NoelC

There's always some of that, but primarily it really is less functional and less pleasant to use. This from someone that uses BOTH Win 10 and Win 8.1 daily (and Win 7 most days too). People who run multiple systems all the time have special insights that others who use one system exclusively may not fully develop. Their first impressions are a combination of unfamiliarity and recognition that some things are simply not better. And think back... There have no doubt been times when the "new thing" you tried impressed you as better. That's not impossible. -Noel

What I don't know for sure is whether the theme atlas is where the definition for that light colored edge is, but if it is, it should be possible to transplant some parts of the CP theme atlas to the RP theme atlas. Do you have theme atlas files for each of them? If not, do you have links to where the full theme can be downloaded? I can extract the STREAM resources and look for the differences. -Noel

I've got news for you ROTS, Windows has been blabbering a long time online. It's not just Windows 10, though the online communications have increased in the newest version. -Noel

LOL, speak for yourself. Windows 10 is much something looking, but I don't think I'd use positive adjectives. You seem to be hoping for perfection in an operating system that's barely able to function. It isn't the Microsoft of 5+ years ago. Watch for full 3rd party theme replacements. One of those might get you closer to an overall integrated look of perfection. But probably not. The fundamental problem is that everything Microsoft is doing is anything but integrated. -Noel

From what I can see the Akamai site serves updates and other data en masse. They have a LOT of IP addresses, and given the dramatic increase in chattiness in Win 10 as compared to its predecessors it's not too surprising Microsoft has contracted out download services. I block all but svchost from accessing them and am able to complete a Windows Update. I can't see any downside. -Noel P.S., there's another apparently contracted service I see contacted: Edgecast Networks in Wichita Kansas. Makes you wonder... Does a Content Delivery Network ever become a User Data Reception Network?

What's worse is this: Any of us with any experience at all in the real world realize that now that they've "gotten away with it", only an act of (whomever God looks up to when he wonders how HIS universe came into being) would be needed to get Microsoft to do documentation again. Another aspect of this is the assumption that "serious business users will use Win 10 Enterprise" while "Win 10 Pro and below will be used by consumers". Did someone forget about SMALL BUSINESS? -Noel

The term "paranoid" unfortunately implies abnormality. A. It's not abnormal to be concerned with one's private data being distributed online. Others stand to profit from it, and it IS being sent elsewhere. B. It's particularly distasteful in these "modern" times when social pressures are being manipulated to try to label those who express concern or dissent as "haters". Perhaps the terms "aware of current affairs and understandably cautious" might be kinder - and more accurate. For what it's worth, I've summarized in this post what I've done to try to muzzle Windows. I've been mostly successful: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174208-windows-10-deeper-impressions/page-10#entry1107178 -Noel

I agree with Dave-H on this but I also agree that the timeout is WAY too short (1 second?!?) on a typical Windows system. I've lengthened it on my (graphics development/test) systems to 90 seconds as I recall. -Noel

Keep in mind that if you donate to support Big Muscle's research and development of this product, you get a donation.key that facilitates automatic downloading of symbols if Microsoft makes a change that needs them. Big Muscle, you should probably include your Aero Glass GUI tool in the installer. -Noel

I don't remember the Win 8 CP theme, to be honest. I haven't liked any of what Microsoft has done since Win 7. I should think you could use the theme atlas Big Muscle supplies with his tool, and run his Aero Glass GUI configuration tool to make the Glass Color white and all the borders opaque (i.e., sliders over to the right). -Noel

You're welcome - glad it helped! Hop over to Big Muscle's sub-section of the forum and try out his Aero Glass for Win 8+ program for prettying up the Win 10 display. -Noel

What concerns me, perhaps more, is that it may need that connection and some small amount of data just to verify that the system is properly licensed and remains activated. I had been considering WireShark. I guess that's next. -Noel

With all the talk of privacy, I've been watching my systems (not just Win 10) like a hawk. For example, I see occasional TCP connections from a service (in svchost) to 134.170.58.190, which reverses to fe2.update.microsoft.com. These connections are being allowed because they have the appearance of being needed to successfully do Windows Updates. But I'm not really sure why it's being contacted, which invites more research. Ultimately I'll want to make a choice to continue to allow it or block that address. The specifics of the above are neither here nor there. What I'd like to discuss here are the techniques one can use to research / vet internet connections one sees made. I'd really like to hear others' thoughts and techniques, tools recommended, etc. What I normally do is one or more of the following: If I see an address blocked, I'll make some notes about when, what was being done, and what rule blocked it. I'll then try to correlate that with any problems that might turn up. Often something will fail right away - e.g., an update check will fail in an application, or a debug session won't start, that sort of thing - and the action to take will be obvious. Or I might see System or svchost being blocked, and will find that it's an address I've seen trying to be contacted before, when I look it up in my notes. If I see an address contacted owing to a blanket rule (e.g., to enable Windows Updates), I use a site like http://www.ipaddress.com or similar to look it up. That tells me who owns the address and where it is in the world. Often it will also reverse the address into one or more server names. Example: I'll do an internet search for more info if the address is resolved into a name, and see what others have uncovered and published on that name. Sometimes it's obvious - e.g. if a site was called telemetry.microsoft.com one can infer what it does. In the specific case of the above example, the name fe2.update.microsoft.com implies it has to do with Windows Update. I'll note the conditions in which it was contacted. For example, I see svchost contact fe2.update.microsoft.com once a day. I've deconfigured automatic Windows Updates, so my system shouldn't need to contact anyone, and so this does raise my suspicions a bit. But it's one packet a day, so not a whole heap of data is being sent. If I suspect the address as being unneeded for any legitimate system activity, I'll block the originator from being able to contact that address with a specific rule. While a general rule may allow svchost to do TCP port 80 and 443 operations with addresses (for Windows Update), connections to this particular address can be blocked. Then I'll wait a few days and see what, if anything, has gone wrong. Often what will happen in this case is that an alternate address will be contacted. Again, if it's suspicious, I'll repeat these last couple of steps, making notes along the way. I'd love to hear your ideas on what other tools or techniques you might use (or suggest using) to gather more intel on what's going on. -Noel

Thank you. What I like about you, Formfiller, is that you realize we've come to a point where there is no longer any reason to "be diplomatic". You tell it like it is. The world needs more people who speak plainly and know what they're talking about. This situation has got to be called what it is - outright predation by a company that's overtly changing something decent - something that in its day changed the world - into no more than the most intrusive piece of malware the world has ever known. For what it's worth as of today I have finally been able to muzzle Win 10. It took a "deny first" firewall strategy, a hosts file filled with lists of Microsoft snooping servers and tens of thousands of malware and adware servers, gpedit.msc settings to stop auto updates and a tool to check for pending updates without having to install them, a pretty draconian script that uninstalls quite a number of "features", further effort to specifically uninstall Cortana (thanks to maxXPsoft), 3rd party start menu and Aero Glass software to return usability to the desktop, a number of other measures I can't recall in detail - and of course unprecedented ongoing vigilance. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these measures is needed! This is about as far from a single "switch" you can throw as you can imagine. As an example, EVEN WITH the draconian script and everything else I've done, I STILL see the firewall regularly blocking attempts by things such as taskhostex and Silent Install Helper Client to contact servers all over the world. I can confidently say, though, that by the log I've accumulated over the past 18 hours, not one damned telemetry packet has reached Microsoft or Google or anyone else. Even the snooping done by web pages is virtually all thwarted. Yet I can still get a list of pending Windows Updates, which I can vet / hide before installing. And I can use all my applications. This configuration won't keep, though, unfortunately. There will no doubt be changes to server addresses. There will ultimately be a new in-place upgrade in a month or three from Microsoft that will replace everything and turn back on many of the things I've deconfigured. Too much is mutable. While it may be possible to momentarily tame it and still have it run your programs today, I can't help but reach the conclusion that Windows 10 is simply unacceptable for any serious long-term use. -Noel

I guess the question is: Is that what you would want? Is Windows 10 a viable OS at all if one doesn't keep up with Windows Updates? Why bother upgrading at all if not to stay on the update train? To be accurate, my test system is still on the above configuration (after having applied that script) for a few days now. It succeeds at installing a Windows Update when I tell it to, yet no telemetry or snooping data is getting out. It's actually a more workable config than I thought it would be after all those services were disabled. I'm impressed. -Noel

Off topic? Nonsense! There is information to be learned by trying to UN-avoid being upgraded to Win 10. And from the potential return trip. The other day I ran across some info on the VMware forum about how to manually upgrade a system that is deemed incompatible... Warning: You're taking a risk by forcing an upgrade. Think of a plan for what to do if it just bricks up. https://communities.vmware.com/message/2533889#2533889 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2126929 -Noel

Everything I've heard says it is. And so we are left with "flat", "lifeless", "uninspired", and "doesn't work as well as its predecessor". It looks as though the desktop is officially dead in Microsoft's view for future development, and they don't want us loving it any more. Not that there is anything viable to replace it... Will Metro/Modern grow up to be something in 10 or 20 more years? Maybe they figure the big fonts will just get smaller again as displays approach 300 ppi. -Noel

Perhaps the programmers at the new, more aggressive Microsoft are no longer instructed to build a general purpose OS, where things are potentially user-configurable. In that light, who wouldn't want to run Cortana and reap all the benefits she provides (to Microsoft)? Without a general purpose architecture as their goal they are free to just code things out to meet their immediate needs. Hence, there's probably a ShellExecute command with the SearchUI command hard coded right in. The system still passes an SFC check without Cortana. That's arguably more important than an event log error message, because it means the change is less likely to be undone. -Noel

That's the problem with a single registry field that gets multiple entries - you pretty much need a program to manage it (which I thought Big Muscle might have written as part of his installer, since several of his own programs might appear in the AppInit_DLLs field). I think you need only the AppInit_DLLs entries shown (PLUS whatever strings you have in there from other sources, all separated by spaces), and the LoadAppInit_DLLs values. Strictly speaking, you may not run ribbon-enabled 32 bit programs so the UxThemeSignatureBypass32.dll entry under the Wow6432Node sub-tree might be extraneous. -Noel

At this point everything's been happening so fast that I've only got a disorganized jumble of tweaks and notes, and probably some things I've tried that I didn't even make note of. Microsoft's ridiculous pace of change is getting ahead of me to be perfectly honest. My test system (10240) is running great - lean and mean - but sadly I'm not sure I could get it back into that condition reliably again. Certainly not in an automated fashion, yet that's exactly what's needed. I figure at the time of the next big in-place upgrade, where everything gets reset, I'll do up all the needed scripts then. -Noel

For me: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] "AppInit_DLLs"="C:\\AeroGlass\\UxThemeSignatureBypass64.dll C:\\AeroGlass\\ModernFrame.dll" "LoadAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000001 "RequireSignedAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] "AppInit_DLLs"="C:\\AeroGlass\\UxThemeSignatureBypass32.dll" "LoadAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000001 "RequireSignedAppInit_DLLs"=dword:00000000 -Noel

Make SURE you disable Hybrid / Fast Bootup on the Win 10 system, or you WILL see what's interpreted as NTFS corruption. With the hybrid setup (Windows 10 default) it leaves the disk dirty when it shuts down. -Noel

By the way, do you see this error logged now, when you boot up? I guess we now know that the SearchUI.exe startup command is in DCOM. -Noel

Adacom: The released version gives me white text, so that's probably not it. Make sure to check what colors you have set in both the system-wide and user settings. -Noel

Windows 10 is about as stable as its predecessors IMO because they haven't changed the guts much (outside of deletions). All they have are Modern App engineers on staff now, and I'm sorry but the Modern Apps I looked at back when I tried them out don't even do cut/copy/paste in the text fields. We all did programming of that caliber back in school (which for me was in the 1970s). And it didn't take a rocket scientist to have seen that Modern Apps needed to be made to work in Windows even back the first Windows 8 pre-release came out. If this is insulting to some junior engineer who was forced to do bad work by his bosses, I apologize. For the rest of you who may be reading this, including those of you who were promoted into decision-making positions, you should be ashamed of yourselves for doing such poor work. -Noel