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Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9643

Posted: 08:53pm 25 Oct 2015

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Hi folks.

I downloaded an image of W10 Pro 64-bit from Microsoft last night, and installed it on a spare PC. This machine is only a dual-core 1.6GHz AMD and 6GB RAM, but W10 seems to run fine on it, and not horribly slow or anything. Not as quick as this machine, which is an Intel quad-core Atom @ 2GHz, but it is not that far behind it in speed, really, all things considered.

Anyway, I figured I would check out W10, as I have not had a chance to play with it at all, and I wanted a disposable PC, so that if I did not like it or felt like you could not kill it's background spying, then I could just wipe the machine.

I found a good free anti-spy application called ShutUp 10 which does seem to switch off all those spying things - and there are lots of them(thanks, Microsoft) - giving you back a Windows that is more user-friendly.

I quite like W10, I have to say - it is quite nicely laid out etc, and seems perfectly zippy enough even on modest hardware, but like most, it is the background spying that was a big turn off for me.

ShutUp 10 turns off all those annoyances at the click of a button, including the likes of webcam integration and voice-recognition etc. You can even disable the automatic updates with this tool, which me like lots, as automatic blind-installing of updates could so easily be perverted into a back-door for nefarious folk. All they have to do is trick the OS into thinking the update is a genuine MS one, and all sorts of hell could be auto-installed on your machine via that avenue. I am probably over-reacting, but a little over-reaction now and then, is not necessarily a bad thing.....

Having the START menu back by default is a big plus, and although it is still Metro-ish in it's appearance, it is much easier to find things in the default W10 setup then with the START menu-less Windows 8 and 8.1. I think I would still elect to install Classic Shell though.

Did the W10 issues with USB drivers for MM etc ever get fixed?
I have not been paying attention with respect to W10, as I was not running it.

For those members here already on W10, what do YOU use as an anti-spy if not ShutUp 10?

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

MicroBlocks

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Joined: 12/05/2012
Location: Thailand
Posts: 2209

Posted: 09:42pm 25 Oct 2015

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I just disabled a few options i did not like and i used the MVPS hosts file to disable all add networks and tracking scripts.

I specifically enabled Wifi Sense and peer to peer sharing of updates.
The Wifi Sense works perfectly as there is no need anymore to tell friends my router password and the peer to peer saved me gigabytes of data transfer which is just brilliant.

Microblocks. Build with logic.

WhiteWizzard
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Joined: 05/04/2013
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2948

Posted: 09:43pm 25 Oct 2015

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Grogster said Did the W10 issues with USB drivers for MM etc ever get fixed?
I have not been paying attention with respect to W10, as I was not running it.

With an E64 connected directly to a Microsoft Surface Tablet (W10), I can successfully open up a TT 'session'. To clarify - this is with no external power to the E64.

However, as soon as a reset is performed (soft or hard i.e. WATCHDOG 1 or Button) then the 'session' is disconnected.

I then have to reconnect; and for this reason I still use an external USB-to-ttl module.

I have not powered the E64 externally but others have posted their results and it appears the session stays open (but I may have interpreted their post incorrectly).

WW

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