9 hours ago, vc10man said:

No, I did not as I give enough access to Microsoft to flog me their 'word-not-allowed'..MS does not respect privacy!

Thanks all the same for your suggestion..

In closing this post, to all who tried to help with various tips/suggestions, etc, I managed to get it all sorted by myself, AND in doing so, successfully managed to install the very  latest Realtek driver which started this whole shebang mess from Microsoft.

MODS: Please feel free to close this and the other thread re:Realtek

 

I certainly agree with you about them having too much of our info. But I did use an MS account when upgrading from Win7 to Win10 as MS then stores my activation key in their system. I then created a second computer sign in that isn't tied to an MS account. I signed out of the MS linked account and use the second sign in for daily use. If I ever need to access the activation key for any reason (reinstallation or an activation error), I can sign in to the MS account.

3 hours ago, Pro Avia said:

I then created a second computer sign in that isn't tied to an MS account.

E'rr, e'rmm, and just how did you this? Surely, if you created a 2nd sign-in, it must have been signing-in to a Microsoft account, otherwise what are you signing-in to? Please elaborate because this is an interesting tip.

Similar to this: 

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/create-local-non-microsoft-account-windows

I know it works with Win 10 Pro - not sure about Win 10 Home

Edited April 17, 20206 yr by Pro Avia

7 hours ago, Pro Avia said:

Similar to this: 

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/create-local-non-microsoft-account-windows

I know it works with Win 10 Pro - not sure about Win 10 Home

Thanks for that link, Gene. Appreciated. Mine is Pro. I was looking at my Settings yesterday, and it seems that my current Pro Licence Key is a digital Licence linked to my MS Account. I want to go your way. Am currently pruning Windows 10 getting rid of all the intrusions into my privacy, getting rid of that stupid Cortana, etc, etc. This was not a major OS Upgrade from Windows 7. It was a platform to flog Microsoft's garbage😡

You're welcome Rick. To be clear, my license key is linked to my MS account, same as yours. The only reason I did this is so my license is store digitally on the MS servers. But I don't use that account to log onto the computer unless I have an issue I can't solve otherwise. I use the secondary account for day to day operations. This is on my old Win 7, upgraded to Win 10 system.

On my new system, I purchased a Win 10 Pro USB stick and used the following to install Win 10. 

https://windowsreport.com/install-windows-10-without-microsoft-account/

Just scroll past the advertisements.......

I do get a nag after login that there is a problem with my MS account, which I ignore. Small price topay for not using an MS account.

Regarding this MS paranoia... Dont you think that Google knows more about us than MS?

Or is it just fashionable to bash MS?

5 hours ago, Wobbie said:

Regarding this MS paranoia... Dont you think that Google knows more about us than MS?

Or is it just fashionable to bash MS?

Would not know,because I do not use Google, and if, as you question it being a paranoia, how come there are so many devs out there offering ways and means to take down MS a peg or two.?

You using Linux? How come there are close to a billion MS users?

Seriously? You must be pretty unique, not using a Google product. 

1 hour ago, Wobbie said:

You using Linux? How come there are close to a billion MS users?

Seriously? You must be pretty unique, not using a Google product. 

There are alternatives to Google, y'know !!

1 hour ago, Wobbie said:

How come there are close to a billion MS users

Because that is(with few exceptions i.e. Dell offering Ubuntu) the only choice of an OS when buying a PC.  NOT because it is a great OS or that 1 billion MS users chose MS.

I'm not necessarily trying to bash MS here.  All the big tech companies have their pluses and minuses.  But I just don't agree that users prefer or chose MS.  Some do and some love MS.  But, a good percentage of those billion users also had no choice in the matter.

1 hour ago, klamal said:

Because that is(with few exceptions i.e. Dell offering Ubuntu) the only choice of an OS when buying a PC.  NOT because it is a great OS or that 1 billion MS users chose MS.

I'm not necessarily trying to bash MS here.  All the big tech companies have their pluses and minuses.  But I just don't agree that users prefer or chose MS.  Some do and some love MS.  But, a good percentage of those billion users also had no choice in the matter.

Superbly stated. Kudos to you.👍 ++++1

On 4/15/2020 at 4:56 AM, vc10man said:

When I try to run Troubleshoot, it comes up with Error Code 0xC00F012

Just for interest Rick.

I know you have fixed this but co-incidentally I had a system next to me with the same problem. I could not resolve the issue and did a reinstall as the system had very little data and software loaded.

I did notice that the Software Protection Service would not start. Error 5. I guess I wasted around 3-4 hours trying to fix the issue. A reinstall of Win10 with essential software took me about 90 minutes. I did not sign into the owners account and used a local account only. Immediately after the install I went into Activation and Win10 was already activated with a digital license. I did not enter a key during the install phase. I intentionally left the system disconnected from any network. I also wiped all partitions before the install to ensure the disk was clean. I mention this to prove to myself that the key is tied to the hardware id and not a Microsoft account.

I suspect the Security Intelligence Updates (which you cannot uninstall) may have something to do with this error. There was an incident here in Australia a month ago where hundreds of users (including myself) of an accounts program (MYOB) were blocked from running its executable. Never fixed, We had to use a workaround.

Cheers,

11 hours ago, howevr said:

Just for interest Rick.

I know you have fixed this but co-incidentally I had a system next to me with the same problem. I could not resolve the issue and did a reinstall as the system had very little data and software loaded.

I did notice that the Software Protection Service would not start. Error 5. I guess I wasted around 3-4 hours trying to fix the issue. A reinstall of Win10 with essential software took me about 90 minutes. I did not sign into the owners account and used a local account only. Immediately after the install I went into Activation and Win10 was already activated with a digital license. I did not enter a key during the install phase. I intentionally left the system disconnected from any network. I also wiped all partitions before the install to ensure the disk was clean. I mention this to prove to myself that the key is tied to the hardware id and not a Microsoft account.

I suspect the Security Intelligence Updates (which you cannot uninstall) may have something to do with this error. There was an incident here in Australia a month ago where hundreds of users (including myself) of an accounts program (MYOB) were blocked from running its executable. Never fixed, We had to use a workaround.

Cheers,

I tried using that link that Pro Avia sent to create a Local Account last night. It seems like, in the latest Build 1909, that Microsoft have sneakily removed the option at Your Info----Sign in with a local account instead😡, so, although I created another User, I could 'Sign in............'.

I did the same, a totally clean re-formatted drive, Clean Install.

Yes, through my Australia-based family, I was aware of that MYOB fiasco.

Edited April 19, 20206 yr by vc10man

Here is how to setup a local account with Win 10 1909

https://www.howtogeek.com/442609/confirmed-windows-10-setup-now-prevents-local-account-creation/

 

21 minutes ago, Pro Avia said:

Here is how to setup a local account with Win 10 1909

https://www.howtogeek.com/442609/confirmed-windows-10-setup-now-prevents-local-account-creation/

 

Thanks once again, Pro Avia. Will give it a go after completing current flight.