Windows 10: What You Need to Know

[propbeanie]

One of the things that cracks me up about Microsoft and their "joining" the consortium, is that now they have a "Developer Feature" in Windows 10 that allows you to run Linux... :har: - I wonder how "secure" that would be... ??

[Skybird]

What a total mess. I have lost both my two DVDs where I had saved my patch archive for a fresh Windows 7 installation. The original, and the copy - both gone. I included the patches released until SP1, and then the patches from SP1 until summer 2015. It did not include anything later, avoiding most of those messy later patches dealing with Microsoft'S brutal GWX assault-campaign and the earlier attempts of inverse-installing W10-spy technology into Windows 7.

These DVDs were my holy grail. I forsaw the probolems I now have, and knew they were precious therefore. They would have allowed me to reinstall W7 without needing to access Microsoft's infested malware database online.

I desperately searched for an hour now foran old source, website, link, whatever, where I could get such an old patch archive and download it, and not from Microsoft. Two years ago, such places existed, today I find none anymore.

Has anyone a trustworthy link? The problem with PC magazinse' according offeringsd is that they always update their archive to the latest status, so I get all the crap from the past two years with them as well. I want nothing beyond summer 2015 at the latest.

I will never forgive Microsoft what a mess they have turned my gaming life into.

And don'T tell me about W10. I will never get into, period. Also do not tell me about Linux, I use it already for anything else. But the kind of simulations I want to play, and Linux - do not go well together.

[Skybird]

To be precise, of course SP1 from 2011 is still downloadable. I need a patch archive for the patches from 2011 until late 2014 or early 2015 at max - not beyond.

No need to talk of SP2 either, that one is from Spring 2016 and thus includes too much of the toxic stuff already that I want to avoid. The patches - for 64 Bit btw - of the year late 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 - this is what I am after.

[Buddahaid]

Have you looked here? They pretty much have the full archive to dig through.
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx

[Skybird]

That is Microsoft. Since microsoft repeatedly now have intentionally mislabled and ill-described malware they wanted to spread, my point is right about avoiding Microsoft servers alltogether. I do not trust them that they will only do what they say they only will do. They lied too often.


Did you know how I installed W7 fresh two years ago? I unplugged the internet wire, installed W7, installed SP1, installed my patch archive, installed XP antispy (a German GUI for changing some dozen registry settings to prevent Windows phoning home all the time) and sealed W7 off from web-depending "services". Next I installed MBAM and a second security suite. Windows update has not been run, not a single time, never.

Not before all this was done, I then installed the router and internet connection, went online, updated virus defintions and that stuff, and finally registered windows 7. Then I shut down even that channel again. And later they became pushy again to install W10 malware tehzcnoloigy into exiosting W7.

Nicht mit mir. Ich hab die Schnauze voll.

I do not want Micorsoft having access to my system anymore. Trust has been murdered too many times. W10 has been aggressively pushed and thrown in like a Molotow cocktail through he closed and locked window one time too often.

[Skybird]

And here is some food for thought.

People so often think just because they have turned off some privacy options, they would be safe. What they do not realise is that software settings - thats what options are - and physical switches (physical interrurption of cables and the like), are not the same.

I just have checked my system a bit, as I use to do three or four times or so per year. In my windows update history, there should be no entry at all, since windows update service is switched off from all beginning on, since I installed this system two years ago. I had SP1 and patches done via DVD archive, not onöline updating, and the latter is what that history file is recording. Since no onöline upodatign ever took place, there should be no entry. And until spring, it was like this: no entry indeed.

Now there is one single entry, from May, several days after my last checkup. KB4012212, 15.05.2017.

It shouldn't be there. You hardly can seal off a system any more than I have done with mine. The update is related to the wannacry mess earlier this year, which was reported about. Somebody obviously decided it was so important that my isolated, sealed off, shut, closed and blocked system gets this update, that he nevertheless and without my knowledge squeezed it through the wire and onto my HD.

The thing is not whether or not wannacry justifies this or not, whether it saved me from worse evil or not. The point is - it was possible to do so. When they can do it with this one, they can do it with just any piece of code they want to enforce on people. And the history of the GWX campaign shows that they bypassed explicit defences against getting an enforced W10 update several tens if not hundreds of thousands of times. Not by misleading people (that too, but that counts separately), or mislabeled clicking pois, but simply against the techncial settings of users who said No.

This KB401221 update seems to be a defence against wannacry. Maybe it works for my best interest indeed, I don't know. But fact is I never gave consent to get it, I never was asked, I was not even aware of getting forced to get it, and I have deliberatly knocked down options of my system to get any updates by Microsoft at all. And I went far beyond the usual switches and option settings, but hacked some bit deeper into the registry to isolate my system from Microsoft's access.

KB4012212 should not be there, but now it is there. THAT, and only that is the point.

This weekend I will kill my W7 gaming system and reinstall all from new. And maybe I will leave out any game needing to be always online, and keep the internet wire unplugged after having registered W7. Surfing and emailing I already do via another (Linux) platform anyway.

[Rockin Robbins]

And here is some food for thought.

People so often think just because they have turned off some privacy options, they would be safe. What they do not realise is that software settings - thats what options are - and physical switches (physical interrurption of cables and the like), are not the same.
They may not even be software settings, just fake switches. It's been proven that with all Microsoft Windows telemetry switches off, Windows still sends lots of telemetry back to its telemetry servers daily.

It's worse than that. Those of us with experience know how to use the Hosts file to short-circuit Dynamic Name Server calls for addresses and keep websites from being accessible from the machine. Windows 10 ignores Hosts file user settings and communicates directly with the IP numbers of its telemetry hosts, against the wishes of the machine owner.

I don't know how they get out of their present position. They can talk nice all they want, but since they are not trusted, they can't ever get any traction. How do you unbreak a glass? Trust is like that.

[Buddahaid]

They're a business. I only trust any business to look after it's own interests. Windows is only a tool I use.

[Reece]

If only someone could come up with a windows program/application launcher without actually having windows.:yep:

I installed on my laptop dual boot Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux, I should have purchased a copy of Windows XP 64bit and Linux, most of my programs are XP based and will not run in Win 10 or Linux without a lot of messing around and sometimes just not possible.
Since I am stuck with the current setup I might turn off online access to Win 10 and import anything via Linux, Linux can atleast access Win 10 drives, still left with the problems of running Win XP programs.

Has anyone toyed with Win 10 virtual desktops? I tried XP here but have a lot of problems with drivers.:hmmm:

[Buddahaid]

I use VMware to run Xp on my Windows 10 system. It works great but you still have to own and install Xp. VMware is is an interface that will set aside 40G of HDD space for each virtual machine you want to create and upgrading it doesn't change the virtual machine content, just the interface. It also lets you use all the peripherals attached to your PC, DVD drive, printer, etc.

Downside is you still have to install the virtual machine operating system just like a normal install, and it doesn't run games very well. I use it to run older graphics software and CAD style programs that are broken in a 64 bit environment.

[Skybird]

I gave up on VMs under Linux , once I got myself to finally check it out closer. For those gamne/sim titles that I need Windows for, for example Assetto Corsa and Raceroom, or FSX, or SBP, I would not just need the sim running, but also additional controller hardware: Fanatec stuff, CH gear. The games ran like #### and drivers for the hardware messed things up even more. Linux drivers for these things: non-existent. So what use would it make for me to have any racing game running under Linux if I cannot use the - sophisticated - Fanatec hardware for game input? None, obviously.

Some of the games I use, are also available for Steam OS/Linux. That is nice, but still leaves out many other games, and simulations are an even worse aspect of it all.

Thats why I so desperately depend on Windows 7. If it would be all well with simulations and gaming in Linux land, i would have fired Windows 7 off my HD completely by now.

While there are exceptions to the rule, it still is a valid rule: Linux and the vast majority of games do not fit well together. Linux is for surfing and work - not for gaming in general. There are exceptions, but again: exceptions do not define the rule.

Driver support for all that hardware out there is one of the weak things of Linux.

My advise thus remains the same: two systems. One Windows gaming system, one Linux everything-else system. For hardcore gamers and simmers, Linux simply is not alternative.

Check steam, you will see that amny games are avialbole for Linux/SteamOS by now. But then, check out also how many games are not.

[Rockin Robbins]

Windows 10 snooping? Most users want us to record what they do on their PC says Microsoft (http://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-snooping-most-users-want-us-to-record-what-they-do-on-their-pc-says-microsoft/)

Microsoft proudly states that over 70% of users leave all data mining totally intact. They just don't care about their privacy or rights to use their computer as they wish. They probably love junk solicitation calls on their cell phones too.

RockinRobbins management mantra #1: If you treat people badly enough long enough they will demand it.

Corollary #1: Don't take people's acquiescence to an oppressive policy as evidence of how they would wish to be treated.
Corollary #2:People will readily act against their own self-interest with the right "encouragement."

[STEED]

Unfortunately people are willing to be bought and sold, personal information is the world's currency now. MS have jumped on the band wagon and it will just get worst. Hate to think what the world will be like in 10 years time.

[Rockin Robbins]

Don’t use Windows 10 to move data on your Android phone (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3221331/microsoft-windows/dont-use-windows-10-to-move-data-on-your-android-phone.html)

What do your expect when you use Windows Explorer/File Explorer to move, copy, paste, drag and drop files on your Android phone while connected with a USB cable? Well if you have Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 you expect it to just work normally. After all, your Android phone is just another disk drive, right?

But in Windows 10, you should know better by now. According to Jörg Wirtgen of German-language site heise.de:
There is an error in the USB MTP connection of Android and Windows 10 that leads to data loss if you move files on an Android device: If you connect the Android device to Windows 10 via USB, and then move files inside the device, the files are deleted from their source, but they don't reach the destination. Particularly precarious: The deleted data could not be recovered with any of the usual recovery tools; they disappeared irrevocably.

So don't move files. Moving is just copying and then deleting the source file anyway and apparently doing it that way works. The situation is sketchy and new info is developing. Be very careful and don't be surprised if that isn't enough to prevent losing files. I would be tempted to make a copy of files you want to operate on and only cut/copy/move the copy. If you lose it you still have the original.

Most scary is the line that the deleted data couldn't be recovered with any of the usual recovery tools. There was no recourse.

Just another cheery bit of news about the operating system that works "just fine!"

[Skybird]

That is a new dimension of planned obsolescence. :D

[propbeanie]

It's also how you "delete" the competition...

[Rockin Robbins]

https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/09/windows-7-aint-100734777-large.jpg (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3199373/windows-pcs/windows-by-the-numbers-windows-7-falls-further-behind-xps-march-to-retirement-pace.html)

The photo is a link. Here, according to Greg Keizer of Computerworld magazine, is the scoop. At 28 months before Windows 7 death, the majority of Windows computer users still use Windows 7. In fact, over the past 16 months, Windows 7 has actually GAINED .6%. With 28 months to go, XP was at 3 points lower percentage use than Windows 7 is now.

The reason is commercial use. Since Windows 10 is not secure and cannot be made secure, with its telemetry collecting your proprietary data and sending it who knows where twice a day, businesses cannot accept Windows 10 as an operating system. It just isn't going to happen.

Microsoft's refusal to bow down to customer needs will bear the same result as Walmart's closing of checkout lanes and insertion of self-checkout trying to force shoppers to cooperate with their plan of firing cashiers, and monopoly cable companies now looking to rip $200 a month from you for their "economical" bundle. There is a breaking point and suddenly, before they even have time to react, those companies will find themselves bankrupt.

I'm getting ready to fire Spektrum right now after they raised their most economical bundle over $160 per month. I'll buy internet only until competition comes along. Then they can whistle Dixie.

We are Customer. We are King. Serve us or die.

[Skybird]

They are not dying, they are doing too strong in server and cloud business. Their stocks are soaring. Also, their loobbyists are strongly connected in our corrupted politics and public administrations. Finally, I take it for granted that they have strong support by the US foreign and trade ministries. For these, MS spreading its OS is a weapon of economic warfare and espionage.

[mapuc]

When reading Skybird's comment I remembered a question

Some of you don't like Microsoft and other things related to this company. Some of you have on several occasion posted stories about Microsoft near death

Is this, due to your anti-Microsoft standpoint, a wishful thinking or do you have knowledge that tell us Microsofts will soon be history ?

We all have things we don't like and hope it will disappear or die fast(not human or animal) but sometimes its nothing more than wishful thinking.

Markus

[Skybird]

Mapuc,

just follow this thread and the links to various entries from tech blogs/sites in the past two years, and then draw your own conclusion.

Same about the market analysis linked here or in those blogs and essays.

Also in some other threads in this forum.

There are no new wrongs in Microsoft's policies and Windows recently. Only those old ones that people always want to forget.

[l02turner]

Hello, I have Win10 64bit Home vers. It appears the downloadable SH4 is a 32bit vers. With this affect the game starting and running? Is there anything I need to do?
Thanks,
Larry

[l02turner]

Read the thread about the MS abuse of privacy issues with interest. I resisted W10 as long as I could. I had to buy another laptop because the old one died and all I could find were machines with W10 loaded. I figured no problem, if need be I can load a copy of w8 I have the discs for. The problem I could not get around was that W8 would not recognize the drivers for the newer hard drives. And unfortunately W10 is such a monster it requires a large HDD just for W10. In frustration I gave up and lived with w10. but with all of these horror stories about the privacy issues I am sorry i did. Thanks for the education. When MS installed a major update without my permission I realized what a monster they are. Time for me to see if the SteamOS or Linux will help with my situation...

[Skybird]

l02tuner,

cant tell for sure on the 32Bit download of yours, but regarding your Windows 8 anmd laptop, you can improve your situation:

If your hardware allows, buy a second HD or SSD and put it in.

If not possible, take the one HD yo have, decrease the partition with Windows and games to what you need, make sure oyu have some reserves, then free the remaining space and form a second partition on it.

On this separate partition install Linux. You then have a dual boot system.

Use Linux for all your surfing, emailing, photoediting, twittering, text-writing, whatever it is. Use your Windows for just launching your games, nothing else.

Might need you to get yourself some educaiton on Linux, but trust me, it is not as bad as it sounds. i did that myself two years ago, with Linux Mint, two HDs in my tower. There are some possible traps, but properly prepared you should be able to avoid them. Linux is not as difficult as n on-Linux users think it is. However, it also is njot as pewrfect as Linux fans claim. Have reasonable expectations, then you cannot go wrong - and have reserves for getting positively surprised most likely.

If Windows wants to steal your data and privacy and wan ts to overweatch ever keystroke you make, then do not make data available to it and do not type texts and weblinks under Windows. That way they can only read your savegames, and your Steam account, and what games you play.

If you want to do multiplayer and live voice connection, yiu most accept some more compormise, but still: if you do not surf or work under Windows - not much they can learn aboout you.

You can be hit by bad Windows updates however. And there are many of these, you are no customerl but a beta tester. You pay them for this honour. Thats the deal. Delay updates, avpoiding them you cannot. But I think in W10 Home you canot delay updates without metering your connection.

Dual boot or two separate systems is the way to go now. IMO the only reasonable way. Or to skip gaming alltogether (or going consoles), and so leave Windows behind completely.

[Rockin Robbins]

Linux Desktop Nearly Doubles Market Share in 3 Months (https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linux_market_share_doubled_linux_kern el_413_release_more_linux_stories&utm_term=2017-09-17)

One of the metrics for how well a dominant operating system is doing is looking at the competition's market share. Well, Linux went from 1.99% in May to 3.37% in August, nearly doubling its market share, according to Net Market Share (https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustomb=0&qpsp=219&qpnp=5&qptimeframe=M).

The raw numbers don't look impressive, 3.37%, but when the competition doubles its market share in four months and you are the dominant player in the market, chances are you are doing something, or SEVERAL things, severely wrong. Microsoft is screwing the pooch here and as usual (example: Terraserver) don't care and don't connect the success of their new core businesses with the health of their operating system.

To quote the article above "It is worthy to note that Linux distros dominate the market in servers and embedded devices. Not to forget that Linux simply rules super-computers with almost all of the top 500 supercomputers running on Linux." Microsoft is nearing the tipping point. When it happens calamity will happen suddenly and irreparably.

[Skybird]

What needs to be pointed out is that it seems the above link seems to take Chrome OS as a Linux distro, which techically is correcet, but privacy with Chrome and Google is a joke. Thats why I would not throw Chrome and Linux into one pot together, I differ between Google (Chrome), Linux, Windows and Mac OS. I recall that Linux was not that much able to benefit from Windows fall in the past two years, in fact has lost marketshares in that timeframe. So I conclude that the raise reported in that article, is due to a raise in the selling of Chromebooks. I would not be surprised one bit to learn that Linux itself, without Chrome, has stayed were it was, more or less.

Sorry, I must disagree, Robbins: no revolution here. Only Google playing its cards well.

And privacy-wise, Google is even worse than Microsoft. The difference is that their hardware stuff works better than Microsoft's tablet junkware.

[Rockin Robbins]

No,this guy has admitted he's only speculating. "However, this is my speculation and it may happen..." Chrome computers User Agent says it's Chrome on Android Mobile, Chrome on Android Tablet, Chrome on Mac, Chrome on Ubuntu, Chrome on Windows or Chrome on iPhone.

Linux User Agent says [Browser Name] on [Distro Name], like Firefox on Ubuntu, or Chomium on Fedora, or Konqueror on Mint.

There is no confusion between Linux and Chrome with browser user agents and it wouldn't be responsible for them being lumped together. The author didn't know that and was baselessly speculating. Chrome OS user share is a lot higher than 4% anyway. The author should have known that when he was speculating. Just look at my user share graph from a couple weeks ago and you'll see that Chrome is not mixed in with Linux.

[Skybird]

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

What OS is missing in this list? Its Chrome and Chromium. They hardly have been forgotten . So they must be included in any of the listed entries. Do they get listed under any of the Windows versions? Or have they been added to Mac OS versions? Hardly. The most likely candidate must be - Linux.

The reasons the author of the text you linked to gave as an explanation for his guess, are indeed reasonable.

In the two years of Windows 10, Linux indeed has lost shares aq bit, I read numbers earliert this year that said soemthing of a drop down to 1.4 or 1.5%. The migrants that turned away from Windows, turned not towards Lkinux, but mostly Chrome, and then Apple. But Google was the great winner of this movement. Linux is a prominent player int he server and partly in professional IT environment, but it is ntoi alone, regarding servers, there still pla Microsoft, and of course Novell still is around as well. In the oriuvate realm, the environment of private end users and gamers, Linux has not grown in popularity, user leaving Windows turned for Chromebooks in huge numbers, and the article once again reminds of that. Many people who just want to play or want to do ordinary household computing, are beign asked too much of dealign with the incompoatability issues with drivers and hardware you have to deal with under Linux.

You do not want to tell me that the user base has doubled despite these still present difficulties in just 8 or 9 moinths, do you? I find no numbers on a raise with hardware where Linux is preinstalled. But we see a huge climb in sales with Chromebooks.

Lets keep Chrome and Linux separate. Chances are the stats you linked up in that article, throw both into the same category. And that makes no sense to me, it is too much a raise in too short a time.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/
See the entry to the far right, for July 2017. Linux 1.4%, Chrome 0.45%. Wndoiws 85%, Mac OS 11%.

These statistics always vary a bit, dpeending on your source and the amrket analysis models used by the source. But even if I look others via search engine, I cannot see that Linux has climbed from one and a half percent to more than dozuble as much within just a few months, that is totally unreasoable an assumption.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

Chromebooks have left behind Apple as main provider of computer to schools, but in Spring this year alreeady 58% of delivered systems, were Chromebooks.

While Linux cannot by itself explain a more than doubling of its market share, the rise in sales of Chromebooks probably can explain that very well if you count Chrome and Lionux as one combined category.

Anyway, this is a merely academic discussion. We can throw market numbers at each other that we find via Google, until the day is ending. :) One of the very few specialised mail shops in Germany that I know to deliver Linux systems, has shut down, I learned early last week, btw. And there are not that many. Shutting down means they shift to another adress, and now plan to sell - Chrome-based systems, and Apples. Linux has been dropped.

[Reece]

Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. - E. Snowden (http://www.azquotes.com/quote/939098)

But you do have the right to your own opinion!:yep:

[Skybird]

But you do have the right to your own opinion!:yep:

Not in Germany. Voice a politically not correct, not EU- and Euro-conformal, not mass-migration-friendly opinion, and you get publicly character-assassinated by morally boosted, bigmouthed pillars of society, by media, by politicians of all parties, and you face unions that internally publish manuals for union members and union leaders how to mob, flame, defame and get fired any coworkers and employees in companies who do not howl with the collective wolf chorus but voiced the wrong views and opinions, even if by the letter of the law they cannot be fired and they did not fail anywhere in work and do a perfect job and follow the rules and laws. That you get called a Nazi and right winger and populist and mentally deranged phobic and non-solidaric egoist if not swimming wit the mainstream, comes natural in Germany anyway. ;) It wouldn't be Germany without that. In principle, democracy, pluralism and diversity, and debate between different opinions have been brought to an end in the past one and a half decade, Merkel bearing a major share of responsibility for that, she has the plltical self-underdtanding of a SED Staatsratsvorsitzende. Its more GDR than FRG in modern Germany. In principle we are a one-party-state.

Goethe once said he prefers law and order to lack of order even if order comes at the price of utmost injustice, even tyranny. So much for hunger for freedom in Germans, Goethe's views are shared by many. We live in a time when the government itself breaks its own rules as it wants, breaks treaties, violates the constitution. Anything goes. Nothing is an agreed standard anymore. No rules apply anymore. No values mean anything anymore. Everything, every definition of something, gets relativized right to death and non-existence. Terms, names and labels are stripped of all their meanings. Definitions get rearranged opportunistically as it fits best one's pown agenda. Really, anything goes. Overregulated, plundered to the max by tax robbery, and deeply servile by heart, Germans nevertheless face a lack of law and order that is breathtaking. We have had such times in the past, and we are close to seeing them coming back. A strong bringer of law and order again, people will follow him just to get some law and order again. No matter which kind of law and order, just as long as it is some law and order.

Mark my words, within the next 30 years, one generation. The writings are already on the wall, like in the early twenties of the past century. It happens again. And the EU, claiming it wants to prevent right such things, indeed serves as an accelerating catalyst.

[Rockin Robbins]

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

What OS is missing in this list? Its Chrome and Chromium. They hardly have been forgotten . So they must be included in any of the listed entries. Do they get listed under any of the Windows versions? Or have they been added to Mac OS versions? Hardly. The most likely candidate must be - Linux.

The reasons the author of the text you linked to gave as an explanation for his guess, are indeed reasonable.

In the two years of Windows 10, Linux indeed has lost shares aq bit, I read numbers earliert this year that said soemthing of a drop down to 1.4 or 1.5%. The migrants that turned away from Windows, turned not towards Lkinux, but mostly Chrome, and then Apple. But Google was the great winner of this movement. Linux is a prominent player int he server and partly in professional IT environment, but it is ntoi alone, regarding servers, there still pla Microsoft, and of course Novell still is around as well. In the oriuvate realm, the environment of private end users and gamers, Linux has not grown in popularity, user leaving Windows turned for Chromebooks in huge numbers, and the article once again reminds of that. Many people who just want to play or want to do ordinary household computing, are beign asked too much of dealign with the incompoatability issues with drivers and hardware you have to deal with under Linux.

You do not want to tell me that the user base has doubled despite these still present difficulties in just 8 or 9 moinths, do you? I find no numbers on a raise with hardware where Linux is preinstalled. But we see a huge climb in sales with Chromebooks.

Lets keep Chrome and Linux separate. Chances are the stats you linked up in that article, throw both into the same category. And that makes no sense to me, it is too much a raise in too short a time.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/
See the entry to the far right, for July 2017. Linux 1.4%, Chrome 0.45%. Wndoiws 85%, Mac OS 11%.

These statistics always vary a bit, dpeending on your source and the amrket analysis models used by the source. But even if I look others via search engine, I cannot see that Linux has climbed from one and a half percent to more than dozuble as much within just a few months, that is totally unreasoable an assumption.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

Chromebooks have left behind Apple as main provider of computer to schools, but in Spring this year alreeady 58% of delivered systems, were Chromebooks.

While Linux cannot by itself explain a more than doubling of its market share, the rise in sales of Chromebooks probably can explain that very well if you count Chrome and Lionux as one combined category.

Anyway, this is a merely academic discussion. We can throw market numbers at each other that we find via Google, until the day is ending. :) One of the very few specialised mail shops in Germany that I know to deliver Linux systems, has shut down, I learned early last week, btw. And there are not that many. Shutting down means they shift to another adress, and now plan to sell - Chrome-based systems, and Apples. Linux has been dropped.
As people leave Windows all other operating systems will gain share. Corporations have nowhere to go in the Microsoft universe after Windows 7 is torpedoed. They can't migrate to Windows 10 because it is not secure. These corporations have billions of dollars worth of proprietary secrets, employee performance and discipline information, formulas, business strategies and other information they can't allow to be collected by the Microsoft data sucker and sent to Microsoft servers twice a day.

Functionality is optional. Security is essential. Companies will migrate from Windows 7 to a secure operating system, even if they don't like it. They aren't going to Chrome OS. That leaves Apple, Linux or Unix. All three will benefit greatly.

[Rockin Robbins]

Outlook security patches intentionally break custom forms (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3226744/security/outlook-security-patches-intentionally-break-custom-forms.html)

Microsoft has realized the obvious. The simplest way to make a system safe is to render it inoperative. The latest Outlook security patch makes any Visual Basic script printing routines cease working. Sounds reasonable to me, saving paper is a most noble goal and Microsoft is making that possible.

However, it strikes me that some people might WANT the form to print when you push the print button. As a matter of fact I'll be a large plurality of people expect to be able to print things.

Those of you who have installed any of this month’s Outlook security patches:

Outlook 2007 KB 4011086
Outlook 2010 KB 4011089
Outlook 2013 KB 4011090
Outlook 2016 KB 4011091
will have to dive into the Registry if you want to enable any custom form scripts, including the VBScript printing capability. It’s complicated, and the method varies, depending on which version of Office you’re using and the bittedness of Windows and Office. Diane Poremsky has detailed instructions on her Slipstick Systems site.

I can't make this stuff up, folks. My imagination has no capacity to keep up with Microsoft's ability to do stupid things.

Imagine. The free competition is good enough that the vast majority of people don't care whether they use Outlook or Thunderbird. If you prefer Outlook it is probably because you like to customize the way it works with Visual Basic scripts. So Microsoft's smooth move is to render your precious scripts inoperative.

Sounds like it comes from the marketing department to me!:D:D

[Rockin Robbins]

Trick or Treat September Updates for Windows 10 (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3226779/microsoft-windows/where-we-stand-with-messy-september-windows-and-net-patches.html)

This month's updates for Windows 10, especially for Creators' Update 1703, are somewhat nasty, some easy to bypass, some will kill your dog. Too much to cover here, none of them are deadly but I heartily recommend spending some time with the linked article in Computer World above.

Microsoft IS NOT learning how to get updates right. And Halloween is supposed to come in October...

[Rockin Robbins]

Apps Vanishing After Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Here Is The Temporary Fix (Apps Vanishing After Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Here Is The Temporary Fix)

October doesn't look any better than September. Microsoft has fired too many capable people, decimated too many capable programming teams, the Worm Ouroboros is no longer just eating its own tail. As companies run by bean counters always do, the worm is now eating its own vital organs. It is voting to die.

Icons for necessary programs have vanished from the Start Menu. You cannot run them from Cortana. "Microsoft has addressed the issue and offered a temporary fix until the company figures out something permanent." Yuppers.

And, Skybird, guess what the temporary fix is in this "operating system where all functions are accessible from the GUI and therefore superior to Linux?" Yes, you guesses it, after steps 1 and 2 fail, the fix is a PowerShell script.

In the Powershell window type the following commands. These steps may take a few minutes to complete.


reg delete “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\TileDataModel\Migration\TileStor e” /va /f
get-appxpackage -packageType bundle |% {add-appxpackage -register -disabledevelopmentmode ($_.installlocation + “\appxmetadata\appxbundlemanifest.xml”)}
$bundlefamilies = (get-appxpackage -packagetype Bundle).packagefamilyname
get-appxpackage -packagetype main |? {-not ($bundlefamilies -contains $_.packagefamilyname)} |% {add-appxpackage -register -disabledevelopmentmode ($_.installlocation + “\appxmanifest.xml”)}

Once the PowerShell commands are completed, the apps should appear in the app list, and can be pinned to the Start Menu.

Powershell is executed from within a CMD window, by the way. DOS anyone?

Better not get used to it. Already announced are plans to soon completely eliminate the CMD and PowerShell from Windows. It's not a pretty picture to contemplate in light of October's vanishing apps surprise.

Hey Microsoft! Would you like to actually have a legacy for people to remember? Open source Windows and let it survive! Remove all the adware and spyware! Quit being evil! Hey Google! You too.

The Soviet Union vanished in a day. Microsoft can join them. At least if they open sourced Windows they would leave something of value to remember them by.

[Skybird]

I read feedback about the "update" in past days, and all I read is ####. Broken drivers, hardware being ignored, stutterings in game mode, work files not accessible, Oculus working erratic... The list is long.

I will in the forseeable future get a taste of it myself. Thankfully I do not need to expose work files, passwords, privacy stuff and the like, it only is gaming. In principle, a console. The worst that can happen is that racing doe snot work for a day. Or days.

My playstation has been reactivated and prepared early in the recent week. :) Just in case. Its my fall-back line. LOL. It got copies of Assetto Corsa, and Gran Turismo for the easy evenings. AC I usually do on PC, of course.

I'm waiting for the i7 8700k becoming available in my shop and wanted setup over here. Once it is, order will go out.Possible will that I will then ask some questions on W10, although I prepared a list with to-do's and some links. I will do my best to become very creative in inventing new curses the world has never heard before, no doubt. :arrgh!: