King Mycroft rules in Windows OS Background ?

Yes, this is an unclear title, pretty cypted…

Mycroft: Mycroft Holmes (and ancestor or Microsoft name ? Micr OS oft ?)

What I meant is something I noticed these last days (today is the first day of the second week I use a Windows (8.1) machine).

Minutes ago, I heard an OS sound and checked what happens (ctrl-tab) to see there is no more open folders in the Windows Explorer…

Thus the question: is there’s a Windows background thread that do things in our back ?

Nota: I discovered a keyboard shortcut that disable the TouchPad, I have to type the name of the application * I want to run in ModernUI (is it its name ?) nearly what I do nearly 30 years ago with my Apple IIc…
I have to watch closely what comes to the screen (the window) because sometimes the cursor moves (by itself) and my text goes elsewhere)

@: that character comes when the user press Alt Gr-0//@, excepted in Xojo (or in the part where you have to type youe email address: software protection) where you will get it using Alt-0//@…

All folders content is always displayed as small icons (after a reboot ?)

The Suppr (the other Delete key) works or not in Xojo IDE.

And so on.

The question is (can be): is there’s a running background process that does these tricks ?

For years, Microsoft has been trying to perfect an implicit assistant that would note what you do most often, and then slightly modify the way Windows react to make it easier. For instance in Word if you use often a certain command, it will push it up the menu. Bill Gates talked about that time and again, but it never happened, AFAIK.

But what happened here is different. The bell sound was because your PC was restarted after an update. Yes, you read correctly. Windows stupidly restarts on you when it does some updates, instead of asking politely.

That behavior can be turned off. See this

Hi Michel,

Thank you for your answer.

Apple had a project - so long time ago that this cannot be secret since… - that helps you to be more “prolific” : help you in your own work. Just like you said, if you do repetitive tasks, the “User Agent” will ask you if this is what you want to do and if you want it he do it for you.
Think Table of Contents (ToC) styles in a Word text: when the agent saws a sentence that does not goes to the end of the line or does not fills many lines, it may be a ToC entry and ask you if so and which kind of entry (chapter, sub 1, Sub-Sub, etc.)

This looks like help. What I see is more an annoyance than a help (since it is quite never what I want to do.

Hi Michel,

Thank you for your answer.

Apple had a project - so long time ago that this cannot be secret since… - that helps you to be more “prolific” : help you in your own work. Just like you said, if you do repetitive tasks, the “User Agent” will ask you if this is what you want to do and if you want it he do it for you.
Think Table of Contents (ToC) styles in a Word text: when the agent saws a sentence that does not goes to the end of the line or does not fills many lines, it may be a ToC entry and ask you if so and which kind of entry (chapter, sub 1, Sub-Sub, etc.)

This looks like help. What I see is more an annoyance than a help (since it is quite never what I want to do.

The “restart” was only a Windows Explorer (Desktop) ‘restart’ (if it was that). I had Internet Explorer and Firefox running and they was not shut down. But you still may be right since this is not mare nostrum (this is unknow waters for me).

BTW: two days ago (I think), I got 24 updates that tooks forever to install and… one not priority update I discovers the day after.

The day after. Before that I started to get my external keyboard (bluetooth) that does not works anymore, but the Bluetooth Mouse still works. I discovered that "less important update’ while I wanted to get a bluetooth update.

Once that ‘less important update’ was installed, I was able to use the external keyboard !!!

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[quote=148733:@Emile Schwarz]BTW: two days ago (I think), I got 24 updates that tooks forever to install and… one not priority update I discovers the day after.

The day after. Before that I started to get my external keyboard (bluetooth) that does not works anymore, but the Bluetooth Mouse still works. I discovered that "less important update’ while I wanted to get a bluetooth update.

Once that ‘less important update’ was installed, I was able to use the external keyboard !!!

Advertising:
Buy our band new book: “Windows OS is very simple, in 101 volumes.”[/quote]

Windows is simple. But the thousands of different computers on which it is supposed to run are not. I am always amazed to see Windows install itself on so many different hardware, and actually work. When you think Yosemite is supposed to work just on Apple hardware, and that it shows lack of compatibility, the Windows performance is impressive.

As you said, when all updates were installed, it worked. No matter what you throw at it, Windows may not be as brilliant as Mac OSX, but it works.

*Except when it doesn’t

Always read the smallprint :wink:

[quote=148765:@Markus Winter]*Except when it doesn’t

Always read the smallprint ;-)[/quote]

No system, even Apple, really always work. Case in point : Yosemite.

On the other side of the spectrum, though, if you want to see systems that do not work, try some Linux distros on slightly unusual configurations. I was horrified when I tried to launch ElementaryOS on my PC with an NVidia graphic card. Instead of using the default VGA mode, it leaps forward into some untested mode, and pitifully hangs. As a for a way to have it work, I simply gave up. Good Linux is most often free. If it was to be paid for, it would be a gigantic joke.

I maintain that Windows works on an amazing number of configurations.

[quote=148761:@Michel Bujardet]When you think Yosemite is supposed to work just on Apple hardware, and that it shows lack of compatibility, the Windows performance is impressive.
[/quote]
Apple always was & still is a hardware company - they just happen to have really decent software to run on their hardware.
MS is a software company - so running on every device on the planet IS their goal.

When you view them knowing that you see why Apple gives away OS X, iWork etc. It sells hardware.
MS doesn’t do that because giving away software doesn’t help them in the same way it helps Apple.

While they do often get compared to each other their business models are VERY different and people often forget that.

And yes, the fact that Windows works as well as it does & as consistently as it does across the myriad configurations that exist is amazing.

And I’ll leave the snide remarks out :slight_smile:

Apple makes the razors and gives away the blades, Microsoft sells only blades :wink:

People think they are competing when in fact they are not doing the same thing…

please no OS wars… each platform has its advantages and disadvantages…

Exactly the point :slight_smile:

I gave facts, no OS war.

BTW: what is the advantage to set the TouchPar iressponsible (like if it is disconnected) ?
fn-F7 does that here. I do it by unluck… it tooks me hours to be able to get it back.

Wasn’t meant as a snide remark on Windows, but as a humorous remark on “works” as that is often dependend on your definition of works. But Ican see how that came across wrongly, so my apologies.

As for MacOS: I still think that SnowLeo was the best MacOS ever, and I dislike the new direction Apple is taking.

As for Windows: Win7 is highly useable, but as Apple MS is going the wrong way.

I get the feeling designers have been given too much power, and now they are going power crazy.

Case in point are houses: there is a backlash going on in construction because it turns out that the designs of the last 30 years - which are mostly based on concrete use - are a desaster in many respects (eg internal wall ventilation, energy conservation, etc) which will cost billions in repairs …

I think I already wrote Yosie was reminding me of Windows 8 : a good system polluted by the portable device OS design. Mavericks was not that bad, a bit like Windows 7 : fair and reliable. But I liked Snow Leopard because I could use my PPC apps.

Windows 8 was downright wrong, 8.1 barely better, and MS paid that dearly with today a 35 or so market share in the total OSes combined, pretty much the same as iOS. I would call that a rather stringent demise for one who used to be 90% for the last decade.

Windows 10 Technical Preview is everything Windows 8 should have been : fast (extremely), reliable, mouse friendly, with a Start menu, compatible with both legacy apps and new API (Metro). I do not think that will suffice for Windows to be much more than the second most common OS in a market where Android has definitely taken the first place. Worse yet, PC sales drop, while Mac desktops and laptops grow.

Maybe Yosemite will get better. I hope so. It would be a shame if they were not able to iron out the skirmishes.

Maybe designers are running amok. I don’t know. Any new design is always difficult to stomach, until the older one is forgotten. One thing is for sure : the market seldom forgives ill conceived stuff.

An answedr comes to mind: where the OS engineers comes (what schools and on what OS did they learn) ?

a Start menu:
To bo be honest, I do not really care about the start menu. An Application menu will be welcome. Having to type the name of the application in Windows 8.1 is a step 30 years years in the Past at MS-DOS glorious days…

Look at Internet Explorer Windows 8.1: where is the menubar ?
“-” at FireFox “-”: where is the menubar ? I changed the preferences to keep the last windows / tab open at quit / launch time, but since I do not knew where is the MenuBar… I closed my window(s) and lost my open windows/tabs until I started to make a Quest on the subject and found the “quit” function (an Icon).

As some here says: we will not go into an OS war. But, after a long quest, I found yesterday evening the location in the OS where you get data about the OS Updates and, no, there was no OS Updates when I get Beep and my Windows Explorer closing my open Windows… yesterday: the last update was done on December 5th (as noted deep in Windows Update).

At last, I feel that I have a clue of why my text cursor goes away from my typing line; in fact, I feel I know why it goes where it goes, not why: it goes where the text cursor is when . What is that something ? I do not know.

About OS X: I started as an Apple (II) customer, then went to Apple France and get my OS X skills. Yosemite in its look and feel is not a good forward step. Take a look at how useless the Tag feature is (Finder, colors tag set to files / folders: where they are set in Icon view) versus how it always were…

Windows: I started to use what was called MS-DOS decades ago when we had to type the application name to fire an application. Then I use it here and then (few times a week/month, mostly for technology awareness, then to know how my files then applications behave when received by a WIndows user. I get one Windows laptop in 2003 and I was not able to watch a DVD: go figure (between other misses and wrong features).
And so, at mid September 2014, I get a 2-in-1 laptop (from a Lenovo subsidiary) and was horrified of how it behaves. But I do not had to used every days and 8 to 12 hours a day.

I recall the articles in the press talking (at Windows 8 alpha or beta stage) about Metro and everyone agree on that (even Microsoft as Michel is informed us, thanks Michel). What I wrote in this Conversation have nothing related to OS X, but is related on the difficulties of an old man, in the Computer business since 1979, have with the last piece of technology (mainly software).

Thank you for listening (reading), sending tips and info for the forum readers.

PS: in a recent movie I watch on TV, at school, the professor told to its students: “set your computers to flying mode”… Translated as is in French ! Fortunately, I learned some days before what it was… a real shame ! It was a school, a standard shcool, not a flying-in-a-plane-school !!!

Windows 8.1 Start menu is ridiculous. You can have the real start menu back by installing Classic Shell. They aheva version in French.

See http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/

I use it myself with Windows 8.1.

BTW: there is a Start menu in Windows 8.1 ?

For me, beside the user friendly part, knowing what to do is… enough (even if I prefer it as User Friendly as possible).$

So, typing the first letters of an applicationj to be able to fire it works.

But, what a shame for an OS that was started 30 years ago (bad Xerox machine job).

Yup. The ridiculous thing that has the Windows 8 logo and sits where Start used to be.

[quote=149541:@Emile Schwarz]For me, beside the user friendly part, knowing what to do is… enough (even if I prefer it as User Friendly as possible).$

So, typing the first letters of an applicationj to be able to fire it works.[/quote]

You complained being back in the middle ages of Dos. Classic shell puts you back in the 90’s.

The worst is to not know / not have a clue of how to do things, then they use 30 years ago technology and at last, I an not waiting for a solution to do things.

I complain about Xojo too - years and years along - and nothing changed.

As an example, follow thre RTF technology (on OS X) in Xojo from start to today.