One thing I did when I was in Portland two weeks ago was I bought a new laptop computer. I wanted to buy in the US because I could get a laptop with the Windows operating system in English – if you buy a laptop in Korea, it will speak Korean to you (meaning all the system error messages, all the setup and config, etc.), and Microsoft has a ridiculous policy whereby if you want to change an operating system's language, you have to buy the operating system again!
The reason to buy in Oregon, specifically, is that Oregon has no sales tax. So I bought the computer there. And now I have it here in Korea.
After more or less being content with my Linux-based resurrection of my old Korean desktop, it's a bit rough transitioning my computer habits back to Windows. Of course, I use Korean-speaking Windows at work, but I won't be taking my desktop back to the US, so I needed a new laptop for all my home-based stuff, especially my geofictioning and server-development hobby, such as it is.
Windows 10 is smooth and professional, of course, but it really gets on my nerves. It makes assumptions about the way a person might want to work, which run counter to how I prefer to work.
I have hacked the registry numerous times, already, to get it to behave the way I want. In each case, the steps are as follows: 1) hack the registry to make visible some system option that is already built into the system, 2) set the option the way I want. Why do they hide these options?
First and foremost, I had to kill off the deeply annoying Cortana. What is this, Clippy on opioids? Smooth but insidious, I was compelled to kill it off during my first hours of ownership. I have since had to find ways to prevent the system from insisting on connecting to my Microsoft account (if I want to share things with Microsoft, I'll do so on a case by case basis, right?), to prevent it from going to screen saver when I leave my computer unattended (how is this not a default-accessible option?), and to better manage how it behaves with respect to its power-management options.
Sigh. I'll get used to it.
Meanwhile, just for the heck of it, I got it running dual monitors, by hooking the laptop up to my desktop monitor as well as the laptop's. Thus, in the picture below, I can do email and websurfing on one monitor, while I hack around on my server on the other monitor.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Does “killing off the deeply annoying Cortana” mean that you were able to remove the extremely frustrating, time-sucking, initial Windows 10 log-in screen that shows you pictures of exotic locales in the hopes that you will click on a link to the Microsoft browser to get more information? If you might possibly be able to get rid of that on my university-issued Windows 10 laptop, I would happily drive to visit you in Portland for that purpose, when the time comes.