I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

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wdstudios
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I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by wdstudios »

Today, I learned the last pieces of information that I needed to learn in order to make Vistaspawn (Vista/7/8/10) usable and tolerable. With this, I might finally be ready to say goodbye to Windows XP, or at least never use it outside of virtual machines.

First, the cosmetic stuff:

1) Install Classic Shell and set as much stuff as possible to the way things worked in Win 9x

2) If you're in Vista or Win7, a "Classic" theme should be available in your list of themes. The Classic theme is not available for Win8 or Win10; you'll have to modify the start button, taskbar color, taskbar opacity, etc. manually to make them look normal.

3) Set taskbar icons to small. This will reduce the taskbar size from double-thickness to normal thickness.

4) There's nothing you can do about the lack of support for using animated gifs as wallpapers. Sorry.

Then, the meaningful, this-might-actually-impact-my-workflow stuff:

5) If you want a certain program to always appear on the "open with..." menu when right-clicking on a file, and Windows is giving you a hard time, you can force certain file type associations in Control Panel -> Default Programs -> "Associate a file type or protocol with a program". There used to be a way to give these associations custom names, like "OpEn iN dGiNdEx yOu wHoRe" or "I have some Notepadding to do!", back when Folder Options had a File Types tab; if anyone can tell me if this is still possible, I'd be grateful.

6) certain problems require restarts to fix, but Win8 and Win10 have this funny thing where all they really do is log you out and then log you back in when you tell them to reboot. This makes those problems harder to fix. You can disable this (called Hybrid Sleep) in Power Options

7) lower the UAC slider to its lowest level, then seize ownership of "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" according to the instructions presented here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/fo ... les-folder this will allow you to edit any file in either of these folders.

8) lowering the UAC slider to its lowest level will also re-enable downloading or saving directly to C:\

9) When you go to "Sort By...", your normal options might be replaced with ones that you don't want. For example, if a folder has a lot of WAV files in it, Windows will stupidly assume that the folder is for music, and will replace your normal options with Name, #, Title, Contributing Artists, and Album. To fix this, right-click on the folder, select Properties, go to the Customize tab, and set "Optimize this folder for..." to "General". You can also apply this automatically to all sub-folders.

10) If you want to run a 16-bit Windows program in a 64-bit version of windows, you'll need something like Win3mu.



Am I missing anything? Is there a way to make the search function not suck? Am I good to go?
Last edited by wdstudios on Mon Jun 10, 2019 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
hbelusca
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by hbelusca »

Or, why don't you just give Administrator rights to your account (or just use the built-in Administrator account directly)?
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by binarymaster »

I'm actually surprised some people starting to figure out how to properly configure NT 6+ systems just now.

I bought my laptop in 2011 with Windows 7 preinstalled, and configured everything like that just in the first day of use.
wdstudios wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:39 am Am I missing anything? Is there a way to make the search function not suck? Am I good to go?
I can suggest two programs here: Total Commander and Everything by VoidTools.
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by learn_more »

wdstudios wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:39 am 7) lower the UAC slider to its lowest level, then seize ownership of "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" according to the instructions presented here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/fo ... les-folder this will allow you to edit any file in either of these folders.

8) lowering the UAC slider to its lowest level will also re-enable downloading or saving directly to C:\
Congrats, you bring win7 level security down to xp level.
next step, break the firewall and your system will be compromised in seconds :)
wdstudios
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by wdstudios »

hbelusca wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:46 pmOr, why don't you just give Administrator rights to your account (or just use the built-in Administrator account directly)?
Because administrators aren't allowed to do anything in NT 6.x

I'm not kidding. Administrators in NT 6.x have fewer permissions that ordinary users do in NT 5.x
binarymaster wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:04 pmI'm actually surprised some people starting to figure out how to properly configure NT 6+ systems just now.

I bought my laptop in 2011 with Windows 7 preinstalled, and configured everything like that just in the first day of use.
This information is neither common knowledge nor easy to come by, especially ten years ago. Classic Shell didn't even EXIST ten years ago.
learn_more wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 6:06 pmyour system will be compromised in seconds :)
NT 6.x "security" is based on the idiotic premise of "hackers can't use your computer if your computer is already useless". It's worse than any virus I've gotten in XP. These adjustments effectively un-compromise the computer.
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by erkinalp »

certain problems require restarts to fix, but Win8 and Win10 have this funny thing where all they really do is log you out and then log you back in when you tell them to reboot. This makes those problems harder to fix. You can disable this (called Hybrid Sleep) in Power Options
shutdown -r -t 0
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by hbelusca »

wdstudios wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:36 pm
hbelusca wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:46 pmOr, why don't you just give Administrator rights to your account (or just use the built-in Administrator account directly)?
Because administrators aren't allowed to do anything in NT 6.x

I'm not kidding. Administrators in NT 6.x have fewer permissions that ordinary users do in NT 5.x
You are actually kidding. I use Windows 7 on my personal computer, I have clear separation between accounts from day one, with my main user account with minimal user rights, and the built-in Administrator account enabled. The built-in Admin account is the equivalent of the "root" account on Linux. When I want to play breaking stuff, I connect to the Administrator account. I am able there without limitations to modify everything that I want, including the access lists to system files, etc... . There is no UAC prompt in the Administrator account that causes problem. I also have a 3rd account that is not the built-in Administrator account, but has still administrator rights. Here the UAC prompts is just "Yes/No" when I want to start a program that really need Admin rights, like regedit. It's not disturbing, just press Alt-Y (for example in english localization).

People are fine with this kind of scheme on Linux and sort of acclaim it, but then suddently when switch to Windows, they would like it to be as secure as MS-DOS.... ? And then they complain and claim that Windows has problems concerning security.......... GO FIGURE...

[ external image ]
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by EmuandCo »

Problem I see here is the well known fact that there is no security without the user being at least a bit obstructed. Security always means that the ease of use is impacted. In my opinion Windows does a good job with a in between solution. Vista was terrible there, but Win7+ does a nice job and removing all the security makes it easier to tinker with, but security will fall to a minimum. Everyone has to know what he is doing by these modifications and if it causes a mess of malware and viruses... bad luck / your problem / your fault. I did disable UAC in my Win10 ONLY network at home, too. But I have a hardware firewall and the manners not to load every questionable stuff online on my pc. I would never do that on pcs I maintain at work, because it would be grossly negligent to do that!
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wdstudios
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by wdstudios »

hbelusca wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:56 pmYou are actually kidding. I use Windows 7 on my personal computer, I have clear separation between accounts from day one, with my main user account with minimal user rights, and the built-in Administrator account enabled. The built-in Admin account is the equivalent of the "root" account on Linux. When I want to play breaking stuff, I connect to the Administrator account. I am able there without limitations to modify everything that I want, including the access lists to system files, etc... . There is no UAC prompt in the Administrator account that causes problem.
Maybe Windows 7 works differently in Croatia. In the United States version of Win7, there is no "built-in administrator account". You create an account during installation, and that account becomes the administrator, WITH uac prompts.
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by binarymaster »

wdstudios wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 5:43 pm Maybe Windows 7 works differently in Croatia. In the United States version of Win7, there is no "built-in administrator account". You create an account during installation, and that account becomes the administrator, WITH uac prompts.
Check out compmgmt.msc / lusrmgr.msc / control userpasswords2 - one of these commands should allow you to see built-in administrator account. It's usually disabled by default.
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by hbelusca »

My Windows 7:
[ external image ]

and Windows 7 in english (random Internet image):
[ external image ]
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by erkinalp »

I expected a screenshot in Serbian, not French, as you are a Croat.
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by hbelusca »

erkinalp wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:21 pm I expected a screenshot in Serbian, not French, as you are a Croat.
First of all, it would be in Croatian, not in Serbian. Second, it's not because it has been two years since I'm living in Croatia that I suddently & magically became Croatian! (I have always been French.)
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by erkinalp »

hbelusca wrote:First of all, it would be in Croatian, not in Serbian
They are the same language (Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian).
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Re: I finally figured out how to make Win7 not suck; might be ready to say goodbye to XP

Post by EmuandCo »

... And Dutch is a German dialect or what? Anyways back to topic, before I have to clean up again... I have no clue if the Home versions have an administrator account, but Pro as the only real Win7 does.
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