Some good news, the next update will include some color customization for the interface.
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/win...10-fall-update

I knew my bellyaching would pay off :haha:

Meh, no gradients, no transparency, no rounded corners, no customization of minimize, window/full screen, close, window shade buttons, heck, NO WINDOW SHADE button at all in spite of the fact that they've stolen (badly) everything that makes 10 better than 8 or 8.1 from Linux.

In 1990 we were looking at flat screens because that's all we had saying "Won't it be great when we can have real 3D buttons with shadows, 3D scroll bars, rounded corners, dare we DREAM of transparency? Well we had all that in Windows 7 and there Microsoft slams us back to 1990 again telling us how we should love it.

Even with the "improvements" Windows 3.1 had more customization, more sophistication to the GUI and we were all excited about 3D. Let's just all pass out the clay tablets because if Microsoft is in charge that's what we're all going to end up with.

Just to show you how far behind Windows is and how they've ineptly stolen from Linux, here's my Gnome (pronounced with a hard G) 2 desktop application selection screen from Ubuntu in 2008! See how it blows Windows 10 away in sophistication seven years before Windows tried unsuccessfully to steal the Gnome/Unity GUI elements?

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...psinjsrnha.png

Look at those beautiful full millions of colors 3D icons showing every program on the machine. It can be scrolled up or down--you're only seeing a partial list. You can filter the list. You can type part of the name and get a smaller and smaller list. You can just browse the list if you don't know what you're looking for. This whole GUI is about expanding possibilities and working YOUR way in a sophisticated and beautiful manner seven years before Microsoft brought you a crippled version.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...psrtuuree1.png

Here I am writing a post to Subsim in 2008. Look at the sophistication of the GUI. The window decorations (buttons, banner colors, borders, etc) are all customizable. You can see that I moved the normal minimize, window/full screen and close window buttons to the top left and that they're circles color coded by function instead of the symbols Windows uses. You can see that the corners of the window are rounded and the bar has a gray gradient. And this window is customized so if you double click the bar on top the window rolls up into the bar opening the screen below. And you can see that the window sticks to the edges of the screen, even bending like Jello when you pull it away as I am doing here.

Now seven years later Windows has us in a monochrome prison, totally flat like a green monitor used to be, choices of dozens, not millions of colors, no transparency, no rounded corners, no roll-up windows. Linux looked better than Windows 10 in 2000. And they have progressed while Windows regresses into the DOS days in sophistication and ease of use.

No thanks. Windows 7 is as good as Microsoft got before their demise.

Windows 10 growth sluggish as Windows 7/8.x users stick with their OS


The truth does not bear out the Microsoft propoganda. Even forcing upgrades has not resulted in success. For all Microsoft's chest thumping, strongarm tactics and hubris, Windows XP still has half again more market share than Windows 10, which is the number 3 Windows operating system. I think it's over.

And the latest. What do you do when you cannot persuade people to buy your new products because they have devolved back to 1990? Well, you restrict, you bully, you try to force sales of items nobody wants. You stop selling your superior products to force buyers into the products they don't want. Has Microsoft jumped the shark?

Good Microsoft, Bad Microsoft

I'm currently using that and as far as I can tell...so far so good.

Reporting from my new installation with 2 HDs, and Linux Mint 17.2 Base installation and settings completed, now the data migration and finetuning and familiarization comes next, also the re-organization of those simulators. Everything runs fine and solid . I also noticed that I have a slightly faster data transmission rate from internet cable, I mean the net speed by which the stuff drips into my computer before I used to have 10-11 KB/sec, now it is 13-14. In parts that may be to currently no firewall and AntiVir in use.

Since I have both Windows and Linux on one system, I think it is a good idea to have some kind of security to safeguard against Linux hosting some nasties that may not damage itself, but Windows (which is the big problem with Linux, itself it seems to be quite immune, but it spreads a lot of anti-Windows stuff via servers, and windows and Linux data on one rig also is a problem (some say that this even is what speaks against using something like Wine). - Any ideas, Robbins?

As a short thanks for your feedback the past days, just this few minutes of beauty, since you seem to be interested in astronomy, too. You probably heard of it already, but this is one of the videos where it really shines in all its glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovfhv_9-KIg

In 10 years of running Linux beside Windows XP and 7 I haven't had any cross-fertilization of malware from my Linux to my Windows installation. I can't say that there is no way that it can happen, just that it hasn't. Of course my Windows is reasonably protected. But my feeling on the matter is that Linux is such a small target that the malware producers don't see any money in pursuing it.

I installed it and my first inclination was "Wow!" And where dynamically generated fictitious worlds go, I still say that. But just like Stellarium, knowing too much kills the experience as you find that stuff is just made up of whole cloth and often doesn't agree at all with reality.

I took a journey to some galaxies I know well and found that they were often a completely different type than they really are. Nebulae in the Milky Way are not correct at all, but just a generic artistic representation of a nebulous blob. The Orion Nebula (M 42) is a travesty. Venus has no surface. NGC 4631, an irregular spiral is just a weird nebula when you get there. M 81 is the wrong kind of galaxy at the wrong angle in relation to the Milky Way, it is supposed to be a perfect face on spiral. M-51, probably one of the most distictive double nucleus spiral galaxies is just a generic spiral.

It would be much better as a Spore-like fictitious universe and then I would appreciate it rather than pick it apart so badly, but it really is out of its league when representing the real universe. Beautiful though, although that too comes from fiction, like Stellarium's sky, very artistic, not real at all.

In Stellarium, for one example, looking between the horns of Taurus with the clusters M35, M36, M37 and M38 in view you can see shown brightly, in color no less, faint nebulae that you'll never see in any amateur telescope, while the magnicent star clusters above, naked eye objects, are shown very indistinctly, faintly and if you don't know exactly where to look you'll never find them at all in Stellarium. Its sky is art, not objectivity. It is an illusion made irritation by knowledge.

I was at a German Mint forum, where they helped me with minor issues indeed - but the moment I asked about security and linked this article:

https://www.av-test.org/en/news/news...t-to-the-test/

they turned religious and it became personal in no time. Tried to stick to a calm tone myself and gave some points that really are reasonable, but it remained to be a poisonous environment from that moment on. Some attackers even followed me into two other threads.

The gospel is clear: It cannot be what should not be. We are the Linux, infidel!

I got warned about the missionary self-understanding of Linux users, now I got a taste of it.

I do not dramatize it, but I remember that Android once was seen this way too: safe, dont worry, we all keep good care. And today!? Nobody is laughing anymore if he is of a sane mind. The nastiness of Linux spreading Windows virusses while not even being aware that it does and not getting harmed itself, seems to be real, and at leasts on server level - another world I know, but still - 12700 botnet attacks in first quarter 2015 being staged from Linux servers and only 10300 by Windows servers is a clear message, I would say. In this regard, with these numbers, Linux is the greater risk for Windows users, than Windows servers are.

My more pragmatic concern is that I snap up a malware, no matter how, and it nests on my Linux partition somehow, and form there harms my Windows data graves, saved games etc. I will need a Linux scanner at least for once-in-a-while manual HD scans. I think reason demands this as a safety.

On Space Engine, keep in mind that it should become a game of any sort (I still cannot imagine what kind of game that should become, since there are no game elements included so far), and that it still is a Beta at best, if not Alpha. That it is not accurate in following astronomic and scientific data known, is forgivable. What it does is it gives with simply handling a very impressive idea of what dimensions and size scaling you face when dealing with this big thing we live in and call the "universe".

Digital camera, printer (both Canon...) Webcam (Logitech) all work instantly and flawlessly in Mint. Only my scanner, a CanoScan 8400F, is not supported, and I learned during research that Canon seems to literally hate Linux (I assume the former two Canon devices run by generic, foreign drivers).

That scanner still is of excellent scanning quality and specialises for photography and photo negatives. It would be pleasant to have it easily available under Linux. Else I would need to do address my scanning needs (happens not often) under Windows, still.

SANE says they have no support for it. Any ideas, Robbin?

If it has a windows driver it can be used in Linux with THAT driver. I have to do some research. I had a HP 4050 Laserjet that had no Linux driver and got it to work fine.

Programming-wise Space Engine is a monumental achievement. It's hypnotic. If Spore were based on this engine it would be a hundred times better. Hope they get filthy rich.

Research complete! What you are looking for is NDISwrapper. It's a swiss army knife that lets you use Windows drivers in Linux. Worked great for me. Synaptic should have it available (just about everything is there.). Here's a generic article on the difference between Windows and Linux driver architecture. Installing Windows wireless drivers in Linux from Ubuntu forums.

Interestingly, when I hooked up Ubuntu 14.10, it automatically found all my hardware and just began using it. Windows 7? Not so much. I was sent on a treasure hunt. In many ways Linux is ahead of Windows in ease of use, believe it or not.

Oh, thanks! :yeah:

I'm glad the author of the article addresses that some of these tools are worse than the MS data collection they claim to shut down.
Jim, I assume you mean Spybot Anti-Beacon?

Yep, got Steve on it too.

I am running it also. One button click on, one button click off, real easy to use.

Thansk, but that stuff currently is too complex for me, and I am still busy with setting up other things (sim-related), so I take the shortcut and for the time being run a simple scanning option under Windows - for the one time per year that I need it.

Stellarium does not run stable for me. Also longer mp4 videos from HD do freeze. No clue whether it is VLC or something else.

The rest runs stable so far. At least so it seems.

May be of interest to Win 10 folks. The "clunky" name for the big update is explained in the comments too, in case you care:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/300...ay-deluge.html

Any news on the KB numbers to avoid for Win 7 users? I've read at a couple places not to update Win 7 yet with this months patches.

I'll wait just to be safe - ha! .... isn't that awful? I don't trust MS any more.

Well, it was update Tuesday yesterday and here's the news as I understand it today. Woody at askwoody.com has instituted a MS-DEFCON system. As he has it:

• MS-DEFCON 1 is Current Microsoft patches are causing havoc. Don't patch.
• MS-DEFCON 2 is Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it.
• MS-DEFCON 3 is Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems.
• MS-DEFCON 4 is There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented here. Check this site to see if you're affected and if things look OK, go ahead and patch.
• MS-DEFCON 5 is All's clear. Patch while it's safe.

Interestingly he has Windows 10 at MS-DEFCON 5. He says that the quality of the cumulative updates has been good. Lower the shields, take the cap off your internet connection and damn the torpedoes, full speed head. Download and install the updates. As if you had a choice.

But for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 he has the alert at MS-DEFCON 2. Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have specific problems that a patch relates to don't install.

So what's on the menu this month:
KB3100773 is a Internet Exploder update. It's huge. Exploder updates have also been very unreliable lately. Your fix is to switch to Firefox or Chrome and don't bother to download.

KB3097989, KB3097996, KB3098781 are all .NET Framework updates. Those have been clean for malicious software and generally safe. My personal recommendation is to greenlight those and install.

KB3081320, KB3092601, KB3100213, KB3101246, KB3101722, KB3101746 are labeled as Windows 7 x16 security updates. These are the ones that have been labled as security updates in the past but have depressingly often turned into malware, nagware and spyware. Although I know nothing specifically wrong about these particular updates not, I'm taking Woody's advice and not installing them now.

And then there's KB3097877. This is a baddie. It's been blamed for Outlook crashes, sign-in screen blackouts, Windows sidebar and gadgets are removed and Asus audio center dies. That's one to hide so it never gets offered again.

Also it appears that Microsoft has pulled KB3104540. If you have it on your download list, don't install that.

All this presupposes that you are in "trust Microsoft about as far as you can toss a hippopotamus" mode as I am and have turned automatic updates off. This is no time to start trusting Microsoft. They have a lot of 'splainin' to do before I trust 'em to tell me what time it is.

So there you have it for now. I'll keep you posted when I find something new.

For W7 I now have formed the habit to install only program updates like Woodie advised for Explorer, also NET updates. All others I no longer download on the second Tuesday of the month, but let them wait until 2 or three days of the following "second Tuesday", when the next wave of updates would come in. This gives the tech world 4 weeks to assess and report on these updates. 2-3 days before the next month's updates come i8n and the list of updates to check grows longer and longer, I check the old ones one by one, and either install them or ban them. The latter is true for porked and broken updates as well as spyware and door-kickers.

Note that you cannot do this in the usual home-versions of W10, you can delay, but you cannot ban or refuse forever any updates MS decides that you should need to want.

---

Edit: oh look, at Robbin's site, I found this: http://www.askwoody.com/2015/consequ...in781-patches/ Seems I am not alone! :) Coming to my mind is the idea to maybe even stop updating W7 all together, since I do not surf or work in it anymore, only need it as a table on which to play my installed games. the risk of getting hit by malware that way maybe is smaller than the risk that MS poses. The last comment by ITSecGuy are worth tpo be kept on mind:

---

This makes reinstalling W7 a real time-consuming hassle these days. I did - the procedure to check them one by one taught me to hate MS even more. A company forcing me to do like this, deserves to fall and go down in flames. Neal said he wishes them to succeed with W10, once public beta testing is over in 1 or 2 years. I don't.

I tried for many years to balance my dislike for things MS did, with their sometimes good ergonomic design of their software products' user interfaces (while sometimes it is anything but ergonomic...). But that is no more so. Their intentional stepping above all red lines and their door-kicking methods to push W10 and spyware stuff onto my system, has forever changed that. If you enforce your entry against the declared will and the obviously demonstrated prevention methods of the owner of a place, home, system, then this is nothing else but BURGLARY. The keylogger thing is another Stasi thing that I am unforgiving about.

I do not wish this to succeed, because it is an espionage thing as well. These days, when American company leaders are threatened by American laws with up to 5 or 15 years (not sure which number it was, I think 15) in prison when they make known to the public that intel services of the US demanded them to implement "special features" into their software, any statement by such a manager that their software is "clean" and that they refuse to cooperate with the government, becomes a hollow word shell that means nothing anymore. The wide distribution of W10 globally, the known spying it conducts and its notorious phoning home, the Microsoft practices we have seen in the past months and two years, and the publicly announced policy by the NSA that it makes claim for having or getting access to every single installed computer system int he world, leaves no doubt - not even the smallest doubt - where the voyage goes, and that this W10 also is a tool of US policy support. You just have to add together one and one and one. The result necessarily is three. And that is no tinfoiled conspiracy theory, but just plain reason and logic deduction. Rejecting it compares to trying to argue that the US also is not flying drones around the globe with pilots sitting in the American mainland.

Don't be naive, guys. Its no conspiracy theory. Its the real world.

That is wise and the most reasonable option we are left with (second only to changing your OS completely).

Just do like I do: install only obvious updates to NET and installed software suites like Office (if you still think you need to use that). Personally, i would get rid of all software suites by Adobe and Microsoft.

Then, after second Tuesday in a month, WAIT. Lock your system so that background internet connections (clock synchronization etc) are also shut down. For W7 users, a tool like XP antispy which i repeatedly mentioned already, makes that a breeze: several dozen registry changes with just clicking a button. And switching them to their former state again with a click on a button. The software has an English interface available.

And not before 2 or 3 days before the second Tuesday of the following month check those updates of the former month, one by one, with a search engine (enter the KB number), and see what the search comes up with on page one.

Chances are that you will not filter out all baddies - but very many of them.

This way, the tech world has had 4 weeks of time to report any news worth to be known about files you then install - or better avoid. Just before the next month's updates come in.

Full autoupdating is not recommended anymore. Microsoft deserve no trust at all anymore. None. Zero.

Thanks Skybird

Thanks for the new numbers RR, much appreciated.

I found and deleted two more that came back I will hide again.

My list prior to today's posts by RR & Skybird

If I've made any mistakes, please let me know so I can edit this post.
------------------
Over 50% of Windows users are still using Win 7 according to one pie chart I saw.

I have it on my hit list. :D
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/...-gb/kb/3021917

Thanks Moonlight

Edit - yep, that KB3021917 took about an hour to delete.

I'm thinking of unplugging this computer from the internet and getting a cheap one to go online.

A BIG Thank You to you gracious people (who are checking this topic only for Win 10 info) for your patience with some of us who want to discuss & share the 'Black Tuesday' updates that are released every month by Microsoft.

This month appears to be a zero install for me and my Win 7 computer including the .NET updates. I'll do like Steed said below and wait until next month to install anything - unless there is breaking news.