I am so tired of Microsoft Windows

[Irvrobinson]

Also this, my father's high end dell monitor could be considered a reference monitor. I've never seen an apple monitor approach it in quality.

This really has nothing to do with Microsoft, but that's what I was hoping when it was released, because it supported 2560x1440, just like the 27" Apple. The other possibility I didn't think of in my last response is that I may have seen it on a PC that didn't have the right graphics support for it; I don't know. The person I know who has one at home has a very high-end system (i7, top of the line AMD graphics, 64GB of memory, an Intel SSD). I'm sent him an email and I'll see if I can take a peek. He lives near me. Now you guys have me curious.

 

[Rickster71]

I doubt it. Win 8 makes you reinstall everything, and it has compatibility mode in the Pro version, which is why I chose it. Incidentally, the special apps do run just fine. The only downside was that HP didn't provide a Win 8 driver for the SD card port, so I lost that. Like most others I also dislike the Win 8 interface, but I've gotten used to it.

I re-read your earlier post about not having much in the way of anti virus or malware.
Wonder if you caught something? If interested. Here's a few free malware downloads that we've used for several years:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - CNET Download.com
And for general clean up:
CCleaner - CNET Download.com

 

[Irvrobinson]

I've been doing some research and thinking about this... and I found something. There's a memory dump file on the system. Something may be causing Windows to take a memory dump, that would be a good excuse that even I could forgive for locking things up, and it would explain the odd behavior. Hmmm.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I re-read your earlier post about not having much in the way of anti virus or malware.
Wonder if you caught something? If interested. Here's a few free malware downloads that we've used for several years:
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - CNET Download.com
And for general clean up:
CCleaner - CNET Download.com

Heh, heh, I have CCleaner installed, the free scan at least. I was checking on Microsoft's effectiveness after I installed Win 8. CCleaner has no honor, they're one of these companies that reports hundreds of "critical errors" when the worst thing they've really found is a dangling registry entry. Their scans always report no malware. I just ran it because you brought them up, and still no malware. Maybe Microsoft's Defender isn't so lame after all.

 

[avnetguy]

This really has nothing to do with Microsoft, but that's what I was hoping when it was released, because it supported 2560x1440, just like the 27" Apple. The other possibility I didn't think of in my last response is that I may have seen it on a PC that didn't have the right graphics support for it; I don't know. The person I know who has one at home has a very high-end system (i7, top of the line AMD graphics, 64GB of memory, an Intel SSD). I'm sent him an email and I'll see if I can take a peek. He lives near me. Now you guys have me curious.

Sounds like a good idea if you're looking for a monitor like that, check it out at full resolution, IMO it's very nice and still a fair bit cheaper, especially when its on sale. Don't get me wrong though, I think the Apple 27" display is very nice too. Dell also comes with a three year no bright pixel warranty, not sure what Apple's is, probably 1 year. BTW, for a real bargain 27" WQHD monitor check out the Monoprice CrystalPro for ~$400. I haven't seen it in person yet (one friend has it on order, it's always backordered) but many seem happy with the price/performance.

Steve

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Lets get clear distinction between hardware, software and drivers issues. These are completely different issues and OS choice whole another topic...
I had bad and good hardware from all the vendors and one can't just simply say that HP have known issues with batteries. It comes down to series and which ODM made them.
Pretty much 99% chance that ANY PC/MAC you buy today is made in same city in China by one large ODM vendor or another.

Design or QC do affect the final product, but not as much as you think...

Original topic started with complain which I will happily join about Windows and in particular Windows 8 are terrible and got much worse.
This is not a coincidence, but a result of series of bad decisions made by Balmer. Read more here: Microsoft has failed | SemiAccurate
I also highly recommend to read more of related Semi articles. While writer - Charlie Demerjian maybe a bit too harsh, the facts the there.
Just put them together and it will impossible to deny that something really stinky is going on in Microsoft.

I'm not huge Mac believer ether - After Steve Jobs passed away Apple has not developed a single (really) new product. iPhone 5 - barely an improvement - slightly bigger screen and slightly faster cpu?
or iPad mini - smaller ipad with subpar display?

Is there great alternatives? I don't know - Like they say stay tuned - things are still developing, but not in Windows or Mac worlds...

 

[Irvrobinson]

Lets get clear distinction between hardware, software and drivers issues. These are completely different issues and OS choice whole another topic...
I had bad and good hardware from all the vendors and one can't just simply say that HP have known issues with batteries. It comes down to series and which ODM made them.
Pretty much 99% chance that ANY PC/MAC you buy today is made in same city in China by one large ODM vendor or another.

Design or QC do affect the final product, but not as much as you think...

Original topic started with complain which I will happily join about Windows and in particular Windows 8 are terrible and got much worse.
This is not a coincidence, but a result of series of bad decisions made by Balmer. Read more here: Microsoft has failed | SemiAccurate
I also highly recommend to read more of related Semi articles. While writer - Charlie Demerjian maybe a bit too harsh, the facts the there.
Just put them together and it will impossible to deny that something really stinky is going on in Microsoft.

I'm not huge Mac believer ether - After Steve Jobs passed away Apple has not developed a single (really) new product. iPhone 5 - barely an improvement - slightly bigger screen and slightly faster cpu?
or iPad mini - smaller ipad with subpar display?

Is there great alternatives? I don't know - Like they say stay tuned - things are still developing, but not in Windows or Mac worlds...

What does this have to do with the thread's subject?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Finally, I get to use my laptop again. Windows 8 Pro had it locked up for over eight minutes for some unknown reason. This happens episodically, about twice a week. There's no apparent reason, I've checked, or at least tried to. The disk drive is hit at 100% utilization, CPU utilization is between 90 and 100%, and apparently Microsoft's geniuses didn't study process prioritization and multiprogramming in computer science school. Funny, multiprogramming doesn't trip up the spell checker. This sort of thing never happens on the Mac with Mountain Lion I use for work. If I didn't need Windows for some special apps I use I'd ditch the HP laptop for a Mac. Microsoft is lost.

What does this have to do with the thread's subject?

I think I explained above why Windows 8 sucks... Some people went as said they issues with Apple hardware as well and I addressed that too.
You specific issue probably comes to bad programming of the application you using or issue with configuration of it and/or windows. For all I know you might have a trojan of some sorts...

 

[Irvrobinson]

I've confirmed it, Windows was creating a 448MB dump file at the time of the lock-up. I'm not expert enough at Windows administration to figure out what the problem is that caused the dump to be taken, and Windows doesn't appear to have any way to report it. If anyone is better trained than I am I'd appreciate the help.

So for now it looks like I've hit a dead end.

In the process of looking for the root cause, or even a log to read, I did gain more respect for the automatic optimization utilities I found in Win 8. They're very nicely done. I also gained some respect for Defender, because after several months of use, including some occasional use by others (like my wife and children), two different scan products found no malware on the system. I didn't test it by going to some really dangerous sites, but for my purposes Defender seems to work as well as Norton antivirus, which means that Win 8 has a net cost of about zero for the first year, and a net annual gain thereafter. (A friend of mine expert in malware has told me that two classes of web sites are especially risky, illicit file sharing sites and free anime porn sites, if I cared to test system scanners. No comment.) I should also mention, in Microsoft's weak defense for Win 8, it does have the advantage of booting in 30 seconds on my four-year-old dual core Centrino2 machine. On the newer Ultrabooks it looks to be about 15 seconds or less.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'm not an expert on Win8, but I have found some articles which might help you:
Windows 8 PC locks up/hangs - Windows 8 - Windows 8
Windows 8 freezes? Here is a fix -
Windows 8 Pro randomly freezes
Computer Locks Up or Freezes in Windows 8 | HP® Support

I gotta say, since there are so many of these out there, I tend to say that it might Microsoft issue after all...

To add to types of sites your expert friend mentioned - Sites with music lyrics - very often infected with drive-by-infect(just visit) malware

Best defense would to use firefox, Install No-Script add-on and disable all 3rd party plugins like java/flash/adobe - this will ensure 99.9% safety on most "bad" sites

 

[avnetguy]

I've confirmed it, Windows was creating a 448MB dump file at the time of the lock-up. I'm not expert enough at Windows administration to figure out what the problem is that caused the dump to be taken, and Windows doesn't appear to have any way to report it. If anyone is better trained than I am I'd appreciate the help.

So for now it looks like I've hit a dead end.

In the process of looking for the root cause, or even a log to read, I did gain more respect for the automatic optimization utilities I found in Win 8. They're very nicely done. I also gained some respect for Defender, because after several months of use, including some occasional use by others (like my wife and children), two different scan products found no malware on the system. I didn't test it by going to some really dangerous sites, but for my purposes Defender seems to work as well as Norton antivirus, which means that Win 8 has a net cost of about zero for the first year, and a net annual gain thereafter. (A friend of mine expert in malware has told me that two classes of web sites are especially risky, illicit file sharing sites and free anime porn sites, if I cared to test system scanners. No comment.) I should also mention, in Microsoft's weak defense for Win 8, it does have the advantage of booting in 30 seconds on my four-year-old dual core Centrino2 machine. On the newer Ultrabooks it looks to be about 15 seconds or less.

Might want to look at a program called "whocrashed", a quick google search turned it up.
Also take a peek at the Admin Tools -> Event Viewer, sometimes shows problems that come up.

Steve

Steve

 

[Irvrobinson]

I saw the Dell monitor on my friend's system yesterday. By chance they also have a one generation behind 27" Mac AIO in the house, and we compared them side by side.

The Dell is a pretty nice piece. It's not as stylish as the Apple, which is better looking IMO and just feels expensive. Judging the displays was not as straightforward as one would guess. The Dell has an antiglare coating and the Apple doesn't, and this could be affecting the perception of the display. The colors on the Apple appeared to be somewhat more saturated, and the screen was brighter. The specs for the Apple say it's about 10% brighter. My takeaway was that if you weren't looking at the displays side by side you would say they were equal.

If you have glare issues they are not equal. The Apple can be a PITA for glare. It looks elegant being so glossy, and I'm sure the lack of a coating increases best-case brightness and perceived resolution, but my friend says he prefers looking at the Dell. He also likes the fact that the Dell doesn't have the bright aluminum strip at the bottom, which he finds distracting. The Dell also goes for about $600, which is $399 less than the Apple. In my case I use the Apple AIO, so that's sort of irrelevant, but for a Windows monitor the Dell is clearly the one to have.

So it would appear that when I saw the 27" Dell the first time something wasn't optimal at all.

As an aside, his desktop system is amazing. I hadn't seen one of the latest i7-3970 CPUs in action before. It's massive overkill. Running multiple Photoshop and Framemaker sessions (that's part of what he does for a living) it is completely instantaneous. Of course it has 12 hardware threads. He uses the best Radeon graphics (I can't remember the model number) and twin Intel SSDs. These Adobe products are such CPU and memory hogs, but on this thing they ran like a simple word processor and photo viewer. He also runs Win 7, which I'm becoming nostalgic for. He also has Audioengine A5 speakers and a little 12" Velodyne sub on this system, and when he demo'd the Avatar Blueray on it I was damned impressed. With a system like that I might never leave the computer.

 

[lsiberian]

I'm not running antivirus software at the moment, only what Win 8 provides, Windows Defender. Yeah, I know that's probably not enough, but I've been lazy. I had Norton and McAfee with Vista, and I liked Norton better.

As for Microsoft hiring the world's best software engineers, give me a break. I like their development tools too, but their applications and operating systems leave a lot to be desired in some pretty basic ways. Even in enterprise they get their doors blown off in virtualization, databases, file systems, networking... the list is long. For the size of their R&D budget I'm not impressed. One would think that at least in the PC OS market they would have technological dominance. They don't.

And if they are so awesome in basic OS kernel development, why the hell is my laptop doing what it does? With dual cores, an application, even a driver, should never regularly dominate the system. There's just no excuse. It's dumb.

Windows Defender actually does a good job. You have to remember Windows is really old software and the best engineers in the world can't fix everything in it. I work with legacy code and it is pure hell. Luckily I get to throw most of it away, but that's a rare case in software.

Apple has just as many issues as Windows in my experience. I mean they bricked my iPhone with an update. Software is a hard business and as things get more complex it gets even harder.

One recommendation I have is to take it easy on the Russian sites.

That said I'm sure I could fix windows for the right price.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Windows Defender actually does a good job. You have to remember Windows is really old software and the best engineers in the world can't fix everything in it. I work with legacy code and it is pure hell. Luckily I get to throw most of it away, but that's a rare case in software.

Apple has just as many issues as Windows in my experience. I mean they bricked my iPhone with an update. Software is a hard business and as things get more complex it gets even harder.

One recommendation I have is to take it easy on the Russian sites.

That said I'm sure I could fix windows for the right price.

I have gained respect for Defender now that I've seen how clean my system is. As for Mountain Lion having as many problems as Win 8, no way. I used to be a Windows bigot myself, but my Apple AIO has been flawless for a year now and Win 8 has been mostly a PITA.

IOS is a different story, it's a little flaky. Every once in a while I have to reboot my iPhone to get it working right, and I like the bigger screens of the Galaxy phones. I still like the IOS interface better than Android, but Apple has also had me do how many 40 min full-image OS updates so far this year? Three?

 

[jinjuku]

I've messed around with Windows 8 in the past. Now have a full time laptop (w/ touch screen) in the house for about two weeks. I can unequivocally say Windows 8 UI sucks balz. It's too much work to get to common items. Classic Shell here I come.

 

[lsiberian]

I've messed around with Windows 8 in the past. Now have a full time laptop (w/ touch screen) in the house for about two weeks. I can unequivocally say Windows 8 UI sucks balz. It's too much work to get to common items. Classic Shell here I come.

I prefer it personally, but I'm weird. Apparently QA engineers are a major gap in software right now and most companies aren't giving them enough premium to fill that gap.

 

[jinjuku]

All I know is that in Win7: Start button>Shutdown> All reasonable options are there: Restart/Hibernate-Sleep/Log off/Shut Down/Switch User.

Win8? slam the mouse pointer to the corner for charms, then settings and then not so many options. Switch user? top right corner now, click on avatar.

You guys know I'm a software dev. My specialty? UI.

Program Groups in Win8 is a joke and totally inefficient. It looks like three crosseyed hunters pulled on the same turkey with pellet shot. Just BLAM everything is splattered across the start menu. No cascading/collapsing directories. Uhg No wonder M$ stock shot up 7% on Steve Ballmers retirement announcement.

 

[lsiberian]

All I know is that in Win7: Start button>Shutdown> All reasonable options are there: Restart/Hibernate-Sleep/Log off/Shut Down/Switch User.

Win8? slam the mouse pointer to the corner for charms, then settings and then not so many options. Switch user? top right corner now, click on avatar.

You guys know I'm a software dev. My specialty? UI.

Program Groups in Win8 is a joke and totally inefficient. It looks like three crosseyed hunters pulled on the same turkey with pellet shot. Just BLAM everything is splattered across the start menu. No cascading/collapsing directories. Uhg No wonder M$ stock shot up 7% on Steve Ballmers retirement announcement.

I'm a Software guy too and I love new challenges so that's probably why I enjoy the interface. They have something you can install to get the start menu. Taskmgr is really messed up though.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I'm a Software guy too and I love new challenges so that's probably why I enjoy the interface.

No, I think you got it right in your previous post, you're just weird.

 

[GranteedEV]

I refuse to use windows 8 but i have three different computers running windows 7 and another running Linux Mint. I would never use a mac.