winuae woes....

[Ral-Clan]

I've got a PC set up wonderfully just the way I like it - running Windows XP-SP3.  Pretty responsive for my needs and I've carefully set up all the video apps, emulators (WinUAE) etc., audio recording apps I use so that they are running perfectly.  I does everything I need and more and I plan to keep using Windows XP for many more years, until it can't do what I need it to anymore.

I too hate the upgrade for upgrading's sake culture.  Takes tons of time to get everything perfectly set up again.

I also use both WinUAE and Amiga Forever 2012.  I like them both.  WinUAE for when I want to set up a complete Amiga virtual system with all my productivity apps carefully tweaked, and Amiga Forever for quickly starting up single games.

I rarely used Amiga Forever's "Player" until the RP9 format was released.  Now I really like it.  A single file holds all the disks, screenshot, manual, and UAE configuration in a single wrapper.  Games start up hassle free with a click.

[Ral-Clan]

The way I look at it - I'm far more productive on my "old" Windows XP system (and my "ancient" AmigaOS system) than most people are who keep up to date with the latest OSes.

I'm editing video, doing 3d and 2d graphics, desktop publishing, animation, composing and recording music, using a graphics tablet, trans-coding video from DV to MP4, DIVX, MPEG2, CAD work, etc. etc. etc. etc. on my old machines.

Most people I know who have the latest and greatest Windows 7 computers are just checking e-mail, facebook, listening to MP3s and watching the occasional downloaded movie.  They will probably only use a fraction of the computing power they have on their desk/laps.  On the other hand I may have less CPU cycles available, but I use it to its full potential.

Heck, I could probably get more done with a well set up and tweaked Windows 98 machine than most people do with their new computers.

I don't play many games - and I don't need to play the latest cutting edge games that require powerful hardware or the latest version of Windows.  If and when I do get the inclination to play - I have THOUSANDS of really great games made during the last 30 years (C64, Amiga and slightly older PC games) to fill up my time.  It would take years to play them all. Heck, I haven't even finished all the amazing Infocom text adventures or the original Ultima series yet!

[Ral-Clan]

XP is now ~ten years old.  If I had to venture a guess, I would say probably 90% of Windows XP's system files have been modified since RTM probably 5 or 6 times, and some many more times than that.  Again, security updates are for the benefit of the end user.

I wonder if there will be a way, when support for XP is over in 2013, to buy a "final" version of XP - with all the updates ever released incorporated into it.

That way if someone did a fresh in stall of Windows XP in the year 2016, for instance, they don't have to download all the updates released up to 2013 (assuming the Microsoft servers even still host the XP updates after 2013).

[Ral-Clan]

AFOREVER attempts to force you to upgrade to the lastest aforever, which includes their retroplatform garbage and other bloat, I didn't want... Once upgraded... The upgrade makes it no longer run on your machine. Thats bad programming period. Hey this works... Lets make the user upgrade so it dosn't work on this computers os anymore! :rolleyes:

Are you sure you can't just disable the update module so that AForever doesn't look for updates?

I'm pretty sure you can.  If not through a simple setting in Amiga Forever, then through your startup in msconfig (there is a program that Cloanto uses to search for updates that is put in the startup).  I can't remember what the name of the program is at the moment, but if you do a search for updates from one of AForever Player's menus, this program will open up and you can see what it is called.  I think it is called RetroPlatform or something like that.

[Ral-Clan]

I agree that the changes to Amiga Forever 2011-2012 were a game changer for me.

I use it a lot more now, with improvements and added ability to easily edit RP9 files.

The other great thing about the improved RP9 editing options is the ability to configure the emulation screen position and size.  Before, I always would use UAE instead of RP9 when setting up games, because older versions of Amiga Forever would not size the game screen properly in fullscreen mode on my monitor.

The newer versions of Amiga Forever do this very well now, and I can tweak different screensize settings and save them in the RP9 - so all games look good now on my monitor.