Not sure what you mean by this… when does it do this?
Was this Window’s or Omnisphere’s fault?
It seems like the frustration is simply that it’s difficult to remove a file association - but that’s no different to Windows 10 (but granted, it was easier in Windows 7).
Windows fault, but it affected Omnisphere setup.
I am getting most everything to finally work. Should be up and running soon. Folder permissions set me back for awhile, but getting close.
Got a message from Spectrasonics. All fixed now.
For what it’s worth, l built my live machine on Win 11, and have not noticed any issues. To be fair, l am not a power user, but for VST synths, a few playbacks, and song settings, l’ve been good up to now.
Putting on my IT support hat. I played chicken with Microsoft leaving all client machines on Windows 10 knowing they would back off last minute. Sometime during October 2025 suddenly enrolling Win10 computers in ESU (Extended Security Updates) became very easy. My discipline was to create an outlook.com account unique to each machine. I would first create that user and setup account recovery if needed. Then when I clicked in Updates to Enroll Now I would use that account. Then I would convert the account back to a local account - the ESU keeps working.
There is a way to create a USB stick Windows 11 installer using Rufus that skips the “Microsoft Account”. You can also turn off the checks for TPU and CPU if you want to install on older equipment. I studied those requirements and figured out it all boils down to if the chipset on the computer has virtualization capabilities. I think the plan in the future is to use virtualization to sandbox things like opening attachments downloaded from online.
I agree with the gripe about cloud accounts, but it is easy enough to bend to my will of local accounts, which is all I want.
Other than that, WIN11 has been fine. It is very stable and certainly no worse than WIN10 or WIN7 in my experience.
Another recommendation is to give it plenty of time to boot, as Microsoft’s claim of improved boot time from WIN10 onwards is smokes and mirrors. One thing they did was simply to move where the logon prompt appears in the boot sequence - it appears whilst booting is not complete! We actually had a lot of problems on a complex, distributed, networked realtime system in work, because users were logging in whilst Windows had not finished starting up, including some of our application background processes that are critical for the application to work! So if users started too early these background applications were not ready. Took us ages to suss that. Our recommendation to users was thus to wait a few minutes from the appearance of the logon prompt before attempting to log in. Since then it has been perfect.
Another thing I learnt recently is that another reason for fast shutdown/startup is that Windows can hibernate a lot of background processes instead of stopping/restarting them as part of shutdown/reboot.. If you hold SHIFT when selecting the shutdown option, it forces a complete shutdown. Not sure if this is true for home installs (haven’t tried yet), but certainly in our corporate Windows locked down builds this seems to happen, and a few errant issues have been solved by the SHIFT/Shutdown option. I.e. if you have an errant process that hibernates, it might still be errant when it is taken out of hibernation. It sounds strange, but it is true. There is a known Dell built in camera problem where the laptop camera simply stops working and you cannot use it in Teams, and a “normal” reboot does not fix it. But Shift/Shutdown and it brings it back to life. Dell blames Microsoft, and Microsoft blames Dell!
Thanks for this. I’ve had issues with drivers not being started correctly in particular Audio and bluetooth, It got me to thinking about fast boot and Power Options. In Control Panel->Power Option-> ‘Choose what the power buttons do’ there’s an option to Turn on/off fast boot: -
(You need to click on the ‘Change settings that are currently unavailable’ first)
Under ‘Shut-down settings’ theres a switch which enable/disables fast start-up ‘Turn on fast start-up’
Is this the same as SHIFT + SHUTDOWN?
Steve
I am not sure. I guess so.
winutils from chris titus and stopwindowsupdates10 (or 11) helps you allot 
I don’t like microsoft at all lately, if it wasnt for the compatibility, I were already on linux (well, I am on Mint, ready to go, but holding me because I need to find solutions for audio and video apps). I’ve installed Mint on my old tv media laptop and works like a rocket, where w10 was slow as a snail. Not even usable. Even with the Titus tool.
And that’s not to talk about the AI spyware MS is pushing us into.
But to come back to the topic:the tools do a good job in cleaning up background processes, spy and reporting stuff… I use it on all my music and daily computers. Helps allot.
Very interesting.
Hey Doug. I like where you are going with this.
I think it would be game changer if “user” wasn’t part of the process. Just let the computer be itself without user crap. The “user” part gave me headaches for three weeks during my initial setup, and it still causes occasional problems, at least on a gig machine.
I left off USB cables… My list is always growing.
Same here. Windows 11 has actually been good when frozen to version 11 Pro 23H2. Did not require anything more than Process Lasso to “hop it up” for DAW.
But when it updated to the next version (24H2?) it bricked my soundcards and my virtual reality stuff. Microsoft said “so buy new hardware”. And I wasn’t the only one, the internet was ablaze with that update. Fortunately the internet had a solution to freeze the version and I do still get Windows updates, so apparently MS knows how mad that episode made people.
So a mixed bag for me. But overall positive (until they force me to move on from 23H2 feature set).
Would you care to send a link to what you found on the internet, just in case one of us discovers the same problem?
I’ve not tried to update since I purchased my recent gig machine earlier this year. Glad you were able to fix it.
BTW there’s a new Win 10 update to fix the problem with enrolling in free Extended Security Updates (Finally!). This gives Win 10 support until October 16, 2026. Just do windows update as you normally would, it will tell you support has ended but there will be new patches to install, just install/restart. Do update again, on the top right there’s a link to enroll in ESU. Sign in to your Microsoft account, follow prompts, and enroll. Then there will be yet another new update.
BTW these new updates fix the major issues of The November update that caused so many issues. So far so good on my 2 gig PCs.
Tom
It’s funny how experience varies, as I am on 24H2 on DAW and GIG PCs with no issues that I have noticed.
Agree with USB. I did try gigging with USB connections, but found it too unreliable for stage use - but use it in the studio with no noticeable issues. Whilst MIDI DIN connectors are “state of the ark” they are very robust. The downside and why I tried going with USB in my 2017 gig rig is double the IO count for MIDI over USB. But my new rig has double the IO count and reliable DIN MIDI - but just as well I found MIDI DIN feed through couplers.
I don’t have any links unfortunately. I did go review the issue and the ability to roll back the update was limited to ten days. After that you’re locked in. Fortunately I was able to roll it back before the 10 day period expired. But anyone on a later build is stuck with it at this point.
I decided to use ChatGBT to address my hate of Win11
This is what I asked:
Windows 11 will not let me move most everything. Nearly everything requires Administrator permission and impedes my progess.
CHAT replied
That is frustrating—and you’re not imagining it. Windows 11 is much more aggressive about permissions than earlier versions, especially if your files are in protected locations.
Below is a clear, practical checklist to get you unstuck, starting with the most common causes and fixes.
—
## The Root Cause (most of the time)
Windows 11 protects system folders and anything inside them, even from users who are administrators.
If you’re trying to move files in or out of folders like:
*** C:\Program Files**
*** C:\Program Files (x86)**
*** C:\Windows**
*** C:\ProgramData**
*** Another app’s install folder**
Windows will block or prompt for admin rights constantly.
This is by design, but it absolutely kills workflow for audio, plugins, libraries, etc.
—
## First: Make Sure You’re REALLY an Admin
1. Press Win + R
2. Type:
** **netplwiz** **
3. Press Enter
4. Select your user account
5. Make sure “Administrators” is listed
If not:
*** Change it to Administrator**
*** Log out and back in**
—
## The #1 Fix for File Moving Issues (Recommended)
### 
Don’t work inside protected folders
### 
Move your work to a user-owned location
Create folders like these and use them for everything non-system:
** **C:\Audio** **C:\VST** **C:\Samples** **C:\Libraries** **C:\Plugins** **
Then:
*** Install plugins to these folders**
*** Put sample libraries here**
*** Move project data out of Program Files**
This alone solves 90% of permission problems for DAW users.
—
## Take Ownership of a Folder (When You MUST Use It)
If you must modify a specific folder:
1. Right-click the folder → Properties
2. Go to Security tab
3. Click Advanced
4. At the top, click Change (Owner)
5. Enter your username → Check Names
6. Click OK
7. Check:
** * 
Replace owner on subcontainers and objects**
8. Apply → OK
Only do this for folders you truly need to edit.
—
## Disable Overbearing Security Features (Optional but Common)
### 
Turn OFF “Controlled Folder Access” (often breaks installers)
1. Windows Security
2. Virus & threat protection
3. Ransomware protection
4. Controlled folder access → OFF
This feature silently blocks file operations.
This is only a part of the chat.
Even A.I. knows Win11 is crap. 
Interesting, but think about this way…
Unix derived operating systems like macOS, Linux, etc are designed to be secure from the ground up. Like you having a house and you have to unlock the doors and windows to let people in when you want where you want, and some parts of the house need more protection than others, like where your cheese and wine stash is 
.
Microsoft Windows approach to security was like you building a house where the doors and windows have not been fitted let alone having locks, and your house is very unsecure unless you take steps to lock it down. This is an area where Microsoft have been catching up.
I have an involvement in IT security in my line of work. I won’t or can’t talk about anything current, but as an example, 25 years ago we had to apply approved “clampdown models” to Windows NT, and you wouldn’t believe some of the steps you had to do to meet an approved level of security. For example if you left Windows Paint on the system you couldn’t claim your system was secure! This was because the application must have had some sort of exploitation path that bypassed the OS security - bearing in mind that NT was meant to be Microsoft’s really secure OS of the day compared to Windows 3.1.
So, it’s a balance between security and convenience and which matters most to you.
I feel like I am in a high security jail cell without a daily 30 minute outside time.
