Questions, as I just bought a new laptop, and it came with the latest brain farts from redmond in it.  First is, the control panel?  Do we now crawl to the idiots that wrote that crap?  The screen it goes to for people that can't read, any way to stop it from doing that?  If not, how to get rid of all the junk they think is essential?  Any way to disable the touch screen?  I don't want that, with reasons, being as I sometimes measure off the screen. 

This thing is totally unusable as it is, could be the biggest mistake I've made in a long time. 

Or, can this trash be jerked out and win 7 installed?  Anyone tried that? 

But, is there any way this can be turned into a workable operating system?

Do Firefox and Thunderbird work with it? 

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

You can run all the programs which Windows 7 can

Access the control panel by rightclicking the left bottom of the screen. That will give you several options - including the control panel

I use it on one machine. Is it better as Windows 7? - No. Is it worse as Win7? Not really. You can install a 3rd party tool to add the start button and you get back to what you are used to.

I am no fan either of the Modern UI. But after a few months it does not bother me anymore since I hardly ever see it

 

Thanks.  Now I try to see if it recognizes a legitimate mouse instead of the touchpad.  All I can say is they couldn't have done a better job of screwing things up if that was their main goal.  This is lousy.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

If you have Win 7 disks you can install Win 7 if you hate W8 so much. A classic case of not doing a little bit of research before buying a product. Why would you buy something you apparently know nothing about?

Quote - Thanks.  Now I try to see if it recognizes a legitimate mouse instead of the touchpad.  All I can say is they couldn't have done a better job of screwing things up if that was their main goal.  This is lousy.

Doric.

I have my mouse, my tablet, space navigator all on this machine. No problem whatsover

Once you click on the desktop it is like windows 7 (without the start button)

Pin your favorite programs in the taskbar and you have immediate access to them and no need to go to the modern ui

After all - underneath it is windows 7

 

Quote - If you have Win 7 disks you can install Win 7 if you hate W8 so much. A classic case of not doing a little bit of research before buying a product. Why would you buy something you apparently know nothing about?

Have you tried to find a laptop without that abortion already loaded?  I didn't go into it blind.  But I needed another box for on line, and probably not for very long.  Wasn't going to spend like I did for my good boxes, ain't got that kind of money for what little use it's going to get.  Win 7 is available only if I buy a computer and specify they shouldn't load anything, then copies of Win 7 are still available.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Goto: http://www.classicshell.net/   ...and reclaim your start button!  After that, I don't find Windows 8 that bad.

It's getting increasingly difficult to find an off-the-shelf PC that DOESN'T come with Win8 preinstalled. Dell is clearing out the last of their Win7 machines, and I snagged one before they were all gone. For some reason, it seems like every other Windows operating system sucks (I'm thinking of ME, Vista, and now Win8); hopefully this new machine will keep me going 'til Windows 9 is ready (and keep your fingers crossed that Microsoft learns from this latest disaster and that Win9 doesn't blow chunks, also).

Microsoft?  Learn? 

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

I know. It's an unlikely prospect, but one can hope...

sorry to say win9 is almost identical to 8

i have it for a beta test period and it sucks

ill stick with my customized vista premium for now

 

I got it running, with much cursing and swearing, and I'm not impressed.  Wishing I could put in XP Pro, but I don't think that would work.  If they'd put in an option for "Windows classic", that would help a lot, it's how I stomach my Win 7 boxes.  Kinda like a caveman looking at a ball bat, "Pretty for nice, not good for stout."  I have no doubt they'll continue the downward spiiral, stopping when they contact the ground at a high rate of speed.  I hope soon.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

even microsoft has admited that win8 was a bomb

i chopped my way through the weaknesses of vista long ago ans now im ok with the skeleton i have running

it almost makes me want a mac

 

PC sales have cratered since Win8 debuted, and it isn't because of the bad economy. God forbid I'm eventually forced to use a Mac, but if Microsoft doesn't learn from this debacle, I don't see much alternative. (Linux isn't an option, since I'm pretty sure there aren't -- and won't be -- Linus versions of Poser, Photoshop, or 3ds Max). As it is, I'll hold on to my Win7 machines until they pry them from my cold dead hands.

My previous post is bugging me as I appeared rude to the OP, wasn't meant that way and my apologies.

ashley its less rude that you belive

in some areas win7 is still the norm while in others win8 is common

we cannot expect everyone to have the same understanding of every town and place

dorik is frustrated by a new OS and tempers  get short

just be respectfull and remember when you had to upgrade and relearn an OS

in time it gets easier

 

Quote - I have my mouse, my tablet, space navigator all on this machine. No problem whatsover

 

And you've just listed one more port than this thing has.  I'll be trying to put Kensington Trackballworks in, maybe today, but me and a touchpad don't get along at all.  To say I hate them is a bit of an understatement.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - My previous post is bugging me as I appeared rude to the OP, wasn't meant that way and my apologies.

I wasn't offended.  And I didn't say that unless I want to drive thirty miles out of town for anything computer related, I'm stuck with the king of cheap chinese.  You know, the stores where it takes you longer to find a sales person than it does to find what you're looking for. 

I wanted a laptop so I can have a tutorial running on it while I'm working on one of my better computers.  Any computer I have that's on line, now two of them, has nothing else installed.  MYdownloads file on this one is a nightmare, but when that's all it's used for other than forums, it doesn't matter.

But, I'll try to use the new pos for that purpose, then resign it to the closet with the old Sony running ME.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

I must be weird, I'm actually enjoying Windows 8, so far it's my favorite version of Windows.

Quote - t is, could be the biggest mistake I've made in a long time.  Or, can this trash be jerked out and win 7 installed?  Anyone tried that? 

But, is there any way this can be turned into a workable operating system?

 

Stardock makes an app that returns Windows 8 to a more familiar desktop GUI.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - PC sales have cratered since Win8 debuted, and it isn't because of the bad economy. God forbid I'm eventually forced to use a Mac, but if Microsoft doesn't learn from this debacle, I don't see much alternative. (Linux isn't an option, since I'm pretty sure there aren't -- and won't be -- Linus versions of Poser, Photoshop, or 3ds Max). As it is, I'll hold on to my Win7 machines until they pry them from my cold dead hands.

 

Windows 7 still has quite a few number of years of support left from Microsoft.  Windows XP has one more year of support, I believe.  No reason to get Windows 8 unless you have software/hardware that just won't run on Windows 7.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

I don't know.  I started to download updates at 8:30, it's now after ten and I'm still waiting for it.  Maybe by noon tomorrow it might finish.   Downloading adoPe reader now.  Might finish before noon, this thing is abysmally slow.

Doesn't really matter, the laptop will serve it's purpose then be put where I don't see it.  Junk by any other name is still junk.  (Both the OS and the box itself.  The birds know what both are, CHEEP!)

Doric

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

With all due respect, it's not that bad. It'll work just like a win 7 machine, you just need to lighten up a little and take it for the new os it is.

 

No disrespect but you sound like someone who has driven a forty year old car all their life and is then complaining when they step into a modern car about the differences, mainly because they expect things not to change and haven't bothered to read the manual or take the time to aquaint themselves with new things.

 

And I doubt the speed it is downloading software and updates is anything to do with the laptop nor os.

 

MY first question would be, what manual?  Since when did micro$oft include a manual with anything for less then $50 additional?  Not in my memory.

Second, some programmer in that dank Godforsaken place called redmond has decided what "features" I want and if there are options to set it as I wish, they're so well hidden I can't find them.  Confusion reign supreme, as always with micro$oft.

Tried running a tut from youtube, a couple of minutes later the computer was silent and nothing on the screen was moving.  "Alt-control-delete" necessary to get out of that.  Nothing moved the cursor.  But, if you bought a car, brought it home and the same day got notifications of 33 recalls on it, in the micro$oft way, that would be perfect.

Sorry.  In the line of work I retired from, there was "good" or "Scrap".  Nothing in between.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

make your recovery discs before you do anything crazy. 2nd: W7 might work on the machine but things like the cd rom or sound controls, wifi, ethernet (the stuff in the device manager) probably wont. The computer companies dont bother writing drivers for  the old OS since it's got the new one OEM. you'll have a computer that will be in permanent safe mode. This isnt the case with custom built desctop PC's but laptops are pretty unforgiving about this stuff.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

Quote - Goto: http://www.classicshell.net/   ...and reclaim your start button!  After that, I don't find Windows 8 that bad.

Much improvement!  Thanks a bunch.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

You've used the 'Micro$oft' meme - bad sign...

It's a new OS, learn how to use it, if you hate MS and Windows so much you can always go somewhere else or write your own os...

I don't know if there's mention of gates and Digital Research on line, but silly willy got his start the easy way.  There was a reason he bought Digital Research, after he lost a copyright infringement to them..  I can respect neither the man nor the company he "founded".

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - > Quote - PC sales have cratered since Win8 debuted, and it isn't because of the bad economy. God forbid I'm eventually forced to use a Mac, but if Microsoft doesn't learn from this debacle, I don't see much alternative. (Linux isn't an option, since I'm pretty sure there aren't -- and won't be -- Linus versions of Poser, Photoshop, or 3ds Max). As it is, I'll hold on to my Win7 machines until they pry them from my cold dead hands.

 

Windows 7 still has quite a few number of years of support left from Microsoft.  Windows XP has one more year of support, I believe.  No reason to get Windows 8 unless you have software/hardware that just won't run on Windows 7.

From the Microsoft site: "Support for Windows XP is ending on April 8, 2014."

Actually, I thought support for XP had already expired sometime this past spring or summer.

At least part of the decline in PC sales is due to the increasing popularity of tablets - or so I hear. Last rumor I saw is that MS is thinking about bringing back the start button for 'Blue.' Poser is reputed to work well on Linux with WINE as are many other programs not to mention the free and paid apps for that platform and the Mac. Bottom line, I fail to understand all the angst when there are alternatives that would at least reduce one's dependency on a company and a product so clearly loathed. Instead of thinking up new ways to mangle the very name of said product, seems like the time spent could be put to more productive - if less gratifying use. I guess it's part of the 'I paid for it, I gotta right to complain' - endlessly - state of the world - still puzzles me though. No offense but my opinion either way.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Quote - I don't know if there's mention of gates and Digital Research on line, but silly willy got his start the easy way.  There was a reason he bought Digital Research, after he lost a copyright infringement to them..  I can respect neither the man nor the company he "founded".

Doric.

 

Good for you.

 

When can we expect your OS...?

First to explain something, that which is often called progress many times isn't.  When I was flying gliders, I bought a handheld radio, a little bigger than a pack of cigarettes. 

But.  THis thing had so many menus, and they were all accessed through the same button.  Now picture yourself starting the downwind leg, reach for the radio, and hit that one button.  You have no choice about what you have to concentrate on, you can give the required announcements, if nothing changed.  You don't have any choice about flying the airplane, the radio and stating where you are have to be secondary, or ignored at the time.  I had this happen to me.  Yes, it's possible to put 99 hidden functions on a tiny radio, and they'll all work.  The question is, why does anyone need those 99 functions, and while it's possible, should they be there, or would it be better to have one function, talking to other aircraft and the ground. 

Bloatware inc. doesn't have a feedback page, all they're going to hear are the attaboys.  They know what they think, they don't care what anyone else thinks.  Until they do, gross suckage will follow gross suckage.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - > Quote - I don't know if there's mention of gates and Digital Research on line, but silly willy got his start the easy way.  There was a reason he bought Digital Research, after he lost a copyright infringement to them..  I can respect neither the man nor the company he "founded".

Doric.

 

Good for you.

 

When can we expect your OS...?

I don't care about the OS, that seems to hobble along somehow, sometimes.  But why make getting a decent looking interface so difficult?  Why have the things some don't care about at all shoved in your face every time you start the thing?  Were they paid by those sites to put it there?  My guess is there was money changed hands, lots of money.  OS is operating system, not guaranteed spam delivery.  And I finally found how to get it to run two tuts in a row, run the first one, shut down the computer, restart and go search for the second,  Otherwise, a few minutes of the second and "Alt-control-delete" will get you out of it. 

I have one simple task for that computer, why should it be difficult to get it to do that task?  I know what I want it to do, and it's not what the geek in redmond thinks.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

I suspect PEBKAM...

Okay, how about I answer with, I'll try writing an OS when silly willy shows how efficiently he can cut a 1 1/2", 5tpi double lead left hand acme thread 3 feet long.  I can, no problem.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

if you arnt familiar with how to remove the bloatwear on your new PC you can take it to a repair shop and they will have a service for this. I used to work at  the repair shop in a computer store and this was one of the things we did to new computers as a paid service. you can even have them customize the menues for you so you can read a list instead of looking at icons if that is what you want.

new PC = make recovery discs, install anti-virus, update OS and drivers. if you dont do this stuff you'll have problems. W7 had a recovery feature for backing up your entire computer including user installed softwear.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740

The addon given by 3d Outlaw at least got rid of the God awful "start screen" and gave me the classic start menu.  I think it will do what I wanted, maybe a couple of months, then I won't give a hoot what happens to it.  No need for backup, there are exactly three icons on the screen and there won't be any more put there. 

Seems fitting, a computer I don't like from a retailer I despise for their practices.  It was the least objectionable of what they had on display.  Not saying much for how laptops are going.  Not their most expensive, but only one away from that end of the display. 

Nothing is the same in computers anymore, and the quality of even the top of the line is going down fast.  I'm gonna cry when my Kensington Expert Mouse Pro's start to die, what they make now is nothing but junk.  Their price reflects that thought, for the three I have, I paid about $120 each.  The new ones are still overpriced at about $34.  Poorly designed, poorly manufactured.  If I'm going to use one of the new ones with Wings, I'm going to have to grow my thumb and forefinger about another inch longer.  The scroll wheel is now a scroll ring, and the center button function has to be done by holding both right and left down, then rotating the miserably small trackball with what's left for fingers.  The scroll ring might be okay once one gets used to it, but I hope I never have to get used to it.  It's cheap and feels like it.

Doric.

Almost forgot, bloatware is what windows is.  Biggest single byte hog in the hard drive.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - Okay, how about I answer with, I'll try writing an OS when silly willy shows how efficiently he can cut a 1 1/2", 5tpi double lead left hand acme thread 3 feet long.  I can, no problem.

Doric.

He's not the one complaining though. You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder.

Windows 8 is different but it can do everything your previous Windows box did. If you are having issues then, sorry, but that's more than likely your ignorance of the product. If the laptop is slow then that is down to the low spec you decided to buy, Win8 will work just as well like for like on the same machine as Win7.

There are dozens of good mice out there that work as you want, just do a little research.

Personally, I'm not over keen on the changes over Win7 but they are there, but to say it's junk, bloatware, rubbish etc. etc. is just over the top capped of with the Micro$oft meme is a little stale now.

Lighten up a little.

"Micro$oft" is probably the earliest form of nerd hate.  It's a sickness that infected a lot of CP/M users.  I was never a fan of CP/M or PC-DOS.  But I didn't hate Bill Gates about it.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

We seem to go through this every time a new MS OS is released.

Same thing happens when a new D&D is released.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

macroshaft has always cared more about profit margins than they have about user need

dont expect that fact to change

but apple is doing the same thing

i have an abhorent feeling towards macroshaft even though i beta test for them

winblows 8 was a farce, it was a weak copy of 7 that was failed in the alpha

but they shoved it into the market and made people love it because its either that or a mac

it is a resource hog and 9 will be even worse

i have 9 as a beta and it sucks  BIG TIME

macroshaft needs to take the time to fix their wares prior to release

Classic Shell works great on Windows 8.

Quote - He's not the one complaining though. You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder.

Windows 8 is different but it can do everything your previous Windows box did. If you are having issues then, sorry, but that's more than likely your ignorance of the product. If the laptop is slow then that is down to the low spec you decided to buy, Win8 will work just as well like for like on the same machine as Win7.

There are dozens of good mice out there that work as you want, just do a little research.

Personally, I'm not over keen on the changes over Win7 but they are there, but to say it's junk, bloatware, rubbish etc. etc. is just over the top capped of with the Micro$oft meme is a little stale now.

Lighten up a little.

Were gates ever to have need of a thread such as I mentioned, and I made it for him, and it worked as does windows, I know for certain, I would end up in court.  In the real world that I live in, there is good, and there is scrap.  Good works the first time, scrap has to be redone.

As the mouse I use are trackballs, there aren't dozens of good ones out there.  Since Kensington redesigned theirs and dropped the good ones, there is junk with high prices, or junk by Adesso for somewhat less.  I have one of Kensington's new ones, they call it orbit, on the new laptop, and the fact that no thought was put into it's design is very evident from the start.  Their current top of the line, don't bother, the software won't work, without which it becomes a two button mouse that doesn't feel right.  But it's probably very cheap to manufacture, which of course has nothing to do with the price they put on it.  Trackballworks for the Orbit won't load in win8, so you got an expensive serial mouse.

33 updates the first time I put the computer on line.  the equivalent of 33 recalls on a bicycle.  Before it's even ridden.  Micro$oft world.  You pays more, you gets less.

Flash hung up  again last night, this time I didn't do anything,just let it sit there.  An hour later it was still sitting there.  Wonderful.  Blunderful.  It's a micro$oft world. 

This one I have on line is a 1.6ghz AMD, and with win7.  Little short on memory for doing anything with other than the net.  But it outruns the new one which is a 1.8 ghz I-5. 

SHould I live long enough to need another, there's no sense in me going with a windows box, and I have no objections to going to a Mac.  I started on an Apple, It won't bother me to go back to them.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - Classic Shell works great on Windows 8.

3d Outlaw posted that, I have it, and it at least makes the computer usable.  Later today I'm going to be ordering a copy of Nortons, hope it gets here before the included AV expires.  Can't buy a single copy here in town, the only source we have for anything computer related is run by the hillbillies called walton.  Three computer copies only.  Asking walmart people anything about a computer, you get "I dunno."  "But would you like to give us another $70 for the extended warranty?"  No, if it quits, it goes in the trash can and I buy something else.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - "Micro$oft" is probably the earliest form of nerd hate.  It's a sickness that infected a lot of CP/M users.  I was never a fan of CP/M or PC-DOS.  But I didn't hate Bill Gates about it.

It had nothing to do with "nerd hate".  The use of the dollar sign signified that anything micro$oft made was 3 or 4 times more money than the equivalent by anyone else.  And the fact that with any other software, you got support.  From micro$oft, you get limited support, once or twice, then break out your CC because they're going to hit you every time you call.  Oh, yeah.  Try to find a number for the support.  That's a secret now.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Why pay $ for "Nortons" when MS Security Essentials will do the job just as well, without all the bloat, and is free...?

 

Principle I guess...

The answer is "MS".  And the fact that I've used Nortons since I first went on line.  The same reason I use Google and not bing.  I don't give a damn about pretty pictures on a search engine, I want the information I'm looking for.  I can still read, contrary to the ms opinion of the world.  Nortons Internet Security isn't that expensive, ordered from Purplus, I'll have it in a few days and it doesn't seem to slow the computer down. 

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

My dad suffers from nerd hate.  He refuses to let anything that is Microsoft into his house.  All his stuff is Apple.  He doesn't buy Macs because they are better.  He only buys them because he hates Bill Gates.  He thinks Steve Jobs was a god of some kind.

To me, being a member of the homebrew club, they were the same kind of person.  Someone that just wanted to make it big in the computer industry back in the day, rather than just being a computer hobbiest.

I got excited about the Mac in 1984 with its 9" SONY B&W monitor.  I was using a form of UNIX at the time on my Motorola computer which was the little sister to the 68000.  But the Mac was using System 6 or whatever with MacDraw.  And I got bored with the goodies menu.

I didn't like Windows 3.1 at all.  I knew it was just MS-DOS still under all that.  16-bit was not quit there yet also.  When Windows 95 came out, I built my first PC and got rid of my UNIX hardware that was still only 8-bit.  I loved the Windows 95 GUI.  That single interface created so many jobs for so many people.  Much like the iPhone, years later, would create so many jobs for people.

Computers are just appliances now.  If one dies, just toss it and get a new one.  That's how it's been actually since 1987.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - The answer is "MS".  And the fact that I've used Nortons since I first went on line.  The same reason I use Google and not bing.  I don't give a damn about pretty pictures on a search engine, I want the information I'm looking for.  I can still read, contrary to the ms opinion of the world.  Nortons Internet Security isn't that expensive, ordered from Purplus, I'll have it in a few days and it doesn't seem to slow the computer down. 

 

It must suck for you, having to use an operating system from a company you hate down to the very core of your soul.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Quote - The answer is "MS".  And the fact that I've used Nortons since I first went on line.  The same reason I use Google and not bing.  I don't give a damn about pretty pictures on a search engine, I want the information I'm looking for.  I can still read, contrary to the ms opinion of the world.  Nortons Internet Security isn't that expensive, ordered from Purplus, I'll have it in a few days and it doesn't seem to slow the computer down. 

 

MS SE has been shown to be very good, certainly as good as Norton, if not better because of its integration with the OS. It's nowhere near as intrusive as Norton and is free.

 

I thought you hated bloat?, thought you hated wasting money on things that are not as good as something else?

 

As long as it's not big bad MS though I guess?

 

Who's OS are you using again? Why not just install Linux? Oh, because the stuff you want to use wont run under Linux. Why not buy Apple instead then if you hate everything MS so much?

The part that sucks is having an OS that is constantly changing, never fixed, only patched, and abandoned when they decide they can't make it work reliably. 

However, I do have one dual boot machine, XP and Linux.  Just for giggles, when I got the win7 box, I installed Povray and some scene files.  One is a 500+ frame animation using the particle system.  Win7 did no better than win98 with that one, it kept rendering frames, but didn't save them after about 245.  No error or anything else,just keep rendering and not saving.  Linux, even in the old Pentium 4, faster than win7 and it saved all frames.  The mother and father of all lost computer work is windows.  I don't expec t win8 to do any better, not even going to bother. 

The real giggle is Linux can go to the windows partition and get the file, windows cannot go into a linux partition at all.  Port a few more programs for Linux and windows would be removed from all my computers.  Wine sometimes works, but sometimes it's a little dodgy. 

I guess a new car with 33 recall notices when you bought it wouldn't bother you.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote -  

Who's OS are you using again? Why not just install Linux? Oh, because the stuff you want to use wont run under Linux. Why not buy Apple instead then if you hate everything MS so much?

My next will be a Mac.  I'm done with windblows now, it's not going to  improve, only get more useless and guided toward the script kiddies and gamers, the social nets and that type of use.  The win8 box is sitting right behind me, locked up, and I'm going to let it sit there until it fixes itself.  If that's all day, then I don't care. 

My next may be as soon as this weekend.  I've had Mac's in the past, different, intuitive.  Which seems to be forbidden in the MS world.  Yeah, I'm probably going to pay twice as much, but I'll also get twice as much or more.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

windows 8.1 will allow boot to desktop OS instead of the xbox/fisher price interface is the IT rumor of the moment.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/16/4229900/windows-8-1-boot-to-desktop-option

If the Mac wasn't so prohibitively expensive, I might be inclined to switch, myself, especially since MS seems convinced that Metro is the wave of the future.  But, as it stands, I can build a new desktop PC that's more powerful than their cheapest Mac Pro for a fraction of the cost, so I'm staying with Windows.

Last December, I bought a new Lenovo Ideapad G580.  It came with Windows 8.  I recently spent most of the day replacing it with Windows 7.  Windows 8 fought hard to stick around, but I won in the end.

hehehe

I'm not certain, and I know a 15 inch monitor isn't the 23 I have on this one, or the 27 I have on my others, but it just seems to me that the touch screen interferes with the resolution.  Watching a tut, there were times I couldn't read what was being clicked on, but on this one, I could.  I'd have to see that on a bigger screen before I could really say for sure.

Still going to look at Mac, just that I have to drive a little further than I thought.  About twenty miles into the place I've been using, for a Mac, it's more than forty.  Next week maybe.

Modeling of a different kind tonight.  Parrot rifle about eight inches long, turned from steel.  Non firing, I don't make firing cannon.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

As Apple sales for portable iOS devices are far greater than OSX devices expect OSX to adapt itself closer to iOS functionality. I've supported systems from Apple back when Ben was still Obi Wan and the past 3 generations of OS's are clearly headed in the iOS intergration direction.

If your going over to Mac on the one hand you can run windows but depending on when you got your Mac and what OS X your running it's going to affect what version of Windows you actually can install. You can NOT downgrade macs without hacking them and voiding your warranty. So if you buy a Mac today with OS 10.8.2 you can't down it to 10.8.1 or ANYTHING lower and your options for windows running native are Windows 7 or Windows 8. That functionality is grandfathered however, if you had a system running 10.6 and installed XP and you install 10.7 you can keep your XP and run it native. You can run older verisons of windows throught virtulization which is going to be slower and by using 3rd party software but macs out of the box running windows, there a catch.

 

and you guys thought MS was big brother?

Quote -
and you guys thought MS was big brother?

That's why I'm staying with the devil I know.  ;)

Quote - I don't know if there's mention of gates and Digital Research on line, but silly willy got his start the easy way.  There was a reason he bought Digital Research, after he lost a copyright infringement to them..  I can respect neither the man nor the company he "founded".

Doric.

Gates didn't buy DR; he bought Seattle Computer, which owned QDOS, which allegedly contained pirated CP/M code. QDOS was renamed MS-DOS.  DR was eventually bought by Novell...

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The Wisdom of bagginsbill:

"Oh - the manual says that? I have never read the manual - this must be why."
“I could buy better software, but then I'd have to be an artist and what's the point of that?"
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I have lost count of how many machines I have removed Norton from as it is so intrusive.  There was a time when Norton was the best anti-virus around but those days are long gone.  Also, from the number of machines that I see that have viruses that have sneaked under Norton's radar I can't see that it is any better than many of the others out there.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

Quote - > Quote -

and you guys thought MS was big brother?

That's why I'm staying with the devil I know.  ;)

Un, well, after looking at the Mac laptops, I went to look at the better ones.  The idea of twelve cores and loaded with memory somehow appeals pretty strongly.  I just don't know how far over $3500 it's going to be.  I could comfortably go $4k, but not much more than that.  64 gig memory limit, it would take me a long time to get there, longer to actually need it.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Quote - I have lost count of how many machines I have removed Norton from as it is so intrusive.  There was a time when Norton was the best anti-virus around but those days are long gone.  Also, from the number of machines that I see that have viruses that have sneaked under Norton's radar I can't see that it is any better than many of the others out there.

I use Internet Security, not just the AV.  It doesn't seem to slow anything, and as far as I'm aware, I haven't had any virus problem.  IT  may not be any better, but it's also no worse than any other.  And I'm comfortable with it, which is the biggie.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.

 

Anyhoo, the laptop is maybe running, mostly hobbling.  Probably lack of memory in the graphics department, thirty seconds of tutorial, a minute of waiting, then another thirty seconds of tut.  Can't use the trackball with W8, no middle mouse button, no click on the scroll, and that means no orbit the view in Blender or Wings.  Keyboard workaround doesn't, so now I have to fight with a scroll button mouse, or in Wings, hit the tab and use numeric inputs, far preferable to trying tomove something a smidge with the mouse.  It's an Acer Aspire V5 if anyone wants to look it up, but I won't be buying another one like it.  I think it's got lithium poly batteries, which I might have to think about a little, I've had some of my indoor helicopters start to smoke while charging, and they're all LiPo batteries. 

Crash to desktop is still the only error handling it has.  I didn't expect anything else.  Didn't get it either.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.