How can a Windows 10 user maintain his sanity?

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  1. Posts : 1
    Windows 10
       #1

    How can a Windows 10 user maintain his sanity?


    How can a Windows 10 user maintain his sanity?

    I have postponed this kind of posting for many months since I took the unwise decision of converting Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 in my Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga laptop. I had problems with Windows 8.1, the worst of all was the delay of 1 or 2 minutes I had frequently to endure before an open dialog box showed me the contents of a directory in order for me to open a file from any windows application. As this was happening very frequently, I took the decision in August 2015 of upgrading to Windows 10 on this laptop. My decision to upgrade on another laptop with Windows 7 was wisely postponed until later in the future.


    After the upgrade, the problem with the delay with the open dialog disappeared forever, but I got much worse problems of stability. At the time of the upgrade I was developing a file and directory encryption windows application using Lazarus (a Delphi clone). Suddenly, after the upgrade I started getting complete freezes of the computer. This was sometimes happening when I was test running the application. Everything would freeze, no keyboard or mouse reaction whatsoever. The only way out was forcing the laptop to reboot by pressing the on/off button for more than 10 seconds. This happened some 10 times in the course of several weeks, until I decided to close and start again the Lazarus development application more frequently, instead of leaving it open thru 'sleep' or hibernation cycles.


    Another anomaly I found was that after returning from sleep or hibernation I noticed that one or another application would be started, that I had never used, or that open applications would sometimes show up in a different status than the one it initially was, when I initiated the sleep or hibernation action.


    But the worse of all anomalies occurred today for the second time (the first time had been some 4 weeks ago). I woke the laptop back from hibernation and I got the log-in screen. As soon as I moved the mouse or I started entering the password, windows started “talking to me”, describing which key I was entering or describing which text was under the mouse cursor. Absolutely frustrating! I had never asked windows to start talking to me! This is like a virus, a program you never activated starts invading your “windows experience”. After I entered the password I pulled the Task Manager, found the culprit (“screen reader” , “narrator.exe” and killed it). Then I went over to my normal activities, in this case to writing a reply to a Skype message. I was writing the reply and suddenly my screen disappeared and was replaced by the “log-in” screen, asking for the password, and accompanied again by the “virus-like” voice of the “screen reader”, the application that I had killed some minutes earlier. And this time my windows password was rejected repeatedly, thus my only option was to kill windows again, by pressing the on/off button for longer than 10 seconds.

    The pattern I described was the same as about 4 weeks earlier, only that at the time I was writing an email when I got interrupted by the “log-in screen” with the “screen reader” talking to me and the rejection of my password, time and time again. The frustration caused by this Windows behavior is very big. When I am working, I don’t want to be interrupted and impeded.


    Later today, after rebooting, I started looking for a way to prevent the screen reader (narrator.exe) from interfering with my activities. I found the configurations for that horrible program, and found out that Microsoft did not conceive that a user might not want to have that program running at all: there was no “disable” feature. Thus I went ahead and discovered the 4 locations inside the windows directory where that application was located, I changed the ownership of each application (using the properties of each “narrator.exe” file) and renamed them on 2 locations and removed them on the other 2. I hope sincerely that the next Windows update will not again reinstate that horrible “virus-like” application.


    If I compare my experience with Windows 10 now with previous experiences of past windows versions, I must say that the frustration with Windows 10 is only matched with the frustrations I had some 10 years ago with Windows Vista.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 5,899
    Win 11 Pro (x64) 22H2
       #2

    Sorry but your issues are not indicative of the typical Windows 10 user. Though some may experience issues, with the issues you describe here, one has to wonder if you really took the time to learn the OS, and its settings. Thus my suggestion? Take the time to learn the OS and its settings.

    At any rate I fear this may be a one post pony but I just wanted to say my piece.

    BTW we have a large tutorial section here: Tutorials


    Peace
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 12,799
    Windows 11 Pro
       #3

    Is there a question here or is this just a rant? If you have something you would like help with, there are people here who would be happy to help or, as @sygnus21 mentioned, we have an extensive tutorials section.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 0
    Dual Boot 10 Pro v1607 10 Pro rs2 build 14971
       #4

    Sorry you went through all that narrator can be turned off Settings > Ease of access >Narrator.
      My Computer


  5. You
    Posts : 613
    Windows 10 Enterprise x64 (build 10586)
       #5

    You can prevent narrator from running at logon or in the logon screen by clicking "Change sign-in settings" in the left pane of the Ease of Access Center
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 806
    Windows 10 Home version 20H2 64bit OS Build 19042.1023
       #6

    The Best advice is to look things up if you have a question about something. like others have said there are some tutorials on windows 10 stuff on this site. also if your using a computer older then 8.1 Windows its probably best not to mess with the os.
      My Computers


  7. Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Professional
       #7

    To simply reply to your topic title : I don't.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 488
    Windows 8 Pro x64
       #8

    essenbe said:
    Is there a question here or is this just a rant?
    Is he not allowed to just vent his frustration? It seems the mass of this board are extremely put off by negative Win10 press. What are you worried about? I mean really?
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 68,672
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       #9

    warning   Warning
    Let's keep this discussion friendly shall we.

      My Computers


  10. Posts : 488
    Windows 8 Pro x64
       #10

    I know. I'm just asking a question Brink. I'll be nice :)
      My Computer


 

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