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Useless Windows 10 Features

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121–130 of 437 posts

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#121
Still using windows 7 for as long as I can. Pretty livid that they're discontinuing support and forcing people to 10 soon, I have 10 on another machine and it really feels like losing control of my PC. Very locked down, filled with ads and interruptions, affiliate software and marketing junk. Seems like one of the last bastions of autonomy and privacy in the computer world, the desktop OS, is jumping fully onto the surveillance capitalism bandwagon now. Pretty depressing. Would switch to Linux but it's pretty much a nonstarter for game dev.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#122
post #3
post #2

I agree with this article, but I think it can be summed up as, "People need the option to buy the LTSB release of Windows 10". Microsoft refuses to sell it to consumers. It is an enterprise only option (unless that has recently changed and I am not aware of it). I have one windows 7 machine for playing WoW and it will stay on 7 until I can get the LTSB release of Windows 10 and the ability to turn off 100% of the tel…

You should check out Valve's Proton. It's wine, but not wine... It's another abstraction layer built on top and it is pretty amazing. For the most part it just works. Doing some quick searching it looks like people have WoW running on it.

It is Wine, but with patches, that one day could be clean enough to go upstream. Some eventually are merged upstream.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#124
post #38

In case people are really ambitious or adventurous and want to avoid all of this stuff completely, what Linux distro (or other open source OS) is currently trendiest/most useful/relevant? Is it still Ubuntu?

You're probably best off asking around on relevant forums about what works best on your particular machine. Of the mainstream distros, I found Fedora was by far the best OOB for my current laptop (XPS 15 9570), but I don't get the impression that's universally true. (Tangent: though likeable in many ways, Fedora was still too much fart-arsing about for me & after a few months I went back to Windows. I don't like it,…

Fedora is absolutely amazing these days. The smoothest experience by far compared to Ubuntu which tends to break or dramatically slow down after each dist-upgrade.

I'm on Fedora since v.28 gradually upgrading packages and disto versions. I've seen no problems whatsoever.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#125

The dumbest windows feature? When you accidentally touch the top of a window to top of screen, it maximizes. On Mac it's sort of the opposite: you can't relocate a window to another screen if it's maximizes. It "helps" you by force partitioning the screen.

Huh, how is that 'dumb'? Resize a window and drag it to the top will increase total height of screen. Drag a window to the top and it maximizes. Drag to left to dock to left side. (repeat for right side) Drag to top left to dock to top left corner. (repeat for all corners) Win+Arrow (Up) to full screen. Win+Arrow (Down) to un-full screen. Down again to minimum. Win+Shift+Arrow (left/right) to change screen. Win+Arrow…

Magnet on MacOS is totally worth the purchase. Gives the best window snapping I’ve found between Mac, Windows and Linux.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#126

The dumbest windows feature? When you accidentally touch the top of a window to top of screen, it maximizes. On Mac it's sort of the opposite: you can't relocate a window to another screen if it's maximizes. It "helps" you by force partitioning the screen.

This is a good feature and I use it every single day. But you can turn it off in Settings > Multitasking > Snap windows

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#127
post #18

I honestly think that the new tab/news/spam page in IE/Edge is (and has been, forever) the single biggest factor driving people to Chrome and Firefox. Every time you open it you’re greeted with all this complete junk, making the whole experience stuttering and slowing down your flow. I dread having to open IE on systems with no alternative just because it’s always so bad. Edge might actually be pretty good, but I wil…

Edge lets you turn that off - on the New Tab page, click on the cog symbol (Customize) and you can choose from New Tab page display settings: Top Sites & My Feed, Top Sites, or Blank Page. ChrEdge Beta can hide the news feed if you choose Focused view, but currently all they do is put it after the page fold, so you see it if you merely scroll down. I've sent a Feedback request saying that's something that might keep…

Sane defaults is what makes the difference.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#128
"All the Ads. So, So Many Ads"

Seems odd to see complaints of many Ads in an OS--analogous to buying a car and having advertisements show up in the instrument cluster when stopped or not being able to exit the vehicle until watching an Ad.

Haven't used Windows in recent memory (probably since these Ads appeared or I just didn't notice them).

Is it as bad as the article describes?

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#129

"All the Ads. So, So Many Ads" Seems odd to see complaints of many Ads in an OS--analogous to buying a car and having advertisements show up in the instrument cluster when stopped or not being able to exit the vehicle until watching an Ad. Haven't used Windows in recent memory (probably since these Ads appeared or I just didn't notice them). Is it as bad as the article describes?

At work, I have been using Windows 10 Pro for a couple of months now after sticking with Windows 7 for as long as I could. I cannot remember seeing any ads so far.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#130
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this in all seriousness, Linux is probably a better experience if that's all she does. Give something like Ubuntu or elementary os test run with a live version and see if she's missing anything you'll either find out she needs Office specifically or it will probably work for her. Linux right now is in a great spot for people who need little customization and people who really love to tinker. If you're in the mi…

I disagree. More likely than not the parent commenter will now be her tech support when x doesn’t work or is finicky, which is ALWAYS the case.

I disagree as well. A little while ago, my parents complained that their computer was getting too slow. I took a look and its a little old and they had Windows 10 on it. I removed it, installed Ubuntu 18.04 and since then, they have never even mentioned it.

All they do is check email, watch Netflix, and do some word documents sometimes. I had to initially show them where to find LibreOffice but other than that, they've been happy since.

Ubuntu has reached that soft spot where its perfect for anyone who is in need of a simple, easy to use computer that does not do work using some specialized software.

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