Windows 10 slow?

[Bionic-Badger]

Aircraft communicate with towers and between them at about 120 MHz narrowband AM. Phone networks, depending on generation an area, operate at least at 700 MHz (usually 1800/1900) so there isn't much of a chance of interference.

Though there are some cases of interference with older aircraft, the FCC bans cellphones on aircraft not because of interference to the aircraft, but interference with cells on the ground given that the phones are moving very quickly and at altitude. Cells are mostly intended to be used terrestrially, and having a cell phone broadcasting and receiving at full power overhead could be pretty disruptive.

There's also the problem with cell phones becoming stressors on the plane. A lot of people talking to other people in those one-sided conversations can get really irritating, and minimizing that in the cramped conditions of a plane is important. Disabling voice communications on a plane might be one of the solutions.

But for that matter: afaik no gas station as ever caught fire due to people smoking while pumping gas either. If the concentration of petrol in the air is within the explosive limits, you will pass out (and probably die) breathing that air long before you can fill up a tank of gas.

I read one account of a fire caused by a cigarette, but usually it is static electricity that causes those refueling fires. With the cigarette, it might be that someone is holding the cigarette while pumping or something stupid. Those nozzles would also sometimes spray back too when people tried to top-off their tanks.

 

[Benm]

The interference theory is interesting. It may be a problem on some networks, but that has -nothing- to do with the airline company. If a cellphone in a plane would interfere with a phone network on the ground, that would be a problem for whoever operates that phone network.

Phones becoming a stress problem on airplanes is unlikely. Leaving them on is harmless, but this does not mean they will actually work. At cruise speed and altitude, cellphones do not work on jet airliners. There are several reasons for this, one of which is actually the speed you travel at, but also the altitude combined with the dampening from the mostly metal aircraft exterior. Another factor is that cell antenna's ont he ground are constructed to have an emission and reception pattern that is mostly horizonal and are not very sensitive to signals direcly above (or below for that matter).

Another thing about the use being distracting but the airlines not caring much is that numerous carriers now offer on-board wifi and even cell coverage. Operators like Emirates even give you free wifi for the first 30 MB and only charge a symbolic $1 for an additional 500 MB block of data. People can and do use this data to make voice calls over skype and whatsapp on board, which can be annoying to other passengers but apparently is not a safety problem.

 

[ElectricPlasma]

Well, here's an update. I have successfully re-installed win10 on my machine, and none of the problems I was experiencing before are present... as of yet. Hopefully it stays that way!

Also, it feels good to have a clean start, no crap all over my desktop and throughout my file system.. The only things visible right now in the entire operating system is Chrome, Windows explorer, and the start menu/toolbar

Time to re-install all my programs and load all my files, this should be fun

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Next, run all updates, disable Cortana, go through privacy settings one by one, and lastly; https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking/releases

@Benm, BB, there were also several cases of flights going somewhat near the canadian border and US fliers receiving crazy bills for roaming from Canada. I suspect the whole turn everything off bit, is more just about keeping everyone calm, and alert, and that's it, at present.

 

[diachi]

The interference theory is interesting. It may be a problem on some networks, but that has -nothing- to do with the airline company. If a cellphone in a plane would interfere with a phone network on the ground, that would be a problem for whoever operates that phone network.

Phones becoming a stress problem on airplanes is unlikely. Leaving them on is harmless, but this does not mean they will actually work. At cruise speed and altitude, cellphones do not work on jet airliners. There are several reasons for this, one of which is actually the speed you travel at, but also the altitude combined with the dampening from the mostly metal aircraft exterior. Another factor is that cell antenna's ont he ground are constructed to have an emission and reception pattern that is mostly horizonal and are not very sensitive to signals direcly above (or below for that matter).

Another thing about the use being distracting but the airlines not caring much is that numerous carriers now offer on-board wifi and even cell coverage. Operators like Emirates even give you free wifi for the first 30 MB and only charge a symbolic $1 for an additional 500 MB block of data. People can and do use this data to make voice calls over skype and whatsapp on board, which can be annoying to other passengers but apparently is not a safety problem.

Don't imagine a phone would ever cause any dangerous interference with the avionics - although I can see them possibly causing some annoying interference. Keeping in mind that aircraft avionics are built to much higher standards than consumer electronics and as such should be able to reject interference way better.

Although I should point out - just because cell phones and most of the on board radios (Not just AM voice on VHF and whatever mode they use on HF, ADS-B is much closer to cell frequencies at 1090MHz) operate on entirely different bands doesn't mean they can't interfere with each other.

That said, isn't it more of a blanket ban on electronics with transmitters in them anyway? That makes sense - rather than restricting certain transmitters that might cause issues, just restrict them all. Way easier to manage.

Well, here's an update. I have successfully re-installed win10 on my machine, and none of the problems I was experiencing before are present... as of yet. Hopefully it stays that way!

Also, it feels good to have a clean start, no crap all over my desktop and throughout my file system.. The only things visible right now in the entire operating system is Chrome, Windows explorer, and the start menu/toolbar

Time to re-install all my programs and load all my files, this should be fun

That seems to be the go-to fix for funky upgrades - A colleague had some issues when he upgraded last year and the fix was to do a clean install. Think my old man (Also an IT guy) had similar issues with an ancient (Circa. 2007?) Toshiba "tablet" and a clean install fixed it.

A nice fresh install is nice every now and then anyway!

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Originally I was somewhat annoyed that Windows 10 is tied down to the motherboard of the PC it's installed on. Now I'm actually rather happy with that arrangement because it means I never have to worry about looking keys, or having to contact any OEMs for a copy of windows. In the event of a crash, just run the install from a USB, and that's it. Even if the primary drive dies, I can literally just plug in another or disconnect and do a fresh install.

That said, isn't it more of a blanket ban on electronics with transmitters in them anyway? That makes sense - rather than restricting certain transmitters that might cause issues, just restrict them all. Way easier to manage.

That is probably the exact reason for the blanket ban. Although I have noticed more recently, that the issue is being treated by flight attendants far more casually than it used to be. Before, it was turn it all off NOW! Now it's more of "Please put phones into airplane mode until after we lift off".

 

[diachi]

Originally I was somewhat annoyed that Windows 10 is tied down to the motherboard of the PC it's installed on. Now I'm actually rather happy with that arrangement because it means I never have to worry about looking keys, or having to contact any OEMs for a copy of windows. In the event of a crash, just run the install from a USB, and that's it. Even if the primary drive dies, I can literally just plug in another or disconnect and do a fresh install.

That started with Windows 8 - it was to make life easier for OEMs and users. Kinda nice not having to worry about the license key rubbing off or going missing. Pain in the ass when you're installing the OS and the installer asks for a key that you can't actually read from anywhere. It caused me some issues just last week. That said, Microsoft has generic install keys that won't activate but will let you install.


That is probably the exact reason for the blanket ban. Although I have noticed more recently, that the issue is being treated by flight attendants far more casually than it used to be. Before, it was turn it all off NOW! Now it's more of "Please put phones into airplane mode until after we lift off".

Yeah - they've been much more lax with it lately. They generally ask you to put all electronics away during takeoff/landing anyway. Don't think I ever bothered with airplane mode except for the sake of power saving...

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

I haven't had to install windows on a blank machine in many many years, but can't you just skip that step now, install without key, and enter key in after the install is finished?

 

[DashApple]

ElectricPlasma - Good to hear the problems gone : D .

I think you can skip the key till after in the install , Win10 fresh install worked perfectly on my Pico , Seems likes a nice OS choice for it , funny the PC is the same size as the SSD xD

P1000203 by TwirlyWhirly555, on Flickr

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

I definitely remember 100% not having a key after doing upgrade, and then being able to skip that step when doing a fresh install. After skipping that screen, once windows actually finished up, and ran through the upgrades, it showed as activated, without any additional action on my part.

One thing I do find annoying, is automated updates. For the most part not an issue, but could be problematic if you're on slow wifi, or have to watch data because you're using a mobile hotspot while traveling. I may have to upgrade windows to Pro for my work laptop solely for that reason, otherwise I'm fine with the regular version.

 

[DashApple]

Yeah I can see how that could be a problem , I run my Pcio over Wifi so I just disable the update manager in windows 10 so it doesn't update

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Ahh, very good idea, and much easier to do that. I'll just turn off the update service while traveling.

 

[diachi]

Yes, normally it lets you skip that if it asks at all, but did a Windows 8 Pro install last week and didn't see a skip option - but as I said, Microsoft has keys specifically for that - they're intended more for doing installs from a server running Windows Deployment Services but works either way.

Nice build Dash, that's tiny!

 

[Bionic-Badger]

That said, isn't it more of a blanket ban on electronics with transmitters in them anyway? That makes sense - rather than restricting certain transmitters that might cause issues, just restrict them all. Way easier to manage.

Yeah, I thought that was part of it too. Asking a the airline attendants to determine the capabilities of each and every portable electronic device is difficult, if it can be determined at all. So just having them all off during the critical phases of the trip is easier to manage.

 

[Dr_Evil]

I definitely remember 100% not having a key after doing upgrade, and then being able to skip that step when doing a fresh install. After skipping that screen, once windows actually finished up, and ran through the upgrades, it showed as activated, without any additional action on my part.

One thing I do find annoying, is automated updates. For the most part not an issue, but could be problematic if you're on slow wifi, or have to watch data because you're using a mobile hotspot while traveling. I may have to upgrade windows to Pro for my work laptop solely for that reason, otherwise I'm fine with the regular version.

That's exactly why one customer was severely irritated. He had 7 and had no intention of going to 10. He was traveling and got a message about his data being close to it's limit. Turns out Micro$haft was forcing his system to download 10. Luckily it never installed. He brought it by the shop and I helped him get rid of anything associated with 10 and turn off automatic updates.

If I could get it to look and feel like 7, I might put it on the desktop. 8, 8.1 and 10 are fugly. I'd rather go back to 95, 98 or ME if I wanted something ugly.

Considering the amount of time spent playing video games keeps going down, I really don't see a need for me to stick with Windows OS anymore. I honestly think I'll be moving to a version of Linux for good sometime in the next 5 to 10 years unless MS gets their act together.

 

[ElectricPlasma]

Oh boy this is frustrating. After a bit of more extensive use of the new installation, everything checks out except the system. All applications are fine, but windows explorer just doesn't want to run, and in some cases won't even open... :scowl:

It gives me a bit of time before it crashes, I'll do as IE says and see if that helps, but as it seems there is something in my PC that win10 just doesn't seem to get along with.