Windows 10 again

[meriad]

OK, who by now has or hasn't upgraded and what's the verdict? I'm still on Windows 7 and very happy with it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36367221?SThisFB I've got a few friends who this happened to ....

[Workingman]

I have W7 on the laptop and am not moving - it does what it says on the tin. All my software, some of it quite old, works, and I see no need to upgrade the operating system only to find that a lot of things stop working. That, to me, is not upgrading.

However, I have a phone and tablet both running W8.1 and I might allow the upgrade to come as and iso image so that I can install it to try out.

I do agree with the article and PC World that Microsoft is being devious and not making it clear enough upfront what it is doing.

[TheOstrich]

We bought a new laptop last Christmas which came with W10, so we had an opportunity to see what it was like.

I then upgraded my PC to W10 about 3 months ago (I had downloaded the free version it but not installed it - but it then gave me a date (about 4 weeks notice) when it was going to install it automatically, like it or not - so I just went for it). It all went seamlessly, (took about 30-45 minutes from memory) and all my files and desktop shortcuts were transferred across without a problem.

I don't actually use the PC for a lot - Word and Excel (it kept the original 2010 versions), internet access and games like Solitaire, FreeCell. I use Chrome for browsing and AVG for protection. I've had one or two issues with AVG subsequently but I'm not sure whether that was some conflict with W10 or just a problem with AVG.

I have not run into any major problems with it since upgrading, just a few niggles. The first noticeable thing was that the PC boots up much more rapidly.

It's set to do Windows automatic updates, but these seem less frequent than on W7 and take longer when they occur.

My gripes would be that the thing revolves around "apps" so it's much more modern than I'm used to! To get the games package (which is excellent, contains Suduko and Mahjong), you have to go to the Windows Store and download the "app" which is free - but, you do get regular adverts when you play them, and these can only be removed by Upgrading, which costs (something like £8 a year). I was playing as a "Guest" but it hectored me to sign up for "XBoxLive" which means you have a gamer tag and your games are saved in the Cloud, but an unexpected side-effect from this was that it then implemented user password protection on booting up the PC (not a problem, actually more security in a way, but I hadn't asked it to do that!)

It also keeps nagging me to "sign in" to my Windows 10 Account (i.e. the Store account), but I cheerfully ignore that and it goes away.

There have been criticisms in the press that it's sort of Microsoft controlling you via W10 rather than you controlling your PC via W10 .... I can see where this criticism is coming from, and I do find that its messaging can be intrusive.

I didn't like it at first compared with W7, but having got used to it, I can live with it - it's fine for what I use it for.

Just my 2c worth .....

[meriad]

Thanks both - Ossie that was quite helpful.

I only use my laptop to access the internet and store photos and iTunes - nothing else really. not sure I'd play many games on it as I prefer the touch screen tablet for that.... but I wholeheartedly agree that the adds that keep coming up in the games are totally annoying. I have the same problem on both my tablet and phone, and I think it's to do with the fact that they are android apps vs apple ones. The adds are probably a reason I don't play that many games anyway.

hmmm food for thought

[Suff]

I have upgraded two of our machines with a third tested on a clone. I've also built several new machines for odd things and upgraded two of those to W10.

I don't fall into the traps of online accounts because I know how to bypass that, but I see that all "normal" users do as the way to avoid it is quite hard to find.

My netbook has been crippled for performance and as each month goes by I'm mulling a complete refresh build. It really is that bad and I don't know if it is the upgrade or not. Pretty much everything upgraded fine.

I upgraded Mrs S' hybrid tablet to 10 but I had just rebuilt it to 8 with a key from Toshiba so there was really nothing to migrate when it was done.

For my desktop I took a backup of the drives, put them into a virtual machine and did the upgrade. On checking I found (as I expected), that it had trashed all my saved forms and passwords in IE. I have backed them up and it's not a real issue, more annoying.

In general I've pretty much worked out how to get rid of most of the crApps they put in the system. I don't use the store on PC's and won't enter any login info so that's not an issue for me. I pretty much work around all the garbage so it's probably not as painful for me as for others. With Windows 8 I just want to beat the laptop to death with a big stick every time I use it so, in that way, 10 is better. I just want to beat 10 with a rubber truncheon so it's an improvement. But hardly a ringing indorsement.

In short 10 is viable and we only have a few short weeks to do the upgrade now. If we want to.

I expect that Microsoft will make it somewhat more friendly as time goes on, but the die is cast. We're stuck with the crApps and the crAp interface and all the stupid online stuff we can't avoid. We just have to learn to live with it. Either that or embrace Linux... Sadly Linux is still, 20 years later, a bridge too far even for me.

[Rodo]

I have just set up my new PC which had windows 10 already instelled. I am more than pleased. I am using Chrome and everything is working well.

[Gal]

We have W10 at work and all is ok, although as you say Ossie, the apps for games such as Freecell are a pain and because I am at work (LOL) I don't want an account as such.

At home I am on W7 still and it's staying that way.