The Migration to Win 11 begins

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TalismanRich

TalismanRich

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2 weeks ago, I picked up a Lenovo IdeaCentre 5i with a 12th Gen I5-12400, a 500gb SSD and 8GB RAM. This will be my general purpose computer, replacing an aging Dell with a old Phenom II X6. Of course the first thing I did was to upgrade it. A 1TB SSD for a second data drive, and 16GB additional memory brought the memory and storage up to my target. I have about 650GB on the old data drive, which is a spinner. The processor should have plenty of horsepower. My normal recording setup only has an I5-4750 and 12GB. Hopefully this one will keep me going for at least 7 or 8 years.

I did run into an issue with the first memory that I ordered (16GB DDR4-3200 non-ECC ). The company sent a second stick which also didn't work, so I returned both and bought one from Crucial, which worked perfectly. I don't know the issue with the first ones, but that's resolved. That's the first time I've ever run into a compatibility issue with memory. It just delayed my transition by about a week. There's a moral to that story somewhere.

So far, I'm not enamored with Win 11. I've been unable to get the old Win 10 drives on the Dell to map. It says I don't have credentials. After fooling with it for about an hour without resolution, I gave up. I don't have this issue with any of my Win 10 machines, so I'm reduced to copying the data to a portable drive, which at USB 2 speeds is taking many hours. It may be an issue with SMB. Win 11 doesn't enable SMB1 by default. My router doesn't have SMB2. I couldn't access my network drive until I did that. At least the NAS is visible and working. Hopefully I will get the machines talking, since I swap a lot of files between machines. I don't want to resort to SneakerNet!

I've moved the start menu to the bottom left. I kept moving to the corner and hitting those stupid widgets. What a pain in the ass! Those are now nuked. Firefox and Chrome are installed, along with Reaper and LibreOffice. I have used the old machine for mixing some projects with my JBL 305s, I put V5.99 of Reaper on, but I also have been trying out v7. I probably won't register it until they get the themes working. I like the V5 theme better than 7. (surprisingly, the Linux version of Reaper 7 has the v5 and v6 themes... I haven't looked to see if the v5 theme from v6 can be transferred to v7).

The new Start menu is a pain in the butt. I could navigate quickly to programs in Win10. On 11, you have two levels... the recent files and icons, or you can go to the list with a second click. Luckily, I've found all that is needed is a registry key to revert to the "classic" menu that is used in Win 10. I'll leave that for another day. There are about 15 or 20 programs that need to be installed, including Quicken, transferring my email profiles to Thunderbird, Tax software for 2022 and 2023, CD burning software, DVD editing and burning software, Handbrake, 7-Zip, and other tools. I went with 24GB of RAM so that I can try DaVinci Resolve. Luckily I have the installation files for the vast majority of the programs on the network drive. That should go reasonably smoothly.

Still to do, setting up network and inkjet printers, and photo scanner.

One thing that I will say is that this thing is QUIET! Having just SSDs, there is no spinning hard drive whine, and even while doing a Windows upgrade which can take some significant resources, the exhaust and processor fans were inaudible. I could feel the air, but hear nothing. The WIFI is quick. It's smaller and light weight. Getting inside to do the upgrades requires removal of 2 screws, and everything pops open. It's nicely designed.

So far, total outlay was just over $600, $508 for the computer, $73 for the TB SSD and $34 for 16GB. When I think about the money that I sunk into old Atari and TI computers 40 years ago, that flat amazes me. My first PC cost well over double that (386SX-25 with DOS) and that was in 1990s dollars.

We'll see if I run into any other issues.
 
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Woah.. I've been eying that same PC for a few months now as an eventual replacement for my ol' Dell Inspiron desktop 8G/1T HDD Win 10 system. This thing is virtually noiseless, but a hell of a lot of dust (lint) does collect at the rear vents. I just vacuumed it - again.

I have no need to upgrade the memory or drive as my current PC is way more than I currently require. I did buy a SanDisk 500GB external SSD which I'm slowly moving all my old files to.

I don't have lots of programs/apps, but I do keep records going way back - gotta cover my arse when those old medical bills that were paid in full 10 years ago suddenly show up again from some collection agency claiming they were never paid. I just WHIP IT OUT :spank:and tell 'em where they can put it.
 
My old system is a Dell Studio XPS 7100. It's served me well for many years, but at 14 yrs old, it's reaching the end of the line. This machine seems to tick a lot of boxes.

I have a bunch of video files on my computer. Years of VHS and HiBand 8mm family videos that were converted to digital, plus converting videos from friends. I have quite a few movies that I've captured and collected over the years. There are gobs of music files, Reaper projects etc.

Plus I'm a pack rat. I rarely delete files. Case in point, I've been retired for almost 6 years. I still had backup copies of projects from work, emails going back at least 10 years, expense reports and correspondence. A lot of it was health and safety and research related documentation and for the first year or so after I left I would get calls asking questions. It was really easy to fire up Lotus Notes, get the email and send a copy of a report. The one plant that I did H&S for handled large quantities of hazardous material, which means lots of gov't regulation.

I've begun clearing that stuff out, especially since the industry has declined to the point that the company lost it's last customer, and we no longer produce that type of product. Nobody is going to need the environmental reports for a plant that looks like this! (I spent a lot of hours in that building ?).

Demolition.webp
 
I like Lenovo. My Ideapad 3 Laptop will be 2 years old in April and it's been a great little piece of gear. It's got : 15.6" HD Touchscreen, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 Processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD, HDMI, Webcam, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth, Windows 11 Home. I'm so impressed with it I have converted from Dell to Lenovo in my thoughts of a replacement desktop. My only nit with the laptop is, although it's a HD screen, it's matte.

It can be difficult making a decision to delete old files. I also keep hardcopies in 2 folder boxes and go through them the first weekend in February each year to micro-shred everything from the previous year and what few leftovers I have from over 10 years past. I hold onto all government and medical stuff.
 
I am hoping to stay with W10 for a very long time. Every OS change* from XP has resulted in less easy operation and more 'stuff under the hood' effing you about that you don't know about and even if you did is virtually impossible to change.

I can see that OS software needs constant upgrades as security issues change and new functions are developed but why cannot Microsoft adhere to the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? There HAVE been cars made with non-standard control layouts but years ago and the industry woke up!

Everybody and his dog told me I MUST get shot of W7 and get W10 so I did but my W7 laptop still works fine and I was on the internet with it just last night.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Everybody and his dog told me I MUST get shot of W7 and get W10 so I did but my W7 laptop still works fine and I was on the internet with it just last night.
Click to expand...

As was half of China. ;) In all seriousness though... it's probably not a great idea to be online with a W7 machine... while I do agree that W7 was/is the better of W7/W10/W11 it just keeps getting worse.
 
Ujn Hunter said:
As was half of China. ;) In all seriousness though... it's probably not a great idea to be online with a W7 machine... while I do agree that W7 was/is the better of W7/W10/W11 it just keeps getting worse.
Click to expand...
How so Ujn? I go online with 7 a couple of times a week (the 10 lappy is perhaps otherwise engaged) I never have any problems or 'infections'. I run Windows protection when it tells me to. I run Malwarebytes once a month but it rarely finds any nasties.
"just keeps getting worse" Again, not my experience but then I am not trying to run any very new hard or software.

Dave.
 
I migrated to W11 a while ago when my main recording W10 PC was quite elderly and behaving in strange ways. It took a while to reinstall everything, but it all wet ok. It also took a while to get used to the new system, and there are soe intensely annoying features. But having lived with it a while I am very happy: it is stable, very fast, and quiet.
 
Win 10 has been really stable for me. I have it on 4 computers and have had no issue. Three of them were upgraded from Win 7. The upgrade of XP to 7 was major because of the change to 64 bit giving larger memory access (very few people I know had XP Pro x64). The 7 to 10 move was more a security move than a performance or stability move.

Eventually, I'm sure I'll get things all working for me. The main reason for moving that machine is because it's the one that I use for email, taxes, banking and things like that. It's the last machine that I need with any kind of vulnerability. I would move it to Linux, except that my software isn't available on that platform, and using Windows programs in a virtual machine is more hassle than it's worth.

I did find that registry hack for the Win 10 classic menu appears to have been killed by MS with the 22h2 update. I'll looking at alternate means, since I prefer the Win 10 Start Menu system.
 
gecko zzed said:
I migrated to W11 a while ago when my main recording W10 PC was quite elderly and behaving in strange ways. It took a while to reinstall everything, but it all wet ok. It also took a while to get used to the new system, and there are soe intensely annoying features. But having lived with it a while I am very happy: it is stable, very fast, and quiet.
Click to expand...
Well yes but presumably the new machine (you admit the age of the other one) has a faster processor, more and probably faster ram and possibly a bigger system drive? Also was the latter a swap up to an SSD? That would make a huge difference to boot up times regardless of the OS.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
How so Ujn? I go online with 7 a couple of times a week (the 10 lappy is perhaps otherwise engaged) I never have any problems or 'infections'. I run Windows protection when it tells me to. I run Malwarebytes once a month but it rarely finds any nasties.
"just keeps getting worse" Again, not my experience but then I am not trying to run any very new hard or software.

Dave.
Click to expand...

Sorry. I meant that Windows 7 was great. Windows 10 was OK and Windows 11 stinks. They keep getting worse.

Also, as for going online with Windows 7 not being a great idea, Microsoft isn't providing any security updates for W7 any longer... I'm sure you think that "Windows Protection" or "Malwarebytes" are enough... but... that's not the case. It's possible that you're fine, but it's a major risk every time. Just be aware is all.
 
ecc83 said:
Well yes but presumably the new machine (you admit the age of the other one) has a faster processor, more and probably faster ram and possibly a bigger system drive? Also was the latter a swap up to an SSD? That would make a huge difference to boot up times regardless of the OS.

Dave.
Click to expand...
Both W10 and W11 had SSD and i7 processors, but yes, the newer system was higher specced generally.
 
OK, Thunderbird and the data drive are successfully moved. I transferred My Documents and Photos folders to the C drive, and low and behold, Microsoft started uploading all my stuff to OneDrive! What a pain in the ass that was. It took me a good 30-45 minutes to get the process stopped, move the files back their proper folders and kill OneDrive.

Now the question is does MS have copies of my financial files? How do I make sure that they are truly nuked from OneDrive servers. I've logged into MS and emptied out the "vault" and emptied the trash bin, so they should be gone. But the question bigger I have is WHY THE F**K do they set up cloud storage by default? The last thing I want is for financial information accessible on my phone or a laptop being used while traveling.

Thunderbird Email is working perfectly, and my photos, music files and projects are intact. Quicken is up to date. Printer set up and working. Time to start getting my video programs loaded, and I'll be pretty much done. It's a busy weekend ahead, so that will probably happen next week.
 
"The last thing I want is for financial information accessible on my phone or a laptop being used while traveling."

Too right Rich! There was a piece on BBC TV a couple of weeks ago where a guy had his phone snatched from his hand in the street. The T leaves took 5 bags from his current account which his bank gave him back. But it also transpired that he had £29,500 taken from a DEPOSIT account some time later. The bank coughed at that but under pressure from the Beeb they caved and payed.
Now, if I was that bank I would say " WHY THE ***K have you got your savings account details on your phone!?"

I have int' banking on my laptop, have to doncha? But not on my phone, I have cards for that. Mind you there is now only one branch of my bank in the whole of the (v large) town, in the centre.

I too toyed with One Drive but soon found it very invasive. Same with Dropbox. In any case we should not be using Cloud storage, bad for the planet.

Just a thought, slap me if I am being silly.Can you not move files around and NOT be online?

Dave.
 
That guy must have seriously messed up somehow.
Either he had details saved in plain text somewhere or he had the banking app open when the phone was stolen.
Even at that most banks, in my experience, will hold unusual transactions pending manual confirmation.
if £20-30 grand tried to move out of one of my accounts, I'd get a phone call and have to verify who I am then authorise it,
because that's unusual.

To get into a banking app you should have to unlock the phone to start with, then the app itself should need some credentials,
ideally with 2fa or some kind of auth on top.

Even accounts that are relatively easy to get into, like paypal, with user+pass saved on the phone and autofilled, should still require thumbprint or some equivalent confirmation.

I don't know - Anyone can get screwed and none of us is immune, no matter how much we think we know,
but you should be able to hand your phone to a criminal and still know your accounts are safe.
 
spantini said:
Woah.. I've been eying that same PC for a few months now as an eventual replacement for my ol' Dell Inspiron desktop 8G/1T HDD Win 10 system. This thing is virtually noiseless, but a hell of a lot of dust (lint) does collect at the rear vents. I just vacuumed it - again.
Click to expand...

I finally found something missing..... no SD card reader! It's not a biggie, as I've got a USB combo card reader. I use the reader all the time between my Zoom recorders and my Sanyo video camera. Plus I have one on the laptop.
 
Steenamaroo said:
That guy must have seriously messed up somehow.
Either he had details saved in plain text somewhere or he had the banking app open when the phone was stolen.
Even at that most banks, in my experience, will hold unusual transactions pending manual confirmation.
if £20-30 grand tried to move out of one of my accounts, I'd get a phone call and have to verify who I am then authorise it,
because that's unusual.

To get into a banking app you should have to unlock the phone to start with, then the app itself should need some credentials,
ideally with 2fa or some kind of auth on top.

Even accounts that are relatively easy to get into, like paypal, with user+pass saved on the phone and autofilled, should still require thumbprint or some equivalent confirmation.

I don't know - Anyone can get screwed and none of us is immune, no matter how much we think we know,
but you should be able to hand your phone to a criminal and still know your accounts are safe.
Click to expand...
They said on the programme that he was actually using the phone when it was grabbed and the perps kept it on. I do agree though, I can pay common bills very easily but for a new account the bank either want me to enter a code sent to my phone or use a card reader.

But I still cannot see the sense in having the details of a savings account of several tens of thousands on a phone? Not money you are likely to need in a hurry?


Dave.
 
I don't know about other banks but I'm pretty sure my bank don't even offer online banking any more, outside of mobile apps.
They don't have browser log in or desktop application or anything like that.

Just the way of the modern world, I suppose. People run their lives on their phones.
 
Steenamaroo said:
I don't know about other banks but I'm pretty sure my bank don't even offer online banking any more, outside of mobile apps.
They don't have browser log in or desktop application or anything like that.

Just the way of the modern world, I suppose. People run their lives on their phones.
Click to expand...
Then that's bloody scary Steen'! Although I have a smart phone, for a variety of reasons I find it very hard to use. I use my laptop for my banking and only ever pay for stuff online with a Barclaycard. My theory about the latter is that if I got scammed they would be stealing from B card and not me directly and I think the card company would be very keen to sort the matter?

Dave.
 
Oh, sorry. I was wrong. My bank do have browser based online banking.
Wasn't aware of that but I suppose it makes sense.

It might be surprising, though, how many 'young' people don't use desktop or laptop computers and handle things like this exclusively on phones or tablets.
 
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