S.O.S.--instructions for a dummy needed

nota bene · Sep 2, 2016

I bought a new computer in March. Windows 10. It wanted me to use Edge, but Norton Pro didn't like that, so I added IE 10. And had everything the way I wanted until yesterday morning, when I woke up to find everything gone. I couldn't even click onto the Internet. I don't know how I figured out how to access IE instead of Edge and whatever else the evil empire wants to force on me.

Lots of ordinary functions are gone, and I had to visit the Microsoft Store to install the calculator. I don't even know where to look to find my system files and etc., and that hateful Cortana is back. I finally asked her how I could make her go away, and "she" replied that I would have to sign in to talk to her. Bah.

On the desktop there is now, just as when I first bought the computer, a long left-side menu. Dozens and dozens of games and other irrelevant stuff that I'll never use. I don't know what to do to restore what I had. I don't want to use Edge and Bing, and now my Yahoo account is messed up, and messages read like dot-matrix or something because, I'm told, I'm using an unsupported browser.

I'm so dumb that I don't know what to do or even what I'm asking. What did Microsoft do to my computer? Update stuff that changed everything? Is there a fix? Why can't I just click somewhere to view all my files and folders?

Lutherf · Sep 2, 2016

Does anyone else use your computer? It almost sounds like you changed user profiles.

Henrin · Sep 2, 2016

Setting default browser:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-set-your-default-browser-windows-10-just-5-steps:

Removing edge from use:

How to Remove Microsoft Edge from Windows 10

google said:
How to disable Cortana in brief:

Open the Cortana search box in Windows 10.
Click the Notebook icon.
Click Settings.
Click the toggle to disable Cortana.

nota bene · Sep 2, 2016

Lutherf said:
Does anyone else use your computer? It almost sounds like you changed user profiles.

No, I'm the only one. I know this sounds paranoid, but I am totally blaming Microsoft because it seems so determined to force its will on the user. (Also, did I mention how blithely ignorant I am?)

nota bene · Sep 2, 2016

Henrin said:
Setting default browser:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-set-your-default-browser-windows-10-just-5-steps:

Removing edge from use:

How to Remove Microsoft Edge from Windows 10

Thank you for these, Henrin. I will try this afternoon.

I just don't understand what happened. I mean, where did all my settings go and why? I wanted to look at the system files to see if I could determine what happened that way, but in this hideously long, alphabetized left-menu of choices, I can't even find what to click to view them. It's not settings. That bitch Cortana wouldn't tell me either, LOL.

This is making me insane, especially the Yahoo plain text only issue. I don't understand why I have to install an app from the Microsoft Store to view my own photos. I don't understand why the McAfee that came preloaded is back. For about two weeks when I've rebooted, a Microsoft recommendation to upgrade to IE 11 has popped up, and I've ignored it. Could Microsoft have just tried to do this anyway or something?

(I know--ignorant, ignorant, ignorant.)

Lutherf · Sep 2, 2016

nota bene said:
Thank you for these, Henrin. I will try this afternoon.

I just don't understand what happened. I mean, where did all my settings go and why? I wanted to look at the system files to see if I could determine what happened that way, but in this hideously long, alphabetized left-menu of choices, I can't even find what to click to view them. It's not settings. That bitch Cortana wouldn't tell me either, LOL.

This is making me insane, especially the Yahoo plain text only issue. I don't understand why I have to install an app from the Microsoft Store to view my own photos. I don't understand why the McAfee that came preloaded is back. For about two weeks when I've rebooted, a Microsoft recommendation to upgrade to IE 11 has popped up, and I've ignored it. Could Microsoft have just tried to do this anyway or something?

(I know--ignorant, ignorant, ignorant.)

Before you go crazy looking for stuff I suggest that you do a hard reboot. Just hold the power button until everything turns off, wait a minute, then start things up again. I've always been amazed at how much stuff that simple operation can fix.

nota bene · Sep 2, 2016

Amazingly--I don't know when this happened last--the whole road lost power for 20 minutes. When I rebooted, the file icon was back. Yay! I now have the original stupid snowy winter background with different desktop icons, and when I click the 4-paned Windows icon, a different desktop--the one that appeared yesterday morning--appears with its long alphabetized menu. On that I'd already moved Word.

I just don't understand what happened. Did Microsoft do this to me in an overnight update?

I suffer from such technological ennui and know that my questions are pitiable. :3oops:

nota bene · Sep 3, 2016

I am being stubbornly prideful here and refusing to take my BFF's advice and call her IT son for help. Not yet. Instead, I've been studying up, and what I've discovered is that I'm rereading what I read in March when I bought this computer.

I have two browsers, IE and Edge, and I guess I need to suck it up and accept Edge. My Norton Pro does not, but I'm paid up for a year. Yahoo tells me now that I'm using an unsupported browser and is now only in plain text, and it wants me to use Firefox. Norton wants me to use Chrome. So does my phone, but I don't want to because I hate Google.

So my next stupid question is whether I should disable Norton despite being paid up (plus an additional $148 I paid one of its helper groups to remove files that it said were malware that McAfee didn't didn't catch, and they showed me summaries of the worms and etc.) .

And then should I return to the pre-loaded McAfee (I'd have to subscribe now) or what? Recommendations?

PeteEU · Sep 3, 2016

nota bene said:
Amazingly--I don't know when this happened last--the whole road lost power for 20 minutes. When I rebooted, the file icon was back. Yay! I now have the original stupid snowy winter background with different desktop icons, and when I click the 4-paned Windows icon, a different desktop--the one that appeared yesterday morning--appears with its long alphabetized menu. On that I'd already moved Word.

That is the anniversary update. Congrats, it is a good one. It is rolling out to people across the world slowly. Been rocking that update since day one, and loving it.

It does however reset standard apps, in particular the browser. But that is easy to fix.. press Windows button (lower left corner) > Settings > System (first one) > Default apps.

I just don't understand what happened. Did Microsoft do this to me in an overnight update?

Yes. You most likely have Windows Home and hence cant stop updates... not that you should as a "technological ennui"

.

As for the thing that caused all the problems in the first place... Norton Pro? Blame that for your problems, not Microsoft. Edge is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer, but I would suggest going to Firefox or Chrome instead. Although with this update Edge gets a lot of new features that makes it battle ready against Firefox and Chrome. I would dump Norton Pro (unless you paid for it) asap.. dont really need it with Windows 10 imo.

PeteEU · Sep 3, 2016

nota bene said:
I am being stubbornly prideful here and refusing to take my BFF's advice and call her IT son for help. Not yet. Instead, I've been studying up, and what I've discovered is that I'm rereading what I read in March when I bought this computer.

I have two browsers, IE and Edge, and I guess I need to suck it up and accept Edge. My Norton Pro does not, but I'm paid up for a year. Yahoo tells me now that I'm using an unsupported browser and is now only in plain text, and it wants me to use Firefox. Norton wants me to use Chrome. So does my phone, but I don't want to because I hate Google.

So my next stupid question is whether I should disable Norton despite being paid up (plus an additional $148 I paid one of its helper groups to remove files that it said were malware that McAfee didn't didn't catch, and they showed me summaries of the worms and etc.) .

And then should I return to the pre-loaded McAfee (I'd have to subscribe now) or what? Recommendations?

Sorry did not see this question..

You paid for it, then keep it even though I would say that for most people it is not needed now days because of Windows 10s advanced security. Remember your computer is only as secure as the user behind the keyboard allows it.... think vampires... they are only allowed into a building if they are invited

Same goes for the crap on the internet.

But ignore what Norton is saying, as what it wants to do is add an add-on to your browser to "protect" you on the internet. And since it has not made one for Edge yet (as far as I know), then it says it is incompatible. Fact is Edge is far better and more secure than Internet Explorer.

I see you dont trust Google, well that is your choice. Use Firefox instead then, or even Opera.

Absentglare · Sep 3, 2016

nota bene said:
No, I'm the only one. I know this sounds paranoid, but I am totally blaming Microsoft because it seems so determined to force its will on the user. (Also, did I mention how blithely ignorant I am?)

I'm sorry, it sounds like you are another victim of Microsoft's strategy.

Now, i probably shouldn't speculate, but my impression is that they keep changing stuff (1) to give them something new to sell (2) to deliberately obfuscate their design so competitors cannot catch up (3) to encourage the need for additional tech support.

Thankfully, there are armies of other confused, irritated people who have dealt with some of these problems.

nota bene · Sep 3, 2016

It's not that I don't trust Google and use it continually every day; it's that I despise it because it cooperated with the Chinese about censorship over there. And now I super-despise it because my smartphone is a Motorola. Google bought Motorola and then sold it at a discount, but my phone still wants to do the sexy talk with Chrome, and I'm in rebellion about this.

I think the answer is going to be ditching Norton. It's just that I'm paid up for a full year.

Is Windows 10 really safe enough to ditch Norton?

PeteEU · Sep 4, 2016

nota bene said:
Is Windows 10 really safe enough to ditch Norton?

As long as you keep it and your browser updated and dont do stupid things on the internet.. then yes.

Problem with malware/spyware systems is, that they are only as good as how "stupid" the user is. By that I mean, they cant prevent you from being an idiot and allowing malware/spyware onto your machine. Things like clicking on documents/pictures/files from people you dont know.. bad bad idea. Or even from people you do know, but the whole email is out of character or badly spelled / layouted. Another big alarm there. Stuff like that, it cant prevent.

Now virus wise, again 99.9999% of virus need some sort of interaction by you. If you use Gmail, then Gmail automatically catches a lot of virus they suspect of being infected with something. I know that from experience as I filter my personal email server through Gmail and every once in a while I get an email or two with an attachment where Google suspects something. My built in anti-virus would only have figured out something was wrong if I started running it, and maybe not even then.

So what I am basically saying.. the security risk is you, not so much the PC or the operating system (as long as it is updated). So use the Internet as you would do things in real life... dont invite strangers into your home

JC Callender · Sep 4, 2016

I bought a Dell earlier this year and got two or three viruses while using Edge in only a couple of hours. It was extremely frustrating attempting to get rid of all of the b.s. these viruses installed on my computer. I finally figured out that I could use "System Restore" to restore my computer back to before I got the viruses. I wasn't worried about losing any files since my computer was still new. Once my computer was restored, I immediately installed the proper version of Chrome and made it my default browser so Edge wouldn't automatically come up. Watch out though, there is a fake version of Chrome that may show up at the top of your search engine that will download all kinds of worthless programs onto your computer (that was one of my viruses). I tried so hard to get rid of Edge and think I may have, although the icon is still at the bottom of my computer and I avoid it at all costs.

Restore A Computer Using System Restore In Microsoft Windows Vista | Dell US

PeteEU · Sep 4, 2016

JC Callender said:
I bought a Dell earlier this year and got two or three viruses while using Edge in only a couple of hours. It was extremely frustrating attempting to get rid of all of the b.s. these viruses installed on my computer. I finally figured out that I could use "System Restore" to restore my computer back to before I got the viruses. I wasn't worried about losing any files since my computer was still new. Once my computer was restored, I immediately installed the proper version of Chrome and made it my default browser so Edge wouldn't automatically come up. Watch out though, there is a fake version of Chrome that may show up at the top of your search engine that will download all kinds of worthless programs onto your computer (that was one of my viruses). I tried so hard to get rid of Edge and think I may have, although the icon is still at the bottom of my computer and I avoid it at all costs.

Restore A Computer Using System Restore In Microsoft Windows Vista | Dell US

Not trying to defend Edge, but it sounds more like you clicked on stuff you should not have... no offence meant, it happens to a lot of people. No amount of anti-virus software or different browsers can prevent what happened to you. I just serviced a PC where the user (since his last service 6 months ago), managed to get McAfee security something installed plus a bunch of other small programs. How I dunno, but it he is protected up the... with paid anti-virus and so on and yet he still gets his browser hijacked and gets malware/spyware installed. He is just not careful... and no it is not from porn sites

if that is what you are thinking.. I checked!

In the future, instead of doing a system restore, I suggest you go to

https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

And download ADWcleaner. It is a french guy who makes it, and it is damn effective against most malware and spyware programs... more effective than Malwarebytes for example.

JC Callender · Sep 4, 2016

PeteEU said:
Not trying to defend Edge, but it sounds more like you clicked on stuff you should not have... no offence meant, it happens to a lot of people. No amount of anti-virus software or different browsers can prevent what happened to you. I just serviced a PC where the user (since his last service 6 months ago), managed to get McAfee security something installed plus a bunch of other small programs. How I dunno, but it he is protected up the... with paid anti-virus and so on and yet he still gets his browser hijacked and gets malware/spyware installed. He is just not careful... and no it is not from porn sites if that is what you are thinking.. I checked!

In the future, instead of doing a system restore, I suggest you go to

https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/

And download ADWcleaner. It is a french guy who makes it, and it is damn effective against most malware and spyware programs... more effective than Malwarebytes for example.

I had 3 viruses within about 2 hours of use with Edge and never a single virus with Chrome.

PeteEU · Sep 5, 2016

JC Callender said:
I had 3 viruses within about 2 hours of use with Edge and never a single virus with Chrome.

Doubt it was viruses... more like malware/spyware. Again that only happens if you do something wrong, even in Edge.

SocialD · Sep 6, 2016

PeteEU said:
That is the anniversary update. Congrats, it is a good one. It is rolling out to people across the world slowly. Been rocking that update since day one, and loving it.

It does however reset standard apps, in particular the browser. But that is easy to fix.. press Windows button (lower left corner) > Settings > System (first one) > Default apps.

Yes. You most likely have Windows Home and hence cant stop updates... not that you should as a "technological ennui" .

As for the thing that caused all the problems in the first place... Norton Pro? Blame that for your problems, not Microsoft. Edge is a far superior browser to Internet Explorer, but I would suggest going to Firefox or Chrome instead. Although with this update Edge gets a lot of new features that makes it battle ready against Firefox and Chrome. I would dump Norton Pro (unless you paid for it) asap.. dont really need it with Windows 10 imo.

Actually that anniversary update has its issues. It broke my Outlook at work and I had to reinstall the office365 suite, and also executing commands from powershell. had to rollback one of the security updates to get it work.

PeteEU · Sep 7, 2016

SocialD said:
Actually that anniversary update has its issues. It broke my Outlook at work and I had to reinstall the office365 suite, and also executing commands from powershell. had to rollback one of the security updates to get it work.

Yes some people had issues. My outlook has no problems.. just saying. No update can be perfect. Also you dont hear much from the people who had no problems with the anniversary update