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[Starver]

Not really seeking a solution, just making observations from something just happened here.

Under Win11, there's the occasional tendency for all Explorer windows to disappear from being active/whatever. (Also, at different times, all command-prompt or notepad instances. Not noticed it with anything else, particularly, but these three 'groups' are probably the ones left open in multiple incarnations for longest and across soft-reboots/(de)hibernations.)

As far as I can tell, the one just now kick-started the installation of some software that I had tried to run several days ago. Namely GTA1 (the official, slightly repackaged for more modern OSes, Rockstar version freely available on their website). At the time, it seemed to do nothing. Tried a few times to run the "install" package, both in Windows GUI and at command-prompt (the latter didn't obviously fail, it just did nothing at all as it returned the next blabk prompt-line). The GTA2 version 'worked', but it looks like DirectX backwards compatibility is patchy[1] so I put it down to just being outdated by the various changes in Windows and continued doing everything else I would be better doing in any case.

Several days later (computer suspended, at times, never truly rebooted... bad habit but handy for other actual works-in-progress) I suddenly get an Installation Wizard, it will install to C:\...Rockstar Games\... (wherever the full path may be) and add an icon to Start Menu\Programs\Rockstar Games\GTA (which is, of course not how Win11 does it any more), and apparently at the same moment (without obvious reason) that the current excuse of Explorer.exe crashed out. Out of renewed curiosity, I let it. So I suspect that the attempt to try out the GTA installed had basically hung until... something had vanished that had stymied it. Then it did what it was supposed to. (Several times, from the several initial tries, but behind the installation wizard there were alerts telling me that the installation couldn't be run (presumably the second, third, fourth times) for a few technical reasons that might be explained by already having one installation already in progress).

Anyway, with that done (and after all other distractions/projects set aside), I sort of got GTA to run (with full XP compatability mode, etc, some initial sound issues that resolved themselves, a very jerky game which I managed to not crash (in-game) too much, and even hijacked drove a fuel tanker over the broken bridge before it crashed (computer-wise) big-time, with a looped engine-noises and unresponsive gamescreen, and left me with little option but to Ctrl-Alt-Delete and navigate that whole interface to get back to 'normal' and then scrubbed the whole thing off.

Of course, I actually have an XP machine, still, so might still try this (in fact both) on that at some time.

But it's bad that apparently I can have an installation just sitting in the background like that (I'd not even noticed it as a running process when first trying to see why my attempt, the revamped Task Manager is full of facts but clearly has reduced some of the old functionality), but it would explain why the folders I'd put it the initial files in were undeletable due to being "in use" when I'd initially given up). And the ongoing issue of the Win11 experience being a far more buggy thing than with its predecessor versions (not enough experience with Win10 to be able to say when that level of rot set in, but I'm still of the opinion that XP was the apex of basic usability and stability, at least by SP3).


So not actually seeking advice, but in leiu of anywhere more apt to record my observations and experiences (before I get back to what I had planned to finish, this Sunday afternoon with weather that discourages gardening/etc), take this as informative but slightly abbreviated foreshadowing for the very unlikely even that you'll ever need to deal with this kind of thing in future. And, yes, I'll definitely be giving that machine (which I was never intending towards divert towards gaming, anyway, nor its other user) a full and proper reboot when I'm at a decent juncture.


[1] It was inconsistent with menu use (of the 'installed' game), seemingly scrolling menu screens (some 'thematic' on-screen changes, sounds indicated menu-choosing) but not giving the text (except when it did). If I did get into playing the game proper (half-blind choice of the right "Play now..!"-type choices), the scenery doesn't move, the player does, in a weird interlaced/flickerbook bad rendering and I can wander away from the mission-phonebooth (which I can't seem to answer) with the sounds of its ringing dying away as I sightlessly wander through invisible traffic and encounter other environmental noises around my off-screen location. (If I persisted, and checked a level map to guide me, I could probably go and walk off a wharfside into the deadly waters of the local river.) Anyway, attempt at nostalgia thwarted (somewhere, I have the original installation discs... I might be able to run them, easier!) Ditto GTA3 on up as far as San Andreas, which probably will work, but definitely will suck my spare time from me a whole lot more if I tried.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Running Windows 10. I am asking if anyone else has removed Copilot?  And / Or How does Linux work? (If I can't get rid of it)

I hate Copilot, and I don't care. I have kept this thing off my system for as long as possible. I would pay Microsoft more for a version of windows without it or other AI. I have seen just too many issues related to copilot Microsoft hasn't worked out and the privacy concerns scare the crap out of me. It is https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Abominable_Intelligence. I had lobotomized Cortana right out (not missing her at all for like 5 years) and have prevented the updates from reinstalling her, but I can't find where Copilot is to delete and kill it, as it deserves. I'm sorry but I just hate AI like this.

How do I remove or completely disable copilot from windows 10?
(Please tell me this thing isn't cloud based?)

*Short of messing with the registry, I think I might be able to start by removing from task bar and nuking notifications:

Settings
-System
--Notifications & Actions
----Disable any options related to it, (which are not present).


**Search and destroy mission unsuccessful: Steps taken:

Windows key + R to open the Run dialog box
-gpedit.msc
--Group Policy Editor, go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates.
---Windows Components

Now I would think that Copilot would be under "Windows Components," but I can't seem to find it in there. If I did find it, I'd disable it.

I think this may have failed because it is a home edition and that might be absent from that version. But then gpedit.msc shouldn't run at all....


*** Nuking it from orbit in the registry. Exterminatus.

I haven't located this particular abominable intelligence in the registry yet, but once I do, I hope I can kill it like I killed Cortana.
The thing that worries me is that this thing is supposed to be a "built in" feature now. I might not be able to safely registry kill this thing without massive issues. I'm surprised I have a stable system that removed Cortana. That took some doing.

Has anyone else removed this thing yet? I get some people might like it and I don't want to know why. Good for them. To me, this thing is Just Clippy with better marketing, even though I get it is more (worse) than that.

If I can't remove copilot then that might seriously be the thing that gets me into Linux.

Look I don't know. I was raised on windows, but I just hate the way it is going more and more.
I would not know where to begin learning linux or if there are compatibility issues or what.

I guess how easy is it to switch to Linux?
Are there issues using a Linux PC verses a Windows PC.... I suppose you can't be using Microsoft word, or Adobe?
Can you buy a nice PC with Linux installed from a major retailer like Dell without massive issues?

And of course, is Linus pulling the same thing so it wouldn't be any better, or is it an improvement?

[Starver]

Cannot really help with the Win10 thing (beyond what I did on Win11 to disable Copilot, which was probably more just "make inconsequential"[1]), and I couldn't run gpedit.msc. You're probably at least as capable as me on that, from what you say.

So, instead skip to, not necessarily in the order you ask:

I would not know where to begin learning linux or if there are compatibility issues or what.

"Learning Linux" (and learning of compatability issues), I'd do by trying a "Linux boot on a USB stick" installation (available for many of the possible flavours you might want to try). Probably the least disruptive[2] and most effective way to get a good go at what living your chosen Linux distro would be. May give a few initial/intermitent performance bottlenecks, compared with a full install, but should be enough to check that your graphics hardware is fully supported, etc.

Unless you're going for a really specific distro (e.g. pared down interface, including non-UI, or focused heavily on something like being a media-station/pen-test/etc platform), the GUI[3] shouldn't be too hard to adapt to. The taskbar (if any) might default to a different edge of the screen. The equivalent-to-Start-button menu quite probably will return in a way default Win10/11 lacks, unless it's designed to look like the MacOS-style "scrolling floating icon bar" or whatever they do now. You should be able to navigate any 'popular' flavour of Linux (including popular sub-flavours of particular distros, which bend you to particular Window Managers, Themes and default configurations).

I suppose you can't be using Microsoft word, or Adobe?

You probably can, with different degrees of effort. I think you can use the webapp Office365 (with subscription), there may be a port for the/a standalone version (like there is/was for Mac) and there's maybe ways of using WINE or even full on VM. Personally, I tend to use only LibreOffice/OpenOffice anyway, even on my MS OSes, as I prefer that to whatever MS has been doing to its Office Suite, and that of course tends to be easy to install (or is already installed) under almost any Linux.

Not sure about Adobe. The Open-/LibreOffice seems to have sufficed for PDF-writing, I imagine the PDF reader is also available (my PDF Reader app on my Android appears to have picked up all kinds of things I associate with the Writer, and seems to semi-pester for a login account, so I don't know what's going on there).

Anything else will probably also have a FOSS port, a FOSS equivalent or you don't need because its functionality has been integrated into something else that's on (by default, or installable) any Linux with a decent package-manager scope. Or, as last resort, WINE/VMing can be used (to variable fuss and performance hit). That latter may be necessary for specific applications, e.g. games.

I actually first ran DF at home under WINE on my Fedora machine, many years ago... didn't run appreciably slower than on the XP machines at work (I 'benchmarked' hardware by running an overnight worldgen, back when worldgen was that intensive), but obviously not a big hit on graphics. I also ran XPlane (MS Flight Simulator 'equivalent'), as it came with both Windows and native-Linux installable on its CD(/DVD..? no, probably still just CD... or CDs, but probably singular... must dig up the box), and probably ran better off-MS. Probably won't hold true for everything, especially if already a big-budget PC-port-of-primarily-console-release.

Can you buy a nice PC with Linux installed from a major retailer like Dell without massive issues?

Not sure about Dell(-likes). At certain times, there's been been an OS-lock-in by MS, insofar as in return for favourable OEM-licencing there were no easy ways to get hardware-only or hardware-with-Linux alternatives to the default hardware-with-Windows one. You were limited to getting such a with-Windows machine and over-installing or dual-booting your chosen OS.

Buying the bits myself was the way I did it, though even then I tended to shell out for the Windows OEM (one of them I installed on half the disc ('system' partition and 'data' one) put Fedora on the other half (with its EXT<N> partitions, plus mounting the FAT32 'data' one), ended up doing almost everything via Fedora, never got around to doing the licence-verification of the legitimate Windows licence, ended up repartitioning the Windows partition to minimum necessary to give extra shoulder-room to the Linux... could have saved myself a few GB as well as some GBP, had I anticipated this direction).

..But that meant making sure I was putting together my own decent combination of hardware (the best kind of DIMMs for the Mobo, a video-card/on-board GPU that wasn't awkward to get Linux support for) and without the ecomomies of scale that absorbs even a with-Windows and additional manufacturer-markup premium into the costs of a "cheap but not basic" baseline machine. Doing it from the ground up is not something everyone wants to do. And the two main component-retailers I last used for such a task have both stopped selling to the likes of me (one entirely gone out of business, the other stopped their public-retail activities to concentrate on B2B services) so I'd have to do yet more legwork before trying the same again.

And of course, is Linus pulling the same thing so it wouldn't be any better, or is it an improvement?

Mr. Torvald is a long way from pulling the strings. If there are any distro-type 'lock-ins' that you don't like, you can probably just avoid those particular distros. Go with something like DamnSmallLinux or PuppyLinux (or equivalent active low-footprint ones), being prepared for it being very basic ('out-of-the-box') and needing some work to "make the use less effort" if you have certain expectations. Or even go the Arch route of being expected to do quite a lot to build it up from the ground up to get a "fleshed out" personal installation.

I tend to avoid the *buntu family, for the opposite reason, they seemed to be often made as OOTB 'easy to use if you're coming from Windows' (or Mac), where I quite like some of the flexibility not to be hidden behind 'wizard helpers'. But generally you hear advice for new users to try something like Ubuntu (or Mint, a "more efficient" version of Ubuntu) for more seemless transition. Can't tell you what these types are like at the moment or what would suit you. But at least LiveCD/LiveUSB versions seem to be easy to try out without disrupting you current Win10, if you want to dip your toe in.

I guess how easy is it to switch to Linux?

Probably, if anything, too easy to switch (at least for a possibly unsatisfying or inconclusive taster). But whether you can discover a switch that you then want to stick with would depend upon what you are looking for and what example(s) you end up looking at. Could be a marriage made in heaven, or might need a few more swipe-rights to eventually get your ideal Tinder-equivalent of OS dates.


And I don't think I'm actually even a particularly up-to-date expert on all the possible options (like I said, I have avoided the whole *buntu 'family', and what I have recently used is more due to historic favouring and inertia than looking around for yet another "best option, for me". But, as far as generalising is concerned, I can probably... in general... cover a lot of the ground widely but sparsely. Someone else might be along shortly to let both of us know of any gross errors or notable omissions I've made.


[1] e.g. Taskbar>"Copilot in Windows (preview)" set to disabled, as with all things but "Task view" (no "Widgets", etc)

[2] But I don't actually  know how much the option of WSL/Windows Subsystem for Linux does to also "not run Windows" while doing its "not actually a VM" thing. It's advertised as removing the overhead of the dual-boot setup, which makes me think that the dual-booting is not what I think of as dual-booting.

[3] Assuming you still have any semblence of GUI, of course.

[anewaname]

You should see a variety of options when you google "disable and remove windows copilot"... This microsoft support page seems legit, it indicates that some earlier builds of win10 will not allow the removal but later versions will.

[McTraveller]

I've got a noisy computer fan, getting worse over time so I know it's bearings.  Anyone have any experience with lubricating fan bearings, or is this likely to be "replacement time"?

[Starver]

Doing a visual inspection (when stationary), you don't see any uneven blades (e.g. snapped off tips), do you? Always possible.

One thing I've never done is try to fix a fan internals. Likely that bearing issues are more fiddly (and cost-ineffective) than can be worth fixing at that level, compared to replacing a whole fan unit entirely. Or if you already are set up to repair scale model railway models/similar, with all the proper greases, spare bearings and fine tools.

I've found it quite easy to replace the more modular PSU or CPU/GPU fans (at least while Maplins was still trading), though it might depend upon a decent parts supplier for the more proprietry footprints and power/control leads (esp. laptop types).

With more detail, there may be better (and more accurate) advice. But, as far I can currently do, I'd suggest at least looking into a whole-fan transplant.

[Lord Shonus]

Even a "fancy" fan is unlikely to be more than thirty bucks. Even if it is repairable (which it likely isn't, they're not really designed for that), is it really worth the time you'd spend compared to simply swapping it?

[King Zultan]

I'll just say that I've never tried to fix a computer fan before but I have tried to fix larger fans and I've found that it never lasts more than a week or two before before it's back to squeaking and that's with greasing it, and it lasted about the same amount of time when I replaced the barring, so I wouldn't bother trying to fix it and just replace it.

[AzyWng]

So, been using EndeavourOS for a while now and realized (with help of some others on the forum) that I hadn’t updated my mirrors in quite some time. Now I have, but there’s a problem.

Previously I was using both my laptop monitor and a second monitor plugged into the laptop to give me two screens. Now only the plug-in monitor works. I can see the laptop monitor turn on and display images while it’s booting up, but as soon as I reach the login page only the plug-in monitor works - if I disconnect it, the laptop monitor does not turn back on. In my display manager, only the plug-in monitor shows up.

So far the only person who’s talked to me when I asked for help admitted they don’t know enough to help solve the issue. Can someone here help me? I want to be able to use my laptop monitor again.

[Starver]

(^^^ can't answer that, but sounds like some system/driver update landed funnily on your machine, reacting badly with your configs. But, talking of updates...)

Is it just me(/us), or has a Win11 update[1] changed keyboard metakey functionality?

It used to be possible in Explorer to do an <Alt>-F, W, <enter> to create a New Folder (with focus on it to give it its name). Unless, occasionally tab-focus had drifted over to make the <Alt> apply to some other submenuing part (cue resorting to the mouse cursor to have the "Files pane" of the Explorer window more relevent than the directory side-bar, which is marginally less fiddly than tab-tab-tabbing back to where it needs to be).

Similarly, the legacy <Alt>-F, H always granted access to the Open With… options, for a selected file. (Requires a single file to be chosen, which is a come-down from when you could sometimes do his with multiple files in some prior Windows versions.)


As of the last system update, the other week, though, all this <Alt>-F functionality (and other things, such as Compress To… and whatever else I might want to do without having to reach for the mouse/touchpad) seems to have evaporated.

As 'replacement' (probably was already there, as not-so-legacy functionality, but will need loads of muscle-memory retraining) using just <Alt> highlights the "New" in the top-bar, then press <space> to access the Folder(/Shorcut/Bitmap image/etc) options. Ok, only mildly different.

For file-right-click, keyboard access is via the <Windows menu key>, of course (though on the laptop's reduced keyboard layout this is via <Fn>-<Ctrl>). The actual Open With… no longer responds to the H, it requires six(?) down-cursors and a right-cursor (as the cursors have <Fn>-alternatives, all sorts of fun if (un)keying some things faster than others), which I find most annoying and will take far more time to fall back to.

Or, most annoying, resort to the mouse(/touchpad), totally disrupting my ergonomics!

(As to the regular user of the machine, they have enough trouble remembering when a click should be a rare case of the right-click. Hence why I have long since passed on the pretty much 'tried and trusted' decades-old keyboard shortcuts. Back to square one!)


Or has something been changed only on this machine? Haven't seen a sniff of a similar complaint out in the wider world (no, it's not a keyboard driver issue... which tends to be what the search engines return for most search queries I'm making), nor of any possible configuration that can be (un)set by me to revoke whatever happened here.

*grumble grumble* interface changes *groan groan* broken functionality *gripe gripe* aargh!


[1] It always seems to be on the evening when the machine is going to be run overnight when it pops up to tell me that it'll restart the machine whenever it wants to install the latest autoupdate. Can be delayed if you're at the keyboard, but  no way of saying "no, we're running something big, don't do it just because we're not actually there ourselves, in the small hours. (So, realise it'll do this => save/close things before starting => get the restart over with, manually => re-open everything again, how we just had it => then set it going overnight.)

[Ulfarr]

Do I understand this correctly?

PCIe cards/slots are backward/forward compatible and the x1/x4/x8/x16 are about the physical connectors and mostly affect the data transfer rate. So a pcie 4 x8 card can work in a pcie 3 x16 slot but it will behave as if it were a 3 x8 card so it's transfer rate will be limited to that of the 3 x8.

This limit should only become a bottleneck if the required transfer rate is larger than what the 3 x8 can provide, correct?

[Lord Shonus]

Any PCI Express card will work in any PCI Express slot so long as it physically fits. The card can't use any capabilities that it was not designed to use. Your understanding appears to be correct.

[Ulfarr]

Thanks