I'll be buying a new computer...

[zedd151]

Laptop + Windows 7 experiment: installing on the 2nd partition...

Nocforme: Windows 7 had installed okay, and started up ok-ish.
The trouble is not about any crash or BSOD, but it looks like Windows 7 is trying to load albeit at a snails pace. It is right now on the "Starting Windows" screen, with the Windows 7 pulsating flag. I am going to leave it like that, to see if it actually continues loading. So far 10 minutes in, and still at that screen....    I'll give it another 5 minutes.

I don't want to tinker with the BIOS, even though I might get Windows 7 to run by making some adjustments. I don't want to beak anything that would prevent Windows 11 from running. 

Windows XP probably wouldn't even stand a chance on this hardware. 

Next up: I will go for Windows 10. According to the Mfr., this laptop can also run Windows 10. I see no major issues (other than possibly drivers).

A little while later...
Windows 7: Definitely a no-go. I gave it another 20ish minutes while I was out walking the dogs... still in the same state.    Plopping in Windows 10 as I write this. 

[zedd151]

Update!

I now have Windows 10 installed, including ALL drivers! 

I think that the laptop was initially designed specifically for Windows 10. The driver package download from the Mfr., was nearly 1 GB, compared to the driver package for Windows 11, only a couple hundred MB.

I will run some tests later to see if the drivers for Windows 10 will work on Windows 11. I think either they will, or may need tweaking to work. (Which is what the Mfr. might have done, and why drivers cannot be found(???)).

Either way though, I will most likely banish Windows 11 forever. 
At least I know some of Windows 10's quirks and anomalies.  Windows 11 seems to have its security on overdrive. Even a simple program was blocked from running on 11.    I flatly refuse to have to battle with 11, to get it to behave.

Everything on Windows 10 is working without any issues.   

[NoCforMe]

So what have we learned here?

1. That the ordinary person who buys this same computah from Amazon is going to end up having smoke coming out of their ears and returning the goddamn thing posthaste. Who (besides us nerds) has the time to deal with this kind of bullshit? It's a wonder that company stays in business.

I wonder how many other systems are like this one. Brrrrrr; so glad I'm not in the market for a new computer.

2. That zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

[sinsi]

You may have better luck getting drivers from the OEM.
If you go to Device Manager you can get the PCI vendor and device then look them up at The PCI ID Repository

[zedd151]

You may have better luck getting drivers from the OEM.

Thats what I eventually did, once I found out exactly where to go. The set of drivers for Windows 11 was very much incomplete!, even from the OEM. The set of drivers for Windows 10 was Complete. 

That zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

50% knowledge and experience, 50% dumb luck (at least for the 'win 11 fiasco' part of this ordeal. 

[zedd151]

Slowly but Shirley, I am getting Winows 10 under control. I have a 'base' installation backed up without anything other than an installation of opera and 7zip, and of course all drivers.

Little by little, I will be adding all of my necessities to the installation. Windows defender was false-flagging a lot of my own code as well as qeditor, and the Masm64 SDK and a few other items that I knew contained no malware. Adding folders to the exceptions list helps a great deal. But when downloading new files, or opening them for the first time, I antipate some scrutiny from windows defender. Windows Defender assumes the unchangeable highest priority (CPU and memory usage) which really sucks, as it drains resources from all other running programs. But I think I have these issues under control as well.

Now for updates, thats another issue to contend with. Some updates add programs to the Windows installation. Like 'copilot', MS's AI.    I dont want or need it.    It is no better than ChatGPT, imo. I have run some tests, in copilot, in which I know ChatGPT fails. Copilot fails in exactly the same way. (using reg*9 in addressing mode). 

Anyway, I'm on the porch right now on the laptop. It is a chilly morning here especially since the back porch is in the shade, the heat from the laptop helps keep me warm. 

Oh btw, this laptop is definitely a lot faster than my aged desktop computers. Disk read-write, faster memory, etc. Not the fastest in the world, but a step in the right direction. 

... to be continued (of course)

[daydreamer]

So what have we learned here?

1. That the ordinary person who buys this same computah from Amazon is going to end up having smoke coming out of their ears and returning the goddamn thing posthaste. Who (besides us nerds) has the time to deal with this kind of bullshit? It's a wonder that company stays in business.

I wonder how many other systems are like this one. Brrrrrr; so glad I'm not in the market for a new computer.

2. That zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

I agree,but want add
3. Many people has jobs + commuting  and other kind of hobbies and /or kids, they refuse to waste too much time on fix a computer
They cry or whole family cries because planned weekend activities was cancelled due to try get computer working properly took one or more weekends

[zedd151]

I agree,but want add
3. Many people has jobs + commuting  and other kind of hobbies and /or kids, they refuse to waste too much time on fix a computer
They cry or whole family cries because planned weekend activities was cancelled due to try get computer working properly took one or more weekends

my full time job is fubarring a perfectly good computer, then setting about to 'fix' it.
My part time job is, of course, walking the dogs. 
Programming is just a side gig. 
 

[zedd151]

So far all is going well in regards to getting all the customization settings, necessary programs, and miscellaneous other (programming related or not) accessories, on the laptop running Windows 10.

The programming environment itself will be a self contained partition containing the masm32 SDK, masm64 SDK, and a folder for projects. This partition will be excluded from snooping scanning with Windows defender.    The "projects" folder will be backed up as needed.

It looks like I will be finished with these chores within a day or two. Definitely by the end of the weekend. Then I can get back to writing jibberish code again. 

I am really getting to like this laptop, even with Windows 10 on it.   

[zedd151]

All the work on Windows 10, in removing/disabling all of its annoyances is done. Now it behaves pretty much as Windows 7 had for me. 

No more snooping, downloading a bunch of crap that I will never use, no more huge spikes in CPU and/or memory usage (while scanning each and every single byte of every file I touch). 

I did not make any list as such, there were too many things that needed to be done, to render the OS usable for me. (Make it behave to my liking and satisfaction)

I have been using Windows 10 for several days now, including writing some assembly code and running performance tests on the code. This laptop works great, and is at least half an order of magnitude faster than my aging desktops. Too bad that it refuses to run Windows 7, though. I have tried numerous things to make it submit to my will. 

On Windows 10:
I have been running Windows Update often, even running full scans with Windows Defender & company. Zero issues. And the OS has not said bad things about me, or my changes to my own goddamn computer. 

Basically I am now a satisfied 'happy camper'. The laptop was well worth the price paid for it. It just took a bit of effort to get Windows 10 installed on it, and the changes done to Windows 10. 

As a super 'plus', it comes prelicensed for Windows 10 as well as Windows 11. Props to the MFR for this. The Windows 11 fiasco is all over and done with. Was probably of my own doing. I think I restarted the computer while the initial set of updates were still in progress - leaving the laptop in an 'unstable' state. I have reinstalled Windows 11 briefly, to test this theory. It ran well, with the exception of all of the crap that comes with it. I did not (but maybe should have) try all the changes on Windows 11 that I had done on Windows 10. A project for some time in the distant future, perhaps. When I have two free weeks, where I won't be very busy.

This officially ends this chapter of the "I'll be buying a new computer" saga...   

[zedd151]

One odd quirk that I found with Windows 10 64 bit, ollydbg while it can run on win 10 - 64, it exhibits some odd behavior upon loading a file. It takes ages it seems, but finally does load and work as usual. Then when quitting olly, again takes ages to shut down. xdbg32 (x32dbg?, or whatever it's called) works okay, but I prefer ollydbg.