My DVD player decided to work again, grudgingly
if my machine '10 dies' I will simply get a tablet (and a portable DVD player)
so far I think I'm still on 8.1 though

Stalled again at 99% --- this time folks have no answer about how to get it to bump past the 99% issue except to burn a DVD and use that.


============================


.... supposedly waiting for the next days scheduled MS update can jog the 99% stoppage thing free.  

I'll wait as I don't like the risk involved in a DVD boot disc reformatting the entire hard drive and scragging all my Linux partitions too.

I can't even update my Windows 7 computer without it messing up. I gets locked into a loop at startup and keeps restarting itself because of some updates not installing correctly. I can't even get Windows 10 if I wanted to until I get 7 updated without it crashing. Computer gets stuck at the point of "preparing to configure Windows" screen during startup. It gets to 100% on configuring and restarts.

   

As Versy says,  we are upgrading our otherwise sound hardware with pure undiluted MicroCrap ......

Coffee drinking on Sunday morning, with all of Win 10 firmly installed and working .....

Perspective is a nice thing.    But you only get it after the fact.

For a MS upgrade, it was typical, very time consuming with lots of little "known issues".   In fairness, TIME simply could have taken care of the issues .....
-- a lot of time --       more time than you would normally expect.

Drivers issues with the Dell big box refurb unit -- Zero

Drivers issues with the Asus Silent video card -- so far, none displaying text and graphics.   Issues will be only be seen running GAMES, which I haven't tried to do yet.  

So far, the stuff works OK.    My Linux partitions were left alone and my Grub start menu is unchanged.  The only thing I have noted problem-wise is that Edge is now my default browser on Windows and I cannot change that back to Chrome because MS won't let me.  

It is a walled garden, you know.   Never forget that.

I think those who are considering clicking on the upgrade button need to reserve a whole day of fiddle time and start the thing up the night before while you are sleeping and let it grind all night.    Wastes less time that way.

And although right now Win 7 is a better OS for what we do, Win 7 ends inside 3 years and you are going to see MS's support go to zero pretty soon for Win 7 consumer level folks like us -- we had our upgrade ship pull up to the dock and we should have gotten on while it was here.

If you are currently landlocked into MS, then Win 10 is where I guess you want to be right now as the big steam whistle is blowing now, saying .....

"ALL ABOARD, SHIP IS DEPARTING IN 28 DAYS"

Linux and Chrome, where are they as competitive systems?


Linux first, as it has been finished for years now and LINUX HAS FULL GAMING SUPPORT now thanks to Gabe and all the STEAM BOX STUFF, stuff which is also showing up all tucked neatly away inside every Linux Distro as it is all open source Linux goodness.  

Linux is as good as it has ever been, quick, light, secure and fast.   Much more so than MS Windows 10.   Sorry boys, I got both systems running on the same hardware in different partitions, and that's just the way it is .....  Linux Mint is FASTER and easier to live with.

BTW, another huge chunk of MS core code also just became FOSS btw.  Yes I am talking about the .NET stuff that just got "donated" by MS because they felt/saw the camera flash go off last time they stuck their hands into the Linux cookie jar to go get them an upgrade to .NET basic functionality.  

Knowing the camera  had caught them, they donated .NET to FOSS instead of fighting over it in court.   This means they can shamelessly stick their hand in for all the rest of it now, as MS is a FOSS supporting company now .......

Watch Win 10 suddenly rotate more and more away from .NET over the next year or so since MS wants to get their locked garden effect to clamp down harder on their end users, just as hard it as it possibly can, actually.    

The old .NET though, that is "enemy camp stuff" to MS now.

Chrome OS is also just about completely finished as a full service OS system --- one that can load several different Linux distros as Crouton tabs, if the user is bold enough to enable programming mode and technical enough to go get it.    

This means the user is skilled enough to go look up a Crouton web page and follow the cut and paste instructions, taking lines of copy/paste instructions from the web page and dropping it in the Chrome command line box on his own machine and mashing his enter key.

Most useful "do real work" Native Android Play Store Applications will also now easily native load on the very newest Chromebooks that are just now coming out.

Android as a "drop your cell phone in a cradle main OS" running up on the big screen is still a year and a little bit away, although Ubuntu Linux can do that same trick right now on 3 Linux based phones if you just gotta have it right now.

You got choices, yes indeedy you do got choices, and the free one you need to lock down on right now is MS Win 10 as you only got 26 more days left in the free Win 10 upgrade offer.

I see nothing wrong in keeping a Windows 10 Gaming Partition on my Linux box --- makes good sense to me as some major games still aren't Steam cooked all the way to perfection just yet.


   

Chromebooks now hold the most value and the largest range of choices, operating in the cleanest fastest fashion.
     

old_rider wrote on 07/05/16 at 06:40:07:


Intentional, MS did that on purpose as they HAVE to show that they are as good as the other folks when running on their own OS.    If you can't run any faster, then make the other guy run slower -- same difference.

I still hold out big hopes for the new generation of "faster than current systems memory" SSD style drives which WILL allow all software to run much faster.   First gen of this hits this fall, so we shall see, now won't we?   We are talking phones and laptops with terabyte sized super fast SSD memory drives which will make the docked computer phones a really practical thing.

Now for some new stuff, fresh from China .....




http://liliputing.com/2016/07/blu-energy-xl-300-smartphone-big-screen-big-bat...

http://liliputing.com/2016/07/tiny-windows-pc-looks-like-alarm-clock.html

 





That alarm clock is a $200 full PC.



And check the specs on a cheap big battery BLU phone that just came out.   Cheap phones just aren't coming across as feeling cheap any more ........



The BLU Energy XL has a 6 inch display and the phone measures 6.3″ x 3.2″ x 0.3″. It weighs just over 7 ounces.

The BLU Energy XL features an octa-core 64-bit processor, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a fingerprint scanner, and a 1080p display.

But its most impressive feature is probably the battery: the phone packs a 5,000 mAh battery which BLU says should last for up to 3 days of regular use or up to 30 days of standby time.

The phone features a 1.3 GHz Mediatek 67533 ARM Cortex-A53 octa-core processor and supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, FM Radio, and 4G LTE with support for Voice over LTE.

There’s a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front-facing camera with LED flash and an 84 degree wide angle lens.