S Mode

Last week, I picked up a newly purchased laptop, not very powerful, but more than sufficient for the limited purposes I had in mind. The initial setup somehow required that I log in to Microsoft, which was briefly frustrating, since I had forgotten my password and the reset prompts confused me a little. Still, I got it set up, checking off No to about eight categories of data Hewlett Packard and Microsoft thought I might care to send them. Then it was time to download the software I wished to use.

In trying to run the first installer, I learned that I would have to take the computer out of "S Mode". In S Mode, I learned, one can only run programs downloaded from the Microsoft Store. I can see the advantage of this for some users, for whom it probably makes computer use safer. I cannot quite see why one should have to go to the Microsoft Store to turn S Mode off, but I did. A friend in the computer business says that S Mode is for Windows 10 Home Edition, and that he always upgrades clients' machines to Windows 10 Professional first thing.

I was soon back at the Microsoft Store, for one of the first installers I ran was for Python. But when I entered "python" at a command prompt, the browser suddenly opened to the Microsoft Store, offering to download Python 3.7. I had forgotten this behavior from last year, when I first installed Python on a Windows 10 machine; but I quickly remembered it, and last year's brief but intense irritation. I looked up the instructions, and was soon able to run the Python I wanted.

I also removed programs running alphabetically from Amazon and Booking.com through XBox. This was not necessary to my purposes, but I didn't care to have them taking up space. Taken together with S Mode, they suggested that HP and Microsoft were selling into a market where the user wished to have his hand held and helped to shop. Perhaps some users want that.  

The setup was a little quirky, but not bad compared to what one used to go through. And having worked through the setup, I find that the machine does quite well what I bought it for.