I would go for the upgrade to W10 if it is free.

My PC updated today W10 and now after a few minutes of use a get a Blue screen stating that "Critical Struture Corruption" has occured and that it needs to gather the information and reboot

After speaking to my son (a professional computer programmer) he helped me install a microsoft program called Show Hide (WUSHOWHIDE) can be downloaded from the MS downloads area

It allows you to interagate the updates and decide if you want them or not

If not you simply select hide and it removes it from the update but more importantly flags it for any future update that come along and doesnt try to Re Install it

After I removed the 3 new updates with this program all is now back to normal

Simply google MS Show Hide

Regards

Trevor

Edited By Trevorh on 15/06/2020 18:53:50

.

Thanks for that

The two biggest irritations are :

1. The U.K. keyboard, on which I frequently manage to inadvertently undo something that I have just typed … and which is also inconsistent in its behaviour with the ? key
2. If you have a look at my recent Albums, you will see that my photos are now named with Hex gibberish instead of the simple numbers that were allocated in previous iOS versions. [the odd exceptions are ones that I have uploaded from the Mac]

MichaelG.

.

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/albums/member_album.asp?a=52817

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/06/2020 19:35:06

Although Microsoft officially ended their free upgrade offer several years ago, it's very widely reported in the computer press and online that, in practice, upgrading of a legitimate W7 or W8 installation is still free.

You need to download the official Microsoft upgrade tool and go from there. There's lots of information and advice on the web, to be found with Google.

Yes had couple of goes and last Few times it failed at the upgrade tool stage as the address bar showed connecting to MS then just returned to the homepage.

Have to admit that my personal computing uses Apple gear these days so the Win stuff tends to be for the Wife’s limited computer usage.

Edited By V8Eng on 15/06/2020 21:57:27

Edited By V8Eng on 15/06/2020 21:59:26

Have you a source or a link to this ? It seems very very unlikely

Edited By Gerard O'Toole on 16/06/2020 07:52:29

Edited By Gerard O’Toole on 16/06/2020 07:53:09

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Thanks … Yes, it confirms my suspicion

MichaelG.

.

.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/06/2020 09:51:42

The mind is boggled :

**LINK**

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNi8VN2pw2Ya_xCV8eFgzEZmiXDy1-GwhXbqFtvXoH3HypF10as9puV8FdoVZpOZA?key=WkZjQTIxQTM5a01oZkNUYTE2ZllKTVJKZk1CMTR3

MichaelG.

If you want a Windows computer today it will run Windows 10 (or 8.1 until 2023)

I’m sorry but – End of!

In this interconnected world you can no longer access the internet with Windows XP (introduced nearly 20 years ago) and expect all websites to work for you. Chrome no longer supports Win XP completely and Firefox is perhaps the way to go. If you go for Win7 (2009) the same thing happens with the version of Internet Explorer that is installed – but you can at least still update that, but no further versions are planned. There are many Anti-Virus solutions that are the same.

Thinking you have paid for software and want to continue to use it is incorrect as it is all licenced under whatever terms the creators choose to apply – If you disagree your only option is to cease using the software and delete all copies. Anyway if you want to continue to use old software what happens if a breakdown means replacement hardware? If drivers for computer hardware, scanners, printers etc are not available then you either replace your software or stop using it.

Windows is no longer a major revenue earner for Microsoft – most of its sales are with hardware and the PC market is not strong. Industry analysts have written that Microsoft have been trying to move to a cloud based model, and offering free upgrades to Win10 must lessen their support costs for elderly hardware and old versions of Windows.

The subscription model means that every user has to pay for their software as long as they use it. The advantage to you is when you no longer need to use it you stop paying and to the company they get paid for every copy in use. No more ripping off software or installing it at home so ‘I can work more easily there’ but not deleting it when you retire or change jobs. Support costs for the vendor are probably less as every version in use is the same.

Quoting Steve – “That however is NOT the case for software such as Word or Excel, in order to keep up to date with the lastest version MS have migrated to Microsoft 365 which is subscription based”

You can buy a lifetime licence for the home version of Office 2019 for about £200 from a retailer in the UK – or for £60 you can get a 1 year subscription for 1 user on up to 5 devices and for £80 you can get a similar subscription for up to 6 users . As new versions of Office are out most years you can save money with either choice depending on how often you wish to update.

Leaded petrol became illegal on Jan 1 2000 which is about the time that copies of WinXP began to be trialled in major organisations (I worked for one then; retail sales began in 2001) Would you expect to continue to run a car on leaded fuel as a practical proposition today? While many classic car enthusiasts do so and similarly many people still take pictures with cameras that use film, mainstream users of both would not dream of doing so.

For a computer to be used as a tool anything that is not kept up to date may have issues. If the payment model to do that is not to your taste I am sorry, but I suspect that the vast majority of users will dictate the decision to the rest of us. In the early days of large computers much software was used on a subscription basis and in these days of easy online and electronic payments I predict it will probably return to that.

There are alternatives to Windows of course, but I think that Apple’s business model will not be too dissimilar in time and Linux needs to be kept up to date in just the same way as Windows, although the costs are basically zero.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 16/06/2020 10:55:11