Windows 10 update GRRRRRRRRR

[Tubetec]

After about four hours updating, windows now presents me with a nag screen trying to get me to use voice recognition/control and cortana, even if I dont want it enabled I still have to check an 'agree' box before it will let me into windows . Ive also noticed that privacy settings I tightened up before have been undone by the updates. Im getting pi**ed off with microsoft changing my settings without my permission ,I dont have a team of  lawyers to explain the ins and out of microsofts privacy policies either. Its time to get mean and employ some third party tools to lock it down tighter than a crabs ass . Theres a bit of software called 'Spy bot' that looks like its easy to use and locks down multiple items with the press of a button, Id be interested to hear if anyone else has experience with it or other privacy tools on Win 10.
GDPR is in here now so I suspect MS is busy engineering in caveats and clauses to keep the marketing info freely flowing . I guess I could get in there and try and locate whats most likely a mems microphone chip  on the board and whip it out ,but that might not be so easy ,the old electret condenser mics were easy to spot and amputate .

 

[desol]

The answer was an easy one for me...and it's been probably ....mmm... 6 months now?

Linux with KDE for regular use/browsing. Much better and much more secure. Plus they're not at all concerned with f***in with your sh*t. It leaves you in complete and utter control...the way I like it. I went with Linut Mint and KDE, which imo, is the coolest desktop. KDE isn't offered any more on Mint tho, so...

Dual booted with Windows, just in case.  Somehow, I never use it.

To dual boot, format drive...make two equal partitions. Install windows first on one...and then install Linux second on the other. Call it a day.

 

[Tubetec]

Certainly an option worth thinking about alright Desol,  I have used a few different flavours of Linux before ,mostly 'live cd' type things but run on a usb stick instead .

 

[desol]

I love it(this setup). I'll never go back. Gives me everything I want and need!

 

[ruffrecords]

I have been using Linux for about 20 years. It just keeps getting better and better (not like Windows which seems to get worse and worse). There are now only two programs I need Windows for and I have those on an old Vista laptop. I do run some other windows programs but they run on my Linux box using Wine so I don't need windows for them.

Cheers

Ian

 

[desol]

I have Wine too, but it seems a bit dodgy, which I why I like the dual boot...just in case.

 

[Scodiddly]

My home "business" computer runs Ubuntu Linux, has been for years. Much less annoying than Windows 10, which right now is like living with a junky.

At work (live sound company) we've got a few show Windows laptops, and whenever one comes back we have to leave it up overnight so it can digest whatever updates are being pushed out.  Incredibly annoying to be in front of a customer when the laptop decides it's time to restart and spend a couple hours pleasuring itself.

 

[Tubetec]

Ahahahah , I got a good laugh off that Scottdiddly, 'living with a junkie' and 'pleasuring itself ' is a good way to put it ,its kind of like its pre-occupied half the time checking its own underpants for skid marks or something . Its been a while since I booted Linux ,but even way back I was impressed with the immediacy of it, as well as the lack of nag screens and warnings ,pick the right distribution for your needs and it just works ,registry doesnt tend to get bogged down  either ,where windows needs the programming equivalent of prep-H every once in a while  to stop it from scratching its own arse ;D

 

[RuudNL]

No Windows 10 for me...
I had it on my computer for just one day!
Windows 10 decided to remove some applications 'that are not compatible with Windows 10',  but always worked without any problem under Windows 7. (And: I needed those, most technical, applications!)
So I removed all Windows 10 crap and reinstalled Windows 7 Professional.
Now everything works (again) without problems!

 

[alexc]

Someone gave me a free win10 - it lasted about 2hours before reverting back to my backed up Win7 64 setup!

I suppose it would work OK on a tablet or other touch screen ...  on my fast pc, it was slow and horrible ....  even with all the bs-ware removed by a nifty 3rd party toolset.

Good grief ..  todays choices .... macos  or win10    wtf?  Both seem brain dead to me 

 

[Tubetec]

Yeah Ive run every version of windows since win 98 . Vista, Win 8 and Win 10 are a pain . I was always happy with Win 7 when I ran it on a system , I found some componentised versions of it too where you can taylor things back a bit depending on what you want, I think it really is time to say bye bye to WIn 10 ,it wrecks the heads of anyone trying to use it . When the os seems to arbitrairily change the appearance and the settings , this can be especially difficult for older people  ,or people who dont know how to administer and change the settings of windows . I must have a dig around in Linux too although I dont have much of an idea of command prompt syntax ,I guess theres many gui based set ups there now to choose from so its more intuitive and your up an running more or less straight away .

 

[alexc]

Horses for courses, I suppose.  I had the impression that win 10 might function well as a kitchen device   

Reading recipes and chatting and stuff like media playing ...

Linux is very interesting for sure, but remains more of a programmer's machine imho - great for office working etc.

For heavy personal productivity, I can't find better than Win7

MacOS applications are of course, terrific, but using 'finder' or whatever the hell the file-manager app is,  would raise my hackles.

I'm just getting old   

 

[desol]

Linux is very interesting for sure, but remains more of a programmer's machine imho - great for office working etc.

Not more of a programmer's machine, more of a defiance machine.

 

[john12ax7]

Are there usable options outside of Win 10 for touchscreen 2 in 1 laptops?  Meaning keeping the touchscreen capabilities.

 

[ruffrecords]

Linux is very interesting for sure, but remains more of a programmer's machine imho - great for office working etc.

For heavy personal productivity, I can't find better than Win7

I don't know why you think Linux is a programmer's machine. It has a fully functional GUI just like widows and a full range of desk top apps as well. I do everything on Linux and I don't need to use the command line. And of course it only does what YOU want it to.

Ian

 

[Bo Deadly]

Linux is not a suitable desktop machine for just about anything. As a developer I have used Linux exclusively as my primary machine since ~1998 (kernel 2.0.35 I think). But aside from the obvious browsing and checking email and maybe doing a document or simple spreadsheet with Libreoffice, it is totally useless as a desktop. I only use it because I spend 80% of my time in terminals editing code vim and running shell commands. And even that has become more difficult as the desktops have actually deteriorated over the years as Linux desktop developers gut and slash features to make the desktop experience a dumbed down version of OSX. The Linux desktop was never any good and it never will be for countless reasons other than the obvious fact that it does not run Eagle, LTSpice, Sketchup, Front Panel Designer, Draftsight, common DAWs or any of the usual non-EE applications and the reason for that is because Windows desktop market share is >80% so companies that write desktop software (as opposed to some little "app" or web based solution) are going to write it for the Windows platform. End of story. No further consideration necessary. It is a simple pragmatic economic calculation. I know there are a lot of folks that disagree with this assessment but if they have never worked in a corporate / enterprise environment and never see how the desktop is really used in a serious work environment where folks are doing engineering, financial analysis, shipping, medical services, banking, document processing, and so on and so on they just don't know what they're talking about. Linux is for headless servers. And for that it is very good because the economic equation works.

Regarding Windows, there have been some complaints recently about updates being slow and yes, MS has slipped a little over the years. I have always found it necessary and wise to do a "clean" re-install every 4-years max because crud builds up. Either buy a new machine (increasingly unnecessary) or get a good SSD, re-install and re-install the latest version of all of your applications. Don't try to upgrade or migrate things. Also, perhaps even more important, do not run as as Admin. When you initialize a new installation, call the primary account "owner" or something generic. Then, once it's up to date and working, create a second non-Admin account and use that for day to day stuff. You can right-click on things and do "Run as Administrator" if necessary.

 

[Tubetec]

Looks like my Win 10 is still digesting the latest updates ,boot time has gone out to about 3 1/2 minutes,loads of browser crashes,slowdowns and  expletives from me . I think MSHQ has my entire  foul language vocabulary fairly well down at this stage.
Im getting Win !0 off this fecking machine tomorrow , sounds like my entire network from the router up needs sanitising ,cause of course if you run other legacy systems in your network Win 10 is always going to be boss, and it inserts things into legacy  to keep itself pleasured. 

Im seriously starting to think about surgery to remove microphones from this pc now ,camera lives with a blinker on it over its eyeball unless actually in use .Maybe though finding a quick and easy way to disable the drivers used for the internal mics might be better than diggleing with my mobo, and risking damage. Still though theres nothing like killing the hardware properly for 100% peace of mind . I did once desolder the audio codec from a pc , so it didnt have any internal audio capabillity what so ever ,I  had default sound set to  usb to optical in out ,worked quite well and there was never an issue in windows sound panel about device priority.  I did have another usb/optical I used use it allowed either usb to set sample rate or had a mode switch so that 44.1/48 could be automatically output from the optical this was great as it stopped the usual lumps bumps n cracking sounds you  get from internal sound cards as windows boots up.As soon as the usb saw power the convertors locked and only very minor audio disturbances occured  as windows changed sample rate. Why windows flicks through sample rates when it boots ,I dont know ,but those cracks could take out a tweeter in your monitors easy if you boot up with the volume cranked , not to mention knackering your's and your customers ears before youve even recorded a note .

 

[desol]

Linux is not a suitable desktop machine for just about anything. As a developer I have used Linux exclusively as my primary machine since ~1998 (kernel 2.0.35 I think). But aside from the obvious browsing and checking email and maybe doing a document or simple spreadsheet with Libreoffice, it is totally useless as a desktop. I only use it because I spend 80% of my time in terminals editing code vim and running shell commands. And even that has become more difficult as the desktops have actually deteriorated over the years as Linux desktop developers gut and slash features to make the desktop experience a dumbed down version of OSX. The Linux desktop was never any good and it never will be for countless reasons other than the obvious fact that it does not run Eagle, LTSpice, Sketchup, Front Panel Designer, Draftsight, common DAWs or any of the usual non-EE applications and the reason for that is because Windows desktop market share is >80% so companies that write desktop software (as opposed to some little "app" or web based solution) are going to write it for the Windows platform. End of story. No further consideration necessary. It is a simple pragmatic economic calculation. I know there are a lot of folks that disagree with this assessment but if they have never worked in a corporate / enterprise environment and never see how the desktop is really used in a serious work environment where folks are doing engineering, financial analysis, shipping, medical services, banking, document processing, and so on and so on they just don't know what they're talking about. Linux is for headless servers. And for that it is very good because the economic equation works.

Regarding Windows, there have been some complaints recently about updates being slow and yes, MS has slipped a little over the years. I have always found it necessary and wise to do a "clean" re-install every 4-years max because crud builds up. Either buy a new machine (increasingly unnecessary) or get a good SSD, re-install and re-install the latest version of all of your applications. Don't try to upgrade or migrate things. Also, perhaps even more important, do not run as as Admin. When you initialize a new installation, call the primary account "owner" or something generic. Then, once it's up to date and working, create a second non-Admin account and use that for day to day stuff. You can right-click on things and do "Run as Administrator" if necessary.

I don't trust the windows security experience. That's the big story for me. It's also why I run dual boot...

 

[Tubetec]

Thats fairly solid advice Squarewave , Ive regularly done the clean install thing with windows and its way better than searching needles in haystacks and doing patch up jobs . The non admin user account is the best way to go too , it keeps everything locked down a bit tighter ,and generally makes a hackers life more difficult . I have a spare ssd waiting ,Im formatting up a usb for installing Win 7 tomorrow and that'll be that, you can have your free upgrade back MS and your spyware too .

 

[ruffrecords]

Linux is not a suitable desktop machine for just about anything. As a developer I have used Linux exclusively as my primary machine since ~1998 (kernel 2.0.35 I think). But aside from the obvious browsing and checking email and maybe doing a document or simple spreadsheet with Libreoffice, it is totally useless as a desktop. I only use it because I spend 80% of my time in terminals editing code vim and running shell commands. And even that has become more difficult as the desktops have actually deteriorated over the years as Linux desktop developers gut and slash features to make the desktop experience a dumbed down version of OSX. The Linux desktop was never any good and it never will be for countless reasons other than the obvious fact that it does not run Eagle, LTSpice, Sketchup, Front Panel Designer, Draftsight, common DAWs or any of the usual non-EE applications and the reason for that is because Windows desktop market share is >80% so companies that write desktop software (as opposed to some little "app" or web based solution) are going to write it for the Windows platform. End of story. No further consideration necessary. It is a simple pragmatic economic calculation. I know there are a lot of folks that disagree with this assessment but if they have never worked in a corporate / enterprise environment and never see how the desktop is really used in a serious work environment where folks are doing engineering, financial analysis, shipping, medical services, banking, document processing, and so on and so on they just don't know what they're talking about. Linux is for headless servers. And for that it is very good because the economic equation works.

  Too much FUD. 

Linux does run Eagle natively.  Front Panel designer is a native Linux application.  Linux runs LTspice , Daftsight, DesignSpark, FreePCB, and many other windows apps perfectly using wine. What is more it has better featured more stable versions of many expensive windows apps. LibreOffice is better than MS office and runs natively on both platforms as does gnu for image manipulation,  LibreCAD,  QCAD, Inkscape and a host of other applications.

OK it does not support the usual DAWs but I don't use one so it's not a problem for me. But there's Ardour and Audacity. If you want a  native DAW there is always Harrison's  Mixbus. For 90% of the population, Linux does everything you need,

Cheers

Ian