NoelC

I guess the discussion has morphed from "TimeBroker" to "SystemEventsBroker". Note that I have disabled only TimeBroker, and so far in about a day of testing things still seem peachy on both my Win 10 and Win 8.1 test setups. I even successfully installed Windows Updates on my Win 10 test system (which consisted only of a Windows Defender definitions update). I can see why people would try to disable SystemEventsBroker, though, since the service description mentions WinRT. Savvy people realize that all recent bad from Microsoft has come from WinRT / Metro / Modern / Universal / Toy Apps. -Noel

Interesting. I tested the Task Scheduler without TimeBroker running, and it still starts things at scheduled times. I'll keep a sharp eye on things, though. Thanks for sharing your experience. -Noel

Look for a tool in Big Muscle's set called ModernFrame.dll for affecting the title bars on Modern Apps. -Noel

Note how screen grabs like the one shown by dhjohns above include pixels from outside the "borderless" application, because there actually IS a control out there. That's just one of the many things I dislike about the poorly integrated [lack of] design that is the Windows desktop. It's like children who know nothing of design (much less GOOD design) worked it over in the name of "new and improved". -Noel

I'm sorry but I don't have any strong suggestions... Even though I'm running Win 10 in a VM, I am keeping both snapshots and backups, as well as having made my own ISO image from the ESD file Windows Update downloaded. I have seen 10586 ISOs offered online, but not by Microsoft directly. Seems like finding one and downloading it, then installing another in-place upgrade (of the same version) might work. Can you get into the Windows Recovery Environment? I have Win 10 booting through a 5 second delay in which the Advanced Boot menu is available. That they've left you high and dry without an obvious recovery method really underscores the blatant disrespect Microsoft has for anything that's ours, doesn't it? -Noel

More interesting are the weekly figures, shown as a line graph (so you can see trends). The graph shows Win 10 usage rising steadily, just about linearly. That there was a spurt right when it was released shows that it is not meeting expectations, but you can't deny that usage is rising. I feel this is because Microsoft is being so aggressive in pushing it through Windows Update, and frankly most of the folks in the world aren't savvy enough to know how to stop Microsoft from doing it to them. I even know someone quite technical who feels strongly that an "upgrade" is inevitable. Windows XP, 7, and 8.0 usage numbers are dropping steadily, which is mildly interesting when you consider that there are some companies still rolling out 7. One thing I find particularly poignant is that the usage of Win 8.1 has virtually leveled off over the past 6 weeks at about 13%. 8.1 is my own current choice. Since most of the lines on the graph are now pretty straight, one could be forgiven for trying to predict... Win 10 usage will probably hit 12% around the start of 2016.Win 10 usage may surpass Win 8.1 usage at about 13% by about February 2016.Win 10 usage could catch up to Win 7 at around 35% by about mid 2017. There will be some unexpected turns in the numbers, no doubt, for example when Microsoft starts making older systems work much worse, technically, via Windows Updates (you can do terrible things in the name of "security"), and also (in the other direction) when they report numbers that show how they're missing their marks and thus underperforming on Wall Street. -Noel

Thank you! I KNEW there was something else I wanted to add to the Windows 10 10240 to 10586 upgrade change reports thread. -Noel

Jorge A reminded me of something I observed but forgot to mention before: System Restore gets shut off by the stupid 10586 in-place downgrade! -Noel

By the way, that's being fixed in the next release - it will be able to locate Unicode text in binary files. I have already tested it by building the trunk code from SourceForge. -Noel

Funny that last one, but Win 8 provides about the same spyware as 10, based on my observations. Microsoft apparently woke everyone up with all their EULA changes, and so people started figuring out that Windows is blabbing online by default. Today, courtesy a tool dencorso recommended (Svchost Viewer) I found yet another service running (on both 8.1 and 10) today that I disabled to make my Win 8.1 system even more private - and save a few resources: Lo and behold even though I have long since removed all Windows Store Apps, based on the traffic reduction I've seen in the past few hours, the remaining Network Connection Broker was yet another source of constant attempts to communicate online with various servers. Now, after having disabled that service, my Win 8.1 system is FINALLY settling down to be as quiet as I've made my Win 10 system. Moral: Don't think privacy suddenly just got much worse with Windows 10. -Noel

By the way, that helped me identify TimeBorker (er, TimeBroker ) as a service to be disabled, and I'm looking at a few others. Thanks again. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TimeBroker]"Start"=dword:00000004 -Noel

Thanks for the feedback. For Windows 7 and 8 I wrote a couple of books on tweaking. For Windows 10 I've got to be honest - I'm just not feeling the love enough to create a book, and so far I have just compiled mostly notes. That being said, I'll be willing to discuss specifics here at any time. The one thing that motivates me, personally, that will not sit well with most others is that I absolutely have no use for Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, so I undertake to remove as much of them and their supporting subsystem as I can. Unfortunately, there's no way to carve it ALL out, since we now need at least SOME of what the Settings App does, and the Taskbar and Notifications / Action Center also uses the XAML / Modern stuff. In summary: What I have right now is a no-nonsense setup with these attributes: Win 10 build 10586, fully up to date.UAC is disabled.Has Aero Glass and a much improved theme atlas on the desktop.Does NOT automatically update itself, I have a small procedure to go through to check for updates, then get new ones.Does NOT try very hard to communicate online, and what DOES still try is blocked by a deny-by-default firewall.Has NO Metro / Modern / Universal Apps, but does run Settings and the Notifications / Action Center.Keeps Windows Defender up to date.Settles to a running process count in the low 40s (about 10 of which are features I've installed), using 1GB RAM. Of the processes I listed at the top of this thread, I currently still have these: RuntimeBroker.exe - Manages permissions / trust for Modern Apps.ShellExperienceHost.exe - Unversal App integration in the shell. Needed for Settings.sihost.exe - Shell Infrastructure Host.taskhostw.exe - running {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E}.I believe I had one or two more of them not running before the 10586 in-place "upgrade", and I just need to look yet again to see whether any more of them can come back out. Microsoft, with the 4 month "major release" cycle, is quite honestly wearing me down. -Noel

DHJohns, I'll bet your posts cause some gnashing of teeth amongst readers here. To me it seems a bit like eating candy even with the spectre of tooth decay, yet still saying you love candy. It's impossible to argue that candy does not taste good to you, but other folks may feel they see a bigger picture and may even think you're being irresponsible. If you could not get Windows 7 or 8.1 to do what you needed and now you somehow find Win 10 works so much better that you consider it "a beautiful mansion", well then it's no surprise you feel the way you do. But considering that others who know a thing or two find the Win 10 "upgrade" more like a "shack with holes in the roof", some may wonder whether you did not try hard enough to find all the good in the older system, and that a fresh installation along with all the effort you've put into Win 10 might have yielded the same result or something even better. Maybe you just have radically different needs for your computing experience. Maybe you now have a much better computer than when you tried those older systems. You've said some things in the past (e.g., about Win 7 booting slowly) that aren't seen by others. What I find most interesting is that you appear to be getting everything you want, and having a quite positive experience, from Windows 10 - while others are expressing very much the opposite. Opposing views always intrigue me, especially in light of my own findings. For me, on a scale of Hell No to Hell Yes, I've landed just short of the middle. I've got my Win 10 build 10586 setup looking good again, trimmed per my liking, and it's stable. I can do all my desktop work with it, and I've even muzzled it completely from a privacy perspective. But when the dust settles, for me there are just two obvious facts: As I have no use for "Toy Apps" (windowed or otherwise) and will not choose to enable UAC, Win 10 doesn't do anything more for me than 8.1. Not one thing, literally. My greatest disappointment is that Microsoft has abandoned working on everything but Metro/Modern/Universal for 5 years now. Win 10 comes with some pretty negative baggage - most importantly a 4 month forced in-place upgrade cycle. I put a solid week into whipping 10586 back into shape, and I don't want to have to go through that every 4 months on a system I have to rely on. To top it off it just no longer does some things, like play media, as well as its predecessors. As a company Microsoft isn't going in a good direction. For me, with my particular needs, even after having put all the effort into making it work as well as possible and with all the facts known, Win 10 balances to a net loss. And so for me Win 10 stays on a test VM and I remain using an older system for my production work that's stable and meets my needs better. DHJohns, perhaps you still find pleasure in reworking the OS after each in-place upgrade. I admit, figuring out what works and how to overcome limitations is interesting as well. But it's just getting to be excessive, for me, with my needs and expectations. After reflection, hate / like / love of WIndows 10 pretty clearly boils down to what each individual needs and wants. It's obviously better for some than others, and there's nothing that says the situation can't change, though you have to understand that those of us looking for Real Innovation out of Microsoft can only take disappointment for so long. -Noel

It may be still installed and partially running. It continued to run for most folks after the 10586 update. -Noel

You clearly have a stress-reducing philosophy, I'll give you that. Another observation: Based on benchmarks, 10586 is no slower nor faster than its 10240 predecessor at doing the same things. -Noel

He may well know better than I, though I'm not sure his concept of "kernel" and mine are 100% in alignment. Remember how many compatibility issues were caused by Vista? Do we hear of any now? I haven't. That tells me empirically that the parts of the kernel that existing programs are executing aren't that different. I don't know about you, but I don't give today's Microsoft credit with the capability of being able to make "the biggest kernel change since Vista" without making any mistakes. Especially since they're no longer seriously SVT testing it themselves. -Noel

I don't know about Win 10, but I've seen Win 8 use old style windows in the WinRE environment. The old Win 7-era Task Manager is in there as well, and that still works fine to this day in Win 10. OK, just to test, I just booted into the WinRE environment in Win 10 build 10586. Windows still have rounded corners and look like Windows Basic mode. Not Aero Glass like what you showed. You could be right. -Noel

LOL, and the dialog is presented in the Windows 7-like WinRE environment complete with (mostly) rounded corners. Long live Aero! -Noel

Hm, such signs are usually a joke to make people think of overly dire consequences of being irresponsible... On second thought, seems to fit perfectly! -Noel

Probably what? That they changed the version number? Does anyone else see that it's all just FUD any more? -Noel

For me it's not the specifics of the OS that lead me to disappointment, but rather the message it telegraphs loud and clear about where Microsoft is going. I had 10240 running nicely. But along comes November and a forced Win 10 in-place upgrade. I only ever run OSs that have been clean-installed, and I run them for years. Now either I have to clean-install every 4 months, no choice, for a system that's not measurably better in any way than the one it wants to replace, or be forced to run an in-place upgrade that's only slightly less painful to whip back into shape. Tell me again why I should want something that does less (e.g., play media less well), looks worse (you have to do backflips to restore a decent Aero Glass look, and the common controls are just flat and stupid), yet doesn't deliver any new "OMG, I have to have" features? As far as Classic Shell... Why remove it? What does the Windows menu do for you that Classic Shell doesn't do better? And if you say "tiles" then, well... -Noel

Fully up to date, stable build 10586 with current Aero Glass for Win 8+ beta version 1.4.2.506, ModernFrame, and UxThemeSignatureBypass, plus my theme atlas. Classic Shell provides blur for the Taskbar and start menu. -Noel

At this point I've lost track of the rules about whether modern apps or ribbon-enabled applications or applications not presently active will have colored titles, but I do know that with UxThemeSignatureBypass DLLs in and having used the Aero Glass GUI that everything seems right: -Noel

Brabbelbla, use the UxThemeSignatureBypass DLLs. They contain a secret feature to colorize the title text of ribbon-enabled windows. -Noel

Ah, got it! Thanks very much. I always wondered how that was governed. Now that I know what to look for I can probably derive what the 4 individual numbers do. -Noel