yup. Not shure about the SP, but in general, the list is sidentical to my experiences.

+1

Wrong. The 32bit-part did not prevent any Software to take down the whole OS. The NT line however did that, because they were completely 32 bit. Win9x had only parts that were in 32 bit. And those were no parts that improved stability. Win9x was more unstable than Windows 3.x. And NT 4 or w2k beat the shit out of win9x or me every time of the day. Pirating these versions over paid 9x versions was self defense.

yes. Because windows nt4 or w2k would only crash the app, not the whole f...ing OS, like Windows 9x or Windows Me did. To me, the list goes like:

win 3.1 - OK
win9x - crap. Bad crap that would crash the system judt because of a random game. The NT line did not do that. Normally it would only crash the game, the rest was working fine. Even the game, when you started it again.a
win NT 4 - major improvement
win me - shittiest crap ever, the mother of all shitty Windows OS. Boy, was that bad. Even worse than 9.x and this one was so bad it did not make it through the presentation before bluescreening.
win2k - loved it
win xp - unusable until SP 3, but OK, as it was possible to turn off that ugly GUI back to 2k
vista - quite nice on a decent setup except for the UAC, on dated or cheap hardware pretty annoying
windows 7 - loved it, still do
Windows 8.0 is as bad as Windows 9x was. A major step down from what was accomplished. Simply annoying for desktop users. Windows 8.1 is just getting there, but it is still crap without a touchscreen.

You nailed it. I was saying something similar to collegues, but you made the point far clearer than I had. That is the thing that annoyed me the most.

The lack of discoverability. The rest - includig the extra clicks neccessary just to do a real shutdown - were annoying, but the lack of a place were everything could be done SOMEHOW made me scream. I had to use skills just to get basic jobs done. Things that I found out years ago in a few minutes not took a very damn long time.

Thanks again for clearing my thoughts about the major issue.

Don't give up! Google! I can only point you to German guides, but I am shure that there are guides in english as well. In order to install Windows 8.1 over 8.0 on my gf laptop, I had to download the iso from the windows app store, burn it and do a complete install.

It is possible, it is legal, it is just annoyingly diificult and awkward to get it done. German version here, you may succeed if you use google translate or you may find the description in english elsewhere: http://www.pcwelt.de/tipps/Set...

And if you do succeed - please feel obliged to share it here. Windows 8.0 is an ungly mess, Windows 8.1 is slightly better, so people should know how to do it, if oss is no solution.

The link from the other guy was not in a reply to your outrageous lies, so here it goes:
http://www.wired.com/wiredente...

Living in a surveillance state like china or the US is one thing. Denying it and accusing only the other country of being a fascistic surveillance state is ridiculous.

Yes. And there is one major point: Hiding backdoors like the ones implemented in the consoles and Windows is not as easy on linux. After NSA, even though I am gamer, there is no way in hell that I'll be running a closed source OS on my machines in a year or so except for dual boot from time to time. Starting steam could unmount the drives with my data on linux, the reast is more or less open, so a backdoor is harder to hide.

To me, that counts. A closed source device that listens to every word spoken in my room and looks for the number of people and what they are doing? You got to be kidding me. I do not care why Gabe does it. I want it. On my own machine, built by myself. Able to play current games (half life 3! Now!) and do serious stuff on a platform I could trust considerable more than any NSA-infested closed source system?

This is a nobrainer.

I agree. Plus: As it is Linux, it is pretty damn hard to ship it with backdoors nobody finds. To me, the main reason for still using windows are games. If current games come to Linux, dual boot becomes an option. Working and most games on steam OS, a virtual box for some applications and dual boot as a fallback for some games.

I don't know about you, but after we know (!) that MS really builds backdoors into its products, I will swith. Gamer or not.

+1

You have no fucking idea how true crypts hidden operating system and "plausible deniability" work, do you? The free space, when booting the decoy system, ist the whole free space, including the space of the real operating system. So you have a secret limit of data you could store in the decoy system.

This space is defined at the beginning of the encryption process. It is only possible to delete all data be exceeding the data limit on the decoy or overwriting the free space by zeros. But there is no evidence that you have a second OS with hidden files.

It's called 'plausible deniability' for a reason.

Insightful? You are ignoring the plausible deniability feature. Otherwise, true crypt would not be an option.

this. Use the whole system encryption and carefully use the plausible deniability feature to dual boot. The decoy system must be reasonable. Add some files, especially if you need them on your trip, browse the web, do searches for holidays in the US and add some porn. Seriously: You are suspicious if you're male and there is no porn on the private laptop. Combine algorithms when doing the whole system encryption, just in case.

So. At the border, give them the password for the decoy system. It should be reanonable complex password. If they take away the laptop for one minute, consider it to be compromised. Do not use it anymore or only use the decoy while being aware that your activity is closely monitored. Do not get your into your more private emailaccount abroad, only use the garbage account provided by an american company. Do not login to anything remotely security related, just as you would on a public terminal.

Or you do a clean install and take a HDD with your backup in a hidden container on the hdd.

Oh. And your iPhone or Android MUST be factory reset before entering the US border. Once they have physical access to it, they can extract the information, including important password stored on the phone. The backup could be on your laptop, the cloud is obviously not an option for a backup.

In most cases, nothing will happen. But be aware that you are entering a police state that is only a few years ahead of europe. So you came prepared.

To the FUD-spreaders in this thread: Snowden himself trusts true crypt enough to use it. Some enryption is compromised, but not all. If you combine different algorithms, chances are high that the decryption might take enough time for a mortal being to have it decrypted when it doesn't matter anymore.

Spreading FUD leaves Joe Average, who might get the whole system encryption installed with some help with nothing he can do. And that is not the case.

Yes, the tin foil hats were right. But even if everything is pretty much fucked, all is not lost. Personally, I prefer fighting back instead of doing nothing because the others have already won. Because they haven't - quite yet.

If you are a target, you're screwed. That is true. But at least the peeking into your whole privacy at a random custom search like this is deflectable.

After returning from the US, either throw away the compromised laptop if the laptop was taken away even for a short time or flash the BIOS, repartition the HDD, reinstall the operating system and hope for the best (that the bug was only planted in the BIOS and the mbr, not in other firmwares and that the bug in the BIOS was overwritten by the flashing).

If the laptop was not seized, simply decrypt the right system and repeat the steps above with a more perfomant combination of algorithms. Of course, all these steps are moot if you are a target.

BTW: Consider all closed source operating systems to be compromised big time. Only a few people need windows as the first operating system anymore. Most people will be fine with a restricted virtual machine within a Open Source OS.

Gamers could do a dual boot to play and reboot for work and browsing, but that is very inconvinient. At least until newer games are brought to linux by steam. And here is the problem of the closed source steamclient and the closed source driver for the graphic card, but my guess is that strange behaviour would be easier to find by the community on linux than on windows, so the attack vector is still smaller.

But still, if you are a target, you are screwed. The russian secret service has ordered hundreds of type writers recently for a reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_adoption_in_the_United_Kingdom Nuff said. "Think about the children!!!" justifies anything.

Like preventing adults from viewing porn without having to register as a pervert by british authorities first. And of course now they extend these laws to any inconvenient webcontent whatsoever. The Guardian left its co.uk domain because of the pressure of the fascist government reigning in the UK.

But all is well. My government wants to become one of the five eyes to spy on other countries citizens and send the information to the other states that are not allowed to spy on their own people because they have (lesser by every day that goes by, but still) something called "human rights". And vice versa getting all the forbidden fruits of surveillance on my countrymen. Oh wait, we are already doing this and much worse, even without being part of the five eyes.

It is sad. England brought us the freedom of press and human rights after WW II. And now they are the first to throw everything away with the governements of continental Europe trying everything from legal to illegal to keep up with them to ensure that Eurasia is just as bad as Ozeania.

George Orwell was so damn right. He just did not see that people would pay money to get a better bugging device and that even the small time the couple in 1984 had together is impossible because every citizen wears a portable televisor, leaving out no space and time in any privacy. Apple takes your fingerprints and kinect gets your home and everything you say and do covered.

Impressive. George Orwell just hadn't enough imagination for 2014.