JorgeA

Here we go... US Attorney-Generals actively pursuing cases against Microsoft over 'forced' Windows 10 upgrades --JorgeA

Yeah, isn't that cool? The reason I was attracted to MakuluLinux is precisely that the guy who put it together did such a thorough job with the theme, down to the Explorer folder icons and even the update icon! It's the closest I've seen to the Vista look in a Linux distro. He also gives you options for an XP or 7 look. --JorgeA

LOL thank you! <taking a bow> If you saw the movie "High Fidelity," you may remember Jack Black's character. He played a record-store clerk who prided himself in knowing (and, more importantly, in letting you know that he knew) the most obscure songs by the least well known bands in the history of rock music. Now I, too, can claim some snob points of my own. --JorgeA

Apropos of developers preferring to focus on the "shiny new stuff," here's an exchange between Leo, Mary Jo, and Paul about the "convenience rollup" for Windows 7 that Microsoft introduced the other day: --JorgeA

Here's my new leading candidate for that "if and when" it comes time to say good-bye to Windows: --JorgeA

LOL, that flowchart sure was a handful. Took me a while to sort it out. --JorgeA

That's interesting. How is the development of FreeBSD or NetBSD different from OpenBSD or Linux generally? I'm not familiar with the details. --JorgeA

NuMicrosoft in operation: Microsoft posts more details for botched permissions in MS16-072 Microsoft: Here's how to fix the Group Policy mess caused by our security update Say goodbye to "the customer is always right." --JorgeA

The second paragraph in that long anonymous post: And therein also lies the problem with Linux development: they seek out the "glorious" shiny new stuff and neglect the mundane aspects of the OS that would make it a viable competitor to Windows. As Dedoimedo has pointed out many times, bugs and basic usability flaws persist in Linux from one version to the next, never getting fixed. IIRC he most often mentions the inability to network printers. Dull, routine stuff that, however, is the kind of feature that makes for a serious (work) operating system. Reading further down, we see: Ah, the same kind of dynamic at work. --JorgeA

10 reasons to reject Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade A pretty good rundown, except for one thing: I've never understood how the Gadgets that Microsoft itself offered, and which depend on events that occur exclusively on my PC (CPU Meter, Clock, and the like) could conceivably be called "insecure." Given that the campaign against the Gadgets started within weeks of the Windows 8 launch, I've always suspected that in reality it was an attempt to make the Windows 7 screen look static and lifeless in comparison to the Win8 Start Screen with its bouncy and ever-updating tiles; and that the "insecure" angle was merely FUD. And BTW, I do have several gadgets installed on my Win10 test system, so it is not true that gadgets are not available for that OS. --JorgeA

Yup. --JorgeA

Arguably, this trend first popped up in XP, at least in a visual-design sense. I remember people back then complaining about the colorful "chiclet" window controls and the overall "Fisher-Price" look of the default theme. Vista then turned things in the direction of elegance, while 7 toned the beauty down a bit. And then it all really started to fall apart with 8. --JorgeA

Well, there goes another chunk of what for me is the most useful feature of the Vista/Win7 Start Menu: the "Recent Items" list. I go to it every day. I'm aware that you can display "recent documents" or something in File Explorer, but to me that makes for a confusing, disjointed UX. When I go to File (or Windows) Explorer, it is to navigate around the directory structure Listing recent items there becomes simply one more irrelevant thing to click or scroll past before getting to what I really need when I go into Explorer. What enhancement to the user interface could this possibly represent? I prefer having the scrollbars show all the time, not disappear. Again, making the scrollbar come back becomes simply one more thing to do before I can get to what I really need to do. Can you still disable it from somewhere else? (From within Windows 10, you smart-alecks... ) OTOH, these do represent steps in the direction of making Edge a real browser. --JorgeA

Evidently Microsoft thinks so, considering the new Win10 model "featuring" bundled and automatic Windows Updates. --JorgeA

Dedoimedo reviews another tool to disable GWX, and offers this thought at the end: --JorgeA

Windows 7/10 usage update: Both Windows 7 and Windows 10 usage increased in June 2016 Was OS X 10.11 introduced last summer? If not, then the Win10 drive seems to have pushed at least some users into the Mac's embrace: Whatever computer users were trying in April when the "Other" share jumped three points, seems to have proven unsatisfactory as it's dropped back even below March levels. --JorgeA

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174208-windows-10-deeper-impressions/?do=findComment&comment=1126087 http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174208-windows-10-deeper-impressions/?do=findComment&comment=1126092 --JorgeA

Yeah, that seems to be a separate phenomenon. MSFT is throwing a bit of a blizzard of sh*t at people, possibly in the hope/expectation that something will stick. Woody Leonhard has emerged as the tech press's most comprehensive and reliable reporter on these tricks and shenanigans: New Get Windows 10 nagware screen arrives -- no need to install anything Win7 and 8.1 patch KB 3173040 throws full-screen Win10 upgrade warning [source] --JorgeA

Ah, that'll make for a bunch of happy customers when they realize that they thought they could roll back to Win7 but could not. --JorgeA

I do some fairly heavy-duty document processing with Acrobat and Word, but yeah, there's been no problem doing that on Vista. Didn't know about AMD no longer making Vista drivers. I happened to choose Nvidia cards (for no other reason than that they were cheap ) for my Vista machines, and those are working and updating just fine. OTOH the Nvidia updater is no longer working on XP, although IIRC you can still update the graphics driver the old-fashioned (manual) way. Without a doubt, the trend will be for increasing problems using Vista as the computing world continues to evolve. I'll hang on to it for as long as it's practical. And probably even for some time after that. --JorgeA

Gregg Keizer of Computerworld provides the most details about the court case that Microsoft surrendered: If it was the "Microsoft Answers" forum that she visited, I'm not surprised that she got no useful solutions. Long quotations up there, but actually the whole article is well worth reading. --JorgeA

To date, I've had trouble with only one single application on Vista -- a second-line security program. Also, a few months ago I was considering changing my first-line protection to Emsisoft Security, but then they dropped support for Vista for reasons that still mystify me. I can't install any IE newer than 9 of course, but then I've changed over to Pale Moon (thanks, @dencorso!) and things are going great. No compatibility issues with any other programs I use on Vista. So far, anyway. Fingers crossed! --JorgeA

Huh, I missed that middle sentence. Cool. The key will be whether others join her in the suit. One thing that may help in that respect is that the news has started to seep into the general-interest media. According to Woody Leonhard's blog, the story has now been reported in the UK Guardian newspaper and the BBC. --JorgeA

And further: Woman sues Microsoft over her forced Windows 10 upgrade and wins Woman wins $10,000 judgment against Microsoft for forced Windows 10 upgrade It'll be interesting to see if and how Ed MicroBott, the biggest "big-name" Win10 apologist, defends this one. --JorgeA

And the news is already spreading: Woman sues Microsoft for $10,000 over “forced” Windows 10 upgrade, wins Microsoft pays out $10,000 for forcing Windows 10 on California woman The second post above quotes a statement from the plaintiff: [emphasis added] Yup, that's the model the company is using now, where individual users of certain versions of the OS serve as guinea pigs for the version used by large organizations ("Enterprise," but that also includes government agencies). --JorgeA