my guy appreciates a sample size

Lotus WordPro or bust

A very cold one in winter.

you know you can hear it in your head

Lubuntu brother reppin’

My poor 2011 laptop is begging for the sweet release of death, but not before Linux keeps performing CPR on it.

Metal Gear Solid ruined me.

I can’t see the VIDEO text of the OSD without thinking of the HIDEO fourth wall break during the Psycho Mantis scrap.

hurhurhurhurhurhur

yeah, but, there’s like chicks here

hurhurhurhurhurhur

yeah, we’re gonna score

hurhurhurhurhurhur

Well it’s not an exclusive OR, so yes if you also have coin.

I’ll be honest, I used Windows XP fairly extensively then switched to Lubuntu while learning about Windows 7. My workplace moved from NT4 to Windows 7, and then to Windows 10 which is the only versions I’ve had serious exposure to.

My only real experience of Vista and 8 has been installing it on folk’s devices, patching them to a current state, and Ninite-ing them full of handy applications.

Nah I agree, but if every incremental release was included then you’d need a 55" monitor in portrait orientation to see them all!

I’ve not really thought about the Star Trek films. I enjoyed them all (even Nemesis!) with the exception of ST4: The Voyage Home.

I’m afraid I can’t speak authoritatively on the subject, however taking a step back - MS do have a record for driving hardware uptake with their system releases.

In theory it’s not a bad thing - Unreal and Quake II (among many) requiring 3D accelerator hardware largely drove PC gaming into the lead for cutting edge graphics - but the type of hardware MS have been requiring has always been a bit of a clusterfuck - a prime recent example being the supposed requirement of a TPM board in a Win11 computer.

My anecdotal experience is that Vista - while pretty - is a bit of a bloatfest regardless of what hardware you run it on.

Would it? If I’m already a user on a local device, surely my parental code would suffice and turn a ludicrous process into a one (and a half) step process?

Ah I remember upgrading from 98SE to Millennium Edition and it was just ass. That said, I reformatted and installed Me and used the 98 CD to pass the upgrade check, and I had very few issues with it. Shit like System Restore was gash - in fact, any of the new tools installed with Me were awful - but I just effectively used it as 98 Third Edition and it did the job nicely for me.

I agree that 95 was a big - if not monumental - step up in graphics interface driven OSes… but the first few releases were unstable as fuck. Whether it was horrendous shutdown issues because ACPI support was super flaky at the time, to trying to run com/com as a command to insta-bluescreen the system. The latter is so much of an edge case though that I almost cut myself typing it.

Jesus, my son wanted to add a classmate as a friend on Xbox Live last night. It should have been a two step process from a parent perspective: Authenticate, then authorise (though the lad was delegated the task of the latter technically).

When he tried to add the friend, I had to:

1. Enter my parental code (fair enough);
2. Enter my Microsoft Account password because it was apparently a transaction involving personal data;
3. Scan the QR code to do this on another device (admittedly optional);
4. Enter the email address of my MS account;
5. Enter the 2FA code emailed to me;
6. Stop the passkey creation process;
7. Confirm that I didn’t want a passkey;
8. Skip the age verification;
9. Turn off the personalised ads

Just so he could get to the point where he could select “add as a friend”, what the actual fuck

Yes… and no.

Microsoft’s operating systems have been very hit or miss - certainly their consumer operating systems - with the classic rule being “every other one is decent”:

• Windows ✅
• Windows 2.0 ❌
• Windows 3.11 ✅
• Windows 95 ❌ (but in fairness it was a good crack, OSR2 was decent)
• Windows 98 ✅
• Windows Me ❌ (unless it was a clean install, the upgrade was horrific)
• Windows XP ✅
• Windows Vista ❌
• Windows 7 ✅
• Windows 8 ❌
• Windows 10 ✅
• Windows 11❌

The more business focussed OS’s like Windows for Workgroups, NT4, and 2000 were rock solid in fairness.

Their business practices have always been shady as fuck too. Embrace, extend, extinguish is firmly burned into computer hobbyists minds.

Russian Roulette.

Test for nat20’s by using a semiautomatic handgun.

Like an Uno reverse in alternative medication form.

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