Two weeks of Windows 10: Just how is Microsoft doing? Microsoft released Windows 10 two weeks ago, on 29 July, encompassing an ambitious global rollout whereby users of Windows 7 and 8.1 receive an in-place upgrade via Windows Update. It was never going to be easy, and is playing out as expected. Some users want the upgrade but cannot get it; others do not want it but get it …
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I did say maybe. I was making a serious point : I firmly believe that Windows 10 cannot be trusted for anything involving sensitive / personal / valuable information. Furthermore, having spent some time clearing the 'GWX' and 'Preparation for upgrade' infestation out of my Windows 7 PCs, I don't believe Microsoft can be trusted even for Windows 7.
They seem very, very, determined to get people into an environment where they get to know everything they're up to.
Those who really care will not stay with Windows. It boils down to how many actually care, I guess.
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I have it running on 2 machines and everything seems fine, I don't like Edge because of the "semi-invisible " URL window.
There are already quite a few articles on the web into how to turn off the MS Spyware . I don't use a Live account, nor Onedrive etc... It also installs IIS which is a pain but easily resolved..
I don't like that Quick Access thing in the explorer but it is easy to point to "This PC" rather than quick access.. There are also some pointless file copy dialogs, on the whole it's pretty much BAU.
It's not quite as finished as Windows 7, but that will change with time, I like that it displays a taskbar on both screens. No major bugs, I don't find myself reaching for ctrl-alt-delete which is already a good thing.
Some things have been juggled about, some things are hidden but can eventually be found, not a major paradigm shift, it's kind of a bland update really...
I don't care about boot up speeds as my machines are on 24/24 with only a very occasional reboot.
I'm keeping it, I have now deleted the "windows.old" directory although I did clone my drive before upgrading, I will keep the clone for a month or so and then we'll see.
{I don't care about boot up speeds as my machines are on 24/24 with only a very occasional reboot.}
I hope by that you mean at least once a month, occasionally more than once for the glut of fixes, because developers don't know how to get it right the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes many additional tries!!
I jumped ship from Ubuntu for far a far lesser crime. No-one should ever have to turn OFF spyware built into an operating system. Spyware has no place in an operating system. The whole point of an operating system should be that it does what the user of that operating system wants it to do. So anything that potentially impacts on user privacy should be something that the user has to request to have installed.
It would have been better had MS modlled the user experience of Win10, from the point of customisation, on the way that Linux distros work - give people the basics, then give them a software management tool that shows them all the shinies they can, if they wish, download from the MS repository, to add extra functionality, and if they did that and explained the privacy issues even very briefly and in as non-scary a way as they could whilst still being truthful, my money would have been on a lot of people installing that stuff anyway. And I;d probably be simply shrugging and, as with 'social media', shrugging andmuttering under my breathabout how bizarre it seems that so many are willing to give up their privacy. Instead of which I'm lambasting MS for being underhand (as well as releasing software before it's fit to release), and activelywarning friends to stay away from Windows 10.
Oh well.. time to park myself on the sofa and watch as the disaster unfolds. Wouldn't like to be an MS shareholder just now.
I have not taken up the option to upgrade, though the reminder is persistent. Having seen decades of MS tomfoolery (I started with Windows 2x and miss WFW) I don't feel able to commit. I gave up on Ubuntu, Knoppix and a couple of others; perhaps a Linux-Windows dual boot is the solution. I blame the village idiot, Ballmer, for much of the silliness today. Like you I am watching with interest, if that is an apt description. Horrified fascination might be a better one.
A post on an earlier day brought NDA's to mind and there is no way I can reconcile them nor related Chinese Firewalls [the legal/securities/financial kind] on a "consumer version of Windows 10 at all. Even locking down the privacy settings will not prevent reversion without notice. Tinfoil hat thinking but with teeth: Microsoft has reserved rights in the EULA and Privacy Agreements around perceived threats.
I was already holding off around compatibility and stability issues. Add regulatory/governance settling time for now. [Yes, I'm well aware of the telemetry issue in Windows 7/8 Updates, audience. That's concerning in itself given WU lack of transparency, another long standing issue hand-waved away, likely to the good given issue of giving crims hacking lessons for free via transparency.]
I wonder why the Register is so negative about Windows 10, I loaded it onto a 4 year old Windows 7 Lenovo Laptop. I hardly ever used it because it was so slow, like treacle more like and it has been transformed into fast really usable machine - fast in starting and very fast in use. No problems, it is solid and reliable. much better than Windows 7(I never bothered with Windows 8). All I can say is very well done Microsoft!
"I wonder why the Register is so negative about Windows 10"
I think they've been WAY too KIND about Windows 10, which looks more like 1.0, not 10. Take a look at a screenshot of the flatness of 1.01, you'll see what I mean:
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101
yeah, those flat window decorations, the flat dialog controls, the limited color selections - all of those "features" now _BACK_ to haunt us, like zombie features, in Windows 10.
And yet 3D skeumorphic is GENERALLY preferred 3:1 over that 2D "flat look" which is called 'modern' to help exploit the STOCKHOLM SYNDROME (which was pointed out by a BRILLIANT commenter earlier), and basically call everyone NOT willing to jump in the bandwagon "stone age" or something. Yeah.
So *how* is the "start thing", the ADWARE, the SPYWARE, the various twisty little ways to trick you into GIVING! UP! YOUR! PRIVACY!, and worst of all, the 2D "flatness" and "the METRO" going to make THIS windows 10 ABOMINATION an actual *success* that people *want* ??
"I think they've been WAY too KIND about Windows 10, which looks more like 1.0, not 10. Take a look at a screenshot of the flatness of 1.01, you'll see what I mean:"
Well - at least Windows 1.01 had colours! Win 10 seems to want everything white.
Ultra-High resolution icons! But they're only allowed to be 1 bit color, it seems
IOW, like Jim it's sucks donkey dikk... I RDPd into a laptop running on one of three LCDs and the difference was so striking with Aero, I couldn't take it... I can't imagine that ancient thing on my 24" LCD...
The settings panel is even worse than the phone UI...
I think I'll pass... I mean what are the chances that AutoDesk will make a Modern AutoCAD...?
They need to take Windows Core and split off the UIs... I don't want a phone UI on my desktop and it's foolish to have a desktop UI on your phone...
I wonder why the Register is so negative about Windows 10, I loaded it onto a 4 year old Windows 7 Lenovo Laptop. I hardly ever used it because it was so slow, like treacle more like and it has been transformed into fast really usable machine - fast in starting and very fast in use. No problems, it is solid and reliable. much better than Windows 7(I never bothered with Windows 8). All I can say is very well done Microsoft!
Comeback in about ~Two Months, after you have installed Office, Acrobat, and or Photoshop, or a vary healthy internet tmp cache and say that again!
" I wonder why the Register is so negative about Windows 10, I loaded it onto a 4 year old Windows 7 Lenovo Laptop. I hardly ever used it because it was so slow, like treacle more like and it has been transformed into fast really usable machine - fast in starting and very fast in use. No problems, it is solid and reliable. much better than Windows 7(I never bothered with Windows 8). All I can say is very well done Microsoft!
Comeback in about ~Two Months, after you have installed Office, Acrobat, and or Photoshop, or a vary healthy internet tmp cache and say that again!"
Errm... I installed WIn 10 on top of a Win 8.1 install. That install already had Office 2013 and Adobe Creative Suite (NOT Cloud) installed. The same machine had a Win 7 install on another partition of that same hardware. I can say with absolute certainty that Win 8.1 was faster, on the same hardware, than Win 7, and that Win 10 is faster, on the same hardware, than Win 8.1, which makes it _much_ faster than Win 7. And it's not just faster at boot time, it's faster generally. It opens applications faster. It opens files faster. It's just faster. It's better behaved, it's easier to handle, it's just better. And, yes, I turned off the spyware while installing, and, yes, I have installed my own firewall so that I _know_ if stuff was still being exported, and, no, the firewall hasn't detected any naughty stuff.
System: Asus A53S laptop, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB drive (shipped with 4 GB and 750 GB, respectively)
Two partitions on the drive, one Win 7 Ultimate, one Win 10 Pro. The Win 10 partition used to be Win 8.1 Pro.
Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 for A/V and firewall
Office 2013 and Creative Suite 6 on the Win 10 partition.
Office 2013 and 2010 (yes, I know, Microsoft doesn't want you to have both. Screw them.) and Creative Suite 5.5 on the Win 7 partition. (Note: I haven't actually paid full price for either Office or anything Adobe since Office 98 for Mac. Since then I've had either free installs due to being a 'student' or reduced price installs, typically $10 for Microsoft stuff and $200-500 instead of umpty-ump thousand for Adobe stuff due to being 'faculty' at certain Institutions of Higher (it is to laugh) Education. Getting cheap software is one of the few perks to being an adjunct instructor.) I used to have the Office 2015 beta on both partitions, it's gone 'cause experience on Mac and iOS platforms indicates that Microsoft is going to start bleating about wanting Office 365 installs, which ain't gonna happen. (Yes, buyz'n'grrlz, I have actual Windows and Office install DVDs actually from Microsoft, going back to Office 2000 and Win XP, which were either free or cost $10. I have ISOs downloaded from Microsoft sources which were free, and which cost me only download time and the cost of blank media. I didn't even use my own bandwidth to download 'em, why bother when the school had a 100 Mb/s (now a 1000 Mb/s) Internet connection.)
I also have LibreOffice and Open Office installed, but rarely use them, they're just too clunky compared to MS Office. (Memo to Microsoft: if you continue to yammer about Office 365, my attitude towards LibreOffice/Open Office can change.)
I have Hyper-V installed and park Win XP and Ubuntu on it. I don't usually use either one very much, it's just that certain software that the office uses requires XP and every now and again I test out Ubuntu to see if I could actually spend a day using it. So far, the answer is no. XP in Hyper-V under Win 10 behaves more-or-less like XP in Hyper-V under Win 8.1. Ubuntu might be a little faster. If so, it's not by much.
The whole reason I still have a Win 7 partition was that I made sure to have it when I installed Win 8... and Win 8 was so annoying that I went back to Win 7 almost immediately. When Win 8.1 came around, I updated my Win 8 partition, and found myself spending more and more and more time there instead of Win 7 because once I got rid of the damn tiles Win 8.1 behaved better than Win 7. Win 10 behaves better than Win 8.1. It's that simple.
I don't think it's an unfair comment. A rubber dick with a wig on it is a more acceptable productivity platform than Windows 8. If the bar for "success" is "we hate this less than Windows 8" then your measurement of success is pretty skewed.
The real question is "do we prefer it to Windows 7"? So far, every non-nerd I've talked to says no. The nerds seem 50/50 split. Those who believe novel has intrinsic value love Windows 10. Those who believe new things need to prove they are worth more than old things tend to stick with Windows 7.
From this I conclude that Windows 10 is - for the most part - "good enough" to people who don't care about privacy or control of their OS. It is not, however compelling enough to pull users away from Windows 7 in any great numbers.
Perhaps this is why trickery and skullduggery is being employed to nudge - or force - users off of Windows 7?
Either way, I am not making a pretty penny doing rollbacks from Windows 10 to Windows 7 and configuring the systems to block the Windows 10 download. Let's hope that revenue stream doesn't dry up for a while, as it pays well for easy work.
Do you have a link with instructions on how to do this? I'd really like to do it on my parents Windows 7 PCs, otherwise they'll click on the wrong thing someday and find themselves running Windows 10.
I did some googling a week ago and no one seemed to have a way to do this, since removing the KB update just caused it to re-download that update.
Oh, Trevor. Upvoted if only for the immortal phrase that is
A rubber dick with a wig on it is a more acceptable productivity platform than Windows 8
That is a mental image that will stay with me for a while. Thanks.
Not to mention raising scary questions about what constitutes "productivity" in the Reg offices.
Also known as damning by faint praise!
I think the initial target group is those who got tricked into Windows 8. Windows 7 users will want to wait for the first service pack equivalent. My corporate clients currently have no plans to upgrade but they are a cautious bunch anyway: IE 11 is still under evaluation to replace IE 8. Seeing as IE 8 may still be required for some intranet stuff which IE 11 can't handle, Windows 10 isn't an option anyway. Pity Edge hasn't been backported to Windows 7. I wonder if you can get it for a large envelope of cash? Otherwise only Mozilla seems to have understood the need of bug fixes only with Firefox ESR.
Nevertheless, I do wish Microsoft well with this release because it really is them putting their money where their mouth is in the post-Ballmer era. Let's hope they sort out the teething problems so that moaning about Windows 10 doesn't dominate conversation for the rest of the year.
Been running it on 3 desktops and 2 laptops, haven't seen anything to be alarmed about. No failed updates and systems seem to be pretty robust. On the downside I have one machine which resolutely refuses to upgrade, claims that the cpu is not supported, bollocks, and no trick or fudge seems to shift it. No big deal as my wife is probably happier on 7.
"No security-conscious business will allow this, so why does Microsoft not want to get feedback from these customers?"
Unless there is a way via Group Policy to override dumb users just clicking on the "OK" button, MS will get plenty of feedback from business customers. Any business dumb enough to upgrade their staff to Win10 in the first month or two is going to have all its employees all steamed up and *more* than willing to spend their lunch-break venting their spleen at the new OS.
Whether MS *want* this feedback is another matter. Win10, like Win8, appears to have been driven by feedback that was overwhelmingly from teenagers who don't have to get a job done with "legacy" apps.
To DanceMan, Go for it. I updated my 80 year old Dad to Mint 17.1 on a brand spanking new wide-screen HP laptop three months ago and have had one "support" call in all that time. (regarding a message about Flash and Firefox - resolved).
His old Doze laptop will be wiped next week as he has not used it in three months. Me, well I've been on Mint since 15 and use the Cinnamon desktop. Simple, clean and efficient. And... undemanding just like an OS should be.
they already have. its called win 7. quite why they have fucked with it so much is anyones guess.
Sans Office365... Which nobody really needs anyway.. Poor, wittle, pitiable MicroSoft just simply hasn't any way of monetizing your asse's. Without the the whole world going incandescent. I shudder to imagine waking up one day to find that the Chess Game on Windows 7 was plasters with- In-App Advertising. Which could be gotten rid of with a simple In-app-Purchase.
No this is the kinda crap you pull with Windows 10. And, quite frankly 10 Users are quite welcome to keep it! MicroSoft already got their Money from me on Windows 7, and I'm not quite on the page that my OS.. (Whatever it may be!), should in turn be a window to a cloudy SaaS App. Which has more privacy holes then a sieve.
The question of "Just how is Microsoft doing?", left to the acolytes, surely has only one possible answer. This may as well be a "BeOS thread", users of that OS anxiously discussing if and how it may affect them. With 85% market share and a world economy depending on the installed base, even the sturdiest MS hater might be granted the right to be worried about MS future and discuss that.
Now back to the attic and read a book, for a change.
W10 seems to be working fine on my machine which is more than can be said for 7 and 8 on release (yes, my machine is that old). I've noticed a couple of glitches with the sound controls but realtek and my soundcard (Asus Xonar) have never played nicely with each other and the install of W10 seems to have re-set the way i had it set up on 8.1 so i can probably sort that out.
Please note: This has NOT yet been confirmed.
A little bit more investigation I see that this level of logging is for the Insider builds not the general release. The Insider builds it clearly says everything is collected including memory and key logging, it also says it cant be switched off (I know because I'm on it). So this report may be a bit sensational.
It would be good to know what is actually collected on the full release and with privacy settings switched on. That would be more useful than analysing the Insider builds.
Another source, perhaps more credible - even after setting all the privacy options so they don't send data, some things are still being sent...
http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2015/08/even-when-told-not-to-windows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to-microsoft/
There's reports of laptop screen EDID's being overwritten by Windows 10. This results in laptops no longer being able to boot, or only being able to boot with an external screen attached. The EDID in the screen's eeprom is overwritten with garbage.
See http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-upgrade-warning-for-alienware-owners.779449/
Given my Win 7 desktop is rock solid (don't remember the last issue I had, despite running an overclocked processor and memory), I'll be waiting to upgrade that till next year, but I may be doing an upgrade on the family laptop over Christmas if it looks like it keeps improving.
No way I'm going to upgrade in the first two weeks of a new release of anything made by Microsoft :)
Microsoft is going to be using Windows Update on 1 0 to push UI changes and new "features".
In other words, you'll often be in a "new release" without having chosen to be - if you leave Update to do its thing, of course.
So that means that either you leave WinUpdate on for the security patches and get screwed by buggy features that you never asked for, or you cut WinUpdate and risk being without the much-needed security patches.
I'm staying on 7. That thing is rock solid.
"I'm staying on 7. That thing is rock solid."
For given values of "rock" and "solid"
Alas it seems the upgrade is not available to users of Windows 7 Enterprise and as I control the software library where I work, guess which version I run at home, never mind I got a copy of W10 for the library but there is no way I'm installing it on my home PC until at least SP1.
Tuesday evening I ran the Windows 10 update tool on an 8.1 laptop. I hardly use it anyway, so no great loss and it got to 37% downloaded when I left it overnight. The following morning the update tool window had vanished. No message saying it had completed nor any error message. The tool had crashed and burned, leaving the computer still on 8.1. I rebooted the computer and tried to run it again and it came up with a message "Something happened 0x80072EE2 - 0X20000". Not the most useful error message I've ever seen. Tried rebooting again and now the Windows update tool tells me that it is failing to start the Windows 10 setup, and it suggests trying again after rebooting. After rebooting and trying it again it suggests that I should try rebooting ... and so on. So it looks like that Windows 8.1 laptop will never have 10 on it.
No great loss though, my primary OS is Linux Mint. From my perspective Microsoft are just making themselves more and more irrelevant to my needs.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll bear it in mind if I get around to trying to upgrade it to 10 again.
However, with all the talk of how badly Microsoft are behaving, especially regarding harvesting personal data, I may just leave that laptop on 8.1, not that it gets used much anyway. It seems that my needs coincide less and less with the ambitions of Microsoft. With today's revelation about Lenovo and Microsoft's dubious judgement in creating a feature that enables manufacturers to embed un-removable spyware in the firmware, I'm even less inclined towards using Microsoft products.
Did you check that your power settings aren't set to put the computer to sleep or disable wifi after a certain time without user interaction? Ideally an OS installer ought to override the power settings and force the computer to stay on, plus insist that you are connected to mains power before starting.
@YARR, Yes I checked those prior to running the update tool as I knew it would be a longish download. It would have helped if the tool had actually given an error message instead of just vanishing after several hours downloading. I didn't get an error message until I ran the tool again, so don't know if that is the primary cause of failure or a symptom from the original failure. Not that that error message was in the least bit useful, just consisting of two hex numbers!
History repeats itself with automatic updates, Microsoft clearly didn't learn from past system feature fiascoes. I had one system get a generic AMD video driver that could not be rolled back. Seems you can't Refresh like Win 8, only a Reset. Make backups, defer updates, get the Wushowhide.diagcab to hide updates and change the update to scheduled until they get things sorted.
Among MS's many misfortunes in the whole Win8 fiasco is that the tech press has failed the public in helping to distinguish the OS from the shell. Everyone hates the shell, and dissing it is an easy way to get eyeballs. It kind of misses the point of what an OS is, particularly for a technical audience.
Personally I don't give a fuck about the shell. I care that Win8 was a more secure OS than Win7, with some new features (storage spaces or whatever they're called) and quirks (e.g. something happened to volume shadow copy).
This unfortunate development is repeating itself for Win 10.0. What we need is some hard info on whether Win10, the OS, improves on Win 6.3, the OS, and indeed 6.1. For end users, power users, and sysadmins.
Yep - Windows 8 onwards are really secure:-
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H-SSYRAB0usJ:download.microsoft.com/download/8/A/2/8A2FB72D-9B96-4E2D-A559-4A27CF905A80/windows-platform-binary-table.docx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Sorry, meant no - they are not :)
You're absolutely right about the shell and the eyeballs. Unfortunately you are utterly missing the point that it is in the kernel and core subsystems that MSFT fails with Windows. Ever wondered why the same issues affect EVERY version of windows when a critical patch is applied?
Look, the whole shooting match was kidnapped from DEC in the early ninetees, then messed with further by Dave Cutler and Mark Russinovitch but ultimately hacked by children at MSFT and called 'NT'. They progressively turned a lot of functions inside out (eg, putting display drivers in the kernel address spaces) and other faux-paxs. It's because of all that chicanery that holes still keep apprearing in the core of the OS - no-one really knows that they didn't know what they were doing.
'NIX holes appear as NEW vulnerabilities and in the case of LINUX, engineered by people with personal reputations to keep up. MAC used to be the same too until recently, but then that's UNIX too.
The shell is just a playground - on that you're right. But as for 'hard' info for techies, and I mean TECHIES, good luck / break-your-own.
OS used to be primarily an interface between you and the hardware. That improvement is in DX12, which probably isn't even an actual OS feature despite what MS claims.
So the rest is the UI, "apps", customization, data slurping.
In other words, OS is becoming (or has become) an interface between your data and the cloud.
"Powershell while not that bad isn't fit to lick Bash' boots yet, seriously manthat made me laugh so hard, and yes I have used both"
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. You might want to read some of the previous threads on the Register on the subject. Powershell has numerous advantages over Bash, is significantly more powerful and hardly has any disadvantages in comparison.
the tech press has failed the public in helping to distinguish the OS from the shell.
Yes, but Microsoft has obfuscated that very distinction for many years. Quite deliberately, I suspect.
Had they launched Win8 and later with a choice of shells, it would have been a *trivial* matter to get people to upgrade. But they didn't[1], despite it being a fairly simple job, AIUI.
Vic.
[1] It is my belief - based upon absolutely nothing whatsoever - that this choice is deliberate; they tried to use their desktop advantage to push their phone UI. Without that, the phone stuff has a big catch-up job to do, and if they don't catch up, lots of people get used to the idea of doing something productive without using Windows. That's a very bad outcome. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the result of their plan seems to be that people are rejecting the UI on their PCs as well...
"concept combined with a more open feedback process should deliver the best Windows yet"
and the most expensive and privacy violating Windows yet.
You may be suckered now with your free upgrade and it's not as bad as Win 8.1 shit but if 10 is the last version of Windows which will be made less (or as likely more) shit over time you will be on a meter while it happens.
Personally when Win 7 support runs out I expect I'll be running Linux with Win 7 on a virtual machines or two for the Windows applications I can't do without.
"You may be suckered now with your free upgrade and it's not as bad as Win 8.1 shit but if 10 is the last version of Windows which will be made less (or as likely more) shit over time you will be on a meter while it happens."
This. If Microsoft really don't produce another Windows, then one of three things has to happen, for thenm to be profitable:
1) You have to rent it in future;
2) All your data are sold by them;
3) Both of the previous two.
1) You have to rent it in future
In two ways perhaps. You've got the opportunity to buy things you used to get for free, but in addition Win 8.1 upgrades came with a perpetual and transferrable licence, regardless of the EULA that the machine originally came with. From what I've seen (not having "upgraded" myself) the EULA for W10 upgrades ties the software to the machine it is first installed to.
I'm not sure this really affects that many people other than homebrew PC builders and upgraders, but I suspect it has been exercising the minds of the beancounters who run Microsoft.
...just because if I let all the clients do it at once I won't be able to answer all the questions. I'm saving the office idiots' PC for last just to stay off the inevitable round of bitching he'll give me.
Best I can really say is "meh". Seems to work well enough, no problems I wouldn't have expected such as losing connections to network printers, printers getting renamed. In terms of applications every user I've upgraded so far has been able to continue working as normal immediately.
One annoyance, the notifications sound. Like the introvert I am I always disable Windows sounds. The new notifications thing (annoying enough all by itself) appears to think it's too important to be silenced. Hardly a deal breaker though.
NotWorkAdmin,
downvote for bullshit, no genuine sysadmin in their right mind would would let a new OS near their network for at least 12 months as an easy life and no nasty self inflicted surprises make for a relaxing days work. Now get back to the brew room and hurry up with the tea.
I can accept a few things with this Windows 10 rollout not all being perfect. On the whole, given the range of configurations it has actually worked with I'd probably say on balance it's gone rather well. Technically. It's not like tens of thousands of people are calling me to get it fixed, or removed.
As a "Windows 8.2" on the whole it also seems to be a "success" in that it's not terrible, perhaps even a solidly decent evolution and is partially at least back in the business of addressing desktop users' needs. If it stopped there, I'd probably call it a good release.
But look closer. I see an MS that must be seething. In pure, nuclear-waste grade envy - at apple's app store. Enough to try (first in Win8) and foist the windows store on everyone, because that's what suited their needs. Everyone said no. At that, and other things. But that plan hasn't changed, and it's only become more insidious.
Insidious like basically forcing it on people with the GWX self-reinstalling updater. I'm not the first to comment that it does act exactly like malware, and it does because it's raison d'etre is just the same as that of the malware malefactors themselves (if only they'd patented it); in this case, to shovel people onto a platform they really; /really really/ want to monetise (on $10 solitaire, say; then everything else).
I can only really offer a visual metaphor of this, as MS being like a crack addict (for the ulitimate form of course - money). And they'll do anything to get it. Because that's what their needs are. Not ours. And Win 10 represents a land grab on my system for their needs. Not mine.
How about No.
I've always tolerably kept my own desktop (at home, anyway) on windows despite being *nix competent. If you're happy with it, well fine for you. If you trust settings you turned off, to remain set as off (if you're not careful, they won't; just like all software that ships with shovelware), and further trust that's all it does without there being even more invasive stuff they didn't include a setting slider for.
I'm not sure what made people OK with this kind of thing*, or if everyone else became really that retarded or if I've just become naive. It's probably both.
I'll never use Win 10 in this condition, where I can't actually trust it; and quite possibly never will. Do MS care? Surely not. Should you?
*Andoid/iOS obviously, and years of turning up the heat on the frog soup, but that doesn't make it ok to extend philosophically to my desktop, nor any other infrastructure. On windows, there's no choice to opt out short of staying on Win7. That's no choice.
Something to add to this list is that if you have Win10 on a tablet it actually works really well. They have nailed it from the very start. Some people complained that the Win10 menus and taskbars look bad compared to Win7 but it makes a lot more sense when you see it running on a 10in tablet. You really get a feel for all the UI changes, I think they nailed it.
I have played around with a cheap £150 Win10 tablet with 2Gb ram and it actually worked really well, you could use it in desktop mode with just finger touch no problem. It ran really snappy and to think its full blown Windows with a file manager, desktop etc. In a tablet for £150!
I will keep an eye on the tablet developments and my next one could be win10 instead of Android.
What you say might be true for you and your tablets.
There are those of us here who don't want a tablet UI on their desktop.
My desktop (Windows 7) spans three 24in 1920x1200 screens. I don't want tiles or full screen apps.
They are just to much 'In your face'.
so my experience and needs are different for yours. Microsoft's insistent that Metro or whatever that crap (IMHO) is called this week is installed on my desktop means that W7 will be the least copy of windows I install. End of. No more.
That is my requirement.
One of the first things I learned when studying Operating Systems circa 1975 is that need to get out of the way and let your applications do their job. My opinion on that has not changed.
Once upon a time Windows would keep out of the way.
Now it seems that MS wants it to be all things to all men/women. It is in danger of becoming the master of none.
Just my take on the train wreck that is W10.
totally agree - fuck tablets. (no, not viagra)
ive got android or ios for that whilst im taking a shit, or in the bath, or for my son to watch endless fucking repeats of fireman sam on.
they have their uses, but its just fluff.
im running a business. i have 3 screens, with usually 20 windows open at any one time. if i want one to fill the whole screen, i will double click it.
i have never ever been tempted to reach out and touch the screens to get them to do anything (alright, they arent touch screens, but im sure you can imagine). thats why i have a keyboard and a mouse. the amount of time taken to do such a thing coupled with the length of my arms and the distance i am from the screen would make this a stupid thing to do anyway.
in terms of choosing the shell of the OS based on making some fucking tablets work a bit better its insane.
i agree with the French take on tablets. most are suppositories.guess where you can stick them.
But Win10 works fine on multi monitors too. Well it does for me. I upgraded my main rig and it works perfectly well. Music production apps are even a little more stable, no more crashes when an app fights for control of the sound card. There is no screen full of tiles. Its on the start menu. Metro is really not in the way at all on Win10, you sound like you are complaining about Win8 not 10.
If you dont want to use metro apps dont use them its fine. It doesn't make it a bad OS. Even with Metro apps it still boots faster than before. so really don't understand your anger about it.
Plus they nailed it when it comes to working on tablets. I would expect a Win10 tablet (a cheap one anyway) to struggle if you went mad installing big apps but still I was impressed. Same OS on all devices, its neat.
Yeah nothing wrong with Win7. If I rolled from Win10 back to 7 I think there is only three big things I would really miss.
1. The task manager is much better in Win10 - It shows more info and is more powerful.
2. The super quick boot - Not just to login screen but the time to usable desktop is super quick compared to Win7.
3. Sound engine - The WASAPI and ASIO sound setup seems more robust. No more crashes and low latency.
For the future DirectX12 looks promising for games. Need to wait and see if that's really true though.
But you know really there is nothing wrong with Win10 and multi screen support. It works. Metro apps are not full screen, have them any size you want. Multiple desktops built in now.
Big downside to Win10 for me is all the tracking and privacy. I turn everything off but who knows if that makes a difference! Its the way everything is going now though. Andorid and OSX do the same.
Obviously there is linux but that is simply not a suitable option for the software and hardware I use.
Sorry,
but the above stank, you didn't script the babies advert perchance?
'..it ran really snappy and to think its full blown Windows with a file manager, desktop etc. In a tablet for £150!'
Oh wow, like a file manager, and a desktop as well? for real??!!!
and it's also
'..full blown Windows' ??!??
Боже мой..full blown Windows, not some ersatz imitator?..I'm sold man!, put me down for two copies!!??!!
'..I will keep an eye on the tablet developments and my next one could be win10 instead of Android.'
gush gush, get a room..
(meanwhile, back in the trenches, a Win 8.1 laptop with a wonderful feck-me-I-can't-see-my-keyboard-or-dinky-wee-mousiepad-when-the-windows-OS-boots-but-they-work-for-every-other-bloody-os-including-XP problem is causing me no small amount of fun...which may/not explain my current level of grumpy old bastardness)
Yes it is a big improvement on 8, but still seriously flawed.
They've spent what feels like the best part of 10 years trying to create an operating system that will run on tablets and here it finally is in the same year where it was reported that tablet sales have fell off a cliff.
It feels to me like they've chased the tablet market too hard and missed it. Enterprise people will say enterprise will love tablets, but it is the metro apps that are meant to be tablet optimised and I've downloaded plenty of those (at least the ones that look reputable) and they are basically on a par with chrome apps for functionality.
I just don't get the approach to trying to dumb down apps to Android and iOS level. The security upgrades faster boot times and other efficiencies are welcomed but to what cost? If they have lost the tablet and phone war (3rd place isn't good enough in either) then they need to split their efforts between a consumer OS and a business OS to keep the business customers while they still can.
When it is finished / polished...
When there are apps...
When games are available..
Then it will be ok - rather like W7 is now... except for the privacy concerns.
There were always going to be problems, but this can't be good news for MS. They should have switched off all the privacy-invading stuff by default on the desktop. Did they really think no-one would notice? If there's one thing which the internet is going to give any new thing, it is pedantic hate.
Few people are impressed by a well done OS these days - where are the *applications* which make you say, "Wow!"? For all Apple's many failings, they do at least try to give you something you might want in terms of usable capabilities. iLife gives you an instant on-ramp to cool stuff a computer can do for you. Maybe there are cool apps that MS has put out, but if there are, there's a major marketing fail, because I haven't heard anything about them and I work in IT.
Where's my freebie 10-user gui-less non-commercial server license for home use, so I can run my home network? Where's the freebie streaming-receiver license for the celeron box under the telly? Without these, people are going to run AppleTV or Linux. A free license for W10 is just like all the other OS's. The fact that MS need to sell licenses to make money is not my problem. GBP120 for a tiny desktop computer and they want how much for an OS?
I almost feel sorry for them. Having grown up being the David to IBM's Goliath they are now a huge lumbering monster themselves. The world changed and they missed it. Their business revenue is safe for a few years but they've managed to make themselves look foolish and really uncool. Even their free license give-away isn't being well received, mostly because they've messed up the marketing and the implementation. It doesn't look generous and they've managed to make themselves look like desperate home-invaders. They are so obsessed with revenue, there seems little joy and beauty in their products. If Apple is run too much by designers, MS is run too much by salesmen, accountants and product-lifecycle engineers. There is no vision for customers. Sometimes I wonder if Apple introduced the flat iphone interface just to lead MS into making an ugly OS GUI. "Hey, let's mess with MS!" They did it for the lolz.
How much horror they could have saved themselves by turning W7 into the last version of Windows ever. "Hey, here's an addon which allows you to run mobile apps sensibly on the desktop." "Hey, here's DirectX12"; "Hey, we've curated some apps we think would be useful for you"; "Hey, here's W7 sp2"; "Look chaps, we'll give you all this stuff for free because, that's the way we are."
That would have been the same give-away, but a better result.
> Did they really think no-one would notice?
It's not that people don't notice, most people either don't care are say something along the lines of "you can turn it off so it's not a problem".
As for the "killer-app", I think they believe it's Cortana and Universal.
I was brave and installed a day after it came out. Upgrade process was exceptionally smooth, and haven't (yet) felt the need to do a clean install either. It boots incredibly quickly, my entirely subjective estimate is that the desktop is usable in about half the time from cold boot as it was in Windows 7.
Aside from that though... well it doesn't get in the way like Windows 8 did. And it looks a bit shinier. Otherwise not a giant leap forward, although I am always grateful for improved performance! For free though, I'm not complaining. I always said with Windows 8, which was also a bit quicker in the release candiate I tried, it wasn't worth £100 or more for an incremental upgrade when Apple charged £20 so glad they've listened on that front.
Be interesting to see how their lofty ambitions to keep adding features works out - whether they can find a regular stream of useful things to add, or it is a stream of tweaks for the sake of tweaks remains to be seen.
It's insisting on adding feature after feature to what was originally comprehensible and useful that has turned so much of modern technology into the annoying barely-usable crap that so much of it is, from an average users perspective. That;s true of everything from phones to spreadsheets and word processors and even OS's. All that extra functionality may be useful to experts somewhere, and it's nice to have it available just in case one might need it, but IMO on a desktop the text and number mangling software that's stage centre ought to be simpler software that covers only the basics that most folk use - so long as the files are usable with more full-fat software as well everyone's happy.
MS's problem with the OS is that it got the UI so right early on, which is why people still want the XP experience even now, insofar as the way the UI is concerned. But instead of building on what they already got right, MS consistently kept buggering around with it and wilfully changing it to the annoyance of most of their users. New isn't always better when it's different and it's affecting stuff you have to use routinely and it;s been working very well so far, thank you very much. When you add to that the stability and security issues, the ever increasing bloat that has steadily increased the attack surface, and well - MS's wrong-headedness in general, it's hardly surprising that they've ended up with a trainwreck like Win10.
That said, things aren't perfect elsewhere, either - they're simply better by comparison.
Upgraded my laptop that came preinstalled with Win 8. W10 is a bit better than 8 and 8.1, but there's no way I'm upgrading my main PC with Win7. I was prompted a few days after the upgrade to reboot, so I did. Then yesterday more updates so I rebooted again only to have more updates installed asking today to reboot again. There's no way I'm upgrading anything else until they sort this out. What if I have a process running overnight only to find it was interrupted by a forced reboot?
Right. So you're saying that every update that I receive, which requires a reboot, which generates a notification, which I might see hidden in a notification bar in the system tray, requires me to defer the update upto a week or else it'll reboot my system at 3am the default time.
Yes I know I can change that too.
The problem is I don't agree with this hard logic. I understand why they're doing it, but I still think there are tech savvy people that are smart enough to manage their own update process. And I expect there will be reboots that'll happen and data loss because of it.
Oh, and I rebooted again and yet again there's another reboot request for another update in the notification bar. WTF!?
I said no, and it was downloading at every boot anyway. Had to remove the updates and clean the disk to make it stop.
One thing I like,.. well, liked about Windows is the feeling that I have some control over my OS. I've decided that every "advantage" about Windows 10 removes something I liked about Windows up until now.
Now I get errors at boot from an ASUS utility that expects its TEMP files to live forever, but at least the darn thing isn't installing without permission.
One of my laptops was running Win 8.1 which I've never really got on with so installed Win 10 the day after release, so far I'd say that it's better than 8.1 and has the potential to be rather good, feels a bit Beta-ish in many ways but I have a sneaking suspicion that if they can iron out the wrinkles it could be a very good platform.
Call Tech support at 800-642-7676. The call back wait time was 6.5 hours when I called. It will get longer. Also, it is fairly easy to go back to Windows 8.1 or 7 if that was on your computer before the upgrade. Go to Settings. Go to Updates & Security. Go to Recovery. Select Go back to Windows 8.1. In about 20 minutes you will be back to your old Windows. I upgraded to Windows 10 and lost the sound and the screen on videos started freezing up. When I called tech support they told me how to recover Windows 8.1. It is one of the really few smart things they have done at Microsoft.It is typical of Microsoft to release a product that is half finished and to fix it along the way to the frustration of its customers.I really think that the products they put out are for software engineers and not the average computer user. You need to think like a programmer to use a lot of their software. Let the CEO of Micorsoft know how you feel. satyan@microsoft.com.
First off if you try Windows UK its a premium rate call, and as I live in France I cannot ring it anyway. I am really concerned about the updating just stealing all one internet time. One must realise that windows do not live in the real world and are rich.
I have it up and running on the "home theatre" pc where I run only literally two programs foobar2000 and VLC player.
I installed successfully on the main pc but:
- could not send email from Outlook (according to the MSFT forums it can be resolved running the "sfc /scannow" command but I found out when I was already back on Windows 7)
- MS Money does not run. You can make it run editing the registry but it still doesn't import OFX files (it crashes when trying).
- My TV card had a wrong driver installed and it didn't work.
- I hate the confusion of the half-baked start menu.
- I don't want to use "search" via bing to find something on MY computer.
So back to Windows 7.
I've installed in on a number (30) of machines both laptops and desktops and, yes, there were some problems but all in all I'd score W10 as A-
ANY OS change entails problems and if this iteration eliminates the spaghetti code legacy Windows suffers from then it WILL make it more stable.
Removing spaghetti code has a downside: it breaks legacy applications, which is the reason it was put in in the first place. MS is where it always was, between a rock and a hard place. Can't make a fresh start because there's nothing to replace "legacy", can't just refine what's already there, because every three years the have to sell a "new" edition.
For testing Win10 (still not happy that they added this stupid start button and menu structure back in again so likely will stay with Win8.1 for production boxes) I bought a cheap second hand mini pc. Box came with some archaic text-based thing called Susie Tunix or something like that. Had an ugly lizzard as a logo.
Well, out came my trusty Windows install media and in no time that box was wiped and made into a clean and propper Win8.1 box. Now it simply waits for the update so I can check how bad the new MS design is compared to my beloved 8.1. In the mean time I am looking for something like "ModernShell" that re-sets the UI to the proper flat layout for maximum productivity in case I'll be forced to switch to Win10 in 2020 or so.
Backed up my home folder to another drive. Stuck in the bootable usb flash thing. Answered a few questions then toddled off to make bacon and eggs on toast, with Marmite, and a cup of tea. Took a quick dump on the way back then copied my home folder back and rebooted.
OK I had to do a bit of minor subsequent tweaking, visit the software manager to drag in some other stuff and click on the update thingy but it was all relatively thumb twiddling painless.
Why is everyone else stuck on/blithering about Version 10?
I'm new to commenting but a long time reader of el reg. Having decided to go to uni at 30 after saving 4 years for the pleasure, it was apparent that everything we needed for the computer science bsc was using the windows platform. So far (2 years in) our main programs are visual studio, Oracle 11g, unreal game engine and the office suite. Prior to the course I invested in a high end ultra book (i5, 8 gigs ram) which fit the spec. In 8.1 Oracle would not install, visual studio would hang and then need killing, the office software wasn't the same version as the uni so fuckery was needed, finally, unreal wouldn't run. I decided to install ubuntu (gnome ui),ran Oracle perfectly, I use mono for c#, Cisco packet tracer runs fine, libre office is a blessing and I ran unreal in a Windows 7 vbox. The revelation of Linux has led me to get my first ndg cert outside of uni with a hope to build on that when uni is over. I also moved my family business over to ubuntu. This may seem long winded but the question I ask you ms, is if your software runs "@everything" then why are students like me ditching you in droves due to huge compatibility issues?? Feel free to thumbs up my 2:1 result for my second year ;)
I've received a number of support emails from people who use my legacy shareware software (written using Visual Studio 2008) having problems caused by Windows 10 update deleting some registry entries (local user software settings). I've had several identical reports made now, all the same symptom... they've updated to Windows 10 and their settings are gone. So much for software compatibility.
I wanted to test this problem myself on my 8.1 laptop, but the update to 10 crashed and burned. Sigh. Someone described Windows 10 as a slow train wreck. I'm beginning to agree with them.
No... this isn't a gushing review of Windows 10.
In a moment of idiocy, while using my perfectly working windows 7 system, I pressed the update to windows 10 button.
3 hours later I found out that the installer had fibbed, and the Intel Raid wasn't actually supported after all, punishing me with a 15% CPU load. Oh and the network kept disappearing ever hour or so.
It was at this point I saw the 'go back to Windows 7' button. This is where it got really nasty.
Another hour later, and I had a machine which couldn't boot at all and couldn't be repaired, not even with those tools you hope never to have to use from the Windows 7 CD. Disaster.
So I bought a new 70 quid SSD, spent the weekend putting Windows 7, all the drivers and the 250 updates on to it, and finally ended up with a brilliant, super-speedy and stable computer.
Result! Thank you Redmond for screwing things up so badly that I finally got to upgrade to an SSD drive.
Main issue, so far, is the odd update, while my Surface 3 is sleeping, breaks something random. Best one so far has been the re-appearance of the Asus T100 Theme, on my Surface 3! Sometimes, I get lots of blank icons in my start menu (a reboot sorts that out).
If you put your device to sleep, with applications running, do not leave anything unsaved! This is not OSX. If it does an update and re-set, from sleep, you may lose data since running applications have no persistence though a shutdown or reset.
There's probably a lot more unadvertised features in it that haven't made it to light yet, but the one you discovered is certainly a gem. Got blank icons in the menu? Don't fear, the next automatic reboot is near and will fix it. If only the other OS manufacturers were so meticulous with the tiny details.
All this Win 10 crap has me looking at linux desktop deployment and management options.
You will hear a lot of people telling you that Linux is magic, and will solve all your ills.
You will hear a lot of people telling you that Linux is dreadful, and nothing will ever work again.
Ignore all these people.
Get yourself an old carcass, install a distro[1], try it for yourself. Don't expect it to be identical to what you've had before - it isn't. But you *can* be productive with it - even if your tools are slightly different.
Vic.
[1] You should probably start with Mint. Personally, it's not to my taste - but it's a good place to start. Once you've understood how a *nix system differs from a Windows system, you're in a better place to decide on which distro is for you.
The same way they did for other versions - from the companies that will not use the "free version" here since they want/need more controll over upgrades etc.
The same way HP makes money of their inkjets - from the other software they sell that goes on top of Windows.
From selling the matching servers, database systems etc.
And from books/training courses/licencing fees/OEM payments....
The home user is not the only market.
You forgot "From turning the MS account into a monthly subscription account", which no doubt they will do with little warning for those unfortunate to trust MS to "safely" store their data.
(And no, I have yet to test W10 - actually currently building a test VM from scratch to have a play. I sadly forgot how long it takes to install a MS OS!)
Upgraded my Yoga 2 8.1 laptop to 10 without any hassle a week ago and it all worked fine took about an hour. Did some testing over a few days and yesterday upgraded my trusty 10 year old HP Desktop from Windows 7 32bit - which started as a Vista machine - also took about an hour. All went OK. Found a few bugs but todays Windows update appears to have fixed most stuff that matters.
Pleasantly surprised that all legacy apps and peripherals worked without any trouble.
Spent quite a bit of time turning off stuff to make it as private as I can. MS were probably collecting most of this before anyway but did not tell us.
I won't use Edge because it has no delete history on exit and does not yet work as well as IE or Firefox
I won't use Cortana because: 1) it does not work on the Laptop - known bug. 2) Privacy issues.
Performance on either machine unchanged.
In summary very unimpressed: It's messy compared with Windows 7 and I haven't found any advantages of substance yet but it does work so I am relieved. Would have stayed with 7 and 8.1 but did not want to get stung for an upgrade in 12 months time. As I get more familiar I'll probably get to like it more.
Discovered this diet drink the other day and switched over to it without hassle. Digestion hasn't changed much over a couple of days, so I recommended it to a friend who had no problems with it either. Didn't try strawberry cause I don't like strawberry and gave cassis a miss after it gave me a blue tongue that stayed.
Didn't lose any weight though, just as with the previous diet.
Preparation is a lot messier, taste isn't any better, but it goes down well so I'm relieved. Would have stayed on the old diet, but the first pack was free in exchange for all of my old powder. That offer only lasts a year, so I was in a bit of a rush. I'm confident it will grow on me.
I upgraded one of my non-essential systems & my wife upgraded her main system
I don't play games, use phones, tablets or touch, she uses all of those things.
I've seen nothing compelling and my wife is happy with hers.
She's part of the target audience for Windows 8 & 10. (she likes new gadgets & spending money).
I'm resolved to the fact that MS couldn't care less about people like me.
There still exist Microsoft's problems with installing Win7 SP1, without which W10 cannot be installed.
I have been trying for weeks to get Microsoft to send me the fix, via their 'help' web site, but all I get is trolls suggesting stuff that cannot work, does not provide the solution I asked for, downright insults, or just ignoring me..
Why can't Microsoft just send me the fix?
Microsoft has the details of the problem and my email address but has not had the courtesy to reply.
This problem was caused by Microsoft, so it is up to Microsoft to solve it.
Microsoft are doing a great job in pushing people towards Apple, who must be having a laugh.
Also, even if Microsoft do fix my problem, will Microsoft makes all its sypyware and 'information gathering' features be optional add-ins, instead of compulsory opt-outs or need fixes to disable them?
If Microsoft can not send me a fix to their own fault, then Microsoft are excluding me from W10.
Apple is looking decidedly attractive.
P Cialfi
Sadly, just like that hot chick in the dance club who has chlamydia and also happens to be the daughter of "helicopter dad 2015", most people will still try their luck with Windows 10. And in heindsite, past the "good looks" further down the road, after the medical results are in, and after a few family visits with "dad", that's when the real problems will begin to show up.
Blurry screen? Try messing with Cleartype. It's supposed to do some kind of sub-pixel font rendering with the individual R, G, B, elements in the LCD to increase readability, but for some people it just makes it blurry. There's some option or two in there to fiddle with, and it can be turned off. The bigger that 1920x1080 screen is the lower the DPI. I'd assume the lower DPI screen, the more likely the Cleartype will just make things look blurry instead of more readable.
I cannot afford to have things not there, not usable, and therefore frankly it is one risk too far. IF and it is a ginormous IF I was installing a new machine then I would give it a go as I could always reformat the hard drive or replace it if I found the thing was unworkable. However going by my past workings with M.S. then I would be very very cagey. Going right back to 3.1 it was not as workable as the proggy from a "shop supplier". We bought one of those computers a 286 / 386 and a computer expert ran the software and his comment was it was better than the "windows", however the software being one manufacturer was overshadowed and as a consequence 98 followed, yet that was real buggy and they bought out another 98 that was quite good and had variants for many years with different names.
With this showing, there is no way of going back so you COULD end up with a knackered computer and lost stuff. Walk on thin ice si vous voulez however, me I don't like the idea of driving a car with no brakes.
It may be OK for me to have continual reboots and updates, however picture the scene, going around the EU staying hotels, limited download times, different languages. The downloads will stop you getting the emails, your technical stuff you cannot access, frankly you will have to stop "updates" which I think if I read the system right you cannot. Anybody comment on that please?
As stated elsewhere by me 10 is good, BUT at present it is for geeks only and those that have two at least computers. I have had several blue screens and they all say collecting information and we will restart. However they do NOT restart, after the machine gets to "100%" it just sits there, I then have to "crash" the machine and restart manually. Frankly 8 was not good, 8.1 had its problems and 10 whilst when it works it is good do not even think of getting it if you only have one machine, or you are not computer wise.
Our old vista machine has run like a train from the day I built it, not so 8, 8.1, nor 10.
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