So dumb that windows hides the file extension as default.
One of the first things I have to change on any PC I get my hands on. Same as mouse acceleration.
Especially since it only associates by file extension.
Given that I have worked with people who got confused when the start button stopped having the word “Start” on it I am going to disagree with you.
I can totally see somebody putting in a ticket because “it kept adding letters to the end of the file name when they saved”.
THOSE FUNNY LETTERS CONFUSE ME
you know what’s even dumber is that windows never learnt to identify files apart from its extension. every other modern operating system (e.g. everything unixlike) knows how to identify files even without file extensions
It’s unreal! I don’t use it but sometimes I have to touch one and I honestly can’t tell how anyone gets anything done.
I never fell for mp3.exe, but I did install Real Player and use the built in browser once.
I learned how to remove a Trojan virus that copy pastes itself into a few directories before mom got home from work at 9 years old.
People wonder why I know so much about computers, a large part was fucking up the expensive family PC repeatedly.
I feel like that’s the case for a lot of our generation
How times have changed. I used to have print outs in my filing cabinet with virus removal guides from all the various times I contracted digitally transmitted diseases online.
First thing I do is unhide file types now since I grew up in the limewire era.
The fact that Windows hides file extensions by default is just absolute insanity to me.
It fits the overall spyware OS thing though.
Another fucking stupid default
Limewire is the new beans on Lemmy or something? This is the 7th Limewire post in 2 days…
Lemmy is in danger of growing stale. We’re taking it to strange new places.
Mate, you’ve only been here for 14 days.
Seriously what the fuck is happening?!
Also if you miss that shit hit nicotine+ and get after it.
May be a bot network testing posting and sentiment manipulation.
My favourite was when people would then use limewire to pirate limewire pro and double up on the malware
rick_astley_never_gonna_give_you_up.mp3.exe
No need to be suspicious, it’s just a self extracting zip file. Convenient and downloads faster!
Ahh limewire the virus sharing program
I repartitioned the hard drive to install Linux.
Unbeknownst to me, my brother had stored the photos he took of our grandparents 50th wedding anniversary on that drive. There was no backup.
There are two types of people who do back ups:
- the paranoid
- the experienced
It’s only paranoia if it’s unwarranted.
A friend of mine when I was 12/13 downloaded some hacks for Combat Arms (a free FPS back in the day) and made his windows unusable (with “noob” as the time).
Good memories
Deleting system32 fixed my issues.
For linux/mac users it’s writing “rm -rf / “ into the terminal
It’s how you delete the French language pack.
Its hard to imagine a shared family PC at this point in time
Ir’s possible. Dad is a gamer and kids aren’t old enough for PCs, but maybe old enough for tablets.
I still remember bricking my mom’s gateway computer while downloading eps of love hina, blade 2 soundtrack and next door Nikki videos off of limewire…sorry mom.
E machines for me. Xp sp1 lol. 512mb ram.
Lol I remember eMachines. Integrated graphics on a desktop tower and the thing sounded like a leafblower under load. Also I believe it wouldn’t support a dedicated GPU either.
Man… I had that thing humming trying to run Sims 2. But diablo 1 rand like a champ. I cooked that thing so many times, it’s what taught me how to rebuild windows. Eventually my family gave up on saving files to the computer.
Kazaa and emule where more legit 😅. Still happened sometimes.
I never really got into file sharing early on, I somehow jumped onto torrents instead and soon after migrated to Linux distro hopping for a while.
All the while I kept fixing PCs for family and friends.
Almost all of them were worn down, infected and affected by the 12 year old in the house who tried to download anything and everything they could find. Their only limiting factor was hard drive space, otherwise they would have downloaded the internet if given the chance.
I remember starting up a Windows PC I volunteered to fix, waiting half an hour for it to finish its start up routine, go into it’s start up programs and discover a list of 200 weird items that came on at every start up … delete or remove all of them … restart, wait again and now there were 100 items at start up … research how to remove things, rinse repeat for about two days and finally gain back normal control of everything. Then move, back up or just delete a bunch of junk to take back hard drive space.
Hand it back to the owner who put it back in their home office and their 12 year old would start downloading things again.
It would take me days to fix it and the kid would take hours to ruin it all.
Then the parents would blame shitty software or hardware and go out and buy a new faster system.
The only side benefit to all this was that I ended up collecting a bunch of old systems, laptops and tablets that I fixed or used as Linux test systems and learned a lot from.
