How bad is Win 10? Options

[pandy]

My computer has broken down. Yeah, again. I just bought a very slightly used one with a lot better components that I would otherwise afford.


It comes with Win 10 (Pro), I think. The guy hated it himself and recommended me to install 7 or 8 instead. 7 seems the least annoying, but support ends in less than 3 years. 8 seems pretty horrid too. So maybe I should just go with 10?

I've read about the murder of the start menu, that updates are forced and that you have no control of what and when. Is it as bad as I've heard?

[pandy]

Oh, I decided on win10. The guy will format and make a fresh installation so we can test run before putting it in a box.

I think the best thing will be to use a real keyboard again and to see what I'm writing...

[pandy]

Well, the computer is fast. But the look and feel of Windows 10... My eyes hurt already - not joking. All this verbose text everywhere, the colors, no proper borders, program windows float into eachother *visually*... I don\t even manage to choose the color I want on the desktop. And yeah, the keyboard settings are screwed up somehow. That\s next.

Isn\t this supposed to be fun. It isn\t. And to explain, I can\t type a question mark, prim or paranthesis.

[Christian J]

Well, the computer is fast. But the look and feel of Windows 10... My eyes hurt already - not joking. All this verbose text everywhere, the colors, no proper borders,

Not sure if this one's any better: https://www.howtogeek.com/133405/how-to-get...k-on-windows-8/ (I've become used to the flat theme myself though).

But first of all clean up all the bloat and spyware which comes enabled by default, I used https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/ (though it has not been updated for a while). A couple other sites I've used for manual checking:

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/20/turn-off-...a-double-click/
https://www.cyberpunkforums.com/viewtopic.php?id=3692

You can also re-enable Photo Viewer in the registry: https://www.howtogeek.com/225844/how-to-mak...-on-windows-10/

program windows float into eachother *visually*...

When does that happen? I think I've experienced something like that during Taskbar operations.

I don\t even manage to choose the color I want on the desktop.

That should work once you've entered the license key.

Isn\t this supposed to be fun.

The real fun is that this new mobile/touch screen design was done because Microsoft wanted the same Windows look on both PCs and smartphones. Then nobody wanted to buy their smartphones anyway. Oops.

[pandy]

Not sure if this one's any better: https://www.howtogeek.com/133405/how-to-get...k-on-windows-8/ (I've become used to the flat theme myself though).

Yeah, I saw that. Maybe I'll try it later. The most annoying now is the limited number of colors I can choose from. I found the Control Color setting that's hidden somewhere. There is a color mixer that lets me change 15 patches. But those colors are only used for window borders, start menu and taskbars. For the desktop I'm stuck with the presets.

See, I've got used to having my desktop in a special shade of gray. An image editor I use have the interface in different shades of gray only, even icons. That's so your perception of color won't be tinted. I found it so restful that I made windows like that too, as far as possible, different shades of gray for everything I could change.

[Christian J]

Did you find the Metered Connection setting? I'm getting a bit worried since I'm about to change ISP.

The most annoying now is the limited number of colors I can choose from. I found the Control Color setting that's hidden somewhere. There is a color mixer that lets me change 15 patches. But those colors are only used for window borders, start menu and taskbars. For the desktop I'm stuck with the presets.

Not sure what you mean here, I can just right-click on the desktop, chose Personalize, and change Background Picture to solid color. You can make custom colors too.

See, I've got used to having my desktop in a special shade of gray. An image editor I use have the interface in different shades of gray only, even icons. That's so your perception of color won't be tinted. I found it so restful that I made windows like that too, as far as possible, different shades of gray for everything I could change.

If all else fails I guess you could create a solid color background image.