News Setting up a new Windows laptop or desktop? Change these dumb defaults right away!

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
gg83 said:
I am a huge fan of Brave. I think it's the best.
Click to expand...
Yep, Brave is the best Chromium based browser for windows by a long shot, I use both Firefox and Brave, if a feature like ff containers appears on Brave I may finally let go from Firefox.

Anyway, that last "tip" was useless since Edge is better than Chrome, although I personally avoid both and Opera. Use Brave or Vivaldi, they're the best chromium based browsers on Windows.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gg83
Alvar Miles Udell said:
Really? All you need to do is switch your New Tab style of "focused", turn off quick links, and turn content setting to "off" and all you will get is a search bar with the weather at the top, which you can also disable if you want, takes 4 clicks.

This is no more difficult than disabling the Pocket sponsored and recommended links and quick shortcuts in Firefox.
Click to expand...
It's more involved then that. Edge is one giant cluster of noise when all we want is a simple browser with real plugin capability.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MiniITXEconomy
emike09 said:
Get rid of the stupid search box on the task bar! That's the first thing I do. Just click the start button and start typing to search. Microsoft wasted sooo much screen real estate on a stupid big box to search that is completely unnecessary. They need to stop trying to cater to stupid people. Let them stick to MacOS and be inferior. Let us Windows and Linux guys optimize our experience.
Click to expand...
The search bar is annoying, but can be easily condensed into a magnifying glass icon. Or so that's what I did to it.
 
USAFRet said:
Or Hide it completely.
One of the default choices in the Taskbar dropdown.
Click to expand...
Yes, of coarse. If you simply want it gone you can do that. I use it somewhat frequently but I value my available rel-estate, so keeping and shrinking is the option I chose. I have implemented the no web search fix, because that annoyed the livin sht out of me. I/you/we already know how to search the web, that feature is just an advertising tool when it's built into your OS in your face and right there on the task bar.

Plenty of reasons to cripple it, just as many to eliminate it I'm sure. But I've made it so that it works for me, not the other way around.

And let's not forget the program "everything" as the ultimate desktop search. But the search icon helps me find programs quickly. That's really the only use it serves for me.
 
thestryker said:
Some really good stuff in there that will be useful when I have Win 11 on anything aside from handheld.

Software to shortcut removal of a lot of the bloatware/data scraping would also be helpful I think. On my Ally when I got it and when I reinstalled BloatyNosy was the first thing I ran: https://builtbybel.com/apps/bloatynosy
Click to expand...

O&O ShutUp10++​


That has been the white horse I ride to every Windows party!
 
Guide lack:
Disabling automatic updates (Microsoft prouve againe and againe it is mandatory by pushing something bricking one).
Disabling fast boot
 
t3t4 said:
Yes, of coarse. If you simply want it gone you can do that. I use it somewhat frequently but I value my available rel-estate, so keeping and shrinking is the option I chose. I have implemented the no web search fix, because that annoyed the livin sht out of me. I/you/we already know how to search the web, that feature is just an advertising tool when it's built into your OS in your face and right there on the task bar.

Plenty of reasons to cripple it, just as many to eliminate it I'm sure. But I've made it so that it works for me, not the other way around.

And let's not forget the program "everything" as the ultimate desktop search. But the search icon helps me find programs quickly. That's really the only use it serves for me.
Click to expand...
Save that icon's waste of screen real estate. Get rid of it. Just click the start button and start typing. It does the exact same thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyaraM and ThomasKinsley
kb7rky said:
Indeed...I'd sooner put Linux onto a new W11 machine (which is shaping up to be YET ANOTHER Vista-esque fiasco), than have to endure Micro$haft's asinine, labyrynthian spyware, BS, and bloatware, just to use it.

Thanks, but no thanks, M$. You've outlived your usefulness...now, you're just a joke unto yourselves. Every OS you produce will never be as good as XP (and, arguably, Win7) was.
Click to expand...
Tell me you can't advance along with hardware and software, without telling me you can't advance along with hardware and software. Or are just insanely closed minded.

XP was insanely insecure by nature and was an attempt to mimic a lot of Mac OS9/10 functionality. Major changes had to be made, brought in by Vista. People hated Vista because of those changes, but they needed to be made. 7 perfected those changes. MS lost their mind on W8, but some modern advanced were made from it. W10 was and is amazing. I run W11 daily on all systems - love it.

Update your hardware and mindset if you don't like the changes. Use 1st or 3rd party tools to cater the experience to your liking. No legacy OS is going to keep up with modern security or usability.

All Linux server platforms have changed a lot in the last decade. Syntax changes have been made, forcing you to do things a little differently than before. Applications must be updated by devs to use new Linux versions, and old versions are no longer supported or updated, making them insecure. I love Linux in the server world, but for personal use, it doesn't do what it needs to do. I'd rather use Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux, where I can do literally everything between those two worlds.

If you don't like something, do something better and sell it instead of just complaining that "music was better when I was a kid". Old people mentality. Enjoy running XP until you die.
 
It is FAR better policy to blow out the bloatware filled crap OS install and do a clean install of OS. It takes far less time and also doesn't leave a bunch of crap in registry and such after "deleting" these things. Best time to do it is when brand new and none of your personal stuff is loaded in yet.

Another couple of items I suggest are going and uninstalling One Drive. It is the FIRST thing I do. As pointed out above going through all the security settings, defaults and so forth is a great idea. Also, tweak "suggestions" to (in most cases) not to show. There are other optimizations that help with privacy and so forth.

As to the context menu, now that I have gotten used to it I actually prefer it to the full menu.
 
  • Like
Reactions: emike09
punkncat said:
It is FAR better policy to blow out the bloatware filled crap OS install and do a clean install of OS. It takes far less time and also doesn't leave a bunch of crap in registry and such after "deleting" these things. Best time to do it is when brand new and none of your personal stuff is loaded in yet.
Click to expand...
Well said. The author of the article should have started with exactly that. I don't think I've ever run a system that wasn't a clean install. Anytime I'm helping friends, if I see they're using an OEM-customized OS, I back it up, wipe it, and set it back up for them.
 
emike09 said:
Save that icon's waste of screen real estate. Get rid of it. Just click the start button and start typing. It does the exact same thing.
Click to expand...
And depending on where you are on the screen with your mouse when you want to search something, also faster since it's a shortcut... no clicking, just the Windows-key on your keyboard needed.
 
USAFRet said:
That is a VERY controversial concept.

I can't begin to express how strongly I recommend against doing that.
Click to expand...
Automatic updates are very controversial for next reasons:
- Reviewing updates issues with windows updates last year, adnroid app updates, the chance to break somethingnis non zero.
- devs tend to pack feauture update with security updates and feauture updates often are controversial (like jan 2023 google forced to review 3d party file manager to change access to files)
 
nrdwka said:
Automatic updates are very controversial for next reasons:
- Reviewing updates issues with windows updates last year, adnroid app updates, the chance to break somethingnis non zero.
- devs tend to pack feauture update with security updates and feauture updates often are controversial (like jan 2023 google forced to review 3d party file manager to change access to files)
Click to expand...
I fully agree that automatic is also controversial.

But....
If everyone were clueful, then Updates should be optional.
But everyone is NOT clueful. And they listen to people who are also not clueful. And would turn all updates OFF, leaving their system vulnerable.
Thats how we got the WannaCry ransomware.

MS had published the prevent fix for that 2 months before that virus hit the street. The VAST majority of systems that were affected were those that had updates turned OFF (trivial to do at that time).

Unfortunately, you can't make it optional for 'some'.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rich-D
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom