Windows 10 free upgrade ends July 29

[Dragunov]

OOOPS!!!

THIS is the video I'm referring to:

 

[PhulesAu]

Thanks for all of the info. But since I am one of the world's leading Computards, I might stick with a baseball bat.

 

[karlac]

This was a post I wrote on another website. I copy/pasted/adapted it for all, Y'all here:

BIG DISCLAIMER HERE!!!! BACKUP YOUR HARD DRIVE, MAKE SURE SYSTEM RESTORE IS ON!!!

Great resource.
Thanks!

 

[TheDan]

This was a post I wrote on another website. I copy/pasted/adapted it for all, Y'all here:

Excellent!

 

[Dragunov]

Thanks for all of the info. But since I am one of the world's leading Computards, I might stick with a baseball bat.

We need a "Like" button here!

 

[Dragunov]

Great resource.
Thanks!

You're welcome.

 

[NavyVet1959]

I've had 2 machines that the "free upgrade" turned into bricks. Lost everything on the machines. Even though I've made a lot of money over the years writing software of Microsoft machines, I hate them. Not as much as I hate Apple, but with Win10, I think Microsoft is trying to come close with respect to my hate index.

I have a lot of legacy software that I use. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to buy new software when I'm not even using all the features of the old software. Why should I have the latest version of MS-Office when I doubt that I've used 10% of all the features in Office-95?

 

[Dragunov]

I've had 2 machines that the "free upgrade" turned into bricks. Lost everything on the machines. Even though I've made a lot of money over the years writing software of Microsoft machines, I hate them. Not as much as I hate Apple, but with Win10, I think Microsoft is trying to come close with respect to my hate index.

I have a lot of legacy software that I use. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to buy new software when I'm not even using all the features of the old software. Why should I have the latest version of MS-Office when I doubt that I've used 10% of all the features in Office-95?

Because Office 95 isn't compatable even with Office 2007. You can't use anything done in 2007, on 95, or vise-versa.

I understand all the "love" you have for Microsnot.... Me too. Especially, with this WinX debacle.

However, the Sheeple (masses) demand "Shiney, and new" WinX. Since I'm in the business of computer repair/refurb/upgrade, It is wise for me to get to know it. Granted, if it weren't for the spying, and privacy issues, WinX, actually is a decent O/S. How did WinX turn your machines into "bricks"? You CAN re-install a different windows, or roll back WinX, if you do so within 30 days of the WinX install.

 

[NavyVet1959]

Because Office 95 isn't compatable even with Office 2007. You can't use anything done in 2007, on 95, or vise-versa.

I understand all the "love" you have for Microsnot.... Me too. Especially, with this WinX debacle.

However, the Sheeple (masses) demand "Shiney, and new" WinX. Since I'm in the business of computer repair/refurb/upgrade, It is wise for me to get to know it. Granted, if it weren't for the spying, and privacy issues, WinX, actually is a decent O/S. How did WinX turn your machines into "bricks"? You CAN re-install a different windows, or roll back WinX, if you do so within 30 days of the WinX install.

Any document that I create in Office-95 can be read in Office-2007 and if you are sharing documents, you probably should consider not using the "latest and (not-so) greatest" version of Office unless what you are trying to do absolutely NEEDS those features.

I'm also more likely to just download and install OpenOffice these days on a new machine instead of searching through my CDs for the Office-95 CD.

In my cases, it was "brick" as in it would not boot at all. I could not even see a partition table on the drive. I eventually had to reformat the drives and install a version of LINUX on them.

 

[Dragunov]

Any document that I create in Office-95 can be read in Office-2007 and if you are sharing documents, you probably should consider not using the "latest and (not-so) greatest" version of Office unless what you are trying to do absolutely NEEDS those features.

I'm also more likely to just download and install OpenOffice these days on a new machine instead of searching through my CDs for the Office-95 CD.

In my cases, it was "brick" as in it would not boot at all. I could not even see a partition table on the drive. I eventually had to reformat the drives and install a version of LINUX on them.

My apologies! I was wrong about the compatability issue. Been years since I used Office 95. Open, or Libre Office are fantastic programs. I've used them in the past, and when it's time, I'm unafraid to use them again.

Do you have a redundancy protocal in place?

Every windows, since Win7 (including Win7) has a disk imaging utility that works reliably.

An external USB caddy can be had for around $4. A 320gb HDD can be had for as little as $15.

You do sound like you know what you're doing, but even us computer geeks don't always do things the right way for one reason or another.

 

[NavyVet1959]

Do you have a redundancy protocal in place?

Yeah, I store things in multiple places and then forget where I stored them.

 

[AustinN4]

Yeah, I store things in multiple places and then forget where I stored them.

LOL, sounds like me.

 

[Dragunov]

Yeah, I store things in multiple places and then forget where I stored them.

Well, THAT sounds about right!

 

[Southpaw]

Microsoft made an interesting decision with Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, which is now in its final stages of development before it rolls out on August 2.
Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10’s search function and taps into Bing’s servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switch.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3100...ana-in-the-windows-10-anniversary-update.html

 

[TheDan]

There's probably a way you can firewall off Cortana so that you can still search locally, but it can't phone out.

 

[karlac]

Yeah, I store things in multiple places and then forget where I stored them.

LOL
Been cussing that very circumstance this morning...

 

[NavyVet1959]

One of my laptops (actually more of a "notebook") is still running WinXP and it works well for what I use it for. It's a ThinkPad and is small, fairly rugged and has the TrackPoint (eraser head looking pointing device) that I greatly prefer over the GlidePoint type devices. I was wanting to install a 'C' compiler on it last night so that I could develop a utility that I wanted. I didn't want to have to dig around in my CDs for my Visual C++ v6 CD and find my external CD/DVD drive, so I went to the Microsoft site to download the free Visual Studio Express compiler / IDE which I had used may times before. The latest version would not install because I was not running a recent enough version of Windows. Tried it with all previous versions that they had on their site, but no luck on them either.

I have software that I've written for companies back in the WinNT days (20 years ago) that is *still* running at those companies without any modifications even though the machines have been "upgraded" to many different versions of Windows since then. IF you write your software right, you shouldn't need to introduce a new version of the software every time Microsoft makes a change to their operating system.

Now, having said that, I know the systems that I wrote back then will probably have a problem on 1/19/2038 due to the 32-bit size of a time_t value at that time.

 

[TheDan]

haha...y2k38

 

[NavyVet1959]

haha...y2k38

It was a known limitation at the time. It was assumed that there would be 64-bit machines by that time and there would at least be a recompile to take advantage of it by then. Well, the 64-bit machines are here now and a conversion would be possible, but it's just not a priority for the company. They don't seem to have the sort of developers there these days that would be competent in making changes to such a large system that is written primarily in 'C' (with a bit of C++ thrown in where necessary to placate Microsoft). I received a call a year or so ago from them asking how difficult it would be to convert it to C# since that is the type of developers they have these days. It would be a LOT of work to convert it is a distributed system that runs on various flavors of UNIX in addition to Windows servers as a service.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

At this point, I'm quickly moving to the idea of Qubes, primarily running Linux distros for my most used "domains" within Qubes (internet, coding, etc.). I would also probably maintain an airgapped/offline (no possible internet/system access) "domain" or two, probably running Win 7 for any Windows-specific items. Although I haven't heard (because I haven't looked) of anyone doing it, I would have to imagine templates/domains could be created with other versions of Windows as well, such as 95 or 98, for older legacy items. For the security conscious out there, that don't mind a bit of work in setup, you'll LOVE this: https://www.qubes-os.org/