StarDestroyer.Net BBS

It's working pretty well for me so far. I only really have two complaints, and they're mostly about Edge:

1. No browser support for AdBlock or other ad blockers (aside from a popup blocker). That's a big nuisance.

2. No way to manually enter bookmarks for the browser in terms of URL, name, etc.

Due to the death by LCD concussion of my previous (already rather busted-up) laptop, I have been catapulted into the ranks of Windows 10 users abruptly, and largely against my will.

So far I'm not encountering any problems I can't overcome, except...

A lot of things seem to start so slowly. Webpages loading slowly in Firefox, game installers hanging up a lot, even stuff like the control panel and task manager sometimes hiccup. Any ideas or tips anyone has for how to get some reasonably crisp performance out of this thing, I'm happy with.

Also, I miss having a 'mouse button' on my laptop touchpad. But that's not Windows 10's fault.

Simon_Jester wrote:Due to the death by LCD concussion of my previous (already rather busted-up) laptop, I have been catapulted into the ranks of Windows 10 users abruptly, and largely against my will.

So far I'm not encountering any problems I can't overcome, except...

A lot of things seem to start so slowly. Webpages loading slowly in Firefox, game installers hanging up a lot, even stuff like the control panel and task manager sometimes hiccup. Any ideas or tips anyone has for how to get some reasonably crisp performance out of this thing, I'm happy with.

Also, I miss having a 'mouse button' on my laptop touchpad. But that's not Windows 10's fault.

If you're in anyway technical, use the resource monitor to look at your Hard Disk usage numbers and check your page file size.

Stuff suddenly being slow is usually a HD over usage than any inherent problem. A possible (but unlikely) problem is Windows 10 reindexing your drive for some reason.

I'm not technical but am not technophobic- I can generally operate most basic tools for things like this as long as someone explains to me what they do, but I generally don't know what they do until someone tells me about them.

Is the resource monitor distinct from what I can see in the task manager?

Also, if there is a problem with hard drive overusage, how do I address it? The drive is certainly nowhere near full (I literally got my hands on this laptop only twelve hours ago, no, make that thirteen). But I suspect that isn't what you mean, is it?

What make and model of laptop, and what CPU and RAM?

HP Envy x360 with a CORE i7 and eight gigabytes of RAM.

If you want more details I'd have to go digging for them.

The first round of driver updates on restarting the computer today seem to have helped; the Internet isn't moving like sludge anymore for one.

Well, that rules out my initial guess, which was you having been fobbed off with a machine too underpowered to run Win 10. But if updating all the drivers doesn't fix everything then manually increase the page file and turn off some of the flashier visual effects.

And I really should not have to be having this conversation in 2015, Microsoft!

Okay, things are getting better as I patch stuff up.

There is ONE problem that is going to be a real killer.

I can't turn off... I think it's called 'SmartSense.' The thing by which the Synaptics touchpad automatically lo Iks out the touchpad whenever keys are depressed. Since a lot of computer games rely on being able to depress keys and use the mouse at the same time, this is a serious problem.

At this point I'm looking at having to go into the registry to fix the problem, but I can't find coherent, consistent instructions on HOW to do so. It's... quite frustrating.

Simon_Jester wrote:Okay, things are getting better as I patch stuff up.

There is ONE problem that is going to be a real killer.

I can't turn off... I think it's called 'SmartSense.' The thing by which the Synaptics touchpad automatically lo Iks out the touchpad whenever keys are depressed. Since a lot of computer games rely on being able to depress keys and use the mouse at the same time, this is a serious problem.

At this point I'm looking at having to go into the registry to fix the problem, but I can't find coherent, consistent instructions on HOW to do so. It's... quite frustrating.

There was something like that on my laptop where it would lock out the touchpad if it detected that my USB mouse dongle was plugged in...even if it wasn't active. It was a simple setting in the control panel under the mouse settings, IIRC.

Simon_Jester wrote:A lot of things seem to start so slowly. Webpages loading slowly in Firefox, game installers hanging up a lot, even stuff like the control panel and task manager sometimes hiccup. Any ideas or tips anyone has for how to get some reasonably crisp performance out of this thing, I'm happy with.

Right-Click taskbar > Task Manager > Performance > Disk 0. Leave it up while you work (Options > Always on top > Off if you have to). Under Prcocesses, you can now also view disk usage and sort via disk usage. Such as, just starting up my desktop WSAPPX was eating up 91% of my SSD. But my PC didn't care because SSDs just don't.... seem to care.

On my i7 ASUS Laptop with 8 GB/s RAM: Windows 8.1 was constantly tapping out my 7200HDD with updates. Steam was bad, among other things. It would sometimes take minutes for it to calm down. The problem was mainly because I didn't run the thing that often and there would just be so many updates to check on, Windows Defender might be trying to run a scan, Java might want to update, whatever. The system itself had no issues, but there's just so much you can put through a HDD these days. As you laptop is updated and the programs stop blasting your HDD, it should speed up. If not, you'll need to dig through performance monitor.

I ended up swapping the HDD out for a Samsung Evo SSD: It's like a brand new laptop.

Simon_Jester wrote:I can't turn off... I think it's called 'SmartSense.' The thing by which the Synaptics touchpad automatically lo Iks out the touchpad whenever keys are depressed. Since a lot of computer games rely on being able to depress keys and use the mouse at the same time, this is a serious problem.

Seems to be a known issue HP is working on. You can try This solution. If the settings are even there. OR maybe this.

If changing the "Palm" whatever in the registry to zero doesn't work, you may have to uninstall the driver and let windows load a default until HP releases a fix.

Or just plug in a USB mouse for gaming.

Simon_Jester wrote:Due to the death by LCD concussion of my previous (already rather busted-up) laptop, I have been catapulted into the ranks of Windows 10 users abruptly, and largely against my will.

So far I'm not encountering any problems I can't overcome, except...

A lot of things seem to start so slowly. Webpages loading slowly in Firefox, game installers hanging up a lot, even stuff like the control panel and task manager sometimes hiccup. Any ideas or tips anyone has for how to get some reasonably crisp performance out of this thing, I'm happy with.

Two problems:

1. Old fashioned spinning HDD

2. HP bloatware

Both those problems can be solved with a clean install onto a new SSD.

The 250gb samsung 850 EVO is on sale for $75 at newegg.

On the extremely slim chance 250GB isnt enough space for you, they also have a 1tb portable drive on sale for $40.

No, DA, I don't think I have the budget for hardware upgrades, sorry. Even cheap ones. I probably shouldn't have spent this much on the laptop I have, but dammit I was tired of shitty game graphics.

It's better now with the driver updates.

Zaune wrote:Or just plug in a USB mouse for gaming.

I wound up taking the cheap and risky option by going into Regedit and commanding the laptop to freeze the touchpad for zero milliseconds instead of, say, 150, after detecting a keypress.

Now I just have to learn how to keep my palms off the excessively wide touchpad while typing, and I'm good to go.

Alternatively, I already have a wireless keyboard I can park on top of the real keyboard to elevate my hands farther. I have to, because I broke the original keyboard of my old laptop some time in 2012.

If you aren't playing anything competitive, don't care, or are playing a game in a genre it works on: a USB game controller works quite well. Both Skyrim and Borderlands 2 will instantly pick them up and let you use the default config. I've had little issue with it. The only exception is Undertale which kept picking up my Orbweaver as my controller instead of my Xbone gamepad (just unplugging the Orbweaver fixed it). But most games deal well with it being plugged/unplugged during gameplay (if only audio devices could get to that level). Hell, shit-heaps like Fable 3 are better on controller anyways and leaning back in my chair while auto-aim kills everything for me works quite well in BLands2.

I think I'll settle for keyboard/mouse, but thanks.

Just wondering, is anyone else seeing this? This month's batch of Win7 updates automatically included the "optional" Win10 itself, although I'd never approved it, and I hadn't seen it in the Optional list before. I deselected it, hid it, closed Update, re-opened it...

...and the automatically selected update was back. I had to deselect, hide, then immediately run all the other updates, otherwise I might have find myself being decimated. This behaviour makes me uneasy.

QUESTION:

At least once a week, I've been turning on my laptop, waiting a unusual amount of extra time for it to load my Desktop, and then getting the message "Cortana and Start Menu encountered a problem. Please restart your computer". There is a greyed out "Restart" button that I can't activate, and I can't access the Menu to Restart. So far, the only way to get Cortana to work has been to force a cold shutdown.

Is anyone else having this trouble? Have you found out WTF Cortana is bitching about (and who is Cortana anyway? What is she doing in my laptop?)

LadyTevar wrote:QUESTION:

At least once a week, I've been turning on my laptop, waiting a unusual amount of extra time for it to load my Desktop, and then getting the message "Cortana and Start Menu encountered a problem. Please restart your computer". There is a greyed out "Restart" button that I can't activate, and I can't access the Menu to Restart. So far, the only way to get Cortana to work has been to force a cold shutdown.

I have not had this issue myself, but there's a few fixes you can try.

Is anyone else having this trouble? Have you found out WTF Cortana is bitching about (and who is Cortana anyway? What is she doing in my laptop?)

Cortana is like that damned dog (or Clippy) from old versions of Windows that helps you search your computer and the Internet for things. She is named after the snarky AI from the Halo games.

I hear they fucked up the OneDrive integration into File Explorer. I love the way in works in 8.1 and won't even consider upgrading until they fix it in 10.

You mean the office assistant that used to come with office? I do not understand why people complained about those. Like the thing was the best thing that happened to the office environment.

Purple wrote:You mean the office assistant that used to come with office? I do not understand why people complained about those. Like the thing was the best thing that happened to the office environment.

Maybe it was OK if you'd never used Office before, but I got used to the individual Office modules before Microsoft really tightened up the integration and wrecked the UI — and everyone of the same vintage I've talked to had pretty much the same opinion. All the new features (and trying to find what was left of the old ones) slowed me down. I don't use modern versions of Office unless I really have to, I very much prefer Libre Office.

SpottedKitty wrote:Maybe it was OK if you'd never used Office before, but I got used to the individual Office modules before Microsoft really tightened up the integration and wrecked the UI — and everyone of the same vintage I've talked to had pretty much the same opinion. All the new features (and trying to find what was left of the old ones) slowed me down. I don't use modern versions of Office unless I really have to, I very much prefer Libre Office.

I agree with that 100% but that's not what I was asking about. My question was why anyone would dislike the office assistant. The thing that they removed at the same time that they added the new crappy UI.

It nagged. It nagged inaccurate guesses of what I was trying to do. It came back at the least excuse and nagged some more. It was just annoying; the manual was a lot more use to me.

SpottedKitty wrote:It nagged. It nagged inaccurate guesses of what I was trying to do. It came back at the least excuse and nagged some more. It was just annoying; the manual was a lot more use to me.

I still use the old office just so that I can have the office assistant on. Turning suggestions off is like one click. And once you do that all that's left is a cute animated search bubble that you can use to look excel commands up.