Windows 10 by Stealth

Kobo, where I buy my e-Books seems to be under new management and when I tried, at the beginning of the week, to buy a couple of new books I found that they arrived on my computer as .acsm files which refused to open.  I went online for help but all I could find was that my version of Adobe Digital Editions was out of date (so is my Kobo reader for that matter) so I downloaded the newest version, to no avail; the files still wouldn't open.  Deciding that was not the problem and not being all that sure about the new Digital Editions I did a system restore and got my old version back again.


I found a program on-line which guaranteed to fix the problem and open the files but I am very reluctant to download programs which promise the world although this particular one had five cows on the Tucow scale.  However, I downloaded it and it scanned my computer, found over 600 errors in my directory and it then suggested that I should download another program to fix my directory errors.  I have been there and done that and last time I went down that path  -  one program recommending another which then recommends a third until the computer is totally confused.  Last time that happened I had to call in Techie to sort it all out.  So I deleted the program and let the directory errors remain  -  they didn't seem to be doing anything malicious.


I realised that when I saved the two .acsm files in a folder they turned into .pdf files which also refused to open so I emailed them to myself on my I-Pad where I have a Kobo Reader app and  -  no problem  -  I was able to open them and read the books.  But my I-Pad is heavy and awkward to read on, especially with cats on my lap; turn it slightly and the text would flip around and I would have to persuade it back again.  Not ideal.


So I went back to my Windows 7 computer and did another 'help' search and ... it suggested installing the Kobo Reader App.  An app on Windows 7??  Hex and I have only dealt with programs; Windows 7 doesn't have apps  -  at least it didn't until now  -  apps are for I-Pad and Windows 8 and 10.  Nevertheless, I installed the Kobo Reader app and suddenly I was given a choice of which program I preferred to use to open the files and one of the options was Adobe Digital Editions.  Yeah!  Not only did it open the file but instead of me having to download the books to a folder on my computer, open digital Editions, drag the file to it and then drag it onto my Kobo which had to be plugged into the computer;  now they load directly into Digital Editions and it is a piece of cake to load it onto my Kobo Reader.


I can see that what is happening to us Luddites who are resisting doing the ultimate download is that Microsoft is converting our computers on the quiet with its never-ending new upgrades and before long, by default, we will find ourselves with a watered-down version of Windows 10 whether we want it or not.