I have no idea how this post got so long...Thanks again, and I will try the EXE association fix you gave the link for. If it can help me get back to some normality that would be great.
It might not even really be related to your problem, but the "Open With" dialog when trying to run programs often means the EXE association is broken. It could also be that the shortcut (.lnk files) association is broken as well, I believe there is a fix on that site for those as well.
Re the WinPcap thing, that may well have come through Wireshark which I will try to remove, although right now Contol Panel-Add/Remove programs does not work.
Because of the "Open With" thing I presume?
And re the programs not working on Windows 7, the main one is an old version of Quattro Pro which I have been using for years. In my opinion it is way better than Excel - easier to use, not at all cumbersome, more functionality, better in every way. I have 90% of my work files on Quattro Pro, have never had to "upgrade" it because it is perfect the way it is, and I do not want to lose it.
Although you don't state it outright, I'm assuming that this is probably Quattro Pro 6; this was released before Windows 95 was, if I recall. I don't know if it was a 32-bit (actual windows 95 program) or 16-bit, though. Also, to my understanding that version seems to be the last version that was well-regarded by Quattro Pro users (since after that Quattro was sold by Borland to Novell). If it is 16-bit and you are using a 64-bit version of windows, that would be the problem (I believe the error is something to the effect of "this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running.") in which case you would need to use a VM to run the program (XP mode would probably work as well).
I am seriously considering wiping Windows 7 and replacing with XP just to keep my Quattro Pro.
Certainly an Option, and I'm sure we can help you do that as well (as long as you have an XP disk) the only tricky part would be finding the drivers but for the most part it shouldn't be too bad. I'm sure there will be some naysayers blibber-blabbering about not replacing Win7 with XP because it's outdated, but if it get's the job done I don't see where they are coming from.
I suppose I have a bit of a beef about all this "upgrading" - I hate it. I would happily still be on Windows 95 if the change hadn't been forced on me
I can understand where you are coming from, but consider that even Windows 95 was an upgrade from windows 3.1 which was an upgrade (well, user experience wise) from DOS, and there were a number of versions and upgrades to DOS as well. In that sense a lot of people who "hate upgrading" really are just nostalgic for a certain time period whose software they have fond memories of. Truthfully speaking though Windows 95 had a <lot> of issues. This isn't to say it was a bad operating system, but rather that your pining for "the good old days" is sort of looking on the past with rose-tinted glasses; And, let's be honest here- was the change
really forced on you? There was nothing stopping you from using your good old Reliable Windows 95 machine all the way up to today; the issue of "being forced" is more that newer software (and internet stuff) only works on newer Operating Systems for the most part. I know several people who are happily using Firefox 3 (not pretty trying to get that working) on a Windows 95 machine and have no problems doing their everyday computing tasks and using their Windows 95 applications and whatnot; perhaps you weren't really "forced" as much as you were "pressured" and there certainly is a lot of pressure for people to upgrade; you see it all the time, even on this forum; but newer isn't necessarily better, especially since even if the new program is functionally superior to the old one there is still the "cost" of relearning how to do basic stuff in the new program, so it's not always worth the time.
and I grudge Microsoft re-vamping Windows every 2 years just to get us all to buy it again.
While I understand your sentiment:
Windows 3.1: 1992
Windows 95: 1995
Windows 98: 1998
Windows ME/2000: 2000
Windows XP: 2001
Windows Vista:2006
Windows 7: 2009
the only windows release interval that is 2 years would be between windows 98 and windows ME and ME to XP. It's hardly every two years, though. Additionally it's important to realize that if they stopped updating windows they would be overtaken. That may sound like a good thing, but considering none of their competitors seem to really care about application compatibility at all the results would be less than stellar.
There is no benefit for the user here - just more cash into MS coffers.
Isn't there? Let's analyse.
Windows 3.1 to Windows 95:
What did the user gain:
A far more stable system, better memory management, better CPU utilization (32/16-bit hybrid architecture, taking advantage of newer processors at the time), better built in utilities (things like resource monitor), and the OS itself replaced DOS for all intents and purposes, meaning that computers were more accessible to users with less experience. (being dropped with a bar that says start, it's a lot more intuitive then being dropped at a commandline saying "C:\>".
Windows 95 to Windows 98/SE
Ok, this could be debatable, particularly since it's kind of the center of a lot of hatred. Windows 98 seems a lot more like a "patch" over windows 95, in that you could install the Active Desktop components into windows 95 and get most of the same look at feel. Aside from that though it did add moer "official" USB support to windows, meaning that the user gained since they could now use USB peripherals (which you cannot do with Windows 95 without a lot of patches and tweaks and hacks, and even then it barely works). Plug & Play support was a lot better, and more automatic, requiring little to no intervention with IRQs and DIP switches and whatnot (Windows 95 itself somewhat mitigated this, but windows 98 practically eliminated it.
Windows 98 to XP:
Windows XP marked a rather major shift, in that the Consumer Operating systems (Windows 9x) were "merged" with the workstation Operating Systems (Windows NT/2000) to create a single codebase/product for both. What did this give the user?
Greatly enhanced "power" over the system. Since NT was a true Operating system that used a microkernel rather then the monolithic DOS-based kernel from 9x, the system was far more stable and it was more difficult to corrupt files, since it had built in support for things like permissions, which had to essentially be hacked into Windows 9x. It also greatly improved hardware support over Windows 98, since Windows XP (and windows 2000) recognized a wider range of "generic" USB devices. For example without hacking you cannot simply plug in any old USB drive and use it on a windows 98 machine, but you can with a Windows XP machine. The plug and play support was even more enhanced over windows 98; with windows 98 sometimes unplugging a in-use USB drive would cause not only data loss but a blue screen; with XP, while you may get data loss if the drive is in use, you will get a balloon tip basically saying as such. The actual UI improvements are and were a point of contention, but there is no doubt that the system took greater advantage of the hardware capabilities available at the time; using Alpha blending directly on the desktop rather then as a feature usually only found in games allowed business users to experience the enhanced graphical capabilities of what was a average PC at the time. Another important consideration is that XP greatly improved support for user profiles compared to earlier versions of windows, which sort of kind of pretended there was a concept of a profile but didn't always respect it, and password protection on them was weak, there was no support for actually partitioning the various users from each other (any user could view any other users documents, for example). Also fast user switching, which could let Billy keep his Dinosaur game open while Dad checks his business E-mail or whatever. Now warranted a lot of what fast-user switching could do can be "kludged" in previous operating systems but what makes it interesting is that Billy's dinosaur game is running in Billy's account and Dad's browser E-mail is running in his account; they are in effect separated. Also, Dad could keep the browser open and switch back to Billy's account; with an older Windows OS billy might accidentally Alt-Tab or do something like that to the browser and start sending E-mails or messing around by accident with Dad's inbox; with Fast user switching the accounts are running but still require a password to switch to. The gains in this regard are there but are far more tangible to business users, which are certainly a type of user.
From XP to Vista- again, there is a lot of hate for Vista. But In my opinion, moving from XP to Vista gave the user the single greatest improvement in any version of Windows. To explain- no doubt you are well aware of the constant threat of malware on windows PCs. The main reason that this was such a huge problem is that in windows 9x any user had administrator access, and in XP while it was based on the NT system, the "defaults" were to make the user have full admin access. Some say "but that makes sense, it's my computer, I should be an admin". Yes- but this is missing the point. See, using the Administrator account has less to do with your own abilities and more to do with the abilities of the programs you are running. Trojan horses being a common delivery method are basically "installers" that the victim believes to be one thing but that also install some malware or other questionable software. With XP and earlier on their default settings, these programs could do as they pleased, and there would be no way to know. With Vista, however, it
greatly improved on a concept possible in XP, called "Limited User Account". With XP you could create a limited user account. in many ways these accounts were "immune" to malware; the drive-by download or malicious activeX control or whatever would load, but it would be running under the Limited User account which in and of itself isn't able to change any settings, so the malware couldn't Install" itself and the infection would not be successful. The problem and the reason this wasn't very well used was because it was a non-default option, took time to set up, and more importantly if you wanted to install software or perform administrative tasks you either had to log out and back in as the admin or "fast user switch" to the admin account, which was a major hassle and prevented a lot of people from trying the technique.
Windows Vista's answer to this was UAC (User Account Control). In many ways it's similar to the idea of fast user switching from windows XP; the difference is that the switch can be made "automatically" when you need more permissions. This, combined with the default behaviour that causes all higher-level permissions to be stripped from all users meant that any administrative task would require the use of the admin account. Some argue that most people just click OK, but this is not a very good argument in favour of no UAC at all, since without UAC (or in earlier windows versions) there is simply no prompt at all. In the case of a trojan horse, for example, the windows XP machine is compromised by a infected version of the installer to Billy's Dinosaur game. However, upon trying to install the game on Vista Billy will require administrative permissions. Dad might just allow it after all (it is an installer) but with a little research he might find that the game is supposed to be able to install as a Limited user as well, meaning that it wasn't the game that required permission but rather some sort of malicious installer. Additionally such installers would need to specifically request admin access; if they simply try to infect the machine no prompt appears and they are simply denied access. Since that is how most trojans worked (at least at the time) this proved and often still proves to be an effective method of preventing the sort of malicious installations that even safe browsing couldn't prevent previously, such as drive-by trojan downloads and the like.
Windows Vista to Windows 7 was more a image change than anything. A Lot of people who slung on the hate for Vista love Windows 7, but really they are nearly the same; the benefits from Windows Vista to 7 can be summarized as some tweaks to the UAC concept, meaning that there are fewer prompts in some cases and therefore they have more "meaning" to the user, which helps prevent the "click Allow constantly" problem that people seem to be able to pull out of nowhere. Additionally they added a bunch of UI enhancements in the form of easier mouse-only window management, improvements to things like Aero Peek, which is basically an extension of the basic Tooltip that windows 95 would show for a taskbar button (it's difficult to really claim that the tooltip on a Taskbar button is "more useful" then having a small thumbnail of what the window contains).
Now, it's important to understand that older versions of windows aren't "inferior" to newer versions by any stretch; after all, most of the various improvements I have thus far outlined are possible because the average "oomph factor" of the PC when each OS was released allowed for it. For example there wouldn't really be a feasible way to add a feature to windows 95 similar to Aero Peek, simply because it would cause a lot of compatibility problems given the way the display and bitmap drawing was handled. Aero and Aero Glass are more an extension of the upward climb that each windows version performs where it tries to take advantage of the hardware; if you have a Super speedy graphics card (and any modern PC does) then it's pretty wasteful to just use it viewing 2-D images; Aero Peek, while it's actual UI improvements are a subject of opinion, tries to take advantage of the power of the average PC's GPU to add more visual effects and try to "streamline" the UI; many seem to think this is a rapid departure from older windows version, this is nonsense; after all, Windows 9 Plus and later Windows 98 featured Animated menus and window minimize/maximize/restore animations, and it's hard to say there is a good reason to let a perfectly good GPU sit idle as windows does all the pixel pushing and just uses the GPU to draw bitmaps.
Lastly, Most people receive their copy of windows free with a new PC, rather than purchasing an upgrade, arguably a small portion of what the manufacturer sells the machine for is for the OS license but considering the alternative would be that they pay the same amount for a license for a previous version I can't really see any real justification for your statement that each new version is basically only to fill Microsoft coffers. Of course Microsoft is a company, big surprise there, and all companies are after making a profit rather then going under- also no surprise. And they certainly are doing very well business wise, but to suggest that the only reason that they release new versions of the OS is to make a profit- well of course that is why, for one thing- and for 2 in order for a product to be profitable it needs to improve the older version, otherwise nobody will buy it, so while Microsoft is in fact creating new versions of their software purely for profit, in order to do that effectively they need to make that software better than the previous version, thus the user benefit.
