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I’m sure there are a LOT of us oldies on here (I’m 72, and started IT on an IBM 360). While I’ve run Norton AV on my home systems, and Symantec Endpoint Protection on the corporate, Non-Profit side. Now that Symantec has sold their AV division, I’m running MWB Premium on my three main home systems, along with Windows Defender, and it’s someone else’s headache to deal with the corporate world. >;-)

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rc primak, WSJCitizen

Wow! I’d like to know how he did that, since I also happen to own a Raspberry Pi Zero W! <g> I first started my computing journey with an IBM 360 at a military base in Germany through courses with the University of Maryland. In 1971 when my first daughter was born, I thought computers might go somewhere, so I took courses in PL/1, Fortran IV, and COBOL. In Y2K I had head-hunters calling me because of that COBOL course! Lol!

The first time I ever saw a grown man cry was when one of the troops was taking a tray of punch cards to the reader for payroll and tripped over a cord, dropping the tray. Cards flew everywhere! He had my empathy hand-reading all those cards to get them back in order! <GRIN> Probably took all night or longer!

Hello Susan,

I had a similar experience on my Lenovo Legion Y740 about three weeks ago. Fortunately, I was using the laptop at the time the “upgrade” began, so I was able to immediately stop it. I have my laptop set via Group Policy to NOT download any updates, and to ask me before any updates are installed. I didn’t have ANY warning that 2004 was going to install!

I have three Dell Optiplex 7010’s that I use for testing (two actually, one I set up for the wife). Two of them have run flawlessly with 2004, but the wife’s (configured identically) had the message that her computer wasn’t ready for 2004 yet?? Hers was upgraded last week without notice also!

I have used Acronis True Image Home for years (since Version 8), but they lost me when I purchased ATI 2020 for 5 systems. The new 2020 version no longer allows me to mount my old .TIB files! It also doesn’t mount the new format, and because it was an “upgrade”, I’m not eligible for the free 2021 upgrade than CAN now mount the new files. I’ve used Veeam on a few systems, but what has worked well for me is the OEM versions of Acronis from Seagate or Western Digital (unfortunately, both of which now offer the 2020 version of ATI). Since I usually make full backups each time, the limitations of the OEM versions don’t bother me. The older versions (Seagate v23 or WD Build 33) still allow me to mount my old .TIB files for recovering individual files. I have about a dozen systems that I mostly just play with, and have several older archived .TIB files I want to keep access to! I mostly back up to a Raspberry Pi 4 system set up with OpenMediaVault free NAS software using a USB3 attached external drive for storage over my LAN. I also have a miniITX system setup with OMV to syncronize the RPi drive with duplicate copies of the backups. I’m rather anal-rententive about backups, and usually have more than one copy in various formats.

I’m a bit late getting in on this thread, but something *I* do is use the public version of the U.S. Air Force TENS (Trusted End-Node Security) which is available to anyone. I’m retired military, and used to work in the AF portion of NSA, so I figure if it’s good enough for the NSA, it’s good enough security for ME! Here’s a link to the Datasheet for TENS: https://www.spi.dod.mil/docs/TENS_DS.pdf. TENS is part of the DoD Software Protection Initiative (SPI) and is approved for DoD-wide use, FWIW. Since TENS runs entirely in memory, without any access to the HD (at least not without permission) it’s also a good system to use at home for on-line banking. If you download the Deluxe version, it also includes LibreOffice and Acrobat Reader, which makes it a handy road warrior system as well.

Cheers,
Phil Heberer

Graham: I’d say that’s a fair statement. The problem is that the “do-all” commercial AV products are incredibly bloated. They’ve gone way beyond AV and perhaps a firewall. The product I just uninstalled (avast Internet Security) had all kinds of gizmos attached to it that have nothing to do with security. Ironically, it’s virus detection ability is very highly rated but the software became unstable with all the garbage they piled onto it. Just my opinion.

Rob

You just hit on why *I* ALWAYS do a custom install for ANY program! Usually you then have the ability to turn off the features you don’t want, but not always.

I am staying at a hotel that has unencrypted wifi, no password is required. I don’t plan on sending or accessing anything sensitive, and not going to check email.
What is the level of risk using the hotel network? How much more risky is it than an encrypted wifi network?

Thanks

What *I* use when I’m traveling is a free utility from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab called “TENS” (Trusted End-Node Security). You can download a public version
ISO from http://www.tens.af.mil.

What TENS is is a hardened version of Linux that boots from CD/DVD/USB and resides in RAM, never accessing the host HD at all. Included in TENS Deluxe is LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and several other Linux utils I rarely use. To save any data, you would need a separate USB flash drive for your saved data. Several of the Liveboot CD/DVD’s of Linux flavors can be used the same way. I previously used to use Puppy Linux for this purpose.

Cheers,
Phil Heberer

On my main system (Dell Inspiron i17-7720) I was offered the Anniversary Edition via Windows update, and that went smoothly. On my desktop (Dell XPS 830), I used the Windows 10 Update Assistant. It seemed to go okay, but on both systems my Classicshell v4.3.0 was uninstalled as “Incompatible”. On the desktop, I decided to clean up the old Windows files with Disk Cleanup, since I had nothing important on the desktop anyway, and I had a fresh Acronis bit-image backup an hour prior to the update. It’s a good thing I had the backup! After the Disk Cleanup, when the system restarted, it wouldn’t boot up! I had previously downloaded the Win 10 ISO that I put on a flash drive, and also had a bootable DVD of Win 10 Pro, but neither of them would allow me to repair the startup. Curiously, on the Advanced Options page, I also didn’t have a choice of Reset/Refresh! I tried a System Restore, but it couldn’t find a restore point. I finally dumped it and went back to my Acronis backup. I noticed there was already an update out for it on the laptop where it DID install okay. I think I’ll wait a few weeks before trying to install 1607 on any of my other systems. :rolleyes:

One utility that I recently found because I had need of it that might be included int he Ultimate Utilities LIst is called PCUnlocker. PCUnlocker is a password reset utility that works with Windows 8/10, and can reset local OR Microsoft Accounts, or as a tech can bypass the password as needed. I’ve often used the NT Password & Registry Editor to access password protected systems that have been donated to a non-profit that I volunteer for, but that only seems to work on Windows 7 or lower. I’ve tried that several times on Win 8/10 systems, but couldn’t unlock the systems if they said they were in Hibernate mode (i.e. Fast Boot?). I could dump the Hibernation file, but still couldn’t unlock the system. PCUnlocker seems to be able to get past that problem. PCUnlocker is a commercial program available from (http://www.top-password.com/reset-windows-password.html). The Standard version is $19.95, the Professional version is $29.95, and there is an Enterprise version for Active Directory passwords on Server 2012 for $49.95. *I* use just the Std version and used Rufus (another great utility at https://rufus.akeo.ie)! to create a bootable UEFI USB drive from the ISO. FWIW, I am NOT an employee or have any interest in either of these utilities other than a happy user.

I used to be an avid Acronis user (since v9.0) but the program has IMHO gone downhill rather rapidly over the last two or three versions. I have now swapped to Macrium Reflect http://www.macrium.com/ which I find faster and much better than the latest Acronis offerings. I think quite a few other Acronis users have also abandonded them.

Hello RayG,

I guess it’s all in what you look for in a backup program. *I* have been a longtime Acronis user also, and prefer mostly the Acronis 2010 version. I do have the current 2016 version though, and often use the bootable media to create backups over my home network to my OpenMediaVault server, which can’t be done to my knowledge with earlier versions. Besides, I have nearly 8 years worth of .tib files that Macrium Reflect can’t read. I have Acronis 2016 installed on my Windows Home Server 2011 system, and use it to read the .tib files to pull individual files from them that I can then copy via my network to any connected system. Works the berries for ME! Your mileage may vary.

Cheers!

Thanks Berton..I have been looking for something to replace TB..TB has always been quirky to me..
I am looking into it now..

I realize I’m coming a bit late to the dance, but *I* use an email client called eM Client that I’ve seen briefly mentioned previously. (http://www.emclient.com/) It is a bit confusing to novices, but eM Cleint has both a free and a paid service. The free service allows up to two email accounts, and the paid service has unlimited accounts, as well as unlocking some of the more advanced features. When first installed, eM Client starts in a 30-day “demo” mode. Both the free and paid services require “activation”. To get the activation key for the free service, one has to go to the company web site and give them a valid email address to which the key is sent. (*I* use a free Juno account SPAM collecting address for such purposes, just in case.) Once you have the activation key, you insert it and the program then won’t bug you about it again. You can only register one email address per activation, so if you want to use the free service on another computer, you need to register that computer with a different email address. eM Client is quite similar to MS Outlook, IMO, but much cheaper if you should need the premium features (approx US $30) I’ve tried a lot of email clients over the years, and used to hack Windows Mail (big brother of Outlook Express) in Windows 7. Since moving up to Windows 10, I didn’t think that hack would be such a good idea, so tried Thunderbird, Evolution, and eM Client. eM Client had the best “feel” to me, so I stuck with that one. My wife has and uses Thunderbird and loves it, so I leave her alone on it.

Cheers,
Phil Heberer

areader — I’m late in this thread, but like you, I’m and old DOS/WP5.1 user, and have worked my way through several iterations of WP (Currently using x7 H&S on Win 8.1Pro/10Pro) I also on occasion use Linux Mint 17.2 Debian edition in Virtualbox on Win 8.1, which kind of give me the best of BOTH worlds, IMO. As for reading old WP docs in Linux, have you tried the latest LibreOffice 5? When switching from one program to another, NO program can give you 100% results with importing formatting (might be a few lawsuits if they could! )

Also, FWIW, there is also some WordPerfect programs around for Linux, though intended for older versions of Linux. I have Corel’s WordPerfect8 for Linux, and also the WP 2000 Standard Suite for Linux. I was too much of a noob to get them installed initially, so haven’t tried on newer versions of Linux, but that *might* be an option for you. I think Corel gave up trying to support Linux since there were too many “flavors” of Linux and installation was the old CLI instead of the newer GUI installations of today.

As for Linux, I also use a flavor called LXLE that is Ubuntu-based, but specifically designed for old hardware and former XP users. (http://www.lxle.net) LXLE is also a LiveDVD so you can take a look at it before installing and it uses the LTS versions for longer support. I have an HP Mini netbook that it works the berries on. While not all the programs you listed have immediate replacements that come to mind, Linux Mint and LXLE both have *most* of the programs needed for daily use pre-installed (i.e. LibreOffice suite, SeaMonkey for web/email, Audacity for music, GIMP for photo editing, etc.) It also has a Personal Information Manager (PIM) for calendar, todo lists etc., or you could use Mozilla Thunderbird for email with the Sunbird add-on for calendar. Hopefully this might give you some alternatives to consider.

Cheers,
Phil

I’ve found an alternative that works well for me that combines both Linux and a Widows-friendly NTFS. I’m using OpenMediaVault with the OS loaded on a 60G SSD, and a 2TB WD Green label NAS drive formatted with NTFS. OpenMediavault reads and writes the NTFS just fine for my purposes (I use the bootable Linux version of Acronis 2013 to backup/recover over the network) Prior to using the SSD, I was running a 40G SATA drive. When I changed out the drives and reloaded OMV, all I had to do was re-attach my other drive and I was good to go. You might test it out and see if it works for you. IMO, OMV is MUCH easier to use than FreeNAS, which I looked at too, and doesn’t require near the resources that FreeNAS recommends.

I forgot to mention that I also have a shared folder on OMV that I use as a mapped drive on my Windows systems to freely copy files to and from without any problems after over a year of use now.:D

P.S. I’m also running a low-powered home server with Windows Home Server 2011 OS on a mini-ITX MB with Intel ATOM 1.6 GHz CPU and 2G RAM that is doing multiple daily backups for all systems connected to the network that might serve your purpose as well. WHS2011 was still available on Newegg recently for about $50 USD.

Best regards,
Phil

Hello Alex,

Is it only Epson that has disk printing capabilities? Thanks.

No, *I* have been using Canon printers with that capability for several years now. I’ve also seen HP printers that have a CD/DVD tray for printing. I presently have a Canon Pixma MG5320, FWIW.

Cheers,
Phil Heberer

I’ve seen a lot of press about the “free” update to Win 10, but haven’t really heard much more than “for the first year”. With Microsoft’s push to the Cloud (i.e. Office 365) and web-based SaS (software as a service), is Windows headed that way too with a subscription fee after the first year? Since there is no going back to Win 8.1 (or whatever was upgraded, unless of course you have a recent full image backup prior to the upgrade), what happens on year two? For that reason alone, *I* will likely run Win 10 in a virtual environment as I do now with the Tech Preview, or at a minimum as a dual-boot system with Win 8.1.