Computer Help and Support

I used to do it regularly on my WinXP boxes, back in the day. There was a site (black ice something?) that described each setting, in detail. That's the level of control I like having on my computers.

When I was looking at some of the obvious settings, like in Users and Groups, I noticed that "User" had admin privileges, and that got me wondering what the default settings were--I haven't yet looked any of this up. Also, some misc folders/settings were in Chinese characters, which was what initially alerted me. May be completely innocuous.

Is it even possible anymore to have a completely functional machine (and software) that doesn't need to phone home frequently, or go online to retrieve some essential component? ::sigh:: I'm not a fan of this cloud-computing model that seems to have infiltrated everywhere.