What You've Done Today - As the World Turns

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby finally getting around to watching season 2 of Stranger Things (we saw the first episode or two of it but never the rest of it).  I walked by and was all "Paul Reiser was in this? I don't remember that. Oh my god, he got old!"  (my memory of him is still stuck in the 80's/90's)

Hubby:  "If he grew old, so did we."
Me:  "lalala I can't hear you."

Edited March 18, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[ComradeYellow]

That moment you see your bank account buffed by $1400...

Time to buy some lottery tickets so all that money goes right back to the gvt xD

People should encourage state gambling, I mean what better way to buff the treasury than to buy tickets?

[Guard Dog]

I bought Stellaris Nemisis, the Lords of the North content pack for Crusader Kings 3, the Heirs of Alexander content pack for Imperator Rome, & OOTP 22. The other $1357 I’m sure I’ll just waste. 

[Malcador]

1 minute ago, Guard Dog said:

The other $1357 I’m sure I’ll just waste. 

You can spend that on the DLC.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Malcador

[LadyCrimson]

Phone cameras:  there's that certain distance and lighting where they do fairly well. 

And then there is ...

...nope, that doesn't work for me.

[Hurlshort]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

You can spend that on the DLC.

Might need to wait for a sale to get it all.

It was a pretty big relief that we received ours. Helps get us a bit closer to paying off debt. 

[Azdeus]

Worked, and I'm now watching a documentary about the Swedish 1985 November Revolution. Because I can never be angry enough at banking and economists.

A brilliant idea that took us from 7th in GDP per capita with a fair spread down to 17th in short time.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Azdeus

[Bartimaeus]

I recently built a new PC. I've been using Windows 7 for the past decade+, and this new PC unfortunately required that I go to Windows 10. I do not like Windows 10 for a variety of reasons, a big one being its asinine UAC settings that are difficult to turn off. I've had UAC off on Windows 7 for the last decade with nary an incident: in theory, it's good security...in theory. I decided to grit my teeth and give it a chance, and...well, I lasted just about 36 hours after I switched the new PC to be my main PC before I wanted to punt the entire thing into the lake. But instead, I looked some stuff up and completely nuked all of Windows' UAC via some registry edits. Everything runs as admin all the time without needing to double do everything or right-clicking and hitting "run as admin"...and my stuff isn't breaking constantly anymore. I'm not running trashberg Linux here where I have to properly chmod and then sudo every freaking thing I want to do, guys - enough is enough.

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I recently built a new PC. I've been using Windows 7 for the past decade+, and this new PC unfortunately required that I go to Windows 10. I do not like Windows 10 for a variety of reasons, a big one being its asinine UAC settings that are difficult to turn off. I've had UAC off on Windows 7 for the last decade with nary an incident: in theory, it's good security...in theory. I decided to grit my teeth and give it a chance, and...well, I lasted just about 36 hours after I switched the new PC to be my main PC before I wanted to punt the entire thing into the lake. But instead, I looked some stuff up and completely nuked all of Windows' UAC via some registry edits. Everything runs as admin all the time without needing to double do everything or right-clicking and hitting "run as admin"...and my stuff isn't breaking constantly anymore. I'm not running trashberg Linux here where I have to properly chmod and then sudo every freaking thing I want to do, guys - enough is enough.

Got a link for that?

[Sarex]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I recently built a new PC. I've been using Windows 7 for the past decade+, and this new PC unfortunately required that I go to Windows 10. I do not like Windows 10 for a variety of reasons, a big one being its asinine UAC settings that are difficult to turn off. I've had UAC off on Windows 7 for the last decade with nary an incident: in theory, it's good security...in theory. I decided to grit my teeth and give it a chance, and...well, I lasted just about 36 hours after I switched the new PC to be my main PC before I wanted to punt the entire thing into the lake. But instead, I looked some stuff up and completely nuked all of Windows' UAC via some registry edits. Everything runs as admin all the time without needing to double do everything or right-clicking and hitting "run as admin"...and my stuff isn't breaking constantly anymore. I'm not running trashberg Linux here where I have to properly chmod and then sudo every freaking thing I want to do, guys - enough is enough.

You are going to love the file/folder ownership then. Even some registry keys have ownership set to system (or some such thing), which even the admin can't change.

[Bartimaeus]

26 minutes ago, Azdeus said:

Got a link for that?

I believe this ended up being the winning post:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/716719/run-all-programs-as-admin-by-default/?p=4975198

The description from the user is a little misleading, since it seems to suggest that changing the key simply allows the hidden super Administrator account to run everything without needing approval, but changing the key as suggested had UAC prompt me to restart immediately and upon logging back into my normal administrator user account (i.e. not the hidden super Administrator), everything UAC-related was gone. You'll know that it's working if you open a terminal (either PowerShell or cmd should be fine) without specifying it to run as admin and it still shows itself as being Administrator-elevated at the top.

@Sarex Yeah, I know there are still some permissions stuff outside of the UAC stuff (for example, I still can't just start deleting files out of system32 like you could in Windows 7), but at the very least it ends 99% of the daily annoyances. Like good lord, I was having to run my mouse software in administrator mode in order for my mouse to interact with other administrator-elevated applications. I was about to have a brain aneurysm trying to figure out why I could interact with regedit with one mouse but it was completely ignoring the one I actually wanted to use - never experienced something like that before. Ended up restarting my mouse software in administrator mode and suddenly it let me. Alright, cool...so long, UAC.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

User segregation's a good security idea, though just causes headaches.  I need to build a new PC I think, should start picking parts (that I can actually buy)

[Bartimaeus]

It's definitely a good idea, but Microsoft not creating a straightforward way to disable it (especially for those of us who have *always* been perfectly fine with UAC disabled over the last fifteen years), not having a reverse option to start from an elevated mode and instead de-elevate (how hard would it be to have either a "run as standard user" or a "run in sandbox" feature?), etc., leaves a lot to be desired.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

The only time UAC annoyed me was when I was trying to remotely fix something on a colleagues PC, it wouldn't show me the prompt and I would think the process froze and on the other side the user had no idea that he should click yes or even tell me that there was an option to click.

[Sarex]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's definitely a good idea, but Microsoft not creating an easy to disable it, not having a reverse option to start from an elevated mode and instead de-elevate (how hard would it be to have either a "run as standard user" or a "run in sandbox" feature?), etc., leaves a lot to be desired.

This has been the case since Windows XP, they are trying to streamline everything and I think to make it purposefully harder to access advance options.

[Malcador]

Yep I miss the Control Panel of old.  I used to just have a root user and a normal one and do things that way, of course on the current PC I got too lazy for that.

[Bartimaeus]

4 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Yep I miss the Control Panel of old.  I used to just have a root user and a normal one and do things that way, of course on the current PC I got too lazy for that.

I really hate the Control Panel/Settings mess. One or the other, please...and considering how much of a disaster Settings is, I'd prefer bringing back Control Panel, but I know that isn't happening.

[majestic]

I don't know guys, they're doing something right. I know it's annoying for us, but honestly... the amount of times I had to fix crewman #6's Windows (either at work or for friends and family) because they accidentially clicked themselves back to the computerized stone age has been approaching zero since Windows 8. Except for ransomware problems. Can't fix people clicking and not paying attention when they see an email with big_boobies.wmv.exe attached.

Last thing I need is a simple "click here to disable all the annoying warnings and trash your computer easily" button.

#sickandtiredafter30yearsofgivingsupport

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

20 minutes ago, majestic said:

Can't fix people clicking and not paying attention when they see an email with big_boobies.wmv.exe attached

At this point anyone who needs an email to find that on the internet is hopeless.

[Malcador]

34 minutes ago, majestic said:

I don't know guys, they're doing something right. I know it's annoying for us, but honestly... the amount of times I had to fix crewman #6's Windows (either at work or for friends and family) because they accidentially clicked themselves back to the computerized stone age has been approaching zero since Windows 8. Except for ransomware problems. Can't fix people clicking and not paying attention when they see an email with big_boobies.wmv.exe attached.

Last thing I need is a simple "click here to disable all the annoying warnings and trash your computer easily" button.

#sickandtiredafter30yearsofgivingsupport

Yep.  Unfortunately, we can't get local admin on our laptops. So I have to watch WIndows eat up my hard drive with logs, old installers, patches, etc. and can't even run the Disk Cleanup tool without bothering IT for it.  I get the point, but is annoying. Let me shoot my foot off, damn it!

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I really hate the Control Panel/Settings mess. One or the other, please...and considering how much of a disaster Settings is, I'd prefer bringing back Control Panel, but I know that isn't happening.

Not only is it not happening but the current control panel is getting the axe soon (or at least they have been saying that for a couple of releases now).

[LadyCrimson]

I just turned UAC slider all the way down and haven't had any issues since.  But I probably don't do anything that triggers anything, since I know that technically doesn't turn UAC completely completely off.  I also haven't updated Win10 in a year or more, turning them completely off in Group Policy.

Only time I update an o/s istuff s when a game I want to play refuses to run if I don't, since I hardly ever install new software that might complain.

Burying user control options under layers and layers or registry tweaks is definitely an irritation tho.

[Bartimaeus]

5 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I just turned UAC slider all the way down and haven't had any issues since.  But I probably don't do anything that triggers anything, since I know that technically doesn't turn UAC completely completely off.  I also haven't updated Win10 in a year or more, turning them completely off in Group Policy.

Only time I update an o/s istuff s when a game I want to play refuses to run if I don't, since I hardly ever install new software that might complain.

Burying user control options under layers and layers or registry tweaks is definitely an irritation tho.

Yeah, it doesn't disable it fully, not like setting it to the minimum level on Windows 7 used to. Nothing defaults to admin-elevated even with it set to minimum.

Hey, since you disabled updates in Group Policy, do you know if there is a way to shut Windows Defender up about updating its virus definitions? I've firewalled the entire OS from accessing the internet, but doing so causes Windows Defender to incessantly yell at me about its definitions. I tried Googling it, but was surprised that there were no helpful answers at all. The next step was to start digging through Group Policy myself...

@Sarex It's been seven years since Windows 10 released. I don't understand why it's taken so incredibly long to switch over fully to Settings - I'll believe it when I see it.

13 hours ago, majestic said:

I don't know guys, they're doing something right. I know it's annoying for us, but honestly... the amount of times I had to fix crewman #6's Windows (either at work or for friends and family) because they accidentially clicked themselves back to the computerized stone age has been approaching zero since Windows 8. Except for ransomware problems. Can't fix people clicking and not paying attention when they see an email with big_boobies.wmv.exe attached.

Last thing I need is a simple "click here to disable all the annoying warnings and trash your computer easily" button.

#sickandtiredafter30yearsofgivingsupport

What, are you kidding? That's how IT people keep their jobs - Microsoft is trying to get rid of all of us!

Edited March 20, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

What, are you kidding? That's how IT people keep their jobs - Microsoft is trying to get rid of all of us!

Giving Windows support is like watching SuperS. It might be something you do for a bit, but you're sure glad when it's over.

[Malcador]

Have to work the weekend, getting some sweet overtime.

Pretty much all I can do with it.