Vic Wasteland Thread - 15.0

[baron_von_bootsector]

And here I was expecting someone to suggest Windows ME or Vista!

[UNR33L]

Still laugh when I see like commonwealth bank on win xp (probably fixed by now..)

Edited May 11, 2017 by UNR33L

[Birds]

Lurker or do you search the forums for keywords like windows and Microsoft? Your name is offensively close to the subject matter

[baron_von_bootsector]

They have fixed that mostly - I know one of the guys that led the charge when they were still trying to cram XP onto brand new MacBook airs!

XP was still a big step from the OS2 warp based ATM's that were still getting around until a few years ago  

[baron_von_bootsector]

4 minutes ago, Birds said:

Lurker or do you search the forums for keywords like windows and Microsoft? Your name is offensively close to the subject matter

Just saw the original request come up on the activity page, thought I could inject something useful as I work in the sector.

[Birds]

I don't work in the sector but proclaim XP to be the best balance between stability, GUI and user functionality amongst all the windows environments

[emts]

I've seen things that cannot be unseen for large banks/governments/people who should know better.

think 10+ year old NT4 server's managing over a billion dollars in trust..

but it's ok it was only for NSW people so Fk them..

[Leroy Peterson]

Careful with installing Win7 on modern hardware as MS have pushed hard to get the big manufacturers to stop providing Windows 7 compatible drivers for brand new hardware, if the box comes with Windows 10 you might be better off trying to enable compatibility mode for the app you are worried about. 

Dell? Modern hardware? Lol
Laptop was released in mid 2016 with hardware specced for 2015.

[baron_von_bootsector]

2 minutes ago, Birds said:

I don't work in the sector but proclaim XP to be the best balance between stability, GUI and user functionality amongst all the windows environments

You aren't alone on that - it may be all off those things for a lot of people but its also a massive security issue (nothing but absolutely critical fixes), not supported on any recent hardware and also starting to be unsupported by major software vendors too. Unfortunately its had its time in the sun and Microsoft has made it very clear that Windows 10 is the option it prefers for desktops moving forward. Implementing it on new hardware now is a *very* painful experience for both user and admin.

If Windows 10 is unappealing, you should see what they are doing with new versions of Windows Server - its beginning to look more than a little like a Unix OS (not that I am complaining but a lot of the "more grizzled" windows admins i know have!).

 

[baron_von_bootsector]

11 minutes ago, emts said:

I've seen things that cannot be unseen for large banks/governments/people who should know better.

think 10+ year old NT4 server's managing over a billion dollars in trust..

but it's ok it was only for NSW people so Fk them..

My favorite was running across a Sun server running Solaris and hosting critical services at a federal department in 2012 - the best bit was that the box had an uptime of over 2700 days when it was shut down for the last time. They don't build them like that anymore!

[Birds]

10 minutes ago, baron_von_bootsector said:

You aren't alone on that - it may be all off those things for a lot of people but its also a massive security issue (nothing but absolutely critical fixes), not supported on any recent hardware and also starting to be unsupported by major software vendors too. Unfortunately its had its time in the sun and Microsoft has made it very clear that Windows 10 is the option it prefers for desktops moving forward. Implementing it on new hardware now is a *very* painful experience for both user and admin.

If Windows 10 is unappealing, you should see what they are doing with new versions of Windows Server - its beginning to look more than a little like a Unix OS (not that I am complaining but a lot of the "more grizzled" windows admins i know have!).

 

Windows 8 was an atrocity that made me welcome Windows 10 with open arms...maybe that was the goal all along. But building an cross platform operating system primarily used for PCs that looks and behaves like a smart TV interface is just...

[baron_von_bootsector]

33 minutes ago, Birds said:

Windows 8 was an atrocity that made me welcome Windows 10 with open arms...maybe that was the goal all along. But building an cross platform operating system primarily used for PCs that looks and behaves like a smart TV interface is just...

 

I don't think you will find anybody (well anyone sane...) who would leap to defend the Windows 8 UI changes and the way they were unleashed!

You are completely correct - the cause of the problem was Microsoft trying for a unified OS that worked across multiple platforms (they saw what Apple was doing with IOS and the iPad / iPhone) and wanted to get onboard. The biggest issue they had was trying to impose such a radical UI change very suddenly on a large population of users who had grown very used to small incremental and easy to get used to changes to the same UI they had experienced since windows 95. Users almost universally hated the dramatic and unexpected change when they purchased new machines and let Microsoft know it in no uncertain terms.

The whole new coke like misdirection conspiracy theory with the change glosses over the simplest explanation - that Microsoft just screwed up and massively misunderstood what their users wanted. I'd love to believe that Redmond did it deliberately but given the way they were shocked by the reaction and the rush to push Windows 8.1 / 10 out it was not their plan!

[Birds]

That may well suit Occam's razor but I am certain Arnott's put out shit flavours for the publicity and re-interest in old flavour Shapes.

[Birds]

The only other explanation is product and marketing managers feeling they need to justify their employment with radical changes to something that works or works and has gone a little stale

[emts]

3 hours ago, baron_von_bootsector said:

My favorite was running across a Sun server running Solaris and hosting critical services at a federal department in 2012 - the best bit was that the box had an uptime of over 2700 days when it was shut down for the last time. They don't build them like that anymore!

had a SUn Ultra 10 here up to 3700 days till we were replacing the UPS and had to power down

[baron_von_bootsector]

1 minute ago, emts said:

had a SUn Ultra 10 here up to 3700 days till we were replacing the UPS and had to power down

That old Sun gear was pretty much unkillable - I have seen a few V240's with similar uptimes but they were not still hosting mission critical services 

I miss that kind of gear and the awesome service you got before Oracle bought the company.

[TiTAN]

agreed,
 
Windows 98 SE is where we should be at...
 
 

I installed windows 98 se on a gigabyte iram back in the mid 2000s.

Amazing bootup speed.

Took about 19 seconds from power button press to desktop, and about 15 seconds of that was the bios, This was before you could get an ssd.

[TiTAN]

Windows 8 was an atrocity that made me welcome Windows 10 with open arms...maybe that was the goal all along. But building an cross platform operating system primarily used for PCs that looks and behaves like a smart TV interface is just...

8 was good if you fixed the start menu.

[TiTAN]

That old Sun gear was pretty much unkillable - I have seen a few V240's with similar uptimes but they were not still hosting mission critical services [emoji4]
I miss that kind of gear and the awesome service you got before Oracle bought the company.

I have some solaris boxes running storage, they are really solid for uptime. I had one half crash, the local ui was completely unresponsive and you couldn't SSH into it but it keep serving up data flawlessly until it could be rebooted.

[baron_von_bootsector]

2 minutes ago, TiTAN said:

 

I have some solaris boxes running storage, they are really solid for uptime. I had one half crash, the local ui was completely unresponsive and you couldn't SSH into it but it keep serving up data flawlessly until it could be rebooted.

 

If it was running ZFS as the filesystem you probably didn't miss a byte while it was like that too. Everyone who has significant experience with their gear from that era looks back on it fondly due to stuff like this. My home theatre PC is a huge grey and purple SunFire V880 - its was gutted before I got it and now hosts an Intel board and a bar fridge but still looks awesome.