This is a fix for the other poll which would not allow me to edit it to allow multiple selections.
My choice remains the same
Win 7 x64 Ultimate on a server that sits in the corner and just quietly serves.
Win 8.1 x64 Pro / MCE on my big workstation, where I do business management and software development. I'd have stayed on 7 but I made it a personal challenge to figure out how to make 8.1 into just as good a desktop system as 7, and I accomplished it through augmentation with 3rd party software (e.g., Aero Glass), removal of everything Metro and running with UAC disabled, and a host of other tweaks. At the end of the day I did it, but is it better than 7, which I had used for years (2009 to 2013)? Not really. Just about the same. Okay, so I can mount ISOs. Big whoop.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Post by the Borg is in the house on Oct 17, 2015 14:21:36 GMT -6
I'll be keeping my DOS 6.20, win 3.10 WFWG, win2K, XP for actual work, and Vista, 7 for net usage, as soon as vista & 7 go EOL then it's *nix for web use
Post by big bad bombastic bob on Oct 18, 2015 14:11:50 GMT -6
well, for windows development, 7.
For accounting, music authoring, and whatever games I might play on it, XP and possibly ME [for old things that won't run right in XP]
For the "other 90% of what I do", FreeBSD and various flavors of Linux. That includes hosting VMs that run windows or linux for development. I like to 'VM' development environments for customer stuff. Then I occasionally back up the VM and put it on a USB 'ramstick' drive, hand it off as something that could quickly be restored if I were to get hit by a meteorite or struck by lightning or something.
I currently have 2 machines that run XP. One is a 500Mhz PIII that I occasionally fire up. A second is a cheap Lenovo box (the size of a book) I bought to 'modernize' after XP was re-released during the Vista debacle. It made accounting a LOT easier.
I have one [old] laptop with 7 on it. It's an MSDN license, for dev only. I also run 7 in a VM, and occasionally boot other things (8.x or 10 - or at least will when I can download from MSDN again). I can't stand the flat-UI of 8, so I wouldn't use it day-to-day, EVAR.
I recently grabbed a very old Toshiba laptop (from about 2003) and put Debian Linux on it ('wheezy' not the newer one) for the explicit reason of having a portable platform that I could do things like connect to a BT serial device via the console easily, flash firmware onto specific customer-related devices, etc. etc. etc. with something that's portable. I could do it with a Raspberry Pi but I'd rather reserve those for other purposes.
And I've got a couple of RPi boards (original and 'B') that run Raspbian Linux. I have 2 additional customer devices on hand at the moment [my design] that use RPi boards to control stuff, but those don't count really. At least not for now.
My main server box and repository is FreeBSD. The file repository uses ZFS, one of the most reliable file systems ever thought up. My main workstation is FreeBSD as well, a quad-core with 8G of ram running at 2.4Ghz with a decent NVidia display. It's "8 years ago" best and still works just fine so why break it? That and I lack money to buy a new one.
I've also got a broken HP laptop that needs a new motherboard. I ran the same version of FreeBSD on that one as I do on my main workstation. Unfortunately, the power supply is shot and it won't even boot up without crashing. Sometimes it crashes in the POST. THAT bad, yeah. It needs new capacitors, probably.
I've also got one other box that runs 1.6Ghz Athlon or something similar. I have debian linux on it at the moment. I call it 'beater' because it's "a beater box" to do whatever with. It's not on very often. that box came with Linspire pre-installed, back in around 2006 I think.
You can often spot someone who really knows what they're doing, because they can juggle the management of quite a number of systems without the task overwhelming them.
Hm, maybe I'm onto something...
We adept users tend toward "set it and forget it". For example, I've only ever installed each version of Windows once on each of my systems all through my career, and I always maximize the time I can spend doing things *I* want/need to do. Hell, I only reboot every 2 weeks to a month or so.
In general, though system maintenance is necessary, we regard HAVING to it as a waste, so we manage the systems well, automate maintenance, and minimize our efforts.
I've met some people who are convinced they have to reinstall their operating system as often as every month. No lie. Others challenge me when I say my systems don't log regular errors.
Now imagine who many of Microsoft's recent "improvements" are aimed at - such things as Refresh/Reset, and in-place upgrades every 4 months... No, they don't bother even trying to educate, or make maintenance easier or better, no - instead they make reinstalling the operating system a regular occurrence.
You and I look upon in-place upgrades every 4 months as disruptive; the unwashed masses will probably laud them as one of the greatest improvements Microsoft has made to Windows in a long time.
Microsoft, ever expanding in its management of mediocrity.
in-place upgrades are about the STUPIDEST idea anyone has ever come up with. i format and re-install every 2-3 years. theres nothing like a fresh install, its like old blanket that was your best friend when you were young
Speaking of which, there are several MVPs on Microsoft Answers blaming all the problems people are having with Windows 10 on the "in-place upgrade" that all these people unwittingly executed when they accepted the upgrade offer. These poor, innocent users are being asked/guided to backup their data, reformat, and fresh install Windows 10. For many, it's too hard or they are not comfortable taking such drastic action on their own. I don't see any warnings being issued about losing their installed software. I wonder what these MVPs will think if the November update turns out to be an entire new build just like what us Insiders have been receiving for the last year. Back to an In-Place Upgrade, executed automatically by Windows. Boy will they have some explaining/excusing to do!
Last Edit: Oct 19, 2015 11:07:28 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
I never been a proponent of "In-Place" upgrades. Every time I've tried it on past versions of windows, it seems like something gets broken unless there is very little installed on the system to be upgraded. I this is just a very bad idea on behalf of Microsoft and it even more unbelievable that upgrading to Windows 10 is being pushed out that way. Microsoft must be short on people who don't know this and they are re-discovering that a clean install is still the best way to go? I feel for the innocent ones that don't know the meaning of making back-ups, creating system restoral discs, format and re-install and find the right drivers.
Most of the time I'm using Linux Mint 17.2 on my laptop, which I use for general Email/surfing/Music.. but it will dual boot into 8.1. My Desktop is on a triple boot - Linux Mint 17.2, Win 8.1 and XP
People on the Win10 threads seem to get amazed when you start talking dual boot and then I mention triple booting. I've been booting multiple OS's for years. Currently, I have Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10, and Linux Mint on my main system. I also have multiple VM's built up for other OS's that I play with such as Linux SuSe, a few versions of OS/2, many different versions of windows along with many versions of DOS, I even have BeOS. All of which I have had on real hardware at some point in time.
<Rick> Good video. It's almost hard to believe that at one time Windows 98 was the resource hog, but even then, it still ran circles around what Windows 10 can do on today's modern hardware and look a heck of alot better doing it.
May 25, 2021 22:55:12 GMT -6
<Rick> As stated elsewhere, So much for the launch of Windows 11, "The Great Crash." Myself, I had a hard time getting into the site listed above, when I did get in, the video was partly done and then it crashed. There has been many other reports of crashing.
Jun 24, 2021 9:52:33 GMT -6
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<Rick> I see Microsoft has been very quick to pull down reports of site crashing regarding the Launch of Windows 11 on the Microsoft Insiders forum.
Jun 24, 2021 9:57:31 GMT -6
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<Rick> The rebroadcast is working okay.
Jun 24, 2021 11:00:25 GMT -6
<Rick> With reports of people being able to install the dev-edition of Windows 11 on machines not meeting spec, I thought I would give it a what-the-heck try. Lucky me, I'm caught in the downloading, doesn't meet spec, clearing, re-downloading loop on my machine!
Jul 2, 2021 7:08:46 GMT -6
<Rick> I've recently purchased a license for ArcaOS from www.arcanoae.com/ to play with. First impressions, it's still OS/2, but it now has a Linux twist to it.
Jul 2, 2021 7:32:53 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> laptop shit out and am stuck buying a new one. os win11 as fucked as win10 was?
Oct 2, 2021 12:56:10 GMT -6
<Rick> Let's see ..., my impression of Windows 11 is that it is a spruced up version of Windows 10 requiring a 64-bit processor plus a piece of security hardware that is less than 4 years old in order for it to run.
Oct 4, 2021 18:25:49 GMT -6
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<Rick> On the plus side, Microsoft is supposed to be supporting Windows 10 for some time to come for those of us still using systems with I7 or older processors.
Oct 4, 2021 18:44:35 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> i tried installing win10 om the 'shitout' pc this morning usung media creation. EPIC FAIL! went into an endless bootloop. win7 reinstalled just fine
Oct 21, 2021 11:23:38 GMT -6
<dozrguy> STILL so much bullshit and so little time for the kiddie ideas from the hill. My new laptop (MSI GE 11-UH461) would be an awesome "10" machine but because of Winblows I can only give it a "2"......wasted $3500
Oct 27, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -6
<Rick> Hello. Just checking in.
Mar 17, 2022 10:46:54 GMT -6
<isidroco> Each new w10 update adds >100000 useless files to \Windows\Servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix... folders. Even in a SSD takes time to delete that stuff. In each version they manage to worsen stuff.
Mar 27, 2022 16:14:51 GMT -6
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<dozerguy> still traffic here?
Oct 9, 2022 17:32:44 GMT -6
<Rick> No, there does not seem to be very much traffic these days. I still check in from time to time.
Oct 9, 2022 20:08:58 GMT -6