return to windows emotional support group

[lsemmens]

Having been a M$ user for about 30 years. I never had any problems with virii or other nasties. The only problem I had was with M$ was M$ itself! "Upgrades" that were anything but! Their operating system upgrades were always hit and miss. Even back in the days of DOS. Who remembers their first foray into Windows? Neither do I, Windows 2 sort of worked, Windows 3 was pretty good back then. Windows 4? Then came w95, then 98, Windows ME was definitely the Missed Edition. I moved into NT with W2000 which was everything Windows ME should have been. In many ways, it was the best OS that M$ ever produced. It is still the only M$ OS that I ever used that did did not require regular use of the 3 finger salute. XP was almost as good then came W7 which ok. W8 should never have been released and W10 was ok until they managed to start stuffing up their updates, which is what brought me to Mint. I'd played with Linux on and off over the years but never found it as useful and hardware friendly until Mint 18.1.

Mint has certainly come of age, and is everything Windwoes should have been. Now, all we must do, is convince developers, of all varieties, to start writing for Linux, too. If we can get some of the major games devs on board, then we might just get into a position to challenge the M$ throne. Of course that won't happen overnight. Remember the early days of personal computing when you has the likes of the TRS-80 and Vic20, then came a potential Business Machine running an OS called CP/M - I nearly bought one of those. In the end I shortlisted an Apple IIe and an 8086 machine with twin 36Kb Floppies running MS-DOS 2,11. At that stage, my only computer experience was with a VAX computer and VAX Basic. I saw DOS as the business system of the future. Boy, was I right! Apple could have had the top spot but for their closed system.

I could rant for hours........

[bad medicine]

I like Mint being the underdog, and don't really want it to usurp the MS throne. With too much success will come all of the problems of success, or so I'm afraid.

I don't care how popular it is, the only thing that matters to me is that Mint works.

I ran badblocks on the partition that Windows seems to think has a problem and it found 0 bad blocks. I will run it on the other partitions later but that's the one that chkdsk had singled out to scan first, and that's the one where the non-Windows compliant filenames were

[vansloneker]

Installing a system, unfortunately Windows needed for a few things. It will become a dual boot with Mint as preferred boot, of course. Carefully prepared a SSD, installed Windows 10. Actually went smooth, though 1st boot hung on a black screen. Rebooted and all worked good. Removed the biggest crap and applied first preferences. Made a Ghost image.

Since it is a Home version went on to install Group Policy Editor. Just the other day did that on another system no problem at all. This one though got stuck on a "configuration registry database is corrupt" error 0x800703F1 when .NET was needed. Here it takes the typical Windows way: the internet is full of desperate postings from people with "configuration registry database is corrupt" errors but no solution.

Maybe I cleaned Windows a bit too much, so back to the post-install situation. To save the SSD, cloned everything to a regular hard disk, restored the after install image, rebooted .... black screen again. Well rebooting again and again, keeps hanging. Another situation with millions of desperate results in google.

For Christ sake, start over on the hard disk, new installation, no mods before gpedit is installed. Again, post-install hangs on a black screen and persists.

I actually do have an installation from this machine, but it´s an older version, and a 7 upgrade. It's set up for a particular task and barely used anyway. I don't allow upgrades on it because the later the 10, the more they suck. Last experience was it didn't allow me to set me preferred apps like Irfan View or 7-zip. It's not the installation I want to use for the current setup.

I am stuck and need your emotional support

[Translucency]

I've been using Windows 10 since release. Normal, daily use. Software development at work. Software development at home. Gaming.

Never had any issues. It's odd to me how some people have such a bad experience.

[jchelpau]

I bought a refurbished laptop with Windows 7 Pro installed.

I spent way too much time setting up a dual boot with VeraCrypt for Windows and LUKS for Linux Mint.

To actually make a backup of my system I could reinstall I had to go out and buy a stack of DVDs so I could burn a Windows 7 Startup Repair ISO.

Having a separate admin user and using UAC's password feature is a bit like Linux, but every application wants to do admin things so I get the promot a lot.

Installing applications is a bit hard since I have a mix of Chocolatey-installed packages and native installed.

Having to update Windows 7 and selectively block updates as well as installing firewall and hosts rules to block spying and updates was annoying.

Having some weird IPv6 bug that drops my global IP is unhelpful.

Besides that I'm enjoying Windows for basic tasks. Most the pain comes from trying to debug issues for other people.

[catweazel]

Never had any issues. It's odd to me how some people have such a bad experience.

Those of us with a development background are gifted with the necessary turn of mind to resolve our own issues. Not everyone has that gift. I tend to think that having that gift inures us to the issues that others may perceive to be monumental.

[Basset-Hound]

Mint noob here.
Loved Win 98 -XP and Win 7, not sure about Win 10 because of all the hidden telemetry and bloatware that seems nearly impossible to remove without breaking the OS. Having said that I still use W10 on a virtual machine inside Mint because I'm having trouble setting up CCTV software on the Mint OS, although I'm not overly keen on mixing the two on the same PC. Should I have concerns? Still learning Mint. Wife is also interested ONLY because I said she could use MS Office on it

[vansloneker]

Well if you accept W10 the way MS wants you to it is great. If maybe you have some ideas of your own it can be a cruelty.

Basset-Hound: don't worry.

[Plons]

Until I moved to Mint, I ran several Win7 pro's with a paid Avast as AV. But I still got those annoying advertisements to upgrade my subscription. I am soooo glad that is all in the past.

[lsemmens]

Never had any issues. It's odd to me how some people have such a bad experience.

Those of us with a development background are gifted with the necessary turn of mind to resolve our own issues. Not everyone has that gift. I tend to think that having that gift inures us to the issues that others may perceive to be monumental.

The only issue with that is that others then rely upon us to resolve their issue!

[catweazel]

Never had any issues. It's odd to me how some people have such a bad experience.

Those of us with a development background are gifted with the necessary turn of mind to resolve our own issues. Not everyone has that gift. I tend to think that having that gift inures us to the issues that others may perceive to be monumental.

The only issue with that is that others then rely upon us to resolve their issue!

Then that can't be an issue because it's why we're here.

[lsemmens]

Those of us with a development background are gifted with the necessary turn of mind to resolve our own issues. Not everyone has that gift. I tend to think that having that gift inures us to the issues that others may perceive to be monumental.

The only issue with that is that others then rely upon us to resolve their issue!

Then that can't be an issue because it's why we're here.

Except! Their issues are usually with another OS that should never be named in polite company.

[catweazel]

The only issue with that is that others then rely upon us to resolve their issue!

Then that can't be an issue because it's why we're here.

Except! Their issues are usually with another OS that should never be named in polite company.

OS/2

[Basset-Hound]

Well if you accept W10 the way MS wants you to it is great. If maybe you have some ideas of your own it can be a cruelty.

Basset-Hound: don't worry.

Being a long time Windows user I can't accept Windows 10 it in it's current state.
I guess it's fine if you game or use multiple MS products, which I don't. I'll keep it in a VM for now.

[Moem]

OS/2

Dude, you're warped.

[Portreve]

On The Subject Of Windows, Microsoft, Market Percentage, and OS/2 WARP:

Microsoft is an un-trustworthy organization. It always has been, and it always will be. Even if by some remote chance it managed to stop being un-trustworthy, I seriously doubt anyone would trust it anyhow, nor should they. This is 2019, and we are very well aware of the darker side of Corporate America and their dealings with the U.S. Government (and, to be fair, likely other governments as well) and in particular, elements of specifically the U.S.'s intelligence and surveillance apparatus. People trusting in not just Microsoft, but in any corporation, including their own employer, are at this point fundamentally stupid. Period.

Windows maintains its status for the same sort of reason that Apple maintains their own respective status: entrenched established players with anciently old (by computer industry standards) ecosystems filled with well-fed for-profit players. Yes, much good can be derived from these ecosystems' tools, particularly in areas requiring high degrees of specialization, training, and education (z.B. legal-related-, financial-related-, and medical-related products) and while not strictly speaking "impossible" it's hard to imagine, even in 2019, the F/OSS community mustering the will and the manpower to displace all of that. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but realistically, it seems like that probably won't happen.

It's not so much either just GNU or LInux, but the philosophical concept of a community-accessible, community-contributable environment which is, to me, the most compelling argument in favor of GNU+Linux supplanting and replacing any other proprietary, commercial platform. This, in a way, is no different than the work of social and political philosophers being the building blocks upon which modern states can be based. Or, for that matter, scientific discoveries being used to make things. Imagine, for example, if Albert Einstein's seminal work was unavailable for outside application. Without General Relativity and E=mc² and so on, we would not now today have GPS, and I wouldn't even hazard a guess the degree to which computer technology itself might have some dependency upon his work and/or derivative works thereof. My point here is that the environment which the GPL and other highly similar licensing concepts lead to, which for example establishes a technological commons, is a way better way of doing things than the more conventional approach taken by Microsoft, Apple, et al.

As for Microsoft being a backer of open source, let them make their contributions, but don't any of us fall to our knees and worship them for it.

I remember when IBM had announced the successor to OS/2, and I can remember seeing photos and at some point along the way systems running OS/2 WARP. In fact, the bank my mother worked for at the time had started putting it on some of their office computers, and I thought it was cool. I still felt it was little more than a copycat of Apple's Mac OS, but I did wonder whether it would successfully compete against Windows. It never did, though IBM kept iterating it, and at some point it felt to me like it was a zombie OS that just wouldn't go away no matter how dead it was. I had at the time wanted to get a copy of it to play around with myself because, at the time, I was starting to get into building x86 PCs. However, that never happened. Oh well...

[exploder]

My kids have the right idea when it comes to operating systems, if the software they like runs in it they are happy. Windows has it's uses, there is no denying that! My wife insists on Windows 10 for her gaming rig and rightly so. Windows can be tweaked and adjusted for the privacy concerns many of us have.

We have Mint 19.1 Cinnamon, KDE Neon, Windows 10, Android, Chrome OS and IOS running on various devices around here. They all have their good points and uses. The main thing is that the software we want or need to run does run. I tweak the various systems to help protect everyones privacy and I am reasonably satisfied with the results.

Soon the operating system will be irrelevant and even Microsoft is seeing this. Steve Jobs said it best, Microsoft does not have to loose for us to win.

[vansloneker]

Well if you accept W10 the way MS wants you to it is great. If maybe you have some ideas of your own it can be a cruelty.

Basset-Hound: don't worry.

Being a long time Windows user I can't accept Windows 10 it in it's current state.
I guess it's fine if you game or use multiple MS products, which I don't. I'll keep it in a VM for now.

To avoid any misunderstanding: the first line was addressed to Translucency as a reply to his posting a few above. The blank line should have indicated it was another matter where I addressed you.

btw: I couldn't agree more with you about accepting Windows.

[lsemmens]

I used to sell IBM PC's when Warp was being bundled. At the time I could not afford to purchase a Warp machine, otherwise I'm certain I'd have spent a lot more time playing with it. It had the potential to be a better Windows than Windows. I'm just glad that Linux has taken up where OS/2 has left off.

[Basset-Hound]

Well if you accept W10 the way MS wants you to it is great. If maybe you have some ideas of your own it can be a cruelty.

Basset-Hound: don't worry.

Being a long time Windows user I can't accept Windows 10 it in it's current state.
I guess it's fine if you game or use multiple MS products, which I don't. I'll keep it in a VM for now.

To avoid any misunderstanding: the first line was addressed to Translucency as a reply to his posting a few above. The blank line should have indicated it was another matter where I addressed you.

btw: I couldn't agree more with you about accepting Windows.

To avoid any misunderstandings please quote me directly in future, thanks.