On This Day Back in 2005 ...

[GhostShip]

Yes folks its that time of year again when we remember the moment the network passed from being operated by its creators and into the hands of the users themselves.

For some of you newbies today might be just another day but for the old hands still amongst you it was a day of sadness and upset as the entire network was in effect shut down following on from a legal threat by the RIAA that saw many other networks fold, unlike the other networks however the userbase of WinMx said "NO" with one mighty voice and set about re-inventing the tools necessary to run the network themselves, this was acheived in a record 3 days and nights around the clock work, today we the users are still here and still rightly proud of what was acheived.

Ours is a sucess story involving a group of special people, selfless people joined by friendship and trust demonstrating clearly to all that we the userbase will not be crushed or cowed by threats of intimidation, scare tactics or other lame efforts, instead we will band together as one to defeat any foe that tries to destroy our friendships or our community,

Today we celebrate our victory and affirm our commitment to the networks userbase that while they exist we will be here to support them as we have always been, have a great day folks and share the smile I have on my face after all these years 


Heres a partial history lesson for those whom havent yet heard of all the fun we had back then

https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/the_complete_winmx_history_7.html

[White Stripes]

...interesting to note one cant run windows 3.1 era software on 64bit windows... i wonder how many revisions of windows 10 will pass us by before windows 95 era software no longer runs...

[GhostShip]

WinMx was designed to run on Win98 and has had a great run as far as I'm concened, doubtless something will change in the future to annoy older software users but the number of folks using windows 10 is the real relevance here, most windows users dont subscribe to the apple dictatorship model and are able to use their O/S of choice, be that on a real machine or a virtual one.

[White Stripes]

it was ment for 95 or it would support 4gig file transfers vs 2gig... and had there been a mac version as well as the windows one the windows one would be the only one that still worked... the poor folks that bought into mac... depending on when they bought into mac... have been through 3 cpu architectures now... 4 if you count the 24bit bugs when jumping from 68000 to 68020+ ... so.. yeah.. m68k to ppc to intel32/amd64 and supposedly apple is thinking of jumping from amd64 to arm... but thats rumor mill only afaik...

win10 does arm too but thats for embedded systems with the RT and .NET runtimes.. win32 is there... i think...  its just an arm version of win32 for some odd reason... ...interestingly while winmx wouldnt run on that version joshes channel rejoiner would

its just my gut thinks the longer win10 exists the less likely win32 is to stick around as users and devs migrate to RT/.NET apps on the windows 10 platform...

i say this cos vista died april of 2017... win 7 dies january 2020 and windows 8.1 dies january 2023... ...well 'dies' may be a bit extreme since they will still run but they wont be getting any security updates past that point... leaves only win10 and its updates... sorta like mac going from mac classic to OSX...

[GhostShip]

I dont share "the end of the world is coming" viewpoint as regards the so called updates that in many cases weaken the security of folks operating systems, where any programs of Joshes fit into such a weighty topic is far beyond my comprehension given the fact that if theres no winmx then it too is redundant for its designed application.

I prefer to deal with the here and now rather than talk down what we have, things work and as long as they do theres nothing to get worried about, all the talk about the sky falling in on this or that date is pretty much a self fulfilling prophecy as it encourages folks to jump ship when things in fact still work as they always did and likely always will, when something really does break down its also likely that a fix will appear as it always has done in the past, folks may be lazy but they soon hop to work when they want things to stay running from my experience.

As an aside I dont know of a single win10 user, perhaps its just as well given how poorly thought out and unstable the builds are, this must be the case as they keep changing them 

[White Stripes]

it was more of a joke on microsoft than anything... i dont know any win10 users either... every time they belch out an update it breaks something so the only win10 thats usable is win10 enterprise.... and i really dont want to know what that version costs...

[GhostShip]

If only we had some geniuses whom could port the ourmx src to other platforms ... one can but dream eh 

[Pri]

WinMx was designed to run on Win98 and has had a great run as far as I'm concened, doubtless something will change in the future to annoy older software users but the number of folks using windows 10 is the real relevance here, most windows users dont subscribe to the apple dictatorship model and are able to use their O/S of choice, be that on a real machine or a virtual one.

One incoming concern is MIcrosoft is now selling computers (their Surface Book line) that do not come with Win32 execution capability. Only Windows RT. It uses an x86_64 CPU, Core i7's infact and is marketed as a full laptop for normal users. But the only software installable is from the official Microsoft Store where there are no hypervisors for sale, nor is there third party stores like Steam, Origin, uPlay etc

There is no way to turn this feature off without paying Microsoft a fee to "upgrade" the computer to a full version of Windows. They call this dumbed down version Windows 10 S. I'm assuming the S stands for shit edition.

The reason this is relevant to this discussion is MIcrosoft is pushing this angle of the Windows store not only on their own systems but to OEM's too, companies such as Lenovo, Samsung, Dell, Acer and Asus will all be selling Windows 10 S machines soon, right in that meaty $400-$800 price range. Targeting back to school users and such.

The other concern is system designers are now using EFI security to only allow the booting of operating systems that are digitally signed. We've seen this be abused already in the market. That Surface Book from Microsoft for example will only boot a valid Windows 10 install. Linux will not run, neither will any other operating system.

You spoke about Apple in your post and how most people don't subscribe to their locked down system but you can buy any of their computers today and install Linux on them or Windows or anything you want. There is no walled garden where software is concerned, the machine is yours to do with as you please and you can source your apps from anywhere, not just Apples store.

[GhostShip]

I dont see win10 holding anything like the numbers any of the previous versions of windows have amassed if they continue down the monopolistic road, in fact I see simply more opportunities for other vendors with MS going the way of IBM before them, most of the folks here use Linux instead of paying bill any more cash and I support that kind of move, even though it took apple many many years to wise up to the architectural change necessary to make such a thing on its platforms possible we can be pleased they got there in the end.

[White Stripes]

I dont see win10 holding anything like the numbers any of the previous versions of windows have amassed if they continue down the monopolistic road, in fact I see simply more opportunities for other vendors with MS going the way of IBM before them, most of the folks here use Linux instead of paying bill any more cash and I support that kind of move, even though it took apple many many years to wise up to the architectural change necessary to make such a thing on its platforms possible we can be pleased they got there in the end.

windows has always held numbers or there wouldnt be so many win32 apps.... windows 10 S is exactly what i worry about... 'average joe' isnt going to pay for win32 just to run a few legacy apps on their 400$ laptop 5 years from now...

and as far as linux goes thats going to be a niche market... leaving OEMs like dell with their 'ubuntu developer' edition laptops and oddly enough corporate workstations (the type of computer you see in banks) as the only 'open' PC style systems... the 400$ laptops now still allow secure boot to be turned off... i know.. i own one... but for how long? ... and lets not forget that win32 is very broken.. a mix of stuff dating back to the 16bit days of windows... a problem winmx suffers from, the gettickcount() bug, is because a programmer at microsoft was quoted as saying "doing 64bit math on a 16bit cpu is hard" ... but the lazy bastards code still made it in the final product and sticks with windows to this day...

[Pri]

Agreed. We've seen how people can be lulled in with locked down devices already. Just look at the Phone and Tablet market. You can rarely install your own operating system on these devices and often only run software on them from the phone companies stores unless you jailbreak. They desire this same walled garden on the laptops and desktops. All the security mechanisms to achieve it like TPM's and secure boot EFI modes are present and just waiting for them to make the business decision that the technology already affords them.

My kids are just growing up. For them the iPad is their first computing device. It's a closed platform. My children are not unique, many all over the world will experience tablets and phones as their first computers and that will affect their view of software in general, it will be expected that you acquire it from the manufacturers built in app store. That is the danger really, slowly creeping in these locked down devices into the masses until they aren't aware things used to be any different.

Windows 10 S will thrive in the education market first but I do think we will be dealing with these crippled versions of Windows in the mainstream soon.