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Finally updated to Win 1903. One of first things I tried to do was adjust the microphone input level, and could not do it the previous way. They stupidified the interface so you have to dig into the control panel in order to change things rather then being able to access it from the task tray.
In addition to my other peeves, like having lost work due to windows updates, and file manager is dog slow compared to the old version, I keep considering trying out Linux. But I absolutely need Microsoft Office (including Access). Does anyone have any experience with CrossOver Linux, or something similar that allows you to run Office? What is the best alternative?
Thanks
(maybe just dreaming for now, as I still like Visual Studio)
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David O'Neil wrote: But I absolutely need Microsoft Office (including Access). Does anyone have any experience with CrossOver Linux, or something similar that allows you to run Office? What is the best alternative?
A VM for Office, with OpenOffice on your 'nix box.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Thanks. What VM manager do you use? Or is there a standard one included in your distro?
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QEMU, mostly; it's free, but not the most friendly. Options are listed on Comparison of platform virtualization software - Wikipedia[^].
Office doens't play well with WINE on my machine, but it may work for you. Added benefit of a VM is that you can easily replace it; if an update or error borks your machine, you replace the original copy of the VM.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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You may use Office 365 online...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Thanks, but I'm not interested in continually paying them for what I already paid them for. It is their greater company's treatment that further pushes me away from giving them more money. I might rethink that if they brought regular menus back to office, but since they don't listen to me, the chance of that is minimal.
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In that case you should check for other office options than Microsoft Office - there will be no other version that the Office 365, which works only if you have an account, which means monthly fees... (and it does not matter that you installed a local instance of the software, it is still bounded to the account)
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: you should check for other office options than Microsoft Office
Or just keep what I have. Knowing VBA, and being ale to massage Word docs through Access or Excel, I can't imagine it ever being unable to do what I need. It is a hell of a suite, regardless of what some think of it.
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David O'Neil wrote: not interested in continually paying them for what I already paid them for
This was my reason for getting rid of 365, however after a year of online crap and other suites I was lured back to MS when I found a pay once version (no ongoing updates) for office 2019, includes Access.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Yeah, I've seen it at Frys and online. My 2015 version will suffice for me, although I sometimes think of reinstalling 2013 for the menus.
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ebay right?
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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 David O'Neil wrote: I'm not interested in continually paying them for what I already paid them for.
This.
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I never used CrossOver, but I've heard of it before. Mostly my usage is for either dev or personal so I can swap out whatever doesn't work.
Office 365 in Chromium might fill of the gaps where an open source office suite isn't compatible, but for Access you'd probably still end up needing to run a VM with Windows - of course that could be a windows server without automatic updates turned off, although that begs the question of why not just run Windows Server as your workstation OS?
As for Visual Studio check out JetBrains Rider - if you're lucky the project types you need are supported.
Last thought that comes to mind, have you considered getting a Mac?
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Dar Brett wrote: Last thought that comes to mind, have you considered getting a Mac?
 Thank you for the chuckle!
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An app I'm working on needs to disable the option to pin the app to the Start and Taskbar. Why? Security concerns. I know, right?!
OK, dig into Google to find out what's involved.
Hmmmm... not much on this except for Raymond Chen's blog post on it with a tiny little C snippet that does it, and the WindowsAPICodePack.
Aight. The codepack is HUGE for what I need it for. One of the restrictions on my app is to make the resulting .EXE as small as possible. The codepack weighs in at almost 700K. This is not an option for an app that has to stay small.
Next option. Write up Raymond's code into a tiny little C++ CLI library and just reference that from the main app.
Crap! Can't do that either. The C++ library targets Win32, not straight-up IL. This is a problem because I also need to keep the app as a single .EXE file with no external .DLL's. To do this, I use ILMerge as a post-build step to roll in my library .DLLs, but it won't throw a Win32 .DLL into a .NET .EXE (and still work.)
Soooooo.... last option. Get the source for the WindowsAPICodePack and strip it down to the ... HOLY ELEPHANTING HELL! Over 50,000 lines of code in this thing! [mutters to self] Is there any part of Windows this thing doesn't wrap?
OK, start digging through and learning the code base. It turns out the thing is nicely organized, but every class is seemingly dependent on every other class. Apparently, complexity was a design requirement. Basically, this library is a massive pile of manually written COM-interop without all the automated helpers Visual Studio and the tools generates for you when you add a reference to a COM .DLL. All this work is necessary because the Windows .DLL that handles this, PropSys.dll, is not COM-exposed.
It took me two days, and a bunch of ![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif) , to slash and burn the code like a Brazilian rain forest with the final result down to about 100 lines of code and a 19K .DLL that ILMerge can deal with. With a bit more time I don't have, I can make it smaller.
Three days to remove one little option on the Taskbar.
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Do an article, or tip to make it easier for the rest of us!
(Pretty please with sugar on?)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I might be able to get to it, sometime in 1Q2020. 
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That's only 2 months away!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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we will patiently wait for it   
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Would it have been an option to embed the Win32 DLL as a resource in your exe and extract it at runtime?
Phil
The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the author, especially if you find them impolite, inaccurate or inflammatory.
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I tossed that around for a bit. I can't leave the .DLL behind, so I would have had to do the whole LoadLibrary thing in a separate AppDomain, make the call, unload the AppDomain, then delete the .DLL. Messy.
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My opinion is right for me, but it may not be right for you. But your opinion would be useful.
The Windows Form Designer, from the VB days to Visual Studio 2019 and .NET Framework 4.8 is an amazingly productive tool. The time it takes to build a window like I want, create to the code skeleton for events, etc. is drastically reduced from hand-coding. Thus, in a given amount of project time, I now have more time to spend improving the project, doing more testing, or even adding features. Those things would not be possible without the Designer.
Now, consider XAML Forms and HTML pages for Blazor. No designer. Even a Windows Forms designer in .NET Core 3.0 is missing, for now. Adding those designers would have the same effects for those environments and productivity that the Forms Designer did for VB and Visual Studio.
Microsoft's team of millennials and Gen-Z'ers appear to not have the depth of experience, or concepts of value engineering, to know why a GUI designer is so valuable.
That said, what are your opinions of how important it is to have Xamarin XAML and Blazor HTML designers on a par with the .NET Framework Windows Forms Designer?
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