VivienM wrote on 2024-09-08, 00:09:

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2024-09-08, 00:03:

-Since you have a relatively modern Ryzen CPU, wait for the 24H2 build, which should be available next month. Changes have been made deep in the kernel, at least according to several sources on (sigh) The Internet. Improvements have been made to the scheduler, and the OS in general is said to feel faster than 23H2 and prior builds--particularly with Zen 3-5 CPUs. Apparently, AMD CPUs have been underperforming in Windows 11 for quite some time now. It's just that, the CPUs rock so damn hard that no one's even noticed until just a few weeks ago, when Zen 5 launched and saw much greater performance improvements under Linux! The 24H2 build is expected to close that gap. I've been using a pre-release version of 24H2 on one of my non-essential PCs (an Intel based HTPC) and yeah, it's fine.

Isn't 24H2 effectively "RTM" right now, even if they reserve the right to do a cumulative update or two more before officially pushing it for general consumption?

You know, It very well might be! Microsoft has been simultaneously threatening us with and delaying 24H2 for a couple of months now. 😀 Can't remember if the Snapdragon PCs launched with it, but if they did, the x64 version is likely feature complete too.

Munx wrote on 2024-09-07, 15:27:

The day I installed Windows 8.1 is still stuck in my mind as that's the first time newer tech looked unappealing. Like, I knew Vista had issues and had experienced some of them when using PC's that weren't mine, but high-school me still looked at Vista as something to upgrade to once my own hardware was good enough to run it. Win 8 was just horrible. Not only the visual downgrade, but I had to fight that UI CONSTANTLY. Went back to 7 soon after and only got 10 after I upgraded to Ryzen and didn't want to risk running an unsupported OS on it.

Vista and 7 were the pinnacle of Microsoft desktop OS UI. Win8 made a mess, which they have been slowly trying to clean up with Win10/11.

lti wrote on 2024-09-07, 18:24:

I've actually thought about Apple computers since the Windows 11 "unsupported CPU" nonsense. Nobody can give me a compelling reason to stay on Windows. It's just the "only stupid people buy Apple products" attitude problem.

Well, FWIW, overcoming the "unsupported CPU" crap in Win11 is probably far easier than overcoming Apple's entire walled garden ecosystem.

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-08, 07:53:

lti wrote on 2024-09-07, 18:24:

I've actually thought about Apple computers since the Windows 11 "unsupported CPU" nonsense. Nobody can give me a compelling reason to stay on Windows. It's just the "only stupid people buy Apple products" attitude problem.

Well, FWIW, overcoming the "unsupported CPU" crap in Win11 is probably far easier than overcoming Apple's entire walled garden ecosystem.

Two things:
1) The "unsupported CPU crap" is less about technical limitations and more about respect. Yes, I know how to get around it. But it fundamentally offends me that instead of taking my money for a retail upgrade, Microsoft makes the upgrade free... but then says that my i7-7700 with 64 gigs of RAM is too old and crappy when a low end Celeron from a year newer is perfectly acceptable. And reserves the right to brick my system in a future update... which actually happened to one of my unsupported machines, a Dell i5-4590 that seems majorly allergic to the newest patch for 24H2.

Microsoft used to reward buying good hardware with their future OSes. (Of course, the peak of this was... Vista..., which punished owners of crap hardware and rewarded good hardware more than any other Windows release.) You bought good hardware, X years later, you had a higher chance that you could hand over your money for a retail upgrade and your hardware would still be usable for a little while.

Now, they just want you to go down to worst buy and buy garbage laptops every 4 years that don't perform well on day 1 and don't perform any better 3 years later. (And they wonder why the Windows platform is stagnating...)

The other thing I would add is that the "unsupported CPU crap" creates tons of anxiety for future builds. For example, today's desktop x64 chips don't have NPUs. If Microsoft says Win12 or whatever in 2027 requires a on-processor NPU, does that mean the expensive Ryzen I build today gets thrown on a legacy support track in 3 years? And if that's the case, well, why would I build a high-end desktop?

2) The "walled garden" is only on the mobile devices, not the Macs. And while I would defend the walled garden, and I suspect most people of a certain age who have come to appreciate the reliability of the iOS platform compared to the moody general-purpose computers of our youth would too, I don't know if that's a debate we should get into at this point.

I see. I'd say these are some strange concepts to attach "respect" and "offense" to, but to each his own.

Microsoft wants to sell software and services. That's all they care about.

You, as a user, should care about getting the best product you can that meets your requirements with the whatever cost/time/effort balance you deem appropriate. And if this product is an Apple product, then why not?

Looking at it from this PoV may also reduce "anxiety".

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-08, 14:02:

I see. I'd say these are some strange concepts to attach "respect" and "offense" to, but to each his own. […]
Show full quote

I see. I'd say these are some strange concepts to attach "respect" and "offense" to, but to each his own.

Microsoft wants to sell software and services. That's all they care about.

You, as a user, should care about getting the best product you can that meets your requirements with the whatever cost/time/effort balance you deem appropriate. And if this product is an Apple product, then why not?

Looking at it from this PoV may also reduce "anxiety".

Yes, and one of my requirements is longevity. Explain to me how I am supposed to make an assessment as to the expected longevity of a system if Microsoft can throw arbitrary age cutoffs on a future version of Windows? And to be clear, "longevity" means running the current version of the OS, not getting security patches only for an older version. If I build a Ryzen 9xxx system next week and Microsoft tells me in 2027 "oh sorry, your processor's too old, so no Win12 for you, but don't worry, you can have security patches for Win 11 until 2030", I would be absolutely, entirely, pissed off. They did it to me once; how do I know they won't do it again?

And yes, I understand that Microsoft wants to sell software and services. I'm upset that they DON'T want to take my money for a boxed Win11 upgrade with respectful
hardware requirements and instead have decided to tell me that my system is worthless because they would prefer I go out to worst buy and buy some $300 POS with eMMC storage that comes with a new OEM licence.

How is that a strange concept? They took a business model where they made more money selling me a retail boxed upgrade copy than selling a new OEM licence, which meant they were incentivized to support older hardware and I was incentivized to buy good hardware, and they flipped it around where they only make money selling OEM licences which means that their incentive is now to turn my hardware into e-waste as quickly as possible.

And if their business model is to turn my hardware into e-waste as quickly as possible, why should I feel comfortable spending CA$2xxx on a new system the way I would have been in the C2D era?

Until I got burned with my i7-7700 (and other unsupported Win11 systems), every Windows system I ever had was i) too slow to run modern software, or ii) experiencing hardware issues (e.g. loose soldered power connectors on laptops) long before Microsoft removed the ability to officially run a new version of Windows. I have absolutely no faith that that would hold true for a Ryzen 9xxx I might buy tomorrow.

Sorry, but we are dealing with apples and oranges here. It's not like you and I are on different fields, we are not even playing the same sport. 😀
I assist folks with technical problems to the best of my ability. You don't need any technical assistance here, this much we've established.

I am neither able, nor interested, in trying to reconcile people with a reality that differs from what they believe the reality should be. 🤷
To repeat myself - you choose the product that best fits your requirements, whether technical, aesthetic or other.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:38:

1) The "unsupported CPU crap" is less about technical limitations and more about respect. Yes, I know how to get around it. But it fundamentally offends me that instead of taking my money for a retail upgrade, Microsoft makes the upgrade free... but then says that my i7-7700 with 64 gigs of RAM is too old and crappy when a low end Celeron from a year newer is perfectly acceptable. And reserves the right to brick my system in a future update... which actually happened to one of my unsupported machines, a Dell i5-4590 that seems majorly allergic to the newest patch for 24H2.

My completely speculative opinion is it's about trying to accelerate the replacement of the pre-Meltdown/Spectre CPUs so that someday they can remove those workaround kludges from the OS

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2024-09-08, 00:03:

And though I personally wouldn't consider the use of a Microsoft account to be a deal breaker, a local account is definitely preferable. Unfortunately, Microsoft keeps making this harder to accomplish out of the box. Fortunately, Rufas keeps finding ways around it.  

Theoretically if it does become impossible to "jailbreak" future Win11 versions out of the box, wouldn't it still be possible to install the last workable version and then upgrade?
Presumably they aren't so bad to force an MS account on upgrade before you can log back in...

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-09-08, 17:32:

Theoretically if it does become impossible to "jailbreak" future Win11 versions out of the box, wouldn't it still be possible to install the last workable version and then upgrade?

Because of the way Windows, and specifically the Windows setup, work, it is almost impossible to make it downright impossible to do this "jailbreak". Windows is highly customizable through its registry and system files. The Windows setup runs off the same files and same registry. Modify them (on the install media) - and you modify the behavior of the setup program. At the same time Windows is designed to support various flavors of automated deployments in a wide variety of environments. Breaking the setup interface enough to force a Microsoft account will likely break those features as well, which would make Microsoft's big customers deeply unhappy. I don't see it happening.

My motto: Don't build or purchase a consumer grade computer. This served me rather well in longevity and reliability.

Consumer grade computers means:
Plastic breaking (notebooks).
Not easily upgrade-able memory: especially soldered ram and one slot memory even two slots is too limiting.
Hard to get parts especially notebooks. Like I cannot find anything parts after 3 or 4 years later: examples: Asus, MSI etc.

Buying business or workstation allows you to have plenty of parts and totally upgrade able, stable. HP in my experience were much better for me. Even the HP Mini is rather expandable. I have G3 and G5 Minis and they can be found in 65W version (top cover will be vented), up to 64GB. Socketed CPU so can be changed at will. 2 NVME M.2 slots after removing the 2.5" bracket.
Eventually I'll have to buy used HP business or workstation computers just in time for windows 11 transition in 2025.

Gamer level boards is over priced but this is where quality and reliability, is if you keep bios things at defaults, not the overclocking stuff.

At this moment, I have very hard time justifying paying 1 grand for RTX 3090 just to enjoy this. I know you can buy cheaper through Series X or PS5 console route but that limits you in details quality level.

Now I said it, I wanted to share my thoughts on this PS5 issues especially liquid metal is rather bad decision on Sony's part. Series S and Series X are not the problem, TIM will get air bubbles but you can use quality thermal paste instead easily. Not PS5.
Not to mention crappy choice Sony made using liquid metal for rest of PS5 line including PS5 Slim. I know this every PS5 I repair, mostly for HDMI ports customers have habit of destroying, have dry liquid metal and occasional thick corroded liquid metal layer between APU and heatsink. Once, had to replace the heatsink due to deep pits eaten through nickel plating into the copper core. This was 1 month wait as we can only get one from Ebay because our supplier Sentrix we use don't carry heatsinks.

I deal with PS5 about two a week, sometimes three a week. Liquid metal is, and I repeat is NOT mercury containing. Anyone who knows the chemistry: liquid metal is made of Gallium based alloy and trouble is like any liquid metals, they are reactive corrodes easily and can amalgamate into some metals, turn non ferrous into crumbling metal especially magnesium, aluminum.

The Sony PS5 patented liquid metal seal is not perfect. There are two issues, cannot keep oxygen out, and recently have figured out second issue that causes dry liquid metal that others have not thought of. Sony used adhesive that is very soft, sticky mass to seal the plastic sheet that surrounds the APU die is oozing greasy stuff that gets into between APU and heatsink pushing out the liquid metal and corroding what remains of liquid metal. Second part of seal is flat, thinner black closed cell form including the sticky adhesive, both works together serves to keep liquid metal from spilling out.

I have seen perfect manufactured seal cause no issues through, that's rather rare. As this now Sony is still making same design seal, needs to be redesigned again to prevent two issues of oxygen out and greasy ooze.
This is very tough because Sony likes to run cooling very silently means console run hot is very hard on most rubber except silicone rubber. Sony don't use orange silicone rubber which is high grade and last long time.
Best seal design is mechanical springs to keep seal under compression since any rubber or plastic seal deforms and relaxes with time.

Oh well. This recent discovery is really worrying me especially the 1 year warranty we warrant on each repair we did. I had to redo the liquid metal again on few, the shortest one was several days. No, I didn't skimp on that. I cleaned both heatsink and APU die rather thoroughly, and made sure liquid metal is correctly applied, key word wetted correctly.

Cheers,

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-08, 07:53:

Vista and 7 were the pinnacle of Microsoft desktop OS UI. Win8 made a mess, which they have been slowly trying to clean up with […]
Show full quote

Munx wrote on 2024-09-07, 15:27:

The day I installed Windows 8.1 is still stuck in my mind as that's the first time newer tech looked unappealing. Like, I knew Vista had issues and had experienced some of them when using PC's that weren't mine, but high-school me still looked at Vista as something to upgrade to once my own hardware was good enough to run it. Win 8 was just horrible. Not only the visual downgrade, but I had to fight that UI CONSTANTLY. Went back to 7 soon after and only got 10 after I upgraded to Ryzen and didn't want to risk running an unsupported OS on it.

Vista and 7 were the pinnacle of Microsoft desktop OS UI. Win8 made a mess, which they have been slowly trying to clean up with Win10/11.

lti wrote on 2024-09-07, 18:24:

I've actually thought about Apple computers since the Windows 11 "unsupported CPU" nonsense. Nobody can give me a compelling reason to stay on Windows. It's just the "only stupid people buy Apple products" attitude problem.

Well, FWIW, overcoming the "unsupported CPU" crap in Win11 is probably far easier than overcoming Apple's entire walled garden ecosystem.

Windows 11 (ARM) runs fine on an iMac M3, as far as I can tell. In virtualization, I mean.

Windows 8 Preview was fine, too. It didn't have Metro yet.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-08, 13:38:

Two things: 1) The "unsupported CPU crap" is less about technical limitations and more about respect. Yes, I know how to get aro […]
Show full quote

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-08, 07:53:

lti wrote on 2024-09-07, 18:24:

I've actually thought about Apple computers since the Windows 11 "unsupported CPU" nonsense. Nobody can give me a compelling reason to stay on Windows. It's just the "only stupid people buy Apple products" attitude problem.

Well, FWIW, overcoming the "unsupported CPU" crap in Win11 is probably far easier than overcoming Apple's entire walled garden ecosystem.

Two things:
1) The "unsupported CPU crap" is less about technical limitations and more about respect. Yes, I know how to get around it. But it fundamentally offends me that instead of taking my money for a retail upgrade, Microsoft makes the upgrade free... but then says that my i7-7700 with 64 gigs of RAM is too old and crappy when a low end Celeron from a year newer is perfectly acceptable. And reserves the right to brick my system in a future update... which actually happened to one of my unsupported machines, a Dell i5-4590 that seems majorly allergic to the newest patch for 24H2.

Microsoft used to reward buying good hardware with their future OSes. (Of course, the peak of this was... Vista..., which punished owners of crap hardware and rewarded good hardware more than any other Windows release.) You bought good hardware, X years later, you had a higher chance that you could hand over your money for a retail upgrade and your hardware would still be usable for a little while.

Now, they just want you to go down to worst buy and buy garbage laptops every 4 years that don't perform well on day 1 and don't perform any better 3 years later. (And they wonder why the Windows platform is stagnating...)

The other thing I would add is that the "unsupported CPU crap" creates tons of anxiety for future builds. For example, today's desktop x64 chips don't have NPUs. If Microsoft says Win12 or whatever in 2027 requires a on-processor NPU, does that mean the expensive Ryzen I build today gets thrown on a legacy support track in 3 years? And if that's the case, well, why would I build a high-end desktop?

2) The "walled garden" is only on the mobile devices, not the Macs. And while I would defend the walled garden, and I suspect most people of a certain age who have come to appreciate the reliability of the iOS platform compared to the moody general-purpose computers of our youth would too, I don't know if that's a debate we should get into at this point.

Well, high-end i8080 computers had to make way for lower-end Z80 computers, too, at some point. 😉

But honestly, I often think that the days of x86 are numbered, anyways. That's why I stopped investing in a new x86 PC after Windows 7 went EOL.
There simply was no reason to get a new PC that was Windows 10-only in terms of compatibility (removal of BIOS/CSM).

The next thing that will happen is that x86S drama. x86 will be stripped more and more, graphics card will loose VGA BIOS, until it all reaches a point that VM software will have to emulate parts of V86, too, not just Real-Mode code.
The future VM programs like Virtualbox, Parallels and VMWare will have to emulate large parts of x86 in order to compensate. Unless hardware-assisted virtualization will continue to survive.

That's exactly the reason I had been stranded on a Raspberry Pi since 2017/2018, by the way.

The future for x86 looks grim, I think. Windows 10/11 or not. The downside of new PC hardware simply is that it can nolonger boot or virtualize older OSes.
Modern x86 PC hardware is basically dongled to Windows 10/11 and some half-baked Linux distros.
Provided that they will continue to get DRM keys for the Secure Boot.

In retrospect, this is sad. I've always found x86 fascinating because it continued to evolve over the decades.
But this maybe has come to an end.

dr_st wrote on 2024-09-08, 14:02:

I see. I'd say these are some strange concepts to attach "respect" and "offense" to, but to each his own. […]
Show full quote

I see. I'd say these are some strange concepts to attach "respect" and "offense" to, but to each his own.

Microsoft wants to sell software and services. That's all they care about.

You, as a user, should care about getting the best product you can that meets your requirements with the whatever cost/time/effort balance you deem appropriate. And if this product is an Apple product, then why not?

Looking at it from this PoV may also reduce "anxiety".

This sums up my thoughts very nicely.

I'm not a fan of Apple's practices, haven't been for a while now. However, they also offer nothing I need, want, or can't get somewhere else, so I don't use their products. However, if they did offer something I could not get anywhere else, I would use that product, even if it had an Apple logo on it.

For Micro$oft, my thoughts are the same, but unlike Apple they do offer something I need, and as of today, can't get anywhere else. I'm stuck with Windows due primarily to game compatibility, many games I enjoy will not run on the only other viable platform for me, Linux.

I look at many things in life that way, I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart or Amazon's business practices, but I still shop at both. There are many things in this world I may not like, but I also have to live in it, so I don't waste my energy stressing over the small stuff. For me personally, it's just not worth it. I will happily discuss my thoughts and positions, but only to a point becasue some people are so polarized about them. As I got older, I quickly adopted the classic phrase, "Don't sweat the small stuff!". It sure does make for a much happier life. 😀

pentiumspeed wrote on 2024-09-08, 23:34:

My motto: Don't build or purchase a consumer grade computer. This served me rather well in longevity and reliability. […]
Show full quote

My motto: Don't build or purchase a consumer grade computer. This served me rather well in longevity and reliability.

Consumer grade computers means:
Plastic breaking (notebooks).
Not easily upgrade-able memory: especially soldered ram and one slot memory even two slots is too limiting.
Hard to get parts especially notebooks. Like I cannot find anything parts after 3 or 4 years later: examples: Asus, MSI etc.

Buying business or workstation allows you to have plenty of parts and totally upgrade able, stable. HP in my experience were much better for me. Even the HP Mini is rather expandable. I have G3 and G5 Minis and they can be found in 65W version (top cover will be vented), up to 64GB. Socketed CPU so can be changed at will. 2 NVME M.2 slots after removing the 2.5" bracket.
Eventually I'll have to buy used HP business or workstation computers just in time for windows 11 transition in 2025.

That's why my modern laptop is a ThinkPad. I know that there's a lot of "Chinese spyware" talk (but nobody ever gives me a source), but it's four years old and hasn't had any problems. It's the big one with four RAM slots, two M.2 NVMe slots, and a 2.5" bay.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2024-09-08, 23:34:

Series S and Series X are not the problem, TIM will get air bubbles but you can use quality thermal paste instead easily. Not PS5.

I heard that Microsoft used phase change material.

lti wrote on 2024-09-10, 02:40:

That's why my modern laptop is a ThinkPad. I know that there's a lot of "Chinese spyware" talk (but nobody ever gives me a sourc […]
Show full quote

pentiumspeed wrote on 2024-09-08, 23:34:

My motto: Don't build or purchase a consumer grade computer. This served me rather well in longevity and reliability. […]
Show full quote

My motto: Don't build or purchase a consumer grade computer. This served me rather well in longevity and reliability.

Consumer grade computers means:
Plastic breaking (notebooks).
Not easily upgrade-able memory: especially soldered ram and one slot memory even two slots is too limiting.
Hard to get parts especially notebooks. Like I cannot find anything parts after 3 or 4 years later: examples: Asus, MSI etc.

Buying business or workstation allows you to have plenty of parts and totally upgrade able, stable. HP in my experience were much better for me. Even the HP Mini is rather expandable. I have G3 and G5 Minis and they can be found in 65W version (top cover will be vented), up to 64GB. Socketed CPU so can be changed at will. 2 NVME M.2 slots after removing the 2.5" bracket.
Eventually I'll have to buy used HP business or workstation computers just in time for windows 11 transition in 2025.

That's why my modern laptop is a ThinkPad. I know that there's a lot of "Chinese spyware" talk (but nobody ever gives me a source), but it's four years old and hasn't had any problems. It's the big one with four RAM slots, two M.2 NVMe slots, and a 2.5" bay.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2024-09-08, 23:34:

Series S and Series X are not the problem, TIM will get air bubbles but you can use quality thermal paste instead easily. Not PS5.

I heard that Microsoft used phase change material.

Correct, this TIM they used will create air bubbles even one year old. This affects all Xbox One line and Series S/X. Best fix is use quality thermal paste like MX-4 so on, clean out completely of change phase TIM.
Don't do the X-clamp mod, this defeats the real reason of X-clamp design for correct pressure on the APU against heatsink. PCB is not the material to create pressure, PCB contains resin that flow with time and pressure relaxes.

Yesterday, serviced Series S for destroyed HDMI port. Yes, full of bubbles.

Cheers,

Im not quite sure I understand most of this thread.

Ive been running Windows 11 almost from its release date and never had a problem with it.
I turned off a load of spyware and bloatware but apart from that junk Win11 runs ok for me.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-10, 18:49:

spyware and bloatware

That's kind of the main problem. Even if purged, microsoft will try to re-bloat it with the next update

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-10, 18:49:

Im not quite sure I understand most of this thread.

Ive been running Windows 11 almost from its release date and never had a problem with it.
I turned off a load of spyware and bloatware but apart from that junk Win11 runs ok for me.

If you upgraded from 10, I don't think you had to deal with the microsoft account nonsense, or perhaps you don't mind that requirement.
Otherwise, yeah, it's just par for the course for windows: a bunch of pointless UI changes and rearrangements, and some of the TPM stuff doesn't change much now but is setting the course for stronger DRM and anti cheat and so forth in the future.

Munx wrote on 2024-09-10, 19:26:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-10, 18:49:

spyware and bloatware

That's kind of the main problem. Even if purged, microsoft will try to re-bloat it with the next update

Yeah probably, but removing it isnt a problem.
I remember all those years ago having to crack XP WPA every time you sneezed so a bit of bloat isnt a problem.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-09-10, 19:51:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-10, 18:49:

Im not quite sure I understand most of this thread.

Ive been running Windows 11 almost from its release date and never had a problem with it.
I turned off a load of spyware and bloatware but apart from that junk Win11 runs ok for me.

If you upgraded from 10, I don't think you had to deal with the microsoft account nonsense, or perhaps you don't mind that requirement.
Otherwise, yeah, it's just par for the course for windows: a bunch of pointless UI changes and rearrangements, and some of the TPM stuff doesn't change much now but is setting the course for stronger DRM and anti cheat and so forth in the future.

I use a microsoft account, so no it doesnt bother me.
Hiding in plain sight works best sometimes.

Yeah the changes in the UI did take some getting use to, some of them I changed on my first install, then decided to roll with it after my 3rd Win11 PC was set up.

DRM is stronger in Win11?
I use a dedicated media PC so I dont know about any of that.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-09-10, 22:02:

DRM is stronger in Win11?
I use a dedicated media PC so I dont know about any of that.

It isn't so much that Win11 has any stronger DRM, but that Win11's upping of what an "IBM-compatible" with extra stuff like TPM and secure boot establishes a baseline for companies producing Windows software to aggressively use all those new features to strengthen DRM and anti-cheat, e.g.: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comment … tpm_and_secure/

All the more reason to stick with DOS where things are future-proof 😁

I was thinking about this.
If you have to have a micro$soft account to use Win11, I am willing to bet it requires MFA?
So what happens if your phone is lost, stolen, compromised, whatever - at the point you would not even be able to get into your computer to access your files?