Windows 10 - yes or no?

[Ray McCarthy]

Well they say you can get XP onto this thing...

If you can partition it / format it to work in ANYTHING other than iPod classic, let me know. I have a brand new unused iPod Classic HDD drive here, we tried everything. A 250G Byte to 320G Byte 2.5" SATA is far faster than those 1.8" ZIF PATA iPod Classic drives and cost very little. Much cheaper to interface to USB. But a native USB 1000 G Byte HDD is under $100, with warranty.
External USB though is very slow compared to internal PATA/IDE or SATA inside a laptop etc.

 

[J Riff]

Okay, I see what you mean. This thing is a nightmare of proprietarianism, I hate it. It has no Itones, apparently, doesn't show up as a drive, or a device, or anything. It would make a nice xMas present for anyone I don't like. *

 

[Phyrebrat]

Ugh... In a similar vein; today one of the IT guys at a school in which I often teach proudly presented me with 'my own' laptop.

It runs some iteration of Windows and after I quit Microsoft products in 2010 in favour of the supremely simple does-what-it-says-on-the-box Apple range, I've never looked back. (My iMac still flies like the wind, and I'm still using Final Cut Pro and Logic, and Creative Suite 5 with no drop in performance that I've noticed). Anyway. Within ten minutes I was screaming. How is Windows even a thing? Telling me what to do and how to do it their way! It's like giving an ineffective satnav control of your car; you know which way to go but it keeps steering you the other way.

Not that I ever expected to return to Microsoft but this just confirms I made the right choice. Reading the stuff here about Windy 10's aggressive behaviour just has me agog in disbelief. I didn't think it could get any worse from what it used to be! Oh silly me!

pH

 

[NanShanKongTong]

I never really liked windows 8 so I don't think i would ever wanna try windows 10

 

[J Riff]

They work fine on the right machine, with the right settings, but don't go past 7 until the Sarge gives the OK. Linux is just as much trouble unless you are familiar wit it. At least they aren't Macs, which are a bit precious, and never get viruses, which is suspicious. )
Actually Phyrebrat, if you wipe the thing and install the right OS, you can have it running any way you like. This laptop, discarded because of excessive malware, took two hrs. to fix up and now it boots faster'n yer Mac I'll wager.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Well I don't get into the Mac vs Windows arguments for the same reason it's pointless to try and convince tories to vote labour and vice versa.

Suffice it to say; It works for me without me needing to get qualified in the ever-evolving home PC software environment. And that's fine. My Mac boots in under 30 seconds and that's quick enough for me if your comp boots quicker that's good enough for you. My Mac never asks me to interrupt boot up, boot down or anything else while it aggressively installs an update or makes decisions for me. Does Windows now not do that? I'm like water; show me the path of least resistance, I'll drop my Mac and switch ... When it stops doing its job... Whenever that may be.

pH

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I don't get into the Mac vs Windows arguments for the same reason it's pointless to try and convince

Yes.
My only objections to Macs is that there is very limited single source of HW, about a 30% premium on price and I'm dubious of Apple's long term commitment to the platform (It's too small a part of their income and they make almost no money from OS X. They killed the Mac Server and took "Computer" out of their name). Otherwise it's better than Vista, Win7, Win8 and Win 10. But like Linux I have applications which run on XP with no OS X version. Linux also has WINE which does run some of the Windows Applications I need.
So if you are only doing photos, video, writing, email, web and can afford the premium for a new machine, then OS X is a far better solution for XP users than Win 10. If you are an Engineer, or other specialist user then Linux is more likely to have a native Linux version of your application and may run your application in WINE. Copying existing Windows program data to Linux and windows font to Linux for migration is trivial. Linux will run on your existing hardware. OSX works well because it's only supported on Apple Mac Hardware.

I sold / supported / programmed for DOS then Windows in Business on and off for thirty years. As far as I'm concerned unless MS does something dramatic the downhill slide that started in 2003 will continue. Win10 is a ghastly idea, badly executed. I'll be keeping a pair of old XP machines, a laptop and Media PC, not used on Internet (Support for patches expires from MS in Nov 2016, not last April for XP if you add POS registry key). I already have an old 386 for DOS for programming motorola radios, and an old laptop with Win98 / Win 2K for specialist tasks that also don't work on XP or Linux.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

You Could Not Make This Up.

Latest MS Nag screen for Win 10 upgrade offers Upgrade Now or Upgrade Tonight.
Microsoft's steps up Windows 10 nagging

The large pop-up screen, which first appeared over the weekend, gives users the option of upgrading straight away or ... that evening. Users can still opt out by clicking on the red 'X' in the top right corner of the window, but less savvy computer users* (part of Redmond's core market segments) might not figure that out.

[* Almost everyone not now migrated to Linux or OS X ]

 

[J Riff]

Wow 30 secs. that's impressive, you win. I would use a Mac, and will, the minute someone donates me one.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

30 secs. that's impressive

no, 10s would be impressive and wouldn't be.

My Mac boots in under 30 seconds and that's quick enough for me

Actually anything Less than 15s would be impressive, which would usually imply SSD. About 3 years ago I wiped a new Win 7 laptop (regular HDD) for a friend, it was taking nearly 90s. After a properly configured XP install it was 20s.
My Oldest XP Laptop* had its XP re-installed once, in June 2002. It still boots in 45s. Not too long to wait. Oddly the much newer laptop (several years old, got S/H) recently set up with Linux Mint and Mate Desktop) also takes 45s. I may upgrade HDD in it. My Netbook takes about 20s, it's using a 32G Compact Flash card instead of an HDD. Much slower to write to.

Boot time of itself doesn't mean much without knowing type of disk and configuration. Also personally, it's irrelevant. I boot two laptops at 7.25am and go make cups of tea for me and Mrs Ray. Then I log in. They are not turned off till about 11pm, or sometimes 3.30am if I'm on a writing binge.

[* Pretty much used 5 to 12hrs a day every day, on it's fourth battery pack, 2nd keyboard and second casing last year donated by a scrap machine bought for £10, 1600 x 1200 ultra sharp, 1.8GHz, yes it's over 13 years old! Only three months ago replaced by a Linux Mint Laptop for Internet etc, I'll still use it for XP stuff that has no Linux alternative or doesn't run on Linux's WINE]

 

[J Riff]

Well I found an HP tower PC a couple years back, and it was packed solid with insulation, red stuff. It took a while to blow it all out but then voila it runs great and has a 500G HD. This was sitting on the street and various people had looked at it and gone oooh nooo it's got insulation in there, don't touch it! I found 17 other towers, all scrapped now, during the craze for throwing away tower computers (?) .. which seems to have ended. Same for laptops, I have 4 working, the only ones don't work are the ones 'friends' gave me.
Now this IPOD. Given to someone who dint want it, with a bunch religious vids on it, and they just put it out on the street. It's on Amazon for 500+ bucks. Useless thing, gonna flog it if poss.
All of this stuff showed up just walking around, not hunting for it. There are a lot of people here with money to throw away I guess.

 

[J Riff]

And now a question not related to Win10. - Trying to play .dat video files. These are vids that play on various sites, that end up in the browser cache with a .dat extension, though it claims to be an .mp4 or .flv. They won't play with VLC or any other player I've tried.
Then there's software for converting and/or playing .dat files. None of it works.
'Cannot find video stream' and other messages. Tried a bunch of them now, nothing works. A minor annoyance, these files sit there, 50MB or whatever, and remain unplayable.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Some sites "videos" are malware or designed to trick you into downloading trojans pretending to be codecs.

Others really are video. Video files are really just "envelopes" with meta data saying what kind of video it is. As well as file format there is the video codec used, there are now very many. Without the correct codecs installed (only use legitimate sources) a video file or stream won't play. There is also DRM, without correct DRM enabled drivers videos with DRM won't play.

The .dat files mean what ever it was broken, nothing will know what those are. If a site is streaming video it only works at the time if you have all the correct things to play it. It's very unlikely you can utilise the cached .dat files. Delete them as they are either a menace or useless. If you can play BBC iPlayer, YouTube and Dailymotion, then likely you have the common video stuff sorted.

 

[J Riff]

Yep. Codecs, got 'em.These .dat files are hanging around.... it's weird how they will play in the browser, completely, then show up in the cache, yet won't play in the browser offline. It may send you back to the site and play it there, I guess in a player online somewhere? that ... and ... all this software claims .dat envelopes are decipherable... I mean I look at the file with an hex editor and sure enough it has .mp4 or .flv info there, but will-not-decode.
Too much work and finicking. It's hard enough to edit .mp4 and .flv as it is. Some have to be converted, others can be opened using a direct show codec.
Meanwhile... people at the coffeeshop are dling their Win10 updates... and sticking at 97%.A sound card or driver problem, just like Win98? Mercy.*

 

[Vertigo]

I think you'll find the .dat files just contain the data for the video streaming but not the video itself. DAT is certainly not a video file extension.

 

[Phyrebrat]

<guilty admission face> @J Riff ;

My Mac does not boot up in 30 seconds. I had to restart over the weekend and it took well over a minute!

I must have a higher opinion of it, or a crappy sense of timing (worrying for a dance teacher)



pH

 

[J Riff]

I know. It's about a minute here too. And aha, the streaming stuff, that eggsplains it. As for dance lessons on youTube, well why not?

 

[Bodhi]

Resistance.... is .... futile?

 

[mosaix]

Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking - BBC News

Microsoft has revealed details about the data it is tracking via its new operating system (OS), Windows 10.

In a blog, the firm listed statistics on how many minutes had been spent by users in total in the Edge browser and the number of photographs which had been viewed in the Photo app.

 

[J Riff]

Just watched a 'hacker' movie - The Throwaways, which lives up to its title. In it, the hackster can log in to any computer, bank account, any car or power grid, and blow things up, slam on the brakes, shut down your PC, anything at all. Probably he was using Win10?