Don’t see a thread discussing this OS. Forgive if I seem to be speaking authoritatively when I don’t intend to. All I know is what I’ve learned since buying an inexpensive laptop (HP Stream 1.1 Ghz, 4GB ram, 64 bit) a couple days ago.
I needed a new laptop for personal use but don’t need much cuz my work laptop is as powerful as I could want and is well supported by my work person.
So Windows 10 S mode limits me to MS products and uses alot of cloud features. I’m not a big fan of that but am giving it a shot…learning experience! It’s supposed to be particularly secure and the Windows people state that Windows Defender is all you need. At least that is how I read it.
With alot of schooling being virtual it has become a popular OS as I understand it. Maybe you bought one for a youngster in your family. Maybe you also bought one for yourself to help the whippersnapper troubleshoot things along the way. Regardless, I’d love some input on using it.
I can switch it out of S Mode but once done I can’t go back. I’ll come back with some specific questions but will see if there are some general comments first. TIA !
Just to clarify, S mode does not limit you to Microsoft software. It does limit you to apps downloaded from the Microsoft App Store.
The idea is that S mode is more secure since everything in the store is vetted by Microsoft and uses the standard .NET and WPF features that are maintained by Microsoft via Windows Update.
Thanks for clarifying. That would explain why I can’t find anything at Tucows. It also makes me wonder if it can even be made any “safer” with antivirus or malware software. I should prob go to the store and see but since I’ve never been my first look in there made me kind of wary. I’m familiar with the Google Play Store but not at all with MS.
I haven’t run anything but the included antivirus for years with no ill effects.
The store is pretty standard - Netflix, Candy Crush, the same stuff as Google with the exception of mobile oriented apps like banking and store specific apps since most of them are better in a browser.
The whole and entire point of S mode is you can’t just go download an exe or an msi or a dll from some random place on the internet and get it to run. Windows won’t let you get it, and won’t let it run.
Which also protects from any all “driveby downloads” where some hinky website or email or whatever contains a malicious payload that runs itself, or user runs unwittingly after being bamboozled to “click here to watch the dancing pigs.”
If you (any you) is a long time advanced PC user who lives on a steady diet of freeware, shareware, github, etc. S mode is not for you. Or if you have must-use line of business apps from your employer.
OTOH, if your machine is little more than a glorified internet terminal and game thingy, plus archival data storage device, then S mode is perfect.
There’s a huge area in the middle with plusses and minuses, but those are the conceptual boundaries at the two ends of the playing field.
Yep. But that’s a one-way switch. And so many articles are suggesting things like “If it’s a slight impediment to what you (mistakenly) think you need to do in the first 15 minutes of owning your new box then of course switch it off without a thought. Stupid Microsoft!”.
The purpose of S mode is to graft yet another layer of safety and security onto the once-hopeless situation of every XP user being an admin on a spyware infested PC working for a botnet. Like happened with UAC, the key message of the magazines and websites catering to the techno-marginal & techno-clueless is “Turn S mode off without a thought; it was just MSFT being mean/dumb.”
No real mention of the real purpose and the real benefits.
I’d say I’m somewhere in that middle. I’m not the least bit interested in dancing pigs and am pretty good at knowing what to avoid. Having said that, I do do banking and credit card stuff alot and am not as good as I prob should be running antivirus or malware tools.
I really like the security aspect alot… but I’d really rather be using Thunderbird for my email, OpenOfficeCalc for spreadsheets and EditPad for my basic HTML coding.
By “banking and credit card stuff” I assume you mean you visit the bank and credit card websites to pay bills and check balances and stuff. The only thing that requires is having a browser installed and I’m sure all of the major ones will be available on their app store. If you want to see whether the applications you want to use are in their app store, you can check here.
If you have Windows Defender installed and enabled you’re done. Anything else is just a waste of money and CPU cycles. if you’re fiddling with running “cleaners” or scanners or such, you’re just wasting your time.
WD plus a good adblocker for your chosen browser and you’ve eliminated the vast majority of malware vectors.
I understand not wanting people to turn it off willy nilly without thinking about it. That’s why most post begins with a conditional, presuming that the user has genuinely tried S mode and doesn’t like it. The main point of my post is to let people know that you aren’t permanently restricted to S mode, thus encouraging them to try it out.
That said, the security benefits are not why S mode exists. It exists for two reasons: to funnel people into using Microsoft’s Store, where they get a cut of all paid products and can push you towards their preferred software (e.g. Edge) instead of their competitors (particularly open source ones), and in order to try and drop legacy code from the code base and reduce the need for backwards compatibility.
If it were about security, then you’d have access to much more software that had been found to be secure. You’d be able to buy from other trusted vendors without paying Microsoft. And it wouldn’t be all or nothing–you could add components as necessary. Heck, I find it hard to even justify the one-way aspect of it–you should at least be able to restore back to before you switched (while keeping your documents), if nothing else.
That’s not to say there’s no security. But I would argue that, for a home user, it’s not actually all that much better than someone who practices good computer hygiene. If you run an antivirus (even Microsoft Defender) and only get signed software from trusted vendors, you’re about as safe. I mean, S mode requires an antivirus, too, so unknown software vectors are still a problem.
Where it makes the most sense is in an enterprise environment where you actually need Windows, but need to keep users from running software that isn’t trusted. And, even then, I’d expect them to set up even more restrictions.
UAC is a different beast. It was designed primarily for security and the trade off is small. The idea was that it would be more convenient than running as a limited user, but give a lot (but not all) of the same security. The only reason I think anyone wanted to turn it off is that it was one of several things about Windows Vista early on that people found frustrating. Microsoft heard the outcry and made it less annoying from Windows 7 on, by letting its own signed programs bypass the prompt for routine actions.
Finally, the idea that I don’t know what I want or need to do with my computer doesn’t make sense to me. I may not know what I can do, and may find a way I can do it in S mode. But I know what I bought the computer to be able to do. If I wanted something as restricted as S mode, I’d have gone with a tablet or Chromebook. Google is a lot better about allowing competing apps in its stores, and most UWP apps are just glorified tablet/phone apps anyways.
If you want a security-minded version of Windows, you’re better to wait and look into Windows 10X, which tries to restrict as little as possible. Microsoft wouldn’t be working on that upcoming OS if S mode were good enough.