Jump to content

Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

Recommended Posts

Following up on the discussion about obsolete systems, I was going to post about how the anti-XP crowd will be sorely disappointed when developers don't abandon the platform overnight. As evidence I was going to use Windows 2000, which is either still supported or was dropped only fairly recently when its usage dropped below 1%. When looking up when Firefox dropped support, which was about a year ago, I stumbled across this thread.

In it, the topic creator explains how to patch the registry and add DLLs in W2K to allow installation and usage of newer Firefox versions. I figured someone would have done something like this by now and found the information useful. I would think others would, too, but, instead, the poster gets dogpiled and vilified for deigning to operate Windows 2000. The author is a good sport about it and puts forth one reasonable argument after another as the mob moves goalposts from security to aesthetics to performance and he actually wins over a few of the overreacting commenters.

What's funny, though, are the kneejerk posters claiming that he'll be part of a botnet any day now. The guy is part of a community that hacks installers and backports security patches from XP. He's clearly already done a far deeper risk analysis than any of them and it should be obvious he knows what he's doing.

So when did this vilification of older systems start? I don't remember it being around past a few years ago. Sure, people were gently ribbed for holding onto DOS, Windows 3, and Mac OS Classic, but I don't recall the aggressive advocacy to drop stuff that is working after the user explained his case. Another user joins the thread and says he was dogpiled even worse. I didn't read that thread, and it didn't link properly from the forum but after reformatting the URL I got it to work.

When I worked as a field tech I was still coming across NT4 machines a few years after support dropped, and I'm pretty sure its market share was higher than 2000's at the same point in the life cycle but could be wrong about that. I don't remember NT4 being an IT pariah but maybe it was and I didn't notice.

It would be fun to setup Windows XP RTM and attempt to avoid infection. IE6 would need to be avoided. The biggest challenge would be bypassing the SP1 and SP2 checks on software, but that can be backported (forward-ported?) from the 2000 knowledge base. I have a feeling that once Chrome or Firefox is in place, it won't be a big deal. Office 2003 should work even without SP1 installed, but the service packs and 2007 converters do have SP2 checks.

Great info and links! :thumbup

When did this vilification of older operating systems ( and software too ) start? That's easy, during 2006 and into 2007 when Vista became a lightning rod for Microsoft. I posted links throughout this thread, but if you follow the Windows Vista Team Blog you can see the evolution. The blog is now archived and shows newest entries first, so I set that link to the last page ( currently 17 ) and at the bottom of it is the first post on April 20, 2006. Things start off normal, Vista blog announced and each subsequent entry relives those moments in time. As it progressed and various things became known to the public, entries got defensive and comments grew hostile ( and keep in mind that they began deleting comments somewhere along the way, just like Sinofsky would do later in the Destroying Windows 8 blog ).

Anyway the point is, Microsoft did not expect anything except love for their new baby. This was the first time I can remember where the Internet began to live up to its potential as a public utility to get uncensored feedback directly into the eyes and ears of the principles involved ( yeah there were opportunities before Vista for public pushback, the early WinXP problems, Office 2003 wasn't instantly loved either, WinME fiasco, discontinuation of Win9x, but none that I can recall caused a high profile backlash like Vista ). So Microsoft faced increasing disdain for the Vista direction. DRM was right on top of the list and the glacial performance on all except cutting edge computers at the time. Now how I would describe the events is that Microsoft became angry and went into siege mentality mode ( and never turned it off to this day ). They invented or accelerated "astro-turfing" around this time somehow enlisting minions to hit the websites and tell us all how wrong we were. They also got some infamous shills like Thurrott and Bott to act as surrogates with transparent cheerleading disguised as tech columns. Then they did the Mojave thing and released Vista without a single change from the betas that I can remember ( just likeWindows 8 ). Later, Windows 7 came and went with carefully scripted faux-contrition publicity, but in truth they changed very little, although it is hard to complain when compared to the Vista and Windows 8 middle-finger act .

This whole thing spawned the vilification and all the those tired bogus arguments: "fearing change", "insecure legacy OS", yada yada yada. In fact they are good bellwethers identifying MicroZealots, and now MetroTards. Naturally they appear for other operating systems, companies and industries as well, but I think most times you hear those arguments it will be emanating from a MicroParrot. I'm no psychiatrist, and Microsoft is no single person to psychoanalyze, but they really seem to have been damaged by the criticism and outcry around Vista. And since Vista needed to replace Windows XP ( laughable now, but they really really wanted this ), they and their minions set out to destroy it. Another parallel to today: there was a small window of opportunity for Microsoft to have recovered bigtime in 2007 or so, but it would have meant an about-face and apparently to Ballmer that means losing face, all they had to do was re-release an updated Windows XP MCE retail and it would have dwarfed all sales up to that point. I remember a lot of people suggesting this, Thurrott I believe called it "XP Reloaded" but same as today, they proved arrogant and stubborn. BTW, imagine if all the Vista pushback wasn't successful. DRM would have been stepped up in big Windows 7 and we might even have a Windows 8box for the current cycle. That's how precedents work. Foot in the door. Camels nose under the tent.

NOTE: Windows XP RTM would work just fine, and as you say without using MSIE ( except for Windows Update ) and most importantly behind a router. I'm really not sure if the inbound-only firewall ( SP2 ) plays a big role if you use a hardware firewall in a router. I have never even seen a notification for mine. The other big thing about Windows RTM, specifically if you were to "install it" rather than VM it, is that it is stuck in time in the 120 GB or less HDD era. It was SP1 that brought 48-bit LBA. This was one of those bad nightmares. There was an MSKB article that had people going insane ... Q303013 ( now edited I believe ). And it must have been one of the single most confusing articles ever released by them, especially since it was full of warnings of data loss. So, strictly from a security standpoint, WinXP RTM will install and operate fine within the confines of a 120 GB or less HDD, but to preserve your sanity just use SP3 where most files are dated April 2008, newer than both Vista RTM and Vista SP1 and just a year younger than Win 7 RTM.

If anyone is wondering what the latest Windows XP FUD looks like, well here is the self-serving notice inserted into that above mentioned knowledge base article ...

  • Important notice for users of Windows XP: To continue receiving security updates for Windows, make sure that you're running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3). The support for Windows XP with Service Pack 3 ends April 8, 2014. If you’re running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3) after support ends, to ensure that you will receive all important security updates for Windows, you need to upgrade to a later version, such as Windows 8.

Well I'm scared. :no:

EDIT: typos

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Anyone else preferring the Windows 8 look to the Windows 8.1 one?

The start button without the menu makes zero sense. If there is no menu, and only the full screen abomination exists, then the buttonless look fits the style more.

The start button makes no sense now, because clicking on it draws nothing atop of it. It feels odd that a button switches the GUI completely on its head when you click on it. The hidden button from Windows 8.0 fits the insane paradigm more, because it's hidden in the corner just like the other Windows 8 monster, the charms bar, - you click on the hidden charms bar and you get metro. You click on the hidden start button, and you get metro, too. The now visible button is even more foreign, because it promises something (a menu in the desktop GUI, instead of invoking metro) that isn't there anymore.

Of course, I prefer the Windows 7 look and feel over metro OS, but Windows 8.1 is even worse than 8.0.

Edited by Formfiller
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the links. The last commenter at the end of the first article makes the extremely cogent point, that government access to private business data not only represents a privacy threat, but also presents vast new opportunities for industrial espionage and official corruption:

I was at this debate in the House of Commons and one point raised was in relation to business data. Currently the Prism affair has focused on consumer services in terms of how interception is generally targeted at individuals.

However, the concern for businesses is how this could be used for commercial intelligence. If sensitive business data is stored in a foreign cloud then it’s possible that data could be extracted for the benefit of local business, where that is competitive e.g. aviation, defence, medical.

And of course it's not just that officials in Country A might want to feed data from companies in Country B to their own industries (perhaps for a handsome fee), but that officials in (say) the U.S. would be able to feed business data to competitors even in the same country. Pick your motive, it doesn't matter -- what matters is the fact that they can do this easily and without anybody else even knowing about it.

That first article led me, eventually, to this nugget:

Elad Yoran, CEO of cloud-security startup Vaultive, said he has fielded “dozens and dozens and dozens” of inquiries since the PRISM news hit about how companies using SaaS programs can protect their data.

“I don’t think there’s a company out there that will consider Google or Office 365 without asking themselves the question about unauthorized — from their perspective — disclosure to the government and whether they’re willing to take the risk that their data is sitting unencrypted in a database, out of their control,” Yoran said.

One possible solution (needless to say, with the proviso that laws are subject to change) may lie in the proposed creation of a kind of Festung Deutschland: :)

Reinhard Clemens, CEO of Deutsche Telekom’s T-systems group, wants regulators to create a new certification to enable super-secure clouds to be built in Germany or elsewhere in Europe. There’s much pent-up demand for such offerings among customers that don’t want to expose their data to U.S. government scrutiny, as the U.S. Patriot Act requires, he said.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So when did this vilification of older systems start? I don't remember it being around past a few years ago. Sure, people were gently ribbed for holding onto DOS, Windows 3, and Mac OS Classic, but I don't recall the aggressive advocacy to drop stuff that is working after the user explained his case.

I think that you'll always find a certain proportion of people among the general population who are novelty lusters -- they crave new things for no other reason than that they are new or different. But I also think you're right that there seems to be a sharp "edge" to them that wasn't there before. They've moved past personally loving novelty to scorning others who don't share their enthusiasm. Maybe that sentiment was there all along and the Internet has enabled them to band together into a "novelty faction," enhancing the intolerance effect.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All they have done really is absolute minimum to limit damages and are putting some lipstick (Windows 8.1) to fat pig ( Windows 8). Also they still believe they were right and people only need visual clue to start screen and that people are happy with flat interface and don't need start menu and full Windows Aero as options. They think this is all that is necessary and hope people will fall for this trap and buy Windows 8.1. Of course this is unlikely going to happen and Windows 8.1 will also fail and in time of Windows 9 Microsoft will likely finally understand that forcing their way doesn't work.

Lipstick on a pig -- you nailed it! :thumbup

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dictatorship and cultic worship of vendors is very en vogue nowadays in IT circles. Just look at the metrotards and their "my way or the highway" attitude. Think the Firefox thread is bad? Here's a really retarded example:

Some months ago I bought for cheap the game "Dawn of War: Soulstorm". It's a few years old, but I can remember that the predecessor had a function which kept the bases on the metamap in the regions alive, which you had already conquered. This functionality was missing in Soulstorm. I went to their forums and found this old thread where people noticed the same thing and wished the function would return, at least as an option. The drama and abuse towards the "complainers" is something to behold. "How dare you to want an option! I like it now as it is, my way or the highway! Be grateful the company even made the game!". The attitude is quite metrotastic in that thread. All this emotion, abuse and whoring over a frigging game!

This industry is getting seriously deranged.

Yeah, that is unbelievable!! What is the matter with these folks? Do they prefer having their choices limited and being told what to do?? :rolleyes:

I guess that in some way this goes along with my comment to @HalloweenDocument12 about people who lust for novelty and are contemptuous of those who don't share that sentiment.

This industry is getting seriously deranged.

Or...is it society in general, that is? :ph34r:

bpalone

Just as you said.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
Link to comment
Share on other sites

JFYI, we have a thread about ReactOS if anyone is interested.

I put ReactOS on a live CD and tried it on three different computers. It crashed during booting on a Core2 Duo E7600 and even an XP-era Pentium 4 machine, but it loaded and ran on a Pentium II box. Then I ran Prime95 on it, and the performance was almost 40% faster than Windows 98, the OS that's on the HDD. Of course, that's probably due to the fact that ReactOS is alpha software and isn't weighed down by all sorts of additional stuff, but still it was nice to see that it worked.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In this particular example, the population group consisted of Firefox users, board administrators, maybe developers (wasn't paying attention to the board tags). While it's certainly understandable that they cannot dedicate resources to supporting a marginal system like Windows 2000 and must advance requirements due to practical realities of Visual Studio, it seems odd that the audience of Firefox, a product which competes with Microsoft, would be diametrically opposed to the product running on an old Windows version. Firefox running on Windows 2000 represents a decoupling from the so-called upgrade treadmill. At one point, supplanting the underlying OS was a goal of Netscape's, so it's odd to see friction when evidence of this is seen. Then again, this wouldn't be the first bit of evidence that the Mozilla organization has lost its way.

I suppose certain attitudes become so pervasive and reinforced that it becomes difficult to recognize that having them is against the interests of those arguing. Such could partially explain the bizarre trend of pro bono evangelizing of large companies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@JorgeA: I'm talking about this: http://www.webpronews.com/samsung-galaxy-s3-compares-iphone-users-to-sheep-2012-04

Anyway, the big companies (MS, Apple, Google, Samsung) treat the consumers as sheep.

Let's be fair on this one, but there's a sheep mentality for a vast part of the consumers out there. It doesn't matter anymore functionality, usability, productivity but "the newest toy around", even though the respective consumer will use only 5%"features and new capabilities" of the of the "newest device".

I can can create and work on documents and spreadsheets using Win98SE and Office97, but hey, it's much much "cooler" to use" Win1.0+touch when it works" (aka Win8) and Office 2013 (which looks like a neutered blank piece of paper).

Every dumb-a** "IT analyst" speaks about "security" concerns when it comes to <past> OSes, but praises the new "revolutionary OS" and it's "surprising security" until...the first FIX.After that, they quietly hide behind their desks, because if you take the respective analyst by his cheap tie, we will tremble like a spineless-worm that he is.

Edited by Win2k3EE
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This in a website specialized in (usually very good) hardware reviews:

Windows 8.1, and Why You Should Let Go of Windows 7

... (Tiles) is hated on desktops, particularly by the PC enthusiast community. Much of that hatred is misdirected, and is a waste of time ...
... With the new Windows 8.1 Release Preview, it's clear that Microsoft isn't going back on the direction Windows 8 took, and so as PC enthusiasts, we're forced to ask ourselves if putting up a fight against it, by clinging on to Windows 7, is really worth it ...
... With the Windows 8.1 Release Preview we got to play with, Microsoft made it clear that it's not going to make steps backwards ...
... In conclusion ... Suck it up ...

steve-ballmer-chief-borg.jpg

"Submit! Resistance is futile!"

I'm being reminded of the Ardennes Offensive (total movilization, last desperate gamble, etc).

One commenter left this gem:

penny%20arcade.jpg

Another commenter made me broke my personal coffee-sprayed-monitor record again:

I have some ocean front property in Arizona for those who buy into the theory that Win 8 is good for PCs and that you should abandon Win 7. Lots of luck with that POV.
Edited by TELVM
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well here's the new headline: Windows 8 now up to 5.10% market share as it finally passes Windows Vista

Here is an interesting quote from the article:

...Windows has lost share every month except for March.

and

This loss was OS X’s and Linux’s gain, which grabbed 0.13 percentage points (to 7.20 percent) and 0.02 percentage points (to 1.28 percent), respectively.

From another tracking site, I have watched Windows usage decline for years. Not a large decline, but enough that anyone in management would be concerned as it marks an overall trend. Now, to be honest, part of this slow continued decline could be the passing on of some of the user base (dead people only vote, they don't use computers) or people just getting fed up using a computer and stopping the use thereof, or they have gotten fed up with the internet and stopped being there to be counted. But, if management were watching the trend, they certainly wouldn't be giving the one finger salute to the user base.

My guess is that at the end of all of this, Microsoft will have publicly demonstrated how the 800 pound gorilla can really go on a diet and emerge the new 200 to 250 pound gorilla in the room. That is pure speculation on my part, and I have been proven wrong many times in the past.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My guess is that at the end of all of this, Microsoft will have publicly demonstrated how the 800 pound gorilla can really go on a diet and emerge the new 200 to 250 pound gorilla in the room. That is pure speculation on my part, and I have been proven wrong many times in the past.

Why not? Happened to IBM. Their middle finger to their users was the PS/2 with its expensive, locked-down Microchannel peripheral interface and unfinished OS/2 operating system. By the time IBM gave up on the PS/2 people literally forgot that "PC" was short for "IBM PC", and the rest of the industry had formed consortia to handle standardization independent of IBM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It looks like they are he!! bent on destruction. Just saw this other headline:

Microsoft to shut down TechNet subscription service

The article is available here.

Some of the comments that I read were interesting. I wasn't aware that tech people used it to keep up with the new offerings and to gain experience with the various versions. So, if a large enough segment is using the service for that, they (Microsoft) will have put another round into their foot. It seems that they have absolutely no desire to keep the enterprise segment or the professionals that actually use a computer to get work done.

bpalone

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...