NoelC

Don't get me wrong; in a test VM I run it every day and I've got it as well tweaked as any OS I've ever used. But it's not worth upgrading my main workstation's OS to it. It brings too much baggage for NO gain. Glad to hear you folks have found something you can live with. Just always remember there were days when a new system brought things you wanted to have. New used to go hand in hand with Improved. Now... It's free, and worth every bit of the purchase price. I wonder... Will it be worth the cost later after Microsoft loses control of your personal data? -Noel

Y'know the funny thing is... There really ISN'T any - and I mean ANY - good reason to "up"grade. And in reading what the pre-release people are saying, there's none really on the horizon either. That's astounding. All Microsoft would have had to do to pull this crap off - ALL THEY'D HAVE TO HAVE DONE - would have been to put a few Must Have features into it that dyed-in-the-wool desktop users wouldn't have been able to get any other way. If only they'd restored an elegant Aero Glass theme, or finished the implementation of ReFS, or made Explorer a little more capable (e.g., by buying a codec company or maybe buying Classic Shell), or any number of other obvious things. They wouldn't even have had to be innovative - just look at what 3rd parties are doing, buy a few of them, and integrate them. People would have even been happy just to be able to do all of what Win 7 could do. But no. They just DELETE existing features and make existing things suckier to use, all the while trying to push a "new" Universal application environment that hasn't any more functionality or performance than that from the 8 bit systems of the 1970s. That they think they don't have to do ANYTHING serious and can still push this garbage on people will be their entire undoing. Maybe they couldn't get any serious engineer to actually work on WIndows 10. That's my theory at present. Perception is not reality, it's a wet dream shared by Marketing dweebs and it's utterly worthless without at least a little substance, no matter HOW much they pay for advertising. -Noel

How do you know anything in life? It's not a paid version. It's not commercial software at all. It's donationware and the author usually chooses to do a nice favor for nice folks who donate. Others have told you donating has lead to their being able to use it without the watermark. They've put up screenshots without the watermark. If you don't want to go by their experience, or if you don't want to donate, just use it with the watermark. Or don't use it at all. Entirely your choice, and a very simple one. -Noel

For what it's worth, even control over ClearType used in the basic GDI text rendering seems to be broken on my multi-monitor system. I'm not sure that the ClearType Tuner does anything at all useful now. The default RGB color rendering isn't bad for my central monitor but I'd prefer to turn the color off entirely for my side monitors, which are turned up sideways (IE windows, which render text without color are okay on them). I think the last time I saw it work was with Windows 7 when I had only two monitors, both oriented the same way. -Noel

Saw a rendition of "Cast Away" on commercial TV last night because it came on while my aged mother-in-law was watching TV and for whatever reason she wouldn't let me dig out the DVD and navigate the player up to the same spot (that would have taken me less time than even one set of commercials). They cut so much of the film to make room for the 60% commercials that it had no more in it than an episode of Gilligan's Island. My IQ is down 15 points today because of the experience. Not that some of the commercials aren't entertaining in their own right. One with dogs in a car stopped at an intersection and the "dad" dog watching while a French Poodle crosses the walkway... The look on the "mom" dog, growling at "dad", was funny. One time in the past, in movies they made all things you do on a computer make a noise, so operating system features were developed to make noises. Now we just have an abundance of commercials with almost no substance, so... -Noel

And that we're labeled haters for pointing out such obvious and correct things speaks a lot about society. We're heading toward a future where all restaurants are Taco Bell. -Noel

That doesn't fit with my desire to use IE. Its security model suits me. -Noel

Thanks, I think you mentioned FileLocator Lite before. I'm going to have to check it out as Stephen Kung has responded that not finding Unicode text in binary files is by design in grepWin. I've appealed that decision but he may have a basic limitation in his design. -Noel

I've got to say, even though I've been immersed in Win 8.1 for a couple of years now, of the two possibilities I still would prefer it to be on the left, like Win 7. It just seems to leave the title showing under more conditions (like if multiple windows are overlapped. It's not enough to make me adopt Win 10 for my main workstation OS though. -Noel

Aero Glass starts by way of a Task Scheduler entry that runs aerohost.exe. In order to stop Aero Glass from loading, hold down the Control key while logging-in in order to avert the installation of Aero Glass, then open the Task Scheduler and disable or delete the "Aero Glass" entry. Then reboot and Aero Glass should be no more. -Noel

Thanks abbodi1406, so the Unified Background Process Manager pretty much has to stay. That's the conclusion I've come to as well on further reading. Remaining tasks to investigate: InstallAgent.exeRunTimeBroker.exe Starting at the bottom of the list, let's discuss RunTimeBroker next. Some observations... RunTimeBroker gets started on my Win 8.1 system only when I close Internet Explorer and it executes "self cleanup" logic to delete temporary files (owing to a setting I've changed). And it exits on its own sometimes after a timeout, while other times it just remains running. I've never figured out why it's started during that phase. Killing it seems to do nothing bad. That's on Win 8.1. In the context of Win 8.1 it's described as being involved with permissions for Metro/Modern Apps. Now on Win 10 I see it start always. Looks like initially it's started right at logon, and sometimes it exits on its own. Perhaps this is because some parts of the system - e.g., the Notifications / ACTION CENTER pull-out appears to be a Modern App. HOWEVER... I can kill the process and am still able to open the Notifications / ACTION CENTER and Settings App. The only time it comes back (and slightly later disappears again usually) is when I exit Internet Explorer. Since RunTimeBroker doesn't seem to have any useful function, not running it would fit well with my UAC-disabled, run no Modern Apps strategy. Now the thing to do is to figure out how to keep it from starting at all, on the assumption that it takes some resources that could be put to good use for other things. Edit: More info: Disabling Execute permission on the file does in fact cause it not to run, BUT... Now an Error is logged in the Windows System Error Log, and WmiPrvSE.exe is started, so that's not a net gain. The error says: Unable to start a DCOM Server: {D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160} as Unavailable/Unavailable. The error: "5" Happened while starting this command: C:\Windows\System32\RuntimeBroker.exe -Embedding -Noel

While I don't have the problem nor have I any strong ideas how to solve it, I can say that icons on my Win 10 build 10240 system stay where I leave them. It's not a systemic problem with Windows 10. Like Tripredacus above I've heard of this problem on and off going wayyy back. Are you logging out/in or rebooting after making the change, to ensure the settings get saved in your user registry file? Do you have any uncommon devices plugged-into your video card (e.g., a TV or something)? -Noel

For what it's worth, with the above services disabled I of course have the one less svchost.exe running. I can still boot Win 10, run Settings / Notification Center (the only Modern stuff I need I think), and can check successfully for Windows Updates (it didn't find any). I'll keep an eye on it, but if you don't want synchronization of settings or OneDrive running, it seems these services really can be disabled. Next focus: What the heck is the "Unified Background Process Manager" good for? Initial reading implies it might be needed. It's been around a long time. -Noel

Thanks for the additional info, guys. I haven't had much time lately to follow-up on this thread and advance the cause, since I've just been through the process of advancing our development environment here to use Visual Studio 2015. No, my search does not turn up ubpm.dll initially for some reason. Having re-run it just now to confirm your finding, maxXPsoft, I still did not see the string in there. However, the SysInternals "strings" tool DOES extract it, implying my search tool (Stephen Kung's grepWin) clearly fails for this kind of work, which is a disappointment. I'll ask him about that. At the moment, I have a quite stable Win 10 "desktop only" config that passes an SFC check and settles a few minutes after bootup to about 1 GB used (of 8 GB) and processes numbering in the low 40s. Of the original processes I listed above, I still have: InstallAgent.exeRunTimeBroker.exeShellExperienceHost.exesihost.exesvchost running UnistackSvcGroup taskhostw.exe running {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E} (presumably UBPM)I believe I'll concentrate on one of these at a time from here forward, getting to the bottom of what starts it and whether the system can survive without it. It's already become clear by my own experiments that the system needs sihost.exe to function viably, and ptd163 has said ShellExperienceHost.exe is needed, so I'll eliminate them from the list of candidates to trim moving forward. That leaves this list: InstallAgent.exeRunTimeBroker.exesvchost running UnistackSvcGroup taskhostw.exe running {222A245B-E637-4AE9-A93F-A59CA119A75E} (presumably UBPM)Since I hate the idea that Microsoft is trying to hide things from us, and I don't want several of the things implied by the listing in the UnistackSvcGroup list, I think I'll start with that. The command line appears to be listed in conjunction with just the four services Techie007 listed above. As noted, there are "Start" entries listed in the following registry keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OneSyncSvcHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\OneSyncSvc_Session1HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PimIndexMaintenanceSvcHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PimIndexMaintenanceSvc_Session1HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnistoreSvcHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnistoreSvc_Session1HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UserDataSvcHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UserDataSvc_Session1 I'll start by changing them all to Start type 4 ("Disabled") and report back on what does or doesn't work. -Noel

I saw that Universal C RunTime update become available as well. Personally I sense an attempt to obfuscate in their use of the acronym CRT - because that's a common term that has had a very different meaning. From my perspective, as a developer of Win32 applications that have NOTHING TO DO with Metro/Modern/Universal Apps, what I *do* see is that when I update a project to build against the version 10 Windows SDK, it does link to a different set of libraries. In my own case, I opt to "statically link" everything, so my own software doesn't require the target system on which my software is to run to have the C runtime library support available. But if it DID, I would normally build the arrangements to install the proper library(ies) into my installer. I would certainly never assume the target system has the library already. That being said, it would make more applications work more often on older operating systems if that support were already present, because writing a good installer is akin to crafting a masterpiece - it's not something everyone gets right. One interesting thing I've noticed about Visual Studio 2015... It installs the Windows 8.1 SDK if you don't choose to install also the feature/component entitled: Tools for Universal Windows Apps (1.1) and Windows SDK (10.0.10240) Thing is, there's also a separate Windows 8.1 SDK and Universal CRT SDK that IS installed by default for doing Visual C++ development. I opted to install the above named features, even though I have no intention to develop Universal Windows Apps, and am I able to target my solution to build for either Target Platform Version 10.0.10240.0 or 8.1. I have chosen the 10.0.10240.0 as shown here, since it's the most appropriate setting for software that's intended to run on all versions of Windows including the very latest. FYI, one component (SignTool) so far from the version 10 SDK has proven to be buggy. But what's it all mean? You're right to ask about this. Even as a developer who sees things from the perspective of the (still very new) Visual Studio 2015 development environment, I'm not at all sure what the implications are to installing the Universal C Run Time update on an older system. -Noel

Define "hog" please, in technical terms. I have a system with lots of cores, RAM, and bandwidth, but that doesn't mean I'm insensitive to performance. When I build software from sources it matters to me how long it takes. When I do anything it matters how long it takes. When it's quiet, with no applications running, I see a bit under 50 processes running here. After running for days, without anything running it settles to about 4.5 GB of RAM used of 48 GB available and just stays there. How many processes are running on your system just sitting quietly without any applications open? I had Avast for quite a while, but then they started bloating it up and my Visual Studio system builds went up to near 1 minute, representing an almost 50% slowdown. When I removed it my system builds went down to 29 seconds. When I added Windows Defender at the time they went up to 32 seconds. An about 10% slowdown. That wasn't quite "hog" level in my vocabulary. But these posts reminded me to test again. I've taken on additional software and complexity since then. Right now I have another, even bigger software system I'm currently working on, with a brand new Visual Studio 2015 Community edition installation. System build, from several thousand source files to execution-ready installer... With Windows Defender on: 91 seconds.With Windows Defender off: 82 secondsAgain, about a 10% overhead attributed to Windows Defender. Is that "resource hog" level? -Noel

One can only go with what one can find. Any reason to believe the stats are skewed any particular way because users of one system block more stat counting than users of another? -Noel

It has to do with Microsoft having built up a reputation over an entire lifetime. People cannot believe this is the same company. That will continue until the new Microsoft has squeezed every drop of credibility out of their name. People need to understand that the company is no longer being led by the same visionary who set the rules before. People used to criticize Bill Gates, but a geek is still always better than any marketing person to lead a technical company. That being said, I'm not sensing a lot of good things from Nadella. I guess it just takes the right geek. It seems to me this would be a good time for Apple to make available a licensable version of OSX that would run on every PC on the planet. Then we could all figure out how to make the transition, maybe with the help of WINE et. al., to a Unix base so we can all continue to be productive into a Microsoft-irrelevant future. -Noel

Define "perfect". Even "better". It's not an easy answer. Of course I have limited personal experience, but I do know this: NOT causing false positives is important. Other software I've used has done so; Windows Defender does not. NOT consuming too many resources is important. Other software I've used has done so; Windows Defender does not. NOT costing me ongoing money and effort is important. Other software I've used has done so; Windows Defender has not. Windows Defender is rated lowly among web sites that seek to publish test results and alarm the public into looking for magic bullets (not to mention view their ads), yet somehow here I sit, uninfected. For decades. Your mileage may vary. I realize that from your perspective, believing what I say online is not really different than believing what anyone else writes. Thus you have to make your own decisions, based on your own experience and what you read. -Noel

Another week has gone by and my prediction about Win 10 adoption, made no fewer than 3 weeks ago, is still holding with frightening accuracy. The only thing I didn't anticipate properly was that Win 7 usage would fall off so much without a corresponding rise in Win 10 usage. I guess people are either abandoning desktop computing or are giving up on Microsoft and contributing to the rise in OSX usage. Not exactly enviable performance for something that's free and supposed to herald in the next generation of computing. The swami knows all, tells all... Original predictions in light colors. -Noel

Vinifera, they test Windows 10 and they plan because like it or not Windows 10 IS what Microsoft HAS released, and the world MUST deal with it. Smart IT folks already know it inside and out. Unlike individuals who just don't plan for the future, or at best see what Windows 10 is and choose to just wait, businesses cannot wait for others to figure things out for them. If there is the possibility that Windows 10 can provide additional value to their business that they are not getting with whatever IT solutions they have in place now, then they need to know it, and they need to be able to choose intelligently what strategy to take ASAP. Regarding choice of anti-malware solution, if you have a good practical security strategy in place - and trust me when I say few folks really know what that means, including so-called experts - the factors that are important are: 1. Low resource impact. The anti-malware solution must not use up too much CPU time and must not significantly interfere with disk operations. Many (most?) AV solutions fail at this nowadays. It's not about running the AV software. It's about getting useful things done with the computer. You should NOT even know your AV software is there. 2. NO false positives. The anti-malware solution MUST not detect the legitimate things you run as malware. If it does, and makes them inaccessible to you this can be incredibly disruptive. What do you do if suddenly you can't use the tool you need? Some AV software doesn't even provide a means for users to ignore specific programs detected as FPs. That's just wrong. 3. Detection of obvious malware. It's all a game of statistics, and NO AV solution is perfect - much as they'd like you to think they are. The anti-malware software should simply serve as another layer - a safety net against the most likely malware you'll encounter so that if you DO accidentally do something stupid and expose yourself to malware it will help keep you safe. Windows Defender actually serves in this role just fine. While a lot of this is about feel-good factors, if you believe you need a more aggressive anti-malware solution, then you're doing something wrong. -Noel

That first part makes sense at least, though listing an antivirus package second implies only a little sense. A managed black list is a much more important second line of defense, assuming the user is doing any web browsing. If... ...the antivirus package will not be exercised at all. It's just a safety net. -Noel

I wonder how often Windows 8 users used the store at first, until they realized it 1) didn't have anything useful, and 2) wasn't going to have anything useful any time soon. -Noel

It seems that companies can't seem to run in these modern times by specializing in high-end, serious computing, because the profit margin for the high-end equipment is just not there - not to mention it takes serious amount of engineering work to bring a true workstation (or server) class machine to market; not just packaging a reference design. What will happen when nobody's left building serious computers any more? Do software engineers all just stop working? Who develops all the BS toys the public craves then? Do big companies like Apple and Microsoft create development systems only for themselves? Future humans may look back wistfully, during stories told by elders around the fire, on the time when everyone just turned away from doing work and focused solely on fun and games. -Noel

Assuming you're talking about the desktop just going black... Under what conditions are you seeing them?Does it happen right at startup or do you use Windows for a while before you see it?Can you consistently reproduce the problem or is it intermittent?What hardware do you have? Put yourself in the shoes of someone being asked the question you're asking, and imagine what they might need to know in order to help you. -Noel