Microsoft Warns Windows 7 Has Serious Problems
This is why people do not trust business. These statements have no basis in fact, for the reasons outlined, in addition, MS has a responsibility to tell users of any threats. W10 still has issues with bad updates that trash machines and become virtually impossible to undo unless you are failry savvy. I know several people who complain they bought machines and then they just trashed themselves, and every one had W10, and there had just been updates issue. Sure enough you go look and users complain of updates that did just that, but they were able to find workarounds. These hings lead the sheeple to not trust companies, and not upgrade. Honest, open business is what they need to practice, not this type of fear mongering. Sounds a lot like some political party crap to me...
There are just too many horror stories associated with Win 10. I've disabled the nagging Win 10 update icon in the System Tray and as much of the "tracking/snooping" features in Win 7 as I am aware of.
I run a dual-boot system with Ubuntu Linux and Windows. The software I depend on doesn't run on Linux, else I'd heave MS overboard instantly.
I scolded him for upgrading! Didn't I teach him anything over the last 20 years?? My hubby refuses to click the upgrade on his computer (Windows 7) I run OSX and Linux.
Thanks nick for posting it.
W7 isn't as good as XP was in many ways, most notably W7 has an inferior interface, but W7 is supposedly superior in other ways, notably stability.
W10 has few current advantages over W7 and a very significant disadvantage in privacy which is likely to get worse over time as MSFT tries to milk the customer by destroying the customer's privacy. Ignorant (most notably younger) customers will allow MSFT to legally steal their privacy because they are too ignorant (or just too stupid) to realize that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Linux will very likely be the next OS for me.
MSFT has been alienating the core of their success for a generation and I predict that will not change.
Its a balancing act that I call controlling the level of chaos. If you move too fast, your level of chaos overwhelms you and you die. If you move too slow your competitors overwhelm you and you die.
Ethics rarely win over threat of extinction.
You could go with Linux but that's a support nightmare since you have no clue what version and what patches are present. Plus, once again, many companies won't want to implement it.
I'm not sure how 'stable' it is possible for a system as large as a modern operating system can be. Of course Microsoft has it harder than Apple because there are vastly more architectures to support.
Having 'grown up' in the balkanized era where there were a dozen computer manufacturers with different architectures, different OS's and even different character sets, I appreciate how having a common platform provides a market for those of us who want to make a living developing applications.
It's an interesting dilemma. I like competition but want a standard platform so I don't have to have a dozen variations on my product and staff to support them. Currently it's split Windows/Mac but the Mac market is small enough that it's relatively safe to ignore it.
Over the last twenty years we've probably lost two sales because the customer was determined to have a "Macintosh Shop". I have no idea how many we would have lost had we gone Mac, but I think it's a lot. One of our significant competitors started out with Macs and still uses an apple as part of their logo but long ago transitioned to PCs. They must have found it a disadvantage to go to that much effort.
I also have my MacBook Air, with an outstanding Logitech keyboard & mouse that actually displaced my Apple/Mac BlueTooth keyboard & trackpad that I still have - just like the Logitech products better. The MacBook has a single connection using ThunderBolt to the monitor, providing both power to the Mac, Audio and Video to the monitor.
Boot time? milliseconds. I tap a key and it springs to life, it also power-naps when it sleeps, updating my email and if I'm transcoding and transferring media files to the media jukebox server for the house, it will finish that while sleeping as well. Obviously, SMS text messages, FaceTime, telephone calls, etc. from the iPhone or my iPad route automatically to the Mac and I can just take them with the monitor & camera.
I've been a high end (like 100 cluster server blades for a single application) systems engineer for about 20-25 years, but personally, I don't use a WinTel PC for anything if I don't have to, I only buy or use Macs for my personal stuff and 99% of my work I just do with the Mac... Office 2016 for Mac runs circles around its Windows counterpart, even Microsoft can't succeed in making their own platform look better for their own product line... and if I need a Windows app, VMWare Fusion just puts a Windows 7 subsystem into OS X and I run Windows apps as good or better than they run on my WinTel i7..
I travel a lot, around 100,000 miles a year, the MacBook Air has about an 11 hour battery life, which is why I originally switched, but quickly gave up on using anything else. The Mac/iPhone/iPad ecosystem is pretty unbeatable for productivity.
Updates for OS X are like one here and there, maybe every other month at the most, and most of those will be RAW camera file drivers for PhotoShop & such. I usually get an iTunes update about twice a year supporting the next generation of iOS devices, and of course, the bi-annual release of OS X is always free...
As for longevity, I had a 2009 MacBook Air using a DuoCore processor, then a 2011 MacBook Pro using a Core-2, and my current MacBook Air has an i5. All 3 are still in service in the family, my son uses the old MacBook Air for notes at college because it is light and still has a 8 or 9 hour battery life and uses the MacBook Pro at his apartment. Both run latest OS X without issue.
I'd love to look at a comparable 7 year old Windows Laptop as to how well it would run Windows 10...
I kind of game up on Windows gaming though, got frustrating over time, I'm kind of sold on the console route but I'm looking for some better add-on hardware for it over time (VR headsets for example), but I'll probably dive into the PlayStation 4 world I think. I've never actually bought one before, but I don't play games very often anymore either.
Porting Star Citizen to Mac wouldn't be tough for the developer, OS X is actually almost entirely BSD Unix with whiz-bang GUI on it. If you open a terminal window on OS X, it's very obviously BSD immediately.
At the same time though, Microsoft's annual unit sales have been shrinking by double-digit percentages annually, with the same numbers pretty much going to the Apple side, or people just deciding they don't need a PC anymore (common to the elderly for example that are happy with their iPad). Mac sales are down a bit in the last quarter, but Apple also released the iPad Pro at the same time, which is pretty much a laptop. Heck, I'll probably move to one eventually, I like light, not bulky.
When you consider though that the Mac market is a single vendor, versus 100s or 1000s in the PC space, it's pretty obvious that Mac is a big ticket item for Apple's bottom line.
Although, with half a trillion or so in the bank, I don't think any one item in their portfolio helps or hurts them particularly other than the iPhone.
The growth of Mac is obviously iOS... Android is obviously a competitor with marketshare, but I've had both and I really don't think Android compares much in terms of quality or workmanship, I think the open aspect of its OS is the lure for technical folks and the cheaper price tag is the lure for others.
I use all of the above for various things obviously, but when I travel across the US, bring a projector and need to do a cyber security presentation and it -MUST- work and -MUST- be reliable, I'm grabbing the Macbook obviously... I'd never risk it on on a PC. I don't have problems with them often, or even once a year, but it always seems to be something at the worst possible time... or just that infinite boot up thing drives me nuts. Heck, the MacBook is up & ready before I have the laptop open and in the right spot for my hands to type it seems like.
The millennials entering the workforce at some point in leadership positions will be a game changer though, my son is 23 and in college, you don't see a PC anywhere... about 30% of our consulting work is for higher ed institutions and the top 5 or so K-12 districts... same thing, I can look at device-counts on any given education network and the numbers are exactly flip-flopped... 90% Mac & iOS versus about 10% something-other. We can identify the Apple devices pretty easily by their hardware MAC address on the network when they request a DHCP, the pre-amble to the request is the manufacture designation, so Apple is all in one family basically, with all-else in the others pile.
People have always thought that the lack (like practically zero) virus issues for Macs are because of the small marketshare, but that isn't true, the closed/known hardware aspect with zero variations in hardware drivers, closed OS, and unix foundation of it are all pretty strong adversaries to any kind of malware or viruses. Microsoft has to manage a planet load of hardware ecosystem, where Apple only knows what it has and has to worry about it. Combine with that the unix security model, no registry junk to get corrupted, very little shared system files for applications, and unix networking, antivirus is really just kind of optional on a Mac.. and not something you really need to pay for, the freebies are fine.
So from a cost perspective... you figure an average 7 year life of a Mac, plus the free OS, and the free/zero-need for the McAfee cartels, and you pretty easily get to Mac being a lot cheaper... probably cheaper than even the $250 junk at Walmart to be honest, if you are comparing 'apples to apples', no pun intended, of high performance/high quality construction WinTel to a MacBook for example, there isn't a big difference in the upfront cost, but the advantage goes heavily Mac in the out-years.
Novell Netware was incredibly solid. We had a customer lose a server. It was a small network and when we went to upgrade the server we couldn't find it! It was still running, and had been for several years but no one knew where it was. We finally found it in a counter cabinet behind some papers. Of course the functions we expected from it were simple.
A Google search gives me a size for MVS of about 20 million lines of code and for Windows of 40-50 million lines. I would assume for MVS that since it started in the 70s a lot of the core code has long been stable.
MS took their copy of the source code and that rolled into the original Windows NT, which could actually run OS2 applications pretty easily for a couple of versions after that.
IBM did a couple of additional versions of OS/2, but kind of gave up on the effort.
IBM makes great server products today, they just don't dabble much in the operating systems other than AIX unix. Most of their enterprise applications they design and market with a flavor of Linux. (WebSphere, DB2, Maximo, etc.)
Why for free and what's the big rush?
Is Big Brother paying someone my tax money to keep an eye on me better kinda like he did in the novel?
I still have Windows 7. So does my far more than I tekkie son, who cautioned me at least half a year ago not to mess with Windows 10 until all the kinks are worked out.
The little old(er than me) lady next door told me three months ago that she "upgraded" to Window 10 and had to pay a geek squad to come over and get her games back and to fix other problems.
I believe she said that took 3 or 4 hours.
No freakin' thank you!
I'll switch after my son does--that depending on what happens when he does.
Knowing that outfit like I did I just knew there would be growing pains.and screw-ups.
Really needing to be paid without a hitch every two weeks, I decided to wait a year.
During that time I heard coworker moans and groans about glitches and snafus while I kept collecting my paper check without a hitch.
A year later I went electronic and never had a problem with my pay landing in my checking account.
Just talked to my son.
He said he may switch at the end of the year and his only reason would be video games, which I'm not really inro.
A simple easily accessed quickfire beat the clock eight ball game that ain't eight ball at all is the only PC video game I play once or twice a day.
To beat the clock at Level Nine is a great game for me. I've only managed to reach Level 10 twice. Levels 7 and 8 are average.
Windows 10 can do their own fixing.
I'm happy with what I ain't fixing got.
I have one Windows 7 PC (self-built) and one Windows XP PC (also self-built) and they're what I'll continue to use for some time.
IMHO the press put out on issues with Windows 7 have more to do with MS wanting to cast it aside for the more covert collecting of data and information that comes with Windows 10.
I use Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and it runs great without any issues. It doesn't even require anti-virus or anti-malware software. Now and then it receives updates to keep it running smoothly. And if on the rare occasion a program crashes, that is all that crashes the program NOT the entire OS.
suppress display of W10 update popup notices in Windows 7:
....control panel > all control panel items > notification areas icons
..or
....right click taskbar > properties > customize
then
......."GWX Get Windows 10" - "Hide icon and notifications"
to remove KB3035583 "update" pushing W10:
....control panel > all control panel items > programs and features > installed updates
........"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > uninstall
to view update history
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > view update history
hide KB3035583 "update" to prevent future "offer"
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > select updates to install
........important
............"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > hide update
prevent silent automatic updates -- notification only, to choose updates installed
....(updates are normally released on the second Tues of each month)
........control panel > windows update > change settings
............notify important updates
............notify recommended updates
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-remove-ge...
and Registry Tweak 2: Disable OS upgrade.
They had several ways, which I appreciated, I was not into creating new registry values like some had. Number 2 seemed the easiest reg change.
this is a typical plan, I'm afraid. -- j
.
MICROSOFT: LEAVE THE FREAKING DESKTOP THE WAY I WANT IT!
Nope, in 2 years or so, maybe they will have hacked out all the secrets of why MS was giving away a thing, and what we were giving back. I am sure it is our privacy and they have it in their EULA that you have no such thing. Better to wait for 2020 and re-evaluate.
Apple does get pushy about using the iCloud feature for both home computers and iPhones, but I just ignore them. I keep my backup local, and limit the use of my smartphone to making calls and sending text messages - no music, video, or games. With my background in the intelligence community, I trust no one else with my data, and seem to be relatively insensitive to the alternately seductive and domineering pressures demanding I become more "sharing".
What confirmed my decision to stick with the Mac was watching the catastrophe the intelligence community had brought on itself when they decided to replace their Unix machines with Windows PCs. Security patches were required on a bi-weekly basis, and their computer security workforce quadrupled in size. Since OS-X is Unix-based, it's much more resistant to damaging hacks.
Dell did a real sales job in Washington, convincing the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies that the risk of security issues was small compared to the increased inventory of computers they'd have by going to a Windows PC as the platform of choice. The result was a security disaster. Most of the analysts had both a classified and an unclassified PC on their desk, just like the one they had at home, and many of them wanted to bring in CDs with their favorite music to play on their work machines. Viruses spread like wildfire, and until the CD/DVD drives on the classified systems were locked, even they were hit.
During the resulting scramble to try to fix the problem, I suggested they ditch Windows, and go with Linux, as it had most of the security strengths of Unix, a Windows-like interface, and would work on the PCs. Microsoft got wind of the Linux rumors, and cranked up their lobbyists to torpedo any move in that direction.
The other change in operations that leaves government computers wide open to hacking is the use of commercial software. When I ran a classified computer operation, the rule was that we had to have a physical audit of the source code, so we could uncover any possible security problems. Commercial software source code is proprietary, meaning that government security teams can only perform a functional audit, denied any view of code. That makes it easy for hackers to plant invasive code in commercial packages.
What would Atlas do???
So do old windows machines and old linux machines. My 1985 compaq transportable still works. I agree, term2, but newer equipment often does the same jobs better, faster, and allow additional functionality.
There are advantages to each platform. More in the market bought windows, but that doesn't mean they are right (or wrong.) It does likely mean that the x86-windows hardware will be less expensive due to the volume. Even that is becoming less important with more powerful phones, watches, raspberryPi's, etc, taking some of the tasks that bigger hardware had to do in the past.
The big news is the return of Windows 95 (joke):
http://www.geek.com/games/someone-got...
Life goes on (grin)