The totally off-topic thread

[love_the_life]

Don't have any Windows machines now but when I did (and when I wrangled 200+ students with their own laptops) XP was the one - it was easy to find stuff in, stable and just did what it was supposed to. Pity they thought they needed to 'enhance' it.

 

[Flashback]

I haven't figured it out. Thought I have figured it out but still haven't.

Everything in JohnK is pointing to JohnK.adm-PC. No idea when this profile came about. I tried moving things into favorites, desktop etc and it wasn't working properly. Restarted the machine and everything looks OK now as if nothing has happened today.

I know what is going on and it is freaky and scary. Hard to explain. And no I have not had a drink....

Start > Run > CMD > set

See what path it's pointing to for USERPROFILE=

 

[Flashback]

Don't have any Windows machines now but when I did (and when I wrangled 200+ students with their own laptops) XP was the one - it was easy to find stuff in, stable and just did what it was supposed to. Pity they thought they needed to 'enhance' it.

Win 7/10 is great. It's the new XP. Vista always is/was rubbish. Laptops that struggled with Vista, ran fine with Win 7. As good a reason as any to upgrade IMHO!

 

[JohnK]

Upgrade to Win7 ... PM me for how to do so at a relatively inexpensive cost ...

Windows 7 and Windows 8 were the reason I went back to Vista. I hate it how they created an operating system with no backward compatibility.

Programs that worked under XP do not work in Windows due to 32-bit processing. I have Office 97. I am happy with it. It will not run on Windows 7. I didn't want the 16-bit version of Windows 7 either as that was restrictive as well.

 

[coco50]

Don't have any Windows machines now but when I did (and when I wrangled 200+ students with their own laptops) XP was the one - it was easy to find stuff in, stable and just did what it was supposed to. Pity they thought they needed to 'enhance' it.

I agree. I truly regret the day I upgraded my machines to Windows 10

 

[Flashback]

Windows 7 and Windows 8 were the reason I went back to Vista. I hate it how they created an operating system with no backward compatibility.

Programs that worked under XP do not work in Windows due to 32-bit processing. I have Office 97. I am happy with it. It will not run on Windows 7. I didn't want the 16-bit version of Windows 7 either as that was restrictive as well.

OK, I'll bite...

Install and use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

 

[anat0l]

Vista was not as bad as ME was. I can't remember one computer which ran ME that didn't turn into crash palace eventually. My Vista system held its own until it was superseded by Windows 7. Luckily, I never

Windows 10 is definitely better than Windows 8.1, let alone Windows 8. 8 never crashed on me, but the process of having to bend it to my will was annoying.

The people who mainly resist upgrading their systems, even from "unstable" ones, are those that need legacy hardware or software. Similarly, the causes of many troubles in some OSes tend to be new hardware, though that effect should be decreasing as the way that hardware is designed (including drivers) becomes a bit more "standard".

I had one client who had a MIDI software which actually interfaced with MIDI devices. A MIDI device wasn't required to run the program, but the program insisted on installing a MIDI controller (i.e. driver) all the same, and that driver had its support discontinued after Windows Vista. The net result was that the program would not run at all on Windows 7 and afterwards - major bummer. We were considering a dual boot system between Windows 10 and Vista, but since both of those use different partitioning systems, without some odd partitioning acrobatics this was also impossible.

Another main reason for upgrading from even the "stable" step-choices, i.e. XP and 7, is the security patching is disabled progressively for those OSes. Otherwise, as long as one is willing to stick to the software and hardware that that OS was surrounded with, there's no real need to upgrade as such.

 

[anat0l]

OK, I'll bite...

Install and use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

That's actually cool you don't need an existing Windows XP licence to use it.

One disadvantage is that, say, if you run Office 97 inside Windows XP, I'm pretty sure copy and paste doesn't work between your real and virtual machines. It will also nominally run slower unless your hardware is fast enough to incur nil to little effect.

 

[Pushka]

It has taken me ages today just to print off a photo using Windows 8. In the end I went into our cloud at work which uses an old windows version. I HATE the way windows 8 operates - typical IT enhancement - they stuff around with it until it becomes unusable.

I use copy and paste from laptop into the cloud (work server) frequently.

Ah yes, I had forgotten ME. It was truly awful. XP really was the best.

 

[Steady]

What happened to AKnowledgeableBear?

What does Guest mean under their avatar?

 

[rainbowgirl]

What happened to AKnowledgeableBear?

What does Guest mean under their avatar?

I think Guest means the user has left and doesn't want their posts shown under their previous member name. I saw this with another member who I know is now posting under a different user name but I'm guessing they didn't want their old posts linked to their new posts. It was only by accident I figured out the connection between the old posts and the new user name.

 

[Steady]

I think Guest means the user has left and doesn't want their posts shown under their previous member name. I saw this with another member who I know is now posting under a different user name but I'm guessing they didn't want their old posts linked to their new posts. It was only by accident I figured out the connection between the old posts and the new user name.

I had high hopes for this member - going of the few posts they made.

 

[Moindardt]

We had one client we absolutely had to upgrade to Vista in the 6 months before the free upgrade to windows 7 came out, worst site ever to manage. I begged them to hold off and put it in writing multiple times all the problems. They thought I was exaggerating.

Microsoft repeatedly acknowledged it was a dud. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 are decent but they try to think too much and turn off or make more difficult a lot of administrative functions. A lot better for home users than a commercial environment. If you haven't already seen it, check out classic shell. You get the benefits of Windows 10 with the control of Windows 7.

 

[rainbowgirl]

I had high hopes for this member - going of the few posts they made.

I'm only speculating as to the Guest status. There are probably multiple reasons that a member ends up with this listed on their posts. The introduction thread did sound very interesting and hopeful. I'm guessing there was a conflict of interest issue.

 

[JohnK]

What happened to AKnowledgeableBear?

What does Guest mean under their avatar?

Looks Suspended to me. Some heated discussion in Introductions thread?

 

[Cossie]

It has taken me ages today just to print off a photo using Windows 8. In the end I went into our cloud at work which uses an old windows version. I HATE the way windows 8 operates - typical IT enhancement - they stuff around with it until it becomes unusable.

I use copy and paste from laptop into the cloud (work server) frequently.

Ah yes, I had forgotten ME. It was truly awful. XP really was the best.

It all went pearshaped after the IBM/Microsoft split following disagreements over the direction of their combined operating system, NT.

OS/2 was IBM's version following the split, I used it for quite a while until it became too difficult with it not being updated, there are still users of OS/2 out there.

If I had more time, I'd like to try having a go at this:

OS/2: Blue Lion to be the next distro of the 28-year-old OS - TechRepublic

 

[GarrettM]

I agree. I truly regret the day I upgraded my machines to Windows 10

You had a choice?

I simply turned on my laptop earlier this week and it had somehow been upgraded.

I bloody well didn't do it.

 

[Cossie]

You had a choice?

I simply turned on my laptop earlier this week and it had somehow been upgraded.

I bloody well didn't do it.

http://www.howtogeek.com/241329/upg...s-aggressively-pushed-windows-10-to-everyone/

They are really pushing 10, one thing I really don't like is the feature where it determines when and how windows 10 updates are installed. It will do this in the background without asking yuou and then shut down and reboot, I know several people that have lost work that they were doing at the time.

It seems microsoft is unrepentant, and it is difficult to for you to nominate when it auto updates. They say if you are using a metered data download service it won't happen.


You can go and modify your network connection setting to say you are using a metered service for any connection.

Disable / Turn Off Automatic Updates In Windows 10, Here's How | Redmond Pie

 

[Pushka]

So bought some brussel sprouts for dinner tonight. Have never cooked them before because after eating them once as a child, they had been boiled to death and slimy. Verdict later.

 

[Steady]

I'm only speculating as to the Guest status. There are probably multiple reasons that a member ends up with this listed on their posts. The introduction thread did sound very interesting and hopeful. I'm guessing there was a conflict of interest issue.

Macropus rufus in another life....