Every time I try and download an app it says I have to switch out of S mode to do so and gives me a warning as to why that isa not such a good idea. Do most people switch out without problems?
It’s essentially just a dumbed down one-size-fits-all security mode. You can’t install 3rd party apps. You can’t open the registry or a command prompt. If you have any degree of confidence in your ability to operate your computer, you can go right ahead and disable that.
Note that once you disable it, you can never enable it ever again. Since you probably don’t want it anyways, I wouldn’t worry about that.
Thanks, I had a feeling this is what I would hear. I feel better now!
Why? –
That’s a good question. I don’t know. Seems weird, though, right?
Windows S Mode is to users like battery cages are to chickens.
Earlier this year I bought a new laptop and installed the hard disk from another laptop as a second hard disk in the newer one. I thought I’d be able to dual boot, which I am, but booting from the old hard disk takes me into S-mode because it doesn’t recognize the hardware, and I apparently can’t disable it because I need a new Windows key. So in my case, it’s a way to force me to purchase another copy of Windows since the copy on the old laptop is licensed for use on just that laptop. It’s irritating because I don’t want to reinstall all of the programs onto the new hard disk.
I expect (but do not know) that the reason is that Microsoft expects people to treat S mode as a kind of security guarantee that they might rely on, and once switched off and other things are installed, they can’t make that guarantee anymore.
Presumably you could fully wipe the OS and reinstall it and it would go back into S mode. But you can’t keep any non-secured-by-Microsoft stuff and have it on.
The whole point of S mode is that it restricts you to using the apps in the Microsoft Store, similar to how Apple’s iOS works. They expect you not to download apps from websites or install them from other media.
The main issue with switching out of S mode that I see is that a lot of computers running in S mode have rather lousy specs. And while switching out of S mode won’t make the system any slower, installing other apps definitely can.
Personally, I don’t like that S mode restricts me to only Microsoft Edge, and thus wouldn’t use it. But if I could put up with that, I would probably try to avoid leaving S mode unless I had to. Any app I wanted, I would look it up on the Microsoft Store, and even check if there are alternatives I could use.
That said, if my computer has 8GB of memory and at least 256 GB of hard drive space, I wouldn’t be concerned about switching out of S mode.