That sounds really great. Until we read on of course:
Yes, it's Smile.
Let me interpret: "Stuff that used to work does not work any more."
Great!
Let me interpret: "I still need an OS from 15 years ago to do what I need to
do."
No idea what that is but it seems to need a decade old OS.
Tell me again, in what way was this Windows 8.1 upgrade working well for you?
Hello Heater,
Either I didn't phrase my comments as well as I should have or you may have misinterpreted many of them.....
The only reason I need to keep around that old Windows 98SE has nothing to do with newer versions of Windows. It everything to do with the fact that the programmer relies on an ISA BUS plug in card and the most recent system that still had one of those was running Windows 98SE. The software for the programmer actually runs under a DOS Window. If I had reasonable way to leverage that old programmer by using a different interface (USB, PCI, etc) then I could move it to a newer system. Since it still works fine it is tucked away as a stand alone system just for programming EPROMS and legacy microcontrollers. At some point I may get a newer device programmer but until this old one dies there is no reason to spend any money on that.
There are only a couple items that I haven't been able to get working because there aren't current drivers. One is an older large format Mustek 11x17 scanner and the other is a RoboScout interface which hasn't been supported for years. I don't blame the lack of support for those on Microsoft but I do think it would be awesome if they had a way to sandbox older device drivers to enable them to be used. Maybe that will happen. If not I can work around it. These were not show stoppers for me since I don't use the RoboScout interface often. I don't believe either of these were supported under Linux and the scanner only partially on the Mac. The latest Mac also seems to have the same lack of a driver for the scanner so it's not just Windows that is the problem. It just that I think Microsoft has an opportunity to really help with migrating people if there is a way to support legacy drivers for what amounts to orphaned products (like the RobotScout Interface) This was an issue I was just pushing out since it would have come up with Vista or Windows 7 as well.
For everything else Windows 8.1 is working great. Last night I added a floppy drive to read old media and that is supported. The startup and shutdown times of the OS seem significantly faster than previous versions and from the desktop it is working just like I'm used to. No problems. I like the way it performs and some features like the Task Manager seem to be much better.
The only part I wasn't happy and could rip on Microsoft about is that they seem to want everyone to use the cloud. When I mentioned the "Live" it was more of a warning to other so they won't be caught off guard by it and can set it back to a local account. It is obvious but it is easy to do. With that it works just how I want. Now, if they ever truly force everyone to Cloud type accounts and drop local accounts then I would be done with them.....
In regards to the BSOD that several people have encountered I personally haven't run into that for quite a while. When I have most of the the time it was a HW fault (bad memory module or dying hard drive). in one case it was a flaky PS. Other times I have run into a buggy 3rd party driver. In XP there was a driver verifier utility and I remember catching a network card driver behaving badly. Updating that fixed the issue.
I have a couple Linux systems running and like Linux too. However, the driver issues I may have raised with my Windows upgrade I have run into at least as many frustrating issues on Linux with the way the packages are maintained and in some cases radically change as well with newer versions while other are abandoned. Over the years I haven't found it to be any better or worse than the Windows systems I have up and running.
Either I didn't phrase my comments as well as I should have or you may have misinterpreted many of them.....
Quite likely I did.
I do sympathize with the issue of old hardware becoming unsupported.
Open source drivers would be great wouldn't they? Then if a device has any following it would quite likely get it's drivers adapted to newer OS versions.
Whilst were at it we'll need an open source OS....
The break between 98SE (and ME, which sucked badly) and NT / 2000 / XP / and beyond is very fundamental. OS in the 16-bit chain allow direct application program access to the hardware, which was used by a lot of applications, especially a lot of hobby stuff for example (and especially) bit-banging parallel ports. Older programs also directly manipulated the registers to control legacy COM ports because the features offered by the BIOS and OS were very limited.
The 32-bit chain OS cores simply do not allow direct application access to hardware, at all, full stop. So if your app bit-banged the parallel port or was a DOS app or high-performance Win 3x or Win 95-98 app that used the serial ports, there is no way to make it work under XP and beyond, at all. The reasons for this change weren't entirely bad; one application generally can't hose the whole system now, although device drivers still can. But it did obsolete a lot of stuff, some of it very important. I am aware of plants with PLC systems that can only be serviced with DOS machines with ISA buses. That hardware has gone from being ubiquitous to being a very expensive specialty. I suspect the reason software emulators with appropriate device drivers for faux-legacy hardware haven't emerged is that, while they are very important in some spot applications, it's a small enough niche that the economies of scale necessary to spur development don't exist.
When I really, really have to use Windows I like to run it in Virtualbox on Linux. Keep that mess in a box where you can rewind back to a stable state when it all gets out of hand. Also once you have activated it in a VM you can use that image on any other machine with VirtualBox without hassle.
No idea how well this goes with anything newer than XP though.
I do the opposite Heater, I run win 7 and VirtualBox with Ubuntu,Mac,and XP. So when Win7 gets out of hand Those OS's in VirtualBox keep running just fine Oh I have win8 on a laptop. Definatly the worst OS for me !!!! I'm just to lazy to install anything different...
Go on. You're making me blush! Seriously, though when I editorialize like this, I'm not bearing any animosity to anyone. Even Linux-users... heh. IMO, We're all family here, and while we disagree on some things, I think we put the 'fun' in disfunctional.
If you don't want to be part of that global party that is very sad. You are missing a lot of fun. You should at least be grateful to the worlds "free thinkers and tinkerers" for trying to make the world a better place and open the door of your cell a little.
Now that's being a little disingenuous, my friend. You're trying to attribute a position upon me that I absolutely did not say. I grew up on a farm. Farmers are the ultimate in free thinkers and tinkerers with "repair it, make a new one, or make it work anyway"...
Sadly that is still a common situation for many. I'm curious to know what it is that is causing the problem for you.
I work for a Tier 1 automotive company. This means having to design and implement controls packages using Allen-Bradley or Omron or Siemens (or EZAutomation or Automation Direct or...) PLC platform controls. Unfortunately, none of them have seen fit to move toward the light. Yeah, there are a couple of things Linux-wise to make a ladder diagram, and I once found a CIP Driver to talk to PLC5/SLC50x, but now with the ControlLogix Platform and a more unified architecture, CIP has all but fallen off the radar. Add the proprietary format that Rockwell, Siemens, et al use and it's a nice formula for late-night headaches.
For electrical (not electronic) prints, AutoCAD Electrical ends up being my weapon of choice. There are Linux packages out there to do drawings, but ACE gives me Parent <-> Child relationships between symbols, Automatic Parent <-> Child references across multiple pages, Automatic wire numbering and wire number updates-- the increased productivity has been beneficial to my workflow and getting things done on a timely basis... when I'm not distracted by shiny things...
In conclusion, while I wouldn't mind cutting the MS umbilical cord, it's just not feasible for me to do so. At least as it stands right now.
Dang! Here I am editorializing again! On the bright side, it's time for lunch!
I can't get a BSOD. The links on that page do not work.
"Invalid Attachment specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator"
Whoops! Had a permission set wrong. Try again, it should work. It's the last image in the blog entry. Ironically I got it again this morning during boot-up.
It should say upgrade to Windows 8...Windows 7 really was an upgrade from Vista. On Windows 8 I will just be happy if I can stop having random BSODs...takes me all the way back to Windows Me!
That's one of the things that I forget most in my English-centric life: some people have to deal with multiple languages, and the software issues that arise from that.
LOL..well said.
Ever have to debug a software program written in some language other than your native language?
I have a copy of W8, but I can't bring myself to install it. To be fair, I only have one computer I would install it on... A dual boot W7/F19 box. W7 just works so well I don't want to replace it. FYI... the machine primarily boots F19. There are a few applications that aren't ported to Linux. Pity!
I just set up a clients Windows 8 system yesterday. I am apalled that you have to have a Microsoft account just to run it. They bought this off the shelf. I am still building and selling Windows 7.
I am apalled that you have to have a Microsoft account just to run it.
I have never tried Windows 8, could you elaborate on this? I was aware that some "features" (that I would never use anyway) in Windows 8 require a Microsoft account, but I didn't think one was required just to use the OS.
When the system first started up it had me create a MS account for the user that would be on the machine. It would not let me bypass it when starting. I HAD to create the account and they wanted his name, phone number, an alternate email address and his birthday. I will avoid Windows 8 at all costs.
When the system first started up it had me create a MS account for the user that would be on the machine. It would not let me bypass it when starting. I HAD to create the account and they wanted his name, phone number, an alternate email address and his birthday. I will avoid Windows 8 at all costs.
Gosh, what happens if you accidentally misspell the person's name, mess up their phone number, do some dyslexia on the b-day, etc.? A rose by any other name... or are their account-creating Nazis gonna come and getcha?
Gosh, what happens if you accidentally misspell the person's name, mess up their phone number, do some dyslexia on the b-day, etc.?
I am thinking that would be a bad thing if you had to ever prove who you really are. Besides, it was clients choice to go this route so that is on them.
I have no personal experience with installing Windows 8, but according to Microsoft an account is only needed to access their app store, SkyDrive, and a few other minor Windows 8 features. They don't make it very obvious, but you can still use a normal log in. If you Google " how to install windows 8" screenshots showing the "Sign in to your PC" screen are readily found. The option to "Sign in without a Microsoft account" is at the bottom left.
I am appalled not only at Windows 8 but also the fact that you can't buy mainstream laptops without Windows installed. Here in the second decade of the 21st century MS continues it's stranglehold on PC manufacturers by not allowing any other O/S to be factory loaded, the most that you will get is a horribly crippled version of Linux posing as "fastboot". I will however make sure that if I have to purchase one with Lose8 on it that I will demand my money back from MicroSlop as I would not ever be using this crud. Having spent enough time fixing and configuring friends new computers I know I loath MS even more (it's possible).
BTW, I use LinuxMint 16 with Cinnamon desktop and VirtualBox + XP for a couple of Windows programs I still use or need to test out. Ubuntu's unity desktop is annoying and doesn't lend itself to having other desktops loaded etc.
Here in the second decade of the 21st century MS continues it's stranglehold on PC manufacturers...
Yep, it's depressing.
It's also somewhat amazing. There have been anti-trust/monopoly suits against MS for stupid things like bundling a browser with their OS. These drag on for years and years but totally miss the point.
In my mind a PC or laptop is a general purpose computing device that can run any program or OS built for it. Clearly if I buy a laptop from, say Samsung, and it has and it has a Windows OS these are two totally different products from two totally different mega corporations. But wait, I can't get a laptop from any other manufacturer without that Windows OS. From the outside it looks like some serious collusion is going on here, a price fixing cartel.
There are laws against such cartels. How come nothing ever happened on that front? How come the courts were fiddling about with stupid issues like a bundled browser and not confronting the bigger issues? How come this cartel was not broken up such that I can always easily by a computer with no operating system? Or, if that Windows is included the extra cost to me is not clearly indicated?
Now we have the post PC era and I despair even more. All the world want smart phones and tablets and what happens? The consumers quite happily lock themselves into Apple and locked down Android devices.
Luckily there are few pockets of resistance, the failed WebOS from HP, the Chrome books, the Jolla phone. But times ahead are looking grim for the general purpose computer as we know it.
It's kind of like when you are using ssh to connect to a *NIX system and you make the terminal window go full screen.....just because you can. It's an amazing thing to work in a 23" full screen *NIX session in all its command line glory!! (probably brings a tear to some eyes!)
Well, Microsoft is just being true to its leap frog / jackrabbit business model... inbetween givng the customer a decent OS, they get all bizarre and put out an OS that falls flat.
Maybe a kangaroo business model or a grasshoper business model is what they call it. Hot and Cold, Salt and Pepper....
Whatever it is, it has made people more and more shy of Microsoft products.
Actually, Bill Gates has recently become the Second largest shareholder of MS stock as he has been selling shares on a plan for many years... and buying ultra conservative bonds.
Currently downloading TWENTY Win8.1 updates. IIRC that's a new record. I check updates at least twice a week, so those 20 updates popped in just the last 1-3 days.
I feel very sorry for laptop computer manufacturers. It is hard to move product when the only OS Microsoft will supply you is Win8.1. In a tablet, W8 isn't so terribly bad. On a laptop it is a complete step backward in useability compared to W7. Forcing everyone to migrate from something they like to something they don't is, more than anything else, a great way to grow the Linux community.
Or we...
* Install an older Windoze version (sometimes legal, sometimes not)
* Search the web for shells to make it look like Windoze 7 or XP
But yes, it's definitely a reason not to replace that older laptop, so less sales, both to the supplier and MS serves them right!
And no, it's not forcing me to Linux - for me, that's worse than the W8 horror.
However, both iOS and Android are here for me too.
Or we...
* Install an older Windoze version (sometimes legal, sometimes not)
* Search the web for shells to make it look like Windoze 7 or XP
I find my Win8 laptop with Classic Shell (which is free) more usable than the Win7 laptops in the building. It's a shame that you need a third party add-on to restore basic functionality but at least it's possible and doesn't cost extra. I've never been able to make any sense of what 7 is doing on the task bar.
Comments
Hello Heater,
Either I didn't phrase my comments as well as I should have or you may have misinterpreted many of them.....
The only reason I need to keep around that old Windows 98SE has nothing to do with newer versions of Windows. It everything to do with the fact that the programmer relies on an ISA BUS plug in card and the most recent system that still had one of those was running Windows 98SE. The software for the programmer actually runs under a DOS Window. If I had reasonable way to leverage that old programmer by using a different interface (USB, PCI, etc) then I could move it to a newer system. Since it still works fine it is tucked away as a stand alone system just for programming EPROMS and legacy microcontrollers. At some point I may get a newer device programmer but until this old one dies there is no reason to spend any money on that.
There are only a couple items that I haven't been able to get working because there aren't current drivers. One is an older large format Mustek 11x17 scanner and the other is a RoboScout interface which hasn't been supported for years. I don't blame the lack of support for those on Microsoft but I do think it would be awesome if they had a way to sandbox older device drivers to enable them to be used. Maybe that will happen. If not I can work around it. These were not show stoppers for me since I don't use the RoboScout interface often. I don't believe either of these were supported under Linux and the scanner only partially on the Mac. The latest Mac also seems to have the same lack of a driver for the scanner so it's not just Windows that is the problem. It just that I think Microsoft has an opportunity to really help with migrating people if there is a way to support legacy drivers for what amounts to orphaned products (like the RobotScout Interface) This was an issue I was just pushing out since it would have come up with Vista or Windows 7 as well.
For everything else Windows 8.1 is working great. Last night I added a floppy drive to read old media and that is supported. The startup and shutdown times of the OS seem significantly faster than previous versions and from the desktop it is working just like I'm used to. No problems. I like the way it performs and some features like the Task Manager seem to be much better.
The only part I wasn't happy and could rip on Microsoft about is that they seem to want everyone to use the cloud. When I mentioned the "Live" it was more of a warning to other so they won't be caught off guard by it and can set it back to a local account. It is obvious but it is easy to do. With that it works just how I want. Now, if they ever truly force everyone to Cloud type accounts and drop local accounts then I would be done with them.....
In regards to the BSOD that several people have encountered I personally haven't run into that for quite a while. When I have most of the the time it was a HW fault (bad memory module or dying hard drive). in one case it was a flaky PS. Other times I have run into a buggy 3rd party driver. In XP there was a driver verifier utility and I remember catching a network card driver behaving badly. Updating that fixed the issue.
I have a couple Linux systems running and like Linux too. However, the driver issues I may have raised with my Windows upgrade I have run into at least as many frustrating issues on Linux with the way the packages are maintained and in some cases radically change as well with newer versions while other are abandoned. Over the years I haven't found it to be any better or worse than the Windows systems I have up and running.
Robert
I can't even tell whether IE sucks or not.
Quite likely I did.
I do sympathize with the issue of old hardware becoming unsupported.
Open source drivers would be great wouldn't they? Then if a device has any following it would quite likely get it's drivers adapted to newer OS versions.
Whilst were at it we'll need an open source OS....
The 32-bit chain OS cores simply do not allow direct application access to hardware, at all, full stop. So if your app bit-banged the parallel port or was a DOS app or high-performance Win 3x or Win 95-98 app that used the serial ports, there is no way to make it work under XP and beyond, at all. The reasons for this change weren't entirely bad; one application generally can't hose the whole system now, although device drivers still can. But it did obsolete a lot of stuff, some of it very important. I am aware of plants with PLC systems that can only be serviced with DOS machines with ISA buses. That hardware has gone from being ubiquitous to being a very expensive specialty. I suspect the reason software emulators with appropriate device drivers for faux-legacy hardware haven't emerged is that, while they are very important in some spot applications, it's a small enough niche that the economies of scale necessary to spur development don't exist.
I do the opposite Heater, I run win 7 and VirtualBox with Ubuntu,Mac,and XP. So when Win7 gets out of hand Those OS's in VirtualBox keep running just fine
For electrical (not electronic) prints, AutoCAD Electrical ends up being my weapon of choice. There are Linux packages out there to do drawings, but ACE gives me Parent <-> Child relationships between symbols, Automatic Parent <-> Child references across multiple pages, Automatic wire numbering and wire number updates-- the increased productivity has been beneficial to my workflow and getting things done on a timely basis... when I'm not distracted by shiny things...
In conclusion, while I wouldn't mind cutting the MS umbilical cord, it's just not feasible for me to do so. At least as it stands right now.
Dang! Here I am editorializing again! On the bright side, it's time for lunch!
Oh! and speaking of BSODs:
Later, my friends!
Whoops! Had a permission set wrong. Try again, it should work. It's the last image in the blog entry. Ironically I got it again this morning during boot-up.
No it is not.
I am curious...how many of you would prefer a yearly subscription for your software?
Definitely not me (who has machines using ANCIENT software and loving it)
I also wonder how they would update it considering millions of computers are 1) on dialup and 2) millions more are not connnected to the Internet.
LOL..well said.
Ever have to debug a software program written in some language other than your native language?
It is an interesting exercise.
Amanda
I have never tried Windows 8, could you elaborate on this? I was aware that some "features" (that I would never use anyway) in Windows 8 require a Microsoft account, but I didn't think one was required just to use the OS.
Gosh, what happens if you accidentally misspell the person's name, mess up their phone number, do some dyslexia on the b-day, etc.? A rose by any other name... or are their account-creating Nazis gonna come and getcha?
BTW, I use LinuxMint 16 with Cinnamon desktop and VirtualBox + XP for a couple of Windows programs I still use or need to test out. Ubuntu's unity desktop is annoying and doesn't lend itself to having other desktops loaded etc.
It's also somewhat amazing. There have been anti-trust/monopoly suits against MS for stupid things like bundling a browser with their OS. These drag on for years and years but totally miss the point.
In my mind a PC or laptop is a general purpose computing device that can run any program or OS built for it. Clearly if I buy a laptop from, say Samsung, and it has and it has a Windows OS these are two totally different products from two totally different mega corporations. But wait, I can't get a laptop from any other manufacturer without that Windows OS. From the outside it looks like some serious collusion is going on here, a price fixing cartel.
There are laws against such cartels. How come nothing ever happened on that front? How come the courts were fiddling about with stupid issues like a bundled browser and not confronting the bigger issues? How come this cartel was not broken up such that I can always easily by a computer with no operating system? Or, if that Windows is included the extra cost to me is not clearly indicated?
Now we have the post PC era and I despair even more. All the world want smart phones and tablets and what happens? The consumers quite happily lock themselves into Apple and locked down Android devices.
Luckily there are few pockets of resistance, the failed WebOS from HP, the Chrome books, the Jolla phone. But times ahead are looking grim for the general purpose computer as we know it.
Time to sell MSFT now. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=msft;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;
http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write
To each their own. LOL.
Maybe a kangaroo business model or a grasshoper business model is what they call it. Hot and Cold, Salt and Pepper....
Whatever it is, it has made people more and more shy of Microsoft products.
Actually, Bill Gates has recently become the Second largest shareholder of MS stock as he has been selling shares on a plan for many years... and buying ultra conservative bonds.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/03/bill-gates-on-course-to-sell-off-all-his-shares-in-microsoft-by-2018
No wonder Bill sucks up to Warren Buffett. He is rolling in cash and needs guidance.
A whole lot of patchin' goin' on.
* Install an older Windoze version (sometimes legal, sometimes not)
* Search the web for shells to make it look like Windoze 7 or XP
But yes, it's definitely a reason not to replace that older laptop, so less sales, both to the supplier and MS
And no, it's not forcing me to Linux - for me, that's worse than the W8 horror.
However, both iOS and Android are here for me too.
I find my Win8 laptop with Classic Shell (which is free) more usable than the Win7 laptops in the building. It's a shame that you need a third party add-on to restore basic functionality but at least it's possible and doesn't cost extra. I've never been able to make any sense of what 7 is doing on the task bar.