JorgeA

Nice detective work, Charlotte, even if we haven't pinpointed the problem yet. Assuming that it turns ouf to be a PITA bug, as you put it, then I could either: Switch to a new browser for all my work in the Windows 7 PC, or (I just thought of this) I could change to a secondary e-mail address for MSFN and set up Windows Mail in Vista to receive forum notifications there, while my business e-mail arrives to my main address in Outlook on the Windows 7 PC. (Good thing that Vista still came with Windows Mail.) I can access either PC by swiveling my desk chair. Then I would do my MSFN reading and posting from the Vista machine. Neither of these approaches is ideal, but barring the discovery of a technical fix they may be the best available options. --JorgeA

Thanks for the many ideas and the probing questions, bphlpt. I'll address them as well as I can here, hoping that it'll help to narrow down the possibilities or give someone an "a-hah!" moment, as you said. The PC with the issue is in fact the Windows 7 Home Premium (SP1) that I bought a few months ago. It came with IE9 factory-installed. IE9 does show up in the "Installed Updates" but the installation date is from five months before I bought the machine. Is there a way to tell if IE8 may ever have been on that system? Since the system isn't "ready for prime time" yet because of this issue, there might be nothing better to do than to put an alternative browser in there and see how it handles posting on MSFN. I'd never heard of Iron; I'll look into it -- thanks! My other two leading candidates are Pale Moon and Avant, both of which seem to offer more informative interfaces than the trendy versions of IE or FF. --JorgeA

This is an experiment (link created and then copy+pasted to desired location). This is an experiment (link manually typed by hand in desired location). Both of these work, as such, but they require a considerably more tedious operation than the "normal" automated way of inserting a link, making the process of creating a post that much more of a chore.

Well, and, at that point, if you highlight the full link info, cut it and then past it where you originally wanted it to be, does it get moved there as it should? Furthermore, can you create the link by hand, by typing, say, [url="http://www.any.link"]My link[/url] and does it stay in place or does it teleport to before the first character in the text, too? When I highlight the full link info that ended up at the top, do CTRL-X, and then substitute it for the text in the desired place, then it shows up correctly as a hyperlink. The same thing happens if I manually type the same characters in the same place. I'll go over to the IE9 in question and perform the demonstration. (See next post. Never mind the illogic of the links...) --JorgeA

Nice try, but as you can see in the quote below, the idea of using an alternative browser already had crossed my mind -- and I passed on it for the reason given there: [emphasis added]A time may come to experiment again with Firefox or Chrome or something else, but not now. --JorgeA

OK, I've tried all the steps. The background is that this is Win7sp1 64-bit, using a non-administrator account. I clicked the Quote (reply) button to one of the posts in this thread and then pasted text from another site at the end of it. Next, I tried to attach a link to that text by highlighting the text and then clicking on "insert link," then pasting the URL which I had just copied off the website where I got the text. I did this in IE9 32-bit and IE9 64-bit, both in standard and as administrator, four times in all. Before moving on to the next test, I closed out the browser each time as you suggested. In all four cases, the link information appeared at the very beginning of the reply post, before the first character. (This has happened before when editing a previous post and even when writing a whole new post, too, so FWIW it doesn't look like "edit" vs. "reply" vs. "new post" has anything to do with it.) Hope that this at least helps to narrow down the possibilities. --JorgeA

@Charlotte: Thanks very much for the detailed suggestions. Looks like I've got some work to do; I'll report back. @jaclaz: The contrast between Charlotte's approach and yours could not be any sharper. --JorgeA

I will soon be migrating from my beloved Vista + IE8 system to a Windows 7 system using Internet Explorer 9. Been practicing with it and generally making it ready, adding website passwords and making sure that everything works. Well, one thing that I haven't been able to get to work properly on the new system is posting on MSFN. To be specific, whenever I want to add formatting to a chunk of text, if I highlight the desired text and then click on the desired option (say, for boldface), then the formatting characters ("b" in square brackets followed by "/b" in square brackets) show up at the very beginning of the post. That is, they appear together at the beginning of the very first line of text in the post. This happens whether I want to do boldface, italics, or underlining. It also happens if I want to attach a hyperlink to selected text -- the link info goes to the top left, and then I have to laboriously copy-and-paste the pieces around the intended text. Does anybody have any idea what the heck could be causing this?? It's an up-to-date Windows 7 install with IE9. It doesn't happen on Vista with IE8. Maybe any settings within IE that I should be looking at? (I'd rather stick with IE, as it's the browser that I know best and I'm looking at quite enough changes already.) I'd happily keep doing my MSFNing on the Vista system, except that the major way that I participate in the Forum is by receiving notifications of new posts in the threads that I'm subscribed to, and then clicking on the links in the notification. If I can't migrate my e-mail client to the new PC, there's not much point in using the new PC as then I'd have to keep going back and forth between machines. Thanks very much for any ideas or suggestions. --JorgeA

Please forgive my ignorance if this suggestion is infeasible or already taken care of, but instead of including those large IE packages how about if the Service Pack installation instructions were to provide addresses for (trustworthy) places where the user could get each of the possible alternative IE versions? Then the user could download the desired one as needed. This might provide the best practical mix of package comprehensiveness, user convenience, and customizability, while at the same time limiting the size of the files that @PROBLEMCHYLD needs to offer. --JorgeA

The following article proposes several possible ways to save Windows tablets from commercial failure, but then systematically rules out all of them, except maybe one: Why small screens won't cure Microsoft's Windows tablet blues Hard to imagine which apps or what kind, exactly, could be offered in the Windows Store that would be all that different from what's available for Android and Apple. The last, best hope (hybrid tablet/laptops, see the article linked to in the final paragraph) doesn't sound all that promising, either. Too bulky for a tablet, and too small a screen for a laptop. --JorgeA

Stunning work! --JorgeA

It's VERY funny. --JorgeA

So, if that guy tells friends or family about a good book, CD, or DVD, does he refuse to lend it to them with a lecture about how they should buy their own copies?? What do you think would be the first word to come to the friend's or relative's mind if he did that? (Hint: seven letters, starts with an "a". ) --JorgeA

A little more ... Some good comments down below the article. --JorgeA

LOL, it'll be interesting to see if the trend holds up. "Xbox One introduction leads to surge in Wii sales." --JorgeA

Not sure what all the fuss is over ( if there is any fuss ) but that story is being reblogged almost everywhere, making it a story in itself. Let's just face it, it will be in the news cycle until the next MicroFail comes to light. Probably in the next few minutes. Here are some additional numbers that support the fundamental point made by Soluto's report: Is Windows 8 really killing the PC market? Even if (as @jaclaz has ably argued) we should be cutting that 100 million by up to one-half in order to account for licenses sold but not in use, then the average app download per "active" Win8 license is 5, which is still way below the averages for Android and iOS. No matter how we cut it, it looks like Win8 is a real loser, failing even at its own game. --JorgeA

Here's another Windows 8 "deeper impression" from a business perspective. A letter writer in the June 2013 issue of PCWorld magazine points out that... --JorgeA

Unfreakinbelievable. Did we see this before (maybe even from me, but it's been a busy day)? Apologies if we did see it already, but it may be worth repeating in light of recent posts up above. Microsoft patent spies on consumers to enforce DRM The ONLY acceptable use that I can think of for this patent, is if Microsoft intends to file it so that nobody else may implement this evil technology. Otherwise, hang on to your current TV, PC, phone, and/or tablet -- you may not necessarily know who's licensing this thing for use in the hardware they sell you. --JorgeA EDIT: Now that the workday is over (here, anyway), I got a chance to search a bit for this in our thread. Didn't find this link specifically, although it's entirely possible that I either visually scanned too quickly or didn't use the best search terms needed to locate it. We've already covered, at least in passing, much of what's discussed above. If nothing else, the link and quotes above tie together various obnoxious aspects of this technology. Whatever there is to be found, I am confident that The Finder will be able to unearth it.

How about a slightly different tack now. Instead of pointing out the flaws in Windows 8 and the (many) outrages committed by Microsoft and other Big Tech firms, let's take a somewhat more positive approach for a bit. (Not that the detour needs to last that long. ) Think for a minute and come up with the newspaper or website headline that you would most like to see in relation to Windows 8, Microsoft, or other Big Tech companies. Let the imagination fly, or just be straight and to the point. Here's my entry (OK, with a little "cheat" involving a subhead): Confirmed: Windows 8 update to make Modern UI optional "The customer is always right," says Ballmer Have fun! --JorgeA

Sure , but the "other people" had not have been warned before by me , that makes a big difference . Charlotte has seen the same warnings, and linked to two further articles about the same report. Let's see you take this up with Charlotte instead of me. --JorgeA

Apropos of the gaming and Xbox-related articles we've been posting: Google engineer: DRM has nothing to do with piracy I totally agree with this observation down in the comments section: Stick it to the DRM freaks: read a (paper) book. Go watch a theater production. Play a game on the kitchen table instead of a console. Turn on the radio! --JorgeA

Oh yeah, having the Azure servers based in China would make me REALLY excited about hiring Microsoft to process my company's data! Somehow, the following portion of Neowin's illustration seems very fitting: Imagine when (not if) "People's Liberation Army" hackers get into the stuff there. This is a security disaster (and lawsuit avalanche) waiting to happen. I wouldn't want to be the CEO of (or a stockholder in) the company that put customer information over there. --JorgeA

So far, from what I have been able to gather, most X-Box fans do NOT like this new product. Those who think its cool and really want it are in the minority for sure. The most reaction seems to be saying they are either sold on the PS4 or going back to PC gaming. Regarding the app usage... People still see PCs (notebooks included) as being different than phones. Even with touch enabled devices, people who buy PCs with Windows 8 are less likely to use them as phones or tablets. These people who show low or very low app usage probably have their web browser open for most of the time. I can't comment on gaming issues, but your second point makes sense to me. With a real PC there's no particular purpose for "apps." --JorgeA

Oh wow, and it's the 15th anniversary of Windows 98 Standard Edition! --JorgeA

Amen to that!! Don't know about their browser Chrome, but I like the way that Google's search engine gives you a warning about a website in the search results. Norton security products will also give you a warning page if you click on a dangerous site. Both of them will allow you to proceed to the site anyway if you want to. As in so many other things, this "user choice" is the way to do it. --JorgeA