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from the Have-you-tried-turning-it-off-and-restarting... dept.
Windows 7 will not go gentle into that good night: Ageing OS refuses to shut down:
It's not only end of support that Windows 7 diehards have to contend with. Late last week a new problem emerged – systems that refuse to shut down.
Complaints have been widespread on Reddit, Microsoft's official Answers forum and on on SevenForums. Some users also reported other issues, such as not being able to view their documents folder in Explorer.
Fortunately the problem seems to be fixable in most cases. The favourite solution is to tweak the UAC (User Account Control) settings with the Group Policy setting "Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode" or the equivalent registry setting. Then run gpupdate/force, and everything goes back to normal.
There are other workarounds, such as using shutdown from the command prompt, or logging off and then shutting down.
This does not explain the reason for the problem, which appeared mysteriously on or around 7 February. There may be a clue in two other popular fixes.
Have any Soylentils run into this problem? How did you get around it?
(Score: 5, Informative) by SDRefugee on Wednesday February 12 2020, @04:53PM (10 children)
If you like Debian and you DON'T LIKE systemd, there's Devuan.. All the goodness of Debian WITHOUT the insanity of systemd. I DO NOT blame you for refusing to go to Windows 10. Windows 7 was the last usable version of Windows, and you couldn't pay me enough to infect my computers with Windows 10. Since 2010, I've been 100% Linux.
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday February 12 2020, @06:10PM (2 children)
A couple of years ago I was acquainted with a gentleman who was a very highly-paid manager of a software development group for a very major bank. At the time he raved about Windows 8. You can get rid of the stupid tiles. He said it was refined and much better / faster than Win 7. I've used 8 a few times here and there, and installed it on a friend's computer that the hard disk died- said computer had come with 8 and he wanted it exactly the way it was. It was quite fast, especially after I cut out many unneeded running services, processes, etc.
I have 10 on one machine and I might start using it if I feel confident that I've gotten full control over automatic updates, spying, popups, etc.
I'll install 8 and see if I can get it under control.
I've been using Linux for more than 20 years, but not for everyday desktop use- too many Windows apps. that I need right now.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Thursday February 13 2020, @01:00AM (1 child)
That was my impression of Windows 8 too - there were a number of under the hood improvements, and it seemed to be faster and more responsive than Windows 7. The UI was unfortunate and that's what killed it. If Microsoft released the Windows 7 UI on top of Windows 8, it would have been a winner.
Sadly, Windows 10 didn't seem nearly as snappy as Windows 8 was. Probably all the telemetry and new processes running behind the scenes
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday February 13 2020, @03:17AM
Win 8.1 still has the "start menu" desktop UI in it. There are several ways to switch from tiles to standard / traditional" press "Windows" key; click desktop tile; I think there's a hotkey; and there are 3rd party apps to customize almost anything.
I like and sometimes use "Ultimate Windows Tweaker" - shows stuff I never knew existed. Haven't tried it on 8 yet, but will soon.
There's this: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/make-windows-8-like-windows-7 [laptopmag.com]
and this: https://www.techlicious.com/how-to/how-to-stay-in-desktop-on-windows-8-pc/ [techlicious.com]
and this: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-enable-or-disable-tablet-mode-in-Windows [quora.com]
Windows 8.1 end of extended support is January 10, 2023, which is why I'm going to try 8.1 for a bit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Improbus on Wednesday February 12 2020, @06:33PM (5 children)
A more main steam distro that also doesn't use SystemD is MX Linux. Since it is based on Debian it will run on both 64 bit AND 32 bit CPUs. Try finding a modern distro for 32 bit computers. You won't find many.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12 2020, @09:22PM
> A more main steam distro that also doesn't use SystemD is MX Linux
But you still have the choice to use it if you want, in the optional/additional (grub) boot options... somewhere.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday February 12 2020, @09:43PM
I'm running Devuan Ascii on a 32-bit Via processor as a mail/webserver. It started life in 2012 as a Wheezy (Debian 7) box. Migrating to Devuan was cake, I pointed the apt repositories to Devuan Jessie and apt-dist-upgraded. Once on Devuan, dist upgraded again to get to Ascii.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12 2020, @11:14PM (1 child)
Slackware still distributes for 32-bit computers.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday February 14 2020, @12:46AM
I'm running Devuan on my 32-bit computer.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 14 2020, @02:04AM
Generally you're right, but for sure Slackware and Alpine have 32-bit versions.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday February 13 2020, @04:00AM
Been with Devuan ever since Debian drank the systemd Kool-Aid. I stayed with the last version of Debian that didn't have systemd untill something better came along, and it did.
Add on the Trinity Desktop Environment and Devuan has been worlds better than any version of Windows I've ever used.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."