Windows 10 News and User discussion (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Thanks for looking. I felt like I thoroughly exhausted trying before I pleaded for help. As someone who intentionally skipped a decade of Windows iterations, it seems like there's less customizing for users now and more control for Big Brother. This is one reason I put off coming into the 21st century for so long.

Win10 from what I’ve seen is highly customizable. See earlier discussion about PowerShell for super geeks wanting under-the-hood control.


And if WinDefender doesn’t suit you, turn it off. It’s got a lot of customization in Settings including firewall customization.

I’m an Apple Mac & iOS user for personal devices. But Win10 is good. I think avoiding upgrading from Windows XP (or worse Win98) is ... well ... kinda crazy. Win7 was good and what I’ve seen so far Win10 is pretty great, far more secure, and keeps getting better with the semi-annual updates.

Nothing’s perfect. Computers are complex. Problems happen to the best of us. But, yeah, Win10 is good stuff.

 

[DaveF]

In order to stop my wife's Facebook from crashing on her Google Chrome, I had to physically uninstall/reinstall GC, and I also updated Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player. While I'm not certain which act did the trick on her Windows 8.1 setup, after applying the Adobe Reader and Flash Player updates on my Windows 10 setup, things sped up considerably on my Firefox Browser without having to uninstall/reinstall that Browser.

It's too bad that in 2017, running things smoothly on a Windows PC remains such a complicated affair, but it is what it is, I suppose!

CHEERS!

Why do you have Flash installed if you’re running Chrome? Chrome has its own baked in Flash player and doesn’t use Adobe’s plugin (last I knew).

 

[Tony Bensley]

Why do you have Flash installed if you’re running Chrome? Chrome has its own baked in Flash player and doesn’t use Adobe’s plugin (last I knew).

The next time the Mrs. complains about her Google Chrome acting up, I'll remove her Adobe Flash Player. and see what happens. Until then, I'm leaving it as is, for the sake of our sanity.

My PC setup no longer includes Google Chrome, as it was causing me too much headache on that platform. I do use it on my HTC Androids, however.

CHEERS!

 

[Harry-N]

I finally took the plunge from XP to Win 10 Pro. It could be worse. But I hate that Win Defender chimes every other day to tell me it found nothing wrong with my computer. Can I turn that off and only be notified when there is something wrong? It's the chime that's bugging me. Also, I call BS on quiet time being from midnight to six am. I should be able to have quiet time any freaking time I want it--and the Quiet Time doesn't even work from midnight to six--I am still getting chimed. Any help? It would be appreciated. Thanks.

Alan, have you tried playing with the Settings?

The chimes and messages don't bother me, so I haven't messed with the Notifications settings, but just did a bit of digging in there. If you right-click START, then pick SETTINGS. Once in there, pick the option for SYSTEM.

In SYSTEM, the second option should be NOTIFICATIONS & ACTIONS. Scolling down, you'll see GET NOTIFICATIONS FROM THESE SENDERS with a list of apps with notifications turned on or off. Down near the bottom I have one called SECURITY & MAINTENANCE.
When I click on that, I can turn notifications on or off or have sounds come on or off.

If these settings don't look like yours, it's possible that it's because I'm using Windows 10 Home, and I know that Windows 10 Pro sometimes looks a bit different, but I'd think that Pro would have settings similar to these.

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Now, if it's just the audio chimes bugging you, you could right-click the speaker icon in the tray and select Open Volume Mixer. In there, you could slide down the fader for System Sounds. That would mute all system audio like Windows startup sounds, email notifications, etc.

 

[BobO'Link]

Why do you have Flash installed if you’re running Chrome? Chrome has its own baked in Flash player and doesn’t use Adobe’s plugin (last I knew).

There is a version of the Flash plugin targeted specifically for Chrome. But you're correct. Flash is built-in and maintained/updated with the browser so you don't necessarily need that plugin. Whether or not it might fix an issue with the built-in version I don't know. The only way I use Chrome is on a work issued Chromebook where there's no other option. It doesn't have a stand-alone plugin option for Flash at all.

 

[Carabimero]

Alan, have you tried playing with the Settings?

The chimes and messages don't bother me, so I haven't messed with the Notifications settings, but just did a bit of digging in there. If you right-click START, then pick SETTINGS. Once in there, pick the option for SYSTEM.

In SYSTEM, the second option should be NOTIFICATIONS & ACTIONS. Scolling down, you'll see GET NOTIFICATIONS FROM THESE SENDERS with a list of apps with notifications turned on or off. Down near the bottom I have one called SECURITY & MAINTENANCE.
When I click on that, I can turn notifications on or off or have sounds come on or off.

If these settings don't look like yours, it's possible that it's because I'm using Windows 10 Home, and I know that Windows 10 Pro sometimes looks a bit different, but I'd think that Pro would have settings similar to these.

-------

Now, if it's just the audio chimes bugging you, you could right-click the speaker icon in the tray and select Open Volume Mixer. In there, you could slide down the fader for System Sounds. That would mute all system audio like Windows startup sounds, email notifications, etc.

I appreciate your looking into this. When I scroll down to security and maintenance, it's blacked out in the "on" position and no amount of clicking or right clicking does any good (I guess because all notifications and actions are off on the master switch--and even when I turn them on, I can't adjust the individual senders below). Also, turning down system sounds did nothing. I thought maybe my adjustment didn't take, but when I check, system sounds are down.

 

[DaveF]

Now I’m angry at Fall Creators Update. It broke audio for Emby and MPC-HC. I’m trying decide whether to revert to a pre-update backup or be a guinea pig for Emby to help debug.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Now I’m angry at Fall Creators Update. It broke audio for Emby and MPC-HC. I’m trying decide whether to revert to a pre-update backup or be a guinea pig for Emby to help debug.

The every other Windows 10 update causing new issues/reviving old ones merry go round is getting very tiresome.

I hope that you can resolve yours, Dave!

CHEERS!

 

[DaveF]

I’m going to try to rollback to previous version and see if that fixes me. If so, I’ll try to stay there for a bit longer.

 

[Clinton McClure]

After having Windows 10 Professional installed on a bootcamp partition on my MacBook Pro for the last year, I finally decided to uninstall it this morning. I realized that for the past year, I have only booted up Windows 10 once a month to download the latest monthly updates then I would boot back into MacOS. Reflecting back on Windows 10, it's not a particularly bad OS, but it does have some boneheaded design decisions (mainly the auto-update feature) and it's utterly useless for me now as I can do everything I need in MacOS.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Reflecting back on Windows 10, it's not a particularly bad OS, but it does have some boneheaded design decisions (mainly the auto-update feature) and it's utterly useless for me now as I can do everything I need in MacOS.

An OS will always need patches - what's wrong with an auto-update option?

I have two PCs now and don't seem to have problems with the Win10 updates. And there are many SW products out there that are not available for versions of the MacOS. See for example http://www.durametric.com/ which you need if you own a Porsche.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

W I think avoiding upgrading from Windows XP (or worse Win98) is ... well ... kinda crazy. Win7 was good and what I’ve seen so far Win10 is pretty great, far more secure, and keeps getting better with the semi-annual updates.

Nothing’s perfect. Computers are complex. Problems happen to the best of us. But, yeah, Win10 is good stuff.

This reminds me of the "great Beethoven odd-numbered symphonies".

Win98 - good
WinME - junk
WinXP - good
Win Vista - junk
Win7 - good
Win 8 - junk
Win 10 - good

 

[DaveF]

An OS will always need patches - what's wrong with an auto-update option?

I have two PCs now and don't seem to have problems with the Win10 updates. And there are many SW products out there that are not available for versions of the MacOS. See for example http://www.durametric.com/ which you need if you own a Porsche.

I largely agree. Except when you have software that is broken by automatic updates or new drivers. That’s what I’m suffering currently.

I’d recommend easy and obvious updates. It helps keep people safe. But not automatic. There’s wisdom in not updating to a major new release on day one. But Windows is shoving major updates on people with little way out.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Perhaps, it's just my setup, but I find that whenever a Windows 10 update is about ready to come down the pipe, everything on my PC Laptop slows right down to a crawl to the point of being nearly non functional. There also seems to be a vicious cycle of one update fixing certain issues, only for them to return after the next update. I've mostly learned to just live with this, but it is an annoyance. At least, I've never experienced total system failure.

CHEERS!

 

[Clinton McClure]

This reminds me of the "great Beethoven odd-numbered symphonies".

Win98 - good
WinME - junk
WinXP - good
Win Vista - junk
Win7 - good
Win 8 - junk
Win 10 - good

To clarify Windows 98: the original release was beyond broken. The 2nd edition was much better.

 

[Clinton McClure]

An OS will always need patches - what's wrong with an auto-update option?

I have two PCs now and don't seem to have problems with the Win10 updates. And there are many SW products out there that are not available for versions of the MacOS. See for example http://www.durametric.com/ which you need if you own a Porsche.

I don’t own a Porsche so durametric would be pointless for me to own.

Concerning auto-updates: When the updates are forced and break your OS, that is not a good thing. The forced updates never broke my install, however I no longer need Windows since 100% of what I do can now be done in MacOS.

 

[BobO'Link]

To clarify Windows 98: the original release was beyond broken. The 2nd edition was much better.

I wouldn't say that. I owned, and used daily, a computer with Windows 98 (non SE) until XP had been out a couple of years. The only issues I ever had was with USB, which SE did far better. Even those were minor and never caused me more than a few extra minutes getting the right driver installed.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I wouldn't say that. I owned, and used daily, a computer with Windows 98 (non SE) until XP had been out a couple of years. The only issues I ever had was with USB, which SE did far better. Even those were minor and never caused me more than a few extra minutes getting the right driver installed.

I do not recall having any significant issues with Win98, either. The only version of Windows that ever gave me problems was Windows ME -- now that was a piece of crap! I never upgrade OS versions on my PC's -- I just wait until I buy a new PC and get the upgraded OS then. Windows ME was the one exception -- it was so bad I upgraded that PC to Windows XP when it became available.

I just started using Windows 10 when I bought a new PC last fall, replacing a quite old Windows 7 system. So far, the only issue I've had is with my networked Brother laser printer constantly going offline on the Win10 PC, with the only way to bring it back online being turning the printer off and back on. Trying every suggestion I could find online did not solve the issue (lots of people seem to have the same problem), but as a last resort I switched the printer's network connection from wired to wireless and it's now working for some strange reason. My PC is cabled to the same network router the printer was attached to, both were on the same subnet, and the PC could always ping the printer, but it still went offline when the printer went to sleep. That never happened with the same printer and my old Windows 7 PC, which was plugged into the exact same network port on the router. that the new Win10 PC now uses The wireless connection is still on the same network subnet, but now it stays online whenever the printer goes into sleep mode. It makes no sense, but it's working so I am not going to question the results.

For full disclosure, I never owned a PC with Vista or Windows 8 (but did have that OS on the Microsoft Surface I used at work until retiring).

 

[BobO'Link]

^We had lots of "printer offline/not working" issues with Brother printers (mostly the HL-L6200) at the school I do support for. The printers (wireless) would go into "deep sleep" mode and the Mac computers couldn't wake them. The Windows 10 systems had no issues. The cure for us was to fully disable "deep sleep" (it's a very well hidden menu setting and took some research to find).

 

[Scott Merryfield]

^We had lots of "printer offline/not working" issues with Brother printers (mostly the HL-L6200) at the school I do support for. The printers (wireless) would go into "deep sleep" mode and the Mac computers couldn't wake them. The Windows 10 systems had no issues. The cure for us was to fully disable "deep sleep" (it's a very well hidden menu setting and took some research to find).

That's interesting, Howie. My printer is a Brother HL-2270DW. If I do not let it go into deep sleep mode, though, it continues to run and is quite loud, and that cannot be healthy for the printer. I did change the time for going into deep sleep while troubleshooting, since it was set to only a couple of minutes.

The odd thing about my situation is that when I initially setup the Windows 10 machine last fall, it automatically found the printer on my network and installed it, even though the printer was in deep sleep mode at the time. I'm not sure if a subsequent Windows 10 patch started causing the issue, as I do not print very much and didn't notice the problem for a month or two after setting up the PC.

As I mentioned, I still had basic network connectivity between the PC and printer, since I could ping the printer from the PC even when it showed "offline" on the PC. So something wacky was happening further up the TCP/IP stack. Since it's working wirelessly, though, I am not going to lose any sleep over of it.