[arnold]

Btw, as others have observed, it isn't the software so much as the MS business practices built into the software, particularly of the intrusive or surveillance types Then there's the problem of protecting the user from himself, always a stupid act of arrogance on the part of the designers.

MS gave W10 away because it gave them control to corral you into any direction that profited them. Apple is the same. We have lost control of systems we bought. It's rental of software that dominates, not ownership.

With W10 you even lose control of games by having countless advertisements thrown at you because you are forced on line. It is for that reason, not technical reasons, that W10 steams me up. I resent the intrusion. A few days ago I emailed someone to report a relative had suffered neck injuries. I had not finished typing before a spam rolled in offering neck injury services. If it need be, I will disconnect my W7 computer from online, as I have a W10 laptop and desktop anyway.

(We are losing our privacy rapidly. I foresee even our cars being regulated to full monitoring - expect a ticket one day giving a precise GPS position and speed of the offence and a threat to remotely disable your car if the fine is not paid - or worse, that you bank account has already been debited.)

[WorksAsIntended]

MS gave W10 away because it gave them control to corral you into any direction that profited them. Apple is the same. We have lost control of systems we bought. It's rental of software that dominates, not ownership.

With W10 you even lose control of games by having countless advertisements thrown at you because you are forced on line. It is for that reason, not technical reasons, that W10 steams me up. I resent the intrusion. A few days ago I emailed someone to report a relative had suffered neck injuries. I had not finished typing before a spam rolled in offering neck injury services. If it need be, I will disconnect my W7 computer from online, as I have a W10 laptop and desktop anyway.

(We are losing our privacy rapidly. I foresee even our cars being regulated to full monitoring - expect a ticket one day giving a precise GPS position and speed of the offence and a threat to remotely disable your car if the fine is not paid - or worse, that you bank account has already been debited.)

This, if not just coincidence, is a sign of infection of your computer, not MS using your typing to send you spam mails.

[arnold]

This, if not just coincidence, is a sign of infection of your computer, not MS using your typing to send you spam mails.

Are you sure? My MS security is up to date, and Malware says all OK. Try searching for something on YouTube and see how long it takes to get spam.

[WorksAsIntended]

If it's a Thinkpad, that's the root cause. All the University-issued Thinkpads I've seen get sluggish when you look at them and freeze if you demand too much of them*. I had 2012 Asus laptop that I upgraded to Win10 in 2016 or early 2017, which keeps working perfectly fine whenever my dad remembers to use it. My new, late 2017 Asus RoG laptop has had... two BSODs in a bit over two years? It's less than the BSOD rate I had on Win7.



*Apparently, 10 Chrome tabs counts as "too much" sometimes...

In my company we have for every employee (about 60 atm) either a Thinkpad T4x0S (x is between 2 and 9, although the 2, 3, 4, 5 gens should all be out of order by now, I myself still use the T470s as it still has a ethernet port), a Carbon X1 (we have every generation yet) or in some cases, if demanded, a Thinkpad from the P-Series.
We never had any major issues with those laptops, most of them running win10, some running different Gnu/Linux-Distros (I myself for example use Arch-Linux). The first two gens of the Carbon had minor issues with a specific heat area that was fixed by replacement on warranty and those are seriously build to the extreme.

I mean, over the generations we maybe had maybe 400 of those laptops, that is not exactly enough to make valid statistics, but I cannot agree at all that they are generally bad. In fact, the only bad laptops I remember having used were gaming laptops by Acer and Dell, both suffering from not being able to cool the components. When it comes down to keyboards, I dont know any better laptops that are also compact in size.

---------- Post added 01-24-20 at 01:29 PM ----------

Are you sure? My MS security is up to date, and Malware says all OK. Try searching for something on YouTube and see how long it takes to get spam.

I am sure, I never had any spam related to my usepattern and keyboard input interpretation is a clear sign of something going completly wrong. Of course your mail provider, router, ips or client might be the reason, but Windows themselves, even if they would collect those data, would be able to use the data in a more intelligent way than sending spam mails.

[beachgardener]

Pixma Pro-100

There seems to be a cups driver(mac) so considering it is cups I guess there might be Linux support http://localhost:631/ or http://localhost:631/printers/ might find it in the list, have the printer on and connected.

How much tech knowledge is needed to figure out that one can use a Spyder5 to do monitor calibration on LinuxMint?

have a look on youtube, I know there is one for Xrite

DisplayCal might work,

YouTube.

LinuxMint forums is helpful

How is vulnerability of Win 7 on virtualbox different from vulnerability of Win 7 native?

They have the need for one win7 only program, they will use LinuxMint for all web stuff.

doesn't matter if it is Win. Mac. Linux. There is always a degree of need for tech. support, users on all platforms are not going to be able to do everything. So yes Linux these days is a very viable alternative.

[Serkevan]

Nope, no spam here either. I would check in detail.

About the Thinkpads, I know a lot of people swear by them for business, but my experience with very limited numbers (~10?) is that they don't really last 3-4 years of continued use. About Acer, I absolutely believe you, their build quality is cheaper than cheap.

[clackers]

MS gave W10 away because it gave them control to corral you into any direction that profited them. Apple is the same. We have lost control of systems we bought. It's rental of software that dominates, not ownership.



With W10 you even lose control of games by having countless advertisements thrown at you because you are forced on line. It is for that reason, not technical reasons, that W10 steams me up. I resent the intrusion. A few days ago I emailed someone to report a relative had suffered neck injuries. I had not finished typing before a spam rolled in offering neck injury services. If it need be, I will disconnect my W7 computer from online, as I have a W10 laptop and desktop anyway.



(We are losing our privacy rapidly. I foresee even our cars being regulated to full monitoring - expect a ticket one day giving a precise GPS position and speed of the offence and a threat to remotely disable your car if the fine is not paid - or worse, that you bank account has already been debited.)

Google services such as Chrome and Gmail do this, Arnold, because if AdSense.

Not sure that MS or Apple do anything other than virus scan. It was all they did a couple of years ago, and they were proud of that.

[WorksAsIntended]

AdSense however does not send mails but presents corresponding google ads in your browser window. It also does not analyze e-mails you write. "Only" search querys (google, youtube, etc) and the page currently visited.

A negative virus scan does mean a clean computer as much as a negative blood sample means I got no infection at all. You can only test specific stuff.

As a company we of course run intrusion detection systems and a more or less intelligent firewall. We did have a single case of Emotet which was detected by the firewall via a connection to a know server which luckily was not part of the AD and was isolated immidiatly so no harm was done. But even with all those additional and much more powerfull tools than a general virus scanner you can never be sure a system is clean.

[stevebrot]

If it's a Thinkpad, that's the root cause. All the University-issued Thinkpads I've seen get sluggish when you look at them and freeze if you demand too much of them*.

Mine is not that way and never has been.* The BSOD simply happens. There are also issues with managing the IP stack with some energy strategies using wifi; at some point the OS simply turns off and does not attempt reconnect to prefectly good signal. None of these were issues before going to Win10.


Steve

* Not university-issued...purchased direct from Lenovo...

"Ain't nuthin, free." The question is, what's the real cost (as opposed to a monetary cost). What do THEY get out of it, what are they taking from you, and what's in it for them?

[stevebrot]

When it comes down to keyboards, I dont know any better laptops that are also compact in size.

Agree...the keyboard on mine is hands-down the best I have used on a laptop.


Steve

[stevebrot]

A negative virus scan does mean a clean computer as much as a negative blood sample means I got no infection at all. You can only test specific stuff.

Arnold indicated MalwareBytes. That tool is pretty good at detecting a very broad range of bad actors, not just viruses. Like you, I figure there is a clever browser extension in the works, but hard to tell.


Steve

[jeallen01]

Comments!
- my 2012 ASUS nettop would not update to W10 - always gave an "Error" message. I finally gave up on it because the screen hinges were terminally failing!

- so I bought another one of the same vintage (the one I'm typing this on) which was already updated to 10 Pro. Having eliminated most (I hope all) of the "carp" and unwanted (like X-box stuff!) stuff (courtesy of IObit Uninstaller), and a lot of other tweaks. it's working quite well - EXCEPT that, in my email accounts, I have a "user" name installed by the supplier to use Office365 Pro by logging-in to their MS Outlook a/c, and I realy cannot seem remove that username from Settings/Accounts even though I have disabled access to the MS a/c from inside that a/c before I told it to do that. (I ran RegEdit and found and removed all references to that username - but even that failed to fix the "problem"!).

Any suggestions on how get rid of that "unwanted" username (seriously!) ?

[WorksAsIntended]

Unfortunally I cannot help on this matter.
Generally about BSOD: every now and then your ram flips a bit which may cause a bsod. This is not a manufactorer related issue.
However, looking at our cluster statistics running ecc we get a flip every 4-5 months per machine.

[Serkevan]

"Ain't nuthin, free." The question is, what's the real cost (as opposed to a monetary cost). What do THEY get out of it, what are they taking from you, and what's in it for them?

Microsoft makes money out of keeping you in their ecosystem. A basic licence for Office is about as expensive as the Windows one, plus a host of other benefits that come with being several times bigger than the second player.