The Computer Thread

I spent the better part of two hours beating windows into submission. Cortana is my bitch, got her snitch-y fingers off my files. Deleted some bloatware, installed AVG, Chrome then Mozilla (ha! Eat me Micro$oft) and then downloaded VLC and Media Player Classic.

Need Winamp...must have winamp...must resist urge to kill AOL execs who screwed up the licenses with winamp...urge to kill ...rising.... (Winamp is tied in a legal knot as team Llama tries to get codecs that are open source).

Next stop Libre Office and Open Office..... and then

(gulp)

Games...

edited 11th Feb '16 8:45:36 PM by TairaMai

Make sure to write a guide on what you did to manually remove Win10's excess bloat and whatnot for the rest of us... assuming that such a guide hasn't been already written, that is.

Hrm... guess I'll need to free up the recovery partition if I want to Win10 my netbook.

Does that happen automatically if I make a recovery disk?

So it seems that SCO vs IBM may finally be about to die, after the last of SCO's arguments has basically been thrown out.

And while this happened, Duke Nukem Forever has been released, Netcraft might yet be right about something, and I just became a Monkey's Aunt.

So, I'm thinking of running a clean install to upgrade to 64 bit windows, and part of it has me thinking of what free antivirus to use next. I run AVG free right now, and while I haven't really had any issues, people tell me it's only little better than ransomware. Is this true, and if so what do you guys recommend?

Personally I use Avast, but I don't know enough to make any judgement calls about "better".

I use Avast and Spybot Search and Destroy, but practically it is up to the user, since no AV is good enough to make up for the user's stupidity.

AVG is just nagware: they want to shill their PC tuneup and other 'warez. I use AVG because I'm a cheapskate and I hate Mc Afee for being a memory hog and charging for virus def updates. Definition updates should be free.

A looong time ago the computer center at my Alma Matter used to ftp virus defs straight from the Mc Afee server. It was in early 2001 that it changed and Mc Afee became teh greedy sux.

I loved Mc Afee, saved my 486 (Yes I am old, shut up) from the "stoned virus" when Norton failed to catch it. I used Mc Afee for 13+ years until I joined the Army. Then I used Norton until I hated parting with my credit card to get what should have come with my PC. Got AVG with my 7th compy (my 3rd laptop) and never looked back.

Stuff should be free if it's that essential. I don't mind ads that shill other AVG products and I likes to makes mine own decisions as to what to install and share with the company. Mc Afee had it's chance, AVG is my master now...

Anyway, I thought Norton was the ransomware stuff.

Avast spends a lot of time trying to shill VPN stuff at me because at the moment I rocket back and forth between two unencrypted networks. (My university campus and the student dorms, before anyone whines at me. Basically I don't have a choice.)

edited 11th Feb '16 11:26:42 AM by Deadbeatloser22

So, as long as we're on the topic of Windows 10. I don't mean to go all "play tech support for me" on you guys, but I've a recurring problem that has me rather stumped. At seemingly completely random intervals, all my Windows toolbar buttons (from the audio slider to the wireless center to the Windows button itself) stop responding altogether. Sometimes it rights itself after a while, sometimes I'm forced to restart.

But here's the interesting part. Occasionally, when this happens, I also lose all audio functions. Not only this, but any software that uses audio in any capacity, from Youtube videos to Steam games to VLC, completely refuses to work. Videos won't load, games won't start, movies and M P3s just give up.

Haven't been able to find anything related to this — most "solutions" just point me toward the audio drivers, which seem to be up to date as far as I've found. Any ideas?

Intermittent hangs in the taskbar have plagued Win10 since its inception. Many of the online solutions involve shutting down Cortana, rebuilding the search indexer, and then restarting everything.

However, I've found that those solutions only work temporarily, and the most effective is just to patch the OS. Once it's fully up to date with all critical and recommended updates, it performs fine.

Edit: Of course, it's possible that you have a compatibility issue with that particular driver.

edited 11th Feb '16 5:11:24 PM by Fighteer

How do I update the Intel integrated graphics driver.

It keeps crashing, and while I know my main chip, I don't know how to find that things version.

Windows Update should install updated graphics drivers automatically.

It has not, it has been doing this for about a month, or else I would just let that do its thing.

It crashes 4-5 times a day and is seriously annoying.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:22:54 PM by Imca

That indicates something overheating, most likely. That or some other mechanical failure.

I would say just look for the version in whatever software came with the driver (since Integrated graphics usually has a control panel with it), then find the driver online.

Did you do a clean install of Windows 10 or an upgrade? Upgrades are a nightmare and a half.

It recovers instantly, so I dont think its overheating.

It is more annoying since I have to restart all programs after it does, else the display is all fucked up.

Upgrade from 8.1, there is only a control panel for the nvidia chip.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:50:36 PM by Imca

Well since you've tried Windows Update try to get into Device Manager and look for your driver and I think go into its properties. There should be an option to say to look online for updates.

Unless my pc becomes entirely unusable, I don't update my graphics drivers LOL. My last three updates so far are December 2012, April 2014 and September 2015.

edited 12th Feb '16 6:55:20 AM by entropy13

Winamp: The most up-to-date version of version 5.666 can be had here. It runs like a champ on my Windows 10 machine.

Anti-virus: I use Avast myself, and I think I've gotten it to shut up regarding VPNs. Using some other VPN service helps as well, I suppose.

Graphics driver updates: I don't think I've ever updated my integrated graphics driver due to Asus shenanigans, and I've stuck to the GTX 860M-specific hotfix drivers due to newer driver versions somehow not implementing the fixes properly.

I'm suspecting it's an issue beyond the audio drivers. During one of these spats, trying to right click on desktop and go into the Personalize menu (something which I'd used before to get into Settings when no regular method is responding) gives me an error, saying that "this file doesn't have a program associated with it to perform this action". Looks like my Windows 10 installation may be fucked.

I'm looking through similar problems right now — the troubleshooter app was no help, but I'll try and find the latest update (and probably set it to automatic). Of course, I need to be able to access the damn thing first. Lovely.

edited 12th Feb '16 1:03:37 PM by Ninety

At that point I would just go back to putting it on a clean install and getting some sorta storage device to hold my files temporarily.

Any advice for keeping a laptop with a Quad Core processor cool? My mom has a cooling pad she doesn't use but it lacks a fan and I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to work. I've mostly been using tips I've seen online to keep it cool (that is: not putting it on a flat surface or letting the vents be covered) but as of last week my battery has been dying faster than usual and it's been getting hotter more quickly so I'm looking for advice to keep it cool until I can get my hands on a cooling fan or something.

Get a desktop fan, point it at your notebook.

Also open it up and dust it off.

Unless it's already full of dust (which means you have to clean it up first), the "cooling pads" help.