RacoonRider wrote:

Stojke, sometimes you protect windows 8 so furiously that I'm starting to think you're working for Microsoft. […]
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Stojke, sometimes you protect windows 8 so furiously that I'm starting to think you're working for Microsoft.

I tried it on my father-in-law's computer and I did not like it. Point. Later I had immense trouble removing windows 8 to install a pirated release of windows 7.

Guess what? Even that small number of Windows 8 liscences sold by Microsoft is less than the actual number of liscences in use. You can't get a good notebook without windows 8. There are 2-3 models in the shops around my area which feature ubuntu or no OS at all, however, they are bottom-line low-end machines. So what people do is buy the notebook, pay for the damned windows 8, come home and install pirated seven.

"Don't buy it if you don't like it" sounds quite hypocritic. As if you had a choice.

Get a Chromebook and use Google apps.

EverythingOldIsNewAgain wrote:

Yes and no. Intel extended the memory table to 36-bits with the Pentium Pro. This was called Physical Address Extension (PAE). B […]
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Stojke wrote:

From what i know from various talks with people - Windows XP 32bit could technically go up to 64GB with memory manager due to addressable memory maximum being 36bit. But every application could address only 4GB maximum.
XP was full of holes that were patched and patched. What i didn't like is the boot time and system responsiveness over time that dropped and dropped.
Frop 20 seconds on fresh install to 2 minutes a year latter. Windows 8.1 still boots in 10 second maximum on a Hard Disk even a year and a half latter.

Yes and no. Intel extended the memory table to 36-bits with the Pentium Pro. This was called Physical Address Extension (PAE). Beginning with Windows 2000 Advanced Server, the OS could run with PAE enabled (two "new" versions of NTOSKRNL are included: NTKRNLPA for single-core/proc systems and NTKRPAMP for SMP). You had to opt into this by setting the flag /PAE in the boot.ini file.

With PAE enabled, Windows can access more than 4 gigabytes of RAM, but no individual process can have more than 2 gigabytes. (Technically, a process can have up to 3GB if /3GB is specified in boot.ini and the process is compiled as /LARGEADDRESSAWARE)

Now - with XP (up to & including SP1a) - PAE is off by default but can be enabled with /PAE like in 2K Server. But when Service Pack 2 came out, Microsoft began enforcing hardware Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Since the hardware nX bit is bit 63 in the page table, supporting nX implies using PAE. But! With SP2, Microsoft also changed the kernel to artificially limit addressing to 4 GB, regardless of whether PAE is enabled or the system has >4GB of RAM.

Microsoft claimed that some drivers crapped out when being presented with large addresses. In theory, they shouldn't, but some "assume" a 32-bit table. The other reason (imo) is to promote the higher-priced SKU -
Windows Server 2003 and 2008 x86 (depending upon SKU - Standard & Web excluded) retain the ability to run with large memory using 36-bit PAE in x86 mode.

I can confirm the driver issue at least with Audigy drivers. Removing memory fixed the issue. Putting it back in and it was broken again. Upgrading to newer drivers fixed it.

Now wether it was significant enough to limit it only Microsoft can say.

borgie83 wrote:

Putting it into perspective, could you imagine if technology had not evolved at all and we were still turning a dial on our phones to make a phone call, having to pump the accelerator in our cars to add fuel to the carburettor to start the engine or having to push buttons on our TV set because there was no remote as well as many other time consuming things? All things that we were quite happy doing at the time and didn't think otherwise but would we go back to any of them now?

Problem is, technology doesn't evolve just because. Technology evolves to answer specific needs, and if the needs aren't there on the first place, then neither should the changes be. There are good reasons why land battleships are never made, for example.

Yes, there are changes, but there are also things that have been around with us for decades, and I bet it will stay with us for a very long time, because they are intuitive and easy to use. Examples are control stick for aircraft and steering wheel for automobiles. They may be "old", but they work and work well.

Now, imagine if Microsoft monopolizes car market, and some geniuses at Redmont decide that the consumers should manually drive their car using friggin' touch keypads. Worse, you cannot use steering wheel anymore because Microsoft has stopped supporting their older cars. So we the consumers have to suck it down and be forced to adapt. Now imagine how many traffic accidents would happen in order to 'embrace the future for what it will be'.

Wheel has been around since the dawn of human civilization. Should we change its circular shape into triangle because some genius corporate executives said so?

Your scenario is apt. In the case of a touchpad steering control, a *need* would quickly arise - it's called "re-inventing the wheel". And as that ancient saying bears witness, it's no coincidence that the wheel is the epitome of the invention that doesn't need re-inventing:)

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

There are good reasons why land battleships are never made, for example.

The Russians gave it a try. They built several prototypes of multi-turreted tanks but all had issues that could not be overcome in testing.

SquallStrife wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

Stojke, sometimes you protect windows 8 so furiously that I'm starting to think you're working for Microsoft.

Or maybe he just likes it? Some people like eating anchovies, that doesn't mean they work for the anchovy fishers.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

RacoonRider wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

Stojke, sometimes you protect windows 8 so furiously that I'm starting to think you're working for Microsoft.

Or maybe he just likes it? Some people like eating anchovies, that doesn't mean they work for the anchovy fishers.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

I happen to know several people that like anchovies, and none of them work at the anchovy company.

(Ignoring trite GoT reference.)

sliderider wrote:

The Russians gave it a try. They built several prototypes of multi-turreted tanks but all had issues that could not be overcome in testing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf2e7Xtx70
T-35A. 61 were built. 1 is still working.
Baneblade version 0.1. 😀

SquallStrife wrote:

RacoonRider wrote:

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

I happen to know several people that like anchovies, and none of them work at the anchovy company.

(Ignoring trite GoT reference.)

That was a joke, perhaps a bad one.

Considering superheavy tanks, Russians were not the only one. Germany was working on their Maus project and "moving fortress" as well. However, those tanks were too heavy, too vulnerable and unable to cover long distances. Not to mention tonns of fuel they consumed.

Sorry man, I got the reference, but I couldn't figure out the joke. 🙁

In numerous threads I have expressed disdain for the way computers are going. It is now dominated by a couple of major players, you have to play by their rules. They keep redesigning everything, dropping backwards compatibility, forcing everybody into it. I was forced into windows 7 at work and honestly I don't see how anyone could like it. You're running multi-core processors with gigabytes of RAM, and you're sitting there watching a circle go around for five minutes (I counted) logging into a machine, And I hate the new versions of office with their new interfaces. I think I'd rather have the old **windows 3.1** versions than this crap! I gave up on trying to find the help function, no joke - just went to goggle and looked it up.

I've accepted Windows 7. While I love XP its a 32 bit OS and technology has moved on enough that it now shows it's age. But I still ask why a lot, like why push "Library's" on us, that's just an extra layer to go wrong. Why does opening my computer sometimes take ages to load when I can just type c:\ in the address bar in the very same window and see everything instantly. Windows 7 I think is on par with 95. It's got a lot going for it but still needs a bit of fine tuning.
Windows 8 is a mess. We all get the idea of 1 interface across all your phones/pc's/tablets/whatever but we just aren't there yet. Maybe now touchscreen PC's will become mainstream in which case the interface will suck a little less but I still cant see business's replacing desktop PC's with touchscreens. Your still going to want to have a cheap, basic, reliable keyboard to type with so now a mouse becomes more particle then leaning over your keyboard to tap the screen.
Then there is Server 2012. With more and more servers hosted on a virtual server these things are never going to have a physical screen attached. While I'm betting RDP will support touchscreen movements in the near future what happens if that remote server is somewhere with a bad internet connection? Moving the mouse is hard enough let alone a screen that's not quite calibrated and a few seconds delay!

You wouldn't like any Linux flavor either. It's pretty constricting to 'try' it on a small partition, then it insists you must use your home folder for everything, and games being installed to /usr/share or something that definitely sin't the familiar tune to "D:\Games\"

I am getting so tired of the negative connotations that go along with a piece of software getting "old". Mass media is winning the masses over with a bunch of BS about "you need the latest and greatest" and all that crap. I especially love mobile phone commercials that exaggerate so much by showing some guy using an old 80's brick cell phone and some douche bag using a iPhone or whatever, and they make the guy using the old phone look unnecessarily stupid and the guy using the new "smart" phone look "cool". Even if a guy was that old school and really wanted to use an old analog phone like that, you wouldn't even be able to due to lack of the support from telecommunication companies (in most places in the world now) that we're slaves to. I remember using my Mortorola StarTAC mobile phone as long as I could and had to give it up because my local provider did not support it's analog function anymore. My phone did all I really wanted it and needed it to do...I really did not want to switch phones at that time, but I was forced to because of the lack of support. I of course eventually wanted to upgrade to a better phone that I could use for texting, but I wanted to do it when I wanted to, not by being forced to. Case and point....I now have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that forces me to update my Android software (the notification won't go away until I update) as opposed to my older blackberry phone which gave me the option to decline....I believe that soon no one will have any option to decline any updates for their cell phone or even their PC O/S (unless maybe you resort to using hacked up versions of older software)...that way corporations can have more control of what you use and it will inevitably be easier for them to channel advertising to you on your PC, mobile phone, chip implanted in your brain, or your stupid Google glasses 🤣 .

Does it really matter if you don't have the absolute newest O/S on your PC? As long as that piece of software does what you need it to do and do it well, do you really need to "upgrade"? I certainly don't think so for the most part. I have worked as a AutoCAD draftsperson, architectural designer, photographer, and have had numerous other office jobs where I used MS Office software and many graphics programs and have to say that with most of the work I have ever done, I could get by and get by well with just Windows 32 bit based software running on decent to excellent 2002 to 2008 hardware or maybe even older in some cases. Actually even the majority of AutoCAD and Photoshop software during the Win95/98 era would still serve me just fine today as well. Case and point, I am currently using a Lenovo W520 with i7 processor and discreet video and 16GB of RAM on Win7 64 bit O/S and it still runs slower in most cases (except for 3D rendering and 2D point cloud rendering) for simple MS office software than my WinXP 32bit system with 3GB ram and slower Core2Duo processor and crappy 1gb video card on my home computer.

Even when it comes to gaming, I really think that the 'life' of WinXP could have been extended even further by exploiting more of the newer hardware capability by just making it compatible with older Direct X versions.

It's really funny how people always say that Windows XP is getting old, when most of those people just use MS Word and browse the internet. Even for gamers, Windows XP still has so much to offer. I for one, have not had the time to play many of the games released during the last 10 years and would still be happy just gaming on my XP 32 bit machine and just missing out on the newer games 'optimized' for Windows 7 and 8.

My point is that Windows XP probably fulfills the computing power needs for most people...I would venture to say almost all the people I know except for some avid 'modern gamers' and designers requiring the fastest 3D rendering capability possible for their work don't need anything newer that WindowsXP. It's funny that the only reason I ever upgraded from SP1 to SP3 is because I could not access my iPod I got back in 2008 with XP SP1...I was forced to upgrade to SP3 so I could sync my stupid iPod. I find it really hard to believe that Apple couldn't have made my iPod Touch 8GB compatible with Windows XP SP1 or even win98 for that matter. I find this to be absolutely unnecessary an absolute outrage and obvious planned obsolescence at it's best (or worst).

I just want to make it clear that I am not saying that windows 7 "sucks" or that Windows 8 is plain crap or whatever. I think that many can argue about the good points and bad points of almost any O/S until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how much a person loves an O/S version more than another, we are now facing the inevitability of dependency on internet giants/telecommunications companies with a certain monopoly (or oligopoly) that will eventually decide what programs you will use whether you like it or not (as long as you want to participate in using the internet). This is what should be discussed and questioned, not what O/S is better.

It's so blatantly obvious that O/S's like Windows 8 are facilitating the move to being more dependent on corporate initiatives to control what you are seeing (advertising), have access to your browsing activity and tendencies (marketing data collection) and even now holding your data on the "cloud"...what a load of BS...having my personal information stored on 'the cloud'...are you f'ing kidding me?? I am glad there are still sites like Vogons out there where you can discuss topics like this freely and get free information on how to run your old software, but how long will it last? I wouldn't be surprised if one day when I try to log on to Vogons I will get a message that says, "please click on this link to upgrade your browser and O/S to Windows 9 and service pack 3,654,785 to log on" 🤣 I really hope that day will never come.

retrofanatic wrote:

Even when it comes to gaming, I really think that the 'life' of WinXP could have been extended even further by exploiting more of the newer hardware capability by just making it compatible with older Direct X versions.

Absolutely. And good rant BTW!

tincup wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

Even when it comes to gaming, I really think that the 'life' of WinXP could have been extended even further by exploiting more of the newer hardware capability by just making it compatible with older Direct X versions.

Absolutely. And good rant BTW!

Lol...thanks tincup...I just had to vent...I don't know what came over me 🤣 🤣

I agree - I think most people do NOT need the newer OS. And I think for the first time people are finally figuring that out. But you can't get a new computer with the older OS - that's the "forcing you into it" part. And I think that's why there's so much complaining going on about it.

Concerning developers not supporting operating systems that the OS developer doesn't even support:

Well you can't really blame Apple or any other developer for dropping support. Blame the OS developer.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean19

XP SP1 support was dropped in 2006.

"Windows XP SP2 was released on September 17, 2004. According to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Service Pack policy, Microsoft provided 24 months of support for Windows XP SP1 following the Windows XP SP2 release.
The original support end date for Windows XP SP1 was September 17, 2006.
In January 2006, Microsoft announced an adjustment to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle expiration dates, moving the end of support date for Windows XP SP1 to October 10, 2006. Details about this announcement can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean17/.

Considering how shitty XP was until SP2 I wouldn't want to support XP Pre-SP2 any longer than I'd have to. heh.

Sure the developer could support that situation but they'd be developing for an unsupported OS so any issues they encounter would involve extra money for support from MS.

Example:
You can run DOSBox on Windows 95a but that's nothing the DOSBox developers have to do anything for, it's only because of SDL 1.2 that they can do that....and SDL2 doesn't work on pre-XP operating systems. So should the DOSBox devs jump through hoops to support pre-XP operating systems if/when they move to SDL2? What do you think is reasonable for a developer to support? (Keeping user security, OS manufacturer support , finances, and amount of users using older operating systems in mind)

DosFreak's on the money! 😀

retrofanatic wrote:

I remember using my Mortorola StarTAC mobile phone as long as I could and had to give it up because my local provider did not support it's analog function anymore. My phone did all I really wanted it and needed it to do...I really did not want to switch phones at that time, but I was forced to because of the lack of support. I of course eventually wanted to upgrade to a better phone that I could use for texting, but I wanted to do it when I wanted to, not by being forced to.

To be fair, analogue mobile phones were insanely insecure (anyone could eavesdrop with relatively simple equipment) and used truckloads of RF spectrum. Just like analogue TV, there was no practical way it could continue to exist. Perhaps you should have bugged Motorola to get your StarTAC retrofit with a GSM module? 😉

retrofanatic wrote:

My point is that Windows XP probably fulfills the computing power needs for most people...I would venture to say almost all the people I know except for some avid 'modern gamers' and designers requiring the fastest 3D rendering capability possible for their work don't need anything newer that WindowsXP.

It's not really about "computing power", it's more about features, especially under-the-hood features. Asynchronous IO, privilege separation, moving the display driver out of the kernel ring, multi-core optimised thread scheduling, filesystem symbolic links, etc. The kind of thing that you couldn't retrofit on XP without significant re-work, but that have real usability, stability, and security benefits.

DosFreak wrote:

Example:
You can run DOSBox on Windows 95a but that's nothing the DOSBox developers have to do anything for, it's only because of SDL 1.2 that they can do that....and SDL2 doesn't work on pre-XP operating systems. So should the DOSBox devs jump through hoops to support pre-XP operating systems if/when they move to SDL2? What do you think is reasonable for a developer to support? (Keeping user security, OS manufacturer support , finances, and amount of users using older operating systems in mind)

If you have a machine that is so slow that your only realistic choice of OS is Windows 95 then you don't need DOSBox, it should run DOS games natively. The emulation would be far too slow on such a machine, anyway. And I'm not talking about a fast Pentium III here, either, I'm talking about 386/486 era machines that will run 95 and either can't run 98 or run it too slowly to be useful. DOS machines at the other end of the spectrum should be running a later OS and not Win95.