Gansangriff

Too pessimistic. The nice internet is out there. But it doesn't ask to be found. YOU (yes, I'm pointing with my finger at you) have to discover it. As long as the big companies don't control the actual wires... wait, then there will be a wireless alternative! Mesh networking has been tried out. Even if that far far away scenario will happen, computer freaks will have good ideas (I hope!)... well, look at Frogfind! That service is able to heal the poorly designed websites. And new Windows XP and DOS browsers have been made in the last years. And Linux is there, too. RSS-feeds everywhere. Every morning I start my laptop, the RSS feed shows up, having like 20 sites, blogs, wikis, video channels, podcasts, telling me about new stuff. Great and efficent technology! I've put all the big companies in the hosts file (with help from the dnsmasq router firewall), filtering the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Twitter. So my computers act like all that doesn't exist (127.0.0.1? Where is that they ask).

@Mr.Scienceman2000 TS2 servers are different than current Teamspeak servers. You have to use the Teamspeak 2 client to access them all. A list of TS2 servers can be found right there, in the TS2 client. Older codes are more than enough to get the message over the line! I think TS2 sounds better than a mobile phone conversation.

Sadly, this attempt is another poor marriage of an old operating system (Vista from 2007) with young hardware (CPU from 2018). That rarely goes well together (but in some cases, it does). Maybe you can replace the graphics card with an older one.

For actual voice-chatting, Teamspeak 2 can be used too, even on Windows 98! Public servers worldwide exist, which can be connected to without much effort. The codecs of TS2 might sound a bit old fashioned though, but they are efficent.

@Mr.Scienceman2000 Netsurf is the browser for a nearly extinct species: Amiga users! It's nice to have small browsers that still get updates like Netsurf around, but on Windows XP there are more alternatives. The Pentium 3 is more than enough for Netsurf, using only 15 MB RAM here. The TLS-updated Netscape 9 with 25 MB has a better compatibility and customisability however (my prefered choice on Windows 98 computers and weak Windows XP systems, like the 400 MHz Celeron). New Moon (NoSSE or SSE-only) would be the next step to try out, but that gives the 20-year old machine a tough time on some sites.

No!!! I'm not paying for Windows 10! I have to be paid to use it. A lot of money to be honest. Else Linux for new computers.

"Back to work!" it wants to tell you. No distractions allowed. Maybe someone in the local area used MSFN too often. Which could mean, that you have another MSFN Agent in your neighborhood! Maybe it's the judge himself... Or do these Cisco Meraki clouds get their data from everywhere? Like a global blocklist? Hopefully the reason behind MSFNs appearance there is not, that the forum is under constant spam attack! Showing some spam links to the outside of course.

Oh dear, this will be no fun at all to install a floppy based vintage Windows directly on the hard disk of a modern computer. You better get an old computer from the old times for that. Expensive however... But maybe your goals are different. What are you trying to achieve? Just for the curiosity about how the first Windows looked like? Maybe virtual machines (VMs) are your rescue. Dosbox? VirtualBox? I doubt that this way of putting all the floppy disks into one ISO works. VMs usually have an option to "eject" floppy disks while the system is runnnig. With that, you could insert them one by one.

Give me a chance to reply! In the honour of the city planners. Jaclaz, your feeling about city planning architects is very understandable! Cities are burning a lot of money on "city development concepts". And some of them are downright terrible. About 10 years ago, Hildesheim (German city) complained about not having a shopping mall in the center (every city has to have one nowadays to attract loads of visitors). Now where to place it? 15 minutes away from the train station in a second parallel street next to the main pedestrian zone, not even visible from the main street. Hannover (a city that makes Hildesheim jealous) has their mall at the opposite side of the train station, sucking the customers in like a vacuum-cleaner. Dammit, says Hildesheim. Their shopping mall isn't running too well. Half of the stores in the mall are empty. Another example for city planning is the concept of the "city of short distances". Super tight planning, so that people don't have to drive that much around and get to their destinations quickly. They have used this in Darmstadt (German city), and I saw a terrible result: People are stacking on top of each other at the sidewalk! It's a very compact city with much less room than other cities. If I recall correctly, Darmstadt was one exception of a city where the planners decided to scrap the old routes of their medieval inner-city after it got destroyed in the war years. Most German cities have rebuild their inner-city in a historical way like it was before. But why was did the planners "modernise" it? Because streets don't have to be made for horses anymore and the old guard wall doesn't protect from enemies anymore. The needs for people have changed, and everyone who has to fight with a car through terrible tight alleys here would have loved to see this properly planned for his current vehicle. And of course I'd like to apologise for using the word "fools" in a little bit inapropriate way there when referring to the people of the past building their cities next to rivers (which they had to do of course). That was meant as an exaggeration from today's viewpoint about the location of some cities, resulting them to drown regularly. Of course people got on with the disadvantages of it. Nearly every German city burned down completly in the medieval times once or twice. Speaking of complete destruction in the war. Most people usually stay where they are, even if there is a war or a natural hazard going on. And if things break, they build it up again, because it's their home. Is that about right?

The economy by ship had their place in history. Especially when we see, how many big cities (without being next to the sea) have grown near rivers. But in fact, it's "obsolete" and causes some cities to drown regularly. That's what I meant with that (okay, they were not all fools). A today's city architect would plan differently nowadys.

@ArcticFoxie: I'd wish it for my parents too, and they have a bit more than 10 years until their retirement. That they get enough retirement income to live properly. But everyone under 30, if you think "work, work, work" works, and the state pays for you in the end, please awake from that dream! I can assure you that finance and economy are much bigger topics for the kids now and the 18-year-olds I know will definetly not be fooled by the retirement system. They don't want to pay for the mistakes of the old people. The stupid will pay, so better not be one of them. Arm yourself with knowledge! I'd expect you guys in the US are having more freedom in some ways there, but that freedom has to be used well. Health insurance would be another topic, I don't want to get into now. I've learned in school, that the houses in the USA can be built very cheaply. The next hurricane comes anyways! In Germany, rules follow rules, building permits, building departements, papers, buerocracy... everything has to be planned according to many rules. Very few dangerous animals... and the weather is solid too. It's just that these fools from the long gone past built nearly every city at a river, making them a bit flood-vulnerable...

@Mr.Scienceman2000: I feel the same on may things you wrote there. A whole house is just too expensive. It's not a realistic goal to achieve with a "normal" work when you have to start your finances from scratch. Except through making debts, which goes against my principles. But what you can do with little money (that you don't need otherwise) is put it on gold and silver. At least 100 years ago, people where able to buy houses "for an apple and an egg" then, when the money was worth nothing anymore and the desperation to get true values were big.

@Dixel: Unfortuneatly, 30 years earlier, I didn't even exist, so I'm not a primary source on that topic. But why not chatting about the financial situation here, in Germany... It's not all down to inflation. Food is cheap. Computers too (especially used ones). But the houses and renting prices must have grown massively from what I can hear old people saying. Maybe the change to the Euro in 2001 has made a big difference compared with the US dollar. I don't think old grumpy people were rambling without reason, "how everything got expensive". They calculate it back to the former currency, Deutsche Mark (DM), and indeed, prices have gone up for most of things! Germany has big gaps between the regions. A friend of mine has a house in the rural part of Hessen (middle of Germany) which he could sell for 150.000 Euros. Now he tries to get something similar in a rural part of Bavaria (Oktoberfest! South of Germany). Forget it! His nice house is standing at the wrong place and so pretty much useless for that task, as prices are 4 times higher there! And compared with the eastern part of Germany (former DDR), my friend could buy two equal houses for his current one. It's definetly important to have some real stuff "for later years". The states pension system (is that the right word?) is broken. Since the 60s to be honest (because of medicine, reducing child birth and people not wanting to die). The number of old people that are getting decent amounts of money from the state is getting smaller and smaller. It's math. Less young people, more old people, who the heck is going to pay that? Of all the people that are digging through deposit bottles in the cities where I've lived, I would estimate there was an equal high number of young hobos and of old people trying desperately to get some additional money. Dammit, what a great perspective for the retirement age! And a great "thank you" for working for 40 years. I've heard enough bitterness, really. Life is tough, being stupid never helps, money rules the world, so get on your own feet and don't rely on a poorly-planned state to help you when you're old.

I used to help 1000 students to connect to the wireless university network. In 80% of problem cases, removing the saved network configuration on the Windows 10 control panel helped. It should be under "WLAN" (or some similar translation...). Some Windows installations are completly stuck. Bugs happen randomly somewhere. And nobody knows, what the actual problem is. Re-installing might be the quickest solution in some hard cases. Maybe we have to take a look at the customers router too (if other wireless networks work fine with that laptop). Maybe you could login into the router and check, if that laptop has an entry there, maybe under DHCP, and maybe you have to delete that entry, too. Maybe there is a setting wrong with a DHCP pass for that one laptop.

The current Linux Mint might be too fat for the 10-year-old machine with a standard HDD. Maybe your computer gets to the limit already through booting this Linux! Sometimes there is no harmony between the graphics driver and Linux, too. Sometimes, you are just unlucky to have an incompatible hardware. However first, a computer that old has to be cleaned. Get some screwdrivers and open it up. Aside from that, you could look for a smaller Linux. Xubuntu with Xfce maybe? I use Salix with Xfce, but that's not the easiest to use and some programs are missing.

Plus the inflation of the currency! 40.000 dollars in 1980 aren't 40.000 dollars in 2020.

Is overheating a problem of Linux, or was it there before you installed Linux on it? Tell us more about your laptop. Unfortuneatly, computers have to be cleaned sometimes from dust. Some high-performance systems are also vulnerable to overheating because of the thermal paste on the processor is getting old.

Math is too complicated! Let's do this more practical: List some details of all the files in the WIndows folder. We are looking for the date "Last changed" especially. Some files are much older, like the standard background images, dating 1.11.93 (maybe they were present in Windows 3.11 already). But look at the oldest folders. Some folders have undergone changes of course, but most of them should have the exact minute, when your Windows 98 CD was rattling in the disk drive and creating them. In my case, the installation of my machine took place at the 25th February 2015 between exact 16:13 o'clock and 16:30. A fine installation, running as well as on day one. Actually, I still have an original installation of 1999 on my first computer. That one isn't in good shape, it had some viruses when I was too inexperienced with the internet. The junk is gone now of course, but I'm sure it would run better, if I reinstall it. Sometimes radical options have to be taken I suppose.

With bicycles it's like with computers. Old stuff is heavy and slower, but much more simple, durable and reliable. Here in Germany, the low-price point is reached for bicycles from the early 90s to 2000s. I've bought three steel frames for 10 Euros each! Every hobo can afford that. Of course bicycles that cheap need some service, but the bicycle mechanisms are quite accessable. With a set of elastic belts, quite a lot can be transported on bicycles, too. I think bicycles as a daily transportation vehicle deserve more respect. I save a fortune through not owning a car. But it's more hard donkey work on the other hand... it's a tough fight sometimes! I was once a courier in the snow, but only at minus 10°C (14°F). How does the situation look like in Finland or Russia? What can the human body endure? Are bicycles even a spark of an option there? (question goes to @Mr.Scienceman2000) Previous posts mentioned the Toyota Prius and the old Volvo, let's take the 240 as an iconic example. Both cars get special notices from me. The Prius as the early hybrid car it was, was tried out by quite a lot of drivers here, let's say 10 years ago. People did give it a chance. But now? They're almost gone all! The Prius didn't last. Quite different is the Volvo 240, appearing like a big, bouncy battleship on the streets. The opposite of aerodynamically efficent. All I can say is, that currently there are more Volvo 240 than Toyota Prius on our streets here (which wasn't the case around 2010).

They certainly do, but not every part used in their machines is self-developed. I've read a report on the German printer website druckerchannel.de that the internal components of the small Xerox B215 are different from the Samsung printer. Maybe they've just bought the case. It was also noted in the article, that this is the exception. Xerox is more behind the bigger laser printers, therefore it was cheaper to cooperate with another company on the field of small laser printers.

Oh, there are plenty of things to improve on a Windows XP system. Disable 80 % of all Windows services under msconfig (which you can start by clicking on the Start button, then "Run" (I think that how the menu, where programs can be started, was called in english...). But you have to be aware of your own needs, which can differ from other users. So go through everything, that is listed there, and use your serach engine of choice to understand, what each service does. Then ask yourself: Do I need that? Automatic network configuration? Designs? That depends on you. Speaking of designs, go to the Control Panel and click on "System", where all the system information is displayed, computer name, processor, stats... there are a lot of things to be set. Do you need a system recovery, or do you do this by yourself? Consider this can take a lot of hard disk space, if you let your Windows clone your drive settings for you. Remote Desktop? There are external programs for that, if you need a remote service. Anyways, there is a category probably called "Extended"? There you can set many graphical options. Your desktop might not look as soft, it might lack animations, but it will perform quicker.

Hm... difficult. New cars are very expensive, true. Brutally expensive to be honest. But there are the used cars too, doesn't have to be Ford-Escort-aged cars. They should be affordable, even with a minimum wage. I forgot to mention something important in my post, so sorry about that. Maybe you can marry a German somewhere and get an "H number plate" (H-Kennzeichen). 30 year old cars in good condition are appearing with an "H" on the number plate appear regularly in the daily traffic. For example Mercedes 190 from 1990 are new to the club of "historic" cars. They are seen as car culture here and have much less taxes to pay. When it comes down to the fuel consumption, it's true that the old cars aren't as efficent and might use more fuel, however they are much lighter (and much unsafer for that reason), need a less powerful engine, so the old cars have a lower fuel consumption in total, pretty much as @ArcticFoxie described it. Isn't it like with computers? I've heard stories about people becoming upset about desktop CPUs growing a fan on top of them in the mid-90s (on their Pentium systems). Nowadays, the current low-power desktops, having no fans at all, but the CPU power isn't too bad either. New ARM processors hunting after Intel... at least in that respect, computers are doing steps forward. And damn, used computers are incredibly affordable, especially what falls out of fashion, like desktops (bigger sized, laying block-boxes on the desk) as opposed to Laptops (portable).

Nah, current stuff works too, but it's not as reliable. And for money reasons, you as the buyer are the tester of the new stuff. And the producer deliberately breaks their own products to sell new ones. As long as the money flows... There was a topic here on MSFN, where the lifespan of capacitors on the mainboard was discussed. The conclusion was, that computers of around 2005 have much more problems with capacitor leakage than computers of 2000. So a degredation can be watched there, too. I'd like to compare that to bicycles. Current machines are quicker, lighter, but also are more complex, expensive and fragile. These modern bicycles might overtake me now, but I know my 30 year old princess gives me less trouble and will last longer. It's good to have these options now at least, but what will be in 10 years? Whenever you are unhappy with the situation, get options on deck. Because they definetly exist out there! Heavy steel-frames, Ford Escort, light-bulbs (preferabely from communist countries), hand-powered tools, touchable books, offline banking, mobile phones with buttons, Windows XP being internet-ready, Linux replacing Windows... even Youtube alternatives are there now. Google search engine also has alternatives. It always depends on your needs. Efficency vs cost... time included.

@Wunderbar98: I also have too many computers. Windows XP is just another working option on this odd Pentium 3. SHA-1 certificates didn't kill it! Keepvid was once highly recommended on Windows 98, and it could download as tiny 3gp video. But probably 3 years ago, there was an unfortuneate re-design of the site and it stopped working on Windows 98. Good to see them back, with a new web domain too. But here is something groundbreaking for users of old computers, even much older than Windows 98! The Frogfind search engine! Unbelievable! This has the efficency of Lynx but in a graphical browser! Frogfind Developer Video: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=c_v2_vTogS8

@Wunderbar98 The mentioned Xerox B215 is already sold to an animal doctor, but I tried out my Workcentre 7545, an A3 office printer of 2011, with my '98. DOC- and ODT-files can't be submitted over the web interface, so documents have to be converted to PDF first, which I do with CutePDF Writer of 2012, as Word 97 didn't have any PDF capabilities at all. PRT-files might be interesting, too. If you're just looking for text, that seems to work with every printer. On Windows 98, you have to add a "universal" printer, which procudes a text-only PRT-file, that can be passed to the printer over the web interface. Other possible file formats are PS, PCL, XPS, TXT, JPG, BMP, PNG and probably some more. Scan-to-USB on the Workcentre works well in combination with Windows 98, if USB drivers are installed. Having a look at the quality settings important here, as scans can get quite big, eventually too big for the old computer to handle. No, that's not perfect, but at least the modern printer is somewhat useable on Windows 98 without a driver. Still the old Xerox machines, Workcentre 75xx and Workcentre 78xx will drop out of offical support in a couple of years and by now, people are replacing them. My heart bleeds every time, a properly functioning machine lands on the scrapyard, for being out of fashion. And the scarvengers can't pay much, so supporting them isn't of interest for the company! At least the bigger production machines go to Egypt, where they have a second life beyond offical support.