NoelC

The variety spice I like is where the theme makes it easy to sense the difference between window corners, button/control corners, and client areas. This "Modern" BS makes everything just blend together. I understand it - Microsoft has a mandate to "make the UI disappear", but their engineers just take things too literally. -Noel

Doesn't anyone think that kind of stuff (and tons more Microsoft is doing) is anti-competitive? I sell my software online. Not terribly long ago one of my new release installers (and yes, I have a valid code signing certificate) came up in Internet Explorer, courtesy of Smart Screen, with "This kind of file is dangerous and can damage your computer". Is our justice department just a bunch of wusses permanently distracted by their smart phones? -Noel

I like the scroll bar thumb. One could put an eye out with those sharp window corners, though. -Noel

Don't confuse Skype with the peer to peer Windows Updates. Imagine the sheer temptation, if you're a malware author... A Windows Update staged by Microsoft themselves on your very own computer, automatically being fed out to others. I predict the time for someone to figure out how that's being managed to be measured in mere days. A way to exploit it is probably already known. -Noel

Was that the "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" setting found in the group policy editor? Unfortunately my Windows Update just sits with an error message stating, "There were some problems installing updates, but we'll try again later... blah blah", so I can't compare my experience what you're seeing. I'll probably throw out this installation and start a fresh one from the ISO soon. -Noel

There are bad (e.g., phishing) sites blacklisted from the OpenDNS lists, as I understand it. You can read more at: https://www.opendns.com I don't know what you mean or are implying by "obvious tinfoil hat responses". -Noel

I just use Photoshop to alter the atlas graphics. -Noel

There would be those who would say that if everyone refused to be made a full fledged cloud member (i.e., sharing one's resources with the world for their use on demand) that the whole cloud concept wouldn't work. I've often wondered... What would be wrong with that? Clearly people do not like the ugly truth when it's presented plainly, and probably a lot of them would not choose to share THEIR resources for others' use freely, so Microsoft has to coerce and mislead (or just outright do it with assumed permission) in order to get people to do it. There is a TV commercial going on presently here in the US that claims (in a roundabout way) that doctors will only be able to cure cancer if they use the resources of the Microsoft cloud, because the processing needed on computers the doctors themselves could fund would take weeks to do what the cloud could do in minutes. Socialized computing. Just what we need to bring everyone down to the same level. -Noel

Good thinking on the firewall. Of course, one would have to identify the components, protocols, etc. for the process. Looking over jaclaz's linked article, it brought to mind something regarding publicly "exposing things Microsoft does"... Anyone noticed it no longer seems to matter whether the child points out that the Emperor's new clothes are a farce? -Noel

I haven't been able to get my Win 10 virtual machine to enter multi-monitor mode for some reason. -Noel

Has anyone tried installing Classic Shell, but deconfigured it from opening the Classic Start Menu? I believe it will still manage the Taskbar translucency (assuming you configure it to disable Taskbar transparency). -Noel

Just confirming: Full theme replacements restore everything good that has been lost from decent themes, like graphics on scroll bar thumbs and even rounded buttons, right? What tools do you recommend with which to develop themes, MrGRiM? -Noel

Make sure to look up how to deconfigure Skype from making your system into a SuperNode. -Noel

"Modern", unfortunately. -Noel

NOTE: We who have used Win 10 are "changed" and can't deal with deep fun stuff from now on. Please keep cute posts to the use of short words and base thoughts. Thank you. -Noel

My understanding is that the inactive color is set solely by Windows 10's "logic", and Big Muscle's software can't override it. -Noel

The ability to configure updates would be a good reason to opt for "Pro" if that differentiated the edition from "Home". There's also going to be an "Enterprise" edition which, even though I'm a small business, probably wouldn't opt for since I think the minimum you can buy is 5 licenses and I don't need that many. -Noel

That setting no longer exists, at least not directly. Via the normal user setup UI you now have two choices: Automatic (recommended)Notify to schedule restart...as shown below... I'm not completely sure, since there have been a limited number of updates and my copy is emitting a "There were some problems" message, but I believe both of the choices above cause updates just to be installed immediately when they come out. The difference is that the second case nags you to do a restart after the fact via the Notifications panel vs. just going ahead with it. The "Choose how you download updates" setting is new, and appears to be a way to disable peer to peer networking, which is fully enabled by default (to the cloud! to the cloud!)... If I have misinterpreted the above, I would love it if someone could point me to documentation that describes the way it's really supposed to work. It's all still pretty new. -Noel *Scouting around, I've found some options available via Group Policy (noting that the Local Group Policy snap-in doesn't work quite right in 10041, so is clearly getting new work done)... I still need to investigate these to see if a combination can be set that implements an "Inform me when updates are available and let me choose when to install them" policy.

Thank you, Big Muscle. Seems to be looking good on regular desktop windows. Something new may be going slightly wrong with Metro/Modern Apps, though, when used in conjunction with ModernFrame.dll (dated March 8). I haven't tested very much yet, but at one point the resizing cursor wouldn't stay current when resizing the Weather App from the bottom-right corner. Later while resizing that window the whole App just exited without any message. Just now it seemed to work okay. This might be a problem with ModernFrame.dll that's been there all along, I'm not sure. -Noel

Much can be done in the name of security. It's something for which almost anyone would unequivocally say "more is better" without thought of the cost. -Noel

Arrogance? Did I say you were allowed to respond? (all in fun) -Noel

Thanks. Kind of as I thought, with maybe some calibration bugs thrown in for good measure. Maybe a case where they were just too aggressive in trying to lower the manufacturing cost by packing more bits into a NAND cell. -Noel

I may have missed following a link somewhere, but... Has anyone offered an explanation as to why it should be so? Is it a characteristic of TLC flash that older stored blocks degrade and require additional error correction? I suppose SSDs are still so new that we're just now getting to where there's relatively old (years old) data on them. This is certainly a nasty way to fail. -Noel

Windows 10 does that all by itself. Wow, I may have finally met someone who thinks borderless windows are better. -Noel

People take offense to being labeled as promoting "hate". I'd suggest avoiding that. I'm the first to say Windows 10 can still be tweaked, but it's not as easy or effective as with Win 8.1. Yet. If/when it is, based on what we see already it will be more challenging to turn Windows 10 into a serious OS than any version ever released to date. Recognizing that Microsoft is going down the wrong road with Windows and trying to help set the course straight is not "hate". If anything, it's more akin to "love" for Windows and a desire to get back to a system that works well. -Noel