nivek
As Above So Below
Agreed, out of all the Windows versions, Windows 7 is by far the best one and one that I still use regularly on my laptop...I have a partition with Windows 10 installed on it but rarely use Win10 anymore...
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Agreed, out of all the Windows versions, Windows 7 is by far the best one and one that I still use regularly on my laptop...I have a partition with Windows 10 installed on it but rarely use Win10 anymore...
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nivek
As Above So Below
No more support for classic BlackBerry phones, I never had one but I know some people really like them...
Bye-bye BlackBerry: Company is set to kill support for its classic smartphones running on its own operating system on January 4 - 22 years after the device first hit the market
.
Bye-bye BlackBerry: Company is set to kill support for its classic smartphones running on its own operating system on January 4 - 22 years after the device first hit the market
.
wwkirk
Divine
Just think, for a time they were a mandatory accessory for executives and go-getters.
wwkirk
Divine
wwkirk
Divine
As with every Windows version, there are both UI (user interface) and features changes. With this incarnation, I like some of the changes, dislike others. I like the employment of icons in the context menus for the most frequent tasks (cut, copy, delete, etc.). Something I'm neutral about is that Disk Cleanup is now a separate module. No big deal. But what definitely irritates me is that the Windows/File Explorer Ribbon has been denuded of many of the features it has had since Windows 8.
Online, several PC mavens offered tweaks to restore the Windows 10 Ribbon. This was cool, but then, with the most recent Update, the tweaks were rendered ineffective. Apparently, there is a running battle between official Microsoft programmers and independents to counteract tweaks.
Fortunately, there is a more resilient alternative available. Unlike the tweaks, it is not free, but it is inexpensive. Equally, importantly, it comes with a 100 day free trial, enough time to determine if it is really as good as it seems, as well as to see if it is able to resist future Windows Updates.
I have only been using it for a few days, but so far it is terrific. It permits the user to switch between many Windows 11, Windows 10, and even Windows 7 UI features. Plus you can mix and match many of them.
Online, several PC mavens offered tweaks to restore the Windows 10 Ribbon. This was cool, but then, with the most recent Update, the tweaks were rendered ineffective. Apparently, there is a running battle between official Microsoft programmers and independents to counteract tweaks.
Fortunately, there is a more resilient alternative available. Unlike the tweaks, it is not free, but it is inexpensive. Equally, importantly, it comes with a 100 day free trial, enough time to determine if it is really as good as it seems, as well as to see if it is able to resist future Windows Updates.
I have only been using it for a few days, but so far it is terrific. It permits the user to switch between many Windows 11, Windows 10, and even Windows 7 UI features. Plus you can mix and match many of them.
StartAllBack to fix all Windows 11 deal-breaking UI issues
StartAllBack restores taskbar, start menu, context menus, explorer, sanity, style and order!
www.startallback.com
nivek
As Above So Below
Unless I purchase a new laptop or desktop I don't see myself ever using Windows 11...I rarely use Windows 10, except at work where all the computers are Windows 10...The IT guy at work has told us not to upgrade our work computers to Windows 11 if the prompt comes up, I'm not sure the reason for that...
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AD1184
Celestial
It's likely because the IT guy is not familiar with Windows 11, and businesses usually don't like to be early adopters of new operating systems. Not only can it cause compatibility problems for existing software and hardware, their knowledge about how to troubleshoot issues is now obsolete.
I work in IT in a large multinational corporation, and my team is partly responsible for a number of virtual machines connected to our work environment. We want to keep them as consistent and stable as possible, meaning we want as few updates as the security guys will allow us to get away with. Three years ago we made the transition in that environment to Windows 10 from Windows 7 (skipping Windows 8 entirely), but it entailed a long period of regression testing and bug fixes to make sure that everything would work in Windows 10, and we had to refresh our knowledge about how everything worked under the new operating system. We don't want to upgrade to Windows 11 any time soon, although the IT department will probably force us at some point in the future, I expect it to be a few years yet. Nobody at my workplace is receiving the upgrade notifications at work on their laptops either, and nobody is authorized to make the upgrade, but we have an Active Directory environment configured and group policies which control these things. One thing that is disabled is user control over the Windows version.
nivek
As Above So Below
Today I received my new laptop at work, it has Windows 11, my first time using this OS...It's alright so far, it seems very responsive and I've not had any problems using it except for one thing...Apparently Microsoft is making it more difficult for the user/customer to move the Taskbar...I have always placed the Taskbar on top of the Desktop and the setting to move the Taskbar was always in the Taskbar settings, one can place the Taskbar on the left, right, top, or bottom of the Desktop...Windows 11 now has that Taskbar location setting in the Microsoft registry files...So I edited the registry and it kept reverting back to the bottom location...I checked with IT and took the laptop to them, they tried to move the Taskbar by editing the registry and couldn't, even with their extra access and control privileges...IT called corporate and were told that Windows 11 cut off support for Taskbar location movement sometime late last year with an update...So now the Taskbar must remain on the bottom of the Desktop, Windows 11 does not allow its movement anymore...So I have to accept a bottom Taskbar on my work laptop, sigh...
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SOUL-DRIFTER
Life Long Researcher
There is talk already of Windows 12.
Expected sometime late 2024 or early 2025.
Wonder what that one will be like.
Windows 12 fully WOKE and ready. This day and age one must wonder......
Expected sometime late 2024 or early 2025.
Wonder what that one will be like.
Windows 12 fully WOKE and ready. This day and age one must wonder......
wwkirk
Divine
Not about Windows in general, but about another Microsoft product, One Drive.
For a time, I insisted on the self-contained, non-subscription MS Office package. But Microsoft won me over to the subscription standard by coupling it with 1 TB of online storage, all for a very reasonable price $70 per year. On the whole, I do like One Drive, but I recently discovered that it can screw you up if you let it.
The system tends to push the option of syncing one's files with One Drive. It's not an all or nothing feature as you can select what you want to sync and what not. I went with different degrees of sync at different times, but something always bothered me. I never seemed to save as much hard drive space as I thought I should. Well, recently, I learned the "secret" behind both syncing and the seemingly intuitive One Drive Folder.
One Drive comes with a folder you where you can keep what you will be using most often. [Confession: To this day, I've never read any One Drive documentation as that's not something I normally do with software.] I naturally - or foolishly - expected that the One Drive folder was online, literally out there in the One Drive virtual storage depot. Well, it's not. It's right there on your computer. That's why I wasn't saving as much space as I thought I could.
In itself, that is no big deal. A little disappointing, but not a terrible thing. What is terrifying,however, is syncing. This function has One Drive do realtime updates to whatever folder you choose to keep synced. One bad thing about this is that your own computer then becomes second in line relative to the folders in question. That is, One Drive saves everything first to itself in virtual land, and then copies to your computer. I tried to neutralize this irritation by designating key folders as "Always Keep on this Computer". This detail is helpful in that I always have instant access to any already created file in those folders. But it doesn't nullify the One Drive first, you second problematic, which, under certain circumstances can prove "deadly".
A couple of days ago I uploaded (downloaded?) just under 2 gigs of data, seemingly to my computer, with the thought that I would transfer it afterwards to One Drive as well as to a micro storage card. I couldn't save it directly to the card because the source of the data was a different swapped out card, and there's only one slot of that type. Well, after I finished transferring the data I discovered much to my dismay that I could no longer access the internet!
What happened is that One Drive immediately started grabbing the data, and hogged 100% of my bandwidth! No way to pause. No way to stop the transfer. I was pissed.
A couple of peculiarities of One Drive should be mentioned here.
1. If you rename a folder in the One Drive folder, it immediately deletes everything that was in it! - Absolutely counter to the way normal folders work. It's super inconvenient.
2. It just can't handle folders with more than one level of embedded folders. I mean. it cannot transfer complex folders, but lacks the transparency to warn the user. [Yeah, maybe that's in the documentation.]
Well, I waited around 8-10 HOURS for it to complete the transfer. But it never did. Frustrated, I tried quitting One Drive, restarting the computer, even uninstalling One Drive. But still no response, and no internet. Then it got "good". I went to my other laptop to use it to resolve the problem. However, since it is also connected to One Drive, it couldn't connect either. AND NEITHER COULD MY APPLE DEVICES OR MY SMARTPHONE! I tried a partial reset of the secondary laptop, but to no avail. Then, out of desperation, I reverted the laptop to to it's original state! But still no internet.
It's now just sitting there. Blank! Eventually I'll want to do something with it.
Gotta give it to them, Microsoft got me good! Anyway, after endless manipulations and trial and errors assisted by intermittent internet connectivity, I was able to figure out how to solve the problem, and also, I believe, prevent it from happening again. I now have a grand total of two folders in my One Drive folder, and they are the only folders that sync. I'm now alerted to the potential hazards of uploading complex folders, and nothing else on my hard drive syncs at all. If I want something backed up, I'll do it manually.
The amusing postscript is that my hard drive space utilization is virtually the same as it always was. All syncing does is provide immediate backups, a very meager benefit. It doesn't save an iota of space on your computer.
For a time, I insisted on the self-contained, non-subscription MS Office package. But Microsoft won me over to the subscription standard by coupling it with 1 TB of online storage, all for a very reasonable price $70 per year. On the whole, I do like One Drive, but I recently discovered that it can screw you up if you let it.
The system tends to push the option of syncing one's files with One Drive. It's not an all or nothing feature as you can select what you want to sync and what not. I went with different degrees of sync at different times, but something always bothered me. I never seemed to save as much hard drive space as I thought I should. Well, recently, I learned the "secret" behind both syncing and the seemingly intuitive One Drive Folder.
One Drive comes with a folder you where you can keep what you will be using most often. [Confession: To this day, I've never read any One Drive documentation as that's not something I normally do with software.] I naturally - or foolishly - expected that the One Drive folder was online, literally out there in the One Drive virtual storage depot. Well, it's not. It's right there on your computer. That's why I wasn't saving as much space as I thought I could.
In itself, that is no big deal. A little disappointing, but not a terrible thing. What is terrifying,however, is syncing. This function has One Drive do realtime updates to whatever folder you choose to keep synced. One bad thing about this is that your own computer then becomes second in line relative to the folders in question. That is, One Drive saves everything first to itself in virtual land, and then copies to your computer. I tried to neutralize this irritation by designating key folders as "Always Keep on this Computer". This detail is helpful in that I always have instant access to any already created file in those folders. But it doesn't nullify the One Drive first, you second problematic, which, under certain circumstances can prove "deadly".
A couple of days ago I uploaded (downloaded?) just under 2 gigs of data, seemingly to my computer, with the thought that I would transfer it afterwards to One Drive as well as to a micro storage card. I couldn't save it directly to the card because the source of the data was a different swapped out card, and there's only one slot of that type. Well, after I finished transferring the data I discovered much to my dismay that I could no longer access the internet!
What happened is that One Drive immediately started grabbing the data, and hogged 100% of my bandwidth! No way to pause. No way to stop the transfer. I was pissed.
A couple of peculiarities of One Drive should be mentioned here.
1. If you rename a folder in the One Drive folder, it immediately deletes everything that was in it! - Absolutely counter to the way normal folders work. It's super inconvenient.
2. It just can't handle folders with more than one level of embedded folders. I mean. it cannot transfer complex folders, but lacks the transparency to warn the user. [Yeah, maybe that's in the documentation.]
Well, I waited around 8-10 HOURS for it to complete the transfer. But it never did. Frustrated, I tried quitting One Drive, restarting the computer, even uninstalling One Drive. But still no response, and no internet. Then it got "good". I went to my other laptop to use it to resolve the problem. However, since it is also connected to One Drive, it couldn't connect either. AND NEITHER COULD MY APPLE DEVICES OR MY SMARTPHONE! I tried a partial reset of the secondary laptop, but to no avail. Then, out of desperation, I reverted the laptop to to it's original state! But still no internet.
It's now just sitting there. Blank! Eventually I'll want to do something with it.
Gotta give it to them, Microsoft got me good! Anyway, after endless manipulations and trial and errors assisted by intermittent internet connectivity, I was able to figure out how to solve the problem, and also, I believe, prevent it from happening again. I now have a grand total of two folders in my One Drive folder, and they are the only folders that sync. I'm now alerted to the potential hazards of uploading complex folders, and nothing else on my hard drive syncs at all. If I want something backed up, I'll do it manually.
The amusing postscript is that my hard drive space utilization is virtually the same as it always was. All syncing does is provide immediate backups, a very meager benefit. It doesn't save an iota of space on your computer.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
I recently discovered that my wife had used a One Drive account to save a boatload of pics - she had no idea until she started getting 'drive full' notifications. My preference has always been local backups. When I set up a PC generally I'll make a second non-OS drive partition and save everything there, never use the default storage locations. I used freeware called AKG Backup to do incremental backups of that drive to USB backup drives that I rotate. Always keep two of the drives attached and a third in our safe. Those are incremental backups, meaning it doesn't write everything every time (although you can if you want) only what's changed. That way I have multiple copies of all my pictures, data etc that I can read from any PC. That's all come in handy several times.
Why not just add another hard drive to your machine? Easy and cheap.
Why not just add another hard drive to your machine? Easy and cheap.
wwkirk
Divine
I had a second hard drive for a desktop once. Do you mean an external drive? I don't have a lot of ports.
Actually, the micro card I'm presently using has twice the space of my hard drive.
pigfarmer
tall, thin, irritable
This is one I use to rotate those backups.
Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive HDD — USB 3.0
Something along these lines would help: Powered USB Hub
Yes, I was talking about adding a second physical hard drive but realize tower PCs have sort of fallen by the wayside. I use one still. No idea what hardware you have. Flash cards and USB sticks are convenient and probably fine, but I don't use them for important backups. Once I set up my PC the way I like it it takes only a minute or two to run that incremental AKG backup.
CC Cleaner is a handy utility for cleanup: Download CCleaner | Clean, optimize & tune up your PC, free!
So is Revo Uninstaller: Download Revo Uninstaller Freeware - Free and Full Download
wwkirk
Divine
You mean under $100 bucks right? Amazon has a wide assortment. Otherwise you might be able to get recommendations from a Reddit user group.
(I personally know nothing of such tech.)
nivek
As Above So Below
No, under a 1000 dollars, preferably something around 5 or 6 hundred, stand alone dedicated, no pc required...
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wwkirk
Divine
Victory Over Obsolete Tech! .png "Angry :angry1:")
I purchased an mp3 disc thinking it would be essentially a file folder. Not so. Instead it contained a Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 utilizing the discontinued Adobe Flash platform. The audio files played, but it was unacceptable to have them locked into that damned player. I attempted to somehow open the player utilizing such exotic freeware as Flashpoint and Lightspark, but the latter was useless and the former utterly inscrutable. I thought of emailing the package to my iPod, but it was too large. (It was a ridiculous idea anyway.)
Along the way, there was a glimmer of hope. I was fortunately able to copy the package to my desktop. As it copied, I noticed that Windows was able to distinguish the individual audio files even though there was seemingly no way to get into the Macromedia player which has no discernible folder for file storage.
I tried zipping and unzipping it, however the default Windows zip software was too blunt to help me. But then I remembered a retro program that I already possessed, 7-Zip. Along with basic zipping and unzipping, it has additional archive manipulation features. Before long, I was able to use it to view the individual audio files. And then, yada yada, I was eventually able to extract the files and load them into iTunes.
I guess one conclusion to draw is that retro > obsolete.
(Also, investigate before purchasing any tech product produced more than a few years ago.
)
I purchased an mp3 disc thinking it would be essentially a file folder. Not so. Instead it contained a Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 utilizing the discontinued Adobe Flash platform. The audio files played, but it was unacceptable to have them locked into that damned player. I attempted to somehow open the player utilizing such exotic freeware as Flashpoint and Lightspark, but the latter was useless and the former utterly inscrutable. I thought of emailing the package to my iPod, but it was too large. (It was a ridiculous idea anyway.)
Along the way, there was a glimmer of hope. I was fortunately able to copy the package to my desktop. As it copied, I noticed that Windows was able to distinguish the individual audio files even though there was seemingly no way to get into the Macromedia player which has no discernible folder for file storage.
I tried zipping and unzipping it, however the default Windows zip software was too blunt to help me. But then I remembered a retro program that I already possessed, 7-Zip. Along with basic zipping and unzipping, it has additional archive manipulation features. Before long, I was able to use it to view the individual audio files. And then, yada yada, I was eventually able to extract the files and load them into iTunes.
I guess one conclusion to draw is that retro > obsolete.
(Also, investigate before purchasing any tech product produced more than a few years ago.
)
AD1184
Celestial
7-Zip is still in development, and I use it as my default archiving software. (The latest version is 23.01, released in June of this year.)Victory Over Obsolete Tech!
I purchased an mp3 disc thinking it would be essentially a file folder. Not so. Instead it contained a Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 utilizing the discontinued Adobe Flash platform. The audio files played, but it was unacceptable to have them locked into that damned player. I attempted to somehow open the player utilizing such exotic freeware as Flashpoint and Lightspark, but the latter was useless and the former utterly inscrutable. I thought of emailing the package to my iPod, but it was too large. (It was a ridiculous idea anyway.)
Along the way, there was a glimmer of hope. I was fortunately able to copy the package to my desktop. As it copied, I noticed that Windows was able to distinguish the individual audio files even though there was seemingly no way to get into the Macromedia player which has no discernible folder for file storage.
I tried zipping and unzipping it, however the default Windows zip software was too blunt to help me. But then I remembered a retro program that I already possessed, 7-Zip. Along with basic zipping and unzipping, it has additional archive manipulation features. Before long, I was able to use it to view the individual audio files. And then, yada yada, I was eventually able to extract the files and load them into iTunes.
I guess one conclusion to draw is that retro > obsolete.
(Also, investigate before purchasing any tech product produced more than a few years ago.
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nivek
As Above So Below
Yes 7zip is an excellent archiving tool, it will open and extract from, just about any type of file, except bin files...I've been using it for years...
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