New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)

[Bob Eager]

I use KDE....but not Linux!

[The Natural Philosopher]

unless you had a program that allocated and deallocated kernel memory. IIRC a friend who discovered this wrote just such a program. You lose 4 bytes every time..for ever.

[The Natural Philosopher]

what then..BSD?

[Bernard Peek]

It still has its uses. If you want a generic Windows virtual machine then NT4 has the advantages of being reasonably stable without hogging too much memory. That's particularly important if you are running several VMs.

[Bob Eager]

Yup. Been using it since 1977...not the same version, of course!

[BillW50]

Is that after you disabled the UAC I think it is called? I was just visiting my sister yesterday and I was trying to get her WiFi to work. And when all fails, RTFM right? So I opened up a PDF file and it complained that Adobe Reader 7 was known to have issues with this version of Windows. Well that is great it warns you about this I guess.

But I ignored the warning and opened the document anyway. Everything worked fine for me. But isn't it a given if an older version of an application doesn't work well with a newer OS, it is time to check for updates? Why do we need our hand held and to be reminded of this over and over again?

Well I don't think you will find one to disagree with you there. Even those that dislikes Windows 7 will even admit this. ;-)

Oh I do, just to mix things up a bit. But I admit that Windows XP does

100% of what I want to do. While Windows 7 does about 95%. And Linux comes in at about 25%.

[Bernard Peek]

UAC is one of the best new features in Windows and I don't recommend disabling it. A significant fraction of Windows machines are compromised because users do dumb things. If you keep running into UAC under W7 you should rethink how you are using the computer. It's a little too aggressive in Vista but W7 fixes that.

That's been true since automated patching was invented.

[Bruce]

I don't have that use for it. My NT-equipped PC has been replaced twice since, in each case with computers supplied with a copy of the then-current variant of Windows, and the computer I use for work is a Mac, so it's just a memory now. But it is a good memory, because it was just about crash-proof - even better than a Mac!

[Sjouke Burry]

I have a fully up to date XP sp3, and I would like to hold onto that as long as possible. However, speed seems to decrease after each update nowadays. How essential have those updates become? Browser and mail Thunderbitd and firefox. I am starting to think it would be smart to quit XP udate in the near future. Any opinions/suggestions?

[BillW50]

Really? Windows 7 froze up whenever I placed my favorite BattStat v0.98 utility in the startup with UAC enabled. I had to tell it always it was okay to run every time I booted the machine. This is totally unnecessary.

AFAIK, UAC can be either on or off. There are no other options. It would be very nice if it allowed some programs a free pass and selectable by the user. There were others programs that UAC complained about too, but BattStat was one that bugged me the most.

I have some computers that I get almost every update. Although I also have some computers that I never update. And I never had any virus on any of them and I am connected to the Internet all of the time. So I am having some serious concerns whether updates really makes a system more secure or not.

The biggest threat are newer viruses. And newer viruses like newer applications require the latest patches to work well. So sometimes at least, unpatched older OS can actually be safer IMHO.

And no, I disagree that this has been true since auto patching. As so far, Windows XP and Vista doesn't have this WAT piracy checking system which can downgrade your OS at any time of Microsoft choosing. Where Microsoft is the judge and jury. And where you are guilty until you can prove otherwise. And if you can't to Microsoft's liking, you must pay a fee to get your OS back again. And you are not out of the clear either. As Microsoft could downgrade your OS over and over again to collect more fees any time they feel fit.

Just look at the possibilities here. You could say something bad about Microsoft and they could turn around and target your computer for a downgrade. And charge you a ransom to get your OS up and running once again. You know they will if they knew they could get away with it. And knowing how Microsoft operates, I wouldn't hold it passed them.

[BillW50]

Yes! I have some systems with updates and some without. And the ones without are not getting infected with viruses anyway, so what's the point?

Some updates adds features or fixes bugs. Although if the feature(s) doesn't interest you, I don't see the point. And bug fixes are only useful if they fix your problem you are having. Otherwise they don't have anything to offer you. And they can cause a new problem that you never had before.

I personally believe in the old saying, don't fix something that ain't broke. So while I am in the minority, I believe in time more and more will also be convinced that OS updates are not necessary a good thing to blindly always do.

[Barry Watzman]

The problem is that there are a lot of programs (older programs) that will generate UAC prompts every time you start them, and every time you do certain things within them. Even if you are not even connected to the internet. The best solution may be to configure UAC on a program-by-program basis. This actually is possible, but it's not something that MS intended to support, and, consequently, it's not easy or user friendly.

Bernard Peek wrote:

[Barry Watzman]

See my previous post. It is possible to configure UAC on a program-by-program basis, but it's not user friendly. A web search will find instructions for doing so. Be prepared to do a lot of things manually.

BillW50 wrote:

[Barry Watzman]

[Bernard Peek]

Well yess. You really shouldn't be using programs that trigger UAC.

That wouldn't be very nice for the rest of us that have to cope with spam sent by compromised systems.

There were others programs that UAC complained about too, but

In the Windows world it's possible to check whether a computer has been properly patched and deny it access to the network if it fails the test. Unfortunately any ISP who tried to do that would go out of business.

You've got that backwards. Viruses are often created by reverse-engineering the latest patches, but they then only affect unpatched systems. That's why there's a danger period starting about two days after a new patch is released. That's why running unpatched systems on the Internet is irresponsible and if I was emperor of the universe it wouldn't be permitted.

Microsoft has made that patch optional but there is nothing stopping them from dropping that restriction at any time they choose.

This is absolutely true. And has been true since automatic patching was invented.

They have had the capability to do that for years but have never used it. The same is true of the Mac and for those Linux users that can't rebuild the kernel from source.

[Bernard Peek]

Programs that trigger UAC usually do it by attempting to write to the data folders. Programmers who write code that does that may have other unsavoury habits. It's best to avoid using programs from companies like that.

[Tim Streater]

Yes, I remember it being pretty solid, too. But it still had the disadvantages of being a flavour of windows. Still, luckily now I get to choose what machine I use so Windows is a distant memory.

[AJL]

In Vista I use a free program called TweakUAC which says it allows UAC to run but in "quiet mode". Having never gotten a virus before or after installation I can't say how effective it is in quiet mode, but at least it never bugs me much anymore... ;)

[BillW50]

In news:hqfc83$f1u$ [e-mail], Barry Watzman typed on Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:33:06 -0400:

Okay. I filed it away in my brain cells in case I ever need it in the future and it is good to know that this can be done. Of course, I better make a backup of this on my hard drive just in case those brain cells start to misbehave. ;-)

[BillW50]

In news:hqfcai$f1u$ [e-mail], Barry Watzman typed on Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:34:25 -0400:

Yes I admit on paper it looks good to update all of the time. Although in practice, it looks far better avoiding updates.

I started learning this truth during the OS/2 switchover from Microsoft code over to IBM code. As many recall OS/2 v1.xx was all Microsoft code. OS/2 v2 was almost all Microsoft code too. Then Microsoft and IBM parted company. And IBM was left with OS/2 v1 and v2 code and Microsoft's OS/2 v3 code stayed with Microsoft. And Microsoft's OS/2 v3 code turned into Microsoft's Windows NT.

IBM tried to make their own OS/2 v3 and it was a real disaster. They really tried to rewrite OS/2 with all of their own code. And every OS/2 update that IBM put out was called fixpacs. And every fixpac just made things worse and worse and at some point they had to plug in the Microsoft code back in to make it work again. What a mess!

I gave up with OS/2 and IBM after OS/2 v3 ordeal and the dozens of fixpacs that didn't work right. I hear tell that IBM did finally got it right later with v4 and I think there was a v5 too. But IBM had lost a majority of OS/2 users by this point that most left for something else that worked. Usually this was towards Windows, IBM's competitor.

Since day one of personal computers, I believed in having more than one computer. This allows for many things. As no fear of one computer failing is one big plus right there. Plus you are free to experiment on a spare that you would never do with a single computer system.

And years after that OS/2 ordeal, Microsoft updates started to have their own problems too. As I remember Explorer breaking on some of my systems with every other update. And the next update without any input from me would fix it once again. It just seemed to be a normal part of keeping Windows up-to-date. Thank goodness for spares around that I didn't update to get my work done in between.

Since some of my spares I stopped accepting any updates, all is fine with them so far for the past number of years. So I am highly considering reinstalling Windows XP SP2 without any other updates just to see what happens. Heck I haven't ran the original Windows XP release in so long, I might even experiment there as well.