PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Win 10 forced updates - any plan on going to Linux?

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.

It's just a fact of life now.

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.

Oh, and let's not forget Microsoft Bob.



See Microsoft Bob screen shots below

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.

Bob

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

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.

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.


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

Told ya...


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.


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.

ROTFLMAO

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.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4284880

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.

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.

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.

Bob

And speaking of Bob, what about Clippy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant

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.

I'm not a fanboy or cult member.

Insights or incites by Notes

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.

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 one. Intel announced a chip security flaw a while back.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-04/intel-chip-flaw-a-security-threat/9303280
I am not worried about it.

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?

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.

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.