Jump to content

XP-Forever, Help me fight "change"


ironworker

Recommended Posts

Guys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news; but I'm pretty sure the OP was spam.

 

I've had a couple of hundred spam comments/posts on my sites advertising XP extended support services, most of them with near-identical sob stories.

I'm Shane.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the OP was intended to promote a product it pretty much backfired, eh?  :P

 

Dennis, fwiw, I am presently looking at 2 apps to virtualize win 7, Returnil and AX64. 

Neither is free, but both seem to have the potential to run win 7 in a virtualized state, iow "sandboxed".  

 

All I want is to be able to return the OS to its working state when last it started. 

I don't need for windows to remember / log / store even a tenth of the stuff it does.

Also don't want to risk that some evil exe will be saved to execute on restart. 

 

Returnil and AX64 seem to accomplish this, still checking though. 

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

I've always been a fan of Returnil as you know, and being on XP I'm fine with the free "Returnil 2008" but as you also know, it ain't compatible with Win 7.

 

However, "Returnil System Safe Free 2011" is as it says, free, and it is something you've already tried.

 

http://forum.piriform.com/?showtopic=38064

 

I downloaded the installer myself a couple of months ago more out of curiosity than anything but haven't given it a whirl yet.

 

It seemed to work OK for you then, maybe give this free version another go. Direct download from SoftPedia ...

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Popup-Ad-Spyware-Blockers/Returnil-Virtual-System.shtml

 

My main attraction to Returnil is it's option to clone the operating system in memory as an alternative to a sandbox type "disk cache". All the alternatives I've seen use disk caching only.

 

Then there's the option of "Toolwiz Time Freeze" (Not the "Wondershare" variant)...

 

http://www.toolwiz.com/products/toolwiz-time-freeze/

 

Well discussed at Wilders, and I've linked you to the last page of the topic as it seems to have became more popular than it was at the beginning.   :)

 

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=313299&page=21

 

Although I'm well covered with Returnil and Power Shadow, I'm having a look at this with the future in mind, but the "disk caching only" may be a deal breaker for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since it seemed spammy from the get go, and after this new news of it probably being spam I've removed the product name in that first post.

 

Yep, probably was a spammer, first got the tar beaten out of him by thread redirectors (including me), then got his spam links deleted.  Poor guy.  ;)

 

Errrrr, ummmmm, you know, Andavari, you & Dennis & I & all the other XP'ers will eventually have to move on.  

 

If xp becomes unusable I'll just convert the old hardware to some Linux distro, but it will be very difficult to divorce windows completely. 

 

Just thinking out loud. 

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

If xp becomes unusable I'll just convert the old hardware to some Linux distro, but it will be very difficult to divorce windows completely. 

 

It won't become unusable, there's still people plucking away in older OSes. Getting away from Microsoft OSes may be very compelling though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting away from Microsoft OSes may be very compelling though.

 

 

It always amused me that people refuse to update their Windows system, but Mac OS and Linux machines are always running the latest version. I guess it demonstrates the people prefer small, incremental improvements rather than major changes every 2-3 years.

I'm Shane.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If anyone is interested, Zorin OS8, which they advertise as "the gateway to Linux",  was released yesterday. I installed it last night on my Lenovo T400 laptop and so far all is well, everything works. I thought I'd share a few screenshots displaying some of it's features.

 

The desktop: http://postimg.org/image/tj0npq0dv/

The desktop changer: http://postimg.org/image/xpli51zzn/ (Windows 7, XP, or traditional GNOME)

The browser manager: http://postimg.org/image/fo2d795yr/ (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Midori)

The control panel: http://postimg.org/image/j00o0jxpv/

The start menu: http://postimg.org/image/8bwx1pnqr/

The system tools menu: http://postimg.org/image/4r11ihj77/

 

For anyone thinking of migrating from Windows XP to Linux, I think it offers the least amount of anxiety, since most of it's menus and features try to mimic Windows. On top of that, Wine comes already installed if you want to run any of your XP based software. I'll continue testing it and exploring it's software repositories, but I'm pretty sure this will be the new OS for my HP Mini when the time comes.

 

Here's the link to the home page: http://www.zorin-os.com/

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

I guess it demonstrates the people prefer small, incremental improvements rather than major changes every 2-3 years.

 

Use Porsche 911 as a reference I guess since that's the measuring stick of how to properly do sane incremental improvements (just mad I'll never afford one).

 

Microsoft's changes are a pain to many people, and they want you to pay for their newest and greatest perceived "improvements" every time. Now if someone was using a Linux build and didn't like the changes there are so many more choices to switch to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators
If anyone is interested, Zorin OS8, which they advertise as "the gateway to Linux", was released yesterday.

 

 

Fancy!  Sticking that under the nose of a downloadaholic.

 

Getting it now Derek, and I can think of one other who will be following close behind if he doesn't already have it.

 

Thanks for the heads up and the links.   :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep. 

Thanks, Derek, getting it now.  >sigh<  Just when I thought it was safe to login . . .   :P

Checking now for the differences between paid & free. 

Looks like not much, and the price would be very reasonable anyway. 

 

 

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just got on here using Opera from the Zorin ver. 8 live DVD 32 bit.  

Running it on the win xp computer, vintage around 2006, I think.  

Verrry nice, fast, windowish.  

Lots of features.  Thanks again, Derek.  

 

Edit:  Back now using Firefox in the Zorin ver. 8 Live DVD 64 bit. 

Running it on the win 7 64 bit computer, about a year and a half old. 

Same situation, its a fun OS.  :)

It finds the wired and wireless connections, and the Bluetooth. 

So the drivers are up to date, I guess. 

Plays the streaming oldies channels, Youtube acts right. 

 

Interestingly, the disk viewer reads the original HDD for this computer as

"Disk is OK, 458777 bad sectors (33° C / 91° F)" 

I guess the HP warranty repair center just ran a repair utility instead of putting in a new HDD.  

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Disk is OK, 458777 bad sectors (33° C / 91° F)" 

I guess the HP warranty repair center just ran a repair utility instead of putting in a new HDD.  

 

Is "458777 bad sectors" a dangerous situation?

 

Hello login123 - It does not sound very encouraging. You're running Zorin live, right? And you mounted all the partitions on the drive before running the test? Your results might be skewed if you overlooked one small partition.

 

If Windows is the OS that is native to the system in question, it would be worthwhile to install Acronis or some other utility to analyze the drive and give you a second opinion. If the numbers match, then I would say that S.M.A.R.T. is trying to tell you something important, or as you said, maybe the overhaul at HP involved remapping the drive. 

 

What's sort of odd with my Lenovo (circa 2008) is that the S.M.A.R.T. analysis lists every single item in the "type" column as either "pre-fail" or "old age". And yet, when you look at the raw data, the reallocated sector count, spinup retry count, calibration retry count, seek error rate, recalibration count, uncorrectable sector count, and write error rate are all equal to zero, and it gives the drive a clean bill of health overall. 

 

BTW - Glad you like Zorin OS 8. All it takes is a little time to figure out where to find things on the menu, after that, it's very easy to use.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Derek.  I really do like the Zorin OS. 

I edited that post to delete that last line, didn't want to be a whiner, ya know, but you captured it in the quote.  :P

 

Anyway thanks for the reply. 

I don't know which app shows that information, but you navigate to it via the Zorin menu > Accessories > Disks. 

Yes it shows all the partitions. 

It has the option to run SMART data, and that shows parameters similar to what you describe. 

 

Guess I'll just keep running the disk and not worry about the bad sectors.

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Zorin OS for me equaled nothing but freezing and then crashing when I tried it last night, I even had a matching MD5 hash of the 1.5GB download and I had ImgBurn verify the burn of the DVD which is something I always do. They did however state something on the website about installing it being more stable vs using the Live CD (actually a Live DVD) but I'm not compelled to install it since it was freezing/crashing so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I burned (version 8) using Terabytes BurnCDCC ver 2.00a at the slowest speed and verification.

Checked the hashes with Nirsoft's HashMyFiles. 

Maybe won't make a difference since you checked the hashes already. 

Both the 32 and 64 bit versions worked OK from Live DVD. 

 

Wish it would work for you.  :(

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Zorin OS for me equaled nothing but freezing and then crashing when I tried it last night, I even had a matching MD5 hash of the 1.5GB download and I had ImgBurn verify the burn of the DVD which is something I always do. They did however state something on the website about installing it being more stable vs using the Live CD (actually a Live DVD) but I'm not compelled to install it since it was freezing/crashing so much.

 

Hello @Andavari - Sorry to hear that Zorin isn't working out for you. How much system memory does your machine have? Keep in mind that when you're running live, Zorin is loaded into system memory. On a machine with 2GB of memory, just loading Zorin would use 75% of your memory, leaving about 500MB to run the live system. That's cutting it a little thin in my opinion. Try this: Start a live session and use Gparted to create a 2GB partition on your hard drive and format it for use as Linux Swap, then turn Swap On from Gparted. See if the live system still crashes at that point, see if you have any hardware compatibility problems, and test all the applications .

 

Installing Zorin to the hard drive will free up all the memory in order to run the system, and you don't need a lot of space if all you want to do is test it. Try using 10-12GB for a root partition and make a swap partition equal to system memory, any less and you will not be able to suspend the system.

 

Hello @login123 - Yes that is the disk utility. If you click the small wheel icon in the upper right, you can access more disk tools, including the S.M.A.R.T. analysis utility I mentioned previously. Just be careful - one of the utilities performs a read/write analysis of the drive - you don't want to be doing a write analysis on your Windows disk!

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

I burned Zorin OS 8, didn't try Zorin OS 6 though.

 

I have 3GB RAM, which should've been enough. It was freezing and then crashing whenever I tried to run one of the built-in programs it had and I started off first trying to start their text editor which caused a crash which shouldn't have taxed the system memory. Then after rebooting with it everything else was freezing+crashing so I gave up.

 

Edit:

Too late for me to do all that you mention Derek891, it's long gone, I deleted the ISO and full erased the DVD+RW disc.

Edited by Andavari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a machine with 2GB of memory, just loading Zorin would use 75% of your memory, leaving about 500MB to run the live system.

It ain't necessarily so.

 

System requirements I am familar with are :-

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements

 

The amount of RAM is double for 64 bits compared with 32 bits

but the number of 64 bit words is about the same as the number of 32 bit data words.

 

A 32 bit application can run on either a 32 bit system or a 64 bit system.

It will use the same number of 64 bit words as the number of 32 bit data words,

i.e. twice the number of GB on 64 bit compared to 32 bit hardware

 

Memory requirements should either be expressed as a number of words,

or as a number of GB qualified by whether used on 32 bit or 64 bit (or worse) hardware.

 

Sorry to be pedantic

(actually it is one of my pleasures :P)

 

Regards

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a screenshot of what that disk utility shows.

 

attachicon.gifZorin_dsk_2014-02-01_2.png

 

Yep that is essentially how mine looked originally.  I will get some screenshots of mine too.

 

My comment here is in reply to a PM, FYI.

Windows Pro Media 8.1 x64  |  8GB Ram  |  500G HDD 7200 RPM  |  All  that I know about my graphics is that it's Intel  :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello @login123 - Yes that is the disk utility. If you click the small wheel icon in the upper right, you can access more disk tools, including the S.M.A.R.T. analysis utility I mentioned previously. Just be careful - one of the utilities performs a read/write analysis of the drive - you don't want to be doing a write analysis on your Windows disk!

 

Thanks for the warning, I saw that, checked out those options . . .

Good grief, that app will format your windows partitions, doesn't give much warning, either. 

 

GParted is included in Zorin, and it also will wreck your partitions if you tell it to. 

That app you are describing doesn't look like GParted.  ??

The CCleaner SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

Pssssst: ... It isn't really a cloud. Its a bunch of big, giant servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.