Hi, I am one of the people rather concerned about MS doing the forced update to their Win10 operating system. I know one person who refuses to use any Windows operating system and now we have a video below with another convert away from windows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTIySM6tfww He believes they are doing it to slow the machine down. This is something that had not occurred to me but I would not be surprised.
Any plans on writing a BIAB for Linux? I use to know it well. I am also seriously considering moving my notebook back to Win7. If I find BIAB running slower I will definitely do it.
Yes, when I got my desktop machine I did the same (set it from Win10 back to Win7). I noticed the windows updates were taking more than overnight to complete so I turned them off. I have had no problems with any of my software on that machine. Because I refuse to leave my machine running for days I just shut my notebook off while the updates are running. It took more than 2 weeks for the Windows 10 update to complete even though the notebook many times ran for a full hour during this 2 weeks. They call it a service. I call it a virus. You would think they would be smart enough to tell you what they think is so important in their updates and why they take so long (what are they hiding). If BIAB and one other software would run on Linux I would switch back to Linux.
The other software is ms-access. It is tricky to run under wine apparently. Related link. https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1065674 For now I will see if the BIAB runs okay during my live jams on the notebook which runs Win10. My concern is another update coming in during a live jam. I could turn off the internet maybe but what if it is downloaded and starts forcing its install. I guess I will find out eventually if this ever becomes a problem.
If/when Win 10 goes to a monthly payment then I will convert all of my Internet computers to Linux. I have used Linux before on an old XP computer and it is a good OS. My music computer will remain Windows because most of my music software programs will not run on Linux.
Me, it's not about how many times you fail, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I have used Linux before on an old XP computer and it is a good OS.
I have read that unix operating systems (I assume that includes Linux) have been known to run flawlessly for years (no need to restart them to clean up memory like you need to do with Windows).
I don't know anything about drag and drop and point and click using Linux. All I ever did was command line programming (shell programming using bash, sed & awk). That area is extremely powerful. In windows you need the MKS toolkit to do some of those things using regular expressions.
I put together a website on a Linux machine using a VPS. I am not sure if this can be done on a home machine but there is a technique that makes it impossible to hack. Prior to that you needed to use the 30+ character password technique. I used this impenetrable method only once with some help from the experts on a php site but it certainly gave me piece of mind. That was over 3 years ago. I can't remember the name for the technique but I would remember it if I saw it. It eliminated the need for a fire wall if I remember correctly. I would have to go back to all my notes for a while to refresh my memory on all this (Not a priority at the moment).
Of course a virus picked up from software you download is a different animal. One of my former friends (a computer department manager at one point) use to believe that the anti-virus companies actually create the viruses (or some of them). I can't speak to that but I would not be all that surprised. It would be very hard to prove.
Mac OS X is UNIX, it's rock solid, you can install it on your Windows PC as Mac is now using Intel Windows hardware that they sell for a hell of a lot more (Cult Marketing). So just go here https://www.tonymacx86.com/ and you can install it on another drive on your PC. The only problem is they change things every week then applications don't run and developers are forever reprogramming apps for different versions of Mac, if they just left it alone it would be fine, they had Rosetta one week that ran old Mac PowerPC apps on the new Windows Intel hardware, then got rid of it the next week. Mac has gone through all the species of Cats and Mountain Ranges OS's while in that time Windows has had 1 OS that still runs Win95 apps up to Win10 32 and 64bit with Compatibility Mode.
I'm curious to know if Windows 10 requires you to be on-line to use it?... Also does newer versions of Biab require you to be on-line to use them? I'm running an older version of Biab (2010) on a Surface Pro 4 with Windows 10... Its not connected to the Internet so it never updates... Win 10 & Biab seems to work OK... and I only use Linux for the Internet activities... Just wondering?
Neither Windows, or Band-in-a-Box, require an internet connection.
Since most Windows updates are related to security, I'd say they're not quite as important if you're not online.
Thanks Kent PG Music
Thanks for the speedy reply... Maybe others who wish to avoid problems with Win 10 updates messing up the music Pcs will find this as a possible solution.
To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen updates mess up Windows on any of my machines, and I do install them when they come out.
I'd take most of what the guy in the video says with a grain of salt. He calls Microsoft Edge a "search engine", and accuses Microsoft of installing spyware on machines, which I have my doubts about.
It is a bad policy for Microsoft to force updates on users. They are essentially saying the user is incapable of making their own decisions. I my case when I am running BIAB at a jam and the software that calls it I don't want the MS-update running. That is my decision to make. Not theirs. What they are doing with their update is completely unimportant relative to that decision.
That's really the difference between the "Home" version of Windows 10 and the "Pro" version of Windows 10. With the Pro version, you still ultimately have to apply the updates, but you can schedule them at a time of your own choosing.
Luckily, I upgraded from Windows 7/8 Pro on my computers, so that took me directly to Windows 10 Pro.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Interesting. Pay more money and you get to make your own decisions. Sounds a bit like a protectionist racket where you get protected from the person you pay. Pay us money and we won't steal any of your CPU usage at your critical times.
I'm STILL on 1703 with Pro you delay almost indefinitely, with Pro you can change Group Polices and refuse updates until approved for release to business enterprises (deployments), which BTW still has NOT happened for Fall Creators update 1709, let alone current 1803.
Larry
EDIT
You can believe it or not, this is the internet after all, so I'm simply passing on some possible money savings info (loosely related to this topic) if anyone is interested:
You can a buy a full, legal, and yes Genuine license for Win 10 PRO for $32.99 from a MS partner - that's less than paying $50 direct to MS just to upgrade from Win 10 HOME.
Yes it's valid, MS legal, and not a scam that I can tell (at least for me it wasn't).
In last month I've bought four licenses: two Win 10 Pro's, one Win 7 Pro 64 and one Win 7 Pro 32 bit (the Win 7 licenses cost a whopping $18.99 each three weeks ago now I see they only have the expensive $28.99 copies - LOL).
ALL Win copies installed, all copies and product keys activated on-line and all are reported as as GENUINE by the OS. The installs were on four different PC's (one was a laptop). The two Win 7's belong to my brother and the two Win 10's were builds for my wife's friends.
I've already bought (set aside) another Win 10 Pro license for myself for upcoming new monster i9 XXXX bleeding edge gamer/DAW/general purpose work build. It's still possible I might go AMD Ryzen - but still looking at various MoBO's, configs, chips sets, gotcha's, current and future growth features, etc.
EDIT
Last edited by Larry Kehl; 06/07/1812:44 PM.
Win10Pro,i9,64GB,2TBSSD+20TBHDDs,1080TI,BIAB'24,Scarlett18i8,Montage7,Fusion 8HD,QS8,Integra7,XV5080,QSR,SC-8850,SPLAT,FL21&others,Komp.14,IK suite&others, just a guitar player-AXE FX III &FM9T, FishmanTP, MIDIGuitar2, GK2/3'sw/GI20
I wasn't aware a person can still obtain Windows 7; that's a surprise. I looked at the Instant Software Site and was surprised by the prices I saw, $214.99 for a single Windows 10 Professional 32/64 bit download and license key and $219.99 for a Windows 7 Pro download and license. That's way different than your report.
Windows updates aren't necessarily bad either. Often they fix security holes that have been discovered. They could save you.
Now I do understand there is marketing involved as well, but that's become a fact of life with computers.
I always install the updates, but I make a new back-up disk image first. I make an image before installing anything new, it's saved by rear a few times. But I've never had to use it on a MS update.
I use to take an image after every software install. I don't bother now. I take an image or two after a complete reinstall of windows and my software so I know the image is completely clean of any junk I don't want. From that point on I keep a record of what I install after that. So if I get a virus I just return the clean image, install all the stuff that I installed after then I take another double image and once again I keep a record of any software I install (I have a way to ensure I don't forget). This way I know for sure that the 2nd pair of images are free of any junk. I repeat this process any time I need to do an image restore due to a virus or whatever. This process eliminates the need for the MS updates because I can very quickly fix things. Of course data gets backed up very often (often several times a day). So again. It is not good policy for MS to force updates upon people. I would not trust MS to protect me from viruses etc. The people who write viruses, root-kits and ransomware are always trying to outsmart Microsoft. There is no way we can predict when they find another hole to sneak through.
I returned 3 restores on my Win7 machine because it was not acting correctly (virus, driver went bad, whatever, it does not matter). I had to do a complete rebuild after I replaced a drive. It was after this rebuild I started the new procedure. Doing an image backup after each software install often means you are backing up junk that is slowing your machine or waiting to bite you such as a root-kit or maybe even ransomware. It is a good idea to turn off your backup disk or have some rotation where the backup disk is turned off as a way to protect against ransomware because it will compact things across the home network. This includes compacting your images. Keep your images on an external USB drive that you very rarely plug in (like only when doing the above procedure). The big concern these days is ransomware compacting critical data and how long ransomware sits on your machine before it bites you. The bigger your drive removed from the machines rotation the greater your protection from ransomware.
To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen updates mess up Windows on any of my machines, and I do install them when they come out.
I'd take most of what the guy in the video says with a grain of salt. He calls Microsoft Edge a "search engine", and accuses Microsoft of installing spyware on machines, which I have my doubts about.
Cheers Kent PG Music
I'm sure you are correct about the updates as well as the nonsense the "guy in the video" was saying. So many people talk about using to Linux, but it is usually just talk. Like others, I was reluctant at first, but I finally made the move to using Linux for "what it was good at" and using Windows for "what it was good at" around 2007, and I haven't regretted my choice. My Windows machines work great without being connected to the Internet, without downloading and installing Windows updates, and without having any anti-virus or other security protections to slow the PCs down. I built my XP machine in 2007, installed the basic necessary softwares I needed & used a lot, made an image of my base setup, and it has been running every day since then doing Excel programming, music production, recordings, videos, etc, all without being on the Internet and without the hassles of downloading & installing updates. The only thing I need to do is back my data files. My Win 10 machine has been running regularly since 2016 without Internet, updates, anti-virus, etc, and you confirmed what I already suspected about Win 10 functioning without an Internet connection... again, I thank you!
I bought my Internet PC (Lenovo) in 2012 to replace the old Pentium I used for the Internet back then. When I bought the Lenovo, I stored its Win7 HD, replaced it with a new HD, and installed Linux. With Linux the OS and program files are free and they are pretty good, many are excellent. Some things I use to do in Windows I now prefer doing in Linux. In addition, with Linux I can go anywhere on the Internet fearlessly and download anything for Windows that looks interesting. If I decide to use a software for Windows, I can have an on-line virus scanner check the file before transferring it over to one or more of my Windows machines. I've got the best of both worlds,
The bottom line is this... don't bash Windows, its a great OS and it has a lot of wonderful programs (like Biab) which run on it. If you don't want the hassles of updates and security software, make your life easier and disconnect it from the Internet... use it for "what its good at". If you've got an old machine around gathering dust, download a Linux distro, install it, and give it a try... you might like it!
Another option is use a Live CD or USB boot, it is just a basic bootable Win10 OS CD/USB that will run BIAB. Live CD/USB are use to recover/repair a crashed windows installation but I had it running Biab from the C:\bb drive. If you have the wma version of BB you can run it on a bootable usb stick.
I just searched using a different browser (chrome I usually use Firefox) for that name and clicked on it and got the one above (same one)?
Larry
ACTUALLY try it and report back. Using a different PC I get same site with an order of magnitude cheaper price than $200. Your not using a VPN routed through Mexico or Venezuela and getting prices in Pesos or Bolívar are you LOL
Last edited by Larry Kehl; 06/08/1811:40 AM.
Win10Pro,i9,64GB,2TBSSD+20TBHDDs,1080TI,BIAB'24,Scarlett18i8,Montage7,Fusion 8HD,QS8,Integra7,XV5080,QSR,SC-8850,SPLAT,FL21&others,Komp.14,IK suite&others, just a guitar player-AXE FX III &FM9T, FishmanTP, MIDIGuitar2, GK2/3'sw/GI20
The way updates should work in my opinion is like this. You get a new machine. You take a clean image of it (preferably two that are both verified). So a year or two later the machine is fairly dirty due to internet usage but not all that noticeable yet (strange things happen but a reboot fixes them and you do not know what the problem is or if it is worth returning the image so you continue on living with the small issues). You get an announcement that an update exists. They tell you it will take 6 hours tops to download and they tell you it is service pack #1 so you know rather than their keeping it a mystery. You leave your machine running overnight to do the download and you have a file which you can run at any time in the future which is called service pack #1. Because your machine is running fine you leave it there for future use. When you machine gets a virus or becomes slow to the point that you want to return the image you return it and your machine is running just like it is new again. This time you install the service pack #1 update (if you choose) then you install all your current software that you installed after the first image. Now you have a 100% clean up to machine and you take another two images to lock it in. This way the update should take no more than the 40 minutes that a full windows install typically takes. If the update has issues (and yes being a programmer I know this does happen) then you can roll back to the first image and leave the update off the 2nd time.
Here is another reason this makes sense. There are some software that openly state they will not run unless windows has a 2nd or 3rd service pack. If Microsoft was to tell you the download was a specific service pack using the method I describe above you could store it until you upgrade some of your software and it needs this service pack.
Another option should be to order the service pack DVD which is likely to be clean (sometimes downloads get corrupt). Maybe you pay $15.00 or something for this. That is fine.
The way they are doing it now with forced updates when you restore the first clean image the update is going to start over again. Of course many users do not know how to take an image or even know such a thing is possible.
For marketing reasons some of the manufacturers of software will want you to think their service packs or download updates are for security reasons. They are trying to hide the fact that it is very expensive to thoroughly test software and in a competitive environment they send their software out too soon so that the user can test it. So my best guess is that 90% and at times 100% of the service pack is bug fixes. There may at times be some small feature enhancements. We have no way of proving this since many bugs we do not experience. The better software manufacturers are transparent and publish a list of their fixes (this is smarter marketing because it also markets their software company as being honest and trustworthy). I would guess that service packs 2 and 3 fix bugs created by the attempts at fixes in service pack 1 which create new problems. That is the reality of programming. Why does this occur? Because programs are extremely complex. It becomes even harder to fix bugs for the company if they have a high programmer turnover since it takes a long time to learn a complex program and putting in fixes when you do not have a 100% knowledge of the program is risky (been there done that). Many years ago I read that Microsoft is a sweatshop (typically these create high turnover). I can not prove this but judging from the fact that their software quality is going downhill (file find is no where near as good as in XP, backup is no where as good as in XP) I suspect what I read may in fact be true.
I will agree that Lunix is good and MS-windows is good. Windows would be better if they followed the procedure in the above post. The fact that they no longer do what I describe in the above post is more proof in my mind that they are going down hill. They are struggling to keep ahead of Google and Linux.
Good Golly Miss Molly! I don't know what to say I didn't spend half that much on FOUR copies of OS' from them??
- Maybe trying clearing cache or using a different browser (but I'm also using FF Quantum 60.0.2), or doing a fresh Google search and get your own fresh link? However, I realize this not be worth effort just to try for grins and is probably just a curiosity to you, you aren't in market for NEW OS, OFFICE suite, VISIO, Project.
But your try would scare off anyone from even trying to look for a cheaper price at that site.
Maybe someone else can try and see? I know I'm not special (at least not in that sense - LOL) and I have no association with Instant Software Store, actually this was first time I ever bought from them. Wish I had seen them before two recent upgrades I had to make. I have to run multiple versions of some software, different customers. Unfortunately some MS SW is NOT fully backwards compatible (no matter what they say)
I couldn't consult without those tools and about $10K of other numerical, graphical, and statistical software so I am ALWAYS on lookout for cheap(er) but fully legal tools. I can't use or even be suspected of using pirated, shareware or even freeware SW in my line of work with USG and other contractors)
And I also realize I strayed way off topic of OP so I am done wasting folks time here on this one Good Luck
Larry
Win10Pro,i9,64GB,2TBSSD+20TBHDDs,1080TI,BIAB'24,Scarlett18i8,Montage7,Fusion 8HD,QS8,Integra7,XV5080,QSR,SC-8850,SPLAT,FL21&others,Komp.14,IK suite&others, just a guitar player-AXE FX III &FM9T, FishmanTP, MIDIGuitar2, GK2/3'sw/GI20
Again, IMHO, there is really no need to update unless you have a piece of software you need for work or some other critical reason.
Someone who thinks like me...lol. It is the "if it ain't broke don't fix it approach which is guaranteed to work". Of course if you are online constantly as I am in time external junk will come in to change that but you just restore your image and you are back to "if it ain't broke don't fix it approach which is guaranteed to work" state and happy once again :-)
Again, IMHO, there is really no need to update unless you have a piece of software you need for work or some other critical reason.
Someone who thinks like me...lol. It is the "if it ain't broke don't fix it approach which is guaranteed to work". Of course if you are online constantly as I am in time external junk will come in to change that but you just restore your image and you are back to "if it ain't broke don't fix it approach which is guaranteed to work" state and happy once again :-)
A word of warning - I didn't update my off-line music computer for about 2 years. Then I had to update to run some new software. Because I was so far behind in updates Win 10 really messed up my system. It would go into update loops, that is it would DL an update, try to install it, then revert back to the previous version. This only took about 3 hours! I finally figured out how to fix this but that took well over a couple of months. Now twice a month I update this computer. So far so good. YMMV
Me, it's not about how many times you fail, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
The ideal situation would be to have a fresh install of your windows then apply updates then install software. If they allowed you to download the update the apply it at your convenience this would be possible with a reinstall of windows or an image return to the fresh windows install state. The advantage of this approach is you could collect two or three updates then apply them back to back. They use to do this in that WinXP had 3 service packs. They should have kept it up.
The ideal situation would be to have a fresh install of your windows then apply updates then install software. If they allowed you to download the update the apply it at your convenience this would be possible with a reinstall of windows or an image return to the fresh windows install state. The advantage of this approach is you could collect two or three updates then apply them back to back. They use to do this in that WinXP had 3 service packs. They should have kept it up.
What i did when my windows 10 started getting slower. But a lot of work, began 2 weeks ago, even with a fresh install, and still some stuff i forgot about. Hate windows for that.
Its well worth getting an image backup software. AOEMI is free. https://www.backup-utility.com/. It worked well on Win10 for me. I did the restore and it worked. I did it after installing my software. It works for win7 and winxp. There is an issue with Win7 for creating a rescue disk. I have not tried it but the rescue disk created with win10 should work with win7. I have instructions for using it.
On my notebook I have a restore partition as well. It will return a fresh windows (the one that came with your machine) then you have to install your software. Silly part is as far as I know you also have to download all the updates again. That is the slow part.
I have used Acronis True Image for many years and it has always worked for me. It is not free, however.
In fact, I recently needed to clone my hard drive (with multiple partitions, including the boot partition) from a 1TB drive to a 2TB drive, and it did it swimmingly; back up and running on the larger drive in no time.
I have also on multiple occasions used it to restore an image to a new drive that replaced one that was either failing or failed, as well as to just backtrack to a previous point in time after installing software the computer didn't like.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Still use acronis true image. However the recent 2016 version, officially bought BTW, is so user unfriendly and complicated for me, compared to the old 2014 version, that i run the old 2014 version booting from a CD with it's own DOS type interface. Which works fine BTW.
I don't actually use the Windows installed version of ATI (where the interface has changed multiple times). I always download the Linux disc image (and burn to DVD) to run ATI from there (where the user interface has remained consistent over many versions.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
I have used Acronis as well. It worked fine on Win7 and Winxp for years. However with my new drive on the Win7 machine it can't see the drive. A bit surprising.
I used to use Norton Ghost until they discontinued it, and then, thanks to the advice on this forum, I moved to Acronis.
I make an image, add a few incremental, and then a new image. I keep 3 at all times.
Whenever I install any software or update at all, I make a fresh image first. This has saved my bottom more than once. The exception is Win10 which comes automatically. But if it doesn't work, I have yesterdays image or image + incremental.
Then once a month, on a separate external HD I do another complete image. ON that HD I have about 6 months of images. Why? If I get hit with malware or worse than that ransom ware, I can go back up to 6 months which gives me great odds to solving the problem.
I use one of those USB external docking stations that hold 2 internal hard drives like bread in a toaster. I can pop them in and out. So the external drive that I do once a month, gets stored in a desk drawer until it's time for it to go to work. Extra security.
Sounds like one of the best systems I have seen. I am not sure if you have this covered off. If you do not store forever your image after a fresh install of windows immediately followed by all your software then you have lost the one image that is truly clean (free of download installs that you decided to remove that might have messed up your registry of junk, free of all the internet junk that comes in to slow things down, etc). For me I don't mind having to reinstall 5 to 10 apps I might have installed and kept since my last image (this is a very high estimate).
I split data backups out completely. I don't use images for that (no point and I don't fully trust images anyway). I use MS backup and even use CD copies of critical data to an offsite location (safety deposit box is best). This is the really important stuff. If you have a fire without this you are screwed. Now taking your plug in drive offsite would be a great improvement. The next best plan is to have the critical data at your fire escape location so it gets out of the house with you during a fire (throw it out the window if it is a dvd and get yourself out with a chain or something to slide down with). It depends on your data. If it isn't critical don't bother.
Although this topic has gone slightly off subject, the interesting thing about image backups is that theoretically, one has to prove that the backup has been created successfully and is 100% reliable.
To conclusively prove this, there is really a requirement to successfully restore the system from that backup.
Smart people wouldn't do this by attempting to undertake the restore exercise onto the original media....
BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
I always test my restores to a new hard drive (not back onto the original hard drive). I agree with Trevor; anything otherwise would be foolish. And I use Acronis on my Windows 7 Pro laptop and two Windows 10 Pro Desktops (one purchased from HP; the other one I built myself) with no problems.
And if you are new to using something like Acronis, it's good to go ahead and create and then restore the image just for your own peace of mind that it works. I can say that it has yet to fail me in the past 20 or so years that I've been a satisfied customer.
I only image my C: drive; the other drives (D: for all my VST's and Softsynths; E: for my user data; F: for my MP3 library; and X: for my work drive) are backed up via a batch file utilizing the command line robocopy command embedded in the batch file, which only backs up changed files (so it is extremely fast, since I have about 2 TB of data to back up. My user data is also redundantly synchronized to my other two computers about every other day, but no more than a week's interval. That way, I can always be up and running quickly even if a computer completely dies. I do my computer-to-computer synchronization via a backend 1GB network using the ethernet connections into a switch, but each computer maintains its own wi-fi connection for internet traffic. I'm careful not to accidentally bridge the networks, otherwise I would be throwing network errors all over the place.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
At work we do a weekly backup, daily incremental, then make a copy of the backups (in another location) as they complete. This copy then gets replicated/sync'd to another location.
The backup system is located in a co-hosted location (with backup power, auto generators, multiple tiered INET connections; fiber, cable, satellite you name it, etc). Backups are then verified, with any fails generating an alert to us.
Then these backups get copied to location 2, which uses a mirrored RAID that is replicated/sync'd with another mirrored RAID drive (over VPN) in location 3 .. you can watch the stuff replicate from place to place. It's actually pretty cool. If even one of these RAIDS fail they can rebuild on the fly, and we still have 2 other copies available. Keeping a month's worth means keeping three 6TB RAID arrays running .. but we ain't losing no data.
80% of businesses that lose their core data (whether due to failure or intrusion) go out of business within 3 months.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Of course there is another approach. Google "how to protect yourself from ransomware"
Regarding how powerful a simple virus can be I had one lock out my anti-virus software, lock out the control panel, lock out the task manager. It basically locked out anything I could use to protect myself. The problem was solved within 12 minutes by returning my acronis image then returning my data from another machine on the network.
Ransomeware is serious stuff when it happens. However Our techs tell me over 90% of the 'ransomeware' calls they handle are simply hacked browsers telling the user their data is locked (and a phone number to call to unlock it). Putting a browser in kiosk mode and disabling the mouse click events will scare many users. Killing the browser (sometimes not so easy to do) results in a normal system, after a scan. I had to do this once when they got shorthanded. The user was totally convinced they were locked out of the system.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Ransomeware is serious stuff when it happens. However Our techs tell me over 90% of the 'ransomeware' calls they handle are simply hacked browsers telling the user their data is locked (and a phone number to call to unlock it).
I had this "hacked browser" on an IPAD a while ago. Scary but fixable. So it is just not the PC that is being messed with.
I prefer image to backup because they backup the OS as well as the data.
Years ago I bought a guitar pedal that had an LE version of Cubase as a freebee. I hadn't tried Cubase in years so I was curious.
I made an image and installed. Or tried to. Mid installation the computer locked up. I waited hours, it wasn't just thinking, it was locked. Ctrl+Alt+Del didn't work so I had to hold the power down to do a forced shutdown.
On rebooting it never got to the point where Windows starts, when it asked to put the disk in and complete the install. Locked up again.
There are times when backing up your data with an image is not possible. If I am programming I take dozens of time stamp backups of my program changes during the day. I use a program that applies the date, time and a comment I enter so it is very easy for me to do this. I ship them off to another two machines within the day. Some data changes I want shipped off to another machine immediately. I keep hundreds of these time stamps back in time and there have been at least 10 times when I have had to search way back as much as 6 months and retrieve one of them. There is no pattern to the reasons I have had to go so far back in time. There have probably been 50+ times I have gone back 2 or 3 revisions. There have been maybe 2 times I wish I had them farther back in time (like a few years).
If I am programming I take dozens of time stamp backups of my program changes during the day. I use a program that applies the date, time and a comment I enter so it is very easy for me to do this. I ship them off to another two machines within the day. ...
SVN? I love my Tortoise ..
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
SVN? (software version number). It is an MS-Access program that applies the date, time and comment and places it in a directory for the program I am working on. I hate loosing even 5 minutes programming work :-)
The only thing I code is HTML and I write styles in the BiaB StyleMaker. There a Ctrl+S saves the work, and if I want to do something daring, a Save As with name variation (usually a number) keeps me safe.
I did a little BASIC and a little Visual BASIC back in the early days, and while I took to it OK, I found it not interesting enough for my particular brain to pursue. So I never moved on to more advanced programming languages and tired of those.
Perhaps it is because I didn't have the vision to create something new and wonderful like BiaB or Finale.
But I am glad there are those that code complex programs that I can enjoy. And if I am using a new one, and something occurs that the programmer missed, or is peculiar to my particular computer and combination of other apps on it, I feel confident to be able to restore the computer with a previous image or image + incremental backup.
There a Ctrl+S saves the work, and if I want to do something daring, a Save As with name variation (usually a number) keeps me safe.
I use this idea when storing my MultiCharts data backups. The number is the day of the month (from 1 to 31). This way I can go back no less than 28 days and sometimes 31 days. Well that is the way I use to do it. Now I use an MS-Access program that puts in the day of the week for 7 days of rotation (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun). If one wants a years worth of rotation one good way that can be done manually is to use MMDD in the file name. That way you get the overwrite of last years backup, you know what it means and you can still get them in proper order by update date and time. When doing it manually using MMDD is easier than using the count of the day in the year.
In WYSIWYG web builder it has a rotational backup built in. You just set the number you want it to save and it does it for you. I set it to 100 because I found 20 was just not high enough. At the same time I create my longer term backups with my date-time stamp method using the MS-access program and I don't think I have deleted any yet. These small backups are so small compared to available disk space. A comment can be helpful if it is long enough.
Although the current MS windows backup is not as good as the old WIn XP backup it isn't too bad. I use that as well. I just copy it out to another machine.
It is always good to hear backup ideas. It is just like that old saying "you can never have too many backups".
When I archive files I don't want to lose I do the YYYY-MM-DD format. That way when I look for one in Windows File Explorer, as long as they are sorted by name, the newest one is last (or first if name z to a).
When I archive files I don't want to lose I do the YYYY-MM-DD format. That way when I look for one in Windows File Explorer, as long as they are sorted by name, the newest one is last (or first if name z to a). Notes
What you are doing is pretty much what I am doing as this image of a few backup zip files created by my backup program shows. I put in the HHMM as well because I do so many of them. I get lazy with the comment at times and sometimes I wish I didn't. The backup program has a database list of programs I might be working on. It includes the source and backup directory to place the backup file. This is part of what makes it fast. You can see that some of them are 1 minute apart. That is because I did a compress of the database after I backed up some stage of the work I was doing. I hate loosing even a minutes work :-) I got in this habit because an old version of the database program was very flaky and it would currupt the database a lot (several times a day for a while there). I never lost very much if anything by doing this.
The future? They might want you to call home to mama before you can use it in certain ways. In other words you can't use the internet unless you call home to Microsoft. MultiCharts does that (you can't trade live unless you call home). Multicharts can get away with it because it is by far the best trading software and their support is amazing. MS isn't well liked generally. If MS does this Linux may become popular or a Google operating system or Apple.
I am considering replacing my old clunker I3 desktop which runs XP. I would replace it with an I5 or I7. I won't do it until I can confirm I can get Win7 running on it with 32 gig of ram. Along this line there is (or was) a company in the U.S. selling machines that ship with XP. They write the drivers to ensure XP runs on the newer better machines apparently. I can see this happening with Win7 because it can handle the larger memory. The only thing I like about Win10 it it can run the text to speech reader MS-Zira. Other than that I see no reason to go to Win10.
Except that, unless Microsoft extends it like it did with Windows XP, Windows 7 goes end-of-life in 2020, which means no security patch updates. If you stay off the web, that's not a problem; but if you access the internet, that could ultimately be risky.
I actually remember years ago there was a network-based virus going around. If you set up a new machine (I believe this was under Windows 98) and attached to the internet before installing anti-virus or eventually the appropriate O/S patch, it could and would get you. It did get me, until I learned the lesson. Of course, current routers and firewalls take care of a lot of that for you now, but just saying, it can happen.
While Windows 7 will work for awhile, over time, you'll find most vendors will start dropping support for the previous operating systems. So eventually, you'll have to go to Windows 10 if you want to run the latest version of software (there will always be those have have full backward compatibility, but they usually aren't the major applications you run).
And I suspect we will eventually get to 128-bit architecture, and we then get to go through all the hand-wringing and teeth gnashing all over again as with 32-bit versus 64-bit.
No, you don't have to go to Windows 10 today, but eventually, you'll be forced into it. More and more apps are dropping XP support (it may work, but you're on your own); I believe the same will happen with Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, and I've even seen some utilities recently that stated they don't even work with the original versions of Windows 10.
You can go to Linux (or Apple), but you will have to re-buy all your software (or embrace open source, for which there are some great programs, but also limitations). And even some open-source software is not free.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
The worst thing about w10 is EVERY computer and processor sold in last, what 2-3 years, is forced to use it. At what benefit to the consumer? Zero, in my opinion.
I bought a laptop and was outraged when I discovered I couldn't put w7 on it.
The worst thing about w10 is EVERY computer and processor sold in last, what 2-3 years, is forced to use it. At what benefit to the consumer? Zero, in my opinion.
This is it in a nutshell. There is no gain or at least not enough gain to make it worth the learning. I am quite happy with what I have now. Computer development can completely stop now and life will be just peachy :-) I normally delay until some major reason comes along like a major memory increase and significantly better apps needing the memory gain. MultiCharts 64 bit is a good example. It will only run on Win7 because I often use more than the XP cap of 3 gig. Not having to constantly update means as musicians you get more time to practice, learn more songs, whatever :-)
As far as threats from (virus network worms, ransomware, rootkits) installing Windows offline then taking an double image backup to an external drive you don't plug in very often then going online is all you need. Even rootkits are knocked out when you restore. I often question having anvivirus software running. Just restore and install fresh take another 2 offline backups then go online and you are back and protected again. Nothing can touch you. It might be wise to get your operating system on DVD. I am glad I did.
I think the long term MS goal is to charge for everything by a monthly rental rate. They have started this with Office. I also think it has to do with MS wanting a monopoly. There was the big court battle over that years ago. People for good reason want lots of competition. It is good to see Google getting in there to compete.
MS it's the company you love to hate. Reasons? No need no reason to hate. Hate and reason are mutually exclusive.
Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Win10 seems to work well, and some of my apps run much faster on it.
That's my experience as well. Studio One and the new Cakewalk by Band Lab run faster on win 10 than either Win 7 or 8.1. That's a fact. Can't argue it.
Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
What's wrong about Win10 that some people hate it so much?
What I've gathered by this post is lack of knowledge of the OS. Including the oh, so maligned "forced update".
I've been running the Win OS since 3.1 and only the poor mantained or wrongly set-up machines exhibited some kind of what it may be considered a "malfunction", although I've never, ever had a machine stop working because of an update. The only problems I've encountered were all caused by not-well-coded 3rd-party apps and/or hardware drivers.
The people considerng the lack of benefit of an ever-evolving OS, shaping the future by responding to new ways to use it, are simply too petty and narrow-minded to even take'em seriously.
The way of the evolution is: evolve or die. Ruthless, but a sure way to ensure that future generations are better equipped to withstand the new challenges that evolution will present us that can't even being imagined at present time.
Why is the file find worse than on XP? Going backwards. Why is the MS backup worse than on XP? Going backwards. Why do they not allow you to download the updates to a separate file to apply the updates when you choose to apply them so you can keep the system clean of internet junk or poor software uninstalls? Not only that you can reapply the update if needed as I did with XP maybe 5 times. It is a great idea and they use to use that great idea. Going backwards.
To summarize they increase memory (great) but loose a few great features and ideas along the way. My best guess is loss of the personnel who programmed those great features or the management who realized they were good features.
Windows is notorious for being flaky? Always has been. I have heard this from repair people who work 8+ hours a day at this stuff and know windows better than anyone on this site. I had this issue very recently and I didn't blame windows. I mentioned it to the repair guy and he said "Windows is like that". Why do you have to reboot it to clean it up? Actually this issue occurred during a reboot and I had to do it again.
Solve the first 3 issues and I would have no complaints about windows.
Regarding how people choose to allocate their time (whether they choose to buy the software later after all the bug fixes in the service packs have come out to save themselves the hassles) is personal preference issue often having a lot to do with how busy they are with other activities or how much money is at stake. Again based upon my experience and the experience of someone else who managed 200+ programmers I estimate 90% of these updates are bug fixes. It has nothing to do with progress. However the need to apply fixes after the fact will probably never change. It can't since humans will never be perfect but at the same time it is all relative. On the trader's forum I visit many of the traders hold back on upgrading their software as long as possible because they can't afford to have their software go down while they are in trades and some of them get really angry when it does go down during the trading day. They do this with the execution software, the charting software and Windows too. The people who offer the execution software I use know this and they keep their prior release available to serve this much more demanding way of thinking (they state on the website that it is proven to be more stable). Microsoft does not do that. Why do they not keep selling windows 7 when all its service packs and updates are complete after windows 10 has come out? The the traders have a lot different way of thinking than someone running BIAB after hours who can afford to put up with the bugs. Its just music. Who cares? However if I am running a jam and I ever find windows update running on me after I disabled it I won't be to happy. That is why I started this thread and if that happens I will remove Win10.
Why do they not allow you to download the updates to a separate file to apply the updates when you choose to apply them so you can keep the system clean of internet junk or poor software uninstalls?
Win updates are NOT "internet junk" nor "poor software uninstalls". You're just not savvy enough to navigate the Win OS's innards, as what your saying is completely possible, but are "hidden", for the lack of a better word, from the masses for the inherent danger to really do irreparable damage to the OS if certain procedures are wrongly applied.
Originally Posted By: bowlesj
Windows is notorious for being flaky? Always has been. I have heard this from repair people who work 8+ hours a day at this stuff and know windows better than anyone on this site.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but obviously the people you've been talking to, despite working in "the business", are not as knowledgeable as you make'em to be. Most probably because yourself are not as knowledgeable either, so you lack the actual knowledge to pass a fair judgement.
Originally Posted By: bowlesj
I had this issue very recently and I didn't blame windows. I mentioned it to the repair guy and he said "Windows is like that". Why do you have to reboot it to clean it up? Actually this issue occurred during a reboot and I had to do it again.
I'm having trouble finding the description of the specific "issue" you were having. If it was implied in the body of the post, then I failed to comprehend what it was.
Originally Posted By: bowlesj
based upon my experience and the experience of someone else who managed 200+ programmers I estimate 90% of these updates are bug fixes.
That's just a blank statement. Without having the blueprint of the project itself and the allocated resources to every single part, it's simply impossible to make any estimate of success or failure of any programming project at all.
Originally Posted By: bowlesj
Why do they not keep selling windows 7 when all its service packs and updates are complete after windows 10 has come out?
You can buy Win 7 with or without a computer as we speak. What are you talking about?
Originally Posted By: bowlesj
if I am running a jam and I ever find windows update running on me after I disabled it I won't be to happy. That is why I started this thread and if that happens I will remove Win10.
If it happens, it's because you haven't disabled it. Plain and simple. Oh, BTW, when playing live, a part of the most basic machine's setup is to disable the network card and the Wi-Fi. By doing that, anything related to it just can't happen.
I think the overreaction that made you post this thread is basically user error. You being the user.
Why I've performed with my Win-based laptop in excess of TWO THOUSAND performances since May 2011, including rehearsals, gigs, spontaneous jams and studio dates with absolutely no glitches, starting with WinXP, then updating to 7, 8.1 and now 10? I think the main reason might be that I basically know what I'm doing, and the hardware matches the software to be up to the required task.
And yes, my Win 10 OS is updated to yesterday, if you would like to know.
I think the long term MS goal is to charge for everything by a monthly rental rate. They have started this with Office. I also think it has to do with MS wanting a monopoly.
The "lease" of software is tied to the fiscal detraction rates being higher than the acquisition of software. The concept is the same as with cars.
I completely agree with you Pepe. So much BS in this thread by a few people who are "IT pros". Ever notice it's mostly people who supposedly know "all about" MS, know all about the OS, know all about registry hacks and who knows what else about PC's they "know all about".
Those guys have messed up their systems so much that all they can do (and many have, read other threads about this) is reformat and reinstall Windows.
Here's the bottom line. MS now has several hundred MILLION installs of Win 10. Don't you people think that if these automatic updates was a real problem affecting oh, I don't know say 10% of users MS's stock would take one heckuva hit? Of course it would and this so called issue would be splashed all over the news, all over the financial press, all over EVERYWHERE. This is pure crap
Yes, occasionally someone will lose some small config like an audio driver or something. Big deal, easy to fix. I've posted this so many times now I should have it in a Wordoc so I can just paste into the next thread that comes up and there will be yet another one. Here it is.
I keep my PC's rock stock. No messing around with anything. I take a fresh system drive and install Windows on it, in the current case it's Win 10 Pro. I leave it alone. Repeat, LEAVE IT ALONE. I do not modify anything and I do automatic updates. It's all about security and look at my thread about that in the Tech S.O.S. forum and read what our offsite IT company advises. In 15-20 years I've not had a problem EVER.
Some of you guys in this forum "know too much" and you're outsmarting yourselves.
I have Win XP on a stage computer that never-ever goes on-line. I've had this computer since 2002 and all it does is display words-and-chords or music notation. No problem. (It's an IBM ThinkPad. Even after IBM sold to Lenovo, the ThinkPads are built like tanks.)
I have another Win7 computer on stage that never goes on-line and does nothing but plays the mp3 backing tracks that I make myself at home. (ThinkPad)
At home I have one XP computer that I use to run an old copy of pre-Win95 Master Tracks Pro. It's so old it has the 8dot3 file name limitation. I use it to make sequences on because it works better for me than newer sequencers that combine audio with MIDI. It never goes online either.(ThinkPad)
Then I have a couple of Win8.1 upgraded to Win10 computers that I do my actual work on. I haven't had a problem with any of the updates. The Win10 computers go on-line. (ThinkPads)
Personally, I wouldn't have an on-line computer that didn't have automatic updates. Auto updates for the OS and Malware/AV apps are the first line of defense against malware.
Sometimes it irritates me when Microsoft changes the routine to find certain features, and I really don't like the newest version of WordPad as much as I did the older version. But all in all I find much more improvement than loss.
Computers are still a newer field. Probably in their adolescence. They have come a long way from the TI/99 that I first purchased or the Atari/ST that was my first actually useful computer. I'd hate to be stuck in the "any program is OK as long as it can fit on a floppy disk" era.
When the industry was a baby, changes were huge, now that it's an adolescent, the changes aren't as obvious, but still there.
Microsoft, like Apple, PG Music, and Norton Music all have to turn profits to stay in business. For software, that means updates, new products, new features, and/or voluntary spyware. I go with new products (Style "Disks" and Fake "Disks"). PG goes with updates that contain new features and styles. MS and Apple go with updates.
Most of my occasional problems are usually the result of a poorly written third party driver, not necessarily the operating system itself, although the driver clearly must interact with the operating system.
Updating the driver (when available) often fixes the problem.
Not saying Windows is perfect, but generally works pretty well (I'm running both Windows 7 and Windows 10). As I understand it, the MS developer community is pretty in tune with changes over time and what's coming down the pike that they should be able to keep up with MS is offering.
My experience with Windows over the years has been:
Windows 1: not great, but got Windows going; ran on top of MS-DOS. I didn't get a chance to use Windows 1, but... Windows 2: this was my first version and I was paid to support it on an AT&T StarGroup (IBM LAN Manager based) local area network Windows 2.1: started to get confusing, because it was released in multiple versions, depending upon the processor your machine had; ran on top of MS-DOS Windows 3.0: pretty flaky through 3.1, but got pretty stable with Windows for Workgroups at version 3.11; still ran on top of MS-DOS Windows 95: still retained MS-DOS roots, but allowed for 16-bit and 32-bit applications to run; basically got fully stable with Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) Windows NT: really designed for server use, but a number of folks used it for desktop also; 8.3 representations of long filenames resulted in different names between NT and Window 98, which present backwards compatibility issues. Really didn't reach full stability until WinNT 4.0, and then Windows 2000 (when Microsoft dropped the NT designation). Windows ME: Millennial Edition was just a disaster; let's leave it at that. Windows XP: Initially buggy, but due to longevity and service packs, is probably once of the most stable Windows ever released. Windows Vista: A lot of problems on release, but eventually got somewhat stable, but by then we had Windows 7. Windows 7: I like Windows 7 a lot; I think it is the new Windows XP, and it really wouldn't surprise me if they do extend it past 2020 because so many people still do use it. But it's also been around since 2009. Windows 8: To me, this was a disaster. The dual phone-like interface with the separate desktop interface. Metro apps could only be run one-at-a time (are we back in the DOS days?). I don't know what they were thinking, other than maybe they thought PC's would die out in favor of phones and tablets. Windows 8.1: Better than Windows 8, but shortly after Windows 10 became available less than a year later as a free upgrade for anyone with Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. Windows 10: Re-introduced a decent start menu, which I still don't like. I use Stardock's Start10 interface to give me a Windows 7 style Start Menu (although I can still easily get back to the Windows 10 menu). It's been pretty rock solid, other than the afore mentioned third party driver issues.
Microsoft Bob was a Microsoft software product that was released on March 11, 1995 and discontinued in early 1996. The program was intended to provide a more user-friendly interface for the Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, supplanting the Windows Program Manager. Microsoft Bob presented screens showing a "house", with "rooms" that the user could go to containing familiar objects corresponding to computer applications—for instance, a desk with pen and paper, a checkbook, and other items. In this case, clicking on the pen and paper would open the word processor.
A cartoon dog named Rover and other cartoon characters provided guidance using speech balloons. Rover and a few others managed to later make their way back in Windows XP as "Search Companions".
Microsoft Bob was greatly criticized in the press, did not gain wide acceptance with users, and was neither a successful nor long-lived product.
See Microsoft Bob screen shots below
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
This response is to Pepe's post. I won't reply quote by quote since it gets a bit messy with too many back and forths. I type up each response as I read each item.
Regarding the the file find in XP it had a nice menu setup with a lot of options. In Win7 they set it back to the old dos days of command line entry. I had to take notes on how to operate it and I have had to go back to the notes a few times. Lately I use notepad++ which has the unix regular expressions I know fairly well from memory. I rarely use the Win7 file find now. I still use the XP file find a fair bit.
The XP backup had a number of features. You could save different jobs and in each job you could store the job file for return later. The job contained all the parameters. It had all the features of a backup I had used earlier in 1997 in the Win 95 days. I figure MS must have bought the rights to use it. I could dig further if it is important. The win7 backup is okay. Not as good. I give it a 6 and the XP backup a 10.
I downloaded the 3rd service pack for XP and stored it on a CD. I could do this overnight when I was not using the computer and apply it when needed. It did not take very long to download it. The first time I tried to apply an update with Win7 it was still running in the morning when I wanted the machine. That was annoying so I shut if off and worked around it and my methods have prevented me from getting in trouble.
I did not say "win updates are internet junk or poor software uninstalls". The internet junk I am referring to are the things that get auto installed into the browser and who knows what else (viruses show up every so often including the one that disabled Avast, the control panel, the ctrl+alt+delete to get to the task manager, etc). Regarding the uninstalls I install a lot of software for try out and remove it keeping the one I want. I have noticed a lot of times the uninstall is not complete. I have no fear of doing these tryouts because I am well protected and I can return an image at any time. AVG is one example that pops in my mind. I decided to switch to Avast because AVG was giving me a false positive on a root kit and I could not get rid of AVG. I cleared it eventually through an image restore or format and install (can't I remember which one).
The repair person who commented on Windows worked on my machines for 20+ years. He owned a store then closed it down because he could not compete with the big computer stores any more and started travelling to his business clients. He worked only on windows machines and I never had issues with his work. He was able to get win XP to run on a machine built for win7 (at that time I did not need more than 3 gig and on my office machine I still don't). He was the person who said XP was the most popular windows operating system. I am not sure where he got his information. I assumed some magazine pole but it may have been his clients. It made sense to me because I liked XP over Win7 (except for the 64 bit enhancement allowing for more memory availability). The 2nd service person at Canada computers I have worked with twice. He was the one that said "Windows is like that". I don't remember the issue. Other than this I have read many complaints about Windows needing to be rebooted every so often as opposed to unix systems that have been known to run 3 years without a need for reboot. In my case I shut my machine off often to save power and have never had an issue as a result of running it for days. However a few of the professional traders on the forum I frequent have mentioned they try to run windows none stop to catch as many trades as possible and they are forced to reboot it every so often to get it running properly again. This tends to back up some of the other things I have read over the years.
Are you saying Microsoft will sell us windows 7 now. My understanding is you have to buy it through a retailer who still has it in inventory. At Canada Computers they do not stock Win7 any more. I would prefer a fresh DVD rather than a download. I would have to go to a shop that knows how to get the drivers to allow Win7 to run on my notebook. I would not miss Win 10. I use mostly the win7 machine.
Re "If it happens, it's because you haven't disabled it". I have disabled it several times in the services menu and the home version ignores this (not immediately - it changes the disabled status later and starts running again). I have not tried the registry adjustment. The problem may be over now. My understanding is that was the last update and they are no longer supporting win10. It finally forced the install and changed some of the personal display settings I had chosen such as the background colour. Although a minor issue I was not happy about that.
I am a programmer. The windows update will have to download the software then run it. It may do it in pairs (download then run, download then run). I have no idea how it works in this regard. I shut off the machine a few times and stopped the update a few times in the services window. It figured out where to continue. I was not always online so it was able to do this during the application of the updates it had downloaded. I was offsite when it would start up on its own and was not about to stick around for hours waiting for it to continue. At the jams they don't have internet. Obviously there is no reason to connect.
So I would assume that they have to charge a monthly or yearly fee because they have operating costs they need to cover and this is largely because many users do not have the need to buy more features. The only improvement I have used in Win7 over XP is the increase in memory for trading. The only improvement I have used in Win10 over Win7 is Microsoft Zira. I stopped using Windows Internet Explorer long ago preferring Chrome. My former guitar student who is a computer science major and the one who refuses to use Windows says he knows no one who uses Explorer.
Regarding the Monopoly topic the U.S. gov tried to break MS up for fear they were becoming a monopoly so I don't think this is a conspiracy theory. I did not follow it that closely and I am not sure why MS was not broken up. On a related topic my understanding regarding the Apple court battle is the court ruled that MS had to support Apple for a while so they would not go out of business. My assumption has always been that part of the court decision had to do with preventing MS from becoming a monopoly. Assuming my understanding of what happened is correct It seems that many Apple users are happy the court made this decision and MS has not become a monopoly. The people who run companies and own shares want the company to make as much money as they can. Bell Canada is a monopoly. It happens and they love it as long as they can keep it. I would too...lol. Buy their shares and you can benefit from their monopoly status too...lol. I don't think you could possibly be saying the people at MS as so nice they want to avoid having a monopoly. I don't think anyone would be naive enough to believe that. They will work to gain as much market share as they possibly can and as they should. They did a good job of winning over the U.S. gov.
From what I am reading it seems everyone is happy handling their computer issues the way they choose to handle them. I have never had any problems with shutting off updates and others have never had any problem with leaving the updates on. Everyone agrees images are important. As I have said several times my complaint is not the update content itself so much. It is the way MS handles it now. The only time I have needed an update was when one of my software programs needed XP service pack 3. I went and downloaded it (I would say in less than an hour but that was a long time ago) and applied it in maybe 5 or 10 minutes (it was all good). This 2 step method of getting the update worked just fine and I am sure it still would with Win10 now. No doubt the download and the update would take longer because of all the added features but that is fine. So explain to my why this can't work as wonderfully as it did in the past such that the updates to not take such as huge amount of time as they do now by trying to make it all one step. It would seem logical that if the amount of update is larger they should break it up into separate steps rather than make it one. If this is to complex for people write a nice interface to make it easy.
John, the reason for auto updates is security, security and more security. The reason to run Win 10 and not 7 is security, security and more security. Am I being clear? Paranoids will say auto updates are simply a way to spy on you, take over your computer, stage a coup in DC...If you believe that, stop reading this.
I'm not a computer pro but I work for a company who hires an outside IT firm to handle all of that. They are absolutely adamant that we move our server to Win 10 so we are soon even though it will really cost because of too many things to go into here. It's a CPA firm and security is vital because we deal with clients financial info including tax returns.
The IRS seems to come up with a new wrinkle every week it seems concerning ID theft, hacking and all that. There are new regs that if a tax prep firm has a breach they can be subject to penalties if not sued based on what kind of security is in place. IRS estimates the US government has lost something like 50-60 BILLION to ID theft hackers. That's enough money to fund any one of several government agencies for a year. People are very passionate about paying too much taxes. I used to live in Calgary years ago and it's the same there.
Bottom line Win 10 is more secure and if you care about that Win 7 simply will not cut it. Windows Defender is way, way better in Win 10. So much so that the IT company stopped installing their own security suite on Win 10 systems. Defender is good enough. Edge is a more secure browser than anything else out there. This is security only, not other features you may or may not like. Adding 3rd party AV software to Win 7 does NOT bring it anywhere close to Win 10. The fact that lots of our favorite music programs run faster on 10 is just a bonus. I totally understand the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality but that does not apply here.
While an individual like us at home are not huge targets subject to all these regs, smart people see what's going on in industry and make changes accordingly with their home systems.
I will say one thing in defense of using an older OS and that's for certain specific instances where a person like a home music producer has some expensive legacy hardware/software that simply will not work with 10. Ok, pull it off the internet and have fun.
I can definitely say that when someone calling for technical assistance tells me they're on Win10, I breathe a sigh of relief. I can rule out a long list of things that can be wrong with the computer, and can concentrate on figuring out if their issue is an incorrect setting, a driver issue (this is becoming less common), a bug, or human error.
I've actually been shocked at how much easier this OS has made my job, especially compared to when I started in 2008 when XP and Vista were common.
I've even switched back to Windows from Mac recently for music production (something I vowed would never happen).
One thing I do is I don't store financial passwords on the computer. Any sensitive data is also off the computer. Regarding brokerage they have a double password system where the 2nd password changes with each log in (it can't be breached from the user end). I don't put anything on FaceBook except my picture and my name. For online banking after logging in I immediately check my data to see if the website has been replaced with a fake. If the data is fake and they have the password I call and they lock the account down immediately. I generally don't answer emails I don't expect. I check URL links to make sure they point where they should. My image backups are offline. I create them while off-line. If they fail I reinstall with the operating system on original DVD. Every time I have done that I document the whole process step by step to ensure I can do it again much faster. I once called to have my credit card number changed because I gave the number out to a company I later decided I should not have. I had a long talk with the credit card agent. She said the banks have security in place that makes if very hard to use someone else's credit card (especially people like me who follow the same boring habits...lol...). I believe it because someone got my Ex's CC number and the bank called her immediately to verify the charge they made against it.
About the only thing I worry about is ransomware and its ability to compress all drives on the network. However I could recover from that as well with the offline images taken just after installation of my new drive. I certainly would not be paying them anything.
I had a virus create 4 days of work for me once (I reinstalled everything and returned my data). It wasn't the end of the world. I am much better prepared now but the savings is time.
I would highly recommend these precautions to everyone. Putting too much info on Facebook is probably your greatest threat. I say this because I watched a program recently on how the crooks who want to assume your identity gather the info and many people have way too much info on Facebook.
I can see companies having special concern. In many cases (maybe most) they can't do what I do (keep all their financial and sensitive data off the computer). Come to think of it I probably should worry more about my data stored on computers outside my home.
I had Windows 10 but upgraded to Windows 7 and don't have any problems.
Pipeline: My biggest reason for leaving Win 7 was them ever returning permissions problems. Also present now and then on windows 10 running installers, but usually only related to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu, fixable by Takeownership, or when you create desktop icons, bad habit from Atari days.
Originally Posted By: Kent - PG Music
I can definitely say that when someone calling for technical assistance tells me they're on Win10, I breathe a sigh of relief. I can rule out a long list of things that can be wrong with the computer, and can concentrate on figuring out if their issue is an incorrect setting, a driver issue (this is becoming less common), a bug, or human error.
I've actually been shocked at how much easier this OS has made my job, especially compared to when I started in 2008 when XP and Vista were common.
I've even switched back to Windows from Mac recently for music production (something I vowed would never happen). Cheers Kent PG Music
Kent, i wonder how far you went in tuning Windows 10 to your liking: Like privacy, and getting rid of forced upon users stuff. Windows automatic update, edgy browsers and cortana etc. Tuned carefully Win 10 is far better, but i needed to reinstall a boot partition occasionally when windows updates (sometimes necessary to turn on for security fixes) as usual messed up things like reactivating Edge etc. ... F
I can definitely say that when someone calling for technical assistance tells me they're on Win10, I breathe a sigh of relief. I can rule out a long list of things that can be wrong with the computer, and can concentrate on figuring out if their issue is an incorrect setting, a driver issue (this is becoming less common), a bug, or human error.
Told ya...
Originally Posted By: Kent - PG Music
I've actually been shocked at how much easier this OS has made my job, especially compared to when I started in 2008 when XP and Vista were common.
I, for one, am not. The Win 10 stock install is really stable and once the machine is setup for DAW use, it has been nothing but rock solid for me.
Originally Posted By: Kent - PG Music
I've even switched back to Windows from Mac recently for music production (something I vowed would never happen).
For the last three years, OsX's actually been just as flaky as Windows once was reputed to be. Making the move only shows that you're a smart person, and not just another brain-washed tribe-centered Mac head.
I would have to agree with the sentiment that keeping up to date on your machine is a very good idea. The vast majority of updates deal with security. While Windows updates can be obnoxious, it keeps your computer secure and is well worth using. It can also be made less obnoxious with a few quick settings changes, some of which I've already seen addressed in earlier posts.
And even though it doesn't tell you point blank during the install what these updates are doing, you can have the peace of mind knowing every single update is detailed on their support page. Below is a link to just their most recent update. On the left hand side, you can click on any update going years back to see exactly what the update included. Microsoft isn't trying to hide this stuff, you just need to know where to look. I did a Google search and found it in about 2 minutes.
People in this thread mentioned that their updates take literally days. That is insanity! The only people I know whose updates took that long ended up having major issues with their computer. If your Windows updates are taking a day or more to finish, I'd suggest not blaming Microsoft as there is likely something else happening to cause this. As someone else mentioned, there are millions upon millions of Windows users around the world and if that was the norm, they'd go out of business.
Last edited by Deryk - PG Music; 06/21/1804:01 AM.
After my self induced problems with my music computer have been corrected I have had only a couple of minor problems with Win 10 updates, mostly having to reinstall audio and printer drivers. However in the last 5 or 6 updates I have had no problems.
PS - I hope that I didn't just curse myself.
Me, it's not about how many times you fail, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Don't "tune" your Win 10 unless you got info on how to do it from someone you really trust. I don't tune squat. The last update a few days ago took oh, maybe 5-10 minutes. Like Kent said if you're talking hours or almost a full day? Your system is hosed, the update had nothing to do with that and I guarantee you it's user error caused by too much "tuning". LEAVE IT ALONE.
I remember reading somewhere before Win 10 was officially launched MS was seriously considering locking the OS so users can't mess with it but there's too many "pro's" out there who think they know better. There's no doubt some really do but man, I'll hazard a guess about 99.5% of users have no clue but just can't help themselves and the reason is what Kent explained. Older OS's really did require all that tweaking so the habit was instilled then and old habits are hard to break.
As far as a subscription service for Win10 is concerned, although I won't write that off as impossible, right now I think improbable.
I think like OSX, Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so many other apps, MS is going to make their money by collecting information from you and selling it to people who target ads to you. I call that voluntary spyware.
MS is also making from what I understand very fine hardware. Another source of revenue.
I think if MS went with a subscription service, or started charging for updates again, too many people would flock to Mac, Chrome or Linux - depending on their needs.
I have no experience with Chrome or Linus but some with Mac. I don't find Mac any better than Windows. I like some things about each OS a little better than other things, but it's really no big deal.
I do know that Macs crash about as often as Win computers do, and it's often the fault of the apps/drivers run on them.
What know the most is that Mac things are harder to find and often cost more money than Win things.
The fact that Mac people do things like non-standard lightning ports instead of USB or whatever they can to keep you in the Mac clan rather than going standard strikes me as a loss of freedom or a great inconvenience if I decide to switch. Even the first Macs required a special tool to open the case so that a non-Mac tech couldn't get in there. As a musician, I like standards.
And if for any reason on the gig, both my main computer and my spare go belly up, I can go to any department store, buy a Windows laptop, and use the duplicate data on my USB Flash drive to get the show up and running again.
In fact I did that once. My laptop screen died, the tech said it would take a week so I bought a $300 el-cheapo, underpowered, last-year's model computer as a spare. The screen (under warranty) came in the next day. I never needed the spare, but I take it out and test it from time to time.
The OS is just a tool. Right now Windows is the most convenient tool for me to use, and I don't see anything significantly better to make me want to abandon it. So monopoly or not, I'm primarily Windows. But since USB and MIDI are universal, and all my synths are hardware and not OS dependent, if something happens that make me want to switch, I'll be able to do it with little problem.
Kent, i wonder how far you went in tuning Windows 10 to your liking: Like privacy, and getting rid of forced upon users stuff. Windows automatic update, edgy browsers and cortana etc
Hi Fiddler,
I changed some visual preferences, installed Chrome, VLC Player, a VPN, my VSTs, and a couple DAWs, turned off UAC (I'm good enough with computers to not really need it), and that's pretty much it. Not really sure what tuning I'd do regarding Edge and Cortana. I don't use either one so leave them alone.
I allow updates to install as soon as they come out. The guys who make the OS know this stuff better than I do.
Microsoft appear to have stuff pretty well figured out these days, and the guy in charge of their audio development really knows his stuff. The OS is good to go right out of the box, at least for my needs (mostly audio production). YMMV of course.
The weirdest, hardest-to-fix issues are the ones I run into on computers that have been tweaked and tuned by IT pros and programmers, and/or haven't been updated.
... I allow updates to install as soon as they come out .... Cheers Kent PG Music
I have paid 360 total security; for over a year now it susses out the necessary security updates, leaving out the bollox ones, and notifies when really needed. Manual you can check updates via their Patch Up function. So i keep windows update set to manual (off) in services, only on shortly for downloading specific ones via 260TS. -F
Here are some things you might want to think about.
I remember my first hit at about age 30 where I suffered a head crash on a drive attached to a commodore 64. Having a totally disorganized backup procedure I got lucky and found a backup 1 week old. Interestingly enough I was able to redo that solid week of programming work in about a day. I had my 2nd hit when the power supply on my machine instantly fried the whole machine (well 2 disk drives and 5 other components instantly gone). I lost absolutely nothing because the first hit taught me a lesson and I had taken a backup just before the machine got fried. I also had another machine catch on fire but I turned off the power pretty fast :-) while my daughter was flying through the house at high speed to get the fire extinguisher. Again I lost nothing. After the 2nd hit I started backing up across the home network to other machines and after the fire I started taking backups off site. I use to take uncompressed CD backups every so often of the really critical data (mainly market trading software I developed with a year+ of work behind it) and put them in a safety deposit box. I have never had to use these so I have gotten a bit lazy and I think my last one runs back maybe 3 years. We tend to only do what we need to do.
I worked with a programming buddy for a while. His daughter was at home while he was at work. His house had a break in and she hid in the closet without a cell phone. They backed a van up to the house, opened the garage door and in about 2 hours cleaned anything of value out of the house (stereos, computers, etc). I guess they we not interested in ladies cloths in the closet...lol. Lucky daughter. I had a break-in once too. Kids took light things only (do you have a light notebook at home while you are at work).
I think these three experiences are why I don't rely on Microsoft (Malware is not the only threat). Having protected myself successfully from computer losses for about 30 years without help from Microsoft and during this thread having done a bit of reading on malware in all its different types I have decided to remove some of the laziness of late and tighten my backup procedure.
1/ I have better documented my backup procedure in my reminder database. My current procedures and any new procedures. It will ensure any changes are actually kept up.
2/ In addition to double image backups after clean installs (before online and after online) and many times a day programming backups and daily backups across three machines I have decided to take a weekly DATA only backup of data to a large terabyte drive with the folders labelled Machine-MM-Week# (giving a yearly rotation) then a monthly DATA only backup to a 2nd terabyte drive with folders labelled Machine-YYYYMM giving a rotation until full. These external backups will be kept unplugged at all times except during backup and restore. They will not be compressed so there should be no issues with returning to a brand new machine.
So if at any time my three machines are knocked out by a ransomware because the drives are off-line I probably will only loose a weeks data. In the unlikely case of the ransomware compressing the external drives (all of the drive) I will have protection against infect-to-attack delay of < 1 week and infect-to-attack delay of < 1 month. The monthly machine will be stored off-site to provide fire protection. The weekly machine will be stored at my fire-escape route also protecting against file assuming I make it out :-) If a fire occurs while I am away from the house I loose a month worth of work and I buy new computers and possibly buy some new software (in comes the insurance).
One last idea you might want to think about. Store your financial passwords in the safety deposit box after memorizing them (someone could break in and steal them or a fire could wipe them out in the computer or on paper). I have a huge one and way of keeping it in memory. I can break it into chunks and have a way to remember what chunk goes where. If you type fast you can use all of it for the most critical password.
Interesting subject matter from the O/P, but practically most of the extensive discussion, including largely from the O/P, has been vaguely connected to writing BiaB for Linux.
Should I be confused?
BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
Interesting subject matter from the O/P, but practically most of the extensive discussion, including largely from the O/P, has been vaguely connected to writing BiaB for Linux.
Should I be confused?
LOL...I would say it is the user's saying in a very long winded fashion "Please don't". But that's okay. There was a lot of value in the thread.
I used Linux for a few years at home. I spent a lot of time on it. I taught myself shell programming with it and became the Unix shell programming Guru at work. I felt sort of sorry for them when I left. No one could figure out my Unix shell scripts they were so advanced. They had to hire a consultant. During the lunch when I left to go into trading the manager piped up and said "The consultant said I was probably the best Unix shell script-er in the world". That set me back. Yeah, I really dug into it. I wrote a large script program I used to build test scripts. I tested every command that existed until I fully understood it inside out and backwards. I had never done that with a programming language before. I have forgotten all that stuff now except for some of the the Unix regular expressions which I knew inside out and backwards. All I thought about for 13 years after that was market trading and database programming for that as well as MultiCharts then my database drive website using MySql. If BIAB ran on Linux I am pretty sure I could run my jams on Linux. BIAB and the web based software is probably the only thing I would consider running on Linux. I can't really see PG Music moving BIAB to Linux (the market would be too small I figure). I was just curious. Doing a bit of Linux again might be fun. My former guitar student only uses Linux. He would use BIAB I bet if it ran on Linux.
Interesting subject matter from the O/P, but practically most of the extensive discussion, including largely from the O/P, has been vaguely connected to writing BiaB for Linux.
Should I be confused?
The OP comes off as a grumpy old man, venting his feeling of frustration of being "left behind" due to progress, and about his own inability and/or refusal to keep up with times, blaming MS for the whole thing in the process, without ever forgetting to parrot every single urban myth there is, and posting here was an attemp to gather support for his flawed narrative, and in theory his demographic actually is largely reppresented in this Forum.
Unfortunately for him, he simply forgot a rather small but significant detail: most regulars here routinely use their brains engaging in ample sessions of critical thinking, so the resulting outcome his attempt simply backfired, completely missing the mark.
He then cites Linux, but so radically changing his software platform is a step he'll never, ever in a million years will take, as it would mean learning everything again... and learning is exactly the opposite of what he'd like to do.
He should've exercised his Miranda Rights, if you ask me.
Not to worry Pepe. Your investment is still secure. I would give it very high odds that MS is with us for at least another 50 to 100 years. Don't let my pointing out that MS is going backwards as well as forwards concern you. My guess is they will fix the "file find" feature they went backwards on some day. The backup they may leave as is. The next issue deserves a paragraph all to itself.
Most automatic updates ask you if you want to install and many ask if you want a reminder later. Avast does this and it provides a good benchmark since it is an antivirus software itself (one that has worked well for me for years). I always start major computer changes on Friday night so if something goes wrong I have more time to fix the issue so I am more likely to be ready for the trading day Monday (the market waits for no one). MS seems to have lost respect for the user here. Add in that their update changed my background colour when it really should not have I wonder if it is as perfect as some people might think. Something like that just confirms my concerns about their updates and my want to start such an update on Friday night. Maybe MS is forcing immediate security updates on Windows10-Home users because some of them are completely green and blame malware created computer problems on MS and MS is trying to cut their support costs. Who knows?
Traders are a very cautious bunch when it comes to computers and programs. To show this here is the web page that shows four trading software releases available for download (plus the beta version). Most traders want the older stable version that does not update automatically because many of them are programmers too and they know any changes to software can at times spell trouble. They avoid the upgrade as long as possible avoiding all the updates you see on this page until there is some sort of data structure change that forces them to upgrade. The MultiCharts people did a pole on their forum asking the traders the most important thing to them. Every single one said stability. I am no exception. The multicharts people tipped off the TWS people I would be a good beta tester. When they contacted me I declined. There is no way I would run beta execution software while trading live. Many traders have one or more dedicated machines (the only internet data coming down is execution and charts). They only want the two apps running plus I would assume their antivirus and firewall. I really should be doing that.
... I'm not a computer pro but I work for a company who hires an outside IT firm to handle all of that. They are absolutely adamant that we move our server to Win 10 so we are soon even though it will really cost because of too many things to go into here. ... Bob
(italics mine)
You lost me right there. If your company server runs on Win10 you may be doing it wrong.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
If your company server runs on Win10 you may be doing it wrong.
For the record... if a company runs on Microsoft servers, they most likely are using Windows 2016 Server, which is the platform Win 10 Pro run at its best as client. Windows 10 is NOT a platform that even can work as a server anyway; the sole mention of someting similar shows the level of misinformation or simple ignorance about the subject some people show, even when they're self-proclaiming being some kind of "expert".
Most server farms run on Linux/UNIX platforms. Always have, always will.
Yep, Windows 10 is strictly a desktop client, not a server OS. Here at Pensacola Naval Air Station we have upgraded all our workstations to Windows 10 Enterprise (and for the most part everything works fine). The back end is a mix of Windows Server 2008 (and some Windows Server 2016), as well as some Redhat Linux and Solaris Unix). Only the desktops run Windows 10 (Enterprise Edition, so we only get updates after they have been vetted through the information assurance processes). We previously ran Windows 7 (Enterprise).
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
People in this thread mentioned that their updates take literally days. That is insanity! The only people I know whose updates took that long ended up having major issues with their computer. If your Windows updates are taking a day or more to finish, I'd suggest not blaming Microsoft as there is likely something else happening to cause this.
I was a programmer/systems-analyst for 19 years (make that 37 since I am 63 and need to include my work since I became self employed). Here is how I see it.
When I had the 20 years experience guy who serviced my computer come in to do some work he mentioned the downloads of the MS updates were taking too long. He complained that he did not know what was going on at Microsoft and it was effecting his business of travelling out to the clients to do that work (he could not apply the updates while onsite). My assumption was their network was overloaded (too many people downloading at once). If this is the cause of this problem or even if the problem is specific to the computer the method I prefer to use would resolve the problem and MS would not get blamed even if they did have inadequate download capacity to handle the overload in demand. After all they can not be expected to project such a demand since they can't read minds. Here is how I believe all this should be handled and MS could (if they put their mind to it) provide assistance for the green computer users.
1/ Allow the user to download the update and store it for later install. They may have several of these updates collected over time if they are busy. The MS program could help the user manage them for future application. In my case my methods have protected me for 30 years so there is no panic rush to get these updates applied today. If I get a malware that could have been avoided with one of these updates I won't be blaming MS or myself. It happens. I just do what I have to do and move on.
2/ When the user is ready to apply the updates at a time that is best for them they either restore the latest clean image of the machine they took immediately after they got the machine home or they format the drive and install the operating system from a fresh DVD. 2B/ Now take an image if applicable named (MachineRefresh_A_#1_OperatingSystemLoaded)
3/ Now the user applies all the updates which have been collected (when the machine is 100% guaranteed to be clean rather than applying these updates to a machine that is full of internet junk and uninstall junk). 3B/ Now take an image named (MachineRefresh_A_#2_AllMicrosoftUpdatesApplied).
4/ Only after all the MS updates have been applied would I then start to apply my software updates. The ones that could be applied off-line would be applied first. 4B/ Now take an image named (MachineRefresh_A_#3_Off-linePersonalSoftwareApplied)
5/ Now the remaining software the user uses should be applied (the software that needs an online connection to be installed). 5B/ Now take an image named (MachineRefresh_A_#4_On-linePersonalSoftwareApplied).
6/ From this time on a record of any additional installs of personal software should be kept so that the next time the user decides to go through the above procedure they can apply this software at step number 4 or 5 above. If the machine was ever refreshed again they image names would be "MachineRefresh_B_whatever". It would be a good idea to also keep a record of any software parameter changes but this may just be too much work to make it practical (one does what they can using their own judgement).
7/ The data should be well backed up at this time. I won't get into that to avoid making this too long.
The advantage of this approach is it is a catch all for any software problem (not a hardware problem). What I mean is if the machine starts acting up to the point where it becomes too much of a problem and you can't figure out what it is, you do not need to spend money having people look at it. You go through the machine refresh procedure and you are all set. I refreshed in the XP days many times applying service packs #1, #2 and#3 then applying all my software after that. It works like a charm. If you do several machine refresh procedures it avoids multiple downloads if you store the updates off the machine as data backup. Another advantage is you get 4 images (some might want to skip #1 and #3).
It could be taken to the level where it actually tracks this whole process and helps the user keep track of all software that was installed since the very last image I mentioned above (what I am referring to in step #6). A simple list of software could be provided for the user. It all seems pretty simple to me and once it is finally documented and laid out as above it really is very simple. I mentioned this before but it was not as well laid out with the proper image names selected to make it clearer.
Quote:
As someone else mentioned, there are millions upon millions of Windows users around the world and if that was the norm, they'd go out of business.
No. Let me explain.
A/ If it was occurring due to something wrong with the machine that will be occurring after the download when the actual install is being run. The above method fixes that because the machine is always returned to a clean state before these update installs are started. Extremely easy to understand once it is pointed out. This is why I say MS is going backwards. They are now forcing an install while the machine is dirty with who knows what where as before they were doing it correctly (allowing the user to clean it up first). It comes back to what my service person with 20 years experience was saying "What is going on with Microsoft?".
B/ If this occurred due to too many downloading at one time they would increase their download capacity and the above method reduces the download demand during multiple machine refreshes. I suppose one could say the methods I use to protect myself reduce the download demand completely (Microsoft would love that wouldn't they since I am not competing with you). I still use antivirus software (just not Microsoft). I was reading just yesterday that any good antivirus software can protect against any malware. I always keep Avast up-to-date. I guess I forgot to mention that. Avast takes a lot less time to download and install and maybe it is part of the reason I have not been having any problems when I shut off MS-updates. There is a lot of marketing and competition going on here too.
Unfortunately MS does not have the software to guide the user to do all this and I am betting they are getting too many service calls with users blaming them for problems actually created by malware so they are forcing malware fixes down to reduce their support costs. Its a guess.
Sr, again, you're talking without knowing the subject at hand.
When you belong in an IT team with the task of deplying OS services, and security patches are one of these, you subscribe to MS and have the possibility of dowloading the patches and save'em in any support you see fit, as normally the deployment is done on an isolated mirror image of the network first, so they can try the effectiviness of it and/or if it causes any unforeseen trouble, THEN it gets deployed to the live part of the network. All steps documented and approved by different employees/consultants with different levels of responsability and area-specific knowledge.
So, working as you'd like, it actually is possible; just the people you know and yourself have no actual knowledge of how things really work, and neither you nor the people you work with/know, don't belong to the crew in charge of Deployment Services.
That sounds great Pepe but that is in a company setting with people trained at a pretty high level for tech support departments or possibly hired outside support. We take our knowledge for granted. You can't expect others to have this knowledge. It is unrealistic.
Having said that, maybe I am being a little too optimistic about newbies to computers (because I am fully aware that people like Pepe and myself take our knowledge for granted) but I believe single users could learn to manage their computer much more quickly if Microsoft embraced teaching them early how to do it with software designed to support that learning. I am not an expert on how to teach computer maintenance to beginners. However here are some random ideas. Have it on a sheet when they buy the computer. Tie it in with the popup that wants them to install the latest update (allow them to reprint the sheet maybe). Maybe have a window with the steps and links to more detailed help. I would have loved to have this kind of assistance when I bought Win7 pro. You will need to get them excited about this dry stuff. Give them the option to clean their machine first (with instructions and software to help) or update it without cleaning it. I just think that over the long term Microsoft would be farther ahead with this approach rather than unexpectedly updating computer full of junk (malware, incomplete uninstalls, driver problems, whatever).
John
P.S. I think it is time to close this thread down (or at least I am going to sign off since I have some market trading goals for this week I really want to focus on). So to bring it back to the original topic I don't think there is a big enough market for putting BIAB on Linux and I assume the people at PG Music know this. I highly doubt that BIAB will ever run on Linux. Three things prompted me to ask regardless (I enjoyed Linux when I knew it well, my former guitar student who uses only Linux can not use BIAB and yes (Pepe is correct) Windows10 was ticking me off by starting to force an update unexpectedly before I had a chance to clean up the machine and I was not in a position with my busy schedule to return the image I first took so it could work on a clean machine instead). It has been a very interesting thread. I learned a number of things and I am sure others did too. Have a great summer.
I believe single users could learn to manage their computer much more quickly if Microsoft embraced teaching them early how to do it with software designed to support that learning.
1) Perhaps the only thing that irritates me about Win10 updates is not allowing me one stall. 2) When I bought this computer it had 8.1 on it. I'm glad they upgraded it to Win10 thought. Notes
Hi Bob;
1) Agreed, just had Windows update services on 'manual'. Immediately there was some update screwing up my tuned windows 10. Had to reload an earlier image. So again i set it to 'disabled'. As said, 360 Total Security's 'Patch Up' tells me when a security update is necessary, and i will install that manually.
2) went the same route, but 8.1 still runs on my laptop, and proved super stable for over 2 years, and was upgraded from 8.0 before that .... F
I really didn't mind 8.1. I downloaded an app that gave me something similar to the classic start menus and it also made Win8.1 boot up in the desktop mode with the start menu available.
But when Windows decided to let me upgrade to 10, I waited until the offer was getting close to the expiration date (hopefully for MS to get the bugs out) and did it.
I figured it would only be a matter of time before MS quit supporting 8.1 and I'd have to upgrade then for security reasons. By then it might cost money and be more of a problem to upgrade.
Other than the usually small 'security' patches, it's gone through a couple of major upgrades. MS quietly downloaded the upgrade data while the computer was on, then when turning off the computer, I installed the upgrade. Fortunately I had time so instead of shutting the computer off immediately, I made a disk image.
But to tell the truth, I haven't had a problem with any of the MS upgrades or updates. I know they can't foresee how every customer's computer is configured, but they seem to be getting better at this.
I usually get the Pro version when I buy a computer, but for some reason 8.1 either wasn't or MS decided to upgrade it to home. I'm not sure.
Anyway, I'll be extra sure to get the Pro edition when I need a new computer. That way I can decide when to install the upgrade.
Yep, Windows 10 is strictly a desktop client, not a server OS. Here at Pensacola Naval Air Station we have upgraded all our workstations to Windows 10 Enterprise (and for the most part everything works fine). The back end is a mix of Windows Server 2008 (and some Windows Server 2016), as well as some Redhat Linux and Solaris Unix). Only the desktops run Windows 10 (Enterprise Edition, so we only get updates after they have been vetted through the information assurance processes). We previously ran Windows 7 (Enterprise).
Ok, so I don't understand servers. All our workstations are Win 7 so they're talking about upgrading all those to 10 not the server. But there are a bunch of issues with that they're working through right now. ALL my other comments about security and home users should be on Win 10 stand.
From Kent
Quote:
The weirdest, hardest-to-fix issues are the ones I run into on computers that have been tweaked and tuned by IT pros and programmers, and/or haven't been updated.
Exactly my point and I've been posting this for years now.
I'd had a machine failure on may main desktop machine, mostly running Linux, but booting to Win7 for thoise few applications where I have no choice.
I bought a new lump and installed into it the still working HDD from the old machine.
Everything seemed to run fine, except Win7 kept complaining that my computer was "designed for a newer version of Windows" and advising me to upgrade to Win10, which I did not want to do, partly because I don't like Win10 and partly because this was supposed also to be an occasional-use platform for verifying software on Win7.
I deleted a partition I thought was obsolete ... wrong it was that Win7. So I tried to reinstall.
After two weeks of occasional and frustrating failures and obscure Windows-installer messages I eventually discover that Win7 _will_not_ install on Intel series-7 CPUs. Sheesh!
So now I have Win10 as a boot option for some software and Win7 on a VM VirtualBox for some other software.
I thought I'd rake out my old and "don't like this" BIAB and give it a try on that VirtualBox Win7, mostly because friends sometimes send me BIAB files
I've spent an hour or so installing BIAB minus the plethora of add-ins, gone to install RealBand, only to find that the CD is corrupt.
When I run BIAB, I get an Error/warning that says it's unable to write the registry.
I don't think this is just me. I'm bored now and giving up again.
Ho Hum.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
The thread you replied to is years old. If you are serious about finding a solution, you should post a new topic, and include more information like the version of Band-in-a-Box. A message about not being able to write to the registry is most likely just Band-in-a-Box informing you that it can't set the file associations because of UAC restrictions. Your songs may already be associated with BB by the installer so you likely don't need to do anything. If you want to be sure, run Band-in-a-Box by right-clicking on the bbw.exe and selecting Run As admin, then in the program go to File | File Utilities | Associate File Types. RealBand is included with Band-in-a-Box so there should not be a separate disc for it.
Whatever the message was about the registry doesn't seem to have stopped BIAB working.
I don't know my way around BIAB at all well. I have to say that I dislike "busy" interfaces, so BIAB irritates before I've even tried to use it, and the only platform on which I'd tried it on the past was a notepad PC, where the controls fields were larger than the music field.
Anyway, this morning I started it again on my desktop PC, under Win7 on VirtualBox as described. It didn't complain again, it seems to be running and producing music OK. With the much larger screen (22" widescreen rather than 10" widescreen) it also feels more realistic to use.
I guess the cluttered screen is to put all the main "goodies" up there in front of the user to say how rich a package this is, and I know it can be tidied, but "lots of stuff" is a two-edged sword.
I shall try to be patient and learn how to make it more comfortable for me. I can see the benefits, but at present I'm very likely just to quit out and go back to iRealPro, which is my usual platform. BIAB does offer the dots and melodies, etc., which is a real plus. I'm told RealBand sounds good, but unless or until I manage to use the CD, I can't try that.
My music PC has for years been 100% Linux, but as BIAB seems, so far at least, to run in VirtualBox I may consider adjusting that.
Thanks for you comment. Maybe I should consider asking on the fora if anyone else has yet tried VirtualBox or VMWare Player and what successes or failures others have had.
One of the perennial issues with the "too few people ask for it" is that people then don't bother to ask so it becomes self-fulfilling. I have no easy answer to that.
Gordon.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
Intel 7th gen support windows 7 Yes this happened to me with the i7 7th gen running win 7 x64 after the updates took some time to find which one caused it but once I found them and uninstalled the below all updates work just fine now.
Uninstall these updates these cause your computer Win 7 to stop receiving updates 1st go to windows update and select change settings to [check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them] uninstall these updated one at a time and reboot if asked KB4015552 KB4015549 KB4012218 KB2685813 when windows update shows these again select to hide those updates It looks like the any of the "Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 x64-based Systems" has the unsupported hardware note and stops all future updates.
You can use Wine on Linux to run Biab/RealBand. You can use ReaTrak on Linux, it will generate up the RealDrums.
This isn't directed at you Pipeline but since this thread got resurrected I will repeat what I've said many times on this forum regarding Win 10 and updates. I do not modify ANYTHING in Win 10. It's a total stock install. I have zero problems with Biab or Real Band. Sometimes when I get bored I wonder why, like I'm missing all the fun ya know?
Reread what Kent posted a few years ago:
Quote:
The weirdest, hardest-to-fix issues are the ones I run into on computers that have been tweaked and tuned by IT pros and programmers, and/or haven't been updated.
All the IT, programmers and wannabe digital audio so called "pros" who pop up on these forums think they know better. To anybody who thinks that, read this again until it sinks in. And stop telling folks on these forums who barely understand email that they're supposed to jump into the deep end and do all these mods to Win 10.
Just stop it.
Leave Win 10 alone, you'll be much happier believe me. Does that mean it's perfect, no. I've had the occasional glitch after an update but man, NOTHING like what some post about and after a 20 page thread where people go off in all kinds of directions it turns out the guy who originally posted his problems is yet another 30 year computer tech/programmer and has tweaked the crap out of his system. And I mean EVERY TIME. And yet they refuse to acknowledge that. Oh no, it's gotta be something in the software, why I've tested it to death, been doing this for 30 years, it's the software I'm telling you!
What they don't understand is most of the patches that most software companies release take the latest Win 10 updates into account. Think about that for a minute. Don't do the updates what would you expect to happen? DO THE UPDATES and if a few things go haywire, deal with it, not that big of a thing.
Until 2 days ago, I would have been with you, Bob.
My laptop crashed big time after this month's update. Not exactly sure what happened but the error message I saw was the hard drive died. The only thing different than any other day was my landline phone rang. It was plugged into the same power outlet as the laptop. Could be it, I don't know.
4 hours later and a system restore seems to fix it.
No the hard drive is fine.
Microsoft needs to be a bit more sure before releasing things. And, yes, the laptop is no longer plugged into that outlet.
Here is/are my two-cents worth: Latest win 10 feature update to 1909 (Feb 2020). Left my Win 10 system at 90% upon forced restart for over 12 hours (you can shut down, but the next time you start up, update is forced) It also failed. Feature update to 1809 (Mar 2019)finally succeeded, but only with extra effort on my part. Check out the various forums (Microsoft, tenforums, etc. and you will see several users having like issues, especially with major updates (Feature). It's not the CPUs (Intel, AMD). I have multiple Win 7 systems, and they will stay that way, as they are functioning well. Even though Vista was problematic, it wasn't the nightmare of Win 8.0/8.1 or 10. Check out Cortana (viz., your friendly assistant), which is a resource (and privacy) hog. You can't remove or disable Cortana (ever see your mouse or keyboard get sluggish?), but you can modify the registry so that it doesn't go out to the internet (if connected) every time you type anything in the Windows search box. There is a simple mod to the registry limit the Windows search box to only search local (on your computer...possibly). At least this mod fixed the sluggish mouse/keyboard. Cortana logs every thing you type though. If you're not on line, it still caches for next time.
I still have (and use) Win XP Pro, with SONAR 5. Still reliable, and I have spare XPs if I ever need them.
True, Linux is not the cure-all, but the system/software update (if required) is far more reliable and more efficient than Windows. Reminds me of my earlier days with super and mini-super computers when updates were completely manageable and multi-intermediate reboots for updates/patches were unimaginable.
Rich
P.S. My old, non-computerized, non-solid state truck will still run when the modern vehicles get an EMP.
RIchCopy is a nice data backup tool (written by MS techs some time ago), but reliable, GUI interface, and configurable. Also keeps dates intact if desired. Google in on MS. multiple backup profiles definable by the user. I use it on XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 10. And it is fast.
P.S. typo corrected "sata" to "data"
Last edited by rich in ca; 02/17/2008:34 PM. Reason: Typo corrected
Having worked with various IT departments, and been at the receiving end of either poor IT practices, or failure of IT to follow their own procedures, I can assure you that all IT groups are not created equal. Having been at the mercy of of MS patches not properly vetted by the responsible group prior to distribution (e.g., SharePoint), time and money are key impacts.
The point: Many (if not most) home users are not in the business of vetting OS patches (or applications for that matter). So yes, it behooves the home user to become as informed as possible on good backup/restoration practices. But flawed/problematic updates are often beyond what the home user has at their disposal to deal with. I don't mean that as an insult to the home user, but rather as what the situation is.
A quick aside: When the home computer users are eventually forced to download software apps each time to use them (i.e., like the main frame days), and pay a monthly/yearly subscription fee (Office 365 and others), the user will be faced with a crossroads situation. Granted, many large corporations/companies have "leased" software and support for years, but a quick analogy: Does one want to buy a tool and use it, or rent it ad infinitum at a higher overall cost.
Hi Rich, nothing is perfect especially if it concerns computers and the internet. I get my info form the IT company who handles our system at a CPA firm. Federal law makes us partially responsible if there's a data breach that affects clients. We have to have a data security plan available for inspection by the IRS. Since I'm an Enrolled Agent licensed by the IRS and I also have private clients this applies to me at home as well.
1. Win 10. Anything older is a useless POS. 2. ALL updates must be current. 3. Use Defender, nothing else because it's integrated into the OS.
This is just the beginning, the 8 hour tax update seminar I attended last December spent 45 minutes going over all the stuff I should be doing.
New hardware is part of this. New CPU's and mobo's are built with security in mind, the latest Win 10 updates will patch an older system but not close to what those same updates do with a new system.
Win 7 is a joke now, you should think of computers in dog years. A 10 year old PC is like 70 years old in the real world.
When someone says an update locked up their machine all day that tells me it's probably a 3rd party AV software problem. Dump it and use Defender, problem solved.
Over the last 15 years or so I've had a half dozen PC's running this music software with very few issues. All bone stock and fully updated OS installs. The worst problems were caused by a bad power supply nothing to do with the OS or updates.
Not disagreeing with most of what you wrote. I have enough experience in the computer, realtime, data processing and system design/development (going back to even the teletype and core memory days (not quite to Eniac), to HPC Super Computer environments to misperceive that anything in the computer world (or otherwise) is perfect. But, a software app or system is only a joke if it cannot perform the required task and meet the user's requirements. Some of the software I still use (e.g., SONAR (versions 5 and X1 as well as several associated plugins/apps, etc.) work quite well on platforms prior to Windows 10. I have no need to abandon those apps, as they perform as I require them to (sorry about the long winded rebuttal to your Windows 7 assessment).
My point here is that some of the older versions of software perform better than the latest major versions (if in fact there are newer versions). Some of those apps run well on Windows 7, but may not run, or may run poorly on Windows 10. I tend to go with what works for me. Lastly, those vintage systems don't need to be on-line. Any data transferred to another system is thoroughly checked (nothing is perfect though). In the old days, one could hardware-write-protect hard-drives and silos, where you had to physically be at the system to write enable them (that's another era). But consumer hardware (e.g. our PC's) are inherently vulnerable from the software right down to the CPU's.
In your environment (tax preparation), most of the corporate level tax preparation and associated accounting programs will require (as you state) the latest, patched versions of the hosting system/OS for legal, regulatory and compatibility reasons. Understood.
My previous comment referred to people harmed (financially) by data breaches and not receiving just compensation. Those responsible for the data breaches as you accurately point out are "partially" responsible (recall Equifax, the IRS, Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and other firms/organizations had up to 6 months to notify those affected). Even then, the offer of some lame, fly-by-night Identity Protection Service for a limited time period was the only compensation. That's the (bad) joke.
And you are right..."Nothing is Perfect"...not Windows 7, not Windows 10.
Best wishes during the tax season,
Rich
P.S. I expect this thread will soon be archived to the dungeon.
Last edited by rich in ca; 02/20/2002:32 PM. Reason: correct typo
Personally(!) I've far far more problems on Win10 than Win7.
This is also very subjective: Personally I abhor the interface, though it's perhaps better than Win8/8.1.
For the record I have and still occasionally use Win2k, Win7 (twice: once dual-boot, once in a VirtualBox), Win8.1 (updated from Win8) and Win10. I have eight PCs, all running Linux as their primary OS, mostly Ubuntu, but my music-studio PC runs AVLinux (only).
Having revisited BIAB(2013!), with a larger screen, I'm feeling more comfortable with it and might consider getting a recent copy, but I really want to run it on that studio PC, though I might just accept the 10" notepad if I can make it useable enough.
_If_ BIAB will run reliably as a VST on AVLinux, I'd seriously consider that new version, but as it stands, if I have to get a new laptop, with it's own Win10 just for BIAB, particularly as I'd want to use it mostly via a Focusrite Saffire so it would also need Firewire or Thunderbolt, I really can't see me being prepared to part with the cash that would entail.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
I get that and everybody's home set up is different but...when we post on a forum like this answers and general info tends to be exactly that, general. It's for the majority which is really 51% or higher. Generally speaking, average computer users should be doing exactly what I described. Newer mid range or better hardware running a fully updated Win 10 system. That puts you in the $800-$1,000 range. No mods, no tweaks. In 15 years, I've never had all the weird problems some report on these forums.
Of course now to make me look like an idiot I just got a notification about how the latest update from last week can delete your entire desktop on some systems. Lovely, ain't that great! Didn't happen to me but still...It's not really deleted, the fix is to uninstall the update and your desktop is restored but can you imagine what's going through someone's mind when they see that?
No free lunch in this world, all we can do is be informed and deal with it.
It's not really deleted, the fix is to uninstall the update and your desktop is restored but can you imagine what's going through someone's mind when they see that?
Sadly the fix seems to vary and sometimes, allegedly at least, there is no fix ... it's really lost.
I haven't had that either, fingers crossed, but I have a couple of friends who have.
On the whole, I agree with you. I also don't advocate 'clever' tweaks preferring plain vanilla, other than that I almost always turn off all of Windows own 'bling'. I don't have the patience to wait for fancy sliding menus, smooth opening windows and the like, and I detest spurious beeps, boops and jingles _especially_ though a PA or monitors.
I use a PCB CAD package as part of my semi-retired day job and it sometimes seems like every week there's some new Win10 update that's broken something else in it ... things that have worked fine for years. There are workarounds, but some are just a nuisance. Win7 didn't do that. Win2k didn't do that.
Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
No free lunch in this world, all we can do is be informed and deal with it.
Indeed.
“Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson
Gordon.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
In my working days even before Win10 we had a team of 5 or so specialists that spent weeks going over updates before they were deployed. Yep well before Win10 there were updates being sent out second Tuesday or Wednesday (in Australia) every month. Rarely did we have issues.
These days I just let Win10 do it’s thing so far I’ve been very lucky. But most of the machines that people ask me to look at have either been modified, infected, or neglected maybe tweaked by some “expert”. That is not to say my devices won’t break but I feel there is little choice.
I rarely if ever update both my Win10 devices in the same week. I have my desktop that gets all. Then usually a week or so later (when I’m getting ready to play somewhere) I update the machine I use on stage. I also at that time transfer any songs I’ve changed in the month and put the gig together.
And don’t kid yourself that a Linux box is indestructible. In my good old days I would have to help folks with various Linux and Unix flavours. But I’m past all that now and I sleep better (talk to myself a bit but sleep better I think).
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
I have a "vintage" 2011 Dell laptop running Windows 7 Home Edition. In 2016 or so, the Microsoft application that looked at your hardware and reported if your computer qualified for the free upgrade to Windows 10 disqualified this computer because the hardware was obsolete.
After Microsoft support for Windows 7 ended I saw +++ THIS +++ ZD Net article and decided to try updating once again. The computer is running build 1909 Windows 10 Home Edition with no issues.
I did a few things to prepare the laptop. I recovered some storage space by deleting unwanted programs, temporary files and downloads. I ran the trim command on the solid state drive (SSD). I used multiple utility programs to make sure all laptop hardware drivers were up to date. Finally I created a Microsoft Live account.
I used the Windows Media Creator (WMC) utility program and a 16 gigabyte USB memory stick to create a bootable build 1909 Windows 10 Home image.
I enabled the boot from USB option in the laptop bios settings. (Yes the laptop is so old it has bios instead of UEFI).
I inserted the USB memory stick and restarted. The boot program asks you to select if you want a "fresh" install (that deletes files and formats the storage drive) or to keep existing files and settings. I selected to keep files and settings.
The last step in the update is to enter a 26 digit product code or obtain a digital license. I provided my Microsoft Live user name and password and the install was verified with a digital license.
I haven't noticed any difference in performance and all the old programs I've tested so far work. My only complaints are I don't like the looks of Windows 10 as compared to Windows 7 and I don't like the solitaire program included with Windows 10.
There are workarounds, but some are just a nuisance. Win7 didn't do that. Win2k didn't do that.
Of course they didn't because it was the wild, wild west with those old OS's. There were hacked copies of Win2K and Win 7 easily available for anybody to use. My nephew was a teenage hacker who had his copy and I had a guy I met at a computer show build me a new box 15 or so years ago with a hacked copy of Win 7. My nephew is now making about 150K with Citibank as an IT manager. I bought him a legal copy of Win2K so he could get his certs going.
The thing that so many people don't get is data breaches are not just some kid sitting in his mothers basement, they're highly organized international crime syndicates, many government backed by Russia, China, N. Korea etc. We're talking about billions and billions of dollars. MS decided the only way to get a handle on this was to control the OS as much as possible. That's why they're constantly pushing people to upgrade to Win 10. They have no control over older OS's, too many unauthorized copies around. The overarching reason for all these updates is security. Even if any one of us is highly unlikely to be targeted or affected individually, globally it's a huge problem.
It's similar to this Coronavirus thing. It's affected just a tiny fraction of the number of people who have died from the flu each year yet the whole world is in a panic over this. Why? Nobody has a good handle on it yet, China is fudging their numbers and you can't trust them anyway so everybody is freaking out.
Same thing is going on with computer viruses and malware. The difference is those don't have the potential to literally kill you but financially they're a very big deal. MS isn't concerned with any one individual's PC, it's the worldwide ecosystem of PC's and stopping the spread of these very sophisticated little effing pieces of software criminals keep coming up with.
You'll never stop some systems getting infected because certain otherwise very smart people are stupid when it comes to this. They use "password", "12345" and crap like that for passwords. They click on very clever email links that fool people who are not paying attention to what the email url looks like. So some systems are always going to get infected, the question is how to stop it from spreading?
To me, we all need to do our small part, only go online with Win 10 and let MS do their thing with updates. Yes, they might mess with software that is important to you. Well, getting a flu shot every year messes with some people too but overall it's very necessary.
I'm sensible, well behaved and security aware, but there are severe threats and there are idiots.
Back somewhere around year 2000 we learned that our company had inadvertently made our full list of usernames and passwords publicly accessible in an encrypted file. It took only half an hour to decrypt that file. There were lots of stupid passwords, including that of the then financial director, whose password was his surname.
I hadn't intended this to become an OS advocacy thing, so I'll stop here on OSs.
I will add that I've just bought a copy of 2020 to try.
I'm running it at present in VirtualBox on a Linux host and it seems to be running just fine. I do not yet have USB/MIDI through to the VirtualBox, which might prove to be an issue, but it's too early to say.
I plan also to try the VST running inside a Linux VST host. I'm encouraged enough by what I've seen so far that I'll put some effort into it if needed.
The other thing I'll add is that 2020 addresses well my main complaint with the 2013 on which I gave up ... the interface is now clean, tidy and no longer overwhelming.
Good job guys.
Even if I don't succeed with BIAB somehow on Linux, I think I'd be comfortable using the new interface even on that notepad computer ... good grief, have I really had that notepad since at least 2013?
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
Yeah, I think we've covered the OS thing enough, haha.
I just noticed this is your 5th post here so welcome to the forum Gordon. You're very well informed so keep posting, this is one of the best music forums anywhere. Interesting you've got Biab running using Virtualbox. I've read about Linux but never got into it. Keep us informed about that.
I've learned that BIAB uses the VST3 standard, which is only really in Beta on Linux at present, so I'll likely wait a while for things to settle.
So far I've failed to get a proper connection between USB and the VirtualBox, which is a well known frustration, though it's supposed to be doable ... work in progress. There also appears no clean interface with the Jack Audio Connection Kit, which rather ties the hands at getting BIAB talking with anything much else under Linux.
I have a DIN-MIDI to USB adaptor, so could send MIDI to two separate PCs, but then I likely end up with that notepad PC plus a USB audio interface feeding into the mixer. All of the rest of my setup is in the 19" rack, so that would be a shame ... I'm trying to reduce the number of boxes, not increase it. Ho Hum.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
I've learned that BIAB uses the VST3 standard, which is only really in Beta on Linux at present
Ah, actually BIAB also offers VST2, which I believe is well supported via LinVst.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. Kawai MP6, Korg M50, Ui24R, Saffire Pro 40. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11; Win8.1: Scarletts BIAB2022 UltraPAK, Reaper, a bunch of stuff.
I had Windows 10 but upgraded to Windows 7 and don't have any problems.
Wise man, alas a lot of DAW and VST software houses are dropping all Windows versions except 10.
I had bought an 64bit LTSB W10 (2016 - enterprise stripped) version alas dropped by microsuck recently.
Very very stable, almost Win2000 like. Then it didn't work with the latest NVDIA installers, so i went ' back' to Win10 Pro. Nothing but problems due them friggin' updates. Even Windows Update Switch 2 didn't save my [*****].
Reinstalled my old LTSB boot partition again, updated the drivers and installed those NVDIA drivers manually. It works, no friggin' bloatware, no Edge, no Cortana and all that telemetry buls**t. At times i use Take Ownership in the Program Data and documents/users folders for permissions installation issues. Alas that screws up the junctions in Application Data.
I use 360 Total Security premium, mainly because of their manual windows patch updating for security kbs. And Privatefirewall plus some 3rd party PUP remover tools etc. Palemoon or Firefox with Ublock. Edited the hosts file with a lot of unwanted sites from a listing.
I sometimes wonder if MAC users face all this trouble just to have a working computer.
BTW after the LTSB reinstallation, Q360 said there were no patches needed, lucky me.
On my laptop i had a bought legal 8.1 enterprise running, 5 years without problems, but windows update screwed that up. Telling me that my officially bought license was not valid all of a sudden.
1 hour on the phone and all the microsuck guy said after letting him remotely control this laptop was, that he could only arrange for my original 8.0 license was conversion to Win 10 pro. But i needed to reinstall all new from scratch.
PS i bought some expensive office version (365?) from MS, a while back for ' upgrading' from Office 2003. Only problems, with 2 bought licenses. Now on free Libre Office, perfect, no updates or licensing sh*t.
Valid point about current DAWs, VSTs waning support for Windows 7. In my case, Cakewalk's SONAR version 5 (running on XP Pro) and SONAR X1 running on Win 7, and all the other support software, soft synths, etc., does more than I need it to do. I have the latest version of Studio One (a nice DAW) on a stock Windows 10 box, but don't use it for any of my own work...just there to help a few friends out.
Some drawbacks to many of the newer DAWs and earlier versions of some (e.g., Cubase, ProTools, etc.): Even after you register and activate your software, the "phone home" function sporadically validates your license via a USB fob and/or embedded software… internet connection is required. And if the company goes out of business or modifies their license agreement, and then your USB based license fob fails, you now have a brick. Three reasons I stuck with SONAR: (1) It works very well for me; (2) they had a very reasonable license and use agreement, and (3) good customer support, updates, and after installation, I never had to do anything else to keep using SONAR...not required to be on-line, no intrusive telemetry, nothing. I know SONAR is back, having been resurrected by a company in the far-east, but I have no experience with them. Cakewalk's earlier demise was having been bought out twice by two different companies that...you know the rest.
For me, the soft synths I have are quite good, but I usually record/create my own midi files and route them through either my Yamaha Motif keyboard or Yamaha Rack synth, both of which have amazing sounds and are configurable in many ways. With the high cost of many of the soft synths these days, it would be more economical for me to buy another hardware synth if I needed more features, sounds, etc. (and the better ones are upgradeable with more/improved voices, etc. that can be purchased separately). For my guitars with synth capability, and my keyboards, I record both the analog and midi. Capturing and printing the notation then becomes especially easy (since I am neither a great or efficient transcriber).
Windows 10: The previous major update (Features 1903), did not go well (read the Win 10 forums). The current major update (1909) includes 1903. I and others still have the same and more issues. Familiar scenario: Update downloads, Installs, then upon the Microsoft induced reboots to complete the update, in the "working on updates" stage, you get the several hours of stuck at 90% . 14 hours at 90% is ridiculous. I have had to back out both updates more than once to get back to an operational system. Not a quick endeavor. For those disbelievers, buckle up, the ride will get bumpier in the future. And while you’re at it (pun intended), make sure to get your home "upgraded" to a "Smart Home".
I am the OP. i Finally figured out why my Win7 updates were taking like 2+ days. My Internet download speed was 7Mbps and I always thought this speed was pretty good (most downloads seemed okay to me). Now that (I have my first reason to apply all the updates and I am as of this morning running at 520Mbps) I am doing the updates. On my laptop it took 2.5 hours. On my Desktop I figure 1.25 hours (still running). Now that is reasonable for such a large catch up.
So Microsoft might have been a bit smarter to test the download speed and provide a popup if it is slow. The popup would have some suggestions.
Windows 11 is two months old and you're wanting to go back to 2018 and talk about about Windows 7?
Wow! June 2018. How time flies when one is having sooooooooooooooo much fun :-) It seems like Yesterday.
The BIAB system requirements say BIAB 2022 runs on Win7 and if they say it does it should. Reaper is supported back to Win Xp. Cakewalk does not support Win7 but I found no bugs so far running it under Win7 while doing everything I need which is admittedly not that taxing on a DAW (yet).
Regarding BIAB saying it runs on Win7 so far so good except the VST Plugin has bugs both running under Reaper and Cakewalk. The standalone Plugin also has issues. I give odds of 90% the BIAB Plugin bugs have nothing to do with Win7 (10% odds I could be wrong). For example maybe it is me. I am new to the plugin and maybe it has some quirks I do not know how to work around yet. I have a series of emails with PGmusic going on this issue. Having said that it is pretty close to being able to do what I am after. It gets the chord labels into a Reaper Midi track perfectly. However getting the chords from BIAB into the Plugin has issues (I have to clean up beyond the chorus and if the chorus size is unusual part way into the end of the chorus).
My preference (as the creator of BIAB backing tracks for my Jazz Jam Club member participants) is not to bother with a watered down plug in at all. Instead use all the power BIAB has to offer (great program) and export the tracks as I have been doing but add in the added feature of the ability to export chord and section labels as well that are formatted for whatever DAWs the user uses with a simple checkbox to switch it on. In my case I would switch on Reaper and Audacity (section labels and chord labels for both). However maybe a new club member could be using whatever DAW and I could be creating these for 5+ DAWs. I have no way to predict so the more the better.
John, there's nothing wrong using an unsupported operating system. I still have an XP desktop I occasionally pull out. But as the computer world moves on and standards change it becomes more difficult.
Windows 7 was likely the most stable client operating system so far. The main reason I migrated from Windows 7 to 10 was driver support.
John, there's nothing wrong using an unsupported operating system. I still have an XP desktop I occasionally pull out. But as the computer world moves on and standards change it becomes more difficult.
Windows 7 was likely the most stable client operating system so far. The main reason I migrated from Windows 7 to 10 was driver support.
Hi Jim,
As a programmer I have a different strategy for operating system software. I am fully aware that most software companies release their software long before the software is fully tested in effect using us as testers at some level (Gamma testers may be the word). Some companies like to call their updates security patches and I suspect they do not want to tell us they are using us as testers(bad pr). Yes some of the updates may be security patches but I suspect there are a lot more fixes than they will admit to. Have I had any security issues with Win7? Zip! Any with Win XP before that? Zip! I have the added protection of a fairly sophisticated backup strategy and I just as of yesterday tightened it even more as it had a significant flaw (My image backup USB drive failed and I have no idea when so I now back up to it every day so I know and I am considering alternating 2 USB drives). So keeping this all in mind, I prefer (if possible) to wait until just before they discontinue support before I buy their software because at that point I know I am getting a fully tested software (getting good value for my money). So far it works very well for me. I will however upgrade the operating system as soon as I can not run a major software I am using on it. Win XP had this issue (MultiCharts would not run on it because it needed more memory). Drivers? I have never had to upgrade drivers yet and I was using the Commodor 64 as my first personal (non main frame) computer I was programming. In other words I have been around a while.
My strategy for non operating system software is different. Like maybe even most people do, sometimes I will buy a new release knowing realistically that there will be bugs and I feel it is worth the risk (exactly what I did with my Win7 purchases because Win XP did not provide enough memory and exactly what I did with BIAB 2022). With BIAB 2022 the risk worked out. I was able to workaround the plugin issues and get what I wanted. Not perfect but okay. I am sure PGmusic will correct the issues.
Brokerage software. I stay one release back. Many investors and traders do not like to risk their money any more than they have to.
Regarding my last post obviously Software companies can not afford to wait until software is perfect before they release it. It's what they do after they release it that is important. So I was curious and I did two Google searches to find bug fix lists. One for PGmusic's BIAB and one for Micrsoft's Windows 7.
Google Search: "where are Windows 7 bug fixes described" Google hit: Can't find anything comparable to the above on the first page. However with a lot of work I found this link which appears to be a bug fix after they stopped WIn 7 support (not of concern to me). Google Page Location: NA.
So based upon this simple test it seems PGmusic has a different PR approach than Microsoft and I appreciate Pgmusic's approach a lot more. This simple test suggests Microsoft is trying to hide the fact that they are no different than other software companies. I would think that their operating system is typically larger and more complex than most software and thus would have more bugs than most software upon release. Maybe this scares MicroSoft.
The bottom line is the sooner you jump in to a new release the greater the risk you will spend a lot of time being a gamma tester dealing with bugs meaning you pay more (time is money). How each person chooses to spend their time and money is totally up to them.
Add updated printing options, enhanced tracks settings, smoother use of MGU and SGU (BB files) within PowerTracks, and more with the latest PowerTracks Pro Audio 2024 update!
Download and install this to your RealBand 2024 for updated print options, streamlined loading and saving of .SGU & MGU (BB) files, and to add a number of program adjustments that address user-reported bugs and concerns.
Did you know... not only can you download your Band-in-a-Box® Pro, MegaPAK, or PlusPAK purchase - you can also choose to add a flash drive backup copy with the installation files for only $15? It even comes with a Band-in-a-Box® keychain!
For the larger Band-in-a-Box® packages (UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition), the hard drive backup copy is available for only $25. This will include a preinstalled and ready to use program, along with your installation files.
Backup copies are offered during the checkout process on our website.
Already purchased your e-delivery version, and now you wish you had a backup copy? It's not too late! If your purchase was for the current version of Band-in-a-Box®, you can still reach out to our team directly to place your backup copy order!
Note: the Band-in-a-Box® keychain is only included with flash drive backup copies, and cannot be purchased separately.
Handy flash drive tip: Always try plugging in a USB device the wrong way first? If your flash drive (or other USB plug) doesn't have a symbol to indicate which way is up, look for the side with a seam on the metal connector (it only has a line across one side) - that's the side that either faces down or to the left, depending on your port placement.
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows® Today!
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows for free with build 1111!
With this update, there's more control when saving images from the Print Preview window, we've added defaults to the MultiPicker for sorting and font size, updated printing options, updated RealTracks and other content, and addressed user-reported issues with the StylePicker, MIDI Soloists, key signature changes, and more!
A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
Convenient Ways to Listen to Band-in-a-Box® Songs Created by Program Users!
The User Showcase Forum is an excellent place to share your Band-in-a-Box® songs and listen to songs other program users are creating!
There are other places you can listen to these songs too! Visit our User Showcase page to sort by genre, artist (forum name), song title, and date - each listing will direct you to the forum post for that song.
If you'd rather listen to these songs in one place, head to our Band-in-a-Box® Radio, where you'll have the option to select the genre playlist for your listening pleasure. This page has SoundCloud built in, so it won't redirect you. We've also added the link to the Artists SoundCloud page here, and a link to their forum post.
We hope you find some inspiration from this amazing collection of User Showcase Songs!
Our User Showcase Forum receives more than 50 posts per day, with people sharing their Band-in-a-Box songs and providing feedback for other songs posted.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you over the phone. Our hours of operation are from
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