JorgeA

Gosh, I can't begin to imagine what sort of combination of touch gestures would be used for that. Maybe it's too complicated a move for the supposed dummies that MS seems to envision will now be rushing out to live in the lobotomized Metro immersion. --JorgeA

Now if this is true, then it's just too much. I wonder if by "third parties that bring back Start menu", he means our Classic Shell because Thurrott did cover Classic Shell on his "Windows Weekly" gossipy podcast. xpclient, No doubt that's exactly what Thurrott means -- you and everyone else who's developed a replacement for the Metro Start Screen. MS is trying to make it impossible to re-create the Start Button/Menu. It was already harder in the Consumer Preview than in the Developer Preview, now it sounds like they're finishing the job. Here's hoping that experts such as yourself will be able to find some way to bring back the Start Menu anyway. --JorgeA

Fredledingue, +1 on everything you said. That's exactly what I was thinking. Such a kinetic control device does sound really cool, but it could easily end up causing more work (undoing unintended commands) than it saves. For use on a Metro UI device, there's one particular gesture that I can think of for middle-clicking. --JorgeA

Andre, I thought that the news might be more visible (seen by more MSFN visitors) if it stood out in its own thread, instead of being buried in the middle of this long one. But if you think that it will be seen by more people if we make it part of this thread, then I'll be happy to ask the moderators to merge it into this one. --JorgeA

Without intending at all to close this thread, please do see the new thread, "Now they're chopping up the Start Button's bones." They do seem to be consciously jumping off the deep end. --JorgeA

This deserves its own thread. Here's one possible answer to our speculations from recent posts in the "Deepr Impresions" thread, regarding Microsoft's attitude toward its desktop and/or business customers: Thurrott continues his excellent analysis: And now for the pièce de résistance -- Microsoft having destroyed and buried the Start Button and Start Menu, they've been busily salting the soil around these traditional features to prevent all possibiity of bringing them back: OK, that does it. No Windows 8 for me. If Microsoft doesn't show better respect for its customers come Windows 9, then Linux becomes a real possibility in this corner. --JorgeA

submix8c, Wow, it's amazing how much you've dug up about this mysterious issue. I checked all the links you provided (thanks!) and did the term searches you suggested. The likeliest suspect is the Windows Critical Update Notification. It may have been set up as part of a clean Win98 install I did a year ago (when it was still possible to download Windows 98 updates -- glad I did the reinstall just then and not a couple of months later). The only media player I have on that machine is Windows Media Player 7.10.00.3074, but the Task Scheduler didn't list any task related to it. The connection I reported was outbound. As WU no longer serves any purpose, I guess I'll remove it, and then we'll see if ZoneAlarm stops telling us about it. --JorgeA

bphlpt,, Yup -- it really is remarkable that the files are still available in any form or fashion so many years later. But at least the discussion was instructive. --JorgeA

submix8c, Nope, unlike most other times this one simply gave the IP address, no URL or name to go along with it. It tried twice, first at 96.17.161.129 and then at 96.17.161.139. Interesting about MS and Akamai, thanks. I will definitely Google them together. --JorgeA

iOS and Android devices are all that rage. The answer to that is pretty obvious. Another proof that MS couldn't sell mobile devices even if they came with a free gold ingot. The smartphone shipments have gone up 50% in one year, from 101.6M units to 152.3M units. Both iOS and Android devices saw tremendous growth (145% and 88.7%). Despite MS doing their best to promote their stuff in a market that's rapidly expanding (it should be easy to sell your stuff when there's so much demand), they managed to lose 0.4% of the market (from 2.6% down to 2.2%). I can see Windows tablets selling almost as well. And I expect Metro to be almost as successful on desktops as Silverlight has been on the web. So, basically, this is more evidence of how Microsoft may be letting its tablet tail wag the PC dog: in other words, inconvenience the vast majority of its customers (not to say, outright p*ss off lots of them) to pursue the chimera of explosive success in the tablet market. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week (May 21; I took too long to get around to posting about it and the full text was no longer available at the WSJ site when I checked) might help to explain Microsoft's behavior around Windows 8: Later on, the article gives the name of this MS software as, Kinect for Windows. Any thoughts, speculation, educated guesses? --JorgeA

Hello, I installed ZoneAlarm version 6.1.744.001 on my Windows 98 tower last week to replace my long-expired Norton 2005 firewall, and the results have been interesting. Tonight, ZA blocked, and alerted me to, an attempt to connect to 96.17.161.129. A Web search revealed this address to be associated with Akamai Technologies. Akamai appears to be a Web advertising-related company. The odd thing is that at the time I did not have a browser open or had any other kind of connection to the 'Net. I of course have the PC hooked up to a router which goes out to the 'Net, but otherwise I wasn't attempting to do anything that involved the Internet. So the questions are: Why would this out-of-the-blue connection attempt happen to take place, and is it a sign of some kind of malware infection? Avast! 4.8, which I also have installed (and up to date) on that computer, doesn't report any kind of infection. The machine is also protected by Spybot Search & Destroy 1.6.2 (full spectrum of protection modules). Thanks in advance for any insight you might be able to provide! --JorgeA

+1 to that. These are the utilities that you'll use maybe 1% of the time, but boy does it make a difference for the remaining 99% if you can't use them when needed. --JorgeA

Ars Technica is reporting that another business-oriented tablet has bit the dust. What (if anything) does this say about the prospects of Windows 8 tablets? One might speculate that employees will be taking their tablets into the office, but in combination with what we've seen about the comparative production costs and price of iPads vs. Windows tablets, it doesn't look that hard to predict which tablet brands people will be taking to work. --JorgeA

hydraulik, That looks very interesting -- it does seem to include MS Office updates. Thank you. With all these alternatives, I've got plenty of work cut out for me... --JorgeA

@submix8c @Multibooter Great detective work, you guys! Thanks very much. This will be a project for a holiday weekend... --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, Thanks for the excellent rundown, I understand the situation with Apple much better now. I'd suggest that even the iPod is way overpriced, for our purposes anyway. My wife bought one a couple of years ago simply to download some talk-show podcasts, and both of us found iTunes to be the most inflexible, opaque, and arbitrary program we've ever tried. The manual, though extensive, didn't help to clarify matters. The iPod is still sitting in its case, slowly getting covered with dust. Shortly after that exercise in frustration, I bought a Sansa Fuze for like one-third the price of the iPod. I can drag and drop stuff into it at will and it will find and play the MP3s, no muss no fuss. It doesn't insist on "syncing" anything for me (thankfully), the transfer process works predictably, and it doesn't try to channel me into doing things one particular way. Best little A/V purchase I've ever made. --JorgeA

Does anybody have access to the video of what Steve Ballmer actually said in South Korea? --JorgeA

submix8c, Is this the Site Explorer you mentioned? Also, if this is the same FlashGet, then I don't think I want it anywhere near my PC! Looks like I'd have to go with the plan B you suggest. Thanks for the ideas. --JorgeA

This is a very old topic but the funny thing is that MDGx was wrong and the FTP mentioned in the beginning still works I can confirm that. But, is there a way to download all the Resource Kit files together and with the proper directory structure? It's tedious to manually create multiple subdirectories for files that'll finish downloading in a few seconds. --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, You've written the best explanation of the situation that I've seen. I understand the problem better now than ever before. Maybe you should be writing for some of those tech sites! This was especially instructive for me because I'm one of those who's tended to view Apple's products as severely overpriced for what they do. --JorgeA

More bad news for the prospects of Windows 8: it looks like WinRT tablets will be entering the market already at a disadvantage vs. the iPad. --JorgeA

I would have weighed in but the people there (except you) seem to be dismissive of my list and don't seem to behave intelligently with any valid objective opinion - just because it doesn't affect them, they have a "who cares" attitude. Yeah, that's my sense of it, too. I was hoping that you might be able to offer a better technical argument than I can, but if you feel that there's no hope for the intended audience, then I guess we'll have to pass. --JorgeA

One of my favorite comments from that long MSDN post: --JorgeA

Huh, that does sound pretty cool. And YOU didn't even need a "reimagined" Windows to make it work! I never used Active Desktop on my Win98 system, there just didn't seem to be enough value in it to bother with. But I have to admit that if you found a way to watch and record TV on Windows 98 -- that's pretty neat. More generally, you're right that MS has been pushing this basic concept of self-updating thingies on PC screens for 15 years -- without notable success. Why would it be all that different this time? (Maybe because this time they're "in your face" to the point where you can't avoid them?) --JorgeA

MagicAndre, Thanks for the laugh! Remember that "scary" picture of Ballmer that Tripredacus posted a few days ago? Maybe the "scary" description needs to be reinterpreted in light of Ballmer's remarks: is he delusional? All I can think of is the song "Aquarius" from the musical "Hair." This is the dawning of the age of Metro-style... Your link led me to this one. We see there that, for 2013, even the fast-growing tablet market is still projected to be less than one-third the shipments of regular PCs. Thus, MS is handicapping itself on the desktop market for an indeterminate share of a much smaller market: the tail is truly wagging the dog! --JorgeA