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Thanks for the rundown, Noel. (And thanks, Woody, for publishing this.) Oddly enough, without a fraction of your technical know-how, I’ve set up my computer in much the same way. Most of it strikes me as common sense, such as staying away from “the cloud” and “apps”, as well as not believing that all MS updates or settings are going to make your computer run safer or better.

You’re probably correct about the auto-complete function in the search boxes, but, occasionally, the suggestions can be humorous or instructive. When a friend had surgery not long ago, he discovered that he’d been painted with something that he and I referred to as “orange stuff.” There was nothing in the hospital release notes that indicated what this substance was or what to do about it. So I started typing in “what is the orange stuff” when the auto-complete finished the top query “they put on me in the hospital.” Turns out that the “orange stuff” is an anti-bacterial preparation applied prior to surgery; but we found it amusing that, to a person, everyone searching for the answer referred to it as “orange stuff.” Also, not a single patient had been told what it was or how to remove it  (removing it isn’t easy, either).

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SueW, Noel Carboni, HiFlyer

Thanks, but my question wasn’t about how to edit the registry, rather it was about whether it was necessary in light of the patch. I have, infrequently, edited the registry before, as well as implementing command scripts. However, between the MS patch, and having file sharing disabled on my computer, I simply wondered whether it was necessary to take the extra precaution of disabling SMBv1 as well. I believe Mr. Brian’s response covers it.

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Seff

Like Seff, I’m a bit confused. Should those of us with home or office computers that are not networked to a company server, other than our ISP, implement the command to disable SMBv1? Or is the March security patch enough protection? Thanks.

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jburk07

Yes. The video card block is the 4-foot long dead rabbit. Are they going to go after people who upgrade their hard drives next?

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Keep the Group B list. It is not only about telemetry, it is about whether any of MS’s non-security updates improve performance. Readers here know that, quite often, the non-security updates cause nothing but problems, or, at least are marketing-oriented rather than value-added. As Canadian Tech has opined, Windows 7 is the last of the best, and many of us want to keep it that way by adding only the essentials. abbodi’s list is a real reader service.

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ebrke, HiFlyer, Elly

I have been in Group B all along with no problems, thanks to this website. When I had to re-install my Windows 7 Pro back in January, due to a hard drive crash, I also eliminated all the HP bloatware, and now have a machine running cleaner and faster than I thought possible. I don’t use any ancillary MS products, because I simply can’t afford them. Even if I could afford them, I prefer Open Office and Thunderbird because each program has never lost sight of what it was originally designed for. New does not necessarily equal improved.  MS seems to be moving to a rentier format, and I simply don’t trust the motives of a rentier-based company.

Increasingly, I believe that the OS is only part of the equation when it comes to running a secure, private and reasonably convenient system. The OS settings, the browser and its settings, the router and its settings, the firewall and its settings, the email server, and the isp, are all part of the equation, not to mention common sense usage.

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HiFlyer, Elly, ebrke, Noel Carboni

Yep. Rebooted everything individually, just to be sure, even if the pop-up window didn’t say a restart was required. I’m more concerned that even with the new patches uninstalled IE is failing the logjam test. My hard drive crashed in December so I re-installed Windows 7 plus IE11 with all patches through October, 2016 and security only thereafter. I didn’t even know about logjam, or the test for logjam, until reading these last couple of articles here on Ask Woody.

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PKCano

My Group B Windows 7 Pro failed the test for Internet Explorer with the two updates installed. I then uninstalled the updates, ran the test again and IE still failed! Firefox (my preferred browser) passed with flying colors. Not sure what to do now.