Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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I like my computers like I like my cars... Old but reliable, slightly modified or upgraded, with only the bells-and-whistles it needs to suit me, not some corporate jerk who thinks it is trash if it isn't 'now'. Why W2k over XP? Mostly, the so-called upgrades on XP changed the layout of the user interface that W2k kept similar from W95/W98. When people are used to it, change may not be a good thing. The other addition to XP that I loath is all the auto-update crap, yes, you can turn most of it off after you've spent hours learning where to access it all, and what is actually doing that you may not want it to (the system doesn't want to tell you what it is actually doing, so you have to out-wit it to figure it out. Not necessarily too hard to do, but the last thing I need is for my PC to be adversarial with me...). Peripheral processes were a major source of irritation on my old lap-top too, but that may have been more part of the 'buggered up' part than XP's fault, I'm not sure.

Buy a new computer every two years? Can't understand why everybody doesn't just do this? Really? For one, I wouldn't want the hassle, sorry. For another, I have better things to spend my money on than that. And if a 'really decent $500 computer will last me for years', then why would it need changing-out so frequently? Oh well, I am like the dinosaur computers I own... Unable or unwilling to completely change to suit the new day, every single day. I like things a little more stable than that, and having to learn a new OS every two years does not sound fun, nor productive, to me. Just my viewpoint... :beer:


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

Post by 99GaGT3X00 »

3X00-Modified wrote:I don't know if you can tell but that 2000 CD is Minty fresh... Still wrapped. NOS... New Old crap...

I have to keep that 98 CD around because the first laser engraver we purchased like 3 yrs ago... Only works on 98... WTF!!! lol We are masters at buying old out dated stuff.
:lol: when i was removing my receiver to clean up the wiring behind my tv i had a couple cd's in cases under the back of the receiver on one side since it's missing the foot and one of them was a windows 98 cd.. kinda made me chuckle


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

Post by Rodville »

So am I the only weirdo that has win 3.11 on floppies?


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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Rettax3 wrote:I like my computers like I like my cars... Old but reliable, slightly modified or upgraded, with only the bells-and-whistles it needs to suit me, not some corporate jerk who thinks it is trash if it isn't 'now'. Why W2k over XP? Mostly, the so-called upgrades on XP changed the layout of the user interface that W2k kept similar from W95/W98. When people are used to it, change may not be a good thing. The other addition to XP that I loath is all the auto-update crap, yes, you can turn most of it off after you've spent hours learning where to access it all, and what is actually doing that you may not want it to (the system doesn't want to tell you what it is actually doing, so you have to out-wit it to figure it out. Not necessarily too hard to do, but the last thing I need is for my PC to be adversarial with me...). Peripheral processes were a major source of irritation on my old lap-top too, but that may have been more part of the 'buggered up' part than XP's fault, I'm not sure.

Buy a new computer every two years? Can't understand why everybody doesn't just do this? Really? For one, I wouldn't want the hassle, sorry. For another, I have better things to spend my money on than that. And if a 'really decent $500 computer will last me for years', then why would it need changing-out so frequently? Oh well, I am like the dinosaur computers I own... Unable or unwilling to completely change to suit the new day, every single day. I like things a little more stable than that, and having to learn a new OS every two years does not sound fun, nor productive, to me. Just my viewpoint... :beer:
There are very few differences between 2k and XP, other than what I listed. I challenge you to list 5.

I didn't tell you to get a new computer every two years. I personally build myself a new system that often because I enjoy it. And I DO like spending money (and modding, and modding for others) on tech.

Those "peripheral processes" are part of the operating system, and nine times out of ten closing them is what causes the issue.

Hardware changes. And when that happens legacy software goes out of use. Again, like your display issue.

Never understood the gripe about software updates. Fixing things and adding new features!? Not if I have anything to say about it! Kill the updates with fire!

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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

Post by 99GaGT3X00 »

Rodville wrote:So am I the only weirdo that has win 3.11 on floppies?
pretty sure i still got dos 6 on floppies in a box in my closet..might have win 3.1 too.. some reason it never got tossed.


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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Chad91GTZ wrote:
Rettax3 wrote:I like my computers like I like my cars... Old but reliable, slightly modified or upgraded, with only the bells-and-whistles it needs to suit me, not some corporate jerk who thinks it is trash if it isn't 'now'. Why W2k over XP? Mostly, the so-called upgrades on XP changed the layout of the user interface that W2k kept similar from W95/W98. When people are used to it, change may not be a good thing. The other addition to XP that I loath is all the auto-update crap, yes, you can turn most of it off after you've spent hours learning where to access it all, and what is actually doing that you may not want it to (the system doesn't want to tell you what it is actually doing, so you have to out-wit it to figure it out. Not necessarily too hard to do, but the last thing I need is for my PC to be adversarial with me...). Peripheral processes were a major source of irritation on my old lap-top too, but that may have been more part of the 'buggered up' part than XP's fault, I'm not sure.

Buy a new computer every two years? Can't understand why everybody doesn't just do this? Really? For one, I wouldn't want the hassle, sorry. For another, I have better things to spend my money on than that. And if a 'really decent $500 computer will last me for years', then why would it need changing-out so frequently? Oh well, I am like the dinosaur computers I own... Unable or unwilling to completely change to suit the new day, every single day. I like things a little more stable than that, and having to learn a new OS every two years does not sound fun, nor productive, to me. Just my viewpoint... :beer:
There are very few differences between 2k and XP, other than what I listed. I challenge you to list 5.
I didn't tell you to get a new computer every two years. I personally build myself a new system that often because I enjoy it. And I DO like spending money (and modding, and modding for others) on tech.
Those "peripheral processes" are part of the operating system, and nine times out of ten closing them is what causes the issue.
Hardware changes. And when that happens legacy software goes out of use. Again, like your display issue.
Never understood the gripe about software updates. Fixing things and adding new features!? Not if I have anything to say about it! Kill the updates with fire!
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Hmm, I might have come across as combative. Sorry if I did. That said, the simple issue is I don't like XP, because of the reliability issues I've had with it on multiple machines, and it was just different enough from '95 that I had to start re-learning crap all over again. It also kept auto-formatting and auto-updating everything all the time on two different computers I've worked with it on (which was also partly the fault of other programs as opposed to the actual OS), and that just sits wrong with me. I am not an IT person by profession, and I got bored with computer tech-stuff long before XP came out, so I wasn't interested in starting over again. XP is geared for people who either know nothing about software and need everything spoon-fed to them, or are really knowledgeable professional-level users that can actually get all of the settings correct and have the interest to spend the time doing so, I am in neither category, so I was always uncomfortable using it because I knew it wasn't doing quite what I wanted it to, but didn't want to figure out how to fix the problem. :wink: -That is just where I am at with it personally.

It may well be that I end up disliking W2k once I get back into it because of its' limitations, but I've used it enough in the past that I was very comfortable with it. I do still have to figure out my display issue, yes, but overall I won't be making too many demands of that particular machine, so I doubt I will outstrip W2k's abilities. And those subtle differences between W2k and XP you've mentioned are the difference between me liking it and disliking it, obviously it makes that difference for you too, just in the other direction, so... :Search: You should be able to see where I am coming from, if not agree with it. 'Nuff said.
Rodville wrote:So am I the only weirdo that has win 3.11 on floppies?
You do realize that most of today's new techs don't even know what a floppy is, and certainly wouldn't remember why a 3.5 would be misnomered as a 'floppy'... :D At my last job, the building's climate control was all run by an ancient PC in the basement office that was running 3.1. One of the new guys was messing around and logged out of Windows, then managed to shut down and restart the computer, trying to fix the mistake, before claiming that he 'found it that way'. So, here was our huge seven-story 1/8 mile long building without a functioning HVAC system for a shift and a half, because no one knew how to restart the computer from MSDOS. :wink: I, being of that era, actually knew how, but I talked with one or two of the IT guys later, and they couldn't remember how to navigate through the DOS prompt to change the directory back to Windows to restart 3.1! When I put in my notice and left, I was very tempted to restart that computer on my way out the door... Part of me still regrets not flipping them that particular bird...


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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I know what floppies are.

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Post by Chad91GTZ »

And DOS commands are still very much used. Dare I say, every few hours? No IT professional DOESNT know how to use a command prompt. For all real diagnostic issues. I can't stress enough the *use it all the time* part of that.

And beyond that, Windows 3.1 had a very useable GUI, so I'm not even sure what part of your story to believe.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but stuff isn't adding up.

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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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A lot of what you are posting has absolutely nothing to do with the OS operation, it sounds like you just picked up some things that a bunch of haters said about XP back when it was released in 01 but once they started using it they realized it would end up being the next "most usable" and long running OS that Microsoft would release.

I've been in IT for a while now and honestly if you wanted to complain about Windows ME I'd be on board with that but I'm just not buying the complaints you have about XP. Especially the complaint about the GUI look. It takes all of 3sec to get rid of the themes service and have it look like 2000 or 98...take server 03 for example it comes resembling 2000 but you can enable themes to make it look just like XP.

Either way tho the PC you choose to use is up to you but if you ask me your backing yourself into a corner when it comes to technology and if you any bit enthused about tech your missing out on a lot.

I have a lot of .bat scripts I run on a daily basis... Good ole dos...


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

Post by 99GaGT3X00 »

3X00-Modified wrote: it sounds like you just picked up some things that a bunch of haters said about XP back when it was released in 01 but once they started using it they realized it would end up being the next "most usable" and long running OS that Microsoft would release.
everyone including people in the tech industry hated xp when it came out because they said it looked like a fisher price interface then it became the thing no one wanted to let go of.. :lol:


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Post by Chad91GTZ »

Like Jon said. It literally takes seconds to change that setting. No one who knew any better wasted any time being bothered by a check box.

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Chad91GTZ wrote:And DOS commands are still very much used. Dare I say, every few hours? No IT professional DOESNT know how to use a command prompt. For all real diagnostic issues. I can't stress enough the *use it all the time* part of that.

And beyond that, Windows 3.1 had a very useable GUI, so I'm not even sure what part of your story to believe.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but stuff isn't adding up.

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:roll: Well, whatever. It wasn't presented as a mathematics equation, so I'm not sure why you are skeptically 'adding' things. The guy who shut-down the computer knew almost nothing about computers in my opinion, so friendly interface or not, it isn't foolproof and it WILL shut down if told to, and the HVAC system running on it actually ran in a DOS shell, so it was pretty obvious that he just got in over his head. DOS has NO GUI, um, it is DOS... I'm not in IT, so I can't definitively say 'all' or 'none' the way you do, but these guys said they couldn't remember some of the basic DOS prompts because they don't use them anymore. They hadn't been called in to 'fix' the system before I got there, so who knows if they really 'couldn't', but that is what they told me when I mentioned the situation to them, and they (two of them I talked to) asked me to refresh their memories on how to change the directory to restart Windows, so I had no reason to doubt them. Besides, who feigns ignorance on something like that? :crazy:
3X00-Modified wrote:A lot of what you are posting has absolutely nothing to do with the OS operation, it sounds like you just picked up some things that a bunch of haters said about XP back when it was released in 01 but once they started using it they realized it would end up being the next "most usable" and long running OS that Microsoft would release.

I've been in IT for a while now and honestly if you wanted to complain about Windows ME I'd be on board with that but I'm just not buying the complaints you have about XP. Especially the complaint about the GUI look. It takes all of 3sec to get rid of the themes service and have it look like 2000 or 98...take server 03 for example it comes resembling 2000 but you can enable themes to make it look just like XP.
...I guess I didn't realize I was posting on the 'XP fan site'. :pardon: My mistake.

I wasn't asking anybody to 'buy' anything -and I wasn't really XP-bashing, but I don't like XP, never did, I doubt I ever will. I've had enough bad experiences with it personally, not reading quotes from other people twelve years ago, because I simply don't care if other people like the same OS I do. I've also talked with a couple of friends who know more about XP and its' successors than I do, and while they too raise an eyebrow and shake their heads at my preference for the older OSs, they understand what I am talking about regarding auto-updates, excessive and unnecessary extra programs and drivers, and the like. I've been told that XP was the first Windows OS that actively connected itself to the internet to check for updates, without first getting authorization from the user -that 'behavior' is the root of what I am specifically griping about, and while it can be 'fixed' and made to stop doing that, it turned me off from XP that it was set to do that in the first place. It also loads very slowly compared to the older OSs, because of all the extra features it runs. I finally got mine set to load only specific programs and drivers, and that saved a lot of boot-time, but it kept re-confirming that I wanted it to load selectively on boot, which it wasn't supposed to, so it was still an irritation since I had to tell it to continue half-way through the process. With '95, and to nearly the same degree W2k, the frame-work is less.. filled-in than with XP and its' followers, so usually once you tell it to do something, right or wrong, that is what it does. XP, not so much, because it knows it knows better than you. :roll: Now, I'm sure (very, very sure) that you pro IT guys can tell me it is 'really easy' to adjust all this to make the system what I want it to be, that for just a few extra bucks I can upload a program to add this or that feature back on that was deemed 'obsolete', or that I can delve in and select this and that to specify which drivers load, which programs run, what is default, etc. (I liked the old 'startup menu', that died after W2k, how simple and straight-forward can you get?) but that just isn't the route I went on this particular, old, low-use, purpose-specific machine. Guys, you can lead a horse to water... So, =@ Whatever.


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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It's not that you posted this on a XP fan site or anything... it's just the fact that with what/how your posting it's like your trying to point out straight up flaws or errors with the OS when in-fact all of the issues your presenting are only due to lack of information on your part nothing more. If you were better informed about how the OS works and it's abilities I highly doubt there would be this many "issues" with it. And honestly this is why many things get bad reviews, most of the opinions floating around are due to lack of information...

And don't take my words out of context... I'm not saying everything is perfect and it's just that no one knows how it works, because that is by far a stretch.

Windows XP can look like this...
Image

OR this...
Image

With ONE simple setting.

Automatic updates can also be turned off with one setting as well as completely ignored.


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

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3X00-Modified wrote:It's not that you posted this on a XP fan site or anything... it's just the fact that with what/how your posting it's like your trying to point out straight up flaws or errors with the OS when in-fact all of the issues your presenting are only due to lack of information on your part nothing more. If you were better informed about how the OS works and it's abilities I highly doubt there would be this many "issues" with it. And honestly this is why many things get bad reviews, most of the opinions floating around are due to lack of information...

And don't take my words out of context... I'm not saying everything is perfect and it's just that no one knows how it works, because that is by far a stretch.

Automatic updates can also be turned off with one setting as well as completely ignored.
No, that is actually part of what I was saying -I don't like XP in large part because I didn't want to learn it all again, which is totally my own issue. But, some of the aspects of XP that I've mentioned having problems with are actually with XP itself, or at least were there on the computers I've used it on. Admittedly, I've never started off with a fresh install of XP on a system, but all the ones I've used (okay, so maybe four or five systems? Like I've said, not an IT pro over here...) all had the same problems. Ignore auto-updates? Initially, I was on dial-up, so when I am working on a piece of research on the web and the computer randomly kicks into an unauthorized (by me) update search and download, kicking me out of my browser or at the very least slowing my already horridly slow connection, that is hard to just 'ignore'. I also had a lot more system crashes with XP than with any other OS, except for maybe '98 (I hated that OS even more). I could try to reiterate all of my complaints and give anecdotal evidence from my personal experiences to back it up, by that doesn't matter. The point of my thread was more to ask if anyone else is running with an older, simpler OS than what they originally had, and why. I was also hopping to find a little input on the display issue -I am not so into the tech anymore that I will enjoy the fix for its' own sake, I have too much on my plate as it is. BTW, I don't have XP installation discs for that computer, so without investing more money that I don't have for it, I had limited options anyway (I wanted to put W2k on this machine anyway though). :pardon:


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Re: Old computer, older OS, old junk is better (and worse)

Post by 3X00-Modified »

Ignore you took the wrong way... You can setup the system to IGNORE new updates and NOT check... Not configuring the system to your liking means you will not be happy with how it operates end of story... That's why you can modify things because everyone is not on the same page on how something should work. Granted it's not customizable to the point of open source but you can disable many things.

Bottom line is you hate XP because you don't want to learn it... Ok your loss but don't blame it on the OS... Also don't state issues with the OS if you've never started with an unmolested version... People screw up OS builds to no end by just clicking OK to every prompt they see and not reading anything.

And your display issue is simple your trying to use too old of an OS and it does not support the new hardware, No driver exists and will never exist because they do not make them for old outdated OS's...


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