Windows 8 Consumer Preview - One word: fail

[Nil]

I just recently noticed that Virginia extends further west than
West Virginia.

When I drove through the area last year I, too, was struck by that
irony. That whole chunk of western Virginia seems oddly unrelated to
the rest of the state.

 

[BillW50]

v In

AOL? Are they still around? Anyway, look for a logging function in
your email client and see what it tells you. I suspect your problems
have very little to do with the OS, especially since a few million
other people seem to have things working ok.

First, I got a lifetime deal through QuantumLink. Who is QuantumLink you
ask? It is AOL before they were AOL. They were a great company back
then. So I am stuck with AOL now for life. Sure I can can them, but it
is free. ;-)

And be careful of saying things like millions are using AOL email
trouble free. I didn't Google it, but I think that wouldn't be true.

I don't believe you when you attempt to blame your problems on Windows
updates. You've cried wolf way too often. Just troubleshoot the issue
and fix it.

I'd be careful! I remember finding bugs in MS-DOS since '83 or so. I
actually called them up. And you know what they said? They said they
knew about the bug and thousands of software has already written around
the bug and if they fixed it, it would break all of them. So what did I
do? I wrote around the bug too.

There wasn't too much happening as far as updates in the 80's. Sure they
were there, but virtually everything didn't affect me. So things were
pretty quiet as far as I was concern.

Then along comes OS/2. Microsoft and IBM had already broken off, but I
thought this was the next best thing. Now it was all IBM's baby. OS/2
2.1 was running really great. Then I signed up for OS/2 Warp beta (aka
v3). Again everything was going great. After two successful betas, IBM
released OS/2 Warp to the public. Huge disaster! They changed most of
the drivers without beta testing them. Stories range from half of the
beta testers couldn't even install it.

I couldn't either. My CD drive was set at drive 1 when the driver only
accepted drive 0 (you didn't know why back then). I finally got it
installed by creating floppies that bypassed any CD problems. This was
only the start of the problems. Their updates were called FixPaks. And
OS/2 had a lot of Microsoft code in it and they were hell bent on
removing it all and to replace it with their own. As they still had to
pay Microsoft for the code that they used back then. And FixPak after
FixPak, it got worse and worse. After desperation they would plug some
of Microsoft's code back in. And this made it useable again. But it was
still a total mess and after two years of using OS/2 Warp, I called it
quits and switched totally to Windows.

Windows 3.xx, 95 and 98 and updates went fine. Sure there was quirks
here and there, but not big deal. And unlike most, I even could get
Windows ME to run satisfactory. Although I also quickly learned, don't
change anything in ME once you got it working right or it might fall.

Then I moved on to Windows 2000. Out of the box it was just great! Then
updates started to come in and it seemed like every other one would
break Explorer. I don't remember any other problems except Explorer. I
had other machines so if Explorer broke, I still had another one without
that troublesome update. This continued until like forever.

I didn't switch to XP until just before SP2 was released. Everything
seemed fine. Then the SP2 update came along. Lots of buzz about how
terrible the upgrade went. I didn't have any of those problems reported,
but I tried upgrading like 6 different computers and everything worked
and all. But all of the computers slowed down to a snail's pace.

What worked, was to wipe everything clean and to reinstall from scratch.
Then update to SP2 and that worked perfectly on all of the computers. No
problems at all. Although after SP2, things started to change. That old
Explorer crashing thing came back. There are other things, but the
latest is .NET won't update nor uninstall. Lots of info on the Internet
about that. Most solutions don't work too well.

I skipped Vista, so I don't know much about the horrors there. But when
I started running Windows 7, everything was running fine except
compatibility with old software. Then SP1 came along. My Windows Index
Experience dropped and my TV tuner under Media Center became very
choppy. Paul thinks a driver got replaced by Microsoft and I think he is
right.

Now around '07 I bought an EeePC with a 4GB SSD soldered on the
motherboard. No chance of upgrading it. Sure I heard horror stories from
others about upgrades that beat my own hands down. And I really wanted
to keep this machine that came with XP SP2 updated, but there was no
room to do so.

I really believed back then without updates, it would become really
horrifying. I really believed that I would be restoring a lot due to
malware and all. That EeePC ran great for a whole year. And this defies
everything I have heard before. Sure I have heard stories that this is
true, but I didn't believe it.

So I had taken like 6 of my computers that I used for a test. They were
all running fine at the moment and I stopped updating them and waiting
for all hell to break loose. After four years later, everything is still
just fine. No malware infections or anything. Now I have a feeling of
utopia.

Many people in the past claimed that updates can break the OS. Being an
EE and a programmer when I had too, I should have seen it. But I was
stubborn and I refused to believe it. But after decades of this nonsense
I can't deny it anymore. And that is you can't change the OS without
some harmful effects.

Now if you never had a problem. Two things could be happening. One you
are in denial like I was. Or you are one of the lucky ones. ;-)

 

[Char Jackson]

What did he do for a living? Write history textbooks for the Commonwealth
of Virginia to select for 4th-grade students? (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Masoff)

He was in the US Military at the time, in a position where geographic
and historic knowledge of the US wasn't strictly necessary for the
performance of his duties. Still, you'd hope that everyone would have
at least a grasp of the basics.

As for Joy, if she didn't get a few things wrong, would any of us even
know she existed?

 

[BillW50]

In

I'll be happy to tell you, but you have to be patient while we both
wait for it to actually happen.

That is the way it is supposed to work Char. And for some it does. And
for some it doesn't.

One thing you don't seem to get yet is that if you make any changes to
an OS, there is some risk. The hope is everything works smooth as silk.
But there is millions of different hardware configurations with millions
of different third party installs. And asking for perfection just isn't
humanly possible! Even for Microsoft.

You know there is a saying long before computers that said: "Don't fix
what isn't broken". Sure when I was younger I thought that saying was
cute and all. But I didn't totally believe in it. But the older I get,
the more I realize no truer words were ever spoken. ;-)

 

[BillW50]

In

Long ago I had a friend who insisted that it really was Statue versus
Statute, but that was the same friend who insisted that West Virginia
simply referred to the western part of Virginia and wasn't a state in
its own right. He was a hoot.

Yeah well... some of them actually get elected in office. Go figure!

 

[BillW50]

In

Until I put it in the recycle bin a couple of months ago, I had a copy
of the source code to the PC BIOS. IBM published and sold it freely.
It's in a book called something similar to "DOS Reference Manual".

Yeah I admitted already I was wrong about IBM-BIOS being secret. Ok you
could see it, but you couldn't copy it and sell it. ;-)

 

[Char Jackson]

v In

First, I got a lifetime deal through QuantumLink. Who is QuantumLink you
ask? It is AOL before they were AOL. They were a great company back
then. So I am stuck with AOL now for life. Sure I can can them, but it
is free. ;-)

You're only stuck with AOL if you allow it. Free isn't cheap enough
for me.

And be careful of saying things like millions are using AOL email
trouble free. I didn't Google it, but I think that wouldn't be true.

You included Gmail, too.

Now if you never had a problem. Two things could be happening. One you
are in denial like I was. Or you are one of the lucky ones. ;-)

Neither. I'm just a tiny speck in the vast majority.

Holler if you're unable to troubleshoot your email problems. Like I
said, I doubt they're OS-related so this may not be the perfect group
to get help, but there are a lot of helpful folks here and you've
already proven that you don't mind being crucified repeatedly.

 

[BillW50]

In

When I drove through the area last year I, too, was struck by that
irony. That whole chunk of western Virginia seems oddly unrelated to
the rest of the state.

Is that the only state? There are so many states that are totally
different from one end to another that you would swear that you are in a
totally different country. ;-)

 

[Wolf K]

In

On 03/04/2012 1:36 PM, BillW50 wrote:
[....]

And that is the problem I am having here. I don't care if none of the
source code is the same or not. As that really doesn't matter. And
you can't say that a cloned BIOS isn't based on a real IBM BIOS.
Because it is based on the IBM BIOS and yet they still doesn't share
any source code between them.

[....]

For most people "based on X" means something different than "works
like X" or "looks like X" or :"was inspired by X", etc.

If you want to use "based on" differently, then be prepared for
disagreements. You're arguing about semantics. There are few things as
boring as arguments about what words "really" mean.

There is an old saying: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and
quacks like a duck..." Well then it is a duck right?

No.

You need a course in logic.

Wolf K.

What you are saying that it isn't true. So please help all of the
intelligentials who are not as smart as you how that is possible?

Clue: what does X=Y mean?

Wolf K.


When oyu cliam that X=Y,

 

[XS11E]

You need a course in logic.

No course in logic needed to understand the definition of "OFF TOPIC"

Can we please stop?

Thanks.

 

[Wolf K]

[snip]

Long ago I had a friend who insisted that it really was Statue versus
Statute, but that was the same friend who insisted that West Virginia
simply referred to the western part of Virginia and wasn't a state in
its own right. He was a hoot.

I just recently noticed that Virginia extends further west than
West Virginia.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Yeah, one of geographic oddities. Just as there is a part of the USA
that is directly north of Canada. Not just further north than adjacent
parts of Canada, like Maine. Prize for the correct answer: the
satisfaction of knowing an odd fact.

Hah!

Wolf K.

 

[BillW50]

In

You're only stuck with AOL if you allow it. Free isn't cheap enough
for me.

Funny, there is one really bad apple at AOL that ruined everything. That
was the CEO Steve Case. He pulled all of the strings. He was there when
it was QuantumLink too. While I saw him as a BSer back then, lots of
companies would BS too. The biggest difference was when somebody called
him on it, he did everything he could to silence them. That part early
on made me to dislike him.

When Time-Warner announced they were going to buy AOL... I screamed
no-no, big mistake! Of course, I am a nobody and who would listen to me.
Later Time-Warner learned of their mistake and told Steve Case to leave.
He did and had taken billions of dollars with him.

I dunno... I think he should be penniless and sitting in jail for all of
the crimes he has committed. Yet he has left with billions, is free, and
laughing all the way to the bank. That just doesn't sit well with me.
And AOL is left trying to regain some respect, which I don't think that
will ever happen in our lifetime.

You included Gmail, too.

Yes let's say I am on 16 hours and polling every 5 minutes. Gmail will
error out I dunno like twice during 16 hours. Not a big deal since they
are often back up next time. I dunno, is that average?

Neither. I'm just a tiny speck in the vast majority.

You know, I hear others complaining and most of the time I just don't
believe it anyway. Which sounds a lot like you actually. But I was in
denial until at least till '08 and I still had decades of experience.
And at some point you can't deny it any longer. I really feel stupid for
taking as long as did.

Holler if you're unable to troubleshoot your email problems. Like I
said, I doubt they're OS-related so this may not be the perfect group
to get help, but there are a lot of helpful folks here and you've
already proven that you don't mind being repeatedly.

I have no problem learning from my mistakes and I don't wish to repeat
them. And no, I don't mind being crucified or proven wrong either. I am
totally ok with that. As everybody has to go through that in one way or
another anyway. How they deal with it makes all of the difference in the
world though.

Speaking about email trouble under Windows 7/8... I dunno? Maybe... and
maybe it is something that I totally missed (I can't think of anything
with decades of experience). But what I do know is Windows 2000/XP is
working just fine.

I don't know how old you are or anything Char. As when I was younger, I
was a real go getter. No problem was too big to stop me. But now that I
am older, that has changed. Now life is too short and I don't care about
solving problems anymore. As I am just interested in things that work
and I don't have to spend time figuring why they don't. Hell, I don't
even want to think about when I get older still how I feel. I dunno,
maybe I won't even care about things that actually work or something.

 

[BillW50]

In

In

On 03/04/2012 1:36 PM, BillW50 wrote:
[....]
And that is the problem I am having here. I don't care if none of
the source code is the same or not. As that really doesn't matter.
And you can't say that a cloned BIOS isn't based on a real IBM
BIOS. Because it is based on the IBM BIOS and yet they still
doesn't share any source code between them.
[....]

For most people "based on X" means something different than "works
like X" or "looks like X" or :"was inspired by X", etc.

If you want to use "based on" differently, then be prepared for
disagreements. You're arguing about semantics. There are few things
as boring as arguments about what words "really" mean.

There is an old saying: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck,
and quacks like a duck..." Well then it is a duck right?

No.

You need a course in logic.

Wolf K.

What you are saying that it isn't true. So please help all of the
intelligentials who are not as smart as you how that is possible?

Clue: what does X=Y mean?

Wolf K.


When oyu cliam that X=Y,

LOL! Ok I'll play along and you think this is intelligent? Ok X=Y means
gibberish and gibberish equals to Z. ;-)

P.S. I hope nobody ever quotes me on the above reply. LOL

P.S.S I am having regrets sending this out in the first place. LOL

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

Yeah, one of geographic oddities. Just as there is a part of the USA
that is directly north of Canada. Not just further north than adjacent
parts of Canada, like Maine. Prize for the correct answer: the
satisfaction of knowing an odd fact.

Which correct answer would that be?

Part of Alaska (north of the Haida Gwai).
Part of Michigan (the Detroit area).
Part of New York (the Buffalo area).
Part of Maine: The border is jagged and there are pockets.
Part of Wisconsin: jagged border around Sault Ste. Marie, ON.
Part of Minnesota: jagged border with Ontario.
Part of Washington: jagged border in the northwest.

Hah!

Double hah!

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, BillW50 <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

P.S. I hope nobody ever quotes me on the above reply. LOL

P.S.S I am having regrets sending this out in the first place. LOL

That's "P. P. S."
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"The people here are more educated and intelligent. Even stupid people in
Britain are smarter than Americans." Madonna, in RT 30 June-6July 2001 (page
32)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In Char Jackson wrote: []

to get help, but there are a lot of helpful folks here and you've
already proven that you don't mind being repeatedly.

I have no problem learning from my mistakes and I don't wish to repeat
them. And no, I don't mind being crucified or proven wrong either. I am

[]
Strange. When I read Char's post, I saw the "crucified" between "being"
and "repeatedly". As did Bill, since he used the word. But it's not
there in Bill's quote of Char's post!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"The people here are more educated and intelligent. Even stupid people in
Britain are smarter than Americans." Madonna, in RT 30 June-6July 2001 (page
32)

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

In

I don't disagree with any of this. ;-)

Then, why are you arguing the opposite elsethread? MPD much?

--
Zaphod

Adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly),
manic self-publicist, terrible bad at personal relationships,
often thought to be completely out to lunch.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

In

No, I am totally flexible and I have no opinions cast in stone. Plus I
am using devil's advocate and logically taking the other side. I find
this is most helpful for all opened minded individuals to see the whole
picture.

Ah, I should have known. There is a word for what you are doing. It's
called trolling. I am done here.

 

[BillW50]

In

Ah, I should have known. There is a word for what you are doing.
It's called trolling. I am done here.

No it isn't Zaphod! It is called looking at the big picture. And
ignoring the evidence when you are wrong, is trolling!

 

[Antares 531]

When I drove through the area last year I, too, was struck by that
irony. That whole chunk of western Virginia seems oddly unrelated to
the rest of the state.

Was Virginia forced to take this bit of waste land and add it to their
state because no other state wanted it added onto their existing
boundaries? Something like the Oklahoma Panhandle.