WINDOWS 10

[Kiya]

Horus, cant find your post about Windows 10 but I see the free Windows 10 offer ends on 29th July.

How do you think it is now for down loading ??

[Horus]

Kiya It will be free until the end of this Month.
Many things have been said for and against this 'free' upgrade, most have been against it, but each person must decide if its worth doing. My own PC will work with Win 10 (or so it says) but I will not be downloading it, to me it is too invasive and controlling. The support for Win 7 will continue until 2020 at least and we dont know what Microsoft may do in the meantime as I don't think they have had the take up that they expected. My own view is that at such time I may have to use it then I will either be buying a new PC and it will already have it loaded, or if I really need it at some later date then I will just have to buy it and I doubt it will cost that much when the time arrives.

[Kiya]

Ok Thanks for that advice

As we know I still have to the end of the month to think if I will or not.

Roy has it on his laptop & thinks its ok.................I'll see before time is up

[BBLUX]

From my perspective I would not touch the upgrade option with a barge pole!
I tried it on my Win 7 laptop and it seemed ok for about 2 weeks them the laptop ran very slow and kept freezing. I rolled back to Win 7 and the laptop was fine again...phew!!
I researched the issues on the web and tried it again after a couple of months but the same thing happened so I had to do a clean reinstall of Win 7 to fix it that time.
I just don't think the upgrade over an existing operating system works properly.
Having said all that I have a little Lenovo S20T which came with Win 8. I upgraded that to Win 10 from new and it seemed ok but then had the freezing issues with that.
I found a trick on the web and managed to fool Win 10 into doing a clean install. It has been pretty good for about 8 months but still gives the very occasional freeze. I don't think it is as stable as the old Win 7 Pro on my main laptop but I will persevere. Biggest issue is the forced updates which can be huge. When travelling on limited bandwidth it is a real pain. I have found a trick for handling those. I go into the Network settings and select the Advanced Options and set it to Metered connection. This stops the automatic delivery of updates until such time as I am ready to handle them.

[Kiya]

Thanks BBLUX....... its not sounding good

[Horus]

Thanks for your thoughts on that BBlux, I am glad that you have given it a thorough testing and come to the same conclusion as I did. I have done several posts on here when people have asked me about it and I even did a recent thread on how to remove the Win 10 nag that stays on the taskbar and to stop it slipping in the crafty update again. The biggest problem is the total invasiveness of Win 10, the updates are forced upon you and it has even removed apps that it does not consider suitable, I have a friend who was the IT specialist for a very large American company and at first he was OK with it, now he rants almost every time he tries to use it on a large project. The driving force behind all of this was the fear that Microsoft would be left behind with tablet and cell phone operating systems so (IMO) hastily came out with the new all embracing touch screen Win 8 which was so bad that they issued an upgrade almost immediately. Knowing how poisonous that had been they did not dare to call the next one Win 9, so opted for Win 10 as it would appear to be the ultimate OS.

The problem is that Microsoft want to have complete control over this new operating system, to stop you using anything they may feel detremental or unsuitable to its use and to impliment all and every update that they issue. This is very laudable in someways as it is attempting to keep the system free from virus attacks and or hacking of the OS. Unfortunately the only way it can achieve that is to be in total control of your PC and even what you do on it, it also wants to create a monopoly situation where once you are into using it there is very little choice to use an alternative. They are already leaning towards 'leasing' out their products so I can forsee a time when we all have to pay some sort of monthly fee similar to a TV package to use a customised suit of programs from word processing to art programs, they need to make their money back somehow. Always remember, "if the product is free" "then you are the product"

[Grandad]

When I bought a new computer (Lenovo all in one) about 8 months ago, it came with Win 8.1 that I instantly disliked, coming from my trusty Win XP. I almost immediately took the option to upgrade to Win 10.

I don't do any big sophisticated stuff, mostly internet, online accounts, photo editing, Word and Excel. It has been completely trouble free for me with the exception of some problems with video editors.

With AVS it does not now recognise some formats that were recognised under XP, and with Widows Movie Maker it does freeze occasionally so I have to save very frequently.

If I really ran into problems I would probably but an Apple.

[Horus]

Like many things Grandad it all depends upon what you need it for, some people will be quite happy with it and others will not be. I think that the casual user may be OK with it, but anyone trying to use old legacy software and a large spread of older programs will probably come across something that upsets them and of course less powerful PC's and Laptops or those with limited capacity may also encounter problems with the continuous updates and especially if their internet is poor.

[BBLUX]

Interesting comments from Horus and Grandad. Yes, the software issues are annoying. Our 2 purchased copies of MS Office 2003 had been ideal for our needs all the years we had them. No need to update whatsoever. Then along came Win 8 and Win 10. No longer compatible!!! I don't see me moving up from Win 7 Ultimate anytime soon on my main laptop. I had to find a copy of Office 2013 for this little S20T just so I could access my spreadsheets and word documents.
I have not had any other real issues with my preferred software but I deliberately keep this one light on software for travelling. I use VLC player to run films etc via the HDMI to the TV's we encounter while moving around. On a positive note this little Lenovo boots really fast under Win 10, less than a minute.
I guess when I finally replace my main laptop it will be Win 10 by default. Hopefully it will be more stable by then.

[Horus]

I think it will eventually be more stable regardless of what they say about it being the one and only release, I reckon that if anyone keeps tabs on how it has changed over a couple of years then it would be up to Win 11 or something else by then. Afterall with all these automatic updates they can pretty well do what they want behind the scenes and only the techies will know what has been going on in the background. To be fair to it there are some good features especially the fast boot time which most people comment on, but I still have reservations that they are heading somewhere I don't really want to go.

[Grandad]

My computer came with Office 2013 for a limited trial period. I opted not to buy it.

I had Office 2003 which I have loaded. I only want it for Word and Excel and these work fine. I don't know about all the other elements of Office as I never use them.

[Kiya]

After reading all your comments I guess I'm going to stay where I'm at at the moment till we see what happens in the future.

If I have to buy later on so be it, for now I'll stick with what I know

[Horus]

Sometimes it is better "the devil you know" and I doubt it will be a while before you are forced to change over to something else.

[Jayway]

I still have Windows XP and even tho they tell me no more update my comp doesnt seem to mind. I did look in the Radio Popular shop for a new one, he showed me one that didnt need a monitor, had a slot for DVDs on the side and you could change it to whatever Windows you wanted, just one click. As I would have loved it, sadly it wouldnt fit on my desk ( not a lot of room in here) so its still in the shop - -

[Horus]

Get a bigger desk

[Jayway]

One door, 2 windows Horus and a LOT of stuff ---- fat people couldnt walk far in here.