-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named recipients above and may contain information
that is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

On 12/9/16, Marquette, Ed <ed.marquette@...> wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned
me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to
send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed
fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software
with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind
of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one
list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing
with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has
continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature
disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different,
as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to
JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in
Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17
misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and
just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent
problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts
reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in
words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I
hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not
always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the
Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features
that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when
I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like
that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.

It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information
that is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected by
applicable law. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this
E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Marquette, Ed
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:57 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named recipients above and may contain information
that is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Lisle, Ted
(CHFS DMS)
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 8:26 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Sounds Like 16 was too good for FS's own good. It combined solid
performance with really useful new features (the expanded OCR capability
particularly), and was a great match for new versions of Office. Smart tabs
sound helpful, but I'm still with 16, and may stay a while longer.

ted

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Marquette,
Ed
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:57 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned
me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to
send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed
fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software
with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind
of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one
list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing
with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has
continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature
disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different,
as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to
JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in
Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17
misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and
just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent
problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts
reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in
words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I
hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not
always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the
Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features
that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when
I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like
that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information that is privileged, attorney
work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received
this message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete
this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of ptusing
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 10:42 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi,
Regarding your points and those stated by Ed, I wonder what would happen
if some one made a list of top 10 bugs and posted it?

Please add---and I say the list should be formulated mostly off list, the
known 1.5 year problem of
JAWS 17 not working with MAGIC and adobe document cloud for some.

I do give Freedom Scientific credit for not caving on that
Adobe-related issue as the problem is an outstanding issue.
Waiting for Adobe to do something

MY point is that there are people out there smarter than I who could list
something like a consolidated list of issues from which people could
speak to V F O about and share with
Large groups like agencies that purchase lots of JAWS versions.

In case some one is wondering, I actually believe in the people there in
Florida and
Think they will eventually get it done.
The problem is the waiting.

Thanks to all.

.



-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Lisle, Ted
(CHFS DMS)
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 8:26 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Sounds Like 16 was too good for FS's own good. It combined solid
performance with really useful new features (the expanded OCR capability
particularly), and was a great match for new versions of Office. Smart tabs
sound helpful, but I'm still with 16, and may stay a while longer.

ted

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Marquette,
Ed
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:57 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned
me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to
send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed
fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software
with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind
of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one
list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing
with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has
continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature
disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different,
as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to
JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in
Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17
misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and
just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent
problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts
reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in
words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I
hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not
always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the
Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features
that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when
I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like
that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information that is privileged, attorney
work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received
this message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete
this E-mail message.
Thank you.

On 12/9/2016 1:57 AM, Marquette, Ed wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named recipients above and may contain information
that is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

----- Original Message -----
From: "BeastlyTheos" <theodorecooke@...>
To: <main@jfw.groups.io>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 03:57
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.


So if we stop using their product, that sends a message that we're not
satisfied, but it doesn't let them know why we're not satisfied. How
do we specifically send the message that we're not satisfied because
of their development roadmap?

On 12/9/16, Marquette, Ed <ed.marquette@...> wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has
concerned
me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to
send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed
fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software
with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind
of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one
list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing
with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has
continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the
feature
disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally
different,
as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back
to
JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly
in
Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17
misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and
just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent
problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts
reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in
words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I
hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not
always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the
Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features
that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes,
when
I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like
that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At
the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had
not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but
now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that
it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease
that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of
ram.

It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing
with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to
go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement
of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying
new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already
has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us
to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information
that is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected by
applicable law. If you have received this
message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this
E-mail message.
Thank you.

I can't, and won't try to, speak to the issues anyone might be having with JAWS 17 or 18.

What I can speak to, though, is that very often, for any software, if you are using the "install over" method of installation or upgrade method a tiny problem will be introduced that shouldn't be (and not through the fault of the user - you don't control the installation/upgrade software).  These can be carried along and unintentionally built upon until they bring things to a grinding halt.

Tim said, "I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD."  I'm not saying that I know the answer to the question I'm about to pose, "What would have happened had you done the same with JAWS 17 or JAWS 18?"

The "uninstall it all" reboot, and reinstall from scratch technique sometimes works to resolve what seem to be insoluble problems.  If you want to be really thorough after the initial uninstall and reboot, you might want to run a utility such as Revo Uninstaller to be sure that there are no vestigial traces of the prior installations anywhere.  Some uninstallers are much better than others about cleaning up after themselves.

I've solved a number of problems with various JAWS installations for releases well before either 17 or 18 by taking this approach.  It may solve nothing for all I know, but it's definitely worth a try to see whether it does.

--
Brian

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

         ~ William James

----- Original Message -----

I can't, and won't try to, speak to the issues anyone might be having with JAWS 17 or 18.

What I can speak to, though, is that very often, for any software, if you are using the "install over" method of installation or upgrade method a tiny problem will be introduced that shouldn't be (and not through the fault of the user - you don't control the installation/upgrade software).  These can be carried along and unintentionally built upon until they bring things to a grinding halt.

Tim said, "I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD."  I'm not saying that I know the answer to the question I'm about to pose, "What would have happened had you done the same with JAWS 17 or JAWS 18?"

The "uninstall it all" reboot, and reinstall from scratch technique sometimes works to resolve what seem to be insoluble problems.  If you want to be really thorough after the initial uninstall and reboot, you might want to run a utility such as Revo Uninstaller to be sure that there are no vestigial traces of the prior installations anywhere.  Some uninstallers are much better than others about cleaning up after themselves.

I've solved a number of problems with various JAWS installations for releases well before either 17 or 18 by taking this approach.  It may solve nothing for all I know, but it's definitely worth a try to see whether it does.

--
Brian

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

         ~ William James

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of dennis
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 8:53 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

i too have been back to 16 because 17 and 18 have the problem of the vertual kercer shutting itself off all the time. while using the net or email or anything.


On 12/9/2016 1:57 AM, Marquette, Ed wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim
Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information that is privileged,
attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 11:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford

On 12/9/2016 2:59 PM, Gudrun Brunot wrote:

Music to my ears, Tim. Thank you for taking the time and going to the
trouble to put this in a nutshell for us. I know I've been noticing problems
with JAWS and not been able to figure out whether it was because I wasn't
spending enough time reading the training material from FS or whether it was
my configuration or JAWS settings. What I've had difficulty with is websites
where I get stuck in some toolbar and told that I'm on a tab that I can't
get out of, whether I tab, control-tab, or arrow around. All I can do is
close the site and reopen it. That has been extremely irritating and
time-consuming for a long time.

Yeah for stability.



Gudrun

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 11:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the
time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not
heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now
it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it
affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that
started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with
the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go
back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of
how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new
features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has,
JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to
make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford

-----Original Message-----
From: Sieghard Weitzel
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 1:51 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

This must be happening for some people then because I can't confirm this at all with either Jaws 17 or 18. It may happen occasionally, but it must not be a lot since I can't even remember when I last had this problem. I had Jaws 17 and now have Jaws 18 on two laptops with Windows 10, my old Acer and my new Asus Zenbook, and I also had/have them on several desktops at my store which are still running Windows 7 and nowhere do I have a big problem with this.

Regards,
Sieghard

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of dennis
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 8:53 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

i too have been back to 16 because 17 and 18 have the problem of the vertual kercer shutting itself off all the time. while using the net or email or anything.


On 12/9/2016 1:57 AM, Marquette, Ed wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim
Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information that is privileged,
attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa Stott
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:03 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

I can't reproduce this issue either.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sieghard Weitzel
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 1:51 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

This must be happening for some people then because I can't confirm this at
all with either Jaws 17 or 18. It may happen occasionally, but it must not
be a lot since I can't even remember when I last had this problem. I had
Jaws 17 and now have Jaws 18 on two laptops with Windows 10, my old Acer and
my new Asus Zenbook, and I also had/have them on several desktops at my
store which are still running Windows 7 and nowhere do I have a big problem
with this.

Regards,
Sieghard

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of dennis
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 8:53 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

i too have been back to 16 because 17 and 18 have the problem of the vertual
kercer shutting itself off all the time. while using the net or email or
anything.


On 12/9/2016 1:57 AM, Marquette, Ed wrote:

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition. The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that, until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its basic code (instead of loading the software with new features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further symptom of the feature disease, though it likely contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files. Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures) the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17. It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim
Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




----------------------------------------------------------------------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for the named
recipients above and may contain information that is privileged,
attorney work product or otherwise protected by applicable law. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Maria
Campbell
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 4:11 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

I have also been very disappointed in the increasing instability of JAWS in
Internet Explorer, especially since Edge isn't even supported at all at this
time. I would be much happier to pay for greater future stability than for
new features that I may never, or hardly ever use.


Maria Campbell
lucky1@...

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive.
--Dalai Lama

On 12/9/2016 2:59 PM, Gudrun Brunot wrote:

Music to my ears, Tim. Thank you for taking the time and going to the
trouble to put this in a nutshell for us. I know I've been noticing
problems with JAWS and not been able to figure out whether it was
because I wasn't spending enough time reading the training material
from FS or whether it was my configuration or JAWS settings. What I've
had difficulty with is websites where I get stuck in some toolbar and
told that I'm on a tab that I can't get out of, whether I tab,
control-tab, or arrow around. All I can do is close the site and
reopen it. That has been extremely irritating and time-consuming for a

long time.

Yeah for stability.



Gudrun

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim
Ford
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 11:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you
who want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time
to consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list.
At the time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said
they had not heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was
the first, but now it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more

and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but
the sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS
18, and although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted
to the point that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open
Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I
have not had any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18,
that it affects different computers at different rates of onset, like
a disease that started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of

ram.

It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the
clues towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth
the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer
dealing with the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license

is good only

up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would
have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after
that, FS was focusing too much on developing new features, in order to
justify us continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become
vastly more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual
features, and it has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep
up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that
JAWS basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of

us.

JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS
when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete
acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit
trying new features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what
JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that
we will be willing to accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing
ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were
asked whether we valued new features over stability. I suggest that
it is now time for us to make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not
at the expense of stable performance for our day in and day out use of

computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On
Behalf Of Lisle, Ted (CHFS DMS)
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 8:26 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Sounds Like 16 was too good for FS's own good. It combined
solid performance with really useful new features (the
expanded OCR capability particularly), and was a great match
for new versions of Office. Smart tabs sound helpful, but
I'm still with 16, and may stay a while longer.

ted

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On
Behalf Of Marquette, Ed
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:57 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Tim:

Thank you for your full and frank discussion of something
that has concerned me for years.
In fact, a few years back, I started an on-line petition.
The idea was to send a message to Freedom Scientific that,
until Freedom Scientific fixed fundamental problems with its
basic code (instead of loading the software with new
features) we, JAWS users, should stop buying "upgrades" -- a
kind of feature moratorium.
I hear echoes of my own posts -- posts that got me kicked
off at least one list.
Many of us experienced the problems with JAWS 13 that you
are experiencing with JAWS 17.
Well, my on-line petition didn't get very far, and Freedom
Scientific has continued to pile on the new features.
The problems with JAWS 17 may not simply be a further
symptom of the feature disease, though it likely
contributes. JAWS 17 is fundamentally different, as FS will
admit. I try to use JAWS 17, but I find myself switching
back to JAWS 16 quite frequently. There are an array of
situations, particularly in Office 2013, where JAWS 16 is
just better, reading prompts that JAWS 17 misses, reading
the correct prompts instead of extraneous information, and
just working instead of going out to lunch. JAWS 17 also
has an inherent problem of corrupting some of its own files.
Periodically, it starts reading extraneous numbers. For
instance, in JAWS 17, I am now typing (in words and figures)
the number thirteen 13. When I read back the number, I hear
thirteen sixty-five. The number is in superscript, but that
is not always necessary to confuse JAWS 17. JAWS 16 NEVER
has this problem.
Of course the whole file layout is different. As I sadly
discovered, the Keyboard Manager in JAWS 17 is
brain-damaged.
At the same time I bemoan the new features, it is some of
these features that keep me using JAWS. Even as badly as
JAWS handles track changes, when I last checked NVDA didn't
handle track changes at all.
ALAS! Perhaps I'll try NVDA again.
I was hoping JAWS 18 would fix the problems in JAWS 17.
It looks like that was a vain hope.


-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On
Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 1:20 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for
those of you who want to help things improve with JAWS, I
urge you to take the time to consider my observations and
opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific
the sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that
on this list. At the time, nobody else seemed to be having
the problem, and FS said they had not heard of anyone but me
having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but now it
seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and
more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the
problems, but the sluggishness became worse. I tried all
beta test versions of JAWS 18, and although it seemed a bit
better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point that I
quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other
than Open Book, and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the
installation CD. I have not had any of the sluggishness,
now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17
and 18, that it affects different computers at different
rates of onset, like a disease that started slowly, and is
now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit,
with 6 GB of ram.
It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic
encryption and anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in
our experiences are the clues towards a solution, and I hope
FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is
not worth the problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat
myself up any longer dealing with the performance problems
JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more
worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we
would have to go back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to
10, but after that, FS was focusing too much on developing
new features, in order to justify us continuing to work with
them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has
become vastly more complicated, to come up with all those
nifty visual features, and it has been a constant battle for
screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should
accept that JAWS basic stability and features have now
become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot
of JAWS when the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is
a complete acknowledgement of how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to
quit trying new features for a while, and concentrate on
stability of what JAWS already has, JAWS users need to send
a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to accept
less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for
allowing ourselves to get excited about new JAWS versions,
but we never were asked whether we valued new features over
stability. I suggest that it is now time for us to make
that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of
stable performance for our day in and day out use of
computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford




------------------------------------------------------------
----------
This E-mail message is confidential, is intended only for
the named recipients above and may contain information that
is privileged, attorney work product or otherwise protected
by applicable law. If you have received this message in
error, please notify the sender at 402-346-6000 and delete
this E-mail message.
Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Maria
Campbell
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 2:11 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

I have also been very disappointed in the increasing instability of JAWS
in Internet Explorer, especially since Edge isn't even supported at all
at this time. I would be much happier to pay for greater future
stability than for new features that I may never, or hardly ever use.


Maria Campbell
lucky1@...

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive.
--Dalai Lama

On 12/9/2016 2:59 PM, Gudrun Brunot wrote:

Music to my ears, Tim. Thank you for taking the time and going to the
trouble to put this in a nutshell for us. I know I've been noticing

problems

with JAWS and not been able to figure out whether it was because I wasn't
spending enough time reading the training material from FS or whether it

was

my configuration or JAWS settings. What I've had difficulty with is

websites

where I get stuck in some toolbar and told that I'm on a tab that I can't
get out of, whether I tab, control-tab, or arrow around. All I can do is
close the site and reopen it. That has been extremely irritating and
time-consuming for a long time.

Yeah for stability.



Gudrun

-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tim Ford
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 11:20 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: JAWS 17 and 18 have some basic inherent flaw.

Hi All,

I warn readers that my post here is a bit long, but for those of you who
want to help things improve with JAWS, I urge you to take the time to
consider my observations and opinions described below.

Back early on with JAWS 17, I reported to Freedom Scientific the
sluggishness I was experiencing. I also reported that on this list. At

the

time, nobody else seemed to be having the problem, and FS said they had

not

heard of anyone but me having the problems. Maybe I was the first, but

now

it seems obvious the problem is steadily affecting more and more of us.

I tried every update of JAWS 17, hoping it would fix the problems, but the
sluggishness became worse. I tried all beta test versions of JAWS 18, and
although it seemed a bit better, eventually J 18 was impacted to the point
that I quit using it.

I completely uninstalled every piece of FS software, other than Open Book,
and did a new install of JAWS 16 from the installation CD. I have not had
any of the sluggishness, now going on about 3 weeks.

It thus seems clear there is a fundamental problem with J 17 and 18, that

it

affects different computers at different rates of onset, like a disease

that

started slowly, and is now gathering steam as it spreads.

My machine is an HP laptop running Windows 7 Pro, 32 bit, with 6 GB of

ram.

It is a state government agency machine, with Semantic encryption and
anti-virus, and Office 2013. Somewhere in our experiences are the clues
towards a solution, and I hope FS figures it out soon.

For now, I will stay with J 16. If I decide that JAWS is not worth the
problems, I will go to NVDA, but not beat myself up any longer dealing

with

the performance problems JAWS 17-18 have. My current license is good only
up to version 17, and I just wont' pay for any more worthless upgrades.

From my vague recollection, to find good JAWS stability, we would have to

go

back to something like JAWS 7, maybe up to 10, but after that, FS was
focusing too much on developing new features, in order to justify us
continuing to work with them.

That said, I also appreciate that Windows and web design has become vastly
more complicated, to come up with all those nifty visual features, and it
has been a constant battle for screen readers to keep up. JAWS is losing
the battle.

My humble suggestion is that Freedom Scientific should accept that JAWS
basic stability and features have now become too unstable for most of us.
JAWS created the new "feature" of having an automatic reboot of JAWS when
the system senses a lockup. That "feature" is a complete acknowledgement

of

how unstable JAWS has become.

In order for a private vendor such as FS to be motivated to quit trying

new

features for a while, and concentrate on stability of what JAWS already

has,

JAWS users need to send a clear message to FS, that we will be willing to
accept less new glitz, in exchange for stability.

Maybe us JAWS users have to share some of the blame for allowing ourselves
to get excited about new JAWS versions, but we never were asked whether we
valued new features over stability. I suggest that it is now time for us

to

make that clear, that glitz is fine, but not at the expense of stable
performance for our day in and day out use of computers.

Thank you for considering my long rant.,

Tim Ford