Monday, May 30, 2016

Windows and all

Context: OfficeLive, Content, we know (note, my favorite site, dealing with mathematical physics, was HTML/CSS for years - flash can work against content - games are not reality).

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This is an oops for me. MS has been offering Windows 10 (W10) for free, for awhile. Lately, I notice that the offer is up at the end of July.

So, all of these months, I have held off. I am running Windows 7 on a laptop (Dell Vostro) that is 4 years old. It has been doing well. I had a BSOD yesterday but can explain it. Altogether, there have about a handful of these events. On the other hand, Windows Vista had a slew of BSODs over the years.

As I write this post, I'm enjoying the cooling breeze of the fan. As, the computer is running just warm after I went back to Windows 7 after doing W10 just long enough to see the issues. The CPU usage is holding at a low rate. After all, all I am doing at this time is typing. Nothing is running in the background. Sure, there are a whole bunch of processes awaiting something from me, but they'll sit there until I respond. Very few cycles are required for that.

So, now for the OOPS (yes, MS, tsk). This is my fault. I read about a year ago some (very) glowing report about W10. I used it briefly on a Venue. Also, I have played with various demo little devices. But, I did not get into the specifics. I did notice that it was not as fast as I expected. As the glowing report talked about speed and small footprint.

Where the heck did they get that idea for the report? That is, it appears to use less memory. It's beating up the CPU in order to have that little bit of fantasy. Clever, sure. But, somehow, I had expected that we were looking at something new.

Today, I put on Windows 10. I have notes and can write about the process. I told MS when they asked, that if I had not known what I was doing, I would not have completed the task. I had to do some workaround. The wait during the install process was not outrageous as I could continue to work.

But, as soon as I booted W10, my computer ran hot. So, I pop up the Task Manager. Sure enough, CPU as maxed out. Memory was almost out (we're talking 6 gigs). So, I started to remove things that somehow were put in place by the installer. That got memory reduced. So, I could get to where I had multiple processes going that I could balance.

However, even if I just let these things wait and just typed like this post, it still ran 100% and in a very heated mode. MS, ever heard of burning candles at both ends?

Well, I did some quick reading. Remove things was suggested. Clean out the crap. So I did. But the biggest thing of use had to do with memory and compression. So, what is that? Well, this little sleight of hand by MS pushed a big thing into a smaller space by doing transforms. That is, smaller, but denser. Trade-offs that ought to be brought to attention. I know, lots of brains were behind this.

Well, silly old me, I figured that they (MS) had really pulled out the crap. What a dunce I was! This is MS, after all. The joke was (is?): type win, and you lose.

So, when I get a W10 machine (for the apps), I'll have to make sure that it has oodles of memory. But, then, will the CPU still be worked to death? This may have already been discussed elsewhere. I will have to read on this and get back.

Do I have the energy to look at this in detail? You see, waste and computing seem to go hand in hand. And, these folks talk as if they are going to maximize efficiency, minimize need for power, etc. That is, people who use these things are driven to bow to this stupidity.

When will we wake up?

There is a bind here. Windows 7 is so far down the line that updates have accumulated almost to the height of the highest mountain. Going to W10 was supposed to reduce that so that the heap would be small for awhile.

Forget that.

Is Apple any better on the efficiency issue?

Remarks: Modified: 05/31/2016

05/31/2016 --

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