NoelC

Need a poll I think... Does this bring: Excitement Dread I'm somewhere in the middle, but most of all I feel... Update fatigue. I hope, by the implication of the name, that this is just a service pack for the Creator's Update that doesn't seek to change everything again. -Noel

To me this sounds like what SHOULD have been a learning experience. A few dozen hours setting a whole computer system back up would teach that user not to allow "gnomes" access to a Windows system with an administrative account... Not to put too fine a point on it, but what did you THINK was going to happen? So great, the password was reset back to something to where the user could get in. But what else is permanently "gnome-enhanced"? Entire drive shared on OneDrive? Tax records mysteriously missing? No doubt that neighbor will blame Microsoft or the universe or ANYONE but himself/herself. The problem isn't that older Windows systems didn't place the management of the all-important administrative password in the hands of someone else. This problem was a short circuit between the headsets. -Noel

And almost certainly less maintainable. I constantly have to rely on my lifetime of experience not to have my Win 10 test system become unusable. Again. And so it remains captive in a virtual machine, while my desktop - on which I rely for business and all general computing needs - continues to run Windows 8.1 (with countless hours of tweaks). The difference is that Microsoft is no longer trying to change Win 8.1 into something other than an NT-derived operating system. -Noel

Configuring overt settings is fun, but it needs more to be completely shut up online. I've gotten the OS quiet, long-term, but a few applications - e.g., Visual Studio - do try to send telemetry regardless. For that I have DNS blacklists and the firewall in place. -Noel

I've been having some trouble moving icons around on the latest Win 10 desktop. If I try to put one near another one it often jumps away. I think chimps are now programming at Microsoft. -Noel

Wow, so the question becomes: What have I done this time around to avert it? Whatever it is, it's in my re-tweaker script. The only difference this time around is that I did NOT choose to remove all the Apps, since updates start to fail if they're removed. Having left them in, I did still kick the legs out from under the UWP table (e.g., by disabling the Unistack services). It uses more disk space this way, and SearchUI.exe does run so it uses a tiny bit more memory and another process, but it's still silent online and is pretty well optimized for desktop operations. Finding just how much one can carve back out and still end up with a viable, manageable system is the trick, isn't it? -Noel

I didn't boot up my Win 10 VM yesterday, and I may not today... Somehow I feel... Calmer; happier. -Noel

UWP File Explorer... Ugh. The time is approaching when it will either be necessary to abandon all hope of using Win 10 or embrace it for all its unwanted directions (cloud, poor efficiency, never finished). Who would imagine you could replace things with... lesser things and that could somehow be "acceptable"? -Noel

Does that stop SystemSettings from running entirely? Or just from being auto-started? This behavior seems to be gone from version 1703 anyway, so it's kind of a moot point going forward. -Noel

Microsoft OS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 would have been fine. Keep "Windows" as a, well, graphic multi-windowing OS for business. We should have been on Windows 9, SP2 or so by now. -Noel

Yes, thanks, I've corrected the wording. -Noel

I guess you mean the "releases", such as 1607 and 1703 ("Creator's"). Ostensibly they bring enhancements to the App realm. I don't know much about that because for every new release I've given up on the Apps. This, after giving the packaged Apps a try and finding over and over that I could get all the information just as well on my desktop from a web page or older application (weather.com in a browser, calc.exe, maps.google.com in a browser, IE or a Firefox derivative vs. Edge, etc.) And whenever I've looked in the Microsoft Store I've not seen any "must have" stuff. I can tell you this: There are virtually NO changes to the non-App parts. I guess that could be considered both good and bad... It's not really less COMPATIBLE with "legacy" applications, which is good, and I don't have to write really ANY different code to run software on Win 10 than on older systems back to 7, but... Explorer bugs that have been in the system virtually forever are still there. We know the UI isn't really themed any more (a lack of a consistent theme is not a theme itself). The Start Menu gets some changes, but it is essentially inconsequential since Classic Shell implemented a better one a decade ago, and yes, I DO test it. I just find no merit to it at all. It's like the kids at Microsoft are trying to discover new ways to run a desktop without actually designing anything. Windows 8.1 introduced ReFS, and yes, Windows 10 continues that support - but it HASN'T BEEN ADVANCED at all. I can't yet make a system volume with ReFS. As far as I know, I can't even FORMAT a data volume with ReFS in Windows 10 yet (i.e., it's the same as Windows 8.1, without any advancement). Fully tweaked - which takes quite a bit of effort - Windows 10 (without Apps) CAN be made private and about as efficient as Windows 8.1, which in a number of ways wasn't as efficient as 7. When I test doing the things I normally do with the desktop (basically creating software and running a business) I find Windows 10 on that fully tweaked setup to be slightly SLOWER than Windows 8.1, which in turn was slightly SLOWER than Windows 7. Mostly I think it's because they've tacked on more junk to support the multiple personalities of "mobile" and "desktop". I've not been able to completely carve out "mobile", so more things just sit there and soak up resources, like ShellExperienceHost and ApplicationFrameHost and SearchUI and two fontdrvhosts. I've noticed that networking a Windows 10 v1703 system in with a mixed set of Win 10 and 8.1 systems on a LAN isn't as reliable. I presume it must be because they have made Windows 10 "more secure". In my mind, "less likely to be able to access files on a server" isn't really so much "more secure" as "less functional". Speaking of security... Windows 10 is touted as "the most secure Windows yet". Funny thing, between the OS itself and Edge, there are certainly a lot more security problems being uncovered with Windows 10 each month (based on vulnerability lists and the number of security patches released by Microsoft) than with the older systems. So... They say it's faster - it's not. They say it's more secure - yet here I am with Windows 7 and 8.1 systems that have never been compromised, and I have to do back flips to make Win 10 private. They say it's better - yet it fails more often. They say it's modern - yet it's ugly as ****. -- Conclusion: I'm not seeing them bring much of anything I want. Your mileage may vary. -Noel

The list of crap websites that page tries to visit is staggering... [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, www.theverge.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.1.52 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, ocsp2.globalsign.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 104.16.25.216 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, optimize-stats.voxmedia.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, www.googletagservices.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, c.amazon-adsystem.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, cdn.krxd.net A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, cdn0.vox-cdn.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.200.124 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, phonograph2.voxmedia.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.200.124 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, s.skimresources.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, cdn.vox-cdn.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.200.124 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, fonts.voxmedia.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.200.124 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, www.googletagmanager.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, z.moatads.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, apex.go.sonobi.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, as-sec.casalemedia.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, sbnationbidder-d.openx.net A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, ib.adnxs.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, cdn1.vox-cdn.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.200.124 [15-Jul-17 00:05:05] Client 192.168.2.32, auth.voxmedia.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 151.101.65.52 [15-Jul-17 00:05:07] Client 192.168.2.32, www.linkedin.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 108.174.11.65 [15-Jul-17 00:05:07] Client 192.168.2.32, ocsp.digicert.com A resolved from Forwarding Server as 72.21.91.29 [15-Jul-17 00:05:10] Client 192.168.2.32, widgets.outbrain.com A not found (1) --- blacklisted by DNS proxy --- -Noel

You're right, syntactically, though to be fair there have been several iterations of Windows 10. I guess I was thinking "between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 version whatever the article writer has". Just try and imagine, "there is no version." -Noel

Thank you for posting this, since it hits quite close to home for me. From that article... It's something that's been introduced between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, since I do much the same kind of work he describes and I do not see any "mouse catch" situations (which would be appalling on a workstation where you very much expect to be able to do a lot of multitasking without much impact on the UI). I have imagined that - though it should be advancing - the OS would start to return to its roots (e.g., performing more poorly and actually needing a reboot every so often), and apparently it's actually coming true. Probably the result of immature application engineers in Microsoft doing ham-handed bugfixes - or maybe "security enhancements" - to the system itself. It's no small feat to achieve an operating system that will stay running virtually forever without degradation, remaining light and interactive. People ask why I prefer Windows 8.1 tweaked the way I have it. Stability and sustainability are very good reasons. -Noel

I have been busy getting some releases ready, so I haven't had time yet to experiment further with VS 2017. At the moment I have it in a pretty good place, with the telemetry sites being blocked by DNS, but like moataz I'm always interested in getting things to run in the most efficient possible ways. If a build goes 10% faster because of it, that's less waiting and more work I can get done in the same amount of time. -Noel

People actually want OneDrive integration? -Noel

A photographer friend of mine, who runs a pretty nice, new Puget Systems workstation bought with Win 10 preinstalled just to process his digital photos, recently commented that Windows 10 just upgraded itself to v1703 on him and broke some things. He was stunned and shocked that it would do this, EVEN THOUGH I had warned him about Windows 10 far in advance of his having gotten a new workastation. His only experience was on Windows 7 on his prior workstation. Even when you tell 'em, a lot of people in the world STILL won't believe what's happening until it bites them in the behind. People will never truly learn from others; they have to have the experience themselves - and at that point it's too late, they're already in the trap. -Noel

For VS 2015 as I mentioned you can use file system permissions to remove the privileges of VSHub.exe to run. Note, don't ADD deny permissions, but rather uncheck the existing allow permissions for "Read & Execute". Remember to look at whether an update has re-allowed them from time to time. Unfortunately the above doesn't apply to VS2017. That's quite a bit more complicated to control, since - as expected - the product has become much more cloud-integrated. VS 2017 communicates with a LOT of different servers. I've caught it trying to communicate with servers like the following to send telemetry: az700632.vo.msecnd.net az667904.vo.msecnd.net vortex.data.microsoft.com What I'm doing here to retain as much VS2017 functionality as I can while not allowing telemetry is to selectively block the resolutions of DNS names for several key telemetry reception sites. You can see my extensive blacklists, part of which are regenerated daily, in this file in the dns_hosts and wild_hosts files: http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/files/DNSListCompiler.zip I have to admit that I'm not as confident in this setup blocking all unwanted comms since it IS being allowed to contact so many other sites, such as: aka.ms download.visualstudio.microsoft.com go.microsoft.com visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com Keep in mind that whatever we can do to try to block their taking of information from us, they have already thought it through and have secondary and tertiary methods of retrieving it. There's probably no real hope of maintaining complete privacy except to just not use modern software. -Noel

The number of lost hours across the billions of people in the world is staggering. We could have built a solar array entirely around the planet with that wasted effort. -Noel

Most SSD systems can sustain upwards of 100 MB/second disk I/O throughput with 4 kbyte I/O operations nowadays - some many times that. By comparison the number for an electromechanical HDD is something like 2 MB / second. Thus any remaining SSD I/O bottleneck for data reads during system bootup should be virtually trivial. -Noel

I look forward to hearing the results of that. An anecdote: A while back I learned of a RAM caching program - I forget the name, it was a cutesy one, something like FancyCache - that would add a layer of RAM write-back caching between the hardware and the software, to the point where huge amounts of I/Os could be completed with the disk subsystem getting way behind. Its claim to fame is that it speeds up I/O benchmarks tremendously. The reality is that there already is RAM caching and a lot of optimization in the system. When I tested this amazing caching package with my SSD setup, it didn't turn out to speed up actual I/O intensive applications at all. But it DID cause some system instability. -Noel

In all my career I met/hired/worked with few "computer graduates" who knew much of anything practical about computers. We always had to train them to do the real software work the communications industry required. And only some of them actually were trainable; even fewer could do things like real-time programming. At various times I set up and maintained the computer systems and software development environments used by departments of software engineers - because IT people were generally even worse than the "computer graduates" at making things work. Almost none of the Engineers knew how to (or cared to) run their Windows systems as a tight ship. Yes, I know these are overgeneralizations, but they're no doubt why Microsoft is dumbing things down and offering "Windows as a Service". I fear there's a knowledge/wisdom base that's going to die with us old-timers who cut our teeth programming logic gates and 8 bit processors in machine code that ran at tens of thousands of instructions per second, and who are actually still interested in how things work under the covers. I challenge all the young folks here to do better. The world is going to stop working (which means no more Facebook or microwave ovens or XBox) if you don't. -Noel

At one point I did actually put Win 10 on a hardware system (my PowerEdge T20 small business server, which is now running Win 7 x64 Ultimate). I was able to do benchmarks at the time, though it was a few years ago. As I have discovered above, bootup times were not significantly different from Win 7 on the same hardware. I even did some comparative testing with SSD vs. hard drive at the time (around the time of the first Win 10 release, actually), and it was a fair bit slower to boot up from a hard drive. SSD definitely accelerates any computing experience. I haven't been motivated to get back to that system and try the latest Win 10 on it, simply because it functions perfectly month after month for its purpose using Win 7. I think by temporarily "upgrading" to Win 10 I've locked in a license - presuming such upgrades don't expire - for it for the future if somehow Win 7 becomes unusable. -Noel

Sure, good point, but my hardware stable is necessarily limited. I don't think accessing a virtual hard drive in a .vmdk file is going to speed things up over a hardware system. And it probably IS informative to compare two different VMs running from different .vmdks on the same physical hardware. -Noel