People who changed to Windows 10, do you have any tips and tricks for a first time windows user ?

[OtisCorporation]

As the title says, in the near future i will change from macOS to Windows 10. So it would be great if some of you, which have changed to Windows 10 as their daily driver, can exchange their experience and maybe some tricks that could make the change easier. 

I want to change, because i need more "power" for video editing and maybe in the future some gaming. I never used a PC which runs Windows, not even in school, because we have Macs there. Here are some questions i have, and maybe if you have some advice, feel free to share it with me. 

1. What about Virus protection? Which software do you use? Whats  important ?
2. I don't really get the whole "driver software" thing. What do i have to do?
3. Tips for a great workflow 
4. Any useful software for a Windows 10 noobie 

Thank you to everybody who gives me an advice. 

[19_blackie_73]

1.) the best virus protection is you, don't click any fishy download links etc, but afaik windows defender is decent in this iteration, and there are a ton of freeware like avira and avast that do a decent job.

2.) are you building a pc yourself? then you need to install the drivers, just like any other program in windows: download the .exe files from your board manufacturer and double click them and you're good to go. If you buy a laptop or a prebuilt pc (which i don't recommend), you don't have to worry bout that part. There are a ton of youtube videos of the whole first install routine on youtube, and most times windows will even download the necessary drivers itself if you have internet connection. Be sure to not select quick install, because windows will use strange settings.

3.) Workflow for video editing or what? Most times you need to find that part out yourself, how you edit the most efficient way personally.

4.) Some things like Microsoft office (if you like to pay) or Libre/OpenOffice are required for spreadsheet work and writing texts, anything else depends on you personally and what you do. the built-in photo viewer is decent in win 10, watching movies, browsing the web, listen to music etc. is also possible without extra software so just see how good you can work with the standard stuff from windows.

 

 

EDIT: just for explanation:

drivers are the little "programs" that let the hardware function correctly, it builts a correct communication path between the os and the hardware (your motherboard, cpu, gpu and so on)

[Princess Luna]

Okay here is what I use based on your questions:

 

1. I use ESET NOD32 Antivirus as it is probably one of the best in the market, allied with MalwareBytes you have a very strong line of defense should you need though do keep in mind that thes softwares should be your last resource as good sense means more.

 

2. I know some people will hate me for this but Iobits Driver Booster can be used if you want the fastest and easiest way to update drivers in one click

 

3. Use Classic Shell to revive the old start menu which I consider much easier to use which improves productivity, you can revive the old windows photo viewer through registry, there are plenty guides on google, I particulary use Media Player Classic for music and videos as it is super light and easy to use, also clean (for those with the old habit of having physical files and doing the libraries through windows explorer itself I consider this the best solution). You'll want to use Spybot Anti-Beacon; it isn't the most perfect way to get rid of telemetry but it does help out.

 

4. This is relative to your usage, Windows 10 is awesome with its new native supports you no longer need a uncompression application as Windows supports it natively (though I would still advise getting WinRAR), it also natively supports the .iso format finally no longer you need tools like DAEMON.

 

If you would like further instructions I would happily reply I personally love Windows10 after you customize it well enough to be like the good old Win7 in terms of functionality.

 

My cheap laptop desktop right now:

 

[OtisCorporation]

Thank you for your reply.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, OtisCorporation said:

As the title says, in the near future i will change from macOS to Windows 10. So it would be great if some of you, which have changed to Windows 10 as their daily driver, can exchange their experience and maybe some tricks that could make the change easier. 

I want to change, because i need more "power" for video editing and maybe in the future some gaming. I never used a PC which runs Windows, not even in school, because we have Macs there. Here are some questions i have, and maybe if you have some advice, feel free to share it with me. 

1. What about Virus protection? Which software do you use? Whats  important ?
2. I don't really get the whole "driver software" thing. What do i have to do?
3. Tips for a great workflow 
4. Any useful software for a Windows 10 noobie 

Thank you to everybody who gives me an advice. 

Sure!

 

(1)- Windows 10 has a builtin anti-virus and anti-malware protection. It is pretty good one. Its focus is on giving you decent protection without affecting your system performance. But the paying and third party ones will usually be better in terms of protections. And then it comes down to what you prefer. Some solution will really hurt your system performance, even make Windows takes a long time to startup, but it scans everything, aggressively, and uses multiple algorithms, other uses different algorithms that are less taxing on the system, but gives you less protection, especially when it comes to new viruses or malware. On this forum, Avast is a popular choice I see thrown around. Personally I just what is built-in the OS. I seek max performance. Around twice a year or so, I temporarily install MalwareBytes to do an anti-malware scan, but that is just to be sure.

 

The reality of things, is that while it COULD happen that a ad platform on a site or a website is compromised and exploits a security flaw in your web browser to inject a type of virus or malware, these incidents are rare. And keeping all your software fully updated, is a great way to give you protection against such rare attack. If you stick on trusted web sites, don't download illegal content, your chances of getting anything is very low. Some common sense gets you pretty far, and really the best protection.

 

Keep in mind, that an anti-virus is about prevention. It is all about to scan file you download BEFORE you execute them (although, some exploits via security hole in a software can make the software execute it for you.. but those are rare especially if you keep things fully updated and use safe and secure, well maintained software). While an anti-virus will remove a executed virus, keep in mind that any modified system files, won't be repaired.

 

What can help you from an attack, if it ever happens? Windows System Restore feature. Windows allows you to take your system 'back in time' without affecting your personal files. System restore points are made every time you install a software (you'll notice that when you install a software the progress bar gets stuck at 0% for a moment... this is when a restore point is created), or do a Windows Update. If that fails, well you can re-install Windows.

 

A recommendation I always say: Tell Windows to show file extensions. Under Windows, the OS works by file association. *.exe's are executable. *.jpg is a JPEG image, etc. Under Linux based OS, executable works by file permissions. So you can make a .txt file as executable, which can screw you. Here it is simple, the extension determine what it will run. Many e-mail attacks, are file attachment where they have names like: Image.jpg.exe, and makes the program icon like it is an image. For the computer illiterate, who didn't set to always show file extension they'll see: "Image.jpg", and run it, and get infected. If you have had file extension to show set, then you would know that it would bean executable form the .exe at the end.

 

Windows has a list of executable:

• *.exe,
• *.msi (not a real executable by itself, but launched Microsoft Installer. Many setup programs uses Microsoft Installer, and so are: *.msi files)
• *.bat (Batch file. List of a command prompt files. See it as a Shell script for Windows)
• *.ps (PowerShell Script file. PowerShell is a more powerful command prompt),
• *.inf (Script file for Windows to install drivers. You need to right-click on them, and pick "Install" to run the script. Double clicking on them will open in Notepad text editor software by default)
• *.COM (Legacy from before Windows 95 days)
• *.SCR (Screen Saver executable file)
• *.VB, *.VBS, *.VBE (Visual Basic script executable. This was made for IT where they need more power to do things then making command line/powershell scripts, without the need to install dev software or know complex languages as C#, or C/C++, and such. But these days PowerShell is pretty powerful, and VB is something you don't see often).

99.99% of the time, you'll see *.exe (for program setups and executable if you look through your system files), and *.msi (for program setups). The rest is rare.

 

Also, you need know about User Account Control dialog (UAC):

 

This is your last line of defense. In Windows, since Vista, no one is truly the administrator (root). Any programs that wants to modify any system files or system level registry, or do anything that affects more than your account, you will be prompted with the above alert box. Clicking on OK, make Windows grant the program access to your system.

So if you open, say an image file, and the above pop-ups. You know something is strange. Why would an image need to do system files changes? It doesn't, click-on Cancel, and delete the file. The file probably has a virus.

 

 

 

(2)- Nothing for most cases. So Windows is an OS that needs to run on billion of hardware (not to mention all possible configurations). Drivers is a piece of software that tells the OS how the hardware works.

Things to know about hardware and drivers:

• Most hardware have a "safe mode", where it works if no driver is installed, but won't give you the performance or feature set you seek. For example, if you don't have your GPU drivers installed for your graphics card, then you'll still have an image on the screen. But you'll have terrible performance, and the resolution of the screen will be very low.
   
• Some tech are so old that they don't need drivers. Windows has a variety of built-in drivers to work technologies that have well been standardized or the OS has been designed to work with. For example, your HDD, SSD, CPU, optical disk drive, USB controller, Ethernet card, are all technology that requires no drivers. Even if you go to the manufacture website, you'll see no drivers. The OS already knows how to work with them, and no additional features needs to be supported. For example, Windows knows the well established, standard, set of commands to send to your HDD or SSD to fetch or write data. Unless, your HDD has additional features like has a fall sensor to park the read/write head on the side when your laptop, when turned on, falls to avoid the head to crash form the hit on the disk plater and you lose your data, no drivers are needed. Unless Windows added native support for it. For example: USB 3.0 is fully supported in Windows 10. You don't need to install any drivers to get it working. However, under Windows 7, it has no idea what USB 3.0 is. It needs drivers.
   
• Windows has generic drivers. To ensure a working system, even from most no longer supported hardware from your manufacture, Windows has generic driver. This is when Microsoft works with manufactures to build a driver that will work on a variety of similar hardware to get most functionality working (which can also be all, with all the performance expected).
   
• Windows will do the digging for you. Every time you plug a new hardware, from a keyboard, to mouse, to a graphics card, or a newly built-PC where you start Windows for the first time, Windows will connect to Microsoft very own servers via Windows Update, and fetch the latest drivers it has collected, and install them. Fail doing so (say, you don't have Internet), it will use what it has within the OS, failing that, it will use the generic drivers if it can. And if that fails, well the hardware won't work. It will run under safe mode, or not work. While most hardware manufactured sends to Microsoft their drivers for distribution, sadly, some refuses to do so. And those hardware is the only time you need to worry about going to the manufacture website to get the drivers there. OR if you really want to get the latest and greatest drivers, and Windows Update servers might not have those at the moment.

How to know if you are missing a driver? Well if everything works right, you are good. But if you want to be sure:

Hit Win+X to open the power menu, and pick Device Manager. It should look like this:

 

If you have "?" icon on an item, that means that Windows doesn't know what it is. It is missing its drivers.

If you have "!" icon on an item, that means that Windows has detected that the hardware is not working right. Either it is not plugged in properly, really broken, or missing drivers.

 

 

 

(3)- Windows 10 has a lot of feature to improve your workflow.

• Sync Windows settings between your Windows 10 devices that uses the same Microsoft joined account.
• Virtual Desktop.
• Resume where you left off on the other system (more or less) via Cortana
• Start menu search box (see it like Spotlight)
• Customizable Start menu.
• Pin programs to the task bar for easy access (you can also run them via Win key + # where # is the icon order from left to right)
• Snap window side-by-side between each other, and adjust the size of the 2 window by scaling the separation bar between both programs. You can even do 1x2 snapping, or 2x2 snapping (4 programs)
• The OS works great if you have multiple monitors as well
• For laptops that uses Microsoft Precision Touch driver of Windows 10 (built-in). You have a multitude of OSX like gestures, that are customizable via the Settings panel.
• OneDrive
• People Hub (coming end of year)
• Live tiles on the start menu
• Open Command Prompt / PowerShell here (On a folder, click on File, and you have the option there)
• and more.

 

Here are settings I use to setup my Windows 10:

1. Open a File Explorer (or any folder), and go to View > Options. A panel will open. Go to View tab, and in the list bellow:
   1. Uncheck - "Show sync provider notifications" (this is to remove any programs including in Windows 10 for showing a pop-up in File Explorer)
   2. Uncheck - "Hide extension for known file types" (this is to show file extensions).
       
2. Same panel as above, go under the General tab, and under the Privacy group, uncheck both check boxes: "Show recently used files in Quick access", "Show frequently used folders in Quick access", and on the top of the panel, still under the General tab, you have the drop down list box: "Open File Explorer to", and pick This PC. This will make that when you open the File Explorer, you see your drivers and work folder first and not recent files. Click on OK to set and close the panel.
    
3. Open the Settings (Start > Click on the Gear icon). Then go to System > Notifications & actions > and turn off: Show notifications on the lock screen, as well as: Get tips, trick, suggestions as you use Windows (that is up to you).
   
   Then hit the back button at the top, left corner of the settings panel, or click on "Home", and click on Personalization > Start, and turn off: Occasionally show suggestions in Start.
    

Windows 10 has lots of options, I suggest to browse through the settings panel, and try them. See what you like or not.

 

(3) - Hmm... well software I never used, but you might like:

Checkout WOX. Its free, open source. It is a OSX Spotlight for Windows.

http://www.getwox.com/

 

I tend to use Windows vanilla, as I can customize it to my needs, and find it the most productive. For example, for the above, I just hit the Win key, and type part of the program name i want and hit Enter, like WOX seems to be doing. So for Example, I can do: Win key, then type: Fir, and hit Enter, and Firefox opens.

 

But it is always nice to have options.

 

One thing you'll quickly notice in Windows, is that you have many different ways to do or get to the same things. So pick the way you like :). In this post, I tried to provide a few different ways to do things and not the same way, for you to discover a bit Windows 10.   For example, when I introduced Device Manager, I could have simply said: In the search box of Windows, type: Device Manager, and pick it, but I pushed for you to discover the Power Menu (Win+X)