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Ask Slashdot: Would You Recommend Updating To Windows 10?
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?
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?
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.
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.
If you have a touchpad, then yes.
If you have a desktop, then no. It's not really suited as a desktop OS.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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!
i could live a little longer in this prison
I would really like to inject false information into the telemetry instead, wild and crazy enough to mess up things completely and render the telemetry useless.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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!
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
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:
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.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
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?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
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.
It People should get over their OS obsession and focus on doing some actual work.
I haven't obsessed over an OS since I installed Linux years and years ago; that decision enabled me to focus on actual work.
From what I've seen of Windows 10 the whole thing is just designed to wrestle search results, etc., away from Google.
Pretty soon it will download an update to emulate all of Apple's iTunes/app store and constantly nag you to use it.
Add some constantly dancing monkeys in the start menu, MSN news feed as your desktop background, and that will be your entire Windows 10 experience.
No sig today...
Take note? You mean, like, look at my own systems? I run more than a handful of Linux systems, personally. Also OSX and Windows for software that doesn't exist on other platforms; when working in an industry that uses standardized software, you run that software, which means you run the platform that software expects. No, WINE does not work for everything.
The complaint I keep seeing is not that the information is sent, but that we can't see what information is sent. There are two solutions to that problem:
A) Send the information in plaintext. Of course, then (as I already mentioned), people will complain that the data is being sent in plaintext.
or
B) Store a plaintext log of the telemetry data for the user to review. Of course, then, people will point out that, because it's sent over an encrypted connection, there is no way to verify what's actually being sent.
For examples of (B) in the FOSS community, look at the crash reporting used by Firefox and Ubuntu. Yes, Ubuntu, the entire distribution. Sure, they show you what they're supposedly sending, if you're interested to look, but the data is sent over an encrypted connection so, well, unless you compiled it from source (using a trusted compiler you also wrote yourself) from code you've fully reviewed, you're putting your trust in whoever provided the binaries, compiler, and/or source code.
So, you choose to trust a platform vendor serving thousands or millions of systems and collecting a much smaller amount of data (easier to sift through) rather than a vendor serving billions of systems and collecting a much larger amount of data (more difficult, to the point of impossibility, to sift through). You're still giving up telemetry data to your vendor and you're still relying on trust. The tradeoff you make is that you can't reliably deal with graphic designers (who use Adobe tools as a standard) and video production studios (who use Adobe, Apple, Sony, and Lightworks software as standards), nor can you sell well-tested software for Windows or OS X. Of course, if you don't need to work with designers or video studios and you don't sell software, yeah, Linux can be a workable desktop solution; and yes, that covers a rather large portion of the population. However, it also fails to cover the majority of high-paying professions.That's why people with money use Windows and/or OS X; not because they can afford to use them, but because they can't afford not to.
Careful you don't fall off that high horse, friend, you seem to be losing your grip.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Would you recommend using this too?:
https://www.safer-networking.o...
Yes. I upgraded all of my systems and my parent system to Windows 10 and used the Spybot tool to enable all of the privacy settings. While this may not completely shut down all telemetry, it does disable the most troubling pieces. The rest, as I understand it, is OS information on errors, etc., used to fix bugs and improve the product.
As for whether Windows 10 is an improvement, it has better support for SSD and instant on, it has Direct X 12 support, and it supports all of the newer processors coming from Intel. In fact, if you need to run windows on new hardware (Kaby Lake processors and later), you will have to install Windows 10. Windows 7 is no longer supported.
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.
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!!"
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...
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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.
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