Windows is getting disgusting

[David Spicer]

I am hyper paranoid about W10 stealthily installing itself. On my oldish i7 laptop is a lot of very costly EDA and CAD software. ALtium, Cadence, Various XIinx tools going back years, Othern FPGA design tools, simulators and so on. Most of this stuff is node locked to an ethernet MAC. I am so paranoid I took out the wi fi card (a mini pcie card) and every night I shut it down and pull out the ethernet plug. I also make a complete daddy and grandaddy clone using Acrornis, onto two SATA hard drives as well as an Acorns background backup. Problem is, Windows is still the platform EA and CAD tools are written for, Heaven knows why. XIlinx will run on Linux, but there are several compromises to be made.
Ain't this just the silliest situation? The only OS I trust is Linux. (I use centos). I have been gradually moving things into a VM using Virtual Box. So far so good. but It's not perfect. Even on a fairly meaty machine (i& quad etc) there is a noticeable performance hit when doing things like P an R for a large FPGA. At least it's easy to change the MAC.
Sigh. What is the world coming too? I'm only posting this to show what an absurd thing it all is.

[hayatepilot]

I find it pretty funny that we are all against spying from Microsoft on PCs but we are all using phones that are MUCH worse when it comes to spying.
And most (including me) don't have such a big problem with it on phones despite that they have much more information about us. (location, contacts, payment stuff and fitness if you have a smartwatch or fitnesstracker)

[GEuser]

I'll get out the walking stick whilst I type this , Remember the XP days , there was a year or so in its middle to later life that was creating a bit of paranoia back then .

[rdl]

I won't have a "smart phone" mainly because of those privacy issues. Well, that plus the fact that phone companies have gotten very creative in conning people out of money. I can't believe the amount of money people waste on phone service these days.

[GEuser]

How about Haircuts for those Females rdl , then the Nails and then whatever , all EE's are in the wrong business I reckon , Lol

[Syntax_Error]

I find it pretty funny that we are all against spying from Microsoft on PCs but we are all using phones that are MUCH worse when it comes to spying.
And most (including me) don't have such a big problem with it on phones despite that they have much more information about us. (location, contacts, payment stuff and fitness if you have a smartwatch or fitnesstracker)

Oh I agree. I am well aware of the privacy issues related to mobile phones The difference is the lack of alternatives. With desktop OS, I can choose alternatives, albeit with concessions. With mobile phones, the only alternative is to not have or use one, and this is unacceptable to most, including me. If and when viable alternatives become available, I will certainly consider them.

So, due to this, my own alternative is to practice the IA principle of, "If it doesn't exist in the machine, it cannot be pulled out of the machine." and I just do not use my phone for sensitive communications or storage. This does nothing for metadata, which sucks, but again, it's the world we live in. To avoid it, you'd have to be a mountain hermit, and that's not the world I choose to live in.

[rolycat]

Just saw this in the Inbox of updates , I hid it but glad I looked at the info sheet first too , but get the Bold (which I did to highlight it) , a when not IF .

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/2952664

"This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. These diagnostics help determine whether compatibility issues may be encountered when the latest Windows operating system is installed. This update will help Microsoft and its partners ensure compatibility for customers who want to install the latest Windows operating system."

They keep re-releasing that one - it's been around for a year. Not only that, but it snoops on you. It triggers a daily telemetry run which sends information back to Microsoft even if you have opted out of the "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program".

Not content with that, Microsoft's latest sleazy trick is to hide Windows 10 upgrade nagware in security patches. This really beggars belief.

I am beginning to feel that if I really want to improve my "Windows Customer Experience", I need to stop being a customer.

[German_EE]

Add me to the list of non-smartphone users, mainly because of the privacy issues. It makes and receives phone calls, it creates and receives SMS messages and it's an alarm clock, that's it. Also there are two phone numbers in the contacts list, both my girlfriend. The NSA must find me very boring.

[GEuser]

Just saw this in the Inbox of updates , I hid it but glad I looked at the info sheet first too , but get the Bold (which I did to highlight it) , a when not IF .

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/2952664

"This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. These diagnostics help determine whether compatibility issues may be encountered when the latest Windows operating system is installed. This update will help Microsoft and its partners ensure compatibility for customers who want to install the latest Windows operating system."

They keep re-releasing that one - it's been around for a year. Not only that, but it snoops on you. It triggers a daily telemetry run which sends information back to Microsoft even if you have opted out of the "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program".

Not content with that, Microsoft's latest sleazy trick is to hide Windows 10 upgrade nagware in security patches. This really beggars belief.

I am beginning to feel that if I really want to improve my "Windows Customer Experience", I need to stop being a customer.

Thanks for the link , that one was in here , removed IE 11 , then removed that KB3139929 and then hid it , now i gotta try and drive Firefox , its seems really laggy on scrolling , even turned off hardware acceleration and its still the same .

But a more important thing , can you show me how to remove the first previous quotation box in this post as its stuck in there when i quote you , pretty please , i have never learnt how to do it like which part in the first double quotes does one cut? , i have tried it a cupla times before and it has been a mess .

Edited> fixed the scrolling lag , tools/options/advanced/use smooth scrolling

[AndyC_772]

My phone doesn't contain my or my customers' confidential trade secrets and other valuable, proprietary information.

My PC does. Hence the completely different requirements for security and privacy.

[rolycat]

Thanks for the link , that one was in here , removed IE 11 , then removed that KB3139929 and then hid it , now i gotta try and drive Firefox , its seems really laggy on scrolling , even turned off hardware acceleration and its still the same .

But a more important thing , can you show me how to remove the first previous quotation box in this post as its stuck in there when i quote you , pretty please , i have never learnt how to do it like which part in the first double quotes does one cut? , i have tried it a cupla times before and it has been a mess .

You just remove matched pairs of quote, end-quote marks along with the text:

Code: [Select]

[quote author=whoever ...]
text to remove
more waffle
[/quote]

If they are nested and it looks confusing, delete the innermost pair first and then work outwards.

[Lightages]

They keep re-releasing that one - it's been around for a year. Not only that, but it snoops on you. It triggers a daily telemetry run which sends information back to Microsoft even if you have opted out of the "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program".

Not content with that, Microsoft's latest sleazy trick is to hide Windows 10 upgrade nagware in security patches. This really beggars belief.

I am beginning to feel that if I really want to improve my "Windows Customer Experience", I need to stop being a customer.

Again:
The best tool still IMHO for quick blocking of the spying, in Win7 and 8 at least, is:
https://github.com/th3power/aegis-voat

and this does more than the Steve Gibson utility.
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

[rolycat]

They keep re-releasing that one - it's been around for a year. Not only that, but it snoops on you. It triggers a daily telemetry run which sends information back to Microsoft even if you have opted out of the "Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program".

Not content with that, Microsoft's latest sleazy trick is to hide Windows 10 upgrade nagware in security patches. This really beggars belief.

I am beginning to feel that if I really want to improve my "Windows Customer Experience", I need to stop being a customer.

Again:
The best too still IMHO for quick blocking of the spying, in Win7 and 8 at least, is:
https://github.com/th3power/aegis-voat

and this does more than the Steve Gibson utility.
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Thanks, I was aware of these, and deployed GWX Control Panel on my Windows 7 box some time ago. I use a Linux machine for everything except electronics design and the odd game, so I'm not too bothered personally.

However, I still think it's worth documenting the ever further depths of iniquity to which Microsoft is willing to plunge.

[GEuser]

You just remove matched pairs of quote, end-quote marks along with the text:

Code: [Select]

[quote author=whoever ...]
text to remove
more waffle
[/quote]
If they are nested and it looks confusing, delete the innermost pair first and then work outwards.

Ok i'll give it a go ..

edited many times , I give up !

[Messtechniker]

Agreed. But what is the alternative? Desktop Linux?
So I gave it a good spin.
The aim: use linux version of sigrok pulseview since it is better developed compared to windows sigrok pulseview.
The victim: an elderly AMD 3700+, 2 GB, 75 Mbit/s HDD, i.e. not all that fast but running well under W7 prof., PCI graphics board 800X600
The newcomer: Linux Mint 17.3, 32 bit.

And here we go:
1.) Downloaded Linix Mint 17.3 iso on a windows machine and created bootable USB stick. OK.
2.) Booted Live Linux Mint and installed it on an unformatted HDD identical to the one used for W7. Both in tray for easy swapping.
3.) Booted Mint from the HDD. Fine and in immediate contact with the internet. Friggin’ essential too to get command line information.
4.) Established contact with several network drives. Worked nice. Always had trouble doing that with XP W7 computers. Big +
5.) Installed a VNC server since I operate this computer remotely in my local network. Installation of VNC was a complete disaster. Tried 5 different VNC packages because after installation I could not find a configuration page. Took me 4 hours. Finally with x11VNC I got a configuration page. By my troubles were not over. Could only establish contact once and after exiting the session the X11VNC server would also shut down. Outright silly. So made it to autoboot by putting it in the autoboot folder. Worked after rebooting and could start and stop sessions at will. But after a reboot I would have to enter the configuration data locally each time again. Anyway, left it as it was because I wanted to get on. One further hour more or less wasted. Minus
6.) Found out that firefox in remote would scroll much slower compared to W7 in remote. Oh well. Minus
7.) Since I do a lot of old HDD testing I wanted to mount a blank HDD. Gave up on the command line. Wanted to install mountmanager, but it was not available for downloading. Oh no. Big minus
So I gave up for the moment or forever. I don’t know.

What bugs me most is the fact that it is hard to find a just installed program. I need to memorize its name. And with about 70+ progs on this W7 computer this is something which is simply not going to happen. To me it would be essential to have an icon on the desktop for each newly installed program. Digging it out from somewhere is simply not on. And the this terrible command line stuff. Searching for the right command line takes ages since there is a lot of incorrect or inapplicable information around.

So sigrok pulseview never made it to this Linux computer.

What do you think?

Yours Messtechniker

[MrSlack]

That's about right. As I've said elsewhere even as a part time Linux sysadmin/devops guy I still use windows on the desktop. It does take a massive amount of headspace remembering what everything is called and where it is.

Typical Linux problem I saw last week: someone I know has 205 desktops rolled out with RHEL and they shipped an X update that broke every Intel HD graphics card in his cluster causing display corruption and all sorts. Solution, fortunately via ansible, change the display acceleration mode on all the machines. Took 2 minutes to deploy across all machines and restart the display servers. It wins on that scale easily but for a mere mortal like most of us, that sort of problem is end game.

[MrSlack]

Use VMware player. Don't have to fish out for workstation. There are web sites to create empty VMs.

[Circlotron]

Or Win7 inside VirtualBox on Linux. I run XP like that for one pesky chip programmer that will run on wine but with problems. VirtualBox is free.

[MrSlack]

VMware gets you closer than vbox. VBox is also terribly unreliable. Sometimes they just sling out versions that crash the kernel.

[suicidaleggroll]

What do you think?

Sounds to me like you tried to use Linux the "Windows way", ran into problems since that is fundamentally at odds with how Linux works, fought with it for a while, and then gave up.

[suicidaleggroll]

VMware gets you closer than vbox. VBox is also terribly unreliable. Sometimes they just sling out versions that crash the kernel.

I've been using VBox 24/7 for many, many years on many systems and have never seen that.

[MrSlack]

We had 45 developers on it. It's was a constant buggering. We ended up moving people over to Hyper-V.

[Delta]

I've just installed VirtualBox on Ubuntu, and Windows is running flawlessly on it (in it?)!  Just got to find something to do with it...






Windows 3.11 btw... 

[Zero999]

I've just installed VirtualBox on Ubuntu, and Windows is running flawlessly on it (in it?)!  Just got to find something to do with it...






Windows 3.11 btw... 

Windows 3.1 will run quite well on a DOS emulator too: DOSEmu and DOSBox both support it.

[stmdude]

3. VBox itself sucks. Years ago I run AD6.9 in Parallels on absolute garbage hardware (i5 3317U+4G RAM), and it is better than VBox running on my $4000 dream computer.

I'm not surprised.  AD is single-threaded...   You want the highest GHz CPU you can get your hands on to run it smoothly when doing large boards. The number of cores is irrelevant when running AD.  (They're good for a lot of other things though)