Jorpho wrote:I hear running "netsh winsock reset" is useful for when the Internet goes down.
Please be very careful about telling people to do this. This isn't a "fix" so much as it is a "bulldoze the entire TCP/IP stack and replace it with a brand new one" step and is a very drastic procedure to do on a PC if the situation doesn't actually require it. This is only used when it has become clear that the TCP/IP network stack within Windows itself has become corrupt. This command replaces all of the internal TCP/IP protocols and DLLs from Windows's protected backup that it created when it first installed.
Moving away from that, I have a lot of experience with Windows 10 and there are a number of things I ALWAYS do when setting up a PC for a new client. Let me take a VERY LONG post here to explain them.
First, when starting Windows 10 for the first time, there's a window that shows you that there are Express Settings. There's a link on the bottom-left side of that window that says "Customize". I ALWAYS click that link. Then I turn EVERYTHING OFF and hit Next (there are 3 screens of this). Yes, one of those is the SmartScreen filter for IE, but considering that the default web browser is Edge and Edge doesn't even bother with that setting at all, I still turn it off. It can always be turned back on later. The equivalent of this is to open Settings > Privacy > General and to turn all of those off.
I also go into that same page after Windows 10 starts to turn OFF Location services (only really useful on laptops), Camera apps (if you don't even have a camera), Microphone (same reason), "Speech, inking, & typing" (in order to TURN OFF Microsoft recording everything you type and having it sent to them), Call history (because who uses PHONE on Windows 10?), Messaging (same reason - only useful if you have an actual Windows phone), Radios, Other devices. I turn them ALL OFF.
Then I go into Feedback & Diagnostics and I set it to NEVER and BASIC.
Then - MOST IMPORTANT - I go to Background Apps. Here....EVERYTHING is turned on! This is SO STUPID! Turn all that shit off! Nobody wants Netflix running in the damned background unless they click on the app to load it! It's wasting TONS of background processing time - especially noticeable on anything less than a quad-core i5 or an equivalent AMD processor.
Then, after doing all of that, I go into the "Cortana" search and I open Registry Editor (search for: regedit). Here's where I get nifty. Try to follow me on this.
To DISABLE F%&@(#(ing CORTANA:
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Policies / Microsoft / Windows
Create a new KEY here called "Windows Search" (without the quotes, of course).
Enter that key and create a new DWORD (32-bit) value and call it "AllowCortana" (no quotes, no spaces).
Make sure the default value is 0.
This is a hard-bypass of the fact that Microsoft REALLY wants you to have Cortana running so they can data-mine all your searches and stuff. Before the Anniversary Update, you could turn off Cortana by going into Cortana and telling it to shut itself off. After Anniversary (build 1601), you couldn't unless you get down into the registry like this. By the way, while we're here....
To DISABLE Windows 10 automatically installing stupid apps like Candy Crush Soda Saga:
Navigate to the same location as before: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Policies / Microsoft / Windows
But instead of creating "Windows Search", this time we create the key "CloudContent" (no spaces).
Inside this new Key, add a new DWORD (32-bit) value and call it "DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures" (again, no spaces).
Set THIS value to 1. Now you're done with the registry.
This stops Windows from installing pointlessly stupid apps like Twitter, Skype, Candy Crush, etc. from automatically installing themselves even though you never f@#%$&ing asked for them. But it DOES still allow you to go into the Windows Store app and click Install from there. It will still install apps like that. It just won't do it automatically.
After closing Regedit, I now clean out the stupid shit in the Start Menu. The biggest offender? 3D Builder. This is for people who have a 3D Printer. I don't know of ANYONE who does, so we can safely assume this is a useless waste of space app and uninstall it. I also uninstall Paid Wi-Fi (whatever it's called), News, Money, Sports (all BING-related apps, I might add), etc. Just go down the list and look for stuff that you know you'll never use and see if you can right-click / Uninstall App. No, you can't uninstall the XBOX app. But you CAN remove it from the list. I'll get to that later.
After all of this, you probably need to go ahead and restart your PC. The registry settings alone won't take effect until you log out and log back in, but a restart would be warranted at this point anyway. When you come back, Cortana's circle won't be there anymore. Only the magnifying glass of the Windows Search box. I also right-click my taskbar and turn that into an icon only, so I get lots of my taskbar back. If I want to search, I'll go ahead and click the icon myself, thank you. I also turn off "Show Task View Button" because I have 3 damned monitors. I don't need multiple desktop displays that that button works with.
I then return to Settings > System because I want to go to Default apps and change Microsoft Edge to <insert favorite web browser here>. If it's not on the list, download it and install it. Then change it. I prefer Google Chrome.
I also then go to www.adobe.com and install Adobe Reader DC, as I prefer the features over the built-in PDF viewer: Microsoft Edge (AGAIN! DAMNIT!!#!&%!). I then have to set all defaults to this program in Settings > System > Default apps. Same thing with Java if you need it.
Now, on to disabling Microsoft's data-mining. The first thing you should do is scrub your Services.msc app. You can find it by doing a simple search for that exact phrase: "services.msc". The first one that jumps at me is "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry". This is the DiagTrack services. Stop and disable.
"DataCollectionPublishingService" - If you don't use Microsoft OneDrive or any similar Windows 10 native app, turn this shit off. Mine's on Manual (triggered) and it usually stays off for me.
That's it for what I see on mine. If you REALLY want to be paranoid, you can download Spybot Anti-beacon. It's capable of shutting down ALL Microsoft access to your computer, including all BING websites (it adds a bunch of items to your HOSTS file to zero them out).
Now, does anyone even care to hear why I will never built another computer with only one hard drive again?
First off, I'm totally a believer in SSDs. I'll never go back. But does EVERYTHING need to be on an SSD? No. So I could totally get by with a 120GB SSD and a 1-3TB HDD. This lets me run the OS and programs from the SSD and redirect all the user profile folders like Videos, Music, Pictures, Desktop, and Downloads to the slower HDD. The system still boots like lightning and programs open with a snap, but do you REALLY need 3.2GB/s read speeds when listening to a 3MB MP3 file for 4 minutes? Or watching a 2-hour movie from a 1GB file? Really?
I also configure that big spinner as the backup location for Windows Backup. I copy a full C: image as well as incremental file backups. This is why I have a 3TB drive in this very computer. You can always reload that system image to a new hard drive and BAM, back in business in less than an hour. Or if you had a bad Windows Update? BAM, 30 minutes later and you've rolled back to last week. I'm a believer in system backups now too, so any system I build now will have a small SSD (120-256GB) for the OS and programs and a LARGE (1-3TB) spinner drive (HDD) for data storage.
But that wasn't enough for me on THIS system. I had to also get a 1TB SSD for my GAMES to run off of. So I have a 256GB SSD C:, a 1TB SSD D:, and a 3TB HDD L:.
