Firefox is running, but preventing the LF page from opening without permission.

You might try running IE or Chrome if you have them.

I read so many bad things about Windows 10, privacy issues, spying, etc.

I'll stick with Windows 7.

Use you CCleaner to remove the crap

I've had good luck with Jet Clean and SUPERAntiSpyware

Thanks for the guidance. Win 10 is brutal.

I have used CCLeaner for about 8 years. I use the professional version (I pay for that stuff) because it allows me to control "stuff" on my disks all over my local network with ease. It even senses SSDs which have limited R/W cycles compared to my RAIDS (All pretty BIG HDDS).

There are a lot of bugs that go around locking up internet browsers on Windows PCs irrespective of the variations/versions. I have never had that problem on a Linux box, but Linux requires a nit more acumen to navigate and I understand that viewpoint. So, the sacrifice for many users to have a simple machine is Windows and some sort of way to prevent all the crap that Windows allows.

As a recommendation, set up some simple security precautions: never log on as the administrator of your machine when simple browsing. How to perform that function is set up a guest account in Windows with no capability to install software when browsing. For Linux, we rarely surf the internet as "root" as malicious stuff exists at all times; not many use Linux, so this recommendation is probably not significant.

For Windows users, the Windows startup routine is the BIGGEST WAY a machine is S-L-O-W. Get rid of the stuff and then select what you want thereafter. Never have a machine rule your machine with simple automated gizmos.

Thanks for the guidance. Win 10 is brutal.

It isn't brutal; it uses a different GUI but it has all the stuff that can put you in control.

You purchased a used machine; this fact places you at the seller's mercy assuming they had any. You should have received fully licensed Windows software. Since it is a new machine for you, you should be able to reinstall the OS and start over again based on your own direction.

Use your CCleaner first; if it doesn't work, don't go back to an unsupported OS. You will find many new problems. Instead, re-install Windows 10 on your newly formatted HDD.

How to Downgrade Preinstalled or Upgraded Windows 10 Installation to Windows 7/8.1

And whenever that windows 7 OS starts to deliver sad performance, I just create a new Virtul Win7 OS install to start over. It's literally as simple as copying files to new folder in Linux and takes 2 mins.

But again, linux does just about everything I need anyway. One of the few issues is Skype on linux, which used to work fine until the latest upgrade (Microsoft now owns Skype so they don't really know how to make it work, or just don't want to). I now run skype on my tablet and it works perfectly. Word and Excel docs from windows can be opened and modified just fine in Linux OpenOffice.

Linux has a full graphic interface, is easy for anyone to install & use, has yet to have any problems with viruses. In the past Linux was harder for non technical people to use, but we are long past the point where there are still any valid excuses for people tired of windows to not have transitioned to Linux.

How would Liberator downgrade when he bought a used computer with Win-doze 10 pre-installed? There is no traceability to a license agreement with Microsoft and therefore no warranty per your dumb ass suggestion.

He only needs an existing Win7 Pro license to install an old version. Since he is mourning the loss of his old OS, he has a good chance of already owning a Win7 that he could install on this Win10 Hellmachine.

I never suggested he had any warranty. You made that up. Dumb ass.

To you Computer tech-heads, just got a Win 10 HP piece of crap that is running in quicksand. It's not a brand new machine...

If the machine is several years old, you could find and install an old version of Win7 on it because the machine is likely to have been sold with Win7 and therefore the drivers to run all the components under Win7 would still exist.

If it is a machine made in the last 2 years, there is a chance that no one ever wrote Win7 drivers for it and that the system may only have Win10 drivers available for it. You might check the model number on the support pages for it at HP to make sure that there are Win7/Win8.1 drivers available. No reason to even try downgrading unless you know that all the system components will be supported under Win7.

He only needs an existing Win7 Pro license to install an old version. Since he is mourning the loss of his old OS, he has a good chance of already owning a Win7 that he could install on this Win10 Hellmachine.

With the Win7 PRO that I know of (fully licensed of course) from the original install, it will read the CPU registration and lock to the machine. Win 7 is not transferable to other boxes is what I am suggesting.

You are simplifying the issues into silliness.

With the Win7 PRO that I know of (fully licensed of course) from the original install, it will read the CPU registration and lock to the machine. Win 7 is not transferable to other boxes is what I am suggesting.

You get stupider by the day.

Win7 and others never lock to a CPU. The OEM versions of newer versions of Windows will lock to a particular motherboard and its components. For these, you must stay with the same computer or at least a motherboard with the same components. However, you can install different CPUs with no problem. For OEM versions, the OS is locked to the first computer (motherboard configuration) you install it on and you cannot upgrade previous versions of Windows with it.

If you have a full licensed copy of Win7, you can install it where you like and it can upgrade old versions of Windows (and it has direct support from Microsoft, not the OEM). It does "lock" to a particular configuration of motherboard/RAM/drives/video cards during the registration process with Microsoft. This can temporarily inhibit any component changes, even while still using a computer with the same CPU/mobo/video card. Microsoft will accept new configurations but it takes a little more fuss. In no case is the OS ever locked to a particular CPU or hardware configuration or motherboard.

You don't seem to know much about Windows OEM vs. full versions. You shouldn't be offering advice to anyone.

Liberator might be better off just trying to clean up his Win10 machine to make it usable. The presence of creepy bloated spyware is discouraging but with some effort, he should be able to get a clean Win10. And keep in mind that this Win7-Forever thing is going to turn out just like the WinXP-Forever did. When the manufacturers of the components and Microsoft stop building drivers for new components and motherboards for an old OS like WinXP or Win7, that OS's days are numbered.

Microsoft ended all non-subscribed (paid corporate) support for Win7 in January 2015, two years ago. Even the paid corporate bigwigs will receive support only through January of 2020, only two years from now. And even the subscribed support corporate types get only security patches and minor updates. Microsoft is not producing any new device driver support for these corporate machines so they lack the ability to use many newer components appearing on the market due to lack of drivers.

You may want to reconsider making much effort or incurring expense to make a Win10 HP into a Win7 HP with only two years left in the Win7 support cycle. I know this isn't happy advice for you to hear but you need to be coldblooded about it and recognize the reality of what happens when Microsoft sunsets and then drops support for one of its OSes.

Ignore buckwheat's advice.

You get stupider by the day.

Yep, and every time I break wind from the
beans the sound it makes is: "Buckeroo."

Yep, and every time I break wind from the beans the sound it makes is: "Buckeroo."

One of your most perspicacious observations here at LF.     : )

Going back to my #19 and the performance hits that older Intel CPU-based systems will incur to fix the CPU flaw in these older systems (under Linux/Windoze/MacOS), there are those within the industry who are saying this benefits AMD.

AMD's new generation of CPUs do not have this deep security flaw found in the Intel CPUs. These AMD CPUs, the Ryzen line for desktops/workstations and AMD's big multicore server CPUs do not incur these speed penalties that are being enacted now on all the Intel-based machines that are a few years old. So suddenly those old Windows machines are going to get noticeably slower. People that just got screwed by Intel are going to be looking hard at buying AMD if they feel they have to upgrade their machines due to this security flaw. Why would anyone want to reward a company that just screwed them by buying another of their products? Nobody wants to do that. And it does give AMD a food in the door, just as their powerful new chip designs have matured and come to market in sizable quantities.

Intel issued a patch to essentially slow down all machines running Linux/Windoze and close the security hole caused by the flawed CPU design. Now that has apparently been pulled back and the AMD machines sail on running at full speed and the Intel-based machines are stuck with worse performance if they patch this severe security hole. Apple will have to do the same, I think. Apple's Mach micro-kernel would seem to be just as vulnerable from what I'm reading.

The most recent Intel CPUs are far less impacted by the performance hit incurred by patching this CPU flaw. This indicates that Intel knew for some time that they were producing extremely flawed CPU designs and chose not to fix that problem and then issued a patch to fix and, therefore, greatly slow down those CPUs. It brings to mind the Apple iPhone scandal of stealthily trying to downgrade their performance to save their battery life (warranted for 3 years for AppleCare customers to retain over 50% of battery life, no matter how many times the battery cycled). So I would expect some class action lawsuits against Intel for this. Among others, thing of all the cloud providers with hundreds of thousands of these CPUs who will, as a direct result of Intel's actions, lose 20%-50% of the performance they paid Intel's premium prices to obtain. This will not end well for Intel in court.

Then think of all the damage from class action lawsuits by ordinary consumers.

For the first time in a long time, this might be the time to consider buying some AMD stock. They really do have some good new hardware in their latest CPU designs. There are also some of the latest Intel CPUs that are containing fairly powerful AMD Radeon graphics instead of the various Intel embedded 3d graphics capabilities, an implicit admission that AMD has progressed faster and cheaper than Intel has. Intel wouldn't license AMD's Radeon silicon for its own chips if it could economically provide the same performance in-house. I welcome the competition, across the board. The rise of AMD against Intel has always been a net bonanza for the consumer, it seems.

What about processors in phones/tablets? ARM, Qualcomm etc. etc.? Android OS?

Apparently, some of the ARM CPUs suffer a comparable defect, the bigger 64-bit ones. So many of these are customized CPU cores, like Apple's A8/A9/A10 CPUs in its iPhones/iPads, that it is hard to make a comprehensive statement about all the ARM CPU variants. But I suspect the high-end ARM CPUs will suffer some performance penalty as well. Most prominent suspects: Windows 10 tablets with ARM and Google's own Chromebook and its clones (like the ASUS Chromebook).

The units most likely to be adversely affected will be the most pricey models produced in recent years for Windows ARM tablets and Chromebook hardware. That'll leave a bad taste in the mouths of buyers and summon a parade of class-action lawyers hungry for a payoff.

I think people haven't quite realized just how bad this is for Intel and, to a lesser extent, ARM.

The exact details of the patch will become known in a month or so. This is pretty typical. After that, machines which remain unpatched will most certainly be vulnerable to attack via this CPU defect. The patch issued (or a new Linux kernel) can be diffed against the most recent version of the kernel being used. The patch itself is a roadmap on where and what to attack. This is why issuing the patch is in itself a danger to all machines which remain unpatched because the criminal element will take advantage of it. We are already seeing, for instance, North Korean hackers trying to hijack computers in the West to use them to mine for cryptocurrency.

This is always the problem with closing security holes. When you issue the patches, they can be reverse-engineered with a decompiler so that virus writers know what to attack. And any machine which remains unpatched is fully vulnerable. The effort to patch the problem reveals the vulnerability to all the bad actors wanting to exploit such things for malware networks or botnets or cryptomining on other people's machines.

From Engadget yesterday:

AMD is "not affected". That's because they were building a better Intel CPU than Intel was. Intel cheated on security to rack up higher benchmarks to help their sales as the alleged performance leader. Now we find out the true price we paid for these Intel CPUs which showed very marginal increases in performance in numbers of cores or CPU clock speed over the last five years.

Recall the bad CPU instruction in the old Pentium III series as they pushed for 1GHz and 1.3GHz CPUs. They were lucky that they could recall most of them before they went out the doors at Dell and other companies. But that gave AMD a big chance to take the market for years with its new Athlon CPUs. I would say that AMD has an even greater opportunity now as its Ryzen and server class CPUs are already being produced at market scale around the world and its GPUs have good performance with real strength in the notebook and embedded GPU segments.

Once the patch is implemented, don't be surprised if AMD's Ryzen and Epyc CPUs are the performance leaders across the entire market. They're close enough already, easily so in the price range of most consumer devices.

And forget just about every CPU benchmark that you've seen in at least the last five years. They're all wrong and they favor cheating-ass Intel as a result.

They mention this at the end:

So, that answers some of your question about ARM systems. And I am already safely slowed down on my Intel i7 Mac as I am now running MacOS 10.13.2.

I have a cheapie HP Stream 11-y010wm notebook computer that I use on very rare occasion when I need to use HP scanner/printer software on my printer...

Anyway, the damn Win10 upgrade wizard tells me that my CPU is OK & my RAM is OK, but I don't have enough space on the 32GB built-in hard disk. Well I've run the damn disk cleaning utility and I've removed all the damn programs except Windows itself (plus a few HP programs I need for the Wifi, mousepad & crap like that) and the frigging bloatware STILL tells me I need more room... I'm at wits end... what else can I safely remove so the damn upgrade will work? Even if I have to remove system files that it'll reinstall when it upgrades... Any advice/help would be appreciated.

• You may have the old Windows files still on your hard drive if you upgraded from Win7 to Win10.
• You may have regular temp files from the OS and various software installs taking up space.
• You could have a full set of all the Win10 security updates sitting there, already installed in your Windows but the install files not deleted.

I suggest you check some of these solutions from Microsoft:

MSDN: Deleting temp files in Windows 10. Also computer slower with Windows 10.

Click to skim through the 45 user comments too.

Windows has never been good at dumping its own temp files. It's never wrong to suspect they're leaving a lot of temp files around. They just aren't good at cleaning up temp file messes that they make. Linux and MacOS don't have this problem.

You might also check your web browsers to make sure that their disk caches are reasonable. Something less than 128MB for each browser isn't unreasonable. Some people would say smaller or bigger size is better but just checking through all those (hashed) cache files takes considerable time for your browser to do, making your browser experience slower on average.

Win10 really shouldn't be taking up more than about 10GB. You should have plenty of room unless you're storing big stuff in your Documents folder (like big video or audio collections or hundreds of large scanned PDF files).

Update: looking further I see Win10 is a bigger hog than I knew:

Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS

Yeow!

You might check to see whether you're running the 32-bit or the 64-bit version of Win10.

I don't always checks my pings, especially when I've been off-line or elsewhere. My bad.

Thank you for responding and for extending your respective advice and suggestions. It is appreciated...

No, not you. Willie was the one who asked a specific question.

I was a little grouchy and needy to Willie that he didn't followup but you know how I crave closure.

To return somewhere near your topic - the ol' BTTT we all recall - here's a fresh link about the ongoing effort to patch recent Intel CPUs with microcode updates.

ArsTechnica: Intel ships (hopefully stable) microcode for Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake

Supposedly, this update will fix the problem of the last CPU microcode update which caused a lot of system crashes and made people unhappy.

After I offered up advice that you solicited, you don't even bother to reply.

Sorry... I've been struggling with that damn bloatware, trying to get the upgrade to work...

I have the 64-bit... and the suggestions you gave helped quite a bit... I can clean out a LOT of crap that the clean-up wizard misses, giving me 17.0 GB used on C:/ and 10.8 GB available... and did a "reset this PC" taking it all back to square one with no reset point to revert back to... And delete ALL other programs it will let me delete... I don't have NOTHING on there except the fucking Windows... And I made sure the recylce bin is empty too...

And when I start the Win 10 upgrade assistant, IT TELLS ME EVERYTHING IS OK...
The CPU is OK and the RAM is OK and the hard drive space (10.8 GB available) is OK...

And then I sit there and wait while it downloads...

And then I sit there and wait while it installs...

And I sit and wait some more because it's slower than molasses in January...

And then I get pissed-off & start cussing a blue streak because it mother-fucking bombs out after being 80% installed...

And it has the mother-fucking AUDACITY to tell me that it's because there's not enough disk space after telling me there WAS enough space when I started.

GODDAM BLOATWARE

Fuck Bill Gates...

Fuck Microsoft

Fuck Redmond Washington

The world would've been a much nicer place to live if they had just called it quits after DOS 6.0...

Gates has NEVER made a version of Windows that didn't SUCK.

And it has the mother-fucking AUDACITY to tell me that it's because there's not enough disk space after telling me there WAS enough space when I started.

Yes, it's never good when your OS takes up more than half of your storage media.

Is there any way that you can download the update you need on to a USB drive? Those are very cheap now for 16GB or 32GB.

I'm not sure you could even update that laptop's internal drive. An EMMC drive is unusual, not really an SSD, just a MMC data card soldiered to the motherboard.

I suppose you could try to ask HP support or search around their forum to see if anyone else has the same problem or found a solution. I went to look at the HP forum and found this thread:

HP: I am runnin W 10 ver.1511 and wish to upgrade to 1607, but it is no go , 12/15/16

HP is saying that the drive cannot be upgraded, it seems. They suggest wiping the drive entirely, installing Win10 fully from a USB drive. That's a lot of downloading and fussing.

That is just an insanely small boot drive. I suppose it must have made some sense to HP when they built it.

Is there any way that you can download the update you need on to a USB drive? Those are very cheap now for 16GB or 32GB.

I was about to ask you the same thing... or at least a similar question..

I have a 32GB microSDHC inserted as drive D:/, and found a way to use it as default for any apps I download plus docs, pictures, music, etc... but don't know how to divert any system crap to it..

I can't remember... is there some kind of windows swap file that I can change the path for?

I found a way to disable the recycle bin, so anything that I delete actually gets deleted...

What about "temp" files... I vaguely recall something about using environmental variables to divert them somewhere too.... But my memory is getting faulty in my old age...

I also have a 16GB USB stick plugged in as drive E:/, but it's just sitting there not doing anything...

Is there any way to "merge" or "append" drives D:/ or E:/ with C:/ so the system thinks it's all just one big drive? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? That's another vague memory I have from somewhere that I don't know if it's real or not... Maybe I'm getting confused with linux...

I have a 32GB microSDHC inserted as drive D:/, and found a way to use it as default for any apps I download plus docs, pictures, music, etc... but don't know how to divert any system crap to it..

That should be plenty to be able to download a current Win10 install file, wipe your drive in the BIOS utility, and then install. Just be certain that you have created a bootable USB drive with the Win10 OS on it.

I can't remember... is there some kind of windows swap file that I can change the path for?

You can limit its size or you can divert it to another drive. I doubt that will solve your problem.

I also have a 16GB USB stick plugged in as drive E:/, but it's just sitting there not doing anything...

You should be able to download a full Win10 installer to it and use it to install to a blank C: drive.

Is there any way to "merge" or "append" drives D:/ or E:/ with C:/ so the system thinks it's all just one big drive? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? That's another vague memory I have from somewhere that I don't know if it's real or not... Maybe I'm getting confused with linux...

There are utilities that have come and gone over the years but I wouldn't recommend them. That works okay on Linux and MacOS, not as well for Windows machines.

Microsoft: Windows 10 ISO download

Make sure you have your OEM licensing info handy before you try any of this stuff. Also make sure you can boot with that USB flash drive before you erase anything on the C: drive.

Make sure you have your OEM licensing info handy before you try any of this stuff.

is that stored on my computer somewhere?

You might try to do an online chat with HP. It'll take a while to get a good answer but they should know something. Apparently, they sold a lot of these laptops to schools, including a schools-only model with a 64GB eMMC drive.

On some machines, they have a Windows activation key tied to their serial number and system configuration. For such machines, it will just install and you can skip entering any license key. For others, you need to find your Windows OEM key before you wipe that hard drive.

Yours is probably already embedded in the BIOS info. But make sure you know before you try anything.

Also, it would be a good idea to get all your system drivers from HP downloaded before you wipe the machine.

HP: How I was able to install Windows 10 on HP Stream 13 (32GB SSD)

HP's forums do have some info from others that had problems, mostly getting from Win8.1 to Win10.

HP has an upgrades page that could help.

HP: HP PCs - How to Reset Your Computer to Factory Settings (Windows 10, 8, 7)

I DID at least manage to download & do an HP bios update a couple days ago, so I'm pretty sure that change is permanent no matter what I wipe from the drive...

But it's gonna take a few days for me to check out that other stuff because I have other commitments to take care of... So be patient & I'll get back to you then... Thanks again!

That plain ISO file download I pointed you to earlier requires you to create your own bootable USB setup with other utilities. So the other Media Creation version should be more straightforward and reliable.

Any embedded license/serial info should be stored in protected NVRAM and not able to be wiped by an ordinary BIOS update.

Some of these machines do have a hidden recovery partition. It sounds like yours doesn't, given what you're telling us about your disk free space.

But I guess I already said that weeks ago when this thread first started.

OK... so now what? I forget why I started doing this (other than it needed upgrading) But why did I want to mess with it anyway?

Well hopefully it'll come to me...

But in the mean time, are there any "must have" applications and/or utilities that you'd recommend? Is the MS Edge browser good enough? Or should I download Firefox or Chrome for familiarity? Is MS Bitdefender good enough for virus protection? Or should I download Norton? (or is there some other virus protection that's better but I never heard of because I haven done Windows in a dozen years?

BTW, where's a good place to download software? Is CNET OK? Or is there a better place for shareware? What about adblocking and crap like that?

I worked my butt off to get this damn little notebook up to date... might as well give it a shot & see if I like it any better than my obsolete Android tablet. (at least it has a real keyboard LOL!)

Finally! After purging temp files & old window versions over and over and over and over and over again.... it slowly but FINALLY began accepting the upgrades, little by little until AT LONG LAST, I'm up-to-date!

OK... so now what? I forget why I started doing this (other than it needed upgrading) But why did I want to mess with it anyway?

Well, well. Congrats on sheer persistence.

Up in your #27, you indicated it was for an HP printer and/or scanner thing that is highly important to your happiness. Anyway, that's what I thought the upgrade was about.

But in the mean time, are there any "must have" applications and/or utilities that you'd recommend? Is the MS Edge browser good enough? Or should I download Firefox or Chrome for familiarity? Is MS Bitdefender good enough for virus protection? Or should I download Norton? (or is there some other virus protection that's better but I never heard of because I haven done Windows in a dozen years?

Your mileage may vary but you should make sure that you have working print/copy/scan capability. Then check your free space on that really tiny 32GB hard drive and see if you have enough space for any more stuff. Maybe you can put documents and stuff on a flash drive or external USB drive but you need space on your main hard drive for basic apps and for virtual memory and system hibernate disk space too.

If you don't use it much for internet, you can probably get by with MS Bitdefender. I wouldn't install Chrome or Firefox unless you're sure you have enough free space for it.

Although I use Firefox myself, Chrome just completed their transition to support all their different versions of Chrome with clang replacing cc and Microsoft's compilers across the board. So all versions are now synchronized, regardless of OS. And now they'll switch the linkers and use LLVM across all those platforms as well. So I would recommend Chrome just for that reason: works the same on all platforms, all features will be available on all platforms. And no proprietary compilers now. Firefox will be updating as well but Chrome is definitely in the lead.

Drive C:/ shows 21.3 GB used, 7.8 GB free...

But I also installed a 32 GB SDHC as drive D: which shows 2.41 GB used, 27.2 GB free...

And I found a place where I can set the default for new apps, music, downloads & crap like that all goes to D:

So I assume that as long as I don't have to do any more MAJOR Win10 updates, I should be OK with the OS on C: and everything else on D:

Does that make sense?

Oh, I got plenty space now... and I reinstalled all my HP printer/scanner software too

Drive C:/ shows 21.3 GB used, 7.8 GB free...

It all sounds good to me. You need several gigs of that free space just for your hibernate file and your swap file.

But I also installed a 32 GB SDHC as drive D: which shows 2.41 GB used, 27.2 GB free...

Good idea. And you can move your scans/documents/etc to your main machine easily from that SDHC.

And I found a place where I can set the default for new apps, music, downloads & crap like that all goes to D:

Woh. I didn't know you could install apps on a secondary drive. Good for you.

So I assume that as long as I don't have to do any more MAJOR Win10 updates, I should be OK with the OS on C: and everything else on D:

Win10 is configured to auto-install updates. However, it seems unlikely that you'll have any problems with those unless they come out with a SP2 or SP3 (a really major update).

Just keep in mind how we freed up that drive space, clearing temp files and snapshots (above). You'll want to do that every few months, just to keep your free space as high as possible. And if you created a Win10 Media Creator flash drive, keep it around just in case you ever need a re-install.