Have 2 VMs running on Oracle, one on the fast ring, one on the slow one. The slow one, build 10074, seems meh. But the one on the fast ring can't get up to the latest build. keeps crashing and reverting to 10074. ![]()
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Have 2 VMs running on Oracle, one on the fast ring, one on the slow one. The slow one, build 10074, seems meh. But the one on the fast ring can't get up to the latest build. keeps crashing and reverting to 10074. ![]()
If hung at 6% it may not have crashed. I upgraded from 10074 and the first two times I thought it had crashed because it seemd to hang at 6% forever. The third time it looked again like it was hung at 6% but I let it sit for 4 hours and it all of a sudden jumped to 50%. After 5 hours it was finally done.
The Icons are improved but still meh. MS have stated they will rework the icons yet again. But aside from the icons it is finally starting to look good.
working out the bugs.
I was using it off and on but the updates kept crashing and I'd end up reloading the OS and everything so after a couple of times I stopped testing.
I will say though in between the update crashes, I was impressed with 10
Digger
I have had win10 installed for months. It is on a triple boot with 8.1 and linux mint 17.1. so far the biggest think I hate is all the bloatware that is design to gather all sorts of personal information about you. There are features I don't want and aint found a way to get rid of them. I hate the start menu setup. It is not like what we had prior to win 8. IMO, it was more organized then. I had not really spent much time on it since most likely I am going to make sure I get my free copy install it, create a drive image then get rid of it. I want a drive image copy in case I sell the computer later.
I must say I have had no problems at all, I have been using 10 since February I think both on my laptop and on my Nokia 635 since it was available .
I have had no crashes or hang ups I like it a lot. I use the "fast" options.
These are both main use devices with no other O/S's installed.
My only regret is buying a Galaxy tab S 10" in December nice but would like to be all Win, Surface pro far too dear but if I could have had 10 I would have bitten the bullet.
As to bloatware what about Samsung/Android I do not use twit book etc and never want to why cannot I just delete any app I don't want?
Those who force bloatware upon us deserve their own special circle of Hell.
Similarly, I've had the preview since its release and have had a problem-free experience after the first update and after switching to the fast track. Although obtaining that first update was problematic, some tinkering and a switch to the fast option permitted updates and use of software and peripherals. As one contributor noted, relegation of access to the start menu to an icon at the top left screen doesn't work as well for me as a traditional location on the bottom left. Otherwise, I'm pleased.
I'm very pleased with the direction Windows 10 has taken. It is what Microsoft promised in Windows 8 but they botched the user interface. I still have a laptop running Windows 8.1 and I hate the search feature that throws me into the metro interface. That has been fixed in W10.
W10 is quite fast and feels so much like Windows 7 that I think it will be a hit when it comes out. Windows 7 is my favorite OS so with W10 looking very much like W7 I'm pleased.
I've had no big issues with the technical preview. In fact I'm impressed with how solid it is. Sure it crashes about once every 10 days or so but outside of that it works pretty wall all around.
There are things I don't like about W10. The border around the edge of the windows is too thin and there is no way to change it. Some things still have the AERO transparency feature, which I don't like, and I can't turn it off. I also don't like the snap features which make a window full screen, 1/2 screen or 1/4 screen, and I can't turn those off either. Hopefully some of those changes will be in the production release.
As soon as Windows 10 comes out in a production release, and the initial bugs are worked out, I'll put it on my laptop. However I will remain on Windows 7 on my desktop. The reason is I extensively use the photo file tagging features in W7 which are far superior to the File Explorer in W8/8.1/10. Microsoft totally screwed up the user interface of File Explorer, including the stupid ribbon interface which I hate. I've tried several third party file managers but none has the specific features I use and want.
with a registry edit.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize where there are two DWORD entries - EnableBlurBehind and EnableTransparency.- change the values of both to 0 to disable transparency and the blur effect on the start menu.
(The blur effect was only enabled on around half of downloads, so setting the value for this to 1 will enable it if you don't have it)
If you're looking for a good replacement File Explorer check out Xplorer2 from www.zabkat.com and the best part is they have a fully functional free version.
Windows 8.1 was a minor tweak of Windows 8 meant to mollify the loud whining of a lot of whining babies. Sometimes you have to give a whining kid that piece of candy just to shut him up because his constant whining is driving you crazy, and that's basically why Windows 8.1 exists.
Windows 10, on the other hand, is a truly MAJOR overhaul right down to the basic guts. I installed the Technical Preview (which even now is by no means as finished as a "beta release," which will come later) fairly early on in its development, but even those versions, rough as they were, were not the disaster I expected. I put it onto an old laptop of mine (that had formerly been my wife's) that was purchased in the days shortly after Vista's initial production release, and I wiped it with DBaN and installed Windows 8 over it a couple years ago. It had always been flaky because I had to locate and install a lot of the device drivers in "compatibility mode" because the manufacturers of the components never bothered to update them for Windows 8.
All, literally all, of my legacy applications have worked fine since the beginning with a little glitch about three releases ago where some apps would freeze up. Yeah, it's still pretty rough around the edges, but at least it works in a marginal way for me as is. I am now at 10122 (although it is updating now even as I type this on my 8.1 primary production machine).
I get the occasional "DPC Watchdog Violation" error, but these are no doubt caused by one of my outdated (and not updatable) drivers. I usually get it before it even boots to the Welcome screen.
The way they are changing things around with each successive release (they just moved the shutdown button, for instance) leads me to believe that the currently anticipated "late July" release date may be a bit optimistic, but we'll see. They still seem to be in a "Let's try THIS!" mode right now. And that new web browser seems to me to be quite rough.
I realize that this is a technical preview and I expected some problems but not as many as I am experiencing. When I tried the technical preview of 8.1 I went from 7 to 8.1 without any real big problems. I have Windows 10 on an older laptop that came with Windows 7 installed on it. One of the reasons I used this computer as opposed to one of my newer ones was to see if somewhat older models using Windows 7 were really going to be compatible with Windows 10.
At this point I would venture to say that at least some older Windows 7 machines are not going to make a smooth transition to Windows 10 and I think that Microsoft needs to address that. I am sure that some of the issues I am experiencing are related to drivers that cannot be updated. Whether they will ever be updatable is a question that should be addressed before others try to upgrade to Windows 10 and find out that they really can't. The first problem I had was with my wireless card. It is unusable (no driver update) with Windows 10 so I simply switched to usb wireless and the problem was solved.
I wish I could solve the rest of the problems I am experiencing that easily. Each new build has brought more problems and Microsoft is, unfortunately, not much help when it comes to solving the issues some of us are having with Windows 10. I have spent countless hours reading through the forums looking for answers and even when I find suggested solutions they rarely work. What I do see out there are a lot of people who are giving up and rolling their machines back to 7 or 8.1 and I doubt that they will be willing to try 10 a second time. I hope that Microsoft is listening because I am sure that the people over at Apple are paying attention to all of this.
Build 10130 came out yesterday (5/29) for the fast ring, and it seems little changed from the previous 10122 build. This has caused some to speculate that we're close to the summer time RTM. We'll see. I've seen few problems with 10, but there've been a lot of changes to the user interface which I expect will create a barrier for business customers who could have a good bit of retraining folks if they go to it. I haven't tried Start10 or Classic Shell with it, but both support it, so I'll probably use Classic Shell when/if I make the move to the release version. You can't avoid the Metro mode for everything, Windows Update being one example. I've been running this preview of 10 since it first came out 10/1/14, and for me it's been pretty stable. I see a lot of bug reports in the MS forum, but of my 3 test systems (2 64 bit, one 32 bit) it's been pretty stable with all my legacy applications working. Bottom line for me, it's a mixed bag.
Some people (like my brother, for example) forget that this is a Preview and not even a beta version. Features can usually change (sometimes dramatically) in a preview. With any release, the first thing I worry about is drivers. Not especially for the devices that already have Windows (Microsoft) drivers, but a lot of hardware (like my bluetooth USB dongle as an example) may not work. The manufacturer's of those devices and even some software do not have their compatible software out for the new release. Where I worked, they went from Windows XP to Win7 (and from 32-bit to 64-bit) and they made lots of mistakes so sound cards and printers didn't work. As you pointed out, Windows 10 is a major change from what was there before so I suspect any software that was not designed for this OS may have issues (I heard some versions of Norton were not working).
As usual, there will probably be some new releases right up to the week of official release (just a guess on my part). As for me, I'll wait until after the OS gets onto OEM machines and then buy a new PC. Mine is a bite too old.
I've been testing Win10 TP since MS rolled it out to the public with its three hour long demonstration. What caught my eye and has fascinated me most was Cortana. She's been very slow to work for me, but last week I got it going, and now I'm puzzled about what to do with her.
Win10 is much like Win8 and Win8.1 in that all three are designed more for touch-screen application than for keyboard/mouse use.
People are still hanging onto WinXP, Vista, and certainly to Win7 because of ease of use and sensible engineering. XP's design was changed somewhat when Windows evolved into Vista and Win7 in that it had Documents and Setting in Windows Explorer which was changed in Vista and 7 to the Users folder, but that wasn't such a difficult hurdle to get over. The Start button still got you to Run and All Programs, and Control Panel, Computer, etc. There was no groping for those items hidden in either the Tile page (called Metro by some) or Desktop.
Win8 through 10TP is confusing instead of easier to use. Things that were available in a very "user-friendly" way have morphed into "find me if you can" mindset. In Win10 TP I now have to use the Search utility to find nearly everything.
I have recently purchased a smart phone which has convinced me more than ever concerning "touch" access in Win8-10 TP. The Tile screen in Win8-10 TP is very pretty, but of little use to me on my desktop computer, mouse and keyboard.
In the past few years, I have been teaching senior citizens how to use their computer and find most of them who have gone from XP, Vista and 7 to Win8/8.1 totally confused and in need of help. The first thing I do for them is download and install Classic Shell, and they're so much happier.
It would be something just short of a miracle if MS were to sell two modes of Windows. One for desktop and one for touch use. People are clamoring for the return of XP or Win7-like OS's to the market.
Chuck in Boston
Chuck, I am a rather experienced computer user for almost 30 years and still have my 3.5-inch installation disks for Windows 386. I built my last two desktop computers and only switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 Professional so I could utilize 16 GB RAM. MS doesn't know how to leave a good thing alone so I added a better replacement for Windows Explorer. I found a working free sample called Xplorer2 from www.zabkat.com that is just like the old File Explorer. The only thing about Windows 7 that I hate is the Windows Live email app. I would love to know if they changed that in Windows 10.
If as you say Windows 10 isn't designed for mouse and keyboard then I am probably going to pass on it - even if it is free.
I'm running Windows 10 on a 9-year-old Dell Optiplex with three 19" Dell monitors, none of which are touch screen. I've never been in a situation where I felt I needed a touch screen: it's all mouse/keyboard for me, and I'm fine with that.
A computer tech I know says that Windows 7 is bulletproof. He just loves it.
I have 4 computers. Two run on 8.1, one on XP (some things I just can't give up), and one on Windows 10 preview. I was not thrilled with 8.1 until I installed Stardock's Start8. Then all was right with Windows again. As for the preview of 10, let's just say I am in no hurry to try it on any of my other machines. Every new build has brought with it more problems and so far very few solutions.
If you know people who are having trouble with 8.1 try some of Stardock's lovely little programs designed to make Windows 8 and 8.1 behave more like 7.
"It would be something just short of a miracle if MS were to sell two modes of Windows. One for desktop and one for touch use."
Agree, but there is precedent in the many versions of Windows basic to professional and above.
One of the annoyances with the multiplicity of versions is you have to remember which one you are working in.
1. My wants are these - Not so many patches,
2. Secure - GOTO 1
3. fast and lightweight
4. whack-a-mole system maintenance.
5. OS updates that don't make me have to learn and train people, which wastes a lot of money. It's not a waste if there's a reason, but it's unforgivable if people have to spend a long time learning to do what they are already doing.
6. Most of all, stay out of my way, OS. I'm interested in what my programs do, and don't even want to notice the OS.
OSX has a feature that is a lot like Metro. Launchpad. Difference is it has little icons instead of tiles. But if you don't want to use it, you will never ever see it.
Instead, most people opt to use the familiar GUI, which a user of say OS 6.7 from the very early 90's would understand.
Options, options, options.
There's no native native codecs to play DVDs which, I believe, were part of Windows Media Center. VLC will handle the job adequately but "Swiss army knife" applications bring their nuisances with them. I'm on build 10130 and every update seems to put certain settings back to default. Firefox can't seem to remember that it's my default browser after any update. I know I'm running with marginal hardware but the rig I'm using does OK with Windows 7. Win 10 gets bogged down at times and I think this may be due to collecting data to send home to MS. I don't have stability problems with it...no lockups or crashes yet.
I'm still having difficulty finding what I want. I've put Cortana back in her box which I didn't find easy to do. If only I could have just typed a polite message asking her to take a long vacation, that would have been nice. I'm currently using the fast ring setting and do notice some improvements with each new release. I do suspect, but hope I'm wrong, that MS is moving more toward the vending machine approach then just offering a solid product that's not offended if I opt for aftermarket parts now and then.
It works great, updates, stuff crashes, then updates then things are fixed but soon they break again. Like Bluetooth, public Wifi login and staying logged on, Citrix, etc...The tablet stuff is hidden in the start menu. As if windows 7 got a new start menu and windows 8 was a bad dream.
I have thus far skipped Windows 8. I picked up the 10 preview just yesterday and installed in a VM. I wholeheartedly agree with cmfurgason below about usability. The usability has taken a step down from Windows 7 / XP, making things that were logically organized before harder to find. Can I work round things? Yes, pin things, add shortcuts, etc. But I now have to do more work to find them in the first place.
Also, why does Microsoft think that I need 2" square icons to work on something? I'm running on a desktop with a 1920x1200 display, not a tablet. Even if I was on a tablet I wouldn't want those large multi-colored squares. I usually set any icons to 24pt square or smaller.
I can't resize the task bar down to a reasonable size - takes up too much of the screen. Oh, sure, I can autohide or have windows in front, but I don't like doing that. I want easy access to taskbar-pinned icons and the time other notifications etc.
Where I still use Windows (7) at all, I use it as a workhorse as a power user (running a music studio) - not as a browsing platform. I want a system I can use quickly and efficiently and that I can change to suit what I want to do with it.
I've changed the fonts, and mucked around with the themes and I still can't make it comfortable. Sure I could probably go back to the spartan older Windows look too - but the new look is ghastly.
Oh and predictive typing in the search box feels like it's being chiseled one letter at a time on a stone tablet. That might be a function of it being a preview, but the rest is not.
Also, flat - is horridly becoming the unwelcome norm. The world is not flat! I'm not a fan of the flat look'n'feel of iOS and Yosemite either. (I own Windows, iOS, MacOS, Android and Linux machines - so, not speaking as some kind of a "fanboy"). I hope things get better in this arena and that it's a passing fad.
I've been in IT one way or another for 35 years, so I'm not a newbie, and I've been using windows since Windows 3. I wanted to give this a good and fair test given that I'd skipped 8. But, I'm not impressed so far. Windows 10 will get in the way for me in terms of UI as far as I can see from my brief foray into it.
I have Windows 7 64 on one machine still. It ain't broke. I won't be "fixing" it any time soon
(And, I still have XP - (non-internet-connected) and Vista too on a couple of machines. Ain't broke - the machines running them still work fine and perform the tasks I purchased them to do and need them to do).
I'd been hoping that W10 would be a change for the better, 8 was ridiculous to maintain, and my wife eventually said she wasn't going to use her nice new touchscreen laptop after a couple months. I installed Mint on it, and she hasn't looked back. Almost every maintenance or setup task required a trip the the web.
But I have 1 program that I need to run on Windows for the people I support - otherwise I'd have them all on Linux. So if W10 is anything like the Dog's breakfast that W8 8.1 is, Windows 7 will be on their computers - I don't feel like people calling me to ask how to turn the computer off, and they won't have to start over. Everybody happy!
An earlier version of W10 kept crashing with Mozilla Thunderbird. A more recent release resolved that issue...but I still can't completely shut down my
Sony laptop from the software. The machine appears to be off, but the HDD lamp continues to rapidly flash until I physically (power switch) shut down the computer. I guess this is why they recommend not to load this OS on your primary computer.
As others have said, the main reason is that we are NOT even at the beta test version yet. With the Preview, what you see now may NOT be in the final release. This was just to give you an idea what some of the features MAY be. Not every piece of software has been tested yet. I heard Norton stuff isn't working and people are mentioning bluetooth. There is also the issue of support from Microsoft. Even with a Beta test machine the reporting and fixing of bugs is a different process. And, if you have certain types of devices, the drivers for those devices may not work right now. I think there were reports on other major OS releases that the drivers from the OEM company didn't show up until the same week that the OS was released.
Many users did their testing (I mean, previewing) of Win 10 used a virtual desktop. So, what it boils down to is that if a person takes their "one-and-only" PC that is critical for their day-to-day lives and loads a test/preview version of software, some critical function may not work and Microsoft may or may not be able to help that person.
However I may not be the best person to poll as I have used virtually every OS since 1962. DOS, every version of Windows, Unix and most distributions of LINUX.'
I help many friends with their computers and when a new version of Windows comes out I get many more help requests. Computers are in most homes now and the majority of users are not technically inclined. I feel that you have to make changes to computers as well as operating systems otherwise there will be no progress, but most average users that I know don't feel that way. They are comfortable with what they know.
I like the direction that Win10 is moving. It's what Win7 was to Vista, something that actually works. The Beta process has a bit been rough though. I've had to do a clean install 3 times now. The latest build seems to have this huge start menu that I can ol longer resize. I've got two of them in Vbox with 4G of ram and it seems rather slow. The rig is an I5-25K with 12G and screams with Win7.