Windows Rant, and a question

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
When I went to college, there was no such thing as a PC. There were no browsers and no user friendly interfaces. Computers were only found in academia and industry. We had to punch our programs on punch cards, hand them in to the computer room, wait a day, and then look at a printout that we received in a mailbox. Then we debugged, rinse lather and repeat.

I have an old Dell Dimension 3000 that I have rebuilt and upgraded hardware several times. A couple years ago I tried to install Windows 8. It ran horribly slow, and in short order my computer was corrupted and crashed. I did some googling (at the library) and found out that Windows 8 requires matched memory cards (and I found out why too;)). So I popped for a set, but when I reformatted I reinstalled Windows 7 because of my bad experience.

For about the past year or so, I was prompted to install Windows 8 (and a bunch of other stuff too) every time I booted up. I always declined. A couple of days ago my computer loaded Windows 8 on its own. I must admit that I like it and my computer works a whole lot better now.

So here is my question. How do I control this automatic update mess? I don't mind updates and upgrades, but I want to control it. I am quite suspicious of "updates" for reasons I hope I don't need to explain.

I have a stack of PCs and stuff that I got out of an electronic recycling bin. I intend to sort through it and hopefully build a much better and more modern computer than what I have. I will surely have some questions when I do this. The PCs are throwaways from offices and obviously much more powerful than what I am presently using.

Thanks for reading and any assistance rendered.:)
 
Windows 8 is a big change from Windows 7.
It took me a good while to find out where everything was at.
It felt like things were deliberately hidden as they were hard to find.
Its the adding of Windows apps that has changed things a lot.
I wanted to get into writing Win 8 apps so had to buy Windows 8 otherwise I could see no reason for leaving Win 7.

The Windows 8 update is also well buried in pc settings.
Move mouse into bottom right hand corner, click on settings then "change pc settings" then "windows update"

I use a SSD hard drive to speed things up.
I also use an 8 core 4GHz processor.
 
Thanks Nigel.

Windows 7 is quite obsolete. I knew it before and now that I have 8 I sure know it now. My objection was that 8 didn't work on by out of the box PC.

I hear good things about solid state hard drive. I have a box of remanufactured hard drives though, ready to pop in and reformat; so I probably won't be going that route. (They were $10 apiece at Microcenter so I bought 10.) One hiccup and I slap in a "new" hard drive and reformat.

I don't even know what's inside my salvage PCs, but I will build the most powerful unit I can with what I have.

I will do some fiddling around with settings and whatnot. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Windows 7 is not obsolete. Where I work they are just rolling it out now. You say you installed Win8 a couple of years ago? It was released in October 2012, and 8.1 was just released. I have never heard of an unintended upgrade installation of any version of Windows, especially without a license.
 
are you talking about IE8, IE9, and IE10, the MS web browsers.

nezbleu is right..you don't get a Windows upgrade for free. :confused:

I bought the software, loaded it and it crashed. I replaced the memory cards with a "matched pair" but reloaded Windows 7. For the past 6 months or so, I have been prompted to install Windows 8 every time I boot up, and have declined. Then a couple of days ago my computer auto updated without prompting me. I wasn't too happy but the truth is that it runs better than ever. Time will tell. I do have a new browser that works a whole lot better and doesn't have compatibility issues with websites like the old one.

So I bought the software a couple of years ago and never got it to work right. You guys have me wondering what really happened to my computer during that automatic update.:confused: I am quite suspicious of spyware etc. But it works great.

Time will tell. If it goes nuts I'll just slap another hard drive in and reformat.
 
Something does not compute here!

There is definitely no upgrade path from W7 to W8. Separate licences.

It sounds as if you have dual booting installed, with the W7 working and the W8 incomplete and nagging.

"matched memory" SIMS will allow interleaving to work (it can use alternate modules with overlapping timing, so going faster). However I have never known this make a very noticeable difference in overall performance in normal use. Perhaps you doubled the memory size when you installed the new modules? This may have eliminated paging.

SSDs are brilliant! I use a 64Gb, the cheapest, just for the W7 OS, with memory paging and hibernate disabled. This goes like the wind! I have an automated backup of this SSD to a standard disk for almost instant recovery if necessary. It has been about a year since I needed to reformat and reinstall the OS.
 
It sounds as if you have dual booting installed, with the W7 working and the W8 incomplete and nagging.

I think that's what I had before.

I definitely have a different browser now. It has no compatibility problems like the old one and is way faster.

Perhaps you doubled the memory size when you installed the new modules?

It's a fact that I doubled memory size when I installed the new modules.

I don't like it when I don't understand what's going on with my computer. I don't like it when I don't have control of my computer. Unfortunately, these scenarios are the norm.

I am quite pleased that it works so much better now. I'm going to keep digging it until it needs attention again. I have a stack of hard drives and all the software that is 100% genuine and bought and paid for the old fashioned way. So if things get out of control I can just nuke it and reformat.

I do really need to learn more about this stuff.
 
A wise person always knows that newer is not always better.
In the case of or MS, they keep marketing new OS mainly to sell you a new one

Since the beginning of computing there has been an effort to make things more user friendly.
Now... with Win8, it is much less user friendly and confusing just to be different to sell you a new OS' that you don't need?. You want to make my PC look and operate like a 6 inch tablet that was never designed to take the place of the PC?
I'm sorry but I not that stupid as to fall for that BS.

As the saying goes, If it aint broke, don't *#^* with it " but this wont sell new OS'
 
Last edited:
When MS introduced Win 8 apps they stripped out a lot of good stuff from Windows.
Dialogue boxes are gone, statusbars are gone , menus are gone.
Then they had to fiddle with the disc operating system and made in asynchronous,
This made coding much more difficult and troublesome.

I have written 3 apps and all 3 were a pain to convert from Windows 7 programs.
In 6 months I have made £5 on paid apps and 12p on advertising in one of my apps.
It makes the £75 development license fee a joke.
I cant see me renewing my license in October when a year is up.
 
BTW, I put together a new i7 PC this Jan and I went for Win7 64 bit .
Actually, I really like it as about as user friendly (after configuration) as XP but more stable .
I always tell people the three most important things with any software is: configuration, configuration, configuration.
Although there are some compatibility issues, I'm using some apps that were actually written for Win 95 32 bit and they work perfectly with 7,

Also, I have all my PCs set to classic windows style both as MS actually got this right from square one..... it's the easiest on the eyes . You want wow graphics? Play a video, turn on the TV or play a game :)
 
Last edited:
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.