One thing I miss about Windows...

[KGIII]

I was reading some AdSense policies when I was reminded of something I miss from time to time - specifically something I miss from when I used to use Windows.

You know what I miss?

Pirating software...

Sure, I paid for all sorts of software. I paid for my browser for quite a while (Opera wasn't always free). I even paid for both WinZip and WinRAR - each just once. Heck, I even paid for a compiler back in the day. I bought a ton of software. Heck, I even had my own personal MSDN subscription.

But, man... I'd pirate all sorts of stuff. I'd pirate software I would never actually use. I'd pirate the entire Adobe suite and would pirate PhotoShop - and I can't create/edit images. I'd compile expensive engineering software that I not only didn't use but would have no idea what it was actually meant to do. I'd pirate games I'd never play! One of the first things I'd do when I had free time was look to check the latest pirate feeds. I'd often grab 'em from Usenet in parts, put the parts together, compress them all again as a single .rar/.zip file with a password, and give the results to people who ran the pirate sites. Once in a while, I'd even figure out how to pirate the software myself and release the methods on those same channels!

Man, I was banned from so many hosting companies...

Since using Linux, I don't pirate any software. I've looked around and there's just nothing worth pirating - to me - and a very tiny selection of software to even consider pirating.

I kinda miss the excitement/thrill. I also kinda miss doing it myself and cracking the software on my own.

Ah well...

 

[Deleted member 137406]

I did my share of pirating back in the day.
I used key generators and other various cracks.

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visio
Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Never paid a thing for any of the above.

Yep the good old days of computer software.
It was a lot easier to get around the activation keys.
I had a few issues with activation keys being blacklisted.

Microsoft made it easy in the old days to pirate their software.
OH well I had a lot of fun and for the most it was harmless imo.

 

[Worralorrasurfa]

If there's one thing I miss, it's portable apps.


I still have XP on a separate (off-line) desktop. So, I'm not really missing anything!

As far as I'm concerned, I've got the best of both worlds.

It was Windows 7 that lead me to Linux. I hated it. A lot of my XP software didn't cross-over to 7, so I went looking for alternatives to Windows. Somehow, I came across Ubuntu Karmic Koala, and the rest is history. Sure, it took a period of adjustment, but I couldn't be happier to be away from the current brand of Windows.

Also, WinE will NEVER tarnish my Linux systems.

Xubuntu and Majaro Xfce are my daily drivers now.

Cheers.

 

[KGIII]

I did my share of pirating back in the day.

I paid for a lot of software, as well. But, yeah...

 

[bob466]

I don't miss anything.

 

[Fanboi]

Yup, pirated everything I owned, but of course I also bought the originals, hontoni honto.

And of course this thread elicits the following obligatory link:
You are a Pirate (original)

 

[Brickwizard]

The only thing I miss from windows, is wasting 4 hours on a Sunday, once a month running all the clean-up programs and defragging

 

[Deleted member 137406]

Wow you must of had a lot of stuff installed as it never takes but seconds to clean the Wife's Windows 10 computer.

Defragging is done automatically on Windows 10 nowadays.

The only cleanup program I ever used was the default oem disk cleanup.

 

[Brickwizard]

Wow you must of had a lot of stuff installed as it never takes but seconds

my last windows was XP on a desktop with 4 7200spin HDD's totalling about 700 gb, have you ever sat and watched paint dry...

 

[Deleted member 137406]

a desktop with 4 7200spin HDD's totalling about 700 gb,

That explains it.

My desktops are only 1 and 2 drives never needed no more.

have you ever sat and watched paint dry...

Nope never seen no future in watching paint dry.

 

[KGIII]

Hmm... Yeah, it was kinda cathartic watching the defrag process.

I don't often have a reason to do so, but I like watching software compile.

 

[Fanboi]

Defragging is done automatically on Windows 10 nowadays.

I dunno if I'd want that. I'm just gonna say SSD + wear-levelling. So I hope Windows lets you disable this.

BTW: The simplest solution would have been if MS had used and existing system, XFS, instead of wasting R&D resources on developing their crappy in-house NTFS. It would've cost less to buy rights from SGI to use XFS (if that was needed, I mean RHEL is the active developer now, so not even sure -- and too lazy to find out -- how that happened) than the cost I reckon creating NTFS from scratch cost (the compatibility argument is invalid coz FAT is forward-compatible with all FS types). Nope, real reason: Like everything MS, they tried to reinvent the wheel. MS OSes are the only ones that don't resemble a UNIX standard anywhere. It's as if every choice was to not vaguely resemble every other OS. I'd say making DOS/Windows so incompatible (well "difficulty-compatible") with other systems was a genius marketing move, but I doubt Gates was that clever.

 

[Deleted member 137406]

I dunno if I'd want that. I'm just gonna say SSD + wear-levelling. So I hope Windows lets you disable this.

Jeez Louise​

Not everyone has a newfangled computer with them there newfangled SSDs in them.

The Windows 10 computers around the house have the good old fashion reliable mechanical hard drives in them so no worries here.

The Windows 10 computers we have only get defragged when need which might be two or three times a year and that is done manually.

Just because the availability of automatically setting up maintenance tasks are available doesn't mean that everyone uses them.

All maintenance on the computers we have are maintained manually and only then when needed.

 

[SlowCoder]

You know what I miss?

Pirating software...

I do not. While I'm not saying I'm innocent, but as a developer myself, I typically respected the work put into software, especially from smaller individuals and companies. Besides, pirating software all too often lead to malware, which just made it not worth it. However, I never cried when I heard someone pirated from the big companies, as their business practices sucked.

These days, Linux gives me everything I want, and I'm totally happy.

 

[KGIII]

but as a developer myself

Oh, I've written mountains of code - some of which may well have impacted your life. I paid for more software than most. I also figure anyone pirating the software wasn't ever gonna buy the software in the first place.

The software we released required a dongle to run, which kept the piracy to a minimum, though you can now get software that far exceeds what we had and so much of what was once our proprietary information is now just a few plugins in their traffic sim of choice. It's amazing how much it has changed, but I digress...

 

[SlowCoder]

Oh, I've written mountains of code - some of which may well have impacted your life. I paid for more software than most. I also figure anyone pirating the software wasn't ever gonna buy the software in the first place.

Yeah, I wasn't judging. As I said, I'm not completely innocent. Just providing my perspective.

 

[KGIII]

As I said, I'm not completely innocent.

Those of us who use Linux are generally pretty geeky - and inquisitive... I suspect none of use are innocent.

As for malware, keygens were generally safer than cracks - unless the malware itself was in the keygen which would happen from time to time. Amusingly, there were *reputable* people/groups in the community. So, perhaps there is honor among thieves - or at least pirates!

 

[bob466]

Wow you must of had a lot of stuff installed as it never takes but seconds to clean the Wife's Windows 10 computer.

Defragging is done automatically on Windows 10 nowadays.

The only cleanup program I ever used was the default oem disk cleanup.

I dunno if I'd want that. I'm just gonna say SSD + wear-levelling. So I hope Windows lets you disable this.

Speaking of defragging...when I first put my win 7 VM on my first SSD...I disabled the auto-defrag in win 7 even though the VM was a file and not a Drive...I didn't want to take the risk.

 

[Fanboi]

Jeez Louise
Not everyone has a newfangled computer with them there newfangled SSDs in them.

Just because the availability of automatically setting up maintenance tasks are available doesn't mean that everyone uses them.

You kinda made it sound like it was automatic. You literally said:

Defragging is done automatically on Windows 10 nowadays.

And since I haven't run Windows on any machines of mine since Window 7, and given that 10 does so much automatically, I'd say mine was a more than fair assumption.
Equally fairly, SSDs are not exactly "newfangled"; they've been availably on the shelves for around 15 years give or take, and the tech has been available around 30 (though not exactly at consumer level prices).
I only have 1 SSD and it's in my desktop.
Though my laptop's running an HDD, I still wouldn't want Windows auto-defragging stuff. SSD was a more universal example, but I've had a few very loud and crappy drives. A constant defragging outta my control could be a problem, not just cozza noise but drive wear, too. HDDs are also harmed by too much defragging. I mean they also have lifespans that are affected by I/O ops. Those moving parts get unhealthy and you can hear when seeking gets harder or a motor is struggling -- both affected by this. And besides, like compulsory updates, it can be a huge disruption if one is busy on one's PC.

The Windows 10 computers we have only get defragged when need which might be two or three times a year and that is done manually.

All maintenance on the computers we have are maintained manually and only then when needed.

Which is sensible

 

[Fanboi]

Speaking of defragging...when I first put my win 7 VM on my first SSD...I disabled the auto-defrag in win 7 even though the VM was a file and not a Drive...I didn't want to take the risk.

My VM images are stored on HDDs coz my space is limited (120GB SSD), but even with more space, I'd still keep them on HDDs as the performance of a VM is bottlenecked far worse by other factors. In any case, you can rest assured that the negatives of writes on a smaller file are about the same as what's being done in /var, /tmp,and local cache. Just by browsing, you're foing constant read/writes to browser cache (for most browsers, I think TorBB, which has a modofied Firefox, doesn't cache as it's privacy-oriented).