dsocks wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:27:

chinny22 wrote on 2025-02-28, 00:29:

Windows 8 and those whole charms bar thing.
It was even worse on Windows 12 over RDP connections.

Only time I ever had to google how to shutdown a windows computer.

Windows Key + R
CMD
shutdown /s" or "shutdown /s /t 0

Or

Ctrl + Alt + Del
Then click shutdown

even Win 8 with its stupid charms and shit still had the fall backs every windows version has.

no google required, well if you have been using windows mostly and not Linux or Mac that is ....I honestly couldn't tell you how to shut either of them down fast other than switching them off which Linux hates.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-18, 22:34:

MadMac_5 wrote on 2025-03-18, 16:26:

Back during my undergrad in the early 2000s, I used to fix computers for pocket money. Any system I came across that had Windows ME on it was usually a recipe for pain, but not necessarily because of the OS itself; instead, it was a symptom of the PC being used by a family that had zero concept of online safety, and it would be loaded down with spyware, browser toolbars, and desktop avatars. After an hour or two of cleaning crap out of it, un-installing/reconfiguring Kazaa/LimeWire to remove all the software that hitched a ride, and installing something like AVG or Avast, the system would finally be useable again. Often as a bizarre hybrid of essential for the parents' work while also a recreation machine for their teenage children to pirate music (movies were out of the question, since no one in that rural area had broadband).

I still have a bit of a flinch response to Windows ME, but it wasn't its fault that it was bundled on under-specced, abused budget PCs. The same can be said for Vista; it wasn't too bad, when it wasn't paired with a terrible cheap laptop that had 1 GB of RAM and a slow 5400 RPM hard drive.

I have Vista Ultimate with all patches running on a 2600k .. once you put it on hardware comparable to what Win7 requires Vista is ... not at all different from 7, which isnt unusual as Win7 is Vista with further updates.

i consider Win7 to be Windows Vista SE, the two are that similar.

I agree! I used Vista x64 since I needed more than 4 GB of RAM in 2008, by which time the Service Packs had come out and made it a lot easier to live with (and drivers had stabilized). By the time I replaced it with Windows 8 in 2012, I was ready for a change though! And Windows 8 was just fine; I never noticed the tiled Start menu, since Vista got me in the habit of hitting the Windows key then typing the name of what I want to navigate to instead of hunting and clicking. The upgrade from 8 to 10 was pretty smooth, although the switch to Windows 11 (I need it for my Ryzen 9900X) has got me spending more time in Linux Mint these days, to be frank.

MadMac_5 wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:52:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-18, 22:34:

MadMac_5 wrote on 2025-03-18, 16:26:

Back during my undergrad in the early 2000s, I used to fix computers for pocket money. Any system I came across that had Windows ME on it was usually a recipe for pain, but not necessarily because of the OS itself; instead, it was a symptom of the PC being used by a family that had zero concept of online safety, and it would be loaded down with spyware, browser toolbars, and desktop avatars. After an hour or two of cleaning crap out of it, un-installing/reconfiguring Kazaa/LimeWire to remove all the software that hitched a ride, and installing something like AVG or Avast, the system would finally be useable again. Often as a bizarre hybrid of essential for the parents' work while also a recreation machine for their teenage children to pirate music (movies were out of the question, since no one in that rural area had broadband).

I still have a bit of a flinch response to Windows ME, but it wasn't its fault that it was bundled on under-specced, abused budget PCs. The same can be said for Vista; it wasn't too bad, when it wasn't paired with a terrible cheap laptop that had 1 GB of RAM and a slow 5400 RPM hard drive.

I have Vista Ultimate with all patches running on a 2600k .. once you put it on hardware comparable to what Win7 requires Vista is ... not at all different from 7, which isnt unusual as Win7 is Vista with further updates.

i consider Win7 to be Windows Vista SE, the two are that similar.

I agree! I used Vista x64 since I needed more than 4 GB of RAM in 2008, by which time the Service Packs had come out and made it a lot easier to live with (and drivers had stabilized). By the time I replaced it with Windows 8 in 2012, I was ready for a change though! And Windows 8 was just fine; I never noticed the tiled Start menu, since Vista got me in the habit of hitting the Windows key then typing the name of what I want to navigate to instead of hunting and clicking. The upgrade from 8 to 10 was pretty smooth, although the switch to Windows 11 (I need it for my Ryzen 9900X) has got me spending more time in Linux Mint these days, to be frank.

Windows 10 and 11 are both infested with MS telemetry and other assorted bloatware bullshittery, that said I have locked both my Windows 11 machines to remain on 23H2 and they wont update past that version. This meant I could strip most of the crap back out of the install and right now both run rock solid with zero down time because auto restarts are disabled and neither will do updates until I tell them to. Removing the AI bullshit copilot was also painful, but Win10 also has that issue as MS forced it over there too.

Sometimes you have to get nasty with Windows 10/11 to get them where they should be as an OS. I never though I would get to a point where I would ever be disgusted with the direction an OS is heading, but MS forcing AI bullshit into the OS has got me there.

I will likely move over to Bazzite Linux which looks to be good for my gaming PC, might go mint for my work horse, but doing that is still a ways off. (I'm hoping Valve gets Steam OS to a point where all games will run under it, Ill move to that if they get there)

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 03:01:

... that said I have locked both my Windows 11 machines to remain on 23H2 and they wont update past that version ...

I'm still avoiding Win10 as much as possible, and haven't even looked at Win11 yet ...

So I'm not at all familiar with internal details ... I hate that Win10 forces updates ... and that's the main reason I've not even
considered Win11) - whats the best way to "lock" them to prevent constantly changes (updating)?

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-19, 03:48:

I'm still avoiding Win10 as much as possible, and haven't even looked at Win11 yet ... […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 03:01:

... that said I have locked both my Windows 11 machines to remain on 23H2 and they wont update past that version ...

I'm still avoiding Win10 as much as possible, and haven't even looked at Win11 yet ...

So I'm not at all familiar with internal details ... I hate that Win10 forces updates ... and that's the main reason I've not even
considered Win11) - whats the best way to "lock" them to prevent constantly changes (updating)?

You can use a little program called incontrol, it turns off all the forced updating and allows you to lock the system to a specific version. I have been using this for a while and have even used it on family members PC to stop the forced updating and restarts. This will still allow updating for security patches for that version including defender updates but you have to tell windows do that manually.

https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm

Works on both 10 and 11

My main PC currently has an uptime of 13 days with no restarts ...was more but had to restart for a new GPU, the gaming PC is at 84 days uptime. feels like being on XP again. (perhaps Xp wasn't a good choice .. but Win7 had huge uptime)

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 03:55:

.. You can use a little program called incontrol, it turns off all the forced updating and allows you to lock the system to a specific version ..

Thanks! - really helpful.

So, in order to have some control over one aspect of Windows, it's necessary to install a third-party utility...

...potentially bringing a whole new set of problems.

Bad.
Very bad!

I'm mostly a Windows user and Windows 11 managed to be the most annoying so far with those new context menus. I can fix it on my own computer, but I also have to do shit at work on other computers. It's been a long time since I last used Windows without 3rd party shell enhancements.

Windows 10 Pro has group policy to turn off automatic updating.

Generally, it's possible to make the OS quieter by disabling certain scheduled tasks. Process Hacker / System Informer also let you tap into permissions of services. I'm not into hardcore debloating, but I've seen some people stripping Win10 to the point it fit in about 0,5 GB of RAM idling. That's too much work and things aren't explained anywhere in plain English and others' questionable distributions of modded OS tend to have their own oddities.

My own Win10 install is probably too much work for most people, it has Win7-like theme (it took a lot of clicking and some minor image editing, but it's still not where it should be...proper high DPI support...), all the usual 3rd party programs that hook into Explorer, some deprecated legacy runtime DLLs for deprecated components that some old games need, misc setting tweaks through registry, changes to some default scheduled tasks and services. On the laptop with Win10, I also have link to Manage Wireless Networks in Control Panel, it opens the exactly same control panel that's in Windows 7, where you can also re-order wireless networks and access the old properties dialog with all the settings of the chosen network.

Did anything regarding the latter changed in Win11?? I stopped following the mess that MS is creating...yeah, I kinda got Win11 23H2 working to the point it's not too annoying, even turning off Windows Defender or Microsoft Defender or whatever they call it these days that they don't allow you to turn off normally, but it's still noticeably more loaded, it's felt even in Explorer. Sticking to Win10 on this PC...I keep running into things that tell me I should buy a new computer...

Oh well...

I got this from Win8.1:

2 screens, 3 taskbars! I don't know how I got it to glitch like that. Windows 8.1 is also the OS where screens start blinking if you try to run an old DirectDraw game in proper fullscreen mode - https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/issues/28. It's also the OS where Explorer's performance enumerating files and folders when you open folder's properties tanked and I'm not sure if they ever fixed it.

Still, of all the weirdness when it comes Explorer, of all Windows versions, it glitched on me once eating most of 4 GB of RAM I had at the time on Windows XP x64 specifically.

And then there's Windows 7. Supposedly last one that still made some sense out of the box. This one also wasn't without its own quirks. If you had it set to Slovenian locale, 8x12 raster fonts would just disappear as selection from console windows, then it would fallback to much smaller fonts. They disappeared on all subsequent user sessions, first login would be fine, next login, they're gone. Might have been the problem also on certain other locales, but I never found this bug documented anywhere.

It took until Windows 10 for that to be fixed. And honestly, Win10 is the first one where console windows aren't complete atrocity. People thought non-maximizible non-resizable console windows are normal??

Other than some nice things under the hood (eg. Win10 also doesn't ignore secondary partitions on removable USB sticks), it's a mess. Perhaps all the mainstream software just reflects the state of modern society (who genuinely wants to live in it??). And alternatives are more often than not just whole other can of worms IMHO.

Grzyb wrote on 2025-03-19, 11:36:

So, in order to have some control over one aspect of Windows, it's necessary to install a third-party utility... […]
Show full quote

So, in order to have some control over one aspect of Windows, it's necessary to install a third-party utility...

...potentially bringing a whole new set of problems.

Bad.
Very bad!

what problems exactly ?

I have yet to find any, this utility simply uses built in windows registry and policy settings to do what it does, 6 of them to be exact.

You could do it yourself without the utility if you knew what the settings were, this app simply puts them in one location.

The biggest potential issue by not using this utility you will be forced into Win11 24H2 and the AI bullshit it brings unless you are thinking about security problems but you still receive security and defender updates even with this app.

Viruses / Malware ...throw it through Virus total if you wish, use your own Virus scanner if you wish, same for a Malware scanner ...it has none ..even Nod32 tells me its fine.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 22:04:

what problems exactly ?

I don't know...
Chances are, there won't be any problems.
But how can you know for sure?

If such an utility comes with source code, and comprehensive documentation, then it indeed seems trustworthy.
But even in this case it's still possible it contains some bugs that will get triggered at certain point.

My point is:

Such settings should be provided by the OS itself, in a way that's obvious and unambiguous - preferrably already during the install.
If they aren't - that's enough to rate the system as BAD.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:45:

Windows Key + R CMD shutdown /s" or "shutdown /s /t 0 […]
Show full quote

dsocks wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:27:

chinny22 wrote on 2025-02-28, 00:29:

Windows 8 and those whole charms bar thing.
It was even worse on Windows 12 over RDP connections.

Only time I ever had to google how to shutdown a windows computer.

Windows Key + R
CMD
shutdown /s" or "shutdown /s /t 0

Or

Ctrl + Alt + Del
Then click shutdown

even Win 8 with its stupid charms and shit still had the fall backs every windows version has.

no google required, well if you have been using windows mostly and not Linux or Mac that is ....I honestly couldn't tell you how to shut either of them down fast other than switching them off which Linux hates.

Neither work over RDP though, (Ctrl + Alt + End is how to do the 3 fingered salute on a remote session)
I used to create a desktop shortcut, either because I hadn't memorised Ctrl +Alt +End, or task manager didn't have the ability to log off, can't remember which

Grzyb wrote on 2025-03-19, 23:43:

I don't know... Chances are, there won't be any problems. But how can you know for sure? […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 22:04:

what problems exactly ?

I don't know...
Chances are, there won't be any problems.
But how can you know for sure?

If such an utility comes with source code, and comprehensive documentation, then it indeed seems trustworthy.
But even in this case it's still possible it contains some bugs that will get triggered at certain point.

My point is:

Such settings should be provided by the OS itself, in a way that's obvious and unambiguous - preferrably already during the install.
If they aren't - that's enough to rate the system as BAD.

The only bugs that will get triggered are ..uhhh well none since MS can no longer change any settings or files without my prior knowledge or consent, this is how Windows was for a long time and now is again.

I agree these settings shouldn't ever have been required and should be available to be toggled at install but MS wants control over your PC and what you do with it, it used to be you could use windows without a MS account but MS has been modifying every known exploit to avoid the MS account out of the install process. Latest versions of 11 will FORCE you to use a MS account and pretty much all of the easy ways around this no longer work, you can still get around it but its convoluted and difficult requiring some prior knowledge of both the command console and how to break the install process.

Ive been using this program since Windows 10 and its made by the same people who make Spinrite drive testing/recovery software and a whole slew of Network security tools, they are pretty dang trust worthy, they have a whole page dedicated to telling you exactly what this programs does, how it does it and what the exact keys are its modifying so you can do it yourself if you dont trust the program.

I have zero reason to not trust them and every reason to give MS the bird for forcing me to do this. (I hate it as much as the next IT guy, its like having to jailbreak a Android phone ...I dont fully trust that either or the people making programs to do it)

chinny22 wrote on 2025-03-20, 04:26:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:45:

Windows Key + R CMD shutdown /s" or "shutdown /s /t 0 […]
Show full quote

dsocks wrote on 2025-03-19, 02:27:

Only time I ever had to google how to shutdown a windows computer.

Windows Key + R
CMD
shutdown /s" or "shutdown /s /t 0

Or

Ctrl + Alt + Del
Then click shutdown

even Win 8 with its stupid charms and shit still had the fall backs every windows version has.

no google required, well if you have been using windows mostly and not Linux or Mac that is ....I honestly couldn't tell you how to shut either of them down fast other than switching them off which Linux hates.

Neither work over RDP though, (Ctrl + Alt + End is how to do the 3 fingered salute on a remote session)
I used to create a desktop shortcut, either because I hadn't memorised Ctrl +Alt +End, or task manager didn't have the ability to log off, can't remember which

Well yeah, RDP is a different beast I have never had the missfortune of messing with .. thank God.

Glad to know how to kill it too !

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-20, 05:09:

I agree these settings shouldn't ever have been required and should be available to be toggled at install but MS wants control over your PC and what you do with it, it used to be you could use windows without a MS account but MS has been modifying every known exploit to avoid the MS account out of the install process. Latest versions of 11 will FORCE you to use a MS account and pretty much all of the easy ways around this no longer work, you can still get around it but its convoluted and difficult requiring some prior knowledge of both the command console and how to break the install process.

Exactly!
Let me repeat myself:

Grzyb wrote on 2025-03-18, 12:50:

PC forever!
And I demand the "PC" to have its original meaning - *PERSONAL* Computer.
A thing under my total, PERSONAL control.

Microsoft's vision is diametrically opposed to mine - they don't want the PC to be Personal Computer, they want it to be just a dumb terminal to their services.

Same story with other providers of online services - there's no "download" option in YouTube...

It's a paradox: a modern PC is powerful enough to hold all the data an average person will ever need - but there's increasing pressure for it not keeping *any* data!

Linux still lets you own the system, and respects you as the final say.

It's about the only OS left that does.

Microsoft has been dictating user experience for a decade now.

Apple has been (trying to be) doing that for even longer.

Google laughs at the very notion of you being in any kind of control whatsoever.

So the choices are either be a slave to Microsoft/Google or suffer the unreliable shitshow that is Linux.

Maybe I will express an unpopular opinion, but there wasn't a single Operating System in whole history that was good. All of them were different flavors of bad. But still, I do not hate any of them, cause in the end all of them allow me to do what I want them to do.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-03-20, 13:23:

Linux still lets you own the system, and respects you as the final say. […]
Show full quote

Linux still lets you own the system, and respects you as the final say.

It's about the only OS left that does.

Microsoft has been dictating user experience for a decade now.

Apple has been (trying to be) doing that for even longer.

Google laughs at the very notion of you being in any kind of control whatsoever.

Linux is great if you want to do anything that isnt gaming but once gaming gets involved you start needing even more additions to get close to a Windows gaming experience, Bazzite and Steam OS are the closest Linux has ever been to a Windows like gaming experience, throw in Wine for the oddities that need it and its pretty dang close.

Still it has some work to do towards getting the publishers/Developers fully on side so they can stop with their shitty anti cheat blacklisting of Linux.

You can say but gaming isnt important but ...you would be wrong, gaming is heavily involved in most of the modern PC advancements.

Seriously Linux has never been as close as it is right now to being able to totally replace Windows for everything, I give it another year and I will be jumping ship because Windows 12 is quickly looking like an AI/Datafarming dumpster fire.

Naw.

Steamos uses arch, but that's mainly to enforce mittens on the user, since the rootfs is image based and read only. That means everything is a freaking flatpak. Please dont mitten the people who dont want them.

Proton works regardless of which linux is used.

Things like Heroic Game Launcher and Lutris are nice solutions on desktops.

Abstract the wine and proton versioning and handling away from center stage, and enable steam library integration, while still respecting your right to tinker.

This weekend I have a gaming system I will put linux on. Maybe I should make a video.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-03-21, 12:13:

Naw. […]
Show full quote

Naw.

Steamos uses arch, but that's mainly to enforce mittens on the user, since the rootfs is image based and read only. That means everything is a freaking flatpak. Please dont mitten the people who dont want them.

Proton works regardless of which linux is used.

Things like Heroic Game Launcher and Lutris are nice solutions on desktops.

Abstract the wine and proton versioning and handling away from center stage, and enable steam library integration, while still respecting your right to tinker.

This weekend I have a gaming system I will put linux on. Maybe I should make a video.

IIRC they are making a SteamOS for PCs that is different from the Steamdeck version, not sure if they will still lock it down but perhaps they will to try and entice publishers to stop blacklisting Linux for games using Anticheat.

What setup does Bazzite use ?, I have seen a few people on Youtube using it with Steam and it looks so damn close to being a total replacement for Windows, only a few games wont work with it.