Ken Blake wrote:
On Mon, 4 Feb 2019 15:31:04 -0700, "Bill in Co"
surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote:

Ken Blake wrote:
On Mon, 4 Feb 2019 11:15:28 -0700, "Bill in Co"
surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:
[snip]

I hate Windows 10 too, and Windows 7 is not going to be supported.

https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

At one time Windows 2000 was the best version ever. I kept using it
for about 3 years after that "end of life", which doesn't really mean
much. If you are worried about security patches, use Firefox for a
browser (it does more of the security stuff itself).

Eventually, you get to a point where incompatibility becomes too much
of a problem, but that is NOT what MS calls "end of life".

I expect Windows 7 to be like that too, you can use it safely as long
as Firefox supports it.

Most of the time, there's only a few programs I use that require
Windows, and those are very tolerant of old versions. They should
continue to work fine on W7 (I won't use anything later).

Johnny's alternative should work fine for mot things.

Firefox OR Chrome - it's gotten to the point that sometimes I need to
use Chrome on a few sites (mostly the ones with video)


It's interesting to me that you see FireFox and Chrome as alternatives
to each other. I don't. As far as I'm concerned, FireFox is the best
available browser and Chrome is among the worst--possibly better than
Edge and IE, but that's all.

Trust me, I'm not a fan of Chrome. But Chrome works on some sites where
FF (the latest version I can use on Windows XP) doesn't - especially on
some sites with some videos. So I'm still using Windows XP for the most
part, since I am annoyed by all the restrictions imposed on me in all
the later versions of the OS.


OK, understood.

Just to be more specific, it's all the permissions, ownership, and smoke and
mirrors (what you see is often not what is really there in windows
explorer), that gets to me. Here are some examples (in Windows Explorer)
when using Windows 7:

I click on Documents and Settings in Windows Explorer, and am greeted with
"Access is Denied". If I click on the "Owner" desktop icon, I see a
different set of directories, including TWO directories called "My
Documents". Gee, how nice. Click on the first one, and no problem. Click
on the second one (with the shortcut arrow), and I get "Access is Denied".

And I've even had to use the RegOwnership program to allow me to "take
ownership" of my computer and allow me any access to some of these folders.
It's all utter nonsense (as a home user).

My feeling about all this is .... life is too short for all this. All the
so needless and arcane permissions, ownership, and "smoke and mirrors" -
when you look at the directories (some of which are real, and some of which
are just smoke and mirrors - shadow directories - , is just too much crap
for me to deal with, as a home user. Plus the fact that it takes twice as
long to boot up as Windows XP, to boot, and this is not even a slow laptop.

But I know the day will likely come when I will have no choice, and be
forced to go to Windows 7 for routine work. I think the browser limitations
will probably be the determining factor here, since I'm not using any newer
programs.