Finally System updated to Windows 10.

Took close to 4 months. But both systems started the upgrade yesterday.

My windows 8.1 Pro setup on a HP Z220 finished the update yesterday.My Windows 7 Ultimate on the Lenovo S20 is finishing the update now!

Windows 8.1 asking me if I'm ready to update

Windows 8.1 updating to Windows 10

Windows 7 Ultimate ready to update to 10

Windows 7 Ultimate upgrading to 10

Windows 7 64 bits on the last part of the upgrade

Oh Boy! My Windows 10 upgrade is finally coming!!!

I setup these machines back in June in preparation for Windows 10 free upgrade, starting July 29th. It is now almost November 29th, 4 months later. I have been checking for these updates almost every day since July 29th, for the first 2 weeks, and now at least twice a week, rebooting system often and making sure all updates were always installed.

Windows 7 Ultimate telling me it was ready

Windows 7 ultimate downloading Windows 10

Windows 8.1 Pro downloading Windows 10.

Lets see how long the download takes.....

Seething.....

Windows 10 - build 10586 also known as 1511 because it was released November 15th, is causing me endless grief. I have yet to figure out how to disable windows 10 pushing display drivers continuously.  If each time I boot into an OS I get forced a WHQL driver, it makes my job of testing drivers before they get certified really difficult.

I used to be able to turn off forced driver updates using this dialog below. That is a screen capture from Windows 10 - build 10240 - The release of a few months ago.

This is the dialog of Windows 10 - 10586, known as 1511.   So far since installing it a hour ago, I have removed the display drivers from the device manager 5 times. I'm not sure how to configure it to stop getting device drivers installed automatically.

I've googled this morning. All I can find to turn off device driver updates is the dialog from the release of Windows 10. No one says what to do with this new build.

If you know PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT how to do it. Thanks.

Microsoft bitches of the day

I'm refreshing a whole bunch of systems, updating them and making new ghost images.

One machine where I installed Windows 7 64 bits, with SP1 already included, once I went to look for updates it had 210. Yes. You read this right. Two hundred and ten updates. Worst part is, I'm only downloading important updates, not all updates.

My other bitch of the day for Microsoft, is Edge. Dunno why we needed a new browser, that looks very much like IE, but doesn't work like IE.   I had to try out an nVidia NVS510 today. So I went to the nVidia site, found the page, and click on download drivers. Edge can't display the download page. Told me it was not available and did I want to go back to previous page.  Not useful if you want to download drivers.  I was able to go to the same page with IE from Windows 10. Things that make me go Hmm.

Wow... partitions on hard disk = portable devices?

Really Microsoft???? 

Shown below is Windows Explorer in Microsoft Windows 10, showing that I have 17 partitions on my hard disk going from Windows XP all the way to Windows 10, with room for S2016 when it is released.  How are these "PORTABLE" devices? In Device manager on the same Operating system it shows all the partitions as Portable Devices.  I cannot remove one and walk away with it.  What kind of drug was the programmer taking while he designed this little gem????

Good grammar Microsoft. .

Makes me wonder who does QA sometimes.  

Window upates are always a PITA

Don't know what's up of late but Windows updates is really pissing me off.

Currently I'm either refreshing or reinstalling Windows 8.1  along with Windows 10 on multiple machines.  In April 2014 there was a massive update for Windows 8.1, and I've been installing with that version. There's over 150 updates to add over that version and of late for some reason, while update it seems to jam randomly on one update. Not the same one on every system, just random.

You notice 1 or 2 hours later that the message is the same. You stop the updates, let the system reboot, and restart and it gets stuck again at the same place. Sometimes I have to stop, reboot and restart updates multiple times before it finally gets all it's updates.

I wonder how many days people have let their PC run for fear of killing it?

Of course I can hear someone saying "Fuck the updates, ignore them". Uhm. no.   If I don't update my systems, on the day I have a critical test to do for my boss in 2 minutes, I will reboot this system and it will decide it's installing 200 updates and won't be ready until next day!

.NET hell

I don't know what MORON at Microsoft thought that:

1) it was a good idea to not make .NET 2.0 and 3.5 available for windows 8.1 downloadable separately.
2) it was a good idea to not include it to be easily installed VIA a USER INTERFACE, that end users REALLY like using DISM to install .net 3.5
3) it made sense that when you install it via the add/remove windows programs - THAT IT GOES TO THE INTERNET and then promptly fails.
4) it was a good idea to push an update that makes the .NET 2.0 & 3.5 no longer install ??!?!?!?!

Because we all know how stable going to a website goes. Never mind that many big companies have proxies that aren't that friendly to install updates or applications over.

Today I spent most of the day trying to get .NET 2.0 and 3.5 installed on a FRESHLY installed Windows 8.1.  I think my BIGGEST mistake was installing all the updates BEFORE trying to install .NET.  If I ran DISM from the install CD, it told me the source for the software was missing. I checked the CD, the path was correct.  I ran the DISM from another install CD, that a colleague had used and it worked for him. Did not work.

I tried the install via the add/remove which tells you it's going to download from Microsoft but then tells you that you have no internet, and when you click on the help for the error it gives, it loads a page in IE from the INTERNET - which it COULD NOT FUCKING FIND!!!  BUT it can always find it when creating a USER account, FUNNY that

I tried on a direct connection, where there is no proxy. It failed the same saying I had no internet.  Then I had a colleague with more patience then I, attempt 3 different ways to fix/restore to get the "DISM" way to work, and that failed as well.

Now re-installing Windows 8.1, after reformatting the hard disk,  this time I did not install the 60+ updates that came since the BIG UPDATE from April and .NET 2 & 3.5 did end up installing successfully.

Server 2012 R2 and some integrated intel network adapters.

This is the 2nd or 3rd system in which I cannot install drivers for Intel onboard network adapters in Server 2012 R2.

The first system I encountered this problem with, had an Intel reference board known as a "TunnelMountain". After trying to find drivers and failing, I just connected a USB network adapter and did the tests I needed to do. I assumed it was because it was an Intel prototype board.

The Intel 18.8 CD could not find my network adapters.

Yesterday I was setting up an ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard. I usually install the Servers on all my test systems because while most people won't run Server OS on regular machines, we have plenty of clients who run Server OS in weird scenarios and I have to see if the software & drivers I test behave in Server OSes. I had downloaded all the drivers from the ASUS site, including LAN drivers for Windows 8.1 on which Server 2012R2 is based.  This system has an integrated 82579V & an 82583V network card. But in Server 2012R2, no intel network driver installs, and just says it has no Intel network card in the system.

My google searches brought me to download the Intel 18.8 CD for Intel network adapters, and that is the last one I'm trying. It failed.  Earlier I had tried PROWINX64.EXE with the same results. I had also tried all the drivers gotten from the ASUS site for that motherboard.

In Windows 8.1 64 bits - the 2 adapters had in-the-box drivers

The question that remains currently unanswered is that in the systems where I have encountered this problem I was in UEFI BIOS mode. I wonder if there is a relevance? If I have the time, I will install on this system, Server 2012R2 in non-UEFI BIOS mode and see if the Intel adapters are found in this OS.

So when using this OS the tester will have to use a USB network adapter. I've also just discovered that Server 2012 also has the same issue on this system.  I would think it's the model of the Intel adapter in that system because I've setup over 40 computers, maybe 20 of which in UEFI mode with both Server 2012 and 2012 R2 and this is only the 2nd or 3rd system that has this issue. 

Would you believe Windows 8.1 is a teaching OS!

I'm going to call it an OS for dummies.

Here I am installing Firefox on one of my test machines. Towards the end of the install I have a pop up from windows that informs me "You have new apps to open web pages"

Really? NO WAY!!! OMG I am so thrilled. Like OMG I never thought this could happen,  I mean I installed a browser. Never in a thousand years did it ever occur to me that I could use it to browse the web. OMG. I will be more intelligent now that Windows 8.1 will tell me about my software! I was a little bit disappointed that it did not acknowledge my install of flash.

I also installed VLC the other day, and Windows 8.1 did not skip a beat. As soon as the install finished it told me I could use new apps to play videos. I was stunned. A new app? Wow. My friend Rick, bless his soul, would have said "slap me silly and call me Berniece". It would never have occurred to me after installing a media player that it could play media!!!

This feature will probably go the way of the "desktop icon" cleaning tool. Because EVERYONE needs to regularly clean their desktop icons. Did you not know that? And it would periodically tell you that your icons were old and you needed to clean them up [Because if you use say Firefox, 4 years later, you might think the icon is old?!?! even though it opens the right software????] Or another amazing feature, the Vista gadgets. How can we ever live without those????

Windows 8.1 isn't as charming as you would think.

This pop-up can appear on any of the 4 corners, Randomly.

Undoubtedly the most annoying feature of Windows 8.1 is the random popup telling you that you can use corners.  I was trying to put a valid serial number and this stupid charm popped up OVER the location where I was entering the serial number. I'd made it go away and go back to giving windows a serial number and it would come back.

Seriously when Microsoft said it would make Windows 8.1 more PC friendly they were joking. Windows 8.1 isn't any friendlier then Windows 8.0.  But some idiot at Microsoft thought they would teach us how to use it by putting these charming popups to spam. This is about as useful as the "desktop Icon cleaning feature" of Windows XP, the gadgets of Windows Vista and a slew of other stupid features some moron at Microsoft thought was very cool.

Microsoft ignores technet and MSDN for RTM

We're very unimpressed. The RTM is out and we could only get a couple of keys. I was told, to go to MSDN, and then I found out that Windows 8.1 is not being released to MSDN before October 18th. The same day as end users. 

What does Microsoft really think, waiting 3 more weeks is going to prevent leaks of the OS on the internet, or prevent people to trash it, and call it VISTA 2.0 ? 

As far as I can see other then a 'start button' and a few other visual differences, it's still windows 8 and it still sucks. It's not going to impress the desktop/workstation market anymore then the previous version was. And worse, YOU HAVE TO INSTALL a new OS.  

It's not a service pack, it's a new OS. This will use tons more of disk space for me to test with. I had some clown suggest that I just replace my Windows 8 with Windows 8.1 Because no one will ever use Windows 8 again. If I'm still stuck testing Windows XP, chance are even with 8.1 out, I will still have to test 8. 

So for me Windows 8.1 is a HUGE PITA.  On the day of the release and for the month that follows, I will have to add that version of windows to all my test systems. Never mind the fact that I'll probably get bugs reported before I have it installed on certain systems. 

Microsoft isn't improving, it's becoming worse.

UGH

Microsoft things I'm unimpressed with.

I'm on Outlook Webmail using Firefox, and it spams me to upgrade my IE!

It's obvious I don't give a rats ass about IE, I'm using Firefox.

Don't get me started on the Windows 8 'Store'.  Compared to the Sony store, the Microsoft store is a piece of junk. I mean other then the fact that there is no way to configure it for a proxy.

Quality of products go down as quantity goes up

The race to get your product out of the door faster to be the first with a product out to get the share of the market is making for very sloppy products.  I've been noticing that big companies like Microsoft, Apple, google, release products way too early without having fixed most of the problems.

One of hte biggest problems I've been noticing of late, is poor support for larger fonts. And here's the amusing part, the western world is full of baby boomers, who now all suffer from from presbyopia.


Last night blogger forced their new interface on me and the size of fonts I was using in firefox made me run into a plethora of bugs that made blogging a real PITA.  Today as I squint to write this in a smaller font size, I'm not running into 1001 bugs.

I have to admit though, being a QA specialist for the past 20 years, no one ever tests anything other then in small fonts in Windows [with the exception of me that is].  It's obvious when you use large fonts with some apps. Never mind the new "extra large fonts" in windows 7. 

I remember years ago, we wanted to develop a product with high DPI, where we were going to use an extra large font. I believe it was 150 DPI [small is 96 DPI and large is 120 DPI] or maybe even larger, and I did some research for them.   I remember finding that most applications did not function well in such large font sizes, and that developing a product to support such font sizes was just going to be nightmarish because we would get blamed for the fact 3rd party software was not functioning well with fonts that large.

And I bet most people who do QA aren't in the age group who need to use larger fonts so they never think about it.

And for the record I'm not anymore impressed with Windows 8 now then I was back in June. I also have no desire to own any apple products!

Windows 8 another Me or Vista?

I've been playing with Wind8ws for a while now and I don't like it. This isn't new.  There isn't a new Microsoft OS that has released that I've ever liked. But some I grew to like. Like Windows 98SE that was good. Windows XP was good, and my last liked OS is Windows 7. 

Usually it takes 6months-1year after release for me to finally start getting used to an OS and liking it.  But I have a sense of whether or not I'm going to like it and if it's going to be a nice OS. This one gives me weird feelings. It's like the only thing they are planning for is tablets and smartphones and things like that. 

The whole Metro look might be pretty on a tablet but let me tell you it looks really tacky on a large 4x4 stretched layout.. Then never mind the fact that there's an 8kx8k limit to the size of surfaces we can do. 

Personally I think Wind8ws is going to end up much hated like Windows ME or Windows Viiiiiiiiista [The 64 bit version of this OS takes up enormous amounts of diskspace - more then Windows 7 64bits!!!!]