New Computer: Woes and Raves

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midlife

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I've been using a laptop as my primary computer since 2010, and it ran Windows XP.  It is a great workhorse, although some of the  keys are getting sticky (get your heads out of the gutters, you twits!).  I still run some old apps from 1998 (!!!) which won't work on Windows Vista and higher.  Since no one supports XP anymore, including FireFox, I figured it was time to upgrade.

I bought a Windows 10 box, and fired it up for the big transition Sunday afternoon, figuring it would take a good 2 days to get it to a fully functional state.  Yes, I am taking this week off, so I had plenty of time.  I managed to get all of my applications to load except two of them, which is pretty damn good!  I found Dos In a Box, which allows old games and DOS programs to run in a 64 bit environment.  I found a way of transferring my entire FireFox profile from the old machine to the new one, which saved an incredible amount of time and effort.

Both machines were running off of the same wireless network, but it was incredibly difficult to get the two computers to talk with one another.  The new machine could see the old one, but not vice versa.  I think the Windows Firewall on the new machine was the cause.  I transferred all of the data wireless over from the old to the new, keeping the same file structure.  I keep all my data separated from applications by partitioning the hard drive, so all the data is in its own partition.  That makes archiving and backups a whole-lot easier as well.

I'm now up and running, but I do have many complaints about Windows 10, even though I'm running it as an administrator.  When firing it up for the first time, Microsoft wanted to know everything about me and what I do, so I told them to stuff it.  At least they allow you to turn that crap off.  But still, does MS really expect everyone to go into a fully share mode with a huge corporation, like Google, Facebook, and such?  Hell no...I just want a computer to do my thing!  Second gripe: Even though I am the administrator, any time I need to run an .exe file, Windows asks me "Do you really want to do this?"  C'mon...of course I do!  Windows 10 is the ultimate in Nanny-State-ism.  Third gripe: where are all of the damn games MS used to supply?  They're gone!  Bastids!  I transferred over the games from XP and they run well in 10.  Fourth gripe: where's the Classic Windows theme?  And what's up with all of those damn tiles?  I found a way to get the theme and remove the tiles, but the theme messes up my spreadsheet formats, so I went back to a standard theme.

All in all, not as bad an experience as I was expecting for an upgrade, but really, MS...leave us poor schnooks alone, will ya?  We all don't want to be part of your whole-Internet-experience thingamajig.

Sincerely,

An old fart, curmudgeon, about to be a Luddite.

 
I feel your pain. I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows 10 because they said you could uninstall it and go back to Win7 if you didn't like it. I hated it. It was like going to an entirely different platform. I uninstalled it and went back to Win7, but it wasn't without it's own problems, as some programs had been modified to work with Win10. What a PITA.

I miss Windows XP.

 
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I felt your pain for a long time.  Then my kids convinced me to get a Mac.  Now the only thing I have to complain about is the price.
Privately I did the same 10 years ago. Never had any regrets.

 
I'm freelancer programmer doing 3D graphics whole day. I just want to react on the "expensive" and give my 2 cents on Win.

I run macs since 1986 and I also run windows. My main machine is on 10-16 hours day and runs complex programs. Its no email/FB machine for sure.

I leave everyone judge of the OS they want to use but thing is, thru out the years, I've seen that macs are way more durable, reliable than any PC's.

Where you can easy speak about buying 2 pc's while the macs still runs strong. So from my own business experience, macs hardware are way cheaper in the long run.

But I'm talking here about high-end macs, which are in fact even more expensive. Note that a good PC is not that cheap either. I would also not recommend buy the "cheap" macbooks either.

That's for the hardware.

In practice, the mac os aside being a light year ahead of windows in term or design, stability and ui, it leaves you in peace,

you don't worry about it, its just doing the things its supposed to do. While on windows you keep being bothered by all kinds of malfunctions, stupid alerts, forced updates, missing drivers, reminders, and now even build in spam. All kinds of things that keep you away from doing what you are supposed to do...

Of course part of stability is depending on how you use the machine/OS.

My personal view on Win10: As we talk Mustang here, I'd say its a high mileage 2v 73 351c with 2 dead cylinders. While block has potential, it really needs a (serious) rebuild.

 
I'm freelancer programmer doing 3D graphics whole day. I just want to react on the "expensive" and give my 2 cents on Win.

I run macs since 1986 and I also run windows. My main machine is on 10-16 hours day and runs complex programs. Its no email/FB machine for sure.

I leave everyone judge of the OS they want to use but thing is, thru out the years, I've seen that macs are way more durable, reliable than any PC's.

Where you can easy speak about buying 2 pc's while the macs still runs strong. So from my own business experience, macs hardware are way cheaper in the long run.

But I'm talking here about high-end macs, which are in fact even more expensive. Note that a good PC is not that cheap either. I would also not recommend buy the "cheap" macbooks either.

That's for the hardware.

In practice, the mac os aside being a light year ahead of windows in term or design, stability and ui, it leaves you in peace,

you don't worry about it, its just doing the things its supposed to do. While on windows you keep being bothered by all kinds of malfunctions, stupid alerts, forced updates, missing drivers, reminders, and now even build in spam. All kinds of things that keep you away from doing what you are supposed to do...

Of course part of stability is depending on how you use the machine/OS.

My personal view on Win10:  As we talk Mustang here, I'd say its a high mileage 2v 73 351c with 2 dead cylinders. While block has potential, it really needs a (serious) rebuild.
Fabrice,

A big ole LOL. I mean several of them!I agree with you. The OS that I have seen run for a year with no problems is Red hat Linux Enterprise Desktop. We had to shut it down to add more memory. The user, said, "Can we install it while it is still running? I have had it running for a while!" Well. silly, you to power it down!  He knew we had to! Just was keeping up with the run time versus us poor b^%&(rds with Windows XP and 7.

mustang7173

 
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I've been using a laptop as my primary computer since 2010, and it ran Windows XP.  It is a great workhorse, although some of the  keys are getting sticky (get your heads out of the gutters, you twits!).  I still run some old apps from 1998 (!!!) which won't work on Windows Vista and higher.  Since no one supports XP anymore, including FireFox, I figured it was time to upgrade.

I bought a Windows 10 box, and fired it up for the big transition Sunday afternoon, figuring it would take a good 2 days to get it to a fully functional state.  Yes, I am taking this week off, so I had plenty of time.  I managed to get all of my applications to load except two of them, which is pretty damn good!  I found Dos In a Box, which allows old games and DOS programs to run in a 64 bit environment.  I found a way of transferring my entire FireFox profile from the old machine to the new one, which saved an incredible amount of time and effort.

Both machines were running off of the same wireless network, but it was incredibly difficult to get the two computers to talk with one another.  The new machine could see the old one, but not vice versa.  I think the Windows Firewall on the new machine was the cause.  I transferred all of the data wireless over from the old to the new, keeping the same file structure.  I keep all my data separated from applications by partitioning the hard drive, so all the data is in its own partition.  That makes archiving and backups a whole-lot easier as well.

I'm now up and running, but I do have many complaints about Windows 10, even though I'm running it as an administrator.  When firing it up for the first time, Microsoft wanted to know everything about me and what I do, so I told them to stuff it.  At least they allow you to turn that crap off.  But still, does MS really expect everyone to go into a fully share mode with a huge corporation, like Google, Facebook, and such?  Hell no...I just want a computer to do my thing!  Second gripe: Even though I am the administrator, any time I need to run an .exe file, Windows asks me "Do you really want to do this?"  C'mon...of course I do!  Windows 10 is the ultimate in Nanny-State-ism.  Third gripe: where are all of the damn games MS used to supply?  They're gone!  Bastids!  I transferred over the games from XP and they run well in 10.  Fourth gripe: where's the Classic Windows theme?  And what's up with all of those damn tiles?  I found a way to get the theme and remove the tiles, but the theme messes up my spreadsheet formats, so I went back to a standard theme.

All in all, not as bad an experience as I was expecting for an upgrade, but really, MS...leave us poor schnooks alone, will ya?  We all don't want to be part of your whole-Internet-experience thingamajig.

Sincerely,

An old fart, curmudgeon, about to be a Luddite.
Midlife,

I feel your pain also. My wife hates it! Yes, you have to customize the settings in the beginning by turning off that Microsoft crap off. Why cannot Microsoft come out with a non-backwards compatible, no bloatware, and some games, with everything locked down, yes, we would have to turn on features, version?

BTW, I do like the Windows 10 version 1703. It is a bit more redefined.

mustang7173

 
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I forgot to include my fifth gripe: companies are now going to software that you lease on a yearly basis instead of buying it. Examples: Adobe Acrobat Pro and Windows Office. I managed to buy a recently out-of-date Acrobat Pro XI for $50 (the last version you could buy outright) and Office that only included Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.

It is much cheaper for an individual to buy than lease over the long-term...these companies are simply getting a bit too greedy!

 
I switched to PCLOS (a Linux distro) back in 2007 and haven't looked back. Free software, no virus worries, support for old and new hardware, free upgrades...

The only things I couldn't reproduce in Linux were Quickbooks and AutoCAD. I installed a virtual Windows drive for Quickbooks and switched what little CAD work I have to do anymore to one of the Linux based CAD programs.

It's amazing how many things in Linux show up in later releases or Windoze (or Windon't).

My current PC is a 10 year old Dell with two 250 GB drives. The OS itself lives in 12 GB partition with 3 GB free. I 'upgraded' to the 64 bit version last fall. It took about 30 minutes.

Instead of paying for MS Office, download Libre Office. It's free and will work with your existing MS documents. You can even set it to save to MS formats by default.

 
I'm about to transition to Win10 at work, and do the Win10/Win7 32- & 64-bit shuffle on my machines at home.  The wife plays World of Warcraft and The Sims, and not much else on her machine.  But I jammed 16GB of RAM each into our latest tech upgrades, and Win7 32-bit won't recognize more than 3.92GB of the RAM... so, her games lag a bit.  My plan is to upgrade to Win10 Pro on mine, give her my Win7 Ultimate 64-bit for her machine, then take her Win7 Home 32-bit copy for a second machine on my KVM to run my old 16-bit apps.  The issue with 'compatibility mode' for applications is that Windows will only recognize the previous version (for instance, 32-bit will only run 16-bit apps but not 8-bit... 64-bit will only run 32-bit, etc.). 

As for Macs - I have a really nice A1220 MacBook Pro that a friend fished out of a dumpster in 2009, and I repaired the cracked LCD - not a thing wrong with it otherwise.  It's a nice machine, but like anything else, it's getting older and needs some updates to keep up with the new OS releases.  I went to an Apple Store in San Antonio about a month ago to get a new battery and check on upping the RAM from 2GB to max it out with 6GB.  They [rather snobbishly] informed me that it's too old, and they don't support it anymore.  WTF?!  A $3000 laptop that runs like a champ is no longer supported?  As a matter of fact, Apple doesn't support anything of theirs more than 5 years old.  Are you freaken kidding me?! Oh HELL No!  I am now firmly of the opinion: F00k Apple!  First of all, I can't stand the snarky hipsters that work in their stores... they're almost as bad as retail auto parts guys (they don't know squat about their products unless they can look it up on their smart phones).  I had explained how Macs are less secure and how I literally took ownership of the laptop when I first got it by booting into console and changing the password using command line functions.  She actually argued with me saying that wasn't possible - the same one who informed me they would not support my 'ancient' laptop.  And finally, a company that won't stand behind their products despite intentionally building in longevity after charging ridiculously high prices just sucks, IMHO.

I like Linux, but I've been too ensconced with Windows over the years to really give it a fair shot.  I've loaded up Red Hat Fedora and Ubuntu on a few occasions and just never really given them enough of a chance because of my Windows knowledge and experience.  These days with time becoming more of a commodity, I just want my stuff to work the way it did the last time it worked right, so I don't stick my nose out too far with new OSs.

Sounds like you guys have a handle on what works best for you, though.  Good stuff!  ::thumb::

 
Mr 4x4, just for the record, I like macs but I'm no appleboy, they fit perfectly for my business and never let me down unlike non apple/win based hardware. Wanted react on the expensive aspect which is simply not true in long run. I totally agree with you regarding Apple politics. As the apple stores... well ain't it same for each and every tech companies? You can't possibly expect a good technician/engineer to even consider work in such place, do you?

And about security, the nuance lays in the fact you got the mac in your hands, it wasn't the online context of security that you hear about daily. Also who knows what the previous owner did regarding permissions. On latest versions, if mac is propperly maintained, you would certainly loose a few neurones to succeed to do the same that you did on this 2009 machine.

 
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Mr 4x4, just for the record, I like macs but I'm no appleboy, they fit perfectly for my business and never let me down unlike non apple/win based hardware. Wanted react on the expensive aspect which is simply not true in long run. I totally agree with you regarding Apple politics. As the apple stores... well ain't it same for each and every tech companies? You can't possibly expect a good technician/engineer to even consider work in such place, do you?

And about security, the nuance lays in the fact you got the mac in your hands, it wasn't the online context of security that you hear about daily. Also who knows what the previous owner did regarding permissions. On latest versions, if mac is propperly maintained, you would certainly loose a few neurones to succeed to do the same that you did on this 2009 machine.
I'm not the right person to ask about 'good technicians' working in customer support sections for large companies... mostly because I've never found any.  Corporate customer support picks people they can train to read their scripts and perform the more simple troubleshooting tasks that usually don't solve the problems... which is where replacement takes over.  I'm an old-school techie.  My computer maintenance skills began in the mid-'90s with replacing individual components (like capacitors, resistors, etc.) on non-functional circuit board components in car-sized mainframes - rarely was replacement of the motherboards themselves warranted - actual troubleshooting, assembly, disassembly, soldering, de-soldering, testing, reading meters and 'scopes were part of the job.  Now, it's all swap-tronics - if something ceases to function, get a new one.  Technology has made us lazy in that regard.  It's no different with cars, BTW.  And I'm not saying that the natural progression of technology is a bad thing, either.

Not trying to argue for the sake of arguing, but Apple is a big 'front.'  Yes, they have made some major technical innovations that others have copied.  I love my iPod(s) and I'm happy to have them... as I mentioned, I even still like my MacBook Pro - it's still a solid machine.  Still runs great and I'm still very pleased with it for what I need it to do.

My 'front' comment is based on this: OSX.  Most people think it's some big industry secret that Apple has concocted their own secret sauce operating system that's impervious to hacking and malware - and it's a huge lie.  OSX is Apple's form of Linux - pure and simple.  The only reason Apple is 'so secure,' is because the hackers and malware folks target the corporate giant, Microsoft, and leave Linux OSs alone for the most part.

The previous owner didn't do anything wrong, nor did he do anything particularly 'secure,' either.  The machine had a logon password, just like every machine should.  You boot it, it comes up to a logon screen, you enter the username and password, and you're in.  Simple as that.  Keep in mind that my background is with Microsoft products - I'm a certified MCSA (among other things), but I've also administered Solaris systems as well as dabbled with various Linux builds (Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.) on my own.  I'd never even touched a newer Apple machine since the '80s before I began working on this one.  Fifteen minutes spent on Google told me that OSX is Linux-based, and how to boot to console mode.  Using my previous Solaris administration knowledge - just to see if it would work - I changed the admin password of the machine with one simple command through the console.  I now own the box.  Apple has not changed the 'nuts and bolts' of their OS - ever... it's still Linux-based, and the most current macOS out there (Sierra - 10.12, actually called "macOS" now, to fall in-line with their other product OS designations).

My MacBook Pro (aka, "The Dumpster Mac") came with 'Leopard' (OSX 10.5) but can run up to 'El Capitan' (macOS 10.11), although it needs a RAM upgrade (needs 4GB minimum to be stable)... which is why I went to the Apple Store, along with a new battery.  The max RAM supported by the A1226 architecture is 6GB, which is what I was after - which I've since mail-ordered and all is good.  So, I guess my biggest question (and gripe) is why can the 9-year-old A1226 run the latest macOS (with appropriate RAM upgrade), but Apple won't support it because it's too old?  They crafted the macOS to be backward-compatible to such an extent, it only makes sense to me that they should still support the gear that still supports their OS.

Apple, being so proprietary, is a big part of the problem.  If I want to boost the RAM of my old Dell Inspiron laptop, I can go to just about any computer store, grab the appropriate SO-DIMMs off the shelf, swap 'em out, and I have more RAM.  Granted, the older the machine, the harder it is to find computer stores still stocking the older stuff - as to be expected.  But Apple declaring 5 years as the max they'll support a product, after charging such ridiculous money for said product, is just a money-grubbing scam that way too many people have fallen for.  It's planned obsolescence purely for profit, and the masses are drinking the Kool-Aid.  While the products are within the support window, one can ONLY go to an Apple Store for support, and when the window's closed (no pun intended), there are only a handful of vendors offering support, and most often that's via mail-order.  All other computers enjoy the freedom of 'more extensive compatibility' with their components.  I can go to Office Depot, Best Buy, or even Wal-Mart to buy RAM (for instance) for any of my machines... except The Dumpster Mac, and bring home new components (provided the motherboard architecture still support the new components, that is).

Sorry for the novel, but my biggest gripe with the Apple products is based on the overly proprietary nature of Apple, and the snobby hipsters at the Apple Store - which is a business model they won't be changing anytime soon.  Therefore, I won't recommend Apple to anybody I know, if only because I know they're going to bring them to me when they crap out - just like everybody else does - and I'd rather be working with something I can actually fix in a few hours, rather than have to wait days for mail-order to show up.

 
So after being told by the snarky hipsters at a San Antonio Apple Store a month ago that my Dumpster Mac (A1226 MacBook Pro fished out of a dumpster in 2009) was no longer supportable, I jammed in 6GB of RAM, a new battery, and upgraded the OS to El Capitan. It now runs like a scalded dog once again - after just 2 afternoons of upgrading the OSX from Leopard 10.5, to Snow Leopard 10.6, updating that to 10.6.8, then finally finding macOS El Capitan 10.11 to download and install.

Nothing like the feeling of prolonging the life of a basically 'free' $2800 laptop... especially after being told by so-called experts that it can't be done.

Hmmm - I guess I have some kind of a 'streak' of a sort, bringing sh!t back to life when others look on and say it can't be done.  I wonder where I've seen that before. :whistling:

 
Well I agree with you all [TIRED FACE] windows is so frustrating to juse! Next one is going to be a Apple device [FLEXED BICEPS][FACE THROWING A KISS][THUMBS UP SIGN] Our iPad has worked from day one..! Our window computer has been so frustrating to juse! Slow as hell at startup..! Driver is always want a new updates! They are doing many things wrong way! My wife's work where they juse it is always something wrong..! I just don't understand why they are doing them so bad? Only because of trying to make it more sicure!? But Apples work everyday with out problem's..!? Google doesn't have any problem's either!? Regards Lars

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