downloading a “stripped down” version of windoze 7, works wonders too… and works better and faster then the original, lol…
My main concern with that is how do you get security updates on such a system, and (if you get them through the hackers that created the system), can you trust it?
With official Windows and Android and IOS, I know they’re collecting info on me, but I’m fairly confident they’re not using that info against me, i.e., stealing my bank info to drain my accounts. I’m okay with targeted advertising, because it at least makes the ads more relevant.
Strangely enough, I see a lot of ads for flashlights in Facebook, despite me never showing any interest for flashlights on my Facebook profile. I wonder why that is? 
I miss the old reliable nearly indestructible win2k pro. I miss the easy backup ability. Just copy to another drive, add to the boot menu, start it, edit the paths to the new location, and reboot. I also miss the shells like LDE (X) that offered so many ways to customize it and the fact I could have it run six months at a time processing seti data without rebooting and the low memory usage compared to xp and later. For me, xp pro was best. I use Bluestar (arch based) now but I have xp in virtualbox to use a scanner/printer that isn’t supported by linux or anything newer than vista. Tablet derived os for desktop? No thanks. I’ve tried win7 and win8 and did not like the environment. Win10’s ‘menu’ is an abomination. If you like it, fine. I don’t.
You should use any Linux and stop being a slave to micro$$$oft.
Even Linux has problems. The overly invasive systemd, dumbing down of kde and gnome, proliferation of forks including dozens derived from ubuntu, migration to wayland and weston, and continued lack of support for many pieces of hardware and devices can make the transition difficult. Just deciding which distribution to use can be very time consuming.
Linux/Ubuntu for straightforward stuff is great, if it works straight from the install. Woe to you if your video, wifi, or other critical drivers don’t work and you are not a bona fide geek with LOTS of experience.
I spent about an hour this morning trying to get bluetooth to work on my netbook……no dice. I have it running on 2 systems, but both of them are not ‘mission critical’. When Linux doesn’t work, it’s a real PITA. Of course so is Windows but it’s generally more fixable. Plus, there are some programs some people want (me) that simply do not exist in Linux and [WINE] doesn’t work either.
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“TinyXP” was was made by a programmer that wanted to see how small he could get XP down to, how little memory it would need to run on older systems, and how much “crap” wasnt needed for general internet and older games…. he went by the name of “XPerience”. I heard he died, but i dont know.
HOW he did it, he freely talked about, and a ot of other people got in on the project… theres multiple versions now.
you can actually take the hard drive OUT of your computer, and boot a small version of XP or 7 from the CD ROM…. and its functional. I can do it on both my laptops, lol… get on wifi and browse ebay and everything.
i’ve made use of a bunch of them, and never once had any nigerian dictators stealing my bank account.
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you get “updates” on win7 stripped down versions? i used “Daz’s loader”… it shuts off the “nag” for the certificate and solves that whole thing…
and this isnt bereaking any laws, either… when i bought my computers? they came with windows and a license to have windows… when the hard drive got replaced, or, windows cut a “fit” and sh!t kittens all over its partition?? i still have the license i paid for, just no windows… i might as well download a stripped down version that works better.
my laptop? came with XP and a license to HAVE xp… it STILL has xp on it… just not the original
my desktop? came with 7 and a license to GACE 7 on it… it still has 7 on it… just not the original
i’m only breaking the law if i put together computers and SELL them with stripped windows…
You need to to the upgrade first rather than a fresh install or be prepared to call Microsoft for activation. The activation process during upgrade generates a hardware hash which is stored by MS to identify your machine. Subsequent “clean installs” should activate with no issues as long as you haven’t changed too many/critical components in your PC
Kind of true.
However I’ver been looking into this a bit of late. Apparently if you nominate your internet connection as “metered” you can defer the downloads until a time that suits you.
But it’s a kludge.
That’s been my perception of MS for a long time. This laptop came with 8.1, MS’s way to get you to “upgrade” to W10 when it came out- which I will NEVER do. As much as I hate W8.1 at least it’s controllable which W10 isn’t.
I get near-demands to upgrade to W10 from them but it ain’t gonna happen- they’ve already lost me as a customer- end of story. This is my last MS OS, and good riddance!
Phil
That is why I love the threads where some complete novice asks for help for a simple routine Windows issue that the poster doesn’t know and isn’t savvy enough to google, and half the thread is telling him to just dump Windows and somehow become a total computer geek.
Can you do that with a direct Ethernet connection? (I prefer to run my main computer that way, rather than wireless.)
I have reloaded win7 …
I’m not going to install any updates …
Another problem seems to be AMD drivers … The latest drivers apparently disable anti virus software …
SO I had to install older graphics drivers …
Im going to run Chrome and firefox with Avira browser protect …
- I will run a sandbox …
Seems everyone is attacking windows users …
Yeah , must be time for Linux ( I like ” Mint ” myself )
You mean the Radeon Crimson drivers? I haven’t noticed they mess around with any Windows or AV software, but I hate the crap that is bundled with the drivers. You can delete the Gaming Evolved, PlayTV, etc. after you install the software. Maybe that stuff makes sense for people that like to post their game playing on youtube, but they shouldn’t have bundled it with their drivers.
Apparently Microsoft has not provided a way to do it for Ethernet but there is some info about that suggests it is possible. I’ve not tried it. Redirecting
I’d be the last person to be defending MS but I guess if your home Internet connection is so data limited as to prevent you from being able to “afford” the downloads, then sadly, you really have no business running any recent Windows installation.
Before I get the screams, yes, I am VERY familiar with low data limits as much of rural Australia suffers in the same way. DSL and Cable services are of limited use only a few km outside of metro areas and even in many small towns. Wireless (Cellular) data plans are neither generous nor economical.
If you have regular access to a fast Internet service somewhere other than home perhaps you could use a Wifi dongle at home and do the updates elsewhere. Not terribly convenient for a Desktop PC though.
I’ve read articles on disabling/enabling the Windows Update service but again, this is not officially supported or possible with the standard options provided in Win10. I have no idea if they work.
Personally, I think Win10 is a big improvement over the abomination that was Win8 but I am moving more toward Linux for day to day stuff now wherever possible. However, as a large part of my work life is in IT, I need to keep at least a few Windoze versions running at home to develop my training materials.
i would like to point out? that i knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about linux not that long ago…
i started “playing” and learning to download “several versions of linux” and get them burned onto ROMs and DVDs… and onto “thumb drives”.
didnt take me too long, to learn to run linux “live”, from a thumb drive or CDrom… and if you get the right versions (trial and error, no installs) you quickly find a couple versions that run “live”, you can actually take the hard drive OUT, and boot and run what LOOKS a LOT like a “widows XP” desktop… and get right on internet and wifi easy.
MOST people think “linux is for cimputer geeks”… and… i have several versions, that, i have shown to people running, and they dont even realize its not windows at first…
i can do all my internet and youtubing and email and ebaying… running right from a thumb drive. Internet and wi-fi are “automatic” and pick right up. I take the thumb drive out and reboot? go right back to windows to play the 2 games i like or use my audio software i cant run except under windows.
This
I have been using linux* exclusively for 6~7 years now and duel booting for years before that.
Before I would advise anyone to switch to Linux I tell them they should first check which software they use and if there is one the same on Linux.
Dual booting does not solve any Windows problems and can create some of its own.
I take a lot of photos and although Rawtherapee and Gimp are good they are nowhere near as good as Nikon software and Photoshop, but I will not let Windows anywhere near my computer, it even gets the shakes if my wifes laptop (Win7) is put anywhere near it :smiling_imp:
Cheers David
*Lubuntu, Ubuntu with the LXDE lightweight desktop.
I gave lxde and lxqt a chance but don’t like the reliance on pcmanfm for desktop functionality. As a file manager alone it has serious flaws and the desktop it provides is less configurable than win95. My worst experience was lxqt where I was unable to open any type of file on the desktop. Razor-qt was good, and I still use it. What lxde did to it after merging is unforgivable and has soured me on anything they release. FWIW, I used RedHat and SuSE in the late 90s but gave up due to lack of support for hardware I liked. I started again in 2005 and tried a variety of distributions so I’m not new to Linux. A major factor in my migration to an arch based distribution is the huge variety of apps available via the official and unofficial repositories.
honestly, for a while there… i was doing email, browsing, etc etc… routine tasks? all from Linux and not even dual booting… just booting from a THUMB DRIVE, i tell you thats the way to go to get started once you find a SMALL live version you like.
its like carryin a computer on your keychain almost… you stop at someplace, any old computer fires right up to YOUR desktop, its like it turns any computer instantly into “your” computer
when a windows computer goes down? i would stop over, eat a free dinner… then go up and 9 times out of ten get the computer booted from my keychain thumb drive, lol… next thing you know, i am prancing thru the windows folders, finding the pictures and dats they want saved… save them on the thumb drive then copy them back to the computer once i dropped “tiny7” onto it (again off the flash drive, LMAO)
honestly, anyone into linux even a little? is so danged HELPFUL trying to get someone “converted” that they will generally burn you a CD or burn you a thumb drive and get you going…
I am not into linux
Friends of mine are so from early on I had Ubuntu running on a partition but never got it working 100% right.
While I liked to strip down Windows and tweak it. NLite, then some ramdisk to have that cache temp and pagefile on ram instead of HD and my windows always was very fast (heck even Windows ME I loved for its fast booting)
But I wanted to upgrade my notebook with a SSD here about 20 months ago. Never did like win 8.1 with software to have it boot in classic view.
And I discovered Ubuntu Studio jam packed with software with features that I otherwise would either have to buy of illegaly download.
So instead of doing the whole install of Win I decided to try Ubuntu first.
20 minutes later (while being able to actually use the pc during the install!) all was well, no driver issues. I had to copy paste some things in command prompt to get Minecraft running.
Since then I upgraded once to a newer version, again, during the install of the new OS I could continue to actually use the pc.
So I am not having windows anymore.
But my son has windows for some games.
This reminds me, I want to upgrade to 16.04 so start the upgrade now and just be able to continue using the pc as if nothing is happening (that is the oolest I have ever encountered with OS installs)
EDIT and a new OS installed/upgraded
while it did it I read BLF, wrote several emails, edited and email a body of text for a project, read emails, edited excel and word files (MS office runs under WINE) and downloaded something big.
almost forgot about the upgrade and just rebooted to continue, now that is ease of use I never encountered with Windows.
Yeah, the pictures thing… I ran the GWX control panel and got rid of the suggestion to upgrade… today my external drive holding some 2GB of pictures has driver issues and is not available… including the wedding and venue pictures I am supposed to be delivering this weekend! Yikes!