Why do you still use Windows XP?

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
[]
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.

Thanks for the pointer. From http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ it's a
270k .zip, though that site also says "The translation and PDF versions
are unfortunately difficult to update, and are based on older versions
of the tutorial. Most of the content should be the same, but they are
missing recent updates and bug fixes." That page seems to be an online
HTML version (which presumably is being kept more up-to-date).
[]
With that tutorial, and an API reference, and a C coding reference, not a lot

and presumably a compiler (-:

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.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Dogs come when they're called.
Cats have answering machines and may get back to you." - Phil Musiak

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

About the overlapping but different interests, that relates to that
firewall bit I posted yesterday, trying to satisfy a wide user base can
make them unreliable, as conflicting interests arise. So modularity is
the only way

Ah. Thought you were talking about the OS in general, sorry.


Both.. I was thinking the firewall-specific context strengthened the general
context.

out, or alternative choices. Micosoft's problem is that for decades they
actively conspired against BOTH, which is a hell of a foot-shoot. It
likely explains why Apple are so dominant now too. And the increased
takeup of

Sorry, not sure I'm disentangling your sentence (I know, I shouldn't
talk!): are you saying modularity is what's helping Apple (i. e.
"apps"), or something else?


I don't know if Apple's stuff IS modular. Never used any. But I do know
that M$, conspiring against both modularity and choice, has driven people to
seek alternatives, hence the extreme growth in uptake of Apple and Linux
systems.

Whichever KEEPS all those users will likely be the one which responds most to
them. And you can't please them all equally with a monolithic system, ergo
the system that most favours internal choice (modularity) wins. OpenBSD knew
this at the outset; it's one reason I'm attracted to it.

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

Linux. I think an even bigger change is going to come when people who
were

[I don't think Linux is going to make much impact any time soon. It's
best chance was a few years ago when netbooks started to appear, and a
few with a (very strapped down, i. e. the user wouldn't know _what_ OS
it was) Linux OS came - but they disappeared. From the high/main street,
I mean.]

used to microcontrollers as toys start reaching the age of 20 or so. Not
long now.

If you mean they will have experience in compact coding, I hope you are
right, but I fear not - even in microcontrollers, hardware has kept pace
with the requirements of bloat )-:.


Wasn't Android based on Linux? Or was it the ex-Psion thing, Symbian?

About those coders, I don't know, can't really predict that. But I do know
that using C and the raw API, while momentarily fretting over not having
access to wxWidget's SpinCtrl, I have to make my owm(!), this is tuning out
faster and easier to figure out that compiling wxWidgets on Windows is. Even
if I did figure that out, I'd forever be fighting against vagaries of other
people's code layers. It really IS liberating not to have to do that. If some
of these new coders get a taste for that, it could actually get fashionable.


Even if all they do is statically compile instead of dynamically, bloat may
be reduced in cases where few programs need a single common shared library
(DLL). The original principle of the DLL was to have as few as possible,
shared, to avoid duplicating of static linkages, which might bloat a
collection of software. But people ended up with 'DLL hell' and bloat anyway.
Evading the core issues hasn't helped at all, so those coders who learn to
cut to the chase might be the ones who lead the rest out of the mess. Even if
they repeat it, it would be better. Bloat better than bloat-squared, for want
of a better way to put it.

Hardware keeping pace with bloat? Curious. Likely true, but I hope it's
normally a case of filling available capacity. Good habits come from best use
of limited capacity. That's basically why I think the ARM chips will help a
bit. Big and fast enough to be very powerful, small enough to be unforgiving
of the REALLY bad habits. And most of their coders might be people who moved
up from 8 bit and 16 bit controllers where coding discipline is very
important.

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

Ah, now there I agree with you that some people write far too much in
the way of comments - but that shouldn't lead to bloated code: a
compiler ought to remove comments, and AFAIK all do. There's the
half-way house of debug code, the compile-time flag (and which the wrong
use of was alleged to be the reason Netscape 6 was such a dog that it
killed the company), but that's not quite the same as comments.


Comments won't, but the tendency to sprawl dissolutely all over a virtual
page might. I like my code to occupy as small a space as reasonably
possible, in every sense. That way the function drives the form, and elegance
is a real thing, not a conceit. Code written like that tends to be self-
commenting, to a large extent.

Human perception is weird. We can barely hold in mind groups of disparate
forms of varied complexity, yet I read that a Beduin or Tuareg shepherd (I'm
being careful here not to sound entirely like Johnny English) can count a
herd in one glance. Whatever that means, it clearly implies that the more
compact the form, the more instantly a brain can grasp its nature, and avoid
making errors of judgement about it.

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

Imagine having to rebuild part of a house, using the parts that survive
dismantling of the original structure. it is always easier to unwire
socket boxes and put them aside, than have to drag them all still
attached to original wiring and somehow make that fit the new walls! But
in a lof of high

But only if you made a note of which coloured wires went where (-:!


True, but that's why there is a consistent system. Like all the best
protocols, wiring codes are actually very simple. There are exceptions
(usually in parallel computing links, or in deliberate obfuscations for
burglar alarm wiring), but not many.

have. No-one would expect to drag the carpet from room to room with
furniture still in place on it. For whatever reason, people don't want
to beleive that

But equally, they wouldn't always move everything to another room just
to do a little dusting. (I've forgotten where we're going with this
analogy!)


That is true. For small frequent maintenance, it just needs to be less than
totally rigid. I'm not sure how to analogise that with code. Maybe because
it's usually easier to just copy from a new clean source at need. (I'm a BIG
fan of Ghost.

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

Ah, your familiarity has made you forget. Going from 3.1 to 95 _did_
mean accepting quite a few changes

Indeed! I saw that a month after first seeing W31 on that second hand 486 I
mentioned. The change was immense, and extremely gratifying. I think many
remember that feeling, and it might account for the disappoinments in recent
times. Even when a newer M$ system pleases someone, I doubt the visceral
sense of increased power, liberation and comfort is ever as great as that
between W31 and W95. The next jump in bit-depth, from 32 to 64, was quite the
damp squib in comparison, and many people are complaining of restrictions,
not prasing a new freedom.

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

And most users just fire up their
favourite applications and care little for the underlying OS - and use
the default folders for everything.


This is why I hope virtual machines that run efficiently on various hardware,
with no extra major OS layer to run them in, will occur. People have tried
i386 running native on ARM, but I'm not sure how much progress there is. But
it could be a lot more liberating in the end, than having to run a behemoth
OS before you can start thinking about running a VM! The VM ought to run
right on the hardware itself, like protected mode does now.

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

Hmm. I don't doubt that you have a lot of money's worth, but do you have
in mind 1. the original price of the equipment, 2. the current
second-hand price, or 3. the price of new equipment that will do the
same things (probably under Vista/7/Apple)?


All of the above. I can't afford the several grand. So I buy the old gear
that DID cost that much. Once. Maybe a decade ago. Echo's Layla 20 bit I/O
can still wipe the floor with a lot of entry level hardware at same current
cost (My first cost £550! And that was ex-demo and I was very pleased with
the low price. I sold it at one point to get Layla24, regretted it, and
bought TWO Layla 20's on eBay for £70 for the pair, including shipping).

Given that it has 10 channels out, 8 in, multiclient audio and MIDI, and
S/PDIF and excellent sync methods, and a first rate software console, and
auto-gain settings for fast setup, that's a few things there it can do that
later stuff can't, because Echo reduced function to keep costs down in
Layla24 and Layla24 3G. I say 'down' but in the case of either of those, new,
I'd have had to spend a grand for less capability, getting 4 bits extra depth
in analog I/O that make little difference in practise!

If I got the latest gear, I'd not only have to pay top dollar, but also pay
for a new M$ OS, and all the extra computing power needed to run it. And I
couldn't do much more with that than I can do now.

Then consider that same problem with each bit of software that used W9X
specific drivers. That's a whole lot of reasons to stay, because many audio
coders were very competent on that OS, but now tend to cut features down to
lower costs, and save time, trying to keep up with the general upgrade rush.
M$ used to promise upogrades and service packs. Now they seem to have at
least TWO whole new OS's on the horizon at any time, which can't be good for
coder morale. It has led to a short-term 'arms race' in software and hardware
that is very expensive and wasteful. Sometimes I wish 'Moore's Law' would
bite them in the arse good and proper. Then we could expect a bit more
forethought.

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

Although I will say I prefer to be a competent madman than an incompetent
moron, if that's the choice forced on me.

Indeed. I certainly resent the "duh" mentality that Microsoft (and
probably Apple) assume is the default. (Though they're probably right
for the majority!)


Well, I can't hector them from the sidelines, nor am I good enough at
anything to convince them to change. But the way I see it, computing is a
world. I don't travel on land (and only occasinally on sea), but I might as
well go into that world and find a way around, a place to make my own. It's
either that or spend my life there being carried like a child. I VERY much
doubt I'll be alone in becoming tired of being infantilised.

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

Thanks for the pointer. From http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ it's a
270k .zip, though that site also says "The translation and PDF versions
are unfortunately difficult to update, and are based on older versions
of the tutorial. Most of the content should be the same, but they are
missing recent updates and bug fixes." That page seems to be an online
HTML version (which presumably is being kept more up-to-date).


I noticed allusions to this yesterday, I decided to look to see what I might
find, after posting, and I think my PDF might well be improved on by a later
one, ideally a CHM version. Or raw HTML.

Other useful pages turn up at times, like this:
http://code.google.com/p/yadxdiag/wi...ls_in_Resource
_(.rc)_Files
(BadUrlWrap)

That explains something I suspected before I went looking for such
confirmation, that programming arrays of controls is FAR better done at
runtime! Smaller code, better practise, more consistency between compilers,
and full control retained on all controls during runtime too.

With that tutorial, and an API reference, and a C coding reference, not
a lot

and presumably a compiler (-:


Oh, yeah! It does help.. I try to use TCC, but I also check it compiles on
GCC, and Rudolph Loew told me the minimum file list to make a commandline
MSVC so I don't have to use all that extra stuff I have no time for.

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

[I don't think Linux is going to make much impact any time soon. It's
best chance was a few years ago when netbooks started to appear, and a
few with a (very strapped down, i. e. the user wouldn't know _what_ OS
it was) Linux OS came - but they disappeared. From the high/main street,
I mean.]


About that, I think of 'winning' in the sense of an OS's survival like I
mentioned in the first reply to this, as being an endurance thing. Pupularity
might be smaller, but when people get through ten years and look back, they
might take comfort in a less popular OS that got them through that time while
making less demands on them. That forms a really solid basis for trust. It
may be that OpenBSD might suprise the world after ten or twenty years, like a
tortoise winning against hares in a race.

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in
:

[I don't think Linux is going to make much impact any time soon. It's
best chance was a few years ago when netbooks started to appear, and a
few with a (very strapped down, i. e. the user wouldn't know _what_ OS
it was) Linux OS came - but they disappeared. From the high/main street,
I mean.]


About that, I think of 'winning' in the sense of an OS's survival like I
mentioned in the first reply to this, as being an endurance thing. Pupularity
might be smaller, but when people get through ten years and look back, they
might take comfort in a less popular OS that got them through that time while
making less demands on them. That forms a really solid basis for trust. It
may be that OpenBSD might suprise the world after ten or twenty years, like a
tortoise winning against hares in a race.

Ah, nostalgia. I remember the BBC Micro as a very well-designed - and,
in particular, documented - system: all the system calls etc. were well
laid out in the appropriate book.

Although I didn't mention the word "winning" - at least, not in the bit
you quoted, I think not at all - I meant winning in terms of what Joe
Public will find available, installed on a new computer, that s/he can
buy in any of the common places, by which I mean in UK PCWorld/Currys,
Comet, Staples, Tesco/Sainsburys/Asda, or even Bainbridges, Fenwicks,
Selfridges, and so on. (I haven't been to Harrods for some decades!)
Basically, all that will be found in any of those are Windows (and that
only the latest flavour* except for a very brief period after an
"up"grade), and Apple. Certainly no Linux.

[* I was amused at one point to find an XP netbook - the last one on
offer (I _think_ the rest were Vista at that point) - in a PCWorld, for
significantly _more_ than most of the other machines on offer. It'd be
nice to think that that was due to demand and supply, though I strongly
suspect it was purely a matter of some old stock that hadn't been marked
down.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.

In ,
Chris S. wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in message
...
In ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
"BillW50" wrote in
:
The part you don't seem to understand is something my mentors said
back in the early 80's when there was no top dog in the OS race.
And they wisely said that you don't pick the OS first. You first
pick the applications that you want to run and then pick the OS
that will run them.

Oddly enough, even decades later... this is *still* words to live
by (and oddly enough seemingly nobody but me says this today).

No, you're not alone there. I say it too. Strangely, even when I
point out that I have several grand's worth of HARDWARE that
requires W98, never mind several good programs that need it, being
reliant on specific low level drivers built for it, there are still
people who say I should 'upgrade', the instant I mention that I'm
on W98! But I can't add to that without repeating stuff I said very
recently so I won't.

Although I will say I prefer to be a competent madman than an
incompetent moron, if that's the choice forced on me.

Having decades of computer experience, I completely understand this
philosophy! Although there is always a point that enough is enough
and there is a time to move on. And don't get me wrong; as I am not
saying that about you at all. As I don't know where you are exactly.
Here I will give you one example:

When the Timex Sinclair 1000 first came out, it was the first
personal computer under 100 bucks. Sure it came with only 2kb of
RAM. And sure it wasn't compatible with anything else. And sure the
display only worked best with an old B&W TV. And sure it used a
standard cassette player for mass storage, etc. Not very impressive
for even back then. But it did something really amazing at the time.
It was a beautiful
machine to learn programming on. And you didn't spell any Basic
command out, as they were already printed on each QWERTY key. Nor
would it allow you to make any type of typo of any kind. As it
wouldn't accept the line until you fixed it first. And I know of no
computer before or since that was so exceptional at this task.

And having been a subscriber to a magazine dedicated to Sinclair
computers (Sync I believe it was called). There were lots of stories
of how people were using these things. And one of them really stuck
out at me. As one guy beefed this machine up so much, that he added
a full size keyboard, added a real office printer, and all kinds of
expensive things to the poor Timex machine. And then forced his
secretary to use it in the office. I'm sorry! But even as wimpy as
those IBM-XT machines were back
then. That would have been far better choice for an office computer
for his secretary to use and probably would have saved a few bucks
in the process. Even a CP/M, Apple II, or a Commodore machine would
have been far better making them into an office machine than a Timex
machine. Nonetheless.... I digress. As there is a real thrill taking
something like a Timex computer and going where no man has gone
before. Aww yes... and who could place a price on this? ;-)

The Sinclair had 2K bits of RAM? That is wimpy!

Did you see 2kb as 2K bits? Yes okay you got me there. It's 2048 bytes
actually. As I have a problem of accepting the status quo among the
common people as the standard and not what the educated elite thinks is
correct. As I heard once that the most important thing about language is
to be understood. So I don't see grammar correctness to be so damn
important and I accept others misusing it all of the time as long as I
know what they mean anyway. And since I am so accepting of this, I too
fall into this same trap sometimes. ;-)

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

In ,
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , BillW50
writes:
[]
And what many just don't understand (especially newer computer users)
about the horrors and Vista and Windows 7 places on experienced
Windows users is this. As what made Windows what it is today was
that if you knew how to use one Windows version, you knew how to use
them all. Vista and Windows 7 broke that rule. It is my guess is all
of the
older programmers have long retired from Microsoft by now. And now
inexperienced younger programmers are now running the show and are
clueless about such rules.

Ah, your familiarity has made you forget. Going from 3.1 to 95 _did_
mean accepting quite a few changes - for example, the close box moved!

The close box, is that is all? You forget that you can make Windows 95
to look very much like Windows 3.1 if you would like. Although I
remember making the transition between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 and it
was very easy. Making the transition between XP and Windows 7 was very
hard. Big difference. For example all of the bugs in Windows 7 that
won't allow the administrator access to files. That is very frustrating.

Windows 7 Access Denied For Administrator « Think Like a Computer
http://think-like-a-computer.com/201...administrator/

[]
Now if a user has to relearn each new Windows version from now on.
What is the incentive to upgrade? And if you are forced to relearn
each new OS, why bother with Windows anymore? Why not use another OS
who has the smarts of not making the user to relearn each newer
version?
Because Windows - the latest version - is all that is available (other
than Apple, which even dim potential users can see costs rather more -
unless they buy Sony - for roughly the same capability, though some of
them may choose to buy it anyway). And most users just fire up their
favourite applications and care little for the underlying OS - and use
the default folders for everything.

No you forget, there are earlier versions of Windows too. You don't
automatically have to accept the latest and greatest. There are many
that don't. If it can't do everything that I can do under XP, I don't
like it. As first you pick the applications that you want to run and
then pick the OS that will run them. Doing anything else doesn't make
any sense at all.

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

In ,
Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:57:22 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

I am always logged on as an administrator (I know *big* security
no-no). But that still doesn't help a portable application dropped
in the Program Files folder under Windows 7. While I am searching
for a better explanation of what I mean, here is what Windows 7 did
to the "Documents and Settings" which is my second beef with Windows
7 among countless other problems for now.

Access denied to the "My Documents and Settings" folder - Microsoft
Answers
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...5-468ee51e9484

As a computer user with decades of experience, (a claim you've made
repeatedly), I'm surprised to hear that a minor shuffling of folder
structures caused you more than a few seconds of downtime. It
shouldn't have taken longer than that to see what the new folder
structure was and get back on track.

Because you forget that I also have dozens of computers and I want
things simple. And I can't have Windows 7 doing it one way and XP doing
it another way. I am so surprised that you like to make things hard and
you are okay with that. Well Einstein never thought that way genius.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit
simpler." -- Albert Einstein

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