The Computer Thread

Apple: Because you suck, and we hate you.

Ah, there was a time in early 90's when Windows 3.1 allowed a lot of 3rd party apps. MS Flight Simulator was the bee's knees and it was easy to fix MS's fuckups.

Then Windows 95 happened - "Plug and pray", "DLL hell" etc. MS office got to become the de facto standard (I had a prof who questioned why such a vulnerable and clunky piece of software was the standard). Office became the standard because Micro$oft made deals to bundle it to vendors, PC makers, schools and all level of government.^note Okay their competition didn't help matters by making huge missteps

Never forget that M$ tried to hobble Netscape, when that didn't work it bundled Internet Explorer into Windows 98.

And that was after the internet caught them by surprise, Bill Gate's book "The Road Ahead" needed a hasty re-write as the internet took.

Before Apple overpriced flimsy, overheating laptops and knew that their phones would bend - Micro$oft was trying to muscle out 3rd party vendors, trying to lockdown the competition.

I was on the internet when it required "8-N-1" on a 28.8 modem (yeah! before 56K baby!).

I hate what Micro$oft has become, if anything, they are more out of touch since Bill Gates chose to become someone I won't punch in the face and Blamer left.

Sonic and ultrasonic attacks damage hard drives and crash OSes, Sounds played over off-the-shelf or embedded speakers often require a reboot.

What do anti-trust measures from 20 years ago have to do with things that aren't their fault today? Or are you just complaining about Microsoft for the sake of complaining about Microsoft?

Like, if an update breaks because an antivirus was involved somewhere it shouldn't be, that's not the system's fault. AV is one of those things that you have to give significant privileges to in order for it to work. If a third party application does stupid shit that involves itself deeper in the system than it should once granted those privileges, that's the third party's fault.

Plenty. Remember that Windows 8 was supposed to usher in the "walled garden" where only apps authorized by Micro$oft could be installed? I sure do. Kept me off Windows 8.

Redmond did know that their prized Defender was failing tests and wasn't ready for prime time for months. Many people would still run a 3rd party AV.

But hey, let's blame other devs instead of doing updates smartly.

Do you actually understand what caused this failure? If this failure wasn't possible, well, we'd be in that walled garden you just mentioned. This is a problem that exists because of having third party applications that are permitted elevated privileges. Privileges that mean that they have all the ability they need to alter system files and generally risk unexpected behaviour.

You can't have it both ways. You can't complain about Microsoft denying third party applications, then switch in the same sentence to how this has allowed a third party system to break a computer.

Sure, they could immediately swap to blocking programs from being able to touch system components (sucks if you get a virus that does that and can't fix it, though) but then you'd get people complaining about how Windows won't let their antivirus run.

TL;DR: if you want third party, third party might break something. If third party can't break something, you get walled gardens.

edited 30th May '18 9:32:45 PM by RainehDaze

I fixed my boot crash, btw. Disabled fast startup. Seems to have worked.

Walled Gardens are against what computers are about. I am forced to run with Windows Defender, but I am running Malware Bytes. No, not even Reddit knows why Redmond has screwed the pooch on this one.

Now mea culpa, I forgot to make a restore disk not connected to the computer. The first thing I did when I got it back from Geek Squad. Not getting pinned to that corner twice.

It might be time to stop using antivirus

An article from last year about how AV gets in the way of browser (and other software) vendors' attempts to tighten up security and presents a larger attack surface, as well as generally interfering with the ability to even run properly. But because it's still Windows security heresy to say not to use any AV software that isn't built in to the system, the faults are pinned on the software being interfered with instead of the intrusive third-party AV.

I've maintained for years that the best anti-malware software you can install is a reliable adblocker, as malvertising is the biggest infection vector that isn't reliant on social engineering the user.

Problem is I don't see that approach staying viable as websites begin actively blocking adblocker users from accessing their content until the site is whitelisted.

Thats when you just dont give them the trafic, I encounter maybe one of those sites a week max, its not too hard.

There's also alternative financing options, like the ad removal pass that TVT offers (which I would absolutely use if I didn't already have the no ads for life Kickstarter reward) and Patreon/Liberapay/roll-your-own monthly subscription. Ars Technica is a good example.

The online advertising industry in its current form is ultimately unsustainable and relying on ads alone is a bad, bad idea.

edited 31st May '18 2:01:07 AM by Sixthhokage1

German language article, but apparenly a surprisingly large amount of Swiss teenagers have a habit of meeting strangers in real life that they first encountered on the Internet. The estimated number is 46,000, and of these a further 13,000 between the ages 11-16 have made "discomforting" experiences in the process.

And I thought that it was common knowledge that such actions are a bad idea...

(eta: Fixed link)

edited 3rd Jun '18 12:30:12 AM by SeptimusHeap

Link is broken.

edited 3rd Jun '18 12:26:01 AM by M84

Try it now...

Okay, it's working now.

Clearly, their parents completely failed to teach them basic survival skills.

Can anyone help me find an legal Windows XP Virtual Machine for Windows?

Do you already know how to use VMs? I assume what you're looking for is a Windows XP license that you can legally install in the VM. If Microsoft is no longer selling them directly, you may still be able to acquire one from an online retailer. I did some searching and it doesn't look too promising.

However, I did find something that might work even better for you: an article telling you how to legally build a Windows XP VM using a developer support download from Microsoft. Linky.

Note that this will only work for 30 days before you're required to install a license key, but you can work around it by deleting and reinstalling the VM.

Hey guys, my laptop worked really well after the screen replacement. Now however, this laptop is shutting down randomly but usually very quickly. Now I've taken it into a local shop and he put in a temp check but I don't think a high temp was what was causing it. I've talked to my local computer guy and he says the best way might be to get a whole new motherboard or replacement hard drive or both. But I'd rather not make a pretty big payment for replacement parts if there is a way to stop this without doing so. I need to recover this one because it has my Resume saved on it.

Any ideas of how I can stop these random restarts? I've tried an internet method which involved typing in a command on the start menu, safe mode, and things like that. It is a HP laptop running Windows 8 on a 32 bit OS.

If it’s got a new screen... did anyone check if the screen’s power requirements were the same as the old one? If they wernt it might be drawing too much power and just tripping the laptop power supply limits.

If it's not 100% kaput yet, you might want to swiftly copy your resume to a USB stick.

I'll look but it worked for a while after it got the new screen. Wouldn't that not be the case if it was draining power? Also I tried with both the battery in and battery out.

Good point, I'll do that or e-mail myself.

Something really weird just happened to me. Last night my laptop was working fine with no significant hiccups or warning signs that a major problem is brewing. Then I woke up today, started up the laptop and went back to doze on my bed while it takes its sweet time finishing the startup process (trial and error taught me to give it 10 minutes minimum to avoid annoying issues like glitched out taskbar icons).

When I come back, however, I find the screen showing nothing but over 20 vertical lines of black and white, with a single bar flashing regularly every 1-2 seconds. I restart, I unplug all external drives and restart, nope, no dice. Same result every time. Eventually for some reason the computer managed to cough up a DOS error screen whose gist is that I'm facing a 0xC000000E error. Looked it up my smartphone, turns out I need to buy the kit I need to manually fix this.

After mulling it over, I decided to try the "continue" option at the bottom of the error screen. I was then given two options: "Windows startup repair" and "start Windows normally". The former just led me back to the aforementioned error screen. The latter... caused the computer to start Windows normally as if nothing was wrong.

What the hell is going on?!

My goddamn phone keeps dismounting my Micro SD card. It's still physically present but my phone insists it's not. Removing and replacing the card fixes the issue temporarily, but that "temporarily" is becoming increasingly short. I'm at a loss as to what to do here.

I guess the germane question is whether the problem recurs. Things like that can be transient or could be indicative of a serious problem. Computers are complex machines and sometimes things just glitch for no obvious reason. If I were you, I'd make sure that I have a current backup in case the thing does go down for good.

That's almost certainly a hardware problem, like the socket getting damaged or some of the contacts coming loose. If you can use an air duster to blow out the socket, you might do so. Otherwise the parts are definitely not meant to be user-serviceable.

edited 21st Jun '18 9:35:49 AM by Fighteer