"Daily Driver" Desktop PC

My "daily driver" PC had a power supply failure. I turned on an older machine which had been unused for some time. This writeup is the setup of my new daily driver PC running Microsoft Windows 10.

 

    Printer drivers are hardware-specific. Install printer hardware drivers and programs from the printer vendor.
    Video drivers are hardware-specific. Other than default Microsoft driver through Windows Update, look for a driver from video card manufacturer.



 

    Install a lightweight PDF viewer instead of relying on the Microsoft Edge viewer.
    Download and install SumatraPDF viewer from github. Then set PDF files to open with SumatraPDF instead of Microsoft Edge viewer. Open File Explorer and go to a PDF filename. Right-click the filename, choose Properties, then Change to SumatraPDF.
    In the SumatraPDF program, go to Advanced Options and set "NoHomeTab = true" and "ShowFavorites = false".

    PDF Arranger allows individual pages to easily be rotated. This is often useful when scanning double-sided pages or pages that were printed in landscape mode. The program is lightweight and is available on github.

    Install a word processing, spreadsheet, and drawing package such as LibreOffice.

 

    For web browsing, install Brave web browser.
    Consider also installing Firefox web browser via the Microsoft Store app (installs only for your user and not for every user, thus not requiring Administrator privileges nor a Services entry).

    The VLC music player is good for playing audio and video files.

    Apple still provides the iTunes podcast player. The integrated iTunes store, to more easily find and subscribe to podcasts, keeps this program relevant and useful.
    When migrating or refreshing an iTunes install, you can start with the prior iTunes settings: find the config library file, hold down SHIFT key, with mouse right-click SendTo itunes. This will start the prior configuration. 

    Add programs to File Explorer "SendTo" context menu. Press "Windowskey & R". In the box type "shell:sendto". That will open File Explorer to the folder which contains shortcuts. Add shortcuts for your programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

    For file sharing and smartphone picture sync, Dropbox has a userful no-cost tier. Instead of running the Dropbox app via Administrator settings (which the program's cloud provider can potentially abuse), get the app via the Microsoft Store app.

    Use the MS Windows built-in night blue light screen warmth adjustment in Settings Display, or download f.lux or from the Microsoft Store. If using f.lux you will probably turn off the "Backwards alarm clock" popups. For both f.lux and the Microsoft settings, the mouse pointer will be all-white instead of warm colors in the evening. This is caused by the mouse pointer being drawn on-screen using the GPU instead of CPU. If you grab a windows title bar and move it, the mouse pointer will change colors. F.lux has an option to fix this, while it can not be fixed when using Microsoft's night light. Microsoft's night light requires "Connected Devices Platform Service" CDPSvc to be running.

    Depending on your tolerance for visual animations, consider making adjustments in the Settings app.
    Turn off unnecessary visual movement in Control Panel "Control Panel\Ease of Access\Ease of Access Center\Make the computer easier to see".
    Search for "scroll" and turn off "Automatically hide scroll bars".

    While in the Settings app, review the following:
    "Privacy settings" and turn off most permissions.
    Review the "Startup apps". If an app does not need to run constantly, don't start it. Also look in Task Manager tab Startup and consider disabling some apps from running at Startup.
    Lock screen "cards" may be turned off in Settings, Personalization, Lock Screen. If the cards still appear, turn it on, below the line "Choose one app" and set it to none, then turn it off.
    If screen text is a little blurry or difficult to read, run Settings -> ClearType. You may have to run it several times until you find what you like.
    The taskbar "news and interests" are managed in Settings. 

    Go to Settings, Network & Internet, Change adapter options, choose properties of a connection, choose IPv4 or IPv6 and the properties. Edit the DNS servers to do name lookups with a service which filters malware sites, such as 1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3. 
    Unless you have a specific need for IPv6, go to Network Connections -> Networking and uncheck IPv6. This is particularly true for home machines which stay at home behind your own router. An IPv6 address is unique to the hardware in your machine, so it is unlikely to be beneficial to provide that unique identifier to every website you access.

    Remove the web advertising when typing in the Start menu of MS Windows. 

    Run "Windows Features" and turn off functionality you are not using to reduce the surface area of possible bugs. For example, many people can safely uncheck "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" and "Work Folders Client".

 

 

 

 

 
    Review the MS Windows shutdown power states. Is the PC really off or just deep-sleep hibernating?

    Create a restore point. Configure System Protection to Turn ON system protection, then create restore point for system drive. systempropertiesprotection.exe
    Check and repair corrupt system files with DISM and SFC:
www.infotechnotes.com/2021/07/fix-corrupt-microsoft-windows-files.html
    Open Windows Security and run a full virus scan.
    Controlled Folder Access is part of ransomware protection in Windows Security. Some apps such as Dropbox like to look all over a machine. To protect your personal files from external command & control software, restrict access to some folders. Turn the ransomware setting ON, and set some PROTECTED FOLDERS. You can use Controlled Folder Access to block access to an entire drive (like your backups) or by folder.


    Configure File History Service to make file copy backups off the local machine.


    Remove unwanted MS Windows apps and functionality:
Look in Settings and consider which Windows Feature are not being unused and can be uninstalled.
Run services.msc and change services you don't need to "Manual" or "Disabled" things you won't need - like "Cellular Time" and "Retail Demo Service" and "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper".
Use Powershell to remove other apps. For some apps you may need to be Adminstrator. Over time it may not be possible to remove some apps. For example, the Microsoft Bing app seems have become deeply integrated in MS Windows 10 and is now difficult to remove.

    Remove to turn on Core Isolation, Memory Integrity in Windows Security.

    Add items to File Explorer context-sensitive menu using Registry Editor as administrator:
www.infotechnotes.com/2021/10/ms-windows-file-explorer-customization.html

 

Failing Hard Disk Drive

I have a couple of the Seagate 3000GB drives from a few years ago which are known to fail. Files sporadically became unreadable. Running the MS Windows built-in check disk command didn't recognize any errors. From a command window, the check disk syntax is: chkdsk driveletter: like "chkdsk d:".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check disk completed without finding errors. See the line "0KB in bad sectors".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried to reformat the drive and it would not format correctly. 

If you have a failing drive, promptly back up the contents. Then try a reformat or a disk stress tool. It's unlikely a failing drive will heal itself, so have some fun opening the drive. Safety glasses and a small screwdriver should open the drive case. 

 

Shutdown Power States Of Microsoft Windows

To enable a faster startup experience, MS Windows implemented various levels of power off such as "standy" and "hyrbrid sleep" and "fast startup". The "fast startup" was included with MS Windows 8, and it often made a significant difference in startup speed. "Fast startup" is still available in versions 10 and 11. A "shut down" Microsoft Windows can be in various levels of being actually shut down. Microsoft describes the system power states used by MS Windows.

An important differentiating point of the "shut down" states is when all disk writes are finally persisted to disk. A person who is concerned about minimizing risk of data loss or corruption, or wants to ensure a full reboot wil actually work, will want to ensure a complete shut down. This will slow down getting MS Windows to the "working state".

 

Open the Control Panel and go to power options at Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options. 

Choose one of the plans and click on "Change plan settings" then click on "Change advanced power settings". This will open the "Power Options" window and various running and hybernation settings are available, along with hardware settings such as the wireless adapter.

 

In Control Panel, click on the option on the left for "Choose what the power button does". This is in Control Panel at Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\System Settings .

Under "Shutdown settings", uncheck "Turn on fast startup" to completely shut down and fully persist state information at shut down. If the checkmark is grayed out, click on "Change settings that are currently unavailable".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now open a Powershell as Administrator.

Run "powercfg.exe /list" to view the existing schemes. This is similar to the "Power Options" GUI.

 

 

 

 

Run "powercfg.exe /a" to view which power states are available for your motherboard and CPU.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may want to explore the powercfg.exe options /ENERGY and /SYSTEMPOWERREPORT.

When the PC is doing a complete shut down and restart with all data persisted, upon startup you will see the power on POST messages from BIOS firmware. If you are not seeing POST messages, you may not be doing a full shut down and restart. The only way to know if the PC will restart successfully is to persist everything to disk and do a complete and slower restart.