Ask Paul: January 10 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s a nicely diverse range of reader questions to round out this past week.

0Patch and Windows 7

evennotodd asks:

Paul, what are your thoughts on 0Patch as an ESU type system for Windows 7 home or non-business users who can’t upgrade to Windows 10 due to hardware?

I’m not sure what to think of using a third-party to patch an operating system. But looking at it more broadly, it seems to me that the type of person who would need this the most, assuming it could be trusted—that is, normal non-technical people—are the ones who would never even find out about it or be able to use it.

For those unfamiliar, 0Patch says that it will review Microsoft’s monthly security advisories and determine which fixes might apply to Windows 7 and are high-enough risk to warrant micro-patching. For those fixes that meet that bar, it will then create a proof-of-concept for the flaw and a fix, and then publish them in the form of micro-patches (which it describes as “miniature patches of code” that don’t require reboots) to be delivered to users’ PCs. This appears to be aimed at both businesses and individuals, and the personal, non-commercial version is free.

You can learn more about the company here if you’re curious.

And … I don’t know. I had never heard of this company or its solutions before this week. It’s certainly interesting.

Dual-screen devices

wright_is asks:

With all the talk on dual screens, did you ever look at the Acer Iconia Windows 7 dual screen laptop, back in the day? It was an interesting concept and, with Windows 8 or Windows 10 might have been viable, but with Windows 7, it was ahead of its time. I never thought it would catch on, because it relied on you typing on the bottom screen with the on-screen keyboard. That is never a satisfying experience and lugging a 15″ laptop + external keyboard around would have been impractical.

I’ve used a few “dual screen” devices where the keyboard was replaced by some form of screen (the original Lenovo Yoga is an example, and you could even make the case that the original Surface RT with a Touch Cover was similar, at least in the ballpark). But yeah, that doesn’t really make sense, which is why we’ve seen things like the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, or the CES PCs this year with a screen above the keyboard (or a folding screen that extends past the hinge to the keyboard deck). I don’t get it.

Multiple screens on a desktop make a lot of sense for some workloads, but the sub 10″ dual-screen layout seems questionable to me. I certainly wouldn’t be without either my 34″ ultrawide or dual 24″ layouts (home and work respectively). But, even though my last 2 phones have supported split screen, I’ve never used the phone enough to bother – I’ve always waited until I can sit in front of a “proper” device that was suited to the task. I don’t feel that the Duo or Neo would change that felling.

I think we’re on the same page. When I criticize using multiple displays by noting that people are too easily distracted and can literally not multitask, I always hear from someone who uses multiple display on their PC and feel quite productive. These are two different things. The dual-screen displays we’re seeing now (like Neo and Duo) are really just single screen form factors where the screen has been physically split in two. You’re just using Windows Snap, really.

Anyway, the market will decide. I don’t see any of this as a big deal right now.

Why put Microsoft Edge on Windows 7?

JustMe asks:

With the imminent expiration of Windows 7, what is the rationale for releasing CrEdge for Windows 7 now? I can understand releasing it for Windows 8/8.1 as it still has time, and can understand that if you do that, CrEdge should work with Windows 7. But even in that case, why advertise it for 7 users if your goal is to get people and enterprise off of 7 and on to 10?

Two reasons.

First, Windows 7 will be supported for at least three more years for those that pay for an extended support contract, and the new Edge is more modern and secure than is IE.

And second, by moving to Edge now, the eventual upgrade to Windows 10 will be even easier. It’s one less thing that will be new and different when that time comes, and since so many do so much in a browser now, it may be the most important piece in the upgrade puzzle.

Less officially, Microsoft knows that the hundreds of millions of people who will still be using Windows 7 all year and beyond are not going to just upgrade if they don’t have to. By giving them a more secure browser, they can help protect them when they’re using what is absolutely the most common attack vector these days: the web. They can’t really sell it that way, but I’m sure that is a big part of the thinking.

Dream car

SeattleMike asks:

Paul, as a fellow gear head, what is your dream car (if you could own any car)?

I guess there are attainable and non-attainable dream cars. My favorite cars are mostly German luxury brands: BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche primarily. (Audi and VW are mostly second-tier to me.) If money were no issue, I’d probably have multiple vehicles because why not. But I’m not sure I could pick just one. If forced to do so, it would be something fun but at least semi-practical, not a supercar. A BMW M2 two-door perhaps.

Also, what is your perspective on the state of in-car technology? Have you ever considered writing an article about it? That would be very interesting.

Increasingly, I think the less the better. Carmakers have at least wised up to the notion that touch screens shouldn’t replace nobs and dials for certain controls, so they’ve dialed down the crazy. At this point, all I’d want from a new car would be both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a large display for maps.

Bing

gowtham_jeyabalan asks:

Why does Bing Still exist as a separate search engine? Isnt it better to Rebrand it to Microsoft search and offer an in app internet search experience within its own ecosystem of apps. People are not going to go for Bing no matter how good it gets, because google will also become better and it does not offer much privacy like duckduckgo.

Yep. I have no idea why Microsoft maintains poorly-received brands like Bing and MSN, beyond that they are likely not expensive to maintain and, in Bing’s case, they need the data it generates to help inform its more important efforts around Microsoft Graph. I guess if you look at search as kind of an all-encompassing thing, they obviously have bits in Windows, on the web, and for enterprises. Maybe each feeds the others, and it all makes sense as a virtuous cycle.

Scotch

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Abelour A’bunadh, neat or with a little water?

Always with a little water. This is a very strong scotch, and unless you are used to such things, you’ll want to calm it down a bit.

Digital decluttering

AnOldAmigaUser also asks:

Regarding the digital decluttering, I was about to embark on the same journey, when I found 27 full carousels of 35mm slides from my wife’s dad. Would you recommend using a bulk slide scanner? The good ones seem to run twice the price of the ff-680 photo scanner, but time does have a value.

Yes, assuming these photos are important to you: I never would have finished scanning my photos without a bulk scanner. Also, when you’re done, you can consider reselling it.

Regarding the ff-680, how often did you find yourself dealing with jams from glue. At least half the albums I have to go through are the older glue style. Just wondering if I am better of spending on the slide scanner and doing the photos manually, or going all out for two bulk scanners, and recouping the cost at the end by selling them.

Glue is an issue. For my own collection, there was a mix of clean photos and many that were less clean, with glue residue. The clean photos could be done in bigger batches. For the gunked up photos, I did them in smaller batches, and I got really good at hand-feeding them into the scanner. You have to keep cleaning it as you go, of course, but you can develop a real rhythm for getting them through that will always be much faster than a flat-bed.

CEO of Microsoft

ggolcher asks:

If you were made CEO of Microsoft: what businesses would you venture into? Which ones would you exit? And which changes would you make within the organization?

Hey, you’re talking to someone who can’t even successfully duplicate Notepad. 🙂 I am in no way qualified for that position and so it’s hard to even conceptualize this. I would be a terrible CEO.

Looking at where they’re at now, I agree that Microsoft’s current cloud services push is both smart and lucrative, but it’s not something I would have ever seen as the future of the company.

I think the missed opportunity for Microsoft is that they’re not Google or Amazon, and that they could/should have been. (They really wanted to be Apple for a while there, but that was never going to happen.) Still could be, in some ways: The world is waking up to privacy and trust suddenly, and Microsoft should ride that wave.

Long term, Microsoft needs to just give up on the consumer market. They can still play an important role in those markets, but as a provider of backend services. Even (maybe especially) in video games. But chasing after consumers directly is a losing battle. Productivity services that target individuals (Office 365, OneDrive, etc.) will always make sense, however.

Blazor

christian.hvid asks:

Another .NET Conf kicks off on Tuesday, this time completely focused on Blazor apparently. Will you be watching?

Yep, though I can’t stick around for the full day.

Here’s the info on this online event, which is a one-day “.NET Conf: Focus” event about ASP.NET Blazor, which I’m particularly excited about. I wish there was more time in the day: I had hoped to finish up the Windows Forms Notepad project within a few months so I could on to the next thing, and Blazor is one of the technologies I’m thinking about. But I feel like I need to plow through WPF, UWP, and .NET Core first, so I’m not sure how/when I’ll get to it. I should probably figure that out.