Questions about the "end of Windows 7"

On Fri, 1 Mar 2019 20:30:38 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:
I've done some of those things, but it's still a bit of a PIA. And don't
get me started on the circular references and junction points crapola!

As I've said, life is too short for this obfuscation (at least for me).

You sound the way I did when I first got Windows 7. Then I buckled
down and learned it, with the help of people in this group and the
excellent book /Windows 7 Inside Out/.(*)

I don't mean to make light of your pain, I'm just saying that you
sound like you're letting frustration get the better of you. In my
experience, the best way to master such feelings is not to keep the
complications at arm's length -- as you've observed, that's a losing
game. Instead, I've found it best really to learn as much as I needed
to know to get the jobs done.

Windows XP (and Windows 98SE and Windows 2000) were simply lean and
mean, with nothing ever getting in your way.

It may seem that way in hindsight, but I remember a steep learning
curve even for Windows XP. The "Annoyances" book was my constant
companion.

If you ever drink the Kool-Aid ... oops, I mean "upgrade" to Windows
10 ... I guarantee you'll look back with nostalgia on Windows 7 and
sigh about how Windows 7 just worked and Windows 10 constantly gets
in your way.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 01:04:39 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:

ALL of that, with access sometimes being denied (and the incessant
permissions and ownership BS),


So turn off UAC, as others have suggested, since it's probably too
late for you to configure UAC properly.

I assure you that I have UAC turned on and I don't get "incessant
permissions and ownership BS". Partly, I'm sure, it's because I took
the trouble to learn how I should use UAC _before_ I started loading
stuff on my Windows 7 laptop. In no way am I a UAC expert -- I
learned enough for me to configure it for the way _I_ work, not
enough to advise others on how they should work.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On 3/1/19 11:13 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

[snip]

Yup, I still have a special place in my heart for DOS. So yeah, I miss DOS
a bit. And Windows 98SE was the last version that had a true DOS fallback
built in. Some days I just like looking at that simple black text screen.
It can be refreshing. Especially in this "climate", but I'll just leave it
at that. :-)

ME did come with the USB storage driver, making it a little easier to
use. The help system was worse (but I seldom used that).

There were a few changes in ME making the DOS command line harder to get
to. IIRC there was a patch available to restore the options, or there
was nothing to stop you from using a DOS floppy.

My favorite Windows (in it's time) was 2000 (NT5). 7 is relatively good.
Before Win 95, I preferred DOS.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

Ad for candy bars: "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

On 3/1/19 11:20 PM, Mike wrote:

Windows 2000 was my favorite OS.Â* I put off XP until I just couldn't do
what
I wanted anymore in 2000.

It was mine too. IIRC, I was still using after Vista came out. I did
change (to XP, not Vista) because Win2000 didn't work so will with high
speed (above 2mbps) internet. I never used Vista. It was too bloated.

[snip]

Windows 10 as an OS isn't any more difficult than previous versions.
What's different is the MS philosophy of monetizing your computer use
by any means possible.

That is the most important reason I don't use Windows above 7 if I can
avoid it. I don't know yet what I'm going to do about income tax
software, once it no longer works on 7.

[snip]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

Ad for candy bars: "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

"Stan Brown" wrote

| I assure you that I have UAC turned on and I don't get "incessant
| permissions and ownership BS". Partly, I'm sure, it's because I took
| the trouble to learn how I should use UAC _before_ I started loading
| stuff on my Windows 7 laptop.

No. Because you don't have occasion to access
files outside of your assigned purview. I have UAC
disabled, but there are still problems that require
me to change ownership/permission. It's very simple:
With NTFS file restrictions there are restrictions.

The UAC setting is only part of that, designed to
minimize hassles (so as not to repeat the Vista fiasco
where no one wanted the product).

If you're happy to stay in your assigned area --
personal app data -- then you're fine. If not then
there are blocks and interruptions. How you feel
about those, again, will depend on how comfortable
you are running in corporate lackey mode or whether
you expect full control of the system.

The long and the short of it is that if you like
to enable UAC, and maybe even run an AV or
two, that's fine. But people who don't want to do
that are not wrong or stupid. (Though I realize
one of your favorite pastimes is thinking people
to be stupid.)
The real problem is
that MS makes it very difficult to choose options,
in order to save on support costs. If there were
a checkbox marked "Make me a fake admin", and
one could just uncheck it, then all would be fine.
You could run as lackey and we could drive
without a seat belt. They could even hide it behind
an intimidating "Advanced" button, as far as I'm
concerned.

The only problem I've ever had with
Windows is that pushy attitude that refuses to
allow choice without searching for days to dig
up secret, commandline incantations.

On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 11:13:50 -0500, Stan Brown
wrote:


If you ever drink the Kool-Aid ... oops, I mean "upgrade" to Windows
10 ... I guarantee you'll look back with nostalgia on Windows 7 and
sigh about how Windows 7 just worked and Windows 10 constantly gets
in your way.




Do you guarantee that to everyone or just to him? It's not at all true
for me.

I won't make guarantees to anyone, but as far as I'm concerned, most
people, if they take the time to learn how to use Windows 10 and
configure it to their liking, will like it just fine.

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 3/1/19 11:20 PM, Mike wrote:

Windows 2000 was my favorite OS. I put off XP until I just couldn't
do what
I wanted anymore in 2000.

It was mine too. IIRC, I was still using after Vista came out. I did
change (to XP, not Vista) because Win2000 didn't work so will with high
speed (above 2mbps) internet. I never used Vista. It was too bloated.

One weirdness, was Win2000 had an upper limit of 320Mbit/sec on
a GbE NIC interface. About the best it could do on shares,
was transfer at 40MB/sec. I tried a number of "from-to"
benchmarks, and that's about the best number I could
manage, out of all the test results.

It was WinXP that had a better networking stack. It can run
the stack at GbE rates on a GbE NIC.

Paul

Bill in Co [email protected] wrote:
Ant wrote:
Bill in Co [email protected] wrote:
...
Windows XP (and Windows 98SE and Windows 2000) were simply lean and mean,
with nothing ever getting in your way. If you wanted to do something at
the file level, nothing was stopping you. That said, I wouldn't want to
go back to Windows 3.1. :-)

What about DOS? :-P 3.x and 9x were annoying, and easy to crash. NT4 and
up were much better. Even Vista was OK! 10 was OK if it wasn't so dang
annoying.

Yup, I still have a special place in my heart for DOS. So yeah, I miss DOS
a bit. And Windows 98SE was the last version that had a true DOS fallback
built in. Some days I just like looking at that simple black text screen.
It can be refreshing. Especially in this "climate", but I'll just leave it
at that. :-)

You can use Linux. It still has black text screen. In fact, I SSH to
Linux boxes to use text modem command lines and programs (e.g., tin for
usenet!) all the time. I'm old school.
--
Quote of the Week: "There's an ant crawling up your back in the nighttime." --They Might Be Giants' Ant Song
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Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 1 Mar 2019 20:30:38 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:
I've done some of those things, but it's still a bit of a PIA. And don't
get me started on the circular references and junction points crapola!

As I've said, life is too short for this obfuscation (at least for me).

You sound the way I did when I first got Windows 7. Then I buckled
down and learned it, with the help of people in this group and the
excellent book /Windows 7 Inside Out/.(*)

I don't mean to make light of your pain, I'm just saying that you
sound like you're letting frustration get the better of you. In my
experience, the best way to master such feelings is not to keep the
complications at arm's length -- as you've observed, that's a losing
game. Instead, I've found it best really to learn as much as I needed
to know to get the jobs done.

Windows XP (and Windows 98SE and Windows 2000) were simply lean and
mean, with nothing ever getting in your way.

It may seem that way in hindsight, but I remember a steep learning
curve even for Windows XP. The "Annoyances" book was my constant
companion.

If you ever drink the Kool-Aid ... oops, I mean "upgrade" to Windows
10 ... I guarantee you'll look back with nostalgia on Windows 7 and
sigh about how Windows 7 just worked and Windows 10 constantly gets
in your way.

I doubt it. But as Mayayana has already pointed out, most people aren't
messing around in the C: partition anyway, and are just merrily content to
run their programs and go on their merry way. And for those people (which
is most people) my objections are moot.

And yes, I've disabled the UAC crap (and taken ownership where it's allowed
me to), but it's always a crap shoot as to what "helpful message" or
"obfuscation" will show up next, when working closer to the system level
like in Windows Explorer. Perhaps that's a bit of hobby for me - can't tell
anymore. :-)

Mayayana wrote:
"Stan Brown" wrote

I assure you that I have UAC turned on and I don't get "incessant
permissions and ownership BS". Partly, I'm sure, it's because I took
the trouble to learn how I should use UAC _before_ I started loading
stuff on my Windows 7 laptop.

No. Because you don't have occasion to access
files outside of your assigned purview. I have UAC
disabled, but there are still problems that require
me to change ownership/permission. It's very simple:
With NTFS file restrictions there are restrictions.

The UAC setting is only part of that, designed to
minimize hassles (so as not to repeat the Vista fiasco
where no one wanted the product).

If you're happy to stay in your assigned area --
personal app data -- then you're fine. If not then
there are blocks and interruptions. How you feel
about those, again, will depend on how comfortable
you are running in corporate lackey mode or whether
you expect full control of the system.

The long and the short of it is that if you like
to enable UAC, and maybe even run an AV or
two, that's fine. But people who don't want to do
that are not wrong or stupid. (Though I realize
one of your favorite pastimes is thinking people
to be stupid.)
The real problem is
that MS makes it very difficult to choose options,
in order to save on support costs. If there were
a checkbox marked "Make me a fake admin", and
one could just uncheck it, then all would be fine.
You could run as lackey and we could drive
without a seat belt. They could even hide it behind
an intimidating "Advanced" button, as far as I'm
concerned.

The only problem I've ever had with
Windows is that pushy attitude that refuses to
allow choice without searching for days to dig
up secret, commandline incantations.

+1 for making the point. Even if there are only two of us in here that
"get it". :-)

Ant wrote:
Bill in Co [email protected] wrote:
Ant wrote:
Bill in Co [email protected] wrote:
...
Windows XP (and Windows 98SE and Windows 2000) were simply lean and
mean, with nothing ever getting in your way. If you wanted to do
something at the file level, nothing was stopping you. That said, I
wouldn't want to go back to Windows 3.1. :-)

What about DOS? :-P 3.x and 9x were annoying, and easy to crash. NT4 and
up were much better. Even Vista was OK! 10 was OK if it wasn't so dang
annoying.

Yup, I still have a special place in my heart for DOS. So yeah, I miss
DOS a bit. And Windows 98SE was the last version that had a true DOS
fallback built in. Some days I just like looking at that simple black
text screen. It can be refreshing. Especially in this "climate", but
I'll just leave it at that. :-)

You can use Linux. It still has black text screen. In fact, I SSH to
Linux boxes to use text modem command lines and programs (e.g., tin for
usenet!) all the time. I'm old school.

I tried Linux (Cinnamon Mint, etc), but found it's just not worth all the
hassle, at least to me. Plus I've got way too much invested (program wise)
in Windows at this point.

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 3/1/19 11:20 PM, Mike wrote:

Windows 2000 was my favorite OS. I put off XP until I just couldn't do
what
I wanted anymore in 2000.

It was mine too. IIRC, I was still using after Vista came out. I did
change (to XP, not Vista) because Win2000 didn't work so will with high
speed (above 2mbps) internet. I never used Vista. It was too bloated.

[snip]

Windows 10 as an OS isn't any more difficult than previous versions.
What's different is the MS philosophy of monetizing your computer use
by any means possible.

That is the most important reason I don't use Windows above 7 if I can
avoid it. I don't know yet what I'm going to do about income tax
software, once it no longer works on 7.

Oh please, say it isn't so!! I forgot about that one. Damn! Well, at
least the more basic one called TaxAct still works on XP. I'm sure the
major players have already dropped XP, and added more program bloat in the
process, to boot. Every year it seems they want to keep adding more bells
and whistles in the name of "attractability". Bah. The concept of Less
is More is lost on the newage generations - plus it doesn't make them as
much money, of course.

Stan Brown wrote:
On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 01:04:39 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:

ALL of that, with access sometimes being denied (and the incessant
permissions and ownership BS),


So turn off UAC, as others have suggested, since it's probably too
late for you to configure UAC properly.

I assure you that I have UAC turned on and I don't get "incessant
permissions and ownership BS". Partly, I'm sure, it's because I took
the trouble to learn how I should use UAC _before_ I started loading
stuff on my Windows 7 laptop. In no way am I a UAC expert -- I
learned enough for me to configure it for the way _I_ work, not
enough to advise others on how they should work.

I'll refer you to Mayayana's post, which has answered this in better detail.
:-)

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 01:04:39 -0700, "Bill in Co"
[email protected] wrote:

Mike wrote:
On 3/1/2019 7:30 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Mike wrote:
On 3/1/2019 12:39 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Roger Blake wrote:
On 2019-03-01, Bill in Co [email protected] wrote:
What support? (If you're a home user, I mean). In which case,
it's a moot point. So I expect some of us will stick with Windows
7, or even Windows XP, at least for those few of us that like to
work on their PC without all those extra encumberances getting in
the way.

I would say that as long as you can run an up-to-date antivirus
program and web browser then you're golden with Windows 7.

I hate to say it, but I'm taking a few chances by NOT using the
latest antivirus programs, because I just can't handle all the bloat
and slower performance of the newer versions. That said, I try to
play it safe with my online browsing and emails. :-).

I'm guessing the day will come when I will have no choice but to go
to Windows 7, if for no other reason, due to the browsers not working
anymore on most sites. So I've got a Windows 7 laptop next to me for
that, which I occasionally boot up, just to check for and presence of
rust. :-) But the aggravation of using it, with Win 7 and all its
ownership and permissions baggage getting in my way, especially when
using Windows Explorer for any file operations, is just too much for
me. I'm too old for this nonsense. :-)


Turn off UAC.
Don't try to put stuff in protected directories.
Don't use Windows Explorer.
I prefer Totalcommander, but there are several that claim to be
as good.
You can easily take ownership of anything you want.
You can take ownership of the whole drive.
But I have had issues with circular references in the user's
directories after doing so. But there's a tool to fix that.

I've already done much of that. It's still an unnecessary nuisance.

People get very excited about tiny changes in the UI.
Put links to everything you use frequently in one directory
and load that page. Or link stuff to the toolbar of startmenu.

If your computer has enough horsepower and available drivers
for your hardware, win7 is a slam dunk.

It's not for me, until necessity prevails. :-)

You can say the same thing for win10 once you get the updates under
control and delete anything that's deletable, especially active
icons on the start page.

I've done some of those things, but it's still a bit of a PIA. And
don't get me started on the circular references and junction points
crapola!

As I've said, life is too short for this obfuscation (at least for me).
OTOH, if you're just using it for work programs and higher level stuff,
maybe it's not such a problem. The problem is when you get down to the
file administration level and it gets in your face. Well, that, and the
pathetic GUI that needs Classic Menu to be even halfway usable. And
that it takes twice as long to boot up in the first place (might as
well get a cup of coffee while its booting up).

Classic menu is an excuse for people who want something to bitch about.

No, Classic Menu is there to make it easy to find something, instead of
going on some fishing expedition.

If you sleep your computer, it takes almost no tome to boot. I reboot
my system every few weeks just in case. There are enough memory leaks
in the gazillion apps to make it crash eventually. That's not new with
win10.

This Win 7 laptop takes about 4 minutes to fully boot up (the other same
model Win XP laptop takes about 2 minutes). I prefer shutting ALL
systems down at bedtime, for what I consider to be self evident reasons.

For me, my tablets and the Chromebook spend most of their time shut
down, while all PCs remain running 24/7 for obvious reasons.

As for Windows boot time, it stops being an issue if you stop shutting
down so often. I've found that restarting every 3-4 months is fine for
anything up to 8.1. With Win 10, I've never gotten nearly that far.
After a few days, it manages to tell me that it's sick and needs to
rest.

Windows XP (and Windows 98SE and Windows 2000) were simply lean and
mean, with nothing ever getting in your way. If you wanted to do
something at the file level, nothing was stopping you. That said, I
wouldn't want to go back to Windows 3.1. :-)

A horse drawn buggy was lean and mean. I wouldn't go back there either.
Time marches on. Try to keep up ;-)

No thank you. (contary to public opinion, newer is not always better).
Want another sterling example? Office 365, and all the subscription
nonsense. No thanks.

Windows 2000 was my favorite OS. I put off XP until I just couldn't do
what I wanted anymore in 2000.
Same for 7 and 10. Average delay was 3 years after introduction.

My 10 start page looks almost the same as my directory/window of program
launchers in 7 and xp and 2000 and 98... I find myself using the window
of program launchers in 10 most of the time anyway.
I haven't used windows
explorer much since MS started messing with it at every turn.
If you haven't tried totalcommander, give the demo a try.
There are several freewares that are similar.
If I didn't already have a license, I'd probably start with one of
the free ones.

I've got several Windows Explorer clones over here, but I generally
prefer jjust using Windows Explorer. I'm, not looking for lots of of
bells and whistles. (Less can be More, sometimes. :-)

Windows 10 as an OS isn't any more difficult than previous versions.
What's different is the MS philosophy of monetizing your computer use
by any means possible. Blocking updates at inopportune times seems to
have been fixed. I've had months where I had 50GB of internet download
that was mostly updates for several computers. Pity the people on
metered internet. but I digress...

But I seem to recall that there are some programs out there that can
prevent those incessant, automatic windows updates. And kudos for that.

So, I have to keep removing junk they download
and block access wherever possible. But I'm old...what else am I gonna
do? Take another nap...yep, that's it another nap...

It would be interesting to see what kind of file administration is
causing you consternation.
Copy, delete, move, open, save. What am I missing?

ALL of that, with access sometimes being denied (and the incessant
permissions and ownership BS), OR even just having to see if what is
there, is really there, or is just an illusion, with all the stupid
circular references and junction points, and some smoke and mirrors.
No thanks. It's not worth the aggravation to me, and is completely
avoided by simply using XP. I'm sure Mayayana can fill ya in. :-)

You guys recently tried to fill me in, but were unsuccessful. ;-)
You have to really go out of your way to have those kinds of issues.

--

Char Jackson

No, we probably just spend a bit more time down there at the C: partition
level, working with Windows Explorer (or at least trying to, in spite of all
the obfuscations and smoke and mirrors), for various sundry tests. :-)

On 2019-03-02, Art Todesco wrote:
Having grown up in the Unix world, sometimes I think I would like to go
to Linux.

That's what I've done, also having come up through Unix starting in the
late 1970s.

It's not for everyone. Linux works well for me but I have no need
for Microsoft or Apple products. It's also nice to be able to run an
up-to-date OS on things like the 15-year-old laptop I'm typing on right
now. (I support Windows for others though which is why I participate in
Windows newsgroups and forums.)

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