Windows 7

[67Monaco]

You sound like a good candidate for Linux! When my old WinXP desktop PC at home died, I pieced one together with the parts that still worked and the rest from a junked PC that I pulled out of the scrap bin at work. I wouldn't install XP on anything now because it's so old, and the system probably wouldn't handle Win7, so I installed Ubuntu Linux 16.04 on it. It has a few quirks but I'm generally happy with it, and it didn't cost me anything.**

My desktop PC at work is running Win7, and the one connected to the TV in our living room is Win7. The kids websurf and play online games on that one, so I don't do any banking on it. my experiences with Win10 so far are my wife got a Win10 laptop, and at work IT installed Win10 on my coworkers' PCs.

Win10 seems stable now. However, I don't like how, with every new Windows version, they change the user interface and hide the advanced configuration controls behind more layers. Also, I use a lot of specialized software at work, and there's always a worry that an application that I require won't be supported in the new version.

** Disclaimer: I was already somewhat familiar with Ubuntu Linux from work, though I was apprehensive about relying on it as my home desktop OS.

I too have dabbled with Linux a bit. Still have my disks from '96.

 

[BLUPORT]

The one really annoying thing is scheduling. I have delayed updates on occasion and then when I hit the keyboard in the morning I'm stuck waiting while it does it's thing. Ultimate control of my PC should rest with me. I'll decide what's a good time for me.

...but you can schedule it to any time you want. My PC installs updates between 2-4am. I have never had one pending.

 

[300rag]

...but you can schedule it to any time you want. My PC installs updates between 2-4am. I have never had one pending.

Maybe so, but it only lets you postpone for so long until it decides that it has waited long enough.

 

[Davea Lux]

I too have dabbled with Linux a bit. Still have my disks from '96.


View attachment 293809

You can get some of the advantages of Linux by installing the Firefox browser which is Linux based and it works well with Win7. Adding an adblocker such as Adblockplus gets rid of those annoying adds. Adding https all the time forces the browser to use an encrypted website if the vendor has one. This helps stop hackers from accessing your computer. Both of these features are easily installed to Firefox. A good anti-virus program such as Vipre or Kaspersky supplies a better firewall than what comes with Windows. Hackers take an almost fiendish delight in hacking any product made by Microsoft, so using an aftermarket browser and firewall will usually be to your advantage. I do not use Google as a search engine because I do like the fact that they sell my search results. www.ixquick.com does a third party search using Google and that has the advantage of having my identity hidden so the pervs at Google get no information related to me.

Dave

 

[Dobalovr]

...but you can schedule it to any time you want. My PC installs updates between 2-4am. I have never had one pending.

What is this witchery you speak of? Updates download at the most inconvenient time on my laptop however I only turn it on to use it then shut it down so maybe it's user error. Please post how to schedule updates on Win10 for those of us not so literate...

 

[Davea Lux]

Maybe so, but it only lets you postpone for so long until it decides that it has waited long enough.

Yes and some of the updates are very large, especially with Win 10 and depending on the speed of your internet, that can take hours to load.

Dave

 

[BLUPORT]

Maybe so, but it only lets you postpone for so long until it decides that it has waited long enough.

You can turn updates off completely, it's just a dumb idea. Otherwise, you can schedule them to run whenever you want.

What is this witchery you speak of? Updates download at the most inconvenient time on my laptop however I only turn it on to use it then shut it down so maybe it's user error. Please post how to schedule updates on Win10 for those of us not so literate...

I can post a full tutorial with pictures and everything when I get home, but click the "Windows" key, and type "Windows Update Settings" and click the result at the top. Then under Update Settings, change active hours and restart options. If you have more than one PC at home, you can even synchronize updates between them with the Download Settings, that way if you have limited bandwidth (like @Davea Lux ) you don't have to download the same 3GB file to each computer. It downloads to 1, and gets shared to your local network.

Yes and some of the updates are very large, especially with Win 10 and depending on the speed of your internet, that can take hours to load.
Dave

That sounds like an issue with your ISP, not with the Operating System. Also, if you're using WiFi, that's slowing you down. If you MUST use WiFi, upgrade to something like an AC1900 that has a 5GHz channel, and get an appropriate WLAN adapter to take advantage of the speed. If you don't have at least a 100Mbps ISP, then your issue is definitely your ISP.

 

[67Monaco]

You can get some of the advantages of Linux by installing the Firefox browser which is Linux based and it works well with Win7. Adding an adblocker such as Adblockplus gets rid of those annoying adds. Adding https all the time forces the browser to use an encrypted website if the vendor has one. This helps stop hackers from accessing your computer. Both of these features are easily installed to Firefox. A good anti-virus program such as Vipre or Kaspersky supplies a better firewall than what comes with Windows. Hackers take an almost fiendish delight in hacking any product made by Microsoft, so using an aftermarket browser and firewall will usually be to your advantage. I do not use Google as a search engine because I do like the fact that they sell my search results. www.ixquick.com does a third party search using Google and that has the advantage of having my identity hidden so the pervs at Google get no information related to me.

Dave

Ad blocker? no no no.. that's all taken care of at the dns level here in mi casa. No need to install additional software that sits on top of the OS.

Oh, and Searx.me is much better than Startpage. it's it's own engine rather than masking for someone else.

 

[Davea Lux]

You can turn updates off completely, it's just a dumb idea. Otherwise, you can schedule them to run whenever you want.




I can post a full tutorial with pictures and everything when I get home, but click the "Windows" key, and type "Windows Update Settings" and click the result at the top. Then under Update Settings, change active hours and restart options. If you have more than one PC at home, you can even synchronize updates between them with the Download Settings, that way if you have limited bandwidth (like @Davea Lux ) you don't have to download the same 3GB file to each computer. It downloads to 1, and gets shared to your local network.



That sounds like an issue with your ISP, not with the Operating System. Also, if you're using WiFi, that's slowing you down. If you MUST use WiFi, upgrade to something like an AC1900 that has a 5GHz channel, and get an appropriate WLAN adapter to take advantage of the speed. If you don't have at least a 100Mbps ISP, then your issue is definitely your ISP.

This area in rural Oregon is still DSL, it has a max speed of 100Mbs, but as the system is still on copper wire, it runs something closer to 60Mbs. The only other option is to use a wireless ISP that runs thru a cell tower, at $95 per month plus taxes, that is more than it is worth to me.

Dave

 

[BLUPORT]

This area in rural Oregon is still DSL, it has a max speed of 100Mbs, but as the system is still on copper wire, it runs something closer to 60Mbs. The only other option is to use a wireless ISP that runs thru a cell tower, at $95 per month plus taxes, that is more than it is worth to me.

Dave

I can help you get your area on cable if you're interested.

 

[67Monaco]

I can help you get your area on cable if you're interested.

Fiber to the house is where it's at.

 

[Samplingman]

Communist!

I don't own my car, nor do I own my house; between taxes and student loans I give all my money to the government; and my affiliated party favors the color red, so, Yep!

Ah, a cultist in our midst I see. I belong to one church don't much care for belonging to a second.

15 years ago I'd agree with you. However, these machines are nothing more than a portal to cloud and subscription based applications crossing multiple platforms. I simply choose hardware that reliably gets me from point A to point B which the old mac book air does quite well.

You sound like a good candidate for Linux! When my old WinXP desktop PC at home died, I pieced one together with the parts that still worked and the rest from a junked PC that I pulled out of the scrap bin at work. I wouldn't install XP on anything now because it's so old, and the system probably wouldn't handle Win7, so I installed Ubuntu Linux 16.04 on it. It has a few quirks but I'm generally happy with it, and it didn't cost me anything.**

** Disclaimer: I was already somewhat familiar with Ubuntu Linux from work, though I was apprehensive about relying on it as my home desktop OS.

To each his own, but every time my brother-in-law suggests this to me my eyes glaze over into retro 1990's DOS prompts. I'd personally rather be spending time building my car, but I can appreciate the skill needed to be successful with Linux.

 

[sb61fury]

I have a MacBook Air made by Apple . I purchased it from Mac of all trades and its a a refurbished 1

 

[Davea Lux]

Ad blocker? no no no.. that's all taken care of at the dns level here in mi casa. No need to install additional software that sits on top of the OS.

Oh, and Searx.me is much better than Startpage. it's it's own engine rather than masking for someone else.

How do you get past google's robot software?

Dave

 

[Davea Lux]

I don't own my car, nor do I own my house; between taxes and student loans I give all my money to the government; and my affiliated party favors the color red, so, Yep!



15 years ago I'd agree with you. However, these machines are nothing more than a portal to cloud and subscription based applications crossing multiple platforms. I simply choose hardware that reliably gets me from point A to point B which the old mac book air does quite well.



To each his own, but every time my brother-in-law suggests this to me my eyes glaze over into retro 1990's DOS prompts. I'd personally rather be spending time building my car, but I can appreciate the skill needed to be successful with Linux.

The miracle of communism/socialism is on full display in Venezuela for any one paying attention. That system bankrupts every county it has ever been tried in. Student loans have gotten out of hand, particularily for those fields that have little potential for employment, Liberal arts majors come to mind. I have always thought that major universities should be held accountable for the successful placement/employment of their graduates. If a university can only place 10% of music majors, for example in their field, then student loans to that field of study would be cut by 90% for that university. It will never happen of course, can't be destroying liberal dreams no matter how stupid.

Dave

 

[67Monaco]

How do you get past google's robot software?

Dave

Pi-hole®: A black hole for Internet advertisements

You have to watch the logs to see whats being blocked as it's aweful strict amd you'll find things you need blocked but its simple to whitelist. For a few days i thought my xbox was having issues as i couldn't stay connected to online games turns out it was freaking because it couldn't contact a network quality metrics site.

And you learn just how much your firetvs and cjrome casts phone home to report what youre watching.

*Posted from.phone hence the spelling.*

 

[Stormer]

Is there a new system that will supercede Windows 10 on the horizon?

Yes, it’s called MacBook. You can run windows on it, if you really need to, but, with all data & applications moving to the cloud, it’s really easy to live without windows.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

To each his own, but every time my brother-in-law suggests this to me my eyes glaze over into retro 1990's DOS prompts. I'd personally rather be spending time building my car, but I can appreciate the skill needed to be successful with Linux.

I hear you; I hate having to diagnose computer problems. There's an old saying, "Linux is free as long as the value of your time is zero". That's why I was apprehensive about installing it as my desktop system. I knew people in the 1990s and early 2000s who were running Linux on their desktop. They had to download source code and compile it to install applications on their system.

I can't speak for other distributions, but Ubuntu Linux is a lot more polished than that now though, which I discovered from using it at work. It installs much like the Windows installer with a wizard to guide you, it had no trouble connecting to my network and most of my peripheral hardware, except for my old LS120 drive. (I was pleasantly surprised to see that the LS120 is supported, but I had to mess around with it a bit to get it working.) They have their own appstore to install (free) apps from the GUI, and it came with Firefox and LibreOffice preinstalled. LibreOffice is compatible with Microsoft Word and Excel (and possibly other MS office apps) but it's free. Linux also has an update manager which notifies you of security updates and asks you if/when to install them, just like Windows. I think the only time I've had to open a Bash command prompt is when I'm doing something work-related.

The biggest hiccup I've found with it is because I'm running two monitors, and the primary monitor is rotated into portrait mode. Occasionally on boot-up it forgets that the monitor is rotated so the screen displays sideways. Other times it forgets that there's a second monitor attached so that one doesn't get a picture. I restart the PC and it's fine. Hasn't happened in awhile so may have been fixed by a software update.

 

[Mike66Chryslers]

You can get some of the advantages of Linux by installing the Firefox browser which is Linux based and it works well with Win7.

Not disagreeing with your advice on what software to use, but Firefox browser is not "Linux based". Firefox is web browser software, written by the same group (Mozilla) that previously made the Netscape Navigator browser. Firefox can be compiled to run on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, possibly other operating systems. It is my favourite browser, regardless of OS, though Chrome is good too. I never use MS Internet Explorer.

Student loans have gotten out of hand, particularily for those fields that have little potential for employment, Liberal arts majors come to mind. I have always thought that major universities should be held accountable for the successful placement/employment of their graduates. If a university can only place 10% of music majors, for example in their field, then student loans to that field of study would be cut by 90% for that university. It will never happen of course, can't be destroying liberal dreams no matter how stupid.

Historically speaking, colleges were intended to provide employable skills, and universities were for "higher learning". That's not necessarily true today, but I think the onus should be on the students to enroll in a course that will provide employable skills, especially if they are taking on debt to get that education. If you spend several years and thousands of borrowed dollars on a philosophy degree, don't be surprised when you can't get a job afterwards that allows you to service the debt and live comfortably.

 

[300rag]

... I never use MS Internet Explorer. ...

Everyone who gets a new PC uses it at least once - to download Firefox.