Hello windows my old friend

I ditched windows (98) about around 2005 but I was dual booting since at least 2003. Skipped XP entirely, i admit, but i got acquainted with it later. I was tired of the periodical woes of windows, of needing an antivirus, of registry issues, of defragmenting and so on. Lately I had an unused old , but not too old laptop with Vista, and an unused ssd so I put them together and slapped on it Win10, licensed in case you ask. Wanted to see if it was so good as an old friend of mine (that in the meantime had shifted from "senior programmer" to "certified dangerous nutcase" and I'm not joking by the least bit over this matter) told me, in a not very amicable fashion, let that be known. He used to be a linux geek, once.
First week: honeymoon. Then after installing really not much, things started to go awry. Cortana stopped working, the audio driver got corrupted and disappeared, after uninstalling a third party antivirus windows defender couldn't be put back to work even manipulating the registry, 'microsoft store' stupid games started appearing installed spite of me never having thought to install them and so on. Also, the touchpad that worked under Vista now wakes up. long after boot, in presence of an USB cordless mouse.
It is not that Linux(es) don't have their issues, they do but you don't waste an installation as long as you just install a few utils , neither the system craps on you after two or three weeks. Really not impressed.

 

Computers with Vista preinstalled were being sold around 2006 to 2009, so your “not too old” laptop must be 11+ years old. No wonder you were having problems with Windows 10

 

After years of issues with one version or another of Windows, I finally succumbed to a techie friend's advice, and gave Linux a try. Wow...what a difference! I don't see me ever going back to Windows. Even with anti-virus software (which of course made the computer much slower) my computers that ran Windows inevitably became so riddled with viruses that they became unusable. Never have had one tiny issue with viruses while running Linux. Sorry I resisted trying it for so many years!

 

Quite obvious that you didn't understand much of what I said. The PC was doing fine with windows 10, performance-wise, also thanks to the SSD. Not lighting fast , but more than acceptable for the limited use I put it on. It was fluid and responsive enough. The trouble is that the configuration of windows itself went to hell. Device drivers, functions of the system , don't just break up and die because the pc is too slow. In my opinion Windows was, and STILL IS a shack that grew into a cathedral , a closed system where one tweak can break things in unexpected ways that are very hard to fix. Also, if the system decides to install a stupid windows store demo game I didn't want and places it in the desktop, i consider it a deal breaker. It is not reasonable that if i uninstall an antivirus then windows defender can't be put back into use. Attempted a registry hack and it seemed to work for a couple of minutes, then Defender crapped its pants and announced that an unknown error occurred. Unknown ? the hell does that mean ? fuck you microsoft. And no, I'm not wasting my good modern computers with wincrap. an old toshiba from 2008 is more than it deserves.

 

Throw that crap in the garbage, don’t be a hoarder

 

haha... i also salvaged a machine from the heap scrap and now it runs freeBSD that btw is a system even grumpier than ME. it is a ssh backup server now, but for the love of Pete don't mess too much with that... leave Beastie alone (it is the bsd mascotte, a devil in sneakers) or it will break in ways i've never seen before. messing with a dvd burner (i didn't need anyway) repeatedly brought the machine to a state where i couldn't shutdown it properly and power cycling led to corruption of the / and/or /home filesystem that needed to be fsck'ed in rescue mode after umount ... wait, wasn't that a JOURNAL filesystem ? also, differntly from Linux, I don't know of magic SysRq keys combos to issue orders directly to the kernel so one can do an emergency sync/ remount of the FS. But i'm green with freeBSD.
And yes im a massive hoarder, in this room I still have a pc running windows 2.0 , still running since 1987

 

if you want to add even more security to your machine with linux, there is firejail.
you can sandbox applications easily so that they run insulated from the system and if you add the parameter --private the browser will be in the same condition everytime you fire it up... but thre is a downside, everything you download during such a session is lost forever. you can't save nothing. including malware and viruses because the browser doesn't have access to your filesystem. this could be a good idea if you want to have a high security browser. i aslo advise to install a script blocker like uMatrix., but only if you are the paranoid type going great lengths for that extra protection: can make browsing quite cumbersome.
Apart from that, welcome aboard the Linux ship, and feel free to ask me whenever you need help with it.

 

How much porn are you looking at?

 

You're implying that the only way to get a computer virus is by looking at online porn?

But, yeah...*some* porn was involved...

Seriously, though...wherever it came from, I haven't had any problems since switching to Linux. So, wherever the crap came from...I'm not bothered by it any longer.

 

Does Linux ever run into issues of compatibility, or does it seem to run whatever software you want?

 

Sure...there *can* be some compatability issues. I don't run any vital software, so it's not really an issue for me. I imagine it varies from application to application.

If I did have some specialized software, if possible...I would load whatever version of Windows allowed that software to operate, onto a partitioned disk, and I would only use that software/Windows version while offline. Then I'd switch back to Linux for any online endeavors.

 

My (Windows 10) laptop is pretty much only used to watch movies and YouTube or other media on my living room TV (which it’s hooked up to via HDMI). I primarily browse the internet with my iPad or phone. I’m on here with my iPad right now.

 

Get Windows 8.1 It has been a very dependable OS and my fallback 'go to' OS for a while now. When you install it, make sure to UNCHECK EVERYTHING. There is a selection box for UPDATES, select DISABLE UPDATES (not recommended) by Microsoft, Highly recommended by me. Turn off all Microsoft spying and tracking telemetry bullshit. DO NOT have the internet connected while it sets up!! Skip that shit. When it's done installing there's a few things to do before connecting to the net. Uninstall all the BS app tiles you don't want. Go to Control Panel / System / Advanced system setiings / and uncheck REMOTE ACCESS. Go to Computer Management / Services / and disable Update Service. You can also disable Windows Search and Workstation services.

Do that and Microsoft will never fuck up your day again!

 

they've stopped support for older versions of windows if I remember correctly. My parents had an old Acer of mine that was running Windows 7 or something, and received a warning that support would soon be discontinued. The machine was slow anyway, so we replaced it with another of my old laptops; a Lenovo with Windows 10 (we had to update it, but I don't remember when...).

 

during the days of windows 98 most of the rogue code ran around on physical media like floppy disks and bootleg software CDs (remember Twilight?)

 

what i like about windows is that its shit

 

I actually dig windows... Lol

My mom has a chromebook. It runs an Ubuntu based OS. I think... I'm pretty sure it's Linux.

 

I have an old 486sx out in the shed, along with a 386dx-40, both of which ran dos/win311, as well as my Acer Aspire One running WinXP. The Acer was one of the first netbooks to come out, and one of the last that had XP on them before Win7 came out.

First thing I did was shrunk the main partition, create another partition for Slackware, and later PC-BSD-8.1, which creates it's own partition. That thing ran like a racehorse on fire. I seldom use the XP partition, except when I want to run some old dos/win stuff so I did what another guy here did: I got into the system and shut down all services and other crap I didn't want, which is anything allowing access FROM the net and anything that installs stuff without being told to. Deleted winsecurity stuff (NOT secure), winTime crap, and a bunch of other shizzle I don't trust to work right without breaking/compromising things.

I run a ClamStik to scan my system when I feel the need, but since I don't allow anything anywhere to access my machine from the net I've never had to worry about getting any malware, even when browsing. I've avoided porn and don't even like the clickbait stuff, either.

Downside: Clam is run from a stick manually with a separate OS on it, so it can access all drives and partitions with impunity. If running it from windows, you won't be able to delete any files, including malware, because they'll be in use by the system. This is the biggest headache with windows antivirus stuff. Booting from a USB stik solves that nicely. Did I mention that it must be run MANUALLY...? Yeah, there ain't no online scanning in the background with this. Plug in yer stik and boot, then run the program and tell it what drive to scan and whatever else you want.

Upside: I haven't had to do this but once since I got that AO1 brand new, and it's now over ten years old and still clean as a whistle.

 

Most problems are caused by lack of understanding of the system and it's main components. The most common faults are.

RAM.
Both the operating system and the mother board have an upper limit. Exceeding either of these by adding RAM sticks can cause all manner of problems.

SSD.
Requires the motherboard to run differently and not attempt defragmentation. The requirement is AHCI (advanced host controller interface). Without this, SSD will not run correctly. Even if the system is capable, if it previously ran on conventional drives, it needs to be re-programmed to change to AHCI.

Regarding operating systems, XP professional is one of the best. However it was released too early, so most systems required updates including 2 massive service packs. The bit rate only changed in the final year and cannot be updated.
For professional use, it is still available and runs the London tube network computers introduced last year. It is not available to the public and will not run gaming applications.

Windows 10 is a nightmare and in conjunction with Google knows more about what I am doing than I do. The high complexity of all the 'spy' components makes it run like a snail.
It also updates when it feels like it, in one case shutting the London Ambulance Service down for 90 minutes. .

 

Shutting down the london Ambulance Service is really special. Was there any blowback afterwards?