NoelC

OK, I've been trying to create a rounded corners theme atlas, and I'm most of the way there. I've got the bottoms all done. Trying to do the tops is throwing me for a loop. Does ANYONE understand what the numbers mean in the .layout file? If so, can you explain them to me? I'm particularly dense or something, but I'm not finding it possible to derive what they mean by experimentation. Plus I'm finding that changing things for one resource is affecting another one unexpectedly. -Noel

Has that changed? At one point it was reported that the "upgraded from" license was never invalidated. I found that quite surprising to hear at the time. I have no personal experience with this as I've never allowed an "upgrade". -Noel

Thanks for asking, but nope. Haven't had a moment to work on it. But I still don't think I like the square cornered atlas as well, so I will keep in mind that those corners need to be revisited. -Noel

Can't beat that. Yet. Let's check back in 2032 and see. My current server replaces a Vista x64 system that ran for about 5 years straight. Finally had a power hit that lasted longer than the UPS batteries, and the system was shut down. Because of bad capacitors it never booted again. The dust blanket that had accumulated was impressive, which no doubt contributed to the electrolytic capacitors releasing their contents. On my Win 8.1 system, given that 24 logical processors are clocking up time, the System Idle Process is pushing upwards of 3 years of processor time. Lo and behold it's long since wrapped its counters around. I guess we really do need 128 bit processors. -Noel

Well, to be fair, all prior versions (and even Win 10 in its current form) can be tamed to where the user is in control again. But Microsoft - not being completely stupid - is even countering THAT by re-releasing OS "upgrades" on a timeframe of months, and surprise surprise! It reverts everything back to "The Microsoft Way". All the Apps are re-installed, OneDrive is re-installed, Cortana, etc., and many settings including privacy settings have been seen to be reverted. As a result, some of us have developed software that re-tweaks Windows 10 back to being what WE want in record time. I just went through a "trial in-place upgrade" of Windows 10 build 14279 and was able to shut it back up and return it to what I need in just a few minutes. It's a bit like a cold war. One side introduces a new missile. The other side introduces a new missile defense. That's a colossal waste of time and effort, though. I wish it were more like a partnership again. -Noel

Since you couch the question as "we", the answer is yes, WE have a choice. Don't spend a penny at Microsoft's store. WE need to all do that. Then they fail and return to making products that are actually good and useful in order to get people to spend money. The world needs to return to the "build a better mousetrap" model and get out of this stagnation. -Noel

(No dig against Jorge, here, but) clearly your font was too small and too jammed-in between two Quotes. They say that nobody reads post 1681. I guess it must be true. In all fairness, this point about Microsoft building a walled garden does need to be discussed more. A lot more. It's the core problem. -Noel

It's more of that redirection thing again. They're trying to define a "new normal" where when someone says "I found another bug", people who hear them think about a couple of women holding insects or arachnids and not about operating system bugs. Or at least think of bugs fondly. People don't even know they're being brainwashed even when they're told it's being done. Now for the $64 question: Do we REALLY want today's Microsoft influencing our kids' thinking? -Noel

Percentage-wise, you may be right - a large percentage of computer users do frivolous things. Certainly that's who Microsoft is courting. But numbers-wise, what OS would you say is used for more serious work? OS X? Linux? LOL. I'm really glad to see other folks here with systems that are also stable. Thanks for posting, guys! -Noel

Cool. Just goes to show the older systems are indeed mature and don't NEED updates to make them acceptable for use. I'm curious about one thing, though... For me Win 8.1 always felt a little "heavier" than Win 7 (I never put 8.0 on my actual hardware, except for testing it in a VM). I believe it's because many desktop file operations are slightly slower to complete. I'm picking nits, because it's really just a slight difference in "feel". For example, if you copy (or especially delete) a big tree of files it takes WAY longer than it should on a machine that can do more than a gigabyte/second of I/O, often putting up progress dialogs. I remember even ancient systems running XP back in the early 2000s that could delete a big tree of files on an HDD in an eyeblink. With SSD storage one should virtually never see a progress bar - yet we do. Are you working on 8.0, or 8.1? One thing I noticed during my testing was that win 8.0's desktop file operations - e.g., through File Explorer - are measurably faster than 8.1, and are on par with Windows 7. Whatever Microsoft did that sludged things up happened in 8.1. I like to ask people to do this test: Open Explorer (aka File Explorer) to the root of drive C:.Select all files and folders in the files (right) pane.Right-click, choose Properties.Time how long it takes to enumerate all the files. Divide the number of files by the number of seconds.Do it again after it finishes and time that too. That will show how quick it is with everything cached.Windows 7 and 8.0 could count up the files at several tens of thousands per second (Win 7 did it at about 25,000 files/second the first time for me, and about 50,000 files/second the second time after the directory structure was cached in RAM). With 8.1 the numbers on the exact same drives are about 9,000 and 20,000 respectively. That the traversal of the directories once cached in RAM is some 60% slower says that the implementation in 8.1 is much less efficient somehow. I've never gotten to the bottom of that. -Noel

40 days and 40 nights... ...of Win 8.1 uptime reached today. That's right, the last time I booted my workstation was in January. That's 24/7 of daily hard engineering use and nightly system image and file backups. And it keeps on ticking. Windows sessions don't normally run nearly this long for the simple reason that Microsoft comes along and pushes at least one Windows Update that requires a reboot. Imagine that, no need to reboot. Stable system operation, day after day, without trouble. Geek Nirvana. Meanwhile, my Windows 7 x64 Ultimate system, running on Dell PowerEdge file server just sitting quietly in the corner, is getting close to 80 days of uninterrupted uptime, since I decided even longer ago for that system to disallow nefarious meddling by the purveyors of GWX... My informed choice to remove Microsoft's diseased foot from the door continues to prove right. Their loss, for becoming pushers of PUPs. It works, so I'm not fixing it. -Noel

Hi rgh43, Sorry to hear you've decided (as have so many others) that Windows 10 is not worth keeping. But keep in mind: It's not "resistance to change", you are not a "dinosaur" or a "stick in the mud" for wanting the new OS to actually be as good as (or ideally better than) its predecessors. If *EVERYBODY* took the same action and just avoided using Windows 10, Microsoft would have no choice but to make it better. -Noel This was sent from my Dell Precision Workstation running Win 8.1 without drama, without crashing............... Last time I booted it was in January.

If a specific value is provided that PREVENTS a takeover of the associated application, then it becomes pretty difficult to justify a (re-)takeover of associated applications as an accident, right? Microsoft seems to be following an "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" strategy. Unfortunately, too many people are altogether too forgiving (or just too dumb to notice what's going on). Microsoft has been working hard to develop this air of "Windows is not finished, so therefore pardon our dust because we're going to get a lot of things wrong". There's no reason to expect Windows 10 to be less well-behaved than any of its predecessors! Windows 10 is not new any more! I HATE it when companies define a "new normal" that socially allows them to get away with things they have no business doing! -Noel

Note this article: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/windows-10-resetting-file-associations/ -Noel

Thanks for the info, Techie007. I guess the moral of the story is to make sure you're covered well with backups if you're going to go it on your own with an older system. I can imagine what the code looks like that just goes into a resource wasting loop if you don't have the system up to date. Thank goodness that with the Windows Update service completely shut off I'm not seeing that problem happen. -Noel

If only it were possible. But it can only be transformed into a stunted Windows 10, which offers about 5% less functionality than a well-tweaked Windows 8.1, which offers about 1% more functionality than a well-tweaked Windows 7. -Noel

Not that I'm fond of Windows Updates at all - nor have I installed this one - but it does bring back up the discussion: Will Microsoft continue to support updating via software that doesn't have a recently updated Windows Update client? Or by hiding this update are you assuring an ultimate divorce from Microsoft's update process entirely? People have been reporting really slow update performance and (Woody Leonhard I think it was) said that this update might fix that. Maybe it's just a matter of putting up with a slower update if one doesn't take this one. Just to be clear, I've pretty much decided on such a divorce voluntarily, and so far things are going fine. But I know not everyone will want to be disconnected from security updates. This is a case where we simply don't have enough information to make a well-informed decision. -Noel

So THAT'S why I removed all the Apps. They can't take over if they're not there! And - for those who would insist on keeping and using Apps - if it's a bug, why are there "NoOpenWith" registry values that can be set to prevent it from happening? A bug that unfairly competes with other software you may have purchased and downloaded? Where is the DoJ? -Noel

I can't advise further. Perhaps Big Muscle has some ideas why symbols downloading might be balky for some folks. He'll probably ask you for your debug.log file from the AeroGlass folder. -Noel

I have no idea why I would not be able to receive PMs. I think you sent me one just recently. Maybe I need to delete some... And wow, did I really use the word Remove and Removal together like that? I must have been sleeping. Did you happen to capture the output (or notice what messages it was giving)? I have seen a problem with the removal process when there's more than one user; it might not have to do with Audit Mode. -Noel

It will only auto-download the symbols if you have a valid donation.key. I should have mentioned that before. You probably do, but just thought I'd throw that out there. I recall in past history it has taken days to work for some folks. I don't think reinstalling is going to help. -Noel

LOL, Microsoft is now publishing a "change log" for Win 10 updates that they probably think satisfies comments like the one I made above. Take a look: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/update-history-windows-10 I looked at the number of files that update KB3140743 (build 10586.122) contains (many thousands, since it's cumulative, and many hundreds changed in just the past week or two). Are 8 mostly one-liner bullet items of "key changes" really enough to weigh the risk of accepting an update? Uh, no. -Noel

Sometimes it seems to take a few tries. Reboot a few times. -Noel

You know you can have your own computer online to serve whatever files you like, and use things like USB drives for backup, right? With the proper prep, it's possible to fairly securely set up Windows RDP so that you can remotely control a system, say at home, and get to your files via TSClient shared drives. I can log in to mine even via an iPad running RDP software (though the screen is pretty small). There are those who say the cloud can be convenient, and that can't be denied. If giving up security and privacy for convenience feels like a good idea, I say go for it! It really is nice to just be able to easily access your files from anywhere. Of course, once remote access is set up doing it on your own can be convenient too... Just sayin'... -Noel

Yes, it's supposed to download debug symbols if something significant has changed, and it appears to have done so. I'm happy to report Aero Glass seems to have been able to re-hook build 10586.122 after the symbol download okay. It still seems to work. [2016-03-02 23:32:08][0x614:0x618] Installing DWM hook...[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x614:0x618] User: SYSTEM[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x614:0x618] Module: C:\AeroGlass\DWMGlass.dll[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Machine ID: YZUQCG6OCCLNFHOTLO335QDLJRAKI4LOGH5LOSAU3ILTAPGV[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Checking key 4af2f15f4f68554ea864fc939f162002833b9f57dbe47a75c73a948c9b3f8fbe2eb6100fd9d9a9d5b5d5a5fe86c507c7 for ID YZUQCG6OCCLNFHOTLO335QDLJRAKI4LOGH5LOSAU3ILTAPGV...[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Hook (USER32.dll!DrawTextW from udwm.dll) installed[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateBitmap from udwm.dll) installed[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Hook (GDI32.dll!CreateRoundRectRgn from udwm.dll) installed[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0xBE4] Aero Glass for Win8.1+ 1.4.5.520 x64 correctly loaded (C:\AeroGlass\DWMGlass.dll).[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0x5E8] DBGHELP: Symbol Search Path: .;SRV*C:\AeroGlass\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0x5E8] Loading settings (flags = 0x3) from HKEY 0x0000000000000000 for session #1[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0x5E8] dwmcore.dll version 10.0.10586.112[2016-03-02 23:32:11][0x3BC:0x5E8] udwm.dll version 10.0.10586.122[2016-03-02 23:32:17][0x3BC:0x5E8] Symbols loaded from external files: 0x8-Noel