Windows 10 Miscellaneous notes

Windows documentation

Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile

Windows 10 versions

Windows 10 release information

Updating Windows 10

MBR vs GPT, Legacy vs UEFI

UEFI = Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

ESP = EFI System Partition

GPT = GUID partition table

MBR = Master boot record

Convert MBR partition to GPT

Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions

Partition Configurations

Configure BIOS/MBR-Based Hard Drive Partitions

Partition Configurations

HP PCs and Tablets - About UEFI and the Startup Menu

Basic system information

Information at the BIOS level at boot time

Computer information: processor, ram, system type (32 or 64bit), machine name, …

Windows+I ⇒ System ⇒ System information

Installed Windows 10 version

Accessing the list of installed applications

Note: there are several ways to list the install applications, and they may not display the same information (need to understand the underlying logic)

Using the Windows 7 way

Follow the steps in Repair or remove programs in Windows 10 to access the legacy Windows 7 Programs and Features (Programmes et fonctionnalités) panel

Using the Windows 10 way

Windows+I (open Settings) ⇒ Applications

Windows Store ⇒ … (in the top right corner) ⇒ My library

Screen resolution and other compatibility problems

The content of some application windows may appear blurry, and the screen size determined by the application may be smaller than the actual screen size. This is because some applications don't use the information supplied by Windows 10 on high resolution screens, and the apparent screen size depends on the scaling factor selected in Display parameters (when you right click on the desktop, the default scaling factor is 150%).

Check the Make older programs compatible with this version of Windows page for help (French version)

VcXsrv X server

In the case of VcXsrv, if the scaling factor is 150%, and the actual screen size is W x H, VcXsrv thinks that the screen size is only (W/1.5) x (H/1.5). Type xdpyinfo | grep dimensions to get the screen size seen by the X server

Solution:

right-click on the VcXsrv executable (or the shortcut on the desktop)

click on Properties

click on Compatibility

click on Change high DPI settings

in the top panel (Program DPI) select Use this setting to fix scaling problems for this program and then (when) I open this program

Task Manager

Some information about processes you may see running (with high CPU usage) in the Task Manager

wsappx: this process runs when windows installs programs or check for updates (e.g. updates of programs from the Microsoft Store)

Details in What Is “wsappx” and Why Is It Running on My PC?

Resources

Windows section of How-To Geek

Windows 10 section of Windows Central

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