Windows 10 reviews

[UntrainedObserver]

I just ordered a new tower workstation from HP. Interestingly, it comes with a free optional downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 7.

Grant Hutchison

As far as I know (at least here in Italy), practically no big corporate reality uses Windows 8 or (gods forbid ) Windows 10: they're all on 7. It's not a surprise that a professional grade workstation comes with a downgrade option...

[grant hutchison]

As far as I know (at least here in Italy), practically no big corporate reality uses Windows 8 or (gods forbid ) Windows 10: they're all on 7. It's not a surprise that a professional grade workstation comes with a downgrade option...

Yes, that was the reason I browsed their "business" computers rather than the "home" section. The machine comes with both Windows 7 and Windows 10, and you can use either. It was the fact that something called "downgrade rights" exists for Windows 10 that I found interesting.

Grant Hutchison

[Glom]

My university has just upgraded all its machines to Windows 10 (well the one I used, but I presume it's not unique).

[Extravoice]

My employer announced an intention to upgrade all our machines to Win 10 at some point in the not-too-distant future.

For home use, I'd consider Win 10 for a new machine, but not to upgrade an existing one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[schlaugh]

On an offbeat but related note, I heard this poem the other day on NPR as read by Garrison Keillor:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...uardianreview8

Clive James
Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

(click link above for the remainder)

[grant hutchison]

Yay. I have persuaded my new machine to double-boot in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, with both of them running XP under VirtualBox. It's a sort of one-man-band protest against Windows 10.

Grant Hutchison

[Strange]

The latest Windows 10 update has changed the UI significantly. Almost as much as the change from 8 to 8.1, or from 8.1 to 10.

I'm not sure it is an improvement this time, though.

[Solfe]

My wife now has a Windows 10 machine. While she likes the fact that she can use iTunes, the whole thing is balky that she only uses it for that one function. I asked her if she wanted Linux on it and she said "No."

Today she asked if I had a Linux disk around. I know what I am doing next week.

[CJSF]

Meanwhile: still cruising happily with Win 10 on 2 machines. After the last update, I do agree the (in my opinion subtle) changes to the Start menu are a little unnecessary, but not unworkable. Maybe my seeming lack of issues stems from the fact that I never use it in "tablet" mode?

CJSF

[bknight]

Meanwhile: still cruising happily with Win 10 on 2 machines. After the last update, I do agree the (in my opinion subtle) changes to the Start menu are a little unnecessary, but not unworkable. Maybe my seeming lack of issues stems from the fact that I never use it in "tablet" mode?

CJSF

Well I'm still cruising in Win 7 with no problems and no issues, after I deleted the Win 10 "Upgrade". Good luck to you, I suspect Win 10 may be a good platform after they work out the bugs. I have in the past never upgraded, until forced or at a minimum of one year after the initial release. In this case it may be 2-3 years.

[swampyankee]

Windows 10 perpetuates Microsoft's worst offense: stupid and worthless apps that can't be disabled.

I don't use IE because there is no ad-blocking, and Edge has the same flaw.

And Cortana is just a completely stupid waste of RAM and hard drive space.

[pzkpfw]

Spent some time on the weekend messing with my fathers' PC.

Very very slow internet (which I was able to convince the ISP was an external/wiring issue, and a cabling tech is visiting today or tomorrow).

What made it worse was Windows trying to download the anniversary update; what little bandwidth was available was getting chewed up.

Temporarily disabling Update (to re-enable in a few days once the connection is fixed) was harder than it should have been; when they build the consumer friendly U.I.'s for the OS, they don't seem to take into account the odd situations the Real World brings up.

i.e I get why it's a good thing for updates to just be automatic and no-touch for most consumers, but it shouldn't be so awkward to choose to (temporarily) disable if that's what you want to do.

Ironically, the anniversary update does apparently add some new controls over updates.

[Strange]

Ironically, the anniversary update does apparently add some new controls over updates.

It seems to have removed the ability to turn off automatic reboots. After twice losing work to that I had to find out how to force it not to happen - which seems to involve disabling scheduled tasks and changing permissions on executables so that the system can't re-enable them. Insane. (Luckily, it is only my work computer so I don't really care!)

[bknight]

It seems to have removed the ability to turn off automatic reboots. After twice losing work to that I had to find out how to force it not to happen - which seems to involve disabling scheduled tasks and changing permissions on executables so that the system can't re-enable them. Insane. (Luckily, it is only my work computer so I don't really care!)

What commands/dll's/did you change to prevent the automatic re-boot? what changes did you make to the pertinent apps?

[Strange]

I followed the instructions on a page like this one: https://techjourney.net/permanently-...in-windows-10/
(Not sure if it actually was that one or not.)

Of course, I won't know if it works or not unless it doesn't and I find it has rebooted overnight again.

Microsoft have a thing called "active hours" which you can use to specify that the PC shouldn't be rebooted during the day. It doesn't help if the PC is in use 24 hours a day. Which must be a fairly common usage model, surely?

[Solfe]

Ok, here is an odd thing with Windows 10, and its a positive. I bought a new wireless router and my HP printer refused to connect to it. Nothing I did made a difference, I couldn't print wirelessly anymore. I've been using a ethernet cable to connect the router and printer which worked.

I got my wife a Windows 10 laptop, connected it to the printer with a cable figuring I'd need to install something... and the printer connected itself to the wi-fi router. I didn't install anything. !EVERYTHING! can now print wirelessly. Linux computers (three different flavors), old macs with goofy drivers, the Windows 10 machine, and my chromebook.

I don't get it. Weird.

[DonM435]

We've come a long way, now with computers than can mess themselves up even when you leave them alone.

[Jim]

We've come a long way, now with computers than can mess themselves up even when you leave them alone.

Are you saying we're very close to a truly human-mimicking AI?

[ozduck]

Overnight update of Win 10 killed Google Chrome. Had to reload it via Microsoft Edge. I am sure it was just an honest mistake.

[Solfe]

When I use my wife's Windows 10 computer, I have to sit on my hands while waiting for it to do whatever I asked it to do. If my hands were free during those 3 minutes it takes to do anything and everything, I would throw that piece of crap against the wall.

I have a Linux disc waiting for that sucker. I have all the justification I need, I simply need the wife's approval.

[bknight]

When I use my wife's Windows 10 computer, I have to sit on my hands while waiting for it to do whatever I asked it to do. If my hands were free during those 3 minutes it takes to do anything and everything, I would throw that piece of crap against the wall.

I have a Linux disc waiting for that sucker. I have all the justification I need, I simply need the wife's approval.

What does Linux do differently that you would install it? The last Linux machine I used was about 18-20 yrs. ago.

[bknight]

A slight thread hi-jack, but all in all in the vein of MS's attempts to change/control how we do our day to day internet usage.
This morning I had a couple of internet security updates. What a disaster, at least in the near term. Every favorite link was more or less deleted, not the link itself but the information in the linkage. For example I have this website bookmarked, to automatically sign me in, but I had to manually sign in twice today, but that appears to be not an issue after the second sign-in. All the rest of my bookmarks had the same issue. There is another issue to complicated to write about in a few words that one is still in force.

[pzkpfw]

Which browser are you using?

[bknight]

which browser are you using?

i.e. 11.

[bknight]

Since the lap has been turned off and on again this morning, most of the issues have gone away, thankfully.

[Solfe]

What does Linux do differently that you would install it? The last Linux machine I used was about 18-20 yrs. ago.

It would work.

I should take a video of this machine from boot to the opening of a browser window. It's a maddening series of glitches, blinks and false starts followed by closing out everything that opened that I didn't want because the click lagged someplace unexpected. Typically, we boot the machine and walk away for about 10 minutes. After that time, it seems to be ready to go. We have installed exactly one piece of software - iTunes. This thing has an SSD drive. It shouldn't take that long.

[akeley]

Typically, we boot the machine and walk away for about 10 minutes. After that time, it seems to be ready to go.

I`ve never used Win10 and it`s unlikely I ever will, seeing as I`m totally against the privacy intrusion and whole "as a service" model.

However I find it hard to believe that so long after the release this system would be so botched as to take 10 minutes to load on a clean install. From my personal and professional experience, the fault in such cases usually lies with the user - even when you think, as I did zillion times, that everything with my setup is just fine - only to find some option/hardware config that affected the problem on closer inspection.

So I recommend thoroughly checking it all again, painful as it sounds (nobody has a spare afternoon to devote to Win-fighting, I know).

I also recommend downgrading to Win 8.1 - it`s the best Win ever, and I doubt there`s anything in 10 - baring DX12, and that`s only if you want to play few games with marginal benefits - that you will miss.

[Solfe]

I`ve never used Win10 and it`s unlikely I ever will, seeing as I`m totally against the privacy intrusion and whole "as a service" model.

However I find it hard to believe that so long after the release this system would be so botched as to take 10 minutes to load on a clean install. From my personal and professional experience, the fault in such cases usually lies with the user - even when you think, as I did zillion times, that everything with my setup is just fine - only to find some option/hardware config that affected the problem on closer inspection.

So I recommend thoroughly checking it all again, painful as it sounds (nobody has a spare afternoon to devote to Win-fighting, I know).

I also recommend downgrading to Win 8.1 - it`s the best Win ever, and I doubt there`s anything in 10 - baring DX12, and that`s only if you want to play few games with marginal benefits - that you will miss.

It's not user error*. Aside from installing iTunes and adjusting some minor settings, which revert anyway, it's been like this out of the box.

Why would I spend an afternoon checking settings that refuse to stay set when I can spend a hour installing an OS that is known to work?

*I can guarantee "not user error". I have a computer testing lab in my basement. It isn't the shadow of what it used to be, but I basically have one of everything from Win95 to Win7 and Mac OS's up to 10.4. Dedicated as in one hardware set per OS. Its not a virtual lab. There are dozens of machines.

I've cut way back at my wife's request. Seven years ago, I promised less than 20 computers not counting tablets, Palm devices and phones. It some point, I goofed and now have more than 24 machines, possibly a lot more. Too much stuff to count. (Not counting a dozen tablets and phones and such.)

As I clean up my basement, I plan on making a software studio and posting pictures online. It is vaguely impressive.

[Bearded One]

I followed the instructions on a page like this one: https://techjourney.net/permanently-...in-windows-10/
(Not sure if it actually was that one or not.)

Of course, I won't know if it works or not unless it doesn't and I find it has rebooted overnight again.

Microsoft have a thing called "active hours" which you can use to specify that the PC shouldn't be rebooted during the day. It doesn't help if the PC is in use 24 hours a day. Which must be a fairly common usage model, surely?

I've just been disabling the update service on the machines that I can't allow to reboot on their own. When I want to apply update I just re-enable the service and check for updates.

[orionjim]

It's not user error*. Aside from installing iTunes and adjusting some minor settings, which revert anyway, it's been like this out of the box.
...

The problem looks like iTunes. If you do a search for iTunes on Windows 10 you will see many people with the same problem.

Here are a couple sites that might help:

https://tunesgo.wondershare.com/itun...ow-itunes.html

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

Jim