It's still in the basement...
...somewhere.
Posted on 10/11/2014 8:13:59 AM PDT by daniel1212
When the beta builds of Windows XP were first released it caused some raised eyebrows over the hardware requirements. There were Windows 98 and Windows 2000 machines running on 64meg RAM platforms with Pentium 100 processors (admittedly not very briskly!). XP prerequisites doubled that - as minimums. Lots of folks feared the hurdle required to run the new OS.
As it turned out you could load XP onto sub-spec platforms and have a fully functional computer (if not exactly a sprightly one). I know lots of people who did this instead of running out and plopping down big bucks for new machines until they had had a chance to “test drive” the new OS.
The same largely held true for upgrades to Win-7 when it came out. One could load it onto legacy platforms if they were willing to accept the performance hit.
With Win-8 the prerequisites were harsher and far fewer platforms were eligible for upgrade. The installation simply failed on lots of machines and the resolution was to buy new. Couple that with the “downgrade” option (being able to downgrade from Win-8 to Win-7) and the buyer resistance to the problematic metro-app desktop and it wasn’t hard to see that Win-8 was going to suffer a similar ignobility as Vista.
In my tests with Win-10 I’ve gone back to pre-Win-7 Vista platforms and run the install. It loads fine, even on machines that choked on Win-8. When examining the prerequisites I found the requirement that Win-8 processors had to support PAE, NX, and SSE2 (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/what-is-pae-nx-sse2). I found no mention of this requirement in the Win-10 Prerequisites (They just say “look at the specs for Win-8”). I don’t know if this is by design or an omission from the Windows 10 Technical Preview.
At any rate thanks for the review - I (obviously) read it with interest. With the ever-narrowing support schema from Microsoft I find myself doing more to try to stay ahead of them (migration to Win-7 was particularly brutal for us).
Very true, and XP works fine for many. W/10 is not an XP, and W/7 should serve the rest just fine. A area that Windows could much improve is in speech to text. Imagine a PC that would recognize your voice, awake from sleep, and does much better rightly recognizing your voice (speech training should use your own documents) and with which you could create custom commands (command: PC sleep;go to... etc.) as easily as you can with shortcut keys. And comes with a real mic to do it. I think that would sell an upgrade, but i left it out of my list.
Dragon (besides my hating the name) basically has a monopoly for PC users and thus only makes small improvements for which the want $100+ more for, and still is very immature.
Thanks for the substantive input. Yet i read that W/8 was better on older HW than Vista, while so far WTP seems to use less ram than W/8.
With the ever-narrowing support schema from Microsoft I find myself doing more to try to stay ahead of them (migration to Win-7 was particularly brutal for us).
Yes, but this upgrade should not be much of a problem, yet it hardly seems worth it. See my above comments on speech to text/commands, which i think has lots of potential.
PFL
It was only installed on certain IRS hard drives and can no longer be found?
It is my opinion that Windows 8 is at best an entertainment operating system. It is a failure as a business class OS. Unless ones inclusive use of the computer is to surf the internet and read emails it isn’t going to cut the mustard. From my preliminary tests Win-10 might possibly accomplish what Win-8 can’t and will be the next major platform for business.
IMO Microsoft’s missteps have given Apple and Linux some great opportunities to make inroads on their monopoly.
But why? Install Classic Shell on W/8 (and maybe add a Quick Launch bar and teach a few navigation shortcuts) and what substantial difference is there?
From I have tried the Linux route, which has potential, but if changes and a learning curve are problems for MS, much more Linux.
From the home page of ShadowAce:
"... being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily removed the floor under your bed." - Unix for Dummies, 2nd Edition (Found in the .sig of Rob Riggs)
bing
The explanation I saw that made the most sense, was that many programs looked for the windows version as 9*, for windows 95/98 and such. This caused problems. Lazy programmers IMO.
Running W/9x was a science! illegal operations, system resources low,... etc. But i used it for years with much 3rd party help, and got lots done. And only experienced one virus despite intensive Internet use, thank God.
Understatement. Thank God for those who write 3rd party apps, where would windows be without them.
I noticed the desktop image and icon placement...
It's still in the basement...
...somewhere.
Windows 10 is 97% Windows 7 with some added Windows 8 bits.
When using a theme I want to change the color of the icon text or get rid of the fuzzy drop shadows.
In Windows 7 you can fix this:
You can go to the Control Panel> System> Advanced system settings> Performance> Uncheck “Use drop shadows...
and “Animate controls and Elements Inside Windows” to get rid of the white letters and drop shadow. This happens when you click Apply.
I ended up switching to the Classic theme and using a program called Iconoid to have black text on the taskbar program buttons. It is found at http://www.sillysot.com
You lose the Aero popup preview from the taskbar program buttons if you use classic theme. White is hard on my eyes and the themes all have white text.
That does work in Windows 10 but you have to restart the computer. There is no classic in Windows 10
:) Could be. That would be pretty bad. Especially as a call to winver should result in version 7 for the next release regardless if MS called it 9 or 10.
Thanks for the ping
Very thorough! Bookmarked.
Back in the Windows 3.1 and 95 days, Visual Basic was a godsend. There were tons of 3rd party utilities and games as a result and people could knock out programs to handle one-off problems for themselves.
Yup.
Now the excess baggage to actually PROGRAM something these days is horrendous!
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