The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

I'm looking for a dead simple media player application for my parents, who are about as technically challenged as they come. Basically the UI that I want should have big rear end, really simple buttons for them to mash so the application does what they want. Here's an example of what I'm looking for:

Features I'm looking for:

Audio CD Playback
Playback of commonly used audio files (i.e. MP3, WMA) I don't care about OGG/FLAC/Whatever support
Playback of common video files. The Common Community Codec Pack is installed.
Basic equalizer (not a deal breaker)
Dead simple audio CD ripping to MP3 (not a deal breaker)

I've taken a look at Amarok (no stable Windows version), Zoom Player, Winamp, musikcube, and Media Player Classic. MPC is close to what I want, but it's still too complicated them.

The OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit.

Thanks!

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 19:22

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 00:09

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Digital_Jesus posted:

If WMP is too complicated for them, your best hope is to put a shortcut on the desktop to the folder housing their music collection, change it to icon view, and set icon size to LARGE.

Then they can just double click the song they want to play.

Honestly almost every single media player is going to have playlist support and other features that will scare them, you'll just need to teach them what buttons to push. Alternatively, add their music to a playlist for them and then show them how to double click ?

That's not a bad idea, I'll give that a shot. Unfortunately I promised them I would upgrade their computer and take care of all the virus/spyware poo poo my Dad got into while porn surfing, which also meant they will call me whenever there is a problem. I don't mind too much since I love them to death, but I have three kids of my own.

I completely forgot about Windows Media Center, as I use XMBC myself. That looks like it would work pretty well. Thanks for the suggestion!

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 19:56

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but...

Does anyone know of a fairly basic ERP system that is either low cost or free/open source, and isn't an unusable piece of poo poo? I work for a small manufacturer, and right now I'm using a lovely Access database that I made to keep track of what products went where, inventory, RMAs, and a few other things. One of the tables is up to 11000 entries, and the quieries take forever.

I've looked at Odoo, which used to be OpenERP, but their demo install looks like poo poo and is not intuitive at all. I'm open to web based or local install, whatever works well.

Thanks

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 17:16

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

doctorfrog posted:

I'm new to the whole idea of streaming video and music to my Roku. I just installed Plex, and the wife merrily watching videos in the other room. I'm wondering if I should stick with it, or is there something that does the same thing, is pretty drop-dead easy to use, and that isn't tied to a service? I don't hate it, for the record, just want something better (and free) if it's out there.

Plex is the only one I know of that can share media from a computer to your Roku box. It's actually really simple to use when you get everything setup. Plus it can stream to mobile devices if you install their app. Make sure you use their naming conventions when you're adding to the library, and it will handle all the metadata stuff for you.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 04:57

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Xander77 posted:

(Sorry if this is the wrong thread, I'd appreciate it if you direct me to the right one)

I managed to set up a homegroup filesharing network between my old and new computer, and copied most everything I needed. Unfortunately, the system only worked when they were both in the same house, connected to the same physical network. Now that one is in Jerusalem and the other at my parents house... not so much. Unfortunately, my google skills fail me, and I can't quite figure how to set up a file sharing network for computers that aren't physically connected.

(Also, what's the right thread to ask in about Internet Explorer issues?)

It might be easier to use a service like Dropbox or Google Drive for filesharing. No loving around with homegroups , just setup an account, install the syncing app on the two computers, and just drag what you want to share to the sharing folder.

# ¿ May 21, 2015 08:23

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

hooah posted:

I'm looking at 5 hours a week of help-room time for a class I'm TA-ing. I'd like to rip some blu-rays to bring with me (laptop has no optical drive), but I'd like to be able to watch the extras and whatnot. Is there a way to do that? My experience with ripping in the past has been just grabbing the main video file.

I use MakeMkv, which will allow you to grab all of the extra features, retain audio tracks, etc... It saves the extracted files as a .mkv file.

# ¿ May 21, 2015 20:47

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

chippy posted:

Does anyone know the answer to this? I'd like to know too.

I've used DVD Flick in the past. It worked pretty well from what I remember. http://www.dvdflick.net

# ¿ Dec 16, 2015 03:58

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

TheFluff posted:

The background here is that I do amateur historical research at the national archives. You are allowed to look at archive material and take photos of it with a handheld camera - no tripods, no artificial light and definitely no flatbed scanners.

Why would they care if you used a tripod or a scanner?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2015 07:01

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Teamviewer is a fantastic remote control application, and it doesn't log you out like Remote Desktop does, and seems to work better than VNC in my experience

Risket fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Feb 10, 2016

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 11:53

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Does anyone know of a good free alternative to Fastone Capture, specifically it's desktop video capture capability? I would pony up the money, but it's for work and I doubt I'll get approval for the purchase cost.

I used the trial on some documentation, and it was the best of it's kind that I've used. Something call Cam Studio hasn't been updated since the 2000's, and it saves in some lovely old AVI format. I've also tried capturing with VLC, but it either crashes or doesn't actually capture anything.

Thanks

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 23:19

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Migishu posted:

Thirding OBS. I used it to create training videos at my last job and it worked wonderfully.

Can record individual windows, and uses H.264 for it's encoder ? Perfect, thank you! I'll give this a try today. I got really sick of using Can Studio to do the captures, then having to use Handbrake to encode the captures

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 12:08

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Flipperwaldt posted:

If it's to create documentation, the built in Problem Steps Recorder might be enough, maybe? No video though.

Never knew about this, that would be helpful for documentation, could have used this yesterday. Unfortunately I need to record stuff going on in a VNC window, so this wouldn't be useful for that

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 12:17

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

I've been telling my not so computer literate parents that the hundreds of pictures that they have stored on their hard drive are in danger of disappearing if their hard drive crashes, and it appears that after 2 years I've finally convinced them.

So, I've been considering the best approach to do this. I need this to be completely automated so I don't get 2 phone calls a week, and be effective at the same time.

Right now I think this would be the best way to do this:
1. External USB hard drive that all the pictures and other data are backed up onto on a scheduled interval
2. Some cloud storage vendor, probably OneDrive for convenience.

They are using Windows 10, so it seems that using the File History feature would work for the external hard drive. However, it appears that unless I map their OneDrive account to a network drive, File History does not allow you to use a cloud service.

So, my question is, is there a 3rd party software option that can be used by my technology challenged parents to do this backup on a scheduled basis reliability?

Thanks

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 16:27

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

bobfather posted:

What's funny is that in this day and age, different companies have assumed different roles for allowing cheap or even free backups:

Google Photos lets you store unlimited JPG photos and videos. Windows computers can use Google Backup and Sync to backup stored photos, and they can then be accessed through the Google Photos web site or smartphone apps.

Amazon Prime lets you store unlimited RAW photos of any size. I have ~130GB of RAWs backed up to them right now. Amazon has a Windows and Mac version of their Amazon Drive software that can automate backups of these files. Note that they do not do unlimited storage of JPG files at this time.

Depending on their needs, I would start there rather than pay for backup.

I completely forgot about Amazon Prime's photo storage, I have a Prime account I could share with them. Excellent thought, thank you!

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 17:58

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 00:09

Risket: Apr 3, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

apropos man posted:

Cool. If Samsung allow their software to clone a running system then I guess that there's nothing inherently stupid about doing so. Will give it a go.

Macrium Reflect will do the same thing if that's more your speed

# ¿ Dec 5, 2017 23:47

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