No, not that resurrection. That resurrection weekend is still two weeks away. This was about as far from that as one can get.
Back in '18, I needed a little computer that could run my Computerized Battery Analyzer (CBA-IV) and since the native software is Windows, ended up buying a small computer probably more intended for running an audio-visual setup of some kind, called a NUC, made by Intel. It was fine for that, but it's a Windows 10 box (pretty sure it was my first introduction to Win 10) and like all Windows versions, it slows down over time as the OS gets more bloated. As I wrote about in July '21, when I told the story of getting 3D Printer control program called Pronterface running:
To make the long story short it took a couple of days to get that to work. Hours upon hours of those days were waiting for Windows to stop doing shit so I could do what I wanted to. With machines that aren't on regularly, Windoze 10 is a giant Pain In The Ass - calling home and tying up the machine literally for hours over my WiFi network.
This is a computer I run maybe every few months for a day or two or maybe less than that.
Like all Windows10 computers I've seen, there's no place to tell it that I
don't want it to play music files, or show me videos. I want it to run
my battery analyzer or talk to my printer interactively. Still, every
time I turn it on, it has to go look for security updates, and if I have a
battery to test that I think is going to run for hours, I need to turn the NUC on
two hours before I can start. And every few cycles of that, I have to sit around and tell it, no I don't want to pay for your cloud storage, I don't want to sync my Android phone because I don't even have one, I don't want your browser because this little machine doesn't need to have a browser on it, and a bunch more crap.
Plus it does other things I personally find annoying, like changing my desktop
picture to something I have on one of my other computers. Doesn't
anybody at Microsoft who designs this software think that a user might have more
than one picture they want on their computers? And they might not want them all to look the same? How about interacting with software like, "when I want it to do something, I'll ask?"
As a result, I got pretty tired of putting up with the NUC and realized I
still have the computer that used to be my desktop here, that was replaced in
November of '19. The NUC is on top of the older Dell desktop.
Resurrecting that computer and getting it to run the way it should has been
the big job this weekend. I can't say I'm done, yet. The biggest problem was that the little CR2032 battery used to backup the clock (and whatever else) had died and getting it to even boot up took most of yesterday. Since it's a Win 7 machine, long out of support, I don't want it going out on the network. There are no updates for it to go find and install, so no need for WiFi to be on. That might be part of what's slowing it down, but I really don't want it calling home all day long to check on something.
It still
takes it far too long to do simple tasks like uninstalling a file, and I'm
troubleshooting that. The root problem, though, is that I haven't had to do anything like this in years, and it has been longer since I had to work on a Win 7 machine. The other Win 7 computer I have (runs the CNC mills and lathe) has been off the network since Win 7 went away. It does what I need, when I need it to, every time I turn it on.
Pugsley just resurrected an old 486DX he bought at a yard sale for $5. He had it working on a VGA monitor, and managed to connect the modem up to the internet, so he had old-school level web pages. Good times.
ReplyDeleteWhere did he find an ISP that still supports dialup?
DeleteHe hooked it in with ethernet.
DeleteIn Win 10, you can "pause" updates. It is under "settings."
ReplyDeleteYou.ve been able to do that since Windoze came out and they started that "automatic update crap". Some Registry edits on the older versions.
DeleteCan't you also simply remove the network? Surely it isn't stupid enough that it won't work without it. You can also shut off "Windows Telemetry" which is basically a spy program "for product improvement".
DeleteI have an old 2012 copy of Autodesk Inventor that I can't do without, but it doesn't install on anything newer than Win8.1, so I went out and got a standalone install of W8.1 so Microsoft could never, ever take my CAD program away from me.
Having worked on PCs from their inception, and also having experience with NUCs, the hardware ain't the problem - it's the software, baby.
ReplyDeleteDo what I did - get a Raspberry Pi 400 and use THAT to run your stuff. A little work tweaking it to run my 3014 CNC but well worth the effort. Lots and lots and LOTS of stuff available as freeware, just gotta look for it and maybe a compile or two for software programs...
Best $100 I ever spent!
That works, to an extent. What doesn't work is needing to run something that doesn't run on Linux. Yeah, maybe, just maybe, you can get it to work with Wine, but I've not had good luck with that. Lots of neat stuff - you need Windoze, or maybe a Mac. Fusion 360, for example. Or the software to program your ham radio.
DeleteI keep an old laptop here, with Win7 on it, but there'll come a day when vendor-supplied software won't run on it, either.
-- jed
There actually is a couple ways of doing what you want SiG.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tool that lets you configure your current installation of Win10/11
christitus.com/windows-tool/
And the other is a new install with something called Tiny10.
You'll have to search to find it.
Win7 was one of their better releases - I would spend the $40 and put in a solid-state hard drive and see about more memory. You will be amazed at the performance boost.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-500GB-SA510-Internal/dp/B09ZYPTXS4
My desktop is 12 years old - running Win10 with SSD and maxed out memory. Perfectly fine for surfing, watching videos, etc....
You can pause win10 updates for 7 days, and extend the pause to a certain point, but it will eventually resume updates. You can set the ethernet connection to metered and tell it not to update over a metered connection, but I imagine that win 10 would eventually balk at the lack of updates.
ReplyDelete
Delete"pause win10 updates for 7 days,"
Or you can use tool I posted from Chris Titus to set them to 'security only' or even disable them completely.
It's a very powerful tool and it lets you disable and safety uninstall a lot of the system bloat & spyware.