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Fair enough.

Of late perhaps I’ve grown hypersensitive.

Or over-stimulated, in a sense. Countless of my clients have been alarmed by Microsoft’s fear-mongering, perhaps most onerous being the alarming messages produced on their XP desktops by Security Essentials. Over and over I’ve had to explain that the end of the world has not arrived; and they can continue to use XP for awhile if necessary, especially offline.

People can understand the issues. Why not be informative as opposed to propagandistic and alarmist?

Stampeding people into buying Windows 8-point-whatever is obviously the intent. I understand the motive. But the method stinks of desperation. And Microsoft is squandering an opportunity to murder its own bad reputation for strong-arming its users.

To then see those abused users given a label whose first impression is negative, sort of set my teeth on edge.

Closer examination of the article suggests the writer places himself in the ‘Fogy’ category, and not in a negative way.

Woody Leonhard, you said:

“If the speculation is accurate, there’ll be a Metro version, a desktop-first version, and what I like to call the “Old Fogy’s” version (OFV).

“…The Old Fogy’s Version (I should trademark that) is meant for companies that don’t want to undertake the regular self-flagellation ceremony of updating all PCs every few months. As noted above, OFV will get security patches, but no significant UI ‘improvements.'”

Well, Woody, I have a suggestion for you: Don’t downgrade people who prefer to stick with what works. Microsoft is already doing more than well enough at that job. The phrase “old fogy” doesn’t imply anything positive about the people who are its targets.

You go ahead and trademark that brilliant remark. I’ll trademark the phrase “Tell Windows Secrets where to stick it.”

I was a fan of this operation for well over a decade. I’m getting less so almost every time I read crap like this. I let my paid subscription lapse quite some time ago because of crap like this, where I was made to feel a backward stranger reading a newsletter I had previously seen as a welcoming friend. I have yet re-subscribe — despite some impulses to do so — because I keep seeing crap like this.

Well, this “old fogy” is going to treat you like the errant child you seem: Treat your elders (albeit it’s doubtful I’m any older than you) with some well-earned respect.

Fred Langa certainly knew better.

Long experience with all these AV products (ClamWin excepted) has shown me the value of using MORE THAN ONE of them in a networked environment. When cleaning-up infected syatems, I have learned that they do not all consistently detect the same threats.

It’s worth noting that in my real-world (but unscientific) experience, Avira has been the most effective for use in cleanup of multiply-infected syatems. It finds more of the malware, more consistently. But it can still miss things that another scanner may find.

On one small-business network I manage, I have the free AVG, Avira and MSE running on separate workstations. Avira is indeed a resource consumer, but it lives on the most powerful of their machines and so its comparative effect on performance has been negligible.

Where server-based files and applications are shared among these workstations, I believe the multiple apps run a better chance of spotting any malware that may creep in.

It’s worth noting that on that particular network we’ve had near-zero malware problems in recent years (a few minor/failed threats spotted in browser caches), so the concept hasn’t been put to any harsh tests in that setting. There have been two instances of false positives. Avira was the guilty party both times.

VLC Media Player has a vast array of capabilities that may be unknown to many. I use it routinely to capture streaming videos, to convert and/or save streams on-the-fly while listening/viewing, and to monitor network cameras. Practically everything mentioned in the column is possible with VLC alone. Its command-line driven options and capabilities are a powerful toolset. I have written various batch files that assist in the use of VLC, for instance to direct a stream’s output to files with the current date/time in the filenames. If anyone is interested in seeing those batch scripts, I’m happy to send or post them.