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0 pointsPeterisP10y ago0 comments

How about 100% everything instead of "basically anything", without serious "if's" like "as long as drivers are compatible" ?

If a machine is running, say, windows xp, and it does in a manner that satisfies the owner's need, then it should be able to keep running forever in the same manner, provided that hardware lasts and/or is replaced with adequate spares, not necessarily anything newer.

It's ok if that computer becomes incompatible with newer software because of that.

It's ok if that computer becomes incompatible with newer outside/network services because of that.

It's not ok if that computer stops being able to execute exactly the same process that it could do 10 years ago.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

tracker110y ago· 2 in thread

Because Microsoft didn't write the drivers for 100% of hardware... and tbh, if a company wants they can pay Microsoft to write those initial drivers, and provided the hardware for testing, iirc, they tend to maintain those drivers between versions. There are plenty of drivers that are written by MS, it's pretty common with Printers iirc, and works pretty damned well.

Because foo pro-audio, or bar cnc-board didn't want to update their drivers, or for that matter, more often than not, had a weird installer that simply didn't follow proper practices, doesn't work in the new version of Windows isn't MS' fault.

gpvos10y ago

Nevertheless, because the chance of something like that happening is clearly higher than 0.0000000001%, Microsoft should simply never do such a drastic upgrade automatically. (So, even within Windows 10, they should not automate all upgrades, because occasionally they will have to include bigger changes.)

Also, users will not understand this, and will, rightly, blame Microsoft.

tracker19y ago

Any trivial update has a higher than 0.0000000001% chance of failure... if you need that level of specificity, you should disable updates, and network connectivity altogether.

freehunter10y ago· 1 in thread

That's exactly how it exists. What you're describing here is reality. If you have a machine running Windows XP and you never change anything, then nothing will change. Software doesn't magically bloat over time, those changes happen with updates that add new features. If you never update things, you'll stay on the same software revision and it will run the same as the day you bought it.

A company I used to work for in 2012 had a Windows 3.11 workstation running some ancient software to support an auxiliary system. Many banks run COBOL on mainframes and haven't changed anything since the 70s.

I'm really confused as to the argument here. If you never update your software and don't expect to browse the Internet, old software works exactly like it did in the past. How do you expect it would change?

PeterisPOP10y ago

The whole issue is that some machines been force-upgraded to windows 10 despite users explicitly (or so they thought) responding multiple times that no, they do not wish to upgrade; and then failing to work correctly because of e.g. driver issues.

This is not acceptable behavior - I can understand automatic upgrades that are fully backwards compatible, e.g. a security patch; but upgrade to windows 10 isn't like that.

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