Windows 10....one year later....disscussion, thoughts.

So around this time last year, invites to upgrade to windows 10 rolled out....

Did anyone besides me upgrade (I'm sure many have)?

What are any thoughts, problems, good experiences you've had with operating system?

Thoughts on Cortana one year later? do you even use it...ahem...her?

Do you think it will get better/worse as time goes on?

I personally have not had many problems with Windows 10, It has ran pretty much any older program I've thrown on it. I remember when I first updated it, and I wanted to replace the default drivers with the latest drivers (made for win 7) on my then main laptop, a beat-up old Compaq. (well, 5 years old is ancient for a laptop.) Had some issues with the certificates or whatever....worked aound that, haven't had any major problems after. Was concerned about the privacy aspects, a lot of people voiced concern about push updates (apples been doing it for years) however, I'm pretty poor and boring online, and quite average looking so I wasn't worried about getting cleaned out online by the royal family of some obscure country. However, I did turn off a few privacy settings. I installed chrome as that was what I used before but I found the Edge browser to be quite capable. I did find some of the live tiles to be a little annoying (easily removed.)

Cortana....well....lets just say it's a neat concept....but I had a hard time integrating her into my life in a fashion where she'd actually prove useful. So I told her to take a hike....for now. Like I said, my online life is quite pathetic, I have no social media accounts (well, an unused google plus account) my email is basically a landfill of spam, and my calender is the online equivalent of hoth (before the rebels showed up.) so Cortana just wasn't needed. I'd be curious to know if people use her and their experiences.

I'm not sure whats coming down the road however, I feel like Microsoft has been a little heavy handed, and there's a part of me thats expecting advertisments to start appearing on my desktop, with no way to turn them off. Maybe thats not a fair thing to think. But the phrase "There are no free rides." keeps popping up. curious to know what others think.

 

I enrolled early on and played around with the betas, coming to the conclusion that the OS was going to be a solid leap forward. So when it came time to download and install, I did so gladly. I have to say that after a year, I still like the OS, though I do have issues with it from time to time.

For example, as much as I looked forward to Cortana, I have her disabled now, because the privacy trade-off was much too high. I mean, turning on Cortana means turning on keylogging, and lets your computer record what you're saying at any time. Add in location data acquisition, targeted ads, and data mining, and Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare. I mean, I have all of that turned off, and I guarantee you that Microsoft still receives telemetry about what I do and where I go from time to time.

As for Cortana herself, I used her for a while, and I still actively use her on my Windows 8.1 phone, but on a desktop she's not that necessary, since Google is literally a single mouseclick away, as are weather apps, sports apps if I want it (I don't), and so on. Having Cortana is more of a neat little trick than a fully useful digital assistant, at least on my desktop. So for now she's disabled, mostly until they cut back on the drastic invasion of my privacy.

Aesthetically speaking, Windows 10 is the most polished OS. The live tiles don't bother me, though I have replaced them with the Classic Start Menu, because I am used to that and prefer to have it instead of the live tiles. Plus, I can have dozens of programs in a single click, whereas the live tiles Start Menu takes up a lot of unnecessary screen space. Still, everything looks good, so no disappointments there.

The new PC and video card helps immensely as well. I now have a card that utilizes DirectX 11 and 12, so I'm curious to see whether or not Windows 10 will deliver on that performance level for gaming (though I don't do much gaming on my PC).

As for security, Windows 10 is fairly secure, though I still get the occasional errant bit of malware trying to snake its way into my system. In fact, it was a piece of malware that forced me to switch to Linux for a short time while I disinfected the drive to make it safe for boot again. Of course, I don't lay all of that at Microsoft's feet. Even though I protect my system with anti-malware, anti-exploit, and anti-virus programs, Windows is an awfully huge target for those who like to create viruses and malware. Still, the system is pretty solidly secure for what it is.

If there were any improvements I'd like to see, I would say it would be nice if they would work on their file copying speed. On Linux Mint, I can copy a large file and it just flies from one location to the other. With Windows 10 (just as with 8, 7, and Vista), file copying is a time consuming and arduous process, taking far longer than it should. I hope that gets resolved.

I would also like Microsoft to allow local accounts that can use parental controls. I tried to setup an account for my niece so she could do her homework and such when they were over here visiting, but I cannot create a local account that uses parental controls. You have to use a Microsoft connected account, which requires an email address. My niece is 9 and doesn't have an email address, and my brother would smack me upside the head if I made her one, and I don't blame him. She's too young for Microsoft to start collecting data on her already. I want her to have an account, but I'm not registering an email for her in the process. That's absurd.

That's all I can think of for the moment. I'd say if I had to grade the OS, I would give it a solid B. The privacy issues concern me, and Microsoft makes some things harder than they need to be, but all in all it's a decent operating system. Not worth $100+ decent, but decent just the same.

 

I like it.

 

yup, it's fine.

 

Indeed it is, runs perfectly on my main PC and both the laptops.

 

There is a free program by spybot (sure you're familiar with them) called "anti-beacon" which claims to stop all windows telemetry gathering. It's free, may be something you want to look into.

 

The update system is not surprisingly more infuriating with each new version of Windows and I was locked out of my new computer while it spend well over an hour doing one tiny update. But now that's disabled, it's great.

 

Thank you, I will look into that!

I got the May update on June 1st, and so for about two hours, my system sat there upgrading (it even assured me that all of my settings were being kept the same), even though I thought it was just going to be a simple update. Once it was done, there was no indication that anything had happened.

 

Ahh, thats likely the one I had then, that better be one of the bigger updates as that was just tedious.

 

I'm hoping so, though the biggest update is coming in July, I think, and that's Redstone, where they do major updates to everything.

 

It's ok except for one thing. Why is it whenever I boost up my computer that was in Standby mode, I lose my internet connection and can't get it back unless I restart the computer? What I mean is I know my internet is able to connect, and I'm sitting right under the modem, but when I try to connect it says "Unable to connect" and I have to restart the computer to get it to work. I've had this problem ever since I've upgraded and it's terrible. At first I thought it had something to do with the Itunes store so I exited the program but it still is giving me trouble. I'm not sure if it's a firewall thing or what but it's annoying.

 

This has been an issue since Windows 8, so it could be a holdover from the upgrade. When I had my previous PC, I upgraded from 7 to 10, and then I did a clean install, which eliminated all of the minor bugs that the upgrade caused. What you can try to do is make certain your OS isn't disabling the hardware. So go into your hardware configuration and adjust it like so:

PC Settings > Devices > Device Manager (at the bottom) > Network (find your adapter) > Right Click > Properties > Power Management > Uncheck "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power"

That should resolve it if it is checked. Then restart.

 

Been running is since release on my desktop, my mother-in-law has it on her two laptops, my mum had as HP All-One. The wife will be getting shortly when I upgrade her laptop. For the m-i-l and my mum it's generally hassle free.

Mum ran into an issue with an old Lexmark printer but that wasn't to surprising given they never released Win8 drivers for it.

For me it's been a bit more frustrating. My video card (an old Radeon 4870) suffered because of a lack of driver support as did my Canon MFP (could print scan but not fax).. Inititally it wasn't a problem but as Microsoft moved along with the insider builds they began to break stuff (yeah I know it's the risk with those builds but MS should do better).

One biggy is the connectivity with Windows Server Essentials. This is slightly cut down version of Windows Server aimed at small business and ties in with Office 365 as replacement for Small Business Server. It managers patching, monitors system status and backups up workstation clients and Microsoft has fucked up the connectivity pretty much since Windows 10 was released. One insider build it works no problem (just have to reinstall the connector after the ugprade, next build it's busted). $deity only knows whether the next full build (the anniversary edition) will have it working. The updated connector released to allow the connection of Windows 10 to Server Essentials also didn't come out until 2 - 3 months after the OS released.

Currently running Build 14352 and can't browser the web with Edge or IE (fortunately I use Firefox).

Updating for businesses that use Windows Software Update Services has also been a pain as MS upgrades that application but managed to make a mess of it.

So for home users it's probably been quite okay but for business I suspect it's been a pity of a pain because of back end workings (or not workings).

I'm glad that Microsoft saw the light at last and removed that abomination that was sharing wireless network details. They said it was due to difficulties maintaining the code but it should never have been introduced in the first place.

Security wise, Cortona's been neutered to a large degree and I've tightened the privacy. Don't use Windows Defender (and definitely not since it was decertified a few years back). Have Avira Free and combined with Sophos Endpoint Control from my UTM.

Other than the above issues (and an insider build that borked my user profile) it has been very stable and performance is good (5th Gen i5, 16GB ram, 128GB SSD).

 

Thanks J. I went through the steps and hopefully it works.

 

Is is possible to use a "plus" email address for this? I don't know about other email providers, but in gmail, "address+anything@gmail.com" is the same as "address@gmail.com", and most systems see those as separate email addresses.

 

I hope so! If not, you may consider backing up all of your data, and doing a clean install.

Yep. My niece just wants to do her homework and maybe play a game or two. That means access to the internet for both (she has classes where she can log in and get her extra credit assignments). Microsoft makes it frustrating to do any of that without having an email to tie down that account. Local accounts don't get any of the features the connected accounts do, which means no parental controls or anything. If you try to do it manually under a local account, you'll find there are no options available.

Nope. It has to be a Microsoft account. It even asks for all of the basic information. You tell Microsoft it's for a child, and they still want birthdate, email, phone contact, the whole works. It's like no one at Microsoft has children and understands why a parent may not wish to input this information in order for a company to use that data later, and they will.

 

Found this article that claims to explain what data MS collects where, and how it is used...it's quite long, but interesting.
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/07/01/what-does-microsoft-know-about-you.aspx

 

That is interesting. The only downside to the article is that it's from 2010. Windows 10 has set a new standard on data collection. Here's a more recent article (April of 2016) on what Windows 10 learns and what it keeps: http://www.chicagotribune.com/subur...about-windows-10-priv-1-2016-04-05-story.html

Also, concerns from Forbes about how invasive W10 can get: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2016/01/06/windows-10-spying-secrets-revealed/#1221f3652fd5