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Microsoft Operating Systems Windows

Ask Slashdot: Would You Recommend Updating To Windows 10? 982

Posted by msmash from the thoughts-on-Windows-10 dept.
Plenty of users are skeptical about upgrading to Windows 10. While they understand that Microsoft's newest desktop operating system comes with a range of interesting features, they are paranoid about the repeated update fiascos that have spoiled the experience for many users. Reader Quantus347 writes: Whenever I think of Windows 10 these days I, like so many others out there, immediately feel a swell of rage over the heavy-handed way the "upgrade" has been forced on me and so many others. I had to downgrade one of my computers that installed windows 10 over a weekend I was away, and as a result, I have been fending off the update ever since. I find myself wondering if Windows 10 is actually that bad. With the end of the "free" upgrade period quickly coming to an end, my fiscally conservative side is starting to overwhelm my fear and distrust of all things new, and I'm wondering if it's time to take the leap. I've been burned too many times for being an early adopter of something that proved to be an underdeveloped product, but Windows 10 has been around for long enough that I'm wondering if it might have it's kinks worked out.

So I ask you, Slashdot, what are your experiences with Windows 10 itself, aside from the auto-upgrade nonsense? How does it measure up to its predecessors, and is it a worthwhile OS in its own right?
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Ask Slashdot: Would You Recommend Updating To Windows 10? More

Ask Slashdot: Would You Recommend Updating To Windows 10?

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  • Windows 10 has a number of default settings for privacy and security that are too permissive. If you upgrade to Windows 10 you have to know how to change the privacy and security defaults. Also you should be aware that Microsoft tries to force your hand to use a Microsoft Account as your local login. I recommend doing your homework before applying updating to Windows 10. The only reason why I use Windows 10 is because I bought a PC specifically for the purpose of learning how to support Windows 10. I plan to continue to use Windows 7 Professional on my main PC for as long as Microsoft provides support for Windows 7.
    • A better answer to your question is that I haven't found any features of Windows 10 that would warrant my updating from Windows 7.

      • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:4, Informative)

        by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:08PM (#52219629)

        Direct X 12 ?

        • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:11PM (#52219665)

          Direct X 12 ?

          It'll be a while before games fully take advantage of it. But that's probably the only one.

          Compared to Win7, everything else Microsoft considers a "Feature" requires more phoning home, more data harvesting, and frankly -- Cortana is an ad for the ads on Bing, Live Tiles are just ads for the MS App Store, and whatever That Cloud Shit is called this year is just someone else's computer: for my use case, they're antifeatures and I'd disable them even if they didn't require a MS Account..

          • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Insightful)

            by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:18PM (#52219763) Homepage

            this, exactly. most of the differences between Windows 7 and Windows 10 are anti-features that don't stop bugging you to use them.

          • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Interesting)

            by bondsbw ( 888959 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @03:50PM (#52220713)

            You'll get some great info from Slashdot, but you'll also get misleading advice like the above.

            Cortana is an ad for the ads on Bing

            Google Chrome is an ad for the ads on Google. If you're ok with search engines and virtual assistants like Siri or Google Now, I doubt Cortana would raise any real concerns.

            I'm not saying you should be ok with search ads or virtual assistant data sent to these companies. That's up to you.

            Live Tiles are just ads for the MS App Store

            Live Tiles have nothing to do with ads. They're content-focused widgets. The content is completely at the discretion of the developer. And you can turn the "live" part off if you don't like what it shows... or unpin or uninstall the app, you have several options.

            Windows 10 does include ads for store apps (called Suggested Apps). They are not live tiles. You can turn suggested apps off via a setting: http://www.zdnet.com/article/h... [zdnet.com]

        • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @03:18PM (#52220391)

          Two games using that that I hear. Big deal. Most customers are still on DX10, with large chunks on DX 9 or 11. Those are where most games are going to be targeting. Gamers aren't clamoring for DX 12 as there's nothing really new in it. It was created solely to migrate people to Windows 10. So it'll be like DX 10, gamers annoyed with it since it was only supported in Vista, but at least Vista was followed on by something better, whereas Microsoft has given no indication that it considers Windows 10 a mistake. Meanwhile others are moving away from Microsoft dependencies; Steam wants its own system and that's a massive chunk of PC gaming and customers.

          So some people say don't get in the van with the creepy guy. And the kid says "but he's got DX12 candy!!"

      • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:4, Informative)

        by sanf780 ( 4055211 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:27PM (#52219875)
        I agree with you. I had a quick look at Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) and found no important reason why migration is a must. You might like the touch interface better, but if you are like me and have no touch screen then you will forget it exists. Remember: the OS is not the defining factor here, it is the software you want to run. As most software work on both OS versions, there is no need to go with on or the other. Actually, you probably will hear from software not working on Windows 10 rather than on Windows 7 (or at least not being officially supported on Windows 10). After all, most sofware vendors try to appease the crowd. Note that software vendors like Adobe do give support for OS starting Windows 7 (released 2009 although you need SP1) and MacOsX 10.9 (release 2013) - note the date difference. The odd exception to the rule of software supporting both Windows 7 and Windows 10 are some games published by Microsoft that require Windows 10, but the performance is terrible I read.

        And do not forget to read about what other people might think of Windows 10.

        • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Interesting)

          by FictionPimp ( 712802 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:47PM (#52220111) Homepage

          Honestly, and this is not scientific, but windows 10 'feels' faster on my PC than windows 7. I also find it visually more appealing. It also has a smaller footprint. Lastly the pace of change and some of the nice features coming down the pipe makes it worth it (ubuntu, path limits, etc). Server manager and powershell features are very nice as well as an admin.

          I really like windows 10. Before this I was a die hard OSX guy simply because linux on the desktop still required me to tinker too much to keep my laptop happy. I got a surface pro 3 with windows 10 for work and it and now I'm hooked.

          • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @03:02PM (#52220247) Homepage

            For a fair comparison you need to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 7.

            Your Windows 10 installation will slow down over time, just like every other version of Windows. Guaranteed.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by SirSlud ( 67381 )

              Large pieces of Windows have been rewritten to improve performance and responsiveness between Windows 7 and Windows 10. If you compare fresh installs, you'll find that MS, regardless of how you feel about them as a company, has done a pretty good job at reigning in how resource heavy Windows has been in the past.

        • I tend to prefer AMD, and, from what I understand, using the GPU is better integrated with more desktop tasks using Windows 10.

          My own personal opinion? I install "Classic Shell," so I have not seen too much difference between 8.1 and 10.

          The only REAL problem is that I have an 8.1 machine as a media center, and Microsoft killed Media Center with 10, so that machine is stuck on 8.1.

      • A better answer to your question is that I haven't found any features of Windows 10 that would warrant my updating from Windows 7.

        If you use PowerShell a lot you get a better console host, with syntax highlighting and command history across multiple sessions, among other things that should have been standard years ago.

      • Re: You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @03:12PM (#52220331)

        Once I explain the options, the security requirements and the Windiws 10 privacy issues, most of my Windows 7 customers opt to upgrade to OS. X.

      • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gr8Apes ( 679165 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @03:14PM (#52220355)

        A more insightful question is one you should ask yourself: "With a company almost as anti-consumer as Sony, why are you still doing business with them?"

        A better question regarding windows 10 is: "If I have to learn all this technical crap just to retain some privacy, perhaps I should look at an alternative OS. I've heard about Macs and Linux, maybe they aren't so bad".

      • GWX is the first in a long line of insults and privacy breaches. I no longer trust MacroShit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Find and change the default privacy/security setting and use a firewall to block all the outbound "telemetry" and you'll be fine.

      In terms of performance, Microsoft definitely made improvements "under the hood". However, there are still a lot of things to dislike. The UI is horrendously ugly, lots of changes just for the sake of making things different and Windows 10 is still very buggy.

    • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Informative)

      by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:58PM (#52219477)

      When you go through the upgrade process just make sure to select a custom installation and uncheck all the defaulted check marks of SEVERAL PAGES of privacy-breaking agreements and spyware permissions (some of which are downright chilling to read).

        And don't allow that bitch Cortana anywhere near your computer. She'll screw you over just like she did Master Chief.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

        ... or just search the interwebs for an "unfuck" script that will do all of that for you, like such as:
        https://github.com/dfkt/win10-... [github.com]

        But a lot of this is just as applicable to win7 , win8.x , iOS, Android, etc.

        I have Win10 on a few devices at home. It's nice. The new touchscreen UI/features can be annoying, but the gestures do make sense if you have a touchscreen. M$ has been trying to do tablet pen/touchscreen devices longer than anyone, so it's funny to watch them play catch-up now. But I remember bein

    • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:59PM (#52219493) Homepage

      I tried upgrading on my secondary laptop as an experiment.

      "All your files are right where you left them!"

      Nope. I was assigned a "temporary account" when I tried to login and all my files had vanished. Luckily the process for going back to Windows 7 seems to work.

      Next: I go on the net and read about how Microsoft is busy turning the start menu into a big advertising platform. How you can't turn off automatic updates. etc., etc.

      I can't wait to see what Windows looks like six months from now after the free upgrade period is over and Microsoft starts doing all that _other_ stuff they have planned. Stuff they're holding off on at the moment because nobody would ever upgrade if they knew the truth.

      By that time Microsoft will own your PC. You won't be able to turn off the updates, it'll be too late to go back to Windows 7.

      Suckers!

      Me? I'll give it a miss. Windows 7 is working just fine.

    • Re:You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Interesting)

      by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:17PM (#52219741)

      Want fun supporting Windows 10?

      Find and clear a printer queue. Using search the default answer is the Windows 10 settings which is for device not printer queue. You need to go into the old control panel and find it there.

      How basic of a feature is the printer queue? How is that missing from Windows 10 settings?

      Overall I like the general direction of Windows 10. However the privacy, and missing features lists are a huge downside. I only use it at work and at work it is used to Remote Desktop into the server anyways. So for us it isn't a big deal. But damn it's default shortcomings are massive. What gets me is in July Microsoft will start charging for Windows 10 upgrades. What happens when Microsoft rolls out major feature changes? Will they be forcibly installed and billed to you?

    • Time to get an Apple . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:27PM (#52219873)

      The company who I currently work for used to give us Lenovo SchtinkPads as work machines. Recently, they are now offering Apple stuff, as well. I never thought that I would be forced to leave the Windows platform.

      Well, Windows 10 has done it for me. My next box is going to be an Apple.

    • Re: You have to know how to secure a Windows 10 PC (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:42PM (#52220065)

      A note on Microsoft accounts: ALWAYS configure local authentication and NOT Microsoft account authentication. If you do the latter, Microsoft retains a copy of your encryption keys on their servers, limits your password length to 14 characters and reduced complexity, and they (not you) ultimately hold the keys for unlocking your own system. Almost needless to say, this dramatically reduces your security and privacy, especially considering that Microsoft's public cloud may very well be your weakest link. And before a Microsoft apologist mutters something about Google and/or Apple, note that they don't do any of the three things that I mentioned.

      • Oh yes, for sure, never a Microsoft Account EVER. People get confused on installation and think they need one, but you don't. Of course many of those built in apps refuse to run without a Microsoft Account but that's actually a good thing as it prevents you from using some of the most buggy parts of Windows.

    • Uh dude, Windows 8.1 was trying to make me log into microsoft; it took me 20 minutes to realize there was a skip button, and then the next screen tried to pitch me onto creating a microsoft account AGAIN.

  • Nope (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:48PM (#52219337)

    I wouldn't. The UI is a mess in many places, and many programs that ran well under Windows 7, don't under 10. Especially games. 10 offers very few benefit at all.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by smelch ( 1988698 )
      Can you provide anything more specific than this? Which games didn't work and where is the UI a mess? When I updated from 7 to 10 so I could mess around with some of the new development stuff for Universal Windows Apps and Hololens, I found that everything was pretty much the same except for a different color start menu and task bar. Wouldn't really consider downgrading because I do a lot of Microsoft development and some stuff is closed off to me without WIndows 10, and there is no real downside to having

      • Re:Nope (Score:5, Informative)

        by o_ferguson ( 836655 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:35PM (#52219977)
        Any game that uses DirectX 9. Win 7 lets you have old versions of DirectX installed, and will run apps that use directX9 on the native codec. Win10 forces you to emulate the old DirX using the modern DirX codec, in a manner that is far less efficient than just running the codec native. Since 90% of my computer time is spent playing one title (SWTOR) that is Dx9 native, this is a huge deal. In fact, I am buying a new computer with top-end specs, but will be putting win 7 on it because it is the optimal OS for the game I play most.

  • No (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vlakkies ( 107642 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:48PM (#52219345)

    It hosed my Win7 machine. YMMV

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I tried up do a clean install on a machine that was new when Windows 8 was recently out. Works fine with 8. 10 gives a black screen on boot when Bitlocker is enabled.

      Upgrading older machines seems to be hit and miss.

  • I've seen more BSODs with W10 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:51PM (#52219375)

    While my two main machines are Macs, I manage around 15 Windows VMs and touch every new employee laptop deployed in our environment.

    Through this, at least on the hardware we use here and the VMs managed under Hyper-V, I have personally witnessed more BSODs on W10 than any version of Windows after the Windows2000 days.

    When Windows is required and when it's up to me, we don't use any W10 images and disable the upgrade paths for the users and based on this experience, I recommend no but YMMV.

    • If we're going to be anecdotal, I've been on W10 since the early days, and have seen precisely two BSODs, both directly related to sleeping after suspending a VMWare VM. Other than updates, my restarts -- VM or otherwise -- are simply rare, and I hammer the hell out of my machine between developing and gaming.

  • In general... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:53PM (#52219413)

    Yes I would - its a much better OS than either Win7 or Win8.

    However, my frustrations centre around Windows 10 updates (not upgrades to Windows 10 but updates of Windows 10).

    The number of times I have opened my laptop for a quick 5 minute task, only to be greeted by "we are installing a system update" and have the next half hour wasted, or the number of times I have rebooted and run into the same thing - oh, and while MS have added a "restart" option as well as the "install updates and restart" option, it doesnt work, updates are installed anyway.

    For all the immediate frustrations I have with Windows 10, I wouldnt go back.

  • Avoid "Metro" apps: The legacy of Windows 8... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:54PM (#52219417) Homepage

    From an end-user perspective, avoid the "Metro" or "Universal" apps (or whatever the full-screen touch-friendly keyboard/mouse-unfriendly apps are called these days). The built-in PDF viewer and Photo Viewer are awful. The Edge browser is clearly a browser for a phone or tablet, with lots of absolutely basic options missing. But this advice applied to Windows 8 as well, and somewhat to prior versions, so this isn't really new.

  • Depends on what you have (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:57PM (#52219463)

    If you have a touchpad, then yes.

    If you have a desktop, then no. It's not really suited as a desktop OS.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you have a touchpad, then yes.

      If you have a desktop, then no. It's not really suited as a desktop OS.

      Clearly you haven't used it - it's not Windows 8 with the metro start menu rammed down your throat. There's nothing wrong with using it as a desktop computer, and I do so on all of my machines.

      • I have to use it. The start menu is the same clusterfuck as Windows 8 was. Huge, colorful tiles of which you can maybe 8 or 10 display at a time, aimed at illiterate idiots rather than a nice list of programs as it used to be.

        Yes, you have to be able to read and be able to aim with the mouse instead of pushing it about with your foot. My best guess so far is that Win 10 is the illiterate thalidomid child edition of Windows.

        • Re:Depends on what you have (Score:5, Insightful)

          by damnbunni ( 1215350 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:37PM (#52219993) Journal

          There are absolutely no tiles in my Windows 10 start menu.

          You ARE aware there's a text menu to the left of the tiles, and you can right-click the tiles and Unpin them and they go away, leaving you with just an old-style all-text-with-little-icons Start Menu, right?

          There are some things about 10's start menu that I don't like, but 'huge colorful tiles instead of a list of programs' is absolutely invalid.

  • If you're a masochist (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:57PM (#52219465)

    Let's ignore all the under-the-hood badness of Windows 10. Here are the reasons to stick with Win7:

    • Flat UI looks cheap and hard on the eyes. There are no more visual cues to distinguish windows and UI controls
    • One-pixel window borders that make resizing a pain in the ass, with no way to make them wider
    • Inconsistent widget looks and behaviour, with a myriad of different legacies from Win9x/2K, Win7 and Win10
    • Systematic removal of customization options
    • Crappy start menu, irritating app placements
    • General feeling of profit-above-all half-assedness

    It's like Microsoft fired their (formerly excellent) user interface and usability personnel, and hired a college grad hell-bent on design. Windows 10 may be good under the hood, but the spyware and shitty UI make everyday use a constant irritation.

    When I downgraded my workstation from Win10 to Win7 I felt like I went forward in technology. It's uncanny that Microsoft would screw the pooch so bad.

  • Does the submitter even read Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:58PM (#52219489)

    Does the submitter even read Slashdot?

    Over, and over, and over, every time Windows 10 comes up in Slashdot stories, there are multiple, +5 Insightful posts pointing out that Windows 10 comes loaded with telemetry. Just LOADED with it. I can't accept that a person submitting a question to Slashdot would not know this, and also would be okay with this notion of data collection ingrained so deeply in an operating system.

    Regardless of the options a user chooses in Win10's Control Panel, the user is not TRULY opted-out of all the data collection. This has been discussed ad nauseam, and I have yet to see someone post a solution to block all telemetry collection while still allowing security updates.

    Also, you can't infinitely defer reboots after updates are applied. You are going to be forced to reboot at some point that is not of your choosing, and that's a legitimate problem for many people. (Like, the ones who use computers as productivity tools.)

    Windows 10 wrests control away from the user in ways that are unacceptable. I cannot compromise on these things. I will not use Windows 10.

    • Re:Does the submitter even read Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:21PM (#52219799)

      I cannot compromise on these things. I will not use Windows 10.

      If you are using Windows 7 or 8 you should know that the bulk of Microsoft's telemetry has been backported [extremetech.com]. Unless you've prevented Windows Update installing this stuff then avoiding Windows 10 isn't protecting you.

      On the other hand there are actively developed tools [oo-software.com] to control at least those parts of Microsoft's telemetry that can be controlled.

      • Re:Does the submitter even read Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @04:28PM (#52221089) Homepage Journal

        Not even that. The machines come with features--some of which go back as far as Windows 2000--that people are now freaking out about.

        Debugging data for program crashes goes to Microsoft. That's happened since forever; Watson always pinged Microsoft to ask about Program X and what it should log about it, then asked the user what to do. If you tell Windows 10 to look for a fix, it'll send data to Microsoft, same as if you report the issue on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7.... These days, it also might say, "Hey, Firefox is fucking up, what do?" and Watson says, "At a guess, tell the user to enable Windows 7 Compatibility Mode," and the user can say "Send data to Microsoft" and it'll send the whole dump.

        The start menu has a search feature that SEARCHES THE WEB. We freaked out about this with Ubuntu once; we ignore it when Chrome and Firefox do it. Likewise, Windows since XP has asked Microsoft Windows Update how to view arbitrary filetypes when opening unknown files.

        Microsoft Windows Defender now comes built-in. The default setting since XP has always sent minimal data about specific files to Microsoft; an advanced setting sends a *shitload* of debugging data, but it's off by default. People are panicking because it's in Windows 10 and Windows 10 is spyware.

        Cortana. I don't fucking use it. My Android phone talks to Google a lot; so does Siri.

        Updates, constantly pinging Microsoft to ask about updating software. People are like, "Well Linux doesn't tell Debian what software you have installed! Windows 10 tells Microsoft EXACTLY what you have installed!" That works until you actually run apt-get upgrade and a series of HTTP GET requests hit the servers to get specific package names and versions.

        Come on, people.

  • it's ok, but that comes with a dozen qualifiers. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @01:59PM (#52219491) Homepage

    i mean ... it's fine, i guess. it's stable, anyway. it runs all the programs i've tried so far. HOWEVER:

    do your research and make sure you disable all the keyloggers and adware and "data sharing" features that come bundled with it, which are turned on by default. make sure you're ok with having an operating system that will basically constantly advertise at you, trying to steer you towards the MS store. be prepared to have the thing constantly try to link you up with your "Microsoft Account" and use that as your desktop login. Oh, and hope you like ads on your Start menu.

    the good news is you can remove the advertisements from Windows Solitaire for just $1.50 per month! what a deal!

  • Yes, without reservation (Score:3, Informative)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:01PM (#52219519) Journal

    ...for most people.

    Sure, there are going to be some people who'd be better of with *nix and who could cope with it, but they're not the ones asking. It's my grandma, uncle, cousin, sister, neighbor - all who care NOTHING about the "politics" of OSes, just want something that works.

    So my advice is this:
    YES, I wholeheartedly advise upgrading to Win10. It is a robust, stable, modern OS. I've been running it on probably a dozen systems since January, and not one BSOD. That's pretty good. It's miles better than XP or 8, and reasonably better than 7. If you're running anything else (shudder, Vista, ME, 2000, etc) it's not even a question.

    HOWEVER, *actually* read and attend the install process. TURN OFF shit that you don't need.

    As a last resort, I'd rather come over and spend 10 mins cleaning out the Win10 settings cruft and then knowing you're running a decent OS than keep having to try to remember how the hell to do X in XP or Vista when your system goes down, again.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by flacco ( 324089 )

      > but they're not the ones asking. It's my grandma, uncle, cousin, sister, neighbor - all who care NOTHING about the "politics" of OSes, just want something that works.

      So, people you should care about, and should probably help to educate.

  • Is this a trick question? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:04PM (#52219577)
    Let's see: An operating system that forces in sneaky or not so sneaky way in the first place. and Then...has updates that turn out to be ad servers (not security so MS actually LIED about tha tone), updates that change the rules (Windows 10 pro could shut some "telemetry data" off but they removed that feature later so you had to upgrade to enterprise to get it back), data collectors that send all kinds of data frequently, and MS won't disclose what data they collect. It destroys some computers (friend's daughter hard drive burned out after a forced windows 7-10 update). Need I go on? Oh, and latest, Windows 10 wreaks havoc on some samsung laptops/desktops. Everything about it is, collect data from you for their use (that you can't turn off)...plus ads in your face and undisclosed data collection in massive amounts. Oh, and updates no longer have any significant details save "adding enhancements and feature" on the updates so you can't see what MS is doing to your system until it's too late. You really want to "upgrade" to this trojan horse that constantly changes the rules? Better off with MacOS (not iOS, Apple plays similar games there with feature disabling) or Linux. They you can't trust or know what the OS is doing, time to change the game. Too many secrets, game changers (disabling features you once had) and blatant disregard for the users rights to control THEIR computer. (No, MS you do NOT own people's data your EULA needs to be put into government oversight and roasted over the coals for lack of transparency and invasion privacy; Collecting (potentially) data and passwords...come on....) Would I recommend Windows 10 upgrade? (and this goes double for people in the legal/medical profession..) Hell NO!

  • aside from the auto-upgrade nonsense? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:04PM (#52219583)
    It's not "nonsense. The auto-upgrade is, at best, a breach of trust, at worst an unethical upgrade to a customer's system.

  • Works fine for me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jdavidb ( 449077 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:05PM (#52219597) Homepage Journal

    I never upgrade machines; I just wait till a new machine comes with the new OS. That said I went to Windows 10 on new machines at work and home all at the same time, and I have no real complaints, as long as I have:

    • Cygwin
    • Firefox
    • A selection of tools from ninite.com

    These are the programs that have made Windows tolerable for me since NT, and as long as I have them, the specific version of Windows has never been too much of a problem.

    By the way, I like Windows 10 much more than Windows 8.

  • When the Stupid Bugs are Squished (Score:3)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:11PM (#52219659) Homepage

    I've been greatly annoyed by a number of issues which haven't been fixed (a big one for me is the inability to simply delete/free up no longer used com ports using Device Manager). Network set up for laptops which are moved around to different locations (and will be used with different WiFis) is something which doesn't work as well as with Win7 and Win8. And, there is the bullshit with having to install "WIndows 10" versions of software which works fine under WinXP, Win7 & Win8.

    The upgrade process for Win10 seems broken at best with some upgrades being put in regardless of the desires of the users while others need to be explicitly allowed - but Microsoft should know this because they're tracking everything done on Win10 anyways.

  • I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:13PM (#52219687)

    Windows 10, from a purely technical perspective, is great. It's fast, clean, stable, and relatively secure. Heck, it's the first ever Microsoft OS I've seen that is able to upgrade the average computer without turning it into goat vomit. Prior to Windows 10, this was practically a guarantee.

    From a policy perspective.... To quote Darth Vader, "I have altered our agreement. Pray I do not alter it further."

    That is basically Microsoft's slogan for Windows 10. Unless you are willing to drop $500 for the Enterprise edition of Windows 10, Microsoft has dictated very clearly that you do NOT have control of your machine. They *will* pull telemetry at their pleasure. They *will* force updates onto your machine whether you want them or not. Hell, they even have the power to copy any data you have on your machine. They will not permit you to block them, at least not at the OS level. If you want to block their shenanigans, your only realistic option is to either buy Enterprise or put a hardware router between your computer and the internet, and do your blocking from there. Or just use it as is and hope Microsoft doesn't continue to alter their agreement further. (Fat chance)

    And we all know that Microsoft is far from perfect when it comes to releasing stable updates that don't brick people's machines.

    Whether you are fine with this, is up to you. As a sysadmin who is ultimately responsible for the productivity of the employees under my charge, this is completely unacceptable, and we're going to be sticking with Windows 7 as our desktop standard.

    What pisses me off the most is that Microsoft's obnoxious behaviour is forcing me to set up a WSUS server, because I now need to vet every single update Microsoft release.

  • Whatever. (Score:4, Informative)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:14PM (#52219701) Homepage

    I have it installed on a whole bunch of PCs and tablets. I haven't really had any major problems with it.

    Do I have any reason to be excited about it? No, not really. I don't think anything significant has been added to the OS since Windows 7, at least not that I've ever found occasion to use much. Since Windows 8, it's pretty much been about getting the new stuff out of my face.

    I find the UI to be clunky and inconsistent. The incessant updates can be annoying -- we're told they're "automatic," but when they actually get installed seems to be anybody's guess, except that it usually seems to happen when I've just switched on the machine to take care of some 10-minute task.

    Windows Store/Universal apps are generally to be avoided. Few of them seem to have much value, particularly in a desktop computing scenario. They're either a repurposed version of a web page with an inferior UI (eg Wikipedia), or they're just the usual app store cash grab.

    Performance-wise everything seems fine, and maybe a little improved from Windows 8.

    If it doesn't sound like I'm really selling you on the upgrade, I guess it's because I'm not. But having taken the plunge, it's not like I have any major regrets. If anything, what's done is done and whether to install Windows 10 is one less thing I need to worry about.

  • Decide for yourself (Score:5, Informative)

    by LichtSpektren ( 4201985 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:18PM (#52219751)
    Do you like:

    Then the answer should be obvious.

  • Absolutely (Score:5, Informative)

    by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:33PM (#52219937)

    Yes, if you aren't on a 7" tablet (Windows 8 still works best on a small touchscreen). There are numerous improvements to the kernel under the hood and from a user perspective:
    - It boots way faster.
    - It uses less battery.
    - Command line and powershell are dramatically improved.
    - Bash in Windows is incredibly useful.*
    - God menu on the start menu through right click to directly go to all of the "deep" settings that are hard to get to in Windows 7 like "network Connections".
    - Snap with rescale. If you snap a window to the left. It will automatically ask you what you want to snap to the right. And when you rescale a snapped app of the left it scales the app on the right to fit.
    - Most consumer software is targeting it now as the primary OS for bug fixes and QA.
    - The new Store deployment and update system is far superior to install/uninstall and when I start up a new system I just hit "Download" instead of tracking down installation media etc. I hope that all of my software migrates to the AppX deployment system. Also cross buy is nice when available. I bought my first game that runs on the Xbox and PC.
    - I love being able to get text message notifications on my PC so that I can read texts without getting out my phone. And then even reply.*
    - If you have a touchscreen tablet like a Surface it's nice to be able to mix touch apps with mouse/keyboard apps easily.
    - Cortana is working well. It sucks in flight and package tracking information automatically which is nice from emails.
    - Task bar icons have notifications so my mail app has a little (3) circle right on the taskbar.*
    - Native multiple desktops.
    - Miracast to PC. You can mirror your desktop to another PC's desktop as a window like teamviewer. Handy for presentations if you want to view on your own computer without huddling over their shoulder. *
    - Notification center is just generally nice to finally have on Windows. I look forward though to the summer update when they add universal dismiss so that if I look at an email on my phone it doesn't have the notification at home.
    - Lots of new HyperV functionality.
    - native Photos app supports animated gifs and mp4s and webm.
    - Windows Hello identity management is awesome where it's supported. I only have it on my phone but I want it desperately on my laptop and PC. Death to passwords. You just look at the screen and it unlocks and can (with developer support) even log you into your bank app etc.
    - System wide spell checker.
    - Vastly improved calculator app.
    - Cortana will answer easy questions. "100 cm in inches" right in the task bar.
    - Clock on multiple screens.*
    - Calendar on taskbar has actual events and appointments since it is a real calendar not a generic date/time widget.*
    - Screen capture. Integrated screen/video capture is a hotkey away.
    - You won't have to worry about it unexpectedly upgrading.
    - It's a rather stable development target. I like it as a developer because I know everybody on Windows 10 is on Windows 10 or Windows 10+6months. Mandatory updates means everybody supports the latest APIs within 6 months so it's not horribly fragmented.
    - Updates are super easy. The guy who was playing CS:Go and had his system reboot wasn't upgrading from 7 to 10 he was upgrading from 10 to 10.1 and you can see how relatively painless that process was. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to upgrade to the latest OS with new features. Windows used to take 2-3 years to get a new feature, now they regularly add new things (the summer update is pretty substantial and has a lot of things I already miss not having on my "stable-branch" work machine. They've really streamlined the build and release system so that Windows can be iterated on quickly. I know internally how huge of a deal it can be for development to have a great automatic build and deployment system for accelerating feature development, I'm excited that windows has it now so that Microsoft can focus on add features going forward. It's generally just a new k

  • Yes and no (Score:5, Informative)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @02:37PM (#52219997)
    I upgraded my main PC to it a few weeks ago (after blacklisting a whole bunch of hosts and IPs on my router, and immediately installing Spybot Anti-Beacon after).

    Pros:
    • UI makes more sense than Win 8.1. Less schizophrenia about whether it's a desktop OS or a tablet OS.
    • Games run better. A lot of the microstutters I attributed CPU load spikes or having to read stuff off the SSD are gone.
    • Icon/text scaling with DPI is much improved, though still not perfect.
    • I like the minimalist black and white icons in the notification bar, instead of the horrible color clash it used to be with different apps showing notifications with different colors.
    • They "fixed" the popup stealing focus problem. Now when you're typing a reply on slashdot and a system warning dialog pops up, focus stays with your browser. The dialog no longer disappears an instant after it pops up before you can read it because you happened to hit the space bar an instant after it popped up.
    • If you're used to Unix from the 1990s, Microsoft finally added multiple virtual desktop support.
    • The animated tiles in the Start menu are much less annoying that the full-screen animated tiles in the Win 8 Start menu.

    Cons:

    • The animated tiles are still annoying.
    • Can't turn off updates. Not that big a deal for me since I run most of my apps in a VM running Windows 7 (I got tired of having to reinstall everything every time I upgraded laptops). But could be an issue for small businesses if you're running a mission-critical app, and a forced update breaks it.
    • Certain apps don't make the transition properly, and you may have to reinstall them. Others you can get working again with a few tweaks.
    • File explorer windows now default to quick access instead of library + This PC view. So it's now a two-click operation to actually browse your drives, instead of one-click.
    • It really, really pushes Cortana.
    • Network access is flakier. I'll try to open a network share or web page and sometimes it'll take a few seconds instead of opening instantly like on Win 7/8. Might be because I'm blocking certain hosts, and it's getting confused for a few seconds when it can't phone home to report which URL I'm visiting.
    • Task manager can't seem to remember the "hide when minimized" option even though I set it every time.
    • The popup stealing focus fix causes other problems. If I start a new app, it sometimes doesn't start with focus. I haven't quite figured out the pattern yet. e.g. I'll start a browser and immediately type ctr-l and the URL I wanted to go to, and nothing happens because the browser doesn't have focus. I have to click on it first before I can type ctrl-l and the URL.
    • Edge browser is extremely non-intuitive when changing the defaults (like homepage and search engine). You can't enter it manually. You have to browse to the page you want as your home page or your search engine, then go to the settings and the option to make that page your default shows up.
    • If you use IME to occasionally type in a foreign language, the desired setup is to make IME your default keyboard. That way you can use the right alt key to switch between typing in English and the other language. Unfortunately, they combined the keyboard preference option with the language preference option. If you make IME your default, now all your notifications and apps and even certain language-aware web pages default to the other language instead of English. If you leave the English keyboard as the default, any time you want to type in another language, you first need to click to switch from the English keyboard to the IME keyboard, then switch IME from English to foreign language typing mode. This is a major PITA for those of us who are multi-lingual but prefer everything be in English.

    So yes it's worth upgrading, but no it's not quite ready yet. But you don't have to decide by July 29. You can upgrade to it, and r

  • I was initially a little wary of Windows 10 but when I started using it I was all right with it - for a while. It seemed to be stable, it ran the applications I needed (Pinnacle Studio and PaintShop Pro) and it seemed to be faster than Windows 7. Seemed like a good move for me.

    But then I got a new computer with Windows 10 pre-installed. I thought, "great, now I can move my old computer to Linux like I planned and still run my important applications on the new one." Things were fine, until I realized that I was connected to the network without having entered my network password. And it knew my passwords on various websites that I had accessed with Edge. It knew how to access my bank, my social media - everything. Now, I am not a big fish by any means, but I do not like the idea of my passwords and keys being stashed on a server over which I have zero control.

    Do I believe Microsoft will do Bad Things with that information? No, I don't. It's convenient to have it know what I need for me so I don't have to look it up. But, it's unnerving that they harvested that info without my knowledge. It also is unsettling to think that it's on a network computer somewhere.

    On this basis alone I hesitate to recommend Windows 10.

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