Drugwash

Let's add one more to the fanboys' efforts: today only, in four occasions I had to retrieve MSFN mail notifications (most of them from this topic) from the Spam folder. And this is not the first time at all. It's an AOL account. Are M$ fanboys massively marking MSFN notifications as spam, or is AOL under their stronghold? (I'd bet on both, though)

I think I've said this before somewhere but you'll forgive me for repeating myself: antivirus programs nowadays - at least some major ones, but not only - will reenable Automatic Updates on their own will, without asking permission from the user and without notifying. I've recently downloaded and run TrendMicro's Sysclean and Rootkit Buster just to check on some folders copied over from a potentially suspect machine. Later on I found undesired processes running (cmd.exe, setup.exe) which had no place there and then. Unwinding the paths I found a .NET 4.0 installation folder prepared to install itself silently as well as a log file counting the attempts at update performed by Automatic Update. This all happened behind my back with no notification whatsoever, while I am on a metered connection! How is one to trust an antivirus nowadays?! And yes, it wouldn't be far-fetched at all for M$ to contract (again?) some skilled hackers to blow up the unprotected systems while readily providing the "optimal" solution: "upgrade" to SpywareOS Windows10. Sometimes I wonder if the '10' bit doesn't actually mean "you're in a binary world now: either take it (our spywareOS) or leave it (the Internet scene)". And there's another question knocking on the doors of my mind: what's in store (ironic pun) for XP users, once Win7/8/8.1 users have been assimilated…?

That may well be the result of a bug in the respective games, in which case only a game patch may fix it. The only 'Thief' I found in my collection is a Z80 game and no trace of 'Jetz'. Sorry I can't be of much help.

In my opinion, on such machine 98SE would be preferrable, mainly due to access to plain DOS mode for either playing old DOS games or repairing the system should anything bad happen that prevents a normal boot. A 98SE machine can be updated to improve stability through either Auto-Patcher for Windows 98 (old project) or Unofficial Service Pack 3.x (ongoing project). It would be best if the CPU had the MMX extensions, such as a 200 MMX or 233 MMX. I used to work on a 200 MMX myself ten years ago and was very happy with it (for those times, of course). Still have that machine. One other factor to consider is the BIOS, mainly the usual HDD capacity limitations of the time, which could vary from 8 GB to 64 GB. There have been unofficial patches that raised/eliminated that limit, over at Wim's BIOS boards but only for a small number of motherboards. Thing is, at least theoretically a newer version of the operating system may take up more space than an older version and may also grow a lot in time. My 98SE's Windows folder is now at 1.8GB after nine years of usage (while Program Files is 4.5GB) so for a long term usage one must take these into consideration too. Old Pentium boards are also severely limited in RAM capacity - usually 128MB or 256MB at most and finding compatible modules nowadays for an upgrade would be a major challenge. This would drastically limit the ability to run newer software such as Firefox 9, for example, which is a memory hog any may not even accept the CPU. Other newer software may complain about the RAM and CPU too. So it all boils down to what exactly one intends to use that machine for. Either way, good luck!

I was about to suggest the same HFS as loblo did above. Alternatively, FTP server(s) would work too. There is however a topic here somewhere about connecting a Win7 machine and a Win9x machine where I also input my findings. Basically, when everything is set properly, one has to access the shares by typing in the correct path to each shared folder, since it won't work through the classic way of unfolding from machine name on. In example, if the Win7 machine called Machine1 has a shared folder called My share 1, one types (into Explorer or preferred file manager's address bar): \\Machine1\My share 1\Such locations can be bookmarked for easier later access, if the file manager provides such ability. Personally I use exclusively Total commander for file management and have a few tabs locked to such network shares. The solution(s) may however require lowering or disabling some security features and/or enabling potentially vulnerable services/protocols, so be careful if/when you follow the advices on this matter. Good luck with your setup! (edit: fixed backslashes in place of slashes - I've taken on learning Linux lately and it shows )

The most startling thing of that speech is this tiny quote: "We kill people based on metadata". I think we should seriously consider backing off from all the so-called social network services and keep all (sensitive) talk strictly to face-to-face meetings. Otherwise, at any time some id!0t could misinterpret a word, a phrase, a joke over the Internet and they put a hole on our foreheads "just to be on the safe side". Human life is meaningless to them and unfortunately this is not a game where you can reload the current level if you happen to die from a headshot.

Seemingly unrelated but maybe not, in the big picture - I've just received a newsletter that says: Wearing my paranoia hat, I could say the French secret service wouldn't even have to try very hard when most people would use Win10. I can only envision "personalised" updates sent to French citizens that would simply switch certain listening servers to local ones instead of Microsoft's. Easy as a breeze… And then the rest of the world follows suit. A big happy family sharing everything, no secrets. No privacy either, but who cares…

I'm pretty sure that the screenshot is from the early '80s film "War Games." I remember that line from the movie. --JorgeA Yep, that's it! Good memory you have (unlike mine). I wonder, if people would start the OS war game, would M$ acknowledge that the best move is not to play (with us anymore)?

I remember that quote/screenshot from a movie but can't remember its title. Not important, anyway. Thing is, the winning move may be for some smart guys to start building Win9x drivers for all the recent hardware and then write light, open-source versions of the current bloatware applications. Because Linux is quickly going down the drain, in my opinion (after a few quick tests and failures). And I don't know of any other operating system capable to fully replace either Windows or Linux - OS X excluded. Am I wrong?

Unfortunately, many governments are economically and/or politically blackmailed into accepting orders from 'outside'. As such, very few states would be able (and dare) to hold M$ to account. Besides, I've recently seen a screenshot of the Win10 EULA that apparently expressly forbids US users from proceeding to class action suits, if I read it correctly. If so, this means they already knew what was going to happen and covered their rear in advance. They have an army of lawyers, we - the users - have nothing, not even rights. And realistically speaking, no choice either. And speaking of being realistic, there is no way M$ would have simply made a mistake in releasing such monster. This was planned and approved by higher quarters. Such "mistakes" just don't happen. Eyes open, there's more to come - I can feel it.

Good news: I remembered the Mint password, it's all fine now. Also, while snooping around I found out that the former Ylmf OS project is now called StartOS. Development stalled sometime in 2013 but still there are two versions available: 5.1 advertised from the homepage and 6.0 beta which can be reached by slightly manipulating the download URL. The 6.0 beta appears to be x64-compatible (or only?) - it will take me two-three days to download one distro, and there's two available: GNOME-based and KDE-based. I'd like to hear from others in the mean time, if possible. My test machine is quite weak for nowadays' standards and VirtualBox 5.0.4 doesn't quite make it easy for me either: I've started installation of the 4.0 version four hours ago and it's merely at 42%. Here's a review of the older 3.0 version at Dedoimedo: link A few details on its history can be found at Wikipedia, but its links are outdated: link More useful details on the included packages (in v3.0 only) are found at DistroWatch: link Dunno why I locked on to this particular distro but after lame failures with Q4OS, blackPanther, Simplicity and the heavy ChaletOS I think I may just go asian, for a change.

"Will they stop at the US borders?", is the gasoline I'd like to add to the fire…

Great, so no new options in the patcher! I was too lazy to do it anyway. Glad you sorted out the issue.

There used to be a certain Ylmf OS chinese project which appears to have been deleted. I have a v3 and a v4 ISO images dated back in 2011 and 2012. Never tried them, probably wouldn't understand anything. Requirements as they appear on the saved HTML page: 系统需求 最小配置 300 MHz x86 处理器 128 MB 内存/不少于4 GB 硬盘空间 兼容 640x480 的显卡 推荐配置 700 MHz x86 处理器 兼容 1024x768 分辨率的显卡 512 MB 内存/8 GB 硬盘空间/声卡 The forum may still be alive but it rejects my connection. Homepage yields 404. It's not hard to copy an icon set, a taskbar design and other visual gimmicks, but what matters is the actual underlying code. There are dozens, hundreds of different distros, but looking closely they all reveal having common grounds with the very few major distros and many of them share the same bugs and (lack of) features as well as repositories. Best thing would be for everyone to start from scratch (there actually is the Linux From Scratch project) and add only what they want/need. Problem is, not all packages are compatible with the base codes and there may just not be a perfect match for one's needs. And unfortunately extremely few people can afford what it takes to tweak and build (compile) everything for their own perfect system. And while we're here: does anyone know how to recover or change a forgotten password on a system that can still log on automatically? Yes, only a few hours ago I was complaining about Mint asking for the password for every nonsense and... I forgot it. Don't wanna give up all the tweaks and extra installed packages, especially with my crawling Internet connection, due to a reinstall. P.S. Linux Lite wouldn't even fit my old Win98SE machine (667MHz CPU, 512MB PC133 RAM, AGP2x SOYO motherboard, GeForce4Ti4200 128MB video).

The only one I tried so far after a long time is Linux Mint 17.2 (Rafaela) Cinnamon Edition. I found a few good things but too many bad. I've also written some sort of installation/setup log, but it definitely cannot be posted publicly. It would be funny if it weren't sad: Linux is trying hard to emulate Windows (in aspect), while Windows has already become a Linux (in behavior). To me it looks like none of them is now a worthy choice and I really wish there would be a (more than) decent, viable alternative to them. I'm still trying hard to find a Linux (or any other OS type, for that matter) that: - has all the components I need built-in (I don't want to waste my bandwidth downloading gigabytes of an ISO only to find out I need an Internet connection to install each and every system/driver/application package/update) - has full networking capabilities (that is, connect to a local network out-of-the-box, act as DHCP server, be able to serve Internet to the LAN <<share the GPRS modem locally>>, be able to quickly and easily share folders/drives with read-write permissions, see and be seen by any other OS types/versions - from Win95 to Win10 if I ever were to allow such thing on my network) - never asks me for a password for anything once I'm logged in (it's aggravating to have thoughts and workflow disrupted by the thing popping the password box on everything!) - has ability to install and tweak visual themes and appearance similarly to Win9x with Revolutions Pack (everybody seems to hate the Fuchsia color so I have to build my own theme from scratch or edit a similar one) - has an optimal media player that actually inhibits the screensaver/monitor stand-by while playing a movie (Banshee can't), is able to load and display subtitles on the overlay surface when viewing wide movies on 4:3/5:4 monitors (VLC was never able to do that), has all the possible codecs built-in (not somewhere on a server) and actually closes when clicking the darn [x] in the corner - has all the necessary system tweaks available through the GUI (how retarded is not to be able to change Workgroup name in the Network panel, for example!?) - can install and/or run (live) on a 133MHz Pentium with 32MB RAM as well as on latest multicore dozens-of-gigabytes-of-RAM bla-bla machine And there may be other things I need in an operating system that were left out in the list above but I have a feeling the above is already too much, especially the last two bits. If anyone knows for sure of such operating system, please speak up. In the mean time I'm downloading (through my 15kB/s connection) for future testing: Q4OS, blackPantherOS, ChaletOS, Simplicity, SparkyLinux, Lubuntu, Manjaro, antiX, alpine, wattOS, SalentOS, LinHES. They are all reviewed at DistroWatch.com.

Could this be it? it says 2000-02-09 , Version HI.01.08. Usually P II and P III are pin-to-pin compatible so they can be directly replaced but admittedly I'm not familiar with the details of this particular machine. Hopefully you manage to pull it through, but be very careful with BIOS upgrading - a defective floppy disk/drive may brick the machine. EDIT: I see the P III is also Slot 1 but at 100MHz bus so if the board is capable of such bus frequency through the dip-switch you should first change that and anything else required (I doubt it has multiplier switches/jumpers but one never knows). It may be a much better alternative than the Celeron but it all depends whether the (new) BIOS recognises it and can adapt to its required bus/multiplier/voltages.

You're right, very few people have everything that's needed to build their own OS, even from ready-made parts. So the issue comes down to one of trust -- whether we can trust the people who actually do build the OSes that we use. If I understand it, the difference is that in principle anyone can go into the code for Linux and the open-sources applications that run under it, and see what's going on. The idea is that this will help to keep the developers honest, so to speak. (As to how well this concept works in practice, that's for others to assess.) By comparison, with Windows and the closed-source applications that run under it, there's no way really to tell what they are doing behind the curtain, so the user has to decide whether to trust them. And of course Microsoft has done a number of things recently to make people wonder just how trustworthy the company is. Putting these two factors together, to my mind the trust factor has tilted significantly toward Linux in recent years. --JorgeA Exactly: trust! Is there anyone we can actually trust completely, in a blink of an eye, today? Take a moment and think of it. I think it's more of "who could eventually produce the smallest damage to me/my family/my company". In principle yes, anyone could assess the Linux code, build their own versions and so on. But most people are not developers, coders, IT specialists etc. They can barely install and operate a few applications, some requiring reading a manual or asking in forums. Those people will neither question the OS/application builders, nor attempt to build their own. They are the majority. They are the ones who need antivirus solutions (under Windows), they are the ones bitching at help & support over the phone for whatever minor issues they may encounter due to their complete lack of knowledge (computer illiteracy). It doesn't even matter if it's Windows, Linux or anything else. It's the people - it's always been the people. If they actually knew what they're buying/downloading/operating, they would have probably reshaped the world a lot differently a long time ago. But people are the way they are and others out there know it, know how to take advantage of that and they do it. A few, very few of all the humanity - that is, us - realise what's going on, but we're negligigle quantity in the bigger picture. As they say: don't hate the player - hate the game…

Hmmm. Maybe you went for "full-fledged" distros, what you actually need may be as simple as Zeroshell: http://www.zeroshell.org/ or similar distro aimed to be a firewall/router/gateway. Think Jeopardy: What is XP? I can't afford to strip one of my systems down to a bare router/gateway, because the current one actually holds the Internet browser (Firefox 13), mail application (POP Peeper), video converter (VirtualDub), video/audio playback (GOM Player/Trout) and also acts as testing ground for the Unicode version of AutoHotkey for my scripts. So I do need a full-fledged operating system that can do all the above (and more, if/when required), without having to download updates/app(lication)s/drivers/whatnot from the Internet every day/week/etc. This could easily grow into a heavy debate. But it all boils down to having the bare minimum (as compared to a Windows installation), having good defaults, having the ability to easily (and preferrably within a GUI) tweak different aspects of applications and the OS itself and ultimately having a wide range of choices in every regard. Neither latest Windows nor Linux offer that. I actually managed to leave a window hung with no ability to close it even forcibly, on Linux Mint. At least in Windows - any version - I can/know how to spawn the task manager (or a replacement of it) to kill the hung window. And the media players in Linux are that stupid that they cannot pause the screensaver/monitor sleep while playing a video file! I see sloppy programming on both sides. And now with Windows 10 apparently free (of charge) I see complete lack of interest and care for users' needs/desires, more than earlier when they actually asked for a lot of money for a bad (compared to nothing but common-sense) operating system.

First off, try to find if there's a BIOS upgrade available for that machine - it may accept a Pentium III as many P II machines do. Some boards have an automatic position for the dip-switch and that, in conjunction with a BIOS update, may allow you to run a better CPU such as the P III. But you do need to read a detailed manual for your board to see if such option is available. EDIT: Also please take into account that the slot adapter may be defective. I have a slotket adapter (socket 370 to Slot 1) that fried me a few CPUs before I realised it, so…

From everything I read here and in linked articles, Windows 10 is nothing but a personalised and evil Microsoft's view of a Linux operating system. These last days I've been searching hard for a Linux distribution that could succesfully replace the XP that currently acts as ICS and DHCP for my local computers. I've tried a few distros and read documentation on many others, downloaded a few (and depleted my 5GB monthly download quota) and still have others to download and test. But a common denominator for all these Linux builds are: - (un)guided opaque installations of desired/required applications/drivers - constant system updates - opaque access to various system tweaks In view of the above, an Internet access appears to be mandatory at least for the first installation and configuration. One would think downloading a full CD (or DVD, for certain distros) would allow them to install and configure a readily usable system. Unfortunately that is not the case, because many features - some actually critical such as local networking - may not work partially or at all. Now, Windows 10 appears to be merely a network (read 'cloud') terminal, where updates are constantly required, where Internet access is mandatory for certain apps/functions, where system changes/tweaks are hard or impossible to perform, where most applications are delivered through opaque installers and some probably even not allowed to install/run. I see a pattern here: the users shouldn't know what's going on with their systems - "THEY" know better, everything's automated and the users should ONLY obey - it's "in their best interest" anyway. Let me ask a multiple-facet question now: if the Windows sources were available, how many people out there would be able to actually build themselves the whole OS? How many would even think of doing that? And the applications… How many people would build themselves the Firefox browser, as open-source as it is? How many people would build themselves Adobe Photoshop? Or any other heavy applications which require specific SDKs, DDKs, building environments, hardware, OS etc? Yeah, similarly, a lot of people are using various Linux distros and asociated applications but a negligible part of them actually have the time, knowledge and drive to actually build EVERYTHING from scratch. So Windows could actually contain anything, Linux could actually contain anything and almost nobody would care. People use things as they are because they either don't have the knowledge, hardware, software, time or any combination thereof to pull their own VERIFIED versions of the software. So now the final question is: if most of us are unable to find/understand/build the best working/entertainment environment and there's no way to customize the existing (scarce) options to our own desire, what the heck are we to do?! Solutions: - Accept Windows/Linux as they are and trust them (more or less) blindly - Build our own revolutionary operating system(s) and applications - Give up computers completely and forever P.S. The way I see it, Windows Defender means 'a defender of Windows' (as in 'THE operating system'), not at all the defender of the user that operates the machine and their valuable data.

And how can you tell them apart…? Hooray, new jobs for an increasedly large world population! Home Appliances Network Auditor - best job in the 21st century! Don't they need some credible reasons to "visit" our homes every now and then, see if there's any "abnormal" activity, snoop around, maybe place some extra "bugs" if the national security requires it (as if using Win10 wouldn't be enough)…?

Oh, it's fine by me.

Well, I agree with Paul Brian's point of view except for one thing - and if I'm wrong please correct me: the screen of a Sinclair Spectrum Z80 computer was white, not black.

FS Image Viewer v5.5 has been released. Unfortunately same issues as before: - 'Save as' dialog won't appear unless KernelEx is specifically set to 98SE/ME compatibility (may work with 2000/XP too - haven't checked) - Saving as different image type won't allow 'Options' (greyed out button) unless an extension is manually specified for the output file It's sad that they couldn't (wouldn't?) fix such trivial (IMHO) issues. But hey, it still (mostly) works, with workarounds. (I've only tried the portable zip version)

The IE6 requirement is misleading - it's not IE as 'the browser' that is needed but a few (updated) system files that come with the IE package and cannot (usually) be found/installed otherwise. I vaguely remembered this issue popped up in the past and stepping on my pride and using the search - Google is banned from my computers - I found one of my replies that seems to be related to the missing chevron issue as reported by jds back then: link However there may still be something else to tweak/update to get it fixed. Unfortunately I don't know what that is. Installing IE6 (a bare minimum installation may be enough) could fix it.