Windows Vista?

[Gogf]

You know the problem? The luser tends to think that you power on the pc and everything should go ok forever. Nope. The PC is like a car. It require good mainteinance, both software and hardware. It requires conscious use.

If you upgrade your software and don't stay with the oldest runnable version you can find, you don't need to waste your time giving it maintenance.

 

[tR1cKy]

If you upgrade your software and don't stay with the oldest runnable version you can find, you don't need to waste your time giving it maintenance.

Gogf, if the meaning of your sentence is "with an upgraded software you don't need manteinance", then yours is just an illusion. If not, sorry in advance for having misunderstood you.

No matter how much you upgrade, a PC will always require manteinance. With upgrades, in the best case scenario you'll have few problems to deal about and so less time spent on manteinance. In the worst case scenario, you find yourself with a thing that don't work anymore, or a PC that need to be reformatted and reinstalled from scratch.

A question that should be enlightening: expert system administrators are often very cautious about the latest M$ patches. Why? Why do they install them only after extensive testings, and in some cases they don't install them at all, preferring to keep the system insecure?

 

[Gogf]

Gogf, if the meaning of your sentence is "with an upgraded software you don't need manteinance", then yours is just an illusion. If not, sorry in advance for having misunderstood you.

No matter how much you upgrade, a PC will always require manteinance. With upgrades, in the best case scenario you'll have few problems to deal about and so less time spent on manteinance. In the worst case scenario, you find yourself with a thing that don't work anymore, or a PC that need to be reformatted and reinstalled from scratch.

A question that should be enlightening: expert system administrators are often very cautious about the latest M$ patches. Why? Why do they install them only after extensive testings, and in some cases they don't install them at all, preferring to keep the system insecure?

I have done absolutely zero maitenance on the hardware of this computer since I bought it a year an a half ago. Aside from a couple of Windows related freezes, I have had no problems. To use a computer for ten years, yes, you will need to spent time maintaining your hardware.

However, I don't see much of a need to upgrade from XP. I have my PC only because of compatability issues with my Mac.

 

[tR1cKy]

All right, there are cases in which no manteinance is done and everything works fine. I should have said "usually" instead of "always".

 

[MarineCorps]

Condidering the huge mass of bloatware WindozeXP comes bundled with, it's more the contrary.

You clearly don't know what your talking about. Besides WMP and a few little programs there isn't much XP comes with. It doesn't even come with a pdf reader. I installed quite a few programs because M$ lacked them.

 

[Goober]

Goober: WINE is an excellent free "emulator" ("WINE Is Not an Emulator"), although it is far from perfect. For office apps, Crossover Office (based on WINE) is absolutely superb (and only costs ~$35).

Games are a little harder, in part because MS 'breaks' its own OS to maintain compatability with some games. (There are many, many places in the OS with code that runs roughly, "IF <running app> = <game name> THEN <ignore the fixed code and run the broken stuff>".) However, Transgaming's Cedega (also based on WINE) does a very good job with current, popular games. Cost is ~$30 minimum (6 month subscription at $5/month). I use it to play Civ3 almost daily.

Yes, but purchasing Cedega requires a Credit Card, which I don't have, and I don't want to get one just for Cedega just to play games that I really don't have time for anyway. I also have a free version of WINE, but it doesn't seem to work, so I've kinda given up.

I need WinXP anyway because I am taking a course at College which requires me to use Microsoft Office, so I need XP just for that. Unfortunately

 

[tR1cKy]

You clearly don't know what your talking about. Besides WMP and a few little programs there isn't much XP comes with. It doesn't even come with a pdf reader. I installed quite a few programs because M$ lacked them.

Uh! Yes, clearly i don't know what i'm talking about. It's a bless that there are some "computer experts" like you so they can impart wisdom on us, poor lusers

Hint: get a book and learn the difference between the tasks of: 1) an operating system and 2) an application that runs on it.

I need WinXP anyway because I am taking a course at College which requires me to use Microsoft Office, so I need XP just for that. Unfortunately

You may be surprised to know that M$ Office works fine also in Win98 and 2000. XP is not mandatory to use it. It's also possible to run it on Linux. BTW, a course on college teaching Microsoft Office?!? Shouldn't this course be a little more advanced?!?

About Cedega and WINE: well, Cedega is something that a power user may find useful, interesting to "play" with and worth the money spent. WINE needs some tinkering to work right, and has its limitations. For the moment, you'd better forget the things.

@Padma: didn't you mention VMWare? Ok, it's somewhat different, but it's also a great tool to run everything on a linux box, supposing you have a well warmed-up system. We've used it to test the effect of viruses and spyware without be forced to reformat a system later.

 

[Gogf]

You may be surprised to know that M$ Office works fine also in Win98 and 2000. XP is not mandatory to use it. It's also possible to run it on Linux. BTW, a course on college teaching Microsoft Office?!? Shouldn't this course be a little more advanced?!?

He said the course required it, not that it was being taught.

Also, if you had read the full post, he was saying he needed Windows to run Office, as he uses Linux.

 

[tR1cKy]

He said the course required it, not that it was being taught...

Uh! Read again... you're right. This is actually a blunder by mine.

Also, if you had read the full post, he was saying he needed Windows to run Office, as he uses Linux.

Gogf, can't you do better? I read that part, and replied that M$ Office can be run on other windoze platform, and even on Linux, under certain conditions. Who's the one not reading the full posts?

Anyway, why XP? If you don't want to tinker too much with Linux, you can use win2000, that is a fairly serious thing. XP is a joke.

 

[Padma]

Also, if you had read the full post, he was saying he needed Windows to run Office, as he uses Linux.

Crossover Office runs MS Office in Linux very well, thank you. (So does VMWare, as Tr1cky reminded me. ) I have never tried Win4Lin, but it might handle MSOffice, also.

As for teaching MS Windows/MS Office at college, my daughter is currently being forced to take "Intro to Computer Operating Systems" (because they won't let her test out of it), which is a *very* basic "How to use Windows XP" course. (For example, they have a complete chapter on how to create/delete a folder; how to navigate folders through "My Computer", etc. :shakehead) Fortunately for her, she works for that professor as part of her Work-Study program, and while she is nominally a member of the class, he is actually using her as a Teaching Assistant. (He even apologized to her for having to take the class!)

@Goober: I understand the payment problem with Cedega. You might want to download the source code from the CVS tree. It is freely available to compile. What that *doesn't* have is the proprietary libraries to handle CD copy-protection. Although if you get no-CD cracks, that shouldn't be a problem (looks nervously over his shoulder).

@Tr1cky: VMWare is excellent for running normal apps. I haven't tried it lately, but as recently as last year it didn't handle DirectX (= games) very well at all, IIRC. Win4Lin is cheaper than VMWare, but it isn't as good (you get what you pay for?). Cedega is the best choice I've seen for getting Windows *games* to run in Linux.

 

[tR1cKy]

For what i know, the problem VMWare has with DirectX is due to some 3d hardware acceleration functions that are still unsupported. Anyway, i should have pointed out that VMWare is generally not for games: the fact that the system runs over an emulation layer causes a severe performance hit in tasks that are usually so demanding in terms of cpu power and memory.

@Padma: it's sad to know that colleges over there have reached such a low standard. If i was you, i'll protest heavily for having my money wasted on those kindergarden courses, although i fear that the protest would fall on deaf ears :shakehead

 

[Padma]

What bothers me even more than that they're even teaching such a course, is that the students seem to have such a hard time understanding it. Okay, geezers my age aren't normally computer geeks, and a lot of them taking this class haven't really been exposed to computers that much. But the kids my daughter's age and younger! One girl told me daughter she was so happy she was their to help -- she failed the class once last semester!

 

[tR1cKy]

That's scary!

Among other things, i work at the local health agency (dunno what is the equivalent in US terms). Well, considering what you say, 50-60 years old clerks (that never saw a puter until a few years ago!) learn better than those kids! Here if you don't know how to do at least the basics you're almost cut off from every office work.

 

[Gogf]

Gogf, can't you do better? I read that part, and replied that M$ Office can be run on other windoze platform, and even on Linux, under certain conditions. Who's the one not reading the full posts?

Anyway, why XP? If you don't want to tinker too much with Linux, you can use win2000, that is a fairly serious thing. XP is a joke.

I did not know you could run Office on Linux, and thought you were reffering to the Open Office program (or whatever it's called) when you said that. Sorry.

I still don't get how XP is a joke. Perhaps for a serious developer, but for most people's everyday needs, XP works fine, thank you.

 

[tR1cKy]

I did not know you could run Office on Linux, and thought you were reffering to the Open Office program (or whatever it's called) when you said that. Sorry.

No problem.

But since you introduced the thing, OpenOffice is a good substitute of M$ Office. The last version handles Word, Excel and Powerpoint files quite well - ok, it lacks an equivalent of Access, but would you call Access a serious database?

I still don't get how XP is a joke. Perhaps for a serious developer, but for most people's everyday needs, XP works fine, thank you.

You know what XP is good for? Gaming. And it's not even mandatory. Many games can be run on Linux. Civ3 runs flawlessly on windoze 98. I still have to stumble upon a game that has problems with windoze 98, but i must confess that i haven't tried the latest ones.

If you want to do serious things with the PC and don't have the time, knowledge etc. to use Linux, 2000 is the way to go. XP is nothing but a decent gaming platform, plus a huge load of unnecessary stuff that almost all the conscious users (still a tiny minority ) avoid like a plague.

 

[Speedo]

XP is nothing but a decent gaming platform, plus a huge load of unnecessary stuff that almost all the conscious users (still a tiny minority ) avoid like a plague.

Still waiting to hear what you think this stuff is.

That's exactly what i meant. And i showed it to be wrong. If it was not clear, my fault. Please note that i'm not born english speaking. But i know it enough to have the impression that you're just playing with semantics.

"Modern computing environment" != "modern computer hardware."

It's the modern world in which our PCs have to operate. Case in point: Your Windows 98 hasn't had anyone working on fixing its security holes for what, 2-3 years now? Can't remember when M$ officially dumped their support of it. Your OS out there playing with things like spyware which hadn't even been dreamed up when it was released.

And you call them insults? Funny how you ignore a typical geekly slang word (luser) that stands for "computer illiterate". But it won't be insulting anyway, since it's not aimed at someone in particular. I'm just describing a cathegory of people that, like it or not, are computer illiterates. You should know very well what i'm talking about, since you claim to work in the field.

I guess it's because I don't usually bother with "geeky slang." Where I work we call them "users" and joke about their idiocy in plain english.

 

[tR1cKy]

Still waiting to hear what you think this stuff is.

All right, just in case you don't really know :shakehead

Tons of disney style graphics, nice effects, loads of animations, all graphic bloat that serves no purpose, other than wasting disk space, stealing memory and eating cpu cycles.

A browser old and inherently insecure, prone to all sort of attacks. Do you like CWS?

A multimedia player that is cumbersome and exploitable. It also [url="http://lwn.net/2002/0228/a/ms-dvd.php3]phones home[/url] when a DVD is played - or at least it did until last year.

A useless "windows messenger" that is completely useless and was (don't know if still is) considered "a critical update" by M$. Do you like the balloons?

Do you like DRM?

A firewall that is a joke.

But the firewall was very efficient in making several online games impossible to play and interfered with the automatic update of some AV. Ok, i guess it can be configured to restore those connections, or it is a joke for real.

A windows search function that phones home and download files from sa.m$.com, but if i recall correctly it was harmless.

More that i don't remember now.

You didn't quote the smilie.

"Modern computing environment" != "modern computer hardware."

It's the modern world in which our PCs have to operate.

All right. I misunderstood then. But if you say "the modern world" it's simplier to understand and less ambigous. Environment has more than 1 meaning. In dictionary.com i found, among the others:

1. The entire set of conditions under which one operates a computer, as it relates to the hardware, operating platform, or operating system.

2. An area of a computer's memory used by the operating system and some programs to store certain variables to which they need frequent access.

So "modern computing environment" may be meaning "modern hardware" as well.

Case in point: Your Windows 98 hasn't had anyone working on fixing its security holes for what, 2-3 years now? Can't remember when M$ officially dumped their support of it. Your OS out there playing with things like spyware which hadn't even been dreamed up when it was released.

Ah, security. My pc at work is a win98 and it has no antivirus. Guess how many times it got pestered by viruses, spyware or scumware of any sort? Not one.

If someone is a luser he will never be safe. Even if his box is well protected, it's only a matter of time before he does something stupid that screw up his security. Not considering that the box can never be 100% protected. What if you get a virus before the AV signature is updated?

A more conscious user is less likely to be pestered by scum code. It knows how to set up some defenses. It knows what it's better not to do. How many lusers download "unofficial" stuff with P2P and doesn't even scan what they have just uh... found by accident?

If you consider this, the OS is irrelevant. I concede that a luser is even more vulnerable with 98 than XP, but the real difference is only the amount of time passed before he gets the pox.

 

[Gogf]

No problem.

But since you introduced the thing, OpenOffice is a good substitute of M$ Office. The last version handles Word, Excel and Powerpoint files quite well - ok, it lacks an equivalent of Access, but would you call Access a serious database?

How does this program compare in actual usability to Word? Can I still make my outlines using the number bullet feature (after learning how to do this I found it indespensible)? Can I run this on my Mac?

You know what XP is good for? Gaming. And it's not even mandatory. Many games can be run on Linux. Civ3 runs flawlessly on windoze 98. I still have to stumble upon a game that has problems with windoze 98, but i must confess that i haven't tried the latest ones.

If you want to do serious things with the PC and don't have the time, knowledge etc. to use Linux, 2000 is the way to go. XP is nothing but a decent gaming platform, plus a huge load of unnecessary stuff that almost all the conscious users (still a tiny minority ) avoid like a plague.

A better solution is just to buy a Mac .

 

[vbraun]

OpenOffice is a very good alternative to M$ Office. Try it out, its free.

 

[Goober]

I tried that, Padma. The CVS thingie didn't work, and got me more confused then ever.

For the record, I have OpenOffice with Ubuntu 5.04, and it works like a dream. Autosave, it opens Word, Excel and Powerpoint perfectly, and I have no idea about Access, but, then again, I'm still not 100% sure what Access is (that is later in my student M$ Office Course that I am forced to take). Anyway, OpenOffice is a pretty darn good free version of M$ Office, and its yet to crash on me, and take out stuff, even when I have left it running for days at a time while writing huge essays. I still have M$ Office on my XP, but only for that stupid course, because I need it. I would get rid of it if I could. By it I mean Windows altogether.