Windows 7 is garbage

Windows 7 works fine for me, like XP before it. It's not Linux, which you can change - if you are clever enough - to make it do exactly what you want, but if you are collaborating with a lot of other people, settling on Windows 7 isn't a bad way to go.

I stayed away from Vista, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

You find the Library bug yet ;)

Cheers

What's the "Library bug"? And can all that shit be deleted? ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

If you open explorer (not IE), In the left pane you see Desktop->Libraries, which contains Documents, Music, Pictures and videos. These files are located under c:\users\USER where USER is you. So these user directories are indexed to appear under Libraries. Got it? Sometimes the indexing fails. Say you delete a file when viewing under Libraries. Sometimes the Libraries directory is not indexed right away and still shows the file. You need to hit F5 to update the directory. And sometime the Libraries directories are not updated to show files that exist in the C:\user\USER directories.

You can just make a link to the C;\users\User\My Document folder and not use the Libraries folder in explorer. I think you can delete the default Library folders since you can right click on them and set their locations and even create new Libraries. But it is displayed on the start menu so deleting it removes thestart menu access to it.

Cheers

Everyone has their superstitions. I used Vista for four years with no significant issues. I think the main concern people had was that it was different from XP. Then Win7 was not so much of a change and people are thinking it is ok now that they have to switch.

I don't know what John's issue is. He never said. Calling something "garbage" is not very informative.

On the other hand, I keep threatening to switch to Linux myself. I just wish vendors supported it better. It works ok on my raspberry pi, but there are lots of ways to get support for that platform. I just wish all the software I wanted to run worked with the ARM. Then I might just consider making an ARM computer my main device.

--

Rick

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 01:09:46 -0400, rickman Gave us:

On the internet without a firewall in front of it? Doubtful.

The greatest feature is that if you delete a library folder, it doesn't delete your actual files, because the library is only a shortcut to the files.

BUT if you delete the individual files within the folder, then it deletes the files. You will notice them missing some time later.

Vista broke a lot of old drivers notably for HP consumer products that were never supported officially on later OS's. This generated a lot of bad feeling. The same was true of expensive scientific instruments in the field which to this day still run on XP heavily firewalled from the outside world. XP was a particularly good vintage.

Even numbered versions of 'Doze have been mostly dogs. I never had too much bother with Vista apart from lack of support for legacy kit.

They are quite cute and incredibly cheap for what you get.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

Yes, sometimes to move forward, the past has to remain in the past. Blame your peripheral vendor for not being willing to support their equipment, not MS.

"Dogs" is an opinion. Like I said, I never had much trouble with Vista over 4 years of use. Blame your equipment vendors for not providing updated drivers, not MS.

I'm not sure Win 8 ever got much bad press. I think all the die hards are sticking with XP with a death grip and not many are even trying Win

1. I'm running 8 on my laptop. I have issues, but I'm not certain if they are even software. One problem I have requires me to pull the plug on the computer rather than shutting it down and rebooting. That doesn't sound like a software bug, or at least not a Windows thing. I think mostly this is an issue with the Lenovo, maybe BIOS or maybe whatever is used to manage the power circuitry.

I haven't tried an rPi 2 yet, but I still don't think it is a PC replacement yet. Not for regular work. I did find use for it as a channel to support embedded hardware. The TI drivers were not signed to install under Windows and rather than jump through those hoops, I used the rPi as a middle man. Worked well except I had no way to reset the target remotely when it locked up. I explored some possibilities for a USB hub that could cycle power to the device, but never invested in the $35 hub to do it.

--

Rick

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 08:12:24 +0000, Martin Brown Gave us:

I am pretty sure there is a DOSBox for ARM.

ISTR a QEMU release as well.

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 04:56:37 -0400, rickman Gave us:

Bullshit. MS dropped a huge bomb on half the HW vendors with Vista.

You are ass backwards.

The problem with Vista was (and is) that it did not really improve anything for the end-user, especially when compared to the years long hype about the great things that it was going to do.

The only noticable change when "upgrading" a well-performing XP system to Vista has always been that the system became much slower, especially on startup. The amount of disk activity is simply unbelievable. (also on systems with enough RAM and other performance)

Windows 7 and later have not really brought this back to the (performance) level of XP.

When an innovation brings hardly any advantages, and comes with disadvantages, it is always hard to press it through. Compare with IPv6. Only forced methods like "we'll not support the old stuff and will make it break down" work in this case.

Have you tried adding your own hard shutdown button to the screen layout? That works for me provided that the screen is responding.

My main problem with Win8 is that old but powerful DOS window based diagnostic tools are pretty much inaccessible by default.

I did have one old Toshiba with a hardware fault that caused the keyboard and mouse interrupts for the built in hardware to go AWOL. The only way to shut it down after that was plug in a USB keyboard or mouse or drop the battery pout of the back. The on/off switch was in software.

It is probably beefy enough for everything an office needs.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

When you say Win 7 brought no "improvements" for the end-user, I think that is disingenuous. The networking controls were greatly improved. I would go to a new coffee shop with a friend and would be connected in a minute or two. His XP machine would often have fits and take some 5 or

10 minutes to connect with hardly an indication of what was going on.

I have researched problem on my PCs and looked up the functions of various parts. It is amazing how complex Windows is. There are many, many parts to provide some improvement to performance or function which have potential to greatly mess things up when they get out of whack. The real problem is reaching a point where the system can tell when it is misbehaving and figure out what is wrong by itself. Until then there will always be those who criticize the newer stuff just because it is different and some have problems they "didn't have under the old OS". As you say, they don't see the improvements even though they are there.

That said, I'm not touching Win10. I'll get Linux first. lol

--

Rick

I don't know what a hard shutdown is exactly. The point is if I shut down windows by telling to to shut down, it doesn't fix the problem. I have to kill it in a rude way by cutting power. I believe the last time I had the problem using the power button did the trick, but my power button is programmed to put the computer to sleep. So it is a bit of a trick to get it to actually shut it off rather than sleeping. lol

I had to disable my touch pad. The "improved" no button style is unworkable for me. Everything results in cursor movement including pressing the virtual buttons. I use a touch pad with my thumb on the buttons and it couldn't figure out which was my finger on the pad and which was my thumb on the button. Now I use a mouse and disabled the touch pad to prevent palm swipes.

Not sure what that means, but a regular rPi can't even run a browser with more than a couple of tabs open. The reports on the rPi 2 aren't so glowing that I expect this is now workable. Funny that at one time browsing the web was considered a lightweight app. Now it requires a pretty adequate machine even with today's hugely faster technology.

--

Rick

Gag me with a spoon >:-} ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Den fredag den 30. oktober 2015 kl. 00.16.17 UTC+1 skrev Jim Thompson:

yeh, I haven't tried 8 or 10 but every windows up to at least 7, have been an improvement

-Lasse

Since Win3.11 at least. But some versions are pretty good - like Win98SE.

My wife had a machine with Win98... what a pile of crap... I quickly upgraded her machine to WinXP. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.