Windows 9 will be for rent

On Tue, 17 Jun 2014 09:05:33 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:

A long time ago - back in the mainframe days - somebody got the idea to
save money by making sure all the terminals were turned off every night.

Unexpected consequence: repair bills went up significantly - enough to
outweigh the savings in electricity.

Any equipment that needs repair as a consequence of simply being
switched on and off needs to be designed properly so that it doesn't.

This sort of gear wasn't as energy efficient as modern stuff and the
components got really hot. Switching them off every night did cause
failures due to the expansion and contraction as things heated up and
cooled down, not just to circuit boards but to the ic's themselves.

--
Faster, cheaper, quieter than HS2
and built in 5 years;
UKUltraspeed http://www.500kmh.com/

Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:35:32 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Roderick Stewart:
I've been conditioned since I was a small child several decades
before personal computers were ever thought of to switch things off
when they're not needed. It just feels like the right thing to do.

I've also noted that subsequent generations don't seem to care.

A long time ago - back in the mainframe days - somebody got the idea
to save money by making sure all the terminals were turned off every
night.

Unexpected consequence: repair bills went up significantly - enough
to outweigh the savings in electricity.

Any equipment that needs repair as a consequence of simply being
switched on and off needs to be designed properly so that it doesn't.

Proper design being that which allows equipment to function in the most
efficient manner will sometimes require some amount of power.

Some things need to be constantly powered in order to do their
allotted jobs, but normally my computer isn't doing anything while I'm
out of the house or asleep, so it's pointless for it to sitting there
burning electricity while no-one is using it.

I really can't imagine that folks would pop the BIOS battery out while not
using the computer. ;-)
--
best regards,

Neil

Per Rodney Pont:
Switching them off every night did cause
failures due to the expansion and contraction as things heated up and
cooled down, not just to circuit boards but to the ic's themselves.

IIRC that's pretty much what the IBM repair guys said.
--
Pete Cresswell

In ,
Roderick Stewart typed:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:12:52 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

It puzzles me too. Running a "system within a system" must slow
everything down, and can evidently slightly alter the way some
things behave too, judging by the demos I've seen on youtube.
Multiple booting straight from the hard drive (or SSD) is simple
enough.

Having done both, multi-booting is really REALLY terrible. Most
modern systems are powerful enough that running a second or third
OS that is mostly idle has no real operational impact on the system.

I too have done both and I hate both! Sure you say one OS doesn't
really impact the other OS but it still does. And when you want 100%
you can't have it. Too bad!

The difference is that flipping back and forth is a simple click of
the mouse, rather than a full shut down and reboot. That's a huge
difference if you have software you frequently use on both sides of
the wall.

Nonsense! Having three computers running at the same time is no
problem whatsoever. Three times more power than one of yours.
Whatever happens on one has zero effect on the other. There is
nothing better than one OS per machine. It just doesn't get any
better. There is no way I am going back to the old way. This is far
better.

Hmm. It seems to be a case of "horses for courses" here, with no ideal
solution, just whatever best suits your purpose. I appreciate the ease
of flipping back and forth between systems, but if that's not your
reason for wanting to run different systems, it's irrelevant.

I am running Windows 8.1U1 and XP SP2 right now. Each OS has its own
hardware, speakers, everything. They are totally independent of each
other. And flipping between the two OS is a piece of cake. Plus I don't
have to switch between them. I can use them both at the same time. In
fact, that is what I am doing right now.

In my case, I mostly use Windows, but want to keep myself reasonably
conversant with a few alternative systems in case the next version of
Windows after the end of support for 7 is even worse than 8, and I
have to abandon Microsoft altogether. (I could abandon it now, to be
honest, but I've paid for Windows 7 and it works well and I like it,
so I'll use it till Microsoft abandons me).

Ah... I like XP SP2 the best since it runs 100% of what I want to run. I
can't say that of Windows 7/8, Linux, Android, etc. And Microsoft has
already abandoned XP, but that doesn't matter to me. As I never cared
much for Microsoft support anyway.

And yes, I too love to keep myself abreast of what is all available out
there. That is why I have Linux and Android machines too. Although with
all of the talk about Windows tablets and Windows 8 back in 2012, I
realized while I have used tablets for many years, I had no Windows
tablet experience.

So since 2012, I started purchasing Windows tablets. Not just Windows 8
tablets, but also Windows 7, XP, and even Windows 3.1 tablets. Now I
have a very good foundation of experience with Windows tablets. And I
noticed that most people who talks about Windows tablets really have
very little experience with them.

I have a spare PC I use for trying out systems, which have included
the evaluation versions of W8 and W8.1, and usually several versions
of Linux, just to see how they compare on the same machine. One thing
that interests me is how well a Linux installation copes with setting
up a multiboot menu when previous systems are already installed, so a
virtual machine setup wouldn't tell me this. At the moment I have five
variants of Ubuntu and two of mint, all running natively straight from
a 120GB SSD, all selectable from a boot menu that is installed and
configured automatically with each installation of Linux itself.

I do the same, but I give them their own machine. Take this machine, it
can run XP, Vista, 7, or 8. It can run Linux and some say they can run
Windows 95, 98, and even ME and Windows 2000. That is just this one
machine. I have other machines that can do simular. Too many machines
today can only run one or two OS well and that is it. Why do people buy
those machines? Your options are so limited.

The most important thing I have learned is how quick and easy it is to
make a complete installation from scratch of a working operating
system with a selection of useful software that will do nearly
everything I want to do straight away. Knowing that I can do this in
about 20 minutes and still read all my Windows files means I have no
apprehension whatsoever about anything Microsoft decides to do. They
could deactivate every copy of Windows on the planet and disappear in
a puff of smoke tomorrow and I could carry on regardless. This feels
strangely comforting.

Been there and done that. Although you could be in hot water if one of
your machines die. Not me, I believe in having not only backups to
software, but also backups to hardware. As any of my machines could just
totally fry and it wouldn't slow me down one bit. Take this Motion
Computing LE1700 for example. Let's say it just suddenly goes dead. No
power, lights, or anything. I just pull the tablet out of the dock, drop
in another LE1700 or LE1600 (like swapping a large floppy in a drive)
and I am off to the races once again. No big deal.

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2

In ,
Gene E. Bloch typed:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:50:25 -0700, DevilsPGD wrote:

In the last episode of ,
Roderick Stewart said:

It puzzles me too. Running a "system within a system" must slow
everything down, and can evidently slightly alter the way some
things behave too, judging by the demos I've seen on youtube.
Multiple booting straight from the hard drive (or SSD) is simple
enough.

Having done both, multi-booting is really REALLY terrible. Most
modern systems are powerful enough that running a second or third OS
that is mostly idle has no real operational impact on the system.

The difference is that flipping back and forth is a simple click of
the mouse, rather than a full shut down and reboot. That's a huge
difference if you have software you frequently use on both sides of
the wall.

Another advantage (sometimes) is that you can easily access the VM
drive from the host & vice versa, or at least easily copy files from
either one to the other, in a host + VM environment. Usually :-)

It's not always easy in a dual-boot setup.

I am trying to think why I would want to share files between OS? What
kind of stuff do you want to share between OS?

I do sync my data between machines and that takes like 20 seconds or so.
But it doesn't require another OS to be running. As all of my machines
are synced to the master data drive. Besides this, I really can't think
of anything why I would want to do that?

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2

In news DevilsPGD typed:
In the last episode of ,
Roderick Stewart said:

It puzzles me too. Running a "system within a system" must slow
everything down, and can evidently slightly alter the way some things
behave too, judging by the demos I've seen on youtube. Multiple
booting straight from the hard drive (or SSD) is simple enough.

Having done both, multi-booting is really REALLY terrible. Most modern
systems are powerful enough that running a second or third OS that is
mostly idle has no real operational impact on the system.

The difference is that flipping back and forth is a simple click of
the mouse, rather than a full shut down and reboot. That's a huge
difference if you have software you frequently use on both sides of
the wall.

I too have done both. And I much prefer to run each machine with their
own OS. This solves tons of problems. I am running Windows 8.1U1 and XP
SP2 right now. And let's say Windows 8 update wants to reboot the
machine or Avast wants to reboot after a program update. No big deal and
XP SP2 is totally unaffected by whatever the Windows 8 machine does. And
the Windows 8 is unaffected by what the XP machine does. Why would you
want it to work any different?

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2

In ,
Char Jackson typed:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 06:54:58 -0500, "BillW50" wrote:

In ,

Hmm... I think I ran into MKV once with XMRadio on an Android. As you
could download shows so when you were offline you could play them. I
tried to find a MKV player for Windows and the only one was on a
Chinese website and it was all in Chinese. It was too scary going
through the install and answering questions in Chinese. It could
have asked do you want this malware and that malware installed for
all I know. If this is the same format, I didn't find it very useful
without a decent Windows player for that format. Not even VLC would
play them.

We travel in different circles. For me, the last dozen years or so
have been almost exclusively MKV. If you download anything
video-related, chances are it's in MKV format. It's a simple
container system, sort of like AVI, but without the limitations of
AVI. I always use Media Player Classic (MPC-HT), but VLC and WMP
should be able to play them, as well. You may need to install a
codec, depending on what's in the MKV container.

I have no idea where you are getting MKV files? But I normally nowadays
run into MP3, MP4, FLV, WMA, and WMV and that is about all.

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2

In ,
Paul typed:
Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:50:24 -0500, "BillW50"
wrote:
Even run Linux as a VM, as its as easy as a copy to a USD drive to
back it up.
Oh man! What is up with you VM people? I don't get the idea of
running a host OS that can't do what you want just to run another
OS as a VM which does do what you want? What is the point? Why not
run the OS that does what you want and forget that VM nonsense to
begin with?

It puzzles me too. Running a "system within a system" must slow
everything down, and can evidently slightly alter the way some things
behave too, judging by the demos I've seen on youtube. Multiple
booting straight from the hard drive (or SSD) is simple enough.

Currently my test machine has seven different systems installed, just
to try them out - Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint
Cinnamon and Mint Mate. When I have one of these systems running I
know I'm only seeing the behaviour of that system, not its
interaction with any other system.

Rod.

VMs work fine here, and are a great test environment.
I was able to put a DLNA media server in one OS, and
a "fake internet TV" in another OS, and test that
video transcoding was working (they were all networked together).
And still had enough processor left to browse in Firefox.

Really? Want to explain why I have a problem then? I can run AVerTV v6
with XP and it is flawless. Watching TV doesn't take hardly any CPU
power since the tuner also has its own processor and rendering engine
and does all of the work. Only if I record it say another format like
WMV, does the OS and the CPU has to do some real work converting the
format in real time. But this is generally just 50% of the CPU anyway.
So lots of power left to do other things too.

But under Windows 7/8, watching is fine with both AVerTV and the Media
Center. Remember the tuner is still doing all of the work. Although
unlike XP, neither 7/8 can record with either AVerTV software or the
Media Center without dropped frames and sporadic audio. Damn 7/8 does so
many things in the background that applications suffer greatly.

Now how in the world would running 7/8 as a host and running XP in a VM
is going to make things better? I can't think of any technical reason
why it would. Can you?

What I find is "slightly altered", is tasks requiring
RT priority in Linux, don't get RT priority. That prevents
Pulseaudio from working properly (bad quality sound).
Similarly, anything associated with time keeping, a
Linux VM on a Windows machine, is going to complain that
"so may milliseconds" were lost, during some testing done
at boot. But in terms of being able to test the average
software application, it's a great way to test without
having to fire up a room full of computers.

VMs are never perfect! They can't because the host calls the shots and
not the VM.

My VM hosting software, currently has a total of 32 OSes
installed in it. Windows 8 is not one of those, because
the set of suitable VM hosting softwares, is limited.
When I need to test Windows 8, I have to reboot into
it. Which is a pain, compared to booting the others.

Well I don't think I have have 32 OS here, but I have at least a couple
of dozen. Each with their own CPU, RAM, screen, etc. No limitations that
comes with VMs and they all run as the host OS. Whatever happens on one
OS, stays with that OS and has no effect on another. As they run all
independently from each other. Why would you want it to work any other
way?

--
Bill
Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet ('09 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo L7400 1.5GHz - 2GB RAM
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP2

On 6/17/2014 7:41 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Rodney Pont:
Switching them off every night did cause
failures due to the expansion and contraction as things heated up and
cooled down, not just to circuit boards but to the ic's themselves.

IIRC that's pretty much what the IBM repair guys said.

There is no simple answer to this. As there are way too many factors,
chipsets, etc. to consider. Some of my machines are only fired up once
or twice a year. And there is no way keeping them on 24/7 is going to be
better for them.

I don't know if you are talking about mainframes, desktops, or whatever.
But there is a big difference between all of them. I quit using
mainframes in the 90's, and I quit using desktops back in 2005. Nowadays
I have been using just laptops, netbooks, and tablets.

And most of them I would say it doesn't matter much if you run them 24/7
or not. And some of mine almost run 24/7 and some are powered on and off
a lot. And only two things worry me, that is startup and spin down
cycles on hard drives and florescent back lighting on LED screens.

Hard drives don't take kindly to spinups and spin downs all of the time.
I have seen rating like 50,000 times for MTBF. That might sound like a
lot, but if it does this 6 times an hour, I think that is about 2 or 3
years and you have passed 50,000.

Florescent back lighting is another problem. Two really. One they will
run 24/7 for about 25,000 to 35,000 hours straight. That isn't really
too long and I have seen some only last a year and a half running 24/7.
Although they should last just a few years later.

The other problem with florescent back lighting is they don't take
kindly to powering up and off a lot. Although I don't have any idea of
any MTBF ratings on this. So I don't have any experience how long you
can get away with this. As I don't think I had a cold cathode florescent
back lighting that ever failed powering them on and off a lot. So
apparently I am not doing that enough for it to become a problem.

So far I haven't talked about the machines that I do worry a lot about.
And those are my Alienware 200 watt portable space heaters (which they
call desktop replacements). I have five of them and they all have two
video cards to drive one display. I swear the exhaust from the fans you
can bake cookies. Playing games on them the CPU and the GPUs can reach
180 degrees F or more at times. I never had one fail yet, but I try to
keep everything 160 degrees or less. Although others have had the video
cards cook themselves to dead. I figure it is just a matter of time
before mine does too. So I run them as little as possible. So far, so
good. I don't think these machines would last long running 24/7 at all.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

On 6/17/2014 9:35 AM, DK wrote:
In article , Nil wrote:
On 16 Jun 2014, Roderick Stewart wrote
in alt.comp.os.windows-8:

On the odd occasion I've accidentally found myself on the
newfangled screen and then tried running one of the newfangled
applications, there doesn't seem to be a proper way of stopping
it, which seems a strange omission. The task manager can do it of
course, but that seems a bit like stopping a vehicle by poking a
stick in the spokes of one of its wheels. There may for all I know
be proper elegant ways of doing all the usual things in Windows 8,
but I think they should be intuitive rather than requiring special
training.

They're not meant to be completely stopped. Supposedly they go inactive
when they're in the background and their resources are available to
other processes if needed. That's also the way most Android apps work.
It actually makes some sense - why not take advantage of any available
RAM if it's not required elsewhere? Whether or not it works out that
way in the real world, I don't know.

It does not. I've observed two laptops discharging to zero in sleep mode
in less than 24 hours.

That isn't the same thing at all. Sleep mode keeps a number of things
alive, but the most important thing is keeping the RAM alive. And when
the machine is sleeping or not, the RAM is drawing about the same amount
of power. And they are not light weights in the energy demand area. Not
as much as a hard drive or anything, but not much more less either. And
it doesn't matter much how much information the RAM is holding. A lot or
a little, the energy demand is about the same.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

On 6/17/2014 3:05 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:35:32 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Roderick Stewart:
I've been conditioned since I was a small child several decades before
personal computers were ever thought of to switch things off when
they're not needed. It just feels like the right thing to do.

I've also noted that subsequent generations don't seem to care.

A long time ago - back in the mainframe days - somebody got the idea to
save money by making sure all the terminals were turned off every night.

Unexpected consequence: repair bills went up significantly - enough to
outweigh the savings in electricity.

Any equipment that needs repair as a consequence of simply being
switched on and off needs to be designed properly so that it doesn't.

I can honestly say some are and I can attest to some of my devices
running flawlessly for decades being turned on and off all of the time.

Some things need to be constantly powered in order to do their
allotted jobs, but normally my computer isn't doing anything while I'm
out of the house or asleep, so it's pointless for it to sitting there
burning electricity while no-one is using it.

Mine are ran in many different states. Some are on a lot, some are off a
lot, some are hibernating a lot (same as being off really), some lives
in standby a lot. And most of the time it makes no difference at all. So
do you usually shutdown without hibernating or use standby?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

BillW50 wrote, On 6/17/2014 9:00 AM:

I do the same, but I give them their own machine. Take this machine, it
can run XP, Vista, 7, or 8. It can run Linux and some say they can run
Windows 95, 98, and even ME and Windows 2000. That is just this one
machine. I have other machines that can do simular. Too many machines
today can only run one or two OS well and that is it. Why do people buy
those machines? Your options are so limited.

'Most' people buy one machine with the installed o/s and use it for
years and don't care, need, ignore or ignorant of the need for options.


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 6/17/2014 12:33 PM, ...winston wrote:
BillW50 wrote, On 6/17/2014 9:00 AM:

I do the same, but I give them their own machine. Take this machine, it
can run XP, Vista, 7, or 8. It can run Linux and some say they can run
Windows 95, 98, and even ME and Windows 2000. That is just this one
machine. I have other machines that can do simular. Too many machines
today can only run one or two OS well and that is it. Why do people buy
those machines? Your options are so limited.

'Most' people buy one machine with the installed o/s and use it for
years and don't care, need, ignore or ignorant of the need for options.

I suppose, but after using computers for decades, I got tired of being
locked into what you got is all you are going to get. That gets old
after awhile.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

On 06/17/2014 09:58 AM, BillW50 wrote:

Well I don't think I have have 32 OS here, but I have at least a couple
of dozen. Each with their own CPU, RAM, screen, etc. No limitations that
comes with VMs and they all run as the host OS. Whatever happens on one
OS, stays with that OS and has no effect on another. As they run all
independently from each other. Why would you want it to work any other
way?


That's good if you have the money for all those different machines. If
you don't VM's solve the problems of trying out different OSs and software.

--
Caver1

On 6/17/2014 2:36 PM, Caver1 wrote:
On 06/17/2014 09:58 AM, BillW50 wrote:

Well I don't think I have have 32 OS here, but I have at least a couple
of dozen. Each with their own CPU, RAM, screen, etc. No limitations that
comes with VMs and they all run as the host OS. Whatever happens on one
OS, stays with that OS and has no effect on another. As they run all
independently from each other. Why would you want it to work any other
way?

That's good if you have the money for all those different machines. If
you don't VM's solve the problems of trying out different OSs and software.

Whoa! Think for a second. Buying a copy of Windows will cost you like 25
to 100 bucks. And I can buy computers all day long that comes with
Windows for 50 to 100 bucks... so why does it cost more? Why buy a copy
of Windows alone or buy a computer with Windows almost for about the
same price?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center