Who knows whether Windows 10 is the best thing since sliced bread? On a shiny new computer with tons of RAM, it might be that its fresh possibilities outweigh infinite quirks. It's certainly an odd affair: Windows bolted onto an impersonation of Android with only a fraction of the "apps". No doubt, deep in the jungle, Apps will be breeding. This leaves us with Microsoft's inimitable penchant for taking the best features of earlier software and quietly junking them, not least a Media Centre for which there is still no reliable, easy alternative. And then there are new, arcane rituals for doing things where everything before was fine - to the extent that Microsoft should surely adopt as its corporate motto, "It wasn't broken, so we've busted it anyway." They have given themselves a year of free public testing; yet it is clear from the forums and feedback pages, replete with death threats against Bill Gates, that here is an arrogant giant which couldn't care less what its customers think and more often than nor doesn't listen anyway.
But you see, I have a machine a couple of years old: running fine on Windows 7, until I succumbed to Microsoft's incessant nagging and chivvying: "Windows 10 is free. So when are you going to upgrade? ...When...When?" The results have been an almost complete disaster. I need to put my PC in Turbo Mode (I have Tune Up Utilities) for much to work within the time it takes to make a cup of tea. Microsoft either never thought this through or else they couldn't care less; and either would be typical. Hotmail, Outlook or Live - whatever we have to call it this week - is also still both mad and primitive compared to Gmail, at least half-a-dozen years behind. As for Microsoft Edge, bristling with bells and whistles, all you can say is that it's some improvement on the Internet Explorer that was causing torn hair and wailing in public libraries across the globe. When will Microsoft learn to look at its rivals and ask itself, "What do we need to do better?"
Matters came to a head a couple of weeks ago with one of Microsoft’s bruising and enforced “updates.” No question of whether you want or need an update, still less at precisely this instant. Like the class bully Microsoft wades in to do its thing, which in this case took over an hour during which the computer was unusable. And afterwards? Still unusable! Beyond opening my emails, my PC is fit only for scrap. Almost nothing else now works, including Microsoft’s own software. Even the sound is now kaput. Seeking help, you request a phone call at a certain time, which Microsoft naturally can’t be bothered to keep. The only way to get a response is to use the Disability Phone Line (I am disabled) where you tussle with some poor underpaid Indian or Filipino lad for another two hours before his team gives up and decides to “escalate the problem”. What that means is that Microsoft resolves to get back to you when Hell freezes over. You are a write-off, a casualty or war; less than an embarrassment, less seemingly than a worm, dead and buried. This is a monster of a multinational: without altruism, without accountability. The best thing, presiding over a monopoly where its rival is just as bad, is that it knows it has absolutely no need to change.
Microsoft: my case number is SRX1353589213ID. How much will you reimburse me to reload Windows 7 and MS Word? I’m holding my breath.
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic