Oxford Hachette Dictionary on Seven?

[NoelC]

Apps positively suck (note: no negativity).

 

-Noel

[bphlpt]

While I positively agree with this sentiment:

 

Apps positively suck (note: no negativity).

 

I do like this:

 

OT though of course every form of perversion - within limits - is a form of freedom, the good guys at iobit have a queer bi-polar attitude:

http://www.iobit.com/en/iobit-winmetro.php

http://www.iobit.com/en/iobitstartmenu8.php

 

If only everyone, especially including MS, would take this approach, and make the GUI a distinct and separate part of the OS that can be easily changed as desired, similar to the way that Linux users can choose between GNOME, KDE and others, harkening back to the days when it was popular to change the shell from what MS provided, eg Blackbox, bbClean and others of their ilk.  ( I'm sure themers would absolutely love it! )  MS could concentrate on adding and improving actual useful features while others could concentrate on providing options on the look, if folks wanted that.  I would think this would also make it easier to adapt the OS to the various platforms including desktop, tablet, phone, POS and kiosks.  Since the vast overwhelming push-back on the later versions of the OS have been GUI related, this might remove the impediment many folks have had to upgrading.

 

Though I guess from MS's perspective, they might be afraid that if the user's system could be made to look and operate exactly the same, no matter which version was under the hood, people might take the approach of "Why bother upgrading?", rather than "Why wouldn't I want to upgrade if it will look and operate the same as it always did, but faster, more secure, and with extra new capabilities?"

 

It will never happen, but I can dream.

 

Cheers and Regards

[jaclaz]

@bhplt

 

From experience, and once said that I find, like the board skin, the possibility for the final user to change the shell to one of his/her liking a basic freedom, a line needs to be drawn.

 

I do understand how there is the need for company PC's to have a "same" shell so that as an example workers that use the same machine on subsequent shifts or that move from one workstation to another find themselves in a "same" graphical environment.

 

Unlike most people that don't like the NCI and that wish the return of the "classic" UI, I find that the NCI, notwithstanding it being an abomination of ugliness and lost functionalities is well within the fair choices of the MS (demented) designers for the new OS's, of course I wish they had made it more easily swappable with something else, but this possibility of changing the shell should be available only to final "single" users or - alternatively - company wide.

 

What I consider a form of perversion is the sheer idea of a third party of proposing to apply a NCI like interface over an actually good, working and tested one, but much more than that this snippet:

http://www.iobit.com/en/iobit-winmetro.php

By displaying useful shortcuts such as weather, calendar, news, stocks, and frequently used programs with highly recognizable large icons, WinMetro turns your desktop to a productive work station with fast access to all your programs and files.

 

send shivers down my spine as all these years I managed to be fairly productive using an accessory called "window" to look outside and see what the weather is, another one called casually wall calendar to see what day it is (even during a blackout) and had no §@ç#ing news and stocks on the desktop to distract me from work.

 

The app in itself is ok, the message IMHO much less so, something like:

Even if you cannot afford the new Windows 8/8.1 now you can have the same senseless, distracting and offending to the eye UI on your XP/Vista/7. Stop worrying, you can now also reduce your productivity even on good, working versions of the windows OS.

 

 

would have been more truthful .

 

jaclaz

[bphlpt]

Fair enough.  I hereby change my previous "I do like this" to "I like the concept of a changeable UI for company wide or home personal use applications, even though this particular implementation below might not be the best example."

 

Cheers and Regards

[pointertovoid]

Happy that the fine people (which I like all) could settle their dantesque  divergence of interpretation.

 

£15 or 50€ are for an app... I like to own forever software I buy, use it offline (some computers never touch the Internet in my home), go on using it when the editor has disappeared or lost a trial - and the software should start in <<1s please. All that speaks in favour of older applications and against online apps.

 

Paper editions too would cost some $40, but for six languages from several editors, I appreciate the Cd-rom weight. Quicker too because I use to write on a computer.

 

Which leaves me with the v2 of Oxford at £343 (which one Amazon buyer could run on 64b Seven but with an error window at each start ), possibly some adapter stack (I have to try), or switch to Collins-Robert or to Harrap's.

[dencorso]

Not so. You could as well make the effort to get 98SE running in a VM, at £0 = 0€, and open a viable way to run not just that Dictionary, but many other old applications you already own, too.

[ralcool]

Besides the fact I run a Win7 system in 32bit mode and will continue doing so forever since that is what stores & runs my hoarded load of software since the 90's.

 

When I have to run  'Windows Media Viewer', an old 16bit program, which for me runs a Service Manual for a make of car.

 

I either run it on the 32bit system, or use VMware and run a legal licensed old copy of XP which is brought out of retirement to run the software in my laptop.

Its easy, its polished- and almost free.

 

Abandon-ware is a term which comes to mind.

 

So, yes. We Cobble bits of hardware / software together to run the needs of the day. Ideas and information are never obsolete.

 

Annoying it is to find when PAID licenses fail to activate still useful software on rebuilt or replacement hardware.  I have keys that just don't work anymore... or are often locked to specific software version numbers.

 

Age (of you, or the hardware) is not a factor in success.

[dencorso]

Abbandonware... lots wishful thinking and so many words... and yet it does not even exist, from the point-of-view of law.

Either one has valid licences or it's just warez, no matter how much one may wish to sugar-coat it.

[NoelC]

There's a balance to be struck...

 

On one end of the spectrum, there are those who want things to "just work" in the extreme.  Perhaps these folks would be most suited to using a Mac, where you pay money, get a system that you never have to think about, just turn on the power and have your hand held as you run the apps provided.  Notably at this end of the spectrum the emphasis on maintaining compatibility with older software is at a minimum.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who might call themselves "geeks".  These folks don't balk at the challenge of opening the hood, tinkering, maybe visiting the junk yard for parts.  And with suitable machinations even the most ancient software still can be run.

 

We all fall somewhere in this range.  Some of us have things like virtual machines running old versions of Windows, while others might consider that too much trouble.  Some eschew the newest versions of Windows because they don't perceive value in recent changes, while others get right into them.

 

I ventured into territory I shouldn't have, above, where I judged pointertovoid's desire to "get geeky" to be relatively low.  I fear I've insulted a number of folks.  I am sorry, I should not have done that.  "Getting geeky" is often a LOT of fun.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

I don't think you insulted anyone , and there can be all shades of green in this (nice) Venn diagram:

 

it's when someone finds himself/herself outside of the green area that the troubles may arise....

 

jaclaz

[pointertovoid]

I've carried on more short trials about what runs or not on 64b Seven.

 

Hardware:

• My Bjc80 printer doesn't, because Canon provides no x64 driver, and I couldn't install the i32 Nt nor 9x drivers. Or is there some universal driver? I bought the Bjc80 in 1996 but it's the best printer I've ever had.
• My noname Chinese Usb-to-parallel adapter works but the Bjc80 behind it doesn't: still lacking a driver.
• The Soundblaster Ct4810 (Audio on Pci) doesn't work for lack of an x64 driver.
• But my noname Chinese soundcard in a Usb connector does.
• My mobo (P45) has sound, but I don't see my interest in smuggling Kb888111 in my machine.
• Seven brings a Geforce 9800gt driver seemingly as efficient as from nVidia directly.
• The ich10r in Ahci mode officiates silently.

Excepted the Oxford-Hachette Dictionary, language software has run:

• The Bibliorom v2 runs fine after my improved installation method.
• Cordial 2005=v11 runs as usual.
• The Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, 22a. edición = v1.0 on Cdrom, installs (20min) and works - just as slowly as usual: 5s launch and relaunch from an X25E on an E8600! Improve v2 please!

Drawing applications:

• Paint Shop Pro 4 would work in an admin session if granting some authorisation at every launch, annoying. In a user session it must be unbearable. One more serious obstacle to 64b Seven, because it's the bitmap drawing application that launches instantly, does what I need and isn't bloated with features I don't want.
• Paint Shop Pro 6 would work in an admin session (run as admin there), but is supposedly annoying in a user session. Serious obstacle again.
• QCad 1.5.1 seems to run.
• TurboCad 9.2 seems to run.

Other applications:

• Maple 7 looks fine.
• Namo 2006 too.
• Colin Mc Rae 2005 rushes easily.
• CPropepShell too - last update was for Win95.
• RunAsDate v1.40 could launch FdTach 0.903, but I didn't check if FdTach operates.

A bit more about RunAsDate in the Web development thread about setting the clock...

[NoelC]

Just in case you missed it, Win 7 does allow you to disable UAC - which would make it unnecessary for you to run anything "As Administrator".  The ability to turn it off was provided primarily for compatibility with suites of older programs that require access to things Microsoft no longer thinks you should have access to.

 

There are those who think UAC is essential, and will predict doom and gloom if you turn it off.  It's not a given.  There are those of us who have run systems for years without it and guess what, we're still here.  If someone advises against disabling it, ask them to explain just what will happen, and weigh that against what you've been experiencing all along since before using Windows 7 and having UAC to begin with.  Then make your own choice.

 

-Noel

Edited June 8, 2015 by NoelC

[jaclaz]

Just for the record, Paint Shop Pro is exactly one of those programs that (senselessly) fiddle with something they shouldn't (namely some areas of the Registry) the same issue happens on XP if the user has not Administrator credentials:

http://www.realmtech.net/forum/164

different version may need further "fixes", see also:

http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/59871-giving-up-uac-2.html#post540567

 

Set aside the discussion on UAC (which is mostly a nuisance IMHO and BTW) over the years third party programmers have (sometimes induced by the poor, incomplete and sometimes deceiving documentation by MS, sometimes by sheer stupidity or by excess of self-esteem/mania of grandeur) abused of the Registry contributing to making it the mess it often becomes.

 

jaclaz

[pointertovoid]

Many thanks for the hint to UAC which, as a W2k user, I completely missed as you guessed.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/user-account-control

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/turn-user-account-control-on-off#1TC=windows-7

UAC is annoying for sure, but for people who have only admin accounts to do everything, it is an added security. And as MS puts: "In Windows 7, UAC is now less intrusive and more flexible" - understand: Vista users complained.

 

I had begun to imagine that Windows could sandbox the applications that modify files or keys they shouldn't: say, Paint Shop Pro would modify freely its own excerpt of [Hklm], find the values again next time, but leave the common ones untouched. Though, this has drawbacks: for instance the associations of file extensions cannot be local to one application. Probably insoluble, at least difficult.

 

----------

 

Don't be too hard with the early Windows applications programmers. The change from Msdos to W95 was so huge that they were happy to achieve anything that ran.

 

MS has recommendations for many things - so much that one can't read it all. How many people outside the Scsi community seriously imagined that sector sizes could one day differ from 512B? At the W95 time when protections were lower, normal programmers would easily bypass any recommendation about [Hklu] versus [Hklm] that might make a difference in some nebulous future.

 

----------

 

One additional hardware that won't run on 64b Win is my good and recently acquired scanner: Canon LiDE 80. I didn't even need to try, this is perfectly known on the Internet, as Canon supplies no x64 drivers. Blistering barnacles!

 

Though, XpMode would be a solution to this too, according to one user. Possibly for the Bjc80 printer as well.

 

Or I install the 32b Seven instead - but I wanted to jump at once to 64b.

[NoelC]

If you have a powerful enough machine, as ralcool mentioned above, consider getting a copy of VMware and being able to then install other operating systems inside virtual machines.  You could even put up a copy of Win2K in one of them.

 

It sounds a bit daunting at first, but once you get over that small bump it's really quite straightforward to set up a VM, install an OS, then use it for the things you just can't do on your host system.  I have had as many as 5 VMs running at once (XP, Vista, 7 32 bit, 7 64 bit, and 8.1) just to see if I could manage it.  I guess the only downside is that you take on the task of managing more systems, but you need only do as much of that as you want.

 

-Noel