June 13, 2019 at 9:08 pm
I'm stuck on Windows 7 on my home laptop. Windows 10 can't install due to an incompatibility which MS says the hardware vendor should fix but the hardware vendor says MS should fix. There's nothing wrong with my laptop and to be honest I have no particular desire to either buy a new one or move to Windows 10. Meanwhile, Windows Update regularly tries and fails to install Windows 10 and every so often I clean up the C drive by removing the bloated logs which the futile update attempts leave behind.
I'd like to think that with such a large proportion of users staying on Windows 7, MS will have to come up with a better solution. If not, mine is likely to involve Linux.
June 14, 2019 at 7:01 am
First, I have two internal drives, with my DATA directory backed up to the second. Then I have a NAS device also with two 1TB internal drives that I also do backups to. I usually run my backups evenings while I watch a movie. My last employer keeps me on their bulk license for Office and SQL Server, so those aren't a problem. It's a retirement benefit you might want to negotiate also. I buy my own Windows as wanted/needed. Yes, I do have a honkin' ASUS laptop that did in fact have a drink spilled in it, but not by my 100 # Golden, who stays on the floor. I have a replacement keyboard ready but not installed yet.
I'd assert that quite a lot of people won't get licenses as a retirement benefit and thus my original cost thing still makes sense. Plus you said mentioned intependance, but your old employer could void your license at any time.
If you had flood damage or worse - your house burnt down - you pictures, files and music would be far from your mind to start with but eventually you might want them back. But in those scenarios your 2nd internal drive and NAS has just been wiped out, so you've lost everything. Thus my original statement of if you haven't got an offsite backup you haven't got a backup still stands. Local backups are just there for when the internet is down and you need to get them.
June 14, 2019 at 7:11 am
I suppose my Windows experience was a little different than Steve's, I actually liked Windows 98 second edition better than Windows 95 as long as I turned off all the web integration crap, and stuck with that for the longest time until it wasn't supported. I moved to Windows XP with the extra services turned off so it actually looked and worked like Windows 2000. I stuck with that until it was no longer supported then went to Windows 7. I have to agree with those that have said there's too much crap installed with Windows by default, and it took many hours to stop and remove crap from Windows 10 once I upgraded from Windows 7. What would be ideal is if they could either come up with a rolling release like some Linux distributions do or greatly simplify how upgrades are performed. Fortunately I was able to continue using my 3 Linux computers while rebuilding my 1 Windows computer. 🙂
Have you been on the Win10 feedback hub app and suggested your idea/preferences for change?
Microsoft do listen to what you send via feedback hub. I've had responses to my feedback where they have made changes. Plus Microsoft is becoming much more open - SQL Server on Linux? That was an MS-announces-SQL-Server-on-Linux April fool joke several years ago (possibly even from this site) but now it's a reality. Their primary dev framework - .NET is now OSS as are a lot of other frameworks and tools, Visual Studio Code, Azure Data Studio etc...
With Win10 pre-installed apps - previously some of them could not be uninstalled, now virtually all of them can be uninstalled. Thus it's moving towards what you are asking for. Yes some times for things that we are personally annoyed by these changes can come too slowly but they do come. See the windows updates refinements over the years.
In the tech press and other places we get told mobile OSs are taking over as more people use there smartphones and tablets and that desktop is dead. People upgrade those OSs all the time but yet have a problem upgrading their desktop OS? That seems kinda weird to me.
I'm sure there is some sysadmin out there who has written a powershell script that will uninstall all the unwanted apps and turn off various services and perhaps they have shared that. One you have such a script it becomes virtual zero effort to clean up stuff that you don't want, you simply run the script after booting and then go about your business and it'll be gone after a couple of minutes.
June 14, 2019 at 7:21 am
I'm stuck on Windows 7 on my home laptop. Windows 10 can't install due to an incompatibility which MS says the hardware vendor should fix but the hardware vendor says MS should fix. There's nothing wrong with my laptop and to be honest I have no particular desire to either buy a new one or move to Windows 10. Meanwhile, Windows Update regularly tries and fails to install Windows 10 and every so often I clean up the C drive by removing the bloated logs which the futile update attempts leave behind. I'd like to think that with such a large proportion of users staying on Windows 7, MS will have to come up with a better solution. If not, mine is likely to involve Linux.
Have you been to any MS forums to report the issue and ask for a solution?
At the end of the day Windows 7 goes completely end of life Jan 2020, so you've got roughly 7 months of security updates left after which point all malicious parties with exploits they've been sitting on are likely to crawl out of the wood work.
Given it's a laptop I'm going to say that the incompatibility is a one of a driver. Which is 100% down to the laptop manufacture to fix. Of course they are going to blame MS because they know that people love to hate on MS due to some shady dealings in their past. But laptop makers (like some Android phone makers) are notorious for abandoning there products a few years after release because they want you to buy a new laptop. This is why custom built desktops are always better if you have the space because they use commodity parts where driver availability for newer versions of Windows go way beyond what you'd see for a laptop.
June 14, 2019 at 2:37 pm
Right at the moment I don't have off-site backup. I'm in the process of moving to reside across the street from our youngest son. He and I will be swapping off-site backups for my data and his business records. This reminds me of back in the early 70's when I was responsible for a 24-hour shop, we did backups while folks were on lunch break because processing was heavier overnight, and I carried five or six reels of magnetic tapes home every night, all data, source code, and OS . The company was not very concerned with backups, but I did it anyway. Later on we swapped storage with a nearby business. Usually kept six days of them plus archived month-end copies also.
Now with Windows and laptops/desktops, I normally make multiple verified copies of everything before, including all software installs in one place so I can rebuild easily. Sometimes this is simply to a shared drive on another machine, but it is always conveniently available so I don't have to go looking through storage for installs and risk getting the wrong versions
With my personal financial data, which includes 33 years worth of backups, I have archived copies from before and immediately after each new version, This always includes copies of data files which get modified during the upgrade, so it can be rerun if needed.
Maybe I suffer OCD? But I don't believe I've lost any data in decades. Even back in the days of my 24-hour shop when folks were doing manual data entry from 400-500 hand-written product orders daily, we always kept the hard-copy orders for a month before destroying them.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
June 14, 2019 at 2:55 pm
julie.woolner wrote:I'm stuck on Windows 7 on my home laptop. Windows 10 can't install due to an incompatibility which MS says the hardware vendor should fix but the hardware vendor says MS should fix. There's nothing wrong with my laptop and to be honest I have no particular desire to either buy a new one or move to Windows 10. Meanwhile, Windows Update regularly tries and fails to install Windows 10 and every so often I clean up the C drive by removing the bloated logs which the futile update attempts leave behind. I'd like to think that with such a large proportion of users staying on Windows 7, MS will have to come up with a better solution. If not, mine is likely to involve Linux.
Have you been to any MS forums to report the issue and ask for a solution? At the end of the day Windows 7 goes completely end of life Jan 2020, so you've got roughly 7 months of security updates left after which point all malicious parties with exploits they've been sitting on are likely to crawl out of the wood work. Given it's a laptop I'm going to say that the incompatibility is a one of a driver. Which is 100% down to the laptop manufacture to fix. Of course they are going to blame MS because they know that people love to hate on MS due to some shady dealings in their past. But laptop makers (like some Android phone makers) are notorious for abandoning there products a few years after release because they want you to buy a new laptop. This is why custom built desktops are always better if you have the space because they use commodity parts where driver availability for newer versions of Windows go way beyond what you'd see for a laptop.
I ran into the same problem this past winter trying to upgrade an aging tower machine that was perfectly good. Drivers weren't available for some of the hardware, so it had to be trashed. I still have two good desktops left from a home business that are waiting to be checked if they can be salvaged. So far I've thrown away three.
I do miss the days when you could get a large tower machine with seven or eight card slots and half a dozen internal disk bays. Those babys lasted for ever, but now the motherboard technology is all newer, so they became worthless. But overall, my laptop is lots more powerful and is a real workhorse.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
June 14, 2019 at 3:05 pm
I upgraded by current machine not because I had to but simply because I wanted to. If I hadn't of done that I'd still be on a 2010 machine, and from the specs' it had I could have upgraded it to Windows 10 without issue.
At the end of the day there are lots of things we use a lot for long periods of times (washers/driers/dishwashers etc...) but we still replace them eventually when the cost is to great to keep them going. Time is money, not just actual money.
In my eyes replacing a machine every 5-10 years should not be entirely unexpected and not seen as a ZOMG get off my lawn type of thing. If you are just doing email, web, office the cost of a half decent machine for 5 years use would be something like £80 a year (if it were new), add on light gaming and roughly £120 a year. When you think of how much use you get out of it compared to other things you buy that are quite expensive but use not even half as much then it boils down to a monthly cost of peanuts.
June 14, 2019 at 5:00 pm
I ran into the same problem this past winter trying to upgrade an aging tower machine that was perfectly good. Drivers weren't available for some of the hardware, so it had to be trashed. I still have two good desktops left from a home business that are waiting to be checked if they can be salvaged. So far I've thrown away three. I do miss the days when you could get a large tower machine with seven or eight card slots and half a dozen internal disk bays. Those babys lasted for ever, but now the motherboard technology is all newer, so they became worthless. But overall, my laptop is lots more powerful and is a real workhorse.
Years and years ago (late 90's) I just got sick of buying completely new boxes all the time and invested in a couple of good tower cases, and have done my own hardware as well as software upgrades. I found it better to buy my own case that I built into, I've tried rebuilding brand name tower cases and they usually have some non-standard parts and sizes in them. The only new case I bought was a couple of years ago when I built a low powered small form factor computer with an ITX motherboard.
June 16, 2019 at 7:52 pm
julie.woolner wrote:I'm stuck on Windows 7 on my home laptop. Windows 10 can't install due to an incompatibility which MS says the hardware vendor should fix but the hardware vendor says MS should fix. There's nothing wrong with my laptop and to be honest I have no particular desire to either buy a new one or move to Windows 10. Meanwhile, Windows Update regularly tries and fails to install Windows 10 and every so often I clean up the C drive by removing the bloated logs which the futile update attempts leave behind. I'd like to think that with such a large proportion of users staying on Windows 7, MS will have to come up with a better solution. If not, mine is likely to involve Linux.
Have you been to any MS forums to report the issue and ask for a solution?
No need, others had been there before me and been given a runaround and no solution. The incompatibility is known to be driver-related. MS is partly culpable IMO because their compatibility check fails to detect the driver issue despite multiple reports of it for this particular make and model of laptop. MS had the chance to update their check to reflect this and evidently chose not to. The laptop manufacturer had the chance to amend their driver and chose not to. I may well choose to part company with Windows once Win 7 support ceases. Life is full of choices.
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