New Asus laptop setup

[qasdfdsaq]

There is risk of that, but there is no more risk of them hacking into your email than say, your Ebay account, your Facebook account, your bank account or just stealing details directly off your computer. There are literally hundreds of easier ways of stealing data relating to identity theft, so the tiny amount of extra protection you get from using fake email details is not worth the drawbacks IMO.

Plus, it's probably against the email provider's terms of service, allowing them to block your account at any point if they felt like it.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

There is risk of that, but there is no more risk of them hacking into your email than say, your Ebay account, your Facebook account, your bank account or just stealing details directly off your computer. There are literally hundreds of easier ways of stealing data relating to identity theft, so the tiny amount of extra protection you get from using fake email details is not worth the drawbacks IMO.

Plus, it's probably against the email provider's terms of service, allowing them to block your account at any point if they felt like it.

Interesting thanks.

[Osem]

Wow time has flown! This has been on the back burner until now but it's an Xmas pressie so I really need to get on with this. Also the wife's wanting a laptop soon (more likely to be W8.1) so we'll also need to know what we're doing when she gets hers and some of my questions/concerns will relate more to her situation than our lad's.

I'm a bit confused about 'sign in accounts'. I've seen references to Windows Accounts and Microsoft Accounts, are these the same thing?

I believe that the laptop's sign in account is basically a new or existing email account which can either be Hotmail/Outlook or any other provider e.g. Gmail. We have existing Hotmail and Gmail accounts but would we use the existing passwords for those email accounts or should/must we create a new one? I can see having accounts with the same name but with different passwords being quite confusing but on the other hand if the passwords are the same and your email account gets hacked and its password changed you can't any longer get into your laptop or can you?

I'm also not keen on cloud storage for our personal docs, pics etc. which I believe is provided by default on Win8 with a MS account. If that is the case, can we disable it easily or are we stuck with it?

A couple of other things which have just occurred to me. If we set up the laptop using a brand new Microsoft account with a new password is that the only way we can use the laptop or could we access it using one of our old Microsoft accounts? Also can we set our lad's computer up with the equivalent of Win7 'admin' and non passworded 'user' accounts? He's not going to be able to enter passwords reliably and I wouldn't want him to be able to inadvertently change important settings or whatever.

As you can tell, until now we've mainly thought about these things as just email accounts for sending messages, not the 'key' to our computer and its content and it's this that's confusing. Am I right in concluding that to get the best from W8 you need a Microsoft account by one means or another?

I'm certain this all seems a bit OTT to some of you experienced folks but I really don't want to get it wrong and then find I've let us in for a whole load of issues I'd never expected when there was a simpler/better option from the outset.

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

You can't buy a laptop without it but luckily you can still get pcs no probs. When I bought my pc in June both Mesh and Alienware had the option on all their pcs for Windows 8 or Windows 7. I hope it stays like that for as long as it takes them to bring the start menu back (they are supposed to be working on it)

Some of the Novatech laptops can be bought with Windows 7.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Ken W

Some of the Novatech laptops can be bought with Windows 7.

Misco also have laptops from HP and Toshiba with windows 7 pro installed and a W8 disk.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Osem

I'm a bit confused about 'sign in accounts'. I've seen references to Windows Accounts and Microsoft Accounts, are these the same thing?

Not really, a Windows account is an account on your local computer, a Microsoft account is an account ... with Microsoft. Unless you're talking about 'Windows Live' accounts, which are the same as 'Microsoft' accounts, i.e. an online account. Windows still supports traditional local-only accounts if you are so inclined.

I believe that the laptop's sign in account is basically a new or existing email account which can either be Hotmail/Outlook or any other provider e.g. Gmail. We have existing Hotmail and Gmail accounts but would we use the existing passwords for those email accounts or should/must we create a new one?

You would directly sign-in to an existing Microsoft (e.g. Hotmail) online account using the online (e.g. Hotmail) password.

As you can tell, until now we've mainly thought about these things as just email accounts for sending messages, not the 'key' to our computer and its content and it's this that's confusing.

Meh, it's all moving towards 'single-sign-on' cloud crap these days, we all used to think our email accounts were for... email until Microsoft and Facebook and Skype and Google and everyone else started letting you use your credentials for all sorts of other faff.

[Osem]

Thanks for the reply as always.

OK so the Microsoft account we either create (i.e. a new Hotmail account) or use (i.e. an existing Hotmail account) isn't so much like a password/lock for the laptop, it's more a way of linking the computer to Microsoft and their various services so they can control even more aspects of our lives.

So, when we're first setting the laptop up and are asked to sign into the laptop with an existing Microsoft Account we'll enter the existing Hotmail address and its existing password i.e. the one we use to access our emails on that account?

If we go down this route will we be asked to sign into that Microsoft account every time we turn the laptop on in order to use it or would be able to easily avoid that?

On my W7 laptop I have a password protected admin account and a open user account for other family members to use. I'd quite like similar for my lad's laptop so he can't access anything 'admin' related by accident or cause any major problems. Would we be able to do that on Win8? If so would that have to be done during initial setup or could it be left to a later date?

Thanks for your patience.

[vanman]

have a look here

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/

[Osem]

Originally Posted by vanman

have a look here

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/

My word there's a great deal of stuff there. TVM!

[Osem]

Spent the last few hours setting the laptop up and seem to have it going. Decided to start with local accounts only for now - set up one for 'admin' and a second child's user account for our lad to use and then the final very limited guest account.

It's been updating for what seems like an age - 116 Windows updates to do but in the meantime I've been trying to find where everything is and setting up the desktop to resemble something like my trusty Win 7 laptop.

I've discovered MacAfee on there which I think I will remove in due course but for now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when it fires back up it'll all be working properly...

Just a thought, if I wanted to update it to 8.1 at some point how would I best go about doing that?

[qasdfdsaq]

You should update it to 8.1 before doing any Windows updates as updates for 8.0 are no longer made.

[Osem]

Hmmm... wondering what Windows has been updating all that time then...

I've just checked for Windows updates again and found 8 more - 4 important ones which are dated as recently as 11th November.