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Should You Care About Windows 8?
Forbes ^ | 01/28/2013 | Gene Marks

Posted on 01/29/2013 1:49:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind

A lot has changed since 1995. Our best candidate for President was only the First Lady. O.J. Simpson was not in jail. No one was using DVDs. Saddam Hussein was in power. “Friends” and “ER” ruled the airwaves. Seinfeld was funny. The NHL was in the middle of a full season. Hootie and the Blowfish had the best-selling album. People were still buying albums.

And Windows 95 was released.

Back then Windows mattered, both to consumers and small business people. We relied on it heavily to run our computers. So each release of Windows was a big event. And the release of Windows 95 was the biggest of them all. The news received unprecedented media attention around the world, and this was at a time when the Internet was still finding its stride. The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” was licensed to highlight the operating system’s revolutionary new “start” button and the Stones themselves performed at a Microsoft event on the release date. It was the pinnacle of Microsoft’s dominance over the computer industry.

That was a time when people really cared about Windows. It was all we had.

And, for the most part, it sucked. Sure, it did a decent job of running our PCs.

But users suffered with bugs, blue screens of death and other anomalies that made their lives (and the lives of Microsoft’s support staff) difficult. And so, when a new release of Windows came on the market customers (and particularly business owners) were generally excited not just as much by the new features that would make their computing lives more fun, but more importantly with the fixes to the problems that plagued their daily lives too.

Fast forward 18 years. Windows 8 was released a few months ago and just last week reports are mixed.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: microsoft; win95; windows8; windows95
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
Mine was compiled 6 days ago...

3.7.4-204?

21 posted on 01/29/2013 2:21:09 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: MeganC
still use a number of stand-alone Windows 95 computers

Win95 (and 98) allow direct hardware calls to be made.

I worked for a place where some of their automation was still running under DOS 5.0. Worked fine. :-)

22 posted on 01/29/2013 2:22:11 PM PST by wbill
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To: jimt
Jump back, Jack...you have a Turbo Button??!?

[Genuflects...]

23 posted on 01/29/2013 2:23:30 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: wbill

I just retired a Compaq Prolinea 386sx running DOS 3.3 that was controlling some old lab equipment.


24 posted on 01/29/2013 2:30:39 PM PST by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
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To: ShadowAce

Yep - give that man a kewpie doll!


25 posted on 01/29/2013 2:41:02 PM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: SeekAndFind

My first impression of Windows 8 was that “this is an operating system devoted 90% to playtime”. Just like the people it was designed for.

If I ran a business and had to buy multiple licenses of this I’d be going ape-shiite.


26 posted on 01/29/2013 2:42:28 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: lurk

That’s the honest truth.

Windows 7 has more OS features than I need, but in truth, once XP was patched to a certain level, it was fine. I run both XP and 7 in VM’s on a Mac - and they’re fine.

On native hardware? I’ve honestly never found a need to upgrade past XP.

On my Macs, I have no need to upgrade beyond 10.6.

So many of the OS upgrades any more are chasing stupid UI changes that mean nothing to me (and most users). What most users use and care about are applications, not the OS. As long as the OS is stable and works... what does the user care? Little.

Where most desktop OS’ could improve is their backup/recovery schemes, and OS upgrade checkpoints. Apple has the cleanest backup, Windows 7 has OS upgrade checkpoints. If we could get one OS that has both those features in one place, with 64 bit support for new hardware going forward, we might as well lay off most OS developers or have them start upgrading applications.


27 posted on 01/29/2013 2:45:33 PM PST by NVDave
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To: jimt
I think you meant to direct this to the post before mine.

Technically, I was referring to a virtual pc in my post, not a real one.

On the topic, I do have a P3 @550MHz sitting idle, plus a P4 @3.4GHz with hyperthreading still getting some use. Got it just before the Core2 Duo's came out.

Now I use a Core 2 laptop running 3.4GHz, and the quads are out!

-PJ

28 posted on 01/29/2013 2:46:26 PM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten

LOL! It’s not that difficult when I’m running the same thing!


29 posted on 01/29/2013 2:51:39 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: VanDeKoik

30 posted on 01/29/2013 2:52:48 PM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: ShadowAce

Did you fedup from FC17 to FC18? Did that go well?

I did on two machines.

First machine no issues that amounted to anything.

Second machine due to how grub2, grubby and the kernel command line interact I had command line args in my working copy of grub.cfg that got blown away when I followed the suggestion of running grub2-mkconfig. Took me a bit of time to sort all that out.

However lesson learned, now all the grub components are in sync and I’d definitely do a cat /proc/cmdline prior to upgrading and make sure that post-upgrade I got the same cmd line.


31 posted on 01/29/2013 3:00:26 PM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
No--I did a clean install due to a decision to change the RAID level in my laptop.

Went pretty smoothly, but I had to accept the default partitioning (was using the Beta) since it kept crashing during the partitioning phase of the install.

32 posted on 01/29/2013 3:10:15 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: Tzimisce

1. Take it back for a refund.

2. Install or have someone install Windows 7 on it for you.

3. Download, install, and configure Classic Shell, which will bypass Metro UI, restore the Start Menu, and disable all the charm and corner crap.


33 posted on 01/29/2013 3:17:14 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Should You Care About Windows 8?

No. It's a horrible muddled mess of a user interface. A turd.

I predict the Windows 7 "downgrade" is going to be very popular, and that Windows 7 will be around for a long time.

34 posted on 01/29/2013 3:51:49 PM PST by Lee N. Field ("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)
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To: MeganC

I have trouble believing that. W95 uptime can be measured in attoseconds.


35 posted on 01/29/2013 3:54:13 PM PST by LifeComesFirst (http://rw-rebirth.blogspot.com/)
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To: ShadowAce

Sounds good - there are still complaints about the installer but I read their rationale for having to redo it and the explanations made sense to me.


36 posted on 01/29/2013 4:54:44 PM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: SeekAndFind

I got the Windows 8 os on a notebook. They were trying to follow the smart phone phenom and have “apps” all done with the ‘finger swinger’ and also try to keep some Windows 7 similarities. They failed miserably on both counts. I am using it and still trying to configure my brain to its quirks. Not fun! I’m glad I still have my Windows 7 laptop as the backup/primary, for work.


37 posted on 01/29/2013 5:07:24 PM PST by Kalam (<: The answer is 42 :>)
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To: SeekAndFind

Had to get a new Windows laptop quick for a project 2 weeks ago - normally, I’m a Mac/Linux user, but had to run something on Windows.

Got stuck with Windows 8 - it sucks. Period. There are no redeeming features about it. It is NOT a desktop OS and it does a poor job imitating a tablet OS.

Worse then getting stuck with Vista when I needed another Windows laptop in a hurry 6 years ago!!


38 posted on 01/29/2013 5:21:59 PM PST by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: jimt
My oldest dead one is a PC XT clone - but I have a new motherboard. It has an 8087 math coprocessaor, a 4 MB EMS board, and a 1X CD drive !

I should dig out my old radio shack computer that hooked up to my TV and saved everything on a cassette tape!

39 posted on 01/29/2013 5:26:08 PM PST by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Terrible because they didn’t even bother to make their own software compatible, i.e., their PICTURE IT program won’t run on it. My next purchase will be Apple !


40 posted on 01/29/2013 9:27:03 PM PST by lu shissler (an take his naiv)
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