I Was Forced To Install Windows 10

[Skwim]

Up DPI scaling in the display settings. If you have a 13-15" laptop screen the defaults will make you think you're going blind. The default is generally too low for anyone not on a 19"+ monitor. This fixes the menu sizes, the header text, and the size of content on the screen. Make sure it's at least 150%... it'll help greatly.

Also, don't bother monkeying with trying to make it look like windows 7 -- it works better than windows 7 if you don't turn things off. Get used to the search feature too... I almost never use the menu system/tiles anyway.

Thanks for the advice. The only thing I changed to run like Win 7 is the format of the start menu.

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m

 

[Aupmanyav]

That looks very techno-nerdy....

Question:- I use a Windows 7 starter laptop which is slow, but my Motorola Iphone is on Android which is quick. Can I get an Android laptop, or what can I get for simple safe internet/forum use? I don't play games or need fast gear..

Ah, not so much. These are symptoms of being a newbie,
Use Linux for lap-top. That is a perfect solution.
Minimal: Porteus Linux, Puppy Linux - Bionicpup. I found both of them nice - some 300 MB.
Regular: Linux Mint 2 GB (Ubuntu base), Solus, 1.4 GB (Fedora base).
There are many others as well. No need for anti-virus, no worry about a jumbled registry. If anything goes wrong, install again with a USB stick in 15 minutes.
Without security upgrades, you need to stop using Windows 7.

My opinion has always been the same -- if you're running Linux you know why you need it. (I do, and I run about 4-5 different Linux servers for various purposes.) If you don't know why you probably got no business messing with it anyway.

Ah, messing with Linux is such a fun. - you know it. It is Linux with which one can mess, not with Windows. Never had problems with printer or video, perhaps I am lucky. As I mentioned, dealing with HP bloat was a problem.

 

[Tumah]

An important reason for upgrading to Windows 10 is security. There's been plenty of time to poke around in Windows 7. Even when vulnerabilities are found, Windows 10 is going to get patched a whole lot faster than Windows 7 would have, potentially compromising your data for longer - never mind now that it's not being supported.

 

[Trailblazer]

And people say all the different religions are confusing...
They are simple compared to all this different computer stuff....
Who can learn all this stuff, not me or my husband.....
He is as useless in the computer room as I am with a remote control...
I looked again but now I am outa here again, it's too scary.

I will probably be back tomorrow because I want to know and I need to learn.

 

[Aupmanyav]

In a nut-shell, you need to upgrade to Windows 10 because Windows 7 security upgrades will not be available or abandon your religion and move to Linux.
Well, computers are religion.

 

[Trailblazer]

In a nut-shell, you need to upgrade to Windows 10 because Windows 7 security upgrades will not be available or abandon your religion and move to Linux.
Well, computers are religion.

What do those security upgrades do?

 

[Salvador]

Happened yesterday. Even though I was quite comfortable with Win 7 and didn't want to make the change, as of Jan 14 Microsoft will no longer support 7. So they forced my hand. Fortunately, I was able to scrap all the tiles on the Start menu and change it back to the Win 7 format. I lost my Outlook Express E-Mail host, and subsequently elected to use The Win 10 Mail system, which, while a bit strange, should be alright. So everything is going well except for one thing, which I'm hoping someone here can help me with. The letter size in both the horizontal Operation/Tab bar and drop-down Bookmark List is quite small. Anyone know how to enlarge it?

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View attachment 36032​

Thanks.
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Ever since I've installed Windows 10, I've been very fortunate to receive all sorts of pop-ups and ads informing me of interesting products and services, of which I wish to purchase.

 

[Mindmaster]

I agree I do not like anything Chrome, android or Google for the reasons you mentioned.

I just put that out as he wanted something similar to android. Chrome and Android are both Google, with android being more touch based and Chrome being keyboard based. Chrome also runs some android apps. But this also comes as a cloud based system with all of Google's spying and intrusion into your life.

Yeah, it's one thing on a phone. I can turn features or the phone itself off if I want.

Google for the OS though, yeah no thanks.

I'm more likely to have a personal conversation on a computer than a phone anyway -- phone is just like paying bills and talking to people about banal things.

 

[Mindmaster]

What do those security upgrades do?

They're usually fixes for exploits that have been discovered. Often, people are hacking on the OS and find bugs and report them to Microsoft and incorporates the fix.

The first thing to understand is Microsoft is making Windows 10 their only desktop OS forever. There isn't going to be a 11, 12, or 13 - instead they are going to develop the one product and keep updating it to support new hardware/features. This means supporting Windows 7 & 8 is a distraction mostly. Secondly, Windows 10 was designed to run on low power machines... Generally, if your machine ran 7 or 8 it runs 10 even better. 7 or 8 run miserably on lower-powered devices because they simply weren't engineered from the base for smaller machines like tablet computers. Windows 8 added some tablet support, but honestly it was a re-skinned 7 and borrowed a lot of code from it. Windows 10 was a re-write... so it has nothing to do with either...

Anyway, there really is no excuse or need to run an OS that is over ten years old especially when the new one does everything the old one did. Honestly, it probably supports even MORE hardware than those version did in the past. I've had no problem using some rather old printers and scanners with it -- it knew what they were and they fired right up.

 

[Mindmaster]

Thanks for the advice. The only thing I changed to run like Win 7 is the format of the start menu.

View attachment 36034

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m

Once you get the search function in your brain you won't even care about the menus... Press Windows Key+S and type a letter or two of whatever program and click... Snarfing through menus is for boomers.

If you do Win + I keys you get to the "settings" if you search for "dpi" you see something about adjusting text size, etc... Anyway, everything in Windows is searchable in that manner and you can even configure it to find things on the web. (Which is what it assumes if you type something it doesn't find on the machine...) You can also change the search to duckduckgo, google, or whatever you like though it defaults to bing.

 

[dybmh]

In a nut-shell, you need to upgrade to Windows 10 because Windows 7 security upgrades will not be available or abandon your religion and move to Linux.
Well, computers are religion.

Linux is a religion... I am a Linux Guru.

"The Linux movement has very little to do with operating systems, applications and software. To look to its open source code to find the soul of Linux is futile. Do not read the public licence to discover more about Linux. Linux is a concept, philosophy and religion. Its users are zealots. Its creators are priests. Linus Torvalds is its god."

hyperlink >>> The Linux religion

 

[Mock Turtle]

Windows 10 is crap. Windows 7 was quite stable (and configurable) on the various computers I have had. On Windows 10 I have had a few lock-ups for no apparent reason. Hate it!

 

[Aupmanyav]

Linux is a religion... I am a Linux Guru.

Did not know that.
Guru, tell me how to load two distributions, Solus and Mint, on the same computer.
i.e., non-duality (Advaita) and duality (Dvaita) on the same computer.

 

[Aupmanyav]

What do those security upgrades do?

They keep you safe from the fearful djinns \ demons.

 

[dybmh]

Did not know that.
Guru, tell me how to load two distributions, Solus and Mint, on the same computer.
i.e., non-duality (Advaita) and duality (Dvaita) on the same comuter.

Assuming u don't want to use virtual machines...

Partition your Hardisk ( or install 2 ), use the bios to switch between the two. Then install each distro on sesperate partitions.

However, if I were u, I would use virtualbox and never look back. I've been using that product without fail for about a decade on production servers. It is free, of course.

 

[dybmh]

Windows 10 is crap. Windows 7 was quite stable (and configurable) on the various computers I have had. On Windows 10 I have had a few lock-ups for no apparent reason. Hate it!

Not just that, the error messages when it crashes are useless for troubleshooting... That is my number 1 compliant about Microsoft. They hide behind the GUI. The Graphical Interface is not a feature, it's a flaw.

 

[Mock Turtle]

What do those security upgrades do?

From my experience - of having had one Windows 7 PC for a long time without any upgrades whatsoever, and not having any problems (anti-virus installed) - they do nothing. That is, they might be beneficial, but if one is less than reckless as to what one consumes on the internet, then they are mostly not that necessary.

 

[Polymath257]

Did not know that.
Guru, tell me how to load two distributions, Solus and Mint, on the same computer.
i.e., non-duality (Advaita) and duality (Dvaita) on the same computer.

Virtualbox?

The real trick is to have both OSs native on the computer with both having access to the same home directory.

Chnaging between OSs on the fly is a completely different issue.

 

[Polymath257]

I just bought a new smaller laptop that came with windows 10 pre-installed. By far my biggest issue is how integrated OneDrive is. I don't want my files in the cloud. If and when I do, I will put them there, thank you very much. This also messes up the directory system (why have my documents both under username/Documents and username/OneDrive/Documents????)

The one nice addition, in my mind, is that openssh is now available, which means I can remotely log into my system. That only gives a command line, but that's all that is required, right?

Anyway, I see up a dual boot with win10 and Linux Mint 19 and it works like a charm! I have a desktop with Linux Mint 17 (for any real gurus out there, I have issues with it booting into newer versions) and a larger laptop, again with Linux Mint.

And I run the Linux computers in the Math Department here.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Happened yesterday. Even though I was quite comfortable with Win 7 and didn't want to make the change, as of Jan 14 Microsoft will no longer support 7. So they forced my hand. Fortunately, I was able to scrap all the tiles on the Start menu and change it back to the Win 7 format. I lost my Outlook Express E-Mail host, and subsequently elected to use The Win 10 Mail system, which, while a bit strange, should be alright. So everything is going well except for one thing, which I'm hoping someone here can help me with. The letter size in both the horizontal Operation/Tab bar and drop-down Bookmark List is quite small. Anyone know how to enlarge it?

​

View attachment 36032​

Thanks.
.

Go get a Freebie program called Classic Shell. Install it. Select "Windows 7" as the default interface. Enjoy Win 10 looking and feeling like Win7.

For the record, I have two PC's, a tablet (Surface Go) and a laptop. I run Classic Shell on the 'top, but I leave Win10 unadorned on the tabby, as I pretty much only use it to Kindle, and to Surf the Web, with an occasional foray into email land. (Email?... that's so 2001... )

But I've been using Classic Shell since Win10 had settled out, and I took advantage of the free update window just before it closed. Of course, both the Surface and my laptop, are new enough they both came native Win10, so it's not like I had a choice.

But my previous laptop came with Win8, which I upgraded without further ado upon purchase. (I never wanted to get used to 8, you see, preferring to skip that and go direct to 10) My (now defunct) desktop was still on Win7, and I did not upgrade until several months using the upgraded laptop.

Notebook: You can upgrade any Windoze machine to 10, for free, and NOT register the thing. It'll run in "nagware mode", such that with each reboot, it nags you to register, and won't let you open Microsoft Store....

.... which many will rightfully see as a desired Feature, and not a bug....