.

manolito

12th December 2018, 03:22

+1 :cool:

I used to be a big fan of sophisticated file managers in the old days. Under DOS this was of course Norton Commander, later XTree became my favorite. Then under Windows I used ZTree (XTree for Win), Speed Commander, TNT (The Next Tool) and of course Win Commander (M$ later forced them to change the name to Total Commander). I get a little nostalgic now. None of my friends is comfortable with file managers, they get scared immediately.

Today its just Total Commander and Explorer++ for me. I stopped upgrading Total Commander a few years ago, it is just perfect as it is. And Explorer++ is on all my WinPE (or WinRE) based disaster recovery CDs. But I will sure take the time and test some of the stuff in your compilation...

RE using a different search utility under Win7:

IMO M$ started to cripple searching even under XP. I still have Win98 on my machine, and I soon found out that the Win98 search would find files when I was searching for files containing a certain string while under XP I would not get any results. Turned out that under XP only files with certain known extensions would be searched for content.

Starting with Win7 searching from within Explorer became totally useless, and there are 2 replacements which I recommed:

The first one is FileSearchEX. Looks identical to the old Explorer search, nothing new to get used to. Only drawback that it is not free, and I found that searching for files containg a string is not always all that reliable.

The other one is EffectiveFileSearch, and this is my real favorite. It is free, it is fast (much faster than RaffRiff's tool) and totally reliable. Check it out...

Cheers
manolito

chros

12th December 2018, 11:24

I get a little nostalgic now. None of my friends is comfortable with file managers, they get scared immediately.

:) Same here. I'm not young anymore, and when my younger colleagues (even ones in their 30's, in IT!) say that they don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, then I'm freaking out! :D
Probably it's also the influence of Mac OS.
I also always used it on every OS: NC, FAR Manager, TC, MC, Gnome Commander, muCommander, etc :)

Today its just Total Commander
I also only use Total Commander at home, actually never used anything else on Windows at home.

At work I can't use it (obviously), so I found Double Commander 2 years ago as a free/opensource replacement for it (it's meant to have the same functionality as TC).

I only search via these commander apps (ALT+F7).

Honestly, I never understood how other people can live without a commander type file manager :D