CharlotteTheHarlot

I'm not sure what those children are going on about. Oh wait, I see they are talking about January as a whole. I have the last two charts from NeoWin ( 12 days apart ), so they must be skipping that one and going back to December. Well let's just see the last two they posted ... ... 2013-01-20 ... 2013-02-01 It doesn't look good at all for them in the past week and a half. Just to be sure I whipped up a quick and dirty spreadsheet, typing the numbers in by hand ... It looks like Windows 8 is down Windows XP is up. The change is small though, and only a 12 day trend. Summary: measuring from December Windows 8 is slightly up, measuring from 12 days ago ( the last two charts at NeoWin ) it is slightly down. Does anyone have a source for the "start" period chart ( December? ) that NeoWin is now using? ADDED: Naturally with the increasing share of Windows XP ( in both trend periods ) lots of the MetroTards take shots at it. ( oh I hope it cracks 40% again ) Typical spewing: Sorry MicroZealot. Windows XP users are not complaining about anything. Only obsessive compulsive MetroTards are complaining, and they are complaining about Windows XP for some odd reason as if it impacts their narcissistic little world. ( Sent from an XP system running as administrator without any antivirus and without Windows updates for several years. By all means keep updating, patching and virus-checking your little Playskool Windows 8 non-administrator system. It has to be good for something besides Angry Birds. ) EDIT: updated image URLs, and again

Office 365, Outlook.com and SkyDrive experienced service disruptions Friday morning ( NeoWin 2013-02-01 ) Microsoft services outage blamed on routine maintenance ( NeoWin 2013-02-01 ) Another cloudy day for users of dumb-terminals. Can we now start calling it Office 364 363 now? Microsoft exec slams low Google+ interaction rate ( NeoWin 2013-02-01 ) Hmmm. That's the fourth story of this nature in short order. Anyone else seeing pattern here ever since they hired a DC political hack ( Microsoft's DC insider could throw the kitchen sink at Google ). Microsoft's corporate PR head calls out Google PR exec on Twitter ( NeoWin 2012-12-17 ) Microsoft slams Android on Twitter; response is mixed ( NeoWin 2012-12-05 ) Microsoft slams Google again, warns shoppers not to get "Scroogled” [update] ( NeoWin 2012-11-28 ) Very ugly and unprofessional. I'm amazed at the Board at Microsoft and what they put up with. Oh, wait. Gates is still Chairman of the Board. Nevermind. Apple's Request to Triple $1.05B Samsung Damages Denied ( Tom's Hardware 2013-02-01 ) More about that significant case with the creepy possibly-biased jury foreman and the Apple-loving judge. The feeling is that she made this compromise ruling: no new trial ( pro-Apple ), no increased damages ( pro-Samsung ), just to kick it upstairs to the appeals court, or, because she is fed up with the whole thing. It will be interesting because if it goes through without a new trial, a new low precedent will be set for behavior in court. It is Samsung has the upper-hand now because they can afford the fine, and already jacked up prices on parts supplied to Apple ( hehe ). If the Judge did triple the damages, it would only result in triple cost to Apple in parts!

I just noticed something in a couple of the recent Thurrott columns ... Fact Check: Windows 8 Pricing Identical to That for Windows 7. There's been a lot of whining this week. It's all unnecessary ( 2013-01-19 ) The Morning After: A Look at the New Normal in Windows 8 Upgrade Pricing ( 2013-02-01 ) He is of course defending the 5x price increase, curiously saying it is now the same as Windows 7. Or is it? Did you forget something Paul? Perhaps something that was announced at the Official Destroying Windows Blog. You covered it yourself Paul, even disagreeing with Microsoft ( for once ) in Windows 8, DVD Playback, Media Center, and You. Yes, you forgot about Microsoft cutting costs by removing MPEG decoding and other "costs" from Windows, each having to shoulder the burden if they want it. It sure looks to me that your math clearly shows them "shouldering the burden" anyway, except no Media Center. Clearly the crappy new Windows costs at least $9.99 more than the equivalent version of Windows 7. As many "cynical" people said at the time, Microsoft clearly cut costs by removing the DVD playback, and simply pocketed it. Flashback to Post #996 with Sinofsky's ridiculous MicroSpeak ... Check your math Paul. EDIT: updated image URL, and again

Upgrade To Windows 8 ? ... Houston We Have Another Problem Summary: If you are using 32-bit Windows to purchase Windows 8, you will receive 32-bit files regardless of your system capabilities! Silly me, I thought I was done with that simple chore of downloading Windows 8 for a customer to install later on their Windows XP system. Nope. Not in MicroLand where nothing is easy, or even sensible. You see, and I forgot this last night, that 2GB download was naturally the 32-bit version of Windows 8. I should have remembered that since Vista, any distribution totaling 2GB is not 64-bit. It's my own fault for trusting them to have set up an option-laden upgrade system, after all, they have so many years of practice at it. Nope, they learned nothing. Well I'm not the only one that walked into this mess. For example, see here to read comments by a lot of ticked off people. Also here. What seems to have happened is that their brilliant "Upgrade Assistant" uses "system sniffing" to decide what to download, incorrectly assuming that the system making the purchase is the one that gets the install. This is similar to the "browser sniffing" they use on many webpages telling you 'This MSKB article pertains to another operating system' as if people will never use a different computer ( which itself is rather funny when you are looking up articles about a FUBAR computer or lost network access or BSOD, where it would be impossible to be using the computer with the problem being researched ). "Sniffing" is plain stupid, be it system, browser, or glue. If you insist on being too clever by half and using "sniffing" you had better make allowances for situations where people are using computers other than the one they are researching about, and offer clear choices to accommodate them. Perhaps it is appropriate. The logic behind this Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" pretty much matches the caliber of their new operating system. Anyway, when you run this ridiculous Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" they missed many opportunities to avoid the problem. Many opportunities. I collected and annotated six different screens where they could have used some disambiguation ( and there are even more opportunities ). Have a look here at this graphic which hopefully might help some others ... Now where this gets silly is in the recommended and suggested solutions from Microsoft, the MVP volunteers, and the larger tech community. It is a real mess. The above two linked threads have these ideas and links to others offsite. Get a refund. Screw it. Buy the DVD with both the 32-bit and 64-bit installers. Install 64-bit Windows on your current computer and then download it again ( Wait what? You want to upgrade 32-bit XP to 64-bit Windows 8 so you must first get a 64-bit something else! ) Go to another computer running a Windows 64-bit version and do it again. ( Note my previous post, if you are on WinXP64 you likely still will need to collect the files! ). Borrow a 64-bit install from someone else ( Questionable ) Download a pure MSDN/Technet 64-bit installer image ( Illegal! ) Find a cracked torrent ( Illegal! ) You should note that in reality we are no further along than we were since Activation first appeared around Office XP and Windows XP. One of the so-called advantages of this was said to be that we were now purchasing a license or serial number or activation code, not media. The media would now be independent of the license and therefore be less criminal to distribute the files. Well this never came to fruition, now did it? We got all the negatives of activation, and none of the positives of easy-to-find distribution media. Microsoft still makes a fuss about 3rd parties hosting service packs and meaningless updates, let alone entire Windows install discs. This is practically criminal what they have done to the average consumer who does not have a TechNet subscription ( which itself is technically only for educational and testing purposes, using it to reinstall a legal Windows installation at some business or a random customers' home is at a best gray area, but likely a violation ). Frankly, this is one of the worst things they have ever done and if you ask me deserves class action status. Couple this with the OEM scam where they do not normally distribute any media, only a recovery partition ( which for some reason is unavailable when a HDD dies! ) it is clear that Microsoft is operating a scam best described as Planned Obsolescence. Their thinking is 'If a million people need to reinstall Windows, some percentage of them will fail to locate legal media and just give up and buy a new system or Windows retail'. Unfortunately, some of them are saying screw you and going elsewhere. Speculation or not, they should be crushed in court for this evil plan. In this particular case my client doesn't really care now and will use the 32-bit installer because their system is less than 4GB RAM and isn't sure if there are 64-bit drivers for the other stuff they have anyway. Whatever. It still sucks that they get away with this nonsense. P.S. So many people on the threads about this issue have no idea what it means to have a 64-bit system. Many are basing their decision solely on what bit-size Windows is installed and is reported from Control Panel > System. This is NOT what 64-bit means. 64-bit is processor capability, you need to look up your CPU at Intel or AMD and look for something like: x64 Support?. If the processor runs the x64 extensions to x86 then you have a 64-bit system ( barring some obscure BIOS bug that fails to enable it ). Here is what is important, and something Microsoft failed to allow for in their ridiculous Windows 8 "Upgrade Assistant" ... there are many systems out there runnning 32-bit Windows because the thing shipped with 2GB RAM. End Result? Lots of XP and Vista laptops will wind up with Windows 8 32-bit because of the "Upgrade Assistant". EDIT: clarity

Windows XP Upgrade To Windows 8 ? ... Houston We Have A Problem Summary: If you are using Windows XP while purchasing Windows 8, you will not be able to create the ISO or FlashDrive media options! Against my best advice I just had someone insist on buying the $39.99 Crazy Eddie deal. So I went through the entire process and kept track of the changes and other details. What an amateur operation. The first thing you do is download the Upgrade Assistant, a standalone program that runs compatibility tests, makes a report, accepts credit cards, and handles the download. Yes, its icky, leaves a gigantic boatload of files in Application Data, Flash, Cookies, Crypto and Temporary Internet folders, and naturally does no cleanup. Anyway, after you complete it and buy the license it begins and completes the 2GB download. If you are using Windows XP to place the order and download, the process will deviate from the instructions. ~sigh~ For example, from the FAQ ... "Can I create my own installation media for Windows 8? You can create your own installation media on a USB or DVD. During the installation process you are presented with an option to: “Install now, Install by creating media, or Install later from your desktop”. When you select “Install by creating media”, you will be presented with the options to create USB or DVD installation media.". Yeah, No. Not on Windows XP. Others noticed this little bug, read here. If you are on Windows XP the result is ... Wonderful. See the half-hearted solution given by the Softie at that link ("Wednesday, October 31, 2012 4:05 PM"). You have to grab the files which are thankfully under a single folder structure called C:\ESD and either burn a disc or copy them to some other media. Screenshot ... Still after all these years they cannot figure out the reduced breakage potential of downloading one single file versus 2.06 GB consisting of 1,577 Files and 540 Folders. That is the total under C:\ESD structure. What could possibly go wrong! Well, now we have potential problems at any of 3 possible points in time: (1) downloading, (2) burning to disc, and (3) execution from burned disc later. Needless to say, they still reserve clean updated images only for those subscribing to MSDN rather than all customers, and even those terms have changed for the worse lately. What a terrible state of affairs. If anyone is interested, not counting the C:\ESD distribution, the Upgrade Assistant left another 947 new files scattered around the above mentioned folders. It also changes some logs ( WindowsUpdate, ReportingEvents, Wbem*, and more ) and very alarmingly modifies several Windows Update cabinets ( muv4wuredir, wuredir ) the consequence I will learn about later. All this nonsense to grab a simple Windows 8 offline installer to be used later on another computer! They have learned nothing at all in all these years. EDIT: typo. Forgot to mention, only a couple of changes to the registry under BITS and DHCP, most likely harmless and transitory.

Yep, I remember that thread at the time and would have mentioned it if it had kept going. The funny thing is that my sign-in date over there is older than every single poster on that thread except one. Children indeed. There are more than a few of us NeoWin longtimers that got fed up with the place. Here is an example why: Just a few weeks prior to that thread they had yet another embarrassing incident that we talked about here, see around this post. Also this. One of my theories why this happened to NeoWin is this one. They kind of get mentioned a lot around the blogosphere, and maybe that is the very point, any publicity is good publicity. Anyway, the point they are always missing is that the site, NeoWin itself has radically changed, attracting legions of Generation Xbox consumer-type dumb-terminal users. They are the very target demographic that Windows MetroTard Edition is designed for. The layman. The n00b. What they cannot fathom is that no-one even wants to deprive them of their MetroTard operating system ( seriously, more power to you, have fun pushing around colored blocks! ). But being children they want to impose their toys on everyone else including techs, developers, programmers, even the office and enterprise. They draw no lines in the sand anywhere. They do not want under any circumstances a separate MetroTard version of Windows for sale that they must intentionally purchase letting the market decide ( actually its their parents' money, but I digress ). No, they want it imposed on everyone else. This is why I despise them. They are worse than any alleged Apple fanboy of the past. They are a plague and are Microsoft's absolute worst enemy, and they will run it into the ground. If you want Windows and Microsoft itself to survive, the mindless fanboys must be ignored. P.S. I should mention this also. I used to refer to it as "Fanboy Central", but I was getting maybe a little too unprofessional about it. One of the mods politely pointed it out and I agreed. Check back in this thread around #1174 to see when. It wasn't too long after the mentioned NeoWin thread. The moderator was right, we look much better than them by keeping it civil ( as hard as it may be ).

I don't see the hard facts that they are bragging about. "Lenovo said it shipped 14.1 million PCs during the fourth quarter, up 7.6 percent. This is in contrast to the overall PC market, which saw shipments go down for the same quarter". This quote includes Windows 7 which is all that was available for fully 1/3 of that fourth quarter! And it was most likely still available in the latter 2/3 of that quarter as the primary OS or downgrades. One number that needs to be reported honestly is returns. Anecdotally I know of a dozen actual returns, and to tell the truth I can not recall that ever happening before because most people don't go through that kind of hassle unless they are really p***ed off. If your operating system is being returned, it is a failure and it is not really an operating system. The theme song for this article should probably be Rock And Roll . Exactly right. Microsoft and Windows 8 already spiked prices on everything, halting and reversing the decades long trend of increasing value and decreasing prices over time. Just wait until this 5x increase in cost gets passed along to the customer. I've called them the Destroying Windows Team for a while, but Destroying Computers may be more appropriate. EDIT: added 2nd thing.

This is not shaping up to be a very happy day over at NeoWin ... It's the final day (for most people) to get cheap Windows 8 upgrades ( NeoWin 2013-01-31 ) Besides the original launch in October, this will be the absolute peak sales day for Windows 8. After this, there is nothing. It's over until the next version. Theme Song: .iSuppli: Microsoft Surface RT has sold 680,000 to 750,000 units ( NeoWin 2013-01-31 ) This thread is an open invitational to all prospective psychologists that are seeking case studies to further their education. There will be many future patients in here displaying various cries for help. Only a few comments so far, check back later today for much more fun. "Denial". It ain't just a river in Egypt anymore. Theme Song: Welcome To My Nightmare. Gabe Newell: Apple, not Microsoft, is biggest threat to Steam Box ( NeoWin 2013-01-31 ) Those same prospective psychologists should visit this thread as well later today. The discussion will have on display all manner of vicious attacks on this ex-Softie who has the courage to speak his own mind about his former company. Future shrinks will easily spot the symptoms of antisocial behavior by unstable people rife with hatred and lashing out at their enemies, real or imagined. Theme Song: Crazy Train.

The key word is "bootable" CDROM. It does not have anything to do with the OS that is in place on your system. The cloning is performed outside of Windows, the bootable CDROM has its own OS that runs. Your computer BIOS needs to supply the ability to boot from the optical drive though. If either of your two HDDs ( source and target ) are Seagate, their CDROM will work. I am not sure if you explained it, but what are the two drives? What these discs really are is just a convenient method of copying a HDD plus some partition adjustment functions used when the two drives are not identical sized. They are designed for the HDD customer that simply upgrades their existing disk to a new one. But "new" is not absolutely necessary. These discs have been around for many years and come in many versions. I didn't look, but I bet the bootable CDROMs are available at eBay or Amazon for cheap. Yes, you can download the ISO of the boot latest CDROM, but it is not simple as just getting the physical one from someone, that is why I showed the photo. If you cannot borrow one ( or will not buy a retail HDD with one included ) then this option obviously will not be possible for you.

What do others think about Office 364 and subscriptions in general ( I'm really lovin the Register these days ) ... Why Microsoft's Office 2013 Subscription Model Will Flop ( Dvorak 2013-01-29 ) Microsoft tries to sell home Office users on subscription pricing C'mon... We'll give you storage 'n' Skype minutes ( UK Register 2013-01-29 ) Microsoft Office 2013 vs. Office 365: Is either right for you? Microsoft is dangling the bait. Should you bite? ( UK Register 2013-01-30 ) Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013? From Clippy to touch, Reg man Tim drills into Redmond's crown jewels ( UK Register 2013-01-30 ) Is it Microsoft or MicroDell? ... Microsoft's Dell billions have Windows 8 strings attached If you can't convince them, buy them... ( UK Register 2013-01-30 ) MicroDell: It's All About the Margins ( The Street 2013-01-23 ) Should Microsoft Buy Dell? ( Seeking Alpha 2013-01-23 ) More stuff about Blackberry ... RIM blows on the dice, gets ready for its FINAL THROW Desperate to get out of Last Chance Saloon crapgame ( UK Register 2013-01-30 ) Smartphone stragglers: Microsoft and BlackBerry battle to secure third place After Android and iOS, it's still anybody's game ( The Verge 2013-01-30 ) BlackBerry 10 launches with 70,000 apps including Skype, Whatsapp and Angry Birds ( NeoWin 2013-01-30 ) And finally ... Bill Gates wants to rid the world of polio within six years ( NeoWin 2013-01-30 ) I wonder if by Polio he really meant Microsoft ? EDIT: interesting comment in that Register article about Dell ...

RIM renames itself BlackBerry, launches BB10 and all-touch Z10 smartphone ( TechSpot 2013-01-30 ) BlackBerry launches new BlackBerry 10 devices ( NeoWin 2013-01-30 ) You really gotta wonder if Microsoft's grand mobile strategy plan left out one important variable - competition. Perhaps their projections assumed the rest of the industry taking a year or two off? I see no easy way to get WP8 into the top three because Blackberry will compete in enterprise IT. If WebOS gets a foothold, and Linux gets established and Symbian sticks around ( and there are even more ), Microsoft will forever battle for the bottom rung of this ladder. The Windows Tiles interface just looks too busy for many peoples' tastes, and by simply utilizing a nice wallpaper almost any phone will instantly look more professional and attractive to the average purchaser. Ah, but the plan was to shoehorn it onto desktops in the Windows x86 universe so we all fall in love with it and then dutifully run out and buy WP8 phones right? Great plan Ballmer. Destroy Windows for nothing. Microsoft: We will ship a full Windows 8 'Modern' version of Office ... someday ( NeoWin 2013-01-30 ) Now that's funny right there. The screenshot of the hideous Office 2013 Outlook posted upthread ( Post #1604) by ciHnoN isn't bad enough I guess! Samsung VS Apple: Retrial request denied! ( NeoWin 2013-01-30 ) Sorry to see this ruling, but it will be appealed. This case, this Judge, this Court is one of the last remaining firewalls standing between Apple and oblivion. Their most successful tactic, something like Microsoft, is to clear the playing field to establish a window of opportunity with no competition, exploit it and exit ( Microsoft only does the first two parts ) after product saturation to move on to other things. Great commenter there: "Her name should be Lucy D'Oh!". EDIT: typo

Wow, I didn't see that story yet, I wonder why it didn't show up at NeoWin? If that is accurate, their expectations are much lower now, as they should be when entering the high-end "ultrabook" market instead of the mid-range tablet market. Surface RT should have been priced at the bottom-end at $250. The Surface Pro at $500 tops. Then they would have had a fighting chance. They may have started with good intentions but they must have used a buggy version of Excel to plot projections of competing against Samsung, Amazon, and Google/Android. Sometime between development and release of Surface they clearly shifted to dreaming of becoming another Apple with over-priced boutique hipster devices ( remember the first Surface commercial ). I suspect it was that fawning wave of coverage in the tech press when the Surface secret project was announced, coverage that consisted mostly of "oooohs" and "aahhhhs", the kind of thing that boosts your ego non-sensibly. The truth of the matter is that they have no ability to compete on the bottom-end, because they know nothing about fair pricing that can drive sales. They also have no ability of competing on the top-end without a long established and predictable ( and slave labor ) hardware manufacturing base like Apple. So once again, just what were they thinking? Seriously, the only real chance that they have is to buy an OEM manufacturer like Dell, lock, stock and barrel and set Apple-like expectations for a year or three into the future. But even that ship may have sailed because you have to move fast and it looks like Dell stock is already up 30% just on the rumors of going private. The upper management at Microsoft is so inept, so bureaucratic, so IBM-like, that it is unlikely they will accomplish anything, ever.

Well, it wasn't just that Microsoft screwed up DOS 4 or 5, although they and IBM did mess them up, it really is more that after DOS 3.x things got complicated. DOS 3.3 was the end of an era of simple distributions, little variation and predictable results. That is what suddenly changed. The DOS 4.0 release into the 5.x era brought high profile bad publicity from bugs. Patches were now becoming normal and the workload of techs really started to increase. The technology press was beginning to mature and go after Microsoft, IBM and others causing the bunker mentality causing less timely or accurate or useful information from them. The industry itself was segmenting into groups. IBM, already stung by the i386 coup from Compaq was beginning its march to closed architecture. Microsoft was secretly turning its attention to Windows, they were all about getting out Windows 3.yuk while the IBM and Microsoft OS/2 project was stagnant and really going nowhere. I guess you could say that the world went from a more simple time in the DOS 3 era to a complex time of intrigue and infighting and backstabbing. For the customer and tech it was confusing, where to go, what to get, who to back. Some saw the new DOSSHELL in version 4 as a step forward, but many of us were already tired of waiting for a reliable GUI launcher and saw it as a foot-dragging half-step. This is also the era when CONFIG.SYS became complicated with memory management and device drivers. I remember thinking why couldn't they just build all the extensions right into the DOS system files instead of us forever tinkering with CONFIG edits and reboots. Well they couldn't because something else was happening, the era of lawsuits and intellectual property with companies claiming ownership of this and that advancement, and as usual only the consumer loses out. It kind of stopped being fun when you had to read so much ( no internet! ) just to understand what was possible, what was allowed, what was affordable. This is not to say that it was all bad, just really complicated. Ironically, when Microsoft won the OS wars with Windows 3.x, they finally put together the best and most complete DOS to date with version 6 ( although I would say the Win9x DOS version 7 was the ultimate although not standalone ). BTW, it was because of this fractured late-1980's era with all the intrigue and factions that Microsoft was able to cement its monopoly in the 1990's with Windows 3.x. You see, after going through that rudderless era and painful transition, almost everybody was willing to accept one leader with one OS product that did everything. I know I was one of them, thinking a monopoly at the operating system level isn't such a bad thing as long as it allows freedom everywhere else. Fast forward to the present and Microsoft has proved me wrong. Memory Lane :: Timeline of DOS ( Wiki, very detailed )

Xbox Live service down for Xbox 360, Windows 8 and more [update] ( NeoWin 2013-01-29 ) All hail the cloud. Coming soon to an overpriced underpowered tablet near you - Office 364. Acer chief hints at low-cost, quad-core slates later this year ( TechSpot 2013-01-29 ) This should really help out Windows 8 and RT marketshare. What was the plan again Ballmer? Oh yeah, sell some Apple-style overpriced midrange and highend boutique items and let the rest of the world devour all other sectors. Clearly there is a bug in their Excel 2013 spreadsheet projection formula, the math does not add up. Meanwhile they defile and destroy their high profile cash cow Windows in the process. Rumor: Microsoft wants a say in Dell's business if it helps with buyout ( NeoWin 2013-01-29 ) If Dell was smart they would run away. If Microsoft were smart they would buy the company outright, a better idea than trying to buy Yahoo for $45 billion. Then they could become MicroApple ( err, MicroDell ? ). Personally I would rather see the feds enter the fray now because this does not help competition at the OS level. But since they stood by silently while all the HDD manufacturers devoured each other, why would they care now. Ballmer, just make Mike an offer he can't refuse ... EDIT: made intelligible color a little darker

That is certainly true. And then there are cases like myself slow burning over the countless incremental Microsoft mis-steps and backstabs that hit critical mass suddenly but was a verrrrry longtime coming. Having said that, trying to remember my really trusting them is not easy because every single time they did something almost right they also did something wrong. WinXP was the last product I would consider indispensable ( but over-priced ) yet they locked down the theme engine in UxTheme.dll which causes grief to this very day when that file reverts back to default. Win95 was a great step forward but they limited the OSR upgrade paths and then saddled Win98 with bloat. The NT line was fairly pure IMHO but they could not help but radically overpricing it and also keeping it on the back burner for so long. Office was nice and all, well until you examined the giant Rube Goldberg collection of parts that needed to be assembled to make it work and still it is fragile and vulnerable to damage from unrelated Windows updates, not to mention shifting files from various 3rd party programs. I want to say Visual Studio around version 6 but then I remember them royally screwing up the offline help system. I'm gonna have to say the last time I trusted them were the early MASM days, and maybe DOS 3.1. But then came DOS 4 and 5 ! Nope, I got nuthin.

Probably the easiest way is to just use a disk drive manufacturer boot cd ( Seagate, WD ). When you buy a HDD in retail package they include the bootable CDROM that allows for upgrading/cloning your existing drive to the new one. The way the Seagate ( or its later Acronis ) disc always worked is requiring that one of the two drives ( source or target ) are a Seagate disc. With all the companies merging I would guess that newer versions of the CDROM handle almost every HDD ( Maxtor etc ). Quick Google search finds this page for step by step. Here is their picture of the CDROMs ...

ciHnoN, that one is actually a new one. When the first Windows 8 beta came out, there was this original one here ... ... which was simply hysterical ( and still is a must-see! ). Note for others, that use of Hitler is part of a long-running movie meme, the so-called "Downfall" parodies that have been created to cover every subject imaginable. Some may consider it poor taste, but we are way past that now. This meme is as widespread as the dancing baby almost 20 years ago. Anyway, they nailed it so perfectly with the Start Menu removal! hehe "The following stay here: Chaitanya, Sinofsky, Simons, and Steinglass". and "Now we could lose our most loyal users". Come to think of it someone did link to this about a thousand posts ago. P.S. I am a little hesitant to mention these two videos, but they are part of the worldwide criticism, and I think they are especially good ( but I won't embed them because of very strong language! ). Windows 8 Reviews from the 'hood ... ... Example-2To tell you the truth, this is exactly the kind of feedback I have personally gotten right here from some youngsters. Trust me, they are going to go to Mac before settling for this crap. No amount of colorful baby tiles will change it.

Already ... ... uh huh. He believes it makes sense to close them this week ahead of the launches of Surface Pro, Office 2013, Office 364 and the Windows 8 "re-launch". EDIT: updated image URL

I would install it on one computer just for educational purposes. If it were to take off among my clientèle I would be forced to learn something about it. I have enough Windows installs to last forever. I've been saving the licenses from retired computers, collecting them from others, in short, I am really not worried. If we can bust this Microsoft antirust monopoly and get the OEMs to simply write generic drivers for all Windows we could go on forever. This might require resurrecting the earlier driver SDKs and hammering out some drivers ourselves. But it is too soon to tell what is going to happen. If there was a simple driver model which made the Windows version irrelevant we would already have new hardware and drivers that worked on almost any previous Windows. Now we know why they constantly and needlessly change things requiring a new set of drivers with each new printer or whatever. Planned obsolescence. You upgrade Windows to be able to run new hardware. You upgrade your hardware to run new Windows. This contradicts what an operating system is. You also upgrade your tools and compilers and SDKs to write the new drivers, etc. Wonderful scam they got there. If I could wave a magic wand I would take the Windows 2K and / or XP source code and liberate it as GPL and also any related necessary patents like FAT and NTFS and USB and etc. This might sound far-fetched at the moment, but Microsoft's position as the supplier of the OS for 90% of all real computers is something far wider and more nefarious than anything John Rockefeller or J.P. Morgan ever had under their direct control. There is literally orders of magnitude of difference now. Microsoft could be broken up spinning off the OS div ( though I personally think they've already made too much money on this OS ) or the product can be taken away as a necessary public service. The old hypothetical question was 'If Standard Oil Microsoft were to press the off switch would the public suffer?' and the answer is obviously yes. Too much power in the hands of very erratic and self-serving management of highly questionable non-existing ethics. Hopefully it wouldn't degenerate into a million Linux kernels though.

I see the children have been busy in that thread posting a hundred mindless comments already. I wish Acer and other OEMs ( that means you too Dell ) read through the stench emanating from the Windows 8 religious cult. Microsoft has really poisoned the customer well in ways that even Apple could not. Get on the wrong side of this cult and they will brutalize you. The newest NeoWin article up there ... Windows 8 has surpassed OS X Mountain Lion in market share ( NeoWin 2013-01-28 ) ... is a marvel of optimistic desperation. The chart ... ... has them all giddy. But look close, we could also caption it as: "Windows 8 has surpassed 'Other' in market share" Nevermind the most important fact that Mac OS is not available for anything other than Apple hardware ( save for the few brave Hackintosh tinkerers ). This business that Microsoft Windows competes with Apple's Mac OS is utterly ridiculous, and as I've always said, it allows the Windows 8 cultist to ignore previous versions of Windows ( the true competitor ) when comparing operating systems and thus avoid all criticism of missing and broken features in a declining product. In short, using Mac OS as a foil clears a path for Windows to be destroyed from within. Microsoft and their Windows 8 religious cultists better be careful though. Apple could at anytime renounce their unwritten treaty with Microsoft and simply release Mac OS into the wild for any and all x86 hardware. At that point, many will be trying it out and a good number of them might just stay ( not me personally, but those mSheep that really desire to become iSheep ). EDIT: updated image URL, and again

Isn't it stunning? In my 2nd comment on this very thread ( see Post #417 ) I noticed this very insanity. Our so-called allies have become the very iSheep they claim to despise and never miss a chance to ridicule in every comment section. It is the most blatant case of cognitive dissonance imaginable. But they are far, far, far worse than those stereotyped iSheep. Something occurred during the Vista debacle I think. I remember at first there was some friendly debate on the official Vista Team Blog during the beta phase. And then suddenly the issue of DRM and protected content path burst into the spotlight, sides were drawn, Microsoft hunkered down into a bunker mentality and and the baby sheep ( MicroLambs? ) were already saying stuff like: 'go ahead Microsodt, do it to us!'. In amazement I watched a grass roots groundswell of anti-Microsoft and anti-Vista sites and memes sprout up ( BadVista, VistaSucks, F*ckVista, etc ) . Then we saw the cynical and self-serving Mojave Experiment from Microsoft. But what I didn't notice was the breadth of the astroturfing campaign. By accident or design they nurtured these MicroLambs into MicroSheep and here we are. I'm from the old days, I remember Microsoft before they got into Operating Systems and Apple when they were still competing with Commodore and Atari in a very small and new field. When IBM dropped its nuclear bomb with their PC and the "Little Tramp" Charlie Chaplin things began to move into the general publics' eye and the early battle lines were drawn between the open PC ( mostly IBM ) and proprietary Apple. The common perception is that Apple nurtured a radical unkempt base of loyal rabid fans made up of artists and musicians while IBM and Microsoft nurtured a following of uptight conservative business types ( and yes, this is decades before "I'm a Mac, I'm A PC" ). In my experience this view was pretty accurate to a point. I interacted with the "enemy", having many creative friends that only would use Macs, however there was no personal animosity that I can recall. Most of it was directly due to the Apple commercials and other things emanating out of Cupertino. IBM and Apple were certainly competitors to an extent, but there was much less potential customer overlap than people like to believe. Most Apple users would not buy IBM because they were not looking for DOS or Quasi-DOS command line applications preferring the more object oriented WYSIWYG approach from Apple. On the other hand we business types would rather be stuck with DOS and its 1000:1 ratio of applications compared to Macs and were happy to dispense with the frills to get the job done. It was classic Style versus Substance. In truth, IBM and their clones on one side and Apple on the other had the entire 1980's to their respective fan bases and customers all to themselves, a clear playing field. And it should be pointed out here that Microsoft played both sides effectively, supplying critical applications to Apple which in my opinion saved the company several times by giving them some credibility in the business arena, but not quite enough to make them a serious player in the market. Mac versions of Word and Excel and some other things sufficed for small or home business environments, but they were not enough to touch enterprise or even the average office. In fact I'm not sure that Apple ever really tried to become a business computer company at all ( they would run petty ads making fun of the competition and their user base rather than ads that showed a Mac doing everything a PC-AT could do and more ). The 1990's with Windows 3.x and 9x brought the direct conflict, the look and feel issues, the ill will. Still I cannot recall Microsoft or any other of the "good guys" attacking Apple or evangelizing like we see today. We were too busy criticizing Microsoft and the OEMs for dragging their feet and not giving us what Apple had long had, a stable OS with a usable GUI. It wouldn't be until after 2000 that the PC and Macs were truly interchangeable IMHO, and even then the application ratio was still 1000:1 comparing PC to Mac. Apple continued with the cynical ads and I have no doubt that this ticked off lots of PC users, because it makes no sense to insult your potential customers. Even though Microsoft had long been on the receiving end of these insulting ad campaigns they failed to see this obvious mistake. Fast forward to recent Vista and current events and they have perfectly copied the obnoxious arrogant attitude that had long existed in Cupertino headquarters ( but not necessarily in the minds of Mac users ). The stunning thing to me is just how fast this occurred. We're talking perhaps 6 years total for Microsoft to create a rabid and retarded chorus of fanboys that clearly surpasses anything that the Apple amen-chorus ever did. It's not even a close call. Our so-called "friends" are the real creeps now. They are enablers of the worst kind, even demanding that Microsoft destroy Windows and become MicroApple right before our eyes. 'Please kill Windows, all its legacy, all its utility, all its customizability, all its history. Do this so that we can have childish consumer consumption appliances to play Angry Birds and Cut The Rope, and tweet on Twitter and stalk on Facebook. While you're at it, please give us Playskool and Romper Room little colored blocks so we can relive our childhoods.' Who is to blame? Ballmer and Gates I think. Ballmer because he is a lifelong under-achiever and a classic product of the Peter Principle, and Gates because he lost his programming mojo long ago and after reading books about Carnegie and Nobel decided to spend his time buying himself a reputation. The Vanity Fair story offers one glimpse of the Microsoft disaster, and the Mini-Microsoft blog fills in some of the blanks in those comments by Softies and ex-Softies. There is no lofty goal there, no pretense of perfectionism, just pure business and marketing from a company that is a mere shell of the original. I'm not sure Gates and Allen ever had lofty goals anyway, but I believe that many of the 1980's and later programmers did. Unfortunately the crew cannot prevent the Titanic from crashing into an Iceberg if the Captain and first mate decide to race full steam ahead despite all warnings. How did it happen? Well again, all over this thread we have long expressed the obvious that Microsoft, in particular Ballmer has a childish case of both Google-envy and Apple-envy. It is the most basest of instincts, jealousy. The "Lost Decade" article describes it well, especially the Google angle with throwing chairs: "He threw a chair against the wall. “F*cking Eric Schmidt is a f*cking p*ssy!” Ballmer yelled, according to the court document. “I’m going to f*cking bury that guy! I have done it before and I will do it again. I’m going to f*cking kill Google.”". Now if you realize that sometime after that craziness while Ballmer is fixated on Google ( and almost dumped $45 billion to buy Yahoo! ), Apple comes along and drops the iMacs, MacBooks, iPods, iPhones, and iPads onto the marketplace and gobbles up all the pent-up customer base while fathead is still obsessing over the other guy. This caused even more fury, more envy, more jealousy. Ballmer cracked at this point I believe and just decided to give in to Apple-envy and become MicroApple by copying every single thing he could copy. Obviously him ( and Gates ) should have been removed in the Google-envy period, but the stock market is comprised of idi0ts if you watch the analysts and the day-to-day happenings. They are oblivious to these facts. This, I believe is where we come in. Speaking for myself, I avoided the Apple-universe precisely because it was an arrogant, petty, locked-down walled-garden model of shallow consumerism. Ballmer's moves can only offend those on the "PC side" who have a moral compass, value freedom of choice, and possess personal integrity. I see his actions as a direct attack on me, no different than the cynical Cupertino ads of the past. They are similar because they are really the same. Earlier I said: "Steve Jobs did not die, he is haunting the halls of Microsoft possessing the body of Sinofsky". Actually he is possessing all of their management upper levels, Gates, Ballmer, Julie, Jensen and others. This is exactly why there is such an outcry these days. Many people see what is happening. Some fixate on the Start Menu, others on Aero Glass, others on the Store, others on UEFI, but it is all part and parcel of the big picture, Microsoft's cynical move to become Apple and believing they can just sheppard us along like a herd of mSheep. Ballmer is so thick headed he ignores others like Electronic Arts and Sony ( to name just a couple ) that took a giant crap on their veteran users and loyal customers at his own peril. What is most offensive to me is the attempt to cash in on their near total monopoly of x86 computers, folks that mostly did not ask for Windows but got it by default due to their OEM backroom maneuvers, a grand scheme to convert this current and future captive audience to their own private field of cows to be milked at will. They should be broken up just for this alone. So back to the mSheep. These are the enablers. For every drunk or drug abuser out there you will find enablers that shirk their responsibility and scratch their heads when the subject wraps their car around a tree later. NeoWin and The Verge are over-run by them these days, largely because the operators ( yeah, I mean you Steven ) would rather enjoy large click counts than take a firm stand on integrity. Whatever. So lots of us that were there from the early days just left. You cannot argue with children ( they have no faculty for logic ) or the wild-eyed Windows 8 and Metro religious cult evangelists ( they've been saved and are headed for the promised land of good and plenty Angry Birds ). But we can scorn them and ridicule them. And when they help Microsoft complete their slow steady march to corporate suicide we can criticize them for accomplishing what Steve Jobs could never even dream of doing in his own lifetime. It may now be inevitable because when you have an amen chorus supporting every move no matter how insane, the ability to effect course correction is overwhelmed by sheer momentum. But we can still try. Hey, at least there is entertainment value in this. I am really hoping that Microsoft adjusts their plan and restores the Start Menu just so we can watch fanboy heads exploding at those forums. If that happens it will be easy to push them over the ledge into complete insanity.

That screenshot really is Exhibit-A for a company that has lost its way completely. Pretty much every possible bad idea is demonstrated simultaneously. Psychoanalysis of this design would require a panel of shrinks led by Freud. There are really no words to describe how bad that is. There was a time when Outlook actually had a functional appearance, and almost any human being above age 5 could grasp its purpose. No longer. The old days of Visual Basic rapid application development and its often-criticized uniform visuals and functionality are now looking pretty darn good if you ask me. What is amazing to me is just how bad this has become. Somehow, using the rather barebones concept of HTML + CSS they have still managed to design a monster. It is almost as if they assigned a special task force to go through every square inch of the user interface with a fine-toothed comb and purposely Seek and Destroy every last shred of usability and aesthetics. ( *** Mega bonus-points to the metal-head shredder who can spot the clue in that above image from ciHnoN that made me remember that Raven, not Metallica, song! ) P.S. Outlook ( and all Office ) devolution ...

Well you can, but remember that ERUNT literally copies the registry hives in their native binary format which is perfect for literal backup / restore purposes. You cannot Windiff ( or any other compare ) the binary hives and record the changes. You would first need to open these ERUNT backed-up hives in a program like RegDat that will read the binary data and construct a GUI representation of it that effectively simulates the REGEDIT GUI, and then you can export the RegDat GUI information to a text REG file. This could have been done in the first place simply by using REGEDIT. When I do critical backups, I save BOTH a registry export and the raw binary hives because it does not really take much more time. These serve two separate purposes, the exports allow quick comparing and the binaries allow for complete replacement.

It is ironic that the Metro side of Windows 8 is such an obvious ripoff of consumer electronics firmware, as were its predecessors in Xbox and MCE. If they felt like it, they could simply bottle it up like Windows CE and sell it on EPROM chips. Well, if they could get smaller than the 15 or more GB it apparently uses on Surface RT. The point is that this thing should have been a separate product SKU, not a hybrid. And for desktops all they needed to do was offer Metro as a downloaded update, carefully engineered to run in a sandbox and everyone would have been happy. The fact that they did not do it tells you all you need to know. They are becoming MicroApple and you are targeted to become iSheep mSheep..

Well said. One thing they can't do is easily terminate the existing x86 universe. But they will try with many cold calculating steps. They will try to ease the millions of old shareware and freeware websites out of the picture. There will be pushback because to take away my personal computer desktop they will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. They will certainly continue utilizing their nearly captive OEM back channels to win by attrition. People need to rise up, directly contact OEMS and demand they make motherboard and device drivers for operating systems other than just Windows 8, including Windows 7 and XP, Linux and others. Throw the word "collusion" around, because it is very accurate. Warn OEMs not to collude with Microsoft because it is a crime. USA residents should contact their two Senators and House member, as well as their State reps and Attorney Generals and demand Microsoft be broken up because their monopoly now dwarfs that of Rockefeller and all of the past monopolists. They are trying to lock down the system now, and there is a short window of opportunity to halt them. Two years ago this sounded like a conspiracy theory. A year ago they dropped the Start Menu and proceeded forward anyway despite near unanimous criticism. They have not shown a single sign of accommodation and no evidence exists to contradict this theory that they are morphing into a cheap sleazy knockoff of Apple. I stayed out of the Apple universe because I cannot stand the patronizing, heavy-handed control freaks that they are. I won't let it happen to Microsoft without putting up one hell of a fight.