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Noel: That is awesome. I have great respect for your attention to detail. If only Windows could have been built that way in the first place! I got a buzz from disabling the telemetry on 7 at first but found it disturbing when an update would turn it on again…as if sticking it’s tongue out at me. Maybe I gave up too easily. I finally just let Windows 10 do what it wanted. I became passive, numb to the abuse, willing to be kept waiting for an hour while it completed an update. When did this helpful servant become my master? I feel a bit guilty…but I have a new operating system that treats me with such kindness. I am feeling like an equal in the relationship now. There is no unpleasant drama, no sense of betrayal, no high maintenance. It just works. No, not the expensive because she thinks she’s worth it system. Debian Linux cost me nothing but a few gigs of hard drive space and gives me so much reliability, privacy, updates done in a matter of seconds, we’ve been together nearly two years, I am still goofy in love. Maybe if I had put as much work into Windows as I just did writing bad romantic comedy. Many others can find this happiness when they realize they have received an invitation.

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Noel Carboni, HiFlyer

thanks for checking the CBS log abbodi86. Since there were no obvious errors, clearing the softwarefoundation downloads didn’t help, it refused to suspend or even shut down. All was well before installing KB4013418 on April 2 and it wouldn’t allow uninstalling that or system restore…the ultimate solution was to just reinstall the system. This time I did Windows 10 pro, sensing the ‘home’ users have been moved to the back of the bus. Had an old 7 pro license not being used and it happily activated. It took 45 minutes and runs well, did the gpedit to delay updates this time. Now I can fully appreciate the ‘defcon 1’ warning!

Thanks for checking the CBS log abbodi 86. Since there were no obvious errors, clearing the softwarefoundation downloads didn’t help, it refused to suspend or even shut down, everything was fine before installing KB4013418 back on April 2 and it wouldn’t allow uninstalling or system restore…the ultimate solution was to just reinstall the system. This time I did Windows 10 pro (1607), sensing the ‘home’ users have been moved to the back of the bus. Had an old 7 pro license not being used and it happily activated. It took 45 minutes and runs well, did the gpedit to delay updates this time. Now I can fully appreciate the ‘defcon 1’ warning!

Thanks for workaround Kirsty…back to Windows 10, ran the findstr /c:”[SR]” %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >sfcdetails.txt command on the cbs.log…now it seems to be a smaller, send-able size. Here you go abbodi86:

Would be happy to do that abbodi86. The entire file was massive–24m even after zipping. The first entry in the file CBS.log was 85m,  came to 3.4 m after zipping. I see your maximum file size allowed is 1mb for the site. It gave me “Error! The file is too big”. Sorry to be a pain. Any workaround to that?

 

Thanks Kirsty! Just tried installing KB4016635 and it failed as well. Could have reinstalled the entire OS in all this time. I’m using an old Dell from 2010. Back to my trusty Debian Linux. Will keep reading askwoody.com! This is right out of the legend of Sisyphus…Windows has become a large boulder. Cheers!

Good to see everybody’s thoughts. Have to agree that Debian looks a little dated out of the box but it’s amazing how much better it looks after changing the fonts. Microsoft fonts are available as well (ttf-mscorefonts).

iawake, regarding your privacy concerns: the Linux telemetry package is ceilometer, which is not installed at all on Debian Stable. I am curious to try Fedora since it uses SELinux by default. Enjoy that SELinux was designed by the NSA! It looks like a handful to make everything work. My sense is that Fedora is the more cutting edge of the two. Have not tried Debian testing…probably a little over my head. As you said, like learning Chinese, good comparison!

The thing about security: you’ll notice most of the Windows vulnerabilities involve code execution. Existing Debian vulnerabilities are mainly denial of service and there are no known exploits (at the moment) http://www.cvedetails.com/vendor/23/Debian.html. Brian Krebs recommends using a non-windows machine for banking. In a year and half I’ve had no problems using Linux for that. I also use no-script on Firefox…retired so I have a little more time to fiddle with it. Not sure that absolute security is even possible on a public network…I keep my most valuable files on an external drive. One of Kreb’s laws of online security: if you have something valuable bad guys will try to steal it!

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AlanH, lizzytish, iawake

Debian user here. I tried Linux 10 years ago and found it clunky and annoying. Now it’s smooth and dependable. I am dual booting Debian Jesse Stable with Gnome (now 8.7, 64 bit) with Windows 10. After about a year and a half I rarely use Windows at all. What I like: updates take a minute, even seconds compared to the long ordeal on the Windows side. The system never feels ‘preoccupied’ as it often does when Windows has some internal priority other than me! A little different mindset: no installing anything from random sources, only the package manager, which has a surprising number of available programs equivalent, or even better than the Windows version. I finally ran ‘RKHunter’ to check for malware and it found nothing. Debian generally provides patches before the vulnerability is even announced. The only problem I’ve had is with the ‘Evolution’ email client, which would crash inexplicably while composing. I installed IceDove (Debian version of Mozilla Thunderbird) and have had zero issues…a lot like Windows 7 in it’s early years. At this point dealing with Windows is just too much trouble. My tech skills are minimal, not worried so much about privacy but I appreciate a simpler OS that works with so little maintenance or drama. Thanks for a great forum Woody!

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johnf, lizzytish, iawake, Bill C., Elly