The Glade 4.0

Windows 7 had windows search, you dork. It knows nothing about you and collects zero information. In Windows 10, if Cortana is disabled, all it does is take a string of characters and run it through a system wide regular expression to identify anything you might be looking for. You've read all this crap about Cortana peeking under your sheets and stealing your megahertz but you don't even know what you're talking about.

If you don't want to use Windows because of things like the TOS / EULA, fine, don't use it. But don't disable things you don't understand and claim you made the product better.

Is that a fact? Funny, I don't recall using it there either. I already told you - file explorer and google. I also specifically pointed out that it was Cortana's folder I renamed, and while I haven't actually tested out Windows Search I see no reason it wouldn't work. Perhaps you'd care to explain this assumption on your part?



I don't - which is why I read stuff from people who DO know what they're talking about, and consult people who do, such as our IT and programming personnel here at work. I also read some of the articles and advice earlier in this thread, and some of the links that went to, and I found the advice on getting rid of intrusive features to be satisfactory. They seem to think that disabling this stuff is a good idea, and so far you're not really giving me a reason to believe you over them. I didn't come up with these suspicions on my own; I got them from material produced by people that DO know what they're talking about. If I hadn't, I'd still have disabled Cortana with the "off" switch because it's annoying trash, but I'd be a lot less worried about it.

Just denigrating their suspicions with prejudicial comments about "peeking under the sheets" is far from convincing - you're not doing anything whatsoever to dispel it, you're just ridiculing it, and ridicule without any facts is a red flag. I just cited the Microsoft privacy agreement and you have yet to give me any solid facts, just a lot of attitude because I don't want the features that you, for some reason, find appealing.



Maybe you missed the part where we're talking about MY computer that I use and which does everything I need it to do? Without any loss in either functionality or stability? I don't care what anyone else does with their copy of Windows but for my needs, yes I did indeed make it better. - and I did so based on instructions and advice from people who DO know exactly what they're talking about.

So far, you haven't cited one actual benefit TO ME of any of this crap. What does it actually DO that you think is so wonderful, or that you think I would like to have? I'm dying to know what the tangible benefit of this stuff actually is; since it obviously offends you so greatly that I dared mess with it there must be SOMETHING besides just vague assertions of its usefulness. Let me quote myself:



And.. I still don't. You do actually USE these features, right?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Renaming the folder instead of disabling Cortana normally removes your ability to use the search from the start bar.

It's not that we think using Windows Search is going to change anything about how you use your computer. We're saying that you disabled a very useful tool - completely unrelated to Cortana, which is what you don't want - and somehow think it makes your computer better.

Have you never had to find an old file on your computer that you didn't remember where you saved it? Do you hate the idea of being able to find files or programs on your own computer?

I'll test this out when I get home.

In the meantime, however, let me repeat myself:

I can do everything I need or want with the computer. The impact of "no Windows search" (assuming you're correct) is zero.

So... where exactly is the alleged usefulness of this feature TO ME? Or even to you? What do you DO with it? Obviously you must search something, but why is it any better than other means which are already quick, easy, and efficient?



I am not experiencing any problems in this regard. I just use file explorer.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It is THE quickest, easiest and most efficient way to find anything in Windows. All you do is hit one key and start typing what you want to find.

Keep in mind I am not telling you not to disable Cortana; I am saying you should do it in a way that doesn't cripple a legitimately useful feature.

Also, it's worth noting that if you ever have to do a Windows Automatic Repair, it will undo your change to Cortana's folder and bring her back. That wont happen if you disable her through the actual options.

I did both, actually. As for finding things in Windows, I really don't have any problem getting to where I need to be, even if it's something like, for example, needing to find a specific mod file for Skyrim or something. I struggle to imagine how making things more than trivially faster is even possible; if I can't find something it's more likely to be because I can't remember what I would search in the first place.

As for the file folder, I can easily just go back and re-name it again. I'm very jealous of my RAM and system resources, you see, so I take any opportunity I can to close out **** I don't need. It appalls me how many processes need to be running for the computer to just sit there waiting for me to start actually using it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well it seems that Windows Search indeed does not work anymore. In fact, it's not even possible to type in the box now. That's easily remedied though - just hide the search box and free up taskbar space.

File explorer searches just fine though, so finding my files certainly isn't slowed even a tiny bit, assuming I regularly needed to search for them, which I don't. Anything on the web is readily available with Google.

Is there something else it does? I really do not get how you can say this is a meaningful improvement.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Using file explorer no matter how you cut it is 2-3x the amount of work required to use the start bar search. I search all the time; every one of my projects has hundreds of files and some of them use different directory structures. I'm not only trying to find mundane stuff like my 2014 tax return.

DE, other than a few shortcuts I have on my quickbar, I used the windows search function to launch just about everthing in windows.

Need device manager? Press the Win key and type 'devlce'.. it appears magically on the list.

Wanna pair a bluetooth device? press Win and typle "Bluetooth"

Wanna change your password? .. you get the idea.

I don't do anything like that much file searching, so I wouldn't see any such benefit. If I have to search for something once a week, that's a lot.

The vast majority of the time I'm looking for anything it's to attach it to an e-mail on Army Webmail which has it's own "attach" function, and like most Army web applications has exactly one way you can do things and will suffer all kinds of annoying errors if you try to do it differently. For that purpose, I keep all my Army stuff carefully in a set of folders by topic so I can easily locate it using the very tempermental webmail - which is equally tempermental no matter what computer you use it on.

It's actually even worse with Windows 10 because Windows 10 is new and Army stuff only works on IE and MAYBE Firefox if you want to jack around with it long enough. This isn't Microsoft's fault, it's the Army's fault for designing shitty web applications, none of which work the same way, all of which require precise and obscure setting up of a CAC card and other settings, and then not keeping up to date with such trivialities as what web browsers and OS everyone is using.

It is, however, a reason why I don't take any chances with Microsoft's legitimized spyware - while I don't maintain my own server or handle classified information on my email like a certain person I could mention, I do use it to conduct military business which is very explicitly not any of Microsoft's business.



That's great if you like doing that, but I would never do this. Almost everything I launch is either a desktop icon or a quickbar icon; I don't know why I would ever type anything in. I very rarely need something like device manager that isn't on the desktop, so changing the way I do things just to save 1 or 2 seconds (maybe)on a few occasions isn't even remotely worth it. - especially not with MS's data-stealing habits and the fact that it consumes system resources.

As for Bluetooth, I never use Bluetooth for anything whatsoever, so that's also irrelevant to me.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It sounds like you don't really do anything complex with your computer (no offense, but I interpret "emails and googling") so I'm not sure why resource usage is even on your radar.

I'm not sure what you mean by complex, but as far as system resources, I want as much free for games as possible. Nothing I do for work is terribly complicated in terms of demands on the computer, but like I said Army web applications are notoriously tempermental so clearing out anything unnecessary minimizes the chance of having problems trying to use it. Go to militarycac.com (this is not an official DoD website; it's run by some warrant officer that got tired of being asked for CAC help all the time and published everything he'd learned) and take a look at the dizzying array of bullshit people are expected to do just to be able to do unclassified email and evals on their computer.

It should explain something that there is no Army resource one can easily go to for this help - we have to rely on the interest of Soldiers doing this project on their own time to tell us how to make **** work.

EVE, for example, isn't the most demanding game out there on its own, but when you get in a massive fleet battle where there are thousands of ships on grid, plus drones, weapons firing, etc and everything running at 10% time so the server can just barely keep up - yeah, I want as much free as possible. Plus, I have voice comms, jabber, alliance and coalition webpages and possibly 2 or 3 other programs open as well that we use for various coordination purposes. Plus, it's really cool having triple-digit frame rates when not in a huge battle.

I only recently got a gaming laptop; I'm used to having to play on a piece of **** any time I'm away from my desktop, so I'm pretty jealous of my resources - and even if they won't otherwise be used, I just intensely dislike having extraneous junk I don't use running.

If it's something more modern and demanding than EVE, like TESO, then I want everything free for just that. I realize that different games use memory, CPU, and GPU in different proportions and that some things are more likely to be a bottleneck than others, but in the interest of not having to worry about it I just cut resource use as much as I can.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Windows search is an amazing tool, that I use all the time. Especially in Windows 10, with the lack of a 'proper' start menu.

I just hit the Windows key, type the first couple of letters of whatever I'm trying to launch, and hit Enter. HUGE time saver. AND it keeps my desktop clean and clutter free.

I also have a gaming laptop, and play some very demanding games on it. The amount of resources I would gain by disabling any of these features, is minimal, at best. It's just not worth the hassle, at this point.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I can't imagine how this actually saves any time at all. I can launch anything I want in 3 clicks, at the most; a single double-click the vast majority of the time. What would you have on your desktop that clutter would ever be a problem?



Disabling it turned out to be entirely hassle-free. It was actually far less effort than I expected it to be.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

As an example, say I want to open Notepad to jot something down while web browsing.
Mouse method : Click to minimize Chrome, double-click to launch Notepad from a shortcut on my desktop, click to restore Chrome, click to bring Notepad back to the front.
Keyboard method : Hit the Win key, type n-o-t-e, hit Enter.

It might not save any time for you, but for those who are highly keyboard-centric, it *is* faster.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

If I want to jot something down, I use actual paper and a pen because almost invariably it's something I want to take with me when I get up from the computer.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

When I want to jot down notes I take out my phone and write on the screen with a pen.

Paper doesn't run out of battery power, you know.

If I'm writing something down, it's almost always a list for the grocery store or a recipe for my barbequing. I don't have to keep putting in a PIN and clicking apps if I can just pull a pad out of my pocket at the store, plus I can just hand it to my wife and she can write what she wants me to remember on the same list.

If I'm going to be actually cooking, I don't want to get my phone messy. I really hate how touchscreens get covered in finger scum, and its even worse when you're in the middle of making meat rubs and delicious, delicious homemade barbeque sauces and such.

Some of you guys probably have an app for your grill to make your brisket and ribs for you though.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I sometimes take notes of things I've researched in a game wiki so I can have those notes on my 2nd monitor while playing the game later. If I want my notes to be portable, I pull up OneNote, which syncs up on my PC, Windows Phone, Surface, and Kindle Fire.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Same, but I use EverNote, instead. I keep build ideas for Skyrim characters, or instructions for mod installs, or item codes, whatever I might need. And it's all tagged in Evernote, and easily searchable.

Also, this is what my desktop looks like:


And this is what happens when I hit the Windows key / Start button:


I don't want a lot of icons and shortcuts cluttering up my desktop. In fact, as you can see in the first pic, I don't have ANY icons on my desktop. I'd like to keep it that way. So yes, it is, in fact, easier for me to hit the Windows key, type a few letters, and hit enter to launch the program/file that I need. Instead of trying to look through all of the apps/tiles crowding my start menu.

Maybe it's because I've also gotten used to using Spotlight Search and Alfred on my MacBook Pro, but to me, it's 10 times easier to just hit a few keystrokes than to try and search for the file that I need everytime. And it's a much better alternative to keeping my desktop cluttered with tons of icons and shortcuts. I work with a guy who has every square inch of his desktop covered with icons and shortcuts. Literally, you cannot fit another icon on his desktop. I cringe everytime I see it. It works for him, I guess. But it would drive me crazy to have to see/use that. To each, his own, I suppose.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I used to work with a guy whose desktop was really bad like that, but he did have room for more ...

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

See, I don't get this at all. I almost never have to search anything at home, and if I do trying to remember what something was called so as to actually get a search result would take longer than going looking for it. I never get more than 3 or 4 columns of icons on my desktop, so the clutter is always confined to the leftmost 25% or less of the screen.

I do like the Stormtrooper. I've got a sort of watercolor-looking picture of X-wings skimming the water as mine.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

How do yall deal with such limited screen real estate?

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Holy shitsnacks!

I think this is all coming down to a preference of keyboard vs mouse.

Exactly.

I used to be a die-hard mouse user. Until I discovered the wonders of keyboard shortcuts. It has made my life SSOO much easier. Especially with my job in IT. There are so many things that are easier to launch by hitting "Windows + keystroke" It has increased my productivity so much. Like just hitting "Windows + R" then type "calc" and hit enter to launch the calculator. Or dozens of other quick things like that.

That's where the Mac really shines. I can literally type "Files I worked on last Tuesday" and it will pull up the related files for me. Between this, and the 'swipe' gestures for switching between apps/desktops, I may never want to use a PC again.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian