What are /r/windows' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Let's see.

$1 tier:

• Defrag. Nope. Unnecessary in the world of SSDs, and otherwise Windows' built-in defrag is enough
• Uninstaller. Maybe. Uninstallers like this are almost always unnecessary, and often are "registry cleaners" under a different name, making them dangerous
• Backup. Maybe, but UrBackup is free so why waste a dollar?

BTA tier:

• System "tune up". Hard no, waste of money, you'll destroy your system
• Driver scanner. Also a hard no. If it ain't broke, you don't need to fix it, and anything that does need frequent updates will tell you (like your GPU)
• VPN. Maybe. Depends on if you need a VPN, and whether or not Speedify is good. Read some reviews, decide if it's worth it. It's probably not, compared to other VPNs.

$15 tier:

• AV software. Nope. Defender, common sense, and if you get into a real bind some freeware/trialware AV software is all you need. Definitely not worth $15
• Hotpsot software. Nope, built into Windows, don't waste your money
• File recovery. Maybe. I've liked some Auslogic software in the past, but honestly with modern filesystems you're not going to get much recovered. You're paying money for optimism, when you would be better off doing backups (see above)
• Winzip. Haha! Pay for Winzip, yeah right. What's next, adding WinRar to the bundle? If the built-in zip handling in Explorer isn't sufficient for you, get 7-zip for free.

Verdict: Nope. Waste of money.

For those wanting a simple video editor right now on Windows there is always OpenShot. It's a free open source application that has been on Linux for years but now runs on Windows.

http://www.openshot.org/images/slider_pic08.jpg

http://www.openshot.org/

Linked issue: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/1527

Monaco Preview enables preview in the File Explorer for over 100 source code file types (like .php, .cs, .h, etc.). It's based on the same code render engine like VS Code.

Sounds like you have a lot of orphaned installer files. Recommend PatchCleaner http://www.homedev.com.au/free/PatchCleaner. I've used the successfully in the past. Just run it to see how many orphaned files you have, that should indicate if this is truly where the problem lies. Then decide whether to go ahead and move/remove

Rufus developer here.

If you are interested, you can find a .appx (Windows Store) package for Rufus 3.0 in our (not so public) <code>testing/</code> directory. We also have ARM and ARM64 versions there.

That'll provide you with some form of installer.

However, because Rufus must run elevated, you will need to right click on the app, and then select run as an admin every time you launch it.

For the record, this is also the reason why we can't submit Rufus to the official Windows Store, because Microsoft does not allow submission for anything that requires admin access to a computer (which Rufus requires to be able to partition and format a drive).

I don't have win10 but I often hear people talk about O&amp;O Shutup10 which can be used to disable some or most of win10's telemetry spyware/keylogging and disable Cortana and other apps.

With less tasks running, it should help your system feel less bloated. That being said, I don't know if Win10 will re-enable these things during monthly, or major updates. I thought I read something on how changes would be made in your registry to revert some things. Hope that helps.

Edit: Short guide on what the program looks like.

Handbrake is an open-source, simple tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. Invaluable when you don't want to send over 4K phone videos and only have a minute.

Go to https://www.voidtools.com/ , download and install "everything". Never look back.

It is lightweight and incredible fast, it finds every file on your PC everywhere.

I never got why the win10 search sucks so much. I mean, google is able to search the whole world internet for anything in milliseconds. The Win10 search does not even properly find files or apps that are installed on a single harddrive in my system.

http://www.wsusoffline.net/

(Site is in English too.)

I use this at work to update desktops and servers... once built... no Internet access is needed. It runs the update requirements check offline and installs patches that are stored in a local folder.

The tool will first have you build an updater... you tailor it to your needs and it builds itself (Internet access required). Then put the updater (under the client folder once built)... on a storage medium of your choosing.

I update this tool once a month after Patch Tuesdays. Be sure to grab the latest version of the tool each month.

1: If you're careful with what you download it's hard to get viruses. The thing about viruses is that they can't download themselves, so as long as you stay away from downloading sketchy stuff you should be fine.

I run a Malwarebytes scan every once in a while to make sure nothing has gotten through, but in the two and a half years I've been using my PC I haven't had anything come up.

2: I honestly didn't notice many usability changes at all when switching from Windows 7 to 10. I also rarely use the Start menu, which is pretty much the only place you'll see the tile UI - to get to my stuff I use Rainmeter and keyboard shortcuts. Here's a pic of my desktop if you're curious as to the sort of stuff you can do with Rainmeter. The keyboard shortcuts I use most often are windows+d to go to the desktop (again to go back to what you had open before) and windows+e to open the file explorer.

3: I used Macs for maybe five or six years before switching to Windows and had no trouble at all making the switch. There's definitely more complex stuff in Windows than in OSX, but you really don't have to touch any of it for basic use. It took all of maybe a day or two for me to get reasonably used to using Windows.

Hope this helps!

• Thunderbird - An old-fashioned, highly configurable email client (because I don't like most web interfaces)
  
  • Notepad++ - A simple text editor for anything that's not a word document

LOL you do know that Ubuntu (and its variants) leaks your data as well?

https://prism-break.org/en/subcategories/windows-operating-systems/

> Canonical’s Ubuntu is not recommended by PRISM Break because it contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default. GNU/Linux distributions based on Ubuntu are also currently not recommended due to several other reasons.

I think VeraCrypt is close to what you want. You can encrypt (password protect) entire drives or you can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a drive.

Not as easy as setting a password to a folder but still... works pretty well for me.

• Firefox
• Thunderbird
• LibreOffice
• Foxit Reader (PDF reader)
• System Explorer
• CCleaner
• Speccy
• Notepad++
• 7zip
• Java

Also, not so much essentials, but rather depending on what you do:

• Steam for gaming
• Dropbox, OneDrive, OwnCloud etc. depending on which services you use
• Teamspeak / Mumble

I mostly get those via Ninite, also useful to just check if you forgot something and prepare an installer.

No, that's not their vision.

Edit: It isn't hard to look at GDC 2015 annoucements: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GDC/GDC-2015

In short:

1. Xbox Live SDK is available for PC games. It means PC games can have Xbox achievements, use Xbox Live infrastucture, profiles. That's not much more than Games for Windows Live but having tried the SDK myself - it's at least robust and without serious flaws. So that's already a good thing.
2. Cross buy, cross platform gaming. You will be able to buy game once and play on PCs running Windows 10 or on Xbox One. There will be also games that you can play from PC with Xbox friends and other way around (Fable Legends, Gigantic - two titles officially annouced). Or you can play your game on your Xbox One at home and then continue playing with synced save data and progress on your tablet or laptop when travelling, communiting to work or whatever (for obviously less complex games).
3. Windows Store can carry full Win32 games, not only "mobile" games.
4. Single dev center between Xbox One and Windows 10 Store. Developers can publish game to both console and Windows PC users in a single click and update them at once - which means that developers who use those tools will have to keep both versions of their games updated (no PC game stalling behind console release or other way around).
5. Promise that all accessories made for Xbox One will also work on Windows. If anybody wants to release racing wheel, headset, fighting games stick for Xbox One they need to also support Windows and Microsoft makes API (DirectX) to make it simple. It also means that if HoloLens is gaming accessory it'll also support PC equally as Xbox One.
6. ID@Xbox for PC. Microsoft helping with their resources to publish indie games.
7. DirectX 12 overall.

Now, they haven't been yet any annoucments of Xbox One exclusive titles coming to PC but as I said just wait.

Yeah, uBlock (non-origin version) is set up by a no talent hack who spends time passing off others work as his own so he can make shitty icons and try get donation money so he can buy iPads.

uBlock (Origin) by Raymond &quot;gorhill&quot; Hill is the original project, the original developer and he actively maintains it with actual changes.

QTTabBar has been working great for me. I think people might have trouble with the sourceforge version, so I recommend using this one instead. It's clearly been updated for Win 10

Your computer isn’t limited in resource. Your processor is from 2014 and you have plenty of ram. There video online of 10 years processor that run Win10 better than they ran Vista. Your computer will have no problem running Win 10.

As for the tinfoil hat, if your only concern was because of performance, you can leave them on. Otherwise, here is a small program that will disable most of it.

If you pay attention during the upgrade and not click next without paying attention, you can disabled most of the tracking feature in the install.

Opera is owned by a chinese consortium, think of it what you want (especially regarding VPN).

Vivaldi is the 'new' browser by the opera founder / CEO. Also supports chrome extensions out of the box and uses the same rendering engine.

Windows Deployment Server is free with normal server licenses.

It can PXE boot, load in all sorts of drivers and is really smart. I prefer it to SCCMs version. There is a book on how to set it up, I can’t recall the name of it right.m now, buts its step by step and is baller.

You don’t want to do a golden image that is sysprepped and then layed onto new machines. You are asking for trouble imo. Plus make new images takes forever and is really more dependamt. With WDS your golden image can be applied to any make model and can be confided to installs something (or not) depending on make model or if it’s a laptop/desktop.

If you have a ton of Lenovo in house, it gets ‘slightly’ trickier with the way they store the more info in the bios/wmic. But they cover that in the book.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Deployment-Fundamentals-Vol-Deploying-Microsoft/dp/9187445212/ref=nodl_

That Mykael Nystrom really really knows his shit.

> About your installation part I totally disagree. It's not always that case always. Until and unless you visit Github to install certain program.

It is the case with Zoom, which is not on GitHub, and explicitly named by OP: https://zoom.us/download?os=linux

And it doesn't really matter if it's always the case or not. It matters if popular software does this, because if someone can't figure out which version they need to download and remember that on Windows it's always just a one-click download solution, they aren't gonna stay on Linux.

ntoskrnl (Windows core/kernel/brain) BSOD's usually point to a "kernel panic" from some internal fault in the OS, drivers, software, or a possible hardware error/issue.

Could be caused by anything from failing hardware, low voltages, bad drivers, bad overclocks, overheating, memory errors, software issues, etc.

Extremely hard to say anything helpful without crash logs/dump files or Event Viewer reports. Uploading a image from WhoCrashed or BlueScreenView may result in some better help diagnosing/resolving your BSOD's.

1. Most systems meet the minimum requirement these days. If they can run 7, they can absolutely run Windows 10.

2. Be that as it may, you don't want to wait at the last minute. Windows 10, so far, is a pretty fantastic OS. It's pretty stable, and maybe in a month or two, it'll be even more stable. So maybe upgrade two months after instead of waiting even longer.

3. Really? "You're using Windows 7." How is that a reason? Yes, security updates are supported til 2020, but if you want to try out all the new bells and whistles, you can give Windows 10 a whirl. If you don't like it, simply roll back the system.

4. Desktop Gadgets: 8GadgetPack

5. If you don't care about feature updates, then sure, keep Windows 7. No problem about sticking with something that works. Just make sure you want to keep it. After a year, Windows 10 won't be free to you.

6. Doesn't OneDrive download the files when you sync them in Windows Explorer? I know I could access them offline in Explorer. Maybe they meant the OneDrive metro app?

7. I'm sure some old drivers are still supported. An old HP printer from 2002-2003 still works on Windows 10. I'm sure an old scanner or two would be detected on the new OS.

8. Alternatives to Windows Media Center here.

9. Again, if you're afraid of bugs, give it a month or two. It used to be wait til the next service pack, however, with Windows 10...it'll be a rolling release. No more service packs. Some of the major bugs will be squashed a lot sooner.

Does this stop windows 10 from reinstalling it? (non-pro)

Edit: can confirm it does not. And further more it wont even help not rebooting, i was playing a game and windowz decided to install updates at this time causing my game to crash and computer to become unresponsive.

EDIT I use this to disable windows update: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10

Bloody sick of this shit.

Criteria is here near the bottom. I'm so confused about the health check app. Not sure if it's working entirely though, tried it out on my laptop. I have TPM2.0, a 2C/4T i7 from about 4 years ago and a 1TB SSD, and meeting all the other features. I'm not sure why it's freaking out, I do have Windows 10 Education installed on it for the Pro features, so I'm not sure if that's maybe messing with the PC Health Check app or something.

Home edition requires you to set it up with a Microsoft account, you can switch to a local/offline account after. This is listed on the system specifications page https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications

You can use Dual Display Mouse Manager. It's used to lock your mouse to a single screen until you drag the mouse for a certain time or press a defined button. If you just want to exclude the third monitor you can set the button to something rarely used and set the region to span both monitors.

1. Create a recovery USB using Rufus
2. Cold shutdown by holding power button
3. Boot from the USB by getting advanced boot options (usually by spamming the F keys and Del)
4. Reset the PC or worst case fresh install

Download this free program and you tell us how it happened: https://windirstat.net/

Running this program can help get rid of junk and cached files: https://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

Often it is excess cached data in the %appdata% folder from Google and Microsoft.

Instead consider LibreOffice. It's also what most (if not all) Linux distros use nowadays. For all intents and purposes LibreOffice is today what people mean when they say "OpenOffice".

Essentially, LibreOffice is a more-active fork of OpenOffice that happened a bit after Oracle bought Sun did what Oracle does best (piss everyone off and set a raging hellfire to any existing goodwill). The fork was so successful that Oracle folded and handed OpenOffice over to the Apache foundation for hospice care.

I would discontinue using the desktop gadgets because of an unpatched (and will probably never be patched) vulnerability.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/07/microsoft-fix-kills-windows-gadgets/

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2719662

I know that you're not happy with windows 8. My advice is to update to 8.1 (Free through the Store) and see if your opinion changes at all. It includes UI improvements, the return of the start button, desktop improvements, much better metro apps, and the ability to boot straight to the desktop if you want.

If you still don't like metro in 8.1, you can install a program that replaces the start screen with a familiar start button, such as Start8: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ This will give you back the familiar interface with all the speed and efficiency improvements of Windows 8.1. In any case, I don't believe that downgrading to Windows 7 is a good idea. You might get it to work, but your installed programs and settings will be erased. Plus you'll be running outdated software that is not as efficient (battery life/performance) as it could be.

I use greenshot. It allows you to take screen shots and save locally or automatically upload to imgur and other sites. You can get it here It's listed under the imaging section.

I'd like to point out that WinDirStat produces inflated statistics. This is because it counts hard links more than once. This can lead to some rather misleading numbers (in my case, it inflates the size of my Windows directory from 17GB to 21GB). For a more accurate but less pretty program, try du with the -u option.

For the record, it is impossible to pirate a windows ISO. Microsoft makes all of them publicly available for download. It is the license that is or is not legit.

Regardless, all you have to do is burn the ISO to a disk (as an image, not just copying the ISO file to disk). ImgBurn is my disk burning software of choice.

Might as well post the infamous and mildly historic Jim Allchin letter here:

To: Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer

"This is a rant. I’m sorry.

I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems [our] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn’t translate onto great products.

I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft. If you run the equivalent of VPC on a MAC you get access to basically all Windows application software (although not the hardware). Apple did not lose their way. You must watch this new video below. I know this doesn’t show anything for businesses, but my point is about the philosophy that Apple uses. They think scenario. They think simple. They think fast. I know there is nothing hugely deep in this.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/video/ilife04_32C.html [Note: link no longer works]

I must tell you everything in my soul tells me that we should do what I called plan (b) yesterday We need a simple fast storage system. LH is a pig and I don’t see any solution to this problem. If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start taking the lessons of “scenario, simple, fast” to heart.

jim"

Considering that other people couldn't, I'm surprised that you could: http://superuser.com/questions/947672/how-to-bring-back-photo-viewer-in-windows-10

If I right click a picture and choose open with, windows photo viewer is not an option, but on my work PC where I've done this tweak it is possible.

It took me a second to figure out what you were asking. I was thinking Why would you want the time upside-down?

There's no built in way to do that. And a quick search for third party apps didn't offer much either.

However, ObjectDock does allow you to place the dock on the side and you can place the Start Button anywhere on the dock.

If you're uncomfortable with the data collections in Windows 10, you shouldn't. Basically all Windows OSes since XP phone home back to Microsoft in some way.

There is no way to turn it off completely or avoid it. You need the source code of Windows to do that.

The privacy thing started because Windows 10 made it completely obvious they were collecting more data and the fact that they have these settings turn on to default.

If it bothers you a lot, just downgrade to 7 or 8.1, which have less tracking than 10.

If you insist on Windows 10, you can use Spybot's antibeacon tool, block the telemetry points, and call it a day

https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/

Server OSes are not really meant for gaming or tasks that are not related to hosting of services

Use Google Chrome with uBlock Origin extension. I find the internet to be close to unusable with any other combination. Edge is not ready yet.

DirectX 12 is capable of using multiple GPUs, but I am not aware of anything to actually make use of that yet. You could also use something like OBS to stream or record games using Quick Sync on your iGPU instead of putting more load on your main GPU or CPU. Or you could always put some additional monitors on your iGPU if you already gave a few on your main GPU.

But there is a good chance your iGPU isn't even active by default. There should be some BIOS setting to enable the iGPU when a discrete GPU is being used.

I've actually answered a post similar to this.

If Windows Update on 7 is being painfully slow like you're describing, there are two specific updates you need:

KB3050265 - the Windows Update client for Windows 7 (June 2015 version)

KB3161608 - this contains several updates, with the one you want being KB3161647 (Windows Update client for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 (June 2016 version))

Installing both of these updates will fix various bugs and performance issues that are causing Windows Update to be painfully slow.

Now, to install these two updates, you're going to need a third party tool called AutoPatcher. AutoPatcher downloads the offline versions of all the updates for Windows 7, and doesn't utilize the Windows Update process that's being slow.

http://www.autopatcher.net/forum/

Install KB3050265 with AutoPatcher, then restart. Then install KB3161608 and restart. Once you've successfully installed both updates, try checking for updates via Windows Update.

Previously, with only the first one of these two updates installed, my "Checking for updates" time would be 3-4 hours. With both installed, it's about 5 minutes or so.

I have now solved this. It was not the keyboard, but the synergyd daemon from Synergy (allows sharing of mouse and keyboard between computers, see https://symless.com/synergy) that was causing these issues. I uninstalled the app (was running as server) and the accents are working smoothly again: jójójójó :)

I simply could not believe that a 150$ keyboard would just break down like that after a few months. With blue cherry mx switches that are specially made for typing.

You can of course transfer data, but it'd be best to install a fresh windows copy on the SDD, then install programs/move files since the SSD will interact with the BIOS slightly differently than your hard drive. (Due to different name/address)

I'd recommend ninite for quickly reinstalling the essentials.

Oh it's definitely real, take a look at the second answer in this: http://serverfault.com/questions/322747/can-a-long-etc-hosts-file-slow-dns-lookup . The sources note a hosts file of >100 KB could cause problems, the linked one is 125.9 KB.

Personal anecdote: I installed the hosts file that was linked something like a year ago and forgot about it. Only a couple months ago I took note of how my antivirus notified me about a "potentially hijacked hosts file" or something and I remembered I had installed a custom one. At that point I got kinda suspicious of its usefulness since I had completely forgotten it was even installed, and took time to research the potential issues it could cause. After doing that I got rid of it and I'm really glad I did because it made a bunch of weird issues I had been having with a few online videogames go away (mostly related to the server browsers). It also seemed like it sped up web browsing but I can't say for sure, so take that with a grain of salt.

tl;dr it probably causes problems, a browser-based ad-blocker gets rid of 99.9% of ads in my computer anyways so I'm not too concerned. YMMV.

EDIT: Okay now I remember one of the specific problems I had with the hosts file: it breaks the Steam Overlay web browser for certain sites (e.g. reddit, nvidia). The pages seem to load fine but shortly after they finish loading you get an error and an empty page.

Try Lockhunter

If that still doesn’t let you eject, I use Sync to force a buffer flush, remove the drive letter, disable the device in device manager, then yank it.

the article is wrong, just saw on the //build/ stream 'this will come in an update to windows 8.1'

http://channel9.msdn.com/

announcement @ 3h 09min onwards.

conf that it will come in an update to win 8.1 @ 3h 10 min 25 sec

Now you have! Here's someone who's had the same problem. It'll block the installer itself even though the program runs fine if you manually install it.

AutoHotkey could be a good solution for you, use it for a lot of stuff like this myself. And someone already made a nice little tutorial for your exact issue. :)

Hi, author here. Not exactly. I explained it in more detail in a thread here but basically, we found evidence that this was occurring in older versions than the 10525 build. The announcement post you're referring to uses some vague language and doesn't specifically say that this feature was added in build 10525, or just improved in 10525.

However, we did find a Stack Exchange thread from a user before the new build was announced who claimed he got word from Microsoft that this exact behavior was intended. It was later updated with the info about the new build. Additionally, most of our staff tested it on their computers. The System process would only take up <1MB of RAM until you load it up with a ton of memory-hogging applications (video games, photo/video editing software, roughly ten minutes of browsing with Chrome, etc.) and then it starts ballooning.

The way Microsoft announced it was weird, but by all accounts this seems to be active in more than just the newest Insider build. Either that or everyone's computers is bugging out in a consistent way across multiple use cases in exactly the same way and in a manner that's consistent with a future feature. You know, either or.

Hijacking top comment to say, I didn't remove this post. The mods removed it, even though it's already being reported at several news sites including ZDNet. If you can quote me on that for visibility, I'd appreciate it. Many sites are still linking to this post, and some are reporting that I removed all the details.

Windows 7 has a better task scheduler, new TCP/IP stack, and better drivers.

> The scheduler was modified in Windows Vista to use the cycle counter register of modern processors to keep track of exactly how many CPU cycles a thread has executed, rather than just using an interval-timer interrupt routine.[3] Vista also uses a priority scheduler for the I/O queue so that disk defragmenters and other such programs don't interfere with foreground operations.[4]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/bb545475

> To solve the problem of correctly determining the value of the maximum receive window size for a connection based on the current conditions of the network, the Next Generation TCP/IP stack supports Receive Window Auto-Tuning. Receive Window Auto-Tuning continually determines the optimal receive window size by measuring the bandwidth-delay product and the application retrieve rate, and adjusts the maximum receive window size based on changing network conditions.

> Receive Window Auto-Tuning enables TCP window scaling by default, allowing up to a 16 MB window size. As the data flows over the connection, the Next Generation TCP/IP stack monitors the connection, measures the current bandwidth-delay product for the connection and the application receive rate, and adjusts the receive window size to optimize throughput. The Next Generation TCP/IP stack no longer uses the TCPWindowSize registry values.

> With better throughput between TCP peers, the utilization of network bandwidth increases during data transfer. If all the applications are optimized to receive TCP data, then the overall utilization of the network can increase substantially, making the use of Quality of Service (QoS) more important on networks that are operating at or near capacity.

A bunch of benchmarks from 2009 say that XP is better for battery life, but there have been numerous updates and patches since then.

I don't know about a log, but you can try checking both the event log (eventvwr.msc) and the scheduled task list for suspicious entries. You might also consider running Process Monitor for a while to see what launches the Cmd window. Process Monitor will throw a lot of events at you, so be prepared to search for a while.

Official website with demos included.

The virtual keyboard looks awesome! /u/majornelson we definitely need this to be implemented as an alternative XBOX keyboard... From my developer POV, this little feature would add many value without needing too much efforts.

Magical Jellybean Keyfinder will show your the currently installed product key:
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

I was under the impression that keys are tied to a specific version of Windows, and if you d/l'ed an ISO from digitalriver, it has to be the correct version that goes with your key to reinstall/activate properly. An OEM key will not work to activate a full retail version.

That's kind of hard when I try to open a program, or menu, and it automatically opens in the metro ui, without giving me the choice to open it in the desktop.

I have downloaded Start8, and it seems good at keeping me out of the metro ui, though.

Yes, it's an old Pentium 4, but it should easily be fast enough to run Windows 7 fluently. But I'd rather fulfill his request to install Linux, since this OS will most likely not catch as many malware as an unlicensed copy of Windows.

Use this tool. It's very easy, easier than any other method. The program can download any Linux distribution and automatically perform all the necessary steps to create a working USB installation medium. Don't expect a current version of Ubuntu to be lightning fast however. For speed I'd recommend Xubuntu, a light derivative of Ubuntu. It's very fast and can be locked up easily so that he can not ruin the system again. Despite being very resource friendly, it lacks no important features and even looks great.

Ouch. Good luck man. I would also try using this http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd It has worked pretty well for me in the past. You burn the ISO to a cd, boot from it, setup a network connection for it to download definition updates, and let it scan.

Can a person use it? Sure. Should they? Absolutely not.

If someone needs to use an ancient PC for watching YouTube, browsing, email, etc - use Linux or Neverware

I'm sorry Windows wasn't for you, and I'm not gonna try and convince you otherwise, but:

2) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

it's not official, but it's written by a Technical Fellow at Microsoft who is probably one of the most 5 knowledgeable people about Windows on Earth.

4) http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ is a set of lightweight Win32 ports of Unix utilities. for a truly Windows solution (preemptive "slow and overengineered" quip :p), though, you should learn PowerShell: sed, wc, and grep all have equivalents in it, and PowerShell scripts are first-class .net programs, so an awk equivalent is unnecessary.

5) ClearType: did you run the ClearType tuner? (pull up the Start menu, type "ClearType" into the search box.)

old/ugly apps: which apps were you using which looked old or ugly, perchance?

6) virtualization software: Microsoft has a good hypervisor product called Hyper-V built into Windows Server 2008, as well as Windows Virtual PC which is available as a free download for Windows 7 users. they're not as powerful for operating system developers as Bochs or VirtualBox (both of which are also available for Windows, for free), but hopefully that's not a limiting factor for you.

digital painting and graphics editing: The GIMP, Paint.NET. The GIMP is really the only free Photoshop competitor that exists anywhere, but Paint.NET is OK for simple stuff.

OBS can do what you are looking for. Its commonly used as a streaming tool, but it has great local recording options as well. Its open-source, is practically ready out of the box to record and has a lot of support on the web for issues and questions.

There is an ISO available. There are 2 methods of getting it. Either you can follow this article's instructions, Or you can google the ISO with the search keywords "Windows 10 Build 10240" and torrent it. It's the same ISO that's gonna be available on Wednesday and I already used it on 2 computers with no problem whatsoever. It saves me the work of having to extract the files myself. Your choice. I'll also paste a comment I made earlier in another thread if it's any help.

Basically what you do is you install a copy of either 7 or 8.1 (I think) on a separate computer or VM, then you go to the C:\ and somewhere in the Windows folder or something you find a folder containing necessary files to make an ISO. I remember reading that somewhere whole googling the ISO. However, I simply went the route of finding a torrent of the ISO already extracted for burning and simply burned it to a DVD-RW. Then I ran the setup on both my 8.1 machine and my brother's 7. It worked just like the upgrade will on Wednesday, and it was fully legitimate and activated using my previous keys. Just google the ISO.

Edit: When googling, make sure you type "build 10240 RTM" just to be sure.

Just to add to the already great information people gave you, i'll explain why this happened.

The manufacture has a hidden area (partition) on the hard drive that contains a copy of windows 8 (what they originally put on it at the factory). If you ever have an issue with the laptop you can start the computer in a sort of recovery or restore mode that used this hidden partition to bring the regular part of the hard drive back to original (windows 8).

When Windows 8 was upgraded to 10 it didn't involve the manufacturer so that special restore partition was never 'upgraded'. The Windows 10 upgrade came directly from Microsoft and has no way of knowing how to handle special features the manufacturer implemented.

Windows 10 actually has it's own restore function that you would have wanted to use and should use in the future. This is the best article I could find about how to reset a Windows 10 PC using the built in method and the different options you have: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways-reset-windows-10-reinstall-scratch/

Hey there,

Thanks for sharing!
We are however already working on eliminating any risk for our users - you (and anyone else browsing this thread) can find our full statement here: https://adblockplus.org/blog/potential-vulnerability-through-the-url-rewrite-filter-option

Cheers,
-Jessy

A good way to try out Windows 8 is to install it as a bootable VHD. No need to repartition drives. My primary system is Windows 7 and I can reboot into Windows 8 just as if it's on a regular partition when in fact it's a VHD. When I'm ready to switch to Windows 8, I'll just delete the VHD partition and do the upgrade.

Check this out - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-to-use-a-vhd-to-dual-boot-windows-8-on-a-windows-7-pc/4847.

I haven't thought about Trillian in years. Its kind of sad to hear its gone to shit now...

Can't you just use an older version? I don't really IM much anymore. I mostly use Hangouts or Facebook to talk to people.

god, that is insane. are you sure you're not just holding the temp files? i find it hard to believe that office is adding 3gb each update. i'd assume it's downloading the new version then replacing the necessary bits

i use folder size to check files. check out where all that space is going. i'd bet they're temporary install files that aren't getting deleted after updating for some reason

I dunno if Microsoft deliberately disabled gadgets but I sure do know that they advise disabling gadgets due to a security issue.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/dn261332.aspx

I recommend trying out Rainmeter instead.

Use Ninite, and tick the programs you want to download. Steam, you definitely need for gaming.

Now the following list, I'm not going to link them. Instead, Google them.

vlc - Video and music player!

Notepad++ , superior text editor to Windows default app.

WinDirStat , find what's taking up space in your harddrive, and easily organise your files.

WinRAR/7Zip - To use .rar and .zip file extensions.

CCleaner - Remove adware, bloatware, malware, and deletes left-over registry components from uninstalling programs

Rainmeter - Put cool shit on your desktop.

Puush - Instantly upload screenshots to the web.

Shortcuts:

Windows + E, opens Windows Explorer.

Ctrl Shift Escape brings up task manager.

Ctrl Alt Delete, brings up shutdown options, and helps in case of your OS freezing up.

Other shortcuts are pretty similar with Mac OS. So you should get around okay, I think.

> IE lacks major add-ons like ABP

https://adblockplus.org/releases/adblock-plus-11-for-internet-explorer-released

> VideoDowloadHelper

If it's to download YouTube videos there's millions of websites that can do it for you...

I honestly haven't missed any of the plugins that I used in Chrome.

I have always had issues with Java and Flash on Firefox, where it severely bogs the browser down. That's why I didn't go with it.

Safari has been retired.

You're making assumptions about me that you don't know. I use Facebook but I only access it from the Tinfoil app. I use FDroid as much as I can and do my online searches through DuckDuckGo. I use Firefox and uBlock to ensure that little to no tracking is done with my web browsing. I use as much FLOSS as I possibly can to be sure I have the freedom to look into what I am using. I use Google's tracking services for their products I use (Google Fit, Gmail, Drive). These products provide me a benefit that comes from their tracking. I don't mind giving up some privacy in exchange for a service that I find valuable.

Microsoft provides me no benefit for allowing them to track me and my usage. I don't mind tracking users and what they do. I do mind tracking that is only meant to benefit the tracker. The disconnect from reality comes into play when users do not want to admit they are not respected by a company they have trust in.

No. Don't do this.

Use sysprep. It was designed to generalize images for mass deployment.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824816.aspx

> If you intend to create an image of an installation for deployment to a different computer, you must run the Sysprep command together with the /generalize option, even if the other computer has the same hardware configuration. The Sysprep /generalize command removes unique information from your Windows installation so that you can safely reuse that image on a different computer.

Yes, you'll get to re-image / re-install those machines to fix it. Alternatively, if you really truly don't want to re-install, you can just run sysprep.exe /generalize on each individual box, but be aware that this is functionally reinstalling the OS on the machine anyway: customization is blown out, and new settings are written. There are some exceptions (which features are installed, user accounts present on the machines), but those are all documented on various sites and MS knowledge base articles.

Not the best answer. If ABP's whitelisting feature is disabled, then which is the best one?

Don't get me wrong, I use uBlock Origin. I used to run ABP with the whitelisting feature turned off. Supposedly it uses more RAM, but I have 16GB so I really don't give a crap about that.

Also, you're either misinformed or trying to misinform saying they allow paid-for ads. The truth isn't far off, but you're telling those who know it that either you don't know, or you don't want others to know. The truth about acceptable ads. I agree with it in theory... blocking all the ads isn't working toward a solution, and Acceptable Ads is endeavoring to do exactly that. But, I don't use Acceptable Ads or ABP at all, so... I'm not working toward a solution either. But, neither am I lying to people about it. I may be smarter than someone asking me for computer help, but I'm not gonna do their thinking for them.

You can't. But probably you can try

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/08/29/download-updates-from-microsofts-update-catalog-without-ie/

Good luck with the new "improved" update model. By the way, my W7 is "checking for updates" since yesterday... Sooo much improved, yeah. /s

I remember installing a 'gold' version of navigator on Win3.1; which would have been like navigator version 3. Old versions are available here: http://www.oldversion.com/windows/netscape/

Almost none of the modern internet will render on these old browsers though.

Honestly, I prefer MagicDisc. It's tiny and fast. I used to use Daemon Tools, but once it started getting packaged with a bunch of adware I dropped them.

I have been on a Windows tablet for a year, a Dell Venue, with similar setup. 1) Figure out how to restore it to factory. You don't have to do it, but make certain you understand exactly how it has to be done and what types of drives will work - those types of tablet with minimal USB ports are tricky. 2) Get a big enough and the fastest SD card for it you can afford. I store everything on my SD card, but that isn't essential. 3) I am weird about my internal drive. I don't want to junk it up nor junk up the System folder, so excepting the basics, Office, Acrobat, Kindle, et al., I mainly run only Portable programs. PortableApps.com and PortableFreeware.com should be your new favorite sites. I run everything I get from those sites off my SD card. 4) Bluetooth devices, research those so when you are ready, you can have keyboard and mouse ready when you are.

Ninite. That is all.

antivirus? AVG if you want everything (including bloat). Avira if you want small and lightweight, but it's a bit hard to handle. i personally like avast, good mix of both features and unintrusiveness.

Also, media player? i personally like VLC, even if it's a bit bloated.

dunno any photo software or video editing. utorrent is simple and fast for torrents.

It is the best allround software when you want to get more information about installed programs, or if a program's uninstaller is not letting you uninstall the program, it's got some other features as well. Highly recommended to people who need such a software. I don't know why it's being downvoted.

This is the official website: https://www.bcuninstaller.com/

There's also a version that you don't have to install. ^^

>I’m a Photoshop user

That's a problem for linux:(

>I need a simple GUI-based and elegant system that does what it is told without dependencies or a need to know how to compile something.

Linux. Just use the package manager (like windows store).

The only thing remotely close to a solution while staying in Windows would be virtualizing OS X with Virtualbox, VMWare, etc.. But it is so very buggy and half-baked that it would be horrendous and unstable for production use, if you can get everything working at all. (audio, hardware-accelerated video, networking, etc). There's also the possibility of creating a Hackintosh setup, but again, in a production environment there's simply too much involved in the process and too much can go wrong. Unless you already knew exactly what you were doing and had previous experience in the OSx86/Hackintosh community, you'd spend way too much time for getting possibly nowhere. Not to mention that if you're going to be using this commercially, there's the problem that you're violating Apple's licensing terms big time. It's usually no big deal for homebrew projects and whatnot, but it's definitely a huge no-no in commercial settings. But if you want to jump down the rabbit hole for your own information, here's a good starting point: http://www.tonymacx86.com/home.php

The only realistic answers are probably not what you want to hear. Either find a Windows app comparable to Logic Pro to use instead, or buy a Mac to actually use Logic Pro.

Personally I live with just Windows Defender and a manually triggered MalwareBytes scan every week or 2.

I'm quite cautious and I don't really do anything risky so am probably less likely to get a virus than some. I might consider a separate AV if I displayed more risky behaviour (torrenting and such like) as Windows Defender apparently has a poor detection rate these days in some tests, e.g.,

https://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index

https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/

Avira Pro, BitDefender and Kaspersky seem to win overall in that last link (although that's form Win 8/8.1 not 10)

It is better to lock down things at the router level using something like opendns

https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/

Problem with lockdowning a pc, it is easy to get round using tablets, mobile phones etc.

You might be able to lock down their devices easily enough, but you cannot do it to their friends, short of denying them access to your router.

If you lockdown the router and password protect router your 'little monkeys' cannot easily get round it.

Even then, there are ways of getting round it, but by the time the 'little monkeys' know how to do that, you can only rely on education and trust ,and at least be satisfied you have budding computer experts.

Here you go; it may not have many peers but it includes the Microsoft download server, so you've got nothing to loose.

You need to be very careful deleting anything related to the Windows Store. The UWP system is permission sensitive and can easily break. Windows is supposed to remove it. If that didn't happen, the install was effectively broken to begin with. Windows Explorer, even in admin, can modify permissions even when you don't intend to. Instead you should use Explorer++. This utility, when ran as admin, bypasses Explorer completely thus permissions are ignored for the most part (SYSTEM owned and locked can't be touched.) allowing you to delete or see what you need to. Just in case. It's a safety net for anyone.

>the Insider Preview can/does collect anything you type anywhere, and sends it to Microsoft

No, it does not. It anonymously collects small amounts of typed data in some places for the purposes of improving certain features in Windows like spellcheck/autocorrect. It does not globally record everything you type and send it all to Microsoft. This is a gross mischaracterization of the telemetry in the Windows 10 preview which all started from a random tin-foil-hatted blogger making the most sensational interpretation of a particular sentence in the Privacy Statement as he could. And yes, you can disable this in the final release.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/does-windows-10-really-include-a-keylogger-spoiler-no/

https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/605484176352026624

ohh, so perfect for a media PC. I want to control Boxee without anything in my hands! :)

EDIT: OMG, It's already here!

> can't shrink the taskbar anymore

There's a kludge (language/network/date/time vertically misaligned/cut off). >Can't right click on the taskbar to open task manager.

Got it pinned to the taskbar (anther kludge).

Latest Winaero Tweaker also brings back the ~~real~~ old context menu, if that helps.

I agree. If I ever need to install Windows, I download the very latest ISO and burn it on another machine. The time saved by downloading the latest OS is huge, rather than updating endlessly...

> But if the feature can be added without hurting performance. That is, if it is possible to have 5 tabs instead of 5 windows and choose to enable extra desktops, then that's simply a plus.

every feature starts with minus 100 points. a feature needs to be specified, written, tested, checked for backward compatibility, and then supported indefinitely after release.

also, Windows has support for extra desktops built in -- or at least the ability to have the desktop extend past the edge of your monitor, and switch between viewports programmatically. but enabling it breaks enough stuff that it ships as a hidden feature that Microsoft doesn't tell you about because you probably don't actually want it.

I'm not familiar with the software that's doing this, but I'd guess it's a bit of bloatware installed by Samsung.

If it were me, I'd start by running autoruns, switch to the "logon" tab, and see what Samsung applications are set to start when your PC boots. You can use autoruns to disable these startup apps, but you may want to backup these settings first.

Also, I normally go through Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the bloatware put on by the manufacturer as a lot of it is generally useless. Again, it's up to you whether you do this. If you do uninstall any of this software, you can always download it again from here (assuming I've located your model correctly).

BestBuy.com has the Asus X54L-BBK2 15.6" Laptop for $309.99 with free shipping.

Specs:

• Intel Core i3-2330M (2.2GHz) Processor
• 15.6" LED-Backlit HD Display (1366x768)
• 4GB DDR3 Memory
• 320GB Hard Drive
• UMA Graphics
• USB 3.0
• WiFi N
• Webcam
• DVDRW
• 4-Cell Battery
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

Windows 8/8.1 does, indeed, have built in support for mounting and burning ISOs. Right-click, "Burn disc image". Done. Not Windows' fault you can't be arsed to join the modern age.

Also: there are TONS of free disc burning programs. Just use Bing or Google or DuckDuckGo or whatever. Further, if you're not burning a pre-made ISO, Windows 7's Windows Explorer can be used as a drag-and-drop to "queue" items to burn, then you just burn it.

Edit: I suppose while I'm here, I could make a recommendation to be 'helpful' or whatever: http://www.imgburn.com/

Foxit was really good some years ago, now it's kinda bloated and not lightweight at all. For a better alternative I would recommend Sumatra PDF, it's portable and minimalistic.

it's easy to do package management when the majority of the software is free and you have an army of unpaid volunteers willing to package the software for you.

It's not so easy when companies are selling their software and aren't willing to give their source code to Mark Shuttleworth's work experience guy. As a result there is more variety in the way that software is packaged, there are license agreements to be ticked, serial numbers, activation to consider, etc.

That being said, Nuget has been around for years for developers and there is package management coming in WMF 5.0.

It won't ever be as simple as open an application, search for Photoshop and click install -but then, that is a large part of the reason why Photoshop will never be available on Linux.

Get to a friend who has the Windows 7 disc then create the OS USB-installer with WinToFlash. Plug it in, boot from the flash drive and install -- also faster compared to installing from DVDs.

If their systems don't already have it, get Unchecky, which helps a bit. Otherwise adblocking is a big deal. If you can't trust them to stick with a browser with a good adblocking extension set up, you can still do it at the DNS level (or both); set up a piHole for them, or a pfSense system/gateway with an appropriate blacklist subscription.

Fences does a nice job of organizing desktop icons. The free version has enough functionality to do what you're asking.

However, I've had issues with it behaving with Win 7 and I'm not sure the company's heart has been in getting it to work properly. Haven't tried it in a few months so your mileage may vary.

Terrible idea if you use it on the internet, software vendors don't release security updates for fun.

You can get Windows 7 Installation media with SP1 integrated which might be worth a try. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

I don't know how to solve your problem, but you can create a Linux Live USB key for free. Just download a file iso of a distribution that supports the live mode and create a Live USB key with Rufus.

For example, you could download the iso of Ubuntu from here.