Microsoft: I am so done with you…

Except for the two applications that only run in Windows…

I lost the use of my Windows 7 partition on my laptop last week after a Windows update.  They have been pushing Windows 10 for a while now, but I have ignored it because Windows 7 is just fine for me. I tried to ignore the latest nagging update and: Oh, joy! The computer is stuck in an endless reboot loop. Fortunately, I had a dual boot system and the Linux OS booted right up. Go figure! I was able to mount the Windows partition from Linux and recover all of my files.  This is a good reason to have a dual boot system or keep a bootable thumb drive handy.  At first, I thought I might be losing sectors on my hard drive, but no.  It turns out, one of the files that changed during the update was corrupted.  No big deal, I can reload windows and be back in business.

It will only take an hour or so.  An hour that could be better used for something else, something akin to billable hours, which is how the mortgage gets paid. My computer is not a hobby, it is a tool. I don’t have time to play around with things for fun.

Then I thought, why bother?  I am using Linux with no serious disruptions.  In fact, it boots faster, runs faster, is more secure, and generally has fewer hangups. LibreOffice has all of the applications I need for general correspondence and business administration.  I can run Win 7 as a virtual machine in VirtualBox as long as I can get the USB device I need to be recognized by Linux and then passed through to the virtual Win 7 OS.

So, to hell with Windows and all its nonsense. Goodbye, you inferior, expensive, and buggy piece of garbage. I will not miss you.

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12 thoughts on “Microsoft: I am so done with you…”

  1. Thanks for your posts, Paul. I really enjoy them. I haven’t been in the radio/TV business. I’m just an old radio nut, fascinated by the “miracle” of radio and the behind the scene workings.
    The only reason I’m still on Windows is there are three programs I use that are either not available for OS/X or Linux or the Mac versions are terrible. Windows 10 installation went fine for me but I have had to reinstall other versions occasionally. It takes hours or days to reload everything.

  2. Paul,

    Good rant! I migrated over to apple over a dozen years ago. Had been very happy with them up until the time of Steve Job’s passing. I bought a new cosmetic case (as some co-workers refer to macbookair / macbookpros as) the evening it was announced of the death of the companies founder. That unit failed 10 days later. The apple store replaced it on the spot after they transferred all data over to the new one. A month later, I purchased a new iMac for my home office. It died 2 days after I brought it home. Again, apple replaced it on the spot. They are very good at customer service. BUT, they have adopted the Microsoft philosophy of jamming updates down your throat. With these updates, they now change YOUR computer with YOUR set preferences the way THEY want it. I know I am sounding like an old grump, but if it works, leave it the hell alone.
    I guess I need to spend time learning Linux.

  3. I had to chuckle. I’ve used computers constantly since the late 1970s, starting with Fortran 4 on a mainframe. Since the dawn of microcomputers in the late 1970s, I’ve used computers for nearly everything imaginable. Although my primary use of computers is functional, some use is recreational. I’ve used numerous operating systems over the decades, primary ones based on unix so GNU/Linux is easy for me to use. Microsoft was just in the right place at the right time with Windows 3.1 and VGA graphics. It’s better late than never … to switch. 😉

  4. I have Linux Mint running my ham station now for about a year. No issues. Just a learning curve. Windows boxes… I just got my son a new laptop from Lenovo…. Windows or as some call it Windoze… really looks a lot like a repackaged tablet OS…. We have Apple, 7 and XP machines still going where I work and I have a mix of stuff at home… XP, Linux, and Android. As one of the websites that ports radio automation says “they aren’t computers anymore, they are appliances’. Nuff said. Learn a little about each and get frustrated a lot when they don’t work!

  5. Once I have a happy base-OS installed I immediately make an acronis image to a secondary partition or drive, were my file and documents are. Good luck!

  6. The Win10 upgrade Nag (in the System Message area) is persistent.
    I’ve hidden the update (KB3035583) a couple of times now, per several articles, yet it STILL seems to get pushed out by them.
    *Doink* there’s that little nag logo again.

    I keep two (2) Windows 7 machines. But I seriously use Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.04 for most everything I do.
    I think I only keep them around for some sort of security blanket (or like HOARDING).

    Ubuntu, Mint, just discovered Ubuntu Mate – very nice – Ubuntu, but before they went to the Unity UI.
    Raspi on Raspberry Pis’s – there’s a world out there.

  7. I’m the oddball I suppose, but I’ve actually been pretty happy with Win 10 so far.
    Things are back where I expect them to be (after the win 8 disaster) and it seems to run faster than either 7 or 8. Time will tell whether or not Microsoft blows it up with a mandatory update one day.
    Plus it’s comforting knowing the NSA is lurking nearby 🙂

    I have a bad taste in my mouth for anything Apple after doing on-site support for them some years back.
    Linux is a good alternative, provided you can actually use it. Our automation, traffic, production software is all locked to Windows and running a Windows VM inside Linux to avoid Windows seems a bit convoluted.

  8. I’m late to this party. I switched over from Windows to Linux years ago, making the transition slowly as I figured out what would work on Linux, and what would work only on Windows. I started on Ubuntu, but I switched over to Mint a year ago. It’s not that Ubuntu was (or is) bad; it’s just that I find Mint works better for me.
    As for the “two hours” to get Windows re-installed, I’ve never been able to get it installed in that short a time. Typically takes me four. I can have Linux completely installed (including all updates since the OS was released) in 30 minutes. With only a few exceptions, I use Linux for everything. I run Windows on a combination of dual-boot, separate system and Virtualbox. I hope that Linux will gain enough popularity that drivers for add-on devices will be commonplace. That’s when a lot more people will see Linux as a viable alternative.

  9. I have a love/hate relationship with M$. I earn my daily living with it thanks to 19 campus locations that use that dreaded OS but at home I’ve been happily using Macs sine their introduction in 1984. Configured properly I don’t get the barrage of updates on the Mac that M$ forces down your throat. In fact, my Windows machines haven’t been turned on as I want to make an image of the drives before their “forced” upgrade to Win10. Arrgh!

    For casual websurfing I’m trying Neverware, which is a port of the Google’s Chrome OS meant to run an more generalized PC hardware. This may breathe new life into older hardware that can’t run windows (or maybe good for kids or even station staffers who can’t handle a full blown system). I’m evaluating it now for the educational institution I work at but I can see it in the studio to keep the jocks from mucking up the automation or other systems.

  10. Our LPFM is running on Rivendell (CentOS/Linux), and the in house production machine is Ubuntu/Linux.
    Main audio editor is Audacity (I have no need now for high powered production).
    I just added StereoTool to the airchain for audio processing/MPX/Stereo generation; because my Linux chops are, er, rudimentary I opted for a Windows 7 box there.
    My mobile laptop/production machine is a Windows 7 laptop, and at home we use Macs/iPads. Hindenburg Journalist has been a real find, basically one click processing of spoken word audio files for air.
    So we are all over the place computing wise.

  11. I abandoned Windows over 15 years ago. Remember Windows 98 and “Plug and SCREAM!” ? Putting in extra boards fire up the computer and “IRQ CONFLICT!”. I started looking for a alternative. Started with Mandrake Linux, it morphed to Mandriva, and then forked to Mageia.org Linux. I keep a Windows computer for running Quickbooks, otherwise I do everything else with Mageia Linux. Instead of spending 40% of my computer time keeping Windows STAGGERWARE running, I just use the computer with Mageia.

  12. While assisting a consulting broadcast engineer one time, had an interesting experience. A 5 kW solid state UHF TV transmitter kept burning out the cooling fans on the power amplifier modules. Once the new blowers were installed, he turned the transmitter on. Just as he did so, the 8 foot fluorescent tubes overhead suddenly dimmed, showing a few inches of light, and then a dark space all down the lenth of the tubes. Undervoltage! Which explained why the blower motors burned out.
    The 5kW transmitter had replaced a 1 kW solid state UHF TV transmitter, and the transformer on the power pole likely was a 10 kVA, and that 5 kW transmitter had to be pulling all of 16 kVA. I warned the engineer, he ignored the warning, and a few days later the site went down for 2 days while the electric utility replaced the transformer with a higher rated one.
    I did not even need a voltmeter to diagnose that problem. I was “enlightened” by the fluorescent tubes.

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