windoze 10

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Windows made My floppy drive unusable, driver is obsolete, no other available. Have ordered a newer floppy drive and NO I am not a Luddite.

[MM57Participant @mm57]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 13/10/2019 21:40:58:

W10 just showed me its roots…

My latest W10 update has added a new item that I've not seen before when you ShiftKey+Right Mouse Button in an empty space in a folder in the "file explorer"….

"Open Linux shell here…"

And it does as well…so I can ls -l, ps -ef, grep, awk etc in my windows folders from a command line

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

one feature of Linux is that the O/S is not linked to any specific machine – I often set up a system on one machine try it out then switch the computer name to a new one and move the hard drive to its new home – with laptops you can make a copy of the hard-drive and move it – again a name change – a quick edit of 2 files – may be needed to avoid LAN clashes .
Re floppies + other old hardware I still have a couple of win98 machines around for reading etc with transfers to more modern machines for any significant work. Try a local auction house for very low cost XP + Win7 machines that will happily run Linux at a speed that will amaze you compared to their sluggish behaviour with Windoze

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

So I did the extremely long update to W10, since when the sound has stopped working, there is a little red X by the speaker symbol in the bottom right hand corner. Went on Google and it seems this is a common problem. The suggested solution is to open device manager, scroll down to the sound systems tab and click on Realtek. Mine no longer has a sound systems tab, so I'm a bit snookered. Any ideas?The computer is a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series.

Whilst I am on, the machine is set up with a dual boot, Linux or W10. If I just switch it on and leave it it defaults to Linux. This is normally what I want, but when doing updates to W10 it repeatedly reboots, and of course if I left it to it's own devices it would boot into Linux, so I have to sit next to it and select W10 every time it reboots. There must be a way to change the pecking order.

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

On my PC, you click the little Window icon bottom left, and scroll down through the list to "Windows System", clicking this gives you a drop-down from which you select "Control Panel" which opens in it's own window and offers "Hardware And Sound" as an option. One of the folders there is called "Manage Sound Devices" – You should be able to select the default you need from there. I don't think Device Manager exists anymore..

I think the Boot Priority changes that you need, to resolve the Windows/Linux issue will have to be changed from the BIOS menu, and I'm not sure how to access that on your machine. I'm sure there'll be something on the 'net.

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

Just realised that Device Manager is present in the Devices & Printers section of the Hardware and Sound page.. sorry!

Good luck, hope this helps..

[MonomanParticipant @monoman]

Theeis an aspect I have never seen addressed on the forum. I have run PC-DOS, MS-DOS and every flavour of Windows up to W7 quite satisfactorily.

However I am doubtful of W10, which I have on my everyday laptop and it's a pain and nowhere as useful as W7. I installed W10 following the free offer some years ago as it seemed like a good idea at the time.

But I have never seen anybody say that Linux will run MS-Word, MS-Excel, MS-Project or most important MS-Outlook on it. Anybody who thinks that there is any alternative to these Microsoft products is not running these to their full potential. My Word files are typically 1.5GB in size taking advantage of all the file splitting and combining functions which I would be reluctant to lose.

Additionally I need to run Photoshop and InDesign as well as Inventor and NotaBene.

All on the same machine with 6-core processor, 4 hard discs and NAS (Synology Drive).

Should anyone be able to assure me that Linux, of any origin, will run all these with at least the MS programs loaded at the same time I'll give it a go.

I'm holding my breath.

Jerry

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

the older XP-era Word programmes (word, excel etc) run fine under Wine on my various Linux machines (I still use Word as its table editing section in that version makes it easy to correct OCR scans and is simpler to use than Libre Office for this purpose)
Libre-Office (free!) that now comes with all? flavours of Linux can handle 99% of word documents etc from a fuctional point of view but not having the same fonts means that exact images not always achievable (tho this used also to be the case in distant days to be true of Win + Apple flavours of Word )

However you are probably correct in that the latest versions of MS are definitely locked to later MS operating systems and are unlikely to move to Linux – likewise many Apple programmes only run on their O/S – in both cases you accept that you are at the mercy of the company who can remove/alter any function at will – hence the attraction to me of Linux.

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

Posted by duncan webster on 15/10/2019 10:18:39:

So I did the extremely long update to W10, since when the sound has stopped working, there is a little red X by the speaker symbol in the bottom right hand corner. Went on Google and it seems this is a common problem. The suggested solution is to open device manager, scroll down to the sound systems tab and click on Realtek. Mine no longer has a sound systems tab, so I'm a bit snookered. Any ideas?The computer is a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series.

Whilst I am on, the machine is set up with a dual boot, Linux or W10. If I just switch it on and leave it it defaults to Linux. This is normally what I want, but when doing updates to W10 it repeatedly reboots, and of course if I left it to it's own devices it would boot into Linux, so I have to sit next to it and select W10 every time it reboots. There must be a way to change the pecking order.

Had the same problem ! I thought it was because of the front speaker jack i sometimes use for a Bluetooth transmitter i plug in to send audio to a speaker . I ended up going into devices manager and updated the driver for the audio system and it seems to have fixed the problem .

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

re boot order – you need to edit Grub (or one of the files associated with it) – depending on your version of Linux or UEFI/BIOS there may be a program included otherwise many rescue CDs eg those on the linux mags often include a free standalone program as Grub is the lowest level of the boot loader – but google for your Linux system + grub

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Monoman on 15/10/2019 11:27:39:.

…

But I have never seen anybody say that Linux will run MS-Word, MS-Excel, MS-Project or most important MS-Outlook on it. Anybody who thinks that there is any alternative to these Microsoft products is not running these to their full potential.

…

Additionally I need to run Photoshop and InDesign as well as Inventor and NotaBene.

All on the same machine with 6-core processor, 4 hard discs and NAS (Synology Drive).

Should anyone be able to assure me that Linux, of any origin, will run all these with at least the MS programs loaded at the same time I'll give it a go.

I'm holding my breath.

Jerry

Don't hold your breath Jerry, you are locked in. For you there is no alternative to Microsoft. Must be busy driving that lot fully, but if it's essential, you have to put up with Microsoft's disadvantages: continual security challenges, license costs, clumsy upgrade system, lack of control, privacy issues and slight unreliability.

Dancing to Microsoft's tune isn't to everyone's taste. It includes the need for loyal Win7 supporters to convert to Windows 10. Like it or not Windows 7 is far from future proof – it's 4 years out of mainstream support and the last functional update was in 2011. Sooner or later an attempt to install new hardware or a software upgrade will fail, and in the meantime security holes are left open.

Linux isn't a Windows clone or an attempt to copy Microsoft. (This can cause culture shock if a new user expects it to look and behave exactly like Windows!) Though wine does a fairly good job running Windows applications, Linux is never likely to run all Windows programs transparently. Nor does any other platform. In part this is because Microsoft choose not to release the technical details needed to build a fully effective Windows emulator.

Linux has no trouble with multiprocessors, NAS and multiple disk drives, it's only the lack of high-end proprietary software that disappoints. Otherwise Linux has loads of advantages. But Linux goodies are no good if it won't run the software you need. For that reason, although Linux is preferred in Duffer Mansion, I keep Windows 10 and iMac on tap as well. The latter run in a kind of restricted mode, in particular nothing security sensitive is done on Windows.

Horses for courses, but Linux is certainly worth a look if anyone is fed up with Windows. If it does what you need, Linux is free. Apple is also an alternative. Apple and Linux have a common ancestry. Apple is more user-friendly than Linux and is far more likely to have versions of Windows software. Like Linux, Apple has intrinsically strong security. The main disadvantage is cost – the hardware is pricey.

Dave

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

Jerry Monoman – I suppose you have never looked at the alternatives available in Linux to replace MS Office. The LibreOffice suite (which will also, I am told, run on MS) is a near 100% dropin replacement for Windows Office. It is true that originally it had problems, and had compatibility problems with Windows documents, etc, but nowadays it is will directly read almost all Windows stuff (not just documents, but spreadsheets, presentations and so on), and it is being improved all the time, unlike the Windows stuff, if posts on this thread are anything to go by. (and of course, Windows and Office never had problems……. so never needed to be improved or fixed )

I for one will never forget the time some years I spent preparing a document for a big customer, with limited time to go, and finding that MS Office would not work properly with the document – I later found out it was apparently because the document was 'too big' – whatever that means – it was about 1 GB. I now regularly write much longer (bigger?) documents in LibreOffice Writer with no problems – same experience with Calc (replaces Excel) and other documents.

You say you 'need' to run certain applications – have you looked for Linux replacements?

You say "Should anyone be able to assure me that Linux, of any origin, will run all these with at least the MS programs loaded at the same time…" – you seem to be implying that you want to run these (MS) applications under Linux?. Of course you can run a dual-boot system, and run your applications with Windows, and use LInux for other things.

The hardware you are running it on is largely irrelevant – LInux will often run on ancient software successfully – it certainly uses less memory than Windows. Its been many years (in my experience) since the speed of the hardware made a noticeably significant difference to the speed of word processing documents.

Perhaps you should give Linux a try anyway, but there's no obligation if you want to stick to the past. All the people in threads like this and others who post complaints about Windows cannot all be wrong – there is no smoke without fire – all I am doing is pointing out an alternative.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Ok I'll bite.

I spent several days getting 'astronomy linux' (a specialsit bundle of Ubuntu) running on an old laptop, handheld by several 'experts'.

Getting all the drivers installed was the most unituitive and horrible computer experience I can remember.

Towards the end the advice I got was 'Try another version of Linux'…

I eventually got the thing to boot properly and start up, but by then I just hadn't got the heart to go through the effort to get the astronomy software working and add the drivers for my astro gear.

…

As for Libre Office, I had to drop it as it just couldn't handle many of the files sent me through my work without destroying the formating.

I now use Office 365 and it has never failed me in 6 years, including opening all the various formats sent by MEW contributors (except Apple's format), and all the other programs work as well (I would be lost without Outlook, vastly better than struggling against Thunderbird, which I tried.

I'm not averse to opensource/freeware – I use firefox and many other programs of that kind, but I judge each one on its merits and my own experiences.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by DiogenesII on 15/10/2019 11:20:50:

Just realised that Device Manager is present in the Devices & Printers section of the Hardware and Sound page.. sorry!

Good luck, hope this helps..

When I wrote the original query, going into device manager didn't throw up anything relating to sound, the entry was just missing. However when I just switched it on now it took a long time to boot, probably uploading yet another update, then it all works just by magic. the ways of Mr Microsoft pass all human understanding!

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

Duncan, pleased to hear it got sorted.. ..now that you mention it, when I installed the same one, it needed several restarts before it straightened itself out.. and without prompting for them. As you say, He works in a mysterious way….

D

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Neil
how long ago was your attempt – and how old was the lap-top? I’ve played around with many machines that would run XP and encountered no problems, modern Linux systems just work out of the box – the usual problems with old (ie >12yrs old) laptops are their lack of compute power, often with limited memory but especially with wifi + bluetooth (broadcomm is a pain here as it refuses to divulge sufficient info eg seen even with the Raspberrypi) and certain display drivers for which the manufacturers refuse to give info – nvidia was one such that required the equivalent of a binary patch against a specific version of Linux tho recent free software works well but cannot often drive the GPU to its limits. But the same is true in spades for windoze – W10 forced many users to dump working scanners and printers at our local amenity centre because there were no drivers under W10 for stuff that had worked under XP or even win 7. Lifetimes of many specialised peripherals greatly exceeds that of the O/S eg my goto scanner has an attached win98 box(for which I have several spares) as its drivers were never updated by the manufacturer.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

I use a dual boot Windows 7/Linux system on one of my laptop PC,s. One feature I find useful is that Linux can "see" the windows partition and I can transfer compatible files between the two systems.

Libre office is FREE and can load and save windows files, admittedly sometimes with formatting differences. I can live with that. Personally, I think a lot of the windows "improvements" have been change for changes sake, with the bonus that manufacturers have been able to sell people new equipment, because as was mentioned above, the old kit no longer works.

As for me, I have several old tower systems which I assembled over the years. They still run various windows OS from windows 2000 upwards, as the (old) programs I am running on them do what I require of them and do not need to access the internet.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by duncan webster on 15/10/2019 18:58:19:

Posted by DiogenesII on 15/10/2019 11:20:50:

Just realised that Device Manager is present in the Devices & Printers section of the Hardware and Sound page.. sorry!

Good luck, hope this helps..

When I wrote the original query, going into device manager didn't throw up anything relating to sound, the entry was just missing. However when I just switched it on now it took a long time to boot, probably uploading yet another update, then it all works just by magic. the ways of Mr Microsoft pass all human understanding!

The 1903 update worked perfectly (I think) on my Desktop, but sound failed on my Acer Laptop. No output, and a red cross on the Speaker Icon.

Fair number of other people reporting the same problem on the web with a variety of fixes none of which worked for me. Microsoft's web support advice hopeless. Microsoft's diagnostic tools report everything on my laptop is working correctly – it believes the latest audio device driver is installed and working correctly. Acer's diagnostic toolkit often does better than Microsoft, but not in this case, though it did find a number of unrelated driver updates that Microsoft didn't. (An Intel diagnostic found another driver upgrade missed by both Microsoft and Acer.) This confusion is one reason why Windows is a bit unreliable and a bit insecure: it relies on device drivers provided by Microsoft, Hardware Vendors and Software developers, and there is no standard way of managing them. Linux and Apple don't use drivers and both have coherent software management systems.

Audio is rather complicated. Turns out my laptop has an extra layer of control (used to manage Dolby and other features) between the driver and operating system. I think it's the interface between this and Windows that's failed, not the driver. I was able to get audio working again by bypassing this layer. Although sound now works less fancy features, Windows is still red-flagging the Speaker Icon…

Given time, no doubt the developers will find and fix the fault. How long it takes depends on where it is. Could be Microsoft boobed, or it could be a third-party.

After a painful career in IT I'm amused by end-user debates about the merits of operating systems and software packages. They tend to be about visible features, functional things like a particular program or the look and feel of the display. Whilst functionality is important, non-functional aspects of computer system like performance, efficiency, reliability, security, portability, certification, integrity and maintainability are far more interesting. Under the bonnet these things are so complicated it's a wonder computers work at all…

Dave

[TomfileryParticipant @tomfilery]

As usual SOD and Neil are both correct.

When you get it all to work properly Linux is great. When it doesn't work well, you are on your own!

Having said that, I use Ubuntu for most things and am very pleased with it. I'd like to flag one piece of software which hasn't been mentioned and that is Oracle VirtualBox (usual disclaimer). I use it under Ubuntu to run Windows Vista and through that, my TurboCad 16. It works well and I have a shared area where I get Windows to save all my files (so the virtual Windows disk is kept relatively small). Connecting to other devices can get complicated but, for instance, I can print from Windows to my wireless printer on the Ubuntu network.

Worth a look if you get too frustrated with WIndows.

Regards Tom

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

Neil – I can sympathise with your problems trying to get drivers installed in Linux for your astro gear, but I would suggest this is not confined to Linux. In my opinion there are (and always will be) users of specialist software, and I would suggest that instead of a large user market to push software producers into making their software useable, you are virtually on your own. I have had the opposite problem using development software which was impossible to use on Windows, despite being 'compatible' and that was provide by a large company with (presumably) resources to do the work (but failed for me)

As for the Libreoffice experience, I have seen you make this same comment some time ago on another thread. I did make the point that the software is under constant development, and also that I (and I know of others, mostly in the business field in which I worked) who were almost reduced to tears by the problems with MS Office, and they were stuck with it because of business use. LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice. OO is still under development as far as I know, but LO has long overtaken it. As I mentioned earlier, there were problems, but it has progressed enormously these days: I don't believe Office has done so. As another post on this thread suggests, the problem quite possibly lay with the hardware in use. Linux will usually run on a smaller or older machine than Windows, but everything has its limitations. As someone else noted Broadcom drivers for WiFi are a pig on Linux – the manufacturers won't release info, so development is hindered – but there are drivers which work if you search for it. I have a laptop on which the graphics devices were produced by a small company subsequently taken over by MS. When it was bought, Windows was already installed. Now nothing will run properly on it – Windows apparently stopped making the chips and also the drivers: no info was released, so no drivers were developed for Linux (not for want of trying) – now it just collects dust on my shelves. (It will actually run with Linux, but the graphics rendering is done in software instead of the graphics chips, so it is very slow – Linux did at least achieve that)

In a perfect world, everybody would be happy with everything immediately it came on the market, but this is never true: Windows used to sell its product for a relatively high price (try looking at the cost of business support for the older WIndows versions), and apparently has been forced into now making it available much more cheaply because of competition (and possibly public opinion). Despite having the funding (its a big company), Windows still generates threads such as this spotlighting complaints. In contrast Linux is generally free, even such things as Ubuntu, produced by Canonical (but their business support costs money) and it is also usually developed by a small team working virtually for nothing, or for donations (Linux Mint publishes a list of its donors and receipts on its web page).

While you may dislike Linux and not use it, which is your prerogative, I feel that development of alternative tools to the 'Big Tech' approach should be encouraged, but unfortunately there are all too many reports on the lines of "I tried it once, and I couldn't get it working, so its useless and I'll never use it, and others shouldn't". Far better, don't you think, to encourage its use, and let the developers provide us with new and better tools?

I also disagree with comments on the lines of "If Linux fails, your on your own". It was my own experience, and I have heard others say the same, that MS gives virtually NO help beyond their fatuous (to my mind) FAQ pages if you have problems – really, you are left with the option to seek help on the Internet, and it usually is there. Exactly the same argument applies to Linux – there are literally thousands of forums and sites offering help – Linux Mint has its own user forums, and it is often addressed by the founder of Mint – the same can be said of most other Linux dialogues. In this day, the Internet is full of sites with people willing to help – you just need to look.

Its perhaps also worth pointing out that most servers, which everyone relies on for their Internet access run under Linux, not Windows. If it was that unreliable, do you really think that would be the case?

To sum up, I would like to see an end to the Windows/Linux argument – both have their merits, and it is always your choice which you use. Much better to encourage both systems, because then we all benefit in the end – lets see more requests for help/offers of help for these OS's, instead of bashing them. Its as depressing as hell to respond with a suggestion when someone posts about an issue and it leads to attacks and aspersions because 'Linux is crap' or 'Windows is expensive junk' I dislike posting nowadays, even when I see something where I could help, simply because of this trend to rubbish everything. It is fair to say that many people do respond positively – this thread has many such posts.

These are my opinions, and my experiences – if you don't agree with them, that's your problem, or if they raise your blood pressure you are perfectly at liberty to ignore it all.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by An Other on 16/10/2019 18:02:27:

To sum up, I would like to see an end to the Windows/Linux argument

+1 …. especially around here – it's not like it hasn't already been done to death many times.

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Posted by MM57 on 14/10/2019 20:20:20:

My latest W10 update has added a new item that I've not seen before when you ShiftKey+Right Mouse Button in an empty space in a folder in the "file explorer"….

"Open Linux shell here…"

And it does as well…so I can ls -l, ps -ef, grep, awk etc in my windows folders from a command line

I was quite interested in this remark by MM57, so I did a complete update of my W10. Up to now no adverse effects (touching wood).

But when I do the steps above, I don't get a Linux shell, but a window with a "Windows PowerShell".

I'm beginning to think there are different variants of W10 around…

Kind regards,
Hans

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Versaboss on 18/10/2019 14:12:38:

Posted by MM57 on 14/10/2019 20:20:20:

…

"Open Linux shell here…"

And it does as well…so I can ls -l, ps -ef, grep, awk etc in my windows folders from a command line

… when I do the steps above, I don't get a Linux shell, but a window with a "Windows PowerShell".

I'm beginning to think there are different variants of W10 around…

Kind regards,
Hans

There are indeed several variants of Windows 10, plus what's loaded by default on a particular computer depends on the hardware vendor. The bash shell (Linux) is an advanced developer feature, far too scary for ordinary Microsoft groupies. It usually has to be switched on by an Administrator from Settings->Update&Security. This set of instructions describes all the steps.

The bash shell is the Linux equivalent of Microsoft's PowerShell, not a full Linux installation. The extra power bash provides might only be useful to command line and scripting gurus, not the average civilian! Powershell is well beyond most Microsoft users and Bash goes to the next level. Very useful if needed, mostly not!

Dave

[MonomanParticipant @monoman]

I suppose I ought to bring this topic to a close by a simple piece of additional information which I should have included in my original post

1 I use my laptop at least one every week ofcten every day.

2 My efforts on Linux are about the beginning of every mont. I learnt as a very early computer adopter that the technology is constantly evolving.

3. Although commentators have given me food for thought nobody has addressed my original question in one single response.

I don't think I asked for any suggestions of alternative OSs.

But nevertheless Many thanks to all.

Jerry

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Well, fwiw, Its only MICROSOFT that is ending support for windows 7, all of the other suppliers are still supporting it in the main, Antivirus programs are still available and in some cases better, and drivers for specialist equipment still seems to be available from their original suppliers too.

I have no difficulty getting Antivirus support for Windows XP and 7 from Avast etc including firewall protection.

So, whats the problem?

In my case, the regular updates in windows 10 that can only be posponed to a point before the machine forces you to update – in my case right in the middle of a rather fiddly engraving job, where the machine suddenly decided to reboot and dump the program even after I had clicked the box to postpone !!!

Don't seem to have that problem with XP and 7

[Author]

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