Here is one man's experience with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2c0...

Haven't heard of it, but I'll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

Have you tried XEN?

Thanks FFA - I'm a big fan of Dell's XPS laptops 'cause the "infinity" screen with the razor-thin bezel makes them ridiculously small and they're as thin as anything Apple makes - but I'll shop for these as spares. The downside of "thin" is that you need a dongle for pretty much everything a thicker laptop typically had on board as standard equipment, a situation hilariously spoofed by some guy on Univision (Warning: do not, under any circumstances, drink any liquid while watching this, unless you want your sinuses really, really clean):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxhGX...

When Windows announces they were no longer supporting XP, I installed Linux on al my machines except one with Windows 7 for the odd time it might come in handy. I don't play games or do much fancy stuff with my machines and I just need work horses to get the job done. Linux is perfect for me. It has been a bit of a learning curve but I must admit that I am free from Windows and its associates. With Linux, I am running some machines from 2004. My daughter has a work station running an old 745 Dell Optiplex frankensteined from a few computers.
The freedom to choose is what I seek in spite of higher efforts to stifle those freedoms.
Spread the word.

Thanks for posting this, blarman! I don't know if I inadvertently installed any of them, but now I can reverse the process.

I do understand your irritation, S-W. I never use any of the Win7 designed folders either. I guess your eyes (and likely your monitor) are better than mine;^) I use 2560x1440 on my 42" most of the time because its easier than trying to read 3840x2160. I need my prescription changed, too. I like your naming theme, too!

It's the Microsoft / Win7 idea that ALL users are idiots, therefore they won't be able to find or use their files unless all users are forced to see an expanded view of Libraries on top, followed by Homegroup, and an expanded view of all User content before showing the Computer contents. I suppose that works if you [MS generic you, not freedomforall you] don’t know or care about where your data is actually stored in a disorganized single-drive laptop or palmtop.

That is an irritant for me, too, though possibly less than for your situation. As a major geek, I'm running a LARGE screen, both physically at 48" and resolution at UHD 3840×2160, so even huge folder lists tend to remain accessibly on screen. There are registry hacks to diminish the existence of Libraries and Homegroup.

I hate that User is above my Computer drives list, because I highly organize my content on many physical drives with rigorous folder structures. Just my Star Trek themed drive layout shows my method and madness:
A Archer and B Bashir –thumb drives, C Picard – system and installed software, D Riker – computer hardware / software repository / configuration / font groups / swap file, E Data – the data, F Worf – multimedia repo, G La Forge – camera offload repo, H Enterprise – RAID 1 backup.
I've got many other named thumb drives, SDHC chips, microSDHC, XQD, &c. as: Defiant, Janeway, Dax, Phlox, Yar, O'Brien, Neelix, Quark, and Weyoun. Kirk and Spock are my laptop drives. Locutus, Lore, and Trelane are in an old SCSI box stashed in my Jeffries Tube (attic crawlspace).

Thanks for the tip :-)

If you want a not quite new but very capable laptop, have a look on Ebay for Dell e6420, e6320, e6430, and e6330 models. I have 4 of them (bought used on Ebay) and they are great machines. They have a tri-metal construction that makes them very durable, and there are lots of them coming off of leases available for $100 to $200. Some even have 2nd/3rd gen i7 4 core mobile cpus that compare well with most of the 6th gen mobile i7s. They are easy to replace drives and memory, too. (The lower prices if you install your own OS like Linux or have a DVD with win7 ;^) Most of these will have a Win7 Pro license tag and you can still download Win7 online for free to install with the license.
Compared to buying new, these are dirt cheap and (if you buy carefully) do everything just as well as new ones. (The 6x30 models are 3rd gen cpus with USB3. The 6x20 models are 2nd gen cpus with USB2.) I am not selling any on Ebay at this time, but may do so later;^)

If you want to update that old laptop, have a look on Ebay for Dell e6420, e6320, e6430, and e6330 models. I have 4 of them (bought used on Ebay) and they are great machines. They have a tri-metal construction that makes them very durable, and there are lots of them coming off of leases available for $100 to $200. Some even have 2nd/3rd gen i7 4 core mobile cpus that compare well with most of the 6th gen mobile i7s. They are easy to replace drives and memory, too. (The lower prices if you install your own OS like Linux;^)
Compared to buying new, these are dirt cheap and (if you buy carefully) do everything just as well as new ones.

Altho' this post is way off the Gulch objective, anyone can see that technological "advances" have taken the digital world impossibly far from the security/privacy environment we all scream for most every day.
The many excellent comments on this post seem a clear indication that Big Brother has won, taking charge by instituting both hardware and software models which are designed to reduce humanity to total bewilderment and jibberish.
I dislike the world I see ahead, and will be glad to leave it when my projected last decade is past.

I use Classic Shell, too, and agree it is wonderful. It's almost good enough to make Win7 as good as XP;^) Something in explorer(classic) still drops the folder list to the bottom every time windows starts, and the selected folder is somewhere off the screen, so I have to scroll up and find it. Just another Win7 waste of my time.

One of my laptops suddenly had 10 installed. I contacted MS, and they said that they had a glitch, and some 40,000 W7 OS automatically got upgraded. I complained. They did nothing. Installed Linux Zorin on that laptop the day that it happened. Been running ever since. If you haven't tried a derivation of Linux, it's a great time to try. I recommend Zorin. Easy to use and is supported. Screw MS!

Yes to both Nickursis and Blarman. My wife and I both use a version of Ubuntu called Mint that looks and acts very much like Windows and with the WINE program installed we can run all but one of our old windows programs. (WINE will not run our TomTom GPS update program.) Ubuntu includes an Office program (LibreOffice) that will open Windows Office files and you can work with them like you had opened them in Win Office.

We chose to go with Linux (and there are many versions of it available free) because the alternative was Apple’s OS. I did not want to spend the money for Apple and I have more time then money so I took the time to figure out Linux. As a side benefit, we are able to use 10 plus year old computers. Once you unload the W stuff the processors work much faster and you are not getting bogged down with constant updates and other notices that slow down your system. For example I have a 8 year old Toshiba notebook that had gotten so slow it was painful to try to use. I replaced the hard drive to rid it of everything Windows and installed Linux Mint and its better then it was new!

I use Thunderbird, as I have for years, to manage my 10 email accounts. My wife does her email with AOL as she has done for years as well. We have found no need to change our favorite programs. We use Firefox and Chrome for browsers.

I always liked the simplicity and usefulness of the Windows XP interface. The Windows 7 standard interface would have driven me nuts if not for Classic Shell, a freeware interface to the Start Menu, Windows Explorer, and Internet Explorer. It is extremely customizable with many settings available to make things happier. I am willing to forgo my strict adherence to mathematics to rate Classic Shell an 11 on a 0–10 scale.

I've got three systems using independently-purchased Windows 7 OS sets specifically for the purpose, and a fourth using its own 7 upgrade OS (I purchased it as a Vista system a couple months prior to the Win7 release, so the upgrade was included.)

With news that Microsoft has partnered with Intel and AMD to produce processor chips that will not work with anything prior to Orwellware 10 (with Intel this begins with the "Skylake" processor family,) it's clear that MS plans on making it impossible for people to retain data privacy. Which also means purchasing a "spare" computer that still has a 5th-generation chipset in it ("Broadwell" or earlier,) just for the inevitable hardware failure over time. No word on whether systems with the 6th-gen "Skylake" processor will suddenly stop working when MS ceases "support" for Windows 7 and 8. I'd been thinking about springing for a new laptop, yet another separately-purchased Windows 7 OS, and a blank HD to swap in for the purpose (preinstalled Windows 10 will not allow you to revert to a previous OS, obviously) - but it's getting difficult to find unused systems that still have the old chipset. Maybe a Skylake-equipped system will still function normally, post-support-cutoff, except for the "This processor is vulnerable without the latest OS" popups? 'Not sure if I want to take that risk - $1k+ is a lot of money to spend on a future paperweight.

With an OS that is essentially ineradicable spyware, including a keylogger, contemplate the prospect of your bank account numbers, any and every password you type, any and all personal correspondence you do, any manuscript you may be working on (if you're a writer) - going to a warren of cubicles at Microsoft Inc. in Redmond, WA.

Do you trust a tech firm's employees to leave the contents of your computer alone? Your bank account? Your passwords? I don't. To the people who say "Well, you can turn those features off in the Security preferences," I have a standard analogy: If you bought a house and the seller told you "I"m retaining a full set of keys, but if you tell me not to, I promise I won't come in," would you still plunk down the money for it?

Something else to keep in mind is that even if you're using pre-10 operating systems, Windows Update installations contain routines that essentially enable those prior versions to do the same kind of spying as Windows 10.

The only option at this point - short of going to Linux, which as "open source" implies a whole different set of hacking vulnerabilities - is to save any and all important data to external media rather than to your HD, to leave Windows Update disabled entirely from the outset, and to perform full drive-wipes and OS reinstalls every month or two (to periodically obliterate any standard-issue criminals' hackware that may have taken advantage of your non-updated system,) with your daily-use system set up as a Guest account rather than Admin.

No idea whether Apple is any better, but I could never stand the Apple UI anyway, or the overt Leftwing advocacy of the company itself.

Another question I have - which I suppose implies a government conspiracy - but I'm wondering why the computer industry, which is arguably one of the largest industries in existence today, only has three (3) different brands of operating system. One would think that for an industry that massive, there would be at least as many and as vast a variety of operating system manufacturers as there are for each of: athletic shoes, microbrewed beers, automobile tires, potato chips, ballpoint pens, polo shirts, cellphones, sodas, hotel chains, anti-perspirants, hand tools, insurance policies... or any other consumer item you can name. I suppose that would mean a massive additional workload for the boys and girls at the NSA - 'lots easier when there are only three to deal with.

So we have: exactly three.
Veddy, veddy odd, Keptin.

A recent article on Orwellware 10:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/...
.

As you said, Windows is malware that leaked around the world.

I would tend to agree but Google got a exception from the "internet Privacy Law" they just repealed, when it was passed, so they had full bore access to everything they could steal from you, and sold that (like processed cheese) to customers. That is why you can go to a website, look at an item, then go to Yahoo and find you get ads for that exact item. Need to be careful what items you look at...it's all about money, and I do not think MS gives a rats a@@ about your privacy or data, just making money off it. W10 may actually be theft, because it records every key you use, so passwords and usernames are also in their possession, and when they get hacked, it will be ugly, depending on how they store the information.

Leaked NSA Malware Threatens Windows Users Around the World ---- Why is anyone still using Windows? https://theintercept.com/2017/04/14/l...

Here is just another reason to not use it, but why they will force you to use it:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/...

I have used it for several years now, and I don't rely on the registry editor, although it will automatically do a backup for you before changing anything. But just for junk file removal and generally keeping house, it is pretty good.

Agreed

It's simple one reason - not the only one ;)

The heading is a misnomer. There are many more than one reason to not use Windows 10.
A loyal Mac fan since 1983.