NoelC

I'm not sure whether this even applies to a Microsoft account, but if you're using a local account to run Windows 10, something you may want to consider... Passwords are set to expire by default. If you haven't remembered to do so on your brand new setup, you might want to double check whether your password is set to expire, and whether you want to deconfigure that. Run the Local Security Policy snapin (secpol.msc)Navigate to Security Settings > Account Policies > Password Policy. Change the Maximum password age to 0 to avoid expiry. -Noel

I suppose Windows 10 Home users might not, but why would anyone want to run that? I believe I have identified a possible strategy, based on the above setting and the use of that new "update hider" tool, for both seeing what updates are available and managing what updates are installed. What remains to be seen is the depth Microsoft is willing to go to dredge things back up and especially how aggressive they'll be in overriding users' decisions. -Noel

I'd consider it. Face it, we're all going to be running something else in a few years. Windows 10 is just another set of technical challenges to overcome in the pursuit of deriving value. Windows 8 shipped without a Start Menu, a useless Metro subsystem, and a cruddy desktop without Aero Glass, and now it's the OS I'll be sticking with for a while. Frankly, bleak as things looked in 2012, my computing experience is now the best it's ever been - not because of what Microsoft shipped, but because of what can be done with it. We already have a thread here where it's been figured out how to thwart the privacy-invading stuff - almost certainly to a level that's better than Windows 7 out of the box (where do you think Microsoft got all that "telemetry" data they misused to justify what they did with Windows 8?). I have a test system running those tweaks with a local account and UAC disabled, and it's still pretty good for running desktop stuff. -Noel

Now THAT's cool! The performance numbers seem a little low (sequential numbers are 600 / 880 MB/s for read and write). Have you ever come across test numbers gathered on a system equipped with ULLtraDIMM SSDs? 140K IOPS read based on 4 KByte transfers and ultra low latency to the RAM bus could start to yield that super fast 4K I/O rate that TELVM keeps craving. There will still be the time it takes for the CPU to go through the file system and hardware drivers, of course. I kind of wonder, though... If the system can't do any RAM access outside of the CPU cache while I/O to these DIMMs is occurring, whether this could introduce its own breed of problems. -Noel

Basically, put it in the same folder as Aero Glass, where you have dbghelp.dll and symsrv.dll already. The symbols will be downloaded automatically. -Noel

No. The issue is about how subpixel font rendering is performed across the system. There are apparently a number of methods available to applications and various parts of the OS, and they differ in whether they follow the settings available for tuning font smoothing. This is an admitted oversimplification: Back in the "good ol' days" there was font smoothing and there was no font smoothing. Then someone invented "better" font smoothing called ClearType, which actually takes advantage of the fact that Trinitron-like displays, where there are three tiny vertical bars of color, Red/Green/Blue, repeating on the screen, can be "tricked" into showing more resolution by lighting up only certain vertical bars. More on that here. Anyway, ClearType either came with (or was later augmented by) a ClearType Tuner application which allowed users to adjust the characteristics of the rendering - for example how dark the font was rendered, and how much color was used for that "trick" I mentioned above. That way, people/system combinations where color fringing feels like a problem have a way of adjusting. Now the modern systems / font rendering mechanisms are seen not to respond to some or all of the settings in the ClearType tuner. THAT's what's at issue here. This can matter - a lot - to people who use monitors where the little stripes are in other than R|G|B orientation. -Noel

Jorge, I have Windows 10 Pro not automatically looking for new updates. I described it before: Run: GPEdit.mscNavigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows UpdateChange the Configure Automatic Updates setting to Disabled. It seems to work, though one can never be too sure; I know I've had updates accumulate for days. Have you tried this and specifically seen updates come in automatically? -Noel

Bear in mind an IP address is not necessarily a web server. It could be that those servers exist but listen for other protocols. That last one, though, says it's "Ok", so it must be okay. -Noel

Formfiller, don't think about it too hard. It's depressing but the world has a way of dropping a hammer on the heads of tyrants. Just keep using the old, reliable OS you already have, and make a sober judgment about when to stop accepting Windows Updates for it. -Noel

Yes. Presumably it notices when it's being run by just the right one and does its magic there only. -Noel

Unveiled? Seems to me 3D memory has been on the verge of bringing us the next big jumps in speed and capacity for a couple of years now. This certainly isn't the first I've heard of it. My advice: Don't wait for new tech to mature. Everything available is always obsolete. You'll wait a long time for the price to get just right, look back on what a crappy experience you put yourself through, then at the same time realize some even newer technology is on the horizon. It's the nature of high tech. If it helps, think of it as having waited for last decade's new tech (SATA SSDs) to mature. Just throwing out a thought... A workable strategy might be: Get a couple of cheap used SSDs (OCZ Vertex 3 is a good model) and plug 'em into your computer now. THEN get new 3D XPoint tech when the prices fall. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR2.TRC1.A0.H0.X%22Vertex+3%22+120.TRS0&_nkw=%22Vertex+3%22+120&_sacat=0 -Noel Edit: FYI, 3 x Vertex 3 120GB on a Dell PowerEdge T20 motherboard with a very modest dual core Pentium G3220 (Haswell) running Win 7 and using only the motherboard SATA connectors to make a RAID 5 (note: optimized for redundancy/reliability, not speed):

Somehow that goes perfectly with "Getting a few more things ready", doesn't it? -Noel

The sad thing is, wayyy back during the Win 8 previews I reported this to Microsoft, going to great effort to point it out to them. I even complained to the Internet Explorer people, as they abandoned the ClearType Tuner early on and began rendering without any color with no way to configure it. I guess they knew something about the newer Windows failing to properly support ClearType even back then. It's like Microsoft just screws things up (on purpose?) and moves on. And frankly, most folks DON'T notice things like this - but for those who do - those who care - this is a big deal. It reduces your pleasure in using the OS every single day. I guess that's the intent. Microsoft thinks you should throw away your computer and just get a Surface. Yeah, that'll fix everything. -Noel

Looks pretty nice from here. Button placement is improved The proper theme atlas resources are shown when the window is not current. I don't see any more the problems with hovering over the buttons sometimes not activating them. The title text is now no longer doubled, but it is black(active window) / gray(inactive window) where I make all the others white. While I would have preferred the white text, I can live with this. -Noel

Somewhere around here, back a couple of months ago when "reserving" first came out, I posted my thoughts about it. There have been those who pooh poohed the idea that they were giving unconditional permission to Microsoft to install the OS, thinking, "it's MY computer, of course I'll be asked to confirm when the time comes". Yeah, right. Hard not to be critical of both Microsoft AND the naïve, overly trusting user in that case. -Noel

You're welcome. Okay, I can't take very much of the credit at all as I didn't write the code, but I HAVE been diligently over on Ivo's forum asking him nicely to make sure to support Aero Glass. To each his own. Dhjohns likes to prod (and so do I). I greatly prefer Classic Shell over what Microsoft has done. You might say that "choosy motherxxxxxschoose Classic Shell". Between Classic Shell, Aero Glass, UxThemeSignatureBypass, ModernFrame, some theme graphics replacements, and a little luck maybe might actually get Win 10 halfway nice to look at again. -Noel

I'd be more interested in what parts of Windows accessed those locations, actually. And yes, I would expect ALL of these tweaks to be undone with anything more than the most minimal Windows Update. Microsoft thinks they have everyone conditioned to accept that kind of crap now. The tweakers of the future will have to be re-tweakers - programs that run at startup and make sure things stay as the user wants them. Not a big deal, really, but more of a pain than the "set it and forget it" stance we're used to. Nice job on the reformatting of the OP by the way. -Noel

I'm not sure it's any more a mess than with Win 8.1 (and possibly 8.0). As we've discussed elsewhere, I have had no luck in getting ClearType to render without color fringes since Win 8.1. I know I *have* seen it work, possibly back in Win 7, or maybe Vista. In my case I have two monitors on the ends turned up sideways, so they're neither RGB nor BGR. They're: R G B I just did a test where I ran the ClearType Tuner and specifically chose the panel that eliminates the color for my left monitor while leaving the center and right ones alone. Here are excerpts from a screen grab on 10240 spanning 3 monitors: I noticed one other little glitch... Notepad doesn't seem to have a clue how wide its text is (noting the 3 different scroll bars). That was the same text pasted into the 3 different notepad windows. There are no extra hidden spaces or characters we can't see - I checked. -Noel

LOL, that's just ironically funny. "We knew we'd see you here again sooner or later." -Noel

Interesting to see the expansion of the hosts list, including some nameless IP addresses in there now. I'd have loved to see some comments on those entries describing where they go, though I am using the list now to see what - if anything - doesn't work. So far, it seems to be able to check Windows Update for updates, and I seem to be able to access OneDrive via a web browser (I wouldn't want that any other way). I'm actually expecting an improved experience as a result of these changes. -Noel

OCD much? Ever hear of "minimize"? -Noel

LOL, "a cohesive experience". That's the distinct feeling you get when you step on chewing gum in the parking lot, right? -Noel

Assuming you ever want to use the laptop without the external drive, you may want to re-think that. There are various ways to combine disks. Though using the Intel RAID facilities in the chipset of a desktop motherboard often is a very good way to create a RAID array, it may be possible you could combine drives simply with diskmgmt.msc and get enhanced performance, but keep in mind that all the devices have to be present and working all the time for e.g. RAID 0. You may want to do some research on Microsoft "storage spaces" regarding flexibly connecting disks. I'm not terribly strong on the details of how that works, but it may be able to help you with your goals. -Noel

I'm not the author. Sorry for any confusion. -Noel

Where's that post where the Microsoft dweeb told me that "only few people used it" with regard to Windows Backup, so therefore it's not worth maintaining... Ah, here it is... https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/b3b95b80-27ca-4081-a518-fa3fd3b187ab/windows-8-backup-restoral-possible-using-file-history?forum=W8ITProPreRel Look for the post by BohdanR. It's been clear for years that doom has been coming. -Noel