NoelC

And now, without extra effort, you get no choice. One of my main complaints is that they have oversimplified the control interface for managing updates. From what I can see, now you just get the opportunity to have the computer ask you for a reboot after the updates are installed, and you get all of what they have queued. I think there is a way to specify "don't update drivers" in another place. -Noel

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I am able to use the web interface to upload files directly to online storage - even without OneDrive being running at all on the client computer. https://onedrive.live.com/ -Noel

Sure is getting depressing watching things worse​ than our fears materialize. It dawned on me all of Redmond must just be kids playing with their phones and tablets any more. -Noel

Thanks, Ken. Unfortunately the decision isn't just an easy arbitrary "okay, I'll do that instead" for a large chunk of Windows users. There's nothing inherently more secure about Linux/Unix. It's just that it's a relatively low-popularity OS that not many malware writers have chosen to target. Thing is, Microsoft may be driving a lot of users to Linux in the very near future. With increased popularity will come increased targeting and risk. -Noel

There is of course a well known way to get past that. And you have to admit, Big Muscle deserves a nice lunch or maybe a 6 pack of good beer for his good work to restore Aero Glass, and elegance on our desktops. -Noel

Glad to hear you got it going. Sometimes things take a few reboots. But I've done what you've done when investigating things - given up a little too quickly. By the way, I've noticed folks sometimes assume that on a 64 bit system registry entries need to be promoted from DWORD to QWORD. That's virtually never the case (and I suggest you treat with great skepticism any online lore that says otherwise). If you've programmed software that does registry access you know that 32 bit and 64 bit software pretty much all use the same registry keys/values. Some are duplicated into a separate part of the registry intended to separate 32 and 64 bit executables. But even then, if it's a DWORD for 32 bit applications, it's virtually always a DWORD for 64 bit applications. It's notable that while pointers are 64 bit in 64 bit software, the natural size of the int is still 32 bits. -Noel

I don't have any other advice; perhaps the author (BigMuscle) will chime in tomorrow morning and offer some guidance. -Noel

Yes. -Noel

I've managed to uninstall it, but that ability is not overtly provided. You have to run an uninstaller from within a folder within the Windows tree of folders. Whether that form of uninstallation will work in the release is anyone's guess. Edit: If it's going to be this ingrained in Windows, it's not hard to imagine Windows just not working without it before long. The implication here is that not everyone wants full cloud integration, but Microsoft no longer cares about such folks. -Noel

There's only so much you can do to make the corners round using the drop shadow resources. You can make the window borders thicker using BigMuscle's FrameMargin setting. I prefer 3 myself. My buttons don't light up brightly unless you hover over them. I've recently added more appearance of depth to the buttons. -Noel

That sounds like a doggone shame that Samsung just are ignoring the issue and not updating the firmware. How old is the drive you're seeing it with? What size? -Noel

Assuming you got it from here: http://www.glass8.eu/download.html ...Did you notice there are two? One for Windows 8.1 and one for Windows 8? Is it possible you downloaded the wrong one? It's been a while since I installed it on Win 8.1, but as I recall I used the installer and it just worked. I suppose something could have been changed on the web site between then and now. -Noel

No domain here, just workgroup networking. Likewise, one admin user which account I use on all my systems. Networking is as seamless as it's supposed to be. I don't remember what else I might have done to achieve this. I'll think on it. -Noel

Try these two commands, in order, in an elevated CMD window: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth SFC /SCANNOW ​ These can take quite a long time to run, be patient. They'll fix any servicing database problems you've accumulated on your computer and I'll bet Windows Update will work better afterward. ​ -Noel

You may want to disable "Homegroup" networking. -Noel

It doesn't require disabling UAC. I think you may have done something wrong. I have it working here, no problem. On a VM running Win 8.1 x64 Enterprise I have enabled the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy as shown below, and now I can access shares on it using such names as C$... -Noel

I have always used Internet Explorer. It's not bad once you reconfigure it to use its security model properly. Honestly, I've never been able to figure out when or if it's going to use the site Favicon or the local application icon. As an example, I have a desktop link to my Ooma page, so I can quickly call it up and add junk callers to the blacklist. I have one on my main workstation Win 8.1 desktop and on my Win 10 VM's desktop as well. At the moment my WIn 8.1 desktop icon has the curvy blue Favicon from Ooma.com, and my Win 10 desktop icon has the IE 'e' icon. One thing you can do that seems to favor retaining the application icon is to create your desktop shortcut with a command line of the form: executable URL ...in other words, create the shortcut manually, and for the Target field, put in... "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.mysiteurl.com -Noel

I agree with Andre (de Magic) on this one. Mr. DaCosta comes off like an expert, but when pressed has said he hasn't even been able to learn how to write software. Imagine being a shill and having to shovel the sh** that Microsoft is sending out, all the while claiming it smells like roses. But keep a positive attitude, and never forget, when anyone - even Microsoft - fights against reality, reality always wins. :-) -Noel

FYI, I have OCZ SSDs (Vertex 3 480 GB models) in continuous use in a RAID array since 2012 and they still deliver all the performance they had the day they were pressed into service. -Noel

I only mentioned it because just last night I was working to port my more recent "skinning" (theme atlas) work back to Win 8.1, and lo and behold I had a moment when I thought the Win 10 way, with the three equal sized buttons, felt better. It could be a case where using the new thing for a time could cause its characteristics to grow on you (I wouldn't have believed it possible had it not happened to me after I had initially felt the new proportions felt very wrong). Or not, in which case I hope someone can hack in a workaround for you. -Noel

You've probably already seen this, but they can be made to look better... -Noel

Ponch, it's just one of those things you read and move on. Everyone likes some things and dislikes others. It's nice we all have a place where we can express our opinions. I simply can't say anything authoritative about his judgment about relative speed. Frankly I thought XP seemed faster than 2000 back when I upgraded an engineering department from one to the other. But... I honestly don't remember any benchmark results or relative measurements, so I am probably falling into one of the categories I listed in my original post. As far as I'm concerned anything older than Win 7 at this point simply isn't interesting. -Noel

I wish there were things about the new versions we could point to and say, "That's better!", but sadly there are not. Pretty much they're service packs with some things removed or degraded, which we can work around. As far as disagreement, I simply don't see one. For your needs, you're making the right decision for you, and for my needs, I've made the right decision for me. It's an issue that defies being oversimplified, because the devil is in the details. -Noel

Not everything is about the driver implementation, and besides, that wouldn't really explain why graphic I/O got generally slower with Win 8.1. Perhaps there are limitations in the newer driver models that AMD couldn't quite get around as well as with their prior releases, I don't know. FYI, I've managed to crash Internet Explorer with experimental mode enabled in Win 10 build 10041 twice while typing responses into this thread. Glad the forum has auto-save capability. :-) -Noel

Man, you do ask the hard questions. Without digging into my notes, off the top of my head... No, Windows 8.1 is not more stable, inasmuch as Win 7 and 8.1 both just run for as long as needed without complaint between reboots mandated by Windows Updates. I seem to be able to do as intensive operations as I'd like without failure. Any reduction in reliability would have been a show stopper right there. In testing, Win 8.1 overall did all I needed and worked equally as well, so that when I factored in "keeping current" it came out ahead. Any performance loss seemed inconsequential. My system is quick to do what I want with either OS. Though I wouldn't prefer tabs in general, I liked that there was less boilerplate at the top of Windows 8's File Explorer windows than on Windows 7's Explorer windows. That makes a little more room for files. Similarly, there are things (what was it? Favorites or Libraries) I can hide overtly in Win 8.1 from the Navigation Pane that I found problematic hiding in 7. I do like that I can mount ISOs. That helps with things occasionally. I would have either have continued to use VMware to help with that (I would mount an ISO as a virtual DVD drive), or get some other 3rd party application. Having several ways to look at what's running vs. just one - e.g., new Task Manager and​ old Task Manager (resurrected from WinRE) running - has been helpful on occasion. Once I replaced the theme atlas, courtesy Big Muscle's software, I found I had achieved a look and feel I liked better than Windows 7's stock Aero Glass. A lot of folks like Win 7's look better - more power to them - but I like mine better. Call it "cleaner" or "plainer". That's pretty minor, but I do value comfort as I sit in front of this thing a LOT. Things learned since, which tend to support the "intangible value of keeping current"... Developers of modern (not Metro/Modern per se) software are likely targeting the latest Windows most strongly in their development and testing. So far I have seen Windows 8(.1) display drivers work in a few cases where Windows 7 drivers were reported to fail. I've seen Photoshop releases that have worked flawlessly on my Win 8.1 setup where people with Win 7 complained of failures. -Noel P.S., it seems to me that there's no better way to keep on top of what's happening on the "bleeding edge" than to immerse oneself in the latest system. For example, it may well be that I will warm up to "Apps" now that Win 10 allows them to run on the desktop. It may be the first Windows where I don't disable UAC, though I'll certainly pull the slider to the bottom. One day, should a Metro/Modern App come out that strikes my fancy, I'll be able to run it. Call me a "conservative early adopter" I guess. P.P.S., don't feel funny about pushing this. I love these sorts of conversations.