Windows 10 is more intrusive than past editions of Windows, gathering and storing all kinds of data about your computing and Internet habits, especially through Cortana, the built-in "personal assistant."

There are some good tips here if you're interested:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3025709/microsoft-windows/windows-10-quick-tips-how-to-protect-your-privacy.html

the machine. I won't use the cloud storage or Cortana, nor will I allow anything to happen that sends anything to Microsoft or anything else. The "Express Install" automatically turns it all on, but you can customize and turn it all off. I recommend that.

I've been doing this since 1983. Microsoft can't fool me.

I am still missing some applications from my old machine..

Just data, and I have gigabytes of it. But, it's all stored so I can move it easily. I've done this about 10 times so far in my life.

As far as applications go, I use Microsoft Office and Chrome. That's about it. Those both get new versions installed for this PC. I use Turbo Tax, so I copy all of the past tax form data into a directory that the next version will find easily. Beyond that, I have backups of all of my work product stored in half a dozen places, all with the same file structure.

I don't care about apps. They're easy. It's getting at old data that always keeps me up at night, so I've developed a portable system of storing it that makes it easy to move to new hardware.

Still, every new PC requires a couple of days of work before I have it set up so I can just get back to work without really noticing the change.

I'm losing my old favorite version of Microsoft Word, though. I love Word 2000, but it's not completely compatible with Windows 10, so I'm switching to Office 365, but in its desktop version, rather than the online version. Every document will still be saved to my hard drive and automatically backed up daily. I don't use the cloud, except to store things in a redundant way. I have everything available locally as well. The cloud backup is just for a disaster like my house burning down.

Same as you..long time DOS and Windows user but gradually cut the ties with MS apps. I now use Chrome as my browser, Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and Drive. Google gives you 15GB free when you sign up and if you need more then 100GB is $25/yr.

With all the Google redundancy I believe their cloud is more secure than a local drive. I actually do the opposite of what your doing..I use my local drive to backup the cloud...but only for super important stuff. I also have Microsoft One Drive which gives you 5GB of free storage when you sign up..so another option for back up.

The integration of Google apps and extensions for Chrome are robust enough and actually easier to use than Microsoft's Word etc. IMO...and every keystroke is automatically saved so I never ever have to manually save anything which is a big plus when power goes out or the PC crashes. Anyway...just thought I'd share.

It's free and reads and writes the old Microsoft files. Are you sure that you are not getting the limited time version of Office 365? I won't pay for it.

It's pretty slick IMO.

I want privacy.

Google has a 2 step verification option... they text a temporary 6 digit code to your phone which you have to enter when you login to your account. If someone stole your password they could not login without a 6 digit code.

Super secure IMO.

edit - All data at stored in the Google cloud is encrypted at rest...

https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-at-rest/

There are a few things you can do to limit what MS collects by simply turning them off in the privacy and security tabs which I now see you've already done. For the stuff they don't let you get to on the surface(policy and telemetry) you can install and run Spybot Anti-Becon.

Still, that's a long time.

Is it possible to get rid of most of the BLOATWARE? I'm not computer illiterate, but I HATE spending an entire weekend trying to resolve all these issues, so I am considering paying a commercial computer tech to do so for me this time around... Thoughts?

Not a system restore disc, but just the OS.

Just Google it you will find it . It makes getting rid of the bloat so much easier.

from the Microsoft website or Microsoft store. They don't allow any crapware on computers they sell....

I was terrified after hearing how everyone hates Windows 10.

I love my new PC.

Mine did not take hours for the initial updates, only minutes.

I have an extremely slow internet !!!

I made Google Chrome my browser and over rode Microsoft Edge.

Windows 10 is not the problem, Microsoft Edge and Cortana is what I don't like.

Good luck.

Both running Windows 10 and with basically the same software installed. Most files are stored on Dropbox, so I keep the machines pretty clean. The Surface is blazing fast and the Dell crawls along, both with the same RAM. Solid state drives are the only thing that I've found that really make a speed difference. The Surface uses that. Of course, it was almost quadruple the price of the Dell. My biggest issue with Windows 10 is the bloatware - apps and programs that I never use but are not easy to dump. Privacy stuff handled, though, before anything else!

Good luck getting up and running!

and I've been thinking W10. Vista was a hot mess. You'll eventually be happier. Hell, XP and 7 were both good.

I really miss the Windows Media Center and WMP integration. Microsoft took out WMC I believe to pass media streaming more through the Xbox platform. I used to be able to stream all my playlists in WMP to other devices. Now I use VLC, but it doesn't read or synchronize media play lists across devices (that I know of).

Images. I have a Win 7, (2) Win 8 and a Win 10 running with No issues with updates. Not really helpful I guess. Sorry.

when it was my work system and somebody else was responsible for paying for it and maintaining it. Win 7 on the personal laptop I'm using now is supported through 1-14-2020. I don't want to switch, but before 2020 arrives I hope to have a linux box or laptop. That's right, MS has finally annoyed me enough to go open source.

I am also at Windows 7 for my computer at work. I am not seeing any immediate upgrade in our future. For that I am appreciative.

I had a Windows 10 machine for two hours. After it would not create a system recovery thumb drive after following the Microsoft directions, I boxed it up and sent it back. I eventually got my Windows 7 machine operating back to normal (I think an update screwed it up).

My daughters and I have had four Windows 7 laptops over the past 9 years. I made the mistake of "helping" my older daughter and upgrading her Windows Vista machine to Windows 7 (it took away her video editing option) which was a problem until she got another editing package. I later got my younger daughter a Celeron Windows 7 HP machine (this is still going strong but gets overwhelmed by some websites). My older daughter replaced her Compaq with a Gateway Best Buy machine running Windows 7 (this is the one she used to do an incredible amount of video editing for her journalism projects). That machine did not survive well going to college. I think it overheats, but since my daughter replaced it with a Windows 8 (now 10) small screen ASUS laptop, it just sits gathering dust.

My primary computer is my ASUS Windows 7 machine. When it dies I will be bummed.

My younger daughter uses a Chromebook for her Nursing classes, and she loves it (she had a school supplied Chromebook in high school).

peace be upon us. I left clawmarks on XP. I am broke right now but I swear i will go to a mac before I have to deal with anything above 7.

Youtube and Google etc

3 hours to upodate - seems like your'e internet may be slow?

That is not the OS problem if so.

right now. Once it is completely set up, the Ethernet cable gets plugged in and the old one gets the wireless. That'll fix the speed issue. I still have deadlines, so I'm working on the old PC, and getting the new one ready to take over. I could run another cable from the router, but it's upstairs and my office is in the basement. Not worth the hassle.

Then you can schedule it to do updates while you are watching SNL.

Consider yourself lucky that you are not doing a from-scratch install...Microsoft's licensing schema makes that is a real pain. I did one couple weeks ago, and it took the better part of a whole day.

But you are right about speed; I tell my users there is no such thing as a fast computer; the best you can hope for is not slow.

With monitors that can seemed sky link to my iPhone, I will use the iPhone for everything, including documents and CAD work. My iPhone loads applications much faster than my Windows laptop.

That's the rumor....
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/01/02/new-samsung-galaxy-s8-desktop-experience/#56ea1d4577c8

My iPhone is so much better than my laptop for all applications except , wide screen text, documents and CAD, once Apps for those needs, I won't be buying any more computers beyond a Server for heavy duty calculations.

I got one free when I signed up for DirecTVNow for 3 months.

It's nonsense. You go to a DOS prompt and get a listing of files, you get it instantaneously. In Windows Explorer, it sometimes takes several seconds to display a simple list of filenames and associated data. Why? Because Microsoft has insisted that EVERYTHING -no matter what- be graphically represented, even when it serves no purpose.

We've forgotten the Information part of the Information Age. Now it's just making pretty pictures and flashing icons and colors at us that have no intrinsic value.

Think how much we could accomplish as a society if we truly spread information around the globe and not just the flashy stuff.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

Open Windows Explorer
Right-click the directory that loads slowly
Select "Properties"
Select the "customize" tab
Under "optimize this folder for:" choose "general items"
If desired, check the box labeled "Also apply this to all subfolders"
Click "apply", then click "ok"

If you do this to top-level folders like Documents, it should cascade down through it to all the folders under it.

My Downloads folder was taking up to twenty seconds to load the listing before I did this, now it just displays immediately. The reason is what you said; Windows is trying to show you thumbnail images of things that it can't generate a thumbnail for (like zip files).

It's a feature intended to make things easier to use for non-techies. I get why they did it, but it would be a nice thing to be able to globally shut off.

...you can't do this for all folders at once. I'm talking about the C drive itself. I don't use any of Microsoft's pre-defined folders. I organize my stuff where and how I want to. They try to force everyone to use their organizational paradigm instead of letting people organize their own desktops. It's infuriating. At least to me it is.

What sense does it make to have documents that aren't part of the C drive? None.

But you're right about how to set the properties to speed things up.

One my husband had purchased for his mother that I got when she passed away. Yesterday I restored it back to the factory settings - apparently the only way to change the user for the thing.

So far I've turned off the intrusive stuff, installed Firefox, got my email set up and installed Classic Shell since I detest those damn block as a menu. I let Firefox sync with my desktop which saves me a ton of headaches since I don't have to transfer my passwords and bookmarks.

Now I have to decide what to do for an Office type program. I prefer WordPerfect but the place where I used to buy the heavily discounted OEM versions has gone out of business. AHA! Amazon sells a downloaded version for $30. downloading now!

I've used LP for over 7 years and had zero problems-- It's one of the most reliable add-ons & extensions on FF and Google Chrome.


https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lastpass-password-manager/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lastpass-free-password-ma/hdokiejnpimakedhajhdlcegeplioahd?hl=en-US

And Google Chrome is a better browser than Firefox IMO. Everything saves to the cloud automatically.

Highly recommend.

I'm at the age where I want to use what I am used to. I've been using WordPerfect since 1993 and Firefox since Mozilla developed it.

I found WordPerfect X8 Office Suite for Home & Students from Amazon in a download for $30. It's installed and ready to go. On Windows 7, which is what I have on my desktop computer I have WordPerfect X6 so I'm used to that. And WordPerfect will let you set your menu to whatever past version emulation you like, which really cuts down on the learning curve.

I may put Chrome on - I have it on my desktop (in addition to IE and Firefox) since that is the only browser that my bank will allow to sign in with. So far the laptop has Edge, Internet Explorer (not sure where that came from), and Firefox. A fourth browser seems excessive.

If I were using the laptop for more than an occasional travel computer, I might try out the Google products, but my Windows 7 desktop is still my main machine and what I will be using most of the time. In a couple of years when I upgrade - I do that every 4-5 years and this one is 3 years old - I'll make more choices then. Right now I just need to have stuff that I am familiar with for the times I need to take a computer with me.

Thanks for the recommendation!

.. I love my Mac!

Peppermint linux

I'd switch tomorrow.

I gave up 3 years ago. Maybe it's time to try again.

you don't have to install it to try it out, but it costs a few bucks for a Peppermint OS Seven Linux Live Bootable 8GB USB Flash Drive 32Bit, if you have an old computer it will make it usable again.

I think that's the name of it. There are other methods too.

It takes less than five minutes to create a bootable Ubuntu stick; I can't imagine it takes much longer to do so with peppermint. I can do it myself tonight and create a step-by-step PowerPoint guide if you like.

Comes in several flavors up to about $19, iirc. Lots of useful apps included, and can be configured very easily to look and feel like either Windows or Mac, and comes with WinE for running M$ apps.

With xfce

OP download xubuntu

One of the many nice things about Linux you s that the regular updates go on in the background, no more windows taking hold of your computer to force update

Thank God my son came home and downloaded it to my new Computer.. It had been so long since I bought a computer I did not know they didn't come preloaded with all the programs or you do not get discs anymore.. John and I were like that commercial where the Grandparents meet the kids at the door and say.. "Its so good to see you.. none of this works!" and hands them all their lap tops etc!!!!!

I brought a new laptop last year for my son which had windows 8. I upgraded to windows 10 and the hard drive crashed on the computer and it cost me $200 to get repaired. I brought windows 7 and never installed to 10. My son accidentally dropped the computer and ithe screen cracked.

I then brought him an old Lenovo laptop like he had before that died of old age, swapped out the hard drive with windows xp. The computer is running stable and humming along fine. I had upgraded that hard drive before they discontinued Xp. I have two other laptops one with XP and another with windows 7. I find myself using the Xp operating program computer more! Never crashes on me.

then does a massive overhaul several months later. Remember XP and Service Pack 2? It basically redesigned a lot of the OS and took forever to install.

I've been using 10 for over a year now and can say with certainty that it was a lot clunkier when it was first released. I'm used to it now, but I'll always miss XP post SP2. I still think it was the best one they ever did.

I remember the update you're installing, it came out over the summer and I thought the damned thing would never finish. It eventually did, so you'll be OK too.

It seems to me LibreOffice is loading quicker and is more compatible with Microsoft formats than it's ever been.

I do understand if you're using Microsoft software because that's what your fingers and clients speak.

(And yeah, I've probably asked you before... I'm always asking people's opinion of LibreOffice, especially people who write a lot.)

https://www.libreoffice.org/

That finger memory is what brought me to Linux after Windows 98SE. (I first signed on to DU with a Windows 98SE machine.) When I switched to Linux most of the stuff I'd done on BSD machines just worked; funny little shell scripts and all. It was like coming home.

Not for you, but for computer users who mostly browse the web and create simple documents, I'm now recommending Chromebooks. Chromebooks are difficult to mess up, and they are inexpensive compared to other laptops. I'm someone who tends to lose things, or leave them where they might be stolen, so I hated traveling with expensive laptops. (I feel the same about cameras. One of my favorite cameras was stolen at Disneyland...)

Personally, I'm done with fancy word processors. I'm a minimalist. I write everything in Markdown. It's very well suited to my blathering stream-of-consciousness writing style.

https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

If my writing needs to be in some other format pandoc will get it there.

http://pandoc.org/

I've excised software bloat from my life. I could do all my writing on an old Apple IIc, an Atari 800, or even a Teletype if I wanted to.



Just imagine how much paper would be used reading and posting to DU on a Teletype...

For one, the web designer I work with uses it. I often create the content for websites up to 200 pages in size. The documents are huge and use internal links in Word for navigation within the document and to indicate site navigation structure. I have scores of macros that speed up my work, too. When I need to provide html code, Word translates it's styles, tables and other features into clean html.

I can also turn a completed Word document into an ebook almost instantly, when clients want that, complete with internal links and all formatting is retained. None of the alternatives can even come close. I make my living with Word. It's a professional tool.

Teletype machines back in the 60s.

... but also a lot of cool stuff like ASCII art. I even had a pinup scanned from a Penthouse magazine that I later saw posted on GEnie.

I remember throwing all that paper tape away too, thinking myself too modern for this backwards technology. Programs in BASIC, I'd outgrown that. The adults were using C and Pascal... Of course I later regretted it, and maybe that's why I still have an 8 inch floppy drive which I'm afraid to turn on because I hate it when old capacitors explode like firecrackers. Nobody has asked me to convert an 8 inch floppy to a current digital format for a long, long time. But with a little work I could still get the machine to run..

I've also got an Amiga that was used by a small video production company. Many wretched ads for local used car dealers and bail bondsman were made on this machine. I got the video recorders with it, huge machines that weighed about 200 pounds each, but I gave those away. Restoring those machines to working condition would have been crazy obsessive, even for me.

As for Teletypes, my kids will never understand how fantastic those machines were -- a huge noisy mechanical thing spewing out miles of paper. It was especially so when I worked at a newspaper with an AP news feed and everyone would jump up like Pavlov's dogs whenever the bell rang multiple times indicating a BIG news story.

four-digit number groups on the teletype machine in real time as they were said aloud in a non-English language. I can't explain why I was doing that, but accuracy was the highest priority. Every five minutes or so, someone would take the paper tape generated and run off with it for processing at another location in the building.

In my spare time, I created lots of ASCII art. My best one was a 10-foot long banner designed for Christmas. I can't tell you how many of those were printed out by various people to send to distant families. But rolls and rolls of paper went into those printouts. I still have one of them, rolled tightly and stored in a mailing tube. I haven't taken it out and hung it on the wall for many years.

Today, my experience typing on teletype machines accounts for my 100+ wpm typing speed on keyboards. Practice makes perfect, they say.

If you want to surf the net and use Google apps i.e. Gmail. Chrome is pretty robust with their extensions/apps as well. The only downside is running Windows programs.

I love it because it is simple and starts up and shuts down fast. It wouldn't be suitable for my work though. I have a Windows 10 machine for work.

laptops that are way under powered because it was an unbelievable deal. friend brought over a very nice dell 17 inch screen laptop that he got for $600 even had touch screen but it had some old Pentium quad core processor running at 2Ghz. took almost half a day to install the windows 10 anniversary update.

A quad core processor shouldn't be noticeably slow.

I just rebuilt a discarded single core AMD Athlon, maxed out its memory, and installed my usual Linux suite, and it does most everything I ask of it without hesitation. No I wouldn't want to edit videos on it, but it runs the Opera web browser and Libre Office without trouble.

Software bloat, in both installed apps and on web pages, is why I remember my old Windows 98 machine seemed faster than today's brand new Windows machines.

Heck, Windows 95 came with a Weezer video.

will work on core 2 duo's. but some of these new laptops are coming with a pentinum core processor running windows 10 64bit. the processors are 64bit active but for some reason they seem to run slow with that setup.

I'm typing this post on a old dell latitude e6400 with 4Gb of ram and it's running pretty good on windows 10 pro 32bit.

Windows 8 was a mess. Win10 is great for me. Very fast loading from cold boot, very stable and I like playing around with its tablet mode every now and then.

Classic Shell is a brilliant sort of 'training wheels' way to get into Win10, but I took them off eventually and all is fine.

It's been hell doing the support for this OS with my father. He let the new OS kind of self install. Had to set up the retro look for him to understand things.

Learn shortcuts like Ctrl X for settings and use that search in the task bar liberally. It gets better.

And of course, continue to use shortcuts on the task bar.

Most of my internet consumption is by iPad Pro now anyway, but Win10 does get better. Throw in an SSD drive and your pc can boot up in like 10 seconds.

Fast as lightning and zero virus problems in 10 years.

I do have to use a W10 laptop at work, as one of our programs only runs on it. It hasn't been too bad, but I still find it much easier to use open source for most things at home.

Couldn't get rid of it.

So I installed Windows 10.

Very satisfied with the move.

It doesn't require Windows.

Except for a shopworn chromebook and a Raspberry Pi I bought a few years ago, I liberate all my computers from the electronic waste stream, or accept them from people who want me to get rid of them. People are always discarding computers that are just a few years old because their Windows installation is broken and overflowing with crap and they want the latest and greatest machines anyways, same as people who buy new cars.

One problem with installing various operating systems on machines others have abandoned is that I can't be sure at first if problems are the result of some physical problem with the machine or some incompatibility with the software. I find such detective work relaxing.

I also find things like the great systemd war to be more entertaining than the Super Bowl. My current desktop machine runs Debian without systemd, if you want to know what side I tend too. I'm a huge fan of Keep It Simple Stupid engineering. (KISS is the reason Soyuz is still around and the Space Shuttle is not.) Besides, BSD was the first real operating system I used regularly. I was in the computer lab when 2BSD was released and a graduate student slapped a hastily bound paper manual on my desk, and said something like, "You. Try this!" (I was a good undergraduate guinea pig, and nobody minded that I was essentially living in the computer labs because I'd sometimes help other students who'd otherwise be bothering grad students and other important lab staff. I met my first girlfriend in the computer lab. She said something like, "You. You need to eat!" and that was almost certainly true. Coincidentally, I met my wife a few years later in a computer lab.)

After my quick introduction to 2BSD I wrote most of my term papers, and an entire novel, using vi.

I haven't installed BSD on a machine for at least a year or two. The latest thing I've been playing with is Devuan, which is Debian Jessie derivative without systemd, established on the expectation that Debian, like the other mainstream branches of Linux, will become increasingly dependent on systemd.

My major expectation for any machine I build is that the network connectivity (including wireless) and browser are rock-solid and easily or automatically set up, that the machine runs GIMP and its major accessories (G'MIC. etc.) flawlessly, and it runs an Atari 800 emulator and DOSBOX.

One of these days I'll give PC-BSD a try. Thanks.

But I have to say that I really like it for the most part. That first update sucks and takes awhile and I turned off most notifications because they annoy me...but other than that I actually really like it.

My millennial sons are recommending a 10 update, but I'm reluctant.

My Windows 7 is making noises when it reads the HD. I. love my PC, but that noise is isn't good. So I will be getting a new PC soon. Win 10 is going to be a learning curve for me.

Maybe it is a good time to buy, learning a new OS will take my mind off of Trump.

Sometimes new is better. Remember DLL hell?

I didn't have to it setup though.

Besides Adam (apple friendly) basic, we used CP/M (Control Program Monitor) & Logo.

Back then you could add 64K of memory to double up Adam.

OS