Windows 10, how many have tried it and what do you think?

[MinersLantern]

I found a downloader for Win10 from Microsoft so didnt have to update, wait and make a reservation and all that.

Its supposed to be faster than 7 and 8.. Imo, it was s-l-o-w.. The interface is without style and frankly kinda ugly. Forced updates which you cannot disable. Its loaded with advertising and in constant contact with Microsoft, eating bandwidth.

Frankly,, it still is like 8.x the joy of 'apps' (aka make it look like a telephone).a store app as well.
To play the solitaire game which was included with windows since the extinction of the dinosaurs, now you must watch advertising. To remove the ads, pay money.  lol

Others are not liking it either. Some say, fire everyone, put Bill Gates back in charge.

I tend to think that would be an excellent idea.

And no, it isnt my underpowered pc. This thing is a 4 core I5 running along at 3.4 Ghz with 4 Gig RAM.

It runs win7 at blistering, scary speed.

Win 10... Not so much.

The new browser is good though. 'Edge'. It isnt able to do plugins just yet, but that is on the way. That browser is very, very, fast.

Has anyone else played with this new toy from Microsoft?

[Trestor]

I've had w10 pro for a day, moving from w7 pro. I turned off all sorts of things that I thought would compromise my privacy so I don't have all that advertising. I haven't been able to try cortana yet because I don't have a microphone. Nor have I tried edge because it and chrome don't have the addons that firefox has that makes ff so versatile, so I'm still using that browser. I'm still struggling to find my way around w10 so I'm not yet ready to give up on it, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything any faster that w7; it takes slightly longer to boot; maybe its speed benefits are yet to be seen. I've later added classic shell to make the start section more recognizable, but this may go once I'm more settled in.

For me it's early days and I'll give it a chance to win me over. One thing I don't like is the stark appearance, with no color option in the title bar.

[GhostShip]

I think the Microsoft team are following the old edict "you get what you pay for" 

Theres been a few complaints regarding anti-competition activities already ..

http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/30/pushed-over-the-edge/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_-1363428260561953599#.ntoj83:dXzP

With Edge in Windows 10, Microsoft has finally delivered a capable browser to replace the aging Internet Explorer. Microsoft likes Windows 10 so much, it makes Edge the default browser in Windows 10, even when you’re updating from a system that previously used Chrome or Firefox as the default.

Unsurprisingly, Mozilla is not amused and its CEO Chris Beard today wrote an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to complain that the company is taking away its users’ choices and ignored Mozilla’s calls for keeping the default during the upgrade process.

[White Stripes]

i played with the developer previews in a VM and it looks/acts like a tablet os that happens to run win32/64 programs... the 'apps' are terrible.. crashing at random... the UI apparently hasnt changed if the color option is still absent.... while its free atm it will soon come with a 200$ price tag for the pro version so... 7 it is when i need full windows compatibility for something...

tbh i set my win7 machine to dualboot linux mint and... havent really found a reason to boot back into windows yet...

[GhostShip]

I was poking around the web and noticed this few weeks old article that raises serious privacy concerns using win 10.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/windows-10-spying-how-to-opt-out-of-microsofts-intrusive-terms-of-use-10432300.html

Windows 10 has been well received by users and tech writers alike, but parts of Microsoft's new privacy policy are raising eyebrows due to concerns that they could be 'spying' on what users do.
One excerpt worryingly tells users that "we will access, disclose and preserve personal data", including the contents of emails or files in private folders.
They add that they will do this when they need to comply with law enforcement, prevent spam, maintain the security of their networks, or protect their rights or property.

This site goes over the whole raft of stuff to disable to regain your privacy from MS in its efforts to gather your personal and private data for its own financial interests..

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/30/windows-10-privacy-settings/

[White Stripes]

now im really glad i didnt get win10 ... the OS is supposed to bend to the user.. not the other way round...

[Trestor]

After trying 10 I decided to roll back to 7. I found that the reversal process messed up several things: it changed several of the labels of my folders from what they were so I had to hunt them down and relabel them, and it lost the ability to open MS Office, nor could I reinstall Office when I tried to fix this. In the end I've done a clean install of 7 and am now spending my time reinstalling my customary programs and configurations. A person with more expertize might have avoided this by repairing each problem but that's not me.

If my experience is typical for a roll back to the previous OS then the lesson here seems to be to first create a back up of the old OS before trying 10, and then don't use the roll back but do a clean install from the back up if you want to avoid this unnecessary grief.

[MinersLantern]

I saw some horror stories a couple nights ago by people who had a stable win8 system, tried the upgrade to 10. Didnt like it and attempted to do the rollback.

The rollback didnt work properly and they had to do a virgin install of win7 to get the pc to boot again.

The OS of win8, which I guess they upgraded to from their original win7, was gone.

Since they only had the original dvd and key for win7. They were stuck with that.

I lost faith in any type of 'rollback' ideas from microsoft since they invented the idea. (on XP, I think)

It usually doesnt work completely. Once I tried some software on a new laptop with win7 and expected that they had fixed the rollback problem by that time. Nope. I didnt like the software and went to rollback. Ended up with a pc that booted to BSOD.

Its better to simply image the entire drive, bit for bit, using something else like clonezilla.

If you want to restore the drive, in exact detail, clonezilla will do that for you. Compresses the data too so that you need around 1/2 the space to store the image files to whatever location, even over the network or to a thumbdrive.

So now after this win10 experiment, my win7 is back as it always was, settings, updates, software and everything else. I like to try new things a lot. If I dislike it, can restore the entire thing in around 6 minutes that way.

[MinersLantern]

Clonezilla is so good at this that its wonderful for things like when you buy a new larger drive and dont want to rebuild the entire OS, you simply restore the old small drive to the new big drive.

Everything is as it was before, including the size of the original drive. You dont have access to the rest of the new drive. Its an exact copy in every possible way. So run the free version of partition magic and resize the partition.

Then its as it always was before, but also is now able to use the entire new big drive.

Clonezilla, even though its Linux, is a lifesaver and works perfectly every time.

[Trestor]

I ended up with a clean install of w7, as I said above, which was good for a day until the boot up started telling me that magcore.dll was missing from my arcsoft, but since I don't have arcsoft it must have been a problem with another prog that uses that dll that I must have uninstalled the day before. I googled this but nothing seems to remedy it over the years this problem has existed. Everything seems to work alright but being fussy I may have to rebuild the OS again. Then I may try saving on clonezilla as suggested, since windows backup always fails part way through the save.

[White Stripes]

magcore.dll was missing from my arcsoft, but since I don't have arcsoft it must have been a problem with another prog that uses that dll that I must have uninstalled the day before

 .dll problems can usually be fixed with ccleaners registry cleaner... if the .dll isnt there it will remove the reference to it...


.....after these horror stories im glad i tried win10 in a VM....

[Trestor]

Yeah, I tried ccleaner after I wrote my post but it didn't resolve the problem, so I guess there is still a prog in the computer that uses the same dlls in common, which seem to be stored outside the program folder. I did obtain a copy of the file and pasted it into windows, but now the boot up says a different dll is missing.
I've been through this nonsense before;  I can add dlls but it will keep coming up with more that need to be found. My guess is that there was a prog I put in initially but removed soon after, which took all these dlls with it. At present I'll either put up with the notification at boot up or end up installing w7 again and hope to avoid repeating the problem.

I should add that there is a program produced by a MS Certified Partner which is supposed to fix such dll problems, for a price. Seems to me that MS should have made a remedy freely available for something that seems to happen to a lot of people.

[White Stripes]

https://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/14343.aspx

unregister each one it asks for.. if your next step is to reinstall it couldnt hurt to try... also try logging out then back in before rebooting to get the next one it wants...

[GhostShip]

More trouble...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/17/windows-10-safedisc-securom-drm/

Windows 10 won’t run games that employ SafeDisc or certain versions of Securom DRM, rendering hundreds of old disc-based games potentially unplayable without complex workarounds. Games which used these forms of DRM range from Crimson Skies to Grand Theft Auto 3, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 to the original The Sims. Yet despite this change coming in Windows 10, blame can’t likely be placed at Microsoft’s feet. For one, SafeDisc is notoriously insecure and Microsoft’s decision to block it from their new operating system will likely protect more users than it hurts.

As always security concerns need to be respected but its just a shame that MS havent created some kind of virtual mode to allow for folks to use their older CD based materials in a safe way, its not like they cant write such software or lack staff to undertake such work..

[Bearded Blunder]

I've tried W10, it's not so bad, way nicer than 8 / 8.1.
The spying can be mitigated, spybot-anti-beacon seems to have a decent rep. I at least trust the company producing that.
The "forced" updating can be made somewhat less forced in pro versions by visiting the group policy editor and making a few tweaks.
I've been badgered for the past week to update flash player.. and not done so (or done any browsing), and am still up and running, come when I decide to reboot I suppose I'll be forced, frankly I'd rather remove flash, but *shrug* they built it into edge.

On the whole though 10 is or at least seems viable.

[dapperwin]

just purchased a used w10 pc with a clean install, and spent an hour tweaking the settings. the area I haven't been able to find any info on is this. In settings/privacy/feedback diagnostics/diagnostics and usage data, there are 3 choices-I chose 'basic'. I clicked the  link just below the choice and read this--paraphrasing..
"Basic sends data that is vital to the operation of Windows.
 Basic data consists of:

 The software (including drivers and firmware supplied by device manufacturers), installed on the device.

Network and connection data, such as the device's IP address

Other hardware devices connected to the device."

So, can I conclude from this, microsoft will be aware of any software, incl. winmx, or other p2p software, and have my IP address?
to my knowledge w7 was not this intrusive.

Thanks!