JorgeA

Here's what I would do if faced with the above situation (it's what I plan on doing when support for Vista ends next year): If you're using Windows Defender, replace it with a reputable AV suite (even a free version)Use a resident anti-malware application such as MBAM as a second line of defenseInstall a third line of defense with resident anti-exploit software such as EMET, MBAE, or HitmanPro.AlertUse Heimdal Pro as a fourth line of defenseCheck your computer frequently with on-demand AV scanners -- say, either nightly or following a long session of heavy-duty websurfingOccasionally scan the computer with a different AV program running off a live CDBuild an extensive Hosts file including entries from multiple sourcesKeep your major applications patched and updated as much as possible (Heimdal Pro will assist in doing this automatically, among other things it does)Install an ad blocker on your browsers (malvertising is a major source of infection nowadays); if you use Internet Explorer, turn on InPrivate Filtering which will slowly build a list of ad servers to be blockedUse a limited user account rather than an administrator account (it's been reported that upwards of 90 percent of infections that trigger Windows Updates would have been prevented by this measure alone)Perform a bare-metal backup of your whole system at least monthly, preferably weekly, and certainly back up your data on a weekly basisNo doubt there are other security measures you can take, but these are the first to spring to mind. Thanks for the report. It jibes with a lot of what I've been reading about Windows 10. It's especially telling that this is happening to you on a new laptop, which is free of all the crud that builds up over time to slow down a computer and cause other problems. Of course, here and there you will inevitably run into the Win10 fanboi who will declare that My System Runs Just Fine, so What's the Problem??? Ignore him -- it's a bit like a soldier who makes it through a minefield unscathed and scoffs at those who got blown up. Said fanbois may also retort that considering a randomly dying computer to be unusable is indeed just your opinion. --JorgeA

An interesting observation from UX design experts: Millennials as Digital Natives: Myths and Realities As the wag says, "all generalizations are wrong." Nonetheless -- no doubt while there are many exceptions to this statement, there is also truth in it. --JorgeA

I was download programs that were not in the free list (virtual box, wine, ect) did not realize you could point yum extender to a non-free repository (would have saved me a lot of time) before I decided to put Linux on the computer I tried to install 10 just to see how it was on a real machine. I blue screened on first boot lol! The way the Linux repositories are organized is a bit of a mystery to me. I've been experimenting with a Netrunner installation; one category in the Muon Package Manager is labeled "multiverse", with no explanation of what that might possibly mean. A user-friendly setup would include descriptions of the categories, or at least links to online explanations. That's one area where Windows has historically been superior to Linux. Not perfect of course -- just better. --JorgeA

Woody Leonhard has been on a tear over the last week: Microsoft walks a thin line between Windows 10 telemetry and snooping --JorgeA

It reminds me of the "advice" that women fearing rape used to be given (supposedly): Just lie back and enjoy it. --JorgeA

Here are more details from Woody on what's going on with that infamous GWX update: How 'Get Windows 10' sets its hooks into Windows 7 and 8.1 And: I suppose that all of this applies to people who ever did install KB3035583 and then thought they were removing it by following the official instructions. Woody's final line: A pertinent comment by a reader on Woody's own website: --JorgeA

Woody Leonhard reports another new upgrade outrage: Banishing 'Get Windows 10' nagware isn't as easy as you think [emphasis added] It's beyond clear now that Microsoft has no respect for its customers. --JorgeA P.S. I'll bet Josh Mayfield didn't expect that maintaining his tool would turn into a full-time proposition...

Absolutely you can. If you're not concerned about port forwarding (for accessing services or servers on your network), there's no reason you can't disable the WiFi on your cable/DSL modem, plug the WAN port of a quality router into one of your modem's LAN ports and use your new router's WiFi/LAN ports instead. There's no risk of breaking anything since your new router will simply appear to the modem as another device. In fact, this is highly recommended given that the WiFi on many ISP modems isn't that great to begin with. The Asus routers I listed earlier all get top marks for wireless performance, in addition to being supported by Tomato. Great to know, thanks! BTW my setup is even simpler, as there is no wireless involved -- all connections are via Ethernet cable. (Physician wife has concerns about the long-term health implications of adding local EM waves to the already existing soup from outside sources.) Looks like I have a couple of ways to go here. I could either set things up wall---VZ router---new router---switch---PCs, or I could do wall---VZ router---switch, and then connect the other PCs to the switch and use one of the switch's LAN ports for the new router, which would then lead to the Windows 10 machine specifically. Those look like the Westell 7500 modem configuration pages. These modems offer little as far as customizability is concerned. I've had many of these where a customer wanted content filtering and I couldn't even specify the DNS servers without turning off DHCP on the Internet side, which would cause problems of its own. Such a basic setting! Man, you are good -- I forgot to type in the number of that Westell series of routers and you still knew what it was! Thank you for the offer, I might just take you up on it. Regarding the MSFN notifications, I stopped getting them at the end of May last year and then they spontaneously started coming in again a month ago. The IPB gods work in mysterious ways... --JorgeA

That IS very nice indeed. And like NoelC, I especially like the 3D scrollbar. I run Win10 on a laptop with no mouse, and not only is the "modern" scrollbar hard to pinpoint visually, it has a nasty tendency to disappear on me such that I have to keep wiggling my finger on the touchpad to make it show up again. All that said, what folks like me need most now is a detailed, foolproof set of inch-by-inch, soup-to-nuts instructions for installing these themes including Aero Glass. A few weeks ago I happened to run into the instructions that @feren CEO quotes a few posts above -- and they didn't work for me. No doubt I did something wrong, but that highlights the usefulness of providing complete "click here and select that there" directions. Of course as NoelC alluded to, it doesn't help matters that Microsoft keeps changing the rules. Therefore a Sticky thread providing up-to-date directions for installation might come in handy. --JorgeA

There should be. @jaclaz and I looked briefly into this a few pages upthread, but without reaching a firm conclusion (look also at the post following the one in the link). --JorgeA

Actually, it does seem to give a pretty fair amount of configuration options. A few years ago, @Tripredacus even found a quite advanced manual for the Westell, which I made sure to download. But the settings and much of the manual are beyond my pay grade. Here are a few screenshots to illustrate: But I haven't seen anything in there expressly relating to an ability to blacklist specific addresses, let alone create a large Hosts-type file. --JorgeA

I'm glad to hear you say that, actually. I have considered on and off trying to "go it on my own" and flash Tomato into my router, but every time I get cold feet because if I brick the thing suddenly my whole house/home office is offline. Even flashing Linksys/Cisco's own software is pretty iffy with the thing. I really need to bite the bullet and just buy another router, then play with that until I have this name resolution setup just right. If / when something goes wrong, I could just plug in the old one to restore service. Thing is, I really LIKE the one I have (Cisco E4200v2, which has powerful wifi, excellent uptime, and is easy to configure to do everything else I want). I really do want to assert better control over name resolution LAN-wide, as that seems to be a sticky point with the my non-Windows systems here (well, one in particular: My wife's iPad 2 has grown nearly impossible for her to browse with since so many extra things are being done on virtually every web page). -Noel While we're on the topic of configurable routers, I'm wondering if it is feasible to place a router in front of or behind another router. Reason I ask is that I'm using a Verizon-supplied DSL router/modem. I admit that my knowledge of networking technology remains very fuzzy, and so I don't know if (for example) Verizon might have either a technical or contractual problem with my outright replacing its router with a third-party router. And thus I'm wondering about putting a third-party router either in front of or behind VZ's router, for the purpose of using it to block unwanted connections to Microsoft without the OS objecting. There is another factor to throw into the mix. A couple of years ago, my VZ-supplied Westell F90 router burned out and they sent me a new one. It was an arcane, convoluted process to get Verizon to recognize/authorize it or whatever the procedure is called, so I'm not eager to go through that again. I ended up having to make several phone calls to Verizon tech support (which in itself is a nightmarish experience) to get back on the 'Net. --JorgeA

Found this during a search for information about Mozilla's moving to force add-on developers to "sign" their code, something that Adobe has failed to do so far and which it's doubtful they will do for previous (non-cloud) versions of Acrobat. It's fitting on so many fronts: Hear, hear. --JorgeA

It sure is helpful -- thanks! --JorgeA

I'll be delighted if that, too, turns out to be the case -- one look over to the left, below my MSFN join date, will confirm it! --JorgeA

The discussion is getting heated: Revealed! The crucial detail that Windows 10 privacy critics are missing If you're fine with Microsoft's approach to privacy in Windows 10, you're out of touch New Windows 10 stats show Microsoft is closely watching you — but is it an issue? In a recent episode of Windows Weekly, Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley scoffed at the Forbes.com columnist (cited upthread) who dismissed as "rubbish" the idea that Windows 10 is more secure than Windows 7. Foley's line: "Friends don't let friends read Gordon Kelly." No trace of an argument there, just pure sarcasm. They offered neither arguments nor facts in opposition. I have downloaded my last episode of Windows Weekly. --JorgeA

That analogy actually works pretty far in! --JorgeA

+100 :thumbup --JorgeA

It looks remarkably like Windows 10... ...even down to the flatness and including the Taskbar with wire icons in the system tray. It does have one advantage over Win10, though: not quite Aero Glass, but -- to judge from the screenshot above -- apparently there's some transparency on the window borders! One big disadvantage: they're based in Beijing. I can't trust that Remix OS will not contain backdoors for the Chinese government to sneak through. Yes, of course I know about Microsoft and Windows and the NSA, but the net effect would be "jumping from the frying pan into the fire." Not exactly a selling point for this new OS. If they were based in, say, Switzerland or the Turks & Caicos, I'd feel differently about it. --JorgeA EDIT: typo!

"200 million" Win10 installs? Apparently not -- at least, not yet: Windows 10 powered 164 million PCs at the end of 2015 Here's an interesting distinction: The interesting part is that bit about "usage share, a proxy for activity rather than users." If Windows 10 is sending searches for stuff on your own PC to Bing, then could that account for at least some of this apparent increased activity for Win10? --JorgeA

I just tried that original link, and it's working (once again?). The page does say it's been viewed 397,705 times. Maybe when you tried to visit the page the server was crashing due to the great interest in the article. --JorgeA

^^ Not, at this point it's not certain that it will work. All we have right now is a promising-sounding method from ComputerNerd (post #53 upthread), but this needs to be verified in practice. That was ComputerNerd's first (and so far only) post on MSFN, so we have yet to see if he (she?) will be back here, and how often. --JorgeA

Microsoft may be collecting more data than initially thought A couple of intriguing (maybe alarming) observations in the comments section (areas of concern in boldface): and: Anybody have insight as to whether these claims are true? --JorgeA

CES 2016: In the smart home, the user is the one kept in the dark about data No room for mischief in any of that, now is there? --JorgeA

I live in a Comcast area. While I haven't run across anybody quite that bad, in my years with them I have had one or two pretty tense phone chats with customer service reps. I'd say about half the time, the problem has to do more with incompetence or lack of knowledge, than with malice. --JorgeA