NoelC

Yes, I found that as well. Isn't it nicer to have more control over your own system? To know Microsoft puts those capabilities in there but doesn't give us a way to configure them really makes it seem like they're being selfish, no? By the way, is the calculator still dark in build 10074? I can no longer run it (since I disabled UAC), but last I looked they had turned it to dark characters on a light background - which frankly looked worse than anything I've ever seen. -Noel

Well said, bphlpt. I can come across as overly emphatic and stubborn - and I'm sorry (it may come from trying to talk sense on some other forums where people do not know as much as many/most do here). The amount of ridiculous snake oil regarding this area of Windows maintenance ("cleaning") has long been a pet peeve of mine - as I'm sure it is to others in this thread. I do sometimes remember - after having been nicely reminded (thanks to all here) - that there can be nuggets of goodness in it. -Noel

Try this one then, about 60% as bright of the previous one... http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8/win8rtm_MediumGlow.png -Noel

Oh darn. People at Microsoft are really starting to hate the messengers. Must be frustrating to work there. This is nothing less than the beginning of the end of Microsoft. Or maybe the middle (considering Win 8). The funny thing is that I am one of the few folks who make posts that describe ways I've been able to get Windows 10 to actually work, and I make statements like "I'll probably be able to use this". It's been shown time and again that it doesn't matter if you are contributing anything useful. The fangirls are simply offended if you don't join them on the bandwagon. -Noel

A lot of windows all at once or successively? I tend to run my system for weeks on end between reboots mandated by Windows Update, so I do open and close a lot of stuff. I ran the test version you posted above all morning in a Win 10 VM and the memory usage remained steady at around 125 MB. I'd seen it go up to as much as a couple of GB before, so it seems like you've done some very good things there. -Noel

Someone at Microsoft has trouble thinking complex enough thoughts to imagine that maybe the interface could actually be scaled so that it doesn't take up so much room on a PC. It's not the engineers, though... There's actually a registry setting that will do it (I use it set to 85% and have been considering lowering that number). There's some retard (likely in Marketing) over there who thinks that since a panel requires the whole screen on a phone it should require almost the whole screen on a PC or the "experience will be too different". I liken the current trend to when the auto industry decided to make supremely ugly, boxy cars with too-small wheels in the last quarter of the last century. Everyone on Earth looked at them and struggled to keep their breakfast down, yet somehow we HAD to go through a "style reset" so that they could then start improving the appearances again. -Noel

Hard not to like a red kitteh. Welcome! -Noel

I've been trying that version in Win 10 build 10074, and I will continue to do so today. So far no problems. Does the issue also affect the Windows 8.1 released version 1.3.1? Seems like I've run it quite a long time without exhausting any resources. -Noel

It' sounds like it's all for a "feel good" factor then. Nothing wrong with that. But until someone comes along with before and after measurements that show an objective improvement in system responsiveness or SOMETHING, I'm afraid I'll remain unconvinced. -Noel

With some effort you can actually get that to work. See the section on this forum about Aero Glass for Win 8+. Big Muscle has not only implemented an Aero Glass resurrection, but also some software to facilitate theme replacement. -Noel

Personally I have no problem with IE. It does what I need and allows me to configure its security model to my liking. -Noel

How's this? http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8/win8rtm_MoreGlow.png -Noel

I guess what *I* would prefer in a browser is one that renders as many different web pages properly as is possible. That's been the goal of IE and the others all along. So why does it make any sense for "Spartan", which admittedly doesn't implement any compatibility to speak of other than with some current specification, get split out as a separate "App"? Yet another decision based solely on "fashion"? -Noel

Unfortunately, I see no results, just anecdotes. If I were to see some objective data, I'd be likely to be more convinced. How big are YOUR registry files, right now? The article you mentioned has little to do with this discussion. It is related to a specific condition on Windows 2003 Server, having to do with registry hives approaching 2 GB in size, and may only be applicable to a particular version with a particular bug. I don't feel strongly compelled to expand that description to cover end users of Windows. I believe you have touched on something there... These are the same Microsoft documentarians who are to this day, via their "FAST PUBLISH" articles, describing Windows Updates that facilitate an "upgrade" to Windows 10 with the text "This update solves issues in Windows". -Noel

It's all relative, but clearly rational thinking based on what makes sense technically has been replaced with thinking solely of trends and fashion. I see it as very simple: Bill Gates was a geek, and ultimately did things (that yes, were good for Microsoft business) that made good sense. By comparison, when he handed the reigns over to successor marketeers and "businessmen" things no longer needed to make sense at all (while still being good for Microsoft business). I think the transition to "openly predatory" has been fairly recent, with their previous state, ending around 2010, being more benign with a healthy dose of "don't quickly attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence." -Noel

It takes all kinds. Some people think butts are beautiful. But in this world, common sense isn't. Yes, there are people who mob together for no reason other than fashion and mob mentality. I doubt they even think at the level of "get on the bandwagon" or "side with a winner". It's just a natural thing, probably a result of a deep emotional insecurity that somehow a few of us have gotten past. Who'd have thought that stupidity would end up eclipsing reality when collective consciousness was achieved through better information flow and connectedness? -Noel

The "free upgrade" license, which will IMO be worth every penny and not a penny more, is described by Microsoft as being valid for the life of the device. Note the implication of the wording here: "This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost." Whether in practice you'll be able to reinstall Windows 10 on that same device should you need to do so down the line, is anyone's guess. My advice: Become VERY well educated before deciding that this "free upgrade" offer is worth taking. I have a suspicion you won't be allowed to go back! Note my statement above and do your own research how much other knowledgeable users feel it's worth. TRY Windows 10 yourself - for example in a virtual machine. Do NOT blindly believe this is the same Microsoft that had users' interests at heart when they built Windows 7 and earlier. They have turned openly predatory. -Noel

It's as though you're trying to pick apart my position on this, while I just don't feel a need to warp reality to make you happy. But maybe I'm being too blunt for you with my "rule of thumb" recommendations. Try this on: Running unnecessary things on the central database of your computer can increase the risk of problems. Whether the added risk of doing what you like instead of what's needed could be considered substantial is up to interpretation. We're all free to do what we like, but I stand by my statement: You simply don't need to run 3rd party software on your registry. Here's a year's worth of overall system benchmarks on my main Windows 8.1 workstation that's had daily hard use (24/7), and without my using any magic registry performance enhancers. Do you see any negative performance trend here? I don't. As the user of this particular system, I am not finding it to be any less responsive or powerful - with one small exception - than it was the day I installed Windows. The small exception I'm compelled to describe for the sake of completeness is that Microsoft specifically wrecked performance of the Direct 2D subsystem with a Windows update in November 2014. They briefly un-wrecked it in February 2015, then wrecked it again with the very next updates. Note the radical changes in Direct 2D performance in November 2014 and February 2015: I am not alone in seeing the above. The above makes comparison of overall benchmarks since November 2014 difficult with those from before, because the one Direct 2D reading affects the overall score a fair bit, but here's the trend after that time. Factoring out the Direct 2D anomaly, which as far as I can tell doesn't actually affect anything I personally run other than the benchmark program, you can see my performance has not been degrading in the recent 7 months as well. I also have archived results showing a similar lack of degradation with Windows 7 systems if you're interested in seeing them. Let's have this discussion move to more objective measurements and results, shall we, and stop with the nitpicking of terminology. I'm certainly willing to be educated by other peoples' actual results. -Noel

I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would want a separate browser from those we already have. Can you help enlighten me? What did you find deficient in those that were already available? -Noel

Yes, stuff gets written to the registry that does not always get removed. So what? If nothing needs it, it does very little to harm your computing experience. On the other hand, removing something that IS needed will do terrible things to your system. People here are of the mistaken impression that extra entries in your registry are awful things that are just ruining your computing experience. While it's easy to argue that a bloated database can't possibly perform as well as a contiguous, clean one, the reality is it makes so little practical difference that it's simply not in the top 10 list of things that you actually SHOULD be worrying about. The whole "need a cleaner tool" genre is a case of people getting all upset about a mental image that isn't real. There is a distinct lack of objective information here of the form: On day xxxx day, before installing yyyy, my system's performance was measured to be zzzz. On day xxxx + n my system's performance had dropped to zzzz - m. Note that subjective feelings do not apply. Humans are terrible at measuring relative performance. Emotions, "what you've gotten used to", and even how much caffeine you have had all get in the way. While there are certainly reasons Windows slowdowns can occur, most of them have nothing to do with the size or fragmentation of your registry. I actually HAVE made performance measurements throughout the life of my Windows systems, and without having done any registry compaction / defragmenting / cleaning amazingly enough on all my systems the performance just keeps constant. If you're interested in Ask yourself these pertinent questions: Have any of my registry files grown to be anywhere near the 2 GB limit? (the answer will almost certainly be NO). Have I used Autoruns or similar to scour my system for (and potentially disable) the many, many "handy" programs added by virtually every application package to run in the background? Have I examined the list of running processes to determine which are running but don't need to be (thinking along the lines of BlackViper). Do I have sufficient hardware for what I want to do? "Sufficient" is defined to be more than what's needed at any given moment since it is a general computing device. If your system disk is more than half full, then you do not have sufficient hardware. Systems struggling with too little space (RAM or disk) account for most perceived performance issues and trust me, defragmenting your registry on a marginal system isn't going to make it suddenly everything you wanted. It may be that there are some nice programs like CCleaner that will help you keep your system tidy, but I caution you to be VERY conservative about letting some program try to decide what you no longer need. It boils down to this: Many people who don't have an in-depth knowledge of how Windows works tout "cleaner" applications as great.Many people believe they have to reinstall their operating system regularly.Noel knows a few things about Windows and says "cleaner" and "registry defragger" applications are unnecessary.Noel never, ever has to reinstall his operating systems and enjoys consistent reliability and performance. If you like running some software because it makes you feel good to take an active role in maintaining your computer, more power to you. But if you want to espouse the virtues of a particular operation, let's talk about technical, objective performance measurements. Opinions matter little; measurements matter most. -Noel

So what's that say - even among the Metro/Modern Apps there's no standardization. Sheesh. -Noel

While I agree that the Win 10 stuff looks the worst ever, the slide to mediocrity hasn't been all that sudden. The Vista/7/8 calculators can't even handle 64 bit numbers. Try doing a conversion of an unsigned 64 bit hex value of 9000000000000000 to decimal, for example. You get a negative number. Do a hex to decimal conversion then want to do some scientific math on it (something I actually do occasionally). The newer versions just lose the accumulator during the switch in modes. Fancy features like history aside, the old XP calculator, derived apparently from a 3rd party application called Calculator Plus, was the last one that actually was made to be used seriously. -Noel

I've been running Win 10 like that. If tradition holds, GPEdit will not be available to Windows Home users. Thus will begin a proliferation of Internet Articles describing the registry tweaks that implement that setting. And those that send telemetry info to Microsoft. Windows Updates appear to be blocked effectively from auto-installing by Group Policy settings.　 I think that will remain a necessity if Microsoft harbors any prayer of getting this software into enterprises.　 We're not allowed to pick and choose, but I suspect a way to do that will ultimately be revealed.　 And we can today uninstall individual updates.　 That last method is incomplete, because the updates do show up again.　 Bottom line is this:　 I doubt Microsoft will permanently release updates that will kill Windows, so...　 One need only wait a month or so (assuming one doesn't have a present bug one is waiting for Microsoft to solve), research to the world's experiences with recent updates, THEN choose to install. However... When will Microsoft change the rules down the line?　 Will they, with an update, stop the ability to opt out?　 Will they make things that we can work around now so that they can't be worked around? Will they destroy the desktop one day, and not even say "sorry"? You really have to ask yourself just one question...　 "Do I feel lucky?"　 I honestly don't know whether (or for how long) a continued partnership with Microsoft can be beneficial; whether "keeping current" will be a Good Thing; whether installing all updates will consistently yield a viable working environment.　 At this point we can just try to make the best of what is in front of us now, in order to know our options, and to know how to be prepared. I've been immersed in a UAC-disabled Windows 10 VM for a day and a half now. It works almost exactly like a UAC-disabled Windows 8.1 system. -Noel

I was going to post and let you know you have the last word, but then mine would be the last word, but I couldn't tell you this without posting, but... -Noel

My experience may be deeper than most, but hey, if it makes you feel good to do useless things to files on your computer, who am I to criticize? Knock yourself out. I do a lot of things because I like to as well. -Noel