Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809 The problems with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update just keep on rolling in as users complain of borked zip file extraction, broken fonts and iffy brightness controls. The infamous file deletion bug and blue screen reports have drowned out other issues somewhat. So, allow us to present a round-up that could have been titled " …
What does Windows 10 tell us about the organisation at Microsoft?
It tells us they aren't too picky about minor details. All the bugs reported in this article are of such an arcane and minor nature that they are really really minor. Use 7-zip which is much faster and better at handling archives than Windows. And those 23 people worldwide using those characters in those fonts... well, ffs substitute another character or get a life.
OK it's not good that Redmond didn't pick them up earlier, and it's worse that they haven't fixed what sound like trivial problems, and it's terrible that a company the size of Microsoft who write literally reams of detailed legal conditions into every software release could overlook details like this, but it's really hard to find sympathy for anyone moaning about these nit-picks.
Don't you guys just love knocking Msoft and Windows. You had to trawl around to gleefully find a some minor problems with 1809 update which has millions of users. Yes, file deletion was not good, but, only affected limited number of users with a specific bespoke configuration.
I have had no problems at all, my setup is fairly standard.
As for putting down Notepad, it is invaluable for quickly converting copied formatted text to plain text into an app where cntrl shift V or paste special is not available; and a number of other tasks.
Of course I got down voted so many times for my comment, but, Msoft's growth figures out today show those down voters are counter to the general opinion & satisfaction for Msoft & Windows. Knock Msoft is the game here. No software release as vast as Windows will or can ever be bug free. My comments do not mean that they should not improve QA and a better balance (cost v customer satisfaction) tween what is fixed pre release that that fixed in the wild.
"Yes, file deletion was not good, but, only affected limited number of users with a specific bespoke configuration."
If you are one of that limited number it's a big issue.
"I have had no problems at all"
Have you considered the possibility that next time you may be one of the limited number of users affected? Have you worked out the possible financial impact is you are?
One of the requirements of an OS is to work properly for all users, not all except for a limited number.
>They're doing the equivalent of releasing a new version of Windows every six months. I'm surprised there's time to add and unit test a feature, let alone QA and beta test it.
Peter Bright over at Ars Tech is blowing it out of his ass that it's not the stupid biannual cluster fuck release schedule to blame but internal testing. It's the most MS fawning BS I've ever had the misfortune to read since I last read Ed Bott sometime in the 1990s.
When you put too much on the plate, diners choke.
"What the hell have they been up to to introduce so many random bugs in existing functionality?"
Windows is a huge, complex, system with innumerable interactions based on an immense, mostly undocumented database. Probably no actual written specifications for most of the components. I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades, but my impression back when I did was that functional partition within the os components probably wasn't very clean or clear.
My experience with large systems going back to the 1960s is that unexpected failures in areas that appear to have little or no relation to changes are going to be fairly common in a system with the apparent characteristics of Windows. I know of no way to catch them other than exhaustive system testing. I haven't followed the system testing world for several decades, but I doubt anyone has found another, cheaper, better answer while I was away.
I would observe that what Microsoft seems to be trying to do -- completely remove system configuration concerns from the domain of individual users who are mostly ill equipped to handle them -- is probably a really good idea. IF MICROSOFT CAN MAKE IT WORK. But it's also exceedingly difficult. Personally I doubt Microsoft (or anyone else) is smart enough to pull it off. Especially given their probably less than optimal starting point.
I'd also note that servers/workstations are different than desktop computers and personal computing devices. I always doubted that Windows can scale across that full range of user domains (Unix really can't either. User oriented Unixen -- Apple, Android -- aren't often used as mainframe replacements. Heavy duty Unix suitable for mainframe replacement can be coerced into personal computing, but tend to require substantial system configuration skills from the users)
Windows is a huge, complex, system with innumerable interactions based on an immense, mostly undocumented database. Probably no actual written specifications for most of the components. I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades
So your uninformed comment should probably stop there. While there is undoubtedly some shit in the Windows codebase it's no longer undocumented or unspecified. This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes.
"This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes."
It's not helped by them laying off their QA department and leaving it to the devs to fix their own bugs.
I suppose the "Windows Insider" beta builds are supposed to leave the testing up to the general public, but from TFA they're not even reading the bug reports they get anyway, so why bother?
"So your uninformed comment should probably stop there. While there is undoubtedly some shit in the Windows codebase it's no longer undocumented or unspecified. This is all about Microsoft's release management being hijacked by the marketing dudes."
The codebase is (usefully) documented and specified? Do you have any other fantasies you would like to share with us?
But I do agree that Microsoft's release management clearly has major problems. I'm not sure that firing the marketing folks will fix that. But, what the hell, it might be worth trying.
The codebase is (usefully) documented and specified? Do you have any other fantasies you would like to share with us?
While I am not privy to Microsoft's development process, essentially, since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components which has well-documented APIs. Fuck knows why the stuff is blowing up but it's got a lot less to do with the crap coding that used to rule in the MFC days than how they're putting the builds together and releasing them*. Not that I really care as I only have a Windows 7 VM and only have to put up with Apple's secret OS release blunders but at least these aren't force fed.
* Testing deliberately left out of this list because it doesn't seem to be happening.
"since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components which has well-documented APIs. Fuck knows why the stuff is blowing up"
you answered your own question. In a big way, I blame ".Not" and _EVERYTHING_ that came with it! It was, from my perspective, the *BEGINNING* of Micro-shaft's downward spiral.
I knew this when I observed the *PIGGY* performance of W2k3 server, compared to W2k server, on the SAME HARDWARE. No actual improvement in 'stuff' (other than maybe bug fixes and slight enhancements), but LOTS of *PIGGY* performance added! So grossly inadequate, I stopped using it immediately, even for evaluation purposes. I don't like 10's of seconds waiting for a mouse click response... that's one example!
And, it was obviously being caused by shifting the UI over to use ".Not" !!!!!!!!!
since Vista most of the stuff is being handled by .NET components
Not true, I'm afraid. (The situation might well be better if it were.) I've just confirmed that on the Win7 x64 system I'm using at the moment, only a handful of Microsoft-branded processes have any .NET assemblies loaded. The same, of course, is true for third-party applications. Add in the kernel, system DLLs, and drivers - all native code - and you have relatively little .NET running on a typical Windows box.
In total less than 10% of the processes running on this machine have any .NET.
And even .NET code will eventually P/Invoke native code for much of its low-level functionality.
Now, all that said: Much of the Windows source base is, in fact, documented. Much of that documentation is public. I have on occasion seen internal documentation for some interfaces that aren't public, so I can say some of those are documented as well. Certainly it's a gross exaggeration to claim that it's mostly undocumented.
Six month release cycles can work just fine if the releases are at the end of a pipeline that is longer than six months, and the last substantial portion of that pipeline is testing AND correction of problems found.
That does, however, require product and program managers who can actually comprehend multiple streams in development+test at the same time.
In March this year (2018) I composed an email prophesying events such as this, and said that unless Microsoft established a Quality Assurance team with the power to veto a flawed release the company was heading towards ruin. I have not found a way to get that message into Microsoft before making my message public, but I could not send it directly to the Chief Executive Officer (bounced, not surprising) but even the support team just ignored it. No bounce, no reply. I don't think I can hold back any more.
No engineer worth his salt would countenance such a cavalier approach to product development and maintenance. Insiders are no substitute for formal QA answerable only to the CEO, and failing to act on known reports is unforgivable.
The 1809 update should be withdrawn immediately, and no new release issued without the organisational changes I suggested.
> I have not found a way to get that message into Microsoft
Buy a share. That gives you the right to attend the annual shareholders' meeting and to put forward a question to be answered at the meeting. The other shareholders get to see your question so if your proposal makes financial sense (aka raises the stock price) then they'll be interested and the board will have to give a credible answer. On the other hand, if your proposal is long, rambling and written in green ink then no one will complain if the response is glossed over.
I haven't [...] worked with Windows for decades
- and yet you are prepared to write a 275-word treatise on how bad it was back in the day.
Windows is a huge, complex, system
Yes it is
[...]based on an immense, mostly undocumented database
Oh no it's not. Unless you work at Microsoft, how can you possibly make such a wild assertion?
Windows has been completely re-written (twice, AFAIK) since 3.11. Yes by that time it was patches on top of patches and there were many secret features but since then the use of undocumented calls has been fairly ruthlessly eliminated.
More importantly, "undocumented" in your post appears to refer to *internally* but that is not possible - a development environment the size of Windows' could not get anything out the door without internal documentation.
I haven't (thankfully) worked with Windows for decades, but my impression back when I did was that functional partition within the os components probably wasn't very clean or clear.
A deliberate design decision was made in the 90's to do that to make it harder for Anti-Trust bodies to order MS to pull out certain functionality without breaking the OS. E.g entwining unrelated IE code into core OS libraries and modules in a mostly random fashion.
"What the hell have they been up to to introduce so many random bugs in existing functionality?"
My conclusion: they're re-doing things because, according to THE NEXT GENERATION at Micro-shaft, "It's _OUR_ turn now!" Like immature young-uns, they REJECT what "the old guys" came up with, in favor of whatever new, shiny PIPE DREAM they've excreted.
Because, "old is bad" in their eyes. It *MUST* be re-invented, re-written, and so on, because THEY know BEST [and will CRAM IT up the asses of EVERY customer to PROVE it!].
This pervasive "our turn now" attitude infiltrates just about EVERYTHING that the Halls of Redmond excretes these days. At least, from MY perspective, it does...
it's why they're so quick to use 'Modern' in a PEJORATIVE sense, to INSULT us ol' fuddy-duddy stick-in-the-mud 'refuse to change' 'refuse to learn' LUDDITES that STAND IN THE WAY of their 'greatness'.
And, they've been taught ALL OF THEIR LIVES that their OWN personal self-esteem is the MOST IMPORTANT THING. And, they *FEEL* *BETTER* about themselves when they IMPOSE THEIR WILL upon the rest of us like that!
Nearly all of the GOOD developers left Micro-shaft during the 2000's, I'd stake money on it!
My conclusion: they're re-doing things because, according to THE NEXT GENERATION at Micro-shaft, "It's _OUR_ turn now!" Like immature young-uns, they REJECT what "the old guys" came up with, in favor of whatever new, shiny PIPE DREAM they've excreted.
I went to El Reg Forum and got the psychology of Progressivism explained for free.
If you think these few bugs are so numerous, you obviously haven't been keeping up to date with the history of Apple's High Sierra update. There are entire forum threads on macrumors.com documenting each one as it appears, one of which I had to personally add, and most of which have gone unfixed. Windows, as of yet, has nothing on Apple's record for bugs, it just gets more flak for the few it does amass because most techies don't like Microsoft.
It is a bit of a disgrace. How do they manage to introduce new bugs into something that's been in windows as long as zip file handling? For a problem to have appeared there, there must have been a change. What was the change that caused that problem?
Windows has always been known for its propensity to dick people around. Microsoft is now getting a reputation for making over-complicated, hard to use and unreliable software. The biggest gripe of all is the updates.
To be fair, it does depend on what I'm doing, but I sometimes use inbuilt windows zip. Why? Because I can double click into the file from within windows explorer, if all I am after is viewing a log file within a zip quickly, then it makes more sense to reach that in a couple of clicks rather than bothering to unzip with a different product.
Other than that though, I'll freely admit that built in functionality for handling zip archives sucks balls.
Windows ZIP is only really suitable for a small number of medium size files.
If it's large files in the ZIP, it sucks, it's lots of very small files in the ZIP, it really sucks. It's sucked badly since the Windows 7 days, and it's continued to suck in Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and now Windows 8.2 (which some idiots that fall for rebranding stunts call Windows 10)
People who use the right tool for the right job. I use tar.gz if transferring data between *nix machines, unless bandwidth is crap, then I use tar.bz as the CPU expense [hopefully] is worth the transfer time saving. Zip is perfect when interoperability is paramount, as I know it's supported on pretty much every OS.
has long been a Microsoft philosophy. It served it well in the early days as it meant that it got a product to market before the competition. The bugs could be fixed in a later release. Competitors who, later, shipped something with fewer bugs didn't get the sales as the Microsoft offering was seen as 'the standard'.
Others have also done this sort of thing. In some ways: better something with holes than nothing at all.
But today Microsoft should not need to do this, it is not scrabbling for market share in the same way. They have the time and resources to do proper QA regression testing - but don't seem to want to.
If you insist on all bugs being fixed, the first "bug free" release is probably going to take about three years. Later releases may be a bit faster -- two years. Maybe even eighteen months. In the long run, release time will depend on the longest chain of fix that needs a fix that needs a fix ... plus a lot of overhead. Might be doable. Might even be acceptable. But it's going to require massive changes in attitudes and approaches at every level.
Decidedly NOT agile.
"has long been a Microsoft philosophy. It served it well in the early days as it meant that it got a product to market before the competition. "
Equally important I think was that early MS OS products were quite small by modern standards. IIRC, WFWG3.11 -- which was quite usable -- shipped on four 1.44mb floppies plus another three floppies(?) for MSDOS 6.22(?). Testing that for major bugs was something that could probably be done by a small team in communication with each other and the developers in a few weeks. Not so in 2018.
Even Windows 95 -- which was buggy as a tropical swamp -- only needed 20 odd floppies. It actually ran pretty well about 25 service packs later.
But they won't be happy when Microsoft crashes.
Alas, I think that's unwarranted optimism. There's no sign yet that either the market for Microsoft products, or the stock markets, care at all about these product failures. I think Microsoft is going to get away with shipping substandard crap and annoying a large fraction of its user base for decades to come.
What large software vendor has ever been brought down by poor quality? Financial blunders, yes; out-competed by some Flavor of the Week startup, yes. I can't think of one that was seriously hurt simply by peddling rubbish. Once you reach a certain size, you become entrenched, and the user base will complain but continue to take it.
for me it was NT4 that drove me to linux. I liked win95 for a bit, got a NT 3.51 server cd from a friend at MS back in the day, liked that(more stable). NT4 was neat though I guess moving more shit into the kernel made it less stable. Quite a few crashes and seemingly have to reinstall every 6-12 months made me jump to Linux (Slackware 3.x) then Debian 2.0.
I still have Win7 at home and even an XP box(really games though I don't play much games). My main laptop dual boots to win7 but doesn't spend more than a dozen or so hours per year in win7 on average. I have a Win7 VM for work stuff that works fine.
So glad I never jumped on win10. I never did see the popups from MS offering free upgrades to win10. Win7 (and win2k8/r2 for the few windows servers I have) do what I need. win2k12 was quite annoying(have a half dozen of those systems).
Main interface for me though has been linux since about 1998.
Went OSX in 2001 and have been fighting the schadenfreude ever since.*
Three weeks into a major release and still problems, well done M$.
I avoid any MS product that I can. I have used Skype to stay in touch with friends but have a feeling that will end when I try the enforced new version.
* - unsuccessfully :) , but in this case I am starting to feel sorry for the poor sods stuck with it.
Reports of the bug rapidly spread and we at Vulture Central were able to recreate it on our installation. It's a pretty nasty issue – a user could copy a file out of an archive, assume the copy was successful and then delete the zip file. However, if a file with the same name already exists, Windows 10 would have silently done... nothing. Oops.
KDE Dolphin, is that you???
any way we can sue M$ under the consumer rights act?
Eg... I go out and buy a new PC loaded with win 10, 2 weeks later a m$ update borks and bricks the thing.
Surely then the PC becomes defective goods and must be replaced or refunded by the supplier
But would we (being us consumers) put up with this behaviour from any other customer/business goods supplier? Oh I've just got a new car/tv/washing machine/toaster....... after 2 weeks it doesn't work because the manufacturer 'updated' the software ...
There’s probably an arbitration clause in the license agreement. Microsoft using their users as alpha testers and ignoring significant documented bugs as low impact is abominable.
I had 8 machines in my shop that 1803 bricked and Microsoft’s fix was a wipe and reload since the rollback didn’t work. When I asked the Microsoft rep how I was supposed to explain to the customer that their update broke their computer and that I had to charge them to fix it. His response was that they would fix it for free, but the customer needed another computer and a couple of flash drives. When I asked the rep if he thought that working over the phone with someone who can barely operate their computer and him having a pretty heavy accent if it was going to end well? He kinda hemmed and hawed and said maybe.
I guess I should look at this as a blessing in disguise. Microsoft can keep pushing out sh*tty code and I’ll keep making money rebuilding the computers their “keep it fresh” updates bork.
"But would we (being us consumers) put up with this behaviour from any other customer/business goods supplier? Oh I've just got a new car/tv/washing machine/toaster....... after 2 weeks it doesn't work because the manufacturer 'updated' the software …"
If it was supplied configured so that it would apply updates and one of the updates broke it then take it back to the shop. They sold you something unfit for purpose.
And because *I* have the option to use an alternative, so does everyone else.
Somehow having a dozen people point this out in the comments to every one of these Windows disaster stories has not educated the "lol don't use Windows" crowd. I guess they're just hard of thinking.
Sure, I'd rather be using UNIX, or Linux, or even systemd-infected Linux. As indeed I frequently do. Doesn't mean I don't have to use Windows too.
A tale of woe:
I use Windows for one thing and one thing only, and that is updating my GPS. Because Garmin, although they make reasonably user friendly devices for a very reasonable price without the ongoing costs of some of their competitors, choose to base the product I use on Linux, for some very strange reason refuse to allow you to update it with Linux.
Anyway, they decided to update their Express program, so I bought a small laptop to run Win8 which came with a free upgrade to Win10. Over the past 2 years, it has become harder and harder to get enough space to run Express. In the process of gaining space I accidentally *broke* windows. After many attempts to get my recovery USB to do anything useful, I bit the bullet and downloaded Win10 installer. All initially appeared to go well other than I only had half a gig left. No worries, I thought. Just delete some bloatware and all will be well again.
The only problem is that although all the bloatware is listed as OPTIONAL, it never gave me an option to NOT install. Using the control panel, to remove these optional features shows that most are uninstallable - how is that "optional"?
Of the few I was able to uninstall, they show a ridiculous size of only 16KB which seems to be all the space that is gained. If you look in Windows/SxS/ you find that most of the stuff that should have been deleted is still there. My guess is the 16k is only a front end, or more likely a descriptor for how a humongous EXE should present itself. Anyway, I had a brilliant idea which was to remove the Recovery partition in an attempt to release space and add it to the Win10 partition. Brilliant!
Trouble was as soon as I enabled wifi to install Express to my shiny new Windows, it popped up with a message saying it was adding yet more bloatware to "improve my user experience". Another 5 gig just disappeared down the windows hell-hole, leaving just enough space to Express and download France to go on holiday. So much having Lifetime maps for the whole of Europe.
The worst thing is that the gods of Redmond didn't even have the decency to list what wonderful new toys they put into those 5gig. After I return from hols, I guess I need to take a partition image then start deleting stuff till it breaks again. I seriously don't want a computer that talks to me and listens to the microphone. Nor reads my handwriting (which I can't input 'cos its a laptop) - in English English as well as US English, nor has the ability to display all the apps in 22 different languages (79 for some) and yet won't let you change language after your initial choice because it is not the "professional2 version. Nor has email and messaging apps I will never use, nor 3D print etc., etc.
The worst thing is that the SxS folder (for a basic install with all features uninstalled and only 1 third party app) which is full of all this rubbish, is bigger than my entire Linux partition, including 60K+ apps& utilities I will also probably never use. At least on Linux you are allowed to delete anything and everything, and if you go one step to far it is easy enough to fix from a LiveUSB.
I spent 3 days battling against Windows to make enough space to be usable. My last linux install took 22 minutes plus another 15 browsing the interwebs to fix the recalcitrant Broadcom Wifi. Something Windows hasn't achieved and won't let me fix the fact that in Windows it drops Wifi every 10 minutes and you have to try reconnecting 3 times before it reconnects.
ps. those 3 days included one spell shortly after the initial install when it said "shutting down" for 10 minutes, before it changed to a new message about "optimising your computer for a better experience", then saying shutting for another 3 minutes and eventually switching off. When I started up again it had stolen another 0.8GB.
Having gotten that off my chest, I really must go have a cup of camomile tea - even though I hate the stuff.
Windows, don't you just love it. ARRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!
That's the only reason there is a Windows 10 laptop in this household, to update my TomTom every six months. Plus the occasional other stuff where I'm forced to use Windows e.g. when an important official form has to be submitted online using Adobe forms via Internet Exploder (which is a bizarre way for anyone to insist on receiving forms) - why not just use a web form which is browser / operating system and hardware independent. On the rare occasions this Windows laptop is used I curse having to wait so long for it to boot up, install updates, reboot do more updates, reboot, etc before I get to use the damn thing. Every time it is turned on it downloads more unwanted bloat.
Yes, indeed. I too use Windows to run Garmin software. And a few applications for graphics and whatnot, which I suppose would run under WINE. I run Win 10 on a reconditioned HP box from a thrift store, which is all Windows deserves in my household. But it gives me 230 GB of spinning rust, and since everything important is stored on the TB drives of the Linux machines, no worries about space. And for three months now I've been an Old Retired Person, which means "work" is now play. And you thought ORP stands for oxidation-reduction potential...
Gloating aside, I grew wary of Windows when 8.0 appeared. The idea that an OS exists for running applications seemed at that point to have disappeared from Microsoft's ken. It seems that Windows now wants to be a thang, a hip gotta-have-it, just because it is ... cool. We know better, but MS doesn't.
Honestly Microsoft WTF is wrong with you. Win 10 is bad, Really bad. Just when you think you have the kinks ironed out from the last release. You then plumb new depths of incompetency and release shit like this. Seriously!
Gone the days when Bill was at the helm and the masses would provide a forgiving polite chuckle at your fubar's. We are in the 21st century for fuck sake.
Stop listening to those brain dead retards in the marketing department. Stop trying to bolt on every conceivable piece of function into the OS.
We don't need xbox live on the desktop, we don't want integrated News, shops and ads.
Cortana, Edge, skpe. itunes, and what the fuck is mixed reality portal?
Take the hint you drop kicks, if I want that shit screwing my laptop up I'll install it, not you, me!
Deliver a stable and secure OS. One in which we choose when to update, what to install and how to use the OS and laptop. Deliver that along with a focus on identifying and fixing potential vulnerabilities.
</rant>
I'm now off to a marketing meeting.
It's the lack of proper QA. People will have gotten from my posts that I do love Windows. I think it should be a fine piece of work but is being ruined by complacency. The head bods at MS seem to think that they are in a position where nothing can take them down. If that is the case they should stop adding features. Add security, performance, optimisation. Make what they have do what it does better, not make it do more worse.
I am very lucky in that none of the PCs I have, including insider testing ones, have yet to go badly wrong (a fast stream one won't resume from suspend if it's put into suspend by closing the lid - pressing the button is fine). But at the point issues stop me bing able to look after the PCs of family members I'll have to make some changes.
Can't do Linux, for your average user it's confusing and too unfinished. So that' leaves me with a short term drop to 7 or 8 (which always worked fine - but quirky) or jumping ship to Apple. I've been toying with the Apple jump for a while. I just need to read up more on reliability of updates, etc. Anyone done this jump that can give any usefull comments?
@ Timmy B "Can't do Linux, for your average user it's confusing and too unfinished."
I have 2 less than average users and I now have them both on Mint18. I don't get phone calls asking me how to fix things any more. Let's face it for most average users the OS is just there to fire up a browser.
Personally, when using Windows, I feel like I am fighting the PC. The OS is supposed to be an enabler not a disabler.
I kind of agree terry but there are some real issues around printing with mfds in particular never being any good and not having a really, really good office suite. SWMBO just cannot live with anything other than office.
I try alternatives such as Libre on Windows and various Linux flavours every now and then but whilst they seem fairly snappy they don't feel done. It's odd that people will moan about TIFKAM on windows but can't understand that Linux is actually worse for some users, with OS level windows sometimes having OK / Cancel type buttons in different places or the wrong way round.
I may just punt some cash on a couple of years old mac and see what the score is there.
I have not really had any problems printing to mfds from manufacturers like Epson, HP and Brother, although using the fax or scanner functions on remotely connected mfds can be a bit of a problem. For the Brother I'm currently using, I had to download and install their Linux printer definitions, plus a script to install them, but that's not really that much different from Windows,
I did have a terrible battle with a cheap Lexmark mfd from Linux some years ago, but they don't appear to make devices for the home market any more, and I'm fairly certain that their laser printers can be driven as generic Postscript of PCL devices without any additional software.
When I got my first HP mfd, I plugged it into my laptop that was running Hardy Heron (6.06?) using USB, and was amazed to find that Ubuntu recognised the device, and created both print and scanner devices for it that allowed me to use it immediately, with almost no intervention from me (I think I may have had to tell it that the paper size was A4).
So I would be interested in hearing which manufacturers mfd's you're struggling with?
@terry
And I forgot to say that there are two online services that SWMBO uses for her work that will not work properly on anything other than edge / ie. They work on chrome too but will randomly refresh a page losing all edits - not great. I've reported it with video - but no fix is expected.
If you downloaded crappy software from any other supplier, it would be gone and forgotten in minutes
The software, or the supplier?
Because the last I checked, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Symantec, CA, IBM, and plenty of other big software suppliers have shipped some pretty bad stuff over the years. They're still around.
(Of course all the software I've written is beyond reproach.)
That's not a situation to be proud of, but the reality is that the market does not punish software vendors for poor product quality. Until it does, or until that externality is turned into a direct cost in some other way, such as government or industry regulation, this is how software will be. Some firms do manage to establish a reputation for quality and use it as a USP, and thus can justify spending more on it, but that's rare.
Reading Microsoft support forums regarding the bug that deletes the files in the documents directory, it recommended installing and using Pinform's Recuva file recovery software to recover the files.
Forgetting the obvious, that the MS Windows 10 1809 install would have overwritten most of the file clusters on the disk. I decided to just test the basic recovery offered by Pinform Recuva. I installed Pinform's Recuva.
I copied an everyday executable into the documents folder, rebooted the machine (to make sure the file was persistent, not in any cache), then right clicked on the file holding down shift and deleted the file.
I then attempted to use Pinform's Recuva to find said file. It found nothing. Maybe it's because the disk is an SSD, but Windows 1803 seems to wipe all trace of said file, in terms of this utility.
I'd bet Mr Nadella secretly uses MacOS or Linux!
He surely can't be using the latest version. Would he really let it go out like that and not care ?
The MS "Marketing Board" surely can't be using Windows 10 can they ? They should be required to use all the BETA versions from the moment they are released to the "Insider" program.
One can bet there'd be a darn site more internal testing before the beta releases then.
They should especially be required to use the release version one month before we all get it.
MS is getting a very bad name because of all this.
Much of it seems change for the sake of it. Leave well alone. Let's have a solid base OS, long term supported, with all the extra stuff installed (preferably as options) as simple programs on top of that.
Even Explorer, and the internet browsers are programs. Or at least they should be.
Why do they have to keep breaking core OS functions ?
ALL this "refresh" of the OS with a virtual re-install doesn't work well and messes everything up.
Meanwhile Windows 7 has been installed on my dev box since mid 2013 without a hint of trouble and is used for hours and hours every weekday. Soon I need to update my system and am dreading it.
The problem is, that Windows 10 is the "last OS" so they say. It's a shame that it is also the worst of all of them IMHO. More of this crud is all we have to look forward to, so it seems.
Help.
My desktop PC 4 core 3.6Ghz went dumb in early October, perhaps associated with this update.
With no apps running it often has 100% disk utilization, with the antimalware task often the most active.
The PC seems to go to sleep about half the time, no response to any click or keyboard for up to 2 minutes.
Anyone have a similar problem? Any fix?
Back when Vista was being developed, Microsoft had external beta testers that were a group selected by Microsoft, not just anyone who self-selected to be an "Insider". It was a very active, very productive, very vocal group, with discussion forums, ways to track your bug reports, and all that good stuff. I forget what they called it, it was long before "Insiders" or preview rings.
You remember Vista, right? Where V1 was a wreck of issues? Every single one of the problems with Vista v1 was found and reported, repeatedly reopened, and screamed about in the forums multiple times by many testers. Every time they were closed by the internal triage team as "not reproducible", even though they were trivially reproducible.
The MS beta tester handlers were telling the testers "we won't ship until it is ready" and we were screaming that it was not ready. I happened to work for a major PC maker at the time, and the MS reps to the PC makers were saying "it's ready, shipping on this date" at the same time the testers were screaming about the problems. Even with that solid reporting and tracking arrangement, they utterly failed.
Marketing driven then, marketing driven now, with the same inevitable results.
Left hand, meet the right hand.
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