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I have been in this same sinking boat for a long time, and have yet to find anything as comfortable and usable as the G700 series.  I’ve collected four of them over the years, and intend to do everything I can to keep them working.

I’ve picked up a couple of deals on more modern gaming mice with large amounts of buttons, but nothing beats the layout on the G700 series for number of buttons, and layout.  It’s my go-to design for CAD work.

I wish Logitech would revisit the design and introduce a true successor, because nothing in their current lineup comes close.  That particular mouse has built up a rather dedicated following over the years, with collectors gradually driving the prices on any remaining stock to insane levels.

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GeeBeeDee, Didjey

So, all other nonsense and garbage aside, I’m actually really happy to see them finally bring back that calendar interface for the “date modified” search option.  I always found having to remember (or look up) the exact syntax annoying, and having to manually type the date range has never felt as efficient as just being able to click and drag a selection of the calendar.

I know other file explorer apps would probably make that much better, but I’m stuck with using whatever our IT approves, so having the default return definitely feels like a positive to me.

 

This is nothing new, the GPedit settings have always been a giant pile of double-speak word salad.

To disable something you have to enable the setting that is named “disable (thing you want to disable).”

I guess they’re just trying to be incredibly explicit?  But it’s a mess to follow.

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WCHS

It’s funny that you start out describing the experience of installing Service Pack 2 for XP, because that was the point I stopped trusting Windows to install anything correctly on its own.  It was also the last time I used any form of Windows System Restore.

When it first came out, I did the in-place update for SP2.  Huge mistake.  Immediately upon completion, every Microsoft-branded program would immediately bluescreen my computer.  Office, Works, even Microsoft Flight Simulator.  It was all dead in the water.

So, I bought a secondary internal drive, backed everything up to it, and then did a fresh install.  The internal drive was my second huge mistake.  I should have used an external.  Upon reinstall, I began restoring my files, and hit a weird snag where a driver didn’t install correctly.  No big deal, I restored the system back an hour.  Except the System Restore had an aneurism, and decided that my secondary internal drive was a potential cause of the problem.  It then systematically deleted every single .exe, .bat, .dll, .cfg, etc. from the drive.  At the time, this drive contained every single piece of media and graphics work I had been working on for the past few years.  The only thing that prevented me from having a nervous breakdown was that it didn’t delete media files like images, audio, and video, which was what my work consisted of.

To this day, I do not know what happened.  I spent four hours on the phone with Microsoft techs being shuffled between departments trying to diagnose the issue, ending with a top level tech whose only answer was to completely deny that what had happened was possible, at which point I screamed into the phone and hung up.

Fast-forward to the modern day, and we seem to have just accepted the in-place upgrade as the recommended best practice.  That idea still makes my brain scream.  Since that XP disaster, my “upgrade” process mutated into a yearly full back-up and fresh install of Windows, at which point I would install that year’s worth of updates.  Updating a fresh install seemed to be the only way to stop it from breaking things (or at least make it a quick process to reformat if it failed).

At least, that’s what I did through Win7.  At this point?  I’ve just decided that whatever version of Windows my computer comes with, that is what it will die on, unless there is such a catastrophic failure that I need a fresh install.  If it comes out of the box in a working configuration, I would rather not mess with it.  The insane churn of terrible new features, broken drivers, and retrogressed functionality has made the risk of an outdated system feel much less severe than the risk of installing all of the new garbage.  I keep an eye out for critical vulnerability updates, and other severe things of that nature, but I want Microsoft to stop mucking with Windows, and leave me a computer that functions consistently.

It’s interesting to consider, in retrospect. I got my first computer in high school, in 2001.  Over the last two decades, the overwhelming majority of problems I have had with Windows computers were all caused by trying to update Windows.

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Beth40, geekdom

This is one thing that has absolutely infuriated me about Win10 for some time now.  I forget exactly when this was broken, but I believe the drop-down calendar interface for selecting a date range to search in disappeared in 1909.

You can still search by date modified, but the clickable options in the window are limited to specific options like “Today”, “Yesterday”, “Last Week”, etc, which may or may not be helpful.

To search within specific dates, you have to manually type in the date range to search in, using a specific syntax.

If you want to search for files modified on a specific day, type the following in the search box:
datemodified:mm/dd/yyyy

If you want between two dates, use:
datemodified:mm/dd/yyyy .. mm/dd/yyyy

I have no idea why this was removed.  The old pop-up calendar to select date ranges was orders of magnitude more intuitive.

 

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pfvincent, WCHS, NetDef

ryegrass wrote:

“I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

“This deal’s getting worse all the time… ”

I think this quote is from some movie ;-), but every week I’m thankful that I’m still on Windows 7 x 64,  albeit with new hardware.

That would be an exchange between Darth Vader and Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back, as Vader kept altering how much Lando was giving up to keep his powers as the chief administrator of Cloud City.

There are layers to this reference that get funnier and more troubling the deeper you dig, but suffice it to say, I find it hilariously appropriate that the statement was concerning retaining administrative power over a cloud entity.

Maybe they’re just trying really hard to get off to a fresh, clean start?

I honestly don’t know if I can stomach it.

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Average-Jane

mn– wrote:

Another would be, how many of the problems we see are actually Windows problems and how many should be blamed on something else – badly written applications etc…

I’ve wondered this myself a great deal. How much of the apparent instability with Windows can be blamed on the hardware or software it interacts with?

So, as a counterpoint in defense of hardware and software developers everywhere.. You would also have trouble building a stable house if the local housing authority changed the contract and safety requirements continuously.

I do not how much we can blame hardware and software vendors for unstable products when Microsoft is mucking with the foundations that their products depend on willy-nilly. They seem to have little regard for holding certain aspects of the operating system as standard, and in years gone by, they wouldn’t be making sweeping changes with such a break-neck pace.

I cannot say this with certainty, because it is beyond my knowledge, but my distinct impression is that Windows’ constantly shifting foundation is forcing both hardware and software developers to adapt to the same reckless pace of development, so their products do not fall behind. Is this perhaps due to developers using shortcuts that Microsoft is eliminating? Quite possibly. Maybe the changes are for the better, but there seems to be no end to them.

The operating system should be a stable base to build upon, not a constantly mutating baseline for developers to adapt to.

Unfortunately, it’s often impossible to prove a negative. There is no way to know how many errors have been avoided, or how many people have been utterly whalloped by the assorted updates with known issues.

Does it make sense to be cautious? Absolutely. There is rarely any reason at all to push updates at the speed Microsoft dictates. Unfortunately, that model falls apart if everyone delays, because then no one is testing anything. But it still pays to be very cautious, and back up everything obsessively.

After all.. Just because we’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get us.

The really painful kicker with this is the catch-22 situation of needing a working Windows 10 machine… to debug your broken Windows 10 machine.

Would be really nice to be able to access it on alternate platforms, for those cases where the bug you’re troubleshooting makes the feedback hub inherently inaccessible.

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b, Great Lake Bunyip, GreatAndPowerfulTech

I’ve made the same comparison before with vaccinations and patching, and it really is an apt analogy.

Microsoft keeps pushing this idea that the amount of people experiencing problems is small, a fraction of a percent. With 800-ish million Windows 10 devices, even 0.1% is still 800 thousand devices.

How many pharmaceutical companies would continue to promote a vaccine that produced a fatal allergic reaction in several hundred thousand people?

No, we’re not literally talking about people dying… Or are we? How many critical infrastructure systems are impacted by these broken updates? How many small businesses are finding themselves crippled by productivity stoppages or delivery delays when their computers decide to update and reboot during critical operations, and wind up non-functional?  I would actually be curious to see someone examine the mental health impact on IT professionals trying to clean up after Microsoft’s messes.

If they want to spout off about “social responsibility,” they need to take a long hard look at how their recent history of update shenanigans has impacted the industry as a whole. Not just the computers, but the people, the ones responsible for keeping them running.

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Ascaris, ve2mrx, EstherD

It might be an oversimplification, due to the way IE is woven in the fabric of older versions of Windows, and how many directions it might be vulnerable from, but I think you can summarize at least 50% of virus/exploit/vulnerability prevention with four words:
“Don’t be an idiot.”

It seems like these exploits always require some sort of boneheaded user action before it can actually do damage. Not 100% of them, but the overwhelming majority are cases where you literally have to pull the trigger on the gun aimed at your foot.

Just being aware of vulnerabilities and routes of attack makes a huge difference, and no amount of security software or OS patching will protect you if you go running out into the middle of the road playing chicken with oncoming exploit traffic.

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GoneToPlaid

Honestly.. this is the mess they deserve for forcing the hardware to adhere to the OS development cycle.

In the “old” way of doing things, the OS had a relatively static set of minimum requirements for some number of years that OEM vendors could test against. New hardware came out, and could be tested against that baseline to make sure it ran properly.

Now the OS is in the driver seat, and the hardware requirements are a moving target that no one can actually test to, because the software is moving too fast to properly design for. They’ve thrown the cart so far ahead of the horse, the cart is careening down a mountain toward a cliff, and the poor horse is just tumbling behind it on four broken legs.

Like so many other things crushed under the steamroller of forced obsolescence, I’ll keep using my Office 2007 Home Use SKU for as long as it remains compatible with my computer, because it does everything I have ever needed it to do.

Makes me wonder how long it will be before Microsoft finally gives up on backwards compatibility, and makes the leap to forcing non-subscription licenses out of functionality.

 

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rc primak, doriel

So, the time is swiftly approaching where I’ll have no choice in the matter, because my Win7 desktop is running on what I fear are its last legs.  This particular computer is approaching nine years old, and I have no intention of ever changing the OS, but I do not know how much longer the hardware will hold out.

The big question in my mind (well, next in line right after “How do I keep a stable OS to actually do work on?”):  What am I supposed to do with an OS with an 18 month service life?

This computer is almost a decade old.  Have we gotten far enough along in Win10 to know what the expected service life of any particular processor or hardware configuration is going to be?  How long do we have until Microsoft’s updates stop being compatible with our hardware, and they just shrug and start spamming you with links to the Microsoft Surface store?

Or, on the flip-side, is that actually a desirable situation?  Would reaching that point mean they’ll stop sending your PC through the wringer every 6 months, but it will still be able to live out its natural hardware service life on that last received build?  I frankly don’t give two shakes about OS features as long as the computer runs my programs, but what other limitations might that computer run into in terms of driver and software support?

Even if you make the (rather wild) assumption that Microsoft could potentially put out ten years worth of stable OS updates… I want to know how long it will be until they look at my hardware, and decide, “Nah, that’s too old to support now, you need to go buy a new computer.”

 

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rc primak, Kranium, lurks about, WildBill, woody