x
This website is using cookies. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. More info. That's Fine
HPC:Factor Logo 
 
Latest Forum Activity

Okay, I think I'm glad I never upgraded from Windows 7

1 2 3
CE Geek Page Icon Posted 2020-10-17 11:38 PM
#
Avatar image of CE Geek
Global Moderator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
12,662
Location:
Southern California
Status:
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/10/17/21520315/microsoft-...

Sound familiar at all, C:Amie?

(Looks like they sneaked Edge into the latest W7 updates though, cuz I do have that on my Windows 7 PC now.)
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2020-10-18 10:28 AM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
The guy's ranting about nothing that those of us in the industry weren't ranting about in 2015. At the time, most of the focus was candy crush saga. If you know what boxes to tick, you can turn a fair amount of it off on 10 Pro, all of it off in 10 Enterprise and substantially less of it off in 10 Home.
The author has seen his Windows 10 Home updated to 2004, which has reloaded the start menu XML file with new apps. More worryingly, it now actually installs things in the Programs and Features list (Add/Remove Programs) too, so it is doing slightly more than shovelling modern app excrement onto your PC now... but at least it's better than candy crush saga.

With Microsoft they also have a ruse in play. All these forced installs of candy crush rubbish, twitter and other low quality, buggy modern app nonsense is the only thing that gives the Microsoft Store any install count. Once Microsoft gets one of the binaries onto the machine, the second the PC sees a Microsoft Account, the app gets licensed into your Microsoft Account, indelibly. You cant remove it. So are far as King are concerned, virtually every Windows user prior to 2019 whose IT didn't come from a corporate IT department is a licensed user of candy crush. Along with any other crap that Microsoft has peddled onto you since Windows 8.0.

I don't have these problems because I have all the registry keys set to stop it from happening and Microsoft can't forcibly restart my machines; again because I know what registry values to set. For those that don't, welcome to the future, today! Software as a service is here to stay and Windows is likely headed to becoming free, at least in the consumer space. At that time it is no different to iOS or Android where forced app installs are normal. Google has been trying to force Google Duo onto my phone since Covid started and Zoom/Teams started getting so much free publicity that they decided they needed to try and muscle in too. I don't allow automatic updates, so they've failed to so far and unless Samsung ROM burns it, they're going to remain disappointed too.

They're all the same CE Geek, they want telemetry and tracking data and they want to service-lock you on their platform. They all feed from the same tough, so they all use the same practices. It is going to start to become increasingly difficult for me to exist on Windows because everything is becoming de-latched from on premises and moved to the cloud: either Azure or Microsoft Account. In order to keep the telemetry free, effluent free experience, you'll need to be on Volume Licensing to use Azure and that isn't an affordable position.

So like most people, we probably have to choose which monster to sell our soul (and data) to in the next 5 years. Apple, Google or Microsoft, or do we move to Linux and see which distro can hold out the longest against Google and Microsoft's insidious yet inexorable take-over of Linux.

Either way: "all your data (and unwarranted subscription only licensing models) belong to us"


As for Edge: It probably needed to be done, I don't want anything to do with Bing. It is utterly useless. If it were easier to strip Bing out of it, I'd be happier. That said, they should have sent it out and deinstalled IE from everything on 7 Home editions at the same time. I deinstalled IE from everything I manage (client and server) earlier in the year and used the business version of Edge to replace it. You can get rid of most of the Bing stuff using the Business version, but a lot of features are administratively locked if you do it otherwise you can't change them. For example, if you want to change the search providers to Duck Duck Go and Google, removing Bing, the end-user then can't add their own search providers.

The version that comes down from Windows Update, is the consumer version with the grotesquely annoying, time consuming, full screen 'Welcome to Edge' animation and intro screen. Have fun with that when you log into 50 different PCs a day and have to wait, watch it, answer through the damn sign-in OOBE wizard just to land on Bing, have to change to a real search engine to type some senseless search keyword in.

The new version of Windows 10, 20H2 will come pre-burned with the new Edge too, so everyone is going to get to share in the love.
 Top of the page
hpc12 Page Icon Posted 2020-10-18 8:03 PM
#
Avatar image of hpc12
Factorite (Junior)

Posts:
29
Location:
Inside
Status:
I've also followed the guides to strip the Windows Update, Telemetry, Search & Bing, and tracking & logging from the machine, and with the barebones, Windows 10 is a competent OS.

Isn't it incredible that a Windows 98 PC can feel more secure and stable than something from 20 years later. Perhaps it's age, but there's something gratifying about being able to compute offline, without feeling as if your personal data is being analyzed. If only phones were the same.

Have you checked out Windwows 10 Ameliorated that Linus Tech Tips covered recently? Unfortunately Microsoft jumped on it, but before the takedown, it was almost like a secure, functional, modern OSS-dependent Windows.
 Top of the page
hpcboy Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 8:19 AM
#
Avatar image of hpcboy
H/PC Philosopher

Posts:
256
Location:
Hong Kong SAR
Status:
Honestly I am not so sure about the security and stability of Win98. There were also many viruses around in those days. Crashes were so frequent that reinstalling the whole windows was not rare experience, let alone finding the right drivers for all sorts of stuff. But I do agree about the advantage of freedom from being forced to be connected not just to the OS providers but also all the corporate culprits, plus tons of unseen data collection companies in the shadow.

Back in the days I used to nlite my setup (win98, 2000, xp). Not sure if this is still viable anymore for Win10. Just curious about the vulnerability aspect if Windows Update gets taken out altogether.

Bing is such an eyesore and should have never existed in the first place.

I fully agree with C:Amie's point that "we probably have to choose which monster to sell our soul (and data) to". It always feels disconcerting when seeing gadget users presuming they are the smart people simply because of their mindless use of their "smart" computing devices. Probably the meaning of "smart" has already undergone tremendous redefinitions since the advent of Web 2.0.

Away from those gargantuans OSs, ReactOS sounds like a very promising (unborn) hero. I wonder how good it can support the old handhelds especially the HPCs.

 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 8:58 AM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
I'm not able to agree about Windows 98 being more secure or stable Blue screens a monthly occurrence, crashing after 47 days, no firewall, SMB and RPC ports open to Internet connections, always available IPC shares, reinstalling every 6 months by rote... and I could go on.

I have my own build script that takes a Windows 10 ISO image and disabled/kills most of the horrors. The problem is that with every 6-months Windows release, Microsoft change the parameters of the little game we play... it's almost as if they don't want these intrusions being disabled...

Fancy that.
 Top of the page
torch Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 5:09 PM
#
Avatar image of torch
Subscribers
H/PC Guru

Posts:
5,661
Location:
United States 
Status:
Hey! I actually like Windows 10 20H2, I think it's very speedy/peppy.
I had to revert my friend's laptop to 1809 because of driver issues with the AMD graphics.

I just wish you could have a little more control over updates if they cause driver issues - I had to set a metered connection to disable his updates past 1809.
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 5:22 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
That will also stop windows update from running, which is dangerous.
I take it that you are assuming that this won't ever be fixed?
 Top of the page
torch Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 5:44 PM
#
Avatar image of torch
Subscribers
H/PC Guru

Posts:
5,661
Location:
United States 
Status:
Quote
C:Amie - 2020-10-19 9:22 AM

That will also stop windows update from running, which is dangerous.
I take it that you are assuming that this won't ever be fixed?

I honestly don't know what to do - my friend was on Windows 10 v1809 before I messed with his computer.
Then I put it onto 1909 then 2004/20H2, but starting with 1909 and higher his graphics card driver keeps crashing - even with the newest AMD updates.

I think what I may do is just put him on the Microsoft Basic Graphics Adapter and upgrade him to 20H2 because 1809 gets its support dropped soon.
 Top of the page
Alt Bass Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 6:38 PM
#
Avatar image of Alt Bass
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,169
Location:
Russia
Status:
I will be upgrading to this in the coming days.
https://ameliorated.info/
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 7:16 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Quote
torch - 2020-10-19 5:44 PM

Quote
C:Amie - 2020-10-19 9:22 AM

That will also stop windows update from running, which is dangerous.
I take it that you are assuming that this won't ever be fixed?

I honestly don't know what to do - my friend was on Windows 10 v1809 before I messed with his computer.
Then I put it onto 1909 then 2004/20H2, but starting with 1909 and higher his graphics card driver keeps crashing - even with the newest AMD updates.

I think what I may do is just put him on the Microsoft Basic Graphics Adapter and upgrade him to 20H2 because 1809 gets its support dropped soon.

He isn't going to be able to game on MS Basic. Is this integrated graphics? If it is, have you tried a BIOS update, it could be a firmware bug? Alternatively, perhaps it's better to just get a 2D intended PCIe card, something like a
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 7:25 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Quote
Alt Bass - 2020-10-19 6:38 PM

I will be upgrading to this in the coming days.
https://ameliorated.info/
Have you tried https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Don't forget that you need to update Windows every year otherwise they stop patching you. These fan projects are great until the reality of all the manual labour sets in.
 Top of the page
torch Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 7:57 PM
#
Avatar image of torch
Subscribers
H/PC Guru

Posts:
5,661
Location:
United States 
Status:
Quote
C:Amie - 2020-10-19 11:16 AM

Quote
torch - 2020-10-19 5:44 PM

Quote
C:Amie - 2020-10-19 9:22 AM

That will also stop windows update from running, which is dangerous.
I take it that you are assuming that this won't ever be fixed?

I honestly don't know what to do - my friend was on Windows 10 v1809 before I messed with his computer.
Then I put it onto 1909 then 2004/20H2, but starting with 1909 and higher his graphics card driver keeps crashing - even with the newest AMD updates.

I think what I may do is just put him on the Microsoft Basic Graphics Adapter and upgrade him to 20H2 because 1809 gets its support dropped soon.

He isn't going to be able to game on MS Basic. Is this integrated graphics? If it is, have you tried a BIOS update, it could be a firmware bug? Alternatively, perhaps it's better to just get a 2D intended PCIe card, something like a


It’s a laptop so I’m not able to upgrade the graphics card. He only uses it for web browsing and YouTube. If the basic graphics driver works I’ll just switch him to that. He has one of those funky buggy AMD Processor/Graphics combo things. It has a lot of issues post 1809 it seems with drivers.
 Top of the page
hpcboy Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 8:04 PM
#
Avatar image of hpcboy
H/PC Philosopher

Posts:
256
Location:
Hong Kong SAR
Status:
True story: The Win10 on my wife's desktop got wrecked after the 19xx updates and couldn't boot properly anymore. Finally instead of reinstalling the windows, I put Linux (Ubuntu 20) on it and now she's even happier than before!
 Top of the page
hpc12 Page Icon Posted 2020-10-19 10:59 PM
#
Avatar image of hpc12
Factorite (Junior)

Posts:
29
Location:
Inside
Status:
Quote
C:Amie - 2020-10-19 8:58 AM
I'm not able to agree about Windows 98 being more secure or stable Blue screens a monthly occurrence, crashing after 47 days, no firewall, SMB and RPC ports open to Internet connections, always available IPC shares, reinstalling every 6 months by rote... and I could go on.


You know what they say about rose-tinted glasses...

It's strange though, how time affects our perception of things. Thinking deeply on it, I experienced much the same affronts as you in the past. Clearly remember having some drivers (especially for esoteric audio interface) that would routinely BSOD twice-thrice per day. Pressing "space" as fast as possible, a surefire remedy.

Running Windows 98 today, offline, on retro machines is clean & smooth - perhaps the modern internet intrinsically poisons that which it touches.
 Top of the page
ArchiMark Page Icon Posted 2020-10-20 3:50 AM
#
Avatar image of ArchiMark
Subscribers
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
1,195
Location:
Silicon Valley
Status:
Quote
hpcboy - 2020-10-19 12:04 PM

True story: The Win10 on my wife's desktop got wrecked after the 19xx updates and couldn't boot properly anymore. Finally instead of reinstalling the windows, I put Linux (Ubuntu 20) on it and now she's even happier than before!


I believe it!

 Top of the page
1 2 3
Jump to forum:
Seconds to generate: 0.218 - Cached queries : 70 - Executed queries : 11