Serious rant. (you have been warned!)

[b20]

OK, If you don't like rants, please move on, nothing to see here.

So, why does it seems the world is trying to screw me at every opportunity?

Last year Microsoft (friend to one and all) ended support to XP. An operating system that we all knew and had honed and made work for us. What replaced it is absolutely Pish! Windows 7 REMOVES quite a lot of the functionality of XP, but you've heard most of that before, and are as sick and tired of it as I am.... One of the things that worked really well in XP was a nice bit of 'backroom' programming by some properly switched on programmers called SyncToy. I have a desktop and a laptop machine, and a 1TB external HDD for back up and file transfer. As I work away for long periods of time (8 or 9 weeks is not unheard of) I like to be able to work on either machine and then just 'syncronize' the files between them, and that's the function of the USB HDD. I just plug the HDD into the machine I was most recently on, run SyncToy and update any files that have changed, then plug it into the other machine and do the same. Presto, all 3 locations are the same.

Enter Windows 7... SyncToy for XP doesn't work, so download and install SyncToy2.1 for W7.... Along with everything else in W7, it's broken :facepalm:.... Everytime I plug the HDD in it wants to copy ALL the files across, not just the ones that were modified. Totally useless!

What do we do in situations like this? Ask Google of course. Google came up with a few options, mainly product reviews of various packages. All the reviews pointed to the same product as being far and away the best, even better than SyncToy2.1 (which, to be honest, wasn't a high bar)... FreeFileSync. They also warned that FFS was bundled with some ad and malware, so watch the installation carefully and don't allow it to install anything you don't want... Easy enough I thought... So, started the download process. Well.... Most of the suggested sites require you to download THEIR download software to download the FFS software. Yeah, right not going to happen. Been there, done that, lesson learnt! Eventually find a site I can download from with no strings attached...

So, installation went well, unchecked all the 'nasties' boxes... Ran the software and it worked very well. I connected the laptop to the Ethernet switch, mapped its drive to the desktop and did the sync directly. Works well.... Exactly as the old XP SyncToy did....

All done I fire up Firefox.... Oh, oh... What is going on here???? I have a new search engine and new home page. Adware! And nasty adware at that! MyStartSearch.... Ok, easy. Reload my saved Firefox profile (I copy the Firefox profiles between machines, along with my Thunderbird mail folder, for the same reason as syncing the files.) Rerun Firefox. Same thing. :facepalm: It's not in the profile, so where. According to Google, it's everywhere! Charming! So, another Google search and I have a few answers, ALL involve buying software to remove software I didn't authorise or volunteer to install.

Seriously pissed off, half a day wasted, my wife pissed at me for being upset and $40 later I have the machine I had yesterday..... And I'm scared to run the FFS software again in case it does a re-install!

This site is a great example of that too. Last May they 'upgraded' to the next version of forum software. VB I think... Well, has anyone actually got it to work anywhere as well as the old version? No, didn't think so. A lot of the really nice features of the old version are just plain gone. Yes, I know the guys at iboats forum have been working their best to make it work as well as possible, but that doesn't alter the fact that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Or to put it another way, you can polish a t..d, but it's still a t..d.......

So, why does every change we are forced to endure involve payment (of some kind) to someone? Why can't we just get what we ask for, nothing more, nothing less. Basically, no I do not want fries with that!!!

Ok, who's next on the soapbox?

B20....

 

[JohnGarko]

Wow... Are you serious?

 

[b20]

Wow... Are you serious?

Would you like to see the receipt?

Yes, I'm deadly serious.

 

[bonz_d]

Yeah Wow, I wish the biggest concern in my life was just a computer operating system.

3 weeks ago in the hospital for surgery, new job no short term disability and no income. Still not released to go back to work. Do I still have a job?????
2 days ago wife also went in for a more serious surgery and she is expected to be off work for 6-8 weeks. Her short term disability doesn't start until she's off 6 days.
2 days ago my wife's 17 year old cousin passed away after fighting cancer for the last 2 years

Can't wait to see what the out of pocket is going to cost us for these 2 surgeries besides the lost income.

Then more on the home front, 5 months ago our daughter moved back home with her 3 children, 5,2 and 1 years old. Came home broke, no car, no job, no support from dad. It's been all on mom and me.

Like I say I wish my biggest concern was computer. How's that for a rant!

 

[MTboatguy]

The biggest reason software is updated and new versions come out, is YOUR security, as the industry evolves so do the crooks finding new ways to compromise YOU. We have seen the effects of not updating software many times in just the last year, Target, Home Depot, many banks and credit card companies, and just last week a large insurance company. In addition, as hardware evolves so does software to run on it, much of the new hardware coming out, won't run on the hardware that XP used. XP was with for 10+ years and it took that whole time to actually make is a good solid OS, I remember the first time I installed XP, talk about problems. Much of it the same problems I have seen with Win 7 as well as 8.1. There are simply to many different hardware configurations to get it right, right out of the box.

The industry is not targeting you, things keep going forward and no amount of griping or crying is going to stop that. I have been playing with Windows 10 beta for a while now and it looks like it is going to be a nice OS, but once again, it is going to be a pain for some to upgrade to because they simply won't have the power in their machine to do it. That said, if the industry stood still like many seem to want, the cyber crooks would be stealing us blind. Heck there are cell phones out there now, that are more powerful than the first computers XP came out on and you will continue to see development and upgrades no matter how you approach it.

Another thing I will add, if you download a free program from the internet, normally it is going to be full of adware or other kinds of information gathering software, the developers do it that way so they get paid for their work in some way or another, simply run software to remove the adware and go on with your business. If you have Windows Defender set up correctly in your Win 7 installation, it will catch a lot of the adware stuff when you try to install the program. Also, did you check the manufacture of your External HD for a sync program, most of them have some type of software to work with their drives that will do what you are looking for.

By the way, where did you download FreeFileSync? I just downloaded a copy from sourcefordge and it was clean with no adware of any kind.

 

[roscoe]

Yeah Wow, I wish the biggest concern in my life was just a computer operating system.

3 weeks ago in the hospital for surgery, new job no short term disability and no income. Still not released to go back to work. Do I still have a job?????
2 days ago wife also went in for a more serious surgery and she is expected to be off work for 6-8 weeks. Her short term disability doesn't start until she's off 6 days.
2 days ago my wife's 17 year old cousin passed away after fighting cancer for the last 2 years

Can't wait to see what the out of pocket is going to cost us for these 2 surgeries besides the lost income.

Then more on the home front, 5 months ago our daughter moved back home with her 3 children, 5,2 and 1 years old. Came home broke, no car, no job, no support from dad. It's been all on mom and me.

Like I say I wish my biggest concern was computer. How's that for a rant!

That is a great rant.

Sorry for the troubles you are experiencing.
How did the surgeries go? Well I hope.

 

[DayCruiser]

Man that is terrible. I can't top your problems. Hang in there. Things will get better

Yeah Wow, I wish the biggest concern in my life was just a computer operating system.

3 weeks ago in the hospital for surgery, new job no short term disability and no income. Still not released to go back to work. Do I still have a job?????
2 days ago wife also went in for a more serious surgery and she is expected to be off work for 6-8 weeks. Her short term disability doesn't start until she's off 6 days.
2 days ago my wife's 17 year old cousin passed away after fighting cancer for the last 2 years

Can't wait to see what the out of pocket is going to cost us for these 2 surgeries besides the lost income.

Then more on the home front, 5 months ago our daughter moved back home with her 3 children, 5,2 and 1 years old. Came home broke, no car, no job, no support from dad. It's been all on mom and me.

Like I say I wish my biggest concern was computer. How's that for a rant!

 

[bonz_d]

My life's view, all one needs do is look around and one can always fine someone in a more dire position!!!!!
Surgeries went well and given time we all recover. Though as I age I find these bumps in the road a little bit harder to navigate.

Technology changes faster than we do. Just look at where we've progressed to since 1960, 1980, 2000. Try and find a new car with a carb and points! TV used to be 12 FREE channels! Air conditioning used to be an open window and maybe a fan.

 

[bonz_d]

OK, If you don't like rants, please move on, nothing to see here.

So, why does every change we are forced to endure involve payment (of some kind) to someone? Why can't we just get what we ask for, nothing more, nothing less. Basically, no I do not want fries with that!!!

Ok, who's next on the soapbox?

B20.

Because just like you when they go to work they expect to make money from it. No one works for free. If you want FREE use LINUX

 

[robdogj]

Because just like you when they go to work they expect to make money from it. No one works for free. If you want FREE use LINUX

or you can call Saul Goodman - he is an expert on these types of legal issues - checkout his website