Computer???

[Rich Engelhardt]

Windows Pro - the one they want you to buy - has the ability to join a Windows domain. (& partake in Bitlocker, Group Policy, Hyper-V, Remote Desktop & some other domain only stuff)

Windows Home - the one they badmouth - can't join a Windows domain.

While it's technically possible to monitor & record & store every keystroke of every PC running Windows 10.....stop and think about the amount of storage needed.

[Alan Caro]

John Terefenko,

You're very welcome.

There are some more actions to speed up a computer in disabling programs and services at startup. Checking just now, I see that my computer is running 81 processes and at the moment I'm only using the browser. This disabling is done in msconfig, but needs some amount of care to avoid turning off items that are necessary.

There are three good reasons to retain XP: 1. Windows 10 is written for high performance use of current high-speed disk controllers, UEFI BIOS, large quantities of high speed DDR4 RAM memory, USB 3.1, increasing multi-threading of high core-count processors, new solid state drives such as M.2 and NVMe memory, 3D applications, heavily animated and themed pages, plus a lot of accessory services. These are useful on a current system, but can bog down an older systems as the BIOS can not recognize many of these devices and therefore can not configure them. 2. Some programs you're using on XP are may not run or run well on Windows 10. This is more likely though on more complex programs such as graphic design. As mentioned I had to buy a new version of Corel Graphics suite, toss out my beloved Epson laser printer, and an Audiowerk soundcard when changing to Windows 7. There were decisions by MS when Windows 10 was written to phase out a number of "legacy" sub-programs. 3. As Curt Harms mentioned, Windows 10 does have a lot more in the way of reporting information. I was suspicious when MS was pushing the free Windows 10 upgrade so strongly. There has to be a motivation to spend the hundreds of millions it must require to publish a new operating system. On a significant level, this reporting back to HQ is genuinely to collect data on system performance so as to make improvements, but I don't like the idea of a lack of control over the extent and content of what information is collected. The lack of privacy of an Internet connected system is already near total.

Sawmill ought to have a wood computer competition.

Alan Caro

[Rich Engelhardt]

An alternative to sifting through all the services and crud that Windows seems to accumulate would be to just backup your files and reformat the drive and reinstall XP and all the software from scratch.
Or - create a virtual machine & reinstall all the software onto that.
This gives a beginner's look at a virtual machine.

[John Terefenko]

Alan again thanks. Your Geek speak shows that you are into computers and you are light years ahead of anything I know. I will try to keep this computer as long as it still runs. For what I do it is fine. Not a gamer so no need for real fast computer. It is scary though knowing that anything and everything you do today can be recorded. It is the world we live in.