Windows Corner

[Sabretooth78 808]

Furthermore, with the introduction of the very-large-disc supporting UEFI, Microsoft has had the temerity to set the systems up to disallow multiple booting of operating software.  just who do they think they are???  Notwithstanding anything they might say in the EULA or elsewhere, they do not own the end user's machine nor any work he may do.

This practice is more or less pervasive in everything they do, from thinking they own the entire lifecycle of a PC to issuing non-standard software format(s).  So glad to be rid of them, the Walmart of software.  I am never going back.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Oh, the irony:

 

I just said yesterday that Windows 8 was not that bad. So what happened this morning? It failed to reboot, giving me a black screen and I have to run a system restore to get it working. This is the second time this is happening to me. It happened to me the first time a year ago...

Thank you, Windows 8...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I guess that is the new BSOD, eh?

 

Back to Ubuntu you go.  Is there anything you can do in Windows that is not a Microsoft lock-in that you can't do in Ubuntu?  With a little digging, I've found you can do anything sensible and needful.  And with wine (windows executive layer) you can do just about anything else.

 

As for the Unity desktop, I use it but more or less ignore it.  There is a system menu applet that gives you full access to everything and I can't remember the last time I used the "dash".  Instead, I use the little red button in my top panel.  The only thing I use in the Unity desktop is the launcher, which I keep hidden on the left side of the screen.  Howsomever, desktops are religious items like browsers.  Have faith.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Well, there are some applications for university work that are not MicroSoft applications that probably don't work under Ubuntu, of which one I tried and failed (SPSS). Also, I don't think Ubuntu is going to handle Autodesk 3D Studio 2013 well and Libre Office Calc has its limits compared to MicroSoft Excel 2010 (don't want the 2013 Metro version).

 

 

The other thing is that I don't want to re-install all programs on my PC, which are quite a lot. So if I can still fix it, I'll just do that and stick to my current setup. As long as it works, it works just fine for my workflow. I'll only switch when necessary. At least with the LiveUSB Ubuntu drive I'll be able to recover all my data whether Windows works or not...

 

For my laptop on the other hand, I switched to Ubuntu a long time ago, since none of the above problems play much of a role here. And I use Gnome Classic for the desktop UI, which does work a bit like the Windows UI with a bit more clever organisation (like tidy, multiple, specialised start menus).

 

Best,

Maarten

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I'll bet you didn't look.  SPSS is available on any platform that IBM sells.  It is written in Java, so portability is not a problem.

 

However, I do have to agree with you on Excel and its MS-BASIC-based macro system.  It is intimately (incestuously) tied to Visual Studio.  As the milk goes, them's the shakes.

 

And as for AutoDesk, are you doing some Engineering subject that needs it?  I can't get gmax to run properly under wine, so I suppose it would not either.

 

Funny though.  Some schools use UNIX and don't find any applications missing.  I suspect it a matter of the institutional culture.

[riiga 233]

Microsoft Office works well in Wine, at least my 2007 version does. See https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=17336 for info on the 2010 version.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Learn something new every day, eh?  I got an update to wine today and haven't tried it yet.

 

Anyone tried Autodesk?

[SteveMSim 275]

I began with Windows 95 and my present computer, which is seven years old, runs XP.  I have already decided that whenever my computer goes, I will get one with Windows 7 or an alternate OS.  I have heard enough horror stories from people running Windows 8 and the "improved" 8.1, including my mother.  You can still buy factory-fresh computers with Windows 7 online; you just need to look where to find them.  I'll name two of the sites that you'll find such computers: Amazon and eBay.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

We can only hope that Windows 9 (or whatever they decide to call it) will have a sensor so that you don't get the metro interface if you don't have a touch screen.

[mrsmartman 200]

Windows is a standard. Windows is a philosophy. Windows is a lifestyle.

Getting one's Windows up-to-date is like being with the greatest software company of the world.

Nevertheless, I probably would not buy Windows 8 if it were not bundled with the PC.

To me, computer has become a commodity. Hence, cost matters the most.

Anyway, many people are passionate about computers, therefore they customize their systems.

[Sabretooth78 808]

I prefer to base the idea of "greatest software company in the world" on quality instead of quantity.  Microsoft may be the "greatest software company in the world" but they are light years away from writing the greatest software in the world.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Windows is a standard. Windows is a philosophy. Windows is a lifestyle.

Getting one's Windows up-to-date is like being with the greatest software company of the world.

Nevertheless, I probably would not buy Windows 8 if it were not bundled with the PC.

To me, computer has become a commodity. Hence, cost matters the most.

Anyway, many people are passionate about computers, therefore they customize their systems.

Windows is not a standard.  Name the international certification body that has accepted it.

 

Programmatically, windows lacks the cohesiveness of good software.  It often crashes and/'or does unexpected things.

 

Windows may be a lifestyle for some, but the Internet is actually a more pervasive one.

 

Getting one's windows up-to-date is accepting a new set of bugs.  You might as well contract the Ebola virus.

 

If Microsoft hadn't done such a marketing job on the unsuspecting public, you wouldn't get it bundled on a machine at all.  You'd have to find your own operating system.

 

If cost really mattered to you, you would find a free operating system.  I purchased by last hardware naked of any software.  Saved the $200 OEM licence for Windows.

 

I've been in the computer game since 1962.  If Microsoft hadn't gone mad with bloatware (Vista), I'd probably still be using it.  However a little looking around took me to an operating system (Linux) that would run on my small machine.  The machine I am on now can run Windows 8 but I wouldn't touch it with an extra long barge pole.  I haven't paid an operating system licence fee in over 10 years, and I never will.  And, by the way, in 1962 Bill Gates was still in rompers.  He was born in the same year I graduated from high school (1955).

[mrsmartman 200]

 

Windows is a standard. Windows is a philosophy. Windows is a lifestyle.

Getting one's Windows up-to-date is like being with the greatest software company of the world.

Nevertheless, I probably would not buy Windows 8 if it were not bundled with the PC.

To me, computer has become a commodity. Hence, cost matters the most.

Anyway, many people are passionate about computers, therefore they customize their systems.

Windows is not a standard.  Name the international certification body that has accepted it.

 

Programmatically, windows lacks the cohesiveness of good software.  It often crashes and/'or does unexpected things.

 

Windows may be a lifestyle for some, but the Internet is actually a more pervasive one.

 

Getting one's windows up-to-date is accepting a new set of bugs.  You might as well contract the Ebola virus.

 

If Microsoft hadn't done such a marketing job on the unsuspecting public, you wouldn't get it bundled on a machine at all.  You'd have to find your own operating system.

 

If cost really mattered to you, you would find a free operating system.  I purchased by last hardware naked of any software.  Saved the $200 OEM licence for Windows.

 

I've been in the computer game since 1962.  If Microsoft hadn't gone mad with bloatware (Vista), I'd probably still be using it.  However a little looking around took me to an operating system (Linux) that would run on my small machine.  The machine I am on now can run Windows 8 but I wouldn't touch it with an extra long barge pole.  I haven't paid an operating system licence fee in over 10 years, and I never will.  And, by the way, in 1962 Bill Gates was still in rompers.  He was born in the same year I graduated from high school (1955).

 

Considering its market share, Windows can be claimed as the de facto standard operating system for PCs. People use Windows because many people use it. No technical background is required to use Windows.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

No technical background is needed to use MAC/OS either, nor Ubuntu.  Just point and click.  Any operating system worth its salt is pretty much the same.  After all, what do they do?  They operate the hardware and give the user access to applications to get their work done.

 

Mind you, even with Windows, it pays to have more than a slight acquaintance with the file system so that you don't make too much of a mess of your storage.  Like all appliances, a PC needs to be cleaned up once in a while and it is good if the user can do it himself rather than spend money for some technician to do it.

 

I've never had a MAC, but one of the distinctions between windows and Ubuntu is that Ubuntu is completely self-configuring at start up.  You never have to install drivers except on very rare occasions when third party support is involved.  The upstart program is smart enough to survey the entire system and assemble the kernel to run what it finds.

 

Like selecting an automobile, a discriminating user will not select the General Motors of operating systems because there are too many errors (recalls) and vulnerabilities.  Further, there are not enough models to choose from.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Windows has such a large market share due to the fact that its competitors are either bundled with more expensive machines (Macs) or they are not pre-installed (any Linux distro). I think Linux would be much more popular if it was pre-installed, or if neither Windows or Macs were pre-installed.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

At one time, Dell offered a choice between Windows and Ubuntu.  I think that has died away.  Reason unknown, but I have a feeling that MS resented it strongly.

[Mayor of Tempest Lake 34]

Windows 8.1 Pro on the Dell Venue 11 Pro, with a broken license. Waiting for a replacement from the seller.

Windows 7 x64 on the gaming rig/desktop.

XP Pro x64 on the Dell M1210.

 

I might change the M1210 to Mint /w Xfce if that Win 8.1 stop going primadonna on me.

 

I don't really care about what OS the compy is running; the OS is a either canvas for my stuff, or never going to stick around for long. I'll never change my gaming rig to Linux because it works perfectly well on Win7, and the amount of efforts required for everything on it to work all the time far, FAR, FAR, FAR outweighs the benefits of sticking Ubuntu on that.

 

 

Windows has such a large market share due to the fact that its competitors are either bundled with more expensive machines (Macs) or they are not pre-installed (any Linux distro). I think Linux would be much more popular if it was pre-installed, or if neither Windows or Macs were pre-installed.

 

I won't hold my breath until "the" distro lasts longer than 3 years. I distinctively remember Redhat/Suse/Mandrake in 2001, Gentoo in 2005, *buntu in 2009, and Mint now. I used Slack so I avoided all that.

[mrsmartman 200]

One of the advantage of Windows is its pre-bundled Internet Explorer component. It has become the standard of HTML and web design for many years. You can say that Microsoft has upgraded the road ahead into the information superhighway, the arterial network of digital communication.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Internet Explorer is far too much of a gamble for anyone to use.  I assume the previous poster is a Microsoft employee.

 

BBC View of Experience in the U.K.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

One of the advantage of Windows is its pre-bundled Internet Explorer component. It has become the standard of HTML and web design for many years. You can say that Microsoft has upgraded the road ahead into the information superhighway, the arterial network of digital communication.

 

I seriously doubt that. The majority of people I know don't use other browsers, like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. The thing is that Internet Explorer tends to be slow, often comes with a lot of bloatware on screen and is quite vulnerable to security leaks, like the one from a few months ago...

[mrsmartman 200]

What I can say is... We gain from the corporation. Something should be done in return.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What I can say is... We gain from the corporation. Something should be done in return.

With those exorbitant prices and fees, don't you think they've gained enough?  They've parlayed a simple product into a monster.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

The thing is that the corporation in question, MicroSoft, already has gained enough: it is by far the greatest party in the O/S-oligopoly market by clever marketing and contracting: about 9 in 10 PCs have Windows installed on them, mostly due to the fact that:

1. Windows is often pre-installed on machines. MacOS is only available pre-installed on Apple machines and Linux-based systems have to be installed by the user (or system admin) himself.
2. Most software is tailored on the Windows market, since the market consists mostly out of Windows users.

I'd actually say it's better to give something in return to the other parties that dare to try to compete with Goliath-party. No big party will stay big forever; there will always be a time that the empire collapses into itself (see Roman Empire, British Empire, USSR). It was Windows 8 that finally gave me the trigger to try another O/S...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And Vista pushed me out of my old machine.  It was like trying to get an elephant into a breadbox.  Linux is a slick little tiger by comparison.

[Compdude787 916]

One of the advantage of Windows is its pre-bundled Internet Explorer component. It has become the standard of HTML and web design for many years.

Not really. I remember reading that when IE6 was around, it was outdated and had lots of bugs, so web developers would often have to program things in a certain way just so it would work on IE6. IE6 also had a lot of security holes, just like every version of IE since.

 

The last version of IE that I used regularly was IE7. I think by 2009 I switched to Firefox and used that up until earlier this year, when I switched over to Chrome. Unfortunately I've had to use IE on computers at my high school because the admins wouldn't install Firefox for some stupid reason. But at the college I go to, the computers there have both IE and Firefox installed.

 

I guess the only advantage to having Internet Explorer pre-installed in Windows is so that you can go download another browser.

[Sabretooth78 808]

I'd actually say it's better to give something in return to the other parties that dare to try to compete with Goliath-party. No big party will stay big forever; there will always be a time that the empire collapses into itself (see Roman Empire, British Empire, USSR, USA). It was Windows 8 that finally gave me the trigger to try another O/S...

Edited that for ya.     Otherwise I agree I have forked over more than enough lucre and frustration to them over the years.  Enough was enough.

 

I agree with the majority here, IE is a joke and is not a standard but rather goes Microsoft's route of trying to subvert a standard into one of its own creation.  Always in the name of "making cool new things" when in fact it does more to hinder the industry's production of said cool things.  I believe the argument that IE is the non-standard outlier is probably the more valid one.

 

I use Safari on my Macs (I've used Chrome and FF in the past but they, esp. Chrome tend to get really laggy; Safari on Mac >>> Safari on Windows) and usually Chrome on my work PC and phone.  I like FF and also have it installed but for some reason it doesn't want to save login credentials on our intranet site which is a real PITA.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Computerworld suggests the death of Windows 8.

 

Strange if an update to "Threshold" (Windows 9) should be a freebie for Windows 8 holders, eh?  Shades of Vista?

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Whatever MicroSoft does, I'll not forget Windows 8... and all the trouble it brought me.

[mrsmartman 200]

The birth of Windows 8 is a bit premature. Microsoft hasn't figured out a way to integrate PC and tablet OS yet.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The birth of Windows 8 is a bit premature. Microsoft hasn't figured out a way to integrate PC and tablet OS yet.

This baby was defective.  Let's hope for a better gestation period for the next one.