Bloody Windows!!!

[Refrigerator]

How do i kill Windows modules installer worker? It's eating 60% of my CPU and takes hours to stop. Whenever i end it it just pops back up. I tried disabling it in services.msc but there it won't let me stop the damn thing and when i put the startup on disabled it has already changed itself on automatic the next time i check it.
This pisses me off and i don't care what this program is or what it does, all i want to do right now is to kill it and for it to stay dead. 
What could this program even be doing for hours with 60% of my CPU? Mining bitcoin for microshaft perhaps?

[Refrigerator]

You need an SSD to run Windows 10. Windows installer has a ton of small file IO, and Windows Defender checks every of them.
Solution: disable Windows Defender and take the risk.
Not only WD screws up with Windows installer, it also screws up GCC when compiling large programs, even with NVMe SSDs.

Forgot to mention that i'm running Win8.1, to me win10 is just unbearable. Windows defender, along with superfetch, is already disabled.
Ps; i'd gladly run win7  but the laptop does not support win7.

[rrinker]

 That's not updates, if it keeps on running over and over again. You have something well and clearly borked up that is causing it to keep starting up. I suspect forced stopping it had corrupted the cache. There's not a lot you can do to fix that besides a full reinstall.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2667628/missing-windows-installer-cache-files-will-require-a-computer-rebuild

Defender, at least in Win10, is one of the LIGHTEST AV programs, and it's effective.

And Windows 10 does not need an SSD. It works fine on a regular drive - just not very well when you only have 2GB of RAM. After you get used to an SSD however... they ALL seem slow, no matter what OS. But a Win10 machines on a regular hard drive with at least 4GB RAM will be FINE.

[tszaboo]

You need an SSD to run Windows 10. Windows installer has a ton of small file IO, and Windows Defender checks every of them.
Solution: disable Windows Defender and take the risk.
Not only WD screws up with Windows installer, it also screws up GCC when compiling large programs, even with NVMe SSDs.

It does the same on SSD. My X220 laptop turns into a toaster oven every few days.
And WTF, Microsoft checks files -coming from Microsoft- for virus

[GreyWoolfe]

That's not updates, if it keeps on running over and over again. You have something well and clearly borked up that is causing it to keep starting up. I suspect forced stopping it had corrupted the cache. There's not a lot you can do to fix that besides a full reinstall.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2667628/missing-windows-installer-cache-files-will-require-a-computer-rebuild

Defender, at least in Win10, is one of the LIGHTEST AV programs, and it's effective.

And Windows 10 does not need an SSD. It works fine on a regular drive - just not very well when you only have 2GB of RAM. After you get used to an SSD however... they ALL seem slow, no matter what OS. But a Win10 machines on a regular hard drive with at least 4GB RAM will be FINE.

I agree, 3 of my personal machines have regular hard drives and 4GB ram.  The 4th has 8GB.  These are all older computers, 2 2010 HP Z210 workstations, an HP EliteBook 8560P and a no name surplus XP era workstation.

[Syntax_Error]

So, a confession:

After using Linux for about a year and a half after ditching Windows 10 and all it's associated programs, I just recently gave it another try as I bought a new (to me) mobile workstation with hardware that more than outclasses my old hardware. I have to tell you...I kind of love it. It's wayyy faster than my old computer, regardless of which OS (Linux Mint or Windows 10). I've even been using Edge (gasp!) as my browser and it's fast too. I only downloaded Chrome for a single use so far because a registration I needed recommended Chrome and I didn't want to chance it.

I'm not sure if Windows 10 has been improved since I first tried it or if it is solely superior hardware, but I won't be switching anytime soon. Any dual booting will have to wait until I get an external drive sometime, and that would be the secondary OS, not Windows.

I know this bucks the status quo lately, but it's been a truly remarkable experience. I'm inclined to think it's largely the hardware. I moved from a 2nd gen Core i3 2.1GHz, 6GB RAM, HDD, Intel graphics, to 7th gen Core i7 2.9-3.8GHz, 16GB RAM, NVME drive, 2GB Quadro M620. It's definitely been a noticeable difference.

[Yansi]

Not too surprising. The Intel i3 is not processor, it is garbage!  Even my veeery older PC with the Core 2 Duo crunches numbers  way faster than the i3 shite. Learnt this the hard way, when I bought my notebook I currently use.

[bd139]

For reference, we have seen TrustedInstaller going batshit as well. The funny thing this is on Amazon's AWS. If you stick it on a t2 instance which has limited CPU credits, wham hits a wall straight away when you deploy an instance because it's pissing around consuming one entire core constantly.

Then the CPU gets throttled so you can't even log into it.

[rdl]

The settings for many Microsoft programs run are handled by Task Scheduler, so you may look there for entries on how it is handled as far as restarting if shut down. If the services.msc won't let you shut it down, try doing it from Task Manager.

[Zero999]

So, a confession:

After using Linux for about a year and a half after ditching Windows 10 and all it's associated programs, I just recently gave it another try as I bought a new (to me) mobile workstation with hardware that more than outclasses my old hardware. I have to tell you...I kind of love it. It's wayyy faster than my old computer, regardless of which OS (Linux Mint or Windows 10). I've even been using Edge (gasp!) as my browser and it's fast too. I only downloaded Chrome for a single use so far because a registration I needed recommended Chrome and I didn't want to chance it.

I'm not sure if Windows 10 has been improved since I first tried it or if it is solely superior hardware, but I won't be switching anytime soon. Any dual booting will have to wait until I get an external drive sometime, and that would be the secondary OS, not Windows.

I know this bucks the status quo lately, but it's been a truly remarkable experience. I'm inclined to think it's largely the hardware. I moved from a 2nd gen Core i3 2.1GHz, 6GB RAM, HDD, Intel graphics, to 7th gen Core i7 2.9-3.8GHz, 16GB RAM, NVME drive, 2GB Quadro M620. It's definitely been a noticeable difference.

I've recently upgraded my parent's PC to Windows 10. I have no problems whatsoever with the performance. It's quick enough.

Would I install Windows 10 on my own PC? No way! I don't like the user interface, the advertising, the fact that many of the settings are hidden and that many of the traditional programs have been replaced with poorly designed apps. I don't like the direction Microsoft is taking, with wanting to own everyone's PC and pushing forward a UI aimed at a touchscreen on devices with a mouse and keyboard.

[bd139]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

[tszaboo]

So, a confession:

After using Linux for about a year and a half after ditching Windows 10 and all it's associated programs, I just recently gave it another try as I bought a new (to me) mobile workstation with hardware that more than outclasses my old hardware. I have to tell you...I kind of love it. It's wayyy faster than my old computer, regardless of which OS (Linux Mint or Windows 10). I've even been using Edge (gasp!) as my browser and it's fast too. I only downloaded Chrome for a single use so far because a registration I needed recommended Chrome and I didn't want to chance it.

I'm not sure if Windows 10 has been improved since I first tried it or if it is solely superior hardware, but I won't be switching anytime soon. Any dual booting will have to wait until I get an external drive sometime, and that would be the secondary OS, not Windows.

I know this bucks the status quo lately, but it's been a truly remarkable experience. I'm inclined to think it's largely the hardware. I moved from a 2nd gen Core i3 2.1GHz, 6GB RAM, HDD, Intel graphics, to 7th gen Core i7 2.9-3.8GHz, 16GB RAM, NVME drive, 2GB Quadro M620. It's definitely been a noticeable difference.

I've recently upgraded my parent's PC to Windows 10. I have no problems whatsoever with the performance. It's quick enough.

Would I install Windows 10 on my own PC? No way! I don't like the user interface, the advertising, the fact that many of the settings are hidden and that many of the traditional programs have been replaced with poorly designed apps. I don't like the direction Microsoft is taking, with wanting to own everyone's PC and pushing forward a UI aimed at a touchscreen on devices with a mouse and keyboard.

Yeah, it is quite ridiculous, that starting a calculator takes 5 seconds, and you need a spash screen for it. Good thing, that calc.exe from windows 7 is a exe, and it runs without any hackery.

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

It is for the touch input. I've used a laptop with touchscreen, it actually works quite well. But you need to have it on your lap and it needs to be a 13-14 inch screen. Any larger than that, or further away just doesnt work.

[tautech]

I've just built a Win 10 box but it could've been 7, 8.1 or whatever.
I came from 7 and the wife's runs 8.1 so there was some small familiarity with the 8 and 10 type UI.

I3 3.7G and 8G ram runs just fine, the UI is still getting used to me and I only used the W10 calculator for the first time a couple days back, launches instantly.
Still finding and working out how to use some of the 'apps'  but haven't given a good test with something processor hungry like Altium yet.

[Zero999]

So, a confession:

After using Linux for about a year and a half after ditching Windows 10 and all it's associated programs, I just recently gave it another try as I bought a new (to me) mobile workstation with hardware that more than outclasses my old hardware. I have to tell you...I kind of love it. It's wayyy faster than my old computer, regardless of which OS (Linux Mint or Windows 10). I've even been using Edge (gasp!) as my browser and it's fast too. I only downloaded Chrome for a single use so far because a registration I needed recommended Chrome and I didn't want to chance it.

I'm not sure if Windows 10 has been improved since I first tried it or if it is solely superior hardware, but I won't be switching anytime soon. Any dual booting will have to wait until I get an external drive sometime, and that would be the secondary OS, not Windows.

I know this bucks the status quo lately, but it's been a truly remarkable experience. I'm inclined to think it's largely the hardware. I moved from a 2nd gen Core i3 2.1GHz, 6GB RAM, HDD, Intel graphics, to 7th gen Core i7 2.9-3.8GHz, 16GB RAM, NVME drive, 2GB Quadro M620. It's definitely been a noticeable difference.

I've recently upgraded my parent's PC to Windows 10. I have no problems whatsoever with the performance. It's quick enough.

Would I install Windows 10 on my own PC? No way! I don't like the user interface, the advertising, the fact that many of the settings are hidden and that many of the traditional programs have been replaced with poorly designed apps. I don't like the direction Microsoft is taking, with wanting to own everyone's PC and pushing forward a UI aimed at a touchscreen on devices with a mouse and keyboard.

Yeah, it is quite ridiculous, that starting a calculator takes 5 seconds, and you need a spash screen for it. Good thing, that calc.exe from windows 7 is a exe, and it runs without any hackery.

That wasn't the case for me, certainly not for the games my Dad loves such as FreeCell. I had to download hacked executables from Windows 7.

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

It is for the touch input. I've used a laptop with touchscreen, it actually works quite well. But you need to have it on your lap and it needs to be a 13-14 inch screen. Any larger than that, or further away just doesnt work.

I'm sure Windows 10's UI is fine on a touchscreen. I just wonder what the hell they're playing at, pushing it on a desktop.

[rrinker]

 Things aren't giant on my laptop screen, except the pinned items on my start menu, which I have organized and labeled by functional groups (MS Office, Electronics, Programming, Utilities, etc.) and even those aren't ridiculously cartoonishly large. And there IS a smaller size they can be set to. Are you still running original RTM Windows 10?

 Calculator starts instantly, with no splash screen. They fixed that a number of updates ago. The start menu the way I have it organized is another addition that came with updates a while ago - the original one only had one panel and icon sizes from tiny to "takes up nearly the whole screen stupid large". That's all been changed, for a while now.

 The only painful experience I've had with Win 10 was setting up a cheap low end Celeron laptop for a friend. With a slow 5400 RPM hard disk plus a mere 2GB of RAM, it took hours to get up to date with all updates. Actually firing it up after that and doing web browsing or other basic tasks, it wasn't horrible - not what I would buy for myself, but for someone on a limited budget it was better than no computer, and usable. Those first few reboots with allt he updates though - yeah, more RAM and a 7200 RPM drive probably would have been OK.

[technix]

Here is how I got my old laptop on Windows 10: more than 2GB of RAM (I went with 3GB as that is how much the BIOS would allow) and SSD.

And it is not going anywhere near my main workstation: it does not handle 4K monitor well with less than 32 inch physical size and mine is a 24-inch (very crappy DPI scaling,) in fact for my Windows 10 virtual machine I am having the macOS host system scaling the entire Windows VM for it instead of relying on Windows 10 itself; and it does not handle mixed SSD-HDD systems well - in fact it does not handle it at all. And Intel SRT is not helping due to its limited cache size and the fact that it is broken on my Gigabyte motherboard. I think so far only macOS handles those two perfectly, with linux/KDE being a close second.

[james_s]

Are you sure it won't run Win7? I have that on all of my home Windows PCs and it still works great. At work I use Linux on my primary PC and Win10 on my corp issue laptop and after nearly 2 years of dealing with Win10 I still loathe it. I've never used an operating system that felt so user-hostile, I feel like I'm constantly fighting with it to keep the OS out of my way. It's like Microsoft copied all the worst aspects of Apple and forgot to copy the "just works" part.

[Zero999]

Things aren't giant on my laptop screen, except the pinned items on my start menu, which I have organized and labeled by functional groups (MS Office, Electronics, Programming, Utilities, etc.) and even those aren't ridiculously cartoonishly large. And there IS a smaller size they can be set to. Are you still running original RTM Windows 10?

The latest Windows 10, downloaded from the MS site last Sunday. I'm aware of the scaling setting but I believe that alters everything. My complaint is that the shitty metro apps have a much larger UI, than the real applications.

MS really need have two different modes, or even operating systems, for desktop and touch devices, with the user interface optimised for each. In fact what would be really good is a library which could help developers produce software for both touch and desktop devices, allowing different user interfaces to be used, with minimal changes to the code.

Calculator starts instantly, with no splash screen. They fixed that a number of updates ago. The start menu the way I have it organized is another addition that came with updates a while ago - the original one only had one panel and icon sizes from tiny to "takes up nearly the whole screen stupid large". That's all been changed, for a while now.

I don't have the PC in front of me. I don't remember calculator having a splash screen, but I do remember it taking longer to start, than the old version. I ditched it because looks ugly, is harder to use with a mouse and keyboard.

The only improvement I've seen in Windows 10 is the command prompt, which can be resized to any size: something Linux could do for years. If they'd included a half decent command line calculator, I'd be happy.

The only painful experience I've had with Win 10 was setting up a cheap low end Celeron laptop for a friend. With a slow 5400 RPM hard disk plus a mere 2GB of RAM, it took hours to get up to date with all updates. Actually firing it up after that and doing web browsing or other basic tasks, it wasn't horrible - not what I would buy for myself, but for someone on a limited budget it was better than no computer, and usable. Those first few reboots with allt he updates though - yeah, more RAM and a 7200 RPM drive probably would have been OK.

Shame, that sounds like a perfectly good machine. There are plenty of operating systems that would run on it and five reasonable performance.

[james_s]

MS really need have two different modes, or even operating systems, for desktop and touch devices, with the user interface optimised for each. In fact what would be really good is a library which could help developers produce software for both touch and desktop devices, allowing different user interfaces to be used, with minimal changes to the code.

That's really what it comes down to, and one of the things that Apple got right. They have a mobile OS and a desktop/laptop OS, both share some elements and have a similar look & feel but they don't attempt to be exactly the same. Now there is a lot to dislike about Apple but that particular aspect they got right.

Microsoft on the other hand continues to forge ahead, steadfastly refusing to admit that going for a unified one-size-fits-all experience is a failure. Win10 feels to me like a spork welded to a knife, it tries to be everything and ends up doing nothing really well. It strikes me as a product nobody asked for, created to push customers toward the needs of the business model rather than a product that puts the needs of the customer first.

[timb]

MS really need have two different modes, or even operating systems, for desktop and touch devices, with the user interface optimised for each. In fact what would be really good is a library which could help developers produce software for both touch and desktop devices, allowing different user interfaces to be used, with minimal changes to the code.

That's really what it comes down to, and one of the things that Apple got right. They have a mobile OS and a desktop/laptop OS, both share some elements and have a similar look & feel but they don't attempt to be exactly the same. Now there is a lot to dislike about Apple but that particular aspect they got right.

Microsoft on the other hand continues to forge ahead, steadfastly refusing to admit that going for a unified one-size-fits-all experience is a failure. Win10 feels to me like a spork welded to a knife, it tries to be everything and ends up doing nothing really well. It strikes me as a product nobody asked for, created to push customers toward the needs of the business model rather than a product that puts the needs of the customer first.

These are really good points that a lot of people overlook. To expand a bit:

The OS components (Mach Kernel, Darwin, Cocoa/Core APIs, Quart Display Subsystem, APFS, Sandboxing, etc.) are shared between iOS, WatchOS, tvOS and macOS. The differences really come down to the UI and input methods (plus the sandboxing restrictions the former three OS enforce, which is only required for MAS apps on macOS).

Now, because of that, porting applications takes a bit more work than just compiling it for a different architecture (i.e., you can’t just recompile a macOS application for ARM and run it on an iPhone). That said, it’s not *that much* more work. If the macOS app respects the App Store sandboxing restrictions, you just need a new UI and appropriate logic; all the under the hood code can be shared between platforms.

The huge advantage to this is you end up with phone/tablet apps optimized for touch input and PC apps optimized for mouse/keyboard input.

Microsoft has never really understood the advantage to this. There’s an interview from a few years back where Steve Ballmer complains that they really invented the Smartphone and Tablet and that Apple stole their thunder with the iPhone and iPad. What he fails to grasp is just how terrible these early PDA/Phone/Tablet devices were.

Starting in the mid-90’s, MS became obsessed with unifying the UI across their product line. By the late 90’s they had three separate operating systems (Windows 9x, NT and CE), each with different—incompatible—APIs, spread over *at least* 8 different binary incompatible platforms (x86, MIPS, SH3, ARM, PPC, StrongARM, DEC, Alpha). All with nearly identical looking UIs (complete with Start Menu).

The Start Menu works great on a desktop, with a mouse, keyboard and large display. Not so much on a tiny 5” B&W LCD with a resistive touch screen as the input. The other issue is that Windows CE didn’t share any of the Windows 9x APIs, so porting applications was a huge pain.

It took them until the early-2010’s before Windows CE/PocketPC/AutoPC/HandheldPC/Smartphone/Mobile/Embedded was fully killed off and replaced with Windows 8, which finally gave them a unified API. Unfortunately, they were still obsessed with having a unified UI, now in the opposite direction (instead of all devices working like a desktop, they wanted all devices to work like tablets). The whole thing was a mess.

They backed off a little with Windows 10, but I still don’t think they truly understand the *reason* behind the backlash to Windows 8.

[amspire]

Microsoft on the other hand continues to forge ahead, steadfastly refusing to admit that going for a unified one-size-fits-all experience is a failure. Win10 feels to me like a spork welded to a knife, it tries to be everything and ends up doing nothing really well. It strikes me as a product nobody asked for, created to push customers toward the needs of the business model rather than a product that puts the needs of the customer first.

Windows 10 is a huge success for Microsoft, because it is achieving what they want. In many ways, Windows XP and Windows 7 have been a bit of a disaster for Microsoft. The reason is that people were happy to keep using them for far far too long. If an average person got an i3/i5/i7 Windows 7 PC in 2010 and it was still working perfectly, why would they need to update it? It is fast enough and PC's of that era can usually handle 8G RAM or more. If they had the choice to continue to use Windows 7 safely that is.

Microsoft may have got $50 for the Windows 7 license seven years ago and absolutely nothing since! Even though they been getting nothing, they have had to provide gigabytes of free updates. Back when XP was created, hardly anyone worried about security. It was OK for an occasional service pack to come out once a year or two. Life was wonderful for Microsoft because Windows 2000 was obsolete after only a year or two and hardware improvements forced people to upgrade. Many Windows 2000 PC's only had 128MBytes of RAM and 256MBytes was huge!

So far Windows 10 has captured over 50% of the Win XP and Win7 users and the process is accelerating. That is a success.

Going forward, the way things are done will be different that probably will allow for a one-size-fits-all strategy. Containers are coming to Windows and I think that will be the way legacy support is managed. It will be a better solution then trying to make Windows 7 32bit 100% compatible with 1998-2000 VB6 programs running Access 2.0 databases - which is exactly what is happening right now at many businesses.  Containers can eliminate the need for installation at all - software is essentially pre-installed into the container once.

If you are wishing that you could somehow stay locked in the Windows XP or 7 era, then I hate to give you bad news. You will have to move with the technology or go to Linux. You can go with Apple if you like, but they will at some point drop the current platforms when it suits them just like they did with the PowerPC platforms.

[Bud]

Next version of Windows will be with oval windows. Guess that is what some people here call "technology".

[technix]

These are really good points that a lot of people overlook. To expand a bit:

The OS components (Mach Kernel, Darwin, Cocoa/Core APIs, Quart Display Subsystem, APFS, Sandboxing, etc.) are shared between iOS, WatchOS, tvOS and macOS. The differences really come down to the UI and input methods (plus the sandboxing restrictions the former three OS enforce, which is only required for MAS apps on macOS).

Now, because of that, porting applications takes a bit more work than just compiling it for a different architecture (i.e., you can’t just recompile a macOS application for ARM and run it on an iPhone). That said, it’s not *that much* more work. If the macOS app respects the App Store sandboxing restrictions, you just need a new UI and appropriate logic; all the under the hood code can be shared between platforms.

The huge advantage to this is you end up with phone/tablet apps optimized for touch input and PC apps optimized for mouse/keyboard input.

Apple is actively promoting the separation of business logic and user interface. Ever since iOS 8 it will load frameworks (dynamic libraries) bundled in applications. This allows the non user interface components to be shared across all Apple operating systems using the same exact binary (a fat binary, also count Linux with GNUstep in with the same code but not the same binary) and build the user interface and user experience separately.

[bd139]

That’s because the MVC model in Cocoa dates back to NeXT a long time ago.

[Zero999]

Microsoft on the other hand continues to forge ahead, steadfastly refusing to admit that going for a unified one-size-fits-all experience is a failure. Win10 feels to me like a spork welded to a knife, it tries to be everything and ends up doing nothing really well. It strikes me as a product nobody asked for, created to push customers toward the needs of the business model rather than a product that puts the needs of the customer first.

Windows 10 is a huge success for Microsoft, because it is achieving what they want. In many ways, Windows XP and Windows 7 have been a bit of a disaster for Microsoft. The reason is that people were happy to keep using them for far far too long. If an average person got an i3/i5/i7 Windows 7 PC in 2010 and it was still working perfectly, why would they need to update it? It is fast enough and PC's of that era can usually handle 8G RAM or more. If they had the choice to continue to use Windows 7 safely that is.

Microsoft may have got $50 for the Windows 7 license seven years ago and absolutely nothing since! Even though they been getting nothing, they have had to provide gigabytes of free updates. Back when XP was created, hardly anyone worried about security. It was OK for an occasional service pack to come out once a year or two. Life was wonderful for Microsoft because Windows 2000 was obsolete after only a year or two and hardware improvements forced people to upgrade. Many Windows 2000 PC's only had 128MBytes of RAM and 256MBytes was huge!

So far Windows 10 has captured over 50% of the Win XP and Win7 users and the process is accelerating. That is a success.

How the heck is that a success? Microsoft offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 users and less than half of them took them up on their offer, despite being bombarded with adware pushing it. I'd say that's pretty poor. The only other reason for Windows 10 gaining ground is the usual hardware upgrade cycle: new systems purchased with Windows 10 pre-installed.

Going forward, the way things are done will be different that probably will allow for a one-size-fits-all strategy. Containers are coming to Windows and I think that will be the way legacy support is managed. It will be a better solution then trying to make Windows 7 32bit 100% compatible with 1998-2000 VB6 programs running Access 2.0 databases - which is exactly what is happening right now at many businesses.  Containers can eliminate the need for installation at all - software is essentially pre-installed into the container once.

If you are wishing that you could somehow stay locked in the Windows XP or 7 era, then I hate to give you bad news. You will have to move with the technology or go to Linux. You can go with Apple if you like, but they will at some point drop the current platforms when it suits them just like they did with the PowerPC platforms.

I take your point that people tend to prefer what they know, but I don't think that's why people prefer XP & 7 to Windows 10: you don't find many people talking about Vista and Windows 8 with so much affection as XP or 7. Windows XP and 7 both had their teething problems, but neither of them were as difficult to use, on a desktop, as Windows 10.

If Microsoft continue down this path of pushing a tablet UI on the desktop, then they're pretty much fucked. People will start to look for alternatives.

[amspire]

How the heck is that a success? Microsoft offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 users and less than half of them took them up on their offer, despite being bombarded with adware pushing it. I'd say that's pretty poor. The only other reason for Windows 10 gaining ground is the usual hardware upgrade cycle: new systems purchased with Windows 10 pre-installed.

Because Windows 10 ends in late 2020. Only 2 1/2 years left. That has always be the plan and it has never changed. You can keep using Windows 10 for free for another 4 years after that, but 2020 is when they will release the next stage of their plan that will not be free. The free Windows 10 was always part of a deal where you get it free for a limited time in exchange for you giving up your old Windows.

Windows 10 is the last numbered Windows release ever and it is ending. It is the last in the chain that started with Windows 1.01 in the 1985.

[Naguissa]

I have an old machine, a top-notch HP TX2 (Turion64x2, 4Gb, old.portable Radeon), and win10 works fine.on it. It's worse than Ubuntu Mate, but works pretty well.

The only problem (besides hp thermal issues) is the Meltdown/Spectre patches. They keep installing (they were retired, in theory) an prevents Windows booting until repaired/restored (on 3rd boot attempt).

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[amspire]

Windows 10 really is transformed if you use a SSD C: drive. It makes the PC feel at least twice as fast. I am still using an old Dell XPS notebook with a core duo processor, but with a SSD, it feels really fast. Starts up very fast.

The Turion 64x2 is now a really slow CPU. I usually don't bother with anything that is not at least 80% faster.

[Naguissa]

Windows 10 really is transformed if you use a SSD C: drive. It makes the PC feel at least twice as fast. I am still using an old Dell XPS notebook with a core duo processor, but with a SSD, it feels really fast. Starts up very fast.

The Turion 64x2 is now a really slow CPU. I usually don't bother with anything that is not at least 80% faster.

It's my children's computer and he uses it dor Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and little more. A little low framerate bu he loves it....

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[Zero999]

How the heck is that a success? Microsoft offered Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 users and less than half of them took them up on their offer, despite being bombarded with adware pushing it. I'd say that's pretty poor. The only other reason for Windows 10 gaining ground is the usual hardware upgrade cycle: new systems purchased with Windows 10 pre-installed.

Because Windows 10 ends in late 2020. Only 2 1/2 years left. That has always be the plan and it has never changed. You can keep using Windows 10 for free for another 4 years after that, but 2020 is when they will release the next stage of their plan that will not be free. The free Windows 10 was always part of a deal where you get it free for a limited time in exchange for you giving up your old Windows.

Windows 10 is the last numbered Windows release ever and it is ending. It is the last in the chain that started with Windows 1.01 in the 1985.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I don't see how MS ditching a strategy, which proved successful in the past, will bring them future success. Desktop PC sales have been in decline for the last few years and MS lost the phone war, so they're panicking and trying out some really strange ideas, in the hope it will fix things but it won't.

The market has changed permanently. MS needs to focus on developing an OS with a UI aimed at desktops and perhaps servers, as they're its niche. Windows has had some success on tablets, so a separate touch screen UI is still worth developing (for now at least, Android and iOS may eventually push Windows out), but pushing it on the desktop will not work. MS need to stop trying to grow and focus on what they're already good at. Aiming for perpetual growth for many businesses is unsustainable.

Windows 10 really is transformed if you use a SSD C: drive. It makes the PC feel at least twice as fast. I am still using an old Dell XPS notebook with a core duo processor, but with a SSD, it feels really fast. Starts up very fast.

The Turion 64x2 is now a really slow CPU. I usually don't bother with anything that is not at least 80% faster.

Of course, any OS will be better on an SSD. Personally speaking, I've not noticed any performance boost when upgrading to Windows 10, from 7, on a machine already fitted with an SSD. As mentioned before, the metro apps perform poorly, compared to their traditional counterparts.

[rrinker]

 There's nothing really strange about what Microsoft is doing, Apple has been doing it for years. Their OS has been called OS X for how long now? Windows 10 is it, instead of complete wipes and refresh with a totally different OS< now there will be incremental updates as time goes by. Already there have been several improvements on the original Windows 10. I fail to see this "it's a tablet OS" thing. There's nothing that happens on my laptop (which does NOT have a touchscreen, and I wouldn't want one, hard enough keeping my actual tablet device clean) that uses giant oversize icons meant for finger tapping instead of mouse clicking, nor are there any strange active areas that would be needed for a touch interface but just get in the way when you use a mouse. I'm not bombarded by ads - in fact at some point I just realized that I don;t even see a suggested apps thing on the start menu any more.
 I AM using Win 10 Pro, NOT Home, so I'm sure that makes some difference. But why would you want the Home version on a machine being used for work anyway. One nice thing about having Pro is I can use Hyper-V to run XP in a VM so I can use things like VB6 without the workarounds to make it run on an unsupported OS. I'm seamlessly connected to both work and personal OneDrive folders which allows me to get anything I want to work on from any of my computers.

                           

[bd139]

There's nothing that happens on my laptop (which does NOT have a touchscreen, and I wouldn't want one, hard enough keeping my actual tablet device clean) that uses giant oversize icons meant for finger tapping instead of mouse clicking, nor are there any strange active areas that would be needed for a touch interface but just get in the way when you use a mouse.

Hmm. New vs old (build 1709):

[hammy]

Because Windows 10 ends in late 2020. Only 2 1/2 years left. That has always be the plan and it has never changed.

What does this mean? Are you refering to the support lifecycle of each Windows 10 release?

[amspire]

Because Windows 10 ends in late 2020. Only 2 1/2 years left. That has always be the plan and it has never changed.

What does this mean? Are you refering to the support lifecycle of each Windows 10 release?

No. The end of mainstream support for Windows 10 ends in late 2020. That has always been the plan. Each release of Windows 10 has a very short life so the latest release ends its life totally September this year I believe.

I think in 2020, they will  release a new product that will be technically very superior to Windows but it won't be free. It may be called "Windows" but without any version, or it may have a new name. There will be very compelling reasons for both IT professionals and ordinary users to move to it - it will make Windows 10 seem like Windows 98. We are not talking fluff features like Cortana. It will probably have much better compatibility support then the last Windows 10. If you want to keep using Windows 10 for another 4 years, knock yourself out. New PCs with Windows 10 will probably dry up quickly. Windows 7 will be gone, and Windows 8.1 will be all but gone.

[james_s]

Windows 10 really is transformed if you use a SSD C: drive. It makes the PC feel at least twice as fast. I am still using an old Dell XPS notebook with a core duo processor, but with a SSD, it feels really fast. Starts up very fast.

The Turion 64x2 is now a really slow CPU. I usually don't bother with anything that is not at least 80% faster.

Boot time is one of the most common things I hear touted by Win10 fanbois, and I've never figured out why this is deemed so important to some people. I normally cold boot my PC maybe once every 2-3 months, the rest of the time I just let it suspend which Win7 comes back from in just a few seconds. I really don't care if it takes 5 seconds to cold boot or a full minute, I can hit the power button, go fill up my water glass, move the cat off my seat and by the time I'm sat down ready to use it the thing has booted up.

[IanB]

Boot time is one of the most common things I hear touted by Win10 fanbois, and I've never figured out why this is deemed so important to some people. I normally cold boot my PC maybe once every 2-3 months, the rest of the time I just let it suspend which Win7 comes back from in just a few seconds.

Windows updates. I am forced to reboot every month or sometimes every week or two to install updates. And then the whole process of installing updates, restarting, and configuring the updates after the restart takes about 15 minutes. It is very annoying.

[tooki]

Windows 10 really is transformed if you use a SSD C: drive. It makes the PC feel at least twice as fast. I am still using an old Dell XPS notebook with a core duo processor, but with a SSD, it feels really fast. Starts up very fast.

The Turion 64x2 is now a really slow CPU. I usually don't bother with anything that is not at least 80% faster.

Boot time is one of the most common things I hear touted by Win10 fanbois, and I've never figured out why this is deemed so important to some people. I normally cold boot my PC maybe once every 2-3 months, the rest of the time I just let it suspend which Win7 comes back from in just a few seconds. I really don't care if it takes 5 seconds to cold boot or a full minute, I can hit the power button, go fill up my water glass, move the cat off my seat and by the time I'm sat down ready to use it the thing has booted up.

I couldn’t agree more. I boot my machines (all Macs) every 2-12 weeks, mostly dependent on software updates. It’s been literally decades since I ran machines that actually got shut down.

What always surprised and annoyed me about the Windows 7 machine I had at my old job (back when 7 was new) was how incredibly long it took to wake from sleep. With my full compliment of applications running when put to sleep,  it normally took it about five minutes to fully wake from sleep!! (Only a few seconds for the screen to come back up and offer the login screen, but it’d take 5 minutes for it to actually become responsive.)

In contrast, I’m used to Macs waking and reaching full responsiveness in seconds. (On my Mac Pro using an HP display, it actually takes the display longer to wake from sleep than the OS!)

Boot time is one of the most common things I hear touted by Win10 fanbois, and I've never figured out why this is deemed so important to some people. I normally cold boot my PC maybe once every 2-3 months, the rest of the time I just let it suspend which Win7 comes back from in just a few seconds.

Windows updates. I am forced to reboot every month or sometimes every week or two to install updates. And then the whole process of installing updates, restarting, and configuring the updates after the restart takes about 15 minutes. It is very annoying.

That’s something else that always annoyed and perplexed me about Windows: why updates take so long to install! Though it has gotten better with each major version, it still takes way longer than similar size updates on Mac OS X. (Disclaimer: I have never used Windows 10, and only early previews of 8, so if those are significantly different in terms of update install speed, please let me know!)

[IanB]

No. The end of mainstream support for Windows 10 ends in late 2020. That has always been the plan. Each release of Windows 10 has a very short life so the latest release ends its life totally September this year I believe.

I think in 2020, they will  release a new product that will be technically very superior to Windows but it won't be free. It may be called "Windows" but without any version, or it may have a new name. There will be very compelling reasons for both IT professionals and ordinary users to move to it - it will make Windows 10 seem like Windows 98. We are not talking fluff features like Cortana. It will probably have much better compatibility support then the last Windows 10. If you want to keep using Windows 10 for another 4 years, knock yourself out. New PCs with Windows 10 will probably dry up quickly. Windows 7 will be gone, and Windows 8.1 will be all but gone.

There is a slight snag with this plan. There is no need to upgrade the OS on existing hardware if the present OS is working fine. And hardware has stopped making any meaningful advances for the past many years, so there is no need to replace the hardware either.

Even now, Windows 10 has limited presence in corporate environments. It takes corporate IT departments years to standardize on a new OS, and they do that very rarely due to the costs involved.

[james_s]

I take your point that people tend to prefer what they know, but I don't think that's why people prefer XP & 7 to Windows 10: you don't find many people talking about Vista and Windows 8 with so much affection as XP or 7. Windows XP and 7 both had their teething problems, but neither of them were as difficult to use, on a desktop, as Windows 10.

If Microsoft continue down this path of pushing a tablet UI on the desktop, then they're pretty much fucked. People will start to look for alternatives.

While I'm guilty of preferring what I know, on my work PC Win10 made me jump ship, finally pushed me to take the plunge and move to Linux on my primary machine. Unfamiliar and had a learning curve but if I'm forced to learn a new way of doing things at least I can be free of Microsoft and their business model. Frankly I don't care if Win7 was so good that people could keep using it for years and years, that's exactly what I want, product good enough that I can keep using it. I'm not a charity to support a corporation's business model by continuing to feed them money when I don't need any updates. Something else that has been a welcome surprise with Linux is that updates are painless and generally do not require a reboot. I checked just now and this PC's uptime is 149 days without a reboot, it's a breath of fresh air. My Win10 laptop on the other hand, maybe it boots quickly without an update, but whenever Windows Update kicks in, which is frequent, it's dead in the water for a good 30-40 minutes while it sits there updating, usually at the most inopportune time.

With as relentlessly as MS pushed Win10 I can't see how anyone can consider it anything other than a disaster. It struggles to hit 50%, meaning millions and millions of people went way out of their way jumping through all the hoops required to avoid it. 50% is pathetic given the circumstances.

[jmelson]

While I'm guilty of preferring what I know, on my work PC Win10 made me jump ship, finally pushed me to take the plunge and move to Linux on my primary machine. Unfamiliar and had a learning curve but if I'm forced to learn a new way of doing things at least I can be free of Microsoft and their business model.

Congratulations!  (And, what took you so long?)

I got a software package that needed Linux in 1997 (real time motion control).  The developers tried a "real time" option to Windows, but that developer's idea of real time was within a second was good enough.  Not if you are moving hundreds of Lbs. of machinery around to cut metal!  A real time patch was developed for Linux, and it worked.  At first, I just wanted that package to run, but then I started seeing that Linux could do (almost) everything I needed.  By 1999, I was pretty much converted over.  I do run some versions of Windows in a virtual machine to run CAD apps and a tax filing app that have no Linux version.

My entire family runs Linux, too, after their Windows machines all got filled with viruses.

Jon

[james_s]

I've played with Linux off and on since the late 90s. Usually I'd install it, marvel at the progress that had been made since the last time I tried, then after some time I'd get stuck trying to make something work, spend hours and hours troubleshooting and eventually give up and set it aside. Wash, rinse, repeat. Also at home I use several programs/hardware devices that are Windows only without any reasonable way to make them work on Linux so I stick with Win7 for daily use there. I actually really like Win7, the calc app is crap but the better one from XP works just fine in 7. Win10 though regressed to the point that it has taken on that crufty half baked feel of early 2000's open source stuff and now Linux feels more polished and finished by default.

[amspire]

No. The end of mainstream support for Windows 10 ends in late 2020. That has always been the plan. Each release of Windows 10 has a very short life so the latest release ends its life totally September this year I believe.

I think in 2020, they will  release a new product that will be technically very superior to Windows but it won't be free. It may be called "Windows" but without any version, or it may have a new name. There will be very compelling reasons for both IT professionals and ordinary users to move to it - it will make Windows 10 seem like Windows 98. We are not talking fluff features like Cortana. It will probably have much better compatibility support then the last Windows 10. If you want to keep using Windows 10 for another 4 years, knock yourself out. New PCs with Windows 10 will probably dry up quickly. Windows 7 will be gone, and Windows 8.1 will be all but gone.

There is a slight snag with this plan. There is no need to upgrade the OS on existing hardware if the present OS is working fine. And hardware has stopped making any meaningful advances for the past many years, so there is no need to replace the hardware either.

Even now, Windows 10 has limited presence in corporate environments. It takes corporate IT departments years to standardize on a new OS, and they do that very rarely due to the costs involved.

Windows 10 used to have limited presence in corporate environments, but that is really starting to change very quickly now. IT department just can't be still using Windows 7 in 2020.

There will be a compelling need to update the Windows OS - Microsoft have already ceased development on Windows 7 and 8.1 and soon they will cease development on Windows 10. There is not going to be a choice to stick with some old version of Windows.

Also Windows has always been a total dog for IT support. Seeing at IT Pro sitting in front of a PC for hours while they are installing and updating Windows is a joke. There are ways to make it more efficient, but when you are given a PC that will need a complete reinstall of the O/S while preserving all the widespread data and all the programs programs and all the settings, you know you have a big job.

Technically, there is no reason with the technology now not to have a already updated core O/S installed in under 1 minute and then to be able to then have all the old settings, programs, etc automatically downloaded. If it is coming from a fast server, that can literally be well under 10 minutes in total.

A new technology that finally dumps all that unnecessary waste of time and effort will have serious IT pros falling to their knees in thanks - that is if Microsoft can actually do it. I will wait and see.

[james_s]

[quote author=amspire link=topic=102204.msg1403114#msg1403114 date=1516232094

There will be a compelling need to update the Windows OS - Microsoft have already ceased development on Windows 7 and 8.1 and soon they will cease development on Windows 10. There is not going to be a choice to stick with some old version of Windows.
[/quote]

Bullshit. There are millions of PCs still running XP and millions more still running Win7, there is absolutely a choice to stick with some old version, a majority of PCs throughout the world are on some old version.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for IT to swarm in and upgrade to some completely new things. We've seen over and over that compatibility with existing infrastructure trumps "new and improved" every time. I'm seeing more and more Macbooks and Linux machines at work. A good friend of mine surprised me recently when he said he's never even seen Win10, having worked so long at Mac or Linux based tech companies. Google is huge around here and doesn't even allow Windows on their corporate network.

[IanB]

Microsoft have already ceased development on Windows 7 and 8.1

If only...except they haven't. They keep issuing security patches, which means they are still finding bugs to fix, which means after all these years Windows 7 is not finished. This is really something I find disappointing, that Microsoft put so much effort into developing Windows 10 before they had finished making Windows 7 complete and secure. Yes, I know I am being tongue-in-cheek here, if not sarcastic, but really. Why switch from something that must by now (surely?) have most of the security holes patched up to something new with a whole lot of new code and new bugs that will need patching?

[amspire]

No one has seen what Microsoft will release in 2020. And I have heard people saying before how they the current version of Windows did everything they wanted and they were never going to change - with Windows 98. That plan went well.

Then they realised that Windows XP was much better and they changed. IF Microsoft release something that is genuinely much better, they will change again. They will not throw out the current technology - they can just put it in a saner and more manageable framework.

[bd139]

They have to put the crack pipe down first.

[james_s]

There are people still using Win98, not many but they are out there. XP has many millions of users still despite being absolutely ancient. Win7 will still be in common use 10 years from now, I doubt it will be in the majority as it is currently but it will still have a significant presence. Microsoft seems to be doing everything they can to kill the Windows legacy which if they succeed will be the end of most people's need for Windows. Trying to push out something entirely new will fail, just as they failed spectacularly to create a viable mobile platform despite claims that Windows Mobile was going to take over, that they were going to crush Google, yeah, worked well didn't it?

[amspire]

There are people still using Win98, not many but they are out there. XP has many millions of users still despite being absolutely ancient. Win7 will still be in common use 10 years from now, I doubt it will be in the majority as it is currently but it will still have a significant presence.

None of those people earn Microsoft 1 cent. They are not the people Microsoft care about.

Microsoft seems to be doing everything they can to kill the Windows legacy which if they succeed will be the end of most people's need for Windows. Trying to push out something entirely new will fail, just as they failed spectacularly to create a viable mobile platform despite claims that Windows Mobile was going to take over, that they were going to crush Google, yeah, worked well didn't it?

Why would Microsoft want to kill the Windows legacy? Using new technology, you can have far better and easier legacy compatibility.

If you look at the recent Windows releases, they have been killing compatibility. Have you tried to run an old 16 bit windows program lately?

If you change to a new platform, you could strip all legacy compatibility for ever out of the O/S, and yet have program compatibility back to Windows 3.11 if you really wanted it. The technology exists now, but it probably didn't exist 10 years ago. As well as the profit motive, Microsoft is starting to loose many of its old Windows NT experts and how many will be left in 2030? A monolithic piece of software that is getting increasing complex and yet has to incorporate legacy support going back decades at a time you are starting to loose your long time experts is a total nightmare to manage. It is a stack of cards that could just collapse.

You can make something much better without the monolithic software.

If Microsoft do a really good job, you will look at the new Windows?? and say Wow! - I didn't know that could be done. That is really going to make life easier for me. It seems like magic.

You do not see that now or you do not believe Microsoft can achieve this? Ok, that is fine.

I suspect they may achieve this not because of Microsoft, but because of some of the brilliant people they have been employing recently. I just think that some of those people would only want to go to Microsoft if they were going to do a proper job developing the currently available technology into something pretty good.

[timb]

There's nothing really strange about what Microsoft is doing, Apple has been doing it for years. Their OS has been called OS X for how long now?

Actually, the history of Mac OS X naming is interesting.

Originally the name was ”Mac OS X 10.n”, but starting with 10.2 they began using the internal codenames (named after big cats) publicly. So, from 10.2/Jaguar to 10.7/Lion the name was officially “Mac OS X 10.n <Big Cat>”.

Starting with 10.8/Mountain Lion they dropped “Mac” from the title (since the OS was the basis for other, non-Mac devices) and it became “OS X 10.n <Codename>”; with 10.9/Mavericks they ran out of big cats and started using California landmarks (Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra).

Then, two years ago they dropped the OS X moniker completely. Now they’re referred to as “macOS <California Landmark>”, no OS X or version number. (Of course, the OS still reports a version <10.13.2> to software and the user can see it in the About This Mac dialog.)

Something else to keep in mind is that Windows 10 is trying to implement a rolling release. They don’t want to do point releases (or Service Packs) anymore. They want it to just be a steady stream of updates. In that case, having a version number doesn’t make a lot of sense. Instead, they should simply call it “Windows” and be done with it.

macOS is generally updated yearly (on a tick/tock cycle), with point releases and security patches delivered throughout the year. You’re not forced to upgrade or update, so having version numbers still makes sense.

[bd139]

I'm quite happy with rolling updates. I hate total OS refresh projects as it means lots of capex and wall clock time pissed out of the window for everyone rather than short controlled bursts (to quote Alien 2)

[Mr. Scram]

I'm quite happy with rolling updates. I hate total OS refresh projects as it means lots of capex and wall clock time pissed out of the window for everyone rather than short controlled bursts (to quote Alien 2)

I don't like the rug being pulled from under me all the time. Or better yet, the rug being pulled from under people who will ask me where it went. Chaging the UI without notice is probably the most problematic area.

[bd139]

move to critical deployment ring then.

security updates can be deferred by 30 days.

feature updates can be deferred for 180 days.

All changes are documented. You have to be actively interested in it and keep an eye out on the windows blogs https://blogs.windows.com/

People have lost the right to be allowed to manage their own computers. There's still windows XP botnets out there even though it has been EOL for 3 years.

I really fucking hate windows, but it's the right thing to do.

[Mr. Scram]

move to critical deployment ring then.

security updates can be deferred by 30 days.

feature updates can be deferred for 180 days.

All changes are documented. You have to be actively interested in it and keep an eye out on the windows blogs https://blogs.windows.com/

People have lost the right to be allowed to manage their own computers. There's still windows XP botnets out there even though it has been EOL for 3 years.

I really fucking hate windows, but it's the right thing to do.

It's no use. People won't read any changelog. They'll just ask why the button was moved and where it went, even if they don't manage anything themselves.

[bd139]

I hate those people more than Windows

[Refrigerator]

I remember a friend once asked me to come over to help with his PC but he had win10 so i needed his help to navigate through the windows to help him with his PC
And just recently he installed the new windows meltdown/spectre patch on his athlon PC and he's getting non stop driver power state errors, blue screens and failures to even power on. And when he did finally manage to get the PC running starting any task would max out his cpu and keep it at 80-100% usage.

[hendorog]

Haven't heard this mentioned anywhere, but does anyone else think that "Fall Creators Update" is an _incredibly_ stupid name?

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

[Mr. Scram]

Haven't heard this mentioned anywhere, but does anyone else think that "Fall Creators Update" is an _incredibly_ stupid name?

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

I don't think many people are so uptight about something as irrelevant as a name. They could have called it "Power Unicorn Racetrack 5000" and that would have worked too. Just look at Android versions. It's just a label that distinguishes it from other labels.

Though if you really want to go down that route, it probably covers the largest part of their paying users. The vast majority of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere, so it's very likely the vast majority of the Windows users do too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density

Darn, Blueskull be stealing my thunder!

[amspire]

I live in the Southern Hemisphere and didn't think twice about the use of the word Fall. We are aware that there are some very strange parts of the world where it actually snows at Christmas! Anyway, we call it Autumn out here, so Fall usually refers to the Northern Hemisphere.

[hendorog]

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

While I also think falling it "Fall xxx" is stupid in a global sense, but the northern hemisphere is definitely not just a "few" countries.
Northern hemisphere has ~88% of the world's total population while the southern hemisphere, all but NZ/AU, using President Trump's words, are "shit holes".

Of course there are more than a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere, do they all use the term 'Fall'?

I know US, Canada and I assume Mexico do. UK doesn't AFAIK, what about the rest of Europe?

There are two issues - one being Fall vs Autumn, and the other being Fall vs Spring.

[Zero999]

I believe the word "fall" was originally common in British English, was exported to America, then later fell out of use in British English, but remained in common usage in America. This is not unusual and is the case, with many words which are common in American English, but not in British English today.

Incidentally Halloween, was a European festival, long before the USA existed.

[hammy]

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

If english is not your native language you don't care what they call it. It's just an arbitrary word.

[Zero999]

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

If english is not your native language you don't care what they call it. It's just an arbitrary word.

That's true. They could call it Winblow$ Fall Over Edition and it wouldn't matter.

[A Hellene]

I know US, Canada and I assume Mexico do. UK doesn't AFAIK, what about the rest of Europe?

From Cambridge dictionary:

us uk autumn the season after summer and before winter, when fruits and crops become ready to eat and the leaves fall off the trees

Textbooks in China (at least the ones I've learned) list both fall and autumn as the words for the season.

That's close!

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

I'd love to.

The original term, predating the Latin term 'autumn' which means absolutely nothing, was and still is the term  ? [phthinóp?ron] actually meaning (the season of the year when) ?? [ai opórai: the fruits] ? [fthinoun: (they) lessen / (they are) falling (down) / (they are) geting scarce]. Also, figuratively, means the time period when someone is getting past its prime (i.e, Grandad is in the autumn of his life); the autumn years.

Now, getting back on track, Windows is a f////// Operating System that SHOULD be transparent to the Users instead of torturing them; and leaving them alone either doing any f////// productive work or accessing their f////// FaceBook 3762 times per day...
I am fed up with this corporate bullshit...


-George

[Refrigerator]

You know what, guys. Winblows10 might be bad but the spectre patches are great, i'm already seeing "defective" laptops coming to the used market

[Zero999]

I have no problem with a rolling release. In fact I like the idea. When I moved to Linux, I deliberately selected a distribution with a rolling release cycle, as I don't like having to reinstall the entire OS, every time it stops being supported, which is quite regularly with most distros. The downside is I chose PC Linux OS which doesn't easily allow KDE to be upgraded without reinstalling everything, so I'll stick with the outdated version, until it causes problems with newer software. Next time, I'll install a fulling rolling distribution, which will update the desktop, without the need for messing around or a reinstall.

The good thing about Linux is, I'm in full control of when I install updates and it seldom requires a reboot. Windows 10 will update itself, whenever it wants to, whether the user likes it or not.

[Red Squirrel]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

That is my biggest complaint with windows 10 as far as usability, that and everything is hidden and hard to get to.  If you're not on a 4k screen, everything is so big and blocky and takes up so much space too.  It's really inefficient UI design.  Anytime I want to do something simple I find myself having to hunt around trying to find something that was easier to find in XP and 7.   It's not "being scared of change" but rather realizing that some things don't actually need to change because they work. 

That, and all the white.  Way too much white.  It hurts the eyes to use.  I feel like I need to wear sunscreen and sun glasses if I'm going to use windows 10 for longer than 5 minutes.  To make matters worse other than choosing between like 4 crappy themes that are all one extreme to the other, there is no way to customize anything.  Even Windows 3.11 let you customize stuff.

[Zero999]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

That is my biggest complaint with windows 10 as far as usability, that and everything is hidden and hard to get to.  If you're not on a 4k screen, everything is so big and blocky and takes up so much space too.  It's really inefficient UI design.  Anytime I want to do something simple I find myself having to hunt around trying to find something that was easier to find in XP and 7.   It's not "being scared of change" but rather realizing that some things don't actually need to change because they work. 

That, and all the white.  Way too much white.  It hurts the eyes to use.  I feel like I need to wear sunscreen and sun glasses if I'm going to use windows 10 for longer than 5 minutes.  To make matters worse other than choosing between like 4 crappy themes that are all one extreme to the other, there is no way to customize anything.  Even Windows 3.11 let you customize stuff.

Microsoft have thrown away 20 years of knowledge of GUI when they released Windows 10!

Through the 90s and 2000s MS did the right thing and focused on making their UI consistent. Widgets had a raised effect: push a button, with the mouse and it went from protruding to recessed. Window titles were nice and bold, with a reasonable contrast with the background. This is one of the advantages Windows had over UNIX. Change the colour scheme or skin on MS Windows and everything would change. On UNIX, different programs were often made with different widget toolkits, each with their own settings. The only thing that was consistent were the windows, which were drawn by the same window manager. This has been largely fixed now, for example if you're using KDE, you can set GTK+ to render as Qt, so GTK+ programs look the same as Qt programs.

Now, on MS Windows 8+, all widgets are flat and the whole UI is extremely inconsistent. There are traditional programs, which use one widget toolkit and new Metro apps, which look totally different, with their massive fonts and widgets, optimised for a touchscreen. The whole thing is a total mess!

If you had a 4k screen, then I'd suspect many of the traditional programs would look too small. It's possible to change the size of the UI, but if one set it so the Metro apps look good, the other GUI elements would become too small.

See the attached. Look at how small a traditional program (Character map) is compared to a Metro app (Display Settings).

[bd139]

My mum likes the big things on the screen.

Then again she’s one of those users who has a 19” wide screen and runs it at 800x600, sits 9 inches from the screen with her reading glasses on and keeps phoning me to ask why the pictures are all “too wide” on ancestry while she locates long dead relatives hoping to find some late meaning in her otherwise unfulfilled life. 

[lundmar]

The solution to bloody Windows is to replace it with bloody Linux! 

[timb]

I have no problem with a rolling release. In fact I like the idea. When I moved to Linux, I deliberately selected a distribution with a rolling release cycle, as I don't like having to reinstall the entire OS, every time it stops being supported, which is quite regularly with most distros. The downside is I chose PC Linux OS which doesn't easily allow KDE to be upgraded without reinstalling everything, so I'll stick with the outdated version, until it causes problems with newer software. Next time, I'll install a fulling rolling distribution, which will update the desktop, without the need for messing around or a reinstall.

The good thing about Linux is, I'm in full control of when I install updates and it seldom requires a reboot. Windows 10 will update itself, whenever it wants to, whether the user likes it or not.

I like rolling releases on Linux, too. The difference is, as you pointed out, with Arch Linux I can choose what and when to update. Windows 10 doesn’t give you the same flexibility (without jumping through a ridiculous number of hoops) and even then, you don’t have a choice of not upgrading the core system. With Arch
Linux for example, I can choose to skip a kernel version and still receive all other updates.

The only issue I have with rolling releases compared to yearly major releases (like macOS) is that things tend break even over the course of the year, instead of all at once, once per year. So it *feels* like you’re doing a lot more work or constantly tracking down one problem or another. I’ve also noticed that, because of this, some people on rolling release based OS’ try to hold off on updating for long periods, because they don’t have time to deal with a new issue right now. (This is likely one of the reasons behind MS’s forced update policy.)

Personally, I’d rather spend a weekend fixing everything that’s broken once a year, than spend an evening once per month doing the same.

[amspire]

I am a big fan of Arch Linux and the updating, but the occasional breaking you talk about is a bit of a deal breaker in many applications. You never know when the next update will have something that fails to work.

If it is your only PC and the GUI is just a non-responsive black screen after an update, it is pretty traumatic. This can happen with Arch.

I usually just use it as a GUI-less server running as a virtual machine.

In one case, I was using Arch for a NAS box and all the Windows SMB network connections died after an update. The reason was the maintainers of the SAMBA suite of programs decided to eliminate some functionality in the new version, and of course, Arch just automatically gets the newest version. It did take quite a few hours to work out what had happened, and I had no NAS box connection for a few days.

The reason I did choose Arch is that I set it up at a time the BTRFS file system was rapidly improving, and Arch meant I could keep getting the latest BTRFS and kernels. It was set up back around the 3.0 Linux kernel and it is still going strong (after fixing up the networking) with the 4.14.8 kernel. So far, all the updates have been fast, easy and completely reliable - except for that one.

When I have had an Arch-based distro on an old laptop and it has refused to work after an update, I usually just wipe the disk and reinstall a new Arch-based version - it is the easiest solution.  It does mean I never do anything on that laptop that I depend on.

[Red Squirrel]

The solution to bloody Windows is to replace it with bloody Linux! 

Yep I had always kind of wanted to go Linux, but I knew that I would in some cases just make my life harder since everything is for Windows - and sometimes I think the same way.  If I'm buying hardware I need to make the decisions based on whether or not it will even work in Linux.  Same with items that have an "app" because usually it's for iPhone only, so need to make sure there's an android version too.

But when I saw what direction MS was going towards with windows 8 I jumped ship.  I have a windows 7 machine I use for gaming, and I will keep it windows 7 for as long as I possibly can. 

And I totally agree with the Unix/Linux GUI inconsistencies that is one thing that I find is still an issue and annoying, but now MS is doing the same thing too!   Some programs open in a somewhat normal interface while others open with that ugly white flat one. 

[james_s]

I like the idea of a rolling release for security updates and bug fixes. What I most certainly *don't* like is automatic updates that add/remove/change features or move things around in the UI. It's like having a housekeeper who takes it upon themselves to reorganize my workbench and toolbox or replace my test equipment with other models whenever they please and that sort of thing drives me crazy. I don't want to sit down to get something done and then realize I have to re-learn where to find or how to do something I already know how to do. It's not that I'm incapable of learning and adapting but I don't want to waste the limited time I have on this earth learning mundane things I already knew.

[tautech]

I've just built a Win 10 box but it could've been 7, 8.1 or whatever.
I came from 7 and the wife's runs 8.1 so there was some small familiarity with the 8 and 10 type UI.

I3 3.7G and 8G ram runs just fine, the UI is still getting used to me and I only used the W10 calculator for the first time a couple days back, launches instantly.
Still finding and working out how to use some of the 'apps'  but haven't given a good test with something processor hungry like Altium yet.

Mention of this Win 10 box above doesn't mention that my previous Win 7 box had died and I was slowly moving my stuff over and was forced to in a hurry.  That box was a fair age and replacement had been nagging at me for a while.
Now that I've gone to 10 Enterprise I can say I'm quite impressed but it's early days yet and this 10 box is still fairly clean with not a lot of stuff on it yet.
120G SSD for the OS and essential programs and just a 1 Tb for data (at this stage) and all the other crap.

Having not long had a decent internet connection, anything running behind the scenes has not been noticeable at all which was something that had previously held me back from going to 10. All other Windoze we've managed the updates when we had time by having updates parked with just notification that they were available.
In the short time using 10, I now don't give a shit and I'll just leave it to do its thing.

Knowing that sometimes 10 calls for a reboot I did the second only one I've done and the boot speed is truly impressive, I'm used to how an SSD improves boot times but this was way under 10s. 

I've still got a mountain of stuff to migrate from my 7 box which will be done a drive at a time and/or maybe just drop in a 'backup' labeled drive from the 7 box to save a bit of time. A few months down the track will give me a better idea but to date the 10 experience has been excellent.

[gnif]

Yep I had always kind of wanted to go Linux, but I knew that I would in some cases just make my life harder since everything is for Windows - and sometimes I think the same way.  If I'm buying hardware I need to make the decisions based on whether or not it will even work in Linux.  Same with items that have an "app" because usually it's for iPhone only, so need to make sure there's an android version too.

But when I saw what direction MS was going towards with windows 8 I jumped ship.  I have a windows 7 machine I use for gaming, and I will keep it windows 7 for as long as I possibly can. 

And I totally agree with the Unix/Linux GUI inconsistencies that is one thing that I find is still an issue and annoying, but now MS is doing the same thing too!   Some programs open in a somewhat normal interface while others open with that ugly white flat one.

Over the past 10 years I have never had to buy desktop hardware based on 'If' Linux supports it. Laptops used to be a problem, especially wireless support, but not so much anymore.

The GUI inconsistencies in Linux are because of no universal GUI API. You have Qt, GTK, KDE, wxWidgets, just to name a few, or you could just go old school and use X directly. Windows OTOH has (had) a single GUI API, you could always override it's behavior or write your own, but from a cost point of view it never made sense to reinvent the wheel and risk compatibility as well as inconsistent GUI behavior between versions. Applications like the GIMP which have a windows port suffer with windows GUI integration because it uses a windows port of GTK.

But I guess that is the nature of open source... If something doesn't work as it "should" open source developers don't weigh in the financial cost in time to write their own version that works how they would like it to work, simply because they are writing it for their own personal satisfaction, on their own time.

Personally I am sick of Windows trying to "enhance" the GUI, and I was satisfied with Gnome 2, until idiots decided to make Gnome 3 and break everything we loved about Gnome 2. These days I just stick to i3wm, it's simple, thin, doesn't hog resources and doesn't get "enhanced" between updates. For legacy software (windows games) I run windows as a VM under KVM with a gaming video card passed through to the VM, this way I get the best of both worlds without being forced into running malware (windows 10) for my working environment.

[bd139]

Just a point here. I spend most of my day inside the bowels of Linux machines. Hundreds of them. Myself and my immediate colleagues use windows laptops because none of us like Linux desktops. Since gnome 2, I’d rather punch myself in the dick.

To software vendors: just fucking leave shit alone and fix all the bugs.

[Refrigerator]

I'll take my words on the spectre patch back because they just installed on my i5 Dell and it feels like a wet noodle now. It was snappy and nice for web browsing but now it's just a weird mix of frustration and disappointment. It's also using 12% of my CPU at idle, which is stupid.

[Zero999]

I have no problem with a rolling release. In fact I like the idea. When I moved to Linux, I deliberately selected a distribution with a rolling release cycle, as I don't like having to reinstall the entire OS, every time it stops being supported, which is quite regularly with most distros. The downside is I chose PC Linux OS which doesn't easily allow KDE to be upgraded without reinstalling everything, so I'll stick with the outdated version, until it causes problems with newer software. Next time, I'll install a fulling rolling distribution, which will update the desktop, without the need for messing around or a reinstall.

The good thing about Linux is, I'm in full control of when I install updates and it seldom requires a reboot. Windows 10 will update itself, whenever it wants to, whether the user likes it or not.

I like rolling releases on Linux, too. The difference is, as you pointed out, with Arch Linux I can choose what and when to update. Windows 10 doesn’t give you the same flexibility (without jumping through a ridiculous number of hoops) and even then, you don’t have a choice of not upgrading the core system. With Arch
Linux for example, I can choose to skip a kernel version and still receive all other updates.

The only issue I have with rolling releases compared to yearly major releases (like macOS) is that things tend break even over the course of the year, instead of all at once, once per year. So it *feels* like you’re doing a lot more work or constantly tracking down one problem or another. I’ve also noticed that, because of this, some people on rolling release based OS’ try to hold off on updating for long periods, because they don’t have time to deal with a new issue right now. (This is likely one of the reasons behind MS’s forced update policy.)

Personally, I’d rather spend a weekend fixing everything that’s broken once a year, than spend an evening once per month doing the same.

I suppose I'm very lucky. The only thing which an update broke for me was LTSpice 64-bit stopped working, although I suppose that could happen when updating WINE on any distro. Fortunately there was an easy workaround: use the 32-bit executable (which is present on the 64-bit install) instead. It was also fixed in the next update, so I didn't have to wait long.

Yep I had always kind of wanted to go Linux, but I knew that I would in some cases just make my life harder since everything is for Windows - and sometimes I think the same way.  If I'm buying hardware I need to make the decisions based on whether or not it will even work in Linux.  Same with items that have an "app" because usually it's for iPhone only, so need to make sure there's an android version too.

But when I saw what direction MS was going towards with windows 8 I jumped ship.  I have a windows 7 machine I use for gaming, and I will keep it windows 7 for as long as I possibly can. 

And I totally agree with the Unix/Linux GUI inconsistencies that is one thing that I find is still an issue and annoying, but now MS is doing the same thing too!   Some programs open in a somewhat normal interface while others open with that ugly white flat one.

Over the past 10 years I have never had to buy desktop hardware based on 'If' Linux supports it. Laptops used to be a problem, especially wireless support, but not so much anymore.

The GUI inconsistencies in Linux are because of no universal GUI API. You have Qt, GTK, KDE, wxWidgets, just to name a few, or you could just go old school and use X directly. Windows OTOH has (had) a single GUI API, you could always override it's behavior or write your own, but from a cost point of view it never made sense to reinvent the wheel and risk compatibility as well as inconsistent GUI behavior between versions. Applications like the GIMP which have a windows port suffer with windows GUI integration because it uses a windows port of GTK.

But I guess that is the nature of open source... If something doesn't work as it "should" open source developers don't weigh in the financial cost in time to write their own version that works how they would like it to work, simply because they are writing it for their own personal satisfaction, on their own time.

Personally I am sick of Windows trying to "enhance" the GUI, and I was satisfied with Gnome 2, until idiots decided to make Gnome 3 and break everything we loved about Gnome 2. These days I just stick to i3wm, it's simple, thin, doesn't hog resources and doesn't get "enhanced" between updates. For legacy software (windows games) I run windows as a VM under KVM with a gaming video card passed through to the VM, this way I get the best of both worlds without being forced into running malware (windows 10) for my working environment.

The biggest problem with hardware is things like cheap printers, which don't use standard protocols.

The only thing I've noticed, GUI inconsistency wise is the standard dialog boxes, such as the ones for opening files differs between GTK+ and Qt applications. At least now it can be set up, so the widgets look virtually the same.


I think this is more to do with the history of UNIX, rather than open vs closed source. If there had been one standard widget library integrated into X, right from the start, which everything had to be compatible with, then it would look more consistent, but that's not what happened.

[BravoV]

The GUI inconsistencies in Linux are because of no universal GUI API. You have Qt, GTK, KDE, wxWidgets, just to name a few, or you could just go old school and use X directly. Windows OTOH has (had) a single GUI API, you could always override it's behavior or write your own, but from a cost point of view it never made sense to reinvent the wheel and risk compatibility as well as inconsistent GUI behavior between versions. Applications like the GIMP which have a windows port suffer with windows GUI integration because it uses a windows port of GTK.

But I guess that is the nature of open source... If something doesn't work as it "should" open source developers don't weigh in the financial cost in time to write their own version that works how they would like it to work, simply because they are writing it for their own personal satisfaction, on their own time.

Imo, this is the main weaknes of Linux in penetrating the desktop market.

Average Joe and grandma don't care which one is uber superior GUI either with killer features or the slim&mean one, they need consistency across any computers they use.

I'm a Linux noob, just few months ago, while trying latest downloaded Fedora, I accidentally broke the GUI and ended up can not boot into GUI anymore, only the command prompt after booting and left me no clue how to proceed. Though I managed to bring it out again with the instruction from Googling "AT THE 2ND COMPUTER". User with one PC (and no other internet access like from smartphone/tablet) is definitely screwed.

And no, I didn't tweak or changed any system configurations, nor SU and did some silly changes. Just all thru standard Fedora supplied GUI apps.

Until today, I'm quite surprised that it is still very easy to break the GUI rendered the PC only can boot up with command prompt. If I remembered it right, I only did an online auto update as the recommendation, and its a new X370 AMD mobo, that was it, after the upgrade, it failed to boot up the GUI which was not a problem when it was installed 1st.

It feels like the old days when using earlier Linux that was standard came with X, that was so easy to break it, and left the user ended up with text mode command prompt.

Exactly like the nostalgic Windows 3.1 era that we had to boot into DOS prompt 1st and then type Win to launch the GUI, the problem is avg. Joe even doesn't have any idea to type the "WIN" at the prompt to launch the WIN.COM executable. Of course advanced user can tweak the AUTOEXEC.BAT if its broken that makes it to launch windows automatically at booting, but the problem is avg Joe doesn't know heck wtf is that, let alone asking them to launch a text mode editor to edit that batch file. Edlin ? Copy con autoexec.bat ? 

End of Linux noob rant.

[lundmar]

I'm a Linux noob, just few months ago, while trying latest downloaded Fedora, I accidentally broke the GUI and ended up can not boot into GUI anymore, only the command prompt after booting and left me no clue how to proceed. Though I managed to bring it out again with the instruction from Googling "AT THE 2ND COMPUTER". User with one PC (and no other internet access like from smartphone/tablet) is definitely screwed.

And no, I didn't tweak or changed any system configurations, nor SU and did some silly changes. Just all thru standard Fedora supplied GUI apps.

Until today, I'm quite surprised that it is still very easy to break the GUI rendered the PC only can boot up with command prompt. If I remembered it right, I only did an online auto update as the recommendation, and its a new X370 AMD mobo, that was it, after the upgrade, it failed to boot up the GUI which was not a problem when it was installed 1st.

It feels like the old days when using earlier Linux that was standard came with X, that was so easy to break it, and left the user ended up with text mode command prompt.

There are also examples of the opposite. In my case I have been running Ubuntu on the same laptop for the last 5 years and it has survived many system upgrades without any problems. The key to a successful Linux experience is to never mess with the system files nor configuration. If you want stability I recommend to go with Ubuntu. Oh, and don't settle with Ubuntu LTS - always use the latest stable.

[james_s]

For a noob just trying to get the hang of Linux I recommend Ubuntu LTS, either Mate or Cinnamon are my preference but that's a matter of preference. Another one worth considering is Mint, both are well supported, particularly Ubuntu and there is lots of information out there. Either of those distros are relatively smooth going and will feel familiar to people coming from Windows. I replaced my computer-illiterate elderly mother's ancient dying Windows laptop with a somewhat newer one running Ubuntu and she barely noticed it wasn't just another version of Windows.

[james_s]

It depends on what you do. At work I use Linux on my primary PC, all of our dev tools and products are Linux based or web based, it's a core i7 so nothing feels slow to me. Likewise with my mom's PC, everything she uses is either browser based or has native software, Libre Office works just fine for her, doesn't feel slow to me at all. At home I use a bit of Windows only software but if I had to I could run that in a VM. Quartus, ISE and KiCAD all have native Linux versions, the only games I play are old ones in Dosbox or MAME, eveyything else is browser based. I use Win7 because I like it and I already have some licenses but if it ever becomes non-viable to keep using I'll transition to Linux on everything and spin up a VM if I need to use XP or Win7 for anything. The number of things I run that NEED Windows is steadily diminishing.

[Zero999]

For a noob just trying to get the hang of Linux I recommend Ubuntu LTS, either Mate or Cinnamon are my preference but that's a matter of preference. Another one worth considering is Mint, both are well supported, particularly Ubuntu and there is lots of information out there. Either of those distros are relatively smooth going and will feel familiar to people coming from Windows. I replaced my computer-illiterate elderly mother's ancient dying Windows laptop with a somewhat newer one running Ubuntu and she barely noticed it wasn't just another version of Windows.

It's not about the OS, it's about the software. LO is slow on Windows and macOS, slightly faster on Linux, but still not as fast as iWorks/MSO in their natural habitat.

I haven't done a side by side comparison of LO and MSO on the same machine. I find MSO takes longer to do the same task, simply because the retarded UI requires more clicks of the mouse for the same operation. For example, in LO one click of the mouse or keyboard shortcut, takes me to the open file dialogue box, but the same operation in MSO takes three!

[IanMacdonald]

These days I find that on an install for a small business client using Microsoft software, the licensing aspect can take more time and work than the actual rollout. Even then, you can never be sure you are doing the thing in a compliant way. 

That, and some licensing conditions are insurmountable, for example you can't allow remote access to a Windows 7VM on a standard license, no matter what you pay the greedmongers. That is only possible on a corporate licensing scheme.

Then there is always the worry of being audited, and that due to the degree of ambiguity in licensing there is nothing, but nothing, you can do to  ensure full compliance. You could still be hauled over a barrel even though you have paid for every item of software you have.

I think it really has reached the stage where businesses are looking quite hard at moving away from Microsoft. They will put up with so much, but a tipping point is reached where the pain exceeds the gain. Not just the cost. Going the open source route takes a load of worry off the business owner's mind.

[Zero999]

Then there is always the worry of being audited, and that due to the degree of ambiguity in licensing there is nothing, but nothing, you can do to  ensure full compliance. You could still be hauled over a barrel even though you have paid for every item of software you have.

Audited by whom? And what happens if you simply refuse to be audited? Is there a term in the EULA stating that you need to be audited?

It sounds like scare tactics to me.

[bd139]

Hahaha there's the voice of someone who's never had a SAM audit.

It's a nightmare. They request proof of every damn license you have, including down to invoices for OEM licenses. If you buy a laptop off a distributor, they need that invoice too. Then there's the numerous questions like "oh we've got SQL developer edition running in AWS; is it covered by AWS licensing or ours and is it production or not?". The answer to the last question depends on who does the audit.

Who does it? They do or appoint a 3rd party auditor.

What happens if you don't agree to it? Bye bye license agreement. See you in court.

One company I worked for had a massive SQL Server cluster and they took advice from MSFT on licensing and paid up the expected license fee. When it came to audit time, there was £100,000 disparity in license fees expected between their own advice and the auditor. Not a small amount of cash. The answer was basically pay up £100k or we shut you down tomorrow at your KMS (180 days until everything you have goes down) and take you to court.

That company now uses postgresql and Linux.

They are absolutely fucking bastard mafioso. KMS and activation was the rubber hose.

I did work for a US defence contractor once who said "no". Ballmer himself got a call from someone in the US gov senator level who was rather fucking angry about this and the problem went away magically.

[Zero999]

What happens if you don't agree to it? Bye bye license agreement. See you in court.

I just did a quick search though the Windows EULA and it said nothing about audits, so they can't do that. So what they take you to court? Good for them. Now they have to prove you're pirating their software. Based on what evidence? You won't let their nosey busy bodies around your company to look. That doesn't sound like much of a case to me.

Do you know of any legal cases where people have refused an audit and MS won?

One company I worked for had a massive SQL Server cluster and they took advice from MSFT on licensing and paid up the expected license fee. When it came to audit time, there was £100,000 disparity in license fees expected between their own advice and the auditor. Not a small amount of cash. The answer was basically pay up £100k or we shut you down tomorrow at your KMS (180 days until everything you have goes down) and take you to court.

That company now uses postgresql and Linux.

They are absolutely fucking bastard mafioso. KMS and activation was the rubber hose.

Sounds like an easier solution would be to have refused the audit.

I did work for a US defence contractor once who said "no". Ballmer himself got a call from someone in the US gov senator level who was rather fucking angry about this and the problem went away magically.

Good. Common sense prevailed there.

[BravoV]

I did work for a US defence contractor once who said "no". Ballmer himself got a call from someone in the US gov senator level who was rather fucking angry about this and the problem went away magically.

When it comes to (US military contractor + US senator) ... you don't want to screw these people, let alone Ballmer, probably even the POTUS is scared too.   

[bd139]

I just did a quick search though the Windows EULA and it said nothing about audits, so they can't do that. So what they take you to court? Good for them. Now they have to prove you're pirating their software. Based on what evidence? You won't let their nosey busy bodies around your company to look. That doesn't sound like much of a case to me.

Read the whole thing carefully. There are a number of clauses assigning arbitrary rights. As a single end user they don't give a crap about you. As a small business, possibly they do. As a large business, they definitely do. Small and large businesses who enter in a specific set of license agreements are bound by additional terms under that agreement with respect to audit. It's difficult to sue a small business because they just fold and liability is limited. Large businesses are easy to milk though so that's where the focus us.

As for proof, that's when they roll out the top dogs from the Business Software Alliance, a world wide "team america world police" against piracy and the like to hammer the shit out of you legally speaking. They are born and bred at MSFT. MSFT also know what you're using from KMS online activations. Every machine you have calls home. When the numbers don't add up to what is observable versus registered then they have you by the balls. Even Linux machines that go unregistered are considered potential license targets.

You have to defend yourself against this tirade of shite and that has a significant cost both monetary and time-wise.

[Mr. Scram]

I just did a quick search though the Windows EULA and it said nothing about audits, so they can't do that. So what they take you to court? Good for them. Now they have to prove you're pirating their software. Based on what evidence? You won't let their nosey busy bodies around your company to look. That doesn't sound like much of a case to me.

Do you know of any legal cases where people have refused an audit and MS won?

Sounds like an easier solution would be to have refused the audit.

Good. Common sense prevailed there.

You have to understand that you're on the hook as soon as you sign any kind of license agreement as a business. Even running the most basic business is hard without doing something that qualifies. Worse still, there are various software companies that audit companies for each other. Together they run the BSA and if one audits you, they all audit you. If you have an agreement with Adobe, they open up the door for the rest. Both Apple and Microsoft participate, so it's almost impossible to escape.

Refusing an audit is hard too. They use all sorts of intimidation tactics, playing themselves off as legitimate investigators and once an employee lets them in, you can't reverse what they see or discover. It's not a traditional legal process where evidence can get excluded. In some cases, they even worked in tandem with local law enforcement, with people believing they were investigated by actual police.

If you're small fries you might work around audits if you're very careful, only buying consumer versions and thoroughly instructing your staff. However, you don't get any support and are screwed when things fall apart on you. Of course, this is a group that deals with people and companies like that every day, and has a lot of experience cutting through unwilling people. Thinking you'll outfox or outsmart them is naive at best. If they turn their gaze on you, you can only hope for the best as praying for mercy generally is no use.

Like other people have said, even if you go through excruciating lengths to comply, chances are that they'll still find issues. There simple is no guarantee other than actually being audited. Terms and conditions can be very murky at the best of times and there's no incentive at all to make it better. They'll never suffer for it. It's always others.

http://www.bsa.org/about-bsa/bsa-members

[amspire]

These days I find that on an install for a small business client using Microsoft software, the licensing aspect can take more time and work than the actual rollout. Even then, you can never be sure you are doing the thing in a compliant way. 

That, and some licensing conditions are insurmountable, for example you can't allow remote access to a Windows 7VM on a standard license, no matter what you pay the greedmongers. That is only possible on a corporate licensing scheme.

The Windows licensing is so obscure in this area that if you speak to 10 different Microsoft licensing experts, you get 10 different points of view.

For example, if you are running a web server on Windows 7 and multiple users are connected, is that legal or not? It comes down to the meaning of some words that are not properly defined. The EULA seems to imply that only one person at a time can be using a Windows 7 system - which would mean that even file sharing is out! File sharing is a standard part of Windows. A court would almost certainly throw out file sharing as a EULA violation, but I doubt it has ever been to court so no-one knows for sure - especially the Microsoft Licensing experts.

Then there is always the worry of being audited, and that due to the degree of ambiguity in licensing there is nothing, but nothing, you can do to  ensure full compliance. You could still be hauled over a barrel even though you have paid for every item of software you have.

I think it really has reached the stage where businesses are looking quite hard at moving away from Microsoft. They will put up with so much, but a tipping point is reached where the pain exceeds the gain. Not just the cost. Going the open source route takes a load of worry off the business owner's mind.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has been exceptionally slack about licensing. You can get an OEM Windows 7 license key from a notebook in a dumpster, and use it to install Windows 10 OEM on new hardware. It is not meant to be transferable but Microsoft never check and don't seem to care. Microsoft actually want as many people as possible using Windows 10 by 2020. As far as Windows 10 is concerned, I doubt if anyone has much concern from an audit.

In 2020, they can start to use a completely new form of licensing and activation that may be near impossible to cheat. Sometime between 2020 and 2025, all the addicted Windows legal and illegal users will probably have to decide whether they move to a paid (probably subscription) Windows-like OS or take the traumatic step of moving away from Windows into the unknown.

[bd139]

The big problem I have is that as a paying customer you are treated like a criminal and a cow to milk.

[Mr. Scram]

Just don't make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft being lax with Windows 10 licensing will get you off the hook. That's the devious part of much of it. It will all work and there might not be objections but if you're audited, not having the proper licences means being beaten up for it all the same. I don't think there's much difference being made between a reused OEM key or a fully illegal Pirate Bay copy. If it's not completely right, it's wrong.

[bd139]

Yep definitely. Windows 10 is about conversion to the new windows as a service model.

[IanMacdonald]

If that means we can do NET STOP WINDOWS then I'm all for it. 

[jonovid]

The big problem I have is that as a paying customer you are treated like a criminal and a cow to milk.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft being lax with Windows 10 licensing will get you off the hook. That's the devious part of much of it. It will all work and there might not be objections but if you're audited, not having the proper licences means being beaten up for it all the same. I don't think there's much difference being made between a reused OEM key or a fully illegal Pirate Bay copy. If it's not completely right, it's wrong.

Yep definitely. Windows 10 is about conversion to the new windows as a service model.

what is needed is open source operating system, PC software that can run 90% of Windows applications on 90% of PC hardware.
with out all the BS, a stripped-down operating system that has all the automatic and proprietary licenceing parts removed.
if I was a software engineer, I would have a go my self as a challenge. but Im not. 

chinese will probably never do it. there just not good at original ideas.    to break free of the microsoft monopoly 
we need the software version of the IBM PC , a non proprietary windows clone.   

[bd139]

Http://www.reactos.org

[Zero999]

I just did a quick search though the Windows EULA and it said nothing about audits, so they can't do that. So what they take you to court? Good for them. Now they have to prove you're pirating their software. Based on what evidence? You won't let their nosey busy bodies around your company to look. That doesn't sound like much of a case to me.

Do you know of any legal cases where people have refused an audit and MS won?

Sounds like an easier solution would be to have refused the audit.

Good. Common sense prevailed there.

You have to understand that you're on the hook as soon as you sign any kind of license agreement as a business. Even running the most basic business is hard without doing something that qualifies. Worse still, there are various software companies that audit companies for each other. Together they run the BSA and if one audits you, they all audit you. If you have an agreement with Adobe, they open up the door for the rest. Both Apple and Microsoft participate, so it's almost impossible to escape.

Refusing an audit is hard too. They use all sorts of intimidation tactics, playing themselves off as legitimate investigators and once an employee lets them in, you can't reverse what they see or discover. It's not a traditional legal process where evidence can get excluded. In some cases, they even worked in tandem with local law enforcement, with people believing they were investigated by actual police.

That's my point: they're not the police. They have no legal power. If a company had agreed to audits, as part of a licence agreement, then they need to accept it, or risk being in breach of contract. In the absence of any agreement to periodic audits, there's nothing they can do. If they resort to intimidation or pretending to be the police then they're breaking law themselves and need to be punished.

If you're small fries you might work around audits if you're very careful, only buying consumer versions and thoroughly instructing your staff. However, you don't get any support and are screwed when things fall apart on you. Of course, this is a group that deals with people and companies like that every day, and has a lot of experience cutting through unwilling people. Thinking you'll outfox or outsmart them is naive at best. If they turn their gaze on you, you can only hope for the best as praying for mercy generally is no use.

Seems straightforward to me, just don't sign anything which agrees to audits and what support do you get anyway? Not much by all accounts.

Like other people have said, even if you go through excruciating lengths to comply, chances are that they'll still find issues. There simple is no guarantee other than actually being audited. Terms and conditions can be very murky at the best of times and there's no incentive at all to make it better. They'll never suffer for it. It's always others.

http://www.bsa.org/about-bsa/bsa-members

The burden of proof is still on the copyright holder. If an organisation hasn't agreed to be audited, as part of the licence agreement and won't accept an audit, then it's very difficult for a software company to prove the said organisation is violating their licence agreement, unless they're doing something really obvious.

[Mr. Scram]

That's my point: they're not the police. They have no legal power. If a company had agreed to audits, as part of a licence agreement, then they need to accept it, or risk being in breach of contract. In the absence of any agreement to periodic audits, there's nothing they can do. If they resort to intimidation or pretending to be the police then they're breaking law themselves and need to be punished.

Seems straightforward to me, just don't sign anything which agrees to audits and what support do you get anyway? Not much by all accounts.

The burden of proof is still on the copyright holder. If an organisation hasn't agreed to be audited, as part of the licence agreement and won't accept an audit, then it's very difficult for a software company to prove the said organisation is violating their licence agreement, unless they're doing something really obvious.

I don't feel you quite understand the situation. It's pretty much impossible to buy any sort of software as a business without committing to the BSA. Just check the list of participating companies. As soon as you buy software as a business, you'll sign an agreement that makes you part of this. While I'm not sure of all the specific terms and conditions and these change all the time anyway, even using something like Azure probably opens you up to it. You simply cannot buy the software businesses depend upon without agreeing to this. It's not something you can trivially opt out of, as everyone would do that. Even a fully compliant business has every reason to avoid audits like the plague. They cost a lot of time and money. If avoiding getting audited was easy, people would do that without doubt.

While you can play a game of hide and seek, you have to understand that these people making it their business to catch people who try this. They have years of experience doing this, can afford literal armies of high paid lawyers and have developed a portfolio of tricks. To think you can outfox them would be very naive.

The only way I can see any way to avoid this is buying consumer grade software and avoiding signing any sort of contract at all. I'm not quite sure that's possible, as even Adobe Photoshop comes on a contract nowadays. You would cripple your business considerably and there's probably a few legal backdoors you haven't thought about. Or they just show up at the front desk, make convincing legal threats and an employee shows them what they need. From that point on, you're on the hook, and there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, your employees might be the ones who reported you, as the BSA claims to award cash to those that do. In the cases there is any evidence to go on, like a tip, they apparently sometimes do get help from law enforcement.

Of course, if you depend on any sort of license server or even updates for any software of a BSA member, they could simply cut you off and be done with it. That shifts the burden of proof on you and if it sinks your ship, so be it. These people whoop the asses of very serious companies with very deep pockets and significant interests. There are companies that solely exist to help other companies to make sure they're compliant. That's not for shits and giggles.

The BSA is known as very aggressive and very well funded. It's one of those organisations that can litigate your business into the ground, whether you're right or not. Considering even a trial version installed by a random employee six years ago can mean non-compliance, you're most likely to not be right.

[bd139]

The best way to avoid the BSA is to just pirate the fuck out of everything. 

[james_s]

Or use open source for all the fixed infrastructure and "cloud" (yuck) based services for everything else. That's beginning to be the norm with newer tech companies.

[Zero999]

That's my point: they're not the police. They have no legal power. If a company had agreed to audits, as part of a licence agreement, then they need to accept it, or risk being in breach of contract. In the absence of any agreement to periodic audits, there's nothing they can do. If they resort to intimidation or pretending to be the police then they're breaking law themselves and need to be punished.

Seems straightforward to me, just don't sign anything which agrees to audits and what support do you get anyway? Not much by all accounts.

The burden of proof is still on the copyright holder. If an organisation hasn't agreed to be audited, as part of the licence agreement and won't accept an audit, then it's very difficult for a software company to prove the said organisation is violating their licence agreement, unless they're doing something really obvious.

I don't feel you quite understand the situation. It's pretty much impossible to buy any sort of software as a business without committing to the BSA. Just check the list of participating companies. As soon as you buy software as a business, you'll sign an agreement that makes you part of this. While I'm not sure of all the specific terms and conditions and these change all the time anyway, even using something like Azure probably opens you up to it. You simply cannot buy the software businesses depend upon without agreeing to this. It's not something you can trivially opt out of, as everyone would do that. Even a fully compliant business has every reason to avoid audits like the plague. They cost a lot of time and money. If avoiding getting audited was easy, people would do that without doubt.

While you can play a game of hide and seek, you have to understand that these people making it their business to catch people who try this. They have years of experience doing this, can afford literal armies of high paid lawyers and have developed a portfolio of tricks. To think you can outfox them would be very naive.

The only way I can see any way to avoid this is buying consumer grade software and avoiding signing any sort of contract at all. I'm not quite sure that's possible, as even Adobe Photoshop comes on a contract nowadays. You would cripple your business considerably and there's probably a few legal backdoors you haven't thought about. Or they just show up at the front desk, make convincing legal threats and an employee shows them what they need. From that point on, you're on the hook, and there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, your employees might be the ones who reported you, as the BSA claims to award cash to those that do. In the cases there is any evidence to go on, like a tip, they apparently sometimes do get help from law enforcement.

Of course, if you depend on any sort of license server or even updates for any software of a BSA member, they could simply cut you off and be done with it. That shifts the burden of proof on you and if it sinks your ship, so be it. These people whoop the asses of very serious companies with very deep pockets and significant interests. There are companies that solely exist to help other companies to make sure they're compliant. That's not for shits and giggles.

The BSA is known as very aggressive and very well funded. It's one of those organisations that can litigate your business into the ground, whether you're right or not. Considering even a trial version installed by a random employee six years ago can mean non-compliance, you're most likely to not be right.

So what you're saying is, in order to buy most business software, you need to sign a contract agreeing that you have to comply with audits?

I wonder how that works with defence contractors, such as the one mentioned previously. Lots of the information they keep is top secret. I bet the likes of Lockheed Martin don't have to put up with this bullshit.

[bd139]

When you have 100,000 seats you have a bargaining chip. No one else does.

[tooki]

@hero999: It’s entirely possible that the BSA has auditors with top security clearances. But it is an interesting question you pose.

[bd139]

I can speak for the UK at least...

They can't get security clearance as they would require DV / enhanced DV in the UK. This is based on sponsorship so if you're a contractor the company which is doing the audit needs a contract with the MoD to start with. The MoD isn't going to have anything greater than a supplier contract with MSFT which doesn't satisfy the requirements of the DV clearance sponsorship. On top of that, they wouldn't get list X status which is the only other way in.

So someone would send a nastygram to the IT director, who would hand it over to the legal director and the CEO who would forward it to the home office, who would write a carefully worded version of "fuck off" at the highest level. They would appeal this in the high court who would be told it's a matter of national security and assign a verdict of a carefully worded version of "fuck off".

The best way to fight a legal battle is with bureaucrats!

Now I only worked for the yanks but they got the home office to declare some of the soil as entirely under US jurisdiction and said all the equipment was there.

[amspire]

http://www.reactos.org

No! It is a total waste of time. I cannot believe people have been working on Reactos for over 20 years with no usable result. They started off trying to be Win95 compatible and when they realised that was a waste of time, they tried to be compatible with NT4.

I followed them for a bit around the 2000 era thinking it would be fantastic to have a basic free Windows compatible O/S that can run a license server or similar. Reactos never got close.

Windows keeps moving a twice the speed of Reactos and they have never caught up. You could not run it for 1 day without many crashes.

[bd139]

Have you tried it recently. It’s a lot closer than it was. It’s actually almost usable now.

The point of ReactOS wasn’t to keep up with windows but to maintain a useable subset of windows API. They have done that.

Really the scary thing they have done is reimplement windows NT entirely (!)

[tooki]

The point of ReactOS wasn’t to keep up with windows but to maintain a useable subset of windows API. They have done that.

Really the scary thing they have done is reimplement windows NT entirely (!)

Whats almost crazier is that this is not the first time this has been done! The WINE project is almost the same thing, just running atop a *nix OS instead of on bare metal, and the long-forgotten SoftPC and SoftWindows virtual machine/emulator (to run DOS and Windows, emulated, on a classic Mac), which apparently trapped and executed natively a few Windows APIs, so that they didn’t have to be run in the emulated 486 CPU. Wiki describes it as “Unlike most emulators, the SoftWindows product used recompiled Windows components to improve performance in most business applications, providing almost native performance (but this meant that, unlike SoftPC, SoftWindows was not upgradable)”. The “almost native” claim is, uh, let’s call it a slight exaggeration. I’m not entirely sure whether Insignia, the developer, wrote those themselves or licensed them from Microsoft, which apparently is a thing.

Not to mention that the Win32 API itself was implemented by Microsoft itself three times: once atop DOS (in Win 3.1—Win ME), once atop NT (itself being a clone of VMS), and once atop Windows CE. The Win16 API was implemented at minimum on the first two.

And just for comparison, Apple reimplemented the original Mac APIs, slightly tweaked, as Carbon running on UNIX in Mac OS X, but also as a runtime library for Mac OS 8 and 9. Similarly, prior to being acquired by Apple, NeXT had its native APIs running not only on NeXTstep/OpenStep, but also as a runtime library on Windows.

[bd139]

Indeed. I used to cross compile stuff for Solaris we wrote in win32 using a mainsoft product. This was the bad old days of Visual c++ drunken shite compiler. The API was portable but compilers at both ends were buggy as fuck.

Then there’s the Unix subsystem for NT...

What’s an OS? Completely irrelevant if you target POSIX.

[bd139]

It’s not dead. They remarketed it as WSL.

[Specmaster]

http://www.reactos.org

Well I've downloaded the demo CD image, having trouble getting it run, all it wants to is try to open my Leawo BluRay Player and reports an error??? 

[Mr. Scram]

Well I've downloaded the demo CD image, having trouble getting it run, all it wants to is try to open my Leawo BluRay Player and reports an error??? 

Are you sure your system isn't asking for a CD to be inserted so the image can be burned on it?

[Specmaster]

Well I've downloaded the demo CD image, having trouble getting it run, all it wants to is try to open my Leawo BluRay Player and reports an error??? 

Are you sure your system isn't asking for a CD to be inserted so the image can be burned on it?

Absolutely it asks me to send an error report to Leawo so that they can let me know when they have a solution?

[Bassman59]

@hero999: It’s entirely possible that the BSA has auditors with top security clearances. But it is an interesting question you pose.

To access classified information, you need to have two things. One is a clearance of sufficient level. The other is the “need to know.” Those auditors may indeed have top-secret clearances but if the custodian of the information refuses to grant access, the auditors are out in the cold.

[Mr. Scram]

To access classified information, you need to have two things. One is a clearance of sufficient level. The other is the “need to know.” Those auditors may indeed have top-secret clearances but if the custodian of the information refuses to grant access, the auditors are out in the cold.

They can simply pull your licenses if you don't cooperate. A working and secure infrastructure seems non optional. What are you going to do? Migrate overnight?

[Zero999]

When you have 100,000 seats you have a bargaining chip. No one else does.

Not all defence contractors are that big. Marshall Aerospace certainly aren't.

To access classified information, you need to have two things. One is a clearance of sufficient level. The other is the “need to know.” Those auditors may indeed have top-secret clearances but if the custodian of the information refuses to grant access, the auditors are out in the cold.

They can simply pull your licenses if you don't cooperate. A working and secure infrastructure seems non optional. What are you going to do? Migrate overnight?

Use a firewall to block MS licensing server from accessing your computers.

Which any good defence contractor will do, for security reasons. It will also stop Windows and other software from automatically updating and phoning home.

[bd139]

Doesn't work that well even on airgapped networks. Read this then weep: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dd981010.aspx

Your options are basically phoning in every activation or using a KMS which requires regular internet connection.

[Naguissa]

I remember a friend once asked me to come over to help with his PC but he had win10 so i needed his help to navigate through the windows to help him with his PC
And just recently he installed the new windows meltdown/spectre patch on his athlon PC and he's getting non stop driver power state errors, blue screens and failures to even power on. And when he did finally manage to get the PC running starting any task would max out his cpu and keep it at 80-100% usage.

The problem is not Windows nor the bug patch. The problem is why on earth there's still anyone running Win10 on an Athlon.
An H110 mobo with cracked BIOS running an i3-8100 is a very decent quad core setup with a lot of horse power with a $300 whole system cost.
Yes, 8th gen CPUs can run on 6th/7th gen mobo, the VRMs are not good enough so don't run an i5/i7, it will end up with flame. i3 is physically supported with software BIOS crippling which can be cracked.

My son is happily using a Turion64x2 RM77, Why I have to pay 300$ for a new and (also) buggy laptop. Even more, his HP tx2 is a poorly thermal designed laptop, but still very cute, touch, pen and appealing little and complete laptop (12", includes dvd, fingerprint, rotatory scteen and even an IR remote) compared to a 300$ one.

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

[Mr. Scram]

My son is happily using a Turion64x2 RM77, Why I have to pay 300$ for a new and (also) buggy laptop. Even more, his HP tx2 is a poorly thermal designed laptop, but still very cute, touch, pen and appealing little and complete laptop (12", includes dvd, fingerprint, rotatory scteen and even an IR remote) compared to a 300$ one.

Enviado desde mi Jolla mediante Tapatalk

Paying $300 for a new laptop is just asking for trouble. You can't not end up with a steaming pile of compromises and shortcuts.

[bd139]

Yes. There's almost nothing I like about a $300 laptop. Doesn't matter the vendor.

You can get a second hand Thinkpad T440 for $100 less than that which isn't made of poop.

[james_s]

That Activate Windows on the big outdoor screen is funny. Reminds me of about 2 years ago when I was driving on the freeway past some of the big Indian reservation casinos, the huge color LED billboard out in front of one was displaying the Windows 2000 desktop complete with a shortcut for an old version of Firefox.

Some time back I also read a news article about an incident in China where someone decided to browse some porn on a PC, not realizing it was controlling one of those big outdoor LED screens that wrapped around the corner of a building in a city square. I'd hate to be that guy.

[SeanB]

There was a sign near me that was running Win98, easy to recognise even though the LED sign was only showing a QVGA signal from the top left quadrant of the display. The blue background, the icon shapes along with the mouse cursor still sitting in there for weeks on end were easy to recognise. Guess the power supply on the beige box they were using got a little flaky, after the AC units that kept it cool were stolen for scrap metal.

[ivan747]

You need an SSD to run Windows 10. Windows installer has a ton of small file IO, and Windows Defender checks every of them.
Solution: disable Windows Defender and take the risk.
Not only WD screws up with Windows installer, it also screws up GCC when compiling large programs, even with NVMe SSDs.

It does the same on SSD. My X220 laptop turns into a toaster oven every few days.
And WTF, Microsoft checks files -coming from Microsoft- for virus

That’s a good thing, you should be grateful that they don’t even trust themselves.

Also, what if a malware disguises a Windows file...

[ivan747]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

This ^

[technix]

Not related to Microsoft, but I remember how one of my previous employers get caught from using pirated PADS software: the PCB house. It appeared to me that PCB houses can get licenses to most board design software at a very reduced price (likely without the "new project" button and forced phoning back as a limitation in this license.) The version pd PADS embed its licensing information in project files it generated, and the board house associated the files to the company. Now the board houses' copy of PADS performed a post-mortem piracy scan and caught us. That means although only one guy is using the software the company had to pay for 5 years of previous use for every single employee as compensation.

[james_s]

Seems like they could have at least sprung for one copy and had multiple people use it if they really wanted to cheat. Or just use a free open source package.

[hammy]

Now the board houses' copy of PADS performed a post-mortem piracy scan and caught us.

I had this suspicion already. Interesting to hear a true case about this.

[Mr. Scram]

Not related to Microsoft, but I remember how one of my previous employers get caught from using pirated PADS software: the PCB house. It appeared to me that PCB houses can get licenses to most board design software at a very reduced price (likely without the "new project" button and forced phoning back as a limitation in this license.) The version pd PADS embed its licensing information in project files it generated, and the board house associated the files to the company. Now the board houses' copy of PADS performed a post-mortem piracy scan and caught us. That means although only one guy is using the software the company had to pay for 5 years of previous use for every single employee as compensation.

Like, hammy, I always wondered about this. It seems so obvious, yet never actually heard about it.

[technix]

Seems like they could have at least sprung for one copy and had multiple people use it if they really wanted to cheat. Or just use a free open source package.

For the former I know that some companies uses this. They just pass a certain laptop around loaded with the specific software.

For the latter, well you need to know China better. Somehow a good portion of Chinese embedded developers actively hate on anything alternative. My main work software package is KiCad for board design (for most new projects - some older ones are still maintained with EAGLE) and Eclipse CDT + GCC for ARM embedded programming, Eclipse, Xcode or NetBeans for host-side programming, all built on top of either macOS or Linux, and I have a complete workflow in place. But when I asked question on Chinese EE forums I always end up catching some flak for not using the "mainstream" packages - Altium Designer or PADS for PCB, Keil for embedded programming, all on top of Windows etc. "Why don't you just switch to what everyone else is using?" is a common occurrence. In school teachers just taught students to use and only use those proprietary packages (leading me to guess whether the companies behind the software is paying the teachers for this) and make no mention to any open source alternative.

[lundmar]

Seems like they could have at least sprung for one copy and had multiple people use it if they really wanted to cheat. Or just use a free open source package.

For the former I know that some companies uses this. They just pass a certain laptop around loaded with the specific software.

For the latter, well you need to know China better. Somehow a good portion of Chinese embedded developers actively hate on anything alternative. My main work software package is KiCad for board design (for most new projects - some older ones are still maintained with EAGLE) and Eclipse CDT + GCC for ARM embedded programming, Eclipse, Xcode or NetBeans for host-side programming, all built on top of either macOS or Linux, and I have a complete workflow in place. But when I asked question on Chinese EE forums I always end up catching some flak for not using the "mainstream" packages - Altium Designer or PADS for PCB, Keil for embedded programming, all on top of Windows etc. "Why don't you just switch to what everyone else is using?" is a common occurrence. In school teachers just taught students to use and only use those proprietary packages (leading me to guess whether the companies behind the software is paying the teachers for this) and make no mention to any open source alternative.

Often times its simply a lack of awareness of the open source alternatives. Kicad is an excellent board design tool even for professional use and this only becomes more true with the upcoming Kicad 5 release which is looking to be a great release with excellent new features.

[Zero999]

Not related to Microsoft, but I remember how one of my previous employers get caught from using pirated PADS software: the PCB house. It appeared to me that PCB houses can get licenses to most board design software at a very reduced price (likely without the "new project" button and forced phoning back as a limitation in this license.) The version pd PADS embed its licensing information in project files it generated, and the board house associated the files to the company. Now the board houses' copy of PADS performed a post-mortem piracy scan and caught us. That means although only one guy is using the software the company had to pay for 5 years of previous use for every single employee as compensation.

The one thing I hate about proprietary software is, it often uses secret file formats, so the user no longer owns their data. It also poses a security risk, as there's no way of telling what's inside the blobs of poo it produces.

Seems like they could have at least sprung for one copy and had multiple people use it if they really wanted to cheat. Or just use a free open source package.

For the former I know that some companies uses this. They just pass a certain laptop around loaded with the specific software.

For the latter, well you need to know China better. Somehow a good portion of Chinese embedded developers actively hate on anything alternative. My main work software package is KiCad for board design (for most new projects - some older ones are still maintained with EAGLE) and Eclipse CDT + GCC for ARM embedded programming, Eclipse, Xcode or NetBeans for host-side programming, all built on top of either macOS or Linux, and I have a complete workflow in place. But when I asked question on Chinese EE forums I always end up catching some flak for not using the "mainstream" packages - Altium Designer or PADS for PCB, Keil for embedded programming, all on top of Windows etc. "Why don't you just switch to what everyone else is using?" is a common occurrence. In school teachers just taught students to use and only use those proprietary packages (leading me to guess whether the companies behind the software is paying the teachers for this) and make no mention to any open source alternative.

Often times its simply a lack of awareness of the open source alternatives. Kicad is an excellent board design tool even for professional use and this only becomes more true with the upcoming Kicad 5 release which is looking to be a great release with excellent new features.

Are you really talking about KiCAD? Last time I checked, it was one of the worst PCB CAD programs I've used. I tried to open someone else's file with it and it badly mangled it.

I like open source software. It's a shame KiCAD is just a big pile of pants. I'd happily pay for a decent piece of software, which could safe files in an open format, such as KiCAD, as long as the format is portable, which could be a problem with KiCAD.

[lundmar]

Often times its simply a lack of awareness of the open source alternatives. Kicad is an excellent board design tool even for professional use and this only becomes more true with the upcoming Kicad 5 release which is looking to be a great release with excellent new features.

Are you really talking about KiCAD? Last time I checked, it was one of the worst PCB CAD programs I've used. I tried to open someone else's file with it and it badly mangled it.

I like open source software. It's a shame KiCAD is just a big pile of pants. I'd happily pay for a decent piece of software, which could safe files in an open format, such as KiCAD, as long as the format is portable, which could be a problem with KiCAD.

You might want to revisit KiCad - it has improved steadily ever since it started being supported by CERN. Yes, there are a few things which makes it feel like a combination of parts and historically it is. However, KiCad is constantly improving and the upcoming KiCad 5 release addresses many of the issues to make it feel more unified. Either way, even with KiCad 4, if you begin your own design today the work flow is quite nice despite a manual netlist export action required between schematic and pcb editor (gone/solved in KiCad 5).

Open formats is an issue for any EDA but KiCad does a good job at it. Sure, you can run into problems with which version of which format is used when you import or export stuff - one just have to be careful doing that.

[james_s]

I've been using KiCAD for close to 10 years now and have found it to work very well. When I first started doing PCB layouts I tried every EDA I could get my hands on, from free up to one that costs several thousand dollars and my verdict was that they all suck, they're all buggy and quirky, but most will do the job. I settled on KiCAD because it sucked a bit less than some of the others and it was free, it has only improved since then.

Sure it's not Altium or OrCAD but in the hobbyist and pro-sumer market nothing else compares. As with any EDA, you learn how to use it and how to work around the quirks, then it will do the job.

[bd139]

My history is with Zuken and Eagle. I’ve done four boards with kicad now and it is excellent. Couple of library mistakes I’ve had to work around but that’s life.

If you want a turd, try Cadence Virtuoso about 1998 on a nasty day. No bad Kicad day gets anywhere near the best day of that for wanting to gouge your eyes out.

[technix]

Not related to Microsoft, but I remember how one of my previous employers get caught from using pirated PADS software: the PCB house. It appeared to me that PCB houses can get licenses to most board design software at a very reduced price (likely without the "new project" button and forced phoning back as a limitation in this license.) The version pd PADS embed its licensing information in project files it generated, and the board house associated the files to the company. Now the board houses' copy of PADS performed a post-mortem piracy scan and caught us. That means although only one guy is using the software the company had to pay for 5 years of previous use for every single employee as compensation.

The one thing I hate about proprietary software is, it often uses secret file formats, so the user no longer owns their data. It also poses a security risk, as there's no way of telling what's inside the blobs of poo it produces.

Also they don't play nice with general purpose version control systems like Git. They often have their own version control system, but that almost always means paying extra $$$ in licensing, and some resellers only bother offering you version control system if you have no less than x stations with floating licenses (so it is really a team in their eyes.)

Seems like they could have at least sprung for one copy and had multiple people use it if they really wanted to cheat. Or just use a free open source package.

For the former I know that some companies uses this. They just pass a certain laptop around loaded with the specific software.

For the latter, well you need to know China better. Somehow a good portion of Chinese embedded developers actively hate on anything alternative. My main work software package is KiCad for board design (for most new projects - some older ones are still maintained with EAGLE) and Eclipse CDT + GCC for ARM embedded programming, Eclipse, Xcode or NetBeans for host-side programming, all built on top of either macOS or Linux, and I have a complete workflow in place. But when I asked question on Chinese EE forums I always end up catching some flak for not using the "mainstream" packages - Altium Designer or PADS for PCB, Keil for embedded programming, all on top of Windows etc. "Why don't you just switch to what everyone else is using?" is a common occurrence. In school teachers just taught students to use and only use those proprietary packages (leading me to guess whether the companies behind the software is paying the teachers for this) and make no mention to any open source alternative.

Often times its simply a lack of awareness of the open source alternatives. Kicad is an excellent board design tool even for professional use and this only becomes more true with the upcoming Kicad 5 release which is looking to be a great release with excellent new features.

Are you really talking about KiCAD? Last time I checked, it was one of the worst PCB CAD programs I've used. I tried to open someone else's file with it and it badly mangled it.

I like open source software. It's a shame KiCAD is just a big pile of pants. I'd happily pay for a decent piece of software, which could safe files in an open format, such as KiCAD, as long as the format is portable, which could be a problem with KiCAD.

So far KiCAD have worked for me, even better than EAGLE really. I am in the progress of a fairly complicated board design (involves a DRAM bus) and it works like a charm.