Why do you still use Windows XP?

Char Jackson wrote in
:

Is that so non-idiot? IMHO only an idiot would say they don't have a
problem. As all you have to do is to peek in the alt.windows7.general
newsgroup to know that isn't true. Okay non-idiot tell me how I can run
Thunderbird Portable in the Program Files folder?

Silly goose, why would you want to run a portable app from the program
Files folder? Do you have a serious question?



Silly, on the face of it, but interesting. Question is: If he can run it from
ANY directory, what's stopping him running it from that one?

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in
:

A lot of the difference between 9x and the NT variants is in the
underlying filing system - FATxx versus NTFS. (Yes, I know XP will run
on FAT, but I think I am right in saying that a lot of the _philosophy_
of XP is related to the difference.)


One thing I do envy NT kernel OS's for is their ability to directly address a
fixed disk by simple numeric assignment (PhysicalDrive0, etc...), as well as
a partition. While there's not a lot of call to do that, it is more awkward
using code that runs on W9X that needs a few API functions, not just one.. On
the other hand if that code will also work on NT kernel OS's it would be what
I'd use. (But not any time soon, I decided to solve my problem by using drive
letter based access, as people usualy know what partitions they need to
access, more than they do about what disk they are on).

In ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Char Jackson wrote in
:

Is that so non-idiot? IMHO only an idiot would say they don't have a
problem. As all you have to do is to peek in the
alt.windows7.general newsgroup to know that isn't true. Okay
non-idiot tell me how I can run Thunderbird Portable in the Program
Files folder?

Silly goose, why would you want to run a portable app from the
program Files folder? Do you have a serious question?

Silly, on the face of it, but interesting. Question is: If he can run
it from ANY directory, what's stopping him running it from that one?

Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal Windows
users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the stupid new rules
is that an application has no right to modify anything in its own folder
in the Program Files folder. Thus applications can't store data, INI,
configuration files or anything like this in the Program Files folder.

What made Windows great in the past was if you knew how one version
worked, you also knew all of the other versions worked too. This is no
longer true with Vista and Windows 7. As all of the rules have been
changed and you must relearn how to use the new Windows all over once
again.

This is nonsense! Why keep upgrading to a newer Windows if you have to
relearn how to use the OS all over again? And what is the incentive to
keep using Windows? As if you have to relearn, why bother with Windows?
As why spend that energy only on Windows? Why not learn Unix, Linux, or
even the Mac if you have to relearn anyway?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

Before anyone says that NT kernel OS's are 'better',

They sure seem to be. :-) At least they don't EVER suffer from the
64K heap issue.


Well, I've used W9X ever since a secondhand shop let me use a copy of W9X to
replace the borked W31 on a 486 they sold me. I don't know anything about
this 64 KB heap other than things posted here about it. The one thing that
would have driven to me to know a lot more, is encountering it. I haven't.

Or maybe I have, in software that doesn't clean up after itself, but then I
see it make a mess of the system, and I hose it instanter. Code like that is
nasty on any OS. So it cancels like an equation with equal terms on both
sides. And once W98 is set up with a load of great software that doesn't do
this, it makes sense to keep a dedicated machine to run it, upgrade be
damned. You say you keep a W98 backup. WHich is great, but I'd suggest not
thinking of it as a 'backup', it's a different machine, with its own
strengths.

There's this notion that W9X is the Neanderthal of the human species, but
actual Neanderthals are now known not to have been separate, but to have been
a part of the genetic legacy we all have now. So the question is: Do we build
on it, or throw it away? I never did like waste.

"BillW50" wrote in :

In ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Char Jackson wrote in
:

Is that so non-idiot? IMHO only an idiot would say they don't have a
problem. As all you have to do is to peek in the
alt.windows7.general newsgroup to know that isn't true. Okay
non-idiot tell me how I can run Thunderbird Portable in the Program
Files folder?

Silly goose, why would you want to run a portable app from the
program Files folder? Do you have a serious question?

Silly, on the face of it, but interesting. Question is: If he can run
it from ANY directory, what's stopping him running it from that one?

Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal Windows
users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the stupid new rules
is that an application has no right to modify anything in its own folder
in the Program Files folder. Thus applications can't store data, INI,
configuration files or anything like this in the Program Files folder.

What made Windows great in the past was if you knew how one version
worked, you also knew all of the other versions worked too. This is no
longer true with Vista and Windows 7. As all of the rules have been
changed and you must relearn how to use the new Windows all over once
again.

This is nonsense! Why keep upgrading to a newer Windows if you have to
relearn how to use the OS all over again? And what is the incentive to
keep using Windows? As if you have to relearn, why bother with Windows?
As why spend that energy only on Windows? Why not learn Unix, Linux, or
even the Mac if you have to relearn anyway?


Could just be Windows trying to be Unix. If so, then maybe they even do
'chown'. If so you can change the permission to what you want. I prefer
programs to store configs in their own directories. Logs can be elsewhere,
those grow all the time if not constrained. I also like to keep template data
files in the program's own directly (usually in a subdirectory). I doubt that
Microsoft have made it impossible to do this, and like a bike with
stabilisers, there ought to be ways to take them off.

Lostgallifreyan wrote in
:

Maybe MFC and .NET and wxWidgets were all aimed at making access to the
real stuff easier, but actually, now that I finally decided to look
right at the API itself, a lot of it is familiar, from using wxLua, it
turns out to be a lot less obstructive than it first appears, and I
don't have to deal with bugs in the intervening code either.



If anyone seeing this is interested in the API (or any of the higher level
systems), there's a small guide that works for me, and might help anyone who
otherwise finds it hard going. It's worth grabbing just for the plain
speaking it has to say about GDI leaks.

forgers-win32-tutorial.pdf (Less than 400KB, with helpful images.)
Google will find it I think, not sure where I got mine from.
'Forger' might just be his name, not his occupation.

The stuff it says about quickly putting together simple Windows programs
applies to everything I saw in wxWidgets (whose manuals did NOT make it as
easy to learn as this, no matter how good they are. (They are very good..)
Same applies to visual basic, MFC, or any high level stuff because it all has
to draw windows, buttons, etc. And if it applies to wxWidgets, it clearly
applies to Linux and BSD too, I guess their API's aren't that much different
in principle, just in some details. If they had little in common, wxWidgets
wouldn't exist anyway.

Best of all, it shows how it can be easy, simpler than the high level stuff
because it's more direct. We don't have to remember it all either, once we
build a small core of stuff, all we need to remember is where we put it so we
can copy it and use it again. I'm making frame templates and MIDI control
templates so I can easily paste stuff together to make new programs later.

With that tutorial, and an API reference, and a C coding reference, not a lot
else is needed other than a computer and Google to see if other people found
a better way to do something specific. There seems to be more than one way,
every time.

In ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in :

In ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Char Jackson wrote in
:

Is that so non-idiot? IMHO only an idiot would say they don't
have a problem. As all you have to do is to peek in the
alt.windows7.general newsgroup to know that isn't true. Okay
non-idiot tell me how I can run Thunderbird Portable in the
Program Files folder?

Silly goose, why would you want to run a portable app from the
program Files folder? Do you have a serious question?

Silly, on the face of it, but interesting. Question is: If he can
run it from ANY directory, what's stopping him running it from that
one?

Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal
Windows users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the
stupid new rules is that an application has no right to modify
anything in its own folder in the Program Files folder. Thus
applications can't store data, INI, configuration files or anything
like this in the Program Files folder.

What made Windows great in the past was if you knew how one version
worked, you also knew all of the other versions worked too. This is
no longer true with Vista and Windows 7. As all of the rules have
been changed and you must relearn how to use the new Windows all
over once again.

This is nonsense! Why keep upgrading to a newer Windows if you have
to relearn how to use the OS all over again? And what is the
incentive to keep using Windows? As if you have to relearn, why
bother with Windows? As why spend that energy only on Windows? Why
not learn Unix, Linux, or even the Mac if you have to relearn anyway?

Could just be Windows trying to be Unix. If so, then maybe they even
do 'chown'. If so you can change the permission to what you want. I
prefer programs to store configs in their own directories. Logs can
be elsewhere, those grow all the time if not constrained. I also like
to keep template data files in the program's own directly (usually in
a subdirectory). I doubt that Microsoft have made it impossible to do
this, and like a bike with stabilisers, there ought to be ways to
take them off.

Well yes, Windows is getting more and more Unix like all of the time.
Maybe someday in the distant future there will be no difference anymore.
And yes, there are ways to disable many of the new annoyances under the
newer Windows. But I have some problems with this method.

1) Windows was never meant to be Unix. And making Windows into an Unix
look alike is a mistake. As if I wanted to run Unix, I would get Unix in
the first place.

2) The new way requires one to relearn the newer Windows to disable
things that were not a problem in earlier Windows. So users are forced
into this new learning curve state of mind that is counter productive
IMHO.

3) The easiest way out of this particular problem used as an example
above, is to just use another folder which the newer Windows doesn't
have a problem with. Well what about my older Windows? Should I make my
older Windows follow all of the newer rules to keep them all simple?
That means I would have to change a lot of machines to a whole new way
of doing things. And in the end, the older machines really wouldn't work
any better than before anyway.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:59:23 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal Windows
users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the stupid new rules
is that an application has no right to modify anything in its own folder
in the Program Files folder. Thus applications can't store data, INI,
configuration files or anything like this in the Program Files folder.


Never having heard that before, I just went to my \Program Files (x86)
folder in Windows 7 to check. I didn't look at every folder there, but
I quickly found four that had their .ini files there. So what you say
is *not* correct.


What made Windows great in the past was if you knew how one version
worked, you also knew all of the other versions worked too. This is no
longer true with Vista and Windows 7. As all of the rules have been
changed and you must relearn how to use the new Windows all over once
again.


Yes, there are *some* things that have changed, but very far from
"all." And as with anything else new, you must relearn some things,
but there too, it's very far from "all over once again."

When I went from Windows XP to Vista, it took me no more than perhaps
a few minutes (at most a couple of hours) to get comfortable with it.
And the same was true going from Vista to Windows 7. Yes, in both
cases as time went on, I learned other new things, but there was
almost nothing I had to learn before I could start using it
productively.


What you say isn't entirely wrong, and yes, Microsoft sometimes
changes things for no good reason, as far as I'm concerned. But in my
view you are dramatically overstating the point.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:31:23 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

On 2/17/2012 6:23 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:26:12 -0600, wrote:

I bought a bunch of pre-ordered Windows 7 versions about 6 months
before the release. Boy am I ever sorry I did that. Now I have a
bunch of Windows 7 boxes still sealed up on the shelf. Maybe they
will make some nifty drink coasters someday.

Put'em on Ebay.

Why? They are worthless.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-Wi...em27b9ba 9bbe

In ,
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:59:23 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal
Windows users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the
stupid new rules is that an application has no right to modify
anything in its own folder in the Program Files folder. Thus
applications can't store data, INI, configuration files or anything
like this in the Program Files folder.

Never having heard that before, I just went to my \Program Files (x86)
folder in Windows 7 to check. I didn't look at every folder there, but
I quickly found four that had their .ini files there. So what you say
is *not* correct.

You mean partly not correct. As I don't recall the exact limitations.
But the one thing I am positive of is that if you drop Thunderbird
Portable into Windows 7 Program Files, and try to run Thunderbird,
Windows 7 says it doesn't have permission and you can't do anything like
receive incoming messages (or you get a write error) or can't mark any
existing messages (write error), etc.

What made Windows great in the past was if you knew how one version
worked, you also knew all of the other versions worked too. This is
no longer true with Vista and Windows 7. As all of the rules have
been changed and you must relearn how to use the new Windows all
over once again.

Yes, there are *some* things that have changed, but very far from
"all." And as with anything else new, you must relearn some things,
but there too, it's very far from "all over once again."

When I went from Windows XP to Vista, it took me no more than perhaps
a few minutes (at most a couple of hours) to get comfortable with it.
And the same was true going from Vista to Windows 7. Yes, in both
cases as time went on, I learned other new things, but there was
almost nothing I had to learn before I could start using it
productively.

No you don't understand. Sure one can start using Windows 7 from XP in a
matter of minutes. Yes this is true and it is also true I can take a XP
user and put them on Ubuntu machine and claim the very same thing. Sure
opening and closing applications part is easy under any OS isn't it? But
it doesn't stop there, now does it?

Now let's say a XP user gets comfortable right away under Windows 7 in a
few minutes, which is indeed possible. Now let's say this XP user next
tries to install OE6. Guess what? I have been trying to do so for the
past 2 years. It just hasn't worked yet. Yet every version of Windows
since '95 can run OE. But not Vista or Windows 7. Why not?

And I have dozens of Windows machines here, most are XP machines. And
for some silly reason the first Windows machine I thought of keeping
Thunderbird Portable on the internal drive instead of external. And when
I wanted to use Thunderbird Portable on another machine, I just copy the
folder to another machine. No syncing or anything. This works great.

Well where to put it on a Windows machine? Program Files folder makes
sense since it is a program anyway. So to keep everything the same and
not to do things differently on each computer, I always use the Program
Files folder to temporary hold Thunderbird Portable. Life was wonderful
and everything worked great.

Now comes Windows 7. Dropped Thunderbird Portable in the Program Files
folder and it refuses to run. It runs fine from a newly created folder
that Windows 7 doesn't restrict. But now I have a problem. Now I have to
remember where the silly thing is stored on each computer. There is no
need to make this more difficult than it needs to be.

What you say isn't entirely wrong, and yes, Microsoft sometimes
changes things for no good reason, as far as I'm concerned. But in my
view you are dramatically overstating the point.

That is your opinion because you willingly welcome the newer features.
That is great for you. But for me, it limits my possibilities. As I
stated before earlier versions of Windows always had a *must* have
feature for me to want the newer version. Here is a short example:

Windows 95 added LFN support, Windows 3.1 lacked this.
Windows 98 added USB support, a reason to upgrade
Windows 2000 could run far more applications and stay stable
Support for Windows 2000 died, but XP was still going strong.

Now comes Vista and Windows 7. Sure they too have new features too. But
where are the *must* have features? And what about XP runs 100% of what
I want to run and Windows 7 only runs about 95% of what I want to run.
Ever since Windows 3.1, I *never* had a newer version of Windows to run
less than I was using before.

That is just insane Ken! Where is the incentive to use Windows 7? Sure I
have it and sure I use it and try to make the best of it. But I know in
my heart I will at least once a day need to fire up one XP to get my
other work done. But on the flipside, if I run XP I don't have to fire
up Linux, Windows 7, or anything else at anytime. As I can do everything
right here within XP.

So maybe you now understand why I really am not overstating this at all.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:16:10 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

So maybe you now understand why I really am not overstating this at all.



Suffice it to say that I completely disagree. But I don't want to get
into an argument over this, so I won't reply to your individual
points. I've said my piece, you've said yours. Anyone else here can
agree with you or with me, as they please.
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

In ,
Chris S. wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:31:23 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

On 2/17/2012 6:23 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:26:12 -0600,
wrote:
I bought a bunch of pre-ordered Windows 7 versions about 6 months
before the release. Boy am I ever sorry I did that. Now I have a
bunch of Windows 7 boxes still sealed up on the shelf. Maybe they
will make some nifty drink coasters someday.

Put'em on Ebay.

Why? They are worthless.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-Wi...em27b9ba 9bbe

Mine are the worthless Home Premium Upgrade version which includes both
32 and 64 bit versions. And these Windows 7 are nothing but a PIA! As
you can't install on top of XP (which is a bad idea for any version of
Windows IMHO anyway). Nor can you format the drive and install Windows 7
fresh. As in the past you could insert a qualifying previous Windows
install disc and then that was ok. But not for these PIA Windows 7
upgrade discs. The qualifying Windows must be on the drive and installed
and working. Unbelievable!

Microsoft said these would retail for about 100 bucks when Windows 7 was
released. But if you preorder them like 6 month before the release date
you would only have to pay half and that is it. Sounds good to me. So
Windows 7 licenses for only 50 bucks apiece. I'm sold!

But when it came time for Microsoft to release Windows 7, the retail
price was quickly dropped in half to about 50 bucks. Thus no savings at
all for preordering. And since they are the crappy PIA upgrade Home
editions, they are also unwanted by many. So now they sit up on my shelf
still shrink-wrapped gathering dust. I can't return them back to
Microsoft and get my money back, as Microsoft don't want them either.
:-(

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Chris S. wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:31:23 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

On 2/17/2012 6:23 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:26:12 -0600, wrote:
I bought a bunch of pre-ordered Windows 7 versions about 6 months
before the release. Boy am I ever sorry I did that. Now I have a
bunch of Windows 7 boxes still sealed up on the shelf. Maybe they
will make some nifty drink coasters someday.

Put'em on Ebay.

Why? They are worthless.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-Wi...em27b9ba 9bbe

Mine are the worthless Home Premium Upgrade version which includes both 32
and 64 bit versions. And these Windows 7 are nothing but a PIA! As you
can't install on top of XP (which is a bad idea for any version of Windows
IMHO anyway). Nor can you format the drive and install Windows 7 fresh. As
in the past you could insert a qualifying previous Windows install disc
and then that was ok. But not for these PIA Windows 7 upgrade discs. The
qualifying Windows must be on the drive and installed and working.
Unbelievable!

Microsoft said these would retail for about 100 bucks when Windows 7 was
released. But if you preorder them like 6 month before the release date
you would only have to pay half and that is it. Sounds good to me. So
Windows 7 licenses for only 50 bucks apiece. I'm sold!

But when it came time for Microsoft to release Windows 7, the retail price
was quickly dropped in half to about 50 bucks. Thus no savings at all for
preordering. And since they are the crappy PIA upgrade Home editions, they
are also unwanted by many. So now they sit up on my shelf still
shrink-wrapped gathering dust. I can't return them back to Microsoft and
get my money back, as Microsoft don't want them either.

Still....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WINDOWS-7-HO...em2ebb77 a65c

| Because Windows 7 (and Vista) changes the rules and forces loyal Windows
| users to relearn Windows all over again. And one of the stupid new rules
| is that an application has no right to modify anything in its own folder
| in the Program Files folder. Thus applications can't store data, INI,
| configuration files or anything like this in the Program Files folder.
|
|
| Never having heard that before, I just went to my \Program Files (x86)
| folder in Windows 7 to check. I didn't look at every folder there, but
| I quickly found four that had their .ini files there. So what you say
| is *not* correct.
|

It is correct. For non-admins (including on
XP) write/delete is restricted on most of the
system outside of the personal app. data folder.
Program Files is part of that. Microsoft has
enforced a strict policy that all PCs are corporate
workstations, not owned by the people using
them. Therefore all program settings must go
to the personal folder(s) or the HKCU Registry
keys.

I had to change my own program installers
to accomodate that change because I'm generally
expecting the software to be used by a single
person and I like to keep it all contained. So now
my installers create subfolders for INI files, and an
HKLM Registry key, and then set both to be
completely accessible to all.

You could be looking at INI files that are read-only
for non-admins, or you may be looking at software
that's been installed as I described above.

"BillW50" wrote in :

3) The easiest way out of this particular problem used as an example
above, is to just use another folder which the newer Windows doesn't
have a problem with. Well what about my older Windows? Should I make my
older Windows follow all of the newer rules to keep them all simple?

I think that IS the answer, generally. It solves other problems too. I always
use drive E: as a programs partition, with F: as an alternative for large
specialised programs I rarely use. Small tools that are better integrated
closely with Windows can go in a subdir of Windows or System directories.

Advantages are that portable programs are easily adapted for W9X or WXP in a
dual boot that does not needlessly duplicate programs. Syncing settings
between them is easy because when you set a progam config in one OS, you can
save its registry settings locally in its own dir, boot th the other OS, and
merge that registry file to update that OS too. Local INI files don't need
ANY intervention, ovbiously.

It gets better.. if you Ghost an OS partition, you can make that partition
MUCH smaller than if prgrams were on it. This makes dual-booting and OS
imaging and restoring very fast, and keeps storage requirements for images
small too. I'm sure there are plenty of other advantages but those alone
should give an idea of how powerful this is. As Windows isn't using any
internal 'magic' to govern external locations of your choosing (unless you
tell it to somehow), you retain a lot more control. And backing up the
programs partiton itself is easy. Keep it small, no more than a couple of GB
for the main one, then it's easy to copy it by simple drag-drop operation to
soem directory on a big data drive, and it won't keep you waiting long while
it happens either.