4 ms·

I have a love and hate relationship with this type of tools. On one hand, I want to remove all that I don't need and keep my privacy on my computer; on the oth

I have a love and hate relationship with this type of tools. On one hand, I want to remove all that I don't need and keep my privacy on my computer; on the other I don't want to have to fiddle and google why the Windows update failed. Because, I stopped counting how many times one of those registry changes/app removal actually broke Windows update. In the end, I just run other software like StartAllBack that I can easily uninstall if it causes issues when updating Windows.

causi 3y ago
How's StartAllBack compare to other software like Start11?
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Afaik is the only one that supports a vertical sidebar.
  - officeplant 3y ago
    What about top
    - causi 3y ago
      The one thing I miss about Vista is the ability to have the whole My Computer menu bar across the top of your desktop.
    - Semaphor 3y ago
      Yeah, works as well. But IIRC most taskbar replacements support that.
  - causi 3y ago
    I wish there was one of these Start replacement programs that expanded the functionality instead of just giving back what Microsoft has taken from us. How about a Taskbar that auto-hides but only after a certain amount of time? How about a Taskbar that expands to show additional rows when you have a lot of windows open and hides itself when you don't?
    - Semaphor 3y ago
      It has some other features, I just don’t need them. I was perfectly happy with the Windows taskbar as it was, all that was missing was a sane position for it, as, unlike the MS devs, I do not have a portrait monitor (at least that’s the only¹ reason I can think of for forcing people to use a horizontal taskbar). ¹: Yes, that’s hyperbole.
n4te 3y ago
I use Sledgehammer to control when Windows Update runs and which updates it installs.
toyg 3y ago
> times one of those registry changes/app removal actually broke Windows update. If there is an option in Registry, it's clearly an acceptable use-case. The truth is that Microsoft developers are lazy (like most devs) and just fail to test their updates properly - or even intentionally ship broken software, in order to force this or that option back to its (typically privacy-invasive) default.
- Arainach 3y ago
  That's not true at all. The contents of the registry are not a documented public API. They have no support guarantee. Some keys are documented, but those are not what these tools modify and are not the ones that cause problems. "I deleted a whole bunch of stuff in xorg.conf and my graphics started flickering" is not the fault of Xorg needing more tests.
  - toyg 3y ago
    These options are more like "I deleted a whole bunch of stuff in xorg.conf and my apt-get can't apply patches to KMail". An update-delivery mechanism shouldn't break because the user doesn't want to see ads or run Teams at startup. If the problem is that Windows Update cannot work unless all patches apply flawlessly, then that's a failure of design. If the problem is that the patches themselves assume that things they provide as options might not be set how they wish them to be set, then that's a failure of testing.
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
      > If the problem is that Windows Update cannot work unless all patches apply flawlessly, then that's a failure of design. Not at all, it's better for an update to just immediately fail due to unsupported changes made to the OS than potentially leave the system in a unstable state. Windows was going to move to an image-based OS where updates would be atomic, but sadly that never happened (Windows 10X)
      - toyg 3y ago

causi 3y ago

How's StartAllBack compare to other software like Start11?

Semaphor 3y ago
Afaik is the only one that supports a vertical sidebar.
- officeplant 3y ago
  What about top
  - causi 3y ago
    The one thing I miss about Vista is the ability to have the whole My Computer menu bar across the top of your desktop.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Yeah, works as well. But IIRC most taskbar replacements support that.
- causi 3y ago
  I wish there was one of these Start replacement programs that expanded the functionality instead of just giving back what Microsoft has taken from us. How about a Taskbar that auto-hides but only after a certain amount of time? How about a Taskbar that expands to show additional rows when you have a lot of windows open and hides itself when you don't?
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    It has some other features, I just don’t need them. I was perfectly happy with the Windows taskbar as it was, all that was missing was a sane position for it, as, unlike the MS devs, I do not have a portrait monitor (at least that’s the only¹ reason I can think of for forcing people to use a horizontal taskbar). ¹: Yes, that’s hyperbole.

n4te 3y ago

I use Sledgehammer to control when Windows Update runs and which updates it installs.

toyg 3y ago

> times one of those registry changes/app removal actually broke Windows update. If there is an option in Registry, it's clearly an acceptable use-case. The truth is that Microsoft developers are lazy (like most devs) and just fail to test their updates properly - or even intentionally ship broken software, in order to force this or that option back to its (typically privacy-invasive) default.

Arainach 3y ago
That's not true at all. The contents of the registry are not a documented public API. They have no support guarantee. Some keys are documented, but those are not what these tools modify and are not the ones that cause problems. "I deleted a whole bunch of stuff in xorg.conf and my graphics started flickering" is not the fault of Xorg needing more tests.
- toyg 3y ago
  These options are more like "I deleted a whole bunch of stuff in xorg.conf and my apt-get can't apply patches to KMail". An update-delivery mechanism shouldn't break because the user doesn't want to see ads or run Teams at startup. If the problem is that Windows Update cannot work unless all patches apply flawlessly, then that's a failure of design. If the problem is that the patches themselves assume that things they provide as options might not be set how they wish them to be set, then that's a failure of testing.
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    > If the problem is that Windows Update cannot work unless all patches apply flawlessly, then that's a failure of design. Not at all, it's better for an update to just immediately fail due to unsupported changes made to the OS than potentially leave the system in a unstable state. Windows was going to move to an image-based OS where updates would be atomic, but sadly that never happened (Windows 10X)
    - toyg 3y ago