Do you still use Windows sometimes? And why?

[Aitch]

Hi Mark
I still use win2k regularly, though I had win98se running for years, updating/modifying it to suit, until after it wasn't supported anymore
I had several of the winME addins & used a program called erunt to keep it running. I'd played with many shell extensions through ShellExtensionCity
I still use both erunt & registryrepair pro to keep Win2k sp4 running [fully updated/firewalled/virus/spyware regclean defrag etc]
I've lost at least 5 full systems & files - unrecovered & annoyed

Specific software I like Scansoft Paperport
I like the fact that I can transfer various scans to one of many programs for changing format/layout etc easily & also saves me going through the torture of OCR which is just useless IMHO
I do a fair amount of legal paperwork, so layout is pretty much dictated by the court service here in uk, and timing is of the essence, as are clean repeatable copies. Lots of document/file management/copying/ scanning/printing
Another program I use regularly & haven't found anything like, is PrintArtist by Sierra, early version, which I can do very easy little graphics with, and make cards ready printed for folding
I also like Irfanview for quick viewing & resizing jpgs & pngs & foxitreader for pdfs
For video/audio editing adobe premiere/Audacity & some adobe CS3
I like 7zip's integration into 'right click' for speedy zipping/unzipping
In fact I use several integration links into 'right click' for document/file handling
I use firefox tabbed browser & fastmail & hotmail [though I'm trying to escape!!]

I'm still, despite many hours/days/weeks/months trying various puppy formats/struggling with linux, though Puppy is definitely my favourite for ease of transfer from 'doze' though I play with lots of really old hardware & many problems are just poor hardware, being asked to perform small miracles, by someone who just doesn't have the knowledge or experience [sometimes the patience!]
My aim is to have a working fileserver/printserver[webserver in the future?]
trixbox/phonesystem
low energy vehicle [camperbus] small theatre system with wifi plus boost aerial, for hotspots & hsdpa modem for mobile broadband & if possible touchscreen [If Puppy could do all that I'd be well pleased]
Home system networked/scsi/firewire jbods linking to mac G3s/winboxes/laptops for friends
try hp/compaq server boxes/sun hardware & thinclient networking,
microdrives/CF drives and anything else interesting/affordable to someone with virtually no income
Most that I need is not a failure of linux per se, but just habit & most of that bad, from using a dumbing down & pretty damn useless OS for 7/8 years or more, though I have to concede it did seem easier to learn, as many people I knew were in the same boat, so you didn't feel so awkward
Now I feel awkward just mentioning linux, because so many people don't get it/don't want it /can't be bothered
At least I've escaped that!
Most else that I do is to not let technology get away from me in retirement
Aitch
PS: hope you find this useful

[Flash]

I still use Windows, mostly to watch DVDs, convert CDs to mp3 so I can listen to them at work on my mp3 player, and look at pdf files. Gxine plays DVDs not very well compared to the Windows-based DVD player I use (I can't think of its name at the moment.) RealPlayer 10 can convert a CD to mp3 in as little as 3 minutes in Windows. Puppy's PBcdripper takes nearly 15 minutes. The end result sounds the same so I use RealPlayer. The pdf reader in Puppy is very slow and causes problems if I try to look at large pdf files, so if I have a large one to look at I do it in Windows.

[davids45]

G'day,
Windows for:
1) printing - my cheaply bought re-badged Lexmark colour laser has no Linux support; wish I knew how to use this printer as a shared printer on the/an older computer running XP on our home network while using the newer computer with Puppy?
2) genealogy software - Windows has a big start with specialist hobby software - see also ham-radio, etc, etc; popular genealogy programs wont run under Wine. It's the hobby that's important, not the computer's OS to most people here.
3) Excel occasionally, when gnumeric and OO calc just dont quite handle the functions as I know them.
4) TV recording: avidemux seems to handle the editing pretty well but I've not found the capturing Linux software matches the OEM Windows programs that came with the cards (not surprisingly, of course).
David S.

[john biles]

Hello Everyone,
I want to be a fulltime Linux user. I want to prove that Linux can be used every day by the average PC User.
I created TEENpup to prove it can be done. This is what drives each release. I know TEENpup isn't there yet.
I hear complaints that TEENpup is getting too big and goes against what Puppy stands for, a light fast operating system.
After reading all these posts, a good amount of the requirements on what Puppy users are booting up Windows for can be done it TEENpup.
I'm in no way saying that you should use TEENpup. It is more an observation.
This only confirms that the average user needs more applications then those supplied in Puppy.

I use TEENpup 99.9% of the time. My wife uses TEENpup 95% of the time and she doesn't even like Linux. She only started using TEENpup because it booted faster than XP and now after getting use to gaim, seamonkey etc only goes to Windows to print Photo's. (TEENpup 2008 has made great improvements in Printing over TEENpup 2.14 but is not quite there yet on some printers.)
My nieces who laughed at Puppy and Linux in the beginning now when visiting ask to use TEENpup and at home run Pigeon on their Windows PC and have asked for if they can run other Linux Applications on their Window's PC as well.

Sadly I get the feel now that Puppy is only a part time system to alot of User's.

[ttuuxxx]

Hello Everyone,
I want to be a fulltime Linux user. I want to prove that Linux can be used every day by the average PC User.
I created TEENpup to prove it can be done. This is what drives each release. I know TEENpup isn't there yet.
I hear complaints that TEENpup is getting too big and goes against what Puppy stands for, a light fast operating system.
After reading all these posts, a good amount of the requirements on what Puppy users are booting up Windows for can be done it TEENpup.
I'm in no way saying that you should use TEENpup. It is more an observation.
This only confirms that the average user needs more applications then those supplied in Puppy.

I use TEENpup 99.9% of the time. My wife uses TEENpup 95% of the time and she doesn't even like Linux. She only started using TEENpup because it booted faster than XP and now after getting use to gaim, seamonkey etc only goes to Windows to print Photo's. (TEENpup 2008 has made great improvements in Printing over TEENpup 2.14 but is not quite there yet on some printers.)
My nieces who laughed at Puppy and Linux in the beginning now when visiting ask to use TEENpup and at home run Pigeon on their Windows PC and have asked for if they can run other Linux Applications on their Window's PC as well.

Sadly I get the feel now that Puppy is only a part time system to alot of User's.

John

I wouldn't let it bug ya at all. Teen pup is just fine, sure you might have some issues, but basically has there ever been a perfect puppy release, Ummm no. Its not our fault either, I blame mostly the big corporations who truly don't support Linux with proper drivers.
Like printers, when you buy a printer most of the time the cd has drivers for windows and mac's. Not too often for Linux.

The Size of teen pup, well "Inferno" was bigger then your first release and now you've surpassed it in size. I did also have a few minor complaints about the size, But I also had other smaller Variants that filled the gaps and basically told them to try one of the others:)
But Inferno and TeenPup have 2 things in common
- trying to please people who want almost everything all in 1 distro
- SIze

But if you look at main stream linux where the average starting point is around 700mb TeenPup is still a Pup and not a dog.

My best advice is basically keep up the excellent work, don't let people get you down, Make a list of fixes and maybe make a patch or release a update iso with fixes. But really we do this for nothing, Just for other people to enjoy and I feel people should respect people who spend 100's of hours building something for nothing. The Best part of it is when I get a 1.5 page email loaded with complements, One person really loved ttuuxxxTV and said it was the most innovative application of the year. Thats what its all about.
ttuuxxx

[sunburnt]

That's MU, always ready with help & a quick answer.

Thanks Mark, I'll check it out...

[HairyWill]

My laptop runs puppy 95% of the time
Debian Lenny 4%, (for testing and using gpsd which I can't make work properly with my gps on puppy)
Windows 1% (Homeworld2)

My household shares run off an XP box, why don't I have a samba server? Mainly personal inertia. I haven't done enough research to know how easy it is to set up. The risk of changing something vs doing nothing, its not what interests me and I'm guessing it was cost some time in getting working properly. The box is up a lot of the time already running various kids games that don't stay in fashion for long enough for me to bother trying to run under wine. I occasionally use the musicbrainz picard tagger on it, I believe this also works on debian.

At work I have two machines that I use at my desk and also remote into. One runs puppy 3.01 the other XP. Rdesktop into the XP box is a smoother experience than vnc into the puppy one. Remote desktop can change the screen resolution to match the client automatically. With VNC either I have to start a new session at the correct resolution or have a virtual desktop that is bigger than the screen size. It is also possible with vnc to scale the image but reducing 1280x1024 - 1024-768 leaves many things illegible. The program that mainly keeps me using XP is Visual Studio because I teach basic programming in Visual Basic. I have considered teaching in a different language. One of the factors stopping me is the aggravation involved getting a new language installed on our public workstations.

If could have a expert help me with migration the thing I would ask them to do is to get me an experience as good as windows remote desktop (without the irritating rdpclip.exe clipboard bug)

[Billwho?]

Unfortunately I still need window$ for a few things.

Printing homework for my daughters, when neither Abiword or OO Writer can do all of the formatting that they put in using Word.

Excel for setting up conditional formatting (this can be done in OO Calc but is much easier in Excel) and whenever I need functions that won't work in Gnumeric or OO Calc eg. running personally created macros.

Defragging my fat32 partition used to transfer files between window$ and Linux

Sending faxes. At the moment I get the error message that the modem is not responding when in Puppy.

I have not been able to get M$ Office to run in Wine yet.

When I start using the computer at work again it will be Window$ NT 2000

[smokey01]

I think I have three or four licences for windows but I no longer use any of the versions.

The continual updates and disk activity use to drive me nuts.

Windows hasn't been used in my house for over a year and not likely to be reintroduced, on my main computer anyway. XP was on a recently purchased new Dell laptop, 64bit dual processor and still much slower than puppy on my AMD 3000+ 32 bit box.

Skype with video would draw me back to windows but not any more. It works great on my Eee PC. I still haven't manage to get it working on the main box yet but it's only a matter of time.

100% puppy at home unfortunately 100% XP at work.

[whyme]

We use yahoo msg with microphone and Webcam

Wife likes yahoo IM and I dont know how to compile source code or get an up to date Unix version of YahooIM to use with puppy with integrated webcam and phone chat..

and on occasion I play WoW and dont know enough about OpenGL to support my ATI radeon 9200 graphic card

[vanchutr]

Continuing to use Win$ for:

1. Playing games (Hard to install in Puppy Linux)
2. Downloads some big packages with idm (slow in Puppy Linux)

[recycler]

Interesting posts and choice of topic. To add my bit....I edit video at home and so I installed windows xp professional and adobe premier elements 4. Very happy with that. I used to think windows was slow - I hate waiting for a computer to catch up with what I am asking it to do - until I ran it on a P4 1.8mhz cpu with 1gig of ram. Now it seems really fast and I like it lots. I should add that my way of doing windows is to ignore all the automatic updates - too much hassle. I want to be in control of the computer not waiting on it. So far I have not found this to be a problem. It's just a question of learning not to panic when told you have close to 1000 security issues!

I run a project to reuse old computers here in New Zealand and tried installing puppy on several machines. It usually runs fine but I found that if there is a power cut it doesn't come back. Today I wiped a copy of windows 98 - it's way too out of date now - and tried a stripped down version of Xubuntu. Seems to work well with 256mb of ram and a 500mhz processor.

I like the minimalist approach of puppy and enjoy using it. It means can use this laptop without a HD and go on the net without worrying about viruses etc. I love the speed, the way it looks and the selection of applications is excellent. I think Microsoft is an evolutionary dead end so I am eagerly following developments in the open source world.

[ndujoe1]

"The continual updates and disk activity use to drive me nuts."

As was quoted earlier.

I have helped with Windows based machines. And this update process even on broadband speeds takes forever. A waste of time.

[Aitch]

@recycler

Interesting posts and choice of topic

2nd that

@MU

yes, and what has surprised me most is the shattering of an illusion that
I didn't realise

I thought many of the regulars whose names I'd gotten used to seeing,
were total puppians, including your goodself!

just goes to show, you never know till you know, eh?

and if things didn't change, they'd stay the way they are

good, innit

and without your help and the others

well, this attachment about sums it up


Aitch

[d4p]

It is true: "Why Linux will not displace Windows"(Read somewhere in this

forum). Just simple, Linux is not END-user friendly.
I miss too many good windows-applications in linux.

[MathRose]

To add to the general consensus, I too use windows for Video Editing, Printing, MSAccess (work) and the occasional game.

My linux test PC (frugal puppy, full puppy, xubuntu, MSDOS6.11, etc, etc) used to have XP on it until it destroyed the HDD. I only really use the full puppy install. Boots in 1min 30sec and normally I just want to get on emails, web and skype and not get annoyed at windows trying to update everything.

Basically, I only use windows because I have to.

[can8v]

Well I am using Win$ less and less everyday. I occasionally miss Dreamweaver, but since I built my own custom Content Management System with MySQL and PHP I have found I can use it to build and maintain websites faster and easier than with dreamweaver anyway. The only thing that currently prevents me from dumping XP is College. Occasionally I need Word to meet stringent formatting requirements that Abi and OO can handle, or I need to install and use some obscure software quickly and efficiently (last time it was Diet Analysis Most of these applications could probably run in Wine with some effort, but they are applications I use for a semester or two and not worth the effort. I never have time for video games, so I don't share that concern and I have always been able to get me printers to work in puppy even prior to the inclusion of cups, though cups has made is simpler.

[furryfriend]

Only as a punishment !.

[jonyo]

Tell me about it. Rest of my fam (4) are on win. Maintenance, maintenance etc..

I will continue with win though I focus mainly on linux. Most win folks new to linux are not ready for a cold switchover & will run into win linux issues.

Providing info for a transition, or even running with win, is important for a distro & to many out there.

Win is easy to hook up peripherals.

[malderson]

Yes. Mostly for my Palm apps and for CAD. Those are my "killer" apps.

Jpilot handles the built in Palm OS apps, but none of the third-party conduits. I use Documents-to-Go, Mobile DB, and Natura Bonsai on my Palm, and none of them have Linux conduits.

For CAD, I use Vectorworks at work (on a Mac) and have it on my Windows XP laptop so I can work at home as well. I'm a theatre technical director and lighting designer, and use CAD almost daily. I once asked the Vectorworks folks at a trade show if there were plans to port it to Linux. They said they had some Linux fanatics on staff who had tried, but could not make it work. I suspect it is also a market-share thing. Linux just doesn't yet seem to have a CAD program that fits my needs. Qcad is about where Windows CAD programs were a decade or so ago.

I've become very fond of Puppy as a hobby, and it's a great safety net should a virus kill my Windows installation, but for serious work my next laptop will likely be a Mac.