Windows 11

[sibelman]

$200 out the door. 96 gb RAM, dual Xeon

Dude!

 

[mashdar]

Install LibreOffice instead. Not demonic. Also FOSS.

How is it at rendering word docs these days? I use Office for work, and sadly we need Outlook.

I used OOo and then Libre Office for a long time at home, but formatting from Word could be messy. The joke was that even M$ couldn't render documents from .doc the same from version to version. Maybe .docx is better.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

The great thing about Ms office is the macros and amounts of tabs, they are not compatible in most cases

 

[passedpawn]

How is it at rendering word docs these days? I use Office for work, and sadly we need Outlook.

I used OOo and then Libre Office for a long time at home, but formatting from Word could be messy. The joke was that even M$ couldn't render documents from .doc the same from version to version. Maybe .docx is better.

I finally dumped outlook after a lifetime of using it. I just couldn't keep it working with all of my accounts (I have a bunch of email accts I need to maintain). I was SHOCKED how easy it was to get Thunderbird up and running. I still have outlook on my iPhone.

 

[passedpawn]

Nothing wrong with Virtualbox, I've used it, but just in case you didn't know, Windows 10/11 Pro has a hypervisor built in

I might look into it. However, it's being discontinued by MS (the free version). That's not a great selling point for someone who uses it for work.

 

[sibelman]

How is it at rendering word docs these days?

Frankly I'm not 100% sure as this isn't a big part of my life any more. Given the complaints about newer MSOffice, one might use it when Libre falls short but use Libre the rest of the time. For me, I've had no reason to want "real" Office. I rarely need someone else's Excel macros and never need Word macros.

tl;dr: I've had zero compatibility issues, but YMMV.

 

[balrog]

My brewing requires Excel macros. Good or bad.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

My brewing requires Excel macros. Good or bad.

Mine also I have an extensive spreadsheet with hundreds of vb scrips behind it

 

[hout17]

Mine also I have an extensive spreadsheet with hundreds of vb scrips behind it

That's cool. I have a program I built in Python that takes the users desired OG and grain percentages and then tells you how many lbs of each you need to hit the desired OG as well as hops and IBU's. Beersmith is my main program though the Python one is just for fun.

I much prefer libre office and try to use it as much as I can.

 

[estricklin]

I might look into it. However, it's being discontinued by MS (the free version). That's not a great selling point for someone who uses it for work.

I certainly could be wrong here, but you may be getting mixed up with Windows Server, as there are some changes coming with it's hypervisor, although I don't know the specifics. I also stress, you must be running 10/11 Pro, as the home version lacks it, along with the RDP capabilities.

If you have a spare laptop or old desktop, you can get a free ESXI license (limited to 8 corers per VM) and have a very nice playground of VMs.

I wish I would have learned more about virtualization sooner, I used to have a collection of old desktops and laptops, running all sorts of things.

Dude!

You can buy them all day on ebay for that price and cheaper. Data centers surplus those servers for little to nothing.

 

[passedpawn]

I certainly could be wrong here, but you may be getting mixed up with Windows Server, as there are some changes coming with it's hypervisor, although I don't know the specifics. I also stress, you must be running 10/11 Pro, as the home version lacks it, along with the RDP capabilities.

If you have a spare laptop or old desktop, you can get a free ESXI license (limited to 8 corers per VM) and have a very nice playground of VMs.

I wish I would have learned more about virtualization sooner, I used to have a collection of old desktops and laptops, running all sorts of things.


You can buy them all day on ebay for that price and cheaper. Data centers surplus those servers for little to nothing.

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/sysadminpodcast/hyper-v-server/

 

[sibelman]

Surprise! Not. MS further obfuscates local login.

Edit:link lost somehow. Here's one:

https://www.windowscentral.com/soft...ow-to-switch-to-a-local-account-on-windows-11

and another on the same thing:

https://www.tomshardware.com/softwa...guide-instructions-redacted-earlier-this-week

 

[sibelman]

And more of MS being MS: https://www.neowin.net/news/windows...rive-folder-backup-without-asking-permission/

 

[tracer bullet]

I relented and let Win10 "backup my pictures to onedrive". I suppose it did do that, but first it moved them all from a huge, slow D:\ hard drive to my small, fast C:\drive first, basically filling it up and destroying all my shortcuts. I can't claim Windows was necessarily being shady about that, but I definitely did not have it tell me what it was about to do. I'm surprised it fit and am glad to have been able to completely reverse it.

I think a lot of what it does is for people that don't know anything about computers, so it might work and help the majority. But I am in the minority as I supposed most in this thread are.

 

[sibelman]

first it moved them all from a huge, slow D:\ hard drive to my small, fast C:\drive first, basically filling it up and destroying all my shortcuts

This seems like a foolish "feature" - why would someone add that to the code?

 

[mashdar]

This seems like a foolish "feature" - why would someone add that to the code?

Because if your photos were on an unexpected drive, they might delete them all by accident?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-latest-windows-10-update-over-data-loss-bug/

(update 1809 deleted standard user directories if they were mapped to custom locations)

edit: This is why I refuse to use these folders for anything but scratch space.

 

[sibelman]

they might delete them all by accident?

update 1809 deleted standard user directories if they were mapped to custom locations

So MS didn't test this against any non standard setup, like the eminently reasonable relocation of user data?

Destruction of user data would get people fired where I come from. Job 0 is making sure you protect data from loss.

 

[day_trippr]

As soon as I built my current NAS I uninstalled OneDrive from every device in the house.
Now they all back themselves up to the NAS automagically and the backup files are accessible from anywhere with a web connection...

Cheers!

 

[balrog]

As soon as I built my current NAS I uninstalled OneDrive from every device in the house.
Now they all back themselves up to the NAS automagically and the backup files are accessible from anywhere with a web connection...

Cheers!

and we've been trying to hack into the NAS sparrows nest under the decking webcam images ever since

 

[day_trippr]

lol! It's at the end of an encrypted tunnel, but go for it!

ot: we had zero deck fledglings this year. Phoebe's nest got raided twice. Very sad.

 

[Kent88]

...
Now they all back themselves up to the NAS automagically and the backup files are accessible from anywhere with a web connection...

Cheers!

lol! It's at the end of an encrypted tunnel, but go for it!

 

[tracer bullet]

As soon as I built my current NAS

Yep. They're on my main PC, backed up to the NAS, and the NAS is backed up on a portable drive I keep at work.

 

[day_trippr]

Distant end of the tunnel is accessed through a Synology account.
All devices (computers/phones/tablets) run client apps that let me configure backup scope and timing for each independently.

One of the very best features of the NAS is the number of file versions captured as it allows fixing "Ooopsies!"
I have mine set for 8 and being able to roll-back files in a pinch has saved me a lot of aggravation...

Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Distant end of the tunnel is accessed through a Synology account.
All devices (computers/phones/tablets) run client apps that let me configure backup scope and timing for each independently.

One of the very best features of the NAS is the number of file versions captured as it allows fixing "Ooopsies!"
I have mine set for 8 and being able to roll-back files in a pinch has saved me a lot of aggravation...

Cheers!

What software do you use to back up to your NAS? How often does it do this, and is it incremental instead of full backups? How are restores handled?

I went through 2 external hardware NAS boxes until i got tired of expanding them (and the slow throughput, especially writes). I now have a 44TB RAID array on my main PC which gets backed up to the cloud with CrashPlan. Unlimited storage. It's pretty incredible, and great piece of mind as losing my work would be a pretty big thing for me. Restores are painless - choose the date you want to restore from.

I also have an external SATA holder that I can slide a bare drive into and back up manually (fully copy/paste).

 

[passedpawn]

I can't believe MS went and fouled up Notepad. It's a tabbed app now, with the ability to open multiple docs. If you close Notepad without closing one of the tabs, the tab will be there the next time you open Notepad. If you open the same txt file more than once, Notepad creates a new tab each time.

These changes might be features, but it feels like they took the simplest app and started making it more complicated.

 

[Kent88]

Man, I really lost touch with hardware.

 

[Kent88]

I can't believe MS went and fouled up Notepad. It's a tabbed app now, with the ability to open multiple docs. If you close Notepad without closing one of the tabs, the tab will be there the next time you open Notepad. If you open the same txt file more than once, Notepad creates a new tab each time.

These changes might be features, but it feels like they took the simplest app and started making it more complicated.

You're not familiar with Notepad++ ?

 

[passedpawn]

You're not familiar with Notepad++ ?

Funny, I distinctly somebody saying the same thing to me a while back. To answer, no, and I'm gonna check it out now

 

[mashdar]

What software do you use to back up to your NAS? How often does it do this, and is it incremental instead of full backups? How are restores handled?

I went through 2 external hardware NAS boxes until i got tired of expanding them (and the slow throughput, especially writes). I now have a 44TB RAID array on my main PC which gets backed up to the cloud with CrashPlan. Unlimited storage. It's pretty incredible, and great piece of mind as losing my work would be a pretty big thing for me. Restores are painless - choose the date you want to restore from.

I also have an external SATA holder that I can slide a bare drive into and back up manually (fully copy/paste).

I no longer run a NAS, but consider this a vote for rsync with incremental and checksumming.

 

[day_trippr]

What software do you use to back up to your NAS?

It's part of the Synology suite, specifically their Drive Client apps for Windows (and Android and iFruit). It uses a differential backup strategy: any file or folder that changes is backed up automatically. I have the retention depth set to 8 so the last 8 versions of any file within the scope are captured and kept. Restoration is so easy it almost encourages eff-ups. And I've taken advantage of that embarrassingly often.

Outside of the NAS I also do periodic full cloning of our PC boot drives to on-board drives. Given on-line storage has become so stupidly cheap even for high performance NVME SSDs it no longer makes sense to create restore DVDs or even flash drives with their interminable creation times.

Between all that and Windows automatic check-pointing we're pretty well covered for any eventuality...

Cheers!

 

[mashdar]

we're pretty well covered for any eventuality...

Famous last words!

 

[day_trippr]

Well...being a hardware design engineer for over four decades who had DEC workstations at home since the early 80s before PCs were ever a thing and know what dealing with a crashed drive can be like, I have always verified that my recovery strategies were/are viable. Even when I had VAXstations with their cartridge tape backups that took for fricken ever to write and then verify, I made the investment in assurance.

These days one thing that is cool about cloning modern NVME SSD boot drives is even a 2TB drive will clone and verify in around 25 minutes (I use Macrium Reflect) and can be done while still using the system normally. It's so fast and easy that any time I see a big Windows Update I do a clone first just in case...

Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Well...being a hardware design engineer for over four decades who had DEC workstations at home since the early 80s before PCs were ever a thing and know what dealing with a crashed drive can be like, I have always verified that my recovery strategies were/are viable. Even when I had VAXstations with their cartridge tape backups that took for fricken ever to write and then verify, I made the investment in assurance.

These days one thing that is cool about cloning modern NVME SSD boot drives is even a 2TB drive will clone and verify in around 25 minutes (I use Macrium Reflect) and can be done while still using the system normally. It's so fast and easy that any time I see a big Windows Update I do a clone first just in case...

Cheers!

I was in the computer lab at Villanova when their server drive failed and they realized that the tapes they had been backing up to for years were all blank. Good times.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Funny, I distinctly somebody saying the same thing to me a while back. To answer, no, and I'm gonna check it out now

Notepad++ is the way to go, multiple tabs and it brings all tabs open on all documents

 

[day_trippr]

I was in the computer lab at Villanova when their server drive failed and they realized that the tapes they had been backing up to for years were all blank. Good times.

When tape was the backup media there were all kinds of apocryphal sagas about restore failures because tapes were never verified. The philosophy "an unverified backup is no backup at all" became the guidance in our engineering group...

Cheers!

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

This is what I've always done is instead of backing up anything, point your documents and pictures to another drive, that drive could even be an external drive, I wouldn't recommend that but it works, I don't know how many times a USB drive failed in my business, just add a fast SSD drive internally

right click on a user folder, click properties then location

 

[Kent88]

rsync

 

[sibelman]

the tapes they had been backing up to for years were all blank

This took out my predecessor. Backups are job zero.

 

[estricklin]

Funny, I distinctly somebody saying the same thing to me a while back. To answer, no, and I'm gonna check it out now

I mean I do like Notepad++, but for me when I want a simple IDE, VS Code is WAY better. There's thousands of extensions for it.

As far as backup software, Windows 10/11 has a built in "version control" you can take advantage of. You basically pick which folders you want backed up, and it not only backs them up but it versions them by date. I use it for my PC, and the wife and daughters' as well. All files are backed up to my NAS daily. I've considered cloud solutions myself, but last I checked they are pricey.

One Drive is very frustrating, but at work I HAVE to use it, since all work is done through a VM.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

With regard to VS Code, a couple of "read then proceed" links for consideration

• https://vscodium.com/
• https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vs+code+supply+chain+attacks