Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Tenacious on April 26, 2006, 04:20:52 AM
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When forced to use Windows in the past, I could click on My Computer and manipulate files and folders on various drives. Usable.
Recently, I installed Service Pack 2 and other updates on my work laptop. Now, clicking on drives or folders brings up an empty finder window titled "Search Results", everytime. Unusable! I don't want to do a search everytime I click on an icon! Not only was the behavior of my desktop changed without permission, I've spent the last several hours trying to change it back. Folder Options isn't cutting it. Has anyone else seen this?
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Check the Drive, File Folder and Folder file types to make sure that Find isn't set as default.
(ie. Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> Select Drive -> click Advanced)
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No, no - don't change it. Microsoft has decided that this is the way you should be working. They know best. I always trust large capitalist corporations to decide what's best for me... and you should too. (yeah, right)
When Microsoft says things like "We design software to work the way you want to work", what they actually mean is "We design software to work the way we want you to work". I spent years trying to work the way I want and nearly went insane fighting Windows. The worst thing is that there's no way to boycott Microsoft. Every possible job you can get now requires you to use Windows. (unless you're one lucky MF)
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what are u saying? the "My Computer" concept is the same from win95->xp64 ... SP2 or not it makes no difference...
My guess is that u got a lame virus or something...
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The worst thing is that there's no way to boycott Microsoft. Every possible job you can get now requires you to use Windows. (unless you're one lucky MF)
Well, I'm that lucky MF! And everyone who wants to work with computers can choose the Free Software option. Increasingly, more and more people are using Open/Free/GPL'd soft (Linux, OpenOffice.org, Apache, Gimp, Mozilla, ...)
So nowadays you can find a job using only Open Source soft. skills.
Maybe the solution for the supervivence of Amiga OS would be changing to Open Source?
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I was a lucky MF and spent the last 5 years on Sun.
They "Upgraded" our Ultra10's to ultra thin clients and made out lives miserable. As bad as it got, we were still
better off than with m$.
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i think you might be refering to the new msn toolbar/desktop search indexing tool which is a pain in the ass
thats why i keep an early version of msn toolbar
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Thanks for the responces everyone.
@ adolescent
Your right, sort of. Or, maybe I'm thick. 'Find' is the only option in Advanced for Disk and File Folders. There are 4 buttons to the side, new, edir, delete, and set default. Edit and delete are ghosted. I can't delete or edit 'find'. I tried adding a new entry like open, it wouldn't take it.
My wife reloaded XP last week on her machine without SP2 (another horror story). She stepped through these same steps and has only 'find' in hers as well. Interestingly, under some of the other tabs, I have options available that she does not. I'm guessing these updates installed someone's preferences by default.
How do you unset 'find' as default, hit the button again?
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@Tenacious
First learn how to configure and use a system before blaming it. I know windows isn't perfect, but the problem you described i haven't see it, and i work with many computers with win on it. As some mate from this board suggested, maybe your system is infected with a virus or a misconfigured spyware.
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Tenacious wrote:
When forced to use Windows in the past, I could click on My Computer and manipulate files and folders on various drives. Usable.
Recently, I installed Service Pack 2 and other updates on my work laptop. Now, clicking on drives or folders brings up an empty finder window titled "Search Results", everytime. Unusable! I don't want to do a search everytime I click on an icon! Not only was the behavior of my desktop changed without permission, I've spent the last several hours trying to change it back. Folder Options isn't cutting it. Has anyone else seen this?
Can't say I've ever had that happen to me, or any of the 1000+ XP machines that plague my networks.
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_ThEcRoW wrote:
@Tenacious
First learn how to configure and use a system before blaming it. I know windows isn't perfect, but the problem you described i haven't see it, and i work with many computers with win on it. As some mate from this board suggested, maybe your system is infected with a virus or a misconfigured spyware.
Nope, it's a bug, I just recreated it here on a clean install that wasn't previously affected.
I don't know how it happened to him originally, but if you go to Tools->Folder Options->File Types->Drive->Advanced, you will normally see just "find" although it won't be selected.
Try selecting it and "set as default" and chaos ensues. :roflmao:
There's no freaking way to unselect it in the GUI!
I had to create a new action, "browse" and use "explorer.exe" as application used to perform as a workaround untill I find out how to undo it.
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T_Bone wrote:
_ThEcRoW wrote:
@Tenacious
First learn how to configure and use a system before blaming it. I know windows isn't perfect, but the problem you described i haven't see it, and i work with many computers with win on it. As some mate from this board suggested, maybe your system is infected with a virus or a misconfigured spyware.
Nope, it's a bug, I just recreated it here on a clean install that wasn't previously affected.
I don't know how it happened to him originally, but if you go to Tools->Folder Options->File Types->Drive->Advanced, you will normally see just "find" although it won't be selected.
Try selecting it and "set as default" and chaos ensues. :roflmao:
There's no freaking way to unselect it in the GUI!
I had to create a new action, "browse" and use "explorer.exe" as application used to perform as a workaround untill I find out how to undo it.
Here's how I fixed it.
do what I did above, making sure "find" is not the default by making your own (like "browse" above) and setting it as default.
Then open regedit, and go to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\Shell
Now you'll see "find" and "browse" (or whatever command you added), delete everything but "find".
Now when you look at it in the GUI, find will be there, but will no longer be selected as default, and should behave normally again.
edit:
other solutions:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321186
http://forums.wugnet.com/Customize-Exploring-HDD-ftopict392177.html
According to the second link, a simple " regsvr32 /i shell32.dll " will work.
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@T_Bone
I had to create a new action, "browse" and use "explorer.exe" as application used to perform as a workaround untill I find out how to undo it.
I'm sure it's as simple as editing the Registry. :-D
EDIT-
HEY!! You changed your post while I was replying! :-P
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@ T_Bone
Thank you! I'm impressed.
In general, its great to log on here with a problem outside my experience and almost everyone is helpful without jumping conclusions or responding in a patronizing manner. Grin. That's the beauty of this community.
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well there are some of us who really really love microsoft :-) (exp8lorer is spy8ing on me because i actualy didnt read the eula i just skimmed)
some people get ticked off when someone slags off ms for some simple little thing they screwed up in the first place, but your problem definitely is more complex than that. i hope you can fix it.
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Tenacious wrote:
When forced to use Windows in the past, I could click on My Computer and manipulate files and folders on various drives. Usable.
Recently, I installed Service Pack 2 and other updates on my work laptop. Now, clicking on drives or folders brings up an empty finder window titled "Search Results", everytime. Unusable! I don't want to do a search everytime I click on an icon! Not only was the behavior of my desktop changed without permission, I've spent the last several hours trying to change it back. Folder Options isn't cutting it. Has anyone else seen this?
This is definitely not how it should be, so it sounds like it somehow broke your install. I am running sp2 here myself and have never seen anything like that.
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My solution (http://www.gpsoft.com.au). I can't recommend it enough. It makes Windows very usable for a change and even borders on *gasp* enjoyable! It can even replace Explorer entirely.
EDIT: Fixed link
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some people get ticked off when someone slags off ms for some simple little thing they screwed up in the first place
I can understand that - if the user actually did screw it up themselves. But some people get even more ticked off when someone slags off someone who slags off MS for a load of bugs they found, and assumes that they don't know how to use Windows.
Personally, in the 10 years I spent in software development and consulting, I have found and documented hundreds (yes, hundreds) of annoying bugs and design flaws in Windows that have nothing to do with third party software. Then when I mention that Windows is buggy, I get annoying responses - usually from inexperienced teen gamers saying that I don't know how to use Windows. People should find out first if user actually did cause their own problems before just stupidly assuming.
I'm getting a bit off topic now, so I'll stop. :-)
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mr_a500 wrote:
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The worst thing is that there's no way to boycott Microsoft. Every possible job you can get now requires you to use Windows. (unless you're one lucky MF)
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in his right hand or in his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666" (Revelations. 13:16-18).
"in his right hand" = what you do, how you do it
"in his forehead" = what you think
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@Tenacious
IMHO, you could have been less abrasive yourself and the problem would have been solved without the jumping to conclusions..
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http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321186
CAUSE
This problem occurs when you open the Edit File Type dialog box for the Drive or File Folder registered file types. For example, this problem occurs for folders if you complete the following procedure:
1. Open the folder, and then click Folder Options on the Tools menu.
2. Click File Folder in the Register file types list, and then click Advanced.
3. After you perform this procedure, the None setting is removed from the value data for the Default string value in the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell
NOTE: This problem occurs even if you do not create a new action, edit existing actions, or change the default action in the Edit File Type dialog box.
lol! Jeeze, they should probably fix that. :crazy:
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Holy crap that's bad!^ When is the government going to stop kissing MS's ass and force a recall on such defective software?
> Check the Drive, File Folder and Folder file types to make sure that Find isn't set as default.
>(ie. Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> Select Drive -> click Advanced)
Mine says "Find" and there's no way to edit it. You can only add "New". And my Xp box works normally.
It's so stupid to have a "My Computer" icon on your computer "desktop". Retardville.
>Try selecting it and "set as default" and chaos ensues.
Should be fun for Best But, Circuit City, etc.
>I had to create a new action, "browse" and use "explorer.exe" as application used
> to perform as a workaround untill I find out how to undo it.
More details please?
Now how about one of you showing us what to edit so that when we click on a window to make it active, it doesn't automatically come to front?
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What can you expect from a Win-PC? Why are people still playing around with that crap? Don't ask your PC questions here, ask 'm to B. Gates! He's the one that's bringing all this pc-troubles into the world
:rtfm: :horse:
AMIGA RULEZ!!!
:banana:
EDIT:
This text is edited by myself because last night
I had a few :pint: to much! :crazy:
:lol:
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boing wrote:
> Check the Drive, File Folder and Folder file types to make sure that Find isn't set as default.
>(ie. Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> Select Drive -> click Advanced)
Mine says "Find" and there's no way to edit it. You can only add "New". And my Xp box works normally.
Yes, "Find" is there but not default. It would be bold if it was default. If you make it default, then you'll have a problem.
It's so stupid to have a "My Computer" icon on your computer "desktop". Retardville.
Off topic. But, the default for XP (and later) is NOT to show "My Computer" on the desktop. If you don't like it, don't change the setting that puts it there. Sounds like a bit of user Retardville to me.
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I'd be more willing to bash Microsoft if every platform didn't have its own heaping piles of stupidity. There are plenty of things about Amiga, various builds of Linux, MacOS, Be, QNX, OS/2, and all the other OSes I've used that drive me nuts.
There are bugs in Firefox that have been aroud since v0.8. As I type in forums like this one, the Alt key gets "stuck" and causes tons of hotkeys to activate instead of normal text. Does anyone fix this? Hell, no... they've got more features to add, first. Does anyone get mad at Firefox? Hell, no... because it's open source and better than IE, and that makes it perfect.
I think the whole computer industry went to hell in the mid 90's.
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Waccoon wrote:
Does anyone get mad at Firefox? Hell, no... because it's open source and better than IE, and that makes it perfect.
I do, I've been at the mercy of deadlock bugs in nearly every version. If it wasn't for the fact that I have to run an old, slightly unstable version of Safari on this 10.2 machine then I wouldn't touch it on the Mac.
Last 2 bugs...
1.5.0.1: Bug where drop down lists would cause lock-ups which would have to be force quit. RSS bookmarks would always cause this if you tried viewing them more than once. But worst of all was typing in an address or filling in a form could trigger this at any time.
1.5.0.2: Return of the input lockout bug. Once it occurs, all keyboard input is ignored, you can't type into forms, or use shortcut keys. Only a quit (or in some cases force quit) will fix the problem.
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I'd be more willing to bash Microsoft if every platform didn't have its own heaping piles of stupidity.
True, but the piles are highest at Microsoft ;-). It's not so much that there are bugs. Obviously there are bugs in every system and every software. It is the fact that there are so many and they are so obvious that you wonder how the biggest software company in the world can miss them year after year. Even that alone is not enough to bash Microsoft. It is that combined with Microsoft's evil buisness practices and arrogance and the fact that you can't ever get away from their software that makes me bash Microsoft. If I don't like McDonalds food, I just don't go there and everything's fine. If I don't like Microsoft software and decide not to support them, I can't get a job, I can't go to a bank, I can't buy groceries, I can't get a flight, I can't go to the hospital, and so on. Everything runs on Windows now.
For over a decade I never had a bank machine "crash" on me. Then I had bank machine crashes all over the place at different banks, different machines. I later found out (at a company conference) that the banks had switched to Windows. I also read stories by medical technicians at a Toronto hospital. They switched some medical computers from proprietory system to Windows. The technician wrote that compared to their old systems, the Windows ones are much slower and unstable and they crash occasionally.
I think the whole computer industry went to hell in the mid 90's.
Yes. Computers aren't a fun thing anymore. They're just boring commodities with no real innovation (for compatibility reasons of course). Wow, a new menu item in the latest software. Wow, a new graphic in the Start button. A "totally revolutionary" slightly faster CPU which will allow me to run a wordprocessor 10% faster. Whoopie.
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mr_a500 wrote:
I think the whole computer industry went to hell in the mid 90's.
Yes. Computers aren't a fun thing anymore. They're just boring commodities with no real innovation (for compatibility reasons of course). Wow, a new menu item in the latest software. Wow, a new graphic in the Start button. A "totally revolutionary" slightly faster CPU which will allow me to run a wordprocessor 10% faster. Whoopie.
The computer industry is no longer an amature hobby place... the major innovations come in the specilist markets now.
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boing wrote:
Holy crap that's bad!^ When is the government going to stop kissing MS's ass and force a recall on such defective software?
> Check the Drive, File Folder and Folder file types to make sure that Find isn't set as default.
>(ie. Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> Select Drive -> click Advanced)
Mine says "Find" and there's no way to edit it. You can only add "New". And my Xp box works normally.
It's so stupid to have a "My Computer" icon on your computer "desktop". Retardville.
I don't have a My Computer on my Desktop, but I do have a df0: on my Workbench. Is this optional? I never bothered to do anything about it, so never looked.
>Try selecting it and "set as default" and chaos ensues.
Should be fun for Best But, Circuit City, etc.
>I had to create a new action, "browse" and use "explorer.exe" as application used
> to perform as a workaround untill I find out how to undo it.
More details please?
which part?
Now how about one of you showing us what to edit so that when we click on a window to make it active, it doesn't automatically come to front?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse
ActiveWindowTracking
SnapToDefaultButton
AutoRaise
Mouse Focus
or use something like this: http://www.mdgx.com/files/XMOUSE2K.ZIP
or Tweekui, there were a bunch of Stardock utiities allowing customization too.
I think on my Amiga's, I couldn't even get windows to come to front without third party software.
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I don't have a My Computer on my Desktop, but I do have a df0: on my Workbench. Is this optional? I never bothered to do anything about it, so never looked.
Yes it is (in the 3.9 prefs anyway...)
I think on my Amiga's, I couldn't even get windows to come to front without third party software.
ClickToFront has been a commodity supplied with Workbench since 3.0 (maybe before?) which does that. My personal preference is to double-click a window to the front. It does annoy me in Windows to have windows popping forward with a single-click, but hey :-) As so many people have said, you have to put up with it if you want a job.
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I also read stories by medical technicians at a Toronto hospital. They switched some medical computers from proprietory system to Windows. The technician wrote that compared to their old systems, the Windows ones are much slower nd unstable and they crash occasionally.
I can absolutely confirm this. I'm a service engineer for a company making automated blood testing equipment, and their latest machine was supposed to be faster, cheaper, more reliable, more compatible, more user-friendly etc. than the 15-year-old design with DOS-based software. It runs on Windows 2000, and about 40% of the problems we have are Windows-related, be it print queues, communication issues, timing problems and so on. Andthis is nearly 4 years since the first batch were released for sale. The DOS-based machines, running on 486s are more stable, faster to process results, faster to print, easier to navigate and generally nicer to work with.
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mr_a500 wrote:
No, no - don't change it. Microsoft has decided that this is the way you should be working. They know best. I always trust large capitalist corporations to decide what's best for me... and you should too. (yeah, right)
When Microsoft says things like "We design software to work the way you want to work", what they actually mean is "We design software to work the way we want you to work". I spent years trying to work the way I want and nearly went insane fighting Windows. The worst thing is that there's no way to boycott Microsoft. Every possible job you can get now requires you to use Windows. (unless you're one lucky MF)
I think that is one of the reasons I now have an interest again in the Amiga platform. Windows is a horrible experience; in fact, the whole pentium experience is horrible. Even the Mac isn't all that great of an experience.
Ahhh, I long for the days where the Amiga had a little bit of software support, and commodore was still in business.
-Miked
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...Even the Mac isn't all that great of an experience.
Yes and I only just learned that last year. For years, I thought Macintosh was great - probably because I never actually used one (just played around in stores from time to time) and I thought the OS looked amazing. Then when OSX was coming out (around the same time I was sick to death of Windows) I started to become obsessed with Mac. I was waiting for just the right time to buy one and while I waited I decided to upgrade my old A500. I became more and more amazed by what the old thing could do.
Anyway, when a friend got a brand new Mac, I went to their house to load my iPod. After a few hours I became sick with disgust (well, not disgust - that's reserved for Windows - maybe "depressing sickly sadness" :-(). It was way better than Windows of course, but it wasn't as fun to use as I thought. It's not just that I'm used to something else. Lots of things aren't as well thought out as they could have been. iTunes has some nice features mixed with some really stupid and frustrating "features".
I probably will eventually get a Mac (what other choice have I got?), but it won't be that exciting anymore. It'll just be like buying a waffle iron. Yay.
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I probably will eventually get a Mac (what other choice have I got?), but it won't be that exciting anymore. It'll just be like buying a waffle iron. Yay.
I have been using MS computers since the dos days and had my share of problems as everybody else.
Anyway the latest years i have been using Linux Ubuntu release. There is only one thing that i havent figured out yet. And that is how to get my Bluetooth mouse to work. Except for that thing it is far superiour to XP in 9 out of 10 cases.So you do have a choice. Ubuntu works great.
Keep your Amiga though :-)
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Windows is fine for me. There is nothing in it that really gets me. Still that's the NT side, the 9x side was bad.
I've never got on with linux my self, mainly with device drivers I've nearly pulled my hair out.
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If you are using one of the "name brand" computers, such as Compaq, HP, etc., etc - you should have gone to the parent companies web sight first to upgrade their drivers, etc., then install SP2.
MS (as much as I LOVE them) has a fair list of problems in a FAQ part of their site.
SP2 usually does work. I use a machine I built, with an Asus mobo, 3000 AMD CPU (2.4Gh), 1Gb RAM, ATI 850 AGP video card to a ProView 19" LCD, sound blaster card, with a 160Gb hard drive, sony DVD dual layer +-RW and a reg. CDRW, with Windows XP home with SP2. I was going to throw the computer away until I installed SP2. Since then it is so stable it scares me! It has games played on it (DOOM 3, Far Cry, Battlefield 2, etc., etc) and photo/graphics work besides the usual data/WP/scanning/etc., etc..
I have become firm believer in building (assembling may be a better way to put it) your own computer.
As long as a computer works, and doesn't cost an arm & a leg, what difference does the OS really make?
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@ Tenacious's original post
I have a similar-ish, very odd problem on Win2k that I haven't manage to figure out anything about or fix.
If I go into Start > Search > Files and Folders, do a search for anything, then right-click on a file/folder and select 'open containing folder', another search window appears (instead of an explorer window), and I can't close the parent search window for about 30 seconds, but I can do other stuff with it.
No viruses, spyware, etc. Win2k SP4. Survives a service pack reinstall, and doesn't just affect one user (tried creating another). Also tried a scan with sysinternals.com's 'rootkitrevealer', no dice. Nothing interesting came up through file or registry monitoring, no errors in event log.
I reinstalled late last year to get rid of the problem, which it did (as I do a wipe-clean install on my Windows partition), but then it appeared again some point later (like a few months I think), and I couldn't track it down to anything I did, because obviously I don't search for stuff on my computer very often, but when I can't use that functionality, it is very annoying and tedious to work around it.
- edit - whoa! just fixed it, cool :) I added a function into the folder context menu, so that I could browse the folder in xnview, apparently it doesn't like spaces in the name for the new menu item. bizarre.