Shoot the breeze, anything goes.
User avatar
!
30%
Posts: 3259
Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2018-11-09 06:21 »

I finally uninstalled Microsoft Office! Got rid of that hell once and for all! Using LibreOffice now with Thunderbird as email client. Works great! It's such a nice feeling to be free of that stupid Outlook and their stupid licensing costs!!!! They wanted €25 PER MONTH AND PER USER! Are they insane? Surely they must be! :problem: :sick:

User avatar
!
30%
Posts: 3259
Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2018-11-09 06:25 »

Oh and as a bonus, I don't need to ever see that moronic extra background service "Microsoft Office Click-To-Run" with system wide rights always running, even when I'm not running Microsoft Office. Who the hell knows what that thing is doing and WHY the FUCK is it running when I'm not even using Office? :sick:
hqdefault.jpg
hqdefault.jpg (10.62 KiB) Viewed 11125 times

User avatar
Steven W
VIP
Posts: 2863
Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2018-11-12 05:08 »

! wrote:
2018-11-09 06:21
I finally uninstalled Microsoft Office! Got rid of that hell once and for all! Using LibreOffice now with Thunderbird as email client. Works great! It's such a nice feeling to be free of that stupid Outlook and their stupid licensing costs!!!! They wanted €25 PER MONTH AND PER USER! Are they insane? Surely they must be! :problem: :sick:
UGH. I guess we all knew it was coming. Speaking of:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... microchips
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
If there's one thing that I've learned over the past few years, it's never to underestimate what John Q. Public will moo along with.

User avatar
Steven W
VIP
Posts: 2863
Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2018-11-12 05:32 »

! wrote:
2018-11-09 06:25
Oh and as a bonus, I don't need to ever see that moronic extra background service "Microsoft Office Click-To-Run" with system wide rights always running, even when I'm not running Microsoft Office. Who the hell knows what that thing is doing and WHY the FUCK is it running when I'm not even using Office? :sick:
I recently had to deal with Windows 10 on a relative's laptop :sick:. Long story short, she was getting notifications (from an online source) that she did not want and the thing was running a bit slow. I didn't have the time to attempt to turn off all the MS spyware and try to make Windows 10 a decent OS, so I removed the Edge Browser (it was running in the background all the time and one of the worst resource hogs), shut notifications off, set up Firefox and Chrome to block all notification requests, removed Cortana and a few other apps, uninstalled all the HP shit running for her printer and installed HP's basic driver and went on with life. It was enough to make a noticeable difference, but it does beg the questions of why this crap needs to run in the background and why all these OEM's feel a compulsive need to pack their drivers with shitware. Eh, reminds me of my sentiments regarding what Paint Shop Pro become after Corel took over. :lolno:

User avatar
!
30%
Posts: 3259
Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2018-11-12 16:30 »

Steven W wrote:
2018-11-12 05:08
...https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... microchips
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
If there's one thing that I've learned over the past few years, it's never to underestimate what John Q. Public will moo along with.
It's not just in the UK:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... hands.html
Thousands of Swedes are getting microchip IDs inserted into their hands to swipe into homes, offices, concerts and even to access social media. More than 4,000 Swedish people have a tiny microchip embedded in their hand...

User avatar
!
30%
Posts: 3259
Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2018-11-12 16:34 »

Steven W wrote:
2018-11-12 05:32
...but it does beg the questions of why this crap needs to run in the background and why all these OEM's feel a compulsive need to pack their drivers with shitware. Eh, reminds me of my sentiments regarding what Paint Shop Pro become after Corel took over. :lolno:
Yes indeed! Windows 10 is a great OS, I use it but of course, all spyware and crap turned off. It is better than Linux because it's very easy to configure but the second I can't turn the crap off, I'm gone into the Linux side of things in a heartbeat!

Paint Shop Pro... is one of the saddest stories of applications for sure. I use to even buy it! ...but then they started putting some background service inside of it, I moved to GIMP and never looked back.

I guess the leasson here is, never get locked into anything. :idea: ...marriage included? :think: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

User avatar
Steven W
VIP
Posts: 2863
Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2018-11-12 20:05 »

! wrote:
2018-11-12 16:34
Yes indeed! Windows 10 is a great OS...
It is better than Linux because it's very easy to configure...
Totally disagree on the first point, somewhat disagree on the second. As to the second, it's not as though you have total control over what those apps are doing from MS's shit configurations in the UI. You may be able to limit what they do to some extent, but with some you can't completely shut them off. It wasn't as though removing Edge and Cortana was as simple as going in to the Add/Remove Programs/Apps in the equivalent of the Control Panel. Granted, it wasn't too difficult once I read up on how, but I doubt the average user would figure this shit out.

I will say that the OS is usable, but only because the Win32 (somewhat 64-ish) API is still there. In fact, I would go so far as to say that is probably what most people use it for, running programs that still are designed for that world. I am hardly am experienced with Win8/10, but it seems to me that they mostly consist of a pile of rubbish piled on the old Win32 API. Some of that seems to have trickled back (or possibly came from) Windows 7. One example I can think of from the Windows 7 world is killing dwm.exe. I do that at work, every time I boot up. I discovered that ends the stupid 'snapping' application to the screen behavior and things behave more like 'old Windows', unfortunately it also kills some 'beautifying' elements and text/graphics look just a bit worse. Frankly, I hope never to became as familiar with Windows 8/10 (even 7) as I am with XP and earlier versions of Windows.

User avatar
Steven W
VIP
Posts: 2863
Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2018-11-13 00:19 »

Sorry if I come across as a bit of a downer or abrasive, but you do realize that Microsoft is (at least long-term) trying to kill-off Win32 and force everyone to UWP?

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ ... a-p/183974

God knows, they'll probably eventually wipe it off everyone's Windows 10 and sell you access to 'legacy apps' by running on an online VM which will ultimately vanish. The writing's on the wall.

User avatar
!
30%
Posts: 3259
Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2018-11-13 02:31 »

Oh I fully agree with you. Windows 10 is a good OS as long as it has the Win32 for sure and well, to be honest, Linux is hell. It takes way too much time to configure but that doesn't matter anymore I guess. Average people are using phone these days and barely touch their PC or even have one. Phone is super limited but they all seem fine with it.

As soon as Win32 stuff is all gone, I'll be gone from Windows too. I have made sure that now I'm 100% not locked into Windows for anything. Even the Web sites running PHP and MySQL now and not C#/.NET/MSSQL like I used to. They basically, can fuck right off.

I got a few old AMIGA and ATARI emulators but I'm sure such stuff are abandant in the Linux world. Most likely, my move will be to a *BSD system, rathern than a Linux system, however.

I gave BSD a good try, burnt a week or two on it. It was "OK", I think it's doable to configure it good. Only thing I never got to work was full disk encryption but when push comes to shove in the future, it won't be a problem. I will put the time to move away from Windows.

Funny thing is, people like me don't even move away from Windows. Microsoft is FORCING and doing ALL THEY CAN so that we move away from Windows. LOL... they will write a lot of fun things about Microsoft in history books, 100 years from now, that's for sure. :lol: :mrgreen:

User avatar
Steven W
VIP
Posts: 2863
Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2018-11-13 03:55 »

! wrote:
2018-11-13 02:31
Funny thing is, people like me don't even move away from Windows. Microsoft is FORCING and doing ALL THEY CAN so that we move away from Windows. LOL... they will write a lot of fun things about Microsoft in history books, 100 years from now, that's for sure. :lol: :mrgreen:
You're not alone:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/play- ... 37990.html

I guess Steam got Steamed. Before terribly long, much stuff will likely be developed specifically for OpenGL/Linux.

Anyone having any illusions that Microsoft has changed? Well, take a gander:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/ ... e-policies
10.2.1
Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate HTML and JavaScript engines provided by the Windows Platform.

Post Reply