Comments

• your_friend

  2010-02-06 18:01:36

  Ah, a new jingle. "It's beginning to look a lot like Vista." Mix and match your own words, fun fun. Dead batteries, black screens, media that does not work, there's a nice long list now.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-06 18:10:59

  "Well the initial impression is how much it [Windows 7] looks like Vista. Which I think is…uh…the thing I’m not supposed to say."

  --Microsoft Jack Schofield

• David Gerard

  2010-02-06 14:31:56

  For those stuck with XP - may I heartily recommend TinyXP. If you really do need XP and you have an XP licence, it's the only way to do it.

• your_friend

  2010-02-06 16:08:47

  Windows, if you must, it's better in a VirtualBox. Sane people delete it and never look back. Destroying the drive with fire, a hammer or other tools is satisfying but results in loss of a drive and may be dangerous. Install media should be kept locked in a safe or thrown away so so that you are not able to do bad things to yourself while intoxicated. You are only stuck with XP or anyother member of the Windows family if you work for idiots who "top down" "just make it happen." Don't let this happen to you!

• David Gerard

  2010-02-06 16:20:09

  Yep. I keep TinyXP in a VirtualBox for playing with WineOnWindows ;-D

• David Gerard

  2010-02-06 16:21:58

  TinyXP has the added advantage of coming with a nice WGA Killer service.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-06 17:07:56

  I still have the Windows 98 CD. :-)

• your_friend

  2010-02-06 17:46:34

  Make an image and throw the disk away. It's worthless without the key anyway. I deleted my last copy of 98 about seven years ago and never installed XP. Despite all of Microsoft's efforts, I only needed to borrow a computer two or three times in all these years. The last time I used Windows because I thought I had to, free software on GNU/Linux did the job better. XP and a few obsolete applications should not take up more than a few Gigs. Years from now, you can show it to your kids and grandkids in a VM as an example of how bad non free computing was. Windows 3.1 runs in Dosbox, that's a fun thing to have in the archive too.
  
  This is a cruel twist on Bill Gate's wish to keep GNU/Linux around in a non functioning form after killing it. More interesting things would be copies of Solaris, IRIX, BeOS, MacOS and other restricted computing environments. In theory, you should be able to run all of these with Qemu on your own GNU/Linux powered computing museum. I've read that people have already created arcade gaming machines this way. Of all the things to look at, Windows will be the least loved and least visited.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-06 18:09:43

  No, I won't throw away the CD. It's the only proof I touched Windows in the past. :-)

• your_friend

  2010-02-06 19:04:29

  I have a little box with AOL CDs and other stuff like that. They are shiny and have pretty colors on them. Floppies are not as nice, but I have a little box of them too. Sooner than later, boxed sets of Vista and Vista 7 will be hitting the trash cans, some of them might be luckier than this.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-06 19:25:23

  I know people who just ebayed their "copy" of Vista 7.

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-07 11:22:10

  Your_Friend: "Sane people delete it and never look back. Destroying the drive with fire, a hammer or other tools is satisfying but results in loss of a drive and may be dangerous."
  
  Sane people would not be so consumed with hate as to physically destroy a hard drive simply because it once contained software they didn't like. I challenge you to find any physician or psychologist to say otherwise.
  
  Even worse, those who prefer Windows or simply don't like FOSS products, for whatever reason, are not sane individuals by your reasoning? I see little difference between you and a racist bigot, except for the target of your hate.

• your_friend

  2010-02-07 22:53:18

  That so much hardware hits the trash every year is the direct result of Microsoft's technical sabotage. As a free software user, I'm able to both use and put this hardware back into circulation for others. Some things, like Winmodems, are not worth the time and effort and should stay in the trash. Why does Microsoft so hate their customers as to routinely break their hardware and software? Why does Microsoft so fear people like me that they describe free software as a cancer? It's because they can't compete.
  
  The difference between free and non free software is now so obvious that only bigoted or ignorant people prefer to use it. As Microsoft complained ten years ago, Windows use has to be forced "top down" on people. That, not the software itself, is a crime that people should hate and punish. I challenge you to justify this kind of fraud without resorting to more personal insults.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-02-07 22:58:38

  One fundamental difference is that Microsoft -- unlike Free software -- colludes with companies like Intel in order to establish business relationships. Intel needs to sell more boards/chips.
  
  http://boycottnovell.com/2009/08/10/intel-microsoft-price-fixing/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/08/11/collusion-against-gnu-linux/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/08/16/intel-microsoft-legal-questions/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/05/27/intel-microsoft-cartel/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/03/11/intel-serious-crimes-korea/

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-09 11:58:38

  Your paragraph about "technical sabotage" still doesn't justify the destruction of a hard drive simply because it once contained Microsoft software. Can you cite even one example where the installation of a Microsoft operating system rendered a hard drive unusable even after a reformat? No, you can't, but I'm sure you'll continue to list even more off-topic examples to make it appear that you've defeated the argument against you.
  
  If you don't like personal attacks directed at yourself perhaps you should adhere to the golden rule. Labeling people as bigoted or ignorant because they may prefer non-free software is asking for trouble.

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-07 12:22:12

  I often criticize Roy for being dishonest and hypocritical, and I think using the term "Vista 7" is a great example of this. Roy will often rebuke Microsoft for using any kind of advertisement or marketing, accusing them of intentionally mislead people, but he does the very same thing by purposely using an incorrect name in place of "Windows 7".
  
  If Roy truly cared about educating people and delivering news to the masses, wouldn't he stick to accurately reporting the news by using the correct names for products?

• your_friend

  2010-02-07 23:23:19

  Roy has a good point with his name. Can you tell me what changed between Vista and Windows 7? Windows 7 is the real Mojave experiment, little more than a rebranding. It would be more honest of Microsoft to have called Windows 7, Vista SP2 and to have given it to the few loyal customers that suffered through Vista. Instead, the company lined the suckers up for another round of $400 upgrades.
  
  In theory, "Vista 7" should serve as a brand for Boycott Novell. No one else is using the term so search engines should all point back here when people look for it. Alas, some kind of SEO is at work and BN is nowhere to be found in Google's returns. Lycos finds BN on their first page, good for them. Bong does to, lol. I took a screenshot of that one because it won't last two minutes.

• Robotron 2084

  2010-02-09 12:08:41

  Most operating systems incur very small changes in subsequent versions. I can remember upgrading my Amiga 500 from Workbench 2.0 to 3.1 which included that replacement of a rom chip. There were a few cosmetic changes and some new features, but a majority of the system remained the same. There were some major compatibility problems with older software, games in particular, but that's to be expected anytime software is upgraded. Critics at the time complained there was not enough reason to upgrade. Some things never change.
  
  Regardless of what is or isn't different about the product, it has a different name. Using the incorrect name only serves to show how juvenile and biased Boycott Novell's pursuit of "the truth" really is. Real journalism is heavy on information, not insults.