December Patch Tuesday is out

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As usual, Martin Brinkmann has an excellent detailed list on ghacks.net: Windows 7: 2 vulnerabilities of which 2 are rated important Windows 8.1: 2 vu
[See the full post at: December Patch Tuesday is out]

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OscarCP, SueW, Tiernan, HiFlyer, JDeC, Elly, AJNorth

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Group B patches have been updated on AKB2000003.

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ryegrass, SueW, HiFlyer, JDeC, wdburt1, David F, The Surfing Pensioner, Elly, zero2dash, AJNorth, woody

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KB4054521, the Win 7 Dec 2017 Security Only Quality Update, is a mere 1.38 MB; imagine that!

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KB4054518, the Security Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 (x64), is 204.9MB. This check was done on a PC which gets the Rollup each month. The only difference listed between the Security Only Update and the full Rollup is the additional: “Addresses issue where users of SQL Server Reporting Services may not be able to use the scrollbar in a drop-down list.” Over 200MB for a scrollbar issue? Surely that’s not all.

 

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The monthly Rollup is CUMULATIVE. It contains not only Dec patches, but everything going back to October 2016 when all this started. Eventually it will be a Service Pack 2 (not by that name).

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Tiernan, HiFlyer, BobbyB, Schnarph, AJNorth

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I was under the mistaken impression that if using Windows Update, a cumulative update would only be what was needed since the last cumulative update, i.e. not the same size download for computers months apart since last updated. Silly me, MS isn’t going to make custom KBs. Getting only what is needed is the group B approach. I stopped paying attention to KB file sizes since using WSUS-offline for updates.

I’m just kinda surprised a years worth of updates is only 205MB, but not at all surprised MS makes everyone in “group A” re-download over 90% of the same thing from last month, every month. Eventually this could get very out of hand. Just imagine if MS bundled everything since service pack 1, and everyone was downloading a new version of service pack 2 every month. Since there is no official SP2, group A is essentially downloading a new version of SP3 every month. No wonder MS forces full version upgrades for Windows 10.

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I think what MS is trying to do is incorporate all the old patches into the Rollup and supersede them with same. So essentially, there will be no old individual patches – they will all be superseded with the Rollup.

Then they will try to update Win7 and Win8.1 like they are trying to do Win10 – with differential updating (only the parts you don’t have are downloaded).

At that time, a clean install will be easier. Win7 (or Win8.1), then Service Packs (even if they don’e call them that), then everything since.

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HiFlyer

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I think what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020. As such, my impression is that they abandoned the idea of the big roll-up as this would take many hours of labour for a product which is slowly dying. By the way, I don’t like what I have just said, but all facts indicate this outcome.
A lot of people on this lounge are idealistic and either don’t know how to read between the lines or even worse, ignore the reality, but the truth is that the only feasible options for the future are either to move on with the times and adopt Windows 10, 1607 CBB Enterprise or Pro (stay away from Home Editions, which is the same advice from Windows 7 and 8) or whatever is the LTSB equivalent of the day seems to be the safest choice, or move away from Windows.
Windows 8.1 has never really taken off, but it has the huge advantage of being the desktop version of what is currently the gold standard of Microsoft Server OS, Windows 2012 R2.
Even so, it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a full rollup, Windows 10 style. KB3000850 (November 2014) was likely the last one, although I would like to see the full rollups made available for Windows 7 and 8 and their servers equivalents.
People, get real, Windows 10 adoption is accelerating and if you don’t have access to any other info, follow Woody. Woody does not write great books about Windows 7 in 2017, but for Windows 10. Or take the alternative advice from Woody, which is to give a go to Chrome Books.
For those not stuck into work commitments with Windows and who have the financial resources, Apple products are by far the gold standard of the personal computing.
however, don’t expect them to be perfect, because they are not.

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walker, Bill C., BobbyB, JohnW, HiFlyer

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Don’t like Apple hardware (I’d give OSX/MacOS a try if they decided to sell it as a standalone, but their hardware… way too few choices).  Don’t like Windows 10.  Don’t like Google… anything.

Only one option for me.  Fortunately, it’s working out pretty well!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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I’m mulling over the idea of trying Chromebooks come 2020. I enjoy mulling over my options. And, in 24 months’ time, there are likely to be even more options. No point spoiling what I’ve got now because it won’t last forever. I wonder what will be happening to Windows 10 in 24 months’ time?

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JDeC, SueW, Noel Carboni

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Ascaris,

Mac hardware limitations, as far as I am aware of them, is in their progressive lack of ports diversity as successive models come out, which means one has, particularly with the latest laptops, to use Thunderbolt-to-whatever dongles for those things Windows PCs come with the ports factory-installed: USB, HDMI, etc.
This is the result of the peculiar Apple culture of being “supremely cool” inherited from Steve Jobs.
It is more of a problem with laptops than desktops, as one can have dongles plugged in all the time on a desktop, where they are less of a bother, as one does not usually carry a desktop around all the time.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Trying this again… Every now and then I forget to CTRL-A, CTRL-C before hitting submit, and that all too often results in a post lost in the ether if something goes wrong.  And now it decided to insert a bunch of visible HTML tags!

Oscar, it’s more than Apple’s recent fondness for dongles that has prompted one writer at another tech site to declare that Apple is now a dongle company that also sells computers.  With Apple, there are a handful of laptop models from which to choose, all within Apple’s design parameters of the moment.  With “Windows” PCs, the sky is the limit!  There are thin and light, semi-disposable laptops, but there are also thicker traditional models that can be disassembled with just a screwdriver, and that have socketed CPUs and RAM.  There are some that still feature replaceable batteries, and still others with swappable batteries.  There are some with clickpads, and there are some with touchpads with discrete buttons.  There are some where function takes a backseat to styling, perhaps skipping on ventilation to keep things looking pretty, and then there are others that are cheaper looking with their plastic cladding, but with enough cooling to keep the thing from melting itself even under the demands of whatever gaming the unit can handle.  Not to mention, of course, that there are models with high-end discrete GPUs that can handle gaming.  Whatever a person considers the ideal laptop, it’s probably out there somewhere.  Even in this “thin and light” era, there are traditional laptops out there that are right up my alley… but not from Apple.

Apple doesn’t have anything remotely approaching that kind of selection of hardware.  It’s only one manufacturer, of course, while in the PC market, there are a ton of them, but that’s not all of it either.  Asus, Acer, Lenovo, HP, and other PC makers each have a laptop product line that dwarfs that of Apple.

It’s even worse with desktops.  I’ve owned a ton of desktop PCs over the years, but I have never bought one.  Not as what anyone would call a PC, anyway.  I’ve built all the desktops I’ve owned since my first in 1990.  In the late 90s, when the rate of hardware advancement (and obsolescence) was incredibly rapid, I was able to keep up by buying a part cheap, using it a few months, then selling it as a slightly used part or building it into a slightly used PC (which I would then sell), and I generally got back what I had paid for the used parts when they were new.

Those days are over, but the lesson hasn’t been forgotten.  I don’t think of a PC as a unit; to me, it’s a collection of parts that are more or less temporarily attached to one another.  The idea of buying a ready-built PC and accepting it as such may be a necessary evil with laptops, but desktops?  I couldn’t even imagine buying premade.

I agonized over my selection of a power supply, a trivial component to most people, but I pored over ripple specifications, cross-load voltages, hold-up times, capacitor specifications, efficiency, fan types, modularity, as well as the ever important OEM (I went Seasonic, though Super Flower would also have been acceptable).  I do the same with cases, motherboards, RAM, and all the other components, and even the most customizable made-to-order PCs don’t have anything close to the granularity you have when every component in existence is on the table.

Premade PCs, by contrast, just seem so limited.  That’s especially so given Apple’s tendency to try to be so stylish that things end up just being weird, like their trashcan-styled Mac Pro.  For a “Pro” PC, I would want it to be at least as customizable and configurable as what I have, but Apple chose to make it look like a wastebasket instead of making it useful, or at least as useful as it could have been.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Bill C.

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I am a Windows 7 fan.  I am an iOS fan.  I am a Linux fan.  I am very intrigued by MacOS.

I built 2 Win7Pro PCs to get the hardware I wanted.  I would fully consider an iMac 27″ with an i7 CPU and a mid to upper level graphics card capable of gaming.

I have found the iMac 27s are configurable to a degree, and the descriptions tell of various options, but finding that info on the Apple site is impossible without initating a chat session to get the super-secret links and urls to actually see what can be done and what it costs.

Apple products are not a panacea, but from my iPhone and iPad experiences, I am suitably impressed to consider a purchase.  What would really make me jump is for Apple to offer a package of the MacOS, and authorized components to create a BIY item at a lower cost.  But since Apple’s revenue is driven by the concepts of newest, costliest, and coolest, that will probably be seen only when Microsoft offers the Windows 10 LTSB Privacy Edition for sale to individuals.

And yes, I do know that proprietary has its costs.  I am willing to pay the Apple tax for certain items, but I have limits.

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Elly

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ch100 wrote:

the truth is that the only feasible options for the future are either to move on with the times and adopt Windows 10, 1607 CBB Enterprise or Pro

If we speak about an average home user, Win 7 & 8.1 are fire & forget systems. Just install, set to auto update and keep doing your work. I’ve never encountered any serious problems with both of them. Windows 10, on the other hand, is changing constantly, from version to version, from patch to patch or from one forced install to another. It’s an (almost) everyday struggle to keep it running the way USER (not MS) wants.

Don’t know how it looks in large enterprises, but I’ll be staying away from W10 at home for as long as possible.

Fractal Design Pop Air * Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 750W * ASUS TUF GAMING B560M-PLUS * Intel Core i9-11900K * 4 x 8 GB G.Skill Aegis DDR4 3600 MHz CL16 * ASRock RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC * XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB * SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB * Samsung EVO 840 250GB * DVD RW Lite-ON iHAS 124 * Windows 10 Pro 22H2 64-bit Insider * Windows 11 Pro Beta Insider

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HiFlyer, Elly, OscarCP, SueW, Cybertooth

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Absolutely.  For my Great Aunt Martha (who is myself nowadays) every change of the UI is a major learning effort.

On that topic (whic is admittedly OT for this thread), I don’t like the Quantum UI of Firefox v57, even after tweaking it a lot, because the “home page” button is now far left nor far right.  That takes me several seconds to find, every single time.  And the disappearing “favorite history” down-arrow in the address bar infuriates me.

Yup, this is a rant:  MVP please move to “rants” or delete entirely !!!

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There is a “hamburger” pulldown menu on the far right of the bar at the top of FF57. Choose “Customize.” You can drag “Home” anywhere you want. Click on download button and unhide it. Drag and drop any button from the bottom to the bar, drag any one you don’t want in the bar down. At the bottom of the window – check boxes to add menu bar, theme, etc.

You have choices!!!

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walker, HiFlyer, Bill C., JDeC

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@PKCano, thank you for your advice regarding the Firefox Home button position.  I had tried to drag it about (itself) but the magic ingredient is to use Hamburger | Customise, and then drag it.  I fear the my Great Aunt Martha wouldn’t cope with that (but, I repeat, my sincere thanks to you).

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That`s me  Group A,  Win 7 x64, home premium.  Put on automatic  Dec. updates  no problems so far.

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A friend of mine has developed an intense hatred for Windows 10. He told me that last week Windows 10 rebooted itself to install some Windows Updates even though he had (or thought that he had) set it not to do that to him. As a result, several open e-mails that he was working on were lost.

And then yesterday he went to create his regular Windows 7-style system image, and was no longer able to do that: there’s some error about failing to get “an exclusive lock on the EFI system portion”. We tried uninstalling one of last week’s forced updates but that didn’t solve the problem. And the other update cannot be uninstalled (there is no Uninstall option in the Installed Updates interface).

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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@CH100, You’re sounding there like the guy who says to get the latest Iphone, just because.

My existing one does everything I want it to, and still works fine, just like my PC. Why would I change that and possibly lose features, or put up with more BS, just to get “the latest”? I’m COMPLETELY happy with what I have, AND don’t have to put up with all MS’ c*** either.

The only real point I think is that security may be a problem after 2020. I’m hoping that by then, the OS market will be a different landscape.

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Elly

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There must be some unwritten law of the Internet that periodically we have to rehash everything, as if the opening proposition had not already been rebutted.  I guess this is why in the scholarly world citations to the Internet are looked upon as evanescent at best.

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@ch100:

Thanks for your always well stated and enlightening, if sometimes unpopular or controversial comments.  I have found some I did not like, but I have to admit they were always deserving of careful consideration due to your expertise and experience and I have adopted many because they made sense.

I believe your comment is a good capsulization of the situation with the Windows universe – like it or not.  Especially your use at the end of the term PERSONAL computing.  For personal use, we are all free to choose.

I am retired now, so the corporate decisions are now moot.  As I will not be assimilated by the MS Borg, I will move to Apple and Linux, with the ratios of adoption being determined over the new 2 years by my needs.  I have never met anyone who bought a Mac and hated it (except the Apple tax price of entry) and I like my Apple products – tax or not.

I also like Linux, but then I also drove a SAAB for a number of years, so eccentricities are sometimes fun and always a learning experience.  Either way, with the SAAB, I had a picup truck backup and with a Linux PC, I would have an iPad backup and hopefully my old ancient, by then EOL, Win7-64 Pro machine I now type on.

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HiFlyer, Elly

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Bill C. wrote:
“@ch100:
Thanks for your always well stated and enlightening, if sometimes unpopular or controversial comments. I have found some I did not like, but I have to admit they were always deserving of careful consideration”

+1

Although I don’t always agree with his posts, they’re required reading for me – thanks ch100.

Also, re his above post: although many of us aren’t yet ready to fully accept his conclusion, I fear over the next couple of years most of us will come to realize the wisdom (and prescience) of his post.

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Not much on the lists… and the Windows Defender update system has not been fixed until now either, and updates fail on all Windows versions.

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No critical updates this month either? Maybe Windows has ran out of exploits?

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They claim the 1703 patch fixes the unwanted upgrade to 1709 for 10 Pro…we’ll see about that.
Coincidentally, that also explains why my 1703 machines didn’t upgrade to 1709 when everyone else’s did – I’m running Enterprise now, since they’ve neutered Pro.

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HiFlyer

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KB 894199 page always listed patch tuesday Cumulative Updates

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GACK! You’re right! I was looking for 1709 cumulative updates, and this is the first one.

D’oh. I just deleted my remark from the main post. Thanks!

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No worries

BTW, there’s KB article about SSU for Win10 1709, but the update not yet available
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4057247/servicing-stack-update-for-windows-10-version-1709-december-12-2017

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woody

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Well, the article is change now to be “Reliability update for upgrading..”
so it’s just a dynamic update for upgrading

1 user thanked author for this post.

woody

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Weird. And there’s a redirect from the old site to the new one.

I wonder what the difference is, really, between a “Reliability update for upgrading” and a Servicing Stack Update. They both seem to focus on the same problem. I think.

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I don’t have this month’s updates listed on my computers yet, they tend to appear on or after Patch+1 Wednesday for me in the UK.

(Edited to recover from my mistake. -Woody)

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PKCano

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Funny thing about stereotypes. Fooled a lot of people for a long time by not correcting misconceptions!

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Seff, Elly, AJNorth

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Oh, I guessed right months ago, I’m afraid. A person who gets things done efficiently without a lot of bluster………………………..has to be an MVP extraordinaire, methought.

(Edited to correct my blunder! -Woody)

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PKCano

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Oh, No!
I sent @Woody an email saying he blew my cover. 
He thought I was serious so, he cut out all the references.
It’s no secret, I just never removed the Mr. when it showed up.

Surprise @Seff !! and sorry for the misunderstanding @Woody!!

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woody

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Mea culpa, mea culpa!

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Nothing new here Aunt Martha.  Just the usual updates.  MSRT checked.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

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Updates!!??  I’m running Win7 Pro, and I still get the error that I can’t get updates (No code, just says restart) — ie, part of the recent date failure issue from MS.

Is there an update on how to get around this issue apart from resetting the clock back?

Thx

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The easiest way is
Go to Windows Update\Change settings
In the pulldown menu choose “Never check for updates” and click “OK”
Shut Windows Update
Reopen Windows Update\Change settings
In the pulldown menu choose “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install” and ckick OK

There are other methods here

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Thank you PKCano  !!!   Quick resolve & installing now & get to keep history – no removing files.  Happy New Year

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so it’s not just me then? half of the pc’s in the office came up with this all of a sudden. two days ago the update was working fine. now it doesn’t. but then why only on half of the machines? all are the same win7 x64 pro.

deleting the softwaredistribution folder fixes this but then all the update history is gone as if wu never been run.

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Microsoft allowed a file to expire that authorizes Microsoft Update on Win7. It is replaced the first time WU scans. Deleting the software distribution folder causes it ti scan, but the easier way is to change the settings.

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Wait, updates for 1511? I thought it was end of life in October…

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Thanks PK.  Just after I posted my remaining in the “updates still broken” category, I found your older post and that of others on AskWoody, and that is what I did.  Viola!  It’s back!!

I want to thank Woody, you, and the other regulars here.  AskWoody is indispensable for anyone with a Windows OS.

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woody

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Interesting tweet from Yuhong Bao:

https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/940692607658688513

As I suspected, the Dec update for Win7 still has the same SSE2 problem with msexcl40.dll.

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Microsoft disables DDE in all supported editions of Word.

Security Advisory ADV170021 | Microsoft Office Defense in Depth Update

Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Office that provides enhanced security as a defense-in-depth measure. The update disables the Dynamic Update Exchange protocol (DDE) in all supported editions of Microsoft Word.

Note that the mitigations listed in the advisory will not disable DDE, but will disable auto-update for any linked fields, including DDE.

Looks like all of this month’s Office security patches turn off DDE. Also note that the Security Advisory lists a security patch for Word 2007, which is no longer supported.

Odd that they block DDE in Word, but not in other Office programs.

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ch100, MrBrian

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woody wrote:

Odd that they block DDE in Word, but not in other Office programs.

On the one hand they could be trying to minimize the disruption to people’s old software, which is a Good Thing, but on the other hand disabling it in just one place makes it possible for Microsoft and Windows Update to be “indispensable” once more by having to patch Office all over again when an Excel exploit gets into the wild, then another time for Powerpoint or whatever…

To be fair, Word is the default Outlook editor. EMails open automatically into Word. There could be a combo there that’s fairly easy to exploit.

-Noel

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Bill C., JDeC, woody

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Is there a good reason why the MS Office & Word’s Dec 2017 security patches are so bloated in filesize — assuming that their only function is to disable DDE by changing a few registry values (which can also be done manually in less than 5 minutes) ?

Do users get to play a simple “Whack Those Darned Microsoft Bugs” game or something, while the patch changes the registry values ?

For instance …
KB 4011612: MS Office 2010 (32-bit) =   9.5 MB
KB 4011614: MS Word 2010 (32-bit) = 26.7 MB

 

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“Odd that they block DDE in Word, but not in other Office programs.”

But this link shows you how to block DDE in other Office applications.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securityadvisories/2017/4053440

Update: I don’t seem to have any of the registry keys quoted in the advisory. Hmmm.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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woody

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So for those who went ahead with updates (just did a clean install / testing system / nothing to loose, etc..):

Where is the update to flash player? Seem to still be on the outdated version 27 with no sign of an update.

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You’ll find the links for downloading the Flash Player updates from Adobe in AKB1000002

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This is all I saw with Win 7 (my virtual test system without Office):

An Adobe update WAS there, however, for Win 8.1:

-Noel

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Bill C., JDeC, SueW

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(was original poster)
System in question was windows 10(1709). No flash player update, still on version 27.

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Anonymous,
If you were to follow Woody’s link to Ghacks in his posting in the “Home” page of Askwoody, and click there on the link to the MS page for the Adobe Flash Player update, now you will probably find there the updates to version 28 for Windows 8.1 and 10.
It also says there that for “older versions” (i.e for Windows 7) one has to get the update directly from Adobe itself.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Noel Carboni

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That was all I had under Wion7-64 Pro SP1, also.  I did have an older nVidia graphics driver, but hid that as I only update video drivers through the nVidia site.

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Noel Carboni

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Does anyone know what the difference is between a “cumulative update” and a “dynamic cumulative update” in WSUS?

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I’ll guess that the difference is that a dynamic cumulative update can be injected as part of a dynamic update process.

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No difference in the content, both are identical
it’s just different distribution categories

CU tagged as Dynamic Update can be downloaded and installed during upgrade process
while regular CU is delivered through Windows Update after installation

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mniehaus/2017/09/30/using-dynamic-update-with-wsus-to-install-windows-10-feature-updates/

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HiFlyer, SueW

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A dynamic cumulative update is expected to be distributed in non-setup situations also, correct?

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walker

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Yes

before 1709, only few CU were tagged as Dynamic Update
apparently with 1709, it will be each patch tuesday CU

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woody, MrBrian

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The phrase “dynamic cumulative update” first appears in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/894199/software-update-services-and-windows-server-update-services-changes-in for some June 13, 2017 updates. Since that time, “dynamic cumulative update” has been used at least once for every version of Windows 10.

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walker

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Well somehow all that bruhaha that happened around the beginning of the month where MS forgot to renew the expiry date or whatever….. well that just crept up on me. I had updated the Security updates for both Win7 and Win8.1 when the go ahead was given for the November patching. And everything was working without any drama. But after reading the comments and your article Woody I went to have a look and see what MS had offered me. But I couldn’t get in, even after rebooting.
So went looking – as I had read fleetingly about it when current. So anyway long and short my expiry date was still the 3rd December and this is the 13th December…… so MS hadn’t caught up or done anything for me. Reading up on the fixes……. I really didn’t feel like doing complicated things……. and I hit upon the one of changing the date. Having done that – still remained – but
changing the options for which way to receive the updates did. But of course reverted back to
check but ask me when to download….. and also changed the date back to now. And it still remained.

I would really like to say if MS is listening……….. are you listening MS???….. This is not good at all….. what on earth are you playing at. Our lives are full enough without having to
trouble shoot your boo boos….. And what’s more I hear alot of my friends who are on Windows10 are having diabolical problems with things you are throwing at them. So don’t think I’m going to join them! LT

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
– Peter F. Drucker
Something for MS to think about!!!!!

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HiFlyer, wdburt1, Elly

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Windows 7 has all the installed updates.

Nothing hurled. Computer boots. And the sun came up this morning.

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HiFlyer, JDeC, woody

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Yeah, but that was only because you had your tin-foil hat on!

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Noel Carboni wrote:

This is all I saw with Win 7 (my virtual test system without Office):

<snipped screenshots>

An Adobe update WAS there, however, for Win 8.1:  -Noel

Which is what would be expected, as Flash support isn’t embedded in Windows 7, which means a separate visit to Adobe for the update (if you don’t have auto-update enabled for it).

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Noel Carboni

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According to feedback from user Bored on 13 Dec 2017 wrt Win 7 x64 over at Ghacks …

Installing Dec 2017’s Security Only Update (KB 4054521) apparently resulted in an “Error 1603: A fatal error occurred during installation”. The outcome was a wrecked network connection. User was forced to reinstate system from a backup.

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HiFlyer, JDeC, SueW, amraybt

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radosuaf wrote:

Don’t know how it looks in large enterprises, but I’ll be staying away from W10 at home for as long as possible.

It does not look either better or worse than any other previous OS.

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I understood that W10 (for home users especially) ramped up the snooping to ridiculous levels and that control of updates is severely limited. That sounds a lot worse than my W7.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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HiFlyer, SueW, Cybertooth, Alice, Elly

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Believe me it is worse, I just did a clean install of 10(1709, microsoft official ISO) and the OS broke twice (cortana stopped working, IE vanished and could not be restored) — this was all before the first connection to the internet.

I was eventually able to get it working (thanks to two system restores — turned off by default) and I was able to convince it not to install random drivers (the drivers Dell provided work just fine thank you), and to not send any of my start menu searches to bing to be indexed for marketing purposes.

Now I’m just waiting for microsoft to issue flashplayer 28 for windows 10(1709) to patch a critical vulnerability.

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This is the third time I’ve left the link for you.

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=4053577

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ch100 wrote:

It does not look either better or worse than any other previous OS.

What is worse?

1. No control over updates.

2. Microsoft installs whatever they want (Candry Crush, Asphalt, March of Empires etc…)

3. There are two (three/four) parallel interfaces with Control Panel & Settings being the most obvious example.

4. The OS displays ads.

5. Serious scaling issues (Lenovo T460S + Pro Dock + Lenovo Full HD monitor).

6. Constant changes in interface.

7. Most useless Start menu ever.

8. Need to uninstall apps using PowerShell (we’re back to MS-DOS times, in Windows 95 you could do it via GUI, I’ not sure about Win 3.1).

9. Backup solution being currently cut out (“deprecated”), WMA being cut out.

10. New version every 6 months, each with potential driver problems for your hardware.

 

What is better?

1. Installation looks nicer on UEFI systems (but so does W8.1 installation)

2. Security (supposedly).

3. Action Center is quite nice.

 

That’s like 3:10…

Fractal Design Pop Air * Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 750W * ASUS TUF GAMING B560M-PLUS * Intel Core i9-11900K * 4 x 8 GB G.Skill Aegis DDR4 3600 MHz CL16 * ASRock RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC * XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB * SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB * Samsung EVO 840 250GB * DVD RW Lite-ON iHAS 124 * Windows 10 Pro 22H2 64-bit Insider * Windows 11 Pro Beta Insider

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HiFlyer, PerthMike, Cybertooth, Alice

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I’d be interested to see @ch100’s comments on that list.

As for security, I have stopped pointing out each patch day that Windows 10 has more security  vulnerabilities than Windows 7 because it got boring repeating myself and I thought I might get accused of ranting!

Seriously, as we get ever closer to January 2020 this sort of comparison/appraisal is going to be increasingly important as there are a lot of Windows 7 users who will either need to be persuaded that Windows 10 is a sensible upgrade option or else they will simply tough it out security-wise with an OS in Windows 7 that is working pretty flawlessly for them (apart from the updates which will cease to be an issue)!

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Is there a [reasonably easy] way to still get the November Win7 roll-up patch? Successfully patched a test box a few days ago, but got busy and didn’t look at patching until today.. Too late?

They only box that notifies me of updates..but doesn’t automatically install them shows only the December patch…too risky.

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If you want the rollup (as opposed to the security only), google KB4048957. You should get a link to the MS catalog for this patch and also a link to the MS support page which in turn will have a link to the catalog (I’ve personally found this later link to the catalog more reliable). Then download the patch and install it.

The security only patch is KB4048960 which you can get the same way.

There are also links here on askwoody for these patches, I just don’t remember where exactly.

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MrToad28

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If you HIDE the December Rollup temporarily, the Nov Rollup will show back up. Install it, reboot, then unhide the Dec Rollup – Oh, and be sure Win Update is on “Never search” or “let me choose whether to download and install” BEFORE you start.

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MrToad28, woody

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ch100 wrote:

I think what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020. As such, my impression is that they abandoned the idea of the big roll-up as this would take many hours of labour for a product which is slowly dying. By the way, I don’t like what I have just said, but all facts indicate this outcome. A lot of people on this lounge are idealistic and either don’t know how to read between the lines or even worse, ignore the reality, but the truth is that the only feasible options for the future are either to move on with the times and adopt Windows 10, 1607 CBB Enterprise or Pro (stay away from Home Editions, which is the same advice from Windows 7 and 8) or whatever is the LTSB equivalent of the day seems to be the safest choice, or move away from Windows. Windows 8.1 has never really taken off, but it has the huge advantage of being the desktop version of what is currently the gold standard of Microsoft Server OS, Windows 2012 R2. Even so, it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a full rollup, Windows 10 style. KB3000850 (November 2014) was likely the last one, although I would like to see the full rollups made available for Windows 7 and 8 and their servers equivalents. People, get real, Windows 10 adoption is accelerating and if you don’t have access to any other info, follow Woody. Woody does not write great books about Windows 7 in 2017, but for Windows 10. Or take the alternative advice from Woody, which is to give a go to Chrome Books. For those not stuck into work commitments with Windows and who have the financial resources, Apple products are by far the gold standard of the personal computing. however, don’t expect them to be perfect, because they are not.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the replies in this thread, but I think you made a few broad assumptions. I am making one myself, you talkin’ to me?

I am one of millions with an extremely “metered” satellite ISP, max 250KBps, 450MB/day, 1,000ms ping (if we’re lucky), 3 Windows 7 computers with one dual boot Win10. Clouds real or web based are bad for us, syncing is ridiculous so Chrome is a no-go. I don’t fear Win10, but I have to run it via wireless hotspot when online. I fear potential Win10 forced upgrades: https://www.askwoody.com/2017/microsoft-confirms-that-win10-1703-users-are-being-upgraded-without-warning-to-1709/

As for Mac, I don’t see how that would make any difference apart from spending a few thousand to replace working hardware when I would personally rather go back to a Linux GUI again. The potential loss of compatible software would be the same, the learning curve for the seniors here about the same. Going incrementally from Windows 3.1 up to Windows 7 wasn’t a big deal, but the Windows 10 update/upgrade procedure is near impossible on similar metered ISPs.

 

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HiFlyer

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From ICS [Internet Connection Sharing] doesn’t work after computer or service restart on Windows 10:

“Applies to: Windows 10 version 1709, Windows 10 Version 1703, Windows 10 Version 1607

[…]

This solution is currently available only in Windows 10 Version 1709 with update KB 4054517 installed.

To fix this issue, set the following registry subkey:”

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HiFlyer

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ch100 wrote:

I think what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020.

By “self-assumed”, I read marketed-promise-now-contractually – obligated.

ch100 wrote:

People, get real, Windows 10 adoption is accelerating and if you don’t have access to any other info, follow Woody. Woody does not write great books about Windows 7 in 2017, but for Windows 10.

This is largely because another Win7 book at this point would be redundant. The last one is still relevant. For updated information, this website makes an excellent addendum. But I believe the WinX book will be very profitable. Especially if there is a new market created every six months.

Microsoft is not abandoning Win7… yet. I don’t believe anyone here is ignorant or deluded on the timeline involved. But many of us have seen both options currently available, and have a clear preference on what we prefer to use, while we can. At the same time, prepare to make a change in the time allowed. Some are still hoping Microsoft will come to their senses with regards to QA testing and slowing the life-cycle of WinX. What we want does not have to be Win7, but we would like it to be as stable as Win7 has been. If Microsoft cannot comply with those goals, then each user will chose the system that best meets their needs. Most here can decide for themselves their own requirements.

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Steve, HiFlyer, Seff, Noel Carboni, SueW, The Surfing Pensioner, Elly, Alice

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Reading @Noel Carboni below, I am reminded that I have used ‘stable’ loosely. Noel describes WinX as stable in the durable sense, that it does not crash in normal use. Maybe I mean enduring or lasting. What Noel is more descriptive of when he describes the moving target nature, then itemizes how that affects different aspects of predictable use.

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Noel Carboni

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ch100 wrote:

It does not look either better or worse than any other previous OS.

Any? I’d label it as worse than all but a few, myself.

I might go so far as to say that utility is reduced by comparison to every system in recent history, but for the first time ever this trend is not led by technical failings, but by faulty Microsoft policies.

Based on a fair bit of effort spent trying to set it up to get work out of it, I’d say that the OS when configured to be at its very best is actually worse in many ways than many previous versions, similarly treated. It’s reasonably stable, but that’s because Microsoft isn’t trying to improve the internals so much as just hang stuff all over it. 100+ processes for an empty desktop? Puhleease.

• Service-pack level, reinstallation-required, mandatory updates every 6 months instead of 3x that long. Who can learn to use – let alone write software for – such a moving target?
  
• Cumulative updates that take a gigabyte of download and can’t be told to exclude the bad parts. And there are always bad parts when the company has no testing organization.
  
• Using the public as alpha and beta testers. Sounds great unless you’re one of them. And when you’re NOT one of them you need parts to work that the public testers don’t care about.
  
• Underdocumented, information-free error messages such as “Something Happened” and “:(” instead of detailed descriptions of failures. Too geeky is always better than too dumbed-down.
  
• Insistance that “mobile is it”, putting all the eggs in that basket when it has NEVER been what Microsoft is good at, and especially since giving up on phones. Then doubling-down again and again.
  
• Long-standing 3rd party developers of the extensions and accessories that made Windows usable are slowly just giving up on it, being worn down by Microsoft’s insistence that no one else must be allowed to do “systemy” things.
  
• Apps! A “store” that after years is still stuffed with garbage!
  
• Last I looked, “the most secure Windows ever” has as many vulnerabilities as – or more than – any prior version.
  
• Glued-together, throwaway tablets to run a throwaway OS.
  

The policies of its maker are both directly and indirectly degrading it as time marches on. In simpler times folks like Hans Christian Andersen created fables about such things to try to teach people that what’s real is real and what’s not is unsustainable.

Microsoft has brought this on themselves. And they need to correct it to remain successful. Marketing without substance is doomed to fail.

-Noel

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Steve, HiFlyer, JDeC, Seff, SueW, Sessh, The Surfing Pensioner, Ascaris, Elly, Alice, Cascadian, Cybertooth, Schnarph

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ch100 wrote;
I think what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020.

Most Win 7 users who have paid $$$ to M$ for their Win 7 licenses, especially Win 7 Enterprise users, expect M$ to fulfill their terms of license sales by maintaining Win 7 until its EOL in 2020, as published on M$’s website.
… Didn’t M$ did that for Win 95, Win 98, Win XP and Win Vista.?

Seems, ch100 is saying that M$ have the right to stop maintaining Win 7 today or earlier, ie M$ are not obligated to maintain Win 7 until M$’s self-published EOL for Win 7 in Jan 2020. I bet many Enterprises using Win 7 Ent will be suing M$ if M$ do as ch100 suggested.
… Imagine M$ feeling not obligated to patch Win 7 machines for the revealed Wannacry/SMBv1 vulnerability in March 2017.
.
.

As such, my impression is that they abandoned the idea of the big roll-up as this would take many hours of labour for a product which is slowly dying. By the way, I don’t like what I have just said, but all facts indicate this outcome.

Starting with the aggressive GWX KB3035583 campaign against Win 7/8.1 users, I think M$ have been out to deprecate Win 7 by weaponizing Windows Update to be like a malware, in order to push Win 7/8.1 users onto Win 10. Eg the processor-blocking update in the April 2017 Patch Rollup that blocked Win 7/8.1 machines running the latest Intel Kabylake or AMD Ryzen processors from receiving anymore monthly Patch Rollups.
… That was likely the main reason M$ introduced compulsory monthly Patch Rollups for Win 7/8.1 in Oct 2016, and before that, for the 2015-released Win 10. Eg recently, machines running Intel Atom Clover Trail processors have been blocked by M$ from being upgraded from Win 10 1607 to Win 10 1703.

Likely, hidden Telemetry updates have also been included in the monthly Patch Rollups.

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HiFlyer, Bill C., Noel Carboni, SueW

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Let us not forget that Microsoft made those “self assumed” promises of support to get people to buy into a Windows 7 system that wasn’t even close to finished at release time.

Note the huge number of patches it’s required over the last 8 years, with a couple hundred megabytes of patches out just this month!

Thing is, the current Windows 10 version is no more finished, but because of Microsoft’s policy changes, now it CAN’T be finished. Nor are they any longer promising to support it for a long time into the future.

Basically, “buy into our junkware now without our promise to make it right”.

How is it that business people aren’t sensing this fundamental problem and just refusing to send Microsoft more money until they clean up their act?

-Noel

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HiFlyer, SueW, Elly

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Anonymous wrote:
“Seems, ch100 is saying that M$ have the right to stop maintaining Win 7 today or earlier, ie M$ are not obligated to maintain Win 7 until M$’s self-published EOL for Win 7 in Jan 2020. I bet many Enterprises using Win 7 Ent will be suing M$ if M$ do as ch100 suggested.”

Dude, that’s not what he said.
He did not say “M$ have the right to stop maintaining Win 7 today or earlier”. And he did not suggest “M$ are not obligated to maintain Win 7 until M$’s self-published EOL for Win 7 in Jan 2020”.

He said, quite clearly, that he thinks “what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020”. And his statement seems pretty accurate to me.

(As Paul noted above, feel free to read “self-assumed obligation” as “marketed-promise-now-contractually-obligated” or something similar, and see if maybe that helps you grok his point.)

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Reply;

Anonymous wrote:
“Seems, ch100 is saying that M$ have the right to stop maintaining Win 7 today or earlier, ie M$ are not obligated to maintain Win 7 until M$’s self-published EOL (End Of Life) for Win 7 in Jan 2020. I bet many Enterprises using Win 7 Ent will be suing M$ if M$ do as ch100 suggested.”

Dude, that’s not what he said.
He did not say “M$ have the right to stop maintaining Win 7 today or earlier”. And he did not suggest “M$ are not obligated to maintain Win 7 until M$’s self-published EOL for Win 7 in Jan 2020”.

He said, quite clearly, that he thinks “what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020”. And his statement seems pretty accurate to me.

ch100’s statement seems pretty inaccurate to me since it’s quite self-explanatory .

Maybe, he thinks it is justified for M$ to abandon Win 7 and not keep it alive until Jan 2020 because Win 7 users should already be on Win 10 since there is still the free upgrade offer and “free” upgrades through Win 7 Ent’s Software Assurance.

FYI, most corporations who were leasing Win 7 Ent Volume Licenses(= at lower upfront costs) together with the mandatory 3-year-term Software Assurance(or Upgrade Insurance) are already running leased Win 10 Ent VL through “free” upgrades.
… Most of their IT Admins would want others to join and “suffer” with them on Win 10 Ent. “Misery loves company”. Maybe, the IT Admins fear the failure of Win 10, ending up like Win 10 Mobile.

OTOH, most corporations who have bought Win 7 Ent VL without Software Assurance(= higher upfront costs), eg bought in 2009, are still running Win 7 Ent and likely until its EOL in 2020 = to save costs.

Also, many consumers prefer Win 7/8.1/8.0 over Win 10 for various reasons.

Hence, after more than 2 years since the release of Win 10 on 29 July 2015, about 60% of the world’s desktop OS are still running Win 7/8.x.

Edit to remove content

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Anonymous wrote:
“ch100’s statement seems pretty inaccurate to me since it’s quite self-explanatory.
Maybe, he thinks it is justified for M$ to abandon Win 7 and not keep it alive until Jan 2020 …”

Ooops, you did it again.

As previously mentioned, ch100 said in his post that he thinks “what is actually happening is that Microsoft has largely abandoned Windows 7 and keeps it alive only out of self-assumed obligation to maintain it until January 2020”.

He did not say anywhere in his post that he thinks “it is justified for M$ to abandon Win 7 and not keep it alive until Jan 2020”.

In other words, maybe he thinks what you think he thinks… or maybe he doesn’t think what you think he thinks. I don’t know, and neither do you, ’cause that’s not what he said.

And that’s all I’m sayin’.

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People arguing that PC users should consider other options than Windows, be it Linux, Apple or Chromebook etc need to remember that a great number of PC users are gamers for whom such things are simply not an option. For those Windows 7 users at least, the choice in 2020 will be between upgrading to either Windows 8.1 or 10, or sticking with an unsupported Windows 7. They have no other option.

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If, by Gamer, you mean someone using games on Steam… there are more and more games on Steam for Linux. Right now, the more games played on Linux, the more money game developers can make by developing for Linux. They will follow the money. Get with friends and start playing Linux games together. Their quality and diversity will improve as more and more Gamers use them.

Personally, I like GOG (Good Old Games) that can be played off line and without DRM. By buying those, I am supporting their development. GOG has games for Windows, and Linux.

Maybe your current favorite game isn’t available for Linux, but if users migrate to operating systems that are customizable, don’t force you to update, and don’t phone home constantly, the developers will go to where they are… and the quality and quantity will grow. There are many games available, right now, that are sensitive to the values of privacy and use of alternative operating systems.

Check out: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2363780/software-games/linux-gaming-rising-7-big-name-pc-games-that-now-call-linux-home.html

So…. gaming doesn’t have to be why you would stay with Windows…

Just saying…

 

 

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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Cascadian, Bill C.

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Actually gaming is a very valid reason for staying with Windows. MMORPGs are entirely dependent on it, along with other game genres, as are most other games including through the platforms you mention. If you seriously think that anyone is going to abandon a whole raft of games they have played as their mainstream hobby )with established friends and guildmates) for years just to switch OS in the hope that some of those game developers will follow them then think on, it simply isn’t going to happen.

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Elly, Cascadian

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That puts gamers in the same boat as everyone else who is happy with their legacy programs and want to continue using them.

Microsoft is showing us the future, by abandoning the legacy programs, apps and software and hardware. I believe them… they want to condition users to buying/renting their OS and software and doing it only their way… but I am simply pointing out that you don’t have to be stuck with them as your only choice. They are forcing a choice with the end of service of operating systems that have worked well, and no longer offering viable alternatives. In the long run they haven’t shown themselves ethical or working in this customer’s interest, so no matter how good the ‘fix’ (games, 3-D, virtual reality) they have eliminated themselves from accessing my pocket book.

No one seriously wants to abandon the programs that work for them… thus many people plan to run their current OS after the end of life. It works, and works with what they have.

Look beyond the marketing hype… newer processors will not run legacy OS… and older ones are being eliminated (lots of computers out there cannot run W10, or are being done in by updates, after having upgraded)… your current games will need to be ported to other systems in the long run, because whatever you are using now, is changing.

I’m old, slow, and non-techy, but find myself exploring what is available, and what will be available through my computer and on-line. I’m not an expert in any of this. Being old, I’m not having to keep up with business changes, and look more to leisure and personal uses… and I enjoy games. My kids tease me, but when my real world mobility is limited, it feels great to get out and explore anywhere.. and computer games open up worlds to me. So I don’t want to abandon them, either.

Many older popular games have been ported to and supported in Linux. Steam, Humble Bundle, and GOG are adding more and more Linux titles all the time. It looks very much like it is viable and expanding. So… as Windows is forcing the end of life issues, do I want to invest in their vision of sucking me dry month after month with ever changing subscriptions, need for their chosen current hardware, and end of life at their whim? I don’t. So I am suggesting investing games for operating systems that have a history of supporting and working on old hardware, with programs I have already invested in, that I don’t rent, and that don’t include telemetry.

Gamers are passionate about their games, and I’m not suggesting I/they stop that. Facing a forced choice in the reasonably near future, I’m personally not going to stay with Windows. It just doesn’t meet my  minimum standard of what I want and need. I was relieved to find that gaming is alive and well, and improving, all the time, on Linux. It isn’t ‘the same’ as on Windows. It is getting better all the time and will have a longer life- if the current way Microsoft is operating continues.

Problem is, there isn’t one ‘go to’ choice for the next few years… but what individuals buy into, or don’t buy into, will shape the market. One vote here, that’s all. But I’m voting with my wallet, based on my values, not on what goodies are being flashed in front of me or pushed down the mandatory update chute.

Its nice to have choices… I’ll support choice over the ‘fastest and most secure’, anytime… and it really does have to be relatively accessable to a non-techy. I am learning all the time, but tech is like a foreign language with a translation dictionary with pages missing, for me… and AskWoody is like turning to bilingual native speakers for help… Thank you!

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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Bill C., Cascadian, DrBonzo

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Well said Elly. We have all been put in the position of being forced to make choices and perhaps changes. I’ve chosen to go iMAC and Unix, but I realize my choices may not be right for everyone, or anyone, for that matter. But I will no longer support MS in any way, shape, or form. That’s a shame because I really do like Win 7. So far, though, I haven’t found it that difficult to make the transition to MacOS or Ubuntu. As many have noted, Apple stuff “just works” and Ubuntu is great for old hardware, although I don’t personally find it terribly user friendly; I have a heck of a time with peripherals. For both platforms, there’s some new terminology to learn, but I suspect that after I “train” my eyes, mouse hand, etc. to find my way around the operating system, that it will all seem as familiar to me as Windows. I think Windows seems so comfortable just because I’ve been using it ever since Windows 3.1, and my eyes, hands, etc have been suitably trained.

Anyway, good luck to everybody as you adapt to whatever the coming years bring!

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Elly said;
Right now, the more games played on Linux, the more money game developers can make by developing for Linux. They will follow the money. Get with friends and start playing Linux games together. Their quality and diversity will improve as more and more Gamers use them.

Game developers for the top games are actually following the money by developing for Windows and MacOS only, which is about 97%(= 90% + 7%, respectively) of the world desktop OS market. For them, it is not cost-effective to develop for Linux, which has a miniscule about 2% world marketshare = very few Linux gamer-friends.
… Similarly, M$ Windows-Phone/Mobile eventually failed because of its miniscule world marketshare of less than 2% = lack of apps in Windows Store. The main reason for the miniscule world marketshare was because M$ came on to the mobile smartphone market a few years too late = “the early bird gets the worm”.

So, unless Linux developers raise their game to be like Google or M$, they will forever be the fringe gaming platform, eg adopt the business model of offering free software for ad revenue or getting revenue from software license sales = able to employ many full-time staff to develop Linux OS into one that has wide mass market appeal, ie is very user-friendly even for computer dummies, well-supported by 3rd-party software developers and hardware device OEMs(in terms of drivers).

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Elly, Cascadian

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You might check your games… if you buy them on Steam, many (25% overall, but 40% of the top 10) already work with Linux… bundled games often come suitable to use on more than one OS… you might be surprised at how many you already have, that work on… Linux.

 

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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DrBonzo

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For Seff and anonymous,

And these reasons mean Gamers have a different set of requirements they must satisfy for themselves when they make their own choice on how to replace Win7. It is not prescience to see that this replacement will become necessary. Microsoft has been making it painfully obvious starting three years ago. That is a lot of lead time. There are many makers providing many products. Your requirements are your own. I suggest, but make no declaration nor ridicule others, you and others find the best fit for your requirements among the products available. And Windows 10 is among those. There is also the opportunity to join with a development team if that appeals to you.

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Elly, Seff

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That’s true, Paul, at least in respect of gamers making their own decisions on how best to replace  – or retain – Windows 7. There’s certainly plenty of time still for Windows 10 to become a satisfactory option for more users, but at the moment many may consider an unsupported Windows 7 to be a better (and perhaps more secure not least in terms of privacy) product than a supported Windows 10 – market share updates certainly don’t show a really significant move towards Windows 10 yet, and a lot of users were similarly unwilling to move on from XP when it first ceased to be supported.

Personally, I’m keeping a watching brief on all this, but the only point I am keen to get across on a technical site like this excellent one is that changing to a different OS entirely isn’t an option for many people, nor is it likely to be in 2020. It will be interesting to see how MS react if nearer that deadline Windows 7 still holds a major share of the market. Will they really be able to withhold support from say 30-40% of devices?

In the meantime I have now been offered this month’s updates on my two Windows 7 x64 home desktops, but will not of course be touching them until well after Christmas when their reliability becomes a little clearer and the Defcon rating has changed.

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Cascadian, SueW

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anonymous wrote:

@pkcano, thank you for your advice regarding the Firefox Home button position. I had tried to drag it about (itself) but the magic ingredient is to use Hamburger | Customise, and then drag it. I fear the my Great Aunt Martha wouldn’t cope with that (but, I repeat, my sincere thanks to you).

Also to keep or backup your settings, or move it to another machine with Firefox, click Help, Troubleshooting Information, Select Profile Folder and click Open Folder.  Close Firefox and move up ONE level to the Profiles Folder and copy the entire folder that contains the data to a thumbdrive or backup directory.  This contains YOUR setttings, extensions, bookmarks, exclusions, security and privacy settings.

This makes moving or reinstalling it easy without manually resetting everything.  You just move the CONTENTS of the uniquely named profile folder to the default folder of the new install.  The profiles directory resides in different locations depending on OS, but the contents are the same.  See Firefox help from the OS you are copying from and the OS you are copying to for the small differences.

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SueW

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Two points only vaguely related to the topic here, but there seems to be no other place more appropriate at Woody’s for them right now:

(1) The new “Quantum” version of Firefox, touted by Mozilla as “lightening fast”, has been, both initially and now, after one update already, amazingly slow to connect to anything on the Internet, in my PC, while Waterfox, Chrome and EI-11 are as fast as usual, which is to say: fast enough for me.

I wonder if anyone else here has noted the same strange phenomenon

(2) Someone has expressed concern about compatibility issues between applications when moving from Windows PCs to Mac ones.

I have both, and my experience so far has been unremarkable: my Word, Excel, Power Point files open equally well and can be edited, interchangeably, in both Windows and Mac machines, as Macs can run MS Office 2016 (for Macs). Plain ASCII files (“.txt, “.dat”, etc.), are equally readable and editable in both. PDF files, ditto. Working with the Command Lines of Cygnus (a Linux emulation for  Windows) and of Mac OS (a version of Unix), pretty much the same as well. Except for Internet Explorer, the other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Waterfox) work equally well in both OS. This is compatibility enough for my own purposes, which do not include gaming, but are mostly about software development, emailing, video conferencing, streaming high-rate data for real-time analysis, and streaming video for fun.

 

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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SueW

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Libre Office is a good substitute for the Office Word, Excel and PP. And it runs well on a Mac.

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Group A,  win 7 SP1, Home premium.  Took the Dec.  updates.  No problems so far.

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PKCano,

Can one look, create and edit PowerPoint, Excel and Word files with LibreOffice?

I have been curious about free software like that for a while and believe it is worth knowing the answer, and not just because of the “Mac or Windows PC?” question, but because I often get copies of PowerPoint presentations made by colleagues or need to make my own, sometimes must file forms in the form of Excel spreadsheets reporting, for example, the hours I bill, write some papers, reports and proposals with Word and send them to others who expect them to be made with Word, or get copies of those of others prepared in the same way — and there are many like me in this situation out there.

 

 

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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@ OscarCP:

I saw you question and am offering my limited experience and testing from a few years ago and from the newer version a year ago.  The answer is yes – but with some caveats and YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), however from the older test to the recent ones compatibility improved greatly.

In Writer/Word, MS macros are still sometimes problematic and some minor formatting issues may appear.  You need to test both ways, MS application to Libre, and Libre to MS.  You also need to create a file in one, save it, open it in the other, save it and then try it back in the program that initially created it.  Saving in older version may mitigate an issue.  Writer/Word was for me the easiest.

From my tests with Office 2010, Excel Spreadsheet usually can be opened in Calc unless they are heavily macroed.  Even then they may open, but the macros may not work.  (saving in an Excel 2007 format makes it more compatible).  Simple spreadsheets are OK unless you have lots of linked spreadsheets feeding the main one.  A Calc created spreadsheet will generally open in Excel with only minor formating issues as long as it was saved in the MS format.  I did not test with pivot tables or for graph generation.  Calc can read .xlsx files created with Microsoft Office for Windows and macOS.

Impress/Powerpoint are usually compatible with maybe a minor formatting issue as long as the Impress file is saved in the MS format.  I have not tried Impress with videos, music or other than photos embedded.  Impress/Powerpoint was easy for me.

I know a number of longtime Libre users, but do not know what they do with each program. I was using Libre Writer for generating input to word documents and not creating final product.  I did use Impress in live presentation and no one ever notifed the difference.  I also provided existing Impress presentations saved in hte PPT format that were subsequently revised or updated by a new person in Powerpoint and never heard any issues.

PKCano probably has much broader experience since for me I was only trying to duplicate activities I did at work with a non-ribbon interface and was not exploring the more advanced aspects, especially in Excel/Calc.  I also had the luxury of always confirming compatibility with my copy of Office before I emailed the documents.

Good Luck

 

PS:  the new Firefox is very fast on my Win7-64Pro machines and my LInux machines.  I see a marked improvement from FF55 to the FF57 versions on all levels.

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OscarCP, Cascadian

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Thank you, BillC and PKCano for answering my question as to how compatible are Windows Office and LibreOffice. I find your answers very informative, as they make clearer the meaning of the terse and rather vague statement in the LibreOffice Web site that it is “compatible” with MS Office.

As to Firefox “Quantum”: it runs very slowly in my Windows 7 Pro, SP1, x64 laptop with an 2 GHz Intel I-7 quad CPU, 8 GB central memory and 750 GB hard disk, ca. 2011; but runs normally (I wouldn’t put it any stronger than that) in my Mac PowerBook 2015 with 16GB memory, 2.5 GHz Intel I-7 quad processor and 1 TB SSD hard disk running OS Sierra, where it is not noticeably faster, or slower, than Waterfox, Chrome or Safari.

I use Firefox for checking my email at a Government Laboratory, visit Web sites of professional and work-related interest, Woody’s among the latter, search the Internet with Google and stream video from Netflix, Amazon and such. Am not sure that those activities are the ones where the speed of the browser necessarily shines the most.

But enough already, I suspect, with these two off-topic issues.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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We are off topic here, so I’ll make this brief.
Libre Office is a good substitute for MS Office (there are several other suites also).
Some caveats:
MS doesn’t embed fonts unless you specify (makes the saved file larger). Therefore, the fonts may change when opened in Libre Office. Workaround – pick the same default in both.
Save as default format in LO is .odf – change default to Word 97-2003 (.doc) or MS Work 2007-2013 XML (.docx). Same for Excel and Power point.
But in general, LO does a pretty good job as a (free) substitute.

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OscarCP, Cascadian, Bill C.

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From Update for Windows Server 2008: December 14, 2017 (KB4057709): “This update addresses an issue that prevents some Epson SIDM (dot matrix) and TM (POS) printers from printing on x86-based and x64-based systems.”

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walker, woody

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“Feature Pack” or “Delta Update” ?

Downloaded the December 2017 KB4053579 Delta Update for 1607 x64 from the MS Update Catalog, and was surprised that the standalone MS installer’s confirmation dialog labels the package to be installed as a “Feature Pack” — which is certainly wrong, this KB is a security update, not a pack adding new features.   Did others see a similar label when doing a manual update for December?

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Just released January 9th, 2018:

January 8, 2018—KB4056895 (Monthly Rollup)
Applies to: Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
Improvements and fixes

This security update includes improvements and fixes that were a part of update KB4054519 (released December 12, 2017) and addresses the following issues:
* Security updates to Windows Kernel, Windows Datacenter Networking, Windows Graphics, and Internet Explorer.

With 3 known issues

 
January 9, 2018—KB4056894 (Monthly Rollup)
Applies to: Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Improvements and fixes

This security update includes improvements and fixes that were a part of update KB4054518 (released December 12, 2017) and addresses the following issues:
* Security updates to Windows SMB Server, Windows Kernel, Microsoft Graphics Component, Internet Explorer, and Windows Graphics.

With 2 known issues

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DrBonzo

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