I'll direct your attention to my lengthy comment #29 above, which was in answer to Pythion.net. I need not type it all over again. :-)
> Windows XP and 7 were, and are, the best operating systems Microsoft put out.
I'll agree wrt Win7. IMO, Win-XP was still too raw, it needed a lot more cooking before it was ready for prime time.
> Many users, like myself, still have older hardware...
Apple is a hardware vendor; their OS software is "free" but you are supposed to only run it on their hardware. So if you run MacOS you find that after a few releases, the latest OS won't run on your old hardware and you have to buy new hardware, from Apple of course. No dummies, they.
Microsoft is a software vendor, but they need to keep the hardware vendors in their bed happy, so they make sure that each Windows release runs poorer on old hardware, eventually it won't run at all, and if all else fails, they put instructions into Windows that check for the CPU version or the existence of a TPM module, and the user is screwed if they don't buy new hardware. No dummies, they either.
So I buy new Mac hardware when I absolutely have to, and I don't run the newer versions of Windows. But I run my old Win7 in a protected VM which doesn't go out on the internet. I use the Mac or Linux for that.
The rest is explained in my earlier comment. :-)
I was the IT manager in my duty section at my last job working on a military base. To say I made a lot of enemies is an understatement.
I contested the way the government is going these days in regards to their IT equipment (thin clients vs physical desktops and laptops). I argued that cloud based technology (in the government sector) is inherently dangerous and problematic, again, something they didn't like.
But my point was proven when, in the hours after we were all told the network couldn't possibly go down, it did, and for an entire week! I worked for a flying squadron so the entire mission was disrupted because of the outage. It's a good thing I advised folks to back up their important files on their laptops which saved us a lot of headaches, but still, it was rough.
But when it came to the operating systems, the change over to W10 from W7 was a nightmare. Everything changed; the log on procedures, control over even the simplest things like the screen saver was gone, and it was easier for the powers at be to disable your PC.
Then they made Outlook cloud based with the introduction of Office 2013 and email storage became a nightmare. Folks were constantly deleting old emails when the system said they reached the limit of the online storage, little realizing they could just store their emails on their hard drives in PST files. Newer versions of Office became increasingly hard to use, and Windows 10, by the time the government added all their (so-called) security software became almost totally unusable. It wasn't until we migrated to SSDs that things became manageable again but honest to God, many people I worked with retired, and a big reason why they did was because of how difficult the IT infrastructure had become.
All that to say, I found ways around their machinations and I made life easier for the folks I worked for. They were appreciative of my efforts though the local powers at be wanted to strangle me for being, in their view, pigheaded.
As for me, here and now, I have my W7/10 machines, but I will eventually migrate almost completely over to a Linux O/S once I get to the point in life where I don't need Microsoft software much anymore. I'm almost there.
I use Thunderbird for my email and I got it configured to download email from the Google pop server. When I migrate to Linux I'll do the same thing. I also use LibreOffice and will of course use that on Linux as well. I still have my M/S Officesuites (2010, 2016 & 2019) because of tasks I am currently engaged in but I want to completely migrate away from them as well in the near future.
I will keep my W7 install because I like to use older versions of Photoshop (CS5) and Adobe Acrobat (10), but that will be about it. Eventually I hope to learn how to use GIMP and MasterPDF more efficiently.
Whew. That took a while to type out! Thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us. It is much appreciated!
P.S. Apologies for any typos you might, and probably will, find above!
Need some advice- I have windows 7 registered now, but use Linux as main os- I o ky use 7 for windows apps like photoshop, rebelle, iracing and a few other programs- I only go online really to the iracing site in windows 7, and maybe check fr for posts- bUT never browse the net using 7-
My question is thus: wi5h the advances of programs using ai, and not able to run on older platforms like windows 7, would it be wise to buy a windows 11 computer (I think a windows 10 computer is out of the question as 10 will lose support or cost to support for a couple of years),
OR might it be wiser to buy an apple computer (as the programs I use in windows 7 have apple versions as well), and avoid the onerous spying, difficult to control windows 11 and future versions which I am sure will cripple user control further, and cause more need to buy new computer and peripherals (windows 11 can’t use things like older printers, and other peripherals, so would have to upgrade those as well and then who knows, upgrade again once a new version of windows comes out in the next few years? Seems like windows is in cahoots with peripherals makers, forcing the users to wither stay with outdated windows version, or upgrade everything, even their computer to keep running new windows versions?)
I van stay with windows 7 and the apps I have, but again, more and more apps are now requiring a min of windows 10 to run. I also won’t be able to take advantage of the new ai stuff in things like OnOne, which is an awesome photo suite which has capability of selecting specific subjects like humans, animals, sky, land, buildings, or whatever automatically with awesome selections so that you can adjust just the selected subjects independent from the rest of the photo if needed- I’m sure though that apple would work as well but not sure which path to take at this point. I don’t really need the new tech in the programs, but it sure would be nice, but I’m thinking it just an expensive luxury as I would need to buy new comp and peripherals just to have that tech.
Meant to ping all to above post (I think I just have to put “All” in the ping bar?)