Aaron44126

I wrote this software exactly because I hated the default fan behavior on the M6700. I’ve been running some version of it since early 2019. I don’t take credit for actually figuring out the fan control. That’s been known for some time. I just took bits and pieces for other people and combined them into an app…. I hope to keep working on it and “finish it up” but it is hard to find the time these days.

(Quick support status snapshot) LTSC 2024: Released 2024-10-01 • Supported until 2029-10-09 • IoT supported until 2034-10-10 LTSC 2021: Released 2021-11-16 • Supported until 2027-01-12 • IoT supported until 2032-01-13 LTSC 2019: Released 2018-11-13 • Supported until 2029-01-09 LTSB 2016: Released 2016-08-02 • Supported until 2026-10-13 LTSB 2015: Released 2015-07-29 • Supported until 2025-10-14 After the disappointment that is Windows 11, I migrated my systems over to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC. I appreciate the long-term feature stability and general lack of monetization "features" that have been plaguing later versions of Windows 10/11. I think that this is the way to go for many of us tech type folks, especially for business systems, so I wanted to write up some information about it. (I have much to say specifically about my problems with Windows 11... over here.) What is Windows LTSC The Windows long-term service channel is a version of Windows that is updated much less often than the general consumer version of Windows. The idea is to maintain feature stability for fixed-function devices. It was previously known as LTSB (long-term service branch). Windows 10 was given a major "feature upgrade" once every six months. Starting with Windows 11, Microsoft is settling into a once-per-year pattern with feature upgrades. Windows LTSC is refreshed only once every three years. Since 2016, the schedule has been roughly aligned with Windows Server releases, and Windows LTSC often shares the same base as the corresponding version of Windows Server (same binaries, updates, etc.). Windows LTSC omits features that are likely to change over the course of its lifecycle. There is no Microsoft Store. There are no bundled "modern apps". (Even the calculator app is replaced with a Win32 version, instead of the UWP version that ships with ordinary Windows 10/11.) Cortana is not included. Microsoft Edge was omitted until the 2021 release. Monthly updates do not contain new features — for example, the "News and Interests" feature that dropped in Windows 10 in the middle of 2021 did not make it into Windows 10 LTSC. Otherwise, it is a fully functional version of Windows. Some omitted features can be added back if you like (see below). In the end, this comes off as a version of Windows that is a lot like what Windows used to be like, before Windows 10 — basically, unchanging except for bug fixes, until you went out of your way to upgrade to a new version. Windows LTSC versions There have been four LTSC releases to date: Mid 2015: Windows 10 LTSB 2015, released alongside the original RTM release of Windows 10 (retroactively named "Windows 10, version 1507") Mid 2016: Windows 10 LTSB 2016, released alongside Windows 10 "Anniversary Update" (Windows 10, version 1607) and Windows Server 2016 Late 2018: Windows 10 LTSC 2019, released alongside Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server 2019 Late 2021: Windows 10 LTSC 2021, released alongside Windows 10, version 21H2 (Starting with the 2021 release, Windows LTSC no longer shares binaries with Windows Server.) Late 2024: Windows 11 LTSC 2024, released alongside Windows 11, version 24H2 Microsoft is settling into a three-year cycle for LTSC releases, so the next release is due in late 2027. Windows 12 might be out by then? (Note that even though LTSC 2019 and LTSC 2021 are "named" two years apart, they were actually released three years apart.) Windows LTSC editions Windows LTSC is currently available in two editions: "Enterprise" and "IoT Enterprise". The two editions are functionally equivalent, and in fact you can switch between the two just by changing the product key. They differ in terms of how you obtain a license for them, and in how long they are supported. Windows LTSC support lifecycle Ordinary Windows 10 releases were only supported for 18 months (or 30 months for Enterprise/Education editions, for fall releases). Windows 11 releases are supported for 24 months (36 months for Enterprise/Education editions). This means you are expected to be moving forward to the newer versions regularly. Windows LTSC releases are supported for five years (Enterprise, 2021 and later) or ten years (IoT Enterprise, and Enterprise releases prior to 2021). You can see the current status for each version on this page (just scroll down). Windows 10 LTSC: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/release-information Windows 11 LTSC: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/windows11-release-information Windows LTSC licensing Unlike ordinary Windows 10/11, Windows LTSC licenses are good only for a particular version of Windows LTSC. To upgrade to a newer version, you will need to obtain a new license for that version. On the possible positive side, you will never be pressured by Windows alerts to upgrade to a newer version. Windows Enterprise LTSC can be obtained via a Microsoft volume licensing agreement. If your business has a software licensing agreement with Microsoft, then you can probably get a license through there. Windows IoT Enterprise LTSC is licensed to OEMs that sell fixed-function devices (POS terminals, ATMs, etc.). Both types of licenses can sometimes be found through resellers. Licenses can be purchased from resellers like CDW, Provantage, or Connection. "Upgrade" licenses available from resellers like this can be installed on systems that shipped with an OEM version of Windows — you are "upgrading" from base Windows to Windows Enterprise LTSC. (You may still do a clean install rather than an actual in-place upgrade if you so choose; the "upgrade" is to the license for your system, not the actual Windows install.) IoT licenses are generally cheaper. Here is a Reddit thread that I found, where the OP describes the process of purchasing a license from Provantage. Purchasing volume license licenses through a Microsoft "partner", you may have to buy five licenses of "something" because that is the minimum to qualify as a volume license customer. You could purchase one Windows LTSC license and then four cheap "Microsoft Identity Manager" licenses. You can also find license keys on eBay. Product keys for either edition are available through a Visual Studio subscription (yearly, not monthly). Also, Microsoft Action Pack includes licenses to run Windows Enterprise LTSC on up to ten PCs. These are licenses for a specific use; Visual Studio keys are supposed to be used for application development and testing purposes only, and this page describes how Microsoft Action Pack works. A 90-day evaluation version is available if you just want to try it out. (There are probably other places to get licenses; let me know and I will include them here.) You can also just search online for "Microsoft Activation Scripts" and go from there. Upgrading from "ordinary" Windows to Windows LTSC Users of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 can upgrade in-place to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2015. From there, they can upgrade in-place to a later Windows LTSC release. (A license is not technically needed for LTSC 2015 if you are just using it as a stepping stone, but you will need the install media.) To upgrade from Windows (Home/Pro/Enterprise/Education) to Windows LTSC, all you need to do is: Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion Find the value "EditionID" and change the data to "EnterpriseS" Run setup.exe from Windows LTSC install media and perform an in-place upgrade (If you upgrade in-place from non-LTSC to LTSC, Microsoft Store and the built-in "modern apps" will be carried over, even though they are not included in a LTSC base install.) Note that you can upgrade to the same version of Windows that you are currently on (ex: Windows 10, version 21H2 to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021), or to a later version (ex: Windows 10, version 1909 to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021), but you cannot upgrade to an "earlier" version (ex: Windows 10, version 1909 to Windows 10 Enterprise 2019). See the list of Windows LTSC versions above to see which LTSC version matches up with which Windows version. So, to spell it out, the upgrade matrix looks like: Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 may upgrade to Windows 10 LTSB 2015 (and then, from there, to a later version). Windows 10, version 1507 may upgrade to Windows 10 LTSB 2015 or later. Windows 10, versions 1511 and 1607 may upgrade to Windows 10 LTSB 2016 or later. Windows 10, versions 1703, 1709, 1803, and 1809 may upgrade to Windows 10 LTSC 2019 or later. Windows 10, versions 1903 and higher may upgrade to Windows 10 LTSC 2021 or later. Windows 11, versions 21H2, 22H2, 23H2, and 24H2 may upgrade to Windows 11 LTSC 2024. Also, you can upgrade in-place from LTSC to non-LTSC. (To switch to an edition other than Enterprise or Education, you'll have to adjust the "EditionId" value to match the target edition before kicking off the upgrade.) Similar rules — you can't upgrade to an older version but you can go to an equivalent or newer version. It may or may not be possible to do "distant" upgrades, like Windows 10, version 1507 to Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024; I haven't tested myself to see how far back the upgrade installer will let you go. I would speculate that for LTSC-to-LTSC upgrades, they follow a similar rule to what they have for Windows Server in-place upgrades, which is that they will let you "skip" over one version when upgrading (i.e. Windows Server 2016 to 2022 is allowed, skipping 2019), but they will not let you skip over two or more (i.e. Windows Server 2016 to 2025 is not allowed). Installing Microsoft Store on Windows LTSC Just open command prompt or PowerShell as admin and run: wsreset -i ...And then wait a bit; the install can take a few minutes and there is no visual feedback. Once the Microsoft Store is installed, you can install "modern apps" (UWP, etc.) without issue. Windows LTSC downsides What I can think of is basically: If a new feature lands in "ordinary" Windows, you will have to wait for a new version of Windows LTSC to make use of it, and that could be up to three years depending on the timing. Some software may require a certain version of Windows in order to run and could present issues in the later part of a 3-year LTSC cycle. Games in particular can be an issue here. Forza Horizon 5, for example, requires Windows 10, version 1909 or better, so LTSC users could not play it until LTSC 2021 was released. (Some games and apps advertise a requirement for a certain version of Windows but will still work on older versions. It's a case-by-case investigation.) ...Obtaining a license can be tricky and you have to pay up to upgrade every three years, if you want to stay on the latest version. ...That's it for now. I'll probably update this post with more information as I think of it.

1070 would be a downgrade! In therms of CUDA core counts, Quadro P5000 ≈ GeForce GTX 1070 Quadro P5200 ≈ GeForce GTX 1080 (...Comparing specs only of "laptop" versions of these GPUs.) Not to mention that the Quadro GPUs have 16 GB vRAM, but the GeForce only have 8 GB.

There will be a slight hit to memory performance as a trade off for increased reliability. (ECC modules tend to have a higher CL value than non-ECC modules.) However, I doubt that you'll be able to notice the difference in anything other than synthetic benchmarks. Myself, I had occasional memory BSOD's with my Precision 7530 so I decided that I'm only getting ECC memory from now on, whenever it can possibly be helped. I'm reminded of this article, which is interesting for many reasons, but includes the statement "Research from 2010 estimated that a computer with 4GB of commodity RAM has a 96 percent chance of experiencing a bitflip within three days". I don't know if that estimate is still valid with today's memory but it seems like the chance of an error would only go up as RAM capacity goes up. I'll also note that upcoming DDR5 modules include ECC, all of them, it's part of the spec. (They don't require ECC lines running to the CPU though, in which case they will be able to correct single-bit errors in storage on the modules themselves, but they will not be able to correct errors in transmission between the memory and the CPU. That capability will probably still require a Xeon CPU.)

There is a note here about the emojis. https://efgxt.net/topic/52-suggestion-box/?do=findComment&comment=487 If you are on Windows you can also hit "Win+." and use the system emojis. 😁

I'm running a job right now to add the banner to any pages that it was missed from. Right now there is only one page per thread, so if you're seeing threads that didn't run to completion, that's all that we have. There was an issue with earlier versions of the archiver that caused it to give up on a thread if certain errors happened, which caused issues with a number of very long threads. @Sandy Bridge worked hard in the final hours to go through logs and recapture broken threads, but I believe that he was working off of a list from the logs of forums that he originally downloaded (and not forums downloaded by the rest of us). We just didn't have time to loop back around to all of these before NBR shut down. I am planning to add a link to the archive.org version of the thread at the top of each page so that might help if they got a better capture than we did.

iPhone X with iOS 14.2, works for me. Pros and cons about going with iPhone but long device lifecycle is certainly a pro.

Holy cow, let's see. I've had my current main system, a Dell Precision M6700, which I got when the system launched in July 2012, so I've had it for about 9.5 years. Storage — Started with a 500 GB 2.5" HDD, 1 TB 2.5" HDD, and 64 GB mSATA SSD ... currently at 1 TB 2.5" SSD, 4TB 2.5" SSD, and 1TB mSATA SSD Memory — The Corsair memory that I put into my system at the start had issues so I replaced it with G.Skill modules at some point, lowering the CL a bit while I was at it, but capacity the same at 32 GB (4×8) Optical drive — Started with "regular" BD-RE drive, switched to UHD BD-RE drive (just for ripping discs to Plex, actually didn't work well, I use a USB BD-RE drive now) Graphics card — Started with Quadro K5000M, moved up to M5000M, tried P5000 but it caused crashes so I went back to M5000M, and then because of "every now and then" stability issues and to raise money for a new laptop I have recently downgraded to K3000M I dabbled with ExpressCard stuff; I tried adding some extra USB 3.0 ports that way, but the ExpressCard and my system didn't get along so I have nothing in that slot right now Started with 802.11n wireless and moved all the way up to 802.11ax, fitting in a mPCIe-to-M.2/NGFF adapter for it in the process I put an ATSC tuner card (mPCIe) in there for a while but I was never able to get it to pull down any stations, I think a WWAN antenna is not suited for that purpose (...just trying to find something to use the three mPCIe slots for) I upgraded from the 35W (single heat pipe) to 45W (dual heat pipe) CPU heatsink; Dell only put the dual pipe version in systems with the top 3920XM or 3940XM CPU Replaced the stock "AVC" fans with "Delta" fans (also only typically included with the top CPU, there's a whole thread on the different fan types) I drilled larger holes in the bottom panel grill where the CPU fan is to increase airflow OS has gone from Windows 7 to Windows 10 LTSC 2021 — even was on Windows 11 briefly, before downgrading — I actually migrated the Windows 7 install off of my Inspiron 1720, and I've actually only did a clean Windows install once in all this time with the M6700; it was late 2017, and only because I was forced to with a Windows 10 feature upgrade gone bad (and I was traveling around then so I ended up waiting too long for the rollback window) Other component swaps — Motherboard was replaced once by Dell (...wasn't actually necessary in the end) and once by myself (broke it while messing with M.2/NGFF Wi-Fi installation). Not an upgrade but a fair amount of work... Also I have a spare motherboard "just in case", and I'm glad I bought it when I did because they are way more expensive now. I think that I had the display swapped out twice, and the keyboard swapped out once (by Dell under warranty). I tried a 1080p 120Hz eDP display, but ended up not using it because of the glossy finish. Still on the original battery, and I'm lucky to get 40 minutes off of it, but I don't use the system away from power that much. I have multiple power adapters hiding around the house (at desks, under couches, ...) which I do plan to continue using with my next system. (I'm getting a new laptop finally, when Alder Lake Precision systems drop in a few months. And I honestly hope that I do not tinker with it as much as I did with this one, but we'll see...)

So it's actually been a while since I did public web work. (I work on internal company web apps but nothing huge.) I have no experience with ElasticSearch but if someone else wants to help me set it up then sure 😛

Most of what I am doing right now is "a few minutes of regex work + a few minutes of testing + wait multiple hours for the change to be applied to all threads site-wide" so it's not too bad 🙂

Thread links at the "pretty" version of the forum that I linked a few posts up are probably a week or so out. I need to write a bit of code to get everything hooked together. However, you can use the dumb bullet point thread list and Ctrl+F for the thread that you want and see what we have pulled. I think this is your FAQ? Links from one thread to another will take a bit longer but I'm planning to get to that too. (This is a good test case here, thanks...) My immediate focus right now is cleaning up "dead links" in these archived threads before I submit it to Google for crawling. Earlier today I got the "member profile" links pointing over to archive.org (instead of an error page). Still need to fix up the "post permalink" links which are broken right now. Anyway. You can of course recreate your FAQ over in the new Samsung section here on EFGXT and point to the archived threads where appropriate. (Might be easier to do after I get this link work cleaned up.) I did something similar in the Precision section.

Hitting some of your points. I totally get you with the sound thing. I can work with music going either. Don't get me started on sound + sleep... I believe the registry change to disable "modern sleep" will then enable "S3 sleep" if the system supports it. However, the Precision 7560 does not support it. In this case, in Windows, the "sleep" option is completely gone. "Advanced power options" are still in exactly the same place. (You will just find most of them missing if "modern sleep" is enabled.) I do indeed have the system set to "do nothing" on lid close. Setting the max processor state to 99% does not stop the fans. It disables the turbo boost and prevents the fans from ramping up to a high level when doing light work like browsing, office work, etc. which is what I am going for. I'm fine with the fans staying on if they maintain a constant, low level and don't cycle on and off. I actually have a program that I run on my Precision M6700 to "lock" the fans at the lowest level (≈2600 RPM) unless the CPU temperature gets too high. Incidentally, on my Precision 7560 with turbo boost disabled (max processor state set to 99%), the BIOS/EC runs the fans between 900 and 1600 RPM. I cannot hear the fans at all until they hit around 1900 RPM. So it's effectively silent. I love this new setup they have going with the fans on Tiger Lake systems; the control from the BIOS is much more granular than before. Previous Dell laptops that I have used had no fan value between mid-2000's RPM and "off" so I would always hear it if the fans turned on.

"Thermal mode" is really the only one that's really interesting to me. I have profiles with it set to "Quiet" (actually limits CPU to 2.4 GHz) and "Ultra performance" for gaming. You can configure Process Lasso to automatically switch power profiles when certain apps run.

For Precision M6700, install Dell Feature Enhancement Pack to get some additional advanced power settings (they live in the same spot) that actually work.

These settings live in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings Maybe check there on the system that has it and see if you can figure out which subkey it is. Export from one machine and import onto another. Note that just because the setting exists doesn't mean it actually does anything. You can actually create any arbitrary advanced power options that you want in the registry. The GPU driver would have to look at the setting and take action on it for it to be of any use.

CSS fixed up; the Samsung forum (and others) are viewable. Thread links don't work yet so I haven't linked these subforum pages from the main page.

OK, I'll start by saying that I don't know the ins and outs of "modern sleep". I have a Dell Precision 7560, which is a laptop with an 11th-gen Tiger Lake CPU, so the situation is most likely pretty similar to what it will be like with the XPS system that you're getting. We are similar here in many ways. I hate to reboot, I keep tons of stuff open. I have a calendar alert for 1PM every "second Tuesday of the month" when the Microsoft patches drop (I love that they are consistent and prompt with this) and I try to make that the only time that I'm going to need to reboot for the month. I'm probably successful a bit more than half of the time; sometimes there is something that I need to install or a system issue that requires me to reboot out of band. If I have another software update that I suspect will need a reboot, I toss it in a folder and install it at the same time that I am doing the Windows patches when that time rolls around. I also use the "maximum processor state" function in Windows to cap the CPU to 99% (...effectively disabling turbo boost) to keep the fans under control, as I discussed in another thread. I have a sensorimotor OCD problem and find the fan noise to be rather distracting (more so when it ramps up and down, I prefer for it to stay at a consistent level). When I got the Tiger Lake system and realized that I was going to have to decide between "sleep working" and "ability to set maximum processor state", it was no choice at all. I disabled sleep and moved on. So, I haven't played around with "Modern sleep" to see how well it works (but I have heard plenty of people complaining about it). When I need to travel with the laptop (basically between the office and home — but I've been mostly working from home since COVID started so I don't do it that much), I just hibernate it and that has been fine. When I just need to move the laptop between rooms or something, I shut the lid but don't bother hibernating. The "PlatformAoAcOverride" registry value is what you need to set to disable modern sleep and enable the advanced power options. It still works with the current version of Windows 10, and also with Windows 11. You do have to reboot for it to take effect, as I recall, but you certainly don't have to reinstall Windows. (I have no idea why Microsoft decided to remove these advanced power options if modern sleep is available. I don't see any reason why that would be necessary, for most of them anyway. Just trying to keep things simple for people...?) Oh. I'll also mention that the "power slider" function that I mentioned to quickly enable and disable turbo boost has been removed in Windows 11. (The "maximum power state" value is ignored when the slider is at the far right setting, it will run at 100% regardless of what you have set.) Well, it's still there, but it has been moved into "Power options" in Settings as a drop-down and you just can't easily access it from a taskbar flyout anymore. I found a third-party app that basically adds its own icon to the system tray to bring this functionality back. If you're interested, I'll dig it up.

Not sure if you are talking about just the thread list, or the threads themselves. (Dedication if you printed out all of those individual threads to PDF...) I captured the entire thread list for the whole forum with HTTrack. Here's the Samsung one. ...Needs some work as CSS is broken right now as you can see. In the end I plan to have it look like the Precision forum does but link to the XFA downloaded threads.

@Prototime, Star Fox 64 is excellent, I have played it through many times. I do like that it can be completed in like 45 minutes. Doesn't take long to do beginning to end so I might just sit down and play it when I don't have much going on. (That's not very often anymore, though.) Single-player gamer here. I haven't been able to get into MMOs or online shooters. But as for favorites... Where to start... Too many to pick from, so I'll go be genre! (I started writing this post and it got too long, sorry.) 2D platformer — This is where it all started for me, playing Super Mario Bros. back in the day. I have to give it up for the classics, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island. More recently, I really enjoyed Yoshi's Woolly World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Celeste. (In the 3D space, I don't think that anything has topped Banjo-Kazooie.) Action — I enjoyed the Batman: Arkham series and the modern Tomb Raider series. I want to check out Horizon: Zero Dawn when I get a better PC later this year. Adventure — Being a Nintendo gamer growing up, I fell in with Zelda and I love A Link to the Past (which is run to play randomized), Ocarina of Time, and Breath of the Wild. I'm definitely looking forward to the unnamed BOTW sequel which should be landing later this year. I really enjoyed Ōkami which is a "Zelda-like" available on modern platforms. Metroidvania — Probably my favorite genre. The actual Metroid games are favorites of mine (2D + Prime). I enjoyed Metroid Dread this year. AM2R was also amazing. Ori and the Blind Forest was great. Hollow Knight is probably my favorite, though, — if there is one game on this list that I would suggest that people check out, it would be that one — and I'm also really looking forward to Silksong. Strategy — StarCraft (Brood War). I discovered this game by accident and really took to it. I also really got into StarCraft II and played on the ladder for a while when it was new. Disappointed that the series is probably dead now with the direction that Blizzard has been taking; but at least there are two spinoff studios with ex-Blizzard employees working on RTS games, so maybe they will come up with something cool. Puzzle — The Talos Principle stands out. Also, the Portal games. I wish they'd make another. JRPG – I've enjoyed these since I was into Final Fantasy (IV, VI, VII, and IX come to mind as favorites, I didn't really like the newer ones) and I have also enjoyed each of MonolithSoft's Xenoblade games. Narrative – I got Life is Strange cheap somehow and really enjoyed that. Haven't played any of the followup games though. I want to check out Detroit: Become Human (again, when I get a better PC). Random – ActRaiser is a crazy action platformer / world builder sim combo game and there has never been anything else like it. I like to play through it from time to time. (Talking about the SNES version, I haven't played the remake yet.)

I just updated the archive. All of the threads that we have downloaded are now in. You can check the top post of this thread. I added links for the sections that were not available before. Also, the post thresholds are gone. We were able to get "all" threads for each subforum that we hit. Other than that, a few of the subforums were pulled for a second time with added fixes from @Sandy Bridge to hopefully capture better copies of threads that got cut short in the initial pull. I know that there was an ask about the HP business laptops subforum and that one got re-pulled. As of the time of this post, those changes are still being merged in and they may not be visible for an hour or two. Also, some threads are making you locate and click on a .html file to view the thread after selecting the folder containing it. That'll be fixed up soon. ...At this point, once the merge is complete anyway, if you don't see a thread that you were interested in or if it is "damaged" in some way, obviously we are not going to be able to fix it with a pull from NBR. We could take a look at fixing up important threads with data from archive.org if they have a better copy than we do. I created a very basic index page at www.nbrchive.net and I'm going to try to get Google to start crawling the site. Looks like DuckDuckGo already noticed it. (I'll put a better index page there later. I saved a copy of the NBR forums front page to use for this.) Next on the list for me is some usability improvements. I want to tie these threads in to a "full thread list" pull that I made from NBR with HTTrack. (It will look a lot more like the Dell business laptops forum currently does when that is done.) I want to add pagination to the longer threads (probably 50 threads per page) so they don't cause the browser to choke. Some links in the pulled threads need to be fixed (post permalinks aren't functional, member profile links can point to archive.org...). I want to update the forum search feature to do a Google site search so at least you can search for things. And I want to do some general cleanup to anything pulled with HTTrack — removing the ad blocks, broken login links, and so forth. I won't be moving quite as fast with these updates. I need to make sure that IRL stuff gets some attention too 🙂

I haven't tried this but I'd assume that this behavior has been lost along with most other taskbar customization. Task Manager is the same. This still works... but you can also just press the "Windows" key (to pop up the Start Menu) and then start typing to search. It will take "run" commands from this screen as well. Alt+Tab still works. No more grouping pinned apps on the Start Menu. You can pin things but they cannot be grouped and arrangement is basically like it is on the iPhone. (It fills out rows from left to right; you can't "free place" items.) You can remove the search icon from the taskbar. Desktop is the same. Microsoft Store is not any more or less in-your-face than before. Browser situation is basically the same (but it's harder to switch default browsers now). Setting file associations is the same. You can jump through hoops to get a local account. Basically, set up a throwaway MS account, then once at the desktop, create a local account. (Might have to use command line if the GUI doesn't let you do it.) Log into the local account and then delete the online account. It shouldn't bother you about it anymore. There are no changes to this in Windows 11. However, there are changes to it in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 if the system supports "modern standby", and pretty much all new laptops do. Most of the advanced power options are gone in this case. You can get them back by disabling modern standby, which adds those options back, but then you won't be able to use the "Sleep" function on your system. (Hibernate still works.) This Reddit post explains how to do it. Just a registry change and reboot. If you paste a link and it makes that box, check the bottom of the post writing area. A popup appears with an option to change back to a regular link.

Just an update. Taking a bit longer than I thought to sift through everything. I finally got all of the files on the server and unpacked. Some stats — the archive is currently sitting at 295 GB and 6,226,158 individual files. There is some duplicate data in there so as I consolidate, it will shrink a bit. Today, I'm just going to try to get through basic consolidation and adding the info banner to the top of all of the threads. Once that is done, I'll post it and work on more improvements later. @Samir Yes, there was a whole Toshiba subforum so that will be included with the next update.

I noticed that giving a “sad” reaction to a post doesn’t seem to add a rep point. On your profile, you can see this – 60 rep points (current value) only adds up if “sad” and “confused” are excluded. Can the point values of the different types of reactions be adjusted? Could a certain reaction give more than 1 point? (Not saying we should do this, just wondering what the options are.)

A Windows 11 license is a Windows 10 license. Microsoft has always offered downgrade rights. However... to install Windows 10 on this XPS you will have to do it yourself, via clean install. There won't be a rollback option offered from Window 11 after you boot it up.

System-wide dark mode isn't exactly system-wide. For example, see "Task Manager" in the screen shot above; dark mode doesn't change its appearance at all.