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DancinJack wrote:

Concupiscence wrote:

Mine did it just the other day, when I swapped video cards and was waiting for the latest drivers to download. My dual screens just... went dark. No sign of life from either of them while I was using it. After a few minutes I started to hold down the power button, and Windows roared back to life frantically trying to shut down Steam, and in the process borked its own attempt to install months-old Nvidia drivers. Even after a clean install of the latest drivers I still had to use DDU to make OpenCL and Vulkan work properly again. Yay, Windows.

You mean there were issues with Windows, dual video cards, AND dual screens? Colour me shocked! (since you mentioned it was a card swap, maybe you weren't using dual cards as your sig suggests, but I also haven't personally run into this issue with my single GTX 1080/Win 10 x64/ a single 1440p screen FWIW)

Joking aside, sure that is kinda annoying, but also not a huge deal IMO? It's definitely not great for the average user, but the average user isn't swapping video cards are installing new video drivers that often either.

Oh, it's a worst case scenario, I won't pretend otherwise. It's usually Not Great™ when a driver installation gets interrupted in flagrante delicto either, but both screens going dark and not coming back up twigged my geek sense. I'm more worried about the way major Windows updates sort of blithely break things now, and while I hope Microsoft starts learning from it soon, damage has already been done to the perception of Microsoft as a responsible maintainer of its platform.

None of this should be taken to mean that I don't still use Windows 10, mind. For the most part, it works fine - it's just the parts where it doesn't that drag things down...

DancinJack wrote:

Not only this (which understandably isn't necessarily an option for everyone), but I'm not really sure what this "blank screen for minutes" thing is? My computer never does that. If Windows updated itself, my computer is just booted up to the login screen.

If I do actually see the update screen, it gives me a percentage indicator and honest to goodness I can't remember the last time it lasted minutes.

The blank screen may be the result of a video driver update. I vaguely recall that happening before I disabled them; my first automatic graphics update was also my last, as it broke almost everything.

The more incremental updates have helped out a lot since I last posted here. The update situation is still hot garbage compared to Arch, but at least it tends to get it over with in a reasonable amount of time now. It's still barely usable on spinning rust with a 1.5 Mbit downlink, of course.

Middle-clicking a running program on the taskbar turns out to open a new instance, which is even better than shift-click and almost actually good, but there's that discoverability problem again.

My biggest everyday problem with it right now is that the scheduler is broken (and apparently has been for ages) and acts like I'm on 16C16T instead of 8C16T. Dropping to 8C8T makes Windows gaming a lot faster, but then I'm missing half my threads in Linux where I have a functional scheduler.

synthtel2 wrote:

Middle-clicking a running program on the taskbar turns out to open a new instance

That's since Win8, or earlier.

Is middle-clicking really a thing? I mean, what other uses are there for it outside of taskbar widgets? I'm not sure I've ever really used it for anything, but like Glorious said I don't use Windows much these days except for gaming. I actually turned it off here a while ago, because the scroll wheel was sticking and I was inadvertently middle-clicking things when I didn't want to. An inadvertent drop-and-drop when you're scrolling through the contents of an FTP server can range from annoying to OMGWTFPANIC depending on what got dragged and dropped.

I use it to close tabs, but that's not a Windows thing.

meerkt wrote:

That's since Win8, or earlier.

Nobody told me.

It would make sense if it went all the way back to the big taskbar shake-up. I still think XP's hard line between quick launch and running programs was better; even knowing that middle-click to launch always works, the current design has stuff shifting around a lot more and is just plain glitchy.

Redocbew wrote:

Is middle-clicking really a thing? I mean, what other uses are there for it outside of taskbar widgets? I'm not sure I've ever really used it for anything, but like Glorious said I don't use Windows much these days except for gaming. I actually turned it off here a while ago, because the scroll wheel was sticking and I was inadvertently middle-clicking things when I didn't want to.

Closing tabs, opening new tabs if my hands are closer to that than ctrl-T at the moment, fast scrolling in browsers, copy-paste in Linux (#1 feature Windows is missing for me), an extra easily-accessible keybind in games, middle-clicking on my desktop is how I get a window list in Openbox (I don't use a taskbar or similar), it moves around the viewport in KiCad and Blender, and probably lots of other stuff I can't remember.

Concupiscence wrote:

It was new to me, too. Maybe it's a problem that crept into the works within the last year.

Patience. RDP into the system from another system or even a phone or tablet next time. Then you can find out what's going on. I know we're in a bitch about Windows thread but patience and alternatives are key to a successful Windows installation. Go pressing the power button during driver installations, and you're pretty much asking for trouble. I also have several Nvidia cards and sometimes move them around, and I think you're describing the period where old drivers are uninstalled, default drivers are installed (which won't do multiple monitors), and new drivers are then installed over default VGA drivers. It takes a couple minutes on any computer, including beastly NVMe SSD computers. There's a reason Windows uses "months-old" driver and it's called driver maturity. It used to be called WHQL. Now I'm not a Windows defender despite what I've written here. IMO, it f@cks up all the time - usually in little ways for me, and yet it's a still a very usable, stable, all-around versatile OS that works with almost any piece of hardware I can find from the last 10 years.

Microsoft recently released an 1803 update under the same KB they used a month prior. The new update was meant to supercede the old update, so they ... kept the same KB number? If you installed the October version, you got a vague Windows Update failure in November, since you were trying to install a KB that was already installed. They wouldn't admit it (at the time, haven't looked since) but if you just uninstalled the "old" one and reran Windows Update everything was normal. That's a decent example of stupid, as are most examples here in this thread.

synthtel2 wrote:

I still think XP's hard line between quick launch and running programs was better

You can still have it so on newer Windows (and I assume also Win10).

MOSFET wrote:

Patience. RDP into the system from another system or even a phone or tablet next time. Then you can find out what's going on.

Does Windows' RDP server confirm accepting a connection by asking for an input sequence complex enough to make it not a security hazard but simple enough to be entered without a display?

Setting up an RDP connection such that the client can access it without any prompt on the server just so you can see what's going on if the video driver falls over isn't reasonable.

meerkt wrote:

synthtel2 wrote:

I still think XP's hard line between quick launch and running programs was better

You can still have it so on newer Windows (and I assume also Win10).

How?

synthtel2 wrote:

Closing tabs, opening new tabs if my hands are closer to that than ctrl-T at the moment, fast scrolling in browsers, copy-paste in Linux (#1 feature Windows is missing for me), an extra easily-accessible keybind in games, middle-clicking on my desktop is how I get a window list in Openbox (I don't use a taskbar or similar), it moves around the viewport in KiCad and Blender, and probably lots of other stuff I can't remember.

For closing tabs I might use it, but the rest probably not. I might be a mouse-luddite.

synthtel2 wrote:

How?

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, and unless Win10's further ruined it beyond just the bad new settings GUI (I'm not on Win10 so maybe things moved around or got renamed, but I think it's still there)...

1) In Taskbar Properties (/Taskbar Settings): check "Use small taskbar buttons", and under "Combine taskbar buttons" choose "Never". 2) Unpin everything from the taskbar. 3) For Quick Launch: right click taskbar, go to Toolbars \ New Toolbar..., choose a directory to hold the shortcuts.

And for some more tweaks check out 7tt.

Jigar wrote:

I hate the way Windows 10 resumes update during my online game play session. I hardly get 2 hours in a week to play games and somehow it decides to update itself during that time only upping the ping to more than 200ms.
Sad part is there is no way to stop it from updating itself when it decides, if you stop the service, it will start again. Oh and i am not sure wtf is background intelligent transfer Service and what are its benefits but i see it just wont stop hogging my full internet speed.

Get the pro version, put in the group policy in order to set updates to manual.
Or, get proper internet. I hardly even notice when Win10 updates itself.

I've been holding out against Windows 10 for as long as I could but recently my circumstances forced me to get a laptop and as expected, it has Windows 10 Home. It's not as horrible as Windows 8 (shiver!!) but it does take some effort to get used to. The file explorer, for example, at first I thought you could only open one window, but later I found out that right-clicking on it allows you to open multiple windows of file explorers.

Several old games don't work ok as well, but it seems those issues somewhat existed with those games already with some earlier Windows hardware/software configurations, and Windows 10 just makes them resurface, and, sometimes, makes them worse. This applies to games like Amnesia (jumping mouse), Thief 3 (invisible mouse pointer.. too bad.. because this is a timeless favorite of mine), and missing DX files in System Shock 2.

Apart from that, it's ok. Boot times are also super fast.

Redocbew wrote:

Is middle-clicking really a thing? I mean, what other uses are there for it outside of taskbar widgets? I'm not sure I've ever really used it for anything, but like Glorious said I don't use Windows much these days except for gaming. I actually turned it off here a while ago, because the scroll wheel was sticking and I was inadvertently middle-clicking things when I didn't want to.

I still have it enabled, but generally don't use it due to the opposite of the reason you turned it off: The mice I've been using have a middle-click switch which is too stiff. So it's annoying to use and you tend to accidentally scroll the page while trying to click.

One thing I really do like, though: Mice with a "tilt" switch in the wheel. That gets mapped to the back/forward actions. In fact, that might be the reason for the stiff middle click -- they need to make the middle click stiff enough that you don't accidentally activate it when attempting to push the wheel sideways.

ronch wrote:

It's not as horrible as Windows 8 (shiver!!)

What's so horrible in 8 after tweaks (ClassicShell, etc.)?

meerkt wrote:

ronch wrote:

It's not as horrible as Windows 8 (shiver!!)

What's so horrible in 8 after tweaks (ClassicShell, etc.)?

ditto, Windows 8 + Classic Shell (Open Shell now) was great! I only upgraded to Windows 10 because it was free! Had a 2-in-1 Lenovo laptop for work and with Classic Shell I could flip between the old and new Start Menu with ease

just brew it! wrote:

One thing I really do like, though: Mice with a "tilt" switch in the wheel. That gets mapped to the back/forward actions. In fact, that might be the reason for the stiff middle click -- they need to make the middle click stiff enough that you don't accidentally activate it when attempting to push the wheel sideways.

IMO the Logitech M705 strikes this balance really well. It also has a toggle to switch between stepped wheel movements and inertial free-wheeling.

I use middle click to scroll long web pages every day. It's about the only thing I actually use it for. /shrug

meerkt wrote:

1) In Taskbar Properties (/Taskbar Settings): check "Use small taskbar buttons", and under "Combine taskbar buttons" choose "Never". 2) Unpin everything from the taskbar. 3) For Quick Launch: right click taskbar, go to Toolbars \ New Toolbar..., choose a directory to hold the shortcuts.

Ah, cool, I'll have to try that.

Ifalna wrote:

Or, get proper internet. I hardly even notice when Win10 updates itself.

How fast is proper (for Windows) internet, in your opinion? 25 Mbit still isn't there in my experience, but I haven't spent much time lately on connections faster than that. A lot of people in the US still can't even get 25 Mbit, and according to this the US average is only 42 Mbit.

For any other purpose in my own use, 25 Mbit is somewhere between great and overkill.

ronch wrote:

Several old games don't work ok as well, but it seems those issues somewhat existed with those games already with some earlier Windows hardware/software configurations, and Windows 10 just makes them resurface, and, sometimes, makes them worse. This applies to games like Amnesia (jumping mouse), Thief 3 (invisible mouse pointer.. too bad.. because this is a timeless favorite of mine), and missing DX files in System Shock 2.

Have you tried using Compatibility Mode?

synthtel2 wrote:

MOSFET wrote:

Patience. RDP into the system from another system or even a phone or tablet next time. Then you can find out what's going on.

Does Windows' RDP server confirm accepting a connection by asking for an input sequence complex enough to make it not a security hazard but simple enough to be entered without a display?

Setting up an RDP connection such that the client can access it without any prompt on the server just so you can see what's going on if the video driver falls over isn't reasonable.

ANY reasonable home network computer user would already have RDP enabled and configured for their (fine, his or her) user account only. I'm not talking about setting it up on the fly. And no, you don't need "prompts on the server" to have secure RDP. The world is full of tradeoffs. Do not fire back with "...but people are unreasonable." It's no different than enabling SSH on a headless server really. We're talking about troubleshooting - put yourself in the position to do so.

MOSFET wrote:

It's no different than enabling SSH on a headless server really. We're talking about troubleshooting - put yourself in the position to do so.

Amen. It's one of the first things I do on any machine - enable some kind of remote access so that I can get in to poke around if it stops responding / has video issues.

MOSFET wrote:

ANY reasonable home network computer user would already have RDP enabled and configured for their (fine, his or her) user account only. I'm not talking about setting it up on the fly.

I disagree. The average user (even the average user with two displays) has no clue what RDP is, for a start, and Concupiscence's response is exactly the response I'd expect out of them. If the average user sees enough breakage in the course of an update that their most likely response is to think things have hung, turn off the system in the middle of an update, and thereby break things so far that Windows needs to be reinstalled, then Windows may or may not still be a capable OS overall, but it's definitely failing to serve the average user well. Given all the anti-power-user decisions they've been making lately, failing this badly at serving the average user well too is a pretty big deal.

I know about RDP etc and use SSH sometimes for headless systems, but I disable the servers on most systems I'm responsible for to reduce attack surface. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by doing this. It just doesn't solve any problems I have aside from the basic one of accessing a headless machine, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Most people who think like I do on it won't bother disabling it, but it still won't be set up. As a debugging tool in particular, I don't recall ever having a local Windows issue in which it would have helped, and in Linux virtual consoles have always taken care of it.

(I asked about prompts on the server because RDP isn't one I've used and I don't know how involved it is to set up. I still expect it can't be done without a display, though.)

A black screen isn't the usual hang method I see, and my response would probably be to try to get some audio out of it. Even if I did though, it's not clear that I'd have reason to do anything but reboot it.

@synthtel2, I agree with you on many of the points you make. It does seem like in a discussion of generalities, as this thread basically is, we are sometimes switching between discussing how bad MS has let down (1) the average user, (2) the TR user, and (3) servers (to a lesser degree of the discussion, but present). For all except for group 1, RDP or similar remote access is likely to be one of the things immediately setup, and from then on it is a no-intervention way to interact with the remote system. If you think about VMs for a minute, the "truly headless no-intervention remote access" part starts to make a lot of sense. Without trying to beat a dead horse or anything like that, RDP is efficient enough that I can play Cities:Skylines over RDP as well as I can play it via Shield TV or SteamLink. The middle mouse button doesn't work though, which is a problem. For those still interested, it pays to setup RDP via the old Control Panel's System applet rather than Settings. Of course, Regedit allows custom ports, and Group Policy allows selected Users only with minimum encryption and timeout settings.

Anyway, I agree with you (and others) that MS is really following the "dumbing-down of your flagship product" trend. i dont know if they are hostile to users or not; I don't have quite enough evidence myself to reach that conclusion yet.

As far as servers, and to the point of reducing attack vector, Windows Server 2019 will be (sorry, IS) the first desktopless Windows Server variant (mainline anyway). I'm sure we're all for security, so how does everyone feel about that? One tiny tangential reason I bring it up is that I do some free, family-related, very occasional consulting for a small company that hasn't taken kindly to virtualization. As far as they are concerned, if it doesn't have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and boot to a Ctrl-Alt-Del prompt, then it's neither a PC nor a server. Hopefully I can leave them (and only them) on 2012 R2 forever. They're going to be like the server versions of Windows XP and 7 holdouts.

MOSFET wrote:

Hopefully I can leave them (and only them) on 2012 R2 forever. They're going to be like the server versions of Windows XP and 7 holdouts.

Can you run a particular version of windows server forever?
I dunno for sure but the only reason i'm getting moved from windows 2003 to 2016 is because 2003 wsus won't support Windows 10 updates...

I have heard that one of the local companies still uses a Novel 4.11 server...

Aranarth wrote:

MOSFET wrote:

Hopefully I can leave them (and only them) on 2012 R2 forever. They're going to be like the server versions of Windows XP and 7 holdouts.

Can you run a particular version of windows server forever?
I dunno for sure but the only reason i'm getting moved from windows 2003 to 2016 is because 2003 wsus won't support Windows 10 updates...

I have heard that one of the local companies still uses a Novel 4.11 server...

I imagine that as long as you don't get burned by a compatibility issue like at your company, it'll keep working until the hardware dies. Reinstalling on newer hardware may be problematic due to lack of driver support, and I don't know if Microsoft will still activate REALLY ancient versions, or how long they will continue to make past updates available.

I would not advise in using outdated software because of vulnerabilities!

MOSFET wrote:

@synthtel2, I agree with you on many of the points you make. It does seem like in a discussion of generalities, as this thread basically is, we are sometimes switching between discussing how bad MS has let down (1) the average user, (2) the TR user, and (3) servers (to a lesser degree of the discussion, but present). For all except for group 1, RDP or similar remote access is likely to be one of the things immediately setup, and from then on it is a no-intervention way to interact with the remote system. If you think about VMs for a minute, the "truly headless no-intervention remote access" part starts to make a lot of sense.

I don't dispute that remote access is great when you do have a use for it, I'm just a bit skeptical that TR readers are as likely as you say to have reasons to run a remote access server on their main desktop.

MOSFET wrote:

As far as servers, and to the point of reducing attack vector, Windows Server 2019 will be (sorry, IS) the first desktopless Windows Server variant (mainline anyway). I'm sure we're all for security, so how does everyone feel about that?

I'm all for it.

I don't on my main machine, but that's because I can just make a USB boot drive and use that if the display driver fell over for some reason. I'd rather do that and just go through the minor hassle of mounting drives and whatnot in order to make any changes I might need to make instead of having an ssh server hanging around listening for connections that I might never use, but that's just me, and my main machine also isn't running Windows.