Tip: Heads up on M$ Office

In alt.windows7.general T wrote:
On 11/5/19 10:58 PM, Ant wrote:
Anyone older than me.
How old is that? :P

63

Old fart.
--
"In a battle between elephants, the ants get squashed." --Thailand
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
/ /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:16 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

They are completely locked in to M$O. I personally do not
care for it, but a lot of folks like it. I suffer buggy
Libre Office.

If they are locked into Microsoft Office (their choice, not a
requirement), why aren't they also locked into an OS on which they've
locked into old versions of software?

1) they are cheap (most customers are).

2) they hate Windows 10 (I have only come across
one customer who likes it)

Windows 7 is going out of support in January so of course MS aren't going
let their flagship desktop product run on a system they don't even support.
You're not helping your clients in enabling them to run unsupported
software. Today is office, but from January many other programs will stop
being supported on windows 7. They need to realise if they want support
they need to move with the times. You do too.

Windows is a commercial product which you licence. Don't like the terms of
licence? Then choose something else.

I had this issue with my FIL and winxp. The final straw for him was when
norton still wanted money despite their software not working on the windows
he was using. I moved him to linux. No more fees and no upgrades he didn't
want.

Do these same users also try to play CDs on an LP player? You don't
change the OS unless demanded by critical software required for your
business. Usually it's the other way around: you have critical and old
software that demands you stay on an old version of the OS.


Not a valid argument.

Windows 7 is a perfectly functional operating system.

Only for two more months. It is 10 years old.

Office 2019 will not install on it for one reason and
one reason only: M$ are ass holes. M$ is trying to
force folk on to Nein so they can sell their telemetry.

Yup. Why are you railing against it? They've always been like this. That's
why i don't choose windows by preference.

Wn 11/6/19 12:11 AM, Ant wrote:
In alt.windows7.general T wrote:
On 11/5/19 10:58 PM, Ant wrote:
Anyone older than me.
How old is that? :P

63

Old fart.


Whipper snapper! :-)

T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:32 PM, Roger Blake wrote:
On 2019-11-06, T wrote:
I specialize in low skill users. These are good people
to be cherished.
...
They are completely locked in to M$O. I personally do not
care for it, but a lot of folks like it. I suffer buggy
Libre Office.

Then explain to them the consequences of their intransigence. If they
insist on using only Microsoft Office then they either pay Microsoft in
perpetuity for Office 365 or install Windows 10 so they can run Office
2019. Those are their choices. That's what technology lock-in is all
about.


I did eMail the office manager and ask how she wanted to proceed.


I have little or no sympathy for people who want to use this technology
without bothering to understand any of it. (I've worked with people
who have used PCs for decades and still don't know what a file or
directory is and cannot even tell me where the file they lost was
located or what its name was.)

I live with someone like this. Some people don't care, aren't interested or
just don't get it. For many a computer is just like a car; they want it to
work when they turn the key and are only interested in doing the basics to
keep it running.

I can't disagree with your there. The thing is, if they
knew what they were doing, they would not need me. And,
since they put food on my table, they are to be cherished.

They pay you for your expertise. As a business they shouldbe aware of and
prepared for change. You should be also.

M$ is playing hard ball trying to get their telemetry
they can sell. I explain to them that XP and 7 are
perfectly fine operating systems.

You're wrong. In a business they are not "perfectly fine ". XP on network
is a serious vulnerability which leaves them open to malware and ransomware
attacks. 7 will be the same soon.

M$ is doing their
damnedest to get them off of them and it is only going
to get more painful with time.

They have always done this. It's only as painful as you make it. You've had
plenty of time to develop migration plans with your clients.

In message s.com,
Wolffan writes:
[]
If they merely don’t want to go to Win 10, get Macs/Linux, install one of
the competing packages and a VM with Win 7 and run the specialty software in
the VM. The main reason I have Win 7, and XP, in VMs is exactly to run
certain older Windows-only software. I have an ancient imagesetter which cost
$150,000 when new and whose software was designed for NT 4. It works with XP
but breaks in Win 7. We are _not_ buying a new imagesetter until this one
finally dies, and we can probably get a few more years out of it. Our last XP
machine finally died last month, but the imagesetter still works from a VM.
The idiots who designed the software had a hardware based DRM dongle which
attached to a parallel port; when was the last time you saw a parallel port
in the wild? Fortunately we cracked the DRM years ago, as the idiots went out
of business nearly a decade ago.

What's an imagesetter? Wikipedia he say "An imagesetter is an ultra-high
resolution large-format computer output device, also called Computer to
film or CtF. ... This computing article is a stub. You can help
Wikipedia by expanding it." So what is it - an A0 printer? A
microfilm/microfiche writer?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes.
- Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21

On 11/6/19 12:32 AM, Chris wrote:
T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:16 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
T wrote:

They are completely locked in to M$O. I personally do not
care for it, but a lot of folks like it. I suffer buggy
Libre Office.

If they are locked into Microsoft Office (their choice, not a
requirement), why aren't they also locked into an OS on which they've
locked into old versions of software?

1) they are cheap (most customers are).

2) they hate Windows 10 (I have only come across
one customer who likes it)

Windows 7 is going out of support in January so of course MS aren't going
let their flagship desktop product run on a system they don't even support.

As with XP, most supported it until M$ made it too miserable
for third parties to support.

You're not helping your clients in enabling them to run unsupported
software.

You are under the mistaken impression that my customer
actually listen to what I say. Office 2019 is one
of M$'s shots at making Windows 7 miserable for
third parties to support.


Today is office, but from January many other programs will stop
being supported on windows 7. They need to realise if they want support
they need to move with the times. You do too.

I can only push so far.


Windows is a commercial product which you licence. Don't like the terms of
licence? Then choose something else.

I had this issue with my FIL and winxp. The final straw for him was when
norton still wanted money despite their software not working on the windows
he was using. I moved him to linux. No more fees and no upgrades he didn't
want.

Do these same users also try to play CDs on an LP player? You don't
change the OS unless demanded by critical software required for your
business. Usually it's the other way around: you have critical and old
software that demands you stay on an old version of the OS.


Not a valid argument.

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.

Office 2019 will not install on it for one reason and
one reason only: M$ are ass holes. M$ is trying to
force folk on to Nein so they can sell their telemetry.

Yup. Why are you railing against it? They've always been like this. That's
why i don't choose windows by preference.

1+

In message , Ant
writes:
5) Try to find unwanted older Office versions? I did with 2007 from
local estate sales.
[]
By "estate sales", do you mean property sold off when someone dies? With
anything after Office 2003, if I found software in such a sale, I'd
assume - unless it is unopened shrink-wrapped and the key isn't visible
- that I also have to buy the computer it was installed on, and go
through the laborious process of transferring the licence from that
machine to the one I want it on (assuming it's even transferrable: I
know OEM isn't for Windows, I don't know if Office is/was also sold OEM)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes.
- Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21

On 11/6/19 12:40 AM, Chris wrote:
M$ is playing hard ball trying to get their telemetry
they can sell. I explain to them that XP and 7 are
perfectly fine operating systems.

You're wrong. In a business they are not "perfectly fine ". XP on network
is a serious vulnerability which leaves them open to malware and ransomware
attacks. 7 will be the same soon.


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

Wolffan wrote:
On 05 Nov 2019, T wrote
(in article ):

On 11/5/19 5:59 PM, Wolffan wrote:
Office 2019 now only runs on Windows 10.
Incorrect. Office 2019 also runs on macOS, and iPadOS, and iOS, and Android.
Ya. You feel like converting them over? They are
awash with specialty software that requires Windows.

Oh, when I was redeem the key, I noticed that they
included the Linux logo along with the ones you
mentioned. Wine, I presume.

If they want to stick with Win 7, they’re going to have to pick one of:

1 pulling something special, such as using Laplink or equivalent, or getting
education versions

2 moving to a different office suite.

3 put Win 10 into a VM and run Office 2019 from the VM. If you lock the VM
down, neither Office nor Win 10 can send telemetry anywhere, which will make
them cranky.

If they merely don’t want to go to Win 10, get Macs/Linux, install one of
the competing packages and a VM with Win 7 and run the specialty software in
the VM. The main reason I have Win 7, and XP, in VMs is exactly to run
certain older Windows-only software. I have an ancient imagesetter which cost
$150,000 when new and whose software was designed for NT 4. It works with XP
but breaks in Win 7. We are _not_ buying a new imagesetter until this one
finally dies, and we can probably get a few more years out of it. Our last XP
machine finally died last month, but the imagesetter still works from a VM.
The idiots who designed the software had a hardware based DRM dongle which
attached to a parallel port; when was the last time you saw a parallel port
in the wild? Fortunately we cracked the DRM years ago, as the idiots went out
of business nearly a decade ago.


I have a PCI Express parallel port card. It runs my
JTAG programming harness for an FPGA.

The problem ones, would be "USB to Printer" devices, where
the dongle only supports 1/4 of the parallel port functions,
and the functionality is largely defined by a USB.org class
document. Since nobody writes custom drivers for those things,
it is what it is. So rather than being called a
"USB to parallel port" device, instead it's called a
"USB to printer" device so the concept won't be over-sold.
Those don't work with license dongles.

Whereas, as far as I know, my PCI Express card supports
all the normal features of an ancient parallel port.
You can pick an I/O space address for it, in case there's
a compliance issue. (I don't have any license dongles
here, so can't test for proper operation with one
of those.)

The "OS Compatibility" table here, seems a bit on the
imaginative side :-) I have run Win98 on a motherboard
with PCI Express slots, but I don't know how far
back in time such a thing works.

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapt...el-Card-~PEX1P

Paul

On 06 Nov 2019, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote
(in article ):

In upernews.com,
Wolffan writes:
[]
If they merely don’t want to go to Win 10, get Macs/Linux, install one of
the competing packages and a VM with Win 7 and run the specialty software in
the VM. The main reason I have Win 7, and XP, in VMs is exactly to run
certain older Windows-only software. I have an ancient imagesetter which
cost
$150,000 when new and whose software was designed for NT 4. It works with XP
but breaks in Win 7. We are _not_ buying a new imagesetter until this one
finally dies, and we can probably get a few more years out of it. Our last
XP
machine finally died last month, but the imagesetter still works from a VM.
The idiots who designed the software had a hardware based DRM dongle which
attached to a parallel port; when was the last time you saw a parallel port
in the wild? Fortunately we cracked the DRM years ago, as the idiots went
out
of business nearly a decade ago.
What's an imagesetter? Wikipedia he say "An imagesetter is an ultra-high
resolution large-format computer output device, also called Computer to
film or CtF. ... This computing article is a stub. You can help
Wikipedia by expanding it." So what is it - an A0 printer? A
microfilm/microfiche writer?

an imagesetter is a very high-end printer. it prints extremely high
resolution output to film; we develop the film in our dark room and burn it
to plates, then stick the plates on a press and run off thousands of copies
of whatever. We’re going to replace the imagesetter with a direct-to-plate
system, they’ve only been around for well over a decade, when the
imagesetter finally dies. The direct-to-plate system will be faster, but will
create plastic plates instead of the metal ones we currently use. Older
plastic plates weren’t very durable, we could get five or six times the
impressions with a metal plate than with a plastic one, but the durability is
improving and is good enough now, the only reason we haven’t moved is that
the old imagesetter still works.

On 2019-11-05 9:42 p.m., T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:14 PM, 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. :-)

Rene

On 2019-11-06 1:06 a.m., T wrote:
On 11/5/19 10:58 PM, Ant wrote:
Anyone older than me.
How old is that? :P

63


85. and counting. :-)

Rene

T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:14 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
How old are these customers of yours?

These three are in their forties.

I.e. they probably have things like smartphones which get updated/
changed/replaced/whatever every nanosecond or so, but they're
incapable of handling a change from Windows whatever to 101? I don't
think so!

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.)

Earlier, I wrote!
T wrote:
On 11/5/19 7:14 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
How old are these customers of yours?

These three are in their forties.

I.e. they probably have things like smartphones which get updated/
changed/replaced/whatever every nanosecond or so, but they're
incapable of handling a change from Windows whatever to 101? I don't
think so!

Well, I can imagine that a switch to Windows 101 *would* be a tad
hard! :-)