Computer slowdown, any suggestions?

[Bowman]

I have been using WordPerfect since around 1985 or so. Still have it, and refreshed a couple of years ago to an updated version, paid. In fact it was so loved by me I have never used a pirate version, always paid. Microsoft cornered the market by making Word free with their OS, hence the majority of users today use Word, including where I work.

Speaking of spreadsheets, the first one I used was Visicalc.

Visicalc was THE original spreadsheet. Remember the look and feel lawsuit between Lotus and Visicalc?

 

[Greg Furtman]

Yeah that and Open Office used to be decent. I haven't tried it in several years though.

When Larry Ellison bought Sun most of the OO developers jumped ship and formed LibreOffice.

 

[Bowman]

When Larry Ellison bought Sun most of the OO developers jumped ship and formed LibreOffice.

Ahh, makes sense. I did not know that connection.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Ahh, makes sense. I did not know that connection.

@Bowman Yup. I wouldn't want to work for Ellison either.

 

[Tobor]

Many years ago, I watched an interview with L.E. at his residence. At some point in the interview, the reporter brought up the subject of Bill Gates. Oh my my, the look on Larry's face could have killed a thousand Hell Hounds....

 

[Marc_G]

Is the current way to install W10 without a windows account to not have network connected upon initial installation? Last time 6 months ago had to do that. Building a new pc for my son over Xmas, so will be doing the "avoid MS account" thing again in a few weeks.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Is the current way to install W10 without a windows account to not have network connected upon initial installation? Last time 6 months ago had to do that. Building a new pc for my son over Xmas, so will be doing the "avoid MS account" thing again in a few weeks.

@Marc_G , check this out.

 

[Marc_G]

@Marc_G , check this out.

Thanks. As I suspected, need to disconnect network cable.

I'm very against needing an MS account to sign in to a computer. Yuk.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Thanks. As I suspected, need to disconnect network cable.

I'm very against needing an MS account to sign in to a computer. Yuk.

Yes, and if you don't turn off all of the MS reporting services right at the beginning Win 10 will send MS info on your web browsing, shopping, Office use, etc.

 

[prfesser]

Thanks. As I suspected, need to disconnect network cable.

I'm very against needing an MS account to sign in to a computer. Yuk.

Oh yes. Yes. This.

I didn't know any better, and now I'm more or less screwed. MS is saving my files on "The Cloud". I want them on my g*dd*mn COMPUTER Bill, that's why I paid extra for a 512 GB SSD!!! Your lovely Internet isn't always accessible.

I've found that files saved on this cloud-thing aren't accessible when slowdown hits. Worse yet, Word just gives up and says "nope, you can't get that file."

I've been trying to "print" a 280-page file to Acrobat. Sorry, we can't do that because don't-give-a-s**t.

 

[heada]

Oh yes. Yes. This.

I didn't know any better, and now I'm more or less screwed. MS is saving my files on "The Cloud". I want them on my g*dd*mn COMPUTER Bill, that's why I paid extra for a 512 GB SSD!!! Your lovely Internet isn't always accessible.

I've found that files saved on this cloud-thing aren't accessible when slowdown hits. Worse yet, Word just gives up and says "nope, you can't get that file."

I've been trying to "print" a 280-page file to Acrobat. Sorry, we can't do that because don't-give-a-s**t.

The Google version allows you to have an offline copy if you want. You have to set it up ahead of time but it works with no online access assuming you have the Google office suite installed as an app and not through a browser.

Libre Office is better than both tho, so go with that.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Oh yes. Yes. This.

I didn't know any better, and now I'm more or less screwed. MS is saving my files on "The Cloud". I want them on my g*dd*mn COMPUTER Bill, that's why I paid extra for a 512 GB SSD!!! Your lovely Internet isn't always accessible.

I've found that files saved on this cloud-thing aren't accessible when slowdown hits. Worse yet, Word just gives up and says "nope, you can't get that file."

I've been trying to "print" a 280-page file to Acrobat. Sorry, we can't do that because don't-give-a-s**t.

Here's a couple of sites that might help you out of your Microsoft servitude.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-switch-local-account-microsoft-account-windows-10

 

[Tobor]

Hey guys!
For those of you running Win10 (Any flavor), I would like to suggest a "Must Have" utility. It is Spybot's Anti-Beacon (Link).
Anti-Beacon (AB) does a great job of nerfing M$'s telemetry protocols, a.k.a "Windows Phone Home". AB also does a good job on Win8.x & Win7. It comes in two tiers, Free and Paid. The free version takes care of all of the primary nasty business built into Windows. To download the free version, use the link provided above, scroll to the bottom of the webpage and click the download link.



P.S. Be sure to enable "Immunize on Windows Startup" so AB can re-validate that all is well.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Hey guys!
For those of you running Win10 (Any flavor), I would like to suggest a "Must Have" utility. It is Spybot's Anti-Beacon (Link).
Anti-Beacon (AB) does a great job of nerfing M$'s telemetry protocols, a.k.a "Windows Phone Home". AB also does a good job on Win8.x & Win7. It comes in two tiers, Free and Paid. The free version takes care of all of the primary nasty business built into Windows. To download the free version, use the link provided above, scroll to the bottom of the webpage and click the download link.

View attachment 441559

P.S. Be sure to enable "Immunize on Windows Startup" so AB can re-validate that all is well.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[Greg Furtman]

I too highly recommend LibreOffice as an alternative to MS Office. Just as functional, easier to use, and you can open any MS file be it Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. You can also create files and save them as a MS file if you have the need.
https://www.libreoffice.org/

A good email program is eM Client. You can import all of you Outlook email, calendars, and Contacts into it. Unfortunately it will not import Outlook Notes which I use a lot.
https://www.emclient.com/

 

[Tobor]

+1 on LibreOffice

Other free alternatives to the standard spyware bloated software most Windows users install

PDF Reader: SumatraPDF (Link)
Email Client: Mozilla Thunderbird (Link)
Internet Browser: Pale Moon (Link)
Graphics Editor: Inkscape (Link)
Video Playback: VLC (Link)
Audio Playback: WinAmp (Link)
Text Editor: Notepad++ (Link)
CAD: FreeCAD (Link)
Remote Desktop: Teamviewer (Link) or UltraVNC (Link)
GPU Manager: MSI Afterburner - From MSI (Link) - From Guru3D (Link)
DVD/Blu-Ray Archiver: MakeMKV (Link)
Disk Image Mounter: WinCDEmu (Link)
File Renaming: Bulk Rename Utility (Link)

 

[Greg Furtman]

+1 on LibreOffice

Other free alternatives to the standard spyware bloated software most Windows users install

@Tobor I've been using Opera as my web browser & really like it. A Norwegian program. Give it a try & see what you think.

 

[Funkworks]

I'll just point it out because no else seems to have: Get a Mac.

 

[Tobor]

I'll just point it out because no else seems to have: Get a Mac.

LOL....
My response to that (Not being mean here, I hope) is to forgo the cash outlay of the Mac with Linux. Mac OS and Linux are both rooted in the Unix OS. My favorite Linux distro is Linux Mint (Link). I have also used Ubuntu, but stopped when they switched their GUI to Unity and started acting like M$ with all the privacy invasion. Other Linux distros I like include Raspian (for Raspberry Pi's), Elementary OS, Tails OS and CentOS.

 

[dr wogz]

Yeah, I remember when a computer was a 'tool'.. not a way or life / lifestyle..

 

[dhbarr]

Yeah, I remember when a computer was a 'tool'.. not a way or life / lifestyle..

The irony, of course, is that back then the 'tool' required vast swathes of esoteric knowledge to configure.

 

[Greg Furtman]

When I booted up my laptop this AM Win 10 had done an update. The opening screen wanted me to set up a MS account. I clicked cancel.

What MS & the other big companies just don't get is that many of us don't want to be in servitude to the cloud. Plus the fact that I live rurally and although I do have 10 mb/s DSL, it isn't fast enough to do real time work from the cloud.

 

[PatD]

When I booted up my laptop this AM Win 10 had done an update. The opening screen wanted me to set up a MS account. I clicked cancel.

What MS & the other big companies just don't get is that many of us don't want to be in servitude to the cloud. Plus the fact that I live rurally and although I do have 10 mb/s DSL, it isn't fast enough to do real time work from the cloud.

I'll just point it out because no else seems to have: Get a Mac.

Just my two cents. If you want a Mac, buy a decent machine for half the cost of a Mac and put your Linux preference on it. My first intro to nix based OS was in the military. Brigade HQ running a Xenix server with a HUGE 30mb hard drive and about 15 peripheral workstations. All I knew at that time was BASIC. Interesting learning how it worked. It had no protections from users and I wanted to know how it worked which ended up in destroying the core software. OOPs. Anyway get out there and check out various nix versions. They are much the same core software with various front ends depending on your preference. Most (if not all) can be loaded on a bootable USB stick so it's easy to try out various versions. Do a search for Linix distros and a new world will open up.

 

[hball55]

Windows Registry System is a pig's ear and can cause a lot of slowdown problems. Eusing have a good, free (donate if you want to) Registry cleaner that backs up your current Registry before making any changes.

Helps with my system, but as always YMMV.

I used to use regedit to clear out programs that are no longer on my computer.