Windows Issues
erco
Posts: 20,256
Maybe Heater & Loopy are right about Linux...
Computer #1: So I was fat dumb & happy with Win8.1 my main desktop, in no rush to "upgrade" to WIn10. But around Thanksgiving, that OS crashed with the well-known "Automatic Repair Loop" http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-update/how-to-fix-the-automatic-repair-loop-in-windows-81/bfc92bc7-031f-45d4-b623-bcb4847d32fd I've tried everything and nothing works. I'm limping along on my old hard drive with Vista now. I can still use the Win8 drive as a slave, and copy files, but I always have this nagging feeling that I missed something. I'll probably get a new hard drive, do a clean Win10 install and just keep the Win8 drive as a slave for a year until I'm sure I got everything off that I need.
Computer #2: I got the twins a Black Friday laptop for their online school. Cute little Toshiba Win10 14" with a 32 GB SSD, just internet/email stuff. Works great. Then I go to download "Threshhold 2" which is basically Service Pack 1 for Win10. Four hours to download, then it bombs on installation saying it needs 6 more GB on drive C. It says "or install a USB drive" but it refuses to use a USB drive. Have tried this 3 times now (yep, 12+ hours of downloading) with same result. Computer still works, but it's a really stupid situation. Huge useless update files on the tiny drive. I'm not the only one. http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Encore-Tablets/Windows-10-Threshold-2-Update/m-p/676122#M10462
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4547/upgrade-a-small-tablet-or-laptop-to-windows-10 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/cannot-install-windows-10-home-threshold-2-build/44419d6f-101c-4240-891d-0ef9964a79a8 There used to be a clean install ISO on Microsoft's site which solved this problem but they took it down.
Both of these are known and well-documented problems that have been around for a while. AAAACCCKKK!!!
Computer #1: So I was fat dumb & happy with Win8.1 my main desktop, in no rush to "upgrade" to WIn10. But around Thanksgiving, that OS crashed with the well-known "Automatic Repair Loop" http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-update/how-to-fix-the-automatic-repair-loop-in-windows-81/bfc92bc7-031f-45d4-b623-bcb4847d32fd I've tried everything and nothing works. I'm limping along on my old hard drive with Vista now. I can still use the Win8 drive as a slave, and copy files, but I always have this nagging feeling that I missed something. I'll probably get a new hard drive, do a clean Win10 install and just keep the Win8 drive as a slave for a year until I'm sure I got everything off that I need.
Computer #2: I got the twins a Black Friday laptop for their online school. Cute little Toshiba Win10 14" with a 32 GB SSD, just internet/email stuff. Works great. Then I go to download "Threshhold 2" which is basically Service Pack 1 for Win10. Four hours to download, then it bombs on installation saying it needs 6 more GB on drive C. It says "or install a USB drive" but it refuses to use a USB drive. Have tried this 3 times now (yep, 12+ hours of downloading) with same result. Computer still works, but it's a really stupid situation. Huge useless update files on the tiny drive. I'm not the only one. http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Encore-Tablets/Windows-10-Threshold-2-Update/m-p/676122#M10462
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4547/upgrade-a-small-tablet-or-laptop-to-windows-10 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/cannot-install-windows-10-home-threshold-2-build/44419d6f-101c-4240-891d-0ef9964a79a8 There used to be a clean install ISO on Microsoft's site which solved this problem but they took it down.
Both of these are known and well-documented problems that have been around for a while. AAAACCCKKK!!!
Comments
Somehow, it even seems to make Vista look like a better choice.
Save to say that mostly my statements about closed source, proprietary operating systems are usually not about how much they "suck" technically. All operating systems suck as far as I can tell. It's more an argument about single vendor lock-in and who has control of our computing lives.
Anyway, a week ago I had a revelation, perhaps a conversion. More on that later, maybe...
1. Compress the whole drive. Took a night.
2. The win 10 was some upgrade, which left an old.windows directory. I deleted this.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
I avoid doing automatic version upgrades on Ubuntu, it's just such an error prone method imho. I always do a fresh install to a newly created system partition. I keep the home directory on it's own partition and reassign it to the fresh system so my desktop doesn't reset each time. All this is easily managed via the provided installer app. A downside to this approach is I can be a bit stingy with the size of the system partitions, but that's entirely of my own making.
I have played a game that had in-game dynamic downloading of resources and content which worked just fine. But it wasn't primarily for upgrading but rather to simply get running on minimal download and only ever download what is needed.
All modern Operating Systems require a lot of storage space, have frequent update, have issues, etc...
I'm tired of every couple days someone has an ax to grind against windows and/or Microsoft.
I hear that Linux is great and free. Just freakin' download it and install it. Stop punishing yourself with windows.
If you are having a problem with windows and are asking for help, that is a different thing.
I understand that people like to vent their frustration, but these forums are not the place to do it.
Bean
Especially when those tools are related to the products on offer from said web site.
Things must have gotten pretty bad for the typically mild mannered and much respected erco to launch such tirade in it's own thread.
My first Windows machine was to run my cheapo CNC router. Win 98 on a refurbed box $200. No crashes since turned on, years ago. Next it was a Windows 8.1 HP to run Altera's Quartus... no problems until I downloaded a virus. After I fixed it, made sure Window's defender was turned on... no more problems. Thanks to these forums I am the proud owner of a 64bit Windows 10 $100 Kangaroo... full screen HDMI. Not a lick of problems and I have a Kinect v2 running on it all day every day just to see if I can make it crash. I have PropTool, PNut, ImageJ, Meshlab, Blender and Processing 3 installed... 6Gigs left.
I never allow an upgrade for about a week... that way if someone makes a mistake, they have time to fix it before I install it.
I like the idea that I might never have to pay more than $100 for a computer again... that's 4 computers for the price of an IPad. If it doesn't work, I can just throw it away.
@Heater: "mild mannered and much respected"? Thanks for that great Christmas chuckle! It's more like "that Stamp-loving goofball".
Merry Christmas all.
I'm looking forward to a Windows Surface Pro 4 with Win 10 for Christmas. What about y'all?
Makes it sound like the issues are with the user.
I'm not paying for this Christmas present. My boss is insisting on it. I think it's part of some therapeutic plan to help get me over my Windows issues
Get one of those little tiny USB drives (so nobody notices it) and put a "live" Linux distro on it and show your boss how clever you were converting your *NEW* Surface Pro 4 to Linux!!
What led me to this suggestion is today, I accidentally discovered that my Windows 7 Thin Client provided to connect to my employer's HVD will happily try to boot off a USB stick.....you can all guess where this discovery is headed!!
I have already checked this out
This is an exercise in trying to appear to be "normal". I have to be able to use a bunch of Windows only apps without flinching. Sad but true, even today.
This particular boss, being as technically competent as a mollusc would not comprehend any cleverness in a Linux install.
Now, apart from the price, this surface hardware from MS seems to be pretty good.
That whole "normal" thing is a big part of why I run Windows. Technically, a lot of what I do in the CAD / PLM space, can be done on Linux, but almost nobody does. Reason: Interchangeability with the rest of the company, and read "Microsoft Office" as the core requirement. That used to mean Outlook too, but enough people have moved off that to make email a non-issue. I prefer gmail for a lot of reasons.
1 out of every 100 new prospect queries involves Linux. It may be lower than that. A few out of every hundred involve Mac OS.
For most things, I don't have trouble. Windows is easy, and I keep my overall expectations really low, which helps a lot.
Should I stand my ground and say "no, get with the program guys, it's 2015 and we don't do platform specific stuff anymore", and find myself out of a job?
Actually I am considering doing exactly that.
WinXP was okay. I'm using Win7 now and like it less. There's just too much stuff in there to protect the user from himself, and it gets in my way.
-Phil
I've also been in a place where I was once told that my skill investment in IRIX was a waste of time. I told them, I'm going to continue, until it does not make any money. (and I was good) So it's really simple, do they want to get out of my way and profit, or do they want to give it up and I'll just profit instead, but IRIX was still worth doing, and I'm going to do it.
Easy answer. The machine stayed on my desk, and I made a lot of $$$ for the next few years. When it actually was over, then I was fine with it being over, but not until then. Still got one client on IRIX...
A close friend and I talk about this every so often. We grew up together, and in that great 8 bit time... He's not taken Windows jobs as much as he can. Currently doing web / Internet related development on Mac OS / Linux. Here in PDX, that's plausible. Lots of shiny software being done. Enough to find a niche, sans Windows. That place has one PC for testing, that it. He thinks I'm a little too pragmatic, so there you go.
I tend to focus on tasks, not meta-tasks. An OS is often a meta-task. If I have to fight with it much, I've got the wrong OS. Same for many apps, etc... Just don't have the time for it. So I keep it all simple, plain vanilla to a large degree and maximize the use value of things more than fight with them as much as I can.
That rule has been AWESOME! Highly recommended. I've rarely broken it, and usually that's on a cheap o computer deal or other.
I have kept good OSS skills, and use them when it makes sense.
Doing it that way means you are always getting paid to use Windows, and the efforts related to it are linked to some sort of income.
No income? No reason to run Windows.
This is my software policy in general. Sublime a nice exception.
Closed is fine, so long as other people pay for it.
Mind you, I have never bought a TV or VCR and so on either....
Sublime is the first software I was happy to pay for since about 1985 (A C compiler for the Atari ST) Oddly the same thing has happened again, I never use it, the Atom editor does what I want but better !
Being able to use Parallax products anywhere and everywhere might be.
-Phil
Are you sure it actually downloads a new driver or does it just say "installing" device driver?
I've always thought that was just a sort of buggy message meaning Windows 7 noticed something changed.
I know I've seen that message pop up just moving a device to a different USB port.
Is this a Pay Per View event?
Is there a Google hangout or equivalent where "the gang" could meet up and duke it out occasionally, no holds barred? It would be interesting to see whether blowing off steam elsewhere would lead to more or less civility here.