Windows 7 goes dual screen to shriek at passersby: Please, just upgrade me or let me die Welcome to another edition of signage behaving badly, The Register's look at borkage of all shapes, sizes and flavours from around the world. Today's contribution, from a Reg reader who preferred to be identified only as "Ian from Essex", depicts Windows 7 in a state of distress brought about by negligence. Windows 7 is like …
> Windows 7 is like that arthritic old cat who lives with an elderly relation. It smells a bit, is a pain to look after and demands near constant attention
err, not having any trouble with my Win7 installs, and never really touched them to maintain them. As opposed to what Microsoft have been nagging me to update to for the last 2 years (or so I hear)....
He's happy with his Win7. Why is there this bloody obsession with you must move to Linux!
The obsession is more of "you must move away from Windows 7". That is what the above article was about. If someone has already rejected 10, and if he wants to move away from the fading Windows 7, Linux is an option.
I've only used Windows for games since probably 2000'ish. Nowadays, while I still have a Windows 7 install handy, I very rarely boot to Windows to play games. There's basically one I care about that I can't get to work, Sniper Elite 4, and I don't play it that often anymore. That Windows install could almost go, but it doesn't have to. I never updated anyway, just Service Pack 1 and the Platform update (and runtimes as necessary, usually done by the game installations themselves).
My next build isn't even going to have a Windows install. I really despise Windows 10 (and 8.x before that).
Wine can run the much hated but still used Winrar and you can run Space Cadet Pinball on Wine. So the only reason I keep my old Windows 7 PC around is games.
Not everything is Steam. I have games in CDs and DVD that still work and need Windows. Sure for the Dos ones I can use Dosbox but Windows 98 stuff like Jazz Jack rabbit 2 The Secret Files?
Dosbox can run really old DOS games but you may need to adjust the speed.
There is also the Web Archive (Archive.org) that put many old DOS games to play online. And from other systems too. Want to play an Apple II game? They probably have it.
I found my old MDK CD, still had the price on it. The game works both in regular Wine and Playonlinux.
Earth Worm Jim Special Edition for Windows 95 needs a virtual box of Windows 95, 98 or XP to work.
Earth Worm Jim 2 CD is much easier to play thankfully.
Games made with multimedia Fusion 2 or older don't work well or at all on Wine. Thankfully those are not as picky as the darn Worm.
Win7 still runs all the programs I've become productive on along with most games. Add to that a beautiful skeumorphic Aero desktop with true rounded corners windows over the soul-crushing utilitarian mess of Win10 flat design desktop along with obscuring access to system features and there's no incentive for me to switch. In fact, the only problems I've had with Win7 over the past few years were from Windows Update.
As to newer games not supporting Win7? Not a problem. I installed a second hard drive with Win10 on it that I can easily switch boot drives from.
If Microsoft expects Win7 people to move to Win10, they need create real GUI alternative toward Win7's GUI (including Aero) for most power users. When the time comes where I have to decide, I'll try a *NIX solution before making Win10 my first choice.
He did make some rather sharp digs, for what was a children's show*. What the fuck that obese mound of felt on CBBC is supposed to be doesn't carry a ounce of the class of the original.
Icon - Closest thing to Mr Derek.
*Why more adult orientated acts like Manhattan Transfer were booked I'll never understand in favour of something more easily acceptable to the cub scouts in the front row.
Point D wasn’t anywhere in particular, it was just any convenient point a very long way from points A, B and C. He would have a nice little cottage at point D, with axes over the door, and spend a pleasant amount of time at point E, which would be the nearest pub to point D.
His wife of course wanted climbing roses, but he wanted axes. He didn’t know why—he just liked axes. He flushed hotly under the derisive grins of the bulldozer drivers.
Icon - Muscle relaxant You'll need it.
Naturally, we contacted c2c to see if it (or whoever was responsible) for the signage had plans to either upgrade or splash the cash necessary to keep that version of Windows in security patches a little while longer, but we have yet to receive a reply.
PLEASE tell me that when the answer comes in, it is along the lines of :-
we would love to replace our advertisement monitor OS, however, recently our ads revenue has fallen off a cliff, and we are unable to determine as to why that should be, once we are in a position to upgrade, we fully intend to get it back up and running and earning us ad revenue once again.
PRETTY PLEASE tell me that arrives :o)
"Windows 7 is like that arthritic old cat who lives with an elderly relation. It smells a bit, is a pain to look after and demands near constant attention".
Let the metaphors cascade...
Like a dog raised on a puppy farm without proper attention and training that is likely to bite you when you least expect it...
There's a "digital supermarket" in Milan, near the Bicocca Village shopping mall & cinema complex.
By digital, I mean it is primarily a supermarket, selling cheese - cat food - etc
but it is a left-over from an expo of a few years ago - and has around a thousand interactive 24" screens.
These screens are supposed to interact with customer, as you wave your hands near a particular item,
say - frozen artichokes - a pop-up should tell you all about it, price etc. how fresh, nice recipes
needless to say, digital decay has set in, and an extremely high number of screens are/were showing
the full gamut of Redmond's best & brightest errors. I was laughing so much, that I was incapable
of actually taking any photographs. I'm sure it is still kaputt, guasto, SNAFU'd.
If anyone dares to visit, (I think flights to Milan are around £3 return at present), it's just behind the
KFC - it's called "Fior-Food" " "Supermarket of the Future" by (Italian) Co-Op
Supermercato del future, Cibo e Incontri, Via Friedrich Von Hayek, 20126 Milano MI
In view of the pictures or it didn't happen meme. I'll try and visit that currently surely
deserted shop centre and see if anyone has learned how to deal with "the future" yet.
found some shy JPG's
(2D layout) https://cdn.archilovers.com/projects/d9232647-c635-4c30-9603-7cddb7e47f3d.jpg
(3D artistic) https://cdn.archilovers.com/projects/5501e6e9-5c35-43aa-83e9-1885110d03d0.jpg
so it's just hundreds of monitors, not thousands - their HTML video wall (one of the many showing error messages) was just 54 super giant monitors in a wall. I tend to agree that if it was 100s of RaspPi's, the supermarket of the future - a place to get food and meet people - might have been a bit more responsive..
the food was nice tho'
Windows 7 is like that arthritic old cat who lives with an elderly relation. It smells a bit, is a pain to look after and demands near constant attention – and will frequently leave a dirty protest if it doesn't get it.
Are you quite sure it is Windows 7 you are talking about and not 10?
When I used 7, it worked well, day in and day out. The 10 fanboys keep saying 10 is much more stable than 7, but for my own PCs, Windows 7 could not get much more stable than it was. No need to look after it or give it attention... it was just an OS, which is supposed to fade into the background and let the applications get the applause.
Windows 10 is more like Lucy from I Love Lucy, always cooking up some scheme to get center stage without having any actual talent that would make one worthy of being on a stage. Windows 10 is always demanding attention... not like the old reliable workhorse Windows 7.
I too have left Windows-land, or maybe it's more that Windows left me, as the saying goes.
When I started using Windows, it didn't monetize you and try to take over your computer. You didn't have to beta test your own software. It didn't come out a never-ending stream of service packs each 6 months. It didn't send your local search queries to Bing. It just did its thing... serving the owner of the hardware, and MS was not constantly tinkering with new ways to fleece its users. Back then, when a Windows flopped, like Vista, you could keep using what you had (XP/2k) until the next version came along. The next version was 7, which was very popular despite its familial similarity to Vista.
In the Vista era, MS didn't send you malware through the update system, whose sole function was to break Windows Update on newer machines, deliberately exposing users to third-party malware.
Instead of forcing people to accept an OS they did not like, MS improved Vista and made it into what users wanted. Now they are using their monopoly to force people to accept 10, and they've made it quite clear that customer satisfaction is no longer a concern of theirs. No carrot, all stick.
"Windows 7 is like that arthritic old cat who lives with an elderly relation. It smells a bit, is a pain to look after and demands near constant attention – and will frequently leave a dirty protest if it doesn't get it. But your great aunt loves it."
What utter bollox!
If Windows 7 is "Your great aunt's cat", then Windows 10 is that stroppy teenager Kevin (of Kevin and Perry) right down to not doing as it is told and refusing wake up - took bloody months to find that to get WOL working again, I to had disable all sleep modes settings AND turn "fast start" OFF. No such hassle with Windows 7 on the very same machines.
"Microsoft has spent the last year begging Windows 7 users to move to a better place."
Prey do tell! Where is this "Shangri La"?
Microsoft clearly hasn't learnt from past mistakes - Windows 8. If users are still reluctant 4.5 years after 10 was released, surely that should be telling them something? Offer users a truly "better place" and begging them to go there is the last thing you will be doing. More like having to get out the way before they are trampled in the ensuing stampede.
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