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Don’t put windows 7 on a machine you’re connecting to the internet, unless you like identity theft and your email being hacked. If you’re concerned about privacy, you need to have your information be properly stored and protected. That cannot be done on a windows 7 machine. Get windows 10, or just use Linux and deal with its associated issues. I also don’t recommend cloning windows installations, period. It’s usually easier to backup desktop/documents/downloads and reinstall programs as you need them. Windows likes having a clean install done now and again too. Operating systems build up cruft and get slower and less capable the more you have/the longer you use them, it’s good to do a clean install every now and again. A new computer is a perfect opportunity to do that. The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jul 3, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 00:07
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Cat Army 
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EclecticTastes posted:Hey, I've been thinking of finally getting a new laptop (the Thinkpad T430 I got based on the OP of this very megathread* has served me well for about seven to eight years now), and I'm eyeing the T490 with some upgrades (better processor, onboard RAM, IPS screen, and 1TB SSD being the main ones). Thanks to the B&N link the price is looking pretty good, too. But, my question is, if I finally do buy a new laptop, how easily could I transfer over my current laptop's contents, most importantly Windows 7? I don't have boot discs, and there's no way in hell I'm ever using Windows 10. Like the previous poster said, if there's anything you need to transfer over, it's probably better in the long run to do a clean Windows 10 install due to cruft and crap that accumulates within the OS that you may or not remember being the cause of. Just transfer over all your important files via a USB. Collating all your important files for transfer isn't just a good organizational exercise, it also reminds you to stay honest about what poo poo you actually do and don't use on your machine. Even if you've got crappy internet and fear having to redownload huge game files, there's a LOT more literature and support by things like Steam for just moving game files over and pointing clients at the right directories after you transfer.
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Jul 3, 2020 01:30
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The Iron Rose posted:Don’t put windows 7 on a machine you’re connecting to the internet, unless you like identity theft and your email being hacked. If you’re concerned about privacy, you need to have your information be properly stored and protected. That cannot be done on a windows 7 machine. Apparently I'm officially old now, because I don't even know what information I'm supposed to be storing that hackers would want in the first place. I keep anything relevant to my identity in my wallet, not on my computer. I type it into websites when needed, but then it's stored there, not locally. Why are they even hacking into some rando's PC rather than stealing passwords en masse from corporate servers? And unless Windows 10 has been significantly altered from when I last saw it, it's more under Microsoft's control than the user's, and I'm way more concerned about them than hypothetical identity thieves. I don't need advertisements in my computer's operating system, or programs forcibly installed all over the place. If there's no way to keep my old OS and no way to wrest control of my computer back from Microsoft, I've got no choice but to take my chances with Linux, much as I'd prefer not to. Also, I have a lot of stuff I'd need to transfer over to a new laptop (writing projects, tabletop RPG pdfs, save games that don't have cloud backups, totally legal emulators and completely legally backed-up games, etc.), some of which is simply too large for the fairly small flash drives I've got. It would be really useful if I could just connect the old laptop to the new one with a wire and be able to transfer stuff directly.
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Jul 3, 2020 03:38
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My XPS arrived today!  What thread do I go to to ask how to set it up/uninstall McAfee? Or can I do that here?
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Jul 3, 2020 07:00
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Lenovo C940s are on sale at Best Buy again. i7-1065G7, 1080p, 12GB RAM, and 512GB SSD for $1k here i7-1065G7, 4K, 16GB RAM, and 512+32GB SSD for $1.3k here
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Jul 3, 2020 07:14
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EclecticTastes posted:Apparently I'm officially old now, because I don't even know what information I'm supposed to be storing that hackers would want in the first place. I keep anything relevant to my identity in my wallet, not on my computer. I type it into websites when needed, but then it's stored there, not locally. Why are they even hacking into some rando's PC rather than stealing passwords en masse from corporate servers? Hacking is all automated these days friend. They’re not targeting you specifically, but you click on a bad ad or go to a compromised website, your laptop gets compromised, your passwords get scraped, your emails get associated with those credentials, attackers can then pivot and use that email/pass combination for every other major web service... your information gets scraped, stolen, put into a csv and sold with thousands of others just like you for a tenner. I’m not sure what corporate “servers” you’re thinking of either. Hacking Facebook is much harder than stealing your credentials. Hacking employee IDP systems is great for industrial espionage, poor for identity theft seeing as company emails aren’t used to sign up to a million different SaaS apps like our personal emails. Most companies store user passwords sanely these days, though definitely not all of them. In any event, it’s not the threat profile you should be concerned about and there’s nothing you can do about it anyways. You should be concerned about malware coming through your web browser- something that is much much harder to do when you are running a fully up to date operating system. Once your email is compromised, social engineering can get you the rest of the way. Or you’ll get hit with ransomware or bitcoin miners in the background. Or a RAT that’ll turn your computer into part of a botnet. The internet is not a safe place. Running an out of date operating system is insecure. It’s like living in m violent part of town leaving your front door wide open. Put another way, it’s like loving randoms (each website you visit) without a condom (security patches). Similarly, just because something is useful doesn’t make it a good idea. I do this for a living, and I’m saying that in my professional opinion you’re making some big mistakes here. If you’re buying a new laptop, you can afford a $20 64gb USB drive. Or just toss it onto gdrive/dropbox/mega/your cloud storage solution of choice. As for Microsoft, fair enough. You can turn a lot of the telemetry off, but not all of it and you probably won’t be happy with the thirteen different types of ad data you need to turn off when running Windows 10 for the first time. Other than that though, it’s a perfectly good OS. Suck it up and learn to Linux, or suck it up and learn to deal with Windows 10. If you do go down that route, I recommend setting up a pihole so you can block ads and trackers at the network level, before they ever hit your OS. It’s very easy to set up - probably easier than using Linux as your daily driver (as it is a simple Linux based DNS server). Or just buy a Mac - and keep that up to date too. The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jul 3, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 07:23
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Yeah I don't have anything to add to that except to underscore that whatever direction you decide to go in, Windows 7 is not a viable option. No new laptop is likely to even function with it installed. e. Also if you only have flash drives as external storage, how do you currently back up your machine? Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jul 3, 2020 |
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Jul 3, 2020 07:40
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Windows 7 will not install or have drivers for Intel 7th gen and AMD Ryzen Platforms. The end.
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Jul 3, 2020 08:37
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EclecticTastes posted:
Windows 7 has a number of vulnerabilities that are exploited by scripts that literally just scan every IP on the internet, it's impressive. Your router does a lot of work blocking random requests etc. Random story, a couple jobs ago we were building a security scanner for XYZ software stuff. While the developer is doing research on how to do this, he stumbles across a bunch of default passwords for all kinds of things. He picks baby monitors and then feeds an IP range for a local cable internet company into the script along with the most common baby monitor ports and literally like 800 baby monitors show up within 5 minutes, most of them within a 20 mile range of our office (it was sort of a suburban area). So at this point the whole office has stopped working, and we open the admin page for one of these baby monitors, and plug in the default password and... bingo! Live B&W feed of somebody's baby crib. Presumably the kid was at daycare. We did this for the next one on the list, it opened right up with a live video feed too. After that he deleted the scripts, password lists and rebooted his computer. Nothing else came of the adventure. Why am I talking about baby monitors in a Windows security discussion? Because windows 7 computers are easier to drive by hack than the baby monitor. Really. Also also, don't use computers at home without putting a router of some sort in front of them. Other fun story, in college people had linksys routers that told you the model number on the password page, from there you could get the default password online with simple google stuff. As a proper goon when I was drunk at my friend's dorm rooms, I'd login to their neighbor's routers and then turn block port 80 (the port used to access the router, before edward snowden made SSL everywhere a priority) and change the password and then reset it remotely to amuse myself. If you want to run old lovely outdated software that you never run security patches for, linux now has really good windows game support thanks to steam's Proton thingy. KDE/kubuntu 18.04 has a really good dark theme that looks 97% like windows 10 and i'm sure they have a windows 7 theme too.
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Jul 3, 2020 11:38
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I. M. Gei posted:My XPS arrived today! Basically all I did was update drivers, download the Nvidia game driver (instead of studio), then usual QC checks like dead pixels plus some xps ones like TouchPad and Webcam. Uninstalled some bloatware but didn't bother with a fresh windows copy
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Jul 3, 2020 16:42
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Best Buy has the Ryzen Asus Zenbook on sale today for $550 or open box for as low as $450 if you can find them. Good specs for this price range with a couple little issues, mainly soldered ran and no USB-C charging. It does have a bezeless, 100% RGB screen and aluminum construction though. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-zenbook-14-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-mx350-256gb-ssd-light-gray/6403819.p?skuId=6403819 ASUS Zenbook 14" Q407IQ-BR5N4 Processor ................... AMD 4th Generation Ryzen 5 4500U Graphics ..................... NVIDIA GeForce MX350 (10W) Memory ...................... 8GB LPDDR4X RAM (soldered, non-expandable) Storage ....................... 256 GB PCIe NVME SSD Operating System ...... Windows 10 Screen ........................ 14", IPS, 300 nits, 100% sRGB, 1000:1 contrast Touch Screen .............. No Backlit Keyboard ......... Yes Touchpad .................... Precision Touchpad (PTP) Webcam .................,,... Front facing 720p HD camera with mic. Audio .......................,... ASUS SonicMaster stereo audio system
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Jul 3, 2020 17:32
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My Chromebook has reached end of life on updates and I was looking to update to something new. I'm mostly going to be using it for writing, reading, taking notes, and maybe watching a movie or two. Kind of like the Lenovo Yogas for that, but don't really want to splash 400 on something I might not use as much as I should. It seems like the low-end Dell 2-in-1 things might fit the bill, but I'm not sure how slow they are. I'm willing to go to 400, but closer to 200-300 would be better. I realize just about everything I buy at a low price point is going to have a squishy garbage keyboard so if someone could recommend a decent wireless keyboard to go with it I'd appreciate that.
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Jul 3, 2020 17:44
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The Iron Rose posted:Hacking is all automated these days friend. They’re not targeting you specifically, but you click on a bad ad or go to a compromised website, your laptop gets compromised, your passwords get scraped, your emails get associated with those credentials, attackers can then pivot and use that email/pass combination for every other major web service... your information gets scraped, stolen, put into a csv and sold with thousands of others just like you for a tenner. (etc.) Alright, fine, since it seems like Windows 7 doesn't even work with recent processors, I guess I'll move on to Windows 10 or Linux. Guess I'll have to weigh having to rely on a Windows emulator that may not work with everything against having to rip a bunch of ad bullshit out of my OS and edit the registry to block poo poo like the "Microsoft Consumer Experience". Probably just gonna settle for Windows 10 since that's the lovely option that requires less work long-term. And I guess another fifty bucks for a 1TB external hard drive is a drop in the bucket (figure I'll go for something I can use as an external backup afterwards if I'm gonna spend even more money). But it won't stop me from complaining to my friends and family about how XP was the last OS that actually felt good to use.  But for the record, I'm not so old that I don't have uBlock Origin running at all times on my browser, and only visit trustworthy sites (either by experience or by reputation), and I run Malwarebytes and similar programs regularly just to make sure. And of course I have a router, I have more than one device that connects to the internet. And I'd probably continue those practices on a new laptop, assuming Microsoft allows the use of antivirus software that doesn't require payment.
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Jul 3, 2020 18:16
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EclecticTastes posted:But it won't stop me from complaining to my friends and family about how XP was the last OS that actually felt good to use. You are dead wrong, Windows 2000 was the last good one. Ever since we've been jumping through hoops to make the UI useable again, and settling for the parts we can't fix anymore. But you're in luck with the antivirus, the only antivirus software these forums recommend, or even approve to use, is the Windows Defender that comes free with Win10.
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Jul 3, 2020 19:30
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Phone posted:Lenovo C940s are on sale at Best Buy again. Anyone have experience with the c940? That 4k model looks like a pretty good deal. I've heard that the yoga line tends to have screen issues out of the box but that's rarely anything that can't be fixed with driver and BIOS update.
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Jul 3, 2020 20:08
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If you want a more modern OS without the Windows Telemetry stuff there's always Windows 8.1 
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Jul 3, 2020 20:13
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:My Chromebook has reached end of life on updates and I was looking to update to something new. I'm mostly going to be using it for writing, reading, taking notes, and maybe watching a movie or two. Kind of like the Lenovo Yogas for that, but don't really want to splash 400 on something I might not use as much as I should. It seems like the low-end Dell 2-in-1 things might fit the bill, but I'm not sure how slow they are. I'm willing to go to 400, but closer to 200-300 would be better. I'm in the same boat. I'm leaning towards the Lenovo Flex 3i for $330. I'm looking for one with a touchscreen. I tried a Lenovo M10 tablet this week but I was missing the keyboard so I'm returning it.
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Jul 3, 2020 21:47
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FCKGW posted:If you want a more modern OS without the Windows Telemetry stuff there's always Windows 8.1 Same hardware limitations as Win7 :/ no Ryzen or 7th gen Intel
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Jul 3, 2020 22:38
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Saukkis posted:You are dead wrong, Windows 2000 was the last good one. Ever since we've been jumping through hoops to make the UI useable again, and settling for the parts we can't fix anymore. I did like 2000 a lot, but for teenage me, XP was still pretty usable (was pretty irritated that a lot of my older, DOS-dependent) games no longer worked, though). And good to see Microsoft still isn't charging for their antivirus, I got MSE because of this thread and it was the only passive antivirus I needed (I only use Malwarebytes for active scans). I'll have to save up my disposable income for a bit for the new laptop, but, OS aside, I'm kind of excited. The T430 blew me away, between the quality construction and how powerful it was despite my going for fairly middle-of-the-road options and running just the basic Intel HD 4000 for graphics. I can only imagine how good the T490 will be.
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Jul 3, 2020 23:21
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The T430 had one of the worst displays I’ve ever used so I’d say anything would be an improvement at this point!
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Jul 3, 2020 23:53
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FCKGW posted:The T430 had one of the worst displays I’ve ever used so I’d say anything would be an improvement at this point! Agreed on that point, the default display for the T430 has left a lot to be desired, but under the hood it was pretty great, and you can pry these stainless steel hinges out of my cold, dead hands. I don't think I could ever use a different kind of laptop after owning a Thinkpad.
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Jul 4, 2020 02:03
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is the rog g14 basically out of stock for the foreseeable future?
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Jul 4, 2020 02:53
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Best Buy has it in stock.
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Jul 4, 2020 04:05
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Windows 10 is the best operating system Microsoft has ever made in terms of functionality and design. I’m convinced there’s some rose tinged glasses going on when _windows 2000_ or _XP_ is being brought up as better. So I would suggest just using the OS and finding out what irritates you first before diving into registry editing and other tools. Also all the tracking stuff was backported to Windows 7 years ago.
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Jul 4, 2020 08:43
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So I'm looking to upgrade away from my quite old 2012 MBP. It's been great largely because I've been able to repair it or upgrade it myself over the years. None of the new MBPs seem accessible to that anymore and OSX just isn't as good as it once was, so I don't mind going back to a windows/linux laptop. In general my laptop just serves as my shitposting/movie streaming station, I don't stress it out too much. Top priorities: 1) Display quality (13-15" preferred, but I know the XPS17 has a 15" profile, which is appealing) 2) Weight (My 2012 MBP is 4.4 lbs and I don't want anything heavier, that's for sure. Lighter would be better) 3) battery life I've got a budget of ~2-2.5K, so not terribly budget constrained. The XPS17 or 15 looks good, but the initial reviews are troubling to me. I'd like to buy something that's not going to be janky or that I can janitor into living as long as my MBP has. Also looking at the X1 as maybe a better built option? El Mero Mero fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jul 4, 2020 |
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Jul 4, 2020 08:58
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My T14 arrived after about a month of waiting. It is indeed a ThinkPad! Looks very slim next to my chonky X230. The screen is the default 250 nit FHD one. It's not good, but I couldn't afford an upgrade on my work budget. Waiting for a bigger nvme drive and a ram upgrade before I really put it through its paces. That old x230 survived almost 10 years, has travelled around the world, and been submerged in water for extended periods of time. The x230 will now enjoy a retirement of playing King of the Hill episodes on my VGA CRT until its sun finally sets.
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Jul 4, 2020 11:38
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Pegnose Pete posted:The x230 will now enjoy a retirement of playing King of the Hill episodes on my VGA CRT until its sun finally sets. a noble end
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Jul 4, 2020 11:45
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Sri.Theo posted:Windows 10 is the best operating system Microsoft has ever made in terms of functionality and design. I’m convinced there’s some rose tinged glasses going on when _windows 2000_ or _XP_ is being brought up as better. And I hate the new start menu for not actually functioning as a menu, though I don't mind that when I type something in it it usually goes to what I want.
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Jul 4, 2020 16:27
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Windows 10 only reboots when you’ve ignored critical upgrades for literal weeks after multiple warnings. It’s not always seamless, but update when patches come out (something you should do anyways) and you’ll be fine. The edge promotion is really annoying though, even if it’s a pretty good browser these days.
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Jul 4, 2020 17:30
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The Iron Rose posted:Windows 10 only reboots when you’ve ignored critical upgrades for literal weeks after multiple warnings. It’s not always seamless, but update when patches come out (something you should do anyways) and you’ll be fine. I might be exaggerating "without warning" though, like it has a popup 8 hours before it does it saying "by the way gently caress you I'm going to reboot and there's nothing you can do about it other than reboot before me."
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Jul 4, 2020 20:23
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roomforthetuna posted:The "by the way I rebooted last night without warning and destroyed all your window-related context lol" of Windows 10 is much worse than the "hey I really want to reboot, please let me reboot" of previous generations. Especially when it's "hey I rebooted so I could force-install whatever we call Internet Explorer now and then every time you click a link for the next several days say 'did you want to open this in that browser you never asked for?'" Use group policy to disable automatic updates. My machine doesn't check for updates unless I click the button--I only recently updated and the last time it had checked for updates was november. Not the most secure, but it makes it less annoying. This only applies to win10 pro as far as I know Also: re windows xp. One of my coworkers installed it on a vm to fix a bug, and the moment it connected to the network it got wannacryed, so don't use unsupported OSes
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Jul 4, 2020 20:39
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gwrtheyrn posted:Use group policy to disable automatic updates. My machine doesn't check for updates unless I click the button--I only recently updated and the last time it had checked for updates was november. Not the most secure, but it makes it less annoying. This only applies to win10 pro as far as I know That feature has been removed unless you're on a domain I believe. Setting your connection type to "Metered Connection" still works afaik
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Jul 4, 2020 20:43
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FCKGW posted:That feature has been removed unless you're on a domain I believe. Setting your connection type to "Metered Connection" still works afaik I mean I guess I'll find out whether it still works this coming patch tuesday, but all the policies still show up both in gpedit and in the windows update settings window . People have been complaining about that for years though, and it's always worked for me
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Jul 4, 2020 21:08
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i hate you all and you all deserve to be hacked ahhhhhhhhh
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Jul 4, 2020 23:20
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Saukkis posted:You are dead wrong, Windows 2000 was the last good one. Ever since we've been jumping through hoops to make the UI useable again, and settling for the parts we can't fix anymore. Yeah Valve dropping support for Team Fortress 2 on Windows 2000 was the last straw for me, went straight to Win 7 Win 10 is quite nice if you get the win pro upgrade, plus do all the registry hacks to make it behave nicely. That said my daily driver unless I'm explicitly playing PC games now is Kubuntu 18.04 bone stock (ubuntu with kde gui by default) and it's about 97% the same, I haven't figured out the key combo to make windows full size again after moving them between screens, and bluetooth audio is slightly flakey but otherwise it's really nice not having web search results show up when i search for stuff after pressing the windows key.
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Jul 4, 2020 23:37
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I had to roll back 2004 because something is hosed on my XPS where it freezes after waking from sleep so right now I’m in a holding pattern. But yeah, just take the updates. Even if something is busted you can roll back super easy.
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Jul 4, 2020 23:41
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Mat Cauthon posted:Anyone have experience with the c940? That 4k model looks like a pretty good deal. I've heard that the yoga line tends to have screen issues out of the box but that's rarely anything that can't be fixed with driver and BIOS update. I've been posting about C940 deals because it's the one that I have. I bought one back in February for $1300 for the 4K, 16GB, 512+32GB NVMe SSD in Mica from Best Buy. I don't really use my laptops when I'm in the house, which has made buying a laptop on the cusp of the American COVID pandemic a real  decision; however, I have been using it more as a 2nd screen for when I'm working. The 4K screen is gorgeous and bright as all hell, but you're trading between 3-5 hours worth of battery life over the 1080p screen. The Iris Pro graphics punch above it's weight; I'm able to run FF14 at 1080p with stuff turned down and bounce between 25-35 fps, which isn't too bad considering that it's in the ultrabook class. The top of the keyboard gets warm if you're pushing it (~100F when I pointed an IR thermometer at it), and the fans are a bit noisy, but the 10th gen Ice Lake mobile line is probably one of Intel's better products considering the last 2-3 years of Intel based processors. The sound bar is kind of ridiculous on how crisp and loud it is. As for the touch screen, it works as advertised. Don't expect it to be 100% accurate and there's a lot of diagonal based jitter if you're using an aftermarket pen such as the Wacom Bamboo Ink Plus; however, it's more of a function of the number of zones on the digitizer and trying to go fast. If you go slow, you won't wind up with wavy diagonals; however, I doubt it's a deal breaker if you're going to use it to take notes on the regular. I frequently put the laptop into tent mode and navigate solely via the built-in pen or the Wacom, and the experience isn't bad. tl;dr: you can spend $1-1.3k on a significantly worse laptop
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Jul 5, 2020 00:29
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Hadlock posted:Win 10 is quite nice if you get the win pro upgrade, plus do all the registry hacks to make it behave nicely. Which registry hacks are you talking about? And what do they do to make the experience better? I'll do anything to get it running just a tad better.
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Jul 5, 2020 01:55
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sigher posted:Which registry hacks are you talking about? And what do they do to make the experience better? I'll do anything to get it running just a tad better. I’d also like to know this. And what’s all this I hear about I can STOP Windows 10 from restarting/automatic updating whenever the gently caress it wants? How can I get in on that action?
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Jul 5, 2020 07:52
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I've never had my PC automatically restart and I'm on Windows 10 pro. Could that be it? You can buy a cheap cd key on sa-mart. It's legit.
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Jul 5, 2020 08:23
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