Tip: Heads up on M$ Office

On Wed, 6 Nov 2019 20:00:17 +0100, "Carlos E. R."
wrote:

It is not nice that an old machine gets infected by ransomware via a
hole that is patched in Win 10, and once there it infects or corrupts
other systems via network.

Damage can be many thousands or euros.

If there is some task that needs an ancient OS, better remove the
network access to that machine and remove the USB sockets.

A long time ago, I worked at a company that had an overworked IT department
because USB thumb drives were just becoming all the rage. Malware and
pirated software were rampant. At a management meeting, one of the
Directors suggested filling each USB port with super glue to stop people
from being able to plug in their USB drives. Just then, another Director
spoke up and said, "Ummm, these are leased machines. Someday they'll need
to go back where they came from." The issue was addressed in other ways,
but that little exchange was water cooler talk for quite some time
thereafter.

--

Char Jackson

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Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/6/2019 11:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

T wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

How old are these customers of yours?

These three are in their forties.

Old farts are a challenge to configure for, but
fortunately, they are need are rather minor:
web and eMail and something to jot down a note on.
Oh and Solitaire.

Hearts. :-)

Ever played Zork I?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWQDccL0aXM

Wasn't until 1993 with the release of Return to Zork that added
graphics. The "Web" showed up a year or two later starting with Mosaic.
Ah, nostalgia. The good old days of PCs thankfully since far surpassed.


I have hardly ever played any computer games, with three exceptions:
Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III, around 1985.

It's very dark in here. You are liable to be eaten by a Grue.


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|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

On 11/6/2019 3:53 PM, Dan Purgert wrote:
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Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/6/2019 11:36 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

T wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

How old are these customers of yours?

These three are in their forties.

Old farts are a challenge to configure for, but
fortunately, they are need are rather minor:
web and eMail and something to jot down a note on.
Oh and Solitaire.

Hearts. :-)

Ever played Zork I?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWQDccL0aXM

Wasn't until 1993 with the release of Return to Zork that added
graphics. The "Web" showed up a year or two later starting with Mosaic.
Ah, nostalgia. The good old days of PCs thankfully since far surpassed.


I have hardly ever played any computer games, with three exceptions:
Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III, around 1985.

It's very dark in here. You are liable to be eaten by a Grue.


I was. That's why I haven't played any computer games since then.


--
Ken

In alt.windows7.general Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 06/11/2019 21.40, VanguardLH wrote:
"Carlos E. R." wrote:

[Microsoft] were good in the past at purchasing external utilities, or
a limited version of them. Since MsDOS times. For instance, they
bought a version of PCtools backup.

PC Tools (Central Point) was acquired by Symantec in 1994 who then made
PC Tools disappear. Symantec didn't buy Central Point to include that
software in their own product line. They bought Central Point to get
rid of a competitor (to their own Norton Tools).

Symantec also bought Altiris which had free SVM (Software Virtualization
Machine) which let you install and run multiple versions of the same
program or programs that conflicted with each other. When a program was
disabled, it was invisible, so it no longer conflicted with other
software. Some software doesn't like multiple versions of it
concurrently installed or ran on the same host, but in QA you may need
to test your program under different environs. Some software conflicted
with other software, especially similarly functioned programs. You
could have Altiris automatically disable (hide) one program when you
loaded another known to conflict with the other. It was slick. It
competed with Symantec's SVM (available only as an enterprise product),
so Symantec bought them, claimed they would make it available, but
instead made it disappear. Got rid of another competitor.

Symantec acquired Delrina's Winfax. Guess what happened to that
software? Yep, it faded away, too. Remember PartitionMagic from
Powerquest? Yep, Symantec acquired Powerquest in 2003, so
PartitionMagic disappeared, too.

Uncharacteristic to Symantec, they acquired Peter Norton Computing in
1990 which continues today as the Norton product line. Because Norton
Tools was included, 4 years later they acquired and got rid of Central
Point to get rid of the highly successful but competing PC Tools.


So that was it. I wondered.

And Symantec's enterprise goes to Broadcom and consumer products to go
to NortonLifeLock.
https://investor.nortonlifelock.com/...m/default.aspx :O

--
"In a battle between elephants, the ants get squashed." --Thailand
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| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

In alt.windows7.general "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
In message , T writes:
On 11/6/19 12:32 AM, Chris wrote:
T wrote:
[]
Windows 7 is a perfectly functional operating system.
Only for two more months. It is 10 years old.

And functioning well. And there is a lot of them out
there still.
[]
It'd be interesting to know both numbers and proportions. I _suspect_ 7
is now where XP was - actually some time after XP officially ended; 7's
take-up was gradual, possibly even actually accelerated by the
appearance of 8.0.

I'm holding onto my 64-bit 7 HPE SP1 as long as I can like I did with XP
Pro. SP3. I don't know where I will go after it. Maybe full-time Linux
with VMs. At least I don't play computer game these day in Windows.

--
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Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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( )

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , T writes:
On 11/6/19 12:32 AM, Chris wrote:
T wrote:
[]
Windows 7 is a perfectly functional operating system.
Only for two more months. It is 10 years old.

And functioning well. And there is a lot of them out
there still.
[]
It'd be interesting to know both numbers and proportions. I _suspect_ 7
is now where XP was - actually some time after XP officially ended; 7's
take-up was gradual, possibly even actually accelerated by the
appearance of 8.0.

https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Win 10 54% and win 7 14%

Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/6/2019 1:10 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 06/11/2019 20.15, Ken Blake wrote:
Â*T wrote:

Hmmmm.Â* That is FUD.Â* 7 got broken into more than XP.
M$ security is a joke.Â* You are much better off getting
a good antivirus.

Microsoft security has traditionally been poor compared to the
third-party alternatives, with one exception: Windows 10 Defender. There
might be one or two better ant-virus programs, but Defender is a good
one too.

As a matter of fact fact, most Microsoft utilities and application
programs are inferior to most of the third-party alternatives. Not
everyone will agree with my views on these, but I'll name just a couple
of examples that I feel strongly about: FireFox is better than Edge,
WordPerfect is better than Word; Quicken is better than Money (which
Microsoft no longer sells).

They were good in the past at purchasing external utilities, or a
limited version of them. Since MsDOS times. For instance, they bought a
version of PCtools backup.



They can't do too much of that. Undoubtedly they fear being cited for
monopolizng the market

Like all big companies they do quite a lot. They bought a mobile email
client and reskinned it as outlook and they recently bought GitHub for a
lot of money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...s_by_Microsoft

wrote:
On 6 Nov 2019 16:22:19 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

T wrote:

[About having to switch to Windows 10 because of Office 2019:]

They have tons of specialty software that runs Windows. They
are going to eventually have to bit the bullet. There are
things I can do to calm 10 down. 10's updates are
a nightmare too. (I can turn them off.)

They just are not looking forward to running an inferior
version of Windows.

And NVMe drive goes a long way to calming 10 down. And
there is Open Shell and Shut Up 10

(From this and earlier threads,) It looks to me (us?) that it's not so
much your customers who are unwilling to change, but you.

You've had over four years to prepare migration plans from Windows
whatever to Windows 10. Should be more than enough.

Don't get me wrong, for my *personal* (non-business) use, I don't like
Windows 10 very much either and hence still use 8.1, but holding on to
Windows 7 past its use-by date for (small) *business* purposes is just
plain unprofessional.

If it's really your customers who can't handle change, they should get
out of whatever business they're in.

(N.B. This obviously does not apply to any 'old farts' which use their
systems for private (non-business) use.)

There are still plenty of people in mega corporations using XP for
their POS and other industrial applications., If the job didn't
change, why change the software?
M$ has convinced a generation or two of customers that software just
wears out.

If nothing changed on a computer or to a computer from the day it was
bought, then yes there's no reason to update anything. However, software
and use cases continuously evolve such that you need upgrade.

For example hardware can fail so you replace it with new, but you can't
simply copy the existing install over as the chipset drivers aren't
compatible with the old OS so you upgrade the OS, but then the app isn't
compatible with OS and so on.

Ant wrote:
In alt.windows7.general "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
In message , T writes:
On 11/6/19 12:32 AM, Chris wrote:
T wrote:
[]
Windows 7 is a perfectly functional operating system.
Only for two more months. It is 10 years old.

And functioning well. And there is a lot of them out
there still.
[]
It'd be interesting to know both numbers and proportions. I _suspect_ 7
is now where XP was - actually some time after XP officially ended; 7's
take-up was gradual, possibly even actually accelerated by the
appearance of 8.0.

I'm holding onto my 64-bit 7 HPE SP1 as long as I can like I did with XP
Pro. SP3. I don't know where I will go after it. Maybe full-time Linux
with VMs. At least I don't play computer game these day in Windows.

You might consider switching to 8.1 when 7 no longer gets any security
updates.

8.1 will give you three more years of updates (Extended support until
January 10, 2023).

IMO, contrary to urban legen / FUD, 8.1 isn't all that bad. With
little effort [1], it can be made to behave like normal/real (i.e. XP/7)
Windows, i.e. you don't have to see any [2] of that Metro/Modern/UWP/
whatever crap ('Fisher Price UI'). It's not anywhere as bad as 10.

I'm using 8.1 since May 2015 and quite pleased with it.

[1] I only added Classic Start Menu.

[2] Well, hardly any. Some Control Panel stuff has been moved to
full-screen Metro/Modern/UWP-style, but that's very little. For me, it's
only 'Networks' in a side-panel and some of the Bluetooth related stuff.

On 11/7/2019 8:26 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:

IMO, contrary to urban legen / FUD, 8.1 isn't all that bad.


It's all a matter of opinion. In my opinion, 10 is much better than 8.1



With
little effort [1], it can be made to behave like normal/real (i.e. XP/7)
Windows, i.e. you don't have to see any [2] of that Metro/Modern/UWP/
whatever crap ('Fisher Price UI').


Right, but...


It's not anywhere as bad as 10.


....I strongly disagree. Just like 8.1, 10 can be made to appear and
behave like XP/7 Windows. There are several third-party utilities that
can do this. Classic Shell, free and perhaps the most popular, can do
this very well, but my personal preference is Start10 (only $4.99)



I'm using 8.1 since May 2015 and quite pleased with it.


That's fine; we all have different opinions. I won't try to talk you out
of your opinion. But for others reading here, I wanted to present an
opposing point of view.


--
Ken

On 7 Nov 2019 15:26:23 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

You might consider switching to 8.1 when 7 no longer gets any security
updates.

8.1 will give you three more years of updates (Extended support until
January 10, 2023).

IMO, contrary to urban legen / FUD, 8.1 isn't all that bad. With
little effort [1], it can be made to behave like normal/real (i.e. XP/7)
Windows, i.e. you don't have to see any [2] of that Metro/Modern/UWP/
whatever crap ('Fisher Price UI'). It's not anywhere as bad as 10.

I'm using 8.1 since May 2015 and quite pleased with it.

For me, 8.0 came on a new laptop that I bought in January 2013 and
somewhere along the way I upgraded to 8.1. I didn't try to slay all of the
dragons all at once, so for me it took almost exactly two years before I
stopped seeing annoying intrusions of the Fisher Price UI. I just took care
of things as they came up. After that, though, I agree with you that 8.1 is
fine.

I still prefer Win 7 and have it running on a laptop and multiple VMs, but
8.1 is (now) perfectly acceptable to me, as well. I have 8.1 on one laptop
and multiple VMs. I have Win 10 on one PC and multiple VMs.

IMHO, Win 10 is crap, relatively speaking. I can do serious work on any of
the Win 7 systems and any of the 8.1 systems, but the Win 10 systems are
questionable. At random times, Microsoft makes it clear that this is their
OS and that I'm just barely tolerated, like an unwanted houseguest. Win 10
is a big break, in that regard, from previous versions. It's unfortunate.


--

Char Jackson

Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/7/2019 8:26 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:

IMO, contrary to urban legen / FUD, 8.1 isn't all that bad.

It's all a matter of opinion. In my opinion, 10 is much better than 8.1

Yes, it's a matter of opinion, hence my "IMO".

With
little effort [1], it can be made to behave like normal/real (i.e. XP/7)
Windows, i.e. you don't have to see any [2] of that Metro/Modern/UWP/
whatever crap ('Fisher Price UI').

Right, but...

It's not anywhere as bad as 10.

...I strongly disagree. Just like 8.1, 10 can be made to appear and
behave like XP/7 Windows. There are several third-party utilities that
can do this. Classic Shell, free and perhaps the most popular, can do
this very well, but my personal preference is Start10 (only $4.99)

For me, and I think many (most?) others, 10's gigantic update mess/
disaster is the big show-stopper.

Yes, I know you can prevent/postpone/control updates with third-party
utilities or/and 'hacks' in such a way that it is back to normal/real
(i.e. pre-10) Windows Update behaviour, but you're still left with the
broken model of new versions of 10. Just look at the endless stream of
problem posts at each monthly/half-year cycle. And it's not just newbies
having problems, quite the contrary, posters whose knowledge/expertise I
value, also have problems or/and confirm the validity of other people's
problems.

Bottom line: 10 brings me nothing I need and only brings a mess and
needless headaches.

But I'll duly keep watching alt.comp.os.windows-10 (and other
sources) and see if things change for the better.

I'm using 8.1 since May 2015 and quite pleased with it.

That's fine; we all have different opinions. I won't try to talk you out
of your opinion. But for others reading here, I wanted to present an
opposing point of view.

On 11/6/19 11:36 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , T writes:
On 11/6/19 12:32 AM, Chris wrote:
T wrote:
[]
Windows 7 is a perfectly functional operating system.
Â*Only for two more months. It is 10 years old.

And functioning well.Â* And there is a lot of them out
there still.
[]
It'd be interesting to know both numbers and proportions. I _suspect_ 7
is now where XP was - actually some time after XP officially ended; 7's
take-up was gradual, possibly even actually accelerated by the
appearance of 8.0.

I would agree.

Office 2019 won't run on 8.x either, so ....

On 11/7/2019 11:51 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/7/2019 8:26 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:

IMO, contrary to urban legen / FUD, 8.1 isn't all that bad.

It's all a matter of opinion. In my opinion, 10 is much better than 8.1

Yes, it's a matter of opinion, hence my "IMO".

With
little effort [1], it can be made to behave like normal/real (i.e. XP/7)
Windows, i.e. you don't have to see any [2] of that Metro/Modern/UWP/
whatever crap ('Fisher Price UI').

Right, but...

It's not anywhere as bad as 10.

...I strongly disagree. Just like 8.1, 10 can be made to appear and
behave like XP/7 Windows. There are several third-party utilities that
can do this. Classic Shell, free and perhaps the most popular, can do
this very well, but my personal preference is Start10 (only $4.99)

For me, and I think many (most?) others, 10's gigantic update mess/
disaster is the big show-stopper.


Yes, I'm well aware of the problems that many (I don't think it's most)
people have had with updates. However my experience has been just the
opposite. I have two computers here running Windows 10 since it was
first released, and they have been had all updates installed as soon as
they came out. Neither computer has had *any* problems.

Why have I not had any problems with updates? I don't know for sure, but
I suspect it has to do what the hardware is.



--
Ken

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
[]
And regarding you statement "7 got broken into more than XP," yes, I
agree, but that should be no surprise. It's not so much that XP was
more resistant to malware; rather 7 was newer than XP, and as time
passes, malware writers get better at doing what they do.

And/or concentrated more on what was the commoner system.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

By most scientific estimates sustained, useful fusion is ten years in
the future - and will be ten years in the future for the next fifty
years or more. - "Hamadryad", ~2016-4-4