What is it with Microsoft and screwing things up

[Exploration]

The OS, before i start, is Windows 10.

Okay. So as the title probably makes obvious, something about Microsoft is seriously grinding my gears now.
For months i've put up with a number of things, i.e random ads that pop up now and again and the start menu constantly filling with Microsoft store tiles that i'm getting sick of clicking 'Unpin' every single day. This i could live with - to a point despite my PC slowly turning into a damned billboard that saps all my (limited) bandwidth.

HOWEVER. I actually want to beat it with a hammer now. Not only has Cortana, the one thing i use as a search bar for finding stuff on this machine has decided to break. I have many many games and files on this PC and the stupid cluttered start menu is a pain to navigate. And additionally the start menu wont allow me to unpin stuff as of yesterday, i can click 'Unpin' and for some reason the icon remains there but if i right click it the 'Pin to start menu" thing appears again. Oh and to put the cherry on the cake, Windows is using 3.6 of my 8GB of RAM. Various stupid processes keep appearing using it all up including one called 'System and compressed memory'. Not to mention the whole PC is sluggish as hell to get started up and i've run all the cleaners (C Cleaner, Defraggler, all of Windows own program variants similar to these) - It also does hang from time to time and i need to pull the plug out. Mainly when it does so, CTRL+ALT+DEL causes the screen to go black. Very irritating, it really is.

So i'll put my rant on hold for now and If someone can possibly help me beat this pile of trash back into shape i'd greatly appreciate it, it's really driving me nuts. Thank you for any advice!

[HeyImRuu]

If you'd prefer the old style of the start menu you can try Classic Shell

[Thyrzul]

The OS, before i start, is Windows 10.

I think I found your problem.

(Semi-personal experience: gf's laptop could run AC:BF with no issues prior to Win10, can't run it at all since she upgraded.)

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[Exploration]

I'm starting to wonder if that's why i've been seeing massive FPS drops at times. I was on Elite Dangerous the other day with a steady 80FPS and on the odd occasion it'll drop to 15 on all of my games. Even on Freelancer its stuck at 15. I just figured it was dodgy drivers

I honestly don't know what they've done but my system hasn't run right in months. I don't want to lose my stuff either though by reinstalling 7. (Sighs) I've used classic shell before but having to modify the hell out of an OS with various alternate programs to make it usable i thought i left behind with Windows 8.1 *Has nightmares over that terror..*

I suppose the start menu is fine for people with 6 programs and one word document. But i have loads of data to access and that cluttered shenanigans they're calling a start menu means i need to spend 10 minutes scrolling around trying to locate it. I also miss the sidebar on the left i could pin stuff to. Made life so much easier.

Edit: Classic shell, whoever invented this thing needs to be given a medal. I forgot how brilliant it was.

[Alley]

Classic Shell is kinda mandatory unless you're a new age tablet user. I also highly recommend grabbing your latest GPU drivers.

Fair warning avoid installing Nvidia GeForce Experience if you have an nvidia gpu. The Nvidia Backend process can obliterate your performance for absolutely no reason at times, I've experienced it myself.

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Alley was right.

[Exploration]

Right, i have Nvidia Geforce Experience installed and it's now getting uninstalled. Chances are i'll probably uninstall the whole smack and install the drivers separately. I've noticed a spike in CPU usage by about 5-10% with Nvidia Backend, however what gets me is i see my network usage at 30% from the thing. Kinda annoying with a 56k connection. Another point i feel like bringing up, how do i murder Windows Defender. The stupid thing is running my disk flat out and probably the reason one of my drives blew up the other week. Disabling the service wont kill it as it activates through some other irritating process which flags up "Access Denied" whenever i try and kill it.

One thing i miss about Windows 8 is i could quite easily gut windows to how i wanted it to run without this 'Access denied' trash.

[Redon]

The OS, before i start, is Windows 10.

I think I found your problem.

I came here to post this.

[The Savage]

The OS, before i start, is Windows 10.

I think I found your problem.

I came here to post this.

[Zayne Carrick]

Install XP.

[Error]

I considered both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 long and hard last night after doing a rebuild of my (previously dead) main computer, but gave up and settled on sticking with Windows 7 in the end, as W8.1 is still a bit too touchscreen-focused (even with Classic Shell, which is a workaround that I'd rather not need in the first place) and W10 has an EULA that I won't accept. I'm not sure I'd say that they've outright "screwed up" with W8.1/W10, but neither of them are what I'm looking for as a desktop user.

PS: Oh, and the ads, of course. I'm not paying Microsoft to get served personalized spam built right into my operating system. It's possible to disable them, but that's again something that I shouldn't have to do out of the box, just like with Classic Shell.

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