Speaking of 7... I just got informed of a few updates for my laptop today. Four optional updates.

KB3075249 - adds telemetry points to consent.exe (sends your UAC decisions back to HQ)
KB3077715 - timezone rules update to include recent changes to N.Korea
KB3078667 - fixes a memory leak causing desktop window manager (dwm.exe) to crash
KB3080149 - UTC update for "down-level" devices (??? whatever that means. It's a 16mb update and modifies a LOT of files), but also, it says right on the MS page that it adds telemetry and tracking to help with the upgrade process.

First and last are an obvious NO, but the middle two appear harmless.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

i was stuck in the Windows mode where i would always get the driver from the gpu manufacturer's website

i forgot about the ubuntu software center, i remember using that long ago for vlc

I just picked up 2 Win 7 64 Pro off Amazon Prime, as an insurance policy. I am intending to retro grade my 2 daily drivers back from 8.1.

H.P. is still offering Win 7 Pro 64 bit with nvidea graphics in the $550 to #650 range with bells/whistles added.

I'm not sure if I would want my computer to have any bells or whistles.
Despite Windows 7 being "end of life" many computer manufactures are still offering it.

if you think that supported till 2020 is end of life lol

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I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

KB3077715 - timezone rules update to include recent changes to N.Korea

Because they use a lot of Windows?
Or so the rest of the world knows what time it is in Pyongyang?

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KB3077715 - timezone rules update to include recent changes to N.Korea

Because they use a lot of Windows?
Or so the rest of the world knows what time it is in Pyongyang?

I read not too long ago that the entire country has a total of 128 IPv4 addresses allocated. That doesn't specifically mean there can only be 128 internet-connected devices, since you can use NAT to make hundreds of things appear as one, but.. there's something there, at least.

But yeah, it's probably so that the RoW (Rest of World) can know what time it is in Pyongyang.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Or so the rest of the world knows what time it is in Pyongyang?

Anyone not knowing 'what time it is in Pyongyang' is living there.........

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

KB3077715 - timezone rules update to include recent changes to N.Korea

Because they use a lot of Windows?
Or so the rest of the world knows what time it is in Pyongyang?

I read not too long ago that the entire country has a total of 128 IPv4 addresses allocated. That doesn't specifically mean there can only be 128 internet-connected devices, since you can use NAT to make hundreds of things appear as one, but.. there's something there, at least.

But yeah, it's probably so that the RoW (Rest of World) can know what time it is in Pyongyang.

I would not trust to any news about North Korea, if you value your intellect of course.

O.K. Coming at you red faced and pissed! WTF!? happened? I was having no problem with windows 10...until tonight. I don't know what went wrong, everything related to my graphics driver went to sh%& in a big hurry. I received multiple and persistent notifications that my graphics driver had stopped. I tried everything; AMD cleanup utility, reinstall CCC...nothing worked.

I am back to Win 7 Pro at this point, on my desktop at least. Something went South in the last couple of days. WAY South...

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Might have something to do with the automatic Windows Update. I saw the news about the zero day exploit for Internet Explorer and the recommended Important Update KB to fix it. When I went and did the Windows Update, I was amazed to see the Win10 Important Update for my Nvidia drivers. This is on a Win7 SP1 system. First thing I did was to "hide" that automatic video driver update since I knew that it was going to backlevel the driver and cause BOINC to immediately error out all my tasks. Can't believe, or should say, of course they did that with regard to Microsoft Updates. I don't want Windows Update anywhere near my video drivers. I make the decisions on which video driver to run my hardware.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I solved my graphics driver reset problems by using -sbs 256 -period_iterations_num 15 in my mb_cmdline_win_x86_sse2_opencl_ati_hd5.txt file.

Micro$cam tried to update my nvidia driver also, but it was under 'optional' and I'm set to notify but not install updates so I was able to hide it. That's on 8.1 soon to be 7.

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"Sour Grapes make a bitter Whine." <(0)>

Well, after I re-installed my tried and true GPU driver, I finally had an AP unit validate. Win 10 has not forced me to update the driver yet, after all the action I took to prevent it, so I am pleased about that. My available time to mess with things has been very limited lately, so I am glad I seem to have some control over driver installation. If things change, I will post about it.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Well, after I re-installed... Win 10 has not forced me to update ... after all the action I took to prevent it, so I am pleased about that. My available time to mess with things has been very limited lately, so I am glad I seem to have some control... If things change, I will post about it.

Phew!

All this just for an OS "upgrade"...?

I'll admit I've never seen so much heat about any OS, and never anything stretching to 1046 posts!

All a game of viral Marketing by design, or something else unbelievable?

Entertaining even?...


Gee whizz... Is Linux far to quiet and 'boring' in comparison?!

IT is what we make it.

;-)


Happy easy crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I was really looking forward to AMD's Mantle engine....and then MS saw how good Mantle was and said "let's make an identical copy of it, but call it DX12 instead!" *throws arms up* Well.. there goes that glimmer of hope that Mantle-supported games would start being quite popular (and be cross-platform compatible).

This isn't true. Software takes years to develop. It isn't like Microsoft heard about Mantle then immediately went to work on DirectX 12. More than likely the coding efforts were done in parallel (but no co-operatively, obviously).

It also appears that AMD's graphics cards are benefiting from DirectX 12 more than NVidia at the moment.

I just picked up 2 Win 7 64 Pro off Amazon Prime, as an insurance policy. I am intending to retro grade my 2 daily drivers back from 8.1.

H.P. is still offering Win 7 Pro 64 bit with nvidea graphics in the $550 to #650 range with bells/whistles added.

I'm not sure if I would want my computer to have any bells or whistles.
Despite Windows 7 being "end of life" many computer manufactures are still offering it.

if you think that supported till 2020 is end of life lol

"End of life" is typically when sale have stopped. While "end of support" are the dates that Microsoft lists in its product life cycle.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Greetings,

I am officially back to Windows 7 Pro 64bit! :)

As much as I liked several things about Win10, I was actively looking for any reason to revert back to Win7. I was ranting about various Win10 topics with the other half this morning and I got to 'privacy and security'. Micro$oft states that they have the users privacy and security in mind and yet they come out with the biggest piece of malware to ever hit the Internet. THAT WAS IT!!!

Even though I had talked about that several times in these past few weeks, talking about it today just hit a major nerve. I have gone in and uninstalled the following updates so I would not be nagged to install Win10 again:

• KB3035538
  
• KB2952664
  
• KB3021917
  
• KB2990214
  

I could not find KB3022345 so I figured I was good to go.

Bye bye Windows 10! :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

.oO(If I'm not converted to Win10 anymore, does that make me a prevert? ;) )

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

So... If the Win10 non-privacy does not get all your data, why not just give it away for free in the first place?...


Microsoft turns on Windows 10 file backup to Azure

... Windows has included basic backup utilities for many years. That Microsoft's now giving those tools the cloud treatment should come as no surprise...


Do you trust enough to have all your data on someone else's cloud 'for free'?

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

So... If the Win10 non-privacy does not get all your data, why not just give it away for free in the first place?...


Microsoft turns on Windows 10 file backup to Azure

... Windows has included basic backup utilities for many years. That Microsoft's now giving those tools the cloud treatment should come as no surprise...


Do you trust enough to have all your data on someone else's cloud 'for free'?

IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

I have all of that shut off, so all 5 TB of my files will stay on my computer.

Steve

---

Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

I was really looking forward to AMD's Mantle engine....and then MS saw how good Mantle was and said "let's make an identical copy of it, but call it DX12 instead!" *throws arms up* Well.. there goes that glimmer of hope that Mantle-supported games would start being quite popular (and be cross-platform compatible).

This isn't true. Software takes years to develop. It isn't like Microsoft heard about Mantle then immediately went to work on DirectX 12. More than likely the coding efforts were done in parallel (but no co-operatively, obviously).

It also appears that AMD's graphics cards are benefiting from DirectX 12 more than NVidia at the moment.

Well.. AMD, MS, and others all kind of got the same idea around the same general time period (as to who thought of it first, and then rumors circulated throughout the industry.. nobody knows), but this is the article that I was basing my statement off of.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm

Mantle was announced first, and put into use before DX12, and it seems that DX12 is trying to be a cross-vendor version of the same thing, but as to my original thought.. I think that still stands. If DX12 works great, then why continue developing and trying to push Mantle? Especially if DX12 works better on AMD cards than nVidia? That gives AMD the performance advantage, and they didn't even have to do any of the development or programming.

Okay, so saying that MS "stole" the Mantle idea is a bit uncalled-for, but the rest of the point stands. If DX12 works so great, then there isn't any incentive or reason to continue with Mantle or similar concepts which would allow a game to be cross-platform, and further locks gamers to needing Windows. Yes, Wine works most of the time, but it doesn't always work, and then requires all that fiddly command-line and nerdy confusing Linux things to get it to work when it doesn't. The vast majority of people want something that just.. works and shouldn't require a computer programming degree to get it to work.

Anyway. I guess that's about enough of that. Those are just my opinions based on what I know.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Sounds very much like VHS vs. Betamax, or Blu-ray vs. whatever the other one was - I've forgotten.

Presumably, both sides will continue flogging their respective dead horses, up to and beyond public release/sale. Eventually, one side or the other will run out of development cash, and sell their patents to the other. And a natural monopoly will be re-established, to everyone's relief and enduring prosperity.