Replies

Susan Bradley wrote:

Here is the recording of the phone message left on my phone.

When I call the number back because… well I wanted to confirm if this was a scam or not for investigation purposes the lady on the recording says “the wait time will be 120 minutes”.

When I do a reverse phone number look up it says that 206-429-9176 is a phone number registered to Microsoft. see https://www.whitepages.com/phone/1-206-429-9176

When I google on the phone number I see scam reports.  I am now going to reach out to folks at Microsoft to see if I can get more info but if it’s a scam, it’s a lousy scam because I can barely hear the person.  If it’s a marketing offer from Microsoft, it’s a LOUSY marketing offer because I can barely hear the person.

Once again. what is going on with you?

I think you need to take a break.

Seriously… I think you need to take time out.

2 users thanked author for this post.

CADesertRat, Fred

Susan Bradley wrote:

Even Joe Public needs to be on supported operating systems. That’s my recommendation for moving to 11 right now. It’s a lifecycle decision.

I disagree that still-evolving Windows 11 is the way to go, especially when so many of Joe Public’s hardware doesn’t meet Microsoft’s diktats.

What is going on with you?

You may be happy to put all your eggs into a totally unproven basket but I’m not.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

WSMario M wrote:

Or does anyone else have issues with MS’ attitude and performance?

Yes, I have issues with MS’ attitude and performance.

I spent years working with Windows OS’s, moving from version to version (in an environment of 6k+ hardware installations) where IT teams were sent on MS upgrade courses at phenomenal cost to our organisation – £3.5k per seat.)

I learned direct from imported Microsofties… and my head spun as I tried to prepare for each day’s new syllabus. They travelled in the early hours of each morning in minibuses from Reading to Bristol every day… and back again, day after day. They were open, honest, direct and – if they couldn’t answer a question – came back the very next morning with an answer. I’ll admit, I bought into the MS cool aid at the time ‘cos they were so… evangelical.

Fast forward from the transitions from XP to Windows 7 (don’t mention Vista) to the very fraught corporate decision to also bypass Windows 8… and the end of our former cosy corporate relationship with Microsoft. Everything changed. Communication just died… somehow we – corporate IT – appeared to become some sort of enemy.

Instead of call backs we were directed to documentation. Instead of named contacts we were asked to post questions to, I don’t know, a kind of resource pool. Our personal relationships with Microsofties just… died, absolutely completely. We no longer existed and they were no longer available to us… we were diverted to URLs, not people.

Have you ever suddenly been asked to work in a complete vacuum, not knowing from one day to the next how best to proceed with no direction at all? Whilst being asked how to transition a local government’s hardware from one OS to another? (Whilst fending off suggestions to follow Munich’s choice to go Linux at the time?)

I guess the lawyers may have taken over but, in corporate IT, we were left in a vacuum. The message was clear… if you want to move on from Windows 7 with support from Microsoft then you need to behave.

I was only a Senior IT officer then, downgraded from my much-higher graded former position before corporate IT ravaged its weaker outliers. Whatever.

I was lucky… I was offered – and took – early retirement, utterly dispirited. Many of my colleagues at the time took the same route. We just couldn’t work without either effective tools or trust. It was bad… so I left. I felt burnt out.

There you have it… my own personal reasons for no longer liking Microsoft. IMO it’s not to be trusted. YMMV.

6 users thanked author for this post.

Ascaris, Mike_Cat, Mothy, Fred, Cybertooth, oldfry

Susan Bradley wrote:

What is wrong: What feels like arbitrary hardware restrictions. For some of us that won’t buy a Windows Enterprise sku/won’t get M365 E5, and won’t do Azure AD (you know who you are) it feels like the mandate to buy new hardware to get benefits that we won’t have access to is what is wrong. We are going to have a lot of e waste to deal with.

I have a Intel Core i7 desktop that is not Windows 11 worthy.

What is annoying: Right mouse click. I know that cut and paste is up there in the top row but given that I work with both 10 and 11, it takes the brain an extra “oh yeah” to remember that 11 is more about icons than words.

What is right: For those that can afford the Enterprise and E5 the additional hooks into hardening credentials is a very good thing.

I can’t read a single ‘right’ in your post for ‘Joe Public’… and absolutely no recommendation whatsoever.

I bought a standard Apple ‘Lightning-to-HDMI’ adapter many years ago (at ridiculous cost for what it is) to show captured photos/videos from my iPhone and iPad on smart TVs easily without having to manage wifi protocols.

Playing around with the adapter, I found I could use VLC on the iPad (now a series 9) to connect to Windows-based DNLA servers over wifi (I’ve now standardised on Plex, even though I haven’t yet bought into its paid-for services) and serve content to my TV via the Apple hardware adapter from my iDevices. It’s not something I use regularly but it works.

The only downside (apart from a very, very occasional stutter) has been that the back of the iPad/iPhone can get quite warm depending on the length of any movie being streamed.

Note: I tried two much cheaper ‘lightning-to-hdmi’ third-party cables before buying the price-gouging Apple genuine articles. The former didn’t work; the latter did.

So, to answer your question… in my experience a genuine Apple ‘lightning to hdmi’ adapter cable should work for what you want without affecting your iDevices’ wifi connectivity. AFAIK they’re completely different communication protocols. There shouldn’t be a problem.

Hope this helps…

PKCano wrote:

It was the use of d***. Hold over from Woody – no cussing.

Thank you, @PKCano, for the explanation. It makes perfect sense.

My apologies… I didn’t think.

I’ve edited my offending post and will try harder in future. Sorry.

1 user thanked author for this post.

PKCano

geekdom wrote:

Apparently there is no resolution as yet

According to several mentions in Raymond Chen’s ‘The Old New Thing’ blog, developer resources at Microsoft have no slack whatsoever to deal with something that isn’t a deal-breaker.

Mike_Cat wrote:

Building PCs and cars was something I did in my teens back in the 70s. Gave up the cars a decade back. Guess it’s the PCs turn.

I feel the same, more or less. When I finally moved to Windows 10 I just gave up on its ‘Windows Update’ shenanigans after just a few months… so just opted out completely and have stayed out since.

My current daily workhorse is still on Windows 10 Pro 1809 (although my other devices are on 22H2, no updates whatsoever [except Defender definitions] unless I decide so). I’ve been meaning to wipe it and clean install a newer version forever… but life gets in the way every time. It just works consistently… and that’s all I want.

I’ve dabbled with macOS and Linux on other devices for many years but they involve learning new stuff. At my time of life I can’t really be bothered with this… so I tend to use the stuff I just know intuitively.

I just want an OS that works for me, not the other way around.

I can’t stand having an OS that needs constant IV drip-feeding like it’s on life support. I’m a ‘user’, not a ‘medic’.

8 users thanked author for this post.

Ascaris, Mike_Cat, Charlie, Spiral, Umbongo, Lars220, Cybertooth, PKCano

geekdom wrote:

Microsoft calls them “moments,” little releases that make small changes in the operating system.

“Moments” are a Windows 11 implementation.

Are you sure you didn’t mean ‘aberration’? 🙂

5 users thanked author for this post.

unbob, Mothy, Phil F, Cybertooth, PKCano

StavRoss wrote:

Recently, two USB ports of a family laptop stopped functioning and the third one behaves erratically. At the same time, input and output sound devices stopped working completely. The message in sound settings says there are no devices. Could these problems be due to some windows update?

Possibly…

I suggest you first look at Device Manager to see if there are any issues showing.

Ultimately, it’s all down to the hardware path how devices end up connecting to the CPU… then, layered on top, how Windows’ device drivers interpret that connectivity.

With a hardware issue like this, the first thing I do is use a bootable USB stick to run a live version of Linux (I use Linux Mint Cinnamon) to see whether the hardware issue presents using an entirely different OS.

Hope this helps…

_______________________________________________________________

(These days USB host controller > PCIe > PCI > CPU is common, particularly for laptops where the mainboard is often smaller than desktop equivalents.

To save money [mere cents], many laptop manufacturers prefer using relatively cheaper USB components rather than the slightly more expensive PCIe/PCI components to connect hardware via their respective buses.

This is the reason you often see devices like webcams and sound devices showing in the ‘Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media’ menu against the USB icon in Windows’ lower-right Notification Area.

So, even though USB ports and sound devices may at first seem unrelated… there IS often a common hardware path, especially with laptops, based on their bus interconnections to ultimately connect to the CPU.)

 

AusJohn wrote:

Would some kind soul be able to give me a couple of examples of how I can accomplish this?

I have difficulty remembering hotstrings so I use flyingDman‘s AutoHotkey script that displays a character map onscreen to select characters. I’ve highlit the two you mentioned:

I’ve attached the AHK script as a ZIP file in case of any issues with forum encoding. The AHK script is as follows:

var = ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÑÒÓÔŒÕÖØÙÚÛÜßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïñòóôœõöøùúûüÿ¿¡«»§¶†‡•-–—™©®¢€¥££¤aß?de??????µ???p?s?t?f???G?T???SF?O???v-±8˜?=?==×·÷?'??‰°?ø?n?????¬???????????°0123456789°¹²³45678?

f12::
w:=20, cnt := 14, arr := strsplit(var)
gui, new
gui, -caption
gui, margin, 0,0
gui, font, s10
loop,% arr.count()
{
x := mod((a_index - 1),cnt) * w, y := floor((a_index - 1)/ cnt) * w
gui, add, text, x%x% y%y% w%w% h%w% center vz%a_index% ginsert,% arr[a_index]
}
gui, show
return

insert:
gui,submit
send % arr[substr(A_GuiControl,2)]
return

esc::
exitapp

Note that once you run the script, F12 is used to invoke the character map GUI and ESC to dismiss the dialog. (Both these hotkeys can be changed.) The script can be used with Notepad, Word, etc… anywhere that accepts character input.

Basically, the first line of the script creates an array then this array is looped through to create the GUI. Amend the first line if you only need a few special characters.

Note: This script was written long before AutoHotkey 2.0 was released. I’m still using AutoHotkey 1.1.

Hope this helps…

AHK_CharMap

geekdom wrote:

accesses a thread in Moderator Forum and that thread is not available if logged out or a regular user.

You’re absolutely correct. My mistake.

Save_Us_from_MS wrote:

Maybe I am not old enough or geeky enough, but I have never heard of OlderGeeks before. (I know MajorGeeks)

OlderGeeks is, IMO, a really-well curated repository of all those teeny-weeny utilities you never knew you needed… until you tried them and suddenly thought – why didn’t I know about this before?

For example, I never knew about a streaming audio service fronted by a UI called Pocket Radio Player… but I now use it almost every day to listen to MY favourite sounds.

I must admit that I avoid MajorGeeks as it continues to play fast and loose with the efforts of others without any accreditation. Just search for MajorGeeks here on AskWoody… no doubt my previous comments (rants) will surface, for example: Why I never link to MajorGeeks. It’s just me… I believe in crediting the original authors of code/reg/whatever that I use as a basis for my own (poor) efforts. 🙂

Hope this helps…

3 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Save_Us_from_MS, Norio

Will Fastie wrote:

Because we have a relationship with them.

Whilst I appreciate that, my concern is that the choice of OlderGeeks.com over AutoHotkey Foundation LLC for the download inadvertently makes it more difficult for new users of AutoHotkey.

The download link on the AutoHotkey foundation website links to a setup.exe file which helps new users by offering choices (including portable installation, if wanted), installs the appropriate version of AutoHotkey automatically and provides an info dashboard.

By comparison, the download link on OlderGeeks.com is to a ZIP file with no information about how to use it.

 

I don’t understand why the article includes a download link for AutoHotkey 2.0.2 pointing to OlderGeeks.com rather than to AutoHotkey‘s own website, where a plethora of help and support is also available.

1 user thanked author for this post.

dvhirst865