Microsoft: 14 January patch was the last for Windows 7. Also Microsoft: Actually... Microsoft has quietly admitted that it will be fixing the final Windows 7 patch that left some stretched wallpapers borked. It was to be the last hurrah for Windows 7: After the 14 January patch there would be no more freebies from Microsoft as extended support was turned off in favour of its paid-for Extended Security Update …
It's not just Microsoft, patches and updates from every software vendor often create or uncover problems that have to be dealt with later. "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization" - Weinberg’s Law, written over 40 years ago.
Exactly. Linux has the same support issues that Windows has, just generally on shorter timescales.
I worked for a company that sold configured servers in 2015 with SUSE from 2000 on it, that hadn't had updates for nearly 10 years! Parts of their software wouldn't work on anything newer, so they just carried on using the unsupported Linux (hey, it's Linux, it is secure, it doesn't need patching). It was only when they couldn't get any more old-style RAID controllers that had drivers that would work on such an old system that they were forced to look at updating their software to work on modern Linux.
They are if the system is past its extended support date, as originally published and advertised when you bought the license.
When buying consumer PCs, I don't remember either the salesman or the documentation provided with the computer ever saying anything about the machine being unsafe to use after a certain date.
After the horrifying double fiasco of WinME and Vista, I could understand people clinging to XP. I was one of them. Hell, we all were (except Mac and Linux purists).
Then 7 came along, and it was like a more stable, more secure, better looking version of XP. The clinging recommenced.
Windows 10 is no Vista, in fact I've grown to like it, after replacing that hideous "Flat UI" with third-party alternatives (most notably "Classic Shell"). There's no question that this is the most drama-free version of Windows I've ever used, and that's really my only criteria.
But I can see how 7 users might still balk at the prospect of 10's sheer out-of-the-box fuggliness, not to mention all that Microsoft spyware. Believe me, it's all curable, and worth it, at least for the Windows part of your computing life. For everything else there's Linux (or, increasingly, Android).
Sorry, no. I'm not going back to the days of checking the forums and search engines to find out which new MS patch I had to block or uninstall in a hurry to keep my 7 desktop my own and not get effing ads for 1 0 that I had no intention of installing, free or not.
Windows 1 0 is the eternal changeling, and MS has locked things down so that you cannot actually refuse to update anymore. And there's the ads. I don't care what solution you think you have now, it will work until Redmond's eye falls on it and zaps it with another update.
I'm not climbing on that treadmill for a million dollars. 7 is my last MS OS and that is final.
Besides, MS is transitioning to Linux, so I'll just wait for games to work and the transition to the penguin side shall be complete.
I assume the ads are the result of using an unlicensed copy of Windows.
I wouldn't know, as I bought a legitimate OEM key for five quid off eBay.
I also don't use the fuggly Win10 start menu, where I assume most of these mysterious ads live, as I've replaced it with Classic Shell.
As for updates, for me this all happens silently and without any drama. I've never needed to block one, and never suffered the consequences. I'm barely even aware that updates are happening.
This certainly wasn't the case with Win7. Keeping b0rked updates away from that OS was a major battle. But assuming you could keep all that junk out, 7 was mostly OK. I've not encountered anything even remotely like that with 10.
Well, My wifes laptop got a windows update that borked the wifi on it.
As I do not use it or normally pay any attention to it I assumed it was a hardware issue.
WHY is it that Microsoft cannot stop breaking things! It is almost as if they do no testing.
I Know that trying to support a LOT of different kit is a royal pain in the A**S BUT, ohhhh I forgot they decided that they could skip on most of the testing and just get the dammed users to test it for them!
I genuinely haven't seen this. I've had Windows 10 on my laptop since I bought it in 2015.
Ok, it's currently running LTSC but at no point can I recall an update borking the system.
I get that I'm probably lucky but I'd be genuinely curious to understand what percentage of systems do get borked.
As for the whole update process - sure the reboots can be a pain, but even on my soon-to-be-5-year-old laptop, they rarely take more than a few minutes to complete. Yes, it has SSD's but they're "only" SATA so hardly in the blistering fast category. but still.
These comments around adverts I see, too - like others, I've no idea where or why you see them? Are these home versions because my Pro systems never show any ads.
As for the data slurpiing - I assume the people who generally bemoan this never use Android, Facebook, credit- or debit- cards, or to be sure, store loyalty cards?
I do agree that compared to 7 the UI feels a lot less intuitive and some of the split-personality decisions are odd and difficult to defend (a control panel and a settings shortcut..eh?). It is also flat and not particularly pretty but for the most part, the OS is invisible anyway and it's how the applications look, feel and behave that matters most, to most.
As other people stated:
Windows 10 - depending on version, changes the way you join a domain. Plus they keep trying to force One Drive and Windows E-Mail.
Latest os Server 2019 AND Windows 10, depending on how you log in is what you can access such as from search: enter diskmgmt.msc. Depending on the user (ie administrator does not work but normal user it does. For me to get it to work as admin, it is Windows key + R and then enter diskmgmt.msc. Yet ANOTHER STUPID extra step to get into disk management.
EVERY version they change where and how configuration is made. This is utter crap.
I have lately had more BSOD's with Windows and USB items than with any other version.
I really could write several pages of issues with Windows 10 that Windows 7 never had but I do not want to bore everyone to death.
Well, My wifes laptop got a windows update that borked the wifi on it.
As I do not use it or normally pay any attention to it I assumed it was a hardware issue.
WHY is it that Microsoft cannot stop breaking things! It is almost as if they do no testing.
I Know that trying to support a LOT of different kit is a royal pain in the A**S BUT, ohhhh I forgot they decided that they could skip on most of the testing and just get the dammed users to test it for them!
If mycrosoft want to have adverts then it should be a "Click to Enable adverts".
And as for Windows 10 set-up. MICROSOFT, i DO NOT WANT ONENOTE or a Microsft LOGIN (Apologies for shouting) I have notices that Windows 10 is making it harder and harder to figure out hot to skip creating a microsoft account. I Personally DO NOT want it and never have. I t just for Microsft to try and make even more money out of me,
And as for Windows 10 set-up. MICROSOFT, i DO NOT WANT ONENOTE or a Microsft LOGIN (Apologies for shouting) I have notices that Windows 10 is making it harder and harder to figure out hot to skip creating a microsoft account. I Personally DO NOT want it and never have. I t just for Microsft to try and make even more money out of me,
If you are doing a new install, the trick is to disable the networking (or unplug ethernet and don't give it a wifi connection). And to avoid the security questions, don't give the account a password when you first create it. You can add a password later.
Of course, even WITH OpenShell, there's just no way to overcome the sheer fugliness of the UI.
It is very clear that he was speaking of the GWX ads that Microsoft placed on every windows 7 machine that used Windows Update, not your Windows 10. If you never got them then you never applied Microsoft's so-called security fixes (or you never ran Windows 7)
However, I would question your claim of no advertisements on your Windows 10 machines. By default, Windows 10 displays advertisements when you click the start menu. Perhaps the ads are regionalized, but even on this machine right now it is displaying ads for the games "Candy Crush Friends", "Township", and "Royal Revolt". At least with 1909 they are significantly smaller and less intrusive than with previous versions.
Actually, Windows 10 included lock screen adverts, as well as "sponsored tiles" in the Start Menu. Of course if you've tweaked your lock screen at all, or used a replacement Start Menu etc, it's quite likely you've not run into these, but they have appeared for some people who used MS's default settings.
Details: https://www.howtogeek.com/269331/how-to-disable-all-of-windows-10s-built-in-advertising/
Firstly, his post was less than clear about anything, pretty much a word soup really, so it definitely wasn't clear he was talking about GWX ads
Secondly, I'll reiterate, I have never seen any adverts in my start menu or lock screen, if they're there at all they're so un-intrusive as to be virtually invisible.
My Win 10 set-up is a standard pre-install by Lenovo and I've not got any ad-blockers installed (except in Chrome)...
I think you know very well which ads-- if you had none, it's because you had to turn them all off, hide them, or work around them.
Windows 10 comes out of the box with an adware for Office popping up on the first run. There are ads in the start menu, ads in the lock screen (shown at Microsoft's discretion if you have Windows spotlight, or whatever it is called turned on, the default setting), ads in the various "apps" like mail and Solitaire, on and on.
The Xbox app is an ad for Xbox, since the user didn't indicate any interest in having it installed, and the OneDrive integration is an ad for that too. When you do a Cortana search and it sends your request to Bing whether you want it to or not, it's all about the ads.
"MS is transitioning to Linux"
I wish they were, but it's more like "Embrace Extend Extinguish'. They are on step 1.
Although _I_ would actually PAY FOR a Wine-like layer that MS blesses and supports... where I can run Win32 applications, and ALSO do Linux stuff, and ALSO pick a 3D Skeuomorphic desktop (like 'Mate' with the a classic theme) rather than the Win-10-nic 2D FLATTY FLATASS McFLATSO FLUGLY that a bunch of clueless just-out-of-college "developers" *CRAMMED* down all of the customers' throats, courtesy of Ms. Larson-Greene [inventor of the ribbon] and Sinofsky, starting with Windows "Ape" (8).
And this is ALSO why none of us were surprised at that "accidental/bug" wallpaper problem as the very last "screw you" (read: update similar to GWX) from Micro-shaft.
/me points out I haven't updated my dedicated accounting and music production Windows 7 box, which NEVER goes online with a web browser, for over 3 years! And it STILL WORKS! All those "up"dates, _SO_ overrated! For safe web surfing, uh, practice "safe surfing".
but I'll reiterate a point.
"the Win-10-nic 2D FLATTY FLATASS McFLATSO FLUGLY that a bunch of clueless just-out-of-college "developers" *CRAMMED* down all of the customers' throats"
That's because almost everyone who makes this statement is running Windows10 on [their] legacy hardware. I thought the same, HATING the Win 10 interface...until I bought my first new, Win10-centric computer with the actual touchscreen that Win10 was (truly) designed for.
Ok, NOW it makes (some, mostly) sense.
Now that I understand the design choices that were made due to touchscreen compatibility, using Win10 (even without a touchscreen) seems much more justified in my own mind and experiences.
So you can't judge Win10 until you use it the way it was meant to be used, IMHO.
Strange, I've had a machine running Win7 Home for over seven years with only a touchscreen on it and it has been perfectly usable. If your going to make out that Win10 is somehow better because it was designed to be used with a touchscreen, you'll have to do better than that.
Win10 deservedly attracted such a level of hatred due to its abysmal UI design, the attempted forced upgrade from Win7 (and don't even try to deny that, especially on here), the rampant and non-optional telemetry (unless you are a corporate user) and the numerous clusterfucks of various updates over the years which have broken many a machines functionality or even lost users data. Oh, and how suddenly Win10 broke network connectivity which had been working previously for years, but that MS tried to make out was a vendor driver issue. There's a lot more, but stop it with the crap that it's because people didn't buy a new machine and decided to carry on using 'legacy' hardware.
No, Win10 is an absolute shitshow and will be for years to come.
But are you going to say that using Win7 on a touchscreen was actually enjoyable? With all those tiny controls??
Win10 has those big button Start Menu and UI controls for a reason. I myself hated them until I bought my first Win10 2-in-1, and then discovering that using that thing is actually pretty fun.
Perfect? Is anything, perfect? That's part of the problem, everyone expects "perfection" but everyone's *idea* of "perfection" is different.
Unlike most, I try to move on. I've embraced the Win10 interface because it's what's here, now. May as well get used to it, I'm not (that) afraid of change for the sake of change. We'd all be still using NT 4's UI if it were up to the most reluctant of us - we need to move forward, we'll tweak new things for best results as we go along. Otherwise we'll never get to a better future.
The problem though is that a *lot* of people use Windows 10 on none-touch devices, or on a typical laptop where they may have no interest in using touch (the touchscreen on my work laptop is intentionally disabled). You're freely admitting that the W10 interface is far from optimal on such devices, and that W10 is essentially designed for the minority - not the majority?
Besides, there has been change to Windows over the years. The Start Menu evolved from the original NT/95 one to the expanded XP Start Menu, then into the one on Windows 7. The task bar also evolved for W7 as well. Thing is, for a long time it was optional - you could enable classic mode again, and it took MS nearly 10 years to remove Classic mode altogether. Plus the changes were generally accepted with little complaint.
Thing is, should people just "accept" a lousy UI? Did people "accept" Windows 8's user interface? That was also great on tablets and shit on the desktop. No, people revolted to the level that MS had to backtrack and tone it down significantly for W10. At the root of the level of complaint is the lack of customisability that used to exist. No way to enable a "Classic" mode, and very little scope to tweak it to make it more suitable for none-touch users. As long as MS continues to take this "our way or the highway" approach, expect lots of people to install 3rd party alternatives whilst persistently moaning.
Windows 8 was an abomination, no doubt. 8.1 wasn't much better. I remember the early dev builds where they removed the start button and forced half the functionality to full screen which you couldn't minimize, had a separate vertical taskbar down the side for 'metro' apps. The top questions on the feedback app were "Where the hell is my start button" and "how can I remove this metro app crap". If MS didn't realize removing the start button was a massively stupid idea in whatever meeting some idiot suggested it, the feedback should have surely have rung alarm bells. Alas, they pushed ahead and the rest is history.
But windows 10 fixed pretty much all of my issues with Windows 8, it was basically how it should have been done all along.
But I do agree that Microsoft should offer a Windows 7 'classic' mode on Windows 10. I know they're trying to force people to their new thing, but if they want people to switch from 7 to 10, they need to smooth the path, and a classic mode on Windows 10 would be an obvious and simple way to neutralize what is probably the most common argument against upgrading.
That said, I do find it slightly curious that many of the people who're quite happy to install their desktop of choice on Linux seem to have a massive problem with Windows 10 due to the interface, when it's trivial to install classic shell and basically have a Windows 7 interface.
I do find it slightly curious that many of the people who're quite happy to install their desktop of choice on Linux seem to have a massive problem with Windows 10 due to the interface, when it's trivial to install classic shell and basically have a Windows 7 interface
That's a fair point I'll grant you. Mind you, installing a different desktop on Linux is not really any different from Windows themes, but the issue here is that the UI functionality in Win10 is so bad compared to what it was previously for no logical or sensible reason, and there is no alternative available within the OS itself.. At least if MS had said, "Here's our new, super duper Win10 UI we think you'll love! However, if you're not keen on it, here are the previous UI versions you can switch to whenever you like - 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000, even NT! The choice is yours." people would probably have accepted it a lot sooner. But they didn't and they haven't even introduced the option to do that even after five years despite having plenty of opportunities to do so.
"...That said, I do find it slightly curious that many of the people who're quite happy to install their desktop of choice on Linux seem to have a massive problem with Windows 10 due to the interface, when it's trivial to install classic shell and basically have a Windows 7 interface..."
This.
I don't know why, but there are a number of people here who like to espouse the "it's about choice" argument, whilst shouting down anyone who doesn't choose the same as them.
I do agree that MS should offer a "classic" shell to Windows 10, to ease people into the interface, but as pointed out, there are ways and means to do it if that is one's decision to choose to do so
But Microsoft's point is to drive the sales of NEW product - support of legacy interfaces is (sadly) lower on their importance scale.
Listen, if I had it my way there would be 2 desktop UI options available right from installation: one designed for touchscreen (Metro) and one not (more Win 7-centric). But Microsoft didn't do that. They put all their eggs into one basket - SELLING NEW HARDWARE - and everyone else need compromise.
But that's the *reality* of the tech marketplace. Microsoft makes no money supporting legacy hardware, Windows 10 was a free upgrade with hopes of creating an income stream through advertising feeds and (maybe) telemetry logistics. The *real* income source for *any* version of Windows has *always* been selling licenses on new hardware. That's the reality. And with Microsoft's vision of the future of computing including heavy sales of touchscreen devices - read: laptops and 2-in-1's especially including their own line of Surface products, plus tablets - why does everyone believe that Microsoft should /needs to accommodate their (free!) upgraded legacy hardware based upon the legacy user's ideas?
I know that's hard, and hard to admit to yourself (watch my downvotes from here), because nobody ever wants to say to themselves "Sadly, I'm really not that important". Everyone wants to believe that only they matter, the most.
I wish I could be that egotistical. Really I do. But my legacy device use is of no consequence to Microsoft, they know (thanks to the ecosystem) that most current Windows users will stay Windows users. So they need to focus on NEW and THE FUTURE, not keeping past users happy.
Laptops outsell desktops by a wide margin now. So why is everyone surprised that Microsoft should focus on laptop sales, including their own, and make a laptop-centric OS that includes touch?
Remember, just because you didn't want to hear that (again, watch my downvotes) doesn't make it not true.
It's really sad and pathetic to see a human debase themselves like this. Particularly when it's done for a corporation. Even moreso a corporation like Microsoft.
This post basically amounts to "you are only a small creature. Microsoft doesn't care about you. You'll just have to accept their treadmill of forced obsolescence and having zero say in what they do to you. I didn't like it either at first, but you get used to it. You should just bend over and try to learn to enjoy it".
This attitude saddens me. I find it genuinely upsetting that a human being would have such little dignity and self-respect that they would accept this "reality". My personal position is that I would resort to violence before I ceded that kind of self-determination to a company that has demonstrated that it doesn't have my best interests at heart.
So they need to focus on NEW and THE FUTURE, not keeping past users happy.
See? They don't have your best interests at heart. There is no reason why you should upgrade that computer that works perfectly adequately for you, except that Microsoft needs you to so they can post a profit this quarter.
why does everyone believe that Microsoft should /needs to accommodate their legacy hardware based upon the legacy user's ideas?
I think it's probably because there's an innate sense of self-worth and self-respect in most humans. People realise intuitively that planned obsolescence is evil and want no part of it. Or maybe they just don't like being forced to shell out money to replace something that isn't broken and does what they need perfectly adequately. But I'm an idealist, I tend to go for the "self-worth" and "inherent good in people" explanation.
PSA: There are alternatives, people. There are even a few different alternatives. The most popular alternative is called Linux. And once you get over the initial learning curve (yes, there will be a learning curve, I'm not going to lie. It's hard to say whether you'll find it difficult or not, everyone is different. But it's not a huge and immediate learning curve, you can just click on familiar icons and use the web like you're used to. Some of the most popular software like chrome and firefox and VLC is the same on Linux. I believe that the vast majority of humans are smart enough to use it, if they try. There's a huge community who will be happy to do what they can to help you if you ask nicely and aren't rude), it's a much better OS. For one thing it's super-configurable and puts the user in absolute control, the way it should be - when Snake talks about how he wishes there were 2 intefaces choosable from the get-go, with linux there are probably hundreds of interface options. Maybe thousands. Of course many of those are obscure and a lot of them are really bizarre and/or terrible as far as most people are concerned. But if you want a touch interface or an interface that is purely keyboard-driven and doesn't use the mouse or one that looks as close as possible to windows 95 or XP or vista or your old Amiga, we've got you covered. In reality there are 3 or 4 "normal" interfaces (called "desktop environments") that are the most popular, most people use one of those. If you want my recommendation, I like the xfce interface, the default interface for xubuntu. It's a familiar, slick, powerful interface that runs well on older hardware.
Another thing is that Linux is totally free, there's no risk to trying it except your time. You can try it out without messing up your computer - if you don't like it just pop out the USB stick and reboot back into windows, no harm done.
It's even used by some professional content creators - I was just talking to a couple of photographers who swear by it :)
It runs quite well on older hardware. There are versions specifically designed for slower machines (a bonus of these is that they run really fast on high-end machines) You can even run it on really old and/or weird hardware if you're a nerd and into that kind of thing
they know that most current Windows users will stay Windows users
You could make this statement wrong. Take back control. Regain your dignity. At zero cost (ok, a little time learning some new things).
To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting that you try it. You're free to choose to try it or not. I'm not saying that you must try it, or insisting that you must like it if you do try it. I'm especially not calling you stupid (or anything else) if you don't try it or decide you don't like it for whatever reason. I believe in freedom. This includes the freedom to ignore this information and to willingly jump on that obsolescence treadmill if you think that's the best option for you. Only you can decide what's right fro you. Not me, and not Microsoft. All I'm doing here is making sure that everybody knows there are options that don't involve debasing yourself to the corporate machine. Snake's post seems to resign itself to a lack of alternatives and a ceding of one's dignity. There are alternatives. Your dignity can remain intact. If you choose to try.
> then discovering that using that thing is actually pretty fun
"Fun"??? That is definitely not a term I'd want to see associated with an OS. A game is fun, an Operating System is efficient.
Having a tablet UI forced on desktop computer users is not efficient, it's stupid. Sorry.
(And no, I neither need nor want to use a touchscreen. Besides the fingerprints, it's so much easier to move your mouse than to flail your arms across 3 big monitors. Not to mention my arms aren't long enough, I'd have to get up to reach the borders.)
I have bought several PCs with Windows 10 preinstalled, and it is crap on all of them (and is no longer there, fortunately). They're not legacy hardware... they are brand new hardware that I chose based on how I want to use them. They don't have touchscreens, as touchscreens themselves would just add weight and cost (since I would just disable them anyway, as they're ergonomically and functionally inferior to a mouse/touchpad or keyboard).
I don't care how well Windows 10 works with hardware that very few PC users have or would want to have. If I am not using a touchscreen, I don't want to be forced to tolerate the UI compromises that have to be made to accommodate them. Because I have the precision of a mouse pointer that has separate pointing and clicking events, I don't need massively oversized onscreen elements, so the disappearing UI and hamburger buttons are just an impediment.
It doesn't make any sense to say that for the UI of Windows 10 to be any good, people should spend extra money to get equipment with features they don't otherwise want or need in order to justify the design decisions that went into the OS. The UI should be tailored to the way I want to use my gear... I should not have to tailor my gear to the way Microsoft wants to make an OS. The OS serves the hardware, not the other way around.
None of that has anything to do with the worst bits of 10, though... the spying, the forced updates, the insane WaaS update schedule, the ads, the conscription of consumers into the beta testing army, and all the other forms of monetization MS wants to pursue. They could fix the UI, and 10 would still be unfit for purpose.
Microsoft is not in competition with Linux. There would be no reason to EEE it. They're making a pile of money off of it with Azure. Windows is just legacy baggage at this point... they;re all about the cloud now. It's why Windows 10 is such pure excrement now.
There's no question that this is the most drama-free version of Windows I've ever used, and that's really my only criteria.
I think you were lucky then not to have suffered any drama from the constant 'feature updates' that come with Windows 10. I lost half a day of my time when one of those update borked my system and it wouldn't roll back to the previous version and I had to download a Windows ISO and reinstall from scratch.
The windows part of my life could probably run happily on windows 7 for the next several years. My main desktop/laptop has been linux since about 1997, so day in and out of windows is from VMs. I do have a couple physical systems that have windows 7 installed but they rarely get turned on.
Windows 10 just seems to get worse(at least for those that want control over their systems) as time goes on and I guess it won't get any better, which is too bad. There are the "long term service" builds of Windows 10 but last I heard those were enterprise only.
But windows 10 isn't alone here, much of the technology industry is working hard to remove control from the users(linux example here is systemd). Many users appreciate that, many others do not.
Not trolling, just genuinely interested, as I don't see anything bad here.
The only annoyance I've come across so far is the fact that I can't use the OneDrive desktop client without changing my Windows logon to a Microsoft account.
Yes, I have a Microsoft account, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be able to use OneDrive, but the fact is I prefer not to log in to a local machine using remote credentials, if for no better reason than the fact that the Internet in this muddy backwater only seems to work on a part time basis.
I got around this by installing RaiDrive, which is handy because it actually supports a lot of Cloud services, including Google, MEGA and an SFTP to my own domain. But still, I do find it annoying that Microsoft is attempting to force my hand.
They do the same thing with Skype, but only if you use the client from the Microsoft Store. If you download the proper desktop client directly from Skype, you're not forced to change your Windows login. I could find no equivalent desktop app for OneDrive, other than replacing it with RaiDrive.
But that's literally all I have to complain about Windows 10. Everything else has been smooth as butter.
I've set up a number of PCs with an MS account*, and there's the option to set up a (local-only) PIN, which allegedly never leaves the machine. There's a tickbox (or possibly a Registry key/Group Policy object) to allow PINs to contain letters.
* The way I've done it is to have the MS account as admin, then the actually-used user accounts are local, and non-privileged. The bonus is that UAC prompts require a password, so you're forced to stop and think, and other family members can't just click through and get pwned.
Windows 10 is no Vista,
Quite right. Vista was a debacle because the management/sales types decided that it was late enough, so they released it as-is, unfinished though it was. Once development actually finished (after it was released), it became a decent OS, though most people never knew, since they had given up on it before that.
Windows 10 is, as you said, no Vista. It's not temporarily bad by accident like Vista was-- it's bad by design. Every issue with Windows 10 is a function of it being designed to be just as it is. It won't become a decent OS in time, because MS does not want it to be decent. It is designed to be garbage, and garbage shall it remain. It's not curable. You can't bring back the functionality of the Control Panel that has been moved to the abominable Settings crApp. You can't avoid the idiotic phone UI bits (even though MS gave up on mobile). You can't set it to alert you that updates are available, but to only install those updates that you've specifically chosen from the menu. You can't have a single version of Windows that gets supported for 10 years the way it used to. Each feature build is its own version, and they come at a furious pace, and get dropped from support quickly too. For consumers, it's 1.5 years, that's it.
You can try to fix the many deficiencies of WIndows 10... you can use unsupported means to eradicate the unwanted apps that are supposed to be unremovable. You can hack the OS to let you choose your own theme rather than being stuck with the one that MS forces on you for branding purposes. You can eliminate the ads that keep popping up like weeds in your system tray, start menu (if you still use the tiled one), lock screen, and as many other places as MS can think of (Solitaire or mail apps, anyone?). You can try to block the telemetry. You can spend a ton of time getting everything set to serve you instead of Microsoft. And then MS will release a new feature update and all of your careful modifications will be undone.
This was why why the developer of Classic Shell threw in the towel... Windows 10 just changed too much, too quickly. You think you've gotten all of the ads blocked, but then MS sticks them in some other place. Every problem you think you've fixed only remains that way until MS decides to break your modifications yet again. With new versions coming every six months, there are a lot of opportunities to do that.
MS claims that Windows 10 is not an OS anymore, but a cloud service. Unfortunately, I am in need of an OS on my PCs, not a cloud service, so I had little choice but to leave Windows behind after more than 25 years as a Windows user. Windows ME, Vista, or 8 didn't make that happen... it took something as irredeemably bad as Windows 10 to do that.
I've been on Windows since there has been Windows. As Microsoft has gotten weirder, Linux (particularly Mint) has gotten better and better. I am down to 2 programs I need occasionally that run on Windows. One is Sea Clear 2 (written in 2010) that I use to navigate my boats. The other is Visual Studio 2010 Express. They will continue to run, on Windows 7, on an old IBM with no connection to the internet. I've had 2 Win 8 boxes, a Surface RT and an Asus 202. They are now in the junk pile downstairs with the Atari 800 and ST, the blue Ice Cube iMac, a DX66 tower, and various Dell, Toshiba, and HP laptops.
I tried Win 10 on three of my computers. I tried to like it, but couldn't. This was about the same general time frame that I had tried to like Ubuntu Unity, but again, I couldn't. I found Mint. The polish and simplicity of it was immediately clear. However, there were software holes in the programs available.
Today, there are no holes, at least for me. Surprisingly, much of that is because of Microsoft. Not only can I now watch Netflix and Amazon Video, I have Skype, Visual Studio Code, Android Studio, etc.
I'm not a MS hater, I love VS, but the OSs have been a PIMA for nearly 40 years now.
I'm done with it.
I logged into the forum to ask why I have had MS Security Intelligence Updates for my Win7 laptop, every single day since 14 Jan (31 so far). The discussion about Win10 is illuminating. I hate the touchscreen concept and implementation, and object to Windows as a Service. To use my computer it should not be necessary to be online, so I also deplore the concept of browser based applications. I have laptops with Vista and XP ready as backups, but I do worry about security. What to do?
Win7 holdout here who finally switched to Win 10. Using Classic Shell and ShutUp10 along with some other tweaks, it seems quite acceptable. Definitely easier than setting up Linux, and believe me I've tried.
I wouldn't mind switching to Linux, except I don't want to give up all the great 3rd party Windows ecosystem. Not just Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (bootleg), but pro multitrack audio, video editing, and the jillions of free or inexpensive utilities, addons, plugins, etc.
Yes it's a shame that I have to put up with any MS BS at all, but there's ways around most of it, and my machines seem to run quite well. Plus I can take advantage of modern hardware (which again is part of a huge ecosystem not available to Linux).
YMMV of course depending on your own needs, and I'm not denying MS evilness and incompetence, but every choice has tradeoffs, and so far Win10 is working for me.
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