281–290 of 320 posts
Im beginning to think that Microsoft's new strategy is to optimistically break all their products by adding the store front and telemetry to them. Neither of which are needed or wanted in the majority of cases.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> running installers is restricted to admin accounts by group policy. Hence the popularity of portable apps which don't use installers. The just unzip to any folder and run.
Any company can install a reporting agent on their desktops and that will collect basic information like what .exe files have been executed. Once a portable app shows up in the reports you are simply fired by blatant disregard for the rules and procedures you agreed to when signing your contract. Finance is a heavily regulated environment and you can't get away with things that would be excusable in other places.
That seems to be a rather extreme clause; I doubt that a bank would care if a developer installed something that was not whitelisted. It would be a different story if the developer linked against code whose source was not easily attributable.
You absolutely need MS Paint on Windows. For one thing, it provides workarounds for horrible stability and functionality issues with image printing out of the Windows Shell (Windows Explorer). I think it provides the only way to print an image 1:1 (original scale) without installing third party software. I.e. 600 pixels of a 600 dpi image actually measure one inch. Not all images are photographs that can be scaled; s…
We are taking paint away from you and allowing you to come and get it through our funnel, erm... store.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also my corporate windows 10 laptop has the entire window store and modern app infrastructure disabled Wow that's... What? For all its warts, the Windows Store is a secure app delivery platform. Doesn't disabling it merely encourage downloading zipped executables from sleazy unencrypted websites?
I don't understand the shock here? Large corporations don't want users installing random apps. I don't see why an NHS laptop, for example, should have Bejewelled installed, or some dodgy app which gives permissions to the user's drives, and uploads files. Similarly, though admittedly not a problem in the same way with Windows store apps, to Chrome extensions. Those working in secretive environments with naive users s…
Perhaps we should all go back to mainframes and green-screen dumb terminals?
That's why "the shock".
I understand the security issues - they are absolutely valid in today's world.
But the whole reason the PC came about, was because it moved the computing resources from some sacrosanct computing "temple" (complete with acolytes who kept the system running, secure, and managed) to the general office, and allowed the users to customize and control their software and data to allow for a more "agile" flow.
Computer-based spreadsheets, for instance, weren't anything new when VisiCalc appeared on the scene in 1979 (and later on the PC in 1981) - what was new was having such a powerful piece of software available on a machine that was cheap and independent of the "computer room". Users and managers now had direct control of their data and processes, and ultimately this set the stage toward today's reality.
Gone were having to wait (and wait, and wait) for approval to get a particular application installed; gone were having to wait for the budget approval, hardware upgrades or acquisitions, etc - tons of effort, time, planning, etc needed just to get a simple app (if such was even allowed by the mainframe service contract! Maybe that needed renegotiation as well!).
Just go down to ComputerLand, buy a PC and a copy of VisiCalc (or whatever), plop it on a desk, and work. Freedom!
Ever since then, though, there has been this security of the system and data (physical security, data security, backups, viruses, worms, trojans, etc) that has been problematic. Various solutions have been tried, none have been 100% effective. Problems still exist, data gets wiped or lost, employees move on, leaving password-enabled zip files behind nobody knows how to access, data leaves the building, laptops are stolen, viruses and malware abound, cryptolocking happens, and on and on and on...
But people still want their freedom. They want to just download and run a piece of software to make their life and work flow better. They don't want to wait for approval and budgets.
How do you solve this dilemma?
Going back to a locked down system isn't the answer; as tempting as it may seem, it merely moves the problem up the stack, while increasing frustration for the actual users of the systems.
Hence my snarky response - because that was (in a way) considered "ultimate security" - a centralized system, with no smarts at the end nodes. Tightly controlled, regulated, monitored, updated, and secured. Many major companies (most of them gone today) built fortunes on that model. That such few of these companies remain tells you something about how that model faired. Trying to return to it might not be the best thing to do.
What the answer to the problem should be, though, I can't say unfortunately...
You absolutely need MS Paint on Windows. For one thing, it provides workarounds for horrible stability and functionality issues with image printing out of the Windows Shell (Windows Explorer). I think it provides the only way to print an image 1:1 (original scale) without installing third party software. I.e. 600 pixels of a 600 dpi image actually measure one inch. Not all images are photographs that can be scaled; s…
Using Paint3D, the bundled replacement.
This thread shows clearly the negativity around everything Microsoft does, especially if you compare to other technology companies. Apple deprecates some API or removes a feature? "It's the future, you have to adapt, etc" Microsoft deprecates a toy program made 25 years ago, but still offers the option of downloading it for free? "How dare they, I want it in the base install, etc"
You know the rule, Apple ALWAYS gets a pass. No matter what they do, no matter how bad they treat their customers, no matter how awful their "upgrades" are, no matter how non-configurable and locked-in their products get over time, no matter the lack of innovation for the past 5 years, they always get a pass. Deal with it, that Jobs residue works its magic for a loooooong time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> opening Paint, and pasting from the clipboard! That's not a solution that will be available on a machine without Paint. You will have Paint 3D and the first three buttons you see after opening the app are "New", "Open" and "Paste" (with a clipboard icon(!)).
Somewhat off-topic, but I just realized (maybe because I'm a non-native speaker and barely ever use applications which have icons for "copy" and "paste") that "clipboard" in software and physical "clipboards" are two entirely unrelated concepts for me. So much so that I only just remembered that the paste icon represents a physical clipboard rather than simply some abstract brown rectangle with an abstract white rect…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paste_up
I haven't been able to find evidence of this alternate meaning for "clipboard", though, as modern use has rendered it un-Googleable. The best I've been able to find is that its use in computing probably started somewhere between Xerox PARC and the Apple Lisa:
http://www.liquidinformation.org/onxeaplaprog.html
I find it fascinating, though, that this word has stuck, propagated essentially by word-of-mouth -- like the contents of the clipboard itself, the word is generally not shown in user interfaces. "Scrapbook", the name of the clipboard management utility in the original Macintosh OS, would have made a lot more sense semantically.
This thread shows clearly the negativity around everything Microsoft does, especially if you compare to other technology companies. Apple deprecates some API or removes a feature? "It's the future, you have to adapt, etc" Microsoft deprecates a toy program made 25 years ago, but still offers the option of downloading it for free? "How dare they, I want it in the base install, etc"
One of the (many, many) reasons I ditched OS X after more than 10 years and went back to Linux and Windows, depending on the task at hand, is the removal of the colored Finder labels. What an inane reason, you may say. But IMHO it was one of the best features ever introduced into desktop computing. Simple, easy to see colored backgrounds that you could assign to files to organize or tag them as you saw fit. (seen/not…
