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Woody Leonhard of Infoworld summarizes the current state of Microsoft KB 2919355, the ambiguously-titled 'Windows 8.1 Update' (not to be confused with the update _to_ Windows 8.1).
In short: Microsoft has frozen two discussion threads on KB2919355 issues (after 103 and 116 pages of comments), and updated the Knowledge Base article with workarounds for seven major errors... some of which don't work.
In last week's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft changed their deadline for this Update until June (formerly they were requiring all Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 systems worldwide to have installed the Update in order to receive new patches).
Meanwhile, if you run a WSUS server, you may notice that the package for KB291355 (last reissued for the third time on 6 May) was apparently silently reissued over the weekend with a new release date of '15 May 2014', but there's no indication of any software updates in the KB article. The article revision number, however, now stands at '21.0'. Yes, twenty-one revisions. With no changelog.
Anyone else with interesting stories about your deployment issues with this Update?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @04:33PM
I've been stuck on Windows XP my whole computing life; it's great fun and highly configurable and allows you to have a minimalist bare-bones business-like configuration and user experience.
....... to be quite honest, if I can get my highly tweaked "foobar2000 - Windows audio player" configuration to run without a hitch on Q4OS then my Windows days are over ---[1]---
This post-XP Microsoft stuff is all a big bunch of arrogantly-designed bloated shit; this company thinks just because computer hardware has gotten "bigger/better/faster" that they have the right to throw the kitchen sink at you and swallow as much of your computer's resources as it can.
Three things about all this... (1) the embedding of layer-upon-layer of complex obfuscated shit which cannot be manipulated or removed, leading to (2) abandonment of options for the bare-bones power user, leading to (3) the security model becoming one big ironic "bowl of spaghetti" completely out of your control.
If you ponder over those three points for a while you could come up with some "interesting" conclusions.
Suffice to say, I've had enough of this shit; I need to slowly begin a migration plan to a Linux-based OS----NOW!
Could sombody give me a quick tip or two...
My system drive is an SSD formatted with one NTFS partition containing my XP installation. I'm thinking of splitting the partition to two and installing Q4OS [q4os.org] into the other partition
What tools/methods do you guys recommend for me to do this?
---[1]---
It's a pity that "DeadBeef", the Linux equivalent to foobar2000, just does not have the user-base or eco-system or total functionality of foobar2000; If I could add stuff to "DeadBeef", I would add these things:
(1) Media Library viewing panels equivalent to the foobar2000 plugins "foo_facets" and "foo_simplaylist"
(2) Translation engine for DeadBeef to interpret foobar2000 title-formatting syntax
(3) Translation engine for DeadBeef to interpret foobar2000 query syntax
(4) Fonts and Colors can be specified everywhere and can be input using "RGB()" title-formatting syntax
(5) HTML document viewing panel for viewing local ".html" docs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @05:15PM
I have read there are people that run foobar2000 under Wine. Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1488706 [ubuntuforums.org]
(Score: 1) by yours truly on Monday May 19 2014, @06:01PM
After configuring Debian's task bar the way my wife was used to she happily uses it. Her only prior experience was at work (Windows) and she reasonably enough just wants it to work. However, that means only e-mail, libreoffice, a browser and something to look at pictures. We don't do games. Or anything impacting security (as in java-script and flash). Sound, generally, meh...
When I absolutely have to ignore those security issues or want sound I have been very happy with a throw-away partition for Linux Mint. Primarily used on vacation with no personal information on it I've never actually had to "throw it away".
By the way my SSD-only Samsung notebook (no hard drive or CD/DVD drive) picked up lots of space once I blew Win away. Even have a couple of virtual machines on a spare partition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19 2014, @07:38PM
Q4OS
That is a nascent project.
When it has a bit more time behind it, it will be interesting to see how it has continued to progress.
Another distro with more maturity is Zorin OS.
A number of reviewers have recommended it for folks wanting to make the switch.
As an example of ease of transition, Zorin ships with WINE.
You might give that one a try as well.
.
To reinforce what the previous AC said, foobar2000 has support via WINE [codeweavers.com]
which is somewhere between good and excellent. [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 19 2014, @10:17PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by etherscythe on Monday May 19 2014, @11:32PM
Oh dear sweet Krishna, NO! Do you see on your own linked Wikipedia page that the thing is in Alpha state? You may get a desktop to boot - but beyond that, don't expect anything to work unless you compile it yourself. And if you're compiling, you might as well use something with better FAQ support out there - like Ubuntu. Or Minix.
I tried ReactOS... once. They have a long way to go. I wish them well, but under no circumstances is it a viable desktop replacement yet.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 20 2014, @01:36AM
Alternative suggestions?
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday May 21 2014, @10:10PM
Depends on your priorities.
I personally found Bodhi Linux to be a nice Windows substitute for web browsing/research purposes. I particularly like how E17 (Enlightenment) as a GUI has a nice balance between function and an interface with a bit of modern polish and skinnability. KDE was great last I tried it, but attempt to use a dark theme for ease of night viewing and you may find that certain GUI elements fail to invert to remain visible (text boxes, etc.). E17 has no trouble with that so far as I've seen. Even with compositing turned on it doesn't seem to give your hardware too much of an overhead hit either.
If you want something with a bit of real security, I've been itching to take a stab at Qubes OS, using Xen for process virtualization and sandboxing. Pretty barebones GUI though.
Or if you're after mainline supportability, it's hard to beat Xubuntu: all the refined usability of XFCE with Ubuntu underneath which is the most common userland support target as far as I can tell (at least, certain things like my 3D printer software specifically targets Ubuntu for installation instructions for example).
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 3, Informative) by zeigerpuppy on Monday May 19 2014, @10:52PM
I've used heaps of distros but IMHO you can't beat Debian. The Debian version of Linux Mint is a good place to start. It's a really easy system to maintain and the mint people have done a great job of making the default desktop really nice to use.
If you have weird hardware sometime the Ubuntu drivers are a bit newer (laptops for instance). Just boot up the live CD and see if you like it.
Welcome to Linux, it'll take a little getting use to but you'll wonder why you stuck with windows so long!
(Score: 3, Informative) by SlimmPickens on Monday May 19 2014, @11:00PM
There's an old saying:
Which I just discovered from this search [google.com.au] was originally written in May 1996 as:
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday May 19 2014, @11:12PM
I really should have read that link. It was said by Robert Metcalfe in May 1996.