Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:

>> (And we're pretending not to
>> remember the various security and Internet holes there were, beginning
>> with NT 4, including 2000 and XP. Vista of course was probably pretty
>> great in that regard, though, oddly enough, as its overall code was a
>> mess.)
>
>Its code was a mess because it was a complete rewrite of what already
>existed. The reason Vista was bad and 7 was good was because the same
>code that had gone into the former was optimized by the time of the
>former's release. Windows is still using that code today and I would
>imagine that there is no longer a need for a rewrite.

The basis of Windows hasn't really changed since 7 and Vista's
equivalent service pack, right - the big changes during 8.x/10's era
and during 11's are higher level. What matters to me, though, is that
with the update schemes for both 10 and 11, now the only supported
Windows, even truly primitive hardware can boot 10 supposedly but will
have an abysmal experience doing so.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 23:59:53 -0500, Paul wrote:
>
> > People here have also achieved that (no updates) by breaking stuff :-)
>
> Microsoft itself has now come up with an update that does this, too--kills
> the ability to receive further updates. As I mentioned in the posting that
> started this thread.

Sigh! It's *not* "an update [which] kills the ability to receive
further updates". It's a corner case, for a very limited timeframe and
for uncommon scenarios. But realizing that, would require that you
actually *read* - for comprehension - what you're referring to.

I already put this in perspective [1]. Repeating what's mostly FUD,
doesn't make it any less FUD.

Anyway, it's a ('technical') 'news' story. What do you expect? Stories
about all the systems which do *not* have - these or other - problems?

[1] Message-ID: <vl1ok6.7ro.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 1 Jan 2025 20:19:01 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> And Microsoft is the only one shipping a beta-quality OS and expecting
> >> its users to rely on that for mission-critical production work.
> >
> > Any such 'users' are total idiots.
>
> You said it, I didn?t ...

Nope, I didn't. You 'conveniently', silently, stripped the rest of the
paragraph, making it look to say something completely different than the
real/full story.

Oldest trick in the book and one of the most dishonest ones at that.

But granted, not much different than your initial description of a
non-existing group of "users".

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> On 2025-01-01 18:38, rbowman wrote:
> > On Wed, 01 Jan 2025 14:34:06 -0500, Joel wrote:
> >
> >> Yeah, weird, huh? It's like they can't make it right from the
> >> beginning, they need people to put up with bugs to test it in the wild,
> >> how is their internal testing so poor? Being on the cutting edge with
> >> M$ is just spinning one's wheels. Linux is the refuge.
> >
> > I really hate defending Microsoft but when they do a release how are they
> > supposed to test every possible combination of hardware and software?
>
> No, but they should give people the option to take a wait and see
> approach rather than force updates on everyone who didn't pay for a Pro
> license. Some people want every update the moment it's available; others
> like my wife want to watch the other computer crash and let the
> corporation fix the issue before she installs them.

Paul already mentioned that you can tell Windows Update to 'Pause
updates' for upto 5 weeks.

I want to add that, at any time, you can extend that pause for again
up to 5 weeks. On our recent trip to/in Australia, I didn't update my
laptop for well over 3 months, till we got back home.

OTOH, I doubt that Joe Average User will realize/see that this option
is there and will realize what effect he can achieve with it.

[...]

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
[...]

> The bug that finally caused me to stop bothering with them isn't
> Microsoft's fault, but I do fault them for continuing to demand TPM when
> the requirement was causing stuttering with anyone who owned an AMD
> processor. [...]

I didn't follow this 'stuttering' problem before, but as I have an AMD
processor and - like you - in a laptop [1], can you tell me how/where I
would experience said stuttering? So far everything seems to be running
fine.

[...]

[1] HP Pavilion 15-eh2560nd laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 5625U 2.3Ghz 6 Cores,
Windows 11 24H2.

On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 19:26:35 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> Yeah, I hear you about Intel. I wasn't aware of how bad it was doing
> until I watched a video on YouTube a while ago where the producer showed
> that the company had neglected most categories and had their crown
> stolen from them. They're not in consoles, nobody wants them for mobile
> computing and gamers seem to prefer AMD.

Gelsinger bet the farm on the foundry and poured billions into it, some of
which was supposed to come from Biden's CHIPS act.

https://www.nbc4i.com/intel-in-ohio/ceo-who-brought-intel-to-central-ohio-
retires/

December 1 was a Sunday and his 'retirement' caught a lot of people
flatfooted. Gelsinger, Zinsner and others are being sued over a laundry
list of alleged violations of securities law and misleading shareholders
over the Intel Foundry spinoff. It's further complicated by the politics
involved in the federal funding. If the Ohio plant is finished it will
still be trailing TSMC's technology.

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:55:47 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> Is that actually available to Home users too? I know that people using
> Pro can do so but I'm not so sure with the default version.

I don't have access to anything with the Home edition but I believe there
is a setting where it will not automatically update if you say it's on a
metered connection.

How many people have Home? Even the cheap Beelink mini came with Pro as
did the Acer Swift 3 laptop.

On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 22:12:24 -0500, Paul wrote:

> I still use at least one gnuwin32 regularly. That's gawk.exe .
> I have other things I can run, like bash shell. The difference between
> gnuwin32 gawk.exe and bash shell gawk, is the line endings.
> Gnuwin32 uses native Windows line termination, while bash shell uses
> Linux line termination, and a tiny mod must be made to your script, if
> moving it.

Yeah, that misery... Our legacy apps started life on AIX and were ported
to Windows. <CR><LF> caused a number of bugs.

On 2025-01-02 14:00, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> [...]
>
>> The bug that finally caused me to stop bothering with them isn't
>> Microsoft's fault, but I do fault them for continuing to demand TPM when
>> the requirement was causing stuttering with anyone who owned an AMD
>> processor. [...]
>
> I didn't follow this 'stuttering' problem before, but as I have an AMD
> processor and - like you - in a laptop [1], can you tell me how/where I
> would experience said stuttering? So far everything seems to be running
> fine.
>
> [...]
>
> [1] HP Pavilion 15-eh2560nd laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 5625U 2.3Ghz 6 Cores,
> Windows 11 24H2.

An example:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYnRL-x6DVI>

An acknowledgement from AMD:

<https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-acknowledges-ftpm-stuttering-issues-promises-a-bios-fix-in-may>

I doubt that you never experienced it. However, you might have had it
fixed if you use a desktop and the manufacturer of your motherboard
issued an update for the problem.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On 2025-01-02 14:22, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:55:47 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> Is that actually available to Home users too? I know that people using
>> Pro can do so but I'm not so sure with the default version.
>
> I don't have access to anything with the Home edition but I believe there
> is a setting where it will not automatically update if you say it's on a
> metered connection.
>
> How many people have Home? Even the cheap Beelink mini came with Pro as
> did the Acer Swift 3 laptop.

It's possible that a lot of models come with Pro. Nevertheless, Home is
still shipped on a lot of the computers sold. This laptop came with Home
but I upgraded it using my Pro license.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On 2 Jan 2025 18:21:11 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 23:59:53 -0500, Paul wrote:
>>
>> > People here have also achieved that (no updates) by breaking stuff
>> > :-)
>>
>> Microsoft itself has now come up with an update that does this,
>> too--kills the ability to receive further updates. As I mentioned in
>> the posting that started this thread.
>
> Sigh! It's *not* "an update [which] kills the ability to receive
> further updates". It's a corner case ...

Which only started happening after a particular update.

On 2 Jan 2025 18:39:20 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 1 Jan 2025 20:19:01 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And Microsoft is the only one shipping a beta-quality OS and
>>>> expecting its users to rely on that for mission-critical production
>>>> work.
>>>
>>> Any such 'users' are total idiots.
>>
>> You said it, I didn?t ...
>
> Nope, I didn't. You 'conveniently', silently, stripped the rest of the
> paragraph ...

You mean, the part that agreed with what I said?

On 2 Jan 2025 18:50:18 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

> OTOH, I doubt that Joe Average User will realize/see that this option
> is there and will realize what effect he can achieve with it.

Further confirming the point I was making with the subject of this thread.

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 15:04:58 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> It's possible that a lot of models come with Pro. Nevertheless, Home is
> still shipped on a lot of the computers sold. This laptop came with Home
> but I upgraded it using my Pro license.

I never paid attention buy scrolling down Amazon's laptop selection it
looks like $400 is the dividing line although there are flyers on both
sides. Some showed 'Windows 11 S' which I didn't know about. I suppose if
you were buying a laptop for your grandmother restricting it to only run
Microsoft Store apps might be good, knowing Granny won't be able to figure
out how to turn S off. Learn something new every day.

On 2025-01-02 20:58, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 15:04:58 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> It's possible that a lot of models come with Pro. Nevertheless, Home is
>> still shipped on a lot of the computers sold. This laptop came with Home
>> but I upgraded it using my Pro license.
>
> I never paid attention buy scrolling down Amazon's laptop selection it
> looks like $400 is the dividing line although there are flyers on both
> sides. Some showed 'Windows 11 S' which I didn't know about. I suppose if
> you were buying a laptop for your grandmother restricting it to only run
> Microsoft Store apps might be good, knowing Granny won't be able to figure
> out how to turn S off. Learn something new every day.

A laptop that limits a Windows user to applications in the Windows Store
is limiting that user to limited amount of very limited software.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On Thu, 1/2/2025 8:58 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 15:04:58 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> It's possible that a lot of models come with Pro. Nevertheless, Home is
>> still shipped on a lot of the computers sold. This laptop came with Home
>> but I upgraded it using my Pro license.
>
> I never paid attention buy scrolling down Amazon's laptop selection it
> looks like $400 is the dividing line although there are flyers on both
> sides. Some showed 'Windows 11 S' which I didn't know about. I suppose if
> you were buying a laptop for your grandmother restricting it to only run
> Microsoft Store apps might be good, knowing Granny won't be able to figure
> out how to turn S off. Learn something new every day.
>

I use W11 Home as my daily driver *specifically* for the
ability to test a "low SKU". You can see the pause menu here.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/9F4rNwmY/Windows11-Home-Pausing.gif

Paul

On Thu, 1/2/2025 4:57 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2025 18:50:18 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
>> OTOH, I doubt that Joe Average User will realize/see that this option
>> is there and will realize what effect he can achieve with it.
>
> Further confirming the point I was making with the subject of this thread.
>

Thirty five days is sufficient to pause activity
until you have a clear maintenance window. One of the
purposes of this, is a sales person can do a PowerPoint
presentation to a client, without Windows Update interfering
with the session.

Paul

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 22:12:46 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> A laptop that limits a Windows user to applications in the Windows Store
> is limiting that user to limited amount of very limited software.

It does have some good stuff like WSL now. I'm pretty sure I got PuTTY
from the store too.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2025 18:21:11 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 23:59:53 -0500, Paul wrote:
> >>
> >> > People here have also achieved that (no updates) by breaking stuff
> >> > :-)
> >>
> >> Microsoft itself has now come up with an update that does this,
> >> too--kills the ability to receive further updates. As I mentioned in
> >> the posting that started this thread.
> >
> > Sigh! It's *not* "an update [which] kills the ability to receive
> > further updates". It's a corner case ...
>
> Which only started happening after a particular update.

Duh! But - as I *wrote*, but you ignored and snipped - the risk of
getting the problem existed only for a very short time and only in very
uncommon scenarios.

But don't let facts get in the way of your unsubstantiated contentless
Microsoft/Windows bashing. If this is all the ammunition you have, you
don't have much.

And FYI, no-one in this Windows group has reported that they have
actually experienced this 'problem'. I wonder why *that* is!?

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2025 18:39:20 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> On 1 Jan 2025 20:19:01 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> >>
> >>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> And Microsoft is the only one shipping a beta-quality OS and
> >>>> expecting its users to rely on that for mission-critical production
> >>>> work.
> >>>
> >>> Any such 'users' are total idiots.
> >>
> >> You said it, I didn?t ...
> >
> > Nope, I didn't. You 'conveniently', silently, stripped the rest of the
> > paragraph ...
>
> You mean, the part that agreed with what I said?

Nope it didn't. Quite the contrary, as you very well know, or should
know.

In hindsight, I see that you didn't only snip the rest of the
paragraph, but also the beginning, where I said "Don't be silly!". I
wonder why you snipped that part!

Bottom line: Can't do the time, ...

On Thu, 1/2/2025 10:37 AM, Joel wrote:
> "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:
>> On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 19:08:22 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-11,comp.os.linux.advocacy
>>
>> OS WAR! <G>
>
>
> I frequently talk to Copilot in a Linux Web app about how sleek Linux
> is compared to Winblows, and it agrees with me. M$ is laughing at the
> people using their products on aging hardware.
>

Exciting I guess.

Session Log:

<Joel> Is it snowing where you are ?
<AI> Where am I ? I tried to look at my feet, but I don't have any.
<Joel> I'm 73 years old. How old are you, anyway ?
<AI> I'm either 39 or 93, let me check my coin flipper...
<Joel> So how about that Linux, good or what ?
<AI> Of course, Linux is a toilet paper, which does not scratch your bum [Ref.1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bnkct/forget_the_flakes_cola_and_wine_meet_the_linux/
<Joel> Yes, it's very sleek.

Paul

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2025 18:50:18 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>
> > OTOH, I doubt that Joe Average User will realize/see that this option
> > is there and will realize what effect he can achieve with it.
>
> Further confirming the point I was making with the subject of this thread.

It doesn't confirm that at all, quite the contrary.

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 1/2/2025 4:57 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> > On 2 Jan 2025 18:50:18 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> >
> >> OTOH, I doubt that Joe Average User will realize/see that this option
> >> is there and will realize what effect he can achieve with it.
> >
> > Further confirming the point I was making with the subject of this thread.
>
> Thirty five days is sufficient to pause activity
> until you have a clear maintenance window. One of the
> purposes of this, is a sales person can do a PowerPoint
> presentation to a client, without Windows Update interfering
> with the session.

As I mentioned, the total pause period is not just upto 5 weeks, but
any series of periods, each upto 5 weeks.

And Windows Update will only interfere with the session if the machine
is not powerful enough for the download and partial installation
happening in the background. The system will not restart and finish the
installation, unless the sales person is so clueless as not to check/set
the (non) active hours.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 08:55:47 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
> > Is that actually available to Home users too? I know that people using
> > Pro can do so but I'm not so sure with the default version.
>
> I don't have access to anything with the Home edition but I believe there
> is a setting where it will not automatically update if you say it's on a
> metered connection.

Yes, Home has that setting and it's actually the default ('Download
updates over metered connections' is Off by default).

And there are 'Delivery Optimisation' settings for limiting the
bandwidth used for downloading updates.

> How many people have Home? Even the cheap Beelink mini came with Pro as
> did the Acer Swift 3 laptop.

AFAIK, mostly complete systems, directed at the consumer market, for
example our HP Pavilion laptops. Higher priced HP laptops, especially
the business ones, come with Pro.

FWIW, I've yet to miss any functionality in Home.

On Thu, 1/2/2025 10:12 PM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
> On 2025-01-02 20:58, rbowman wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 15:04:58 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>>> It's possible that a lot of models come with Pro. Nevertheless, Home is
>>> still shipped on a lot of the computers sold. This laptop came with Home
>>> but I upgraded it using my Pro license.
>>
>> I never paid attention buy scrolling down Amazon's laptop selection it
>> looks like $400 is the dividing line although there are flyers on both
>> sides. Some showed 'Windows 11 S' which I didn't know about. I suppose if
>> you were buying a laptop for your grandmother restricting it to only run
>> Microsoft Store apps might be good, knowing Granny won't be able to figure
>> out how to turn S off. Learn something new every day.
>
> A laptop that limits a Windows user to applications in the Windows Store
> is limiting that user to limited amount of very limited software.

There is a short procedure, for taking the laptop out of "S" mode,
so you can move on. The majority of users, that's the first thing
they do. The only annoyance, is setting up an MSA long enough to
complete the removal procedure.

Only IT departments seek to shackle users to the drain pipe.

Q2 2022
Microsoft Store
44,275 gaming apps [copies of Flappy Birds, down from the original 200,000 copies]
10,000 apps hosted
personalization category
192 mobile titles [these statistics seem rather suspect]

And Linux is in the store, as Bash shell distros via WSL/WSLg.
Done out of sequence, you will be told there is a step to do,
before the Store will do the download (set up Bash shell to load distro).
The distro stays in a container (a previous version was a file tree).

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/sxNWHpSS/Good-Times-At-The-Store.gif

My Linux container "ext4.vhdx" is currently 8GB in size.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/0QpQBTgv/Ubuntu-On-W11-Home-Bash.gif

Paul