My SSD is 110 GB on this Dell Latitude 7240. It's "in the red" as I have less than 10% space left, soon fills up. I don't suppose 25GB of emails sat on root helps
I had problems re-installing Money 2005 on Windows 7, four years ago. An update to the installed software on my old laptop had changed the format of the money data files, so my fresh install from the install disk was unable to read the old data files, and Microsoft had withdrawn support, so online update would not work. Eventually I had to download the 1105 patch file from an online blogsite, patch the install disk and burn to a new CD before installing again. Having got that working I then had to move the sound files from Program Files to Program Files (X86). Excellent software, cannot understand why Microsoft discontinued it.
I've just spun up a preview Windows 10 VM on Microsoft Azure will let you know what I think of it later tonight. Just had a look, nice wallpaper
I have to maintain multiple versions of Visual Studio from 2008 up to 2013 it is the patches for all those versions that are eating up the majority of the space. VS 2008 was the last version that supported .NET Mobile development for barcode devices, VS 2010 was the last one with the ability to create Setup exe's easily, Vs2012 was the last one you could run perpetually without it calling back home for permission to run every x number of days, and VS 2013 as it is the latest version, at least for another month or so.
Fresh install on a VM with no other software installed i.e. no MS Office or Outlook or anything takes up 11.6 GB in the Windows folder, which is not bad. Performance is not great but it is a preview and probably still has debug code in it which will slow it down a lot. The VM is configured with two virtual processors AMD Opteron's which are pretty good, 3.5 GB of RAM and about 120 GB of disk with a 60 GB D: drive as a temp drive for the page file and so on, that is the default setup on Azure, also I put it on a low spec VM as I only get 64 quids worth of free credit every month and didn't want to use anything that would wipe out my Azure account for the next 15 days All in all I would expect it to run pretty well on average hardware when it gets released.
Also everything I have tried to do so far wants you to sign in with a Microsoft account as the OS blurs so much between the PC and the net, the funny thing is that when I actually tried to do that it threw a wobbly and told me to come back later again it's a preview don't read too much into this. The new start menu is still only a partial return to the old start menu, when you pin a program to the start menu it actually pins as a tile in the tile area not as a menu item in the vertical menu area, which is a pity, pin to the taskbar works as expected. Start | Shutdown is finally fixed properly in that Start is not called Start it's a Windows logo like most recent versions of windows and Shutdown is a power icon with the label 'Power' Me I never saw what so semantically hard about 'Starting' to 'Shutdown' but the rest of the world seemed to have a problem with it I like the tablet style apps running windowed, and they look good with the very minimalist look of the new Window Manager. And I like that they have added proper multiple desktop support directly in the OS, the facility for multiple Window Stations has been there forever but you usually needed a fancy graphics card to enable it, now it looks like it will work for anyone, but the switch command is not obvious being Windows key + Tab. I'll have more of a play later.
Well that's all part of their cloud computing initiative, Office365 and so on. Might be clever in the First World where internet is good and reliable (mostly!) but not so good for those connections are, at best iffy, and at worst don't exist. I discovered an excellent bit of software 5 or 6 years ago called Dexpot which is a virtual desktop system. It's by a couple of young German guys and written, would you believe, in VB6! It's free for home use but you'll need to buy a licence for commercial use and I have to say that it is rock solid. Highly recommended! Incidentally, on each Dexpot desktop, the Windows + Tab key combination cycles through the application windows that are open on the current desktop only; application windows open on other desktops remain hidden. Which is what I would expect.
VB6 I'll have to have a look at that. We have two relatively high-spec Dell servers running VMWare with Veeam for our virtual environment. This environment has replaced 6 or 7 physical machines now with expansion very easy to accommodate for. If there was a DC failure, recovery is up and running within 10 seconds (pinging). Users wouldn't even know there had been a server failure (on the assumption you had only 1 DC servicing user requests - in a SME). Great bit of kit
Just a few pointers for those considering the Windows 10 upgrade in the Philippines... 1. As Markham has suggested, Windows 10 is cloud centric so not so useful when the Internet is down 2. If you take advantage of the free upgrade, you cannot downgrade back to what you were using (i.e. Windows 7/8) 3. For the Windows 10 Home edition, at least, OS updates are automatic and cannot be blocked, which could expensive on a MiFi connection. 4. If you upgrade from a pirated version of Windows 7/8 your screen will carry a watermark and you will lose OS features over time, meaning you will probably have to do a complete re-install of your previous pirated copy. Microsoft seems pretty confident in its copy protection of Windows 10.
On point 1 what computer is not cloud centric these days, Windows 10 will be just as effective as a word processor, spreadsheet calculator, photo editor, movie editor, programming device when it is offline as Windows has always been. Office 365 works when you are offline, what you are getting is a full set of locally installed Office application via subscription and they still work fine offline, obviously Outlook won't but that is true of all internet dependent services like email. Me I have a perpetual licence for Office I prefer it that way but I do have Exchange Server email via my two Office 365 subscriptions and that is something I really really like. Also OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a sync service so your docs are still available offline as well. It will also be great for playing movies offline either your own files or iPlayer downloads or whatever other offline apps are there. The integration of a Windows account with the OS actually works pretty well already in Windows 8.1 in spite of me being sceptical at first. On your second point I would tend to agree in so far as Windows 10 is still different enough from Windows 7 that some people might not like adjusting to it, having used Windows 8.1 for a long time now Windows 10 is not quite such a large change and would be an easier upgrade. Point 3 I agree it could be an issue but as it is possible to get Philippine SIM based internet access is available on a timed basis rather than by volume of data downloaded it's not that big an issue I think. And yeah looks like that is right about the pirate copy update, it is not an amnesty and you won't magically become licensed, a missed opportunity for Microsoft I think.
From where? As far as I know all the USB dongle type 'accounts' offered by Smart, Globe and Sun are both time and data volume capped. With the state of the internet here, what is not needed nationally is a bunch of Windows 10 computers doing enforced updates as that will affect speeds for others. And for those with Windows 10 Home, the automatic updating will affect the user's ability to access web pages and his email until those updates are completed. This won't really affect you in the First World but it will affect all of us here. Microsoft was never ever going to give Windows away but is simply delaying the time before it will be paid by erstwhile pirated copy users.
Every time I arrive in Manila, I buy an unlimited data bolt on from Smart Unli Surf 99930 days unlimited mobile internetP999.00 Unli Surf 501 day unlimited mobile internetP50.00 Unli Surf 2997 days unlimited mobile internetP299.00 the data above was cut and pasted today from my Smart Prepaid login so these deals are still available. the dongles are pointless for me, I buy the above and make my phone a wifi hotspot, which has worked extremely well for several years now.
Al you should be able to get it here http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_GB/cat/Windows/categoryID.70036700 however I think the servers are overloaded at the moment as the upgrade now button leads to a dead page. I did a clean install yesterday and everything was fine but my colleagues reported a lot of problems this morning regards upgrading their personal machines at home, so if I were you I might wait a few days. The only problem I had was drivers for my laptop SDcard and the sound card but Lenovo System Update fixed both issues, after installation the main issue I had was that the Windows store was completely broken, I could not download the Netflix app for example, turned out that I had to remove Netflix from my Windows Phone before I could install Netflix on Windows 10 same with all my other apps that I use on my Windows phone Oh and Netflix does not work at all in either browser, both in IE 11 and the new Edge browser. Apart from that it's great!
For those who are struggling:- http://www.askvg.com/fix-get-windows-10-upgrade-app-icon-is-missing-in-taskbar/
