Windows 10 for People Who Hate Windows

I hate Windows. I haven’t run it since the day my Windows Vista laptop took an update and bricked itself. Since then, I’ve run Ubuntu and Linux Mint Debian Edition. I just got a new Dell Inspirion 17/5000, which comes with Windows 10 preinstalled. I’m going to try using it, and will document what I do to make it a habitable environment for people who, like me, hate Windows.

First step is to fix the touchpad:

1. Search for Settings
2. Choose Devices
3. Choose Touchpad
4. Uncheck all the “Tap to click” checkboxes as well as “pinch to zoom”.

Browsing to YouTube with the built in Edge browser offers the chance to install Chrome. Go for it, because the Edge browser does not support highlighting text, but Chrome works fine. Goodbye, Edge. Next, install Ad Block Plus.

I hate the new tiled Start Menu, so I installed Classic Shell and configured the old two column start menu.

I dislike having to use my Microsoft password to log in to my machine, particularly when Microsoft has forced me to change it, making it hard to remember. Following How to Revert Your Windows 10 Account to a Local One (After the Windows Store Hijacks It), here’s how to change Windows 10 to use a local password:

1. Click Start (assuming you’re using Classic Shell)
2. Click Settings
3. Click Accounts 
4. Click Sign in with a local account instead
5. Enter your Microsoft account password
6. Enter your local account name and password
7. Click the button to create the account, which will log you out
8. Log in with you’re local account

Related Posts

Check these other posts out:

• Free Software for Windows
• Windows 10 Performance: Disk at 100%
• Windows: Goodbye, McAfee, Hello Avast!
• Git Bash vs. Power Shell

Failures Along the Way

For a shell, I tried out the new Linux subsystem, but found it sadly lacking. I switched to Power Shell, then to Git Bash (see the post linked above). If you do want to enable the Linux subsystem:

1. Open Settings
2. Select Update and Security/For Developers
3. Select Developer Mode
4. Search for Control Panel
5. Select Programs/Turn Windows features on or off
6. Select Windows Linux Subsystem
7. Restart
8. Browse to the app store: https://aka.ms/wslstore
9. Click on Ubuntu

I’ll be adding to this post as I do more.