TweakHound

Computer stuff...

Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Wednesday Random Stuff…

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Win10 To Improve?
2 stories caught my eye today:
Microsoft To Provide Additional Windows Update Installation Options With Creators Update
and
Microsoft is working on a ‘Game Mode’ for Windows 10
The update thingy sounds like MS will put a button in to enable this tweak.
The Game Mode thingy is interesting but no details. Coincidentally, I’ve been considering a Game Only tweak guide.
Would anyone out there be interested?

The Tweaker
This is the best Steve Jobs article I have seen.
I’ve never been a fan of SJ so I’m not quite sure how I feel about the articles title.

Creepy
Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them
IMHO this article doesn’t even scratch the surface.

TV Malware
This man’s smart television with Google TV caught some malware, and now it’s bricked
“…installed an app of some sort to stream movies.”
Lesson: Don’t be surfin’ for free naughty videos on your TV.

“Fix Windows Update Errors” Almost Useless

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Over the past week or so lots have sites have pointed to a new Microsoft web page that supposedly helps you navigate Windows Update problems.
Fix Windows Update errors

Here is what it gave me:

Question – On which Windows version did you get the error?
Answer – Windows 7
Solution – Run the network troubleshooter

Like I don’t know if I have network issues?

Next Question – Did this resolve the issue?
Answer – No
Solution – Run the Windows Update troubleshooter.

In all the years I have used this, running this by itself never once fixed my problems.

Next Question – Did this resolve the issue?
Answer – No
Solution – Reset or reinstall Windows.

Really?

Random Christmas Eve Stuff…

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Sorry for the lack of news. I’ve been super busy with work and I’ve got a terrible cold/flu/whatever on top of that.

Linux Mint 18.1
Mint 18.1 got released last week. Very disappointed in this release.
It is using LTS kernel 4.4. Skipping this one.

Winbubble
Winbubble is tool I used to tweak some Windows stuff (mostly GUI customizations). They now have a version for Win10.
Not as many options as it had for previous Windows versions.
Old version for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 is at Major Geeks.

ETC.
Google sued for encouraging employees to spy on each other

Reader Emails
(shortened to make them a quick read)
Q – Where do I get Win10 ISO’s?
A – Official downloads: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO
Easiest way – Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool

Q – After installing and deleting openSUSE I have left over entries in my UEFI boot menu. How to I get rid of it?
A – EasyUEFI – http://www.easyuefi.com/

Q – I need a large regular hard drive for video editing. What do you recommend?
A – The best SSDs and hard drives are always listed here: http://www.storagereview.com/best_drives

Getting too aggressive in pushing out of the Windows 10 free upgrade.

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This week on  TWiT – Windows Weekly, Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft said:
“… Getting too aggressive in pushing out of the Windows 10 free upgrade. We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective etc., but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where you know the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel, didn’t mean cancel, and within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then of course it takes some time to roll out the update that changed that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a low-light for us. We learned a lot from it obviously.”
Start listening about 16:00 into the video. The text above starts about 17:40:
Good to see someone at Microsoft knows what’s up.
And on a side note. Uh, excuse me, Um, what “listening systems” are we talking about?

Patch Tuesday

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Time To Run Windows Update?
All supported Windows versions have received updates.
Microsoft’s permanent beta OS, otherwise known as Windows 10, has been updated to version 14393.576.
Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for December 2016
Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 update history

Firefox 50.1.0
“security fixes”
Download 32-bit(en-US)
Download 64-bit (en-US)
All Downloads
Release Notes

Google Chrome
Updated to 55.0.2883.87 last Friday.
Download

Adobe Flash 24.0.0.186
APSB16-39 Security updates available for Adobe Flash Player
Flash for IE
Flash for other browsers
Main download page

CCleaner 5.25
Download
– Added support for Firefox Web Extensions
– Improved Firefox History and Cache cleaning
– Improved Chrome and Opera Session cleaning
– Improved Edge Extensions management
– Improved DPI awareness and support
– Minor GUI improvements
– Minor bug fixes

O&O ShutUp10
Download
Version 1.4.1386
New Settings
– Disable Microsoft from conducting experiments on the system
– Disable Tips, Tricks und Suggestions while using Windows
– Disable occasional app suggestions in the Start menu
When closing, message about Restart after Windows updates
Bug fixes
– Restoration point will only be created when changes need to be executed
– Closing via the file menu now also displays a dialog about restarting the system
Available in German, English, French, Italian, and Russian
– Language will be automatically selected based on settings in Windows

Other Software
EMDB (Eric’s Movie Database) 2.62
Paint.net 4.0.13