Developers, developers, developers, developers

[Alexander Nicholi]

So tell me, is there a reason you're installing 98 on a VM?

 

[Legendary Silke]

So tell me, is there a reason you're installing 98 on a VM?

Seeing as I do have a bunch of things that don't work really well in Windows 7 due to their age despite them being Win32...

Windows 98, you're not supposed to work on the modern web! Go back to 1998!

 

[Zet]

So tell me, is there a reason you're installing 98 on a VM?

Because Win 98 is best OS.

 

[Tsutarja]

Ah, Windows 98. That was my favorite operating system growing up, no joke. I liked all of the sounds it came with for one, and it was the operating system I remember first using when I first touched a computer, before Windows XP came out.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Messing around with Opera 10 just made me realize that even a Windows 98 PC could do something today... as long as you're prepared for it being Swiss cheese in terms of security.

 

[Ooka]

Anybody here have experience with changing the Windows shell to something different? I'm interested in trying it but I'd like to know which ones are best and if it even works well/is worth it.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Anybody here have experience with changing the Windows shell to something different? I'm interested in trying it but I'd like to know which ones are best and if it even works well/is worth it.

First things first: why? You'd probably want to evaluate why you want to change the Windows shell from Windows Explorer to something else first, seeing as you may or may not have something that relies on it. (It's probably a very good idea to make a backup in case anything goes wrong, and said shell replacement does something with the system files. Things could have changed at this point, though.)

 

[Ooka]

Specifically customization. I don't really care about the functionality of a shell as long as it works.

 

[Tsutarja]

I've never really bothered to even change the Windows shell at all. I've seen people that do it successfully, but what would the purpose really be other than to allow for extra customization?

Also, bonus points to who can guess what my user title is.

 

[Ooka]

That's specifically the reason I want to change it. :3

 

[Hiatus]

You could try Cairo shell. It might not be in development anymore, but you should still be able to download and install. LiteStep's pretty good, too. This one's got tons of themes available for you to choose; just head over to deviantART, and pick a favorite. :] Don't really know how they work, though, because personally, I've used neither of them.

 

[Tsutarja]

Cairo shell looks pretty interesting, actually. Though I'm really in no mood to change my Windows shell even if I wanted to, because I like explorer as is. :p

One thing I wish Microsoft would just fix though is the taskbar glitch in Windows 7/Windows 8 where sometimes when you hover over an icon, it stays highlighted. It's annoying enough having to either restart explorer.exe to fix it, or to hold down shift and right click to fix it.

 

[Hiatus]

I do remember running into this glitch before, but it wasn't very common, though; I'd encounter it only once in a blue moon. xD" Personally, I haven't found it to be that troublesome. It was sort of annoying, but I would simply ignore it and keep doing my own thing.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Speaking of shells and glitches, I personally find the Ubuntu shell to be less reliable than either the Windows or OSX shells. (Ah, strange behaviour...)

 

[Tsutarja]

I do remember running into this glitch before, but it wasn't very common, though; I'd encounter it only once in a blue moon. xD" Personally, I haven't found it to be that troublesome. It was sort of annoying, but I would simply ignore it and keep doing my own thing.

When you leave a computer running all the time (such as myself), it tends to be a major quirk. :p but I've never experienced it on my laptops that run Windows 7/Windows 8 as I shut those down after use.

 

[Hiatus]

Speaking of shells and glitches, I personally find the Ubuntu shell to be less reliable than either the Windows or OSX shells. (Ah, strange behaviour...)

Yeah, I have to agree; Ubuntu is pretty unreliable. d: When I'd first installed it with Windows Installer, it'd always give errors when downloading a certain group of apps. It was fixed, however, once I had a proper CD install. Now, though, whenever I connect to my phone's Internet via Bluetooth, the computer crashes itself from time to time and forces me to shut it down.

 

[Zet]

It sounds like you should get rid of it if something like that is going to crash your computer.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Sometimes, I do suspect that what works best with a given computer is what the computer came with ;)

I noticed that restricting background data usage with Data Sense in a Windows Phone 8 phone pretty much makes the phone use mobile data connections only when necessary (e.g. web browsing). Any activity involving background data usage, like push email, are stopped; location services do it the slow, non-assisted way that also doesn't use any data.

 

[Tsutarja]

Hmm, I wonder what's draining my tablet battery down so quickly, even if I'm not using it.. it went down to 83% at 10am this morning after being unplugged since 6am but it's had no use on it whatsoever.

Would slipping it into airplane mode only until I need to use it help?

 

[Brane]

Maybe background tasks? You're probably on top of that but leaving apps open in the background might drain it. Airplane mode would probably help because it turns off certain features (mainly wireless etc).

If you're going to do anything you may as well just turn it off when you're not using it unless you have a reason to keep it on. But 17% for 4 hours of idle doesn't sound too crazy, might just be a few small things like it loading notifications while it's not being used (twitter, emails etc).