Jamie, you are probably doing more intensive computering for Plangent
Process than most of the rest of us. What platform are you using?
Thanks,
John
On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Jamie Howarth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> If my maintaining platform was this labor intensive I'd never get anything
> done.
>
> Please pardon the mispellings and occassional insane word substitution I'm
> on an iPhone
>
> > On Nov 29, 2015, at 1:21 PM, John Haley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > There were good reasons why Windows XP was the big workhorse for
> Corporate
> > America for so long, and why Corporate America resisted changing for as
> > long as it could. Microsoft had to take extraordinary measures to force
> XP
> > to die, murdering its own product to force in the new ones.
> >
> > Best,
> > John
> >
> >
> >> On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 1:16 PM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Richard's situation is more complex but in some ways similar to mine. I
> >> run two XP machines, and will continue to for the foreseeable. One is
> the
> >> secondary DAW in the studio (formerly the primary DAW). I run XP on that
> >> because the last reliable/stable/repeatable version of Roxio
> disc-burning
> >> software runs on XP. The new version, now owned by a different company,
> is
> >> awful, unstable and doesn't do some of its claimed DVD-authoring
> features.
> >> I also have an older version of Sony Vegas and Sony's DVD-authoring
> >> software that runs well on XP and I did not want to fool with trying to
> >> make it run well on W7. That computer also runs Soundforge 9, the last
> >> version of Soundforge that seamlessly integrated with Sony's CDArchitect
> >> software (current versions of Soundforge include a stand-alone version
> of
> >> CDArchitect which cannot be accessed and a projected dumped into it
> >> directly from Soundforge). Finally, that machine has one of the older,
> >> super-reliable Plextor Pro optical drives in it. That computer
> continues to
> >> be very useful for authoring, duplicating, ripping and otherwise working
> >> with optical media.
> >>
> >> In my home office, the main computer still runs XP. I have a bunch of
> >> older programs on it, and prefer the older Office interfaces, the older
> >> Photoshop setup and the older Outlook Express e-mail client. I know I
> will
> >> be forced to "upgrade" out of this world one day, but the computer still
> >> does these tasks plenty fast, so that day is hopefully many months and
> >> years away.
> >>
> >> Everything else around here runs W7 except that one computer (now the
> >> primary DAW in the studio), which runs W10. However, as I said, after
> >> hearing Dave's tales of woe, I might swap back in the W7 drive. As I
> also
> >> said, W7-64 is a fast operating environment for the kinds of things I
> do. I
> >> don't prefer the W7 user interface to XP. I find things like navigating
> and
> >> moving files take more steps or mouse-clicks, and I prefer the "classic"
> >> folders view. As I said, I was an early adopter of Windows 95, I learned
> >> quickly how to do things efficiently. By the time of Office 2003, they
> had
> >> gotten all those apps running fast and almost always crash-free. So I
> see
> >> no need to re-learn any of this since I can do what I need to do very
> >> quickly and know a bunch of control-key shortcuts. In most ways, XP was
> an
> >> ideal system because it brought all the good ideas of the original
> Windows
> >> forward, kept things familiar enough, made some things easier and more
> >> refined, and finally made the old NT-style kernal rock-solid. I
> understand
> >> why they needed to do a bunch of things from scratch with Windows 7, but
> >> they didn't need to redesign the Office interface, definitely didn't
> need
> >> to do all the stupid interface chances with Windows 8 and should spend
> more
> >> time making sure W7, W8 and W10 are as rock-solid as XP ended up being.
> >>
> >> -- Tom Fine
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard L. Hess" <
> >> [log in to unmask]>
> >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2015 11:37 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Wibdows 10?
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi, John,
> >>>
> >>> Your eagle eye was working...as I stated in the other message, Windows
> XP
> >>> is very peripheral to the vast majority of my work. I keep it around
> for my
> >>> thermal transfer CD/DVD printer. Although I intended to switch to
> inkjet
> >>> printable CDs, I haven't had the need to place an order for the blanks
> >>> yet...my usage of optical media has gone WAY down. I have been able to
> >>> convince almost all my software...or find substitutes for it...to run
> on
> >>> Windows 10. Remember, I've been running Windows 7 since early 2011,
> and I
> >>> found that a far more difficult transition. All but one of the W7 and
> later
> >>> machines I'm responsible for have been 64 bit. I was very conservative
> with
> >>> one friend who does writing and editing, so her first post-XP machine
> was
> >>> W7/32. Her second machine was W8.1/64.
> >>> We had 10 W7 and and 2 W8.1 machines in our family of four. The
> >>> Historical Society I do IT work for has 4 W7 and 1 W8.1 machine and
> then
> >>> there is the aforementioned friend with two machines. So, that brings
> me to
> >>> 18 post XP machines to care for and worry about.
> >>>
> >>> I have actually done 7 of the 12 machines here. My three towers and two
> >>> laptops and the two oldest (now surplus) machines when the boys each
> got an
> >>> 8.1 laptop as their original primary machine had issues. Issues fixed,
> >>> older backup machines made surplus. One of those updated has the W10
> >>> install on a HD in a drawer and a new HD with Open SUSE Linux on it
> just
> >>> for my amusement...I am easily amused.
> >>>
> >>> To complete the picture, I have three "keeper" XP machines. The
> original
> >>> 2003 XP machine I bought is the one doing the printer support in the
> >>> studio. I have a later machine set up as an audio workstation that has
> been
> >>> used for massive optical disk burning projects in the past and also
> for DAT
> >>> ingest in the past with a second operator. A third machine is kept as a
> >>> backup for the one in the studio. I have a crummy machine in a nice
> case
> >>> and a nice 2004 laptop that was even too slow for Linux, so it stays
> XP.
> >>> Those two machines are heading out the door someday soon. The tower
> >>> probably to recycling and hopefully someone will take the laptop via
> >>> Kijiji. I also have an HP 100 LX and HP 200 LX palmtop DOS computers
> which
> >>> I rarely use now.
> >>>
> >>> So, since Microsoft is offering free upgrades until July 29, 2016, I
> >>> thought I should get started soonish.
> >>>
> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-10/upgrade-to-windows-10-faq
> >>>
> >>> I first upgraded my "good" laptop (4th gen i5, 8 GB, orig W7 Home
> >>> Premium) to W10 and was able to use it without a hitch. I researched
> the
> >>> drivers for most of my equipment and tried one particularly fussy piece
> >>> (Nikon Super Coolscan 5000ED/LS5000) on the laptop. All was good.
> >>>
> >>> So, I went ahead and over about a week upgraded the three towers and
> the
> >>> workshop laptop. Then I upgraded the two older machines as described
> above.
> >>> I was surprised that the little single-core "netbookish" PC ran
> >>> surprisingly well, but don't ask it to multitask! If you are familiar
> with
> >>> the Passmark CPU ratings, the netbookish has a rating about 500 (the
> same
> >>> as a Pentium IV 3.2 GHz machine) but the system seems faster (64 vs 32
> >>> bits?). The HP that became a Linux machine scores about 1400. The boys'
> >>> newer laptops and mine score around 4000 as does my ingest desktop.
> The two
> >>> other desktops score around 6000 and the W8.1 machine at the Historical
> >>> Society scores over 10,000 and has a boot SSD--it screams. Our other
> >>> laptops are around 2500.
> >>>
> >>> So with the two spares and my five done, my further deployment will be
> >>> the boys' pairs over Christmas and my wife's and the five Historical
> >>> Society machines and my other friend's two in the late winter
> (Feb-Mar).
> >>>
> >>> It works because we will no longer have the mix of 7 and 8.1 for
> >>> different users/organizations.
> >>>
> >>> Windows 10 plusses:
> >>> --boots faster
> >>> --resolves some driver/hardware/software issues
> >>> (one remains unresolved on one of two machines)
> >>> --A superior UI to W8.1 and more like W7 in some respects
> >>> --Improved UI functionality on many fronts
> >>> --quite compatible (I Had to install a new driver to get
> >>> expected results from a 8-9 year old HP laser printer
> >>> HP had the driver available (HP P2015dn)
> >>>
> >>> Windows 10 minuses:
> >>> --you actually have to DO IT. Although the upgrade process is
> >>> automated you still need to go through all the functions and
> >>> see if anything is not working.
> >>> --A very few programs will not run. I can't recall anything that
> >>> needed a paid-for license to run. I do recall buying a few things,
> >>> but don't remember the reason...think it was "nice to have."
> >>> --W7 gadgets won't run, but the performance meters are available as
> >>> part of 8gadgetpak which runs fine on 10. I use a very cut-down
> >>> version of just the CPU on the netbook.
> >>> http://8gadgetpack.net/
> >>> Seems safe http://bit.ly/1NjsMFp
> >>> I have used the "suite" from Addgadgets.com which are included:
> >>> All CPU Meter, Drives Meter, Network Meter plus the Microsoft
> >>> analog clock, also included.
> >>>
> >>> This is one thing I don't have to worry about until 2025 or so and I
> >>> won't have to spend money or needlessly dispose of machines in 2020
> due to
> >>> the cost of upgrade then. I might want to, but most of our machines are
> >>> pretty competent.
> >>>
> >>> As to Microsoft Office, I have been using Libre Office for a while. It
> is
> >>> not perfect, but it's good and is being actively developed. We've been
> >>> under a bunch of pressure to save money at the Historical Society (for
> good
> >>> reasons) and I suggested one way to do that on the three new machines
> we
> >>> purchased last year was to use Libre Office instead of Microsoft
> Office.
> >>> People are adapting well, from what I hear. Unless the boys require an
> >>> updated version of MS Office, I don't see a reason to go beyond version
> >>> 2010.
> >>>
> >>> The replacement for Publisher and Visio is more difficult. The Libre
> >>> Office Draw is a simple drawing program, not Visio, but can be used for
> >>> many things. Scribus is a full-featured desktop publishing application
> and
> >>> having never been a fan of Publisher, I did a project last year in
> Scribus
> >>> that worked fine. I don't do enough DTP to warrant keeping InDesign
> >>> current. I have old versions (pre-CS) and the free CS2 version, but
> opted
> >>> for Scribus the last time I needed to do something to make certain
> that the
> >>> licensing was valid. (CS2's licensing is a bit iffy if you haven't
> bought
> >>> that version, which I hadn't). I like InDesign CS2 better than Scribus,
> >>> partially because I learned a bunch of things on InDesign. With that
> said,
> >>> Publisher 2003 seems to at least open and load a template on W10.
> >>>
> >>> There are Win 9x programs that were written for various digital
> >>> multimeters that sometimes ran under XP but balk at 64 bit OSs. I don't
> >>> have any post-XP 32-bit machines here.
> >>>
> >>> The W7 XP 32 bit virtual machine is gone from Windows 10, although my
> CD
> >>> printer software did not run under it. My old version of Visio did,
> but I
> >>> stopped using that long ago so I wouldn't create more documents. Libre
> >>> Office spent a lot of time on importing Visio docs to their draw
> program
> >>> and I thank them for that. Not perfect, but good.
> >>>
> >>> That's all I can think of...think I'll turn this into a blog post.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Richard
> >>>
> >>>> On 11/29/2015 9:51 AM, John Haley wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> I noticed in the separate string about "laptop upgrade" (really about
> >>>> external small DAC's), that you, Richard Hess, said you have upgraded
> >>>> most
> >>>> of your computers to Windows 10. I have been hesitating to do that
> >>>> myself,
> >>>> simply because things are working now the way they are, using various
> >>>> other
> >>>> Windows versions (except XP, which has now unfortunately left the
> >>>> building
> >>>> for me, along with some great programs that I lost). I don't want to
> >>>> invite trouble, and as we all know, Microsoft is not really our
> friend.
> >>>> And I have read somewhere online that Windows 10 has had a bug
> involving
> >>>> hi-def audio files.
> >>>>
> >>>> But if you are using Windows 10 for audio work, Richard, and all is
> going
> >>>> well, maybe I will do the free upgrades to Windows 10 on all my
> >>>> computers.
> >>>> Microsoft sure wants me to, with all the constant nagging upgrade
> >>>> messages. That in itself is almost a reason not to.
> >>>>
> >>>> How has your experience been with Windows 10? Any problems?
> >>>>
> >>>> And others on the list? Liking it? Not liking it?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>> John Haley
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
> >>> Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
> >>> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> >>> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
>
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