Let Windows take care of Windows

jimbo45 · Feb 1, 2022

Haydon said:
The point is that there are people/serial posters on this forum who would be better off if they left Windows alone.

Edit: And the irony is that they get responses on how to do it even 'better' which in the greater scheme of things leads them further astray

Didn't William Shakespeare back a few hundred year ago warn people with "A little Learning is a Dangerous thing"?
I don't think much has changed. !!

Cheers
jimbo

Haydon · Feb 1, 2022

Yeah, the issue is hardly unique. On a car forum someone can't resist the temptation to tune up the family car and crashes. Lucky us, it's only a computer that crashes.

Well, perhaps the wedding photos are gone too, without backup :scream:

RFS · Feb 1, 2022

jimbo45 said:
Didn't William Shakespeare back a few hundred year ago warn people with "A little Learning is a Dangerous thing"?
I don't think much has changed. !!

Cheers
jimbo

Actually it's found in Alexander Pope's poem An Essay on Criticism , composed in 1709. :)

AdvancedSetup · Feb 1, 2022

But if you yourself had not learned to sing and dance or others then no one would be singing and dancing? Everyone has to learn somehow - no one just wakes up and knows how to tweak Windows.

Sometimes the hard knocks are what really help us learn as we are now forced to dig in deeper to get out of a hole.

BunnyJ · Feb 1, 2022

AdvancedSetup said:
But if you yourself had not learned to sing and dance or others then no one would be singing and dancing? Everyone has to learn somehow - no one just wakes up and knows how to tweak Windows.

Sometimes the hard knocks are what really help us learn as we are now forced to dig in deeper to get out of a hole.

Well, then it's on you if you mess up your PC. Many of us did a lot of research on the internet before we started to mess around with the Windows settings.

EDIT.. and there are places like this that can give advice and point users in the right direction when it comes to tweaking an OS.

Dch48 · Feb 1, 2022

AdvancedSetup said:
But if you yourself had not learned to sing and dance or others then no one would be singing and dancing? Everyone has to learn somehow - no one just wakes up and knows how to tweak Windows.

Sometimes the hard knocks are what really help us learn as we are now forced to dig in deeper to get out of a hole.

Well, since I have never danced in my life, maybe that's why I do very little tweaking.

Dch48 · Feb 1, 2022

What gets me is that these "power users" and compulsive tweakers are always the ones who have the most problems with things like Windows Updates. Then they are always adamant that it's all Microsoft's fault. Personally, I have never had to roll back a Windows update in any version of Windows since I started with it back in 1999.

I'm also convinced that despite all their complaints, they are deep down happy about the problems because now they have something else to fiddle with and try to fix.

BunnyJ · Feb 1, 2022

Dch48 said:
What gets me is that these "power users" and compulsive tweakers are always the ones who have the most problems with things like Windows Updates. Then they are always adamant that it's all Microsoft's fault. Personally, I have never had to roll back a Windows update in any version of Windows since I started with it back in 1999.

I'm also convinced that despite all their complaints, they are deep down happy about the problems because now they have something else to fiddle with and try to fix.

I've been working with Windows for years and I don't tweak it... I just leave it alone.

AdvancedSetup · Feb 1, 2022

BunnyJ said:
Well, then it's on you if you mess up your PC. Many of us did a lot of research on the internet before we started to mess around with the Windows settings.

EDIT.. and there are places like this that can give advice and point users in the right direction when it comes to tweaking an OS.

Absolutely, but again. That is a learning process and yes, luckily there are many good places to read and learn today. Back when I made a big mistake on an 8086 processor system there was no place online to go read and get feedback. I had to figure out on my own how to get the OS back up and running when I was the one that deleted a required file. But, I figured it out and was able to fix the system. Now thirty years later I've made a good living supporting corporate enterprise business.

cereberus · Feb 1, 2022

Dch48 said:
What gets me is that these "power users" and compulsive tweakers are always the ones who have the most problems with things like Windows Updates. Then they are always adamant that it's all Microsoft's fault. Personally, I have never had to roll back a Windows update in any version of Windows since I started with it back in 1999.

I'm also convinced that despite all their complaints, they are deep down happy about the problems because now they have something else to fiddle with and try to fix.

I have always wondered what a "power user" is.

It just seems to be an adjective that arrogant/pompous/pretentious/snobby users use to label themselves implying they are somehow "superior" to mere mortals.

I have seen many so called "power users" who knew diddly squat!

My definition of a power user - somebody who plugs device into mains LOL.

wimorrison · Feb 1, 2022

TheMystic said:
Apple follows the philosophy of providing a secure platform to get things done. For them, gadgets are just a tool to get work done, and not something to play with (and waste time).
...

You 'avin a larf, aren't you?

Apple lives for gadgets, that is their entire philosophy - create gadgets that people get hooked on, then upgrade them to get even more money out of the poor addicted numpty's wallet. Evers looked at people buried in their phones, wasting time - and who was the inventor of this pervasive gadget? - APPLE!!

cereberus · Feb 1, 2022

wimorrison said:
You 'avin a larf, aren't you?

Apple lives for gadgets, that is their entire philosophy - create gadgets that people get hooked on, then upgrade them to get even more money out of the poor addicted numpty's wallet. Evers looked at people buried in their phones, wasting time - and who was the inventor of this pervasive gadget? - APPLE!!

Spot on.

Haydon · Feb 1, 2022

There are people on this forum, including myself, with (99% default & 1% personalization) computers. They may use their computers as utilitarian tools.

There are others on this forum with (1% default & 99% personalization) computers. They may use their computers to learn about computers as such.

The support issues are completely different. The former is a lot simpler, let's keep it that way

Dch48 · Feb 1, 2022

wimorrison said:
You 'avin a larf, aren't you?

Apple lives for gadgets, that is their entire philosophy - create gadgets that people get hooked on, then upgrade them to get even more money out of the poor addicted numpty's wallet. Evers looked at people buried in their phones, wasting time - and who was the inventor of this pervasive gadget? - APPLE!!

CountMike · Feb 2, 2022

Windows are made for a very large range of users so there's no way they would perfectly fit everyone Tools like Settings and Control Panel are there to customize your Windows to pretty wide extent. Most of those settings don't require "Power user", practically everybody can use Settings. There's plenty of support so all you have to do is ask.
Although I used DOS and windows since beginning I don't consider myself a Power user, problem solving is far more associated with those users than just tweaking and modifications.
My "tweaking" is mostly on cosmetic and Windows behavior side as well as for best performance without going deep in the system. I have a longish list of tweaks mostly contained in Winaero Tweaker which I can import and practically instantly get back to whatever was changed or with new installation. For whatever it can't do. I have collection of Registry tweaks to be applied.
Keeping Windows clean, up to date and proper driver maintenance are my primary concern and regular backups are a must of course.

Stormforce · Feb 2, 2022

If everyone applied Haydons thread then what would be the point of the Forums
The statement is good for the type of user that depends on their Computer for business
For others that like to investigate play or have fun the statement is a load of rubbish

unifex · Feb 2, 2022

If you screw your system up by tweaking or something, it's always irritating, but it should not be a very big problem. The way to ensure that is to keep your data on a separate drive. This way your data is safe (relatively speaking), nothing happens to it whatever goes on with the OS. If you do that, then your OS problems can always be solved by reinstalling, which is of course irritating since it takes time, but at least your data is safe. Now, if you use the default structure, where your data is stored in C:\Users\your_username\... folder tree, then you can't easily reinstall since that will likely affect your data (and possibly wipe it out). So this is one area where I definitely disagree with Windows defaults.

Now, I do understand why is it done that way, there are lots of computers with only one hard drive, it's easier for many people, etc. However, this is an example where I completely disagree with the society-wide trend treating "ordinary people" as illiterate school children and trying to dumb everything down in the name of "ease of use".

A Guy · Feb 2, 2022

I have images. If I screw something up, 5 or 6 minutes later it's fixed. When you see how much space gets cleaned, you understand Windows isn't doing a good job. if you are of the "I have plenty of space" mind, then no worries, Windows isn't doing a great job, but it's something you can live with. The first time I ran DISM++ on Windows 7 when SIW2 1st told us about it early 2015, it cleaned 5.2GB

A Guy

Bree · Feb 2, 2022

Haydon said:
There are people on this forum, including myself, with (99% default & 1% personalization) computers. They may use their computers as utilitarian tools.

There are others on this forum with (1% default & 99% personalization) computers. They may use their computers to learn about computers as such.

I work on the principle that if Microsoft provide a switch for it in Settings then it's fair game. If a tweak requires regedit or 3rd-party tweakers then it's a step too far. I'd say I'm nearer 90%/10% on your customisation scale.

As such, I've never had any upgrade issues. They all have 'just worked', be that a Cumultive Update or a Feature Update. I've never felt any need for a clean install to 'clear the boards'. In fact, the Windows 11 running on my System One below can trace its upgrade path back through every vesrion of Windows 10 and back to it's original OEM Windows 7, migrating to new hardware along the way.

humbird · Feb 2, 2022

I do very little tweaking in Windows, but I can see why people would want to play around with it. I do make backups but if something screws up, I do like to find a way to fix it before using the backup. If it was my own mistake made, I learned something. If it was borked by an update maybe I will still be able to learn something or I will simply need to roll back to where everything was good. I do not think there is anything wrong with tweaking or customizing to fit your needs, I think Microsoft is trying to make it harder to do outside of what they offer as tweaks.