Posted on 01/18/2016 1:33:08 AM PST by Enlightened1
Was just going to post this for the MS haters. In fact here is a good article about it from MS sorta fanboy Paul Thurrott.
Now as far as Linux goes I tried Ubuntu a couple of years ago. Put it on an XP machine and made it dual boot. First problem I had was most of the programs that I use didn’t work on Linux. Oh some >might< work if I went in and fiddled with the code but I tired of that decades ago.
But the icing on the cake for me was that after several months when I booted to Ubuntu a message appeared telling me that the Version was out of date, no longer supported and I should update to the latest version.
Good bye Ubuntu. Of course because it was a dual boot machine I really couldn’t easily kill it. It was in the MBR.
As I have said many times before Windows 10 works GREAT for me as well as mrs p6 who is NOT a computer wiz. She took to 8, 8.1 and 10 like a duck to water. No problems on her HP Pavilion laptop. She loves it.
Works great for me too. Linux, Apple OS, Android ...NOTHING runs my weather station software (Cumulus) but MS. In fact I can find NO similar personal weather station software on any other OS.
If someone knows of one I’d be interested to look at it.
“What do you use instead of Turbotax?”
I use my CPA brother, who is stuck in Microsoft hell.
If Microsoft gave a damn about their customers, they wouldn't do that to them.
On the other hand, I can run XP in a virtual box on a Linux OS forever, without the degradation imposed by Microsoft on system behavior.
OK, thanks
I converted my PC from 7 to 10 and was SHOCKED that it was completely seamless. Somebody on another forum told me since Ballmer is gone, they actually think about customer service now? Is that possible?
I found no downside and the conversion from 7 was seamless.
I was SHOCKED, yes.
The only reason I haven’t gone to Windows 10, is that it is laced with spyware that cannot all be disabled. Most can, but Microsoft states some spyware it built in cannot be disabled.
I have it installed on two boxes and it works great. No problems at all.
Maybe. OTOH I've watched the internet turn into an analog of politics - a playground for thieves and rife with corruption. And like politics, the biggest infection vector seems to be promises of free shit.
I have expensive applications that don't run correctly under Win 7, let alone 10. It seems the Microsoft blokes forgot that common dialog box functionality is supposed to be involute. I had to fall back to XP in an Internet deprived environment just to avoid $50,000 expenditures.The vast majority of applications written for Windows XP run just fine under Windows 10. Microsoft spends several orders of magnitude more money then Apple on backwards compatibility. I routinely find software that is incompatible with a version change in Linux. Most of the time, the software gets updated and works. But if you have apps that got written 15 years ago (when XP was released) and never updated, there's a chance you'll have compatibility issues, no matter what platform you're on. Your anger should be directed at whoever developed that app, not Microsoft.
If Microsoft gave a damn about their customers, they wouldn't do that to them.
Microsoft makes it's OS releases available during development so that compatibility issues can be identified and fixed, either by Microsoft or the app developer. Where practical, particularly if caused by a bug in the OS, compatibility issues are fixed in the OS. Windows even has special flags that can be set on individual applications to tell it to emulate the behavior of older OS to try and guarantee older applications not being actively maintained will still run (name any other OS company that spends money on that).
You would be amazed at some of the amazingly bad choices software developers make sometimes. Occasionally choices they make are not compatible with changes to the OS that are needed to patch security issues. Sometimes they create dependencies on undocumented or unspecified behavior in the OS. It's just not practical, even physically possible, for Microsoft guarantee compatibility with every application with every version of the OS, especially very custom applications with very small user bases and not being maintained by anyone.
That said, if you have an extra machine (or can host a VM) around, give the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter a try. Here's a video I found on the topic that shows how to use it.
Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 are not great for backward compatibility with hardware, particularly printers and business scanners.And yet I'm running Windows 10 on a computer that's 10 years old, printing from Windows to a printer that I am unable to print to using Linux. Windows automatically recognized the scanner on that printer (it's an "all-in-one" printer) - no idea how to set up the scanner under Linux. I can print to this same printer from my iPad, but I carefully selected one that I knew would work with that when I bought it.
The fact is, Windows supports more hardware devices than any other OS out there. Where a device-independent standard exists, or can be created, Microsoft writes and supports the driver. In other cases, the device manufacturer is responsible for the driver. There are literally hundreds of thousands of devices out there, and it's just not practical for Microsoft to write and support the device drivers for all of them.
I do also find it frustrating that MS changed the driver model so many times over the years, but I can assure you there were very good reasons for doing so. Except for video drivers, it really hasn't changed significantly since Windows 7 (64-bit) / Windows 8.
BTW - printers with scanners build in are extremely cheap these days. For example, my Epson WF-3540 was purchased for less than $50. Maybe time for you to upgrade?
The trouble is that unless somebody makes a microprocessor that is not specifically for Windows 10 or whatever Apple uses, everybody else will be locked out.
It would be a drag to have to get a Chinese or Indian microprocessor, likely having to use their hardware as well, just to keep from having to be part of the duopoly.
Okay, ask yourself, what is the reason for ending support of Windows 7 and making new CPU’s only support Windows 10?. Money is the only reason I can think of.
Now, how is Windows 7 different from Windows 10 when it comes to making money for Microsoft?
If they end support, what does it matter if people continue to use Windows 7 instead of Windows 10? Once again, what difference between Windows 7 and Windows 10 that makes money for Microsoft?
The Microsoft Store. Windows 7 doesn’t have it. Windows 10 does. Every copy of Windows that has the Microsoft Store potentially makes money for Microsoft. Windows 7, without the Microsoft Store, doesn’t. If Microsoft can force all of those Windows 7 users into Windows 10, many will buy stuff from the Microsoft Store in Windows 10. The Microsoft Store icon is even pinned to the Taskbar and already in the Start Menu so uses can easily find it and use it when Windows 10 starts for the first time after an install.
Microsoft may have offered a piece of the store sales action to Intel, Dell, HP, etc. if they push Windows 10.
So, follow the money, right to the Microsoft Store. That must be the answer as to why Microsoft is pushing, even forcing, and giving away Windows 10 to users that don’t want it. Up-selling from the Microsoft Store.
The Apple Store and Google Store make a lot of money for those companies. Microsoft wants to do the same, but its Windows phone is a flop and loses Microsoft money on each one sold. All they have left to offer their Microsoft Store through is Windows 10. That’s got to be the reason for all the high pressure tactics to upgrade.
Fortunately for me, I am retired now. I do have clients that still rely on me, and so I still rely on the old tools. I design for hardware other than Intel or the ARMs. I have circuit analysis tools, a fleet of programmer/debuggers, circuit board layout tools, and so on. I just can't afford to keep it up to date, nor was that necessary ... until Microbloat stuck me in the ass.
It seems the entire world has forgotten that programming to the bare metal and designing electronics and circuit boards is still required, even if the thundering herd can merely write for web pages or kit computers.
What are the apps? Can you share details? Are you sure it’s not the missing VB6 common controls DLLs (easily fixed with a download)?
I am an EE, by the way, and I routinely work on a very large system that has been optimized down to the “bare metal”, SIMD instructions, analysis for cache impact, etc. Lots of software at Microsoft is that way. For example, there was a team at MS that re-ordered fields in C structures within SQL Server to maximize what would fit in an x86 cache line. I’m working on hardware acceleration of data center apps currently. So the “whole world” hasn’t forgotten - just less people worried about that sort of thing as the hardware is so much more powerful. Only a very small number of companies have people developing software at that level - and the OS makers are one example.
BTW, there are many many PCB design packages written in this century and compatible with Windows 10. I know you’re retired, so it may not be practical to replace that aging copy of PCAD with Altium Designer, but just pointing out that you’re a bit of an exception.
Ah, I see your target resolution is finely tuned! ;-D I sort of pride myself in being an exception. I am also a tight wad.
I use Eagle for schematic capture and PCB layout. I use Alibre CAD/CAM. The heavy expenses are in the assortment of device programmer/debuggers for PICs, Atmels, Coldfires, as well as several CPLDs and FPGAs. That equipment is expensive and some of it is no longer on a ungrade path. All of if still programs modern ICs. I have a number of pieces of PC-tethered test equipment in the same boat.
It isn't practical to change all of that just now. My PC doesn't have enough gas to run some of the newer IDEs since they were goofy enough to write them in interpreted languages. I disagree with the entire .NET paradigm, and believe that native code is what should be used. Also, Microbloat is just unnecessary. It doesn't take 100 megabytes of code to do a 1 megabyte or less job. That stuff is simply unneeded creeping crud.
Microbloat and others need to return to the KISS principle. All software doesn't have to do everything.
Nothing wrong with being a tight wad - especially if living under a fixed income (i.e. retired).
I am familiar with Eagle, which I know works fine under Windows 10. I don’t know anything about Alibre.
Regarding the device programmers, there are many very inexpensive options that work under all recent OSes. I never got into Pic, but I have a clone Segger J-Link (~$50) that allows programming and debugging with Freescale processors, a JTAGICE that does the same for AVR processors. For CPLDs and FPGAs, I don’t have any Xilinx equipment, but I have a Terassic USB-Blaster clone that can program any of the Altera devices.
Nothing wrong in using Linux for all of the above. Many of the engineers at the big semiconductor companies are using Linux for development tools these days.
Regarding the bloated software, many of the conveniences you use every day wouldn’t exist if people wrote all software in C and assembler. For example, FreeRepublic wouldn’t exist - it’s all written in an interpreted langauge (Perl).
I've been writing software since 1967. I started writing in c in 1980. Do you really think you can convince me that Perl is the ONLY way that web pages can be produced? I assure you that I can do any of that stuff in assembler, certainly in c. Would it be a bit of a hassle? Yes.
On the other hand, most stuff done on modern computers can be accomplished without all of the fuss. The openings for viruses are ALL made possible through the bloatware. I question the necessity of all of those features and features of features. Oh, hell, why do something with 100 bytes of data when 1.2 gigabytes can do the same job?
Oh, by the way, I know how all of the other languages work. I have written assemblers, compilers, and interpreters. I can find my through ELF or COFF files. I know XML and can pinch my nose and work with HTML. I can parse it with my own software or use commercial/freeware parsers, but don't like it. I've even written web crap with Perl and Python. I am not a newbie nor do I keep my head in the sand. I just don't like bloatware; and, I certainly don't want to replace a XELTEK device programmer or a PC-tethered logic analyzer just because some dolt inside Microsoft wants me to run his most resent evermore bloated crap that I DO NOT USE. People today have no idea how amazingly fast their computers really are. They are bogged down with media and screen presentations. Not much "computing" is actually done these days.
Finally, I don't like WIN10. It is ugly and does not work the way I want it to work. Bill Gates' minions opinions do not matter to me. I will find a way to do things the way I prefer. The not nose kids of Microbloat can stand in line to KMA.
You are just being nice to a grumpy old man. I do appreciate your tenacity and your kindly approach.
i never said it could only be written in Perl (for the record, I hate Perl), just that if C were the only language, FR would not exist.
In any event, you have firmly established yourself as a major ass, so I am not going to waste another thought on you or your rants.
Yes, most people are lazy.
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