The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[BetterRed]

@GrannyGrump - I skipped 8 and 8.1, went from 7 to 10. To make transition easier I ran Classic something (Shell, Start, Menu or ...) it made the Start Menu more like Win7, and File Explorer more like Windows Explorer. Once I got all my applications, shell extensions and startup programs settled in I ditched whatever it was and started using the Win 10 Start Menu (not that I ever used it much) and File Explorer - I like Ribbons, so I took to it like a duck to water.

My biggest gripe is their new Settings 'app', it partially replaces Control Panel - and therein lies the problem, one is never sure where to look, in Settings or CP, and some things seem to be accessible from Settings AND Control Panel.

All the software I ran on Win7 runs on Win10, and some of it is quite old; programs I first used on NT 4/5 last century (good grief, almost 20 years ago) still run - in normal mode. They look a bit retro but they still do what they were designed to do. Still, that's bugger all, the Voyagers have been going for twice as long, and IEBGENER still runs on z/OS after 50++ years

BR

[Blossom]

My main problem with portable software is if multiple users use the same PC then you need to add it to each profile. When you install a program it's available to all users.

As for Windows 10 my main complaint is how much is running in the background. I also hate having control taken from me. I need to figure out a way to optimized this laptop for performance. In the old Windows 98 days I used a program called Tune Up for that. Software was trustworthy then.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@GrannyGrump
My biggest gripe is their new Settings 'app', it partially replaces Control Panel - and therein lies the problem, ones never sure where to look, in Settings or CP, and some things seem to be accessible from Settings AND Control Panel.

BR

This. I also don't know know why they did this. I'm constantly running back and forth looking for a setting.

[John F]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

...

My biggest gripe is their new Settings 'app', it partially replaces Control Panel - and therein lies the problem, one is never sure where to look, in Settings or CP, and some things seem to be accessible from Settings AND Control Panel.

...

I used to like the Control Panel up through XP: I knew where everything was, and it seemed logical. If I had to do something, I could quickly browse through the Control Panel and figure it out. I use to scoff at Vista users who used Start->Search to get things done.

I'm now using Windows 7, and I have to use Start->Search to get things done. The control Panel doesn't seem logical to me anymore. If I have to support someone on Win 10, I don't even try to figure out Settings/Control Panel, I just go straight to Start->Search (and Google).

[Blossom]

You do know you can have control panel in classic view right?

Sent from my XT1528

[John F]

Originally Posted by Blossom

You do know you can have control panel in classic view right?

Sent from my XT1528

Sure. And it has 60 categories.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I must move from Win8 to a new Win10 laptop in the next few days, and hoping that goes smoothly. I have never had contact yet with Win10 -- our (government entity) office is still using Win7.

Any gotcha's I should be watching for?

Depends.

The biggest gotcha for most folks is that once again, MS has changed around the interface. They brought back the Start Menu that was in Win7, but in an exercise in fixing what wasn't broken, changed it around. The solution to that was to install the open source Classic Shell application, which brought back the Win7 Start Menu.

An annoyance here is multiple places to configure things, and needing to remember where a particular configuration needs to be made. There is still the Control Panel for most things, but various common tasks like specifying default programs now get done from a PC Settings screen. Gee, MS. Is it too much to ask to have all configuration done from one place?

Another issue is that Win10 has telemetry you can't turn off, and will push critical updates you can't decline. At best, you can specify when updates will be processed. (You can remove an update after installation, but can't prevent it from being applied in the first place.)

These moves make sense in terms of MS's current notion that their customer is the Enterprise, and the core of the user base is corporations with many copies of Windows on the desktop. Windows phones home to to report on its condition so MS can determine what problems are and apply fixes, and critical updates are pushed to insure machine are at current patch levels with current security fixes. I'm actually in favor of that, but I'm a corporate IT type who once worked into the wee hours of the morning helping to remediate a virus infestation on the corporate network. The security hole that allowed it to get in had been patched months previously, but the company had not been enforcing critical updates and the machine that was the entry vector had never gotten the patch.

People had privacy concerns over Windows phoning home, but nothing in the base telemetry gave me privacy heartburn. It was all related to the state of Windows, and didn't identify me. Windows will also ask you to approve certain default settings when first run. Just say no to all of them. If you discover you actually want one, it can be applied after the fact.

I do recommend you spend the extra money to get Win10 Pro, not Home, as it provides more control over what Win10 can do. And you might want to install O&O Shutup, a freeware anti-spying tool from the makers of the O&O Defrag utility that will further control what Win10 phones home.
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Dennis

[Blossom]

Oh don't forget Cortana who can no longer be shut off and hogs most resources. I didn't have that problem because I turned her off when I first upgraded then the anniversary update broke her and the creators update brought her back. You can't disable her now at all. She crashes randomly too.

Sent from my XT1528

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I do recommend you spend the extra money to get Win10 Pro, not Home, as it provides more control over what Win10 can do.

In Pro you get the GUI "Policy Editor", which is basically a human comprehensible GUI interface to the registry, whereas Home assumes its users know how and what to hack in the registry ಠ_ಠ" Ψ²

Pro also gives you is more control over major updates (e.g. when 1709 gets installed), I defer them until 60 days after they're declared fit for general release in the corporate environment. With Home you get very little control.

Beats me why MS persisted with the Home and Pro versions, they only need two - Personal and Corporate.

BR

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Oh don't forget Cortana who can no longer be shut off and hogs most resources. I didn't have that problem because I turned her off when I first upgraded then the anniversary update broke her and the creators update brought her back. You can't disable her now at all. She crashes randomly too.

Cortana has never done that here. According to Task Manager, she's currently taking 0% CPU and 2.2MB RAM.

I don't use her, but while I believe she can be turned off, it's not worth my bother to find out how.
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Dennis

[BetterRed]

If Cortana is the thing that pops up when you press Winkey+S, then I like it.

I found out early on how to turn off its voice output - in fact the install might have offered an option. Means I can talk to it, but it can't answer back audibly...

Its a zillion times faster than any other similar thing MS ever provided - like that dog thing. I can type the name of a program (including portables) and there it it is at the top of the list ready for me to hit enter.

BR

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

My main problem with portable software is if multiple users use the same PC then you need to add it to each profile. When you install a program it's available to all users.

The simplest way to deal with that is the intended usage for portable apps - you put them on a USB thumb drive and run them from there. They are portable because you can carry the thumb drive around and plug it into whatever machine you happen to be using.

As long as the thumb drive is plugged in, the user sitting at the machine can access it. No need for pointers in a user profile.

As for Windows 10 my main complaint is how much is running in the background. I also hate having control taken from me. I need to figure out a way to optimized this laptop for performance.

There has always been a lot of stuff running in the background on NT based versions of Windows. Win10 is not significantly worse.

A lot of the background tasks are related to Windows services, and you can stop them by disabling the service. But that's a "You better know what you're doing" move, and not recommended for the average user.

In the old Windows 98 days I used a program called Tune Up for that. Software was trustworthy then.

You have a novel idea of trustworthy. Despite my efforts to keep things clean and optimized, Win98SE reached the point of needing to be rebooted four of five times a day. (And I'm an IT guy who knew what he was doing.) That's scarcely something I'd call "trustworthy".

When I finally got a driver for my SCSI scanner and could migrate to Win2K, I was ecstatic. It was up 24/7, and Just Ran. It was only rebooted it I was fiddling with hardware or installed something that required it.

I don't miss Win9X at all.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Beats me why MS persisted with the Home and Pro versions, they only need two - Personal and Corporate.

IIRC, they have Enterprise and Ultimate versions too, but I don't offhand know what they bring to the party that the Home and Pro editions don't have.
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Dennis

[Hemmi]

I turned Cortana off when I first upgraded to Win 10 and haven't seen her since.

[Blossom]

As you can see she's hogging up resources. If I open the search box it goes to twice that. If anyone knows how to make her calm down please let me know.