MC Discovers Windows!

[MidnightCowboy]

Well, it’s been a while but here is the brief history.

English is not widely spoken in Brazil which is understandable since the native language is Portuguese Therefore, when I originally moved to W7 the only option was Ultimate with a language pack. Great so far except dear old Windows doesn’t translate everything. System and security logs in particular still arrive to varying degrees in the native language despite having selected “English” everywhere. Additionally, running an English keyboard also had some weird effect that I was never able to fully work out.

Anyway, after eventually sourcing a set of English Home Premium discs from overseas I’m now up and running.

This is what I’ve decided on so far:

MSE, IE9 with WOT, DuckDuckGo, EasyList, Trend Micro Browser Guard and Speckie (LOL), FortiClient (Firewall and web filter only) - Windows firewall also left enabled to utilize cross feature functions between IE & MSE.
Comodo DNS, Secunia PSI & WinPatrol.

The thing that surprised me most was just how good the latest WMP is. I now use it for everything apart from the odd file it won’t open in which case I just use Pot Player.

I’m using Tixati for torrents, Nitro for PDF, Thunderbird for mail and the excellent Softmaker Charity office suite.

Miscellaneous fluff

DriveGleam (drives, CPU & memory)
CoolBeans System Info (Network only)
Object Dock
SpeedFan
SE-TrayMenu
Time Left & DS Clock
Stickies
FastStone Capture & Image Viewer
Revo Uninstaller
CCleaner
HitmanPro
Malwarebytes
MozBackup
Some other stuff I’m not prepared to admit to

[Bob]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

...dear old Windows doesn’t translate everything. System and security logs in particular still arrive to varying degrees in the native language despite having selected “English” everywhere. Additionally, running an English keyboard also had some weird effect that I was never able to fully work out.

Anyway, after eventually sourcing a set of English Home Premium discs from overseas I’m now up and running.

Interesting. My Italian Windows PC still burbles two different languages... sometimes both together (sounds familiar?). I've never tried an English keyboard though.

[garth]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

This is what I’ve decided on so far:

MSE, IE9 with WOT, DuckDuckGo, EasyList, Trend Micro Browser Guard and Speckie (LOL), FortiClient (Firewall and web filter only) - Windows firewall also left enabled to utilize cross feature functions between IE & MSE.
Comodo DNS, Secunia PSI & WinPatrol.

The thing that surprised me most was just how good the latest WMP is. I now use it for everything apart from the odd file it won’t open in which case I just use Pot Player.

You use IE?
When i got Win7 i was pretty impressed with WMP, but that wore off a bit when i tried watching some of my old Hong Kong kung fu flix with it. For some reason i was getting some unwanted white lines top and bottom of the screen, but this was not happening on other media players. I tried a few different players before eventually settling on PotPlayer for my default player. That said, this WMP is seriously better than the old one, so i have to wonder how good the next one will be, and if it's better by the same sort of margin it would be difficult to see how PotPlayer or anything else could compete.

I think if you run them back to back you might find SpiderPlayer to be a better option than WMP for your tunes, but maybe that's just personal taste...i think i read on a different thread you've used it for a while so i guess that's not news.

My Win7 goes like a train now i've tweaked it a bit, and it's extremely durable. For sure it has the occasional moment, but that's down to the user and not the OS

[MidnightCowboy]

Originally Posted by garth

My Win7 goes like a train now i've tweaked it a bit, and it's extremely durable. For sure it has the occasional moment, but that's down to the user and not the OS

Be interested if you could share the tweaks?

I even took the plunge yesterday and installed SP1. 12 more updates after that today but so far nothing broken

[garth]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

Be interested if you could share the tweaks?

Usual stuff you would do to run it lean plus disabling a whole load of services. This site is a good resource for stuff like that.

[MidnightCowboy]

Thanks for the link. I remember using this for XP but I'll check this out too when I get a mo
Which list did you use, "safe" or "tweaked"?

[garth]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

Thanks for the link. I remember using this for XP but I'll check this out too when I get a mo
Which list did you use, "safe" or "tweaked"?

Mostly i used tweaked. I didn't do the full list yet but i made a lot of changes and got an instant return on startup speed and 2 - 3% on memory usage. I left a couple of services alone because i just didn't understand their purpose without further research, and i still have some others to look at. I did it about a week ago and so far my system has remained completely stable

[MidnightCowboy]

Thanks for that. Might have a go myself later to see what I can break

[syntax_error]

Welcome to the real world MC

What about a sandbox program?

[George]

You might get our OS under control in regards to the language but not the many web services that in their wisdom decided:

let's check where the requesting IP comes from and offer the user the language of that country.

Wtf are they thinking? I type in blabla.com and the whole site redirects to a language they think I wanna read. Google, Youtube and Paypal do that for example. It just drive me nuts. And they think they are smart....