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Windows XP source code has leaked

gizmodo.com.au

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Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#301

Post by kwanbix »

blablabla123 wrote: post #289
kwanbix wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire what the community has achieve with Linux. I think is really great and I have used Linux in the past (Redhat, Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu, Mint). However, I always wonder what makes your experience so different than mine. For me I can simple replace what you said and it will still be valid: To me Linux were really frustrating to use since random parts of the system (CD-ROM, Word, Games...) would stop working at ran…

For me the main difference between (early) Windows and Linux is, Windows is quick to setup and quick to break. Linux is hard to setup and hard to break - I cannot tell how much time I spent tweaking my Linux desktop. Also I could for instance use an old SCSI scanner on Linux much longer unlike Windows where they eventually stopped developing drivers for new Windows releases. But now things are of course a bit differe…

It could be a matter of experience. If you are more experienced with Linux, it could be easier than if you are more experienced with Windows.

For me, Linux is easy to install, and it has been for a while, but then trying to customize it to do what I want, is much more complicated than Windows.

For example, I want RAR support. There is no LinRAR, so I had to download a library and install it. It wasnt that bad, but in the end I ended up with a tool that was not as simple to use as Winrar.

Want to use Total Commander? Either install Wine or run Midnight Commander or some other similar program that are not up to par with TC.

Want to use Office? Wine or Crossover. Want to use Illustrator? Same.

Need to install VMware? In Linux you have to import some signing key first and do some additional steps (don't completely remember). Nothing major, but you need to find out first how to do it. In Windows, just download the installer, double click and follow the wizard.

For me it seems like it is always more complicated to do simple things in Linux, and you end up with some not as good solution.

Also, I don't understand how can I download an installer from Windows XP and will 99% of the time install in Windows 10. However, if I want to install something old in the latest version of Linux, it won't install, will have to fix dependencies or similar.

And for me the worst thing is that energy management for notebooks is not exactly the same. If my battery lasts 4 hours in Windows, it lasts 3 or 2 in Linux.

Drivers it could be what you say for old ones where the manufacturer did not update to Windows 10, but if you have a supported device, usually the support is better on Windows.

Of course there are advantages, like no telemetry, no antivirus, but for my use case, I found the experience worst.

I am not saying totally worst. Maybe it is a 10 to 20% worst.

Of course, I have used maybe 90% of my time Windows and 9% Linux and 1% MAC, so maybe I am just more experienced.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#302

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Shared404 wrote: post #299
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have an XP laptop at work because it happens to have a serial port. Every time I use it I'm briefly shocked at how responsive everything is. That's on period hardware. God the future sucks. IT has been destroyed by complexity fetishists and resume driven development.

Not entirely. There's still Alpine, Gentoo, Void, Debian/Devuan -- All of which still run on reasonably low specced hardware, and can be loaded with XFCE/Tiling WM's for a lightweight UX. Outside of Linux and other FL/OSS OS's I have to agree though.

You say that as though everything above the Linux kernel isn't a nightmarish hodge-podge of software with interconnections ever increasing in complexity that creates conflicts so readily it needs third parties to carefully maintain specialized builds of each component to keep it all from blowing up.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#304

Post by themaninthedark »

gruturo wrote: post #191
dx034 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe auto updates aren't malicious. Microsoft had a huge problem with worms infecting millions of computers that used outdated Windows version. It made Windows less secure in public opinion, even though these issues had often been fixed a long time. Forcing people to update was probably the only way to stop that. I'm also not a fan, I got burned at least once by a Windows 10 computer restarting in the middle of…

I don't have a problem with forced security fixes. I DO have a problem with forced updates which are completely unrelated to security, install thinly veiled ads disguised as apps, break existing functionality, change my browser/PDF reader preferences, occasionally brick the whole machine. Also I have a huge problem with so much of this crap needing a reboot. Reengineer the damn thing so it doesn't in 99% of cases.

How many forced Windows 10 updates have bricked peoples computers? Just looking at the dates after googling has dates from '18, '19 and '20. So at least once a year. On an OS that has been out for 5 years now.

Do I control my computer or not? If I do then I should be able to control what happens when.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#305

Post by sumtechguy »

speeder wrote: post #292
sumtechguy wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7 was just rebranded vista. It was basically vista sp3. MS knew the vista name had been badly tarnished. The are several reasons why vista churned so badly at startup was the indexing service and the service that was trying to load everything into memory. Turn those 2 off and vista worked as good as 7, I did this to dozens of computers and the owners were so happy. Several other background services needed about 1.5GB…

Windows 7 STILL does this in fact. I am currently using Windows 7 in my personal machine (and Linux in others). The indexing service often gets disabled because it makes the machine slow down a lot. Also I really miss Linux "swapyness", Windows Vista+ (10 included) are really aggressive in swapping, more than needed, often my machine ended trashing because of Swap while still having 20+ GB free, this is in part becau…

I use the indexer setup to ignore parts of my system. That works pretty good. Especially if you are doing any work with nodejs. Also defragging just the index file helps a lot. That thing can end up with thousands of bits all over the drive. Even with SSD it is not great as random seek on many SSDs are fairly terrible and contig read is amazing. One trick I also do is pre-allocate my swap file (I usually pin it to 4GB). As the default is to grow/shrink.. That can do the same thing as the indexing file.

Something also changed around sp2 with 7 and file writes. Files get fragmented very quickly now even when there is plenty of space not to do so. I usually would only end up with systems badly fragmented in XP if the drive is full (much like ext4) now it just does it as a matter of course and is acting like the old DOS alg of find the next free spot.

You can still turn off the readyboost/superfetch cache service (not sure where it is win10). If you have an SSD you should not notice much difference on or off but it can happen. Turning those off makes your free RAM act more like in linux where it just caches recently read items and gives it up right away if needed.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#306

Post by GeekyBear »

bayindirh wrote: post #176
josteink wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, it was the first solid (in relative terms) consumer operating system from MS. That was actually Windows 2000, based on the NT 4 code base. It was near perfect, given the era it was made in. The only reason I upgraded from Windows 2000 was that Microsoft was extremely reluctant to back-port USB- or WiFi-fixes and support, effectively forcing you to upgrade to XP if you wanted to fully use your modern hardware…

> That was actually Windows 2000, based on the NT 4 code base. It was near perfect, given the era it was made in. I also remember Windows 2000 fondly. It was really really stable. Even if it looked like it's frozen like a polar ice cap (they weren't melting that bad back then), a short coffee break would give it enough time to normalize itself and continue like nothing happened. Should retry it in a VM sometime. :)

>It was really really stable.

Windows 2000 was the last version of the NT branch where Dave Cutler was in charge. He's a legend for a reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2GV_bCfnCw

Computer History Museum long form interviews:

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29RkHH-psrY Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVgSLud50ss

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#307

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #89
SquareWheel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And also, Microsoft claims to love open source so then I guess they'll love how open this source code is now that it's passed around on BitTorrent. One can love open-source and still be against license violations. What a warped world view.

License is violation!

I'm hereby revoking your license to downvote my blissful freedom of expression, thereby messing with my pursuit of happiness, causing stress!

(Marshal! To the yard! Switch that ugly element out of my train of thought!)

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#308

Post by Shared404 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #302
Shared404 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely. There's still Alpine, Gentoo, Void, Debian/Devuan -- All of which still run on reasonably low specced hardware, and can be loaded with XFCE/Tiling WM's for a lightweight UX. Outside of Linux and other FL/OSS OS's I have to agree though.

You say that as though everything above the Linux kernel isn't a nightmarish hodge-podge of software with interconnections ever increasing in complexity that creates conflicts so readily it needs third parties to carefully maintain specialized builds of each component to keep it all from blowing up.

There's also the FL/OSS BSD's, although I don't know how viable they are for desktops outside of ThinkPad's.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#309

Post by reflectiv »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #298
reflectiv wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if it were left open ended at the request of people like you...we'd still have compromised systems out there spread amongst normal people as well as within infrastructure and other more critical pieces of hardware. People cannot be trusted to upgrade. It REALLY IS good to force people to upgrade.

> People cannot be trusted to upgrade. It REALLY IS good to force people to upgrade. The very idea that users should be at the mercy of their computers instead of the other way around is contrary to the concept of personal computing. People like you are why I hate IT these days. You seem to think that because you have some specialized knowledge about computers that you're smarter than everyone who doesn't. You're tot…

It's not about specialized knowledge...it's about regular maintenance.

Hate me or not...but people can't be trusted (broadly) to maintain things...thats just the way life works.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#310

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

reflectiv wrote: post #309
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People cannot be trusted to upgrade. It REALLY IS good to force people to upgrade. The very idea that users should be at the mercy of their computers instead of the other way around is contrary to the concept of personal computing. People like you are why I hate IT these days. You seem to think that because you have some specialized knowledge about computers that you're smarter than everyone who doesn't. You're tot…

It's not about specialized knowledge...it's about regular maintenance. Hate me or not...but people can't be trusted (broadly) to maintain things...thats just the way life works.

Why should they be forced to, at the expense of things that matter to them, though? That's the problem.

Automatic updates were a default. People turned them off because they were annoying. One solution to this problem was to make them not-annoying, but instead Microsoft opted to become aggressive and force people to update.

I will never hold anyone who thinks this is a good idea in high regard because they are actively making the world a worse place.

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