Upgrading to Windows 11

[coolgit]

27th January 2022, 19:58
Windows 10/11 are pants.

Sticking to Windows 7 for life by the look of it.

3rd January 2023, 19:11
Still on Win 7 and happy and laughing at those on Win 10/11.

Another year goes by and reading daily how people on Win 10/11 are tearing their hair out.

Win 7 gives me zero problems:goodpost::D:D

[StainlessS]

Win 7 gives me zero problems
Arh, yes, good ol' W7.
But, you now no longer have the option to update to W10 from earlier editions [updates blocked a couple of months back, well will no longer be activated],
so you are stuck with the good one :)

[johnmeyer]

Another year goes by and reading daily how people on Win 10/11 are tearing their hair out.

Win 7 gives me zero problems:goodpost::D:DYup. My main computer is still my 2008 Polywell (Silicon Valley custom computer builder). Dual Boot: XP and Win7. All upgrades for everything turned off. As a result, I never wake up to find out that it suddenly bricked itself from an upgrade (like my Amazon Firestick did last month).

I have close to twenty computers, including five that run Windows 10. They do a great job attracting dust, but I keep them around just in case there is something I need to do that can't be done by my various workhorses (I also have several Win7 laptops).

When I go to my computer, I start work within five seconds of the boot finishing (and the boot goes really fast because I've removed every single non-essential background process).

When I was running software companies in the 80s and 90s, upgrades used to be essential, and I very much looked forward to them because the software ran faster, had fewer bugs, and had really cool, essential new features. These days, the "B-team" programmers who get assigned to maintain an old program do nothing but screw up the interface (think Windows Office apps); introduce more bugs than they fix; and fiddle about the margins with "new features" that are barely more than cosmetic.

Speaking of Office, I did several big projects this summer involving Excel and Word. I still use the 2003 versions of these apps. I had several collaborators, all using the modern versions. I had to convert their docs to my old version (there is a simple utility for that), but once I did, I ended up doing 98% of the work because none of them could figure out how to use even the simplest features, much less make mailmerge or tables work in Word, or how to reconcile database versions in Excel.

Despite all this, if I ever do another big video project I will look into upgrading Vegas to the current version (I'm still using V13, the last Sony version). Magix has added a lot of real features, and I might be able to make use of some of them.

So, I'm not a total Luddite. :)

[Emulgator]

Well put, johnmeyer, I can only concur completely.
For AI restoration sake I had to delve into Win10, it took countless hours to make it behave.
For a few weeks enjoyment of sheer calculation power.
Then a forced Windows Update forced me into bluescreen, unbootable state.
Since the system was still quite vanilla back then: Reinstall.
After the second bluescreen it became harder: So much work went already into the system, licenses and such.
I bought a used copy of the first machine and upgraded it to the same specs, hoping to be able to continue on the remaining machine if one stalls.
Still I was and still I am bluescreened occasionally to non-bootable state by a Windows Update, more than 3 times per machine in total.
Right now I am writing from the replacement system trying too figure out for the fourth time how a simple update can screw up this babylonic tower of mediocre patchwork.
SSD can be read nicely externally, no loss, but no boot. System/Startup repair: seems to destroy more than it helps.
UEFI specs: more than 2000 pages, only a handful in the knowing.
Impossible to handedit a simple start configuration on the offending partition/folder/file.
https://geoffchappell.com/ was very enlightening, a recommendation to read.
Who can, keeps a small, but well groomed herd of WinXP and Win7 machines in his barn, beside of the unruly beast, which can not even reliably catch a left click. Me too !
Vegas V14 here, bought 15 and even 16, hopes unfulfilled. Back to V14, does it all, Prodad stabilisation and iZotope Mastering Plugins included.
The New Stress tinkerware can stay outside ;-)
Office: The same here. I boil everything down to Excel 2000 version compatibiliy, and I know why...

[coolgit]

I have close to twenty computers

So, I'm not a total Luddite. :)

20 PCs... Bitcoin mining eh??

I'm not a luddite, I just don't go running around upgrading everything for the sake of upgrading.

[StainlessS]

Its not much of a problem to just disable updates,
but good idea to make an image of working drive, I use Macrium Reflect Free Edition to image
dual boot windows 10 + Linux Cinnamon Mint over about 10 machines and one W7 + mint over 1 machine,
and W10 alone over about a further 7 or so machines [laptops/tablets].
If you ever do get into trouble, is ~10 mins job to reinstall from image and Macrium Reflect USB tool.
(I actually only use the USB version, use full Macrium Reflect just to make the USB bootable tool).

EDIT: I have only about 250GB for W10, + 200GB for Mint, I dont store any data in OS partitions (well maybe temporarily in downloads),
and dont include any SSD data partitions in saved image.
Macrium Reflect allows you to restore only selected partitions from the image, and for W10+ GPT drives [as opposed to MBR], they dont even have to be in the original order,
but may need move/resize via some tool, eg System Rescue Disk (linux USB bootable tool with a partition manager).
Macrium understands EXT1 -> EXT4 linux partitions, BUT, ALWAYS define a SWAP partition for any linux, an earlier version of Macrium
screws up when EXT4 and no swap partition where recent linux will create a 'pretend' swap partition at the end of the linux partition, and
older Macrium does not understand the 'pretend' swap and messes up a restore (maybe that is fixed in current Macrium, dont know).
EDIT: On one 2-in-1 tablet/laptop thingy, I have W10 and Android, Macrium copes with the Android partitions just fine too.

[Boulder]

Just dropped by to say that I hope I'm still active at 89 years of age like the OP, vcmohan. Last active date January 11th :)

[kedautinh12]

Just dropped by to say that I hope I'm still active at 89 years of age like the OP, vcmohan. Last active date January 11th :)

What happens with VCMohan?

[Boulder]

What happens with VCMohan?

What do you mean? My post was just to point out that he's still visiting the forum every now and then, which I find very encouraging for anyone who feels "too old for this s**t" :D

[kedautinh12]

What do you mean? My post was just to point out that he's still visiting the forum every now and then, which I find very encouraging for anyone who feels "too old for this s**t" :D

Lol, but your post make me misunderstanding :D

[FranceBB]

I hope I'm still active at 89 years of age like the OP, vcmohan.

Man, I'm not even sure I'm gonna live 89 years, let alone browse Doom9...
I wonder what's gonna happen to Avisynth in the long run and whether there's gonna be a new influx of new developers to keep the open source community going or not, but then again I guess time will tell...
For what it's worth, I've been using Avisynth as a home user since June 2006 (and professionally since July 2013) and so far it's been a wonderful love affair with this amazing frameserver and this lovely community! :D

Long live Avisynth!

[StainlessS]

I'm not even sure I'm gonna live 89 years
Being Italian and what with all of that red wine and olive oil, you are bound to outlive Avisynth.
[EDIT: assuming that you live past this current WW3 threat :) ]

[johnmeyer]

Boulder: 89?? Wow! I was patting myself on the back for being able to do some of this stuff at 71.

Glad you're still above ground. I just sent my first wave of tax documents to my 88-year-old accountant only to find he died in June, just after he filed my last set of returns. You think you have to be sharp to do programming as you get older, imagine trying to keep up with the completely arbitrary, tortured, and convoluted tax code!

As for blue screens and bricked systems, a trick I learned back in the early 1990s was to partition your new computer's boot drive into two drive letters, before you load any apps onto it. The C: drive needs to be about 30-50% larger than it is when the O/S is freshly installed (to accomodate new applications), so you tell your partitioning software to create a C: drive of that size, and then you create an E: drive (D: is my DVD drive) using the rest of the space. Then, when you screw up (which is usually why I have to do an O/S restore) or something else happens, you only have to restore the O/S, programs, and program settings (the stuff in the "User" section). This is only 20-30 GB on most of my computers, and the other 1,000 - 4,000 GB is data, which you can back up separately.

You do have to spend about five minutes changing Windows so the apps store their stuff on the E: drive (which is how you can keep the C: drive small).

When I do a restore, it only takes about five minutes. I do backups onto my plug-in SATA drives, which is another reason the restore is super-fast. I have a bay which accepts multiple bare SATA drives, and I have a farm of 20+ drives. I use a utility called "WhereIsIt" which contains all the file names from all the drives, so I can find a file across the 20+ drives (and all my networked computer drives), even when they are offline, and even if I'm on the road. If I can't access the file right away, at least I know it exists.

I probably should start moving stuff to "the cloud," but after Amazon changed its cloud policies, Google is restricting access, and Apple keeps telling me my backups are failing, my worst fears about the cloud are being realized.

I don't have a cloud vendor that I trust but, at the risk of taking this necro'd thread completely OT, I'd love to get a recommendation of what company to use for cloud backup.

[Sunspark]

For Excel, I think Excel 2010 is a good version and very stable, but it could also be that I'm used to it, but it does have some useful features that earlier versions didn't.

The ribbon is a cognitive shift, but once you get used to it, it's not bad at all. I also have LibreOffice which would be the interface of 2000 and having a million buttons and really long scrolling menubar lists makes me think that the ribbon for apps like Excel is actually a good idea.

[FranceBB]

For Excel, I think Excel 2010 is a good version and very stable

Yep yep, I'm using the 2010 version of Office too on my Windows XP. Very stable. That, along with Open Office, it's the perfect combo.
At work, on the other hand, I'm using all the various Office 365 stuff whenever I have to, but that's basically only 'cause everything is collected on SharePoint and multiple people can work on the same documents at the same time, you have logs on who changed what, version control as you can go back in time on the same document etc etc etc. All stuff corporations like, you know...
Would I use it for my private stuff? Oh gosh, no.

being able to do some of this stuff at 71.

That is also quite remarkable, John!


Being Italian and what with all of that red wine and olive oil, you are bound to outlive Avisynth.

Touch wood!


https://i.imgur.com/OlqUHSq.png

(white wine, but you get the idea xD - picture from 2015, in Italy with Italian wine)

[Boulder]

Boulder: 89?? Wow! I was patting myself on the back for being able to do some of this stuff at 71.
Hehe, I was talking about vcmohan, who must be the oldest (semi-)active person in the video encoding (or basically whatever video-related!) field. I've admired him for years for keeping his head sharp all this time, and at the same time feel some sadness for seeing how fast time goes.

Me, I'm closer to 50 than 40, but fortunately don't have any serious health issues like many younger seem to already have. I've always said that I'm going for 90, and after that, a 100 is a piece of cake :D

My dad turns 75 this year and he's been old in his thoughts almost since he retired ten years ago, fortunately just too lazy or uncomfortable to start learning and doing new stuff. My wife's parents are the same age and they've been waiting to die already before they turned 70. I've never understood that mindset at all, they had all the time in the world and also enough money to travel for example, but now the father-in-law has Alzheimer's and it won't take long till he's not able to stay at home.

I don't have a cloud vendor that I trust but, at the risk of taking this necro'd thread completely OT, I'd love to get a recommendation of what company to use for cloud backup.
I know some people use Backblaze. I myself have an M365 license so I'm using Microsoft's OneDrive with a scheduled Duplicati job to back up most of the OS drive and some other important folders. I'm using strong encryption on the stored files so not even Microsoft can touch it.

[johnmeyer]

<snip> ... they had all the time in the world and also enough money to travel for example, but now the father-in-law has Alzheimer's and it won't take long till he's not able to stay at home.
They guy who used to be my financial advisor before he retired, died, and then was resurrected (heart stopped for 15 minutes while his wife performed CPR -- not only survived, but his mind is intact!) used to advise me to do things while I could because, "you go from 'go go' to 'slow go' to 'no go'." I never had the itch for travel, even though I've got enough money to do it. So instead, I fix things for people. Amplifiers, cracked cutting boards, vacuum cleaners ... you name it, I'll try to fix it.

I know some people use Backblaze. I myself have an M365 license so I'm using Microsoft's OneDrive with a scheduled Duplicati job to back up most of the OS drive and some other important folders. I'm using strong encryption on the stored files so not even Microsoft can touch it.I have no interest in subscription licenses so I'll look into Backblaze. I'd never heard of that one. Thanks!

[Boulder]

They guy who used to be my financial advisor before he retired, died, and then was resurrected (heart stopped for 15 minutes while his wife performed CPR -- not only survived, but his mind is intact!) used to advise me to do things while I could because, "you go from 'go go' to 'slow go' to 'no go'." I never had the itch for travel, even though I've got enough money to do it. So instead, I fix things for people. Amplifiers, cracked cutting boards, vacuum cleaners ... you name it, I'll try to fix it.

Best way to spend your retirement or in fact, any spare time is by doing things you enjoy. Even better if you can bring joy to others like you can by fixing things. I bet you need to learn new things all the time and experience is invaluable :)

[johnmeyer]

Some of it is simple, some is quite difficult. Traditional things, like cutting boards and vacuum cleaners are easy:

https://i.imgur.com/yn63bvH.jpg

Amps are usually straightforward, like this preamp board from a Norwegian Tandberg receiver (bad pot):

https://i.imgur.com/kRbVrKQ.jpg

Sometimes I have to rebuild or recap the unit, like three 1950s Dynaco tube amps I did two years ago:

Dynaco Mark II (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWQEOGZjC4)

[coolgit]

Oh dear the whole world gone antsy with microsoft 10/11 crashing with CrowdStrike.

Currently watching The Dam Busters on Windows 7. No blue screen of death here, just some Germans about to die.

[Frank62]

Lucky, that I work on Windows 7 for most machines, and the Win 10 ones are offline, only intranet...

By the way:
Your dambusters destroyed one of the two dams 40km from here. Yes, many people were killed, drowned, also old and very young people. Not very funny, because very real.
But all in all it made the war shorter, and they had to do it, so seen from today it was rather a good thing.
A good friend runs a museum in that context, directly at the dam.

[FranceBB]

Oh dear the whole world gone antsy with microsoft 10/11 crashing with CrowdStrike.

Tell me about it, I woke up this morning at 7AM with a lot of automatic emails from Aspera Orchestrator saying that it couldn't perform POST and GET API calls to some services, it couldn't use some FTPs and so on and so forth. I thought "ok, looks like there's a problem with Orchestrator", so I took a shower, shaved, got dressed as always and headed to my workplace at 8AM only to find out that Orchestrator was perfectly fine and healthy, it was sending emails 'cause it was the only thing running on Linux and it witnessed quite literally everything else built around it blue screen as it was running Windows (including the Domain Controllers).

[FranceBB]

I'm actually commenting back on this 'cause, as we went into the weekend and things settled, people took time to investigate things and actually found out what happened. Well, actually, more like "why" it happened. I'm sure everyone knows that OS can run things in user space and kernel space. The overwhelming majority of programs run in user space (which is abstracted away), so that if something bad happens, the program crashes but the user can go on with his life as it doesn't affect the rest of the OS. Only few things are supposed to run in kernel space and of course drivers are one of those things since they need direct access to the hardware. Unfortunately, when things go wrong in kernel space, the OS cannot do anything to recover, which is exactly what happened when Crowdstrike released the infamous update on Thursday evening. As to "why" an antivirus wants to run in kernel space with a driver, let's just say that antiviruses integrate with the OS at a low level. Anyway, on Friday morning, lots of people just went on to delete the new C-00000291 driver from C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike in safe mode to then reboot the machine. I was one of them as I did that on plenty of servers and workstations across the whole company. Then, once those were back up and running, at around 09.35AM CEST CrowdStrike released an update with the new driver. Now, the interesting thing is not that Windows bluescreened, but why it bluescreened, which leads to the question: what was the deal with the old driver? We may not have the source code from CrowdStrike, but what we have is the sequence of instructions that the CPU executed collected in the crash dump.

https://i.imgur.com/mhG8qAE.png

The interesting line from the crash dump (in the picture) is

mov r9d, dword ptr [r8]

For those who are not familiar with x86 assembly, it's read in reverse, so take the data referred by the pointer r8 and move it into r9. All good, right? Well, not quite. The problem is that r8 is completely empty, therefore Windows enters an irrecoverable state and bluescreens as it cannot access the data.

https://i.imgur.com/Z0KCPv3.png

[coolgit]

That's beyond me BB.

Garbled data to me.