Everything Else

I've received a new work ThinkPad, a T460s, with Windows 10.

I spent two hours of fury, setting up Outlook as my default e-mail handler instead of Notes. But Notes would still pop up when I was trying to send e-mails directly from an application.

Well, there's this bit of schizophrenia in Windows 10... if you use the Settings application, it won't assign all e-mail tasks to Outlook. You need to also do it in Control Panel.



I thought I was going insane. I can imagine how furious a person who is not very good with computers could get trying to understand why it is not working.

Win10 is sooo broken. The Settings application in particular is absolutely maddening to deal with.

When I try to even change defaults in Settings, I'll click an alternative and it won't change. Have to use control panel on my end for it to even do anything at all.

Windows 10 is an operating system trying to be Windows Phone and Windows 7 at the same time, and it's really bad at both. I dumped it for Qubes OS a few months ago. I can still run my Windows apps in Windows 7 HVMs, and Qubes handles interoperability extremely well. Installing an XP VM for IE8 testing right now. Qubes means it can run in a window, install from an ISO in my main Debian VM, and network only to my Server VM via the Firewall VM without an internet connection for security. If it does get compromised, the rest of my system is protected because it's only a VM. Unfortunately there's no Qubes Tools for XP, so file transfer will be FTP via ServerVM, but I don't have to worry about my FTP server being FTP because FirewallVM protects it from NetVM and the outside world.

Dodoid wrote: Windows 10 is an operating system trying to be Windows Phone and Windows 7 at the same time, and it's really bad at both. I dumped it for Qubes OS a few months ago. I can still run my Windows apps in Windows 7 HVMs, and Qubes handles interoperability extremely well. Installing an XP VM for IE8 testing right now. Qubes means it can run in a window, install from an ISO in my main Debian VM, and network only to my Server VM via the Firewall VM without an internet connection for security. If it does get compromised, the rest of my system is protected because it's only a VM. Unfortunately there's no Qubes Tools for XP, so file transfer will be FTP via ServerVM, but I don't have to worry about my FTP server being FTP because FirewallVM protects it from NetVM and the outside world.

I might switch, I've been thinking about just doing KVM gpu passthrough for my games but it seems like kind of a hassle... I've switched to Linux only before but haven't stuck with it. I kind of should... The only reason I haven't is that it just seems inefficient and annoying to have Linux as the host and have to boot up a Windows VM just to play games. Also, the newest graphics card I have besides my GTX 980 is a GT 710 so I'd have to use that for the Linux host... ew.

The way they're going about updating Windows 10 also seems flawed in terms of UI development. Instead of refining one menu to do a task, they have left the old menus in (Control Panel) and the new way to do it (Settings) is crap. They don't bother to refine what they're doing, they just go on to the next UI redesign or whatever without fixing what's already there.

LarBob wrote: I've switched to Linux only before but haven't stuck with it. I kind of should... The only reason I haven't is that it just seems inefficient and annoying to have Linux as the host and have to boot up a Windows VM just to play games.

Win10 was what finally got me to make the switch. It became abundantly clear that once it was no longer possible to use XP as a daily driver, my options were going to be "clunky and suboptimal" versus "awful beyond all belief," so I just went ahead and made the jump. Of course, it helps for my use case that WINE seems to finally be reasonably stable on x64 and I don't do anything with modern gaming anyway.

commodorejohn wrote:

LarBob wrote: I've switched to Linux only before but haven't stuck with it. I kind of should... The only reason I haven't is that it just seems inefficient and annoying to have Linux as the host and have to boot up a Windows VM just to play games.

Win10 was what finally got me to make the switch. It became abundantly clear that once it was no longer possible to use XP as a daily driver, my options were going to be "clunky and suboptimal" versus "awful beyond all belief," so I just went ahead and made the jump. Of course, it helps for my use case that WINE seems to finally be reasonably stable on x64 and I don't do anything with modern gaming anyway.

Pretty much the only reason that I don't switch is modern gaming... I've considered the KVM route a lot though, it just seems kinda inefficient. Maybe I'll switch the next time my install inevitably goes to crap.

If I did switch, I'm not sure what distro I'd use. I've used many, but I guess I'd probably end up using Debian. What do you use?

I'm running Devuan (Debian with the systemd dependencies removed.) It's pretty solid and updates come through pretty regularly.

commodorejohn wrote: I'm running Devuan (Debian with the systemd dependencies removed.) It's pretty solid and updates come through pretty regularly.

Yeah, I've heard about Devuan. I could use that as well...
I'm not really sure where I stand with systemd honestly. It could be considered fairly bloated I guess.

I'm using 8.1 Embedded and when that isn't sufficient anymore I will emulate a Win 7 system under a Xen, KVM or BHYVE hypervisor, with the host OS either being SmartOS, NetBSD or FreeBSD, not in any particular order. If I ever get FoxBSD off the ground (lack of motivation and lack of resources) then I'll use that.

I am using W10 now when I have to (which, fortunately, is only maybe 5-10 % of my computing time), took (as always) a bit of getting used to. The Settings app / CP schizophrenia sucks, yes, and the fact that they removed the direct right-click link to CP in the Creator's Update and one now has to go via other routes to get there for the settings that haven't been migrated yet sucks even more. Give it another year or two, this current incarnation might become usable without the need for too much tinkering with internals to make things work the way they should.

Shiunbird wrote: Well, there's this bit of schizophrenia in Windows 10... if you use the Settings application, it won't assign all e-mail tasks to Outlook. You need to also do it in Control Panel.

I agree -- that general schizophrenia is a major annoyance with Win10. I've gotten used to looking at both the Control Panel and the Settings app to make sure config choices are complete. That said, I've been running Win10 on my primary Windows system for a little while now, and after the initial round of configuration and customization to make the system work the way I wanted it to work, it hasn't given me any routine trouble that is worse than the routine troubles I see with other OSs, including Linux and macOS. It's not as coherent as Win7, but so far, it's been ok for me.

I really miss the old Annoyances.org website and the associated O'Reilly books , especially the ones written by David A. Karp. They were great sources of reliable ways to "fix" Windows and other tools. I guess the recent fashion of developers continuously tweaking features and rearranging and otherwise messing with UIs has made it impossible to write anything that qualifies as "authoritative" for more than a few weeks, hence the proliferation of stupid, redundant, out-of-date "Top Tricks"-style blog posts that seem to litter the net. (Microsoft is far from alone in this, of course.)

FWIW, I've found that the Classic Shell Start Menu alternative makes Win10 (and Win 8.x) a bit more usable by providing a more consistent and logical means to access many functions than what Windows itself includes.

Unfortunately, I need to stick to Windows 10 for work. Corporate policy.

For "security reasons", our computers hibernate if left on for 2 hours now. So I'm having to apply for a security exception to be able to have my computer on for more than 2 hours and run my data collection scripts. The process is being hilarious:

Q. I need my computer to be active overnight.
A. You can't, for security reasons. We also don't allow computers to be on sleep state for more than 2 hours, they will hibernate.
Q. I need to run scripts overnight.
A. Ok, look for a MouseShaker.exe app bundled with every computer.
Q. WTF? How's that more secure? My computer won't lock itself up or go on screensaver.
A. Let me escalate that...

............................................................................................................

As far as stupid workarounds, have you tried leaving a silent (or mute the speaker) music track playing in e.g. itunes? Should allow the screen to be locked at least.

On the subject of Windows 10, a leaked MS build suggests they *may* release a Windows 10 Workstation edition.

That in itself isn't superbly interesting, but I did like the image that Ars Technica used to illustrate it... https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-t ... rkstation/

Trippynet wrote: I did like the image that Ars Technica used to illustrate it...

Nice catch, it's the Espressigo !

Man, I want one of those ...

guardian452 wrote: As far as stupid workarounds, have you tried leaving a silent (or mute the speaker) music track playing in e.g. itunes? Should allow the screen to be locked at least.

The official suggestion from IT Security Management is to open a powerpoint presentation, start a slide slow, run whatever I need to run and lock my screen.

LarBob wrote: When I try to even change defaults in Settings, I'll click an alternative and it won't change. Have to use control panel on my end for it to even do anything at all.

If you use powershell to remove their default apps, miraculously it starts working.

Dodoid wrote: Windows 10 is an operating system trying to be Windows Phone and Windows 7 at the same time, and it's really bad at both. I dumped it for Qubes OS a few months ago.

So now you have an OS pretending to be a hypervisor which is only good at frustrating people who want to use a thumb drive.

Shiunbird wrote: The official suggestion from IT Security Management is to open a powerpoint presentation, start a slide slow, run whatever I need to run and lock my screen.

You should post that up to his LinkedIn and see if his "colleagues" agree.

Oh come on, it's a real Type 1 hypervisor (Xen) with a number of OSes on top and some hypervisor control features.

I agree that USB devices are annoying though. Thumb drives are alright, you can mount them to any VM using Xen Virtual Disks from the Qubes Manager which only takes a few seconds, but other devices require the new (as of 3.2) sys-usb feature that has to be enabled using qubesctl from the dom0 terminal and requires you to install qubes-usb-proxy on your TemplateVMs. Once it's set up it's alright but has to be used from the command line, so I wrote a Python ncurses UI to handle USB devices and some other Qubes things when I press the mic mute button on my ThinkPad.

I gave Windows 10 a shake and was disappointed, of course. I am in the process of installing my Windows based development tools into Win7 VMs, however I recently found Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB.

It may be a way to make Windows 10 more tolerable, if you have to use it:

Enterprise LTSB is a long-term support version of Windows 10 Enterprise released every 2 to 3 years. They are supported with security updates for 10 years after their release, and intentionally receive no feature updates. Some features, including the Windows Store and bundled apps, are not included in this edition.