Quest For The Packard Bell, The - Chapter V (Post No. 18)

     I did mean to write this blog post yesterday, but I kind of let the hours kind of fly by for me. Literally. I guess time flies when I was having fun, but this blog isn't so much a job for me, as it is kind of something I do in my spare time, but with that out of the way, I think I will just insert the usual "I made a mistake" theme.

    But, really, I have been having so much fun maining D.Va on Overwatch it isn't so important that I forgot about the "Quest For The Packard Bell" Blog Posts. In fact, I felt that it would probably be good for me to take a break from something like this for a while, just so I don't get eventually burnt-out from continuing to write things like this. 

    Right, enough delaying things. Onto today's Blog Post... 

Quest For The Packard Bell

Chapter V

I haven't Windows 10'd at all recently...

But, to tell the truth, as 2025 comes closer --- I perhaps should never consider Windows 10'ing again!

   OK, so you probably may ask me "What does this have to do with the Packard Bell?" Well, the answer to that question, to be completely honest is nothing. I figured that since I mentioned that in a discussion with someone about how my daily Windows use has been changed more to Windows 11 (despite me not wanting to originally) It has pretty much grown on me in a way. I mean, the versions have cycled between good and bad as long as I've used Microsoft's operating systems. 

   And not so much as a daily driver, OS, but daily drivers throughout the years from my first PC, which was a generic 486 with nothing special about it, to the present-day RedEye, which I later decided would be probably the new OS standard for me, despite some "technicians" saying I am revoking purchase & ownership rights for my PC supposedly. 

     So, by way of effective example... Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, despite being the first Windows I personally used, I didn't really get much of a chance to get familiar with it when it was the "current" version of Microsoft Windows, due to it being the first OS on my Dad's PC of the time. I would later be revisiting this OS in programs such as Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware, VirtualBox, whatever the Android VM software was, and DOSBox, long after the days that the software would be considered "abandonware." Sure, I couldn't really get it to work like the Packard Bell Dad had when it had Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, but I still pretty much had a basic idea on how to Windows 3.11. 

    Windows 95 was actually my "real" first Windows, and pretty much the only version of Microsoft's OS I did use for three years from 2001-2004 until I got the AOpen PC and upgraded from Windows 95 to XP. 

    I really didn't use Windows 98 a whole lot except for the brief time it was on my sister Candace's computer in Saint John, as well as the computers in High School. I pretty much decided that 98 would be a better version of Microsoft Windows for my personal use than XP, because it could probably do almost everything that XP could, with the exception of course of being a Meme OS and over-rated in literally every sense of the word and I guess Memes weren't exactly my cup of tea.

    On the one hand, I know I didn't really use Windows Millennium Edition a lot, since it was not a very good version of Windows OS that Microsoft had developed. On the one hand, I would've rathered that people in the real world had just stuck with 98 until XP came along. On the other, at the time of its first existence, I had literally zero idea that there would be even worse versions of Windows OS to be pooped out of Redmond's buttocks after XP hit. 

   I didn't really do a whole lot of use of Windows 2000, but I personally thought that 2000 was better than XP, even wanting to downgrade the PC that was my high school daily driver from XP to 2000 after donating it to the Valley Community Learning Association in Kentville, and offering to leave with a Mac Performa which I had misdiagnosed instead, and it continued to be my toy until the clunker finally broke for good and I regret letting it go from my life because if there was a Mac that was the absolute closest to the one I would've nostalgized over from my school career, it would have been that particular one. And of course, since retro hardware purchases may be in or out of my budget for the present time, considering that I am renovating an old room to be using for my new sleeping quarters, I may consider getting away with purchasing something like that if I can convince my rotten to the core old parents that I am only going to be spending the money on it for the sake of say, one of the new supplies for the new room, or a piece of decor which has a functional aspect of it, at least. 

   Windows XP, I both loved and hated it. I loved it in the sense that it was one of the most useful Operating Systems for playing the game, Monopoly Tycoon and primarily that game, as versions of Windows (R) released after XP, such as Vista, 7, 8.1, and 10, and most recently 11, cannot play Monopoly Tycoon. I'm also aware that I can load it into a VM the next time I want to play it, and I may consider doing it when I feel kind of like doing that. 

   Windows Vista was kind of a special case for me. I hated it when I got it on the Hewlett-Packard laptop that I got as a graduation present for somehow managing to survive all twelve grades of horrors of public school with honors, and I would frequently switch between Vista and Ubuntu. I believe Linux was the last OS I originally ran on that PC before upgrading to my MacBook Pro which I had for over a decade before finally deciding to sell it. 

   Windows 7 was the next Windows I actually liked. Sure, some who hate 7 might just say, "It's just Vista with improvements," but to be honest, 7 actually makes Vista not look quite so bad, as compared to the next version of Microsoft Windows. 

   Windows 8 is so bad that I under absolutely no circumstances speak of it in this household. 

   Windows 8.1 is the only "Windows 8" I speak of when I even talk about "Windows 8." So, if you hear me talking about "Windows 8" or even speaking about installing and/or using "Windows 8", chances are the OS in question is actually, Windows 8.1. 

   Windows 10 is... Or, rather was... Kind of a special polarizing OS for me. On the one hand, it was just an "OK" operating system, but, on the other hand --- It actually did damage that Windows Vista and 8 (not 8.1 in THIS context) had already done, but ten-fold. I mean, sure... In 8.1, the use of a Microsoft account, basically an e-mail address with @hotmail.com or @outlook.com as it is now, Microsoft set it up so you could use it to log into your computer instead of using an offline account, and the concept was so that you could synchronize between devices. 

 
   However, with Windows 10, the "Out-Of-Box" experience once setup is completed, is almost expecting you to immediately sign into a Microsoft account - even if you do not plan to use the device to send/receive electronic mail messages. True, you can avoid it, and not fall victim to the telemetry, but if you have use for the UWP apps and not the traditional side-load EXE programs only, (especially so if your device is on 10 S mode, which means you kind of are just restricted to UWP apps, and not EXE programs) then falling "victim to the telemetry" is less of an unavoidable inevitability, and more of a necessary evil. 

   If Vista and Windows 8 had put me on an "open-source" kick before, then Windows 10 is the absolute cherry on top of the pain in my rear end sundae. Depending on the hardware I put 10 on, it either ran beautifully as long as it didn't crash, ran like a dog, absolute total garbage, and I could've probably switched some of the bloat features off, but I didn't know which ones precisely to switch off without suffering functionally, or simply put, I better finish what I plan to do on Windows 10 in the environment in 1 hour or less, because the BSOD would end it for me at a random time, probably due to some unreliability in the hardware, which in theory could be simply & easily fixed, but considering I wasn't the one that bought the motherboard that runs the OS and just using mostly spare parts to run the PC anyway, the computer with the issues can just in reality be replaced instead of me even willing to put the effort in to repair it, perhaps using 100% of the hard drives linked to it --- both internally & externally, and then after probably copying it umpteen times over to external hard drives which do not require their own external wall power like some sort of leaching parasite, just park the computer in storage and remove its battery, and take it out once a year, put a fresh CMOS battery in if the battery I removed is dead, just to be sure nothing corrupted or seized up during the time offline. 

  Of course, in retrospective, I think Windows 10 for me personally is about to become the new "Windows XP." Why? Well, let's look at a few reasons as to why that is. 

Reason 1. It would eventually grow to become an overrated Meme OS. 

  Although in the real world, Windows 10 might not have become as overrated and meme-y as its ancestor, Windows XP, This doesn't mean that Windows 10 has become the butt of some people's Internet jokes. Some have made it become a new sort of PC benchmark, in a category of its own --- Like running DOOM, or Crysis. But, unlike DOOM or Crysis, it is an entire OS, which could run DOOM or Crysis on it, depending on the hardware configuration you have it on - and if you even want to try running DOOM or Crysis on it in the first place.

Reason 2. Because it became an overrated joke, I can't take it seriously anymore.

  Well, because of how much of an overrated joke it ultimately became, if someone tells me that I have to take Windows 10 seriously as an OS, then I shouldn't do that. Instead, I'll just take "YoU hAvE tO tAkE wInDoWs 10 SeRiOuSlY" as code for, "I just purchased a brand new Apple iDevice, laugh at my face, please!" 

Reason 3. Most of the stuff I would've done on Windows 10 from March 2020 - January 2022 (shortly before I purchased the RedEye) I can do just fine on Windows 11 anyway.

 

   Well, it's true. Of course, I can do pretty much most of the productive stuff and fun stuff on Windows 10 PCs, on Windows 11, since supposedly it still identifies as Windows 10, but I know better than what Microsoft would like me to believe. The only thing I will likely consider not doing on 11 is Zoom, since I pretty much wanted to run Zoom in Linux exclusively, under the KDE desktop environment, which means not using a CD to install my Canon Pixma Printer Driver, because the manufacturer only distributed Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS drivers with the printer itself in the box. Which, as we come closer to the end of the 2020s decade, I shouldn't be prodctivity using anything made by Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, U.S.A., or Apple, in Cupertino, California, U.S.A, in a modern version seriously. The former probably wanting to focus more on certain abilities of the Windows modern environment which I could not have formerly in versions prior to 10/11, and the latter due to branding it as a fashion accessory. 

 

   Of course, I will be using Windows 10 to continue to run Zoom as I still have 9 Microsoft License Spots Vacant on my account that I only filled up with free trash games from the app store. Not games that would be capturing much of my attention, unlike Indivisible or Minecraft mind you, no, no. But, basically the same games that have their annoying ads on during the loading screen of Microsoft Solitaire Collection.