Steerpike
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Everything posted by Steerpike
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If you knew me IRL, you'd know I was strongly opposed to 'woke nonsense', cancel culture, Political Correctness. But that's a discussion for Reddit and other places. This is a forum created by a few volunteers (spending their own hard-earned money, with no advertising) for the benefit of the 'notebook' community as a whole. It should be possible to express dissatisfaction with various corporations without ridiculous hyperbole. It's about being respectful and acting like an adult.
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But if you used [vulgar expletive] on this forum, the post would be deleted by the mods, and I'd like the same applied to hyperbolic references to 'Hitler' or 'Nazis'. To somehow associate a company like Apple to 'Nazis' is not only silly but offensive. I encounter this all over the place, and roll with it, but I just have the hope that when I come to a 'pure tech' forum, or a 'pure car' forum, the discussion will be limited to the subject at hand, and will be conducted in a 'normal adult fashion'. More generally, though, exaggeration to the extreme is just not effective communication in my opinion. To suggest that MS Execs willfully inflict distress on their users is plain silly. We can agree that they are incompetent, missing the boat, losing business; but to suggest they have motivations other than profit just doesn't make sense.
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I agree that BSODs are generally / frequently caused by driver issues, but I had my fair share of them when working with mainstream vendors such as Dell and Lenovo over my career in corporate IT (and with my home-brew PCs) right up through Win 7. Typical remedies were to "downgrade drivers", "get the driver from the vendor not from Dell", "tweak settings on the driver", etc etc. So yes, driver issues at the core, perhaps, but - I do believe MS have taken steps, steadily, to isolate 'driver issues' from causing crashes / BSODs. Or, maybe they just improved the OS/driver interface such that it was inherently less sensitive. So I'm willing to credit MS for reducing their frequency. I've gone 10 months now with my LG laptop (and another 8 months with my Samsung) and the machines simply never need restarting (other than updates ...). I 'sleep' them when necessary and they just keep going. I don't like the way they occasionally switch my defaults around, and make it ever-more difficult to change, but - I use Chrome browser/Google search, IrfanView image editor, VLan video player, Foxit PDF reader, ImgBurn DVD burner, etc etc and I've had virtually no issues installing, using, and keeping them. In my 10 months with W11, I've yet to see any solid examples of this 'monetization' effort. I do use Edge once in a while (as an alt to Chrome), and I intentionally left 'Bing' as it's search engine, and while I don't like it, 'it works' and I don't see any more commercialization than in Chrome/Google. I have also observed, as you have, some key improvements in things like Notepad, File Manager, even command prompt! But I haven't attributed those to 'W11' since I've also noticed that they often retroactively release those into W10, so I don't know which features are truly 'unique' to W11 vs just 'new versions' being released to W10 and W11 equally. I'm also noticing that 'settings' ('modern settings'?) is finally getting built out to the point where I have to visit 'control panel' less and less. I still love Control Panel, but with W10 it was really a split set of features, whereas now it's looking like I can almost do everything within 'Settings' so that's a marginal improvement.
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So you don't have any 'timer' or 'activity' based changes, other than screen off; and I presume you explicitly shutdown/hibernate/sleep when you want to do so? Fair enough, that should avoid problems. I presume you don't spend much time on battery? But what I'm still not getting is, how does 'away' interact with sleep? It sounds like away mode is close to S0, but somehow different. Everything I'm reading is telling me how to enable it, but I'm not yet finding the article that gives me a pros/cons, side-by-side comparison between away and sleep.
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So 'keeping things in perspective', to you, means suggesting that MS deliberately makes upgrades harder to make it 'elusively desirable'? That some high-ranking executive gains pleasure from seeing customers have problems? That's you having 'perspective'?
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Remember, many of us are using W11 because it came pre-installed on a brand-new laptop. We aren't directly paying MS anything - the machine vendor (in my case, LG) paid MS for the OEM version and I had no choice (and MS would have gotten the same OEM fee whether LG installed 10 or 11). As an 'end user' without access to MS versions (used to, as an IT guy, but no longer as I'm retired/self-employed), it would be extremely hard, and not to mention risky, to try to 'downgrade' to W10 LTSC (driver issues, etc). I would never have 'upgraded' to W11, but now that I'm stuck with it I'm making the best of it.
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There's one positive thing I will observe as 'Windows' has gone from 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP to Vista to 7 to 8.1 to 10 to 11 - ever increasing stability. I remember when BSODs (and similar) were daily occurrences. Even in the hallowed '7', there were plenty of BSODs, crashes, hangups. My last set of '10' machines were very stable, and so far, my two new '11' machines have been rock-solid; maybe 1 'stability' issue in almost a year. That is undeniably progress. I don't care for the UI changes in '11', and I don't consider them 'progress', but I also don't consider them to be major problems (not in the way '8' was a disaster). '8' was, quite literally, unusable for non-touch users (with it's touch-focused UI).
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Intriguing ... never heard of it. Reading the article, it's not meant to be a power management option; but it sounds like it will save power by virtue of some of its actions, without entering sleep mode(s). How do you 'invoke' 'away' mode - what's the user action? And does it actively prevent entry to sleep modes (while doing its own version of it)? Update - I just read some articles about it; by default, it seems the feature is only there if you have a 'presence sensor', which I don't (this is the article I read). If you have the presence sensor, and active the feature in settings, simply 'walking away' will engage 'away mode' it seems. But is there some UI element you can use to say "I'm going away"? Or am I missing the point?
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I got instability (couple of failures to boot) on my Samsung NP950 recently when I re-enabled S3, but my LG Gram continues to sport S3 with no issues. So for now, I'm running one with S0, the other S3, and observing any differences. I have to say, so far, I'm not seeing any difference. I've never noticed the fan kicking in while in S0 on the Samsung. But - if I need to really put the laptop in a dormant state, I use hibernate on both and ... hibernate has become suitably fast for both entry and exit.
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I'm strongly in favor of 'keywords' to aid in searching. But this forum is well structured to begin with, and I'm already aware of the value of 'good thread titles', so this seems a bit redundant, as a 'required' field. In my case, I created a thread titled "Windows 11 'Start Menu' changes"; appropriate tags would be, I presume, 'Windows 11' and 'Start Menu' - but those are already in the title which I presume is just as likely to be picked up by Google search indexing. So I was a bit puzzled by what tags I could add to 'further enhance' the post. However, I fully support the concept, so I'll try to create helpful tags from now on, even if they duplicate the thread title! Edit To Add: I see that they also aid in cross-forum searching if you click on the tag, so that's potentially useful:
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Have you tried Explorer Patcher? I found it to be surprisingly functional. I was able to re-create my Windows 10 'tiled start menu' look and feel. I'm sure Start11 is 'even better', but EP did everything I needed. Regarding the Win11 Start Menu, I discovered this new feature yesterday. Not sure exactly when it was released, but it's new to me and I find it very helpful indeed! You can add a bunch of shortcuts to the Start Menu, at the bottom, which removes the need to add other shortcuts to the 'start menu' main body itself. There are more possibilities than this, but above I have 'settings', File Explorer, Downloads, Documents, added. More broadly, though, I'm finding I am making more and more use of the taskbar - pinning tasks there rather than pinning to 'start', and it's feeling more and more natural.
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I don't start too many threads as there are usually plenty of good ones around already, but today I started a new one, and I was required to provide a 'Tag' below the 'Title'. But there was no list of keywords to choose from, no hints or suggestions, so I had no idea what the purpose was. I ended up putting in something not very helpful. So ... what is the intent of the 'tag', and what are some useful examples?
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I'm loving my LG Gram 17, which is super lightweight. I use it 50% of the time on the dining room table, 30% in my 'office', and 20% on my lap, depending on time of day, etc. I have an office but it's boring in there and no view, so I only go there when I have to. Our dining table is in the primo location of the house, with a beautiful view out the window, and of course it's a perfect work surface with lots of room. But - my g/f insists I clear it off at meal times so the place doesn't look a mess, which is fair enough (if it were up to me it would sit there all day 🙂 ). And later on, when it's TV watching time, I will sit in front of the TV with the laptop ... on my lap. I've been working this way for years, but now I have the LG Gram 17, it's such a breeze picking it up and moving it around the house, and of course it's a delight to have on the lap. I did buy a Dell XPS 17 last year; it was an engineering marvel, built to withstand a nuclear blast, but - it was way too heavy and I sent it back. If LG bring out a gram 18 (or any vendor, if it's super-light), I'll be lining up at the door to buy one!
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I think we all have this same issue when we buy a new machine, and I certainly have to go back to my old laptop once in a while because it has some obscure app I thought I'd never use again, but I'm slowly trying to minimize the impact by using OneDrive (with 1 TB storage), and a 5 TB NAS on my network. Between these two tools, I can pretty much get at any file I need on the new machine. I've also reluctantly started using Google Photos more and more, which means more and more of my photos are now available on the new machine. An added bonus of all this is that more and more of my stuff is now available on my phone when I'm out and about, since OneDrive and Google Photos have good Android clients. I'm also taking advantage of Chrome's 'user profile' feature, which means all my browser sessions, history, bookmarks, etc are universally available on any device (including my phone). Yes, this means I'm giving in to Google and Microsoft's evil scheme to take over the world, but ... it's working for me.
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I happened to read somewhere that MS have improved the overly simplistic 'start menu' of Win 11 a little by allowing repositioning of entries, grouping of icons, and allowing more icons/fewer recommendations. Not a huge leap forward, but better than nothing. I've been using 'Explorer Patcher' since the beginning to get 'Windows 10' start menu functionality on my Windows 11 laptop, but I decided this week to give 'native' windows 11 a try. To my surprise, I'm quite liking it. Not sure I'll stick with it - I really like Explorer Patcher - but it's always good to know what the options are.
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I just saw this post while looking for other info on the site. I did extensive work on 'standby' issues way back, and I seem to recall posting the info here somewhere but not sure where offhand. Did you ever make progress with this? I have the LG Gram 17, 2021 model (17Z95P-K.AAE8U1). I disabled S0, which enables S3, using this technique: Regedit: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power Enter the 32-bit DWORD value PlatformAoAcOverride and set it to 0. Confirmed using powercfg /a - available: S3, Hibernate. Not available: S1, S2, S0, hybrid sleep, fast startup. and the system goes to sleep on idle (or when asked to do so) and correctly recovers from sleep with mouse movement, etc - and doesn't reboot like yours seems to. (this is under windows 11 home). as a side note, when I just checked today, S0 was back to active, and the registry key was gone - presumably some windows update secretly reset it. But I set it back just now, and tested - let it idle, woke it up, and ran 'powercfg /sleepstudy' to generate a report, which confirmed it went to standby. Let me know if you want to pursue this further.
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Thank you, @Receiver, for everything you do with this forum. We should all remember that this forum is something you (and a few others) setup for the general benefit of us all (and not without cost, either). Most of us are here to learn about, and share experiences with, the latest in notebooks, and it's my favorite place to do so. I'm sure you'd rather spend your time doing things other than having to police immature users who can't behave in a civilized manner. I don't particularly like Windows 11 - it hasn't really added anything to the universe, but I don't believe it warrants the level of vitriol that it receives in this thread. A casual visitor to this forum may get the impression that windows 11 is a disaster, but it is definitely not that (it's nowhere near as bad as 'Vista' was, or 'Windows 8'!). Once you have chosen your desired 'app' (Word, Outlook, Quicken, Chrome browser, or whatever) you don't even notice or care what 'OS' you are using. I've been using Win 11 now for over 10 months and I have yet to see any overt advertising from MS; before I purchased this laptop, I had the feeling I was going to be bombarded with ads. Thanks again, @Receiver.
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Thanks for taking out the laptop and taking the photo! Isopropyl alcohol has been my 'go to' cleaner for a long time, but given the 'fragility' of this keyboard I've been restrained in using it in case it acts as some sort of solvent. I used a very small amount of diluted liquid hand soap to clean mine, and it did a great job on the trackpad, like yours, but no change to the space bar/Alt key. I paid more attention to how I place my hands, and I noticed that I will often rest my left thumb on the alt key, so in addition to actually using it a lot, it gets even more wear from that. My right thumb sits permanently on the space bar right where the wear is seen. Since the space bar has no lettering on it, it's not an issue but I wonder whether the white lettering is vulnerable. I guess not, since the white lettering is actually semi-transparent to facilitate the back-lighting, so I guess that is 'solid' rather than a surface treatment. Speaking of keyboard backlight - I noticed that on my Samsung Galaxy Pro, the backlight is 'ambient light sensitive'; it only kicks in when it detects a dark environment. But on the LG Gram, it simply comes on when the keyboard is 'in use', regardless of ambient light. This means, the backlight is on a lot! So I've taken to turning it off unless I really need it (Fn + F8) to further save battery. Not sure yet if this is making any difference! Edit to add - I love your neat labeling above the side sockets! What are you using for that? I'm big on labeling and have a dedicated cable-labeler and a more general purpose 'Brother' labeler, but I don't see any reflections around your labels so I'm intrigued! Also, I should note that I bought the 'quick disconnect' USB-C power adapters based on your recommendations way back. I now have 4 of them and may buy more!
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@JohnRatsey: You've had your LG Gram 17 (2021) for some time now, I believe. How is your keyboard holding up? I've had my model since April 2022, and I've used it almost every day. The spacebar in particular, and the 'alt' key to a lesser degree, is showing significant signs of wear (I use 'alt-tab' quite a bit). I'm not really bothered by it, but when I compare it to my last Samsung laptop (NP930X5J) which I used almost every day from 2014 to 2022, this seems unusual. The keys seem to have some sort of texture added to the surface, and that texture has already worn off in the area where my thumb hits the spacebar. I had to angle the camera carefully to capture this effect; it's not obvious from all angles, but - at the correct angle, it's quite noticeable. The 'R' and 'T' keys are also quite noticeably worn when viewed at different angles.
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Surely it's not reasonable to blame the OS (Android) or the hardware vendor (eg, Samsung) for ads being displayed in a browser, or in the YouTube App? The OS is the platform that enables the browser, and the browser is the app that displays 'content'. The ads are inserted into the content stream by a variety of entities (content provider, 3rd party ad brokers, YouTube, etc) but those ads are surely NOT coming from Android? You are railing against Android 12/13, but would you not see those very same ads if you fired up your old phone that still has Android 4, and displayed the same YouTube video on THAT phone? Or if you fired up a Windows 7 box and used it to display YouTube, or even a linux box?
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FWIW, I've been a programmer/IT professional since 1982, and spent much of my career running IT departments for startups in silicon valley. I've setup linux boxes on AWS hosting numerous business applications, and supported thousands of end users with laptops in the field. I'm semi-retired now, but I understand the needs of real business users - people who need computers to get their jobs done. You are correct that there are several types of users who need 'performance', and I'd agree that developers are in that mix, as well as 3-D designers, in addition to the others I mentioned. My objection to the term 'casual user' (and 'light user') is that it implies limited exposure / needs - sounds like someone who fires up their laptop for an hour or so to check on social media, or stock prices, or to send/receive an email. 'Workers' of many types need reliable, efficient access to information through their computers, and they need it 8 hours a day. The complaints I heard from users were predominantly reliability-based - crashes, lockups, reboots, BSODs, etc. When performance was an issue, it was almost always network based, or, server-side application based. I don't doubt that linux systems are more 'efficient' from a pure performance standpoint, and linux for servers seems reasonably mature (redhat, etc); but getting reliable linux drivers for the latest 'consumer laptop' hardware still seems to be a challenge. At the consumer level, WiFi drivers, bluetooth drivers, graphics drivers, chipset drivers, fingerprint reader drivers, keyboard backlight drivers, etc all seem to be a challenge for linux at the laptop/desktop level. I'm not interested in spending my time going down such rabbit-holes in pursuit of some benchmark improvement. Edit To Add - I just did some reading about linux on the two new laptops I just bought - Samsung NP950XDB and LG Gram 17 (2021). Both have driver issues; the Samsung has issues with fingerprint reader, keyboard backlight, and more; the LG gram has issues with webcam (Greg KH Recommends Avoiding Alder Lake Laptops - Intel Webcam Linux Driver Long Ways Out - Phoronix).
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I understand what you are saying but I would suggest 'casual user' is not the right term. Heavy duty business users don't give a hoot about 'performance' - they want stability (no OS crashes, no App crashes, etc). Windows 10 was probably the most stable OS I've ever used, and ... so far ... windows 11 has been equally rock-solid (no BSODs, no lock-ups, no need to reboot to 'cure' a problem, etc - THOSE are the things that make an OS suck!). 'Performance' generally means 'speed', and speed is only an issue for gamers, heavy-duty video editors, and perhaps those hosting multiple VMs. I intentionally throttle my laptop's performance simply to stop the fans from running, and it doesn't affect my use of any app in any meaningful way. I don't consider myself a 'casual user'; I'm on my laptop for at least 8 hours a day (though I don't play games and don't edit videos any longer). What bugs you so much about Android 12/13? I've been an Android user since about 2014, which (have to look it up ...) suggests Android 4.4 (Kit Kat). All I've noticed as I've progressed through the versions is that things have become more responsive - tapping on something is now almost instantaneous. I attribute this to the improved hardware, though - I've progressed from Samsung S5 to S10+ over the years (new phone every 2+ years). Looks like my current S10+ has Android 12. Other than responsiveness, I can't say I've noticed anything significant with the different versions. My biggest gripe about any smartphone is the limited screen size, and that's not the fault of the OS.
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Certainly a valid question to ask if you are on an older machine and already happy with W10. I certainly wouldn't voluntarily go from W10 to W11. But for those of us who purchase brand new machines with the latest processors, with W11 pre-installed, it's really not much effort to restore the few key things that make W10 better than W11. On my LG Gram 17, I installed "explorer patcher' and made a few other changes (disabled 'modern standby'). On my second new machine (Samsung NP950) , I'm actually leaving W11 'as is', to see just how annoying it is, and to see if I can get used to it. I'm actually doing OK with it. So far - after several months of use - I'm not finding anything about W11 (with my slight modifications) that is really annoying.
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On my Samsung NP950, I have a slew of events from 'source' Netwtw10, with event IDs 6062, 7003, 7021, 7025, 7026, and they all start with 'The description for Event ID (x) from source Netwtw10 cannot be found'' and end with 'the system cannot find the file specified'. On my LG Gram 17 (2021), I have the same events (source Netwtw10), same event IDs, but - the events are 'spelled out' - eg Warning 6062 LSO Triggered Info 7003 Roam Complete Info 7021 Connection telemetry fields and available analysis Info 7025 Dump after return from D3 before cmd Info 7026 Dump after return from D3 after cmd On both machines, they are categorized as either 'warning' or 'information', according to the code shown above. However - on my Samsung - there are HUNDREDS of such entries and they run throughout the night (during modern standby, presumably), whereas on the LG, there are only 'several' per hour. I'll have to research further to better understand this. Note - on my LG Gram 17, I've done the registry hack to disable modern standby / enable S3 sleep. I fired up my Samsung NP940 (W10) and didn't find any such entries. If you create a new thread on this, please link to it from here so I can follow it! Back to the focus of the thread - I haven't had any recurrences of the bad 'sleep' / 'wake' issues since I reported them here! But - I've also returned home from the trip and now no longer need to be putting the laptop away every night ...
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Interesting ... I've been noticing those 'The description for Event ID ... Netwtw10 ...' for a long time; when I last tried to resolve them, the general opinion seemed to be, it's a bug from Microsoft and can be ignored. I just took a look at my event log, and for me, the event IDs are 6062, 7003, 7021, 7025, 7026, and they all refer to 'the system cannot find the file specified'. I'd love to stop them as they litter up the log. How did you update the WiFi driver? I just ran Samsung's update tool, and there's nothing obvious there. Do you do the update from device manager, or elsewhere? Thanks
