[Jeff]

I'm still using Office 2010.

[MusicallyInspired]

I think I've decided it's safer to just stay on Win 7. Why ruin a good thing? It's perfect for my needs. There's just too many question marks around Win10. I'm just worried they'll break 7 after a year or two of 10 being out and then say "we offered you a chance! Oh well!"

[LkMax]

Jeff, on 18 September 2015 - 07:06 AM, said:

I use ClassicShell to replace the Windows 10 start menu & search bar with the Windows 7 one which has a search bar.

This program does create a restore point before it changes anything. So if you mess up, you can turn it back on to the default setting before using it.

Disable Cortana internet search (to search only programs and files on the computer) and reduce the bar to a simple icon and you can get the same effect without having to install third party software just for that.

MusicallyInspired, on 18 September 2015 - 11:08 AM, said:

I think I've decided it's safer to just stay on Win 7. Why ruin a good thing? It's perfect for my needs. There's just too many question marks around Win10 and I'm just worried they'll break 7 after a year or two of 10 being out and then say "we offered you a chance! Oh well!"

Unfortunately I don't think my main PC will be using it either for a long time.

[Forge]

Jeff, on 18 September 2015 - 08:09 AM, said:

I'm still using Office 2010.

I also installed office pro 2010 without any problems on windows 10

[Danukem]

Forge, on 18 September 2015 - 08:19 PM, said:

I also installed office pro 2010 without any problems on windows 10

For a $10 per month subscription, I have the latest office suite installed on 6 different devices, so everyone in my household has it. This seems like a good deal to me.

[Paul B]

Trooper Dan, on 19 September 2015 - 11:23 PM, said:

For a $10 per month subscription, I have the latest office suite installed on 6 different devices, so everyone in my household has it. This seems like a good deal to me.

That's interesting, because technically you are only allowed to install the same Office 365 license on a maximum of 5 devices without breaking the EULA. You want 6 devices? You pay 20 dollars a month. The difference between Office 2010 which was the last best released version of Microsoft Office is that while you only need to pay for it once, you have it for a life time. Sure $249 dollars seems like a lot initially but it actually pays off in the long run. Where as your subscription service will actually get very expensive after having to pay each month. The problem is, no one sells Office 2010 any longer otherwise everyone would still be buying it. Most people I know get at least 15 years out of their office product before they upgrade. I'm sure Office 2010 will be around for even longer before customers write it off.

As all software goes to this (SAS) Software as a Service model people will be hard pressed to find the cash to continue using the software they are accustom to which digs deeper into your wallet. This is industries solution to squeezing more money out of the end user while attempting to reduce the amount of pirated copies of software. Yet this doesn't totally prevent against piracy. So in the end, the paying customer gets taken advantage of while the rest of us start using open source or pirated copies.

[Danukem]

Paul B, on 21 September 2015 - 05:35 AM, said:

That's interesting, because technically you are only allowed to install the same Office 365 license on a maximum of 5 devices without breaking the EULA.

Turns out it was 5 devices, but 6 "installs" because there were 2 "installs" on the same device (for different users). I try not to pirate software anymore, for various reasons (ethics, extra hassle, risk). I have tried open source office software in the past, but have found it to be lacking in one way or another. For me, $10/mo for office for my entire family is well worth it. If they jack up the price or if I become convinced there is an open source alternative that is actually better, then I will switch.

[Paul B]

[quote name='Trooper Dan' timestamp='1443035786' post='230856']
. I try not to pirate software anymore, for various reasons (ethics, extra hassle, risk)

Most tech people I know buy the actual software or pay for the license but for ease of use have a cracked version they actually use just to bypass the headaches of the activation process. Especially with the Adobe suite. Seems like the ones who actually get stung by the system are the ones who actually legitimately purchased the software so to avoid problems they just run with the illegal software but have the actual paid license to cover their butt.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Paul B, on 23 September 2015 - 11:27 AM, said:

Most tech people I know buy the actual software or pay for the license but for ease of use have a cracked version they actually use just to bypass the headaches of the activation process. Especially with the Adobe suite. Seems like the ones who actually get stung by the system are the ones who actually legitimately purchased the software so to avoid problems they just run with the illegal software but have the actual paid license to cover their butt.

Actually for some software it's such a hassle to crack that it's much easier to just buy. You need to modify files, block internet, add to firewall, do some mumbo jumbo so the software doesn't update itself. It's far more annoying than to just buy it.

[MusicallyInspired]

http://www.technobuf...medium=facebook

Huh.....guess I should consider myself lucky I haven't received the option to upgrade yet seeing as it'll happen whether you've asked for it or not now and there's no way to avoid it.

EDIT: Hearing reports that this is bogus, but if true it only affects those who already requested the upgrade. I'm not sure where that places me, having requested it then changed my mind. Hopefully it's bogus.

[AgentScotty]

Windows 10 has been showing up as an optional upgrade in Windows Update for a few months. A week or two ago the checkbox to select it was automatically checked, causing the install/upgrade to start for some people, but that was reversed within a few days.

I've put "DisableGwx" (gets rid of the Windows 10 tray icon) and "DisableOSUpgrade" (gets rid of Windows 10 in Windows Update) in the registry of a few computers for friends/family that don't want to upgrade to 10, and so far it's worked. If any of them get force-upgraded I'll end up hearing about it.

I ended up going back to Windows 8.1 on my own system, but am running the Windows 10 Preview build 10565 as a dual boot, and it's addressed some of the issues I had with Windows 10 RTM. When the big "Threshold 2" update gets released in November I'm going to give 10 another shot.

[Person of Color]

I managed to get a hold of a Windows 10 Enterprise key. Fuck yeah! Now when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided comes out I won't have Microsoft livestreaming pictures of my tickle pickle.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

AgentScotty, on 24 October 2015 - 03:25 PM, said:

Windows 10 has been showing up as an optional upgrade in Windows Update for a few months. A week or two ago the checkbox to select it was automatically checked, causing the install/upgrade to start for some people, but that was reversed within a few days.

I would hope so. Graphical issues such as the black screen of death have not yet been resolved, so people who receive an automatic upgrade might freak out if they experience it and assume their computer has stopped working.

That being said, I'm really enjoying Windows 10 so far. I have Windows 10 Pro on my main rig and it runs like a dream. It's the smoothest and most versatile OS I've ever used. They finally implemented Metro correctly without the obnoxiousness of Windows 8.

Only complaint I have is that it feels a little incomplete. For instance, dragging shortcuts onto the Start Menu doesn't work, but adding them manually using Windows Explorer does. That should be something Microsoft has accounted for.

[Person of Color]

I've already fixed multiple black screens of death at work.

The solution? Back up and reformat.

And load the blocker from WindowsLies on GitHub so this shit never happens again, and telemetry gets shut off.

[Forge]

windows 10 runs like a scalded dog...when it's running.

somehow some update totally fricked the .net framework and visual c++. Uninstalling and reinstalling visual c++ didn't remedy the situation - the programs it affected still tossed out a side-by-side error (office, photoshop, etc - un-installing & reinstalling the programs didn't work either). Net framework is built into the system, not a separate entity, so there's no way to uninstall and re-install it. It also refused to be repaired or updated, just tossed out a fail error code when trying to update the file (from the update site, from an installer, from a console/powershell dism command - local & remote files). Kept throwing the no .net framework found error when trying to install programs dependent upon it, even though the system was saying that 2.0 thru 3.5 & the 4 versions were there. Then the boot sector, which is supposed to be fat32 decided it wanted to be ntfs. Refresh, restore, and OS install threw errors.

I had to basically re-format the entire drive, re-install windows 7, then upgrade to windows 10 again from scratch. I'm not updating shit through the micro$oft update service again. I'll download it straight from their repository when it's about six months old and the bugs are knocked out of it.

https://catalog.upda...nks.aspx?id=140

I've been fighting with a harddrive failure and OS failures / hard-crashes since July - at least I'm pretty familiar with what I can and can't do to the OS before it breaks. I just have to keep it from breaking itself now.

[Person of Color]

Upgrade it to 10, and then before you do anything, go to the shut down menu and hold down the shift key while you click restart. Keep holding it. Now go through the options and find "Reset my computer."

Presto! Fresh install of Windows 10. No more 7 gunk...

[Duke of Hazzard]

Person of Color, on 27 October 2015 - 10:45 PM, said:

I managed to get a hold of a Windows 10 Enterprise key. Fuck yeah! Now when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided comes out I won't have Microsoft livestreaming pictures of my tickle pickle.

Being the Enterprise version I imagine you can use the same key for multiple machines. Is it correct?

[Forge]

Person of Color, on 03 November 2015 - 10:32 PM, said:

Upgrade it to 10, and then before you do anything, go to the shut down menu and hold down the shift key while you click restart. Keep holding it. Now go through the options and find "Reset my computer."

Presto! Fresh install of Windows 10. No more 7 gunk...

reset didn't work. the boot partition was jacked up and it kept tossing errors about being unable to install.

I don't even know how the hell it was booting in the first place, but it muscled through the process, so kudos for that. The system was seriously hobbled and almost nothing worked, but it gave me the opportunity to organize the shit i wanted backed up before i transferred it to a Linux HDD.

I have no issue with windows 10 and it's performance once it's up and running and all the B.S. spyware is disabled - my issue is with micro$oft pushing out crappy, untested updates that break shit - bad enough to destroy half the essential files required to run anything, and reconfigure how partitions are read / formatted. (it's a 3TB HDD - windows only recognizes 2TB -which is how it was originally installed (with the excess region formatted for use as a storage partition) - so somewhere along the way a windows 10 update decided to change the boot sector format from GPT(fat32) to EFI(ntfs) - even though the bios was set up for UEFI).

Lesson learned - updates are set to notify only - i will sift though their list and update from the catalog site manually after it's had enough time to age properly and fixes have been issued.

[Person of Color]

GPT is the newer standard, you're thinking of MBR. They both can be used with either NTFS or FAT32, along with tons of other systems.

[Forge]

windows 7 / 10 wouldn't install on my disk (larger than 2TB) without being in the GPT format - an update decided to change the boot partition from GPT to EFI/MBR (possibly because I had formatted the extra 1 TB of unallocated space to NTFS for use as storage) - so a refresh / reset was not possible without reformatting the hard drive back to GPT and losing the original partitions & install.

We can banter about this all day, but that's what happened to my system. I didn't take pictures to prove it, but I was there to witness it.

Again, nothing wrong with windows 10 once it's up and running (with the spyware disabled), but their 'forced' updates leave a lot to be desired - which is why I changed it to notify to download & notify to install through the group policy manager.

[Person of Color]

That's crazy. Holy shit. Also MBR can't address disks larger than 2TB. What a shitty OS.

[Striker]

Whatever fucked with your MBR/Partition table wasn't the Windows 10 updater. It doesn't have the permissions nor capability to do that.

[MusicallyInspired]

Windows 10 actually doesn't have permission for something?

[Person of Color]

GarbageCollection = 0x000001
ChildPornCollection = 0x000001
Dickpics = 0x000001 (YUMMY)
SyncTesticleShotsWithWindowsPhone = 0x000001
AndroidTesticleSupport = 0x000000
TimCookIsAFag = 0x000001
BallVeinPatternsNSA = 0x000001
CompressBallVeinMaps = 0x000000

[Mark]

AndroidTesticleSupport = 0x000000

Is there a good 3rd party jock strap for that?

[Forge]

StrikerMan780, on 12 November 2015 - 08:12 PM, said:

Whatever fucked with your MBR/Partition table wasn't the Windows 10 updater. It doesn't have the permissions nor capability to do that.

You are absolutely right! Thank you so much for sharing your infinite wisdom and knowledge with us poor misinformed computer illiterates.
No changes or additions to any installed software / hardware. no changes to the bios. no changes to any settings in the OS. The only thing that changed with the static system was microsoft updates. The system went all fucky immediately after the update and restart.
Couldn't be the updates. Musta been the magical computer faeries that live under my power supply. Little bastards.

Thank you ever so much for educating me.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

[Forge]

It's just interesting that I can open computer-disk management within the OS and delete / format / change drive letter & path / shrink the boot partition, but the OS doesn't have access to it and would never ever change it.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

On a slightly more meager note, Windows 10 will not let you drag shortcuts onto the start menu, but will happily let you copy-paste a shortcut into "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu" and subsequently render it onto the Start Menu.

Honestly I think Microsoft suffers from their own short-sightedness sometimes.

[Forge]

careful.
those start menu folders are (supposed to be) write-protected, even though the system lets you write to them. Dragging and dropping shit into those folders could break your start menu and metro interface
(which pretty much renders everything windows 10 related in your taskbar inoperable).

you're supposed to use their stupid 'pin to' under the right-click on object menu.

if the shit breaks use the powershell (with admin privileges ).

the command:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}


make sure your windows firewall is turned on. it won't work otherwise.

(btw) I found it 'safer' to drop new shortcuts in the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu folder - this seems to be the primary location that most newly installed non-microsoft programs place their start menu shortcuts