The lonely tech post thread.
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
- Start date
mind you that's not happened for a few years I don't think.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Fucking Microsoft shut my developer's tenancy. I knew they'd stopped doing new ones, but hoped I hang to my old one as I wasn't abusing it and was using it for study. I'll get through the exam I'm working towards without it, but it makes it much better to learn to test things rather then just reading. I can use the products at work, but I can't just set up Intune enrolment policies or Conditional Access in a production environment.
It's frustrating as I thought it was one of the better things about them. Their exams are reasonably priced compared to other vendors, and you can set up their operating systems for testing without too much hassle. Combined with access to their enterprise level 365 stuff free of charge, it seemed my upskilling was a win win for me and them. Their suggestion now is I buy a single licence (I had 25 to play with before), but at 50 quid a month on an annual plan, the words fuck that come to mind.
It's frustrating as I thought it was one of the better things about them. Their exams are reasonably priced compared to other vendors, and you can set up their operating systems for testing without too much hassle. Combined with access to their enterprise level 365 stuff free of charge, it seemed my upskilling was a win win for me and them. Their suggestion now is I buy a single licence (I had 25 to play with before), but at 50 quid a month on an annual plan, the words fuck that come to mind.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
PTK
Paul Kegan
I want to buy a desktop computer, and I would be grateful if someone would recommend one.
My primary concern is to do word processing, with some drawing of diagrams, and perhaps a little spreadsheeting.
Is it possible these days to have Microsoft Office or its equivalent actually on the hard drive of a computer? I have an antipathy to “cloud computing”.
My primary concern is to do word processing, with some drawing of diagrams, and perhaps a little spreadsheeting.
Is it possible these days to have Microsoft Office or its equivalent actually on the hard drive of a computer? I have an antipathy to “cloud computing”.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Used is probably best for light usage like that.
Not bad for £230: Dell OptiPlex 5070 MFF ("best performance" option)
If you want new, I'd rate the value of this one at £349: | Dell UK
Office can still be had as a one-time purchase, yes.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
I'd also recommend second hand. You need an 8th gen or later to run Windows 11, which is almost essential as Win 10 finishes next year.
£150 should get you a suitable device frok eBay with 16GB RAM. Do you also need a monitor?
I'd try Libre Office which is free and not cloud based. If that doesn't work for you then you can normally find a key cheaply for Office 19. All the 365 products require a monthly sub.
Edit. Happy to look later if your interested in this route.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Another vote for LibreOffice here. I have more problems with font incompatibility than document format incompatibility, and I do some complicated things in documents sometimes. The biggest hurdle is getting used to a different UI, but then MS Office seems to change that about as often as it changes its shorts, in any case.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Tbh it's just laziness I've never switched. I've always been able to get a key free or very cheap.
I wouldn't pay proper money for Office for my very limited personal use.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
From what I can tell it's like the Office I learnt to use when I was at school, before they introduced ribbons and such rubbish.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Haha, I don't think even WordStar was a thing when I was still at school! </oldgit>
I paid anually for Office.
Tried Libra but it didn't quite work for me but yep definitely worth PTK looking at first.
Re processors, this would explain why my Win10 desktop failed the PC Health Check for Win11. I just ran it on Sat. It's a 7th gen, Kabylake I7. Shame as machine runs fine as my audio production system.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Download Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft.
Use Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with the ISO.
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way
Rufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy way
rufus.ie
And after clicking Start, you will be given a list of options, including the option to bypass the requirement checks that Windows carries out. Tick all the options you require, and press go, then Boot from that USB drive, et voila.
There are also simple registry hacks that prevent those checks.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
The truly infuriating thing is that the 8th and 9th gen actually work in the 6th/7th socket with some soldering. It was purely Intel not liking people being able to upgrade without paying for a new board.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
It's not a great idea, unless you're devoted to tinkering or really need Win11 for something. Every large update it resets itself and needs to be fiddled with in some new and different way to keep getting updates. It's fine for the devoted techie, but I wouldn't foist it on anyone else.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
I know that 24H2 does it, not sure about the earlier ones but there are plenty of stories out there of people who just stopped getting updates. I stopped bothering with it myself a while ago. It runs just fine, of course, but I found updates to be a bit... funny? There's one Ivy Bridge machine in the house and I'll do an upgrade this time next year on the main box and cascade the Ryzen 7600 down into it.
IMO, there's utterly no reason to push old hardware into Win11 before support for 10 expires. Particularly if you're not techy. Microsoft may very well cave in on Day Zero and allow it officially.
Use Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with the ISO.
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way
Rufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy way
rufus.ie
And after clicking Start, you will be given a list of options, including the option to bypass the requirement checks that Windows carries out. Tick all the options you require, and press go, then Boot from that USB drive, et voila.
There are also simple registry hacks that prevent those checks.
Thanks. Yeah I may give it a go next year. Not in any hurry. Win11 doesn't have anything I actually wat. (I do use it on my laptop.)
This is the thing. It's my music production machine. I mean it's just a hobby but I'm looking at trying to get speech editing work. I don't want to risk a perfectly working machine really. Might be an excuse to look at new ones. This is 7 years old now. Happy to wait a year either way though.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
I'm not sure if I could do with the potential hassle in the scenario either. But you might as well weight until October.
My partner has an old 4th gen. My initial thought had been to treat myself to a new CPU & Motherboard combo, but I'm not sure I'll even need it by then and an 11600 would be wasted on her. So I'll go looking for a very small 8th gen when the time comes and give her some desk space back as it can be mounted to the monitor. I'm sure I could 11 working on her current machine fine. I just know the time I'll need to sort it out I'll be tired and it will be the last thing I want to do.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Spotify has had me rather vexed me recently. Working fine on my laptop in the office, yet when I bring it home, my PC comes to a grinding halt, to the point that you can barely move the mouse pointer. I'd initially blamed a cheap USB splitter before I worked out the problem only happened if I had Spotify open in a webpage (or later used the app)
A bit more digging and it turns out it uses some shitty DRM called Windscribe which throws a hissy fit at my HDMI to USB C cable. £9 later, a compliant cable and I'm now happily listening to dub music again over my headset as I work, but the whole thing is a bit shit really.
A bit more digging and it turns out it uses some shitty DRM called Windscribe which throws a hissy fit at my HDMI to USB C cable. £9 later, a compliant cable and I'm now happily listening to dub music again over my headset as I work, but the whole thing is a bit shit really.
Silas Loom
A lome the lenthe of a yerde
Interesting. You can understand why the PC version wouldn’t be brilliantly supported, though.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
I think it's performed exactly as they intended.
I've no ideas of the numbers, but I've seen a lot of people using Spotify in offices and commercial settings over the years.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Lots of websites I've used for years been asking me to agree to cookies - has the law changed or have my browsers ?
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
You can thank the EU
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
you using NoMoreCookies and CookieAutoDelete? Still seem to be working for me.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
I'm sure I did in the past. Perhaps they got lost in browser updates...
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
That's been the case for a long time, and it's going to get more strict, thankfully. Nobody should be allowed to track you without your explicit consent.
Lazy Llama
Suburban robots that monitor reality
Does anyone decline cookies? Doesn’t it get annoying when you have to do it on every visit?
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