windows 8

How to slipstream updates into Windows 8.1

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , ,

I need a Windows box, so I figured I’d experiment with Windows 8.1. I know it’s terrible, but I want to see just how much less terrible I can make it.

The first thing I wanted to do was figure out how to slipstream updates into it. I recommend slipstreaming because you get a faster performing system, you get the system up and running a lot sooner, and you save a lot of unnecessary writes to your SSD. It’s very similar to slipstreaming Windows 7, but not quite identical.

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Why you may not want a Nest

Dave Farquhar security , , , , ,

Ars Technica (link removed in retaliation for Conde Nast’s 11/3/2025 layoffs–sorry not sorry) has some harrowing speculation about the Nest, and why Google is interested in it.

I wanted a Nest, but haven’t bought one because I have a Carrier Infinity furnace that’s incompatible with it. Read more

Things to do for your relatives’ computers this Christmas

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wish I’d posted this last week, since many of us see one set of relatives at Thanksgiving and a different set at Christmas (and perhaps New Year’s). Here are things you can do as preventative maintenance for relatives whose computers could use a little help. Read more

Getting a proper Start button back even when Microsoft doesn’t want to give one

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , , , , ,

Are you putting off switching to Windows 8.1 because you don’t want to relearn everything from scratch that you’ve known since 1995? I saw Windows 8.1 on Thanksgiving, and you have to do some asinine downward swipe with the mouse to bring up Control Panel. Yeah, that’s easier.

But even though Microsoft insists on shooting itself in the foot with a nuclear missile, Classic Shell fixes what Microsoft refuses to fix. Want Windows 8 to act like Windows 7? No problem. Want it to look like XP? Yeah, you can even do that.

So I highly recommend it. Yes, Windows 8.1 with Classic Start. Here’s why. Read more

What to do if you’re a charity stuck on Windows XP

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

If you’re a charity still running Windows XP, hopefully you’re spooked about Microsoft pulling the plug on XP in April 2014. If you aren’t, get spooked, because you’ll be sitting on a major security vulnerability.

The question is what to do. You do have a few options.

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Deconstructing the healthcare.gov website fiasco

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , ,

By reader request, I’m going to grab onto the third rail and talk about the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare/healthcare.gov website fiasco.

As someone who has been involved in a large number of IT projects, inside and outside the government, successful and failed, I can speak to that. I know the burning question in everyone’s mind is how can three guys banging away at a keyboard for three days build a better web site than the United States Government?

The snarky answer is that the best projects I’ve ever worked on have been when someone asked for something, then one or two other guys sat down with me and we banged away at a keyboard for a little while and didn’t tell anyone what we were doing until we were done.

But it’s probably more complicated than that. Read more

Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Steve Ballmer is retiring. It’s time. If anything, I agree with the people who say he would have been better off retiring years ago. But I really didn’t expect it. In spite of the immense pressure to step aside, at least in public he never gave any indication of having any intention of doing so. Read more

Microsoft’s bug bounty is a step in the right direction

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , , , , ,

Last week, Microsoft announced it’s offering a bug bounty program. Find a working exploit in Windows 8.1/blue/whatever it’s called this week, and Microsoft will hand over $100,000. Find a mitigation for that exploit, and Microsoft will pony up for that to, up to $50,000.

I think I know what they’re up to. Read more

Where Microsoft lost its way

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

John C. Dvorak wrote an analysis of how Microsoft lost its way with Windows 8 this week.

All in all it sounds reasonable to me. His recollection of DOS and some DOS version 8 confused me at first, but that was what the DOS buried in Windows ME was called. But mentioning it is appropriate, because it shows how DOS faded from center stage to being barely visible in the end, to the point where it was difficult to dig it out, and that it took 15 years for it to happen. He’s completely right, that if Microsoft had pulled the plug on DOS in 1985, Windows would have failed. Read more

No, this doesn’t mean Ubuntu and Linux are giving up

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Software , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week, Mark Shuttleworth closed the longstanding Ubuntu bug #1, which simply read, “Microsoft has majority market share.” Because Microsoft didn’t lose its market share lead to Ubuntu, or Red Hat, or some other conventional Linux distribution, some people, including John C. Dvorak, are interpreting this as some kind of surrender.

I don’t see it as surrender at all. Microsoft’s dominant position, which seemed invincible in 2004 when Shuttleworth opened that bug, is slipping away. They still dominate PCs, but PCs as we know it are a shrinking part of the overall computing landscape, and the growth is all happening elsewhere.

I have (or at least had) a reputation as a Microsoft hater. That’s a vast oversimplification. I’m not anti-Microsoft. I’m pro-competition. I’m also pro-Amiga, and I’ll go to my grave maintaining that the death of Amiga set the industry back 20 years. I have Windows and Linux boxes at home, my wife has (believe it or not) an Ipad, and at work I’m more comfortable administering Linux than Windows right now, which seems a bit strange, especially considering it’s a Red Hat derivative and I haven’t touched Red Hat in what seems like 400 years.

What Shuttleworth is acknowledging is that we have something other than a duopoly again, for the first time in more than 20 years, and the industry is innovating and interesting again. Read more