Had it with Windows...

[Rich Engelhardt]

I don't understand when people say the Win 10 upgrade was "forced" on them.

Let me clarify that a bit.
Yes - I did do the "upgrade" from Win 7 to Win 10.
My reasoning was this - Win 7 has been out long enough that I'm probably going to outlive it. OTOH, Win 10 has a good shot at outliving me.
Sort of a lame reason, but, after spending ~ 22 years in the computer/IT field, I know how screwed you can get if you get too far behind in the "upgrade" department.

Anyhow - when I did the Win 10 upgrade, there was no mention of the fact that all Windows updates would now be mandatory and you had no way to turn them off.

I'd just bought a new waterproof MP3 player to take to the pool with me every morning & after messing around with it for a bit, I got the Win 10 to see it when I plugged it in and I transferred some MP3 files to it.
That was the other day.
Later that night, Microsoft pushed down some mandatory new build of Windows 10 & when I got up in the morning, I was greeted with a screen that said 91% finished with updates, don't turn off your PC.

When my PC finished it's update, none of the USB devices worked & I had some .Net 3.5 error message and a bunch of other problems.
I uninstalled the update and went for my morning swim.....
When I returned, my laptop's screen said "91% finished with updates, don't turn off your PC"...grrrrrr.....the stupid thing updated itself all over again.

So - while I had the option to upgrade to Win 10 or not, once done, you lose the ability to turn off updates & Microsoft has a very, very, very, very poor track record of putting out stable and working updates.

Anyhow - my current laptop is six years old & the motherboard has been blinking out every now and then. It's time for a new laptop & it's time to say good bye to Microsoft and Windows.

[Greg R Bradley]

If you worked in IT, I'm amazed you would "upgrade" from Win7 to Win10. You didn't fall for the Win8 debacle, why run Win10? I'd just go back to Win7 and keep running it. If you eventually are forced to Win10, buy a new computer with it installed.

My recent high end HP Workstation ships with Win7 pro installed like almost all high end computers. The new one I installed last weekend at a customer did also. I'm reluctantly installing Win10 for a customer today where that user was naive enough to have ordered a Win10 consumer laptop and their CPA called me in to save them from themselves. I had to order a new business computer, that came with a Win10 license/disks but had Win7 Pro installed.

I simply love Macs also and use an iPhone and carry an iPad with technical documentation. Apple does a great job and the underlying OS in all OSX releases is Unix. Linux is OK but if you are comfortable with Windows, why change to Mac or Linux?

If you want a new laptop with Win7, just go to HP Business website and order one. HP consumer stuff is junk. Designed for people that think places like Best Buy sell computers.

[Kev Williams]

My engraving business is in my house. All my equipment is in my signature. In the office I'm using a perfectly good HP laserjet printer, and 2005 Quickbooks. I run several graphics software and machine driving programs. To keep my business running, I have many 'brick walls' concerning computers that I can't get around.

Short version is I'm running 1 Win98se computer, 5 XP computers, a win7 laptop that came with the fiber laser, and a win8 with thankfully, a very well-working XP virtual machine that keeps the win8 computer out of the trash can. (the XPvm on the same exact computer works 3 to 5x faster than the Win8 does)

The only way I could actually run my business with NO XP's or the win98 would be to replace 10 of my 15 machines, and do without my favorite graphics software. Yeah, that's an economically viable solution.

And I seriously doubt that Linux, Ubuntu or pretty much any other OS could be a 'one-stop' system capable of running everything. And, like I got time to learn to use something totally new...

I won't ever part with my XP's, because I can't, and because I won't. I refuse to give Bill Gates the keys to my house. Now, I CAN make 32bit win7's work if I have to, but-- I don't have to. One of my favorite things about running XP? No updates, no tracking BS, no issues period. For what I do with a computer, It simply WORKS. Not exactly how I hear win10 described...

[Dave Anderson NH]

As point of information, I just purchased a new Dell laptop since my old one was starting to croak at 7 years old and besides, I always hated Vista. I was able to buy it with Windows 7 installed and they give you the disc and license to install Windows 10 (Fat chance). My current problem is convincing SWMBO that 10 should not be installed on our shared desktop in the home office. She doesn't want to "get behind" as has been pushing me to install it. I've become amazingly deaf and forgetful recently.

[Larry Browning]

Let me chime in here with a different story. I have had zero problems with windows 10 and the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8. In fact, I know of no one in my immediate circle of friends, and I know a whole bunch of computer geeks, that has had even a single problem with Windows 10. I actually love Windows 10, from the fast boot times, to all the little extras like file history backup. My computer has never run as smooth and fast as it does now. My perception, is that the overwhelming majority of win 7 & 8 users have had the same experiences as me. I do know that some people have had legitimate and serious problems, but those are actually rare when compared to the total number of upgrades.

Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary, but my experience has been very good!

[Pat Barry]

I installed the Win 10 upgrade in two laptops as soon as they were available and the ONLY ISSUE I hae had in well over a year or whatever its been is that it keeps somehow loading BING as my default search engine into Firefox. I can't stand BING - I'm not sure if I should blame Bill Gates for that or not. Otherwise the initial Win 10 install and all the updates have been virtually transparent and totally uneventful.

[lee cox]

I'm stuck with Windows 10 for business but I swear as soon as I truly retire, I am giving it the heave ho.

Someone once said, "People don't want computers, they want computing." That is, people don't want to mess with updates, registries, drivers and all that other nonsense. They just want to write emails, surf the web and do work. I couldn't agree more. I find it maddening that some simple, real world, issue takes me into a never ending tunnel system of Knowledge Base articles that tell me to change this or that registry entry, uninstall and reinstall stuff and who knows what else.









In that sense, Apple has it right. Yes, their stuff is expensive and you are locked into a closed eco-system. But that tight control means that you get stuff that works more seamlessly.

My Windows computer always needs a bit of tweaking. My iPad just works and has never made me say bad words. I have no experience with Linux. I hear it's somewhere in between.

Another reason Apple software works so seamlessly is they drop support for older hardware and expect you to buy new. Every few years you need to change hardware to stay current.

A lot of times people start having problems besides mixing hardware from different vendors is the hardware becomes to old for optimal use but is still supported so they blame Microsoft.

[William Adams]

Apple's average for operating system upgrade support was ~5 years last time I checked --- a few machines have gone longer (ISTR 7 years for some) and some model of MacBook Air only got 4 and a half years. Even when one can't install a new OS, one can continue to use the machine using the last OS which it ran (which these days is mostly Snow Leopard 10.6.8), just w/o security patches (and no nagging about being out-of-date).

I updated my Toshiba Encore 2 Write 10 to Windows 10 in time to get the Anniversary Update --- wanted the new Maps app, and was feeling optimistic that the machine would last long enough that Windows 8.1 being EOL'd would matter. The new features are nice, but the constant pushing out of updates is annoying (been considering setting my home connection to metered and just allowing updates to run on a schedule of my choosing). I've also begun having power issues where the machine won't wake up and has to be reset (I suspect these are now updates having problems rebooting --- did have one cable and its replacement go bad which was an interesting bit of troubleshooting).

Really wish there was more choice in the computer world, and that there was more support for alternatives. Miss things such as Tron, QNX, NeXT/OPENstep (yes, I know it became Mac OS X, but it's not the same), &c. Wish there was better support for HWR in Linux, and that someone would do a machine w/ a daylight viewable display.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Let me chime in here with a different story. I have had zero problems with windows 10 and the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8.

+1
And to add to this, I found Windows 8.1 to be faster and better than Windows 7, and Windows 10 to be faster than Windows 8.1.

I would never upgrade the OS on a PC more than maybe 2 years old, as the hardware is several generations old at that point.

[lee cox]

I had several Win 10 upgrades go fine. No problems. I left a couple of Win 7 machines with Win 7. I had an old laptop which just seemed to old to upgrade so I left it Win 7. I had an old desktop which runs my Cisco "Findit" software which tracks firmware updates for my 6 Cisco devices, 3 wireless, router and layer 3 switch with another switch down stream. The Cisco software would not run on Win 10 when I looked. I the exact same motherboard in another machine which I did convert to Windows 10 and it works fine for a 10 year old. I put Q6600 quad processors in them when they first came out.

I have found no problems running Windows 10. It is faster than Windows 7.