Windows 10 is driving me cray-cray!

I have friends who come to me with their W10 issues (OneDrive among many others). So this will help me get their 'house' in order. I'm still on 7 because I love it and don't need a whole bunch of features or the headaches that come with 10.

Support for Win7 ends in 2020, what are you gonna do then, I got out of the windows rat race for a reason. I had to put Peppermint OS 7 (something different) on my wifes computer, win10 would not run worth a **** and I know my way around windows operating systems and could do nothing with it. It is now gone and she likes her pc again. I really liked 7 also but had to see what 10 had to offer when it was free, except for my gaming I have no use for it. Linux does every thing I need it to do and there are a lot of distros to choose from.

When you can do mouse-driven macros in Calc, then tell me how much better Linux is than Windows. We tried using LibreOffice at work instead of MS Office and found out it can't do mouse-driven macros, only keystrokes. Amateur hour!

Windows and Linux are operating systems. They do not have office suites in them. Those are added. As for features, well Word can't do reveal codes, which is standard in WordPerfect and has been for a very long time. Talk about amateur hour! Your comment is about one single feature of one single program compared to one other single program. It is meaningless. The feature you love so much is probably not used as often as you think it is.

It is amazing that Word took over the planet when WordPerfect has ALWAYS been far better. Reveal Codes alone beats Word hands down, and formatting a document was always easier with WP. I like that in WP you can click anywhere on the page and start typing. To get there in Word you have to use enter, enter, enter, tab, tab, space, space etc.

I couldn't agree more about Word Perfect, David! I've been using it since DOS & have ALWAYS found it to be much more intuitive, in sync with how my brain works and a lot easier to use. Microsloth products are IMO, products of promotion and greed that too many people have bought into. MS has a way of shoehorning people into having to buy updates. The change of the .doc to .docx is a perfect example, AND they changed Word so completely in the process it's like having to learn a totally different program! (A striking similarity to bloated and illogical Win 10!).

For those who are able to comprehend MS Word/Office to begin with, I also will never understand why they keep drinking the Kool-Aid and going with their new releases, when Open Office is completely free, works very (TOO) similarly to MS Office, is open source, and can be downloaded with an internet connection.

I do fault Corel however, for not aggressively promoting WP and letting a large market share slip through their fingers for reasons I'll never understand. That being said, despite their lack of marketing acuity, WP is exponentially better than any of the confusing, greed driven crap produced by MS.

I suggest all y'all switch to coffee and pass on the MS Kool-Aid!

Alternately, you can just wait for the next approach of the Hale Bopp Comet and ride that to the afterlife!

Just my thoughts.

Cheers!

Sorry, but Word (and Office) is often the only choice for those in academia, especially those of us in the Sciences and collaborate on papers. First of all, have you tried collaborating on projects with anything but Office? It keeps perfect track of changes, stamping each change with the date and author's name, and hidden embedded notes, if necessary. Some of the papers I've worked on have 10+ co-authors from around the globe , yet things have never gotten confusing. Can you say that for Open Office? Even WordPetfect wasnt so perfect when we tried it last.

And just as importantly, no other general wordprocessor can handle scientific/mathematical symbols and intricate tables like Office can. To match and surpass it, we'd have to use specialized editors made specifically for scientific publishing. And if one author decides to user Word, that settles it for everyone else because you simply cannot import feature-rich Word document into any other word processor. A colleague tried and all the intricate formatting, footnotes, tables and graphs were so mangled that he switched from WordPerfect to Word that very day.

I don't know what the last incarnation of WordPerfect was like but when we used it last, it was part of Corel's suite. Unlike Office, where all the software integrated well, allowing seamless exchanges of data, each application in Corel's suite was basically a standalone app. All the menus looked different and data exchange was iffy. I might have well been using DOS. As someone who have been word processing since WordStar on CP/M (I still know the ctrl codes to navigate) and DOS, my opinion is that Word is the most powerful, flexible and compatible word processor available.

Microsoft Word is a copy of WordPerfect. That is historical fact, not fantasy. As for preferring one over another, to each his own, but Microsoft is stupid for refusing put in reveal codes. It is one of the most useful features of WordPerfect. I use both. They are both good products, but the "amateur hour" garbage comment had to be addressed.

You are way behind the times. WordPerfect is also part of a powerful suite that works perfectly together. They have evolved over the years, of course. Microsoft's product has never been ahead of them. They are also more compatible that Microsoft Office. You use what you prefer (or rather, what your job requires), but don't ignore facts.

WordPerfect is the original, and MS Word is a cheap copy, whether anyone likes to hear it or not, but this is a perfect example of Microsoft's predatory marketing practices. Admittedly, they have managed to produce a decent product, but the fact remains that it is a copy of WordPerfect, which is still superior.

How is WordPerfect the original? Original what? If you want to really want to go back to the original, cite WordStar, which I used in CP/M, DOS and Windows. Word was the first truly WYSIWYG word processor, and the first to truly interact with Windows. WordPerfect's earliest GUI had a clunky hybrid interface that was more for appearances than functional. And many early users didn't even bother with the mouse since it was still very much keyboard-oriented. In fact, it had WordStar emulation.

In fact, if you look up the history of WordPerfect, you'd see that it failed for 2 reasons. 1) it was slow to adopt a truly graphical interface, or fully exploit Windows. 2) Corel didn't really integrate WordPerfect into its suite. Unlike Microsoft Office, the Corel suite was basically a bunch of separate programs with very poor integration, i.e. importing and exchanging data was not smooth. Did you ever try importing graphs? Ugh. Things improved later but by that time, most users, like me, had already transitioned to Word.

Sorry, but Word was not a copy of WordPerfect. In fact, the opposite was true. By the time Corel realized that they had to fully use mouse-based Windows, Word was already a mature product. So they ended up copying many of the conventions established by Word.

You do your research. WordPerfect did not fail. It is still going strong. It was still dominant not very long ago. How short people's memories are. Microsoft is the copy. They even copied the interface. It was virtually identical. Why do people insist on comparing software that was new many years ago with software that is being used right now?

From the Wikipedia article about WordPerfect:

"A Windows version of WordPerfect was not introduced until nearly two years after Windows 3.0, and was met with poor reviews."
How do you mean: 'Microsoft's product has never been ahead of them.' ?

"While WordPerfect had more than 50% of the worldwide word-processing market in 1995, by 2000 Word had up to 95%;".
Even if this were sales in stead of user base, how do you mean 'It was still dominant not very long ago.' ? I don't expect many WP users still used the same old version they used in 2000 in, say, 2010 (which is rather long ago) - if it was a new version it should be included in the sales stats.

Brings back memories of the Video 2000 - Betamax - VHS wars of yesteryear.

And the winner was ..... the worst of the lot.

Same difference, methinks.

I so remember having to use WordPerfect in the Canadian Govt...no choice. Nobody liked it and everybody could be heard grumbling and swearing when having to use this clunky un-user friendly POS. But that was a long time ago.

With the seamless introduction of Word into our lives, we all breathed a sigh of relief as it was so easy to use, especially when pumping out contracts that required specific standards (which were already macro'd) and continuity in formatting. Until that point I don't think I saw one document that was the same even though they were the same item (RFP, Contract For Services, Contract for Goods, etc).

WordPerfect was the go-to at one point, simply because it was useful for the archaic time, and I can't speak for now, but I wouldnt touch it with a 10' pole.

Someone told me many years ago a common rule that has been proven to me over and over again. "The 'best' program is, and always will be... The Program you are most familiar with, that accomplishes everything that YOU want it to do." The value of anything is determined by what uses it provides to YOU... not anyone else. You can try to espouse the differences between two programs until the Cow come home but you are only succeeding in reinforcing your OWN opinion... no one else's.

I sometimes try different programs at times and find they give me more satisfaction or make things easier for me (or not) ... but that does not mean a thing to anyone... but me.

Thank you so much for the advice. I used the last advice to disable the OneDrive. So easy and well appreciated. Thanks again!

I followed instructions by WakkoWarner (January 13, 2017 6:37 PM PST) to turn off Drive Indexing and since then Microsoft Windows Search Indexer, Dropbox, and NT Kernel & System have been grinding away for more than an hour. Is this expected?

1. Active hours: I need to leave apps and windows open. There's no way for me to prevent rebooting or say I'm active 7x24. This truly sucks, as my computer has rebooted at least twice without my permission when I "wasn't active"...

2. Windows Index: I need it to index Outlook. I just want it to index at 2AM. (Yes - don't reboot at 2AM; work at 2AM!) Seems like it's a 32-bit process and sucks the life out of my system...or at least anything connected via USB.

3. Thanks - I got that. But Excel ignores it. So does Word. I don't even want to see it. I NEVER want to use it. Ever.

4. Win-F - yes, ignore. But still -- how stupid.

Thanks again...

1) Some of us rely on software and hardware only available on PCs running Windows. That's certainly my case.

2) Some of us prefer the universality and ubiquity of Windows vs. Mac (or Linux). That's certainly my case. When I did tech support and selected hardware for my department, Macs weren't even considered because of all the proprietary stuff. Why pay extra for upgrades and repairs when we already had a closet full of PC-compatible hardware? Monitor broken? Monitor too small? Takes 10 mins to plug a new monitor into a PC. With many Macs, i.e. the all-in- one models, changing the monitor is impossible since it's built into the computer so you'd have to attach an external monitor. And there are many other reasons, explaining why Macs never got a hold in the business world. We had one researcher who used a Mac and he regretted it because he had to hire his own external tech support, had custom hardware made, etc.

3) The Windows ecosystem is just so much cheaper. In addition to the forementioned universal compatibility, competition drives prices down. I was able to set up basic Windows systems for the clerical staff for about $350 each, including a new monitor. Think that's possible for a Mac system? Hah. And power users like myself, who need a superfast processor for mathematical modeling, can spend 20-40% less for a Windows system vs . Mac.

So there are many practical reasons to use Windows, despite all the quirks. There's a reason why 80%+ of the world's computers run Windows.

You can make Windows 10 automatically open programs that you need running when it reboots. The info is in the help.

...but what it won't do is replace your work. This poster has work in progress when the computer restarts. I would imagine it is quite a nuisance and possibly even expensive when the computer just shuts it down in the middle of a project.

Yeah, but you still have to first login before it loads all your Startup programs. So if the computer auto-reboots, it's basically useless until you login. And that's a problem for those of us who needs the computer on 24/7, i.e. as a server. Furthermore, most software do not automatically load any work in progress. And worst of all, any work that you were working on before the auto-reboot is often lost or corrupted.

It's been kicked around for decades now. Just sharing.

Thanx for the info on setting Update Restarts.
I'm a volunteer at our local 1000 member computer club and we worked with about 8 of us in August 2015 to figure out the best way to learn Windows 10, train our volunteers and ultimately teach our members how best to use Windows 10.

I find Win 10 to be THE BEST OF WINDOWS 7 and the best of windows 8... about 90%/10%.

I was interested to learn that the next major Windows 10 update, will be more gentle about automatic restarts after a major update. That means Microsoft is listening. That's a very good thing... '-}

...but "working it right" has become synonymous with "doing things the way that Microsoft tells you to." This is sometimes impractical or even impossible. Everyone has different needs and everyone had a different system. Learning to use the OS is a given. Altering your programs, purpose, workflow, preferences, and everything else to conform to what Microsoft has decided you need is wrong. They remove more and more options and fix more and more things in ways that don't work for people. I have no trouble with Windows 10 beyond the normal annoyances, but many people do have significant trouble with it. Microsoft does not have the right to do that to people.

AMEN! Like I said in my post, whatever happened to letting ME choose where it goes????