Monday 12 October 2015

Windows 10 - My Thoughts

I got my new laptop, affectionately named Bloo, for obvious reasons, a couple of months ago because my old one was slowly dying. I didn't get it a moment too soon either because when I booted up my old laptop a few weeks back it had entirely died on me; it's either the motherboard or the harddrive, neither of which I've got the time nor the inclination to investigate further.


One of my concerns with getting the new laptop when I did was the fact it would mean having Windows 8.1; and I'd heard things about Windows 8. Part of me wanted to hold off just a little while and wait until Windows 10 came out (because I know the rule of Windows Operating Systems). The other part of me, and my family, knew that a new laptop was needed immediately, so I sucked it up and kept hold of my copy of Windows 7 just in case a downgrade was needed.

And Windows 8.1 didn't actually bother me that much. There were a few things that frustrated me about it; the tiles screen could have been a little more flexible, the lack of a Start button was a pain (but I had an add-on that took it's place pretty well), I could never find the calculator when I wanted it. But I got used to it and I loved my nice smooth running, fast laptop especially when compared to my old one.

But then I got a message telling me I could get Windows 10. I nearly ignored it because I thought it was going to be a free trial or something, or you'd end up having to pay some sort of subscription. But nope, if you had Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 you were eligible for a free upgrade to the (so-called) last Windows OS.

When I got the message to download it, I did, and then I waited and waited and waited, and waited a little bit more.

I know how these things work when it comes to technology. There are always a whole host of bugs that need to be ironed out before you can actually use the stuff properly. I kept an eye on what people were saying about it; I googled what actually happened when you hit the button to go through with the upgrade; I googled what I needed to do before I went ahead.

I was prepared to download all the Windows 10 drivers for my laptop, I backed everything up, I googled a little more. Then I decided to go ahead with it last Sunday. I planned to devote the whole day to the task. I didn't need to. It was done within an hour and a half.

And so far?

Well, it's kind of like Windows 8.1 but different.

I like the fact that everything was exactly where I'd left it when I started my laptop up for the first time afterwards. I like that I've got my Start button back. I do kind of miss my page of tiles, but I'm sure I'll come to terms with it. Everything seems to be much as it was before and, as I don't have internet access at home, I've not had much of a reason to play with features such as Cortana.

The one thing I had a slight issue with was when I started up trusty Blue for the first time after doing a full shut down. It seemed to take F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

This is maybe a slight exaggeration. It's definitely an exaggeration. Especially when you consider the fact that my old laptop used to take upwards of half an hour to start up fully and let me do anything (rushing it resulted in the poor thing locking up or having a hot flush and needing to have a shut down to get over it).

In reality F.O.R.E.V.E.R. is probably a lot closer to about two minutes. But it's a long time to sit starting at a black screen when you're not used to your laptop doing things like that.

It was back to Google again for the fix. Ironically the issue seemed to be in part caused by something called 'Fast Start-Up' which is actually anything but. That shaved some time off it. The other cause is to do with graphics drivers, which I'll investigate when I get around to it.

Other than this, I'm coming to really like it. I keep finding little things that just makes sense; like when you select the Start button and 'All Apps' and they're in alphabetical order, it makes things easy to find; or when you're opening or saving a file in a programme it gives you your recently used folders, I know past versions of Windows have done this, but it just seems to work so much better in Windows 10.

Sure there's hiccoughs and teething problems, but the kinks are ironing out nicely. I've not found a single programme that I used before that doesn't work on the new operating system (even my ancient version of Photoshop Elements which I thought was going to cause problems since it jumped up complaining that I didn't have Internet Explorer 5 on my computer). I'm tempted to dig out some of my really old games to give Windows 10 a run for its money with them at some point.


Have you upgraded? How are you finding it?

12 comments:

  1. I haven't bothered! I'm a luddite when it comes to such things

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    1. I don't like to join new things too soon so they have time to work out the kinks, but I didn't want to leave it too long and miss my free software. ;-)

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  2. Upgraded with no problems - I found the tiles page an unnecessary addition so quite happy to see that go. I've heard of people having horrendous problems though, so I think I've been lucky.
    Anabel's Travel Blog

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    1. The longer I go without tiles, the less I miss it. And the search function seems to be a lot more accurate on Windows 10 then on Windows 8.1. At least, when I search for things it finds what I want, rather than everything else but.

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  3. I have no intention of updating to Windows 10 - too many tales of Microsoft spying on through its creepy new privacy policy thingy. I have no doubt that it is probably no more invasive than Google/Facebook though. Don't you find it creepy that the new pair of shoes you were looking at keep following you around the internet?

    I don't like the idea of my laptop following me around quite as much as my Facebook account!!!

    You can turn all those stalker options off though...

    I can't talk too much - I have a Windows Phone. And Cortana is rubbish. She thinks I work near London for one thing. The only good thing about her is to ask her who her daddy is and a load of other stupid questions. I can't really see the use of a PA on your phone or computer. I just can't imagine suddenly having to say "Hey Cortana, take a note.." when I could just as easily do it manually and not feel so much like a buffoon....

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    1. I've fiddled with my privacy settings. I suppose it doesn't bother me too much since my laptop is rarely connected to the internet. I'll maybe feel differently next year when we're aiming to get broadband and it'll be connected a lot more so I'll be looking at a lot more sites.

      I don't really see the point of Cortana. It's quicker for me to just type something into a search bar. Especially as it doesn't seem to understand my accent. I've been playing with speech recognition and it's okay when you're on your own, but when there's people around I'd feel a bit silly.

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  4. I bought a new laptop last year and and made sure it had Windows 7 because I like that version of Windows best. I did not upgrade to Windows 10 because so many people on fb have been talking about the problems they had installing it or after it was installed. So I'm good.

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    1. I kept my copy of Windows 7 when I got Bloo, just in case I really couldn't get on with Windows 8.1. I found the installation of Windows 10 was really quick though and aside from the slow start up, which is slowly resolving itself, I've not had any complaints. :-)

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  5. No, I've not upgraded. I'm so far behind that I'll get a new laptop before I get Windows 10.

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    1. If I hadn't gotten Bloo recently I don't think I would've bothered with it. My old laptop was set up to run Vista and was very slowly dying on me. I think asking it to cope with Windows 10 might just have pushed it over the edge!

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  6. I'm having a few issues with Windows 10. Wish I hadn't done it :(

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    1. Have you got time to roll back? If it's not working for you, I'd downgrade.

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Let me know what you think. :-)