Continuing trends in computing — and your choices

Topic

New Reply

BEN’S WORKSHOP By Ben Myers Let Windows 11 and other major trends be your guide to greater productivity, reliability, and security. Computer hardware
[See the full post at: Continuing trends in computing — and your choices]

5 users thanked author for this post.

lmacri, DLivesInTexas, fisher75, abbodi86, windbg

Reply | Quote

Replies

Ben Myers wrote:

Make a perfect record of the information used to establish your personal Microsoft account. This includes your email address, password, device used for two-factor authentication, and your responses to all the questions about your first school, middle name of your great-grandmother on your father’s side, and other personal details.

Responses to questions are still not required.

Reply | Quote

Whether required or not, people still respond to them.  Last week, I dealt again with a problematic Microsoft account, working with a client who seemed to no longer have his Microsoft password, and some questions arose.  Had a similar incident a year ago with access to a Microsoft account from a Mac for purposes of moving Microsoft 365 from a failed Mac to a new one, and no info kept handy by computer owner.

Maybe the best way is to caution people is that they need to have their own readily accessible computer-produced, not handwritten, records of every bit of information entered in to establish online credentials, and not just for Microsoft.  In other words, do not depend strictly on password managers (they get hacked, anyway) or Microsoft or Google or any other entity to keep your credentials for you.

Reply | Quote

Ben Myers wrote:

Whether required or not, people still respond to them.

Illogical Captain.

One cannot respond to questions which have never been asked.

Name, email address and country are the only items asked for when creating a Microsoft Account:

How To Create a New Microsoft Account — 2023 [YouTube video]

Ben Myers wrote:

Maybe the best way is to caution people is that they need to have their own readily accessible computer-produced, not handwritten, records of every bit of information entered in to establish online credentials, and not just for Microsoft.

Are you really encouraging people to store passwords etc. in an ordinary computer file?

Ben Myers wrote:

In other words, do not depend strictly on password managers (they get hacked, anyway) or Microsoft or Google or any other entity to keep your credentials for you.

Which password managers (or other entities) have been hacked in a way that made users’ credentials unavailable (or even leaked them)?

Reply | Quote

How about simply computer-generated for legibility and either printed or saved on a flash stick for when it is needed?

PCMag and others have reported security issues with LastPass, which gets me wondering whether it and others are safe from intruders.  Here is a link to a Forbes article.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2023/03/03/why-you-should-stop-using-lastpass-after-new-hack-method-update

What is required for a Microsoft account in 2023 versus a year ago may well have changed.  I worked with a fellow who needed to move his Microsoft 365 from old dead Mac to new replacement Mac, and he was befuddled because he had no idea what his responses to various questions might have been, and no cell phone to help with authentication.  Couldn’t help.

 

Reply | Quote

Ben Myers wrote:

Microsoft’s increased emphasis on gaming in Windows 11, including the games you cannot uninstall from your computer, has stimulated the gaming computer market even more.

Which games cannot be uninstalled from Windows 11?

Reply | Quote

Microsoft’s built-in teaser games, cluttering up the program list accessible from the Start button.

Reply | Quote

(It took all of two seconds.)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Microfix

Reply | Quote

Thanks. I go back and forth between Windows 10 (tower) and Windows 11 (laptop) Pro, and Windows 10 23H2 does not seem to offer this possibility.

Reply | Quote

Ben Myers wrote:

Windows 10 23H2 does not seem to offer this possibility.

I’m not surprised there..

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

1 user thanked author for this post.

b

Reply | Quote

What’s not mentioned often enough about the difference between SSDs and conventional hard disks (aside from their relative speeds) is that with a little TLC, hard disks can last for years with no or minimal degradation despite large numbers of reads & writes. SSDs on the other hand have a definite limit to the total number of bytes that can be written to the media (reads are unlimited). Once a “spot” on an SSD has been written to dozens or hundreds of times, it will be worn out, and that “spot” will be logically replaced with a spot from the reserve area on the drive (about 5% of the drive is reserved).

Once all the reserve area is used up, the SSD may be on its last legs. This feature of SSD drives is why one should buy a larger SSD than you may need. If you buy 500GB drive, of which about 480GB is available, and you fill it with 450GB of mostly unchanging data, that leaves only 30GB for temporary or new, permanent data. All the writes to the disk will be concentrated in that 30GB area. As that area wears out, it will be replaced by the reserve, but that will quickly be exhausted and the drive will be toast.

If, on the other hand, you start with a 1TB (1000GB) SSD and the same amount of data, you’ll have 510GB of free space for your temporary or new data, and the wear will be spread out over that much larger area, significantly increasing the drive’s lifespan.

Side note: Limited write capacity is also why you should not wipe an SSD by writing all zeroes or random data to it, especially multiple time. It uses up some the total amount of bytes that can be written, and does not clear areas that have been swapped out for reserve area. Use the security erase feature of most SSDs to erase it by changing its internal encryption key to a new value. This is not to be confused with the drive’s hardware password, which limits drive access (and may encrypt the data), or the Bitlocker encryption key mentioned in the article.

Reply | Quote

Agree with what you’ve stated.

A laptop hard drive often suffers from less than TLC, even if only by accident.  It’s really difficult to recommend a hard drive for a laptop.  Tower and large desktop computers are different.

I am now outfitting systems with 1TB SSDs minimum, 2TB if people want to pay just a little more.  Larger SSDs do spread out the wear and tear on data blocks much better.  Twist my arm for a 500GB SSD, and I have a large (20+) collection of 256GB NVMe SSDs pulled from laptops for upgrades.

FWIW, the 256GB primary SSD, set up over 3 years ago and not brand new back then, on this system has 81% of its life remaining according to ClearDiskInfo, 19% of its spares used up.  I also have a second large SSD as the repository for all the stuff I download and save.  Sixty-four GB of memory in this system certainly minimizes any activity to swap data and programs in and out of memory to make room for others.  I might expect another 2-3 years out of the primary SSD, but I think I’ll replace it in the next year to be more secure about SSD failure.

Reply | Quote

Really enjoy your articles, Ben. I’ve set up just two new computers this year for home customers and have had a rough time getting OneDrive out of the picture (to save everything locally). I finally got it done but it took way too much time. After doing some searching, I’ve yet to find the definitive steps to take (or I just haven’t searched well enough to find the consistent steps that will work). Since I’m getting ready to set up another new computer in January, I’m hoping that you or a forum participant might have a fool proof To Do list to change a new Windows 11 computer from storing Desktop, Documents, Pictures, etc. from OneDrive to the local drive. Thanks.

Reply | Quote

Thank you for your kind remarks.

Set up one with a local account.  I am pretty sure (not 100%) that one needs a Microsoft account to use OneDrive semi-automatically against ones wishes.  Of course, having a local account keeps one away from all the Microsoft products and services.

I also have to look at my Windows 11 laptop running the latest to see what, if anything, is done to prevent OneDrive from intervening.  I am unaware of anything to do with OneDrive when I use the laptop.

I suppose you could always remove OneDrive from the list of programs that start up automatically.  CCleaner does a better job with more fine-grained control at this than Windows Task Manager.  And you know that one has to be prepared with disable OneDrive again after every Patch Tuesday update.

 

Reply | Quote

Steps I took to prevent OneDrive on Windows 10 Pro:

cd C:\Windows\SysWOW64
OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

Group Policy Change:
Modified Computer Config / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / OneDrive /
Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage = Enabled

These are with Windows knowing about a Microsoft Account used for an older but still updated Microsoft Office.

Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.

2 users thanked author for this post.

wavy, NaNoNyMouse

Reply | Quote

Ooooooh!  That’s really good.  Thank you.

Reply | Quote