I've wasted a beautiful summer day....

I've spent most of the day, searching the web, and trying various procedures between Linux and Windows, in a fruitless attempt to install into this notebook an old photo-editing program.

I have it on disk here, but there's no DVD drive in the notebook. Linux Mint claims it can read the NTFS format used by Windows. That's only partly true. It successfully read maybe 45% of the program files I wanted to move, but it missed so much that by the time I got the USB stick over to the Windows notebook, those files couldn't be read. Windows shows them as "corrupted and missing files. Unable to read."

And being the way I am, I just had to try it a few more times, in case I'd missed something in the directions. I hadn't. Linux just wasn't copying everything in the Windows program folder.

The program is still available on the web, but only from third-party and non-original sources, which now want money for a program that was a 'freebie' in 2003, when I got mine.

Why do I want to keep using it? Because it also has a feature that controls a scanner, as well as having nice photo-editing features. It's a very good program.

But I can't re-install it until I get a DVD Player which plugs into a USB port. Or until I learn to love my Windows and its own built-in App for this. I've tried it, but I'm so familiar with that old program, I just can't get comfortable with it. But it does have one feature I really like. It can level the horizon in a photo by just using a slider. That's a feature I loved in the now-defunct 'Picasa' from Google. It's a feature that not every photo-editing program offers, and it's very useful. Maybe I should try harder to "love my Windows". It would make Satya Nadella very happy, in case the $42.9 million he got last year doesn't give him the giggles. The last time I recall watching him pep-talk the troops, he said, "I want everyone to love their Windows!"

Memo to Microsoft's beloved CEO...

Dear Mr. Nadella:

I've been one of the voluntary testers of Windows operating systems since the first beta of Windows 7 came out. I've had a good time, and learned a lot, except how to keep my opinions to myself.

May I share a couple of those opinions with you?

First, Windows 7 was Microsoft's greatest achievement so far. It was rock solid from day one, and I dumped 'Vasta Vista' from a new PC to install and begin testing it. I was never sorry. Vista was far too security conscious for me. I don't want to play "20 Questions" every time I open a new window.

I've liked Windows 10 until recently, when us 'Windows Insiders' seem to have been dropped from the loop during recent changes. I liked being asked "What happened?" when something shut me down, or I had to kill everything to clear a freeze. I haven't had that lately, and I gave up the testing a couple of weeks ago because I'm obviously not needed now.

We both know Windows 10 is really Windows 9, and it is built on the same reliable chassis or foundations as Windows 7. But in my humble opinion, it has now collected too much 'fluff'. A lot of its more recent goodies seem more like 'make-work' projects than essential system improvements. And I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Others are noticing too. 

Lastly, if I had one wish, it would be that you make Win-10 able to read EXT3 and EXT4 formats of Linux, which already reads some of Windows files. A year or two ago, in one of my 'feedback' messages with 'Windows Insiders' I suggested that Microsoft should try to make a deal with the Linux guys, and share the best of both worlds. I still think that's a good idea. Linux has features Microsoft could use, and vice versa. And together, you could probably make Applesauce. You should try it.... 

With best regards,

Old Ray