So, what Does Work?

I had an HP 23tm touch monitor, years ago..., cumbersome, in the way, p-i-t-a, actually!

Wynona said:

Ummm, as a former admin assistant/clerk, I'm a touch typist . . . which means the substitute finger doesn't know what it's doing! Which means 80 wpm is now around 30 or 40 wpm.

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That's a lot faster than I ever typed, even when doing it for a living as a programmer. However much time I spent at the keyboard I never got beyond using 4 fingers and a thumb. Not much reason to anyway, that was the point at which I could type faster than I could think up code to type.

Wynona said:

Ummm, as a former admin assistant/clerk, I'm a touch typist . . . which means the substitute finger doesn't know what it's doing! Which means 80 wpm is now around 30 or 40 wpm.

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All of the years I have been using computers I'm still a hunt and peck typist. With arthritis in my righthand wrist and the damage left from the time I had trigger thumb I doubt I could do touch typing. Even using the mouse too much bothers me.

Bree said:

Sorry to hear that. I have 6 spares in reserve should the two I do use ever get injured

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No thumbs?

Winuser said:

No thumbs?

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For typing, no. Mine only know their way to the spacebar

Wynona said:

I used to love using the teletype! I had to copy movie reviews for Columbia Home Office from the newspapers. No scanners way back then.

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My first scanner looked something like a wand. I could only scan a small width of the paper, so I had to make multiple passes. Talk about a pain in the butt. It took me many tries to get something scanned correctly.

Edit: I almost forgot about two weeks ago, I had to email a copy of my mom's death certificate to the electric company so I could cancel her account. For whatever reason the certificate was about a page and a half long. I installed a scanner program to my phone that used the camera to scan the whole certificate. I love modern tech when it works.

With the advent of new technologies, devices and social networking, I figure my typing skills have improved by 1000% in the last decade alone!

Edwin said:

With the advent of new technologies, devices and social networking, I figure my typing skills have improved by 1000% in the last decade alone!

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Practice and use is what my high school typing teacher stressed, over and over. I liked the Smith-Corona manual typewriter but she never let anyone try her new electric.

I really liked High School typing class...NO HOMEWORK, and I got to sit next to the cutest girl in the class, who was also the fastest typist.
She and I would have Burn Out contests, when the teacher wasn't looking, or out of the room. We were both using the original IBM Electrics. If she was the fastest, I was definitely #2.
In the Army, my primary MOS was "Clerk Typist". I did a lot of different jobs, including sub'ing for the Company Clerk when he was gone.
I also loved driving, so I wound up being the CO's driver, and emergency ambulance driver, as well as Driver's Training Instructor.

In later years, I would work in a Typewriter Shoppe, where I had to repair, all sorts of typewrites and printers, and I got certified on four major brands of printers, both dot matrix and laser. Piece of cake!

I once had to take a typing test to apply for a job. They wanted 35 WPM, and I smoked their test, at somewhere over 75 WPM. Just showing off!
But that was years ago. Nowadays, I still have all my fingers, but, my fingers run several words behind my mind, and I wind up beating the crap out of the Backspace Key, fixing mistakes.
I call that my "Ooops" Key. So I'm trying several different techniques to slow my typing and avoid mistakes.
It's really hard to slow down, when the rest of the world wants you to speed up.

My little PC, that I'm on now, (a little Acer Slimline) boots up in about 10 sec's and shuts down in a flat 5 sec's. It's a lot faster than I am.
But when I got it, from an old customer of mine, it was dead, given to me for Parts.

Now, my PC that's running Windows 11/Pro/64, is another gimme. It's an HP Laptop that a three year old got a hold of. The keyboard was toast, it also needed a new CD drive, had one jammed up USB port and needed a new HD and a RAM upgrade.
OH, and the cpu cooling fan was somehow jammed up tight.
But after some extensive repair work, it's not only running again, but it's running Windows 11/Pro/64 faster than it's ever run before, with any other OS. (I maxed out the RAM and added a nice little Crucial SSD)
NO, it will never be my main PC, but it's a lot of fun to just tinker around with.
Cheers mates,
TM

I was pleasantly surprised that Stardock WindowFX still works (tolerably) on Windows 11.

That's the kind of thing I like to know.

TM

Winuser said:

I have to agree with those that say that there are way more things that do work then what doesn't work. I'm running the latest Dev build of Windows 11 and for the last few builds I can't get the Realtek audio drivers to work correctly. To get my speakers working I had to run the trouble shooter and it removed the Realtek drivers and installed the High-Definition Audio drivers. Combined with FxSound that was recommended to me by @Fabler2, I now have my sound working like it should. I would still like to get the Realtek drivers working.

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Did you get any solutions?
My issue: Install Realtek Driver > No sound, test sound "failed to play test tone"
Uninstall Realtek Driver > Restart, windows automatically install sound driver > Sound back but can not use Realtek Audio Console...

SeCrEt BoY said:

Did you get any solutions?
My issue: Install Realtek Driver > No sound, test sound "failed to play test tone"
Uninstall Realtek Driver > Restart, windows automatically install sound driver > Sound back but can not use Realtek Audio Console...

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I still haven't fixed the problem with the Realtek driver. I used the troubleshooter and allowed MS to install the HD drivers and use FxSound for my equalizer. I think the fix will have to come from Realtek or MS. For some reason I have no faith in Realtek fixing the problem.

I've been amazed, that Windows 8.1, 10 and 11 have one thing in common....their excellent driver packs.
And, it's almost magic, that during the initial Install of the OS, the driver installer will usually get it right, and install drivers for LAN, Sound and Video that work, even if they are not exact for the hardware involved.

Then as if by magic, a day or two later when you boot up the PC, the driver installed will realize that it didn't get it quite right, and install a different driver for say the Video Card, or maybe the sound card.

That happened to me on a Win-8.1 install, and I was blown away, because the installer (finally) got it 100% right and installed the exact driver for my NVIDEA video card, but not on day one, but day three.

As far as working sound and LAN drivers, I've had no problem at all.
Makes me remember installing Win-7 and previous OS's. where if you didn't have driver disks for all your hardware, you might wind up with a PC
that only half works. (no sound, no LAN and crappy video)

Heck, the new Windows installer even discovers my Epson printer and installs working drivers for it. I can always install the entire driver package from the CD that came with the printer, later on, if I wish.

So a word....If you've just installed Windows 11, for instance, and the installer didn't install he correct driver for a piece of hardware, wait a few days. Keep rebooting your PC till the windows driver installer gets it right. Eh?

Since my first install of Windows 8.1, several years ago now, I've not had to manually install even ONE driver.
Again, with four installs so far, of Win-11, I've not had to manually install any drivers, and everything just works.

Cheers Mates!
TM

Winuser said:

I still haven't fixed the problem with the Realtek driver. I used the troubleshooter and allowed MS to install the HD drivers and use FxSound for my equalizer. I think the fix will have to come from Realtek or MS. For some reason I have no faith in Realtek fixing the problem.

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Every Insiders updated, I have tried again by installing Realtek Drivers but still no luck... Must uninstall driver and restart for having sound again

cereberus said:

Well, maybe I am wrong but I has heard Apple sometimes go one stage further and just point blank refuse to run some old software on new hardware? I guess this a better than just crashing.

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I used Macs for 35 years and worked for Apple for some of that time. You are correct; while certain macOS upgrades required some minor hacks to apps or user approval if certain "security" features were not enabled in the app, eventually a number of macOS APIs changed to such a degree that nothing would get some old apps to run.

There were a couple of macOS versions for new hardware [Motorola 68K > Intel and Intel > M1] which had Rosetta and Rosetta 2 to enable the old crap to keep running; eventually Apple killed off the emulation (for the original Rosetta) as the licensing for the code expired. Apple did not write Rosetta as they are not really interested in how do we keep the old stuff running on our new hardware? Microsoft's user base includes many more folks for whom legacy software is still desired and, therefore, Microsoft must keep such compatibility.

BTW: I jettisoned my Macs and macOS a couple of years ago and enjoy my Windows machines.

Duh, , , how did we get from Windows 11 to Mac's?

To answer my own Question, "What Works" today I pulled an old PS2 Keyboard out of the junk corner and connected it to my HP Laptop that's running Windows 11. It had keys sticking and some not even working, so I completely disassembled that old Compaq PS2 keyboard and cleaned the internal layers. Of course the laptop did not have a PS2 port, so I was forced to use a PS2 to USB adapter cable.
With the keyboard now clean and properly adapted, Win 11 accepted it with no problem.
Just one more success story with Windows 11/Pro/64.

That Laptop originally came out with Windows Vista on it. It was NOT working at all when it was given to me.
But now, with a new keyboard, SSD hard drive and DVD Player, it's working just Great. OH, and I maxed out the RAM!

The previous OS that I ran on this Laptop, was Windows 8.1/Pro/64.

Cheers Mates!
TM
PS: The laptop is setting up on printer stands, because I had to glue a 3" fan to the bottom of the case, because the CPU cooling fan was burned up and frozen solid, and I didn't want to tear the thing apart to remove the bad fan, and then hope I could find a replacement.
This laptop isn't really portable anymore but it works great as a desktop PC, with external keyboard and mouse.

Noe when mentioned, MS Solitaire is not working for mr but maybe because of Local account.

TechnoMage2021 said:

I'm tired of reading about what "Doesn't work" with Windows 11, so how about a few reports on what DOES work?

I've yet to start my own list of what Doesn't work, I'm too busy with my list of what DOES work, with Windows 11.
And that list just keeps getting longer and longer, every day that I boot up my Win-11 Laptop, and install a few more programs.

Today, I've used an install of EaseUS Partition Manager to make a new Storage Partition on my SSD, so I'll have room for Backups.
And as I type this post, my Windows 11 laptop is busy running a 1977 Backup Program (Ghost 11.5) to make a compressed Backup of Partition C: to my new "D:\Storage" partition. As it has since 1977, Ghost is doing a great job of backing up my C: partition. It just never fails me!

I keep throwing programs at 11, and she just keeps on taking them just like 7, 8.1 or 10.
Heck, most of the programs I've installed into Windows 11, worked just as well on Windows 98, Vista, or Win-7.
And, all the tweaks and scripts I used to customize Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 work just as well on Win-11.

So, is Windows 11 a new OS, or just an old os with a new face. A false face at that!

It seems like the programmers at Microsoft just love to put a new face to an old OS. It's a lot easier, don't ya know?

I don't know actually how far back the Disk Operating System goes, but I'm suspecting about 20 years, or more.

In all honesty, I did find one VBScript that would not run on 11, because it was specifically written for Win-10.
But, with just a little re-programming, it's now running great on Win-11. It's designed to force a new restore point every time it runs.
I've put it in the STARTUP folder, so I get a new Restore Point every day when I boot up my PC.
I use that script on every PC I own. It has to be specifically written for each OS. Thank You, Shawn.

So, I'm curious how other guys find the program compatibility of Win-11?

Curious in Florida,
Happy Labor Day, Mates!

TM

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Almost everything seems to work for me also, the only minor niggles i have had is with Serif products, the programs work fine but for some reason the icons they use on the start menu all seem to default to a windows blank icon !

The program I'm most grateful runs on Windows 11 is Photoshop 7 (Yes 7) it was released in 2002 but to me is still my go-to editor.

I haven't upgraded? to 22H2 yet, which I understand is stricter about the programs it will allow to run.

zooburner said:

The program I'm most grateful runs on Windows 11 is Photoshop 7 (Yes 7) it was released in 2002 but to me is still my go-to editor.

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My go-to editor is PaintShop Pro 7.04 from 2000. That too works perfectly in 11, and continues to do so in 22H2.