Replies

 

B: Thanks for your comments.

“Shooting the messenger” Well, not quite, actually more like “playing Devil’s advocate. I felt this topic deserved a more critical discussion than it was having.

I find your posting informative, but still have misgivings about Cimpanu’s posting in “bleeping computer”.

For example: if the key he showed in there was already deactivated, it certainly would take Administrator privileges to activate it. But a black hat that can get into one’s machine and subvert its OS to get that far, should be also able to assume Administrator privileges.

Besides, although the key in question might have been already disclosed in an announcement by HP, it does not make me feel more secure, or particularly grateful, to see the most critical details been broadcast far and wide by the likes of Mr. Cimpanu.

So: “shoot the messenger”? I wouldn’t, in general, not being of a violent disposition.

But if he is a dangerously indiscreet messenger…

 

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

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

If I remember this correctly, Mr. Cimpanu in his original posting in “bleeping computer” gave the world the advice to turn off the Registry entry corresponding to the alleged HP keylogger and showed everyone who cared to read his posting the particular Registry key that needed to be deactivated.

Perhaps I am wrong, but isn’t doing that the same as what is meant, in the smarmy business-speak of the HP “reassuring” message, that the offending feature has been “defeatured”?

And, again, unless I am not too off-target here, would not have been reading Mr. Cimpanu’s posting an absolute delight to black hats everywhere, because of that scrumptious bit of information he revealed in his first posting?

Because, if I am right about that, why should anyone take this getleman’s word seriously  on anything he posts?

 

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the advice, Anonymous.

There is, among those other several solutions besides those two you describe in detail, the two I use myself (which one, depends on how I am feeling about it):

(1) Whenever I have some substantial writing to do, I plug in a mouse, which automatically turns off the touchpad.

When I am done writing, I unplug the mouse, thus re-enabling the touchpad, because I like using it for most everything I do on the laptop — other writing long texts. When writing long texts without the mouse, the jumpiness of the touchpad begins to interfere and just annoys me.

(2) Plug in an external keyboard, and keep using the touchpad: typing so produces vibrations that cannot reach the physically unconnected touchpad with enough energy to set it off. When done typing, unplug it and go back to using the laptop’s own keyboard.

It is possible, but I do not know this for a fact, that recent versions of the Synaptics hardware or software drivers could be free from this jumpy problem. That might explain the otherwise puzzling absence of peasants with torches and pitchforks visiting the manufacturer.

 

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

Dear PKCano,

“Just keep your thumb off the touchpad when you are typing”

It is not that simple. I wished it was!

I already have, and had for a long time, the touchpad sensitivity set to nothing along with all its “smart” features as dumbed-down as humanly possible, and I do not touch it at all while typing. But none of this matters one bit — or provides only a slight mitigation at best.

What sets off the very annoying random jumps of the cursor are the vibrations produced by one’s fingers striking the keyboard while typing. This over sensitivity is a well known flaw of the Synaptics Touchpad. The Web is full of postings from people that have been complaining about this over the last many years.

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

I just checked HP for updates, but got nothing there about a Synaptics Touchpad update.

I checked the driver “Properties” in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers, and mine is a different version from the one listed in Bleeping Computer (which might not be for all HP models, anyhow). My driver dates back to 2011, when I bought this HP PC (Win 7 Pro, SP1 x64) laptop, although it says there that it was updated in 2014. That is all there is to be seen in there about this driver. I also did a search through the recovery points for older versions. Again: nothing. (Note: I have never updated anything from HP and have the Assistant with updates  set to “never check”, so I must got that update from MS, back when.)

The latest (I assume) HP list of affected models I have seen does not list my old Pavilion dv6t-6100 among the affected machines with a fix available. Also have checked with the installed HP Assistant for updates, any updates, and it came back with nothing for the Synaptics touchpad.

So now I am getting ready to sling my rifle and strap on several ammo belts with as many rounds as I can carry, with enough water and trekking chow for several days, and start heading for the hills to attempt to survive there, living off the land and fighting off intruders, the coming touchpad apocalypse. But I have some lingering doubts: Should I?

Besides, this touchpad is one of those infamous jump-all-over-the-place-when-I-am-typing-“because-it-can”-without-asking-me-first Synaptics’ touchpads, so I mostly use the mouse instead.

 

So: what should I do? Take to the hills, or not?

Please, anyone out there: Advise!

Thanks.

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

Some people might find these novel features useful, perhaps. For my part, I have a new Mac with a 1GB solid state disk, and it starts in seconds, even counting the time I take to log in, then it is ready to do work. It has, and I have verified this, a battery charge that lasts 9 hours. It also has a very small and light charger that is no pain to carry around if one goes somewhere away from home for a few days. Using it at night or whenever there is no need of the machine is OK too, because the recharge is wickedly fast. I suspect that only a seriously harried (or neurotic) person will find these features too slow or inconvenient.

I am not writing this to do free-advertising for Macs, but merely to indicate that a PC laptop with an SSD and a modern battery  is not terribly different from the MS “always on” type discussed here — assuming that the real MS trick is not using SSD, in the first place.

As to being “always connected”, so one can have everything “on the Cloud” and always ready to go: that goes only as far as the local availability of signal. On zero-bar moments, e.g. while in some remote area without coverage, or during a service outage, or after a devastating natural catastrophe, the “always connected” PC might be less of a resource and more of a liability.

Not to mention the occasional glitch in the “Cloud” service itself: service outages, accidental data erasures, cybercriminals gobbling up personal identifiable information in massive amounts and other wonders of the modern connected world.

 

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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Elly, GoneToPlaid, MrJimPhelps

I just tried again, by changing WU settings back to “Check for updates but let me install them”.

The opened the Windows Update window and… I got the news that there was an “Important” update ready to install! (for Excel 2010).

So… Problem Solved!!!(?)

Which makes perfect sense: once more, as in innumerable occasions before, one nasty Win 7 problem solved by doing something that can be described, generically as:

(1) Rub your belly and tap your head while quacking like a duck.

(2) Repeat (1) three times; the first time while facing East, the second, facing North, the third, facing West.

Problem solved!!!

 

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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Charlie

I had a related problem to the one others have reported here today:

When clicking on “Windows Update” at the “Action Center” of the Control Panel, all I was getting was the little “busy now” hourglass running endlessly and keeping me from accessing anything other than the Task Bar, where I would kill the “control panel”, and so regain full control.

So I tried stopping the “wuauserv” service, and that got me to the Windows Update window without trouble, only now no updates were accessible, because the service was stopped (of course).

So I restarted the service, but that did not register with WU, because I still got the same NO SERVICE! message. I restarted the PC: same story.

So I went to the Settings page for Windows Update, and changed from “tell me when there are updates available, but let me choose when to download and install” to “download automatically, but let me install”. Now the Windows Update window opens OK, with the invitation to see if I have any updates. So I tried that, but WU went on looking and looking for quite a while, with no end in sight.

Maybe the MS servers are swamped by people trying to download those latest Windows Office updates Woody has mentioned elsewhere, maybe not. I’ll try again tomorrow, see how it goes.

If this problem has not been resolved by then, wasn’t there, some time ago, a similar problem with Update searching endlessly for updates, and what was the fix for that?

Thanks.

 

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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Charlie

OscarCOP here: not sure if I have been logged in properly or not. Still getting the double-barred “You are already logged in”, although I have been logging off every previous time, just to test this.

On E11 and its several woes:

(1) I never have been able to find the “Security Only” update of E11 at the MS update sites; only the “Security Cumulative Rollout” for my Win7 Pro x64. Where might that “Security Only” be?  I do wonder, sometimes.

(2) Starting around September, my computer would stop, when logging out, just before the twangy “logout” sound, and the message will come out that IE was preventing that sound performance from happening and to choose if I wanted to force it to quit or to keep waiting for it to do it on its own good time. After waiting for a while, I would choose “force quit” E11, and then the system would punish me by freezing for good, and I would have to crash it to get out of that.

That problem has never gone away, it seems, but I am avoiding it by the strangely simple and inexplicable remedial action of letting a good ten minutes pass between my absolutely last action and logging out. Not terribly satisfactory, but better than crashing the system any day (or very late night) of the week.

 

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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walker

It does not seem that I really got logged in just now. If so, would that be because of the “bobbing up and down” the site is going through today? OscarCP.

In reply to zero2dash comment: yes, I am keeping my Win 7 Pro x64 until MS do us part, which is in January of 2020, just over two years from today, if memory serves. As to changing a bunch of PCs from Win 10 to Win 7, maybe someone other than zero2dash, who probably has already done so, needs to keep that deadline seriously in mind.

Which brings up my main reason for writing this posting: what is the Plan B for keeping one’s dear PC running Win 7, with all the equally dear application software one has lovingly installed on it over the years, and still working and still very much needed, after the MS-decreed Win 7 sunset date?

 

I’ll appreciate any suggestions on this particular.

Thank you, and hope AskWoody is soon back to normal. And to everyone out there: happy and safe patching, whenever you get to it.

OscarCP

 

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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walker, AJNorth, HiFlyer, woody