NoelC

Somehow all this talk of Microsoft failing to deliver what people want and need with Win 10, but rather their focus removing user control and increasing snooping made me think of this: Apparently the "Creator" version is just around the corner. I find myself at the lowest level of interest in a new operating system release ever - and I have run every version of Windows since 1.0, and DOS before that, and RSX and VMS before that, and MVS before that, and... -Noel

You don't have satellite internet do you? Here it's the season where geostationary satellites cross in front of the sun... -Noel

My current rendition doesn't look exactly like the above any longer, but this: You can find that here: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/RoundedCorners.zip and a variant http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win10/14393/RoundedCornersNoExtraColor.zip -Noel

One has to consider that Dave Cutler, who invented NT as a resurrection of his virtual memory system for Digital Equipment Corporation, is now 74 years old. There are not really that many folks on the planet who can do serious operating system work. -Noel

Absolutely nothing prevents a process from running forever, except that if it's started by a logged-on user it will be terminated at logoff. But an application which is not a service but started as independent from the interactive user by the Task Scheduler, for example, could run forever. Aerohost is just such an application. Note the run time on mine, from my Win 8.1 system... Often long-running applications that are intended to be independent of the interactive user are made into services just because the system provides a good way to manage such things. But it's not a necessity. -Noel

>Windows 10 is actually a completely new version of Windows NT Not really. The kernel, based on compatibility with a large number of programs that cut deeply into the system, isn't much different. There ARE whole new subsystems hung on it though - such as the Universal Windows Platform (Metro / Modern / App API). You yourself mention being able to use Windows 7 drivers. I've had the author of a firewall package tell me that hooking into the low level networking structure is really no different since Vista. From a technical perspective, Microsoft appears to have gotten away from changing the core operating system components and is really just hanging more and more "applicationy / cloudy" stuff on it. Presumably that's easier than real OS work. And it's why no one outside Microsoft is proclaiming any real state of the art advancements in Windows. It's not fundamentally any easier, as you've noticed, to get anything important done with Windows 10 than with earlier versions. Ignore versioning. That's now completely marketing-driven. Instead, judge a new operating system's core change by how much it is destabilized by new releases and you'll be more in the ballpark. Frankly, Windows 10 has never really been unstable overall, just the new parts can be a bit iffy. I'm sure there must be mandates inside Microsoft that say "Hands off! Destabilize the kernel and we'll put you on a customer support telephone for a year!" -Noel

THIS SITE EDITOR PUT EVERYTHING INSIDE THE QUOTE. MY REPLY FOLLOWS: So that user had Windows "Anniversary" install itself and reset all his logs. That's not a terribly big surprise. The "in-place" upgrade is a pretty significant installation, not just an update - even though Microsoft delivers it through Windows Update. It probably just wouldn't work otherwise. I think Microsoft listened to the, shall we say, technically challenged users who claim they have to reinstall their OS every 6 months (because they treat their systems like crap) and just made that the way Windows works all the time. It's ridiculous! Seems to me it's part of a plan to try to make people think their accumulated data and settings choices are worthless, and for them to learn not to even EXPECT that any data or settings could survive for more than a year. Without the expectation of continuity, Microsoft can turn a world of users into mindless money machines with ADD who just take whatever Microsoft shovels at them. -Noel

LOL :) I think the blue screen with hex codes having been replaced with a : ( frowney and especially messages like the above really say everything anyone could need to know about the direction of Windows 10. -Noel

Heh heh heh... Don't hold back, xpclient, tell us how you really feel! Too bad we're on opposite sides of the world; I imagine we'd get along over a few beers. If we ever meet, the first round is on me. In all seriousness I have to agree with pretty much all your points, and unfortunately time does not heal these wounds. No matter WHAT Microsoft's social networking manipulation and FUD mongering tries to push people into thinking, Windows 10 will just not be as good as what we've already seen until (unless) Microsoft re-grasps the fundamentals of making operating systems. For me a well-tweaked Win 8.1 is still my reasoned choice. -Noel

What dencorso said. !! -Noel

There were a lot of things in the Control Panel that I wondered whether would ever be ported to Settings. Do they seem like they're all there? No pressure to answer; I'm sure we'll all see the software soon enough. -Noel

Thanks for the compliment and update. Sorry it didn't do specifically what you wanted. Like you said, it has lots of good options. So many that I've certainly lost track of what all it can tweak. -Noel

I'm not sure, but you might want to look into Winaero Tweaker. I seem to remember an ability to change some of the things that show (e.g. lock screen image) on Win 10. Might be possible on Win 8.1 as well. -Noel

I almost tried that when you pointed out the possibility some months ago. I could have created one 8 drive array which would have been a bit under 4 TB total (8 x 480GB), and set up one nearly maxed-out 2 TB C: partition and one V: partition that had all the rest of the space (or just divide it in two). Once done, I'd have had to restore my System Image backup to the C: volume. THAT I know how to do. However I fell short of being confident in what commands in what application I could actually run to create such a "stretched" MBR setup. It's not something I do every day. And even trying it would have been destructive, so I just chickened out and created two 4 drive arrays. The advantage that pushed me over the edge was that the two array approach involved almost no downtime. An advantage to a single array, partitioned as above, is that any large I/O operation would leverage the performance of all 8 drives, vs. only 4 at a time. I don't know whether that would practically offset the benefits of being able to do small I/O operations to two different 4 drive arrays simultaneously. Possibly not - much of what Windows does are relatively small operations, and I have since discovered that both 4 drive arrays can simultaneously do small I/Os at very nearly the same rate of small I/Os with one 4 drive array. It could actually be that I chose the best performing path for the wrong reasons. Still... One day I may yet test your theory. -Noel

I know what you mean. I've always bought the "Ultimate" most expensive editions. I stopped spending money with Microsoft entirely and I can assure you they're not making money off data uploaded from me. "Starve 'em out" seems to be the only possible strategy. -Noel

When Marketing sets company direction, one has to suspend belief that anything means anything anymore. -Noel

That limit can easily be an issue, however, with a RAID array of SSDs though. Given the performance, even considering the cost, I'm always surprised more people aren't building systems based on RAID volumes. -Noel

I've long ago removed all the ones that can be removed that way. If you can remove any of the ones I listed above, which are not listed anywhere but in PowerShell output, please let me know. I cannot find a database file to tweak in Windows 8.1 in the same way it can be done with Windows 10. -Noel

Somehow I'm having trouble seeing it as a regression... To me, as a power user, it seems like kind of a boon. I've been reluctant to install updates for a while - since some time in 2015. In fact, I've only been catching my Win 8.1 workstation up a few times a year. Why? Because that's convenient for me, it's stable, and it already does everything I need. Am I worried about security if I don't get the latest "OMG, zero day!" patch? To be honest, no, because I have a security environment that's far, far tighter than what Microsoft delivers out of the box, and I practice conscientious computing. Their patches strive to keep malware that's passed all blocks and has been loaded into the system regardless of all protections from poking through latent vulnerabilities. I just avoid bringing that malware into my systems to begin with. So far, I've had zero malware even come near my systems in all the years I've been doing it. So, no, I see a lack of updates as the ability to run the older operating system I choose to use for months on end without de-stabilization, without worrying about what they broke or added that I don't want, without even rebooting it! -Noel

In 1985 I co-designed the OS and applications for a high reliability communications controller based around an Intel 8085 microprocessor. The US FAA relied upon that system to carry ASR-9 radar data from dish to ATC display site for more than 20 years. The system's design lifetime was 20 years but the FAA petitioned to have it extended because all across the country they were still working. They were built with lots of steel, rack mounted, and needed to be moved with a fork lift. Tech gear is more powerful nowadays, but is not engineered nor built like it used to be. That's not to say there wasn't cheap junk back then, though. -Noel

I'd love to see them try to force upgrades on people that would require payment. That could land executives in prison I think. Of course elsewhere I've read that it's still a free upgrade now, even though Microsoft said that offer would expire. -Noel

I don't recall talking about "Patch Tuesday" way back then... That doesn't mean it wasn't happening that way. -Noel

It's a fair question. I figured out how for Win 10 to do it (with modifications to a system SQL database) but I never did go so far as to figure out how to remove all the Apps with Win 8.1 - even though that's the system I use actively. This is what I have at the moment... Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600] (c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\TEMP>powershell Windows PowerShell Copyright (C) 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. PS C:\TEMP> Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Select Name Name ---- CheckPoint.VPN f5.vpn.client FileManager JuniperNetworks.JunosPulseVpn Microsoft.MoCamera SonicWALL.MobileConnect windows.immersivecontrolpanel winstore These probably take up space, but otherwise seem benign. My Win 8.1 system is stable and doesn't try to contact anything online unless initiated by me. Thanks for the reminder. I experimented with Remove-AppXPackage but that won't do it without clearing some internal block - pretty much what I saw with Windows 10. Perhaps the same techniques would apply; experimentation is necessary. You can see what I did for Win 10 here, as part of my re-tweaker script: http://win10epicfail.proboards.com/thread/100/interested-participating-tweaker-development-test I'd be interested to hear of any ways that have been tested by members here to rid a Win 8.1 system of these Metro/Modern tumors. -Noel

Yep, see "Microsoft calls off Patch Tuesday". Wow, maybe there really ARE practical implications to their having laid off the entire testing staff. Were there even updates for January? My understanding is that they had skipped January entirely, at least for Win 8.1. -Noel

I remember fooling around with setting up SmartDrv in HiMem with that version back in the mid 1980s, and being stoked when we got cached data transfers to reach 100 megabytes / second on our expensive Intel 80286 workstations. -Noel