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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?
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.
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.
It hosed my Win7 machine. YMMV
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.
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.
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.
At home I have 2 machines running it, both in the Insider Program, one on slow the other on fast rings. I have had only minor issues like my live tiles disappearing. I think for most people for home use it's fine. At the enterprise I am not upgrading anyone and will instead phase in new machines when we buy new ones before the 2020 windows 7 EOL. I tell people if they are running Windows XP or Vista then it's time for a new system. If they are running Windows 7 and intend to replace the machine before 2020 then there is no pressure to upgrade. Block the install of Windows 10 with Never 10 is the easiest way to not get Windows 10 but still get security updates.If they are on Windows 8 then it's worth upgrading.
In fact, prepare for nothing useful.
That pretty much sums up your entire post.
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.
Let's ignore all the under-the-hood badness of Windows 10. Here are the reasons to stick with Win7:
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?
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.
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
...Yes the HARDCORE FOLKS will cry "SECURITY! MALWARE! INVASION OF PRIVACY!!11!" and more nonsense. The average person who asks me if they should upgrade I say yes....
When I have been asked by "average persons" about the upgrade, I explain the data harvesting that Microsoft will be doing to them and their family. These are not the HARDCORE FOLKS you seem to look down upon, but regular computer users. I showed them Microsoft's comments on the data that are being harvested. I did not add my opinion, I just showed them what Microsoft was saying about the data harvesting.
.
So far, not one has said they wanted to go forward with the Windows 10 installation.
...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.
-Styopa
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
It's not "nonsense. The auto-upgrade is, at best, a breach of trust, at worst an unethical upgrade to a customer's system.
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.
the integrated video recording is WORSE than useless. the bitrate is so terrible (even at its highest quality setting) that the video is completely unusable. literally every other solution i've tried, including free ones like Bandicam, and the free one that came bundled with my video card, do the job far, far better.
i could live a little longer in this prison
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.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The problem is people THINK their data is safe and secure. Almost sounds better to have an XBox or Valve Linux box. you KNOW a corporation is accessing your data and act accordingly. Windows 10 is a wolf in sheep clothing.even if you are strictly using it for gaming. I wouldn't be surprised is MS starting installing sniffers to get data from other (potentially work related) computers on your network and sending that to MS as well. Since MS has demonstrated the ability and willingness to add/disable feature according to their profit/political agenda, anything is possible with a system with shown to add radical "ad injectors" or disable the ability to turn off data collectors you could before.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
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.
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.
Breakfast served all day!
Not always more features, those running Media Center Edition are gravely hosed.
Microsoft OS upgrades have rarely worked well, a fresh install is usually a lot better and more stable.
Uploading files to the cloud - so that everyone can grab them as soon as the cloud service is hacked.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Then the answer should be obvious.
For us running Cygwin that's hardly a motive to transit to Windows 10.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
To be fair, you're replying to an AC, so "nothing useful" should be the expected norm. That said, his point over "concerns" seems valid. I've certainly seen people complain that they can't see the contents of the telemetry because it's all sent over secure connections. Of course, if it was sent in the clear, these same people would complain about that, so...
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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!
Gee, you'd almost think there was a difference between the operating system on my computer and a third-party website I don't have to use.
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
To be fair, you're replying to an AC, so "nothing useful" should be the expected norm. That said, his point over "concerns" seems valid. I've certainly seen people complain that they can't see the contents of the telemetry because it's all sent over secure connections. Of course, if it was sent in the clear, these same people would complain about that, so...
Do you not think it ridiculous that you have to play guessing games as to what of your personal information is being transmitted to the 107 domains that Windows 10 connects to whenever you do anything?
Instead of dismissing the people concerned about spyware by saying 'nothing will please the complainers', why don't you take note of the fact that millions of people use FOSS every day because they DON'T want to be spied on? The fact that Microsoft's clients and subsidiaries are getting their surveillance over a secure connection does nothing to sway us.
And what/who is compelling you to use Windows products when Linux for the desktop is free and Mac OS is out there if you want to pay for it?
Pros:
Cons:
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.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Just don't expect peak performance from any DirectX 9 games...
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
A friend's Dell that uses bluetooth for everything was hosed beyond repair, because it killed the keyboard and mouse functionality even in the bios. He closed the popup for weeks and was caught by the latest "update" that made the red X mean "yes, please fubar my box."
Telemetry? Canonical, Redhat and others have been collecting telemetry on various issues for years. However, Microsoft is a closed box - so you really believe telemetry data from a corporation that is opaque and has already agreed to aid law enforcement by essentially fishing for untoward activities, is not a big deal? This is literally allowing LEA an open window into your home.
How's that for FUD? Facts, Uncertainty, and a Dubious product.
Gee, you'd almost think there was a difference between the operating system on my computer and a third-party website I don't have to use.
You think Google and Facebook only track when you're visiting their websites?
When I have been asked by "average persons" about the upgrade, I explain the data harvesting that Microsoft will be doing to them and their family.
And depending on how you ask this question, the answer will be what YOU want it to be. The "data harvesting" is well documented and is on the same level as Facebook, Google, DuckDuckGo, etc. This telemetry has been common place in software since XP (at least). Any "user experience" reporting, crash feedback, or online knowledge base/help system is gathering the same data that Windows 10 is.
You seem to be a little misinformed. DuckDuckGo advertises itself as "The search engine that doesn't track you. Learn More."
Telemetry may be common, but not by an Operating System. Users can easily choose not to use Facebook or Google. Choosing a different operating system, however, is much more complex.
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.
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.
GWX is the first in a long line of insults and privacy breaches. I no longer trust MacroShit.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
If I start detecting scans from the windows box doing things it should not, you'll certainly hear about it. I don't think even Microsoft would do something so blatant, and wind up in the news as installing what would effectively be a bot-net on windows 10 machines.
I don't know anymore what people feel is blatant. The search feature designed explicitly to force anything you look for on your computer to be leaked to Microsoft?
The fact default telemetry settings allow Microsoft to take whatever data they want from your computer whenever they want without your knowledge or permission as described by Microsoft? There is an honest to god remote access Trojan installed with Windows 10. Does this count?
What does Microsoft need to do to piss you off?
Apple treats people like shit.
Apples is the least open and least compatible, even failing to work with earlier versions of products they made.
If you want openness, use Linux. Fedora, CentOS and Ubuntu are great.
If you want an OS that is most compatible with hardware and software, use Windows.
If you want to "feel cool" while paying a premium, then buy Apple.
Respect the Constitution
Prepare for chicken little "spyware" comments when describing simple telemetry. Prepare for "concerns" that you can't inspect the telemetry due to the use of *gasp* secured connections.
Oh, and prepare for adware comments because they might dare suggest an app you might install from the store.
In fact, prepare for nothing useful. Only FUD.
1/ I bought and paid for MY computer. I NOT Microsoft get to decide what if any "telemetry" gets sent.
2/ I value my privacy so NO telemetry get sent.
3/ Microsoft can get fucked.
It is called "putting lipstick on a pig". When you get down to it all M$ ever does is put new window dressing on the same rotten core, move things around a bit, and resell it. Very little ever actually improves. In fact, just as often things get worse instead, e.g a feature is removed. The only real exception is probably DirectX, and of course drivers which have to be constantly updated b/c there are too few good standards and peripheral makes can't stand using the same part for more the three months b/c it might cost them a penny more.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Had Win 8.1 on this laptop for a good year and a half before I got tricked into the Win10 update. Win 8.1 was solid has hell once I de-metro'd it. Win10 is flakey as hell. Move a window, release the wrong button first, window goes full screen. My taskbar currently shows I'm in airplane mode even though my wifi works fine (it also shows airplane mode when I put it in airplane mode). Sometimes I have to disable the firewall to print wirelessly. The fingerprint reader takes a dump every 2-3 days, requiring a reboot to get it back. Uptime is less than a week due to either an update or something important like explorer crashes. It will update/reboot in the middle of the night, when the laptop is closed.
PS 1: Not I never mentioned the telemetry BS. It's a lot of work keeping that crap turned off.
PS 2: The update/reboot in the middle of the night with the laptop closed is the real deal killer for me. Microsoft. You don't know what the fuck I'm doing. You do not reboot my machine without an explicit "Yeah, you can reboot now" from me. None of this scheduling bullshit. When you want to reboot put an icon in my taskbar to remind me, I'll reboot when I'm not running something that takes 3 days to finish, or am not in the middle of having 4 tabs in a web browser, a spreadsheet open, and an editor open where I'm actually writing something.
PS 3: Yes, I mean I got tricked into the upgrade. I clicked on a "Yes" box, but between the time my brain said "Yes" and my finger clicked the mouse button the dreaded "Pssst, hey bud. Wanna try Win10?", with that nasty window grabbing my mouse focus. Once it started I was afraid to stop it.
Linux and OS X are "grossly unstable" ? Is this a joke? There are certainly lots of problems with Linux, but as soon as you call it unstable we all just snicker at you and stop reading.
I am not a shill, nor is Win10 my favorite OS but it has been stable and on my dell studio 17 laptop both the sleep and hibernation functions are stable and useful for the first time in several years. I would not recommend a casual upgrade though. I upgraded more from curiosity than any other reason and I had no critical apps that had to continue to function. There are several needless moves of features from here to there, but also some kind of cool things added in the mix. I'd recommend you look into taking full control of the update process as well which required some research, but nothing beyond anyone who can handle configuring a Linux desktop. The biggest downside is M$ Edge which is just plain awful, but you can expose IE11 which is functional if not good. I still have and regularly use several varieties of OS's which all have their strong points. My philosophy is the best tool for the job at hand regardless of the manufacturer, and oddly enough the only OS I don't find a compelling use for is OSX.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Android doesn't advertise towards me all the time. I've only seen one ad in the last month that I recall. Of course I'm not loading up hundreds of apps either and have disabled a lot of features.
Who wants a unified OS where the same applications on the desktop are on the phone? What masses? It's a stupid idea and I've rarely heard anyone say that they want it (ok, they want to see Word or PDF docs on the phone, but they don't say they want exactly the same application to do it as on the desktop). Reminds me of when a boss of mine was bragging that he had a new HP PDA that ran Office and was showing it around and telling us that we should dump our palm pilots. Then a month later he recanted and called the PDA a waste of money because it was so painful to use Office on it. A desktop application is not at all suitable for a hand held device. And besides The Microsoft "universal" applications are not universal as they won't run on anything that's not Microsoft, and their Windows phone business is essentially dead.
A person does not have to be a shill to simply have a rational look at an OS and see that a whole lot of the bullshit being spread around the internet about it is just nonsense. Also, spouting away about shills every time you see somebody say "hey windows 10 is ok", makes you look a little silly.
My desk at home is crowded with my windows 10 PC, a Linux box and a FreeBSD system. I expect that quite a few ./ people (the older and experienced portion maybe) have more than one operating system in use in their daily lives, and are not scared of experimenting and trying things out. These people are quite capable of comparing Gnome 3 with Windows 10 and saying what they think. Stop wanking away about "shills" every time you see a statement you don't like on here.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
Every time I read a comment like this on Slashdot I take a little step closer to never coming back. Anyone that doesn't blindly and irrationally hate Microsoft must be a shill, because hey, "if someone thinks differently from me, they must be paid to do so or stupid". Yes. Because only your opinion is valid. All other opinions must be wrong, because, after all, they're not your opinion. And that's all that matters.
Fortunately, I occasionally remember despite the large number of comments like this, here, individuals don't really represent the group.
What would you call some one who says OS X lacks features compared to Windows? Or that either Linux or OS X are unstable? Maybe just insane then.
If somebody thinks OS X lacks features, then obviously that person looks for specific features in an OS which they did not find. Maybe they look for different things than you do.
As for unstable, that is terribly subjective; was the person using Linux in a development mode? Did they try to configure and compile everything or install a clean ready-to-run distro? I have had my share of unstable and crashing Linux boxes over the years, it's not unheard of. Nowdays I stick with a distro release classed as "stable" for my main desktop, but maybe run up a fresh testing release in a VM when I have the need to play with it. There are so many options that yes, you can have a bad experience with Linux. Your choice if you wave your hands in the air and proclaim the entire Linux range to be broken, or shrug your shoulders and try a different distro to see if you have an easier time with it.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
Linux desktop setups shit themselves after a year or two of light use and need a reinstall.
Anecdotal, of course, but I kept the same install of Linux (with an in-place version upgrade) for at least 4 years of heavy daily use for the purposes of my main work. In my experience, hardware upgrades generally happen before you actually need to reinstall the OS. And hey - if you're not upgrading the disk, you can usually just plunk it in a new machine and it just works - unlike Windows which just flat out won't work (and even if it worked, say you put it in identical hardware, it will demand to be re-activated shortly after).
I did try and upgrade Ubuntu to the latest version recently and it shit the bed and ruined my OS partition. But you know what? I keep a separate home partition, a swift reinstall later, and everything worked again, and any program I installed kept all the settings I had for it before. If I was so inclined, I could reinstall the vast majority of the software I use with one command - but I tend to just reinstall it the first time I need to use it again, to cull the number of things I have installed a little.
I was back up and running in a working condition with the latest updates within 20 minutes.
OS reinstall on Windows? Enjoy wasting 2 days, minimum, reinstalling, downloading drivers, rebooting, installing software, rebooting, locating license keys, rebooting, swearing because you can't find the license keys or the number of online activations you had has expired, rebooting and then doing Windows Update, waiting several hours for the updates to apply, with a few reboots thrown in for good measure. And then, reconfiguring everything because all the settings are kept in the registry and you can't restore a registry, reducing your efficiency for another few days as you finally shake out all the kinks.
Linux is way more stable than windows on my laptop, for any purpose.
Yeah, my iPad is way more stable than windows too.
But I still use Windows on my Laptop, because iOS, just like Linux, is totally useless for doing any real work.
https://pics.onsizzle.com/yes-...
I use Windows 10 at work and on my mom's PC. Personally though I have an Android phone and a old HP running LM17.2 at home as my primary devices. At work there is alot of tweaking we do with Enterprise Windows 10 which has made it overall a great tool that is already being deployed even if it hasn't gotten the royal seal of approval. Most users will have Windows 10 Home which is what my mom has, I actually cloned Windows 7 to a new hard drive and stuck it in a newer Dell(I'm running the old HP) and with very little effort got it running. I'm a little foggy since this was around October or so. A couple weeks after the transfer I ran the Windows 10 upgrade over night. There were no hiccups, I think I was asked for a Microsoft login but there was a camouflaged skip icon in the corner. After that all the files showed up were they were suppose to be, the account was configured properly. The main difference was missing launchers in the task bar and what at the time was an oversized but relatively ad free menu. Everything went smooth except Cisco Anyconnect which broke like a couple weeks later. It took a combined 3-4 hours of work over a week to work it out but ultimately it was just cleaning the system out with CCleaner, a reinstall of the newest client, and the special settings of her IT group. I had some complaints the first couple days about how it looked but after that she found it easy and comfortable to use, which is really what counts. I installed one of my copies of Office365 from work and she has loved how smooth office is. All of her work is in Chrome, Outlook, Office, and RDP through her VPN and all of those work great so from a regular user standpoint it's a success. In my experience with Windows 10 Home I'm overall impressed. My complaints are the features missing in Home Edition(can't really fix that for free) and junk ads for apps in the start Menu. In the Enterprise version I use at work I honestly have no complaints other then missing features for the Virtual Desktop. I'm not going to go out and buy a new PC with Windows 10 but I still have to say it's intuitive and easy to use if you have to have Windows. Features I love are: The overall theme which is in my opinion smooth and colorful, Virtual Desktops(Finally!), and the way they integrated the look of Windows 8 with the intuitiveness of Windows 7 and even made things easier to use. Yes I still don't care for PowerShell and CMD but for me it's the End-user Experience I'm concerned about. Windows 10 still has alot of features and power under the hood for Admins and I like that since I use it to do tech support but the only thing it did was make the tools flashier. For most scenarios and most End-users I think the upgrade is worth it overall and is an easy transition for the non-tech savvy
I've had more crashes on my OS X machine at work than I have with my Win 8 machine at home. I doubt that's representative of the general experience, but - for me - Windows has been more stable. I also really like the Win-# to switch to specific applications, and the snap to half size feature that Windows has. Small things, sure, and OS X has its own advantages, but there are some features Windows has that OS X doesn't.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.