Third time’s the charm with Microsoft’s Surface

Lots of chatter about Win10 upgrade this week

A number of Lounge posts note the sudden appearance of Win10-upgrade invitations on Windows machines.

Lounge member lylejk was the first to broach the topic in the Win10 forum, but other Loungers soon chimed in with upgrade worries, speculation, and some news about rollout date and eventual price.

You, too, can join the conversation to glean clues — and maybe even some solid information — about the debut of Windows 10.

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions for which you might have answers:

Office Applications
General Productivity	Using Outlook 2010 on second laptop
Word Processing	Word 2010: Need something similar to Excel’s cell comments
Spreadsheets	Capturing a count that later changes
Databases	Runtime error 3045 with OS upgrade
Visual Basic for Apps	Word 2010 macro not showing on Add-ins tab
Microsoft Outlook	Outlook 2010 repeatedly rebuilds index
Non-Outlook E-mail	Need POP3 email client
Other MS Apps	Windows Media Player skips
Windows
General Windows	Getting Windows 10 upgrade reservation
Windows 10	Just got confirmation to reserve Win10 upgrade
Windows 8	System-backup image fails
Windows 7	Network connection problems
Windows Vista	Alphabetizing documents
Windows XP	Screwed up WinXP Pro x64 administrator password
Windows Servers	Automatically naming computers
Internet/Connectivity
Third-Party Browsers	Unwelcome menu-bar additions
Application Servers	Old attachments don’t open after Exchange 2007 .edb file recovery
Software Development
Web Design & Development	Help with PHP
Other Technologies
Non-Microsoft OSes	Learning curve (and connections) for Apple vs. familiar Windows OS
Security & Scams	Mystery Google “software removal tool’ downloads
Maintenance	Backup conundrum with Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook
Hardware	Recommend sound card with MIDI input or alternative?
Other Applications	Want Foxit 7 but not Foxit toolbar in Microsoft Word

starred posts: particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

Third time's the charm with Microsoft's Surface

Is the Surface tablet the best platform for Windows 8? Or is Win8.1 the ideal platform for a powerful and fully functional tablet?

This chicken-or-egg question came to mind while I was reviewing the new Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3. And the answer to both questions is — yes!

On the third try, MS gets its tablet right

Anyone who has worked with Microsoft products for a long time knows the old saw: It takes the company three tries to get it right. That would certainly seem to apply to the Surface tablets, which got off to a very slow and rough start. If you still own an original Surface, my condolences.

The second-generation Surface tablets were an improvement but still failed to gain widespread acceptance. But on its third try, Microsoft might have finally gotten a Windows-based tablet right. The Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3 still have a few glitches, but they should please many Windows users. I found both devices to be fluid and functional — and I say that as an unrepentant Windows 8 critic of long standing.

Microsoft boasts that the third-generation Surface is “the tablet that can replace your laptop.” Both models make excellent tablets, but replacing a notebook is a harder sell — especially the Surface 3, which has only a 10.8-inch HD display and a maximum storage of 128GB. The Surface Pro 3 sports a 12-inch HD display and up to 512GB of storage.

Starting prices for the Surface 3 are U.S. $499, and $799 for the Pro version. But a laptop replacement needs a physical keyboard. Adding Microsoft’s optional Surface 3 Type Cover, which doubles as a keyboard and screen protector, will set you back another $129.

Figure 1. Using either model of the Surface 3 as a laptop replacement requires purchasing an optional keyboard.

One important note: Surface 3 effectively marks the end of Windows RT, the much-maligned OS that would not run classic Windows apps — causing no end of confusion for Windows-tablet buyers. The Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro come with full editions of Windows 8.1. They’ll also run Windows 10 (no surprise there) when it’s released in late July. Previews of the new OS suggest that you’ll get an even better tablet/laptop experience once you upgrade.

Surface as tablet: More than iPad with Windows

It could be argued that the overwhelming — and largely unexpected — success of Apple’s iPad drove Microsoft’s ill-fated development and release of Windows 8 — an OS that clearly had the touch-centric environment of a tablet in mind. But Microsoft made two strategic errors: it assumed that a tablet interface would be easily and willingly adopted on the desktop and that tablet hardware to compete with the iPad could be quickly developed.

Desktop users who tried Win8.1 rebelled en masse, and potential tablet users were unimpressed with the first-generation Surface devices — likely in large part due to a lack of quality Metro apps.

Microsoft obviously learned some hard lessons; the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3 are designed to be used primarily as tablets with no compromises. The Surface 3 weighs in at just 1.4 pounds, and the Pro 3 is just a few ounces more (1.8 pounds). Attaching the keyboard/cover adds, surprisingly, about another pound.

The Surface 3s are better equipped than most tablets. They support all current versions of Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 4.0, and USB 3.0. Ports include a microSD slot, one USB port, Mini DisplayPort, and keyboard port.

Both models have excellent displays, both for static screens and video playback. The Surface 3’s 10.8-inch screen supports 1920-by-1280-pixel resolution, while the Pro 3’s 12-inch display generates a generous 2160 by 1440 pixels.

The Surface 3s include front and back cameras, but whereas both cameras on the Pro 3 are 5 megapixels, the more basic Surface 3 has a 3.5-megapixel camera on the front and an 8-megapixel camera on the back. Both models have microphones, but the Pro 3’s is stereo. I took pleasing photos and videos with the two tablets; I also made Skype calls using the built-in microphones. The Dolby-enhanced stereo speakers produced unexceptional sound but were certainly adequate for Skype. If you’re using Skype for listening to music often, I recommend investing in some high-quality headphones or Bluetooth speakers.

Microsoft states that the two tablets should get about nine to 10 hours of use on a full charge. In my informal tests running video, browsing the Web, using Office, and so on, the Surface 3 lasted about eight hours and the Pro a bit less. With continuous video playback, it was more like four or five hours.

As mentioned above, both Surfaces run full versions of Windows, which means you can install and use almost any Windows-based application. But you still have the issue of the operating system’s split personality.

As was originally envisioned by Microsoft, Win8.1 Metro-style tiles are well suited to finger-based navigation. They’re designed to be easily opened with a tap and managed with gestures. Unfortunately, the selection of useful Metro/Universal apps still leaves much to be desired. And trying to use touch-and-swipe for classic Windows apps — designed for mouse and keyboard — is still vexing.

Microsoft’s apparent solution to that problem is the Surface Pen, included with all but the base model Surface 3 (where it’s $50 extra). The Pen is a Bluetooth-enabled digitizer that recognizes 256 pressure levels and works both as an input device and pointer. Its small tip makes tapping the small icons of classic Windows apps much easier than with fingers. You can also use it like a ballpoint pen to create, mark up, and edit documents. The one flaw is that there’s no pen holder on the tablet, though there is one on the optional keyboard/cover.

Working with Office apps in tablet mode is also somewhat problematic — mostly due to the intrusiveness of the on-screen keyboard. If you plan to do more than minor edits to Office documents, you’ll want to purchase the Surface 3 Type Cover or a third-party Bluetooth keyboard. (Unlike a Bluetooth keyboard, the Surface keyboard/cover works only when it’s attached to the tablet.) When in use, the keyboard has a slight angle that makes typing a bit more comfortable. Also, the tablet’s kickstand lets you choose a comfortable display angle. I found the keyboard generally agreeable to use, though the built-in touchpad seemed too shallow for full effectiveness.

Surface as laptop: Ultrathin and light

Typically, the need for a laptop means you’re doing some sort of productivity task. For this type of application, a keyboard is a virtual requirement — but so is a good suite of apps. Both the Surface 3 and the Pro 3 include a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal. That includes full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook plus at least 1TB of online OneDrive storage for one user (along with free phone/chat technical support).

Equipped with solid-state memory, the two Surface 3s boot up in seconds and switch between apps in a flash. However, the Surface 3, running a 1.6GHz Atom x7 processor, was noticeably slower than the Pro 3 running an Intel Core (i3, i5, or i7) processor. Still, the Surface 3 proved up to most tasks such as Web browsing, running Office, and viewing videos. (While watching movies, I did notice that the Surface’s metal case became noticeably hot. I solved that problem by popping out the kickstand and resting the tablet on something other than myself. Some users of the Pro 3 report noticeable fan noise in some instances.)

On a tablet with a super-slender chassis, a standard USB port is a luxury. But on a laptop replacement, one USB port can present a quandary solved only by adding a multiport hub. Adding the VisionTek USB 3.0 Seven Port Hub I reviewed in the Oct. 23, 2014, Best Hardware column allowed me to connect a USB external drive, a mouse, and a printer. Microsoft also offers an optional docking station for $200; it includes two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, an audio input/output connection, a Mini DisplayPort, and power supply input.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a laptop alternative, go with the Surface Pro 3. In my tests, it had the power to handle all the apps I used on my bulky Win7 laptop; moreover, the 12-inch screen also provides more desktop real estate than does the Surface 3.

Still paying a premium for ultra-portability

As mentioned earlier, you can purchase a Surface 3 for $500. But the keyboard/cover adds another $129, plus $50 for a pen. You’re now up to $680. That’s more than a low-end iPad — even adding a Bluetooth keyboard and free Office apps. It’s more than many inexpensive, traditional laptops.

The Surface Pro 3 starts at $799, but the top-end model, with 512GB of storage and an Intel Core i7, will set you back a whopping $1949 — and you still need to add another $129 for the keyboard. Even some of the bundled packages offered by vendors such as Costco seem overpriced. At least for the Surface Pro 3, I think Microsoft should include the keyboard with the current prices.

That said, the Surface 3 and Pro 3 offer the best and most convincing implementations of Windows 8.1. And they should be even better with Windows 10. If you’re looking for a simple tablet, mostly for entertainment, look for an iPad or Android tablet. If you want to get real work done on a truly flexible and mobile device, the Surface should fit your needs. Portability and power have never been cheap.

Sporting pig and friend catch some waves

Kama the pig lives on Oahu, which might help explain his transcendent calm while standing on a slippery surfboard as the Pacific Ocean swells toward shore. Kama swims, of course, as you’ll see in this video. And he’s vegan, which helps keep him a trim pig. His person reports Kama’s favorite waves are between three and four feet, Hawaiian style. He could be a natural athlete. And he also seems to be a naturally great companion to his surfing person. Click below or go to the original YouTube video.

Solving complex OS issues with Process Monitor

Windows comes with numerous diagnostic tools for sleuthing system issues. But sooner or later, you’re going to encounter a problem that defies fixing.

When all else fails, it’s probably time to turn to Process Monitor, one of the advanced Windows tools offered on the Microsoft Sysinternals website.

An advanced tool for delving into Windows events

As noted on the Sysinternals site, Process Monitor logs — in real time — activity within the Windows file system, the Registry, and active processes and threads. It’s a powerful tool for both system troubleshooting and finding malware.

Process Monitor complements two other Windows Sysinternals tools I’ve discussed: Process Explorer (Feb. 5 and Feb. 12), which provides a deep look at what’s running inside a PC, and Autoruns (March 19), which reveals what programs are starting automatically.

Please keep in mind that this is an introduction to Process Monitor — a quick guided tour. To truly understand the tool, you’ll need to spend some time with online tutorials. The Sysinternals site can get you started.

Note: Though simply touring through Process Monitor is relatively safe, the tool does have the capability to make significant — and potentially damaging — changes to your system. Be sure you have a solid, full backup of your system before making any changes to system settings via Process Monitor.

Like the aforementioned tools, Process Monitor can collect an extraordinary amount of information that can easily be overwhelming. Fortunately, this tool includes an extensive set of filters that let you drill all the way down to the activity of a single process. As with Process Explorer and Autoruns, Process Monitor is intended primarily for professionals. But it can also be of good service to any advanced Windows user. (Once again, my thanks to Tektegrity‘s Joshua Erdman, who expanded my understanding of all three tools.)

Process Monitor is typically downloaded and run as a portable app. But you can also launch it directly from live.sysinternals.com — along with dozens of other Sysinternals tools.

Note: You’ll discover that you can’t access Help from within the program. The first version of Process Monitor I tried required a workaround: Navigate to the folder containing the extracted Process Monitor and right-click procmon.chm. In the file’s Properties dialog box, click the Unblock button (see Figure 1) and then Apply/OK. Then open the procmon.chm file directly.

If that’s not annoying enough, someone forgot to include the help file in the most recent Process Monitor release, Version 3.2. For now, there are two ways to get the file: 1) Go to the live.sysinternals.com site, click the procmon.chm link, and then look for the file in your Downloads folder; 2) Download the entire Sysinternals suite (site) and unzip the suite folder. Whichever way you acquire procmon.chm, apply the aforementioned workaround to make the file fully readable.

Figure 1. To access Process Monitor's .chm help file, you should click the Unblock button in the Properties dialog box.

Getting started with PM event logging

When you launch Process Monitor, it’ll immediately start grabbing events and could log thousands of them — including its own operations — within seconds. Note that Process Monitor doesn’t scan your hard drive; instead, it logs in sequence all active processes, as long as event-capturing is enabled.

Figure 2. In its default mode, Process Monitor captured over 93,000 events in about five seconds.

Obviously, that amount of information can be daunting. So the two most important aspects you need to know about Process Explorer are how to start and stop event captures and how to set filters to reduce the amount of collected data.

Turning event-capture sessions on or off is easy: simply click File in the toolbar and check or uncheck Capture Events. If you want to clear the list of captured events (see Figure 2), click Edit/Clear Display.

Figure 3. Starting Process Monitor with a clean slate helps reduce the amount of data you have to examine.

Applying filters to focus event investigations

For this tour through Process Monitor, I’ll use an extremely simply example — opening and closing Windows’ Notepad. Once you understand this process, you can apply it to more complex sessions.

It begins with setting filters. Click Filter in the toolbar and then click Filter again from the dropdown list — that’ll open the Filter dialog box. Next, click the box labeled “Architecture” and from its dropdown list select Process Name. Check that the box immediately to the right is set to “is.” Now type notepad.exe into the text-string entry box. Check that the dropdown list to the far right is set to “Include.” (See Figure 4.) This means that this filter will show only events performed by notepad.exe. Click the Add button to save the filter and then click OK to close the dialog box.

Figure 4. Creating a filter to log events associated with notepad.exe.

The next step is to turn on event capturing (File/Capture Events or Ctrl + E). Process Monitor will start capturing events, but nothing will show up in the event display. Now launch Notepad and then close it; then stop the capture. In my test, that simple act of starting and stopping Notepad produced a log of 1,246 related events (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Process Monitor recorded over a thousand events related to starting and stopping Notepad.

Imagine the number of events related to a more complex application or task!

To give you some idea of Process Monitor’s capabilities, let’s find out why Notepad always opens up a small window when it launches. Window-size settings reside in the Windows Registry. So you need to look for events that query those Registry settings. Again, the use of filters will help you find what you’re looking for.

The fastest way of finding Registry-related events is via one of the toolbar icons shown in Figure 6. (They include Show Registry Activity, Show File System Activity, Show Network Activity, Show Process and Thread Activity, and Show Profiling Events.) Note that the first four icons are turned on by default. So to see just Registry-related events, you click all but the first icon.

Figure 6. The icons highlighted above let you set filters for various activities including Registry, file, network, and processes/threads.

On my system, that reduced the number of displayed events to 397. From there, you need to scroll through the list until you find Notepad’s window-position information, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Notepad events, filtered by Registry activity

If I want to view or change a setting in the Registry, I simply select a particular event and click Event/Jump To — that automatically opens the Registry Editor and takes me directly to the associated settings, as shown in Figure 8. (You can also right-click the Process Monitor entry and click Jump To, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + J, or click the bright-green arrow icon shown in Figure 6.)

Figure 8. Once you select a Registry-related event in Process Monitor, you can jump directly to the associated settings in Registry Editor.

Customizing the Process Monitor results

Aside from filtering, there are other ways to manage the amount of information Process Monitor might throw at you. You can, for example, select the number and type of columns displayed. To do so, select Options/Select Columns; the Column Selection dialog box will open (Figure 9).

Figure 9. One way to prevent data overload is to define which columns of information Process Monitor displays.

You can also make viewing entries easier by changing the font — simply select Options/Font and choose your preferred font style and size. Better yet, you can track a particular entry by selecting it and keying Ctrl + B. That turns the entry into bold font and also creates a bookmark. To find all bookmarks in a session, hit the F6 key (Find Bookmark).

There are options for creating custom, highlighted entries, but I found them to be problematic and inconsistent to use.

Advanced techniques: Using the command options

Figure 10 shows a list of command-line switches or options. Running Process Monitor via a command window is far too advanced a topic for this introduction, but there’s a full description in the PM help file.

Figure 10. A quick list of available options when running Process Monitor from a command prompt

Using PM to find — and kill — malware

If you’re adept at using Process Monitor, it can be a useful tool for tracking down malware. Here’s an example, related to me by Joshua Erdman.

“A common problem is with my kids, whose computers get infected on an ongoing basis. The [malware] is often a Trojan-horse game, and I hear the complaint: ‘Dad, my computer’s slow.’ When I start up Task Manager, I often see processes that I recognize as malicious.

“My first reaction is to kill the malicious files; but then I want to know what my kids did or what they were reading [to become infected]. This is where Process Monitor — along with Process Explorer — would come into play.

“Process Explorer can show executables that aren’t registered — i.e., programs that we never started but which are taking up a lot of CPU processing and other resources.

“If I want to know what the program was doing, I can start up Process Monitor and start watching it. Or if I want to see what a program does when it first starts, I can kill its process in Process Explorer and then set up filters in Process Monitor. I then restart the program [just as we did with Notepad]. After that, I sift through the hundreds or thousands of events and look at each Registry entry, each DLL that it loaded, and every file it read and closed.

“You can then see in detail what the program is doing and see the source, destination, and size of data going over a network.”

Take CryptoLocker, for example. It doesn’t upload your data to the cloud (that would be impractical for its purposes). Instead, it creates a key and sends just that back to home base. If you’re lucky and you had Process Monitor running at the very beginning of a CryptoLocker infection, you could the see the IP address it used to phone back home — and you could find the decryption key as well.

Tools for digging deep into Windows’ inner works

Again, this article is meant as an introduction to a very powerful Windows diagnostics tool. There’s much, much more to Process Monitor — more options, more tools, more uses. But it’s not above the abilities of an advanced Windows user. Simply take some time to understand how to use filters to narrow down the data you need to sort through.

Advanced Windows diagnostics is a deep and interesting topic. As mentioned above, Process Monitor works especially well in combination with Process Explorer and Autoruns. If you want to learn more from the source, I recommend taking some time to view Mark Russinovich’s “The Case of the Unexplained” video series (index page). For more Process Monitor–specific help, check out the Process Monitor forums; you’ll also find links to a couple of training videos on the PM site.

Windows permissions issues dominate reader email

Recent stories on enabling the Windows Administrator account and on a problematic Win8 upgrade generated more than the usual reader mail.

Here’s more information on lusrmgr.msc, erratic behavior from the User Access Control, renaming the Administrator account, and what “Full Control” really implies.

The relevant two columns are May 14‘s “Activate Windows’ hidden, master admin account” and May 21‘s “Windows 8 upgrade error locks user’s files.”

Lusrmgr.msc unavailable to enable Admin account

Writing from Belgium, Lucien Goossens was one of several readers who had problems running Windows Local Users and Groups tool.

• “I’ve had trouble with the article about activating the Administrator account.

  “On my Win7 Home Premium system, entering lusrmgr.msc in the run box resulted in a warning that the program can’t be used in my version of Windows.

  “I’m just letting you know; other users might experience the same problem.”

Thanks, Lucien (and all others who wrote in)!

Indeed, as the original story notes, the graphics-based lusrmgr.msc isn’t included in all Windows versions. For whatever reason, Microsoft chose to limit some Management Console components only to business-oriented Windows editions.

The section labeled Command line describes an easy workaround that skips lusrmgr.msc and activates the Administrator account with a simple command-window entry. That method worked in every Windows version/edition I tried it on — all the way back to Vista Basic!

In short, if lusrmgr.msc isn’t available in your version of Windows, just use the command-line alternative!

User Access Control acts erratically

Ruchie Rice is experiencing what appears to be inconsistent behavior from Windows’ User Access Control (UAC).

• “I have a question about the administrator permissions.

  “When trying to run a program as a standard user, I see a warning saying, ‘You’ll be asked for Administrator Credentials.’ When I click OK, the credentials box isn’t opened, and the program launches. But at other times, I do get the credential box.

  “Why is that? Why does the same warning sometimes trigger the UAC and sometimes not?

  “I would appreciate any light you can throw on this.”

The answer depends on whether you’re getting different responses from different apps — or different responses, at different times, from the same app.

If it’s different responses for different apps, it’s probably a nonproblem. When an app warns that you’ll be asked for admin credentials but no UAC appears, it’s most likely due to excessively cautious or possibly some lazy programming. The application’s developers simply coded a generic, cover-all-the-bases warning so that no one will be surprised if a UAC warning does appear.

Better apps might try to detect the current user’s permissions level and give a more accurate warning; they’ll notify that you’ll be asked for admin credentials only if you actually will be.

That sort of behavior isn’t a cause for concern.

On the other hand, if the same app behaves differently at different times — sometimes triggering a UAC warning and other times not — that could indicate trouble. UAC operation should be consistent, as long as you’re performing the same task in the same way from within the same (unchanged) user account.

If that’s the case, I suggest you first run a complete anti-malware scan. Then recheck the assigned privilege levels for all user accounts on the PC.

One of the top PC-security best practices is to have at least two user accounts: a rarely used admin-level account and a regularly used standard account for day-to-day operations.

The more privileged account can be either the full, formal, separate Administrator (described in the May 14 Top Story) or a common user account that’s been granted admin privileges. Potentially dangerous, admin-level accounts should be used only when truly needed.

Non-admin-level accounts — Standard, Guest, or Child — have fewer privileges but are safer from malware. You should be able to run most day-to-day computing operations with these accounts. (See the Microsoft How-To, “Why use a standard user account instead of an administrator account?”)

Here’s where the trouble starts. When you first set up Windows, your initial account is automatically assigned administrator privileges. That makes sense; you need to be able to complete the setup, gain access to Windows Update, install your base set of applications, and customize the system to your preferences.

Once you’ve finished setting up Windows, you should create an account with fewer privileges for routine use — but Windows doesn’t prompt you to do this! Consequently, many users live full-time in an admin-level account that’s potentially more dangerous to use. (It’s possibly dangerous because when malware infects a system, it typically gets the privileges of the current user. If you’re in an admin-level account, the malware or hacker has full access to the entire PC.)

Here’s how to see what accounts are on your system and what privilege levels they have.

• In an admin account, open the user account–management window. In Win8, click Control Panel (Category view)/User Accounts and Family Safety/User Accounts/Manage another account. In Win7, click Control Panel (Category view)/User Accounts/Manage User Accounts. You should now see all the user accounts present on your system.
• If your PC is set up the recommended way, your “daily driver” account will show your sign-in name and image. It will be flagged “password protected” and will not be flagged as administrator.

  Your PC will have one — and only one — other account that’s flagged as administrator and is password-protected. Again, this is the account you use only when needed. (All other user accounts will be password-protected but not flagged as administrator.)

  Figure 1 shows my Win8 setup (with some personal information obscured). Your setup will be different, of course, but this gives you an idea of what a safe setup might look like on a one-user PC.

  

  Figure 1. The safest Windows setup has all active accounts password-protected and only one admin-level account.

• If you need to delete an unnecessary account or convert a second admin-level account to a safer standard user, click the account in question and use the on-screen options (e.g., Change the account type). Note: Be careful that you always keep one admin account. For more information, see the Microsoft help page, “Change a user’s account type,” for Win7/8 or Vista.

When your accounts are set up properly for maximum safety — i.e., unneeded accounts deleted, only one admin-level account, and a standard account for routine operations — the UAC behavior should settle down and operate as expected.

Can the formal Administrator account be renamed?

Long-time Windows user Roland Moss wonders about advice he recalls for earlier Windows versions.

• “I’ve a simple question that was prompted by the article ‘Activate Windows’ hidden, master admin account.’

  “Years ago, I read about changing the default Windows admin account name from ‘Administrator’ to some other name. (I was tempted to use the name ‘Dewey’ [from the movie “Silent Running”?], but I resisted!)

  “Would it matter if I renamed the default admin account?”

You can do so if you want, but I don’t see the point.

Renaming the Administrator account won’t fool clever malware or a determined attacker. He/she/it can simply try each account in turn to see whether it has admin credentials. Account names are irrelevant; it’s a strong, hard-to-guess account password that helps keep unauthorized users out.

What does Full Control really mean?

Frequent correspondent Henry Winokur wonders about a reply I gave that seemed overly specific.

• “Hi, Fred. I have a question about the May 21 LangaList Plus column. In it, you discuss how to regain access to files on an external drive, after changing from Win7 to Win8.

  “In discussing the Permissions dialog box, you indicate that [the writer] should check ‘Full Control,’ Change,’ and ‘Read’ in order for things to work.

  How come ‘Full Control’ doesn’t cover ‘Change’ and ‘Read?'”

On a properly operating Windows setup, Full Control implies — and normally includes — Read and Change permissions as well.

But recall that the reader’s original query was the result of malfunctioning permissions. Her PC setup was not operating normally — it was damaged or badly misconfigured. So my belt-and-suspenders reply was worded to cover even oddball situations where the permissions settings don’t behave as expected.

Again, on a normal, healthy system, Full Control should indeed cover Read and Change permissions.

MS announces release date for Windows 10

It’s official: Windows 10 will be formally released on July 29 — but not for everyone.

Microsoft surprised many current Win7 and Win8 users with an on-screen message announcing the event and free upgrades.

Pushing the Win10 upgrade where you live

The message shows up as a new icon on the taskbar. Clicking the icon pops up the Win10 notification. We assumed that everyone had gotten the memo about Microsoft’s latest Win10 marketing ploy, but apparently not. A few Windows Secrets readers — along with many others on the Web — wondered whether the icon and its message were legitimate or some sort of sophisticated malware. It’s legit.

Microsoft has certainly taken a different tack with the release of Windows 10. Years ago, if you asked MS reps when a new OS would be released, the standard answer was “When it’s ready!” But the debacle of Windows 8 and its various updates launched a tidal wave of changes at Microsoft. Among them was a more transparent OS development process — at least by Microsoft’s standards (and light-years ahead of Apple’s, who might give the NSA lessons in secrecy). As all regular Windows Secrets readers know, we’ve been able to test preview versions of Windows 10 and give Microsoft our opinions on its development direction. (How much of the Windows Insider feedback was actually implemented is anyone’s guess.)

The official release-date announcement was delivered in a June 1 Blogging Windows post. The upgrade is free for those with a “genuine” version of Windows 7 or Windows 8 on PCs and tablets. Anyone who purchases a new Windows 8 system now will be able to upgrade on July 29. (Anyone who installed a version of Win10 Preview via the Windows Insiders program will also be automatically updated to the “final” release.)

Who doesn’t get the free upgrade? Corporate users, not surprisingly, who are running Win7/8 Enterprise editions; but Microsoft will also not release a retail version of Windows 10 on July 29. That will come sometime later. Those who build their own PCs will probably have to buy a genuine copy of Windows 8 and then download the Win10 upgrade.

For more details on how the upgrade process will work, see the Windows 10 Q&A page — or one of the thousands of media reports about the July 29 event.

As I quickly discovered, not everyone received the Get Windows 10 icon. Several WS contributors and readers did, but it never showed on any of my Win7 or Win8 machines. I’ve not seen a good breakdown of who was considered worthy and who wasn’t, but apparently the icon was blocked on domain-attached systems such as my work ThinkPad. Moreover, my test system’s Windows 8 was downloaded from the MSDN developers site, which might mean it’s not considered “genuine.” Those and other reasons are outlined in a recent Microsoft Community thread.

How was the icon/popup message pushed onto our systems? It came through Windows Update as KB 3035583, a sort of stealth update whose title states only: “Update enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1.” That would suggest more popup notifications to come.

Along with the announcement of Win10’s release date was an offer to reserve your free Win10 download. Usually, I’d write this off to Microsoft marketing, but there’s actually more to the reservation process. According to the aforementioned Win10 Q&A, when you make a reservation, the system will check that your system is compatible with Windows 10. Microsoft will also send updates for Win7 and Win8 systems to make “the final installation go more quickly.” Once a reservation is set, you should have a Get Windows 10 app on your machine.

Unfortunately, based on posts in the related MS Community thread, the reservation process isn’t going smoothly for everyone. A post notes that the Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser script can take up to 30 minutes to complete. It also states: “If the script is failing in an infinite loop, then you don’t have the necessary prerequisite Windows Updates.” It goes on to list other Windows updates that must be already installed. (Note: You can turn off the popup notifications by clicking the Show hidden icons triangle on the taskbar and then clicking Customize.)

Taking a cue from past OS X upgrades

Whenever Apple released a new version of OS X, there were many Mac users who jumped on the upgrade and then wished that they hadn’t. Often the download servers became overwhelmed and the downloads took hours — or stopped altogether. And there were the infamous flaws that never showed up in the company’s quality-control testing. So smart users typically wait for a few days or weeks before installing the new OS X — much as smart Windows users do with nonsecurity updates.

According to the Win10 Q&A mentioned above, anyone who reserves a free copy of Windows 10 will be notified when the upgrade process is about to start. That’s well and good, but I don’t see any real upside to making a reservation now. The free upgrade offer extends to July 29, 2016. So there’s no real hurry. And as I noted in my previous column, there will undoubtedly be many updates to Win10 soon after its release.

But most important, be absolutely sure you have a full and working image of your current system before the Win10 upgrade process begins. I’ve heard of no official option for rolling back from Win10; but a full image will guarantee that you can fall back to Win7 or Win8.1 if you have problems with the new OS — or you find you simply don’t like it.

There are obviously many more questions about the Win10 upgrade process that still need answers. We’ll discuss them in future WS stories. But you can also check out MS general manager Gabriel Aul’s ongoing tweets.