Windows 7 or 8

[AZRedhawk44]

I always use a USB mouse and never the touchpad, but apparently that doesn't prevent the touchpad from randomly interfering.  Never have this problem on XP.

I have one W7 laptop and two XP laptops (three if you count the one with the farked video).

My laptops (both ASUS), if I push Fn+F9 it disables the touchpad.

I can also go into control panel and adjust mouse settings to that if I plug in an external mouse device the touchpad is automatically disabled.

[CNYCacher]

Since nobody has yet, I'll have to say neither. I switched to Linux about 5 years ago and have no regrets.

Yup. 15 (holy crap!) years here.

[Tallpine]

Your laptop is too new.  You should stick with the same strategy that works for your trucks, older is better.

Chris

It's the latest one provided by my employer.  Apparently they want me to move into the 20th century.  Thing doesn't neck rein worth a darn 

My laptops (both ASUS), if I push Fn+F9 it disables the touchpad.

I can also go into control panel and adjust mouse settings to that if I plug in an external mouse device the touchpad is automatically disabled.

Thanks!     Now I can bill for fokking around with my laptop settings (the other option was a sledgehammer).

[lee n. field]

Your laptop is too new.  You should stick with the same strategy that works for your trucks, older is better.

Chris

Dang.  Should-a grabbed the old Compaq Win98 laptop I saw at a garage sale a couple weeks back.

[Tallpine]

Dang.  Should-a grabbed the old Compaq Win98 laptop I saw at a garage sale a couple weeks back.

I've got a Win95 laptop with an internal dial up modem sitting on a shelf in the closet 

[Brad Johnson]

I've got a Win95 laptop with an internal dial up modem sitting on a shelf in the closet 

Is it still horse-pulled or has it been converted to coal?

Brad

[230RN]

I read somewhere that you can use the i386 folders somehow to restore one's  Win 2000 operating system (as well as XP), but never tried it.  Apparently, there are two sets of i386 folders, one for the system, and one for the drivers.  But the i386 folders are sitting there on both my beloved Compaq Armada (W2000) and my delectable Dell (XP).

I decided I'd HAVE to learn W7 on my detestable HP 64-bit, which is why I never tried it on either of the older machines.  I believe I recollect reading that using the i386 folders will also eliminate any malware but in my old age and dotage, this may not be correct.

Now, where'd I put my keys?

Terry

[AZRedhawk44]

I just went looking through my MSDN subscription. 

I can get Office 95, and 2003, but 2000 is gone.  Sorry.  Normally they'll have all sorts of old OS and app downloads on there.

I also checked my archives here, and I'm kind of surprised I don't have any Office2K installation media and service packs.

[Tallpine]

Is it still horse-pulled or has it been converted to coal?

Brad

Must be coal.  It runs pretty hot.  Like it burns your legs hot 

[HankB]

I just went looking through my MSDN subscription. 

I can get Office 95, and 2003, but 2000 is gone.  Sorry.  Normally they'll have all sorts of old OS and app downloads on there.

I also checked my archives here, and I'm kind of surprised I don't have any Office2K installation media and service packs.

Looked through my stuff at work and eureka!, found an old CD I made some years ago with the earlier service paks and a host of updates.   

Did a little research, and while various patches and O2k SP3 are still available from MS, they've discontinued availability of earlier service paks at their website - and SP3 requires the earlier paks be installed. It seems MS would much rather have people spend $$$ installing their newest bloatware than reinstall an old program that is more than adequate for 99% of home users.

[Tallpine]

Looked through my stuff at work and eureka!, found an old CD I made some years ago with the earlier service paks and a host of updates.   

Did a little research, and while various patches and O2k SP3 are still available from MS, they've discontinued availability of earlier service paks at their website - and SP3 requires the earlier paks be installed. It seems MS would much rather have people spend $$$ installing their newest bloatware than reinstall an old program that is more than adequate for 99% of home users.

Didn't the dot gov do something similar with cars ? 

I still use Office 2K on my own laptop.

[MillCreek]

I've got a Win95 laptop with an internal dial up modem sitting on a shelf in the closet 

Maybe I should have kept my 300 baud accoustic coupler/modem with the RS-232 cable.....

[Levant]

I have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft.  I have a bunch of certs and have made my living using Microsoft technologies for 16 years.  Even so, every couple of years or more I say that I am dropping MS for Linux and LAMPS.  Then I go to Linux and figure out how much the latest desktops are very poor clones of Microsoft desktops, installation packages a pain in the tail compared to clicking "setup.exe", and so on. As bad as MS is, it's better than most options - except a Mac and even then I am not certain.

I really hate Windows 8 but I agree with Darby.  If you go MS, go with Windows 8.  You'll get a free or cheap upgrade to W8.1 and, eventually, you have to get what's new anyway.

[Fitz]

I have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft.  I have a bunch of certs and have made my living using Microsoft technologies for 16 years.  Even so, every couple of years or more I say that I am dropping MS for Linux and LAMPS.  Then I go to Linux and figure out how much the latest desktops are very poor clones of Microsoft desktops, installation packages a pain in the tail compared to clicking "setup.exe", and so on. As bad as MS is, it's better than most options - except a Mac and even then I am not certain.

I really hate Windows 8 but I agree with Darby.  If you go MS, go with Windows 8.  You'll get a free or cheap upgrade to W8.1 and, eventually, you have to get what's new anyway.

All of this.
I'm a mac user, and prefer them for my personal computers. Of course my work machines are windows boxes.

Lot easier to configure basic networking services on the windows side of the house as well, versus leeee-nucks

[lee n. field]

Looked through my stuff at work and eureka!, found an old CD I made some years ago with the earlier service paks and a host of updates.   

Did a little research, and while various patches and O2k SP3 are still available from MS, they've discontinued availability of earlier service paks at their website - and SP3 requires the earlier paks be installed. It seems MS would much rather have people spend $$$ installing their newest bloatware than reinstall an old program that is more than adequate for 99% of home users.

I've got the o2k service packs, if needed.

[Levant]

All of this.
I'm a mac user, and prefer them for my personal computers. Of course my work machines are windows boxes.

Lot easier to configure basic networking services on the windows side of the house as well, versus leeee-nucks

My next laptop will be a mac.  Everyone knows that a Mac is the best hardware on which to run Windows.

[RocketMan]

I've got a Win95 laptop with an internal dial up modem sitting on a shelf in the closet 

I've got two of them around.  :neener:

[RocketMan]

Maybe I should have kept my 300 baud accoustic coupler/modem with the RS-232 cable.....

Got one o' them, too, that I used on the road to download rawinsonde data from the NWS in my storm chasing days.
Fed it into one of my Win95 laptops with wx modeling software.

[Levant]

Windows 95 was the best PC operating system ever made.  I ran it on 4MB of RAM and 20MB hard drive.  Of course I couldn't multitask  until I got 8MB of RAM.  Once I did that, it was totally awesome.  HOw did we get from something that lean to an operating system that adds little more value but requires a bare minimum of 500 times as much hard drive space to install, and 500 times as much memory to run reasonably.

• All of your disk drive are belong to us.
• All of your RAM are belong to us.
• All of your CPU are belong to us.
• All of your Internet bandwidth are belong to us.

[Gewehr98]

Your laptop is too new.  You should stick with the same strategy that works for your trucks, older is better.

Mtnbkr speak true.

How are you supposed to project the rugged Longmire image with something that newfangled?

[lee n. field]

Mtnbkr speak true.

How are you supposed to project the rugged Longmire image with something that newfangled?

A bunch of little 4MB Win95 virtuals, squirming like maggots.

[mtnbkr]

Windows 95 was the best PC operating system ever made.  I ran it on 4MB of RAM and 20MB hard drive.  Of course I couldn't multitask  until I got 8MB of RAM.  Once I did that, it was totally awesome.  HOw did we get from something that lean to an operating system that adds little more value but requires a bare minimum of 500 times as much hard drive space to install, and 500 times as much memory to run reasonably.

You weren't multitasking with any amount of RAM in Win95.  Win95 was still task switching like Win3.1x.  At that time, NT, OSX, and Linux were the only multitasking desktop OSes available.  Mac maybe, I'm not sure if it was multitasking or task-switching before the BSD integration.

I was supporting a Win95/Win98 LAN with 200+ users and a half dozen NT4.0 servers back in the late 90s.  Win95 had many shortfalls in networking, security, stability, etc.  I migrated my power users onto NT4 Workstation so they could get work done.

No offense, but all of the Win9x flavors (including ME) were crap.  Hardware is cheap, it bothers me not at all that Win7 requires 4gig of RAM and a 300gb+ hard drive to run.  It's so much better than anything that came before, it is well worth the price.

Chris

[Fitz]

Yep.

Lol... Windows95 the best. Haha

[Perd Hapley]

Hardware is cheap, it bothers me not at all that Win7 requires 4gig of RAM and a 300gb+ hard drive to run.

You're joking about the 300 gb, right? 

[mtnbkr]

You're joking about the 300 gb, right? 

I didn't have the spec right in front of me, but I know from experience that 4gb RAM and a 300gb HD are more than adequate for Win7 (my first build was 8gb RAM and a 500gb drive, my work laptop is closer to what I posted above).  You can barely find <500gb drives these days (recently saw 2TB drives for $80) and RAM is cheap, so it's a moot point. 

Chris