hyperrmachine wrote on 2020-12-04, 11:02:

Plus: the illustrations of the Zak McKracken newspaper are very nice.

I think everyone can agree with that 😉

Some more retro confessions:
1. A lot of adventure games from the 1980s~early 1990s are bad. They have bad stories and are rather difficult (a lot of 80s adventures are hard).
2. Zak McKracken has a pretty good story (for the time). It never gave up its story halfway.

I sometimes win auctions on Ebay in surprise that I only vaguely recall bidding on days earlier.

I regret installing and using Windows Vista the day after it was released. Should’ve stayed with Windows 2000 😕

I've spent way too much on my collection of computers, which I lovingly refer to as my "museum."

Two confessions from me:

Even though I enjoy the hobby, it is very clear to me that I engage in it as a form of procrastination.

About 10+ years ago I sold a LOT of hardware/software for cheap. I'd love to have kept it just so I could take advantage of people who overpay for stuff these days.

I've always really liked Windows ME.

Once again, I've just installed Windows ME inside a VM and the faster boot time along with the imported theme from Windows 2000 and options I really like such as "run explorer in a different process" (meaning a crash of explorer doesn't remove your taskbar)

It honestly feels snappier than Windows 98SE all around.

I'm very tempted to upgrade to it on my retro machines, but the lack of real DOS support is a killer.

Contrary to popular belief, it's very stable, provided you don't install weird crap and/or bad drivers.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 08:39:

Contrary to popular belief, it's very stable, provided you don't install weird crap and/or bad drivers.

I've had similar experience with it back in 2000, when it was installed on my dad's PC.

I also think Win Vista wasn't that horrible -- it's just consumer's computers of that time which were mostly designed with XP or even older OS in mind.

Speaking of XP, when I got myself decent PC in 2007 I believe, I removed XP x64 edition which came with it and installed regular 32-bit XP because I thought 32-bit apps won't run on it.

I didn't think XP 64bit came preinstalled on consumer systems.

I think Gabriel Knight 2 is the best Sierra game.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 08:39:

I've always really liked Windows ME.

I only recently got a copy of Windows ME and installed it on a socket 423 Pentium 4 system, and I agree! Windows ME feels really snappy and the bootup times are better than 98SE. I'm not too worried about real-mode DOS support since I have plenty of other actual DOS machines I can use for that purpose. Though I can agree that if someone wants to use a single PC for their retro needs and would like to have real-mode DOS, 98SE is probably the better option.

lafoxxx wrote on 2020-12-05, 13:14:

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 08:39:

Contrary to popular belief, it's very stable, provided you don't install weird crap and/or bad drivers.

I also think Win Vista wasn't that horrible -- it's just consumer's computers of that time which were mostly designed with XP or even older OS in mind.

I actually prefer Vista over XP. The interface looks much more appeasing to the eyes (IMO, of course) and I like the added security features. But I do agree, if one were to use Vista on an under-powered PC the experience wouldn't have been all that great. It doesn't help that Microsoft changed their logo certification and system requirements right before its release, so many devices thought to be able to run Vista were only able to get a bare minimum experience out of it.

OzzFan wrote on 2020-12-05, 20:01:

lafoxxx wrote on 2020-12-05, 13:14:

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 08:39:

Contrary to popular belief, it's very stable, provided you don't install weird crap and/or bad drivers.

I also think Win Vista wasn't that horrible -- it's just consumer's computers of that time which were mostly designed with XP or even older OS in mind.

I like the added security features

Yeah everyone loved being asked for permission every time you wanted to run a program or move the mouse.

That's not a security feature, not really.
It still relies on the user to be one (or not).

kolderman wrote on 2020-12-05, 20:31:

OzzFan wrote on 2020-12-05, 20:01:

lafoxxx wrote on 2020-12-05, 13:14:

I also think Win Vista wasn't that horrible -- it's just consumer's computers of that time which were mostly designed with XP or even older OS in mind.

I like the added security features

Yeah everyone loved being asked for permission every time you wanted to run a program or move the mouse.

😁 You're not wrong. The initial implementation of User Account Control was a bit overboard. Typical "1.0" kind of stuff. I'm not even going to try to defend it. But it wasn't a show-stopper for me.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 20:36:

That's not a security feature, not really.
It still relies on the user to be one (or not).

Only if you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who has local administrator rights to your own machine, I agree. And for most home users, it was a bad implementation that only served to bother people. However, from the perspective of a Systems Administrator where giving users local admin rights go against best security practices, User Account Control has been a major win in blocking users from installing whatever they like on company hardware and prevents them from running software from untrusted sources.

Security levels and account controls where present in the NT line way before Vista. The UAC is something different, and not really unrelated.

Although Vista introduces the "Vista Security Model" in which an Administrator doesn't run programs with admin rights by default, but only if they said 'yes' to the UAC.

The problem with Vista's UAC is that it was an all-or-nothing thing. It was overly protective, and most people ended up turning it off entirely. Once they enhanced it with several levels in Win7, it was possible to find a setting that is not too intrusive for everyday's work, but still prompts you for uncommon things that are best done explicitly as admin-only.

I always hated the UAC and always had it turned off. It was bloody annoying. I still disable it whenever I find myself using Windows 10 VMs

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-12-05, 21:59:

Security levels and account controls where present in the NT line way before Vista. The UAC is something different, and not really unrelated.

Although Vista introduces the "Vista Security Model" in which an Administrator doesn't run programs with admin rights by default, but only if they said 'yes' to the UAC.

+1 You're right. That's the particular feature I like with UAC enabled. Running applications with regular user permissions even while logged in as an administrator. That's why I keep UAC enabled on all UAC-aware OSes I use.