More Windows 11 Bad News From Microsoft

[Judge]

I'm considering a Linux operating system - esp. if Linux compatible digital photo-editing APPs are those photo APPs offering excellent artificial intelligence supports in creating images.

I suppose that depends on what one truly considers "excellent" artificial intelligent support. Frankly the technology seems a bit too new to crown any particular app with such a distinction. I've seen what Photoshop in Windows can render using AI and was underwhelmed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't deliver.

There are a few Linux apps which claim such functionality, though I don't know anyone personally using them, so I can't vouch for such claims. I still use Photoshop 5.5 run through Wine 9.0. in multiple Linux distros. It runs better in Linux than in Windows 10. Though for a 32-bit 1998 application, personally I'm still content editing photos "the hard way".

However there are those who make such subjective claims:

https://mspoweruser.com/ai-photo-editor-linux/
https://mspoweruser.com/best-linux-distro-for-ai/
Yet most of us here tend to agree that the most prevalent photo editing program in Linux (GNU Image Manipulation Program 2.10) is not up to replacing Photoshop in its entirety, regardless of considerations to AI enhancement. In my own case, if I couldn't run my ancient version of Photoshop in Linux I'd be seriously unhappy. And no, don't expect any current versions of Photoshop to work at all in Linux. Looks like Adobe has seen to that.

 

[MROSS]

I suppose that depends on what one truly considers "excellent" artificial intelligent support. Frankly the technology seems a bit too new to crown any particular app with such a distinction. I've seen what Photoshop in Windows can render using AI and was underwhelmed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't deliver.

There are a few Linux apps which claim such functionality, though I don't know anyone personally using them, so I can't vouch for such claims. I still use Photoshop 5.5 run through Wine 9.0. in multiple Linux distros. It runs better in Linux than in Windows 10. Though for a 32-bit 1998 application, personally I'm still content editing photos "the hard way".

However there are those who make such subjective claims:

https://mspoweruser.com/ai-photo-editor-linux/
https://mspoweruser.com/best-linux-distro-for-ai/
Yet most of us here tend to agree that the most prevalent photo editing program in Linux (GNU Image Manipulation Program 2.10) is not up to replacing Photoshop in its entirety, regardless of considerations to AI enhancement. In my own case, if I couldn't run my ancient version of Photoshop in Linux I'd be seriously unhappy. And no, don't expect any current versions of Photoshop to work at all in Linux. Looks like Adobe has seen to that.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) might best aid digital photo/image creation if the user requests AI to augmenting those akward, difficult tasks which take-up an ample amount of time in creating images. Auto-assist AI could be difficult to navigate - as AI TECH is still not capable of truly interpreting user intentions.

 

[Judge]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) might best aid digital photo/image creation if the user requests AI to augmenting those awkward, difficult tasks which take-up an ample amount of time in creating images. Auto-assist AI could be difficult to navigate - as AI TECH is still not capable of truly interpreting user intentions.

Indeed, with the operative word being "might". Otherwise time to implement something is still at the mercy of the results actually rendered.

Saving time is only an asset if the results rendered are the results desired. Though in my own case I'm retired, so time is of no consequence in terms of what I now consider a hobby. But to professionals it could be a valuable tool, if the technology improves.

Though even with art, the legal considerations of AI still makes me cringe. And I suspect the law will be considerably behind the pace of technological advancement.

 

[Boogs]

There's AI, and there's AI.
Some AI has been exceeding effective and completely ethical.
Large Language Models in particular have contentious issues in their very creation, never mind their risks and dangers in use.
There are really useful AI applications in use from last century. London Underground, for example, have been using AI to detect the level of platform crowding for many decades, the 90's I believe. AI's used in drug discovery also lack the ethical issues of the chatGPT's and the rest (though what they are used to create may be a separate issue). Tumour detection (and other medical issues) in scan's and x-rays is another really good application.
It seems to me that's it's when direct human interaction is part of them, in input and/or output, they begin to embody the worse of us.

 

[Judge]

Bad news just keeps pouring in about Microsoft Windows.

Just hours ago Gilles Letourneau of YouTube's Windows Computers and Technology channel is now reporting that a third party (Black Hat USA 2024) discovered a breach of security regarding Windows 10 & 11 updates that may be as old as six months. Malware that essentially "unpatches" prior security updates. To date, Microsoft only states that it has not been fixed in six months. Microsoft claims to be coming out with a fix "soon" (next Tuesday).

Given six months has passed, should we really believe them?

Even if you download the fix, that doesn't necessarily mean it will fix your operating system relative to it having been previously compromised by malware that blew through the operating system because your security patches may not even exist any more. And as Microsoft forces mandatory downloads, it has to be assumed that many of us have compromised systems short of a third-party antivirus program neutralizing such malware.

Looks like I'll be reformatting my one SSDs with Windows 10 to use more efficiently (and safely) with a Linux distribution. The prospects of using Windows 11 for just a game platform continue to evaporate for me. Windows is simply not worth the risk.

 

[Boogs]

If they admit to 6 months, it's probably 2 years.
It's not lying, it's more 'post-truth'!

 

[Judge]

If they admit to 6 months, it's probably 2 years.
It's not lying, it's more 'post-truth'!

Yes. Gilles Letourneau tends to be very low key when he chastises Microsoft. But for this to be six months old....makes it positively scary.

But then there's one dynamic that never seems to change with multi-billion dollar corporations. That they spend inordinate amounts of time determining behind closed doors how to explain their incompetence first to their lawyers, then to shareholders. Starting with those who have controlling interest and are usually right there at the table with the board of directors.

So there's always that silly time lag, especially when anything really bad happens. With Microsoft reassuring customers last and least, that everything will be fixed "manana".

Gotta love Linux, that somehow manages to circumvent a lot of such corporate nonsense to focus on both the product and their customers. (Redhat possibly excluded.)

 

[FilterFreq]

Gotta love Linux, that somehow manages to circumvent a lot of such corporate nonsense to focus on both the product and their customers.

As much as I'm still a 90-10% Windows-to-Linux user, I have to agree with this. Large sums of money being at stake really brings out the worst priorities in people.

 

[Boogs]

Gotta love Linux, that somehow manages to circumvent a lot of such corporate nonsense to focus on both the product and their customers. (Redhat possibly excluded.)

I do indeed, even though I don't use much at all (I've always worked in MS using companies), very much like the more efficient, customisable, and generally technically better Linux flavours, and also how it came about and it's retention of non-commercial control.

But...
It has weaknesses too! And the less regulated nature of development and update, plus it ubiquitous use in certain areas, especially internet infrastructure, poses big risks and dangers that really need addressing now!
All the clever fancy eye-candy that the big IT firms push out as the ultimate in business computing (and yeah, it's mostly pherkin' 'orrible rubbish) is still running on that same original infrastructure the 'net was founded on.

So when a guy in MS, earlier this year, discovered a (probably russian) hacker had inserted a very sophisticated back door into one of the most used component of Linux for internet traffic management (it was a compression/decompression component IIRC), it was a huge shock because these critical Linux component updates tend to happen as a matter of course, and until the hacker had taken over the continued development and maintenance of this module, the original author had been pumping out trustworthy code for years - everyone just allowed the updates to go through. Result? The potential for almost any network comms to at least be snooped, if not even modified, across the whole internet! Only discovered because the guy was spending his evenings working on this stuff, wasn't his job or anything - i.e. pure luck!

The tech firms heave learnt to reply on others providing and maintaining internet infrastructure while they focus on profit and commercial domination at everyone else's expense. Ouch!

Oh, and expect more serious world damaging outages (as t'other week with MS and untested anti-virus updates) in the future as these cloud based environments expose their growing weaknesses more and more.

 

[Judge]

Another source corroborating Gilles Letourneau. Though it's not much of a secret that Britec09 seems to despise Microsoft in many of their presentations:

 

[Judge]

Another nail in the coffin of Windows 11 24H2: Microsoft has removed the bypass for TPM 2.0 with the upcoming 24H2 update supposed to be available next month. Effectively meaning you can't hack an unsupported computer to run that latest upcoming update for Windows 11. Not at all surprising.

Microsoft is forcing everyone with an unsupported computer to buy a new one just to run Windows 11.

 

[Forest Cat]

I have a Windows horror story I would like to share. Earlier today I turned on my desktop computer, as it was starting up it said "Preparing Windows". I have seen that before, it's usually just an update that needs installing, so I just waited for it to finish.

Then it finished. And everything I had stored on it was gone. Then I found out that it had also uninstalled my web browsers and installed them again, so all my bookmarks are gone. The background picture I used is also gone, it has been replaced with a windows logo. I have tried to fix it, I spent half the day on this crap but everything is simply gone. My stuff is not on my computer anymore.

I have no idea what happened, last night I just turned it off like I do every day. I didn't change any settings or anything at all. And now everything is gone.

Hate is a strong word but I hate windows. I have experienced similar things before, windows doing things on its own.

 

[Judge]

I have a Windows horror story I would like to share. Earlier today I turned on my desktop computer, as it was starting up it said "Preparing Windows". I have seen that before, it's usually just an update that needs installing, so I just waited for it to finish.

Then it finished. And everything I had stored on it was gone. Then I found out that it had also uninstalled my web browsers and installed them again, so all my bookmarks are gone. The background picture I used is also gone, it has been replaced with a windows logo. I have tried to fix it, I spent half the day on this crap but everything is simply gone. My stuff is not on my computer anymore.

I have no idea what happened, last night I just turned it off like I do every day. I didn't change any settings or anything at all. And now everything is gone.

Hate is a strong word but I hate windows. I have experienced similar things before, windows doing things on its own.

Looks like you aren't the only one with that particular problem.

A lot out there online about such things. Not pretty, either. Could amount to a corrupted registry.

 

[Forest Cat]

I wish I was Bill Gates neighbor now. I would walk over there, ring the doorbell and when he opened the door, I would kick him right in the nuts. Twice.

 

[Judge]

I wish I was Bill Gates neighbor now. I would walk over there, ring the doorbell and when he opened the door, I would kick him right in the nuts. Twice.

Bill and I are the same age. Translation: He probably doesn't remember how to fix it.

If it is a Windows 10 corrupted registry and you're desperate, you might try using a third party program like Glary Utilities to repair the registry.

When I used Windows I used this tool a lot to keep the registry in proper condition. Many programs of this nature often hurt more than they help, but in my own experience this one always seemed to be of benefit. Of course there are no guarantees.

Free version to download:

Glary Utilities - Free System Utilities to Clean Registry, Fix PC Errors, Protect Privacy | Glarysoft

 

[Forest Cat]

The thing is, nothing seems to be wrong or broken. Everything is working fine. No error messages at all. It looks like windows updated something and in that process, it also deleted everything I had on the computer. The wasted time really gets to me, I paid Bill for this crap and having to spend hours and hours on it, desperatly trying to get my stuff back, that really gets to me. I think I also lost some pictures I hadn't backed up yet. Crap.

 

[Judge]

The thing is, nothing seems to be wrong or broken. Everything is working fine. No error messages at all. It looks like windows updated something and in that process, it also deleted everything I had on the computer. The wasted time really gets to me, I paid Bill for this crap and having to spend hours and hours on it, desperatly trying to get my stuff back, that really gets to me. I think I also lost some pictures I hadn't backed up yet. Crap.

Sounds like it rewrote your registry....back to default settings. There are lots of suggestions out there, but hard to know which one may fit the bill in locating your original registry settings and getting them back to work as before.

There's also a possibility that Windows set aside your account and created a temporary user to login to (looked like brand-new), then it was able to repair whatever was corrupted and luckily automatically fix itself the next time you sign in, pointing back to your original account folder & registry config.

Use the file manager to individually check to see if some files (like images) are in fact still on your hard drive, despite what your registry may tell you. The latest update performed may have detected a corrupt registry and subsequently rewritten it to default settings to make the update work.

You might also check your system restore function to see if it's both on, and if it retained an earlier date of settings you can roll back. Which sadly may not work if in fact all your settings were switched to default by the OS. But you can always try. Unfortunately it's impossible to tell precisely what happened, and what precise fix is in order if possible.

 

[Forest Cat]

Yeah I have been searching for files most of the day, but it doesn't look good. But it's Windows, you can't expect it to work well or be easy to use and not cause problems and not do things like delete all your stuff. That's the joy of Windows.

 

[Judge]

The most expedient thing to do in such instances is just to bite the bullet and reinstall the OS from scratch. Assuming of course you understand how. Most users don't...much to their own chagrin. If you have the same problem that reoccurs on occasion, its root cause may still be there and "tripped" by recurring Windows upgrades.

 

[Forest Cat]

If Windows was a car, it would on fire and upside down in a ditch. It's just bad.