JorgeA

Yes, you can still use Gadgets natively in Win7. Microsoft did issue a Windows Update (or was it a hotfix) back then to disable the Gadgets, so you may have to dig around for the update to uninstall. And it's possible to install Gadgets even in Windows 10. I have a clock and a network traffic graph set up on my Win10 test system. --JorgeA

Oh, I see -- you were coming at Gadgets from the opposite angle! I do think that the Gadgets can be a useful adjunct to a classic desktop. For example, I use the CPU/RAM Monitor as a rough-and-ready guide to possible emerging issues with my system, without having to take up space for a window on the Desktop or Taskbar. But definitely nothing like the sort of epileptic seizure-inducing constant blinking and scrolling that MSFT has been promoting ever since Windows 8. Microsoft has been pushing the notion of a "live" Web-connected Desktop ever since Active Desktop in Windows 98FE -- without notable success, as you rightly point out. --JorgeA

I sure remember Windows Gadgets! I've got some on every Vista and Win7 system that I own. Microsoft started advising users to remove them right around the time that they were launching Windows 8. I have always been skeptical of the timing, as if it were designed to make the Windows 7 desktop look static and boring in comparison to the live tiles on the Metro Start Screen that was just coming out. BTW, it's good to see you, NoelC. --JorgeA

All right, now here's a real reason to make the switch to Windows 10: Ninjacat emoji coming to Windows 10 anniversary update – and some new Ninjacat wallpaper while you wait Can't wait for these, sign me up!!! Track and monitor me all you want, tell me how to run my machine -- just give me new emojis!! Ooooohhh boy! Idiocracy is truly approaching, and much faster than the movie envisioned. What better evidence of the creeping cretinization of Windows (or perhaps more accurately, of its intended audience) than this "feature"?!? <sigh> --JorgeA

Evidently, Microsoft now expects that you'll be using a phone. The 3% phone market-share tail keeps wagging the 90% desktop market-share dog. --JorgeA

Thanks for adding the "if you want" part. It wouldn't be appropriate to include the "" in a Technology forum news item, no? That's makes the post more suited to this thread. That said, it is a good idea to post "straight news" items (without commentary ) in the Technology forum, and I'll start doing that. --JorgeA

PC sales plunge further, as Windows 10 and Skylake CPUs fail to inspire upgrades The money quote: The commenters are generally not impressed with Win10: --JorgeA

This could actually be a useful feature if they actually finish implementing it. One time I had a BSOD and, after rebooting, went to look it up. I found a guy who had a similar problem and posted it on the MS Answers forum. A Microsoft Expert suggested that he capture a screenshot of the BSOD. --JorgeA P.S. What a pain it is that embedded quotes no longer show up when we're quoting a post: the context is lost and the reader has to go looking for the post that's being "quoted".

That was pretty much my reaction, too: there's nothing earth-shaking in there. Some of those features can be done with third-party applications, others with stuff that's already on the OS ("picture in picture" -- how is that different from viewing a video in a small window in the corner?). Some of these capabilities seem to present obvious security issues. Others I just don't care about. --JorgeA

Huh, so when Intel and Microsoft announced that they would stop supporting Windows 7 on Skylake next April, it was not entirely unprecedented. I was going to write that it was not unprecedented "except for" the fact that support was ending before Win7 went EOS, but even that doesn't seem to be true: Vista doesn't go EOS until next year, and yet AMD stopped supporting it three years ago. So this sort of thing has already happened? Bummer.

I know that it's very hard nowadays to find a new machine where you can install Windows 98. Are Vista and XP also affected now? --JorgeA

Windows 10 Roadmap Reveals Upcoming Features All right, so the question is: in your opinion, is there anything on that list that would more than make up for Windows 10's drawbacks and make it worth using over an earlier version of Windows? --JorgeA

Is this the song you had in mind? --JorgeA

Check this out: Over time, my elevator pitch against Windows 10 has boiled down to three main areas of concern: UI Telemetry Forced updates If this new Group Policy setting can be set to defer receiving Windows Updates indefinitely (and see the "pause updates" check box), this will be a significant improvement in point #3. This appears to be a global setting, though -- and of course updates are all cumulative now in Win10. Best of all would be to be able to select the specific updates to be deferred. Even I don't decline ALL my Windows Updates. --JorgeA

Another Wind10 nuts-and-bolts feature from Dedoimedo: How to remove Skype ads - New tutorial --JorgeA

Let's put a lighter tone on this coversation: It will end when we install Vista or XP over our Win7/8 systems! --JorgeA

That's quite an endorsement of Microsoft! Expect a call from the company's PR department any day now, seeking permission to quote you... --JorgeA

Yesterday, the infamous KB2952664 popped up yet again in Windows Update on my Win7 systems. What's this now, the twelfth time Microsoft has pushed this "update" out to the public? --JorgeA

Microsoft continues to bleed browser share at record rates [emphasis added] A word to the wise: let that be a warning about forcing customers to do things your way... --JorgeA

If you add Vista to the list, the number goes over 76%. --JorgeA

Anything that tends to preserve a place for Win32 so that it doesn't disappear into the UWP abyss, is welcome. Don't want it to become the Betamax of software programming... --JorgeA

Brad Sams (formerly of Neowin) was a guest recently on Windows Weekly. He and Leo Laporte had the following illuminating exchange about the Windows Store (discussion starts at 1:28:00): --JorgeA

I was going to post this in the IoT thread, but as there doesn't seem to be a direct IoT angle I decided to post it separately: The police could be controlling your self-driving car At first glance this idea might sound appealing, but when we consider how behaviors that used to be accepted can be declared illegal or even criminal, we have to stop and think if we really want to give this kind of power to government. More broadly, history shows that liberal democracies can turn and have turned into authoritarian, even tyrannical, regimes; giving government this kind of capability would make the next turn to authoritarianism that much harder to reverse. --JorgeA

Now it's not only Microsoft's campaign to push Windows 10 on users that's becoming increasingly aggressive, but also the company's efforts to tie users in to Microsoft services. A writer to Woody's blog says: [emphasis added] --JorgeA

Since more than 24 hours have now passed , may I make a couple of observations. First, thank you for crediting me for the creation of this thread , I didn't know that I had! But second and more seriously, one of the issues involved in breaking up threads is highlighted by the fact that I didn't know that the new thread existed. You see, my principal form of entering MSFN is via e-mail notifications: that's how I know that there is something new in a thread that I'm participating in. Had my post remained in its original thread, I would have received notice that all the subsequent replies above had been posted. As it is, I was unaware that @Trip had responded three days ago already. I happened to click on Notifications (the globe icon) at the top of the page and by sheer chance saw that notice. Time constraints do not allow for leisurely browsing through all the subforums on a regular basis to see what's new. I come in because of a notification and, if time permits, then I look around. If megathreads come to an end and discussions get broken up into a zillion little separate threads, as a practical matter I will seldom get to them (and participate) before that particular discussion peters out or the thread gets split into yet another branch that I won't know about. No doubt there are some who would welcome this prospect , but the point is that different people have different ways of approaching their Forum participation and trying to channel them into certain preferred ways can only tend to diminish such participation. Life makes a lot of demands on one's attention, and notifications are a highly useful tickler that there's a new development in a discussion one is interested in. --JorgeA