Windows 10

[MD5]

I recently bought a new Dell laptop from them (not overly impressed), deliberately ordering Windows 7, as I've heard nothing good about Windows 8.

I'm being offered reservation of a free, full upgrade to Windows 10, as no doubt lots of other are. For the usage I give it, I'd still be okay on XP, tbh, but I depend heavily on MS Excel 2007, which is mine, all mine!

Any insights, recommendations or otherwise from you learned IT peeps, please?

 

[BTB 500]

Yup I've noticed that a 'Get Windows 10' icon has appeared in the notification area of our Win 7 machines now.

 

[MancMike]

XP was good.
Vista was crap.
7 is good.
8 is crap.

They're skipping/not-calling-it 9 for historic and technical reasons not worth talking much about (programming which regex match strings like if("Win 9*") to target Win 95 and Win 98 would bork with Win 9 potentially causing odd programming logic and software behaviour)

So 10 should be good...

They've learned from Windows 8 that people's desktop computers aren't tablets and we don't want touchscreens on our desks aching our arms and fingers dirtying our screens, and after pretty much everyone changed the default tiled interface to default to the desktop view instead, they've combined the two in a way that should be comfortable for everyone.

In your case, if it ain't broke... Windows 7 is still very good providing you're fully up to date, and assuming you don't use IE, you should be good for a number of years yet.

 

[grober]

5 things Windows 8.1 can't do that Windows 10 can | Alphr

 

[MD5]

Thanks i-CONICA. I have an 11" HP pos laptop with Win7 which I will try it on for comparison. It can't perform any worse than it has done!

What are the known issues with IE? I do use Chrome in preference, but is IE fundamentally flawed?

 

[W4E300]

What's the cost?

In the old adage, "If you're being offered something that someone else made, for free....then you're the 'product'".......

Sent from my iPad using MBClub UK

 

[whitenemesis]

Users of licences versions of wn7 and wn8 can upgrade to the same version level for free in the first 12 months of launch, 29th July You get the full install downloaded gratis. With lifetime updates and addons. MS want 1bn users on 10 within 18 months (?)

 

[MD5]

What's the cost?

In the old adage, "If you're being offered something that someone else made, for free....then you're the 'product'".......

Sent from my iPad using MBClub UK

Aside from the technical reasons of going from 8 to 10, explained by iconica, it makes me think of London Taxis International (LTI), and their range of TX vehicles. The TX2 was so bad, they went straight to TX4 in the hopes that people would think that the TX2 problems were ironed out with the TX3.

If Win 8 is so bad, then why not make amends with good feedback from Win 10? It will a beta version, but I remember buying a Vista laptop years ago, which had the promise of a free 7 upgrade. Anyway, I have, as mentioned, an 11" HP laptop, well specced, but it has been a pain in the ar$e, so I don't mind sacrificing it, as it's nearly gone out of the window a few times.

 

[MD5]

Users of licences versions of wn7 and wn8 can upgrade to the same version level for free in the first 12 months of launch, 29th July You get the full install downloaded gratis. With lifetime updates and addons. MS want 1bn users on 10 within 18 months (?)

My concerns are the way everything is now living in a cloud, which you have to pay for. My MS Office 2007 will no doubt become obsolete, and I'll have to rent some updated software once ugraded!

 

[markmifsud]

I have been using win10 for a while and whilst its deff a step in the right direction, ie way better than v8/8.1 I still prefer win7pro for my desktop.

 

[SLK32AMG]

I have a icon appeared on my task bar saying I can reserve a free upgrade of windows 10
Not sure what to do

 

[MancMike]

Thanks i-CONICA. I have an 11" HP pos laptop with Win7 which I will try it on for comparison. It can't perform any worse than it has done!

What are the known issues with IE? I do use Chrome in preference, but is IE fundamentally flawed?

Yes, in short, it's atrocious and is holding the web back and costing the entire web design and development industry many millions a year.

The longer version;

We build web apps and websites, then try to get them to work in IE, too.

IE is not a standards compliant browser and Microsoft likes to go against the grain and be proprietary at every available opportunity. So, all other browsers support agreed web standards for something, IE either doesn't support it full stop or has it's own - different way of doing it with varying levels of success (usually failure).

Here's a comparison showing the previous 4 versions of IE (lots of people are still on older versions) and the latest version of each of the other popular browsers (because they update themselves).

Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc

(the subtext of the domain/website is "can I use, or doesn't IE support it yet?)

You see that IE doesn't support much, so workarounds have to be made, or the app/website just left "less special" in IE alone, or all together, through budget constraints - because it's not feasible to have developers spend time=money making an app as good as it can be, if it's not going to work in IE. (older people are generally less tech-savvy - so use the built-in browser IE (which they call "the internet"), so if the client happened to be "SunLife", you're going to have to make it work in IE, and some very old versions at that, so no point even trying to make it modern or feature rich, but if you do, it must degrade gracefully).

So the entire industry is watching usage stats for older versions and slowly pushing the boundaries, depending on the demographic. Lots of websites now (including Google, eBay, PayPal, etc) now completely refuse to work in older versions of IE or suggest you upgrade it or change to a proper browser.

Something more elaborate, with some history and probably much less boring than what I've just wrote:

HTG Explains: Why Do So Many Geeks Hate Internet Explorer?

(you did ask...)

 

[AMGeed]

I must be in the minority in finding Win 8.1 a stable and easy OS. The charms bar is novelty only and serves no useful purpose as far as I can see.

I have reserved a copy of Win 10 but will hold back for a month or two and get some feedback before downloading and installing.

 

[Dryce]

I'm in rush to move our Win7 and Win8 systems to Win10.

Really I'd prefer it if we didn't have to deal with Win8.

My view is it's unlikely that Win10 will be anything other than an attempt to lock in to the MS world of cloud and services. I can't see it offering anything significant - just hassle.

 

[trapperjohn]

Still on XP here. And although dog slow Im happy with it.

 

[moonloops]

Still on XP here. And although dog slow Im happy with it.

I'm still on Windows 1.0 - screen shot to prove it, correct time also..

 

[MD5]

Fascinating reply for a non IT guy, i-CONICA, thank you. I hope I'd be forgiven for thinking that with MS dominating the internet for people like myself all these years, I'd assumed the were proprietorial in industry standards, so who sets these? Looking back to IE3 and 4 is about where I came in, on my Gateway 2000, with its massive 2.5GB harddrive and other similar specs!

My view is it's unlikely that Win10 will be anything other than an attempt to lock in to the MS world of cloud and services. I can't see it offering anything significant - just hassle.

My thoughts and concerns exactly.

 

[Antharro]

Still on XP here. And although dog slow Im happy with it.

Backup, wipe, reinstall, be amazed at the speed gain.

Or

Backup, upgrade hardware (more RAM, faster HDD or SSD), wipe, reinstall, be even more amazed.

Regarding Windows 8.1, I am also in the minority as I rather like it. Got it on my primary desktop, laptop and tablet, but W7 on everything else. I am looking forward to Windows 10 and will more than likely be upgrading my laptop and tablet to it asap - the desktop is a fairly complicated setup so it's not as easy to just backup + wipe + reinstall as it is with the other kit.

I ran the W10 betas for a while but stopped once it was discovered that there was a built-in keylogger. (I understand why it's there but I don't want it on a PC that I use every day).

As for Dell, I deal with their business products on a daily basis and with Dell directly from everything from individual sales to orders of hundreds of PCs to after sales and out of warranty, so I have a pretty good idea of how they operate; thankfully I can say that having also dealt with Lenovo and HP, Dell are far, far nicer to deal with and their business products are better. The consumer stuff's ok as long as you avoid the REALLY cheap kit and just buy directly from them online.

 

[moonloops]

Backup, wipe, reinstall, be amazed at the speed gain.

Or

Backup, upgrade hardware (more RAM, faster HDD or SSD), wipe, reinstall, be even more amazed.

Regarding Windows 8.1, I am also in the minority as I rather like it. Got it on my primary desktop, laptop and tablet, but W7 on everything else. I am looking forward to Windows 10 and will more than likely be upgrading my laptop and tablet to it asap - the desktop is a fairly complicated setup so it's not as easy to just backup + wipe + reinstall as it is with the other kit.

I ran the W10 betas for a while but stopped once it was discovered that there was a built-in keylogger. (I understand why it's there but I don't want it on a PC that I use every day).

As for Dell, I deal with their business products on a daily basis and with Dell directly from everything from individual sales to orders of hundreds of PCs to after sales and out of warranty, so I have a pretty good idea of how they operate; thankfully I can say that having also dealt with Lenovo and HP, Dell are far, far nicer to deal with and their business products are better. The consumer stuff's ok as long as you avoid the REALLY cheap kit and just buy directly from them online.

Windows 8.0 and 8.1 are still simple updates to windows NT so you can put back a lot of the basic functionality of previous versions such as start menu etc..

 

[E270 Owner]

8.1 for me is way better at handling memory than Win 7 pro

You can boot to desktop like Win 7 and a right click of the window in the place of the start icon does pretty much everything as before.

Win 10 ....... Im not being a free beta tester for MS

They will Dump it and create a new os and you will be charged for it most likely.