# Windows 10 scam



## changintimes (Apr 8, 2006)

windows 7 is no longer supported by microsoft. you must upgrade to windows 10. they said.

well since doing the upgrade my laptop has been nothing but miserable.

SLOW SLOW SLOW for one thing.

windows 7 worked FAR better.

I sincerely believe windows 10 was developed sadly and simply for the sake of creating something new.

TO BUY!

i’m thinking of selling my lenovo laptop and investing in a mac.

your thoughts………


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Windows 10 has been out for over 6 years, almost 7 now. If your computer shipped with Windows 7 that would be a 14 year old computer. The Hardware may not be able to handle the upgrade to Windows 10. But usually a computer that is running slow is because the HDD is aging and in the process of failing. If you upgraded to an SSD drive, it would speed things up considerably But it may just be time to buy a newer computer.
If you are thinking of a Mac, besides the considerable price hike be aware, that Apple is even more relentless and less forgiving about upgrades. Every 2nd or 3rd OS Upgrade requires new computer hardware or it will not accept the upgraded OS. If you want to run a newer program, it will not let you unless you have the latest OS, and the newest Mac computer.


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## changintimes (Apr 8, 2006)

Lenovo Laptop. 

2.4 Ghz processor. 4 gb RAM. over 200 gb SSD drive with plenty of extra space. 

Windows 10 upgrade 

so why is my laptop so slow? 

what sub forum can help me out?


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

I've been running Windows 10 for years, I don't see any noticeable speed difference between it and my previous Windows 7.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Is it slow only on the Internet or doing things off line also?


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Merging 2 threads. Same problem.


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## Untertaker555 (10 mo ago)

changintimes said:


> Lenovo Laptop.
> 
> 2.4 Ghz processor. 4 gb RAM. over 200 gb SSD drive with plenty of extra space.
> 
> ...


Actually, I also don't see a problem.
I also was running Windows 10 on similar hardware, and it was working actually better than Windows 7 in some ways. (Some games gained a few FPS for some reason, etc.)

In my experience, I also suggest everyone to update to Windows 10 for many reasons.
But what exactly went wrong in your case makes me really curios.

How long did you leave the PC on since you upgraded?
In some cases the new Windows will do some intensive indexing, which can really make things slow for the first hours and days of using.

What actually do your resources say while idle or while doing simple browsing? CPU, RAM percentages?
And another question: Crashes or Blue Screen you did not experience for now? I am asking, because maybe something went wrong while setup, or maybe your hardware is getting old, beside of that upgrade.

Also, Windows 10 comes with some things that some might see as useless features that take away resources, such as OneDrive in autostart, etc.


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## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

For me I would just Start fresh new install of win 10 never liked the upgrade path keeping files.


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## changintimes (Apr 8, 2006)

Untertaker555 said:


> Actually, I also don't see a problem.
> I also was running Windows 10 on similar hardware, and it was working actually better than Windows 7 in some ways. (Some games gained a few FPS for some reason, etc.)
> 
> In my experience, I also suggest everyone to update to Windows 10 for many reasons.
> ...


I killed oneDrive right off.

The internet is the fast part.

If I leave the laptop on so Windows 10 can index, what state is ok? must I be logged in? can the laptop be sleeping?


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## Untertaker555 (10 mo ago)

It should be logged in and not sleeping.
But also it should not need longer than maybe 2-5 hours of using the laptop.

Of course it can be longer than that, for example if you have thousands of small files or something, but usually it should not take much too long. Like, you don't need to keep your laptop running idle for days now to get your things indexed.

If it is not getting at least some kind of faster and stable, it is something else. But what I don't know.
Maybe check if there is some third party program that wastes resources. Like a software stuck in updating, or a cloud service trying to sync unsuccessfully.
As I said, a percentage of CPU and RAM usage would be helpful to know.

Another thing:
If it is a laptop, you can try to prefer maximum performance over battery saving. For this go to power settings and set Power Saving Mode to Maximum Performance.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

You can also turn indexing off. I find it's mostly useless anyway. I use the Everything Search Tool, it's all I need here.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

I remembered this thread when working on a hardheaded users Windows 7 for many hours today because it wouldn't open links on IE so I couldn't even download another browser. Wish I had brought a copy, even AOL/LOL.


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## changintimes (Apr 8, 2006)

I gotta say, the programmers in this tech forum are very impressive. 

CPU AMD Turion II Dual Core Processor 

idle at around 5%
jumps to about 95% for three seconds while surfing the web

memory 4 gbs. about 51% 

and I adjusted the power options to Maximum Performance Undertaker555. seems Laptop is faster. 

how can I turn off indexing? and do you mean Cortana indexing?


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## Gary R (Jul 23, 2008)

changintimes said:


> how can I turn off indexing?








Open the Indexing Options in Windows 10/11


The solution to Open the Indexing Options, and Modify Indexing Options on Windows 10 or Windows 11 all Editions! Content: 1.) ... Open the Indexing Opti!




www.softwareok.com


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## Untertaker555 (10 mo ago)

You might also want to disable the web search of Cortana. Web search slows down really much, even on newer computers. It is just some regedit tweaking, but it can improve really much the performance, especially when only 4GB RAM and dual core.

Maybe someone has a link to the current Windows 10 registry settings to disable web search in Cortana, because I can't test them now. I am on Windows 11 already.

Also an Adblocker wouldn't hurt, because much of the resources get lost from all these "unnecessary" connections and visuals. I would suggest ABP as extension for your browser.
Obviously you want to disable ABP for specific websites which you often visit and appreciate, like Tech Support Forum 😅

_Btw. if Adblockers are not allowed to mention here, I will edit my post._


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

You can turn off Web Search off in Cortana and Bing by downloading and running this Reg file Turn On or Off Search online and include web results in Windows 10


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## Timh1111 (Jan 10, 2015)

changintimes said:


> windows 7 is no longer supported by microsoft. you must upgrade to windows 10. they said.
> 
> well since doing the upgrade my laptop has been nothing but miserable.
> 
> ...


Maybe I'm one of the lucky one's! I've been using windows since Windows'95. I haven't ever had any issues and just took the time to adjust and understand the changes. My biggest problem was when with newer upgrades, many of the older PC games you couldn't run. For me, the Windows products have been ok.


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## geo791 (Feb 4, 2008)

changintimes said:


> windows 7 is no longer supported by microsoft. you must upgrade to windows 10. they said.
> 
> well since doing the upgrade my laptop has been nothing but miserable.
> 
> ...


I have upgraded several old Dell and HP laptops to Windows 10. These old laptops came with either Windows 7 or Windows Vista. When I say upgraded, I don't mean updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10. That does not work well. First, buy an inexpensive solid state drive. Most people don't need a huge one and a 250 GB or 500 GB is plenty big enough for most users. Even 120 GB if one doesn't store a lot of data such as videos. Next, upgrade the memory to a minimum of 4 GB, and 8 GB is better. I have a couple running Windows 10 with only 4 GB of memory and they run quite well. Next, do a clean install of Windows 10, not an update. I guarantee it will boot and run five times faster than when it was new. Go online and buy a USB to SATA adapter cable. I bought one on ebay for $5. Once you have your laptop upgraded, connect your old hard drive to the laptop using the adapter cable and copy any documents needed to the new SSD. You can bring life back to an old laptop by only spending $50 or so. Depending on how you use your laptop, this can be a very worthwhile upgrade/. Good Luck.


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## jdsmort (Jul 29, 2008)

1st thing I noticed, 4gig ram... is this using a 64bit install? then 4 gig will be slow. Also, as previously mentioned in another thread, the update process for w10 is bad because it appears thet the priority for this is set too high, thus impinging on all other processes when not only installing, but downloading as well.. There are ways of getting around that, but unless required, I won't go into that here.
So, up ram to 8 gig, and ensure updating is done outside of using time... ( check for/install updates and when finished and restarted, then use)
Personally I also prefer to do a clean install, but that doesn't totally solve the problem of slowness.. need enough resources to run...


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## SoCalBryan (Jun 28, 2020)

changintimes said:


> windows 7 is no longer supported by microsoft. you must upgrade to windows 10. they said.
> 
> well since doing the upgrade my laptop has been nothing but miserable.
> 
> ...


So dont do it. You only get 3 years of software support on Mac OS's then they come out with a new OS version and all that Software you spent good money on will no longer work on the new OS version forcing you to buy all new versions of every major piece of software you already own. So if you have an older version of MS office for mac that worked perfectly it will not work on the new OS version because Apple purposefully blocks it from working.


This is their marketing policy. I purchased Adobe Creative Suite 6 and it still works fine on Windows 10. You would have been forced to repurchase Adobe Creative suite at least 3 or 4 times becaseu the prior versions get deprecated on the newer Mac operating system versions.

I've a pc with the latest version of windows 10 but I am still using windows 7. If you have a good Antivirus it should cover any vulnerability in the Windows 7 OS if it still supports it. 

Go Mac if you want to spend 3x the amount then you would have with Windows, and again Windows 10 supports most older versions. If it doesn't you can create a virtual machine on Windows 10 then install the older software inthe virtual machine.


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## SoCalBryan (Jun 28, 2020)

changintimes said:


> Lenovo Laptop.
> 
> 2.4 Ghz processor. 4 gb RAM. over 200 gb SSD drive with plenty of extra space.
> 
> ...


Check to see if virtual memory is turned off.


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## oldtreker (Aug 3, 2014)

changintimes said:


> Lenovo Laptop.
> 
> 2.4 Ghz processor. 4 gb RAM. over 200 gb SSD drive with plenty of extra space.
> 
> ...


4 gig ram is not enough. I upgraded to 16gb two years ago, big difference


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## pbug56 (Sep 20, 2008)

changintimes said:


> Lenovo Laptop.
> 
> 2.4 Ghz processor. 4 gb RAM. over 200 gb SSD drive with plenty of extra space.
> 
> ...


4GB of ram? That was decent for Win 7, not so much for 10, and a 200gb drive is tiny. Plus what sounds like a very slow processor (though speed numbers can be very misleading).

I have a PC that is slow with Win 7. Of course, it's 20 years old, only 2gb of ram... It's an antique and while I'd like it to be faster, that's not going to happen. Your laptop may not be that old, or as poorly equipped as my antique, but it sounds insufficient to do much these days. 

The laptop I'm writing from has 16gb of ram. 6 cores with hyperthreading. The system drive, a modern ssd, is 500gb, and nearly all data is on a second hdd. Plus a high speed ethernet connection to a 1gb internet service. Right now, a utility I use, System Monitor, shows me using 0 to 5% cpu, about 9gb of ram (way too many windows open in chrome). My guess is you are using nearly all RAM, high cpu, plus paging heavily due to insufficient ram.

Lots of things will slow you down, but high on the list is insufficient hardware.


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## pbug56 (Sep 20, 2008)

oldtreker said:


> 4 gig ram is not enough. I upgraded to 16gb two years ago, big difference


I was a programmer for about 20 years, and properly used ram (in pretty much any type of computer) and enough of it has long made a huge difference. Also, computers since VAX/VMS and Win NT (partially derived from VMS) use paging from ram to hard drives to make sure a process has enough working memory - but it eats up both HDD accesses and CPU to do so. Paging drops considerably when you have enough ram for what you are doing.

Laptop I'm on has 16gb like yours. An old Vaio sitting next to it has 8, and a far better HDD than it came with. That HDD upgrade, and going to 8gb, made it run much better than it did when new. And as many of us have found, having a system drive that's a good SSD works wonders. And if one can, keeping data on a different drive, SSD or HDD.


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## Geekomatic (Jul 19, 2010)

There's nothing wrong with sticking with Win 7 if you want to. As long as you can get online and have AV, you'll have a quicker system. I've noticed that since the first Win 10 until today, machines I updated originally ran much faster than those I now update to the latest 10. Who knows? Maybe MS bought a ton of stock in SSD's and sent a poison dart to old PC's/HDD controllers? Lol. Anything is possible, I suppose. Or, maybe 10 has just gotten too bloated. The telemetry, Cortana, etc certainly don't help in the speed dept. And sure, more RAM is nice, but it now feels like you have to add 8GB+ in order to support all of the background garbage that wasn't there before.

To the OP, have a look around for a Windows 10 debloater and see what you think. I have to use a Win 10 laptop for work and the difference in speed/responsiveness with all of the added nonsense turned off is like night and day.


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## Gary R (Jul 23, 2008)

There's a whole bunch of reasons not to go online with an unsupported OS (W7 has not been supported since 14th Jan 2020), but I'm not going to go into them here. They're widely published, and a quick search will find them.

All I'll say is that anyone who does so, knowing that their OS is not, and never can be, secured, deserves all the grief that will inevitably find them at some point, and usually sooner rather than later.


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## Untertaker555 (10 mo ago)

Agree with Gary mostly.
I would use Windows 7 and there is not much else speaking against it, except the security problems and some compatibility problems with newer software. I even would use it online, but I definitely would never do any important stuff in this condition. No banking, no emails, no important logins.


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## Geekomatic (Jul 19, 2010)

I understand your reservations (MS promoted). Funnily, MS did pass security updates to 7 recently. I know of so many folks not updating and they get far less grief in ALL areas than their Win 10 counterparts (biggest/bestest target). I guess it's the "on the ground" vs. tech sites to see what's really happening. This year, I've had to field multiple bank scams, and 100% were social-engineering (email links or phone calls). Win 7 didn't show up in any of them. Jus' sayin'.

PS: (off-topic) what's w/11 forcing people into MS account/data trawling? Just hit this the other day.


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## SoCalBryan (Jun 28, 2020)

I love these security guys. OH NO! Windows 7 bad, security loopholes. Bla, Bla bla.

If you have a good router with a built in firewall and it's enabled. There's not very much chance your gonna get hacked by any of Windows 7 so-call security holes. Unless you've been targeted by someone. If that's the case they will eventually git in.

I just worked on a laptop where the lady who owned it forgot her passwords. She was amazed at how easy it is for someone to change the system administrative password.


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## Geekomatic (Jul 19, 2010)

SoCalBryan said:


> I love these security guys. OH NO! Windows 7 bad, security loopholes. Bla, Bla bla.
> 
> If you have a good router with a built in firewall and it's enabled. There's not very much chance your gonna get hacked by any of Windows 7 so-call security holes. Unless you've been targeted by someone. If that's the case they will eventually git in.
> 
> I just worked on a laptop where the lady who owned it forgot her passwords. She was amazed at how easy it is for someone to change the system administrative password.


I see that a lot of advice here is self-annointed-MS-support-advisors. I know many people still running XP just fine. True, they have plotters/mechanical software to run, but they do still run fine.

I compare it to a Model-T> It can be in perfect shape, and can run perfectly, but won't be allowed on the Autobahn. At some point you get pushed off. Win 7 is not even close to that yet.


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## Gary R (Jul 23, 2008)

SoCalBryan said:


> I love these security guys. OH NO! Windows 7 bad, security loopholes. Bla, Bla bla.
> 
> If you have a good router with a built in firewall and it's enabled. There's not very much chance your gonna get hacked by any of Windows 7 so-call security holes. Unless you've been targeted by someone. If that's the case they will eventually git in.


And I love reading the rambles of the security ignorant, whose posts clearly show their ignorance of anything related to security.

An unsupported OS is an unpatched OS, and a router (even one with a firewall) will protect you from zilch if you click on a poisoned link, or visit a compromised website.

Try learning what a firewall actually does, and what it's limitations are, because clearly you don't know. Trust me, it will save you an awful lot of grief.


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## Geekomatic (Jul 19, 2010)

Gary R said:


> And I love reading the rambles of the security ignorant, whose posts clearly show their ignorance of anything related to security.
> 
> An unsupported OS is an unpatched OS, and a router (even one with a firewall) will protect you from zilch if you click on a poisoned link, or visit a compromised website.
> 
> Try learning what a firewall actually does, and what it's limitations are, because clearly you don't know. Trust me, it will save you an awful lot of grief.


And yeah, you're correct. But this site is not for devs. And trying to shame people publicly isn't going to win over anyone. The trouble is the people who DO understand things, are too up-themselves to actually help-- they tend to, instead, say things like, "I love reading the rambles of the security ignorant, whose posts clearly show their ignorance of anything related to security" w/o offering their easy-fix, or ANY fix, for that matter...


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## Papertape (Oct 17, 2018)

I agree with the posters who advise adding memory.
Opening more than a half-dozen pages on Firefox slows my W7, because Firefox sends memory use above my 6 GB, so the system pages. Even paging into an SSD is painful.
Microsoft says "*RAM:* 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit" is enough. Who are they kidding?





Windows 10 system requirements - Microsoft Support


Windows 10 system requirements




support.microsoft.com


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## Gary R (Jul 23, 2008)

Geekomatic said:


> The trouble is the people who DO understand things, are too up-themselves to actually help


And yet, if you look through the security section on this forum, and a bunch of other forums that I frequent, you'll find that I have helped quite a lot of people with their security problems ...... kinda contradicts your statement, don't you think ?

Look, my intention was not to shame you, but to get you to see that you're not looking at things in the right way vis a vis security. 

If I appeared a bit heavy handed then that was not my intention, however I've had this identical conversation (or some very good clones of it) on a number of occasions, and I get kind of tired of correcting posts that are telling people that they're safe to go online with unsupported systems. It's not secure .... period.


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## Untertaker555 (10 mo ago)

Wait, wait guys! I will get some popcorn


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## SoCalBryan (Jun 28, 2020)

Gary R said:


> And I love reading the rambles of the security ignorant, whose posts clearly show their ignorance of anything related to security.
> 
> An unsupported OS is an unpatched OS, and a router (even one with a firewall) will protect you from zilch if you click on a poisoned link, or visit a compromised website.
> 
> Try learning what a firewall actually does, and what it's limitations are, because clearly you don't know. Trust me, it will save you an awful lot of grief.


Doooooough! clicking on a a so called poison link or a compromised website is still a problem for those with an updated OS. This is a stupid argument to make about my post. There's always gonna be risks whether or not you using the latest Windows OS versus a n older one.

I rent a room and have shared kitchen privileges. One day I came into the kitchen and my landlady was on the phone with a so-called Microsoft tech support person who was telling her she need to pay $300 to unlock her computer. She had clicked on a compromised website and was using the Window 10 with all the latest security updates and service patches. The website she went to had locked up her web browser to the point that every new page brought up the same webpage warning her that her computer was compromised. Well the computer wasn't compromised, just the webbrowser. She had her check book out and I asked what she was doing. She showed me the webpage and I told her to let me look at it. Again a updated Windows 10 with all the proper security patches applied. 

I did a Ctrl-Alt-Delete started task manager, kill the browser, restarted the browser and when asked if I wanted to reload the last session I said no and fixed the problem. 

So again your arguement is pointless. As even an updated windows 10 system still couldn't protect her from poisoned link. Stop pounding your chest!


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## Geekomatic (Jul 19, 2010)

Papertape said:


> I agree with the posters who advise adding memory.
> Opening more than a half-dozen pages on Firefox slows my W7, because Firefox sends memory use above my 6 GB, so the system pages. Even paging into an SSD is painful.
> Microsoft says "*RAM:* 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit" is enough. Who are they kidding?
> 
> ...


I will still contend that MS sent a software dart to do this. It didn't happen until they really pushed 10.


Untertaker555 said:


> Wait, wait guys! I will get some popcorn


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## David Byars (Nov 1, 2021)

changintimes said:


> windows 7 is no longer supported by microsoft. you must upgrade to windows 10. they said.
> 
> well since doing the upgrade my laptop has been nothing but miserable.
> 
> ...


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## David Byars (Nov 1, 2021)

Why leave windows 7? Get PC Matic $50 for 5 computers or devices. I have 7 and I love it. You don't need Microsoft support in the first place. Windows 7 is a mature bug free operating system. I have XP computers that are doing just fine. They want to stampede people into spending more money. As long as you can still do searches with 7 why change? Now they want you to go to 11. Do a test to see if your computer can even use 11. I'll bet it can't and you will need to buy a new computer. That's what they tell you. I have a Acer computer that is just 3 years old and it won't take 11. It is a conspiracy to sell new computers. With all the scams Microsoft pulls, you could have already bought a mac. I say find cheep computers on Ebay. I bought a HP Workstation 5 years ago for $80 and it is still working like new. Use you head and don't just be a sheep and do what everyone else is doing. PS keep you computer backed up to a free standing hard drive and put it on the shelf. Don't rely on the "cloud" they have a tendency to blow away!


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## Gary R (Jul 23, 2008)

SoCalBryan said:


> Doooooough! clicking on a a so called poison link or a compromised website is still a problem for those with an updated OS. This is a stupid argument to make about my post. There's always gonna be risks whether or not you using the latest Windows OS versus a n older one.


What you said was .... 



> If you have a good router with a built in firewall and it's enabled. There's not very much chance your gonna get hacked by any of Windows 7 so-call security holes.


And what I pointed out, was that a firewall protects you against nothing if you click on it, because you have instigated the communication.

All a firewall does is block unsolicited outside communications with your ports. 

And yes, you can get infected if you click on a poisoned link with an updated OS, but only if the exploit that that link is using has not been patched. With an unpatched system, pretty much any exploit will succeed in penetrating your defences.

So no ..... the risks are not the same.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)




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## jonnyb (May 23, 2006)

When I get a Windows 10 up and running. I spend an hour tuning it up to get it to speed up. I would not want 4 GB of ram. I have one laptop with 6 GB which is better and it is fast. It's a Dell Latitude. I would say put 8 GB ram in it and a clean install. If you don't know how to speed up 10 with all the tweaks then do a search on the Internet to see what can be done. Services, apps, trim, chkdsk c: /r, startup items, turn off telemetry, disk cleanup, adjust for best performance, O&OShutup10, privacy tweaks, tune up browser, lots to do there. I have no problems with any of my new installs. Learn the tuneup. I am not going to list my steps to tuneup tips but have them written down. Also it seems like the more updated it is then the faster it becomes unless I am seeing things. Maybe your motherboard is just getting old and tired, capacitors ya know can be blown. Lenovo usually makes a good laptop but maybe you got one of the cheaper models. I like the Thinkpads. Good luck.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

This has veered way off topic. I think we will close this thread from further discussion.


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