Windows 10?

[spicoli]

I have a very smart client who works for MSFT. Her advice was to wait until Service Pack 1 came out for Win 10 and, in the mean time, pay close attention to user experiences.

All my PC's run Win 7 (I am basically forced to use PC's due to my work - if not I would have gone over to Mac years ago). Win 7 works fine. So, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I jumped in to using Vista years ago and it was a mini disaster. I learned my lesson and I will not be doing any more free beta testing for Microsoft.

BTW I have SSD drives in some of my PC's and they are amazingly fast and getting cheaper every day. The days of hard drives with moving parts are numbered.

[BinLadenSucks]

Wow...Thanks guys...I'm really glad I asked.

a435...You confirmed a lot of my fears. I was just checking onto this "Subscription issue" as I logged on here. Thought it was a small rumor until I searched...Truly have too say I was a bit shocked how much of an issue it is. Yes...Totally made me cautious.
XP I knew. Spent so much time removing "updates" that were useless and a burden to the system. I know W7 has them, but haven't found the need for the battle of digging and removing (Some with impossible results).
Awhile back I got hit with the Real Player Cloud. All I wanted was to just update my Real Player, but just had no way of disabling the online cloud part. Spent half the day just trying to remove all of those app files. (Still have a few lingering around, but stopped it from getting online to my comp). Think we all know the value of data mining regardless of terms and conditions. Advertising...Yes, I think we could see that possibility as well.
I was wise to pass up on Vista back then. Missed out on a free W7 due to my caution on it's release. But got it when I only paid $300 for this comp. I like W7 but with XP I had better control of it.
Yes...No free lunches.
Thanks for the icon removal link...I'm keeping it close by.
For now I'm thinking the wisest thing to do is to let this thing play out before partaking regardless of "free".
Thanks again guys.

[9876543210]

a435843,

Have to agree with most everything you've suggested. Except, so far, for one thing:

Originally Posted by a435843

I've heard that once 10 is installed, no matter the version, there's no going back to your 7/8 version. My fear is that if you have a UEFI "BIOS", 10 might disable your UEFI from ever using 7 or 8 again. So, while I like 987...'s idea of installing it on a swapable SSD, and leaving your 7/8 copy & license on your original HD, I would be surprised if your PC boots if you swapped the old HD back in, especially once 10 is out of beta.

To this point, I have swapped hard drive's once back to Win 7 and had no problems booting up. Win 7 booted normally and I noticed no glitches. But I don't have a UEFI Bios. I'm using an older (maybe 5 or 6 years) Dell Latitude E series which has been a pretty good machine so far. So, at least to this point, someone can go back to Win 7 with no problems (at least if they have an older machine).

A couple of other things I've noticed while playing with 10 today. So far, the new Mail app sucks. Set it up and jeez is it plain jane. Sent an email to myself and it worked but it brought none of my other emails in. Still not sure why. I then downloaded the newest version of Thunderbird and it looked and worked just fine. MS has a lot of work to do here.

The new browser "Project Spartan or MS Edge" seems OK. Looks like Google's browser and seems a bit faster than Pale Moon. But I haven't really played with it much and probably won't until I better understand its security capabilities. Pale Moon (thus Firefox) seems to be working just fine. All of the security extensions went right in except for Ghostery which installed ackwardly but seems to be working OK now.

Installed Adobe CS2 with no problems at all. Which was really surprising. Only total rejection by Win 10 so far has been Zone Alarm. All the rest of my security apps, internet apps and utilities have gone in with no problem. I should say that I did download the newest versions of each so that probably helped. But also haven't found a single app which says its safe for Win 10.

It did have all my drivers except for 3. I think I know what two of them are but not sure of the third. Just haven't had time to mess with them yet.

One minor problem which is really annoying is creating shortcuts on the desktop. You can't just drag and drop an icon from the start menu to the desktop. As I understand things, you have to go into Explorer, find the executable on the C:\program files\ directories and then right click and drag the program executable onto the desktop. Then select to create a shortcut. Really a stupid and dangerous way to do things which needs to be fixed ASAP. Somebody is going to left click and drag the executable, not know what they've done, and trash their program. There may be another way to do it but thats the only way I've found so far.

Enough for now. Still finding it OK but there are problems. But no BSODs as of yet.

The loss of true file search. Evidently, there's this abomination called Cortana, which is a lame attempt at ripping off iOS's Siri. You can't search your files, or their contents anymore, you can only search on data within MS's dumbed-down apps and Bing...that's crap. Oh, and your search history is collected by MS, no opt-out. This also leaves a commensurate loss of Explorer functionality.

Haven't messed with Cortana yet although they keep offering it once in a while. I'll get to it eventually.

MS's behavior in installing adware/nagware onto Windows computers, under the guise of "Important Windows Updates", in order to sucker people into doing their beta testing for them, and get 10 on as many 7/8 PC's as possible quickly, in order to make it look like 10 is a runaway hit (since not enough people are going to go out and buy a license or a new PC at a fast enough pace). I want to decide whether I want Windows 10, and I will decide when I feel like it; this is NOT an "Important" Windows Update.

Agree about the nagware but not about beta testing. Personally, I've not had many bad experiences doing it and actually find it kind of fun. You get some idea of where things are headed and a pretty good idea of "state of the art". And with 10, MS has made it pretty simple to tell them what you like and don't.

I guess I should explain at this point that as a BETA tester, telling MS (or some other company) how things are going is really your job. They want to know what you like and what you don't. They also carefully monitor how things are going with the machine. They need to know now what problems there are and how to fix them. At least for now, I don't mind that. But, depending on how things go, I'll probably go back to 7. But time will tell.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by a435843

There's some things I'm concerned about with Windows 10:

1. The loss of true file search. Evidently, there's this abomination called Cortana, which is a lame attempt at ripping off iOS's Siri. You can't search your files, or their contents anymore, you can only search on data within MS's dumbed-down apps and Bing...that's crap. Oh, and your search history is collected by MS, no opt-out. This also leaves a commensurate loss of Explorer functionality.

This alone makes me think, "Oh hell NO". I'm running file searches at least every month or two trying to find some file I need. What kind of idiot takes away a search function? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Much of the rest of it is just We Are Big Brother male bovine digestive end product.

[Jenny48549]

Originally Posted by DTravel

This alone makes me think, "Oh hell NO". I'm running file searches at least every month or two trying to find some file I need. What kind of idiot takes away a search function? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Much of the rest of it is just We Are Big Brother male bovine digestive end product.

Was reading up on it a little just now and they do have "file explorer" in Win 10 which apparently carries over from Win 8. They say you can still search local files with it from what I see.

[onajeeb]

Originally Posted by DTravel

I thought the rule for Windows was "Only use the odd numbered releases"?

Microsoft skipped the name Windows 9 due to compatibility issues with older Windows 95 and 97 (not sure why) and called the release Windows 10.

So I guess from now on we'll be using the even numbered releases.

[-Lucifer-]

Windows went from 8 to 8.1 (which was actally Windows 9) to Windows 10, I hope it will be a good upgrade. Personaly I wasn't that happy with 8.1.

[Rick Danger]

Great comments, all. Now I'll weigh in.

First, I've been using and supporting Windows since 3.1. I take a very text book view of an operating system: I want it to efficiently startup and shutdown my system, be modest in terms of overhead (memory/disk/processor), manage hardware and software resources well, and be as steady as a Navy pier. All the other "junK" are nice to haves. If the core underpinnings are bad, it's like building a beautiful mansion on a foundation of sand.

Windows XP, with the exception of the occasional BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) was a solid, reliable operating system. Vista was an ABORTION, plain and simple. Vista was for Microsoft what the IBM PC/AT was for IBM: it was the product that got people to think there was something better. For those of you who aren't that OLD, the IBM PC/AT was the first Intel 80286 based PC to hit the market. It was way faster than the original IBM PC or PC/XT, had "tons" of memory (up to 256K on the motherboard !), and a huge hard disk (30Mb or 60Mb). WOW. This was the PC that was going to be able to run multitasking and make Local Area Networks a reality. OK, a bit over promised ! Problem was one of IBM's suppliers for hard drives and disk controllers was having QA problems. PC/ATs with this particular company's drives were failing at a 60% rate. Rather than admit to the problem and offer remediation IBM denied there was a problem. That allowed a little company in Houston, Texas named COMPAQ to market their 286 based machine with the advertising slogan "It Just Works Better". And it did. RESULT: IBM lost control of the market they helped invent.

The original public release magazine on Vista stated it would run with 512Mb of RAM. I bought a new laptop with 1Gb of RAM and Vista Basic and the OS ate about 60% of the memory and the machine periodically crashed. Recall that Vista Basic was supposedly a "bare bones" version of Vista without the "aero glass" user interface and the big ticket features. Still, it was an overblown monstrosity. Ever wonder why we never saw Vista on portable devices like the kinds that ran Windows CE ? After a memory upgrade, two rebuilds, hacking out of some of the features and two months effort I finally had a workable machine. Before my Vista machine was fried by a huge power spike during Superstorm Sandy I was running Ubuntu on it.

My niece bought a premium HP laptop with Vista and after about three months she trashed it and bought a Mac Book. She has never looked back. Sounds like an Apple commercial I once saw !

I know that individuals who built their machines from the ground up with fast graphics boards and tons of RAM overall have good things to say about Vista. I don't. I spoke to alot of businesses and institutions that kept using XP and passed on any mass rollout of Vista.

Windows 7 was an improvement over Vista, but truth to tell, ANYTHING would be. I only used it regularly at my former employer. I found it to be adequate but with some nagging hardware and software compatibility problems.

I am currently using Windows 8.1. Again, it ain't Vista. But again, it has quirks. I think most people hate it for it's "Live Tile" user interface. I've actually read blog entries where people hate the Live Tiles so much, they'd rather use Vista. I have found the tiles to be not 100% functional, so I just bypass them all together.

After Microsoft claimed on it's website that Office XP Professional was not Windows 8 compatible I was able to install it and use it with no problems. However, the last service pack for Office XP (SP 3) will not install. That basically tells me that certain keys were not written into the registry upon installation that the service pack needs to be able to install. This smells of "forced obsolescence". (FYI, look out, Office 2016 is on the way !). I also have a version 2.0 copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements running as well. Hey, call me cheap but the last few years have been rough financially.

I bought a Hewlett-Packard D110a printer/copier/scanner. It features wireless networking, photo quality printing as well as Internet printing and was an outstanding value at under $70 retail. My laptop was running Windows 8.0 when I bought the printer, and the printer and the supporting software suite installed with no problem. At some point after upgrading to Windows 8.1 the support software failed to function. Forced deinstallation (using an HP supplied tool) as well as cleaning the registry and attempting reinstallation multiple times has not resolved the problem. Fortunately, the printer has on-board applications that allow me to connect to it via a web browser and utilize the functions that I need.

Third, the CD File System (CDFS) support was dropped. Apparently some rocket scientist assumed that we are all using iPods or MP3 players in our cars and no one needs to burn music CDs anymore ! Sure, if we all are driving cars from 2006 or later. I'm not. Delightfully Microsoft makes no mention of the lack of CDFS support or how to fix it. I found this out from an independent tech support web site. I am currently experimenting with the free version of the AShampoo CD Burning app to see if I can work around this problem.

Concerning Windows 10, I note with alarm that Microsoft has not published a Hardware Compatibility List (HCL), as has been the standard practice for all versions of Windows as far back as I can remember. Therefore, there is no affirmative way for me to know if my printers and other hardware will function fully (or at all !) under Windows 10, short of a "try and die". I am also not seeing much traffic concerning software compatibility either. Microsoft claims on it's Windows 10 web page that 10 is designed to be compatible with most current hardware and software. Yeah, sure...... and Vista ran with 512Mb of RAM................

I am not all that interested in Cortana. I think products like Siri or Cortana are great for mobile devices like phones or tablets, but not as useful for laptops and desktops. I am interested in the new browser from a purely clinical point of view. Internet Explorer has well documented vulnerabilities dating from IE 6 to the current version. This is not to be confused with the well publicized "Zero Day" vulnerability that made global headlines in April 2014. I will be curious to see if Microsoft has finally routed out these problems. This is the primary reason why in the Windows XP discussion thread I recommended anyone still using XP to stop using IE since Microsoft will not be supplying any security patches to XP machines. I will look to continue to use Firefox with various add-ins that "harden" it against various web based threats. Thanks to Greenman for recommending some great add-ins.

SO, I plan to obtain my copy of Windows 10 and park it until I see some critical mass of documented experiences and SOLUTIONS start to build up. History shows that the advice that Spicoli offered concerning waiting until Windows 10 Service Pack 1 is available is very sound. Also 9876543210 work with Win 10 on a bootable thumb drive also makes complete sense.

I absolutely HATE the blog style "social" support. Most of the time I get the distinct impression that the people responding to the questions really don't have a clue what the solution is and are just throwing out suggestions how to fix things. I've seen too many blogs where the writers contradict each other or where the original problem is never resolved and there is NO follow up. And frankly the last time I was on with Microsoft Support they could not resolve my problem. After breaking off the session I reasoned it out and fixed it myself !

If you are running XP, Vista, or Win 7, I would highly recommend that you get ahold of the Window Annoyances series by David A. Karp (O'Reilly Books). The knowledge in these books will help you keep your machine humming along. Worth their weight in gold !



That's it ! That's enough !

[justme21]

SO, I plan to obtain my copy of Windows 10 and park it until I see some critical mass of documented experiences and SOLUTIONS start to build up.

I am an old guy with very limited computer knowledge. Please keep us informed after Windows 10 comes out.

[Rick Danger]

Originally Posted by JustMe21

I am an old guy with very limited computer knowledge.

I'm no Spring chicken either (58). The "Annoyances" books I find are that unique paradox of being easy to read but with technical insights that only a Microsoft Engineer would bring to the table.

Please keep us informed after Windows 10 comes out.

I frankly am hoping that I'll be in the position to just buy a new Windows 10 machine, and that I won't have to upgrade a perfectly (?) good machine and go on the "bleeding edge". There were enough warnings about the test candidate of Windows 10 that I elected to pass being one of the "millions" Microsoft claims were involved in the testing.

I'm so pissed off about not being able to burn music CDs for friends and family that I might try and find an old Windows XP machine, or engineer a bootable XP thumb drive. I am not too worried about potential security exposures of having an unsupported operating system. Also, I understand from a blogger involved with the Windows 10 beta that Windows Media Player does not work after a Win 10 upgrade is installed. I would enjoy hearing from any of the contributors to this thread how the replacement for WMP works. I sure as hell don't want to spend time rebuilding my music and video library.

I can't wait to see what Redmond has DROPPED from Windows 10.

My analogy concerning IBM and the PC/AT debacle and Microsoft's ham-fisted rollouts of Vista and Win 8 can be summarized as this: at some point, it seems that "technology" companies wind up becoming nothing more than "marketing" companies selling this year's flavor of snake oil at prices that make you yearn "for the good ol' days". IBM blundered with the AT, then with the PS/2 and it's proprietary Microchannel Architecture, then with OS/2. With these brilliant moves it's no wonder IBM had to sell off it's PC and printer divisions. Microsoft has missteped with Windows, Windows Phone, a bad Xbox launch a few years ago, the Zune media player, and now continues to try and ram it's web services down our throats. The Surface tablet looks OK, but once again Microsoft is late to the party with the technology that consumers really want.

Microsoft is selling snake oil while companies like Apple and Google are selling technology. Don't be surprised if the boys and girls in Redmond pull some amazing tactical blunder that causes Microsoft to nose dive and wind up the next IBM selling consulting services or the subject of a Chinese or Russian business takeover.