Windows 10 experiences

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:56 pm

I installed Win 10 on my laptop about a week ago. I tried to a week before that but my connection is so slow here at mi casa it didn't work so I went to Jr's where he has high speed. The install went fine.

The first problem I noticed was that when looking at things on Facebook I would come to a video that someone had posted and it wouldn't load. OK I thought, there will be a service pack out in a few weeks to fix that and I'll be good to go. Well this morning when I got home from work I was going to do some reading and listen to a local radio station's stream at the same time. No audio. I tried Youtube and there was no audio there either.
OK it's got to go till they get the bugs out. I did the re-set back to Win 7 and now everything is working again. May try it again in a month or so.

crs · Post by **crs** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:24 pm

Rusty,
Early adopters have some of the same problems the early settlers of the American west had with the Indians- arrows in the back!

My wife recently bought a new computer with Windows 8 on it and it has caused her no end of problems and wasted time(and headaches for me from listening to the complaining.

After over 50 years in the computer business, and decades since I moved from programming to management, I run tried and true versions until forced to change. Let someone else waste their time and energy to find all the design and implementation bugs and bitch until they are fixed; I now consider computers only as tools, not an adventure into the future.
I still get good use from Windows 7 and refuse to change as long as it does all I need.
I see you backed off to W7 and it should serve you well for a year or two until W 10 settles down.

spaceman spiff · Post by **spaceman spiff** » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:47 pm

givin' my druthers, I would run DOS 6.22

spaceman

handirifle · Post by **handirifle** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 12:38 am

I was VERY happy with Win XP, then my laptop died. NO ONE was selling one with XP, all Win 8. I hate Win 8, so much so, my next upgrade will be to a Mac. I know they are not perfect, but my wife's never has the issues I do.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 12:42 am

I know what you mean CRS. Win 7 is a stable platform with no problems. I just wanted to see what it was going to do because my wife keeps asking when I'm going to do something. I just bought her a new Dell laptop that also has Win 7 on it. According to MS I have a year to make the change for free. After that it will cost $50 per machine. After seeing this I'll wait till about next June to make the change.

vancelw · Post by **vancelw** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 8:59 am

spaceman spiff wrote:givin' my druthers, I would run DOS 6.22

spaceman

Mac OS 9.2.2.....only reason I quit using it was it wouldn't support flash and other graphics needed for all the internet we are all addicted to now

stew71 · Post by **stew71** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:47 am

Interesting....we've been running Win10 since we downloaded it at the end of July. Almost no issues.

Old Ironsights · Post by **Old Ironsights** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:23 am

Just got my Win10 "updates".

So far no issues other than aesthetic.

I liked using Oil Lamps, Outhouse and pump handles, and these new switches, flush thingies and taps have me a little flummoxed...

Blaine · Post by **Blaine** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:25 am

The I-Mac I've had for four years is disappointing me. I plugged it in, and it's been trouble free. Nothing to fiddle with, or all that drama that kept life interesting.

I miss my PC blue screen

Old Ironsights · Post by **Old Ironsights** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:38 am

BlaineG wrote:The I-Mac I've had for four years is disappointing me. I plugged it in, and it's been trouble free. Nothing to fiddle with, or all that drama that kept life interesting. I miss my PC blue screen

If I didn't have a zillion dollars in hardware and (now useless) education in 8088+ I might agree.

But I honestly like fiddling in the guts of PCs. They are almost as interesting as Human Guts... just less messy.

I don't remember the last time I actually has a BSoD, but getting a Chinese knock-off of a Japanese video card to operate whilst installed on a Taiwanese motherboard using US SIMS and an overclocked secondary market CPU - without a manual or tech support - is a rare Joy in life.

Like I said, it's all in the usage habits. AFAIC 80+% of the US market could be adequately served by Android Tablets... and that is EXACTLY why that market segment is doing so well and the PC segment, Apple included, is sort of drifting.

Blaine · Post by **Blaine** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:56 am

Old Ironsights wrote:
BlaineG wrote:The I-Mac I've had for four years is disappointing me. I plugged it in, and it's been trouble free. Nothing to fiddle with, or all that drama that kept life interesting. I miss my PC blue screen
If I didn't have a zillion dollars in hardware and (now useless) education in 8088+ I might agree.

But I honestly like fiddling in the guts of PCs. They are almost as interesting as Human Guts... just less messy.

I don't remember the last time I actually has a BSoD, but getting a Chinese knock-off of a Japanese video card to operate whilst installed on a Taiwanese motherboard using US SIMS and an overclocked secondary market CPU - without a manual or tech support - is a rare Joy in life.

Like I said, it's all in the usage habits. AFAIC 80+% of the US market could be adequately served by Android Tablets... and that is EXACTLY why that market segment is doing so well and the PC segment, Apple included, is sort of drifting.

Lot's of people squeal with joy when something goes tits up...a new chance to fix/fiddle with it. I just find it irritating. I got into computers late: My first one was a built, no name PC with Windows 98 second edition. I had to rebuild, add, and subtract boards, add cooling fan (which solved most of my problems. I had to alt/control/delete it three times and reload the OS.....I had a real hot video card). I'm getting too old and cranky for that...cuts into my NetFlix time....

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 1:45 pm

I was given a surface 3. I had to un-do the win10 install and revert to w8.1, go thru the install and updates to that date, then troubleshoot the os on msft's site. turns out that the database for my particular machine was corrupted. the online troubleshooter fixed that. then went into the 10 install and it all seems peachy for now.

I can understand people who like older versions of software. using linux on the desk box still. have hard drives stacked on the bookshelf that have win2k and winxp installs. some of them never ever saw the internet, I used those for bookkeeping and accounting. flummoxed intuit every time, but I got clean reports printed for my accountant without having to let intuit have any of my actual account info.

I like w10 a lot. I especially like that it will do razzle-dazzle stuff, on the surface in tablet mode, like connecting wirelessly to a projector, run powerpoint in presenter mode, mark up slides in real time, and generally do some visual ju-jitsu, like showing u2oob videos to an audience.

I don't know if a win7 tablet can do any of that, but I'm pretty certain you would go bald trying to do that with win2k or xp. they just weren't coded for it. plus, msft has made this tablet a full computer as well, unlike android, which has some better things than msft, but the surf runs msft office suite. anything you can do with your desktop office box you can do sitting in your driftboat under an umbrella, provided you've got a g3 or better dongle for the connection, if you need that. you can also snug up to your honey after the fish are iced and the anchor is down and the dinner dish is in the garbage, and watch a movie on the lcd monitor . . .

do you see windows 7 doing all of the above?

is it a little amusing that folks that drive trucks with sewing machine motors that are totally dependant on eleventeen jillion little wires connecting potted electronics that are scattered all over the entire vehicle, totally dependent on every single connection and the "chip" that's the tie that binds, is it funny that they hate win8.1 ? tickles my chuckler.

Catshooter · Post by **Catshooter** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 5:59 pm

I installed W10 last night. Most things seem ok except I can't scroll the page with my finger pad anymore. That's irritating enough I may just go back to the 8.1 which sucks pretty well on it's own.

Cat

jeepnik · Post by **jeepnik** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:26 pm

I don't even have it yet and they are irritating me to now end. I delete the icon for upgrading from the sys tray, and then it pops back up again after a bit. Really, if I were interested at this point I would buy it. But constant pestering like telemarketers may just force me to another OS. Don't he fools get it.

JohndeFresno · Post by **JohndeFresno** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 8:55 pm

Rusty wrote:I installed Win 10 on my laptop about a week ago... on Facebook...a video...wouldn't load....a local radio station's stream...No audio...Youtube...no audio there either.

It has been two weeks (15 days) since I loaded Win 10 Home over my 8.1 Home Operating System. That is, NOT even a clean installation; the old system files are stored in "Windows.old" folders. There have already been a couple of online updates from Microsoft, maybe even more that I don't know about. I have left my machine running all day to encourage the software to upgrade itself while this system is still new in my Toshiba Satellite notebook.

Other than one or two (old Win 32) applications that worked in Windows 8 but not in 10, everything works very well for me. In fact, as good or better (faster loads), generally. That includes audio, video, multimedia authoring programs, databases, spreadsheets, and two different compilers that I have tried.

The only notable glitch has been a problem or two with Adobe Flash files from the Internet, that required a new download of that utility a couple of times, for some reason.

I note, however, that I downloaded every single update and many upgrades of my existing software, while still using Windows 8.1, that was preparatory for the Windows 10 environment. I am sure that you have received some of those notices, if you have even a moderate collection of software.

The only thing that is perhaps unique with my system might be the large amount of memory in this box: 12 Gigabybes RAM with fast chips. Win 10 O/S reportedly uses extra memory far more efficiently than with older systems.

And, of course, the old proviso from early hard drive days is that you must keep at least 12% of your hard drive free to allow for expansion and contraction of data as the system works through its processes. My system has a 921 GB ("1 Terabyte") drive with 617 GB free. I constantly offload old data files to an external (USB) hard drive to keep this machine running smoothly.

The last item: We don't want to forget to keep the hard drive defragmented. I defrag mine weekly, sometimes more often if I install something. And monthly it is a good idea to optimize the drive, which takes longer - let it run overnight if you have a lot of applications and/or data on your box. If your microcomputer becomes cluttered with bits and pieces of files scattered everywhere across the hard drive, your response time is a lot longer. More importantly, after a while those files are much more susceptible to corruption, meaning that you have to reload them from your installation discs to get them running again. And data can become lost forever.

Right after I updated my system to Windows 10, the optimization (Defrag/Optimize) process took a very long time as this poor ol' electronic creature tried to figure out what happened.

That includes regular registry optimization. I have tried dozens of utilities, but have settled upon Glary Utilities as the most reliable, safe, and useful tool to keep my system tuned up and running smoothly. There is still a free version online, I believe, which is very good. I finally purchased the "Pro" version because it is inexpensive and does a deeper search for any problems in the registry. But I used the free version for several years, finding it less troublesome than several better known utilities for my machines.

I hope that this information will help in some way. I am very pleased with, and thoroughly surprised by, my Windows 10 upgrade.

JohndeFresno · Post by **JohndeFresno** » Wed Aug 19, 2015 9:39 pm

Catshooter wrote:I installed W10 last night. Most things seem ok except I can't scroll the page with my finger pad anymore. That's irritating enough I may just go back to the 8.1 which sucks pretty well on it's own.

Cat

Have you tried placing the mouse on the screen's vertical scroll button, then running your right finger down the pad while using your left finger to hold down the left click button? It might be a feature added to prevent inadvertent movement of a page. I use a roller ball mouse so I don't remember how my rarely used Win 8 mouse pad worked, but I just tried the technique described on my Win 10 notebook.

Catshooter · Post by **Catshooter** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:47 pm

No John, I didn't know to try that. Good idea though.

Since I also couldn't get my Ctrl+F11 to work so I'd have more screen I decided the hell with it. Picked a restore point a couple of days prior to loading 10 and restored.

Didn't work, still had W10. *sigh* But, now my finger pad works, so I'm half way there.

Cat

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:49 pm

Cat,

I think there is a 'revert' feature built-in. If you use the search icon on the taskbar and type in 'revert' or something like it you might get the low down on how to do it.

then if you do all the updates for 8.1 or update to 8.1 if you were at 8 and do all that other stuff, you can probably get a good clean 10 install. 10 is supposed to go on top of 8.1.

then before you use it you could make a disc image on a usb drive that will let you revert to the fresh install state. the search icon will help get you there.

and for the security conscious. turn off cortana and don't use the microsft cloud. and don't open any shares on your home network. that virus can get in thru junior's classmate's cousin's sibling's thumb drive.

Catshooter · Post by **Catshooter** » Sat Aug 22, 2015 12:43 am

I don't know from 'revert', but your description sounds like what I did: restore. It did make things a bit better so there you are.

What does Cortana do that I should kill it?

Cat

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Sat Aug 22, 2015 8:41 am

What does Cortana do that I should kill it?

cortana profiles you. it syncs all of your data and info and contacts on all of your devices and can be used to update all of your contacts with all of your info. it tracks you and studies you and 'helps' you by assembling a profile so it knows what places you might be likely to drive by and which ones you're likely to stop at. it 'suggests' things for you to see or do based on your profile.

I think this profile is stored on msft servers, which means that it is available to everyone wanting to sell you stuff.

It's computer ai. you can tell your device to schedule a flight to timbuktu on sept eleven and it will do that and possibly suggest lodging when you get there. it will make dinner reservations for you. 'useful' 'helpful' stuff.

I look at it like the nice person helping someone across the street and picking their pockets.

it's a me thing. I know someone who is so excited about cortana that he is going to buy another computer so he will have someone to talk to. he likes the idea of cortana talking back to him. ymmv. lots of video around, including on msft websites. they are very proud of it.

I could test it I suppose by saying, "cortana, make a twenty slide powerpoint presentation on the topic of faith with correct hermaneutics and exegisis." just to see if the a is really i.

jeepnik · Post by **jeepnik** » Sat Aug 22, 2015 9:37 am

From what I'm reading, I'm convinced my decision to stay with 7 or 8 (depending on device) is a good one for now. I'll give 9 to 12 months before I switch, "if" I do.

6pt-sika · Post by **6pt-sika** » Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:09 pm

crs wrote:Rusty,
Early adopters have some of the same problems the early settlers of the American west had with the Indians- arrows in the back!

My wife recently bought a new computer with Windows 8 on it and it has caused her no end of problems and wasted time(and headaches for me from listening to the complaining.

After over 50 years in the computer business, and decades since I moved from programming to management, I run tried and true versions until forced to change. Let someone else waste their time and energy to find all the design and implementation bugs and bitch until they are fixed; I now consider computers only as tools, not an adventure into the future.
I still get good use from Windows 7 and refuse to change as long as it does all I need.
I see you backed off to W7 and it should serve you well for a year or two until W 10 settles down.

The Toshiba laptop I'm using as I type this was purchased about ten months ago and came with Windows 8 , it gave me problems . I downloaded Windows 10 this past week and it seems to be doing pretty well !

Old Ironsights · Post by **Old Ironsights** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 8:34 am

I shut Cortana off before I did anything else.

SteveR · Post by **SteveR** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 9:29 am

Rusty wrote:I installed Win 10 on my laptop about a week ago. I tried to a week before that but my connection is so slow here at mi casa it didn't work so I went to Jr's where he has high speed. The install went fine.

The first problem I noticed was that when looking at things on Facebook I would come to a video that someone had posted and it wouldn't load. OK I thought, there will be a service pack out in a few weeks to fix that and I'll be good to go. Well this morning when I got home from work I was going to do some reading and listen to a local radio station's stream at the same time. No audio. I tried Youtube and there was no audio there either.
OK it's got to go till they get the bugs out. I did the re-set back to Win 7 and now everything is working again. May try it again in a month or so.

There may be a driver issue with your brand of computer, Win10 may require you to update your drivers for the hardware i.e. speakers and i.e. video card to operate with win10. Win7 is a little older and Micro Soft probably never took the time to add drivers for older machines in the upgrade to Win10, if they did the download would be huge and very cumbersome, most people upgrading in MS eyes are from Win8 to Win10, so they concentrate on the support i.e. driver for most common machines for the upgrade to save space.

Steve

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:19 am

Old Ironsights wrote:I shut Cortana off before I did anything else.

same here. I also kill the internet when setting up browsers and set up private browsing mode and make the home page about:blank to avoid the inundation of stuff.

as an aside, msft is very very tricky. back in win2k days I was watching a new install with a packet sniffer and saw curious traffic when booting the win box. I had closed off the network as tightly as I knew how at the time, but msft was calling home over UDP to notify them that their software went online.

totally outside the purpose and normal usage of that protocol, but, oh well, it's msft you see . . .

Washita · Post by **Washita** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 1:10 pm

Rusty wrote:I installed Win 10 on my laptop about a week ago. I tried to a week before that but my connection is so slow here at mi casa it didn't work so I went to Jr's where he has high speed. The install went fine.

The first problem I noticed was that when looking at things on Facebook I would come to a video that someone had posted and it wouldn't load. OK I thought, there will be a service pack out in a few weeks to fix that and I'll be good to go. Well this morning when I got home from work I was going to do some reading and listen to a local radio station's stream at the same time. No audio. I tried Youtube and there was no audio there either.
OK it's got to go till they get the bugs out. I did the re-set back to Win 7 and now everything is working again. May try it again in a month or so.

Can you actually reset it back to Windows 7? I installed 10 a few days ago and don't like it at all. I don't much like the way I got it, either. It was my understanding that I could reserve it & then decide whether or not to install it. What actually happened was that I "reserved" it. Then, a few days later I got a message that I neded to install an update, which happens all the time. No mention of Windows 10. So I clicked on "install updates" and it installed Windows 10. There was no mention of Windows 10. I'd love to go back to 7. Can you tell me how?

P.S. My only real complaint with Win 10 is that it's not much like the earlier versions. I am not really a "computer guy" and don't much like having to unlearn the old technology to learn a new one. 10 may be great for computer-savvy folks, I dunno. It does seem to offer a lot of new stuff, but frankly it all seems to be stuff I'm not really interested in. It may be great for others.

(Later) Never mind. I Googled it & found out how to go back to Win 7. I'm gonna get my computer-savvy daughter to do it for me 'cuz if there's a way to booger it up I'm almost certain to find it.

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 1:24 pm

Grizz wrote:same here. I also kill the internet when setting up browsers and set up private browsing mode and make the home page about:blank to avoid the inundation of stuff.

I use the "about:blank" for the same reason. I know where I want to go... and don't need a long script running when I want to get someplace else!

rossim92 · Post by **rossim92** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 5:40 pm

BlaineG wrote:
Old Ironsights wrote:
BlaineG wrote:The I-Mac I've had for four years is disappointing me. I plugged it in, and it's been trouble free. Nothing to fiddle with, or all that drama that kept life interesting. I miss my PC blue screen
If I didn't have a zillion dollars in hardware and (now useless) education in 8088+ I might agree.

But I honestly like fiddling in the guts of PCs. They are almost as interesting as Human Guts... just less messy.

I don't remember the last time I actually has a BSoD, but getting a Chinese knock-off of a Japanese video card to operate whilst installed on a Taiwanese motherboard using US SIMS and an overclocked secondary market CPU - without a manual or tech support - is a rare Joy in life.

Like I said, it's all in the usage habits. AFAIC 80+% of the US market could be adequately served by Android Tablets... and that is EXACTLY why that market segment is doing so well and the PC segment, Apple included, is sort of drifting.
Lot's of people squeal with joy when something goes tits up...a new chance to fix/fiddle with it. I just find it irritating. I got into computers late: My first one was a built, no name PC with Windows 98 second edition. I had to rebuild, add, and subtract boards, add cooling fan (which solved most of my problems. I had to alt/control/delete it three times and reload the OS.....I had a real hot video card). I'm getting too old and cranky for that...cuts into my NetFlix time....

does it cut into your chill time also?

flightsimmer · Post by **flightsimmer** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 7:49 pm

I hear a lot of Windows XP users with older PC's are going to Linux Mint, Cinnamin and having great results.

Old Ironsights · Post by **Old Ironsights** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:08 pm

The things you can do with Win10 Autoconnect...

Catshooter · Post by **Catshooter** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:33 pm

Well after what, a couple weeks now with 10 I'm pretty happy. It's far from perfect of course and it's still got some holes that need fixed but it's way way better than the 8.1 I was running.

So I'll soldier on.

Cat

Malamute · Post by **Malamute** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 8:22 pm

I came across this recently, this discussion came to mind and I bookmarked it. How to reclaim your privacy in windows 10.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2971725/ ... piece.html

Grizz · Post by **Grizz** » Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:43 am

good link.

JohndeFresno · Post by **JohndeFresno** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:52 pm

Griff wrote:
Grizz wrote:same here. I also kill the internet when setting up browsers and set up private browsing mode and make the home page about:blank to avoid the inundation of stuff.
I use the "about:blank" for the same reason. I know where I want to go... and don't need a long script running when I want to get someplace else!

My choice for the home page is Google, since I do a lot searches. It has proven the most useful search engine for me, almost always.

For sites I use specifically (e.g. this site or a regular merchant I patronize), I use RoboForm and enter their partial name(s) into the search box. It saves me a lot of time, typos and/or struggling with a password.

spaceman spiff · Post by **spaceman spiff** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:05 pm

Still running Win 7 pro. I did the free upgrade to Win 10, did not like it (though MUCH better than any
flavor of Win 8 IMO) I promptly restored a ghost of my system and will stick with Win 7 until Micro$oft
releases their next OS.

spaceman

spaceman spiff · Post by **spaceman spiff** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:06 pm

flightsimmer wrote:I hear a lot of Windows XP users with older PC's are going to Linux Mint, Cinnamin and having great results.

Linux is cool

spaceman

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:29 pm

I thought that now that I'm home, I'd do the upgrade to Win 10... looked thru the list of known issues as listed by the laptop manufacturer... found this:
•With Windows 10 installed you will automatically receive updates and security fixes from Microsoft. You will not be able to opt out of this service.

Since most of my connection time is via an "air card"... Sprint, not being able to disable auto updates is a deal killer. I don't need my laptop burnin' up my roaming minutes doing an upgrade.

FWiedner · Post by **FWiedner** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:12 pm

spaceman spiff wrote:givin' my druthers, I would run DOS 6.22

spaceman

I loved that version of MSDOS.

Paladin · Post by **Paladin** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 2:42 pm

crs wrote:Rusty,
Early adopters have some of the same problems the early settlers of the American west had with the Indians- arrows in the back!

I run tried and true versions until forced to change. Let someone else waste their time and energy to find all the design and implementation bugs and bitch until they are fixed; I now consider computers only as tools, not an adventure into the future.
I still get good use from Windows 7 and refuse to change as long as it does all I need.
I see you backed off to W7 and it should serve you well for a year or two until W 10 settles down.

+1

vancelw · Post by **vancelw** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 8:16 pm

I just let my computer update to Windows 10 today. So far I can't see much difference, as I had already set Windows 8.1 to look more like 7 and get rid of most of the bothersome features. Looks like they put the power button back where you would expect it to be.

I have a touchscreen laptop. There have been many times with 8.1 that I just got too frustrated trying to do something with the keyboard or the mouse and had to reach up to swipe the screen. I bet it was extremely aggravating on a computer without a touch screen.

I also set most of the tracking options to "no" even though I'm sure they track me anyway.