Why I won't upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 (but Windows 8)

Martin Brinkmann
Mar 20, 2015
Updated • Jul 5, 2017
Windows, Windows 7
|
374

The upgrade to Windows 10 of an existing Windows 7 system looks like a good deal on paper. You don't pay a dime for it if you upgrade in the first year after release, and it remains free afterwards.

While there is no direct need to leave Windows 7 at this point in time as it will receive security updates until 2020, doing so adds a couple of extra years of support before the operating system needs to be switched again.

Windows 10 on top of that ships with several new technologies plus everything that went into Windows 8 including the new DirectX 12, a new Internet browser, improved security or Cortana, the digital assistant.

Why then won't I upgrade my Windows 7 system to Windows 10? The short answer is that I see no need for it. But, there is a longer answer as well.

When Windows 8 launched, I decided against upgrading the system as it felt like Microsoft left desktop users standing in the dust with it. Especially the two-tiered interface was a problem back then.

Windows 10 does away with that interface by bringing Modern Apps to the desktop. That's great as you don't have to switch between different interfaces anymore, for instance when you search for files or programs on the system or want to launch a Modern App.

The start menu is back as well but that was not really an issue for me as it was easy enough to install a third-party program like Classic Shell to bring the old Start Menu back.

The new start menu has its issues on the other hand. It was previously possible to remove all Modern apps from it so that the area these apps were displayed in was removed to leave regular items that you work with. This apparently has been removed by Microsoft in a recent build. While you can still remove all Modern apps from the start menu, the area remains as it is which means you end up with a blank area there.

It still feels like a massive effort to get people to use Modern apps and Windows Store, and was probably the core reason why all versions of Windows 8 shipped with the Metro interface.

Traces of the old interface are still there however. While Microsoft got rid of the awful Charms bar, it still clings to shipping Windows 10 with PC Settings and a Control Panel. It makes absolutely no sense to use two different areas to control all settings of your PC. I don't really mind using PC Settings even though it takes some adjustment to get used to its layout and finding your way around it. But having to guess where you find a specific setting is all but productive.

If Windows 10 would ship with a feature that I'd really want to use, I'd be the first to upgrade. But this particular PC is not used for gaming (so DirectX 12 does not matter). I have no plans to use Cortana ever even though I can see it being one of the reasons why many users would want to switch to Windows 10.

This leaves security improvements and while those are certainly interesting, I never had any issues security-wise while running Windows 7 thanks to third-party software and using common sense. While extra security would certainly be beneficial, I dislike the idea of upgrading an existing working operating system just for that.

Upgrades are work intensive. You need to backup your files first before you start it. Then it takes hours to complete after which you check if all files and programs are still there. If they are, you still need to configure the new operating system to your liking.

Considering that Windows 7 runs just fine as it is and that Windows 10 has nothing to offer that would improve how I work on the computer, I see no reason to upgrade to it.

With that said, Windows 10 looks to be an improvement over Windows 8.1. My second PC runs Windows 8.1 currently and while Microsoft made that operating system better for desktop users, I find it quite lacking.

I'll upgrade my Windows 8.1 system which I use mostly for gaming to Windows 10 once it comes out. I will benefit from DirectX 12 as soon as drivers and games take advantage of it. It is unlikely that it will be as dead from the start as Vista's DirectX 10 thanks to Microsoft's free upgrade offer but it may still take considerable time before critical mass is reached.

As a Windows 8.1 user on the desktop, there is little reason not to upgrade to Windows 10. While you still end up with features that you may not want, most of them have already been in Windows 8.1 as well with the notable exception of Cortana.

There is no interface switching anymore and it is still possible to install a third-party start menu for extra comfort.

All in all, it is fair to say that Windows 10 is the better Windows 8.1 in most if not all aspects.

Conclusion

As a Windows 7 user, I have little desire to upgrade to Windows 10 despite it being offered for free.As a Windows 8.1 user, I have every intention of upgrading immediately as Windows 10 improves that operating system quite a bit.

I find it difficult to estimate how many Windows 7 users will take Microsoft up on the offer. Windows 7 will see a drop in usage share after the release of Windows 10, there is little doubt about that. The question however is how big of a drop it will be.

Now You: What are your plans in regards to Windows 10?

Summary
Why I won't upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 (but Windows 8)
Article Name
Why I won't upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 (but Windows 8)
Description
I list my reasons for why I won't upgrade my Windows 7 PC to Windows 10 but will upgrade my Windows 8 system to the new Microsoft operating system.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
Logo
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. I say, Everything sucks. said on January 28, 2017 at 8:42 pm
    Reply

    Windows 7 sucks in its own way: it is that it never sucked, so it sucks that an OS doesn’t suck because they must suck otherwise no one would ever change the OS. But since M$ broke Windows 7 it starts to suck so it’s doesn’t suck as much as when it was new.

    1. I say, you're a junkie said on August 18, 2017 at 3:19 pm
      Reply

      lay off the cake man

  2. Jason210 said on December 31, 2016 at 2:00 pm
    Reply

    After you have removed the “modern” apps from the start menu, you can put short cuts for desktop apps there – that’s what I did.

    Also, with software like CCleaner, you can actually uninstall the “modern” apps completely, although Microsoft will attempt to force these back on you through Windows updates.

    1. Silverfox43 said on January 17, 2017 at 5:58 am
      Reply

      Much of the so-called customization’s you could get away with on a Windows 7 computer—are just not possible with Windows 10. Add to that the fact that Win10 permits third-party intrusions into our personal, private lives just under the guise of connectedness and SaaS models alone, and it becomes abundantly clear that the only people Microsoft is really looking out for are their sleazeball advertisers——-these ad-hideous marketers don’t care one bit about respecting a citizen’s privacy despite their touted mantra to the contrary, because in reality it’s all about the money for them.

      All they care about is making money off of whom you are and what you do—and for an absolute certainty, they’re making billions upon billions of dollars using this overbearing, boundary-crossing, privacy-violating business model perpetrated upon us in painstakingly oppressive ways to the point that many of us just give up under the weight of such burdensome marketing pressure.

      We are being sold to advertisers——-and the real price is our own privacy and individuality—the very things that makes us decent human beings in the first place!

      Privacy is intrinsic to the concept of liberty——-Take that away and you take away the very essence of what it means to be a human being.

  3. metavoid said on December 21, 2016 at 12:00 pm
    Reply

    Nerds did not design win 10. It was real designers with a lust for big blank spaces and no hints of what to click and lifeless design with no color.
    Its made by ppl that cares more about looks than functionality.
    So it cant be the nerds as then it would work lovely and look like shit.
    Not both..

    1. JohnK said on December 23, 2016 at 3:17 pm
      Reply

      I think you are BOTH right, just using different terminology. I think what Jeff is referring to are the gamers and entertainment software developers. More than likely it’s 90% marketing decisions and 10% real design. I used to work for a software company and vividly remember being told in a meeting with the VP of Marketing “We sell the box, not what’s in it!” That should tell you all you need to know!

  4. Jeff said on October 30, 2016 at 9:37 am
    Reply

    I tried Windows 10 for about one month and I did not like it for many different reasons. Mostly I found the system to be counterintuitive. Many things I wanted to do took 2-4 extra steps instead of one step using Windows 7. I will t go into the many issues I incurred, but I will just say that many of my daily tasks took an extra minute or so several times a day. That is not that much time lost, but why should I go backwards as far as convenience goes just to say I am running a new operating system from Microsoft. If Microsoft wises up and have some older engineers go through Windows 10 and find out and fix what many of us complainers are talking about, I would be happy to upgrade even at my own expense. I believe the main problem is that too many young pc (nerds) engineers are recommending and designing the systems. They don’t realize what many folks in business and non gamers needs are. Thank you for your time.

  5. Sri said on August 23, 2016 at 7:40 am
    Reply

    I take care of this by making a ghost backup every 30 days.

  6. Intro said on August 23, 2016 at 7:26 am
    Reply

    Hello sorry for my bad English.

    Personally I didn’t really like Windows 10 at all. It just sucks. These pesky sucks start from Windows 8 in 2012, Windows 8.1 in 2013, and Windows 10 as of July 2015, makes me hesitate to install them.

    I think I just alone, but finally I found a group of people thinking these Windows flat-design is sucks.

    I currently have one PC with Windows Vista SP2 and two laptops with Windows 7 SP1 on them. And I Would NEVER like to Upgrade them to Windows 10 by any means necessary.

    I also found some of my friends have trouble with their laptops that recently upgraded to Windows 10. The mysterious constant disk activity, Wi-Fi problems, irritating flat-design with eye-hurting fonts, etc.

    Also, In order to make my current PC and laptops can survive for, suppose next 5 (five) years I make the system drive frozen (like deepfreeze), limit their usage (uptime), and store them on air-conditioned room, yes. Frozen and no need future upgrades despite of security concerns when online. I just need to print job, sometimes viewing old digital photos, and playing old games. I don’t really need upgrades or updates as long as it still working properly.

    Thanks you for reading my opinion.

    1. I say, Everything sucks. said on January 28, 2017 at 8:46 pm
      Reply

      wait for Windows 10 th2

    2. Anonymous said on August 23, 2016 at 7:39 am
      Reply

      Or you could simply take a ghost backup for in case your HDD fails :-)

  7. Xyu said on July 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm
    Reply

    I understand hesitation in upgrading 7 to 10, but not upgrading 8.x to 10 is idiotic…

    1. Sliverfox43 said on August 1, 2016 at 7:13 am
      Reply

      Actually, I would consider Windows 7 to be an upgrade from any version there-after, especially considering the fact that every Windows version after Win 7 had major revisions done to it’s kernel in order to facilitate back-dooring for government spying, coupled with carefully crafted ToS agreements and privacy policies essentially designed to eviscerate our rights to personal privacy and our rights to protect our own personally identifiable information.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqVYUOjHLw

      These new Agreements (especially in Windows 10) give Microsoft ownership rights to your own identity and by agreeing to them, you’re also giving up your legal rights to defend yourself against what they do with your personally identifiable information because of the legal language their attorney’s conscripted for the policy—language which legally protects their exploitation of your information, but not you personally.

      http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/07/29/wind-nos/

      http://betanews.com/2015/07/31/the-real-price-of-windows-10-is-your-privacy/

      After the Snowden leaks, these things became common knowledge and the main theme for many topics of discussion surrounding the often flagrantly-touted but misapplied argument that in order to provide security, one must sacrifice their own privacy——-That is a complete contradiction in terms and a daring attack on our personal freedoms as citizen’s of this so-called great country.

      https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.html

      To pit security against privacy is a misnomer to say the least, but more than that, it actually gives people the wrong impression about what security really is. You can’t have security without privacy. It is a part of what makes us human and allows us to live with dignity and respect as well as proper protection for whom we ourselves are.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk

      These corporate thugs and oligarch’s are clearly not showing any signs of drawing the line and respecting our personal boundaries and our rights to live a decent life without being intruded upon by them and their affiliates whom refuse to accept a limit to their insane profiteering at our expense——-the expense of our very own identities as human beings.

      https://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers

      You want to hand your life and your privacy over to the governments and corporate empire on a silver platter?!——-Then by all means——-install Windows 10 and let their games begin.

      If however, you, like many others, are rightfully concerned about your own privacy and about keeping your personal life private and protected from prying eyes——-(because that is your right and there is nothing wrong with that)——-then by all means, do yourself a favor, and stick with the sensible option at this point, which is, in fact Windows 7.

      You can still do pretty much everything you can do with Windows 10 in Windows 7. And anything you can’t do really isn’t that important either. Microsoft just wants everyone to think it is so that they can push everyone onto Win10. It’s all about giving them your life while at the same time making them and their corporate buddies filthy rich in the process. Hmmm…where does that sound familiar?…….Oh that’s right! It was Abraham Lincoln whom warned us almost a century ago that the corporations were a threat to us and that one day all our money would be gone. Are you starting to get the bigger picture now?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbXlQJ0HIpg

      As if it wasn’t bad enough that they tried to force everyone’s hand by automatically upgrading hundred’s of thousand’s of customer’s machines to Windows 10 without user-consent, Microsoft is still forcibly subjecting users to the Windows 10 nagware and eventual upgrade if you have Windows Updates set to automatically install updates. This is completely unethical on their part. The Windows Update is meant to install updates and patches——not automatically install an entire system upgrade!——-And not without getting permission from the user. This is an outrage and people should be highly concerned that Microsoft has done this and is trying to manipulate Windows users in order to accept this privacy nightmare that is Windows 10.

      Sorry, but the truth is more important on this one…

      http://www.pcworld.com/article/3101396/windows/microsoft-faces-two-new-lawsuits-over-aggressive-windows-10-upgrade-tactics.html

  8. Sri said on June 13, 2016 at 6:13 am
    Reply

    Thanks @Silverfox43

    I found this great app the other day when surfing over these Windows privacy issues. Sharing here, in case anyone is interested. By the way, this app does not belong to me. I merely found it useful. Prefer standalone cos it does not need any installs.

    Product: Spybot Anti-Beacon (Stand-Alone Exe)
    https://forums.spybot.info/downloads.php?id=58

    1. Silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 8:35 am
      Reply

      Thank you for the link Sri. I appreciate your efforts and I’ve personally used Spybot on my own system. It definitely does a lot to protect user privacy.

      While I still can’t recommend Windows 10 for very principled reasons, what I can say is that your heart is in the right place.

      I don’t know how well something like the Spybot Tool will work on a system of which, by default, has inherently changed the way in which a user can control their privacy, despite the use of any third-party application. In my technical opinion, I would have to say that you would still be more private and secure with Spybot on a Win7 machine than anything with Windows 10 on it.

      You’re right to still be concerned about privacy. My hope is that users continue to educate themselves about these important aspects of our digital lives. We need to be careful to make informed choices because each decision we make can have a tremendous impact on us, whether for good or for bad——-the choice really, is up to us.

      Another great way to protect your privacy and your freedom while online is by encrypting your data and also enlisting the services of a good VPN.

      Mikko Hypponen is an industry-leading security expert and he also talks about this in the following short video. Even though he works for F-Secure, Freedome is not the only good VPN out there, but it is worth considering as a viable option for Windows users because it is inherently built with user privacy as its core functionality…

      [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1F8sHjCBx0&feature=youtu.be ]

      1. I say, Everything sucks. said on January 28, 2017 at 8:45 pm
        Reply

        I think it depends on whether you put on your W7 install. Check the EULA and all stuff like that, they say they collect the same data. It’s just that Microsoft clearly stated it for Windows 10.

      2. WhyTheTruthReallyHurts said on August 5, 2018 at 1:36 pm
        Reply

        To Quite the Contrary——the EULA, Privacy Policy and ToS Agreements for Windows 7 are absolutely not the same as Windows 10 and when you consider how much more permissions you are granting Microsoft by agreeing to the ToS agreement for Win10, including the fact that you are also legally granting Microsoft partial ownership rights to your own personally identifiable information, including but not limited to your name, addresses & phone numbers, and that such agreement also grants Microsoft the right to do whatever they please with your personally identifiable information for as long as they want (the terms used in the EULA and ToS Agreement actually states “indefinitely’),——-it then becomes quite clear just how serious this is.

        The new policy language for Win10 is beyond disingenuous . It is downright draconian!

        Anyone whom is even remotely concerned about their personal privacy and wishes to keep it that way——–would do well to stay away from Windows 10!

        Windows 7 is a very stable operating system and has many features that will still be useful for many years to come.

        Don’t fall for the fear-mongering and scare-tactics from Microsoft. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

        They want you to welcome Win10 with open arms because they see it as the only way to keep making their filthy rich ad-marketing partners, even more filthy rich for many more years to come and they know that the only way to effectively corral the masses into this insane money-making scheme was to change the Terms of Service by manipulating the policy language so that it legally protects their exploitation of your personally identifiable information.

        By doing this, they also put everyone at far greater risk of exploitation from multiple other affiliate sources, ad-trackers & analytics firms, as well as the ever-pervasive occurrences of data breaches from one company to the next.

        The old adage still remains the same:

        The more of your personally identifiable information you permit to be exposed online, (whether by sharing or agreeing to share it or even if it’s stored in cloud services), the greater the risk of identity theft and exploitation.

        It’s all a numbers game and regardless of the sugar-coated, yet vague claims Microsoft still makes about how it cares about user privacy (it’s just a smoke screen), underneath the surface they really only care about one thing: Mass-Exploitation for Profit!

        With Windows 7, you at least still have complete control over your own system. If you migrate to Win10 and accept it’s ToS, you give up that complete control and peace of mind, while at the same time Microsoft gets exclusive, first-hand access to everything that personal to you——-effectively rending the (P)ersonal (C)ompter experience no longer personally yours.

        That’s how they really get you with Windows 10 because once you accept the ToS by checking that little box, they literally own the rights to your identity and by this new policy language, they can now do so much more with your identity and they don’t have to keep asking you, because by checking that little box and accepting the ToS, you already agree that they can do it.

        This is way more egregiously intrusive than Windows 7 could ever be!

        All nonsense aside, I urge anyone whom truly cares about their privacy and what happens with their own personally identifiable information to steer clear of Windows 10 and don’t ever permit it’s installation onto your system!

        The general public has already encountered fair warning after already being victimized by Microsoft’s aggressive Win10 roll-out, with all it’s nag and spyware tactics. So much so in fact that Microsoft is still facing over a dozen law suits over their forced Win10 campaign.

  9. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 5:38 am
    Reply

    It wasn’t that long ago when we were graced with the creation of such an amazing OS experience. Remember these…

    “My Windows 7 is my PC simplified.” – [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcN_q8CXOFI ]

    “I’m a PC and more happy is coming.” – [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHNp-5yNKaE ]

    I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea!” – [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMwsNrhxZ8Q ]

  10. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 4:34 am
    Reply

    Thank you kindly Sri for your honesty. We need more people like you in this world…

  11. Sri said on June 13, 2016 at 4:09 am
    Reply

    Windows 7 is such a simple and adored OS the world over. There are multiple laptops I setup for my family over 3 years ago, and none have come with any issues to date, be it in terms of usability issues or laptop crashing, or whatsoever. Plus hardly any of them needed any learning curve. Compare the same with Win 10, and even I had to search around for the control panel items. Not as simple as people say it is to find. And that huge “yucky” tiles layout. Even the very layout is a put off, given I prefer a clean desktop area (read non cluttered), and nothing that needs Internet all the time to auto update. And am no fan to keep receiving world wide updates on my work horse machine. I have my phone for such updates.

  12. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:59 am
    Reply

    I cant help but feel that the powers to be are working with MS to make a Win 10 police state happen so that when martial law comes you will HAVE to have it installed at least on one PC for national security reasons.

    Of course they will say it’s for your own protection.

    Press the (A) button on your controller if you accept the NWO directives to have Win 10 be your personal body guard and control your home: Note: This will revert to the *bad ending* game over screen.

    Press (B) to decline and resist the NWO elite force and quite likely face death for defying the powers and come to Christ for salvation.

    1. Declan said on July 28, 2016 at 5:27 pm
      Reply

      Your comments may not be so far fetched as many would think.

  13. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:35 am
    Reply

    Windows 10 is designed for smart phone users and tablets in mind with little to no care for desktop users. In fact my Net Flix came with Windows 8.1 for travel purposes but was forced to 10 and it got stuck in *tablet* mode where normally it can be switched off so it won’t keep rotating.

    The latest update almost got Dad excited until he found the focus was on *mobile* which means smart phone style interfaces. Y-U-C-K!

  14. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:33 am
    Reply

    Windows 10 is awful for gaming unless all you like to do is candy crush all day or Zombieville. (Farmville) type games.

    Windows 10 is designed for smart phone users in mind and to encourage people to transition away from desktops to mobile as it’s *DA FUTURE MAN!” Who cares if you have a super cooled liquid gaming PC you wasted 2 Grand on. Once Windows 7 becomes trojanated your super liquid Alienware computer is going to be nothing but lights that blink.

    Desktops are going the ways of 78RPM records that only hold 2 songs and it doesn’t have to be that way either but the people in charge of these companies think that it has to be Smart Phones only.

    I saw this trend starting to come in 2006 but did not want to believe it at first. If I had known where PC *GAMING* was headed I’d snatch a lot of the older titles fast before they got really expensive.

  15. Alan said on May 21, 2016 at 6:57 pm
    Reply

    I was sleeping and left my computer on. Suddenly when I woke, I noticed
    my computer updating to windows 10. I thought it was due to me accidentely
    leaving something on my keyboard.

    Anyway I went with it on
    my second generation 2450 i5 processor and
    liked the feel. Applications seemed to work better
    and faster. Even word start up worked as well
    as windows live mail and some old microsoft
    works apps and paperport 11 which I thought
    would be problematic worked.

    The only problems I saw was that windows 10 was slower to
    start up than windows 7 and I had issues accessing the
    control panel. It even fixed a problem I was having
    with windows 7 in accessing folders from my cell
    phone.

    The real back breaker which caused me to go
    back to windows 7 was that it did not
    support widi. Work arounds to this problem
    was to try miracast but my windows 10
    does not support that either.

    So now I am back to windows 7. Intel
    claims that it did not create a driver
    to support widi on windows 10 because
    it would cause a system overload and
    burn out the processor.

    Anyway at least I got a chance to play
    with windows 10 and when the
    time comes I will know how to
    use it.

    1. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:36 am
      Reply

      LOL. So you discovered that too. It is not you MS is forcing 10 regardless if you like it or not in order to boost their numbers.

      Google Plus did it and stopped caring about their existing products like their Google Reader stuff.

  16. Sri said on May 16, 2016 at 5:08 am
    Reply

    At this point of time, given my comfort level of Windows 7, and the ability to actually choose to tailor it to my needs in terms of updates and features, I’d be sticking to Windows 7. It has anyways support until 2020, giving me atleast another 4 years to then decide whether to switch or more on to a newer version of windows that would have released by then. The least I can expect is me deciding what to do and what I want on my system that I have paid for.

  17. Declan said on May 15, 2016 at 4:24 pm
    Reply

    Despite all the resistance to the “upgrade to Win-10, it appears that out of continued pressure alone, Microsoft will eventually move the majority of users to the new OS. Even though there will remain a core group of informed, concerned users who know better, the vast majority will eventually fall in line if for no other reason that they will have to if they want to keep up with the masses. While I certainly respect the remaining group of loyal Win-XP users, that OS is solidly in the past, as will be everything else pre-Win-10 in time. And that’s the point, Eventually even us loyal Win-7 users will have to move on.

    I guess out of this comes a question … Is this pressure from Microsoft going to really hurt the full migration to Win-10? I mean really? Or will they be forced to roll out something more to the liking of users like they were forced to do after the mess of Win-8? I have asked a lot of people and the answers are always biased. But most even concede that capitulating to Win-10 will be a necessity, though a very unwelcome one. Upgrade now and learn to modify it as best as possible, or wait until Win-11 (or whatever it will be called) comes along and hope for the best? I’d love to hear what people think in terms of reality, not emotional push back. Maybe that’s a topic for another conversation.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 4:23 am
      Reply

      You can save your Win 10 acceptance speech for all the poor saps whom don’t know any better. Besides 2020 is just a projection in reality. It doesn’t necessarily mean Microsoft will end full support of Win 7 then, but even if they did, that doesn’t mean you can’t still use it after that. And by that time security vendors will have filled in remaining gaps, if any, that might have continued to make Windows 7 a security risk. Much like what we see now with applications like Zemana Antilogger and Hitman Pro Alert. Even if EMET is eventually retired by Microsoft (as yet another strong-arm tactic to push users to Win 10), it’s likely that several security vendors will still support Windows 7 in this manner.

      Don’t fall for this fear-mongering tactic by these manipulators because that’s all they’re trying to do is to get you to believe their hype and their foolhardy mantra about a product that is really more suitable for the recycling bin than for it’s originally intended purpose. Windows 10 is for suckers.

      My ‘Windows 7 is my PC, simplified.’

    2. Psyclon said on May 15, 2016 at 5:43 pm
      Reply

      I will either switch to MacOS or fiddle around with Windows. There is no Win11 as it permanently updates, and I think they will follow that way. The reason why I can’t stand Windows 10 is that permanent connection to a server (for Cortana) and forced updates.
      For me, all this “so-helpful” stuff like SmartTVs that “listen” and search engines that monitor what I search for is terribly frightening. It makes people dependent. It makes them addicted. It binds them to a company.
      I have no smartphone because it’s a waste of time with all the sh..t people are addicted to as if they really need it. WhatsApp and that nonsense. I am 25 years young and when that smartphone/cellphone hype started in the early 2000s I always decided I do not need one.

      At home, I have my WiFi turned off because I have am connected via RJ45. When I turn it on to use my Surface (Win 8.1) in bed my iPod Touch – despite the Wifi is turned off! – tells me if I want to download the new update for iOS now.
      Do you see how much they care about our settings? Same with Google. It prolly says “We are not allowed to use your data” in maps.google.com because I turned that off. If I scroll down on Google, it says my location is my hometown – “due to my search history”. Awesome hipocrisy.

      I pay mostly cash, too. I resist all this corporate dependance. And Win10 is a huge step towards Microsofts “WE (!) know what’s the best for you!” way.

      1. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:38 am
        Reply

        Capitalism is on it’s last knee.

    3. Adam K said on May 15, 2016 at 5:07 pm
      Reply

      Great observation on the future of all of us users. In a realistic point of view, I feel that Microsoft will continue to keep updating Windows 10 in smaller updates, continuing to deliver the most tweaked experience.

      When it comes to our current PC’s, windows 7, 8, and 8.1 are not outdated yet. They’re still supported. Yes, they may not have the newest features like Continuum, Cortana, Microsoft Halolens or general compatibility with newer programs but, depending on the user, we each have a different set of preferences that reflect whether updating/upgrading to a new OS is logical. I talked with the IT advisor at my work about one of the computers that is on it’s last leg and, will require decent repairs within the next year (HDD showing early signs of failing and,it’s processing power is low ringing in at 3GB of Ram). When I asked if he will fix it or buy another one, I was told due to the use of that latpop (presentations/a few major resource intensive programs) he’d feel more comfortable keeping it on Windows 7 Pro and, buying a new HDD and some better Ram sticks. He’ll take advantage of the Windows 7 support till 2020 and, then consider upgrading the fleet while keeping some laptops for unsupported programs.

      Eventualy, windows 10 will be the only option left for when we buy a new Windows computer. We can still run legacy programs via VM or, on another laptop but, there’s a point where we have to be accepted of it.

      If you are stuck with getting a new Windows 10 computer and, are not comfortable about it, remember it can still be tweaked for your own preference. The start menu we all grew up with can be brought back with ClassicShell. The icons can be changed with custom ico’s to those from good old Windows 7. Even the privacy settings can be tweaked. Best of all, even on Windows 10 home premium edition, those automatic updates can be stopped. Best of all, Windows 7 VM Machines can be installed. Overall, being on windows 10 does not have to be hard. You can take advantage of it and, make it something that will put a smile on your face!

      I’m pretty skeptical of Windows 10 and i’m not giving up any of my Windows 7 or 8.1 Licences. However, I’m open to learning about Windows 10 and, the future of the OS via either VM or duel booting (i’ll stay on the safe side and, buy my own Windows 10 Licence to prevent messing up my 8.1 partition via the unofficial upgrade clone and downgrade root). I may not enjoy my time on 10 as much as on Windows XP, 7 or 8.1 but, i’ll make the most of it 😊

  18. Richard Stallman said on May 9, 2016 at 5:19 am
    Reply

    I myself will not be upgrading to windows 10 because I’m not running it.
    Two words for everyone here, it will make your time on a computer much better.
    GNU/Linux.

    1. Tobias said on May 9, 2016 at 5:44 pm
      Reply

      I also have two words in that matter: No way.
      Linux is for many people not what suits their needs. If you want mindless computer expierence and some random file support of the mainstream you can go Linux. But if you’re looking for professional applications, you should stick to Windows all day long. There is no modern video editor for Linux, no real support, no real driver-support, I do not want to have crashes all day long and to look into 1,000 crash logs just because I added a new hardware or whatever. People want their machines to boot. Linux shows how good it can be on servers and on nonsense devices like the Raspberry Pi. If I want to have a nice-looking letter I’d go MS Office all over the ugly and 5-years-behind “Free Alternatives”.

      Please stop comming up with Linux/GNU all day long. It has a reason why the market share is ridiculously bad.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 16, 2016 at 8:49 am
        Reply

        I have to admit I can understand why some would have anathema toward Linux and while I don’t completely embrace the Linux world myself, to accept the credulity so often peddled as pure science whenever Microsoft speaks—-or should I say forces everyone’s hand—-is just—-for lack of a better word, plain foolish.

        This mess Microsoft has put us all in is entirely their fault and had the playing field been leveled from the very beginning—the potential for better competition and better products would still have been highly likely at that point in time. Open-source doesn’t always translate into sub-par and it didn’t have to start out that way either for the ones whom appear to some now, to produce useless software.

        For more on Microsoft’s crooked history, kindly check out the following links…

        [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp. ]

        [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/06/thoughts_on_the_new_microsoft/ ]

        [ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/microsoft-accused-of-locking-out-linux-in-eu-antitrust-complaint/ ]

      2. Tobias said on June 13, 2016 at 9:54 pm
        Reply

        I feel pretty good right now. About to buy a property, being healthy but we don’t have a real summer so far in Germany, everything’s a bit rainy. If I think about in 6 months we have November, I REALLY feel bad. Also, I just checked the maximum filesize under NTFS, but it’s fine. I just got a 32 GByte file.

        Thank you for your concern.
        And yourself? Having a good time?

      3. Martin Brinkmann said on June 14, 2016 at 6:56 am
        Reply

        Feels like living in England ;)

      4. Declan said on June 13, 2016 at 7:27 pm
        Reply

        So, Tobias (June 13, 2016 at 6:09 pm)
        Tell us how you REALLY feel.

      5. Tobias said on June 13, 2016 at 6:09 pm
        Reply

        @Silverfox43

        You are talking nonsense. And you contradict yourself.
        You’re basically blaming Microsoft to become too mighty. But why did it happen this way? If it’s so easy peasy, why ain’t Linux going anywhere? You can’t deny the numbers. That’d be idiocy.

        I do not care what OS I am using, I have Windows and OSX running, but it is most certainly not something unfinished as Linux. What does it offer apart from being “free” (as in: Does not cost money)?
        – Safety? Well, my system is fine. It works since August of 2013 without any “format C:”.
        – Compatibility? On Linux? Haha, nice joke. Except you want to botch jobs of “unstable” drivers for (hardware) deeply hidden inside a nerd forum.
        – Programs? Since everything’s mostly freeware crap, no thanks, I like to pay real programmers.
        – Continuity? Linux offers so many desktops and distributions it’s ridiculous. Why would I even bother to figure out what I need most? Are these distributions only one-trick ponies? Why can’t “one Linux” do all the stuff? Why Linux, Mint, Kubuntu, Ubuntu? Because it sucks.
        – Stability? Wait, what? Such common things like a combine graphics (CPU and dedicated GPU) can freeze Ubuntu on boot already. You need to set up “-nomodeset” in order to have your computer boot. An OS that gets Kernel Panics at such things is not worth the user’s time. On my Samsung SmartTV – runs Linux – it often freezes when it accesses media files on my hard drive attached. I have to “reboot” my TV – thanks, Linux, you are the best!

        Linux and the idea behind is so old and never reached a real state of use so far. Except for servers. But that does not even comes remotely close to what the average user wants. It is always the same: A bunch of nerds and wannabe coders, maybe even rejected by real companies, start a project. Might it spawn another Linux distribution, cool. But what then? They get in an internal fight, seperate into two teams and spawn another distribution. Wow. Less developers, less stuff getting done.

        Examples? OpenOffice. Now with Oracle. “Eww”, they said. So we have now “LibreOffice”. And the OSX pendant, “NeoOffice”. All of them suck big time, look and feel like Win95 and you can clearly see any pie chart or presentation looks like a bad MS-Office china clone. Why not getting the real MS-Office then? I rather pay developers than random sparetime coders that leave their software in homebrew state at version numbers of 0.2.1.5.7 but have “Donate” buttons all over the place.

        Or Opera. Opera was cool. Then it went with Chromium. “Eww”, they said. So we have no an obsolete “Opera”, “Opera with Chromium” and “Vivendi”, which is yet another Opera with Chromium clone. None of these projects get anywhere.

        Same with Linux. I never see someone really using it for normal tasks. I saw many Linux distributions running on EeePC that came free with your Cellphone contract. Or on a Raspberry Pi. All of them are low-end, unusable devices for hobby tinkerer, but I do not want to tinker and google, I want to use my programs. And that’s where companies are required. With paid devs. With a roadmap that make people stick together. A real support hotline/shops/dealers rather than IRC channels or boards with impatient nerds.

        But yes, stay with your “awesome” Linux derivates. All nice, all cool! But stop as if they are a solution for anything. “Free” software also comes with very, very “free” “developers” that have a very “free” mindset.

        “My” Windows7 is better in the vast majority of the fields than any Linux distribution. There are things to improve, but I rather pick Win7 over the bigger nuisance. So stop being ridiculous. If Linux would be the cure, home users would have changed already and reached a market share of 15+%. But welp, that does not happen. GUESS WHY.

      6. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 4:08 am
        Reply

        In response to Tobias’ comment:

        “Please stop comming up with Linux/GNU all day long. It has a reason why the market share is ridiculously bad.”

        Yeah!——-It’s called a monopoly for a reason! Do you really think we’re all that stupid that we don’t know what Microsoft has been up to behind closed doors?!——-Palease! Spare us the idiocy, would you?!

        Most informed users aren’t falling for Microsoft’s domination of the market just because Microsoft says that we need to keep following them (or else!). They’ve gotten where they are today because of their corporate thuggary!

        Stepping on someone to promote your own success is quite a low-down dirty shame if you ask me and it certainly isn’t worth the accolades it currently receives just because it has the money to brag louder.

        Reception of Linux could’ve been much improved if it weren’t for Microsoft’s own Anti-Trust dealings.

        Take a peek behind the curtain once and a while and you might actually understand what’s really going on…

      7. John said on May 9, 2016 at 6:21 pm
        Reply

        I agree, realistically speaking, Linux is not appropriate for 90% of the home users. We spent years of people trying to tell everyone that OS/2 was the far superior operating system to Windows, yet the reality was that all most people were doing was starting up OS/2 to launch Win-OS/2 so they could run Windows applications! In the long-run it was just simpler and cheaper to install Windows.

  19. John K said on March 14, 2016 at 4:09 pm
    Reply

    One very HUGE reason to avoid Windows 10 is the forced automatic updates. These cannot be disabled (as of this writing) and occur at unpredictable times, rendering your PC unavailable for the duration… usually minutes after you turned it on… causing significant delays when you really want to use it! I had a major update this morning that delayed me for more than an hour! Also, Windows 10 does everything it can to force you to use Edge as your browser and MSN as your homepage. Windows 10 takes Microsoft right back to their old “anti-competitive practices” days. I’m rolling mine back to Windows 7.

    1. DMC said on March 14, 2016 at 6:34 pm
      Reply

      “forced automatic updates”

      Exactly! I remain on windows 7, but my brother has win10 on his laptop. He was in the middle of a scheduled and very important skype conference, when without any warning whatsoever, his computer began doing the update automatically and he could not stop/cancel it. He was so pissed.

  20. James Mills said on March 14, 2016 at 8:55 am
    Reply

    Windows 10 is a mess. Microsoft is pushing everyone even on older hardware to upgrade. I repair computers for friends, family and coworkers. So many people have gotten automatically updated without their consent or their thinking their getting an upgrade. Guess what the majority of those computers had major issues with drivers. Printer, Wifi and so on. Some Dell laptops lose control of backlit keyboard timeout functions, Other Dell laptops lose control of the fingerprint readers. No support from Dell because these computers are from 2011 and were designed for Windows 7. Now what? Try to search google and Dell’s website for drivers in hopes that you can “Make it Work”. So you Have no support from the manufacturer and Microsoft is still pushing the upgrade? on these older computers which will be broken or only partially supported. I tried out a Lenovo yoga with Windows 10, what a mess every other week bios and driver updates.
    So if the average non computer geek person buys a Windows 10 device then what? They are screwed because 1. the os is not complete, 2. the manufacturer is chasing their tail trying to “Fix” drivers and bios, 3. they don’t have the technical expertise to install the bios and driver updates. What the hell are these people going to do? Go back to BestBuy and pay more money every month to have their Brand New computer fixed? What a load of shit. I was so pissed off at that yoga that I took a damn Sledge Hammer to it. The thing went up in flames as the lithium ion battery ignited. I went back to my 2010 Dell Precision with Windows 7 Pro and Blocked ALL the Windows 10 BS.
    It’s NOT an upgrade, it’s an abortion and a power play by Microsoft because they are out of ideas and they know it.
    All they do is tweak a few things and change the GUI, add more telemetry and “Spying BS” take away choice and functionality (and break compatibility on purpose..think openoffice or libreoffice), charge you for solitaire? and then tell you it’s new and improved. It’s Not. And to follow all of that it’s rumored that Microsoft wants all their software as a Subscription. I already have identical laptops one with Windows 7 and one with Linux. The Linux laptop is rock solid stable, it has all the things I need including OpenOffice, Media Players, Google Chrome and More. So if Microsoft gets too out of control I just pull the plug on them and go Full Time Linux. I have a feeling I will be installing Ubuntu on a lot of computers in the near future.

    1. Psyclon said on March 14, 2016 at 3:27 pm
      Reply

      Thank god I have a system builder version. It was the last one in 2013 and I had to shell out another €100 ontop of the new computer (which had Win8 as OEM) and it looks like it was worth it. 4 years to go…

  21. Andrew T. Halmay said on February 16, 2016 at 3:47 pm
    Reply

    Idiotically I switched from Windows seven because MS kept bugging me to upgrade to 10. The change has ruined my life. I am ready to kill. I can’t find anything. As soon as I figure out how to transfer all my data I’ll buy a MAC and be rid of MS for the rest of my life.

  22. Stephen said on January 17, 2016 at 3:14 pm
    Reply

    I am going back to Windows 7. A day after the upgrade either the upgrade restarted or an update came in. I saw the same blue screen telling me that my files were in the same place and the same customer satisfaction survey, but all the files in my documents, pictures and download folders were erased. I spent $150 on an unsuccessful recovery attempt and opted out of the $750 forensic recovery.

    Unlike Windows 7, Windows 10 gives no audible warning and probably no visual warning of low battery or a more frantic warning when plug in is required. Windows 7 would go into sleep mode at this stage, Windows 10 shuts down and any unsaved data is lost. Not so good if you are collecting field data.

    Cannot print using my three year old printer. Word tells me that the printer is ready, but when the final print button is pressed it says there is no printer connected.

    1. chesscanoe said on January 17, 2016 at 4:37 pm
      Reply

      Re your “Cannot print….” I print via USB2 directly to my router. For Win10 I flashed the router firmware and installed a new router USB driver, and upgraded the printer application software. Now I can print using my old USB cable connected printer which now is functionally wireless. Works great.
      Moral: You can’t trust Windows 10 ability to know if it will work on your PC and peripherals.

  23. pen said on January 13, 2016 at 1:39 am
    Reply

    I have now re-installed win 10 after a disastrous first installation and now everything seems to be fine.
    Many people are complaining about the layout of win10 on their computers and don’t seem to consider that win 10 is not just a PC platform it also has to perform on tablet and mobile devices.
    I used to get annoyed at the constant changing of the windows interface from win 3.0 all the way through to win 8.1 but now microsoft have offered us the cure for that. windows 10 will be the last windows version and will only now be upgraded.
    So stop complaining and learn to use what will be essentially the defacto windows interface from now on. You’ll grow to love it as you did with win 7 or 8

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:44 am
      Reply

      Sorry but your gestapo mind-control tactics aren’t going to work on us informed users. You’ve just showed yourself up to be yet another Microsoft troll just intent upon herding Win 7 users into the slaughter house of user privacy Windows 10 really is.

      You’re not fooling anyone but yourself, if you really think anyone else with common sense is going to listen to that nonsense.

  24. steve said on January 12, 2016 at 8:43 pm
    Reply

    Desktop user way, start menu user way taskbar user way … the hell the whole god damn GUI the user way ist a gui for god sake of mind / but not MS prescribed how gui is to used the fixed way !???! Smacks at MS they think that PC is smart phone !!! Glorious bastards !!! Someone at MS has lost a lot of common sense its all about GUI due user interact trough gui we users don’t mater how things working under the hood but GUI matter a 100% !!! You can not rearrange start menu the user way like in Win XP, even creating shortcuts/hard link to start menu Vista and above is crap and hardly to complete !!!
    Every day as i use it the even more i don’t like it ! MS Graphical interface becomes Achilles heel – for those at Microsoft who had finished high school !!! Not to mention all other crap happening under Windows !!! So one can ask why is this shit of piece of OS still alive at all !????

  25. Adam said on December 26, 2015 at 6:13 pm
    Reply

    I just fixed 3 computers that had the GWX process initiated. All 3 were windows 7 Laptops, (2 Gaming ones and 1 Buisness one). All 3 will stay on Windows 7 so faimly will not complain.

    On one of the gaming PC’s, The last time I used it (borrowed it due to mine being in the shop/getting my new one shipped), I got blamed for causing a virus due to the downgrade in preformance after I touched it. Anyways, while prepping the computer to stay on Windows 10, I was going through the downloaded Microsoft updates and, observed that on the same day I was using this Laptop, some of Micorosoft’s nagware updates downloaded!

    At my workplace, colleges will be jelous because After Jan 1 when Windows 10 hits full swing, everyone else at work will be dealing with it on their PC’s while my work Vostrio will be engineered to stay on Windows 7!

    Windows 10 is a ok operating system. I admit it has some cool features too. However, until I know how to tweak it for maximum preformance and boosted privacy and dependability, I’m going to avoid it.

  26. Allo said on December 25, 2015 at 10:32 am
    Reply

    If it works why bothers to change. I upgraded my old mac to Mavericks OSX and my admin account was unable to login. files in picture library were gone. Photos in Aperture in Time Machine also gone. IMO, new OS is good with new computer, but your old computer with older programs may screw up like a mad person.

    I still use my Windows XP desktop, I work with it, design and manage websites with it. It’s still as fast and quiet as any pc in the shop, maybe slower but I don’t have meter to compare and I don’t really notice. Windows Vista, 7 have crashed but this gem XP is still going strong baby.

  27. Adam K said on December 15, 2015 at 2:29 pm
    Reply

    I’ve done a clean install a few times myself on a blank partition and, even with Windows 10 Pro, I have disliked it and, swapped the partition for something more useful, Ubantu. Even with a 4th gen Core i7 Processor, Windows 10 maxes it out and, the lag is unbearable (Intrestingly, the 16gb of Ram is not maxed out). Then again, this XPS has a HDD so, a SSD swap could fix the problem.

    I can’t wait to see how Microsoft responds with retiring WIndows 7 and 8/8.1 on October 31st, 2016 when it cannot be implimented in any more OEM PC’s. if there is enough of a backlash. WIndows 10 (probally not likely) could change for the whole.

    I’m even curious if Microsoft extends it’s 1 year free upgrade promotoion and, what happens after it expires. Would holdouts be nagged to death with Windows 10 ads or, would Microsoft extend it’s upgrade indefinetly.

    On the bright side, programs like GWX Control Pannel stops the Windows 10 upgrade process(and the rogue kbb updates) from initiating/causing trouble on WIndows 7 and 8.1, deletes the upgrade folder if installed, and best of all, It is reversible. For Windows 10 holdouts, this is definetly a program looking into.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:25 am
      Reply

      Bravo!——Yes. Anyone whom wishes to avoid Windows 10 should definitely be using GWX Control if they haven’t already. It’s just another layer of protection you can give yourself against the Evil Empires plans to take over your machine and your private life.

  28. CZ said on December 10, 2015 at 7:50 pm
    Reply

    I just got Rid of the Latest November Release of Windows 10. I had Windows 10 for less than 2 weeks. Few points about Windows 10.

    1) The metro Apps have Ads and are constantly flashing around. Telemetrics, Ad pushing, Social Media, etc, is Built into Windows. Microsoft wants you to use EDGE as the Default browser. It is worst than Internet Explorer. No one cares. We have FireFox, Opera, and even Google Chrome which is a bloaty Mess, is still better than IE.

    2) The Start menu is a Useless pile of junk. It’s not better. It’s not Very customizable at all.

    3) The BIGGEST Problem with Windows 10 is DPI Scaling – If you have a High DPI High Resolution Monitor, And you increase the DPI , say Goodbye to nicely Readable Fonts. The Fonts will get Blurry, and Jagged. It is VERY Ugly. There is No Fix even though there is a Program that says it Fixes this issue by making Windows 10 use Windows 7 style Font Scaling, but it does not work!

    4) The SETTINGS and Control Panel are both a Mess. Dumbed down User Interface designed BY idiots FOR idiots.
    Windows 10 retains all of the Multiple Personalities of Windows 8. It is Confusing to use. For example. The “Simple” settings are located in the “Settings” App. But the “Detailed” Settings is in Control Panel using Windows 7 style. It is a confusing System.

    5) It eats Bandwidth. You cannot Control it. If you have an older PC which runs your games and Programs fine, it won’t on Windows 10. Windows 10 uses the same amount of “memory” as Windows 7, maybe a tiny bit more, but it uses more CPU than Windows 7 and the user has no control over the Countless and Useless Apps. Not everyone wants an Xbox or One Note or any of that other Garbage.

    6) You cannot Control your privacy unless you use Hacker Tools which can really screw up your PC> There is a list of Hacker Tools out there if you Google – Stop Windows Spying etc.
    The Spying is not the problem. The problem is, Windows 10 eats your Bandwidth and affects your Latency in games like Battlefield 4 and Counter Strike and countless other games.

    7) Microsoft did not listen to users. People who say Windows 10 is great are A) Paid Trolls B) Ignorant Unpaid Trolls C) Have no clue or Need to Appreciate and Understand the Difference between a PC and a Phone. Windows 10 makes your desktop into a Tablet/Phone – Before the end of this Decade, either Microsoft will clean up their act, or a New competitor is Already in the works because People are sick and tired of this Dual Personality B.S. Microsoft wants to KILL the Personal Computer. Just say NO. Teach people how to say No, how to use a computer. Show them Things that Work.

    As for Games, Until this new DirectX is even Relevant enough, there’s no need to upgrade. Updates or Upgrades do not mean Better in today’s world.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:20 am
      Reply

      I agree with most of what you said, “CZ,” however, when you mentioned that “The spying is not the problem,” I’m sorry but I have to beg to differ with you on that one. The spying is one of the biggest problems with Windows 10. It is without a doubt one of the worst things to happen to user privacy since Google!——-And we all know how Google’s forced integration worked out for everyone——-or should I say, didn’t work out for everyone!

      Microsoft is now trying to force us to give up our rights to privacy much in the same way Google has. And neither company right now is showing any signs of backing down, despite the many court cases against them for over this very serious matter——-our right to privacy is just that——-it is our right period!

    2. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:45 am
      Reply

      It appears most windows users are casual and that’s what MS is aiming at. They don’t give two rats asses about PC gamers (even though they used to make their own games in house) and don’t care if you jump ship.

      As soon as I get a chance I’m downgrading back to Windows 7 so I can play stuff you can’t do on Windows 10 as it only does online games.

      I have seen online games be sized right and look good while offline hidden object games the font is really tiny and off with no way to adjust it. The scaling is way off.

    3. Jill said on March 5, 2016 at 8:06 pm
      Reply
    4. Rob said on January 15, 2016 at 12:34 am
      Reply

      yesterday I checked window 10 first time, I fully agree with your finding, it is a pice of crap, MSFT is not giving this for free, they wan’t something in return, personal data, etc etc.

    5. scylla said on December 12, 2015 at 1:46 am
      Reply

      I agree with everything you’ve said that I can understand, CZ (gaming aspects excluded as I don’t play games).

      Especially 2, 3 & 4, and (3) is the worst of that bad bunch. My screen-captured recordings on QHD with Win10 are an embarrassment – in fact, the display quality took a dive as soon as Win10 was installed, and I’m not competent to sort it out.

      I won’t be “upgrading” my Win7 laptops unless I’m tortured into it.

      1. scylla said on December 16, 2015 at 7:00 am
        Reply

        I only upgraded that laptop because it came with Windows 8.1 and I hated that, I thought that 10 must be an improvement.

        Several times I have tried various Linux OSes, but my problem is that I am tied to video recording and editing software that will only work with Windows, and new editing software would be a long, steep learning curve (for me!) that I am too busy to spare time for.

        But “next time” I will clone my drive first – promise ;-)

      2. CZ said on December 15, 2015 at 12:28 am
        Reply

        Dear Scylla, This is why Before Installing Windows 10, I used Acronis True Image 2013 to create a FULL backup of the Partition of my Windows 7. Once I had my Backup, I installed Windows 10 Professional. Fresh Install. Not an Upgrade. Then I began to Play with it and see how it could be useful to me. Less than 2 weeks later after giving it Much thought, I decided it is not worth it. It is more complex, Confusing, and does not do good in Work Flow. Microsoft should be embarrassed and this is why you can see them Pushing windows 10 everywhere specially on Microsoft’s websites. If Anyone can remember, Google did this with their Chrome browser. They always pushed it bundled with other software. It was sickening to a point that it was like Spyware. But Google made Chrome better to a point that it became atleast usable although not the browser of choice. That goes to Opera or Firefox. But Chrome did many things right, where Microsoft simply ignores users and pushes Windows 10. It is amazing to see that it seems no one really tests windows 10, and every thing seems to be Alpha or Beta. My advice is Stick to Windows 7, with a good anti virus, and a host file, there should be no need for 10 until Microsoft wakes up and starts to care about its users, or a competition takes over. I’m guessing it will be the latter. This company is done, OS wise until they clean up their act.

  29. Danny said on December 8, 2015 at 8:18 am
    Reply

    I have not upgraded and I have 1 XP, 1 Vista, 3 Win7 and a Linux.

    I do not upgrade to Win10, since I do not understand the reason MS is being so aggressive, When a salesperson is aggressive, I do NOT buy!! I try to understand what is being hidden.
    So, what is MS hiding?

    I keep 2 older win7 offline most of the time, and the new one is online.

    I migrated to Linux to use as much as I can there, but found a number of applications that only run on Windows or Ubuntu (which I do not use).

    Hopefully, more software will be created or ported to Linux, or I will also convert a computer to Ubuntu.

  30. Me said on November 29, 2015 at 8:32 pm
    Reply

    The best windows program was/is XP Pro but since it is no longer supported I have Win 7 in our computers. Works fine and am not a fan of upgrades just to upgrade.

    If and when the time comes to buy another computer I will have little choice but to accept Win 10 with it even though I have read enough to know it is a new name, same old stuff, a computer hog and slower yet.

    MS why not instead of always pretending to have better upgrades IMPROVE what you have?

    And NO, win10 is not improving, it is removing some things, it is a US NSA spy program and it is NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS what I do on MY computer.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:13 am
      Reply

      Exactly!—–Well said senor——-well said!

  31. John said on October 18, 2015 at 9:43 am
    Reply

    Windows 10 is not stable enough. Again Microsoft have released a program without making it stable especially from the upgrade point of view.
    You would have thought they would have learned by now.
    Revamp windows 98SE for today’s PC’s, its still their best effort.

  32. Mike said on October 12, 2015 at 10:54 pm
    Reply

    Going from windows 7 to windows 9 or 10 is like buying a new car just because your car is 5 years old. Either car will get you to where you want to go but the new one may be totally unnecessary and a complete waste of time.

    In my view, after testing windows 10, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever to give up windows 7 for a buggy yet to be fixed windows 9, 10, 11 and so on.

    It’s amazing that people haven’t learned from all of Microsoft’s past mistakes. More amazing is that Microsoft themselves haven’t learned and continue to shoot themselves down. By now they should have been better than Apple. Instead they’re playing catch up. Sad but true.

  33. Nathan said on October 11, 2015 at 2:36 pm
    Reply

    Whenever a new Microsoft system comes out it’s always buggy (perhaps done purposely). “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a wise old saying. Windows 10 will just upset you and mess you up big time. Changing from windows 7, which works fine 99.99% of the time, is useless and unnecessary. Sadly, windows 10 will benefit Microsoft more than the average person.. A company who puts themselves above their customers means BUYER BEWARE. No t’s not free in the long run but that’s another long story.By the way Microsoft is actually pushing windows 9. Calling it 10 does nothing except promote a huge lie!

  34. Tanya Roonie said on October 2, 2015 at 7:08 pm
    Reply

    I made the mistake of upgrading to Win10 (from 7) and have had nothing but problems since. Security was immediately compromised and picked up a bug (I hadn’t had a virus in 4 years with my Win7). It seems that Win10 disabled my McAfee and I didn’t realize for 2 days hence my issues. Also, It’s been buggy from day one. Even after 3 or 4 upgrades it is still running funny (can’t explain). I tried going back to 7 but couldn’t for some stupid reason (some win error kept cropping up and couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard I tried).

    Anyway, thank goodness, my laptop screen got funky and required replacement (~$200). So instead, I bought a new machine with Win7 so I’m happy to be back and I have no intention of upgrading until Win7 support ends 2020-ish

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:09 am
      Reply

      Even when official full support ends then——-you could still run Windows 7 with little to no worry. Security vendors will most likely be catering to this crowd even at that time to——-so as far as security is concerned——-unless some unforeseen hole appears in Windows 7 anytime soon (which at this point doesn’t seem likely) you won’t even have to worry about it then.

      Besides, even Microsoft itself has created an application to plug in any sort of holes that might be present when they came out with EMET, and they’re not the only company who has this type of mitigation software available.

      If you really want to get serious about system hardening, HitmanPro Alert is another great option which offers this type of protection—even more so than EMET.

  35. Paula Gomes said on October 1, 2015 at 12:11 am
    Reply

    As my old Nan used to say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
    I am perfectly happy with win7 and I’m always suspicious when such “great deals” are pushed on me.

    Whether it is for profit or spying on citizens or marketing ploys and other gimmicks or vested reasons of their own, this COME AND GET IT GUYS, IT’S FREE, TIME IS RUNNING OUT makes me think that there’s more to it than meets the eye. But even if there isn’t…

    The only incentive for me, so far, are the “couple of extra years of support before the OS needs to be switched again”.
    So, it is a no-brainer: doing it now or in 2020, I rather wait and get a new PC then with all included, as that seems just about the right time to replace my present one.

    For now, I’m sticking with windows 7, thank you very much.

  36. KinG KOng said on September 29, 2015 at 9:43 pm
    Reply

    Windows 7 is the best OS and no stupid w10 can replace it.
    You ask why it’s so better than w8 or w10?
    Well… there is almost nothing new in w8 and 10 – just few icons, added volume indicator and ugly design.. wtf this can take your eyes , really?!

    It was so hard to add all those options on updates for w 7 ?
    Of cource not but Microsoft wanted to take more money for the shit and useless new ‘updated’ windows 8 and 10.

    1. Adam said on September 29, 2015 at 11:48 pm
      Reply

      To tell you the truth, I respect Windows 7 more than 8.1. (and hate 10 more than Windows Vista, 95, and ME combined!)

      8.1’s UI is weird and awkward (but luckily not as bad as Windows 8!) [also Classic Shell is a savior on 8, 8.1 and 10!]
      Windows 7 is like the new XP! Simple, efficient, and the underdog of Microsoft (why do you think it still is the #1 most used OS of all the Windows versions combined)!

      Also, I love and miss the Windows 7 UI (as much as XP!) It was professional biased and, not full of a bunch of 90s colorful flat icons[like the original AOL?]!

      I had to get a Windows 8.1 Alienware unfortunately because, touchscreen Win 7 laptops/convertibles go for a premium price (at least $2K) and my old Win 7 Ultimate laptop (non touchscreen) crapped out on me {was pretty problematic already in its last year of service and, a failing motherboard was it’s last nail in the coffin]!

      I can’t wait to see what direction Microsoft goes in the future and, if they make another Windows 7 glorified OS! Hopefully, microsoft learns its lesson and, creates a custom OS that does NOT track your every movement and, has a option for both a Metro or, a Classic Theme (ie Windows 7 UI and functionality!)

      1. Adam said on September 30, 2015 at 3:18 am
        Reply

        Lol I love XP too and, have it on my old laptop a (2006 Dell Inspiron 700M]!) [I don’t use that one as much since it has a faulty fan [One of these days I need to take it appart and, replace it!}]

        I love how XP has moveable thumbnails unlike Windows Vista and up and, this helps me organize my 20.5 gb collection of pictures! XP and Windows 7 are as good as Microsoft has come! I woulda bought another older laptop but, I got a better deal on a 8.1 Alienware 13t (4th gen Core i7, Touchscreen ,500gb SSD and, 16gb of Ram than a Win 7 Alienware 13x [The one I compared was more expensive and, had a 4th Gen i5, non-touchscreen, a 250gb SSD and, 8gb of Ram] [Ram and hard drives are customizeable but, the processor is not and, i’d need more new for my Alienware] (I also need a PC with 6-16 GB of Ram and a Core i5 or better!)!

        Overall, I’m pretty new to 8.1 and think of it as being ok. It may have it’s flaws but on the bright side, Winsows 8.1 on a touchscreen is better than having it on a standard monotor!

        Finally to top off the cherry, I’m going to try out 10 TP soon (duel boot?)
        So yeah, I love XP as much as Windows 7 (very highly) and, am open to seeing the future of Microsoft at the same time!

      2. N Brown said on September 30, 2015 at 2:44 am
        Reply

        Windows XP is still on 30% of computers world wide so why don’t you use that if you like older out of date OS’s?? If you used 10 and don’t realize the difference then stick with 7 because the benefits of 10 would be wasted on you anyway.

  37. Adam said on September 17, 2015 at 3:40 pm
    Reply

    I recently broke down and, purchased my first Windows 8.1 PC! It’s a Touchscreen Alienware 13x with 16gb of Ram, a 500gb SSD and, a new Core I7 processor!

    however, I disabled auto updates twice and, after the first time, it turned itself back on again by itself and installed windows 10 features and ad ons (Less than 1 week after purchase). These ad-ons (I believe the updates KB3068708, KB3022345, KB3075249 and KB3080149) Caused issues ranging from my graphics card failing (always freezing) to reduced preformance and, constant freezes.

    After I uninstalled and blocked the windows 10 updates, Preformance was restored (over 200) precent better

    When you think about it, these windows 10 updates used 16gb of RAM!

    Even on my mother’s 15x, preformance was reduced over 300% due to Microsoft pushing out these updates!

    So yeah origionally I was gonna duel boot both 8.1 and 10 beta but, now it’s gonna be run in a VM (we’ll see how it handles with 8GB!)

    Windows 10 has the potential to be the best OS but, if it can be more localized and, less spying on your every move, Microsoft could have succsss!

    Overall, i am happy

  38. Lou said on September 17, 2015 at 10:08 am
    Reply

    Why does MS have to constantly fix things that work fine? I am finally onboard with Win 7 HP for our pc’s and in 7 Pro for our HTPC, having been a die hard user of XP for many years. It takes a long time to get comfortable with a new OS. The main thing about computers is easing our lives with technology. We shouldn’t have to un-ease ourselves learning all the bells and whistles every few years. 7, imo, seem to have it all together. They need to get it together over there at MS and stick with what works and drop all of this fancy assed crap that doesn’t fit the bottom line of having these machines in the first place.

  39. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    My idea of lowering taxes on the poor and middle class while raising taxes on the rich and abolishing the IRS and TSA for no more scandals will improve even computing because there won’t be a paranoia of spying and forcing people into social media only.

    Remember Windows 8? That was MS giving in due to Steve Ballmer believing the big industry hype that social media and smart phones are the wave of the future and the only thing people will want.

    EA thought so with their Sim City 2013 fiasco and now trying it again with Need For Speed Grip using a Face Book style interface forcing you to have *likes* to be used as cash for clunkers I mean cars.

    When will these companies realize they only exist because of the people below their radar level? When will the public wake up and take back their freedom from the government/industrial complex?

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 3:00 am
      Reply

      Exactly——-You make a very prudent point!

  40. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 9:48 pm
    Reply

    Windows is being rerouted into a social media only tool. The big industry have decided that *computers* are for social media only where you have to be obsessed with *likes* and telling everybody about your life habits such as waiting for the bus or something or getting your shoes shined announcing it to the world.

    The rich have decided the internet now known as *web 2.0* should not be for the poor and that everybody has to be spied on so are herding people like cattle to accept social media for everything including getting jobs in order to get their one world system going with people wanting more of it and so far it’s working in flying colors.

    You are being led from cradle to grave.

    That is why the web is being more like a walled garden where you have to pay insane monthly subscriptions for every little thing just about ON TOP of your actual internet bill or phone bill. Everybody wants to be Apple.

    They think that only smart phones are the future and MS made the mistake giving into that bandwagon with Windows 8 and realized the hard way that people are not going to *toss* their computers for Surface Pro and Windows Phone.

    Windows 8.1 is their public apology but the damage was already done.

    Also the fact that 64 bit computing killed the industry as a lot of developers refused to make things for it and went for consoles only. Windows Vista scared a lot of potential users away with half broken devices.

  41. Anonymous said on August 20, 2015 at 5:32 am
    Reply

    windows 10 its is just another fad no need to update just a prentence like the IPHONES why don these experts come up with some logic, besides wasting my time and looking at rubbish.

    kind rwagrds
    to whovever

    1. Dan A said on August 25, 2015 at 8:25 am
      Reply

      iPhones are a fad?

      Strange. They came out 2 years before Windows 7 and are still going strong.

      1. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 9:55 pm
        Reply

        Only because most of those people never even touched a computer. I have a cousin that used to hang out with the *bad crowd* that never wanted anything to do with a computer and after having some close calls with the law has decided to get a job and got interested in photography business.

        He later realized he needed a computer to do anything useful and he now loves computers. He still uses his phone for his contacts but doesn’t think anymore that it’s the *wave of the future* that everybody should dump computers.

        Most people only have seen computers at schools as glorified typewriters and the games were usually stupid like Reader Rabbit which there is not much action going on.

        I have played education games with TONS more content and story then the RR mascot that schools insisted on using and I hardly ever touched RR.

    2. N Brown said on August 25, 2015 at 4:08 am
      Reply

      Unlike I-phones there are updates needed in Windows 10 like DX12. It does run faster than 7 on my 3rd generation I7 and this same comment happened about 7 and XP. People have such short memories lol. 10 rocks you fools!!

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:44 am
        Reply

        Windows 10 sucks more than my new Shark vacuum, which, if we’re going to split hairs on performance, we might as well talk about the fact that Windows 10’s spyware and ad-hideous EULA agreements make it all but impossible to enjoy a fast internet connection——-unless of course, you upgrade your broad-band internet to the latest 1GB craze, a bandwidth of completely unnecessary proportions, unless you’re running a server. But even a 25 Mbps connection can suffice for that in many circumstances.

        Gee——-I wonder what sort of behind the scenes deal Microsoft has been working out with ISP’s this time. Hmmm…could it be, um, like the old expression goes——-you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours?——-Oh no, that couldn’t possibly be——-no way would they scheme something like that behind customers backs right?!——-Palease!

      2. Tobias said on August 25, 2015 at 9:20 pm
        Reply

        DirectX12 is not a required update for anything. The amount of DX9 games is pretty high still. When games running on DX12 it’s mostly already obselete and DX14 is out already. History prove that more than once. And how can you say “it runs faster”? I mean, did you have a loading screen whe you opened the explorer window or when you clicked the start menu? How to determine “faster”? When something is working in 0.21 seconds now and is – as you claim – actually faster, it’s then 0.15. A 25% increasement but still nothing. So what’s the fuzz about? Are you paid for this?

  42. Boris Yeltsin said on August 20, 2015 at 3:50 am
    Reply

    The the heck are “modern apps”?

    1. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 9:57 pm
      Reply

      I’m confused too. Are they the same as programs? I can’t tell apart as I don’t have a phone so don’t know what it means when I see *App* this or *App* that.

  43. Dan said on August 19, 2015 at 2:36 pm
    Reply

    You mean Corel isn’t compatible with 10. It isn’t as if all old word processing software doesn’t work.

    http://www.thurrott.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/windows-10-word-95.jpg

  44. Anne said on August 19, 2015 at 1:11 pm
    Reply

    I upgraded to 10 out of curiosity then promptly went back to 7. I use Corel Write and 10 is not compatible with that word processing program. I panicked when I couldn’t access any of my word documents. I agree with the author – I don’t see any need to upgrade to Windows 10. If it works, don’t fix it.

  45. Anonymous said on August 17, 2015 at 1:08 pm
    Reply

    There was almost unanimous approval from both consumer and enterprise over the launch of Windows 7 (or Vista SP3 if you prefer). Almost every company on earth upgraded to Windows 7 unless they were stuck on some legacy software that required XP. I do not remember any widespread hatred of Windows 7 at all. It was cheered in almost every circle.

    Now take the Win8/10 disaster. Are we really surprised by the hatred? You have a company without a significant app store and with an almost non-existent mobile/tablet presence pushing users to buy apps for devices with 2-3% market saturation. Windows 10 can do nothing that Windows 7 cannot already do, except push apps…with a hideously ugly, child-like interface full of bright colored tiles that cannot even be customized (sort of like AOL in 1996).

    The “new” search is terrible for local searches and Cortana only serves to open Bing (wow, what an incredibly advanced feature). The Groove music app is simply embarrassing and that ribbon structure of menus in explorer is WAY worse then Windows 95/98/XP/Vista/7. The dual settings menus makes no sense at all.

    In short, I am completely,100% confused what Microsoft’s strategy is, unless that strategy is to lose billions of dollars which they are increasingly proficient at ($7 billion right-off for Nokia this quarter to go with the $1.7 billion right-off from Surface). They don’t even get to
    recoup development costs for Windows 10 because they are giving it away for free. And this from a huge Microsoft fanboy who loves and uses their Enterprise products. It’s just sad as hell to see what is happening to their consumer side.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:35 am
      Reply

      In response to ‘Anonymous,’

      I couldn’t have said it better myself. Hat’s off to you for your brutal honesty. When it comes to issues like this——-no facts should ever be obscured!

    2. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 10:05 pm
      Reply

      Windows XP plays a lot of old stuff that 7 even on compatible mode doesn’t.
      I have a lot of 3D adventure and hidden object games that either won’t run or run correctly on 7 that runs fine on XP with no adjustments needed whatsoever.

      We have XP with SP3 update on Virtual Box using Linux Mint as the main OS and enjoy many of my old games I never thought I’d play again.

      One game New Adventures of the Time Machine by Dream Catcher/Cryo Entertainment never worked anywhere past Win XP because it would either not install or in most cases would run until after the opening scene showing the main city and Wales gets thrown out of his time machine then boom it crashes to desktop mode with a fatal exception error.

      Found out other people have it get hung up there and no amount of fixing makes it better.

      Heck on the real Windows XP it was actually more glitchy then the emulator VB version often crashing at various points in the game so you had to save quite often and would stutter more with severe frame drops if you ran too much or too much activity was going on.

      It works pretty well on Virtual Box though stutters if you use the mouse and the said mouse goes way too fast so you can only use the keyboard only for menu selecting and your inventory but I am just happy to have it back!

      Windows 10 hardly runs anything at all especially stuff that requires a CD. Thanks but no thanks! I’ll pay for a professional version of it comes out as long as it’s not a monthly subscription social media only.

    3. N Brown said on August 25, 2015 at 4:12 am
      Reply

      Except 1 thing 10 is not 8 and it will be adopted on millions of pcs except the trolls that still want to use XP of course. Does your hardware suck? 10 explorer blows previous ones away. You are so wrong on this and the installs will prove it. You sit on clunky 7 while we fly swiftly past you with 10. Amazing how short memories are, why don’t you use XP?

      1. Tobias said on August 25, 2015 at 9:15 pm
        Reply

        This is the worst commercial I have ever heard.
        Do you have any reliable source Windows10 is faster? I mean, as in numbers?

        The differences are – at maximum – so tiny that nobody really cares than benchmark freaks. You know, this kind of freak that never plays a game because they are busy watching the framerate counter… Look, I am totally fine with Windows7. Everything works, and it works very fast. Why would I start to use a NSA spytool (maybe you should think why Win10 is “free” while I paid €100 for my Win7 Systembuilder) if everything’s fine now? It only can get worse for people who are happy with Windows 7. Why? Stuff that works fine now *COULD* work with Win10. But it does not have to. So why taking the risk at all to use that ugly mix of cheap cellphone Windows CE and pseudo-Desktop Windows called “10”? As you can see in all the complaints about scanners not offering important features, only basic ones and stuff that can not be solved by default drivers.

        So stop quoting Windows10 commercial flyers and accept the common saying: “Never change a running system”.

        The only thing that swiftly flies away are your rights and your personal data going to various secret services, to Microsoft and cloud services. And your money as well as soon as they charge you for everything like they do with Office. Let alone the problem with being a beta tester for the updates I do not want to be installed automatically….

  46. Rocdred said on August 16, 2015 at 9:25 pm
    Reply

    The biggest reason for me to not upgrade, and i did, but sent it back to where it came from the same day.

    NO WIDI.. Can’t do it, there are no drivers, can’t fake it, foobar it, nothing. Will not even load. How can they not have WIDI access? It’s not like it’s a new technology anymore.

    But in general, i didn’t like a lot of the functionality. I’ve been doing win forever. and somethings were worth doing. XP was fantastic, Win 7 is probably their best OS ever, and while 10 has some cool stuff, i actually liked cortana even though she wouldn’t type bitch.. And it’s not even a dirty word, it’s a female dog.. Geeze..

    But it’s not bad, but i’d say not ready for prime time. There is one good thing. Reverting back to Win 7 for those who are curious was simple and fast.. Win 7 was restored in under 15 min. Perfectly, i didn’t even need my image i made.

    Stay with 7 until they offer stuff making it worth the jump, but my initial experience was not worth bothering.

    1. N Brown said on August 25, 2015 at 4:15 am
      Reply

      You determined that with 30 minutes of use I bet. Suggestion folks do wait until drivers are out for your peripherals but then go for it. 10 does run faster than 7 and games run faster than in 7 and my wireless is faster than in 7 and well many many things are better than in 7.
      Guess it’s nice to actually know how to use a damn computer.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:30 am
        Reply

        In response to N Brown,

        If Windows 10 runs faster than Windows 7, generally speaking, it usually has more to do with environment variables than anything else. If your hardware is a few years old or more, than obviously performance will suffer no matter what OS you’re using.

        The other important factor here is users whom mess with the OS in ways in which they shouldn’t, thus subsequently causing increased stability and performance issues.

        Readers, please take into consideration that there is usually more to it than what most will have you believe.

      2. Pen said on August 25, 2015 at 11:41 am
        Reply

        You seem to doubt an awful lot without any reason to do so. Just because you haven’t encountered problems doesn’t mean they don’t exist. and this thread isn’t the only thread on the net disparaging win 10, the web is full of it.
        When I say that win10 blocked my router, that’s fact and not as you infer a lie. returning to win7 and win 8 cured all problems with router access.
        So unless you can say with PROOF that win 10 doesn’t introduce errors in previously well operating systems, I suggest you shut your mouth.

      3. Dan A said on August 25, 2015 at 8:21 am
        Reply

        @Pen: I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word lucky. The majority, I’d wager the vast majority, of those that upgrade do so with little issue whatsoever. The fact that this comment thread hasn’t dramatically sped up after the release of Windows 10 suggests that, at least indirectly, to be true.

        Now as for for your suggestion that Windows 10 somehow altered the settings on your ROUTER?

        “Nothing could communicate with my WIFI router either by WIFI or Ethernet. That’s not all! my android phone couldn’t talk to my router nor could my ipad.”

        Doubt it. That’s all I’ll say (I mean your router could suck and the distributed updater could have overwhelmed it, but again – doubt it)

      4. Pen said on August 25, 2015 at 6:24 am
        Reply

        Because you are lucky Mr Brown and your WIFI, LAN and other drivers worked, you presume others are just inept.
        Let me tell you I spent a week struggling with both my Desktop (previously win7) and my laptop (win 8.2) after upgrading only to be forced to roll back both computers. Nothing could communicate with my WIFI router either by WIFI or Ethernet. That’s not all! my android phone couldn’t talk to my router nor could my ipad. Microsoft are no help at all. The only help available for users are forums like these where users can at least gauge the usefullness of this upgrade. For now the success is marginal at best and for those of us who have encountered “REAL” problems, it’s, for now a badly prepared disaster!

  47. normpot said on August 16, 2015 at 7:25 am
    Reply

    I will not upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10, main reason I have dual boot system on my two desktops (win 7 + Linux) combo. So far Win 7 permits me to do so. My MBR is controlled by linux grub boot loader, which gives me the choice whether to select booting the PC with Linux or Win 7 OS at start up.
    However, Win 10 upgrade , will wipe my grub linux bootloader in MBR and will replace it with new Win 10 boot loader, the negative and unfair side of it, unlike Win 7 , Win 10 will deny the option of dual booting and my Linux OS and will be masked by Win10 automatically. I will see only half of my HD where the new upgraded Win 10 NTFS partition is, and my existing linux ext4 and swap partitions will be hidden and no access to Linux OS anymore.
    Win 10 recognizes (signatures) only couple of mainstream Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu, Fedora etc.) for dual booting, but not all available Linux distributions are given permission for dual booting.

    To restore back my linux will take lengthy extra efforts requiring to disable BIOS secure boot UEFI mode (for modern BIOS) and try to restore linux grub boot loader or re-install entire linux OS all over again from a live CD , and no guarantee of success, hoping that my original MBR linux boot loader will be recovered, and hope that it will work OK with new Win10 if am lucky if Win 10 boot loader is placed at same spot, same file name as win 7, so linux grub can recognize it.
    It is debatable why Win10 is tempering my PC and blocking the access to another available OS in my machine? It should be my choice whichever OS I want to use. If it is for security excuse, I disagree, it has been proven that Linux is more superior to Windows as far as security is a concern.

    I have no complaints about win 7 so far, a bit bulky, slower, memory hungry, but it is a stable OS, Win 7 is satisfactory, efficient OS for my daily softwares usage for windows applications. I don’t need to operate a bigger “Hummer- Win10” at this point .
    Win 7 security updates will expire in year 2020, lots of time.
    Regards, Norm

  48. John the Fisherman said on August 16, 2015 at 5:00 am
    Reply

    Holy crap people. Am I the only one who genuinely like 8.1? Upgraded mine from7 to 8.1 last year and it was the best decision I’ve ever had. I’m sticking with 8.1 because I already have a good “system” with my current setup. I don’t want anything to break nor do I want to have to invest time fixing problems or getting used to a new UI. I just need efficiency. So I’m gonna sit back and enjoy it while it lasts.

  49. Sri said on August 13, 2015 at 11:17 pm
    Reply

    I upgraded to test, but reverting back. The fonts on some apps are so yucky and straining on eyes. And the start menu is a total sore the way things are arranged. What was a beautiful presentation is not a mix of apps and folders and all dumped together. Settings is even more of a mess.

    My system properties show 9 (nine) devices as unrecognized. Driver search fails. And all these were recognized on Windows 7.

    Reverted back to Windows 7 from 10. And no intention of upgrading until Windows 7 end of support.

  50. Tony said on August 13, 2015 at 2:03 pm
    Reply

    I’ve had W10 installed for a week here. Actually upgrading took 3 days of struggling and some of my PC’s hardware is still without proper drivers and had to be disabled. In diagnosing the numerous cockups that W10 made of installing itself on my hardware, which is all new and current, I was frustrated in no longer being able to find things that were there in W7 – they are mostly still there buy hidden under levels of menus.

    How do I find W10?

    I can report that it does not start any faster than W7, and in operation it isn’t any faster, sometimes it is slower, which I find rather disappointing. The start menu is ultra crap, covering my desktop with a huge purple blotch full of crapware and was immediately replaced with Classic Shell. A lot of familiar things seem to have disappeared altogether, and most of what is new, isn’t worth having. MS seems to have been caught up in the race to emulate the crapware on the latest phones, you know, they are the ones we turn off the day after we bought it.

    Cortana? A completely useless piece of garbage that was turned off after 3 days. Anyway, after adding classic shell, and a few days disabling all of the “phone home” spyware and setting it up how I like it, it is finally useable as an OS. But is it actually worth the hassle? My answer is most definitely “no”.

    MS, please give PC users an OS for PC’s. If we want to use dumbed down tablets, we already have them. You can’t do serious work on a tablet. And you can’t have your arms up in the air all day using a PC touch screen without suffering fatigue, a mouse is a far better interface.

  51. Paulo Rodschlager said on August 13, 2015 at 1:36 pm
    Reply

    I also agree… windows 7 is way better than the 8s and 10…

    I unfortunately upgraded… thought I could tweak it and more or less some things are better than 7… it certainly boots faster for me… but then again.. a fresh install of 7 would probably do that too… but still after installing all my programs it is still quick.

    8 was garbage… seriously it is like win Me… wow that was crap.. 8.1 slightly improved it but damn is it annoying… 10… well I am not impressed as I thought I would be… generally it is good.. but I had to jump through hoops to get older programs and hardware working on a clean install… upgrade seemed ok.. but laggy… fresh install.. no go until I tweaked the crap out of it to make them run… then it was OK… system seems great one minute and then all of a sudden a few web pages open, nothing else and the system spikes nearly to 100% cpu use… I kill tasks.. but it does little.. eventually it drips on its own… so I have no idea why suddenly it gobbles all resources.

    video streaming from youtube or TED talks or other sites is fine if I close everything down.. and sit there doing nothing… I normally like to have another screen up surfing while watching vids… but it makes it stutter…. win7 never did this… apparently it is either a browser issue (not really since firefox, chrome, IE, and edge all do the same thing) or a flash issue… (no idea but tried a dozen things without change) and even tried upgrading my video drivers…. I think it is vid…. but both picture and sound dies if the system is doing anything when watching a video….. very annoying… it is almost like bing on a 500k connection when I am on a 60 meg connection which is not even close to using the bandwidth and ram is not maxing out.. so who knows what the hell win10 is doing… I can run 8 without issue on my crap machine.. worse than my current one… figured 10 is supposed to be better and make things faster… tried it on my decently productive system.. now.. win 10 is pissing me off… I like many aspects but the high CPU use and constant lag when trying to watch video annoys me.

  52. Blair said on August 11, 2015 at 6:08 am
    Reply

    The Windows 10 start menu shown in the picture is surely not the start menu actually in WIndows 10! It is basically a small version of the WIndows 8.1 metro app! It is not a start menu! Why has no reviewer pointed this lie from Microcrap out?

  53. Mihael Tominsek said on August 10, 2015 at 9:43 pm
    Reply

    Just today I received email from one my customer – elder retired lawyer. He said his comouter needs to be checked. It is updated to Windows 10 and somehow doesn’t fit him. If something can be done regarding that… See. A week after and regular people, not tech sawy, not directed against, refuse to accept it. It is like you have a car and during night manufacturer would change it with different model, stating it is now more fun…

  54. JimG said on August 10, 2015 at 4:38 pm
    Reply

    Upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Win 7 Pro on my home computer. Just went back. Win 10 had no driver for my printer, a degraded and cartoonish graphical interface, oddly fuzzy type in menu boxes, and did not seem any faster or better or do anything that I need that Win 7 does not do. Maybe I will try again later.

  55. Mihael Tominsek said on August 10, 2015 at 2:57 pm
    Reply

    While I look at the TEN, I can see, that (al)most anything can be tweaked. Icons, even some guy transplanted Calculator. I have now W7 calculator too. But this design… it’s bad web design at best. Most websites have better UI theese days. Even Microsoft’s own live.com have better desegned interface.

    live.com have several tools in one: mail, people, calendar, onedrive, …
    While on desktop for all of them separate app must be opened. And for design, live.com is much better – nicer, more “live” with more “life” in it – my HP elitebook have poor contrast so windows are more or less pure white. Readability is crippled if GUI is very bright and low contrast. Not to mention that all that functions I have in old “windows live mail 2012” and with proper buttons and COLORS too. :)

    And then I found that with third party app even XP can be upgraded with modern start menu and search! So… I must try that on 7.

  56. Adam said on August 10, 2015 at 3:54 am
    Reply

    On top of hunting down a professional windows 7 Ultimate convertible tablet that is capable of duel booting XP and Windows 7, I’ll only get windows 10 on a. Separate SSD!

    Microsoft is trying to make a 8 successor and, has tried too hard!

    From mandatory driver updates that cripple your computer, bad security updates that turn your $2k work baised industrial convertible tablet into a paperweight, and the lack of privacy, I’m afraid of even booting into it on a spare SSD with widows 10 potentionlly installed!

  57. Amos said on August 9, 2015 at 6:55 pm
    Reply

    windows 7 is better than windows 10,i will use win10 is very slow and not stable

  58. Pano said on August 9, 2015 at 2:43 pm
    Reply

    I installed Windows 10 and i’m going back to Windows 7 (64-bit versions) .

    I have to say, the new settings panel is not bad and it’s fast, but why whould a Windows 7 user care about that? I’m already familiar with Windows 7 control panel, as the most users are. Moreover perfomance in general is not better than Windows 7. It doesn’t start faster than Windows 7 and Windows 7 run (slightly) smoother on my laptop, which is 5 years old and has and ssd in it. I did not even had sp1 installed until July 2015, and i have been working on this machine for years with no problems. Even right-clicking is now slow for some reason and also Firefox tabs are forced to the top with no option to place them under the addressbar, to match the Windows 10 design i guess.

    When i used windows 7 for the first time i was excited. It felt that it was trully needed and that it was (and it is of course) an improvement from previous systems and when i upgraded to SSD, i was blown from its performance. Now windows 10 is not an improvement on windows 7, it’s more like another option and it feels unessecary. So i’m going back to Windows 7. If they keep it like this, when they stop supporting Windows 7, i’m going with Linux.

    PS. The taskbar stopped working at one point and i had to restart…

    1. Pano said on August 9, 2015 at 7:32 pm
      Reply

      *Firefox tabs is not a Windows 10 issue, that was my mistake. Nonetheless i suggest Windows 7 for PC users because Windows 10 looks more like it’s built for tablets or smartphones. It took me about 10 minutes to go back to Windows 7 using the Windows 10 menu option from the settings to downgrade. I also had to reinstall wireless network adapter driver and clear firefox cause the title bar appeared right above the tabs and it was messed up. Now I feel happy again!

      Maybe i’ll try again Windows 10 in the future but definitely not over Windows 7.

  59. L!1 said on August 8, 2015 at 6:19 pm
    Reply

    I upgraded from 7 to 8 long ago. I hated it then, I still hate it now. Windows 10 is worse. Design, UX wise it’s pure hell. Fonts sizes/thickness are complete uglyness. Color palette makes me want to puke, and the combination of the “old” Windows environment with the new “modern UI” just looks out of bounds. Here’s a good comparison:
    https://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-10-metro-is-butt-ugly

    Also, the privacy settings are horrid at the moment. Windows 10 automatically turns everything ON. Sharing your privacy with apps is now standard procedure. Stay with 7, if you can. Performance wise I can’t tell much difference…

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:23 am
      Reply

      Exactly!——-Nuff said!

  60. Tobias said on August 8, 2015 at 4:24 pm
    Reply

    Well, I make it short and simple: “Never change a running system”.
    My Windows7 installation turns 2 years in a couple of days. Never used a restore point or backup. I got this computer, had Win8 on it, was thinking about giving it a try, seeing myself running to the store the very next day to buy Win7 Systembuilder for €100. Since then: I love it. I really, really love it. People always talk about “changes below the surface”. Yeah, so? If I am fine with my OS now, why would I want those changes? It’s not that I receive errors messages about how incompatible Win7 is (only my CPU. I wish I could get my 16-bit programs to run natively – Win 3.1 games like HOLIDAY ISLAND) so that I could say “Alright, let’s move on”. Booting, Shutting down, everything’s done within a couple of seconds – while it kills all the programs. It is more depending on your hardware actually, not the OS, that maybe changes like ~5% of the entire thing.

    I have Windows8 on my Surface Pro 3, and while I like the tablet’s hardware, the OS is terrible to use and – incredibly ugly. Windows 10 is as ugly as a Windows 3.1. 3 bland colours like you forgot to set up proper drivers and Windows use default 16-colour drivers like back in the Win95 days. Nah, thanks. Aero is running super performant [because poster N Brown said it’s ressource hogging. What the heck? Our Green IT Thin Clients with 1 GHz Singlecore and no dedicated graphics hardware manage it, and you say in the year 2015 this is ressource hogging? Well Cortana is probably multiple times ressource hogging], and for Youtube, I have DreamScene runnning – and people go Whoa! What ist that? Nice! How can I get it?! – Windows7 and Vista only. – Ohhh :(. Why would you take features out from a system? There is a lot of stuff that should not be changed, or make it possible to toggle it on and off, but simply “doing” it against the customer’s will is ridiculously stupid.

    Sorry, but the way Windows is going is where our ways seperate. I had a Mac once in 2008 but Windows7 brought me back. Now, if MS does not change and if Apple does not totally go apesh*t, I will get a Mac again, because Linux is no alternative for me. But meanwhile, there are 4 more years… *pets his Win7 Systembuilder disk + license*

    All this new spy stuff and grabbing of big data, as well as this “as a service” nonsense makes me shiver. I remember our old Word and Excel 97 has been used until like 2006. Now, we need to pay for it on a regular base..Just like many former built-in applications… Nope..nopenopenope. Back to LibreOffice *sigh*.

  61. Chris Hopes said on August 7, 2015 at 7:25 pm
    Reply

    I like a lot of people bought Windows 8 when they sold it for £25, I had 3 computers with Windows 7 retail installed, I was expecting to drop my Windows 7 installations after using the W8 for a while, but this never happened I found myself using Windows 7 exclusively. So I ended up dual booting the 3 computers and only opening Windows 8 which became 8.1 to keep the updates going.
    At present I have upgraded all my Windows 8.1 to 10 and left my sevens alone, one of the main factors for not upgrading my Windows 7 installations is as far as I can understand that if I did then after the end of the free upgrade period the Windows 10 pro licence would not allow me to move W10 between computers, as my current W7 pro retail license does. In a 1yrs time I most likely will not have the current pc and would be building a new one.

  62. Mihael Tominsek said on August 7, 2015 at 3:57 pm
    Reply

    For home computing e.g. Facebook and browsing – I can use whatever windows, so 10 can be ok too. This is what I test right now on laptop. 10 can be customized further to look more as windows 7 (replace imageres.dll from 7 and all icons will be as in 7, gadgets can be reinstalled, shutdown shortcut can be added to start menu, …). But 10 is pain to set up, because if guessing where some setting is. JUST LIKE IN VISTA once it came to market. But than in 7, they rearganized GUI and we love it now.

    I hope they will make it more atractive in the future. Until that – it is better than 8 and 8.1 combined – but no real replacement for Windows 7. We did it with XP as well: Tested and went back to W98 for about a year or so, until things sorted out. I know that is “unfair” to Microsoft, who will not have great mass of feedback from new 10, but who they can blame? They had period of time with 8 and 8.1 to fix things (better). So they offer free update (for a year*).

    *and I can bet they will charge any major upgrades after that, even for customers which are updating now to W10. In this year of “free” period I can not expect big improvements – time is needed for masses to update, usage and error feedback, than “service pack” to be thought out. After that they will fix W10 for errors and compatibility, and offer “cheap” upgrade to W10.2016.

    So in the end I will need to pay for serious upgrade anyway. So why then bother with W10 until then?

  63. N Brown said on August 7, 2015 at 1:52 am
    Reply

    Well I upgraded with a dvd I downloaded through usenet (totally legal since I had a legit copy of windows 7) and windows 10 blows Windows 8/8.1 away for usability. Performance wise it is definitely running games like DA inquisition better than 7 did but besides that not much different. Faster boot and wake times are a technical slight of hand anyways MS got rid of the sophisticated resource heavy Aero and went to a light Fisher Price looking gui. That decreases load time but beyond that it is no faster at booting period (on my rig with gadgets loading). Turn off all location and privacy breaking options when you setup and don’t use One Drive or Cortana if you value privacy and don’t sign in with a MS account.

  64. Dee Mc. said on August 6, 2015 at 2:38 pm
    Reply

    Now that I decided not to upgrade, is there anyway to get rid of the W10 upgrade icon, or will I just have to keep that perpetually hidden in the system tray?

    1. Pano said on August 10, 2015 at 10:43 am
      Reply

      Uninstall KB3035583 update in Windows updates and you’ll be probably fine. If this is not enough, try to disable internet explorer. Personally i did, plus i uninstalled service pack 1 as well.

      1. Paula Gomes said on October 1, 2015 at 12:59 am
        Reply

        I want to thank you too, Pano. I didn’t now how to get rid of the pesky win10 icon and invites to update and I’ll try uninstalling the update you mention.

        As for the service pack, I’m not so sure. I pasted/copied below what I found out about it:

        “What’s included in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
        Applies to Windows 7
        Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is an important update that includes previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows 7. SP1 also includes new improvements to features and services in Windows 7, such as improved reliability when connecting to HDMI audio devices, printing using the XPS Viewer, and restoring previous folders in Windows Explorer after restarting.
        Installing SP1 helps keep Windows 7 up to date (…)”
        http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/whats-included-in-windows-7-service-pack-1-sp1

        The SP1 seems to be related to more functions than just uploading win10, so I’ll leave it here.

        Again, thanks for the useful tip!

      2. Pano said on August 11, 2015 at 7:34 pm
        Reply

        SP1 and i think some internet explorer updates as well, are needed in order to get the Windows 10 upgrade, but the KB3035583 is what brings the icon up on your screen, so you’re fine. Glad i helped :)

      3. Dee Mc. said on August 11, 2015 at 4:48 am
        Reply

        Got home from work and my computer is fine and no more windows 10 update icon. Thank you!!!!

      4. Dee Mc, said on August 10, 2015 at 5:56 pm
        Reply

        After you uninstalled KB3035583, and did a restart, did your computer take a really long time to restart? I did this before leaving for work this morning, and 45 mins after I did restart, it was still “reconfiguring”. I left for work and will have to see if it ever started up when I get home. I am a bit worried.

      5. Dee Mc. said on August 10, 2015 at 2:39 pm
        Reply

        I uninstalled KB3035583. Thanks. Can you tell me what uninstalling service pack 1 will do? Will it change things other than not wanting win 10?

  65. WarrenGnv said on August 4, 2015 at 11:05 pm
    Reply

    I downloaded and installed win 10 on Friday July 31, through windows update, by Monday I was fed up with it,, No more media center, no more microsoft games, all updates are forced on the machine, no longer do you have an option to NOT install certain updates, the edge browser will have a timely learning curve to it compared to IE 11. And pay attention to the next paragraph.
    Windows 10 claims if you don’t like it you can revert back to your previous version of windows, well it does to a certain extent, you can roll it back (I did to windows 7 pro), it rolled back fine, but after a few minutes, windows update was downloading windows 10 again and trying to install it, I could not STOP it, I uninstalled update KB3035583 after googling how to stop it from d/l and installing, THAT DID NOT STOP IT, apparently, once you have win 10 d/l and installed, changed your mind and roll back, removing that update wont stop it from continually trying to d/l and install itself all over again. After frustrating myself for an hour or so with this process, in windows 7 I tried to restore to a restore point made only 5 days before, the restore went ok but as it started up again, message stating that the restore point was corrupted, (and windows update was downloading win 10 in the background), I tried restore points from a few days earlier than that and same result, I am speculating that rolling back windows 10 after installing it somehow makes all of your previous restore points corrupt. after a few hours of that, to finally rid myself of windows 10 continually downloading and trying to re install itself, I had to do a system recovery from a factory image I created 7 years ago, it was the only way to get out of windows 10 harassing me to re install itself.
    NOW GET THIS ….. before doing the recovery and restore points, once back in windows 7, windows 7 update would NOT update without running the download and install of windows 10, so if you think you can just roll back and be as you were with windows 7 before the install, think again, at least for me this is how it turned out.

    1. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 8:48 am
      Reply

      Just duel boot Windows 7 and have it completely off line for your programs/games that work.

      We have a old 32 bit computer to run Windows 98/XP offline with software/games we are going to get going sometime this summer as they had good interface and easy to find things in settings with the most at 2 clicks.

      Windows 7 and up you have to have several clicks and hidden screens to get anywhere like monkeys on dope.

    2. Dee Mc. said on August 6, 2015 at 1:19 am
      Reply

      @WarrenGnv – Thank you for informing that you can’t roll back to win7!

  66. Goose said on August 4, 2015 at 7:14 pm
    Reply

    gonna wait till i need dx12 for any games. So far theres no games coming out i care about that use dx12. But when there are eventually some dx12 games i like, i’ll likely have to install win10. But im never giving up win7, its far too great and compatible with everything i have. Gonna just dual boot win10 when the time comes. Win10 just look like win8 with a few minor additions

  67. WolfShade said on August 3, 2015 at 5:11 pm
    Reply

    Been using Windows 10 Pro all weekend. Love it. I find it simple and very easy to manage my daily tasks, networking, and gaming. I like the Store feature immensely. Been a loyal and proud supporter of Windows 7 since its release. I also have been jumping the gun to get out of WinXP since a few years after it’s release. It’s frustrating to see people still today hanging onto their precious and outdated XP. Windows 7 was a classic and the best as of yet but things could only get better from there on out. Innovative new ideas are never fully accepted in a mass. Excited to see where this new platform takes us.

  68. Philaitch said on August 3, 2015 at 4:20 pm
    Reply

    The fact that later versions of windows can be configured to act and look like windows 7 is a great comfort to windows 7 users. It validates their decision to stay with windows 7. The adage ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ springs to mind, but that ain’t going to earn microsoft any money from the ‘targeted ads’ and privacy invasion that is windows 10.

  69. reek said on August 3, 2015 at 3:10 am
    Reply

    did the free quote unquote (nothing is free) 7–>10 upgrade.

    i regret it.

    my precious SANDBOXIE is no more…. invincea is mediocrity.

    never buy one of the first 10 cars off the assembly line.

    jeeeeezzz, i should have known better.

    my bad.

    guilty.

    1. N Brown said on August 7, 2015 at 1:55 am
      Reply

      What do you mean one of the first ten cars Windows 8 was the first ten cars the problem is you didn’t check to make sure your vendors had caught up with ten yet that is not an MS problem.

    2. Dan A said on August 3, 2015 at 6:52 pm
      Reply

      A Windows 10 compatibile version of Sandboxie is in beta – http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=21354
      Note: As more Win32 apps land in the store the need for this diminishes. All of those are already sandboxed.

      Invincea should work with the exception of there being no support for Edge yet.

  70. DonGateley said on August 1, 2015 at 9:41 pm
    Reply

    “Changes are a good thing :)”

    Make that “Good changes are a good thing:)”

  71. Ryan Harrison said on August 1, 2015 at 5:12 pm
    Reply

    After having windows 10 for a few weeks now and its finally been Released, i Must say ive always been a windows 7 fan liked it from the start. but after playing around and getting to know windows 10 its not that bad it might take a week or 2 but you then go back and you actually find windows 10 somewhat better. with DirectX12 will make it alot better when it fully released and for console gaming (xbox one) you can stream through the computer which is outstanding but few minor bugs at the moment. Windows 10 is the last operating system from Microsoft there so certain that users will turn and unite on the new Os which over time the 51% of windows 7 users and 21% of windows 8/8.1 users will upgrade. My business is
    a Geek shop and i handle computers all the time and for future gaming, Performance and Scaling for 4k and 5k moinitors as well as for 8k when released. i’d Recommend Windows 10 its going to stable for future Hardware. Changes are a good thing :)

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:21 am
      Reply

      Sorry but I can’t share in this self-delusion promulgated by Microsoft.

      Windows 7 is a stable Operating System with amazing capabilities and is still far more secure and private than Windows 10 will ever be!

  72. Emily said on August 1, 2015 at 3:11 am
    Reply

    I am an older person nicely settled into Windows 7. Every morning I read email, look at the obits and play a few games of Spider Solitaire.
    After the Windows 10 “upgrade” this afternoon my beloved Spider was gone to hell and the desktop looked like that idiotic Windows 8.
    It took most of the afternoon, but I figured out how to get my machine back.
    Microsoft can keep its Cortana and Lucky Charms. Just don’t mess with this old lady’s Spider.

  73. blah blah said on July 31, 2015 at 7:02 pm
    Reply

    I’m in the same boat. I have a 7 desktop, but a Win smartphone and a 8.1 tablet.

    I’m keeping 7 on the desktop, because it works, and I see no compelling reason to upgrade. My main reason to upgrade would be to take advantage of any further optimizations they made to the OS. However, that pro doesn’t out-weigh all of the cons I see coming with it. They get the OS to run better … then slap more and more crap running on top of it. And, most of it is touchy-feely interface garbage I don’t want, spyware I don’t want, etc, etc. The cons out weight the pros.

    For my smartphone, I’m going to upgrade simply because Win smartphones (even with 8.1) are still barely treading water compared to iOS and Android. Windows smartphones need a good kick in the pants to compete. I had an Android phone, and I loved it. But, it was stolen. I decided to go with a Win smartphone as a replacement due to a nice deal the store had, but I’ve regretted it since. The file management in it sucks. The interface is just … meh.

    The biggest joke I realized after getting a Win phone and a Win tablet, however, is that this great app store interface they’re trying to get everyone on … is still segregated. Win phone apps are not the same as tablet/pc apps. The backend running each is different enough that developers must roll out different versions … one for phone, one for pc/tablet. I learned this when a college project group of mine got me on GroupMe app on the phone to collaborate chats. I decided to get it for my tablet… nope, app doesn’t exist. Then I started digging. MS consolidated things via interface only. The backends are still sufficiently different that they’re still pushing out 2 different OS… one for phone and one for tablet/pc … but they do everything to make it seem like 1 integrated, robust OS. It’s not! It’s the biggest wool being pulled over your eyes.

    My 8.1 tablet I’ll update simply because 8.1 sucks. The interface is bipolar. You’re running an application one moment, then you open something else … it runs in metro/app mode. Both require different actions to do things … like simply closing the damn things! In normal applications you can use the “X” button to close. In the app … I kid you not, I had to google up how to close apps. You have to swipe down from the top to toss the entire app downwards. That’s it. There’s nothing intuitive about that, and there’s no indication youre’ supposed to do it.

    And that’s why the metro/modern start screen sucks. When you open something you don’t know if you’re opening a real application or an app… both of which use different interface.

    There’s other unintuitive things, like how to shut it down. You have to swipe in from right to bring up charms… then select “options” and find “power”… wtf?!

    The whole charms menu is also just a PITA. It’s designed as the control interface for apps. But, it overlays on your ENTIRE OS UI and context changes based on what you’re doing. On the desktop? Ok, well the “options” menu does this. On an app? Well, the “options” menu is now totally customized for that app.

    I understand context change of UI, but this is ridiculous.

    TL;DR

    Nothing in Win 7 is broken, and Win 10 doesn’t offer me anything good enough to warrant upgrading my desktop. For my Win 8.1 smartphone and tablet … I’m hoping upgrading to Win 10 will fix the broken UI and garbage! In other words, I’m just looking at Win 10 as being nothing more then a glorified patch … a patch to fix shit MS broke that was working perfectly fine in the first place!

    Also, it’s very important to note … PC users are not MS’ target audience anymore. Just like when they rolled out the Xbox, and PC gaming took a nose-dive, Win 8+ versions are catering to the larger and larger “passive user” audience … folks that just social media, youtube, stream, etc on their devices. PC users, esp power users, are no longer their target. We were their bread and butter to get them going in the 80’s and 90’s. And they loved it. But, they took a note from Apple. What sells is “dumb interface” stuff. Things that spoon-feed you and “just work” and whatever. Unfortunately, MS is using their signature “do it half-assed” methodology to do all this. It’s “good enough and cheap enough” so folks that can’t afford Apple will stick with it. Folks that can afford Apple may jump ship and go that route. Power users… are going to have to jump ship and go to linux or something if they really want more control of their PC given back.

    Seeing as most people have multiple devices, it won’t be uncommon to hear things like “I have a linux box for real work, but when I just want to mess around I break out my windows/apple tablet/phone, and when I want to game I break out the xbox/ps/wii.”

    MS, however, is basically turning their backs on PC users. We are not their target audience. Win 8 was their not-so-subtle way of telling us “hey, get with the program… get a tablet and just be a media consumer… we are no longer going to support you trying to be a tech wizard on your pc.”

    So… PC Master Race … good luck! MS made x-box… your PC gaming took a nose-dive. MS made win 8.1 .. your PC power usage is taking a nose-dive. Win 10 is just the nail in the pc power user coffin. PC Master race folks are just either too blind, stupid, appalled or shocked to accept it. And this isn’t meant as an insult. I’m a pc power user. I’m pissed off by this. But, it’s the realitiy I’m facing. I’ll probably just make my pc dualboot Linux here sooner or later, and once I do that I’ll upgrade Win 7 to Win 10. But, until that day, I don’t see anything Win 10 offers that blows Win 7 out of the water. Nothing. I see a lot of bad. I see it only fixing shit they broke with Win 8.

    Plus, MS has been known to rest on their laurels unless a fire is lit under their ass. They were perfectly happy to sit on IE 6 for the longest time until Google and Mozilla lit a fire under their butts in the browser wars.

    Once folks get on Win 10, and it’s “good enough”, MS won’t update it. They’ll security patch it, but they won’t do anything radical to make it better. They made promises like that to Win Ultimate users in Win 7, 8 … and nothing came of it. If given a chance, MS will rest on their laurels and will stagnate… as long as money is still coming in, and the rats aren’t jumping ship too fast.

    So, Win 10 is the nail in the coffin for Windows as a whole. Folks are just too enamored by “omg, free!” to accept that truth, too.

  74. harry said on July 30, 2015 at 10:06 pm
    Reply

    I was using windows 7 on my ASUS (Corei5 @ 2.4ghz, 6gb RAM, 640 HDD, 2GB Nvidia, etc) laptop which came with it pre-installed since 2012. No problems, zero complaints. The tech Geek in me decided to give the windows 10 version a shot, i thought it’s free, it’s new, it should be better since Microsoft should have learnt from their previous mistakes (windows 8) right? Boy was i wrong. It took me 2 hours to get the darn thing installed. Then it boots up real slower than what i was used to on 7. To top it off my sound stops working. I try updating the drivers, still doesn’t work. I think to myself, this is the first problem I’ve discovered after installing it in few minutes, who knows what else the upgrade has messed up on the system. I immediately revert back to windows 7 and things are back to normal. I take a sigh of relief and vow never to upgrade my laptop. Microsoft is slowly killing itself. I see Apple taking over this market as well as their systems are more reliable in terms of OS.

  75. Microshaft said on July 30, 2015 at 8:37 pm
    Reply

    You are absolutely right Windows 10 is a privacy infringing OS.

    Cortana still runs in the background if you disable it.

    They have new browser called Edge but it still ships with Internet Exploder too? WHAT THE HECK!

    And you HIT the nail bang on the head

    Why Control Panel & PC Settings?

    PC Settings should only get activated if you’re in Tablet mode

    Oh did you forget they want to charge you $1.50 to play Solitaire Ad-Free?

    Bullcrap!!

    Not to mention FORCED UPDATES. If you somehow manage to skip updates with hacks they have the right to make void your license go read the fine agreement.

    Who needs Xbox game streaming?? Thats non sense I don’t even have a Xbox!

    Not to mention…it lacks AISO support the one which worked AISO4ALL now won’t work..No 1:1 mouse mapping. You could do this with a registry hack in 7/8/8.1 not ANYMORE.

    bullcrap!!!

    The only reason to upgrade would be Direct X12 but that too is not needed no games have it besides 7,8,8.1/10 all use same drivers..it would be easy to enable DX12 effects in them

    BTW I use Win 8 Enterpise now with Start 8 & Charms menu disabled hack.

    Reason for Enterprise is these cowards won’t make that stupid icon appear down there to upgrade in Pro & Home versions they basically FORCE you to upgrade.

    They can’t shove that down Enterprise users throats.

    I’ve had it with Microshaft this company is pretty much going down the drain like Blackberry within 20 years if we have a viable competitor

    I hope Linux finally comes good or hell even OSX..

    Hate apple all you want OSX is not that bad for daily use except games.

    Had it with winBLOWS

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 9:24 pm
      Reply

      “You are absolutely right Windows 10 is a privacy infringing OS.”

      As would anything with web services, no? Windows 10 actually syncs a bit less to the cloud than 8, Start layouts and app installations aren’t synced like they are in 8.

      “Cortana still runs in the background if you disable it.”

      I believe it also provides the local search interface.

      “They have new browser called Edge but it still ships with Internet Exploder too? WHAT THE HECK!”

      Only on Enterprise, and for obvious reasons (far too many enterprises use systems that only work in IE)

      “Why Control Panel & PC Settings?

      PC Settings should only get activated if you’re in Tablet mode”

      Because PC Settings is replacing the control panel. Hence most things being in PC Settings now.

      “Not to mention FORCED UPDATES. If you somehow manage to skip updates with hacks they have the right to make void your license go read the fine agreement.”

      I’ve repaired far too many ‘normie’ PCs that would have been fine if their users had just installed updates to see this as a bad thing.

      “Who needs Xbox game streaming?? Thats non sense I don’t even have a Xbox!”

      Which is provided by the Xbox app. You can uninstall the Xbox app and never see it again. Should they not build in a browser since not everyone uses it?

      “Not to mention…it lacks AISO support the one which worked AISO4ALL now won’t work”

      AISO4ALL runs with some bugs. As it’s a bit of a hack as it is I can’t really tell where the fault lies right now (could be the driver, a change in the OS, or an issue with AISO4ALL itself)

      “The only reason to upgrade would be Direct X12 but that too is not needed no games have it besides 7,8,8.1/10 all use same drivers..it would be easy to enable DX12 effects in them”

      DirectX 12 requires all new drivers. So no, DX12 can’t just be backported the way you think.

      “Reason for Enterprise is these cowards won’t make that stupid icon appear down there to upgrade in Pro & Home versions they basically FORCE you to upgrade.”

      There is a simple reason for this. Upgrades have never been supported in enterprise versions and they require volume licensing. Disabling the icon in Home and Pro is as simple as blocking the update that installs it. Even with the icon you obviously aren’t forced into clicking the reserve my copy button.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 2:16 am
        Reply

        In response to ‘Dan A.,”

        Just another bunch of scripted responses from someone obviously intent upon pushing users to Win 10 as well. You glaze over all the privacy implications with pleasant platitudes about an OS, that, at the end of the day, still violates user privacy and still imposes unwanted intrusions upon the system (including the forced and personalized advertising).

        You can try to sugar-coat Win 10 all you want, but it will never be as good as Windows 7 has become as a whole and it definitely isn’t far more secure as you so assert it to be. Sorry to blow your cover, but your attempt to convince users that Win 10 is more private and secure than Windows 7 is quite disingenuous to say the least.

        The fact that Windows 7 inherently allows the users greater configurability alone, makes it far more secure, never mind the fact that Win 7 users still have the ability to block all the Windows spyware updates and the Windows 10 upgrades we so desire, of which Microsoft so brazenly decided to force upon users after its initial release.

        If you like Windows 10, then maybe its good for you, but for me, as far as my privacy is concerned, there is no amount talking-up, you nor any operative from Microsoft might say, that will convince me to upgrade to the real privacy nightmare Windows 10 actually is!

        I’m sorry to say, kind sir, but you’re not fooling me!

      2. DonGateley said on July 30, 2015 at 9:58 pm
        Reply

        Yikes! I don’t think Michael is actively developing ASIO4ALL any more. There is a large community of music producers that depend on ASIO that will have to rule out Windows 10 and I’m one of them. Well, I used to produce but I’m still not going to try anything with less than full, clean ASIO functionality and ASIO4ALL support because I’m unwilling to give up the option of doing more of it.

        This plus the new, draconian, Trojan horse terms of service pretty well put the nail in the coffin for me. Darn. They’ve got a year to get that ball in play again without requiring upgrades or updates from the audio software vendors.

  76. Citizen Smithy said on July 30, 2015 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    update! JUST UDATED AND INSTALLED ON LAPTOP.
    It seems that windows only gives you ONE month to decide to roll back after that it wold seem that the options gone?, There’s always a catch with Microsoft :/ There had to be something that stinks!
    The only way round that I think is to make a back up of Windows 7 on another hard drive upgrade and install Windows 10 there then just swop HD around to suite!. just the cost of another HD to think of which is ok for those who can afford it but sucks for those who can’t!, again ill have to come back later and update this to see if MS gets stroppy when swopping HDs, time will tell.
    Not sure I’m loving Windows 10, it’s sort of a vamped version of 8.1 which I’m not too keen on unfortunately, it’s still way to much like a tablet OS than a OS suable for base PCs, again MS trying to dumb down their OS to suite noobs which seriously sucks for those who love to indulge inside windows.
    Looks like Windows 10 is getting a reprieve, come back Seven I’m not finished with you just yet LOL
    Unless I can get Windows 10 acting like Seven I’m gonna stay put for a while I think but I have faith that it can be eventually butchered to suite :), I haven’t used one yet that can’t.

  77. Citizen Smithy said on July 30, 2015 at 5:02 pm
    Reply

    Martin just sounds like he hates installing software! but seems to love talking about it? whether you like it or not, sooner or later you won’t have a choice! that being said you can always partition your hard drive and make a copy of existing OS and update that one and see how you like it, and if that’s too much effort for you, there’s nothing stopping you rolling back Windows after update dislike!, as far as I have read on many sites including MS that’s no problem rolling back, that way at least you have reserved your free copy of Windows 10 which is then yours to keep, If you don’t reserve and update at least once then in around a years time the offer will most certainly end and you will have to pay full asking price, which usually is some ridiculous sum of serious cash for a unfinished piece of software if MS history is anything to go by, Microsoft is hardly going to change habit now are they? no OS has ever bin finished/Completed to date, basically Windows is just a never ending update and we are the continuous beta testers, Not bad a! getting beta testers to pay Gates for the privilege of testing and continuously reporting faults back to him, LOL Money for nothing?.

  78. Deviant Groove said on July 30, 2015 at 2:11 pm
    Reply

    I originally wasn’t going to upgrade from 7 to 10, but decided to this morning on a lark just to see how it looked. And my God, it is so amateurish looking as to be embarrassing. The way they’ve designed individual windows is just atrociously ugly, looking like some cheap web application more than a professional operating system.

    In fact, the only decent thing I’ve found about it so far is how customizable the Start Menu is compared to previous versions. Which is nice, but hardly a reason to switch when you consider all the other crap that you have to endure just for that one minor feature.

    Nope. I’m immediately going back to Windows 7 and, once support for that ends in 2020 or so, I’ll probably switch fully over to Linux or some other OS.

    Microsoft can go screw themselves with their new design philosophies. Seriously, it’s that awful.

    1. lbmachine said on August 16, 2015 at 9:33 pm
      Reply

      did going back to windows 7 work? my friend went to windows 10 and is unhappy and wants to go back but someone told her that going back to windows 7 will mess up her computer. i have been searching online to see if that is true and i have found nothing. you are the only person i see who has went back to windows 7. (please let me know and if there are things i need to do before i downgrade, please let me know that too!) thank you!

      1. DonGateley said on August 16, 2015 at 10:37 pm
        Reply

        Me too. Also reverting to 8.1 which is what I have on my Dell tablet.

        Only if that can be done reliably, permanently and cleanly with all apps am I willing to risk a trial upgrade and I haven’t seen anything definitive on that yet. That said, I hope 10 works on that little tablet because it would be a great way to get Cortana and some of the other things in 10 without risking anything in terms of security. The tablet is for a single, infrequently used purpose so the consequences of any greater vulnerability to spying is minimal.

  79. Warren said on July 30, 2015 at 8:36 am
    Reply

    I will NOT be upgrading to windows 10. I currently use windows 7 pro and also dual boot linux mint on a second internal hard drive. I need the menu in windows 7 to be able to boot from a different device, ( boot menu) and windows 8 took away that option, and i do not see it coming back in windows 10, With windows 7 all i have to do is press the esc key when starting the computer and it will take me to a boot menu where i can select from different drives to boot from. It was said by microsoft that they made newer versions of windows (8 8.1 etc.) to boot faster as to not allow any unwanted programs or viruses that may have been installed unknowingly by the user.or so that malware or viruses could NOT start with windows, however from I have determined, they did it so you could not boot a different drive with a different operating system (such as linux) on the same machine even if it was installed on a seperate hard drive. To me this is microsoft taking control of users ability to choose freely what they want to use, After all the users paid for the machine, and the users should be able to boot what they want to, but microsoft seems to think that they should not have that option.

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:06 pm
      Reply

      Actually Warren the BCD boot system is still in place, Vista through 10 use it. The only thing that changed in Windows 8 was the UI – Linux still works just the same, and in fact if you make the Linux boot option the default you’ll see that old text menu again. Nothing has been taken away, the menu just moved to later in the boot process when Windows 8+ is used as the default boot entry.

      1. Dan A said on August 3, 2015 at 7:04 pm
        Reply

        “Dan, how are USB stick boots done after this upgrade?”

        Nothing changes with that due to the upgrade.

        Now, be careful buying new OEM hardware. The new license makes machines that require whitelisted secure boot code possible, with no way to disable the secure boot. An OEM isn’t forced to do this by any means, but in Windows 8/8.1 Microsoft required that Secure Boot be able to be disabled. As far as I know nothing is shipping with any changes to Secure Boot, but just be aware that it could change.

      2. DonGateley said on July 30, 2015 at 10:05 pm
        Reply

        Dan, how are USB stick boots done after this upgrade?

      3. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 7:43 pm
        Reply

        Yes, if you have a UEFI machine with secure boot it is possible for that to be so secure that ONLY the Windows boot code is whitelisted. But that is only possible on new OEM hardware, and is only an option for the OEM.

        Windows 10 installs fine in UEFI mode with secure boot disabled, and still supports old BIOS booting. In neither case is anything changed or blocked – using the BIOS boot menu could continue to work.

      4. Warren said on July 30, 2015 at 4:31 pm
        Reply

        Don and Dan A,
        Ok here is my situation, I have Linux Mint with the grub installed on its own separate hard drive, the reason for this is that if I installed the grub on the windows drive and if i ever had to re-install windows, the grub would be removed, then leaving no way to boot the linux drive, so when I installed Linux onto its own drive, I unplugged the windows drive from the motherboard, and installed the whole version, grub included onto the Linux drive.
        So after the installation, with both drives plugged in, when I want to boot Linux, on startup I tap the ESC key for the boot menu, and select the drive with the Linux o/s on it, hit enter and it boots Linux,
        I did NOT want to have to go into the bios and switch things around every time I want to start Linux.
        Does anyone know if this setup will change if I upgrade my windows 7 drive to windows 10.
        I thought I read that UEFI firmware would be written into windows 10 if the machine it was being installed into was bios.
        Am I wrong on this?

    2. DonGateley said on July 30, 2015 at 9:10 am
      Reply

      Warren, I thought that was a BIOS function and not an OS function. Wrong?

  80. DonGateley said on July 30, 2015 at 8:10 am
    Reply

    I may have just found a reason: https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal-data-abused/

    I know I have found a reason. If I can’t disable all of that before my first log in, fuck ’em and the Trojan horse they tried to ride in on.

    Hmmm. On second reading I realize they don’t qualify that anywhere with Windows 10.

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:19 pm
      Reply

      Just set up a local account and don’t log into the Store. Nothing to really disable if it isn’t connected at all.

  81. Barbara said on July 29, 2015 at 10:56 pm
    Reply

    I have Windows 7 ultimate. Would I be able to run my virtual PC under Windows 10?

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:11 pm
      Reply

      ‘XP Mode’ is not in Windows 10 – but other VM software works just fine.

  82. Martin said on July 29, 2015 at 9:00 am
    Reply

    I don’t like those Modern Apps, either. Why Microsoft had to make that separation? Why not just treat all “apps” and programs equally, so I can pin any program to a Start menu tile? Yes, those modern apps are optimized for touch devices, but it is possible also to create a “unmodern” app which is good for touch devices. Such separation into two categories makes things inconsistent and confusing.

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:14 pm
      Reply

      There is no separation in Windows 10, any program can be pinned and all apps can be opened in windows and not just full screen (in fact there wasn’t a limitation in 8 either at least as far as pinning to Start goes, even then ANY app could be pinned, but Win32 apps popped you into the desktop).

  83. Marc-Antoine said on July 25, 2015 at 12:25 am
    Reply

    An other reason not to do the upgrade:

    – If you’re using an USB microphone (professionnal one) as the AT2020, the built-in driver problem you’ve had in Windows 8 and 8.1 that cause low level will likely be in Windows 10 too, cause they haven’t rebuild the OS from the ground. So stick with Windows 7 or XP if you want rich sound recording quality

  84. ghost911 said on July 21, 2015 at 4:41 pm
    Reply

    Have used Win 95, 98, XP, Vista, win 7 & win 8, the first 5 O/S were pretty good. Got a new laptop that runs win 8 bit of a change got used to it quirks and all now it does what I want it to. Don’t use majority of the Apps totally hate the store and Xbox video is total CxxP. Looked into 8.1 read loads of reviews (many quite damning) and decided not for me. i’m sticking with 8 at home and 7 at work. Microsoft can put 10 where the sun don’t shine Has anyone taken note of how Microsoft badger users into upgrading their O/S but don’t let on how much more disk space is required each time. Win 8 if upgraded to 8.1 you lose about 3.5 Gb I have seen it written somewhere that upgrading to 10 you lose over 6 Gb. I think my next laptop will be a Mac Everyone I know who runs a Mac seems more content than us Window’s users

  85. chesscanoe said on July 21, 2015 at 1:25 pm
    Reply

    I plan to upgrade from Win7sp1X64 Home Premium to Win10 ASAP. Reading the Win10 FAQ consolidates and answers my questions and concerns.
    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-faq?faq=upgrade&ocid=reserve_r_PostReserve_mod1_faq

    1. chesscanoe said on August 16, 2015 at 2:25 pm
      Reply

      Fortunately I came to my senses and canceled my Win10 reservation before I got it pushed to me. I’m happy with Win7x64 – it’s stable and everything works the way I want it to. As I further research Win10 on my laptop, I’m more convinced Win10 is still alpha code, and Microsoft’s willingness to frequently update it to eventually make it to beta code is not good enough for me. Perhaps in a year I’ll consider upgrading again if all drivers and applications I need are upgraded to work with Win10.

  86. Tommy said on July 21, 2015 at 10:34 am
    Reply

    For years windows users complained that they wanted security and laughed at the fact that they almost had to run their machines as administrators. Then came windows vista and windows users complained that it demanded to much attention when all microsoft did was integrate the security that was needed and asked for. Then came windows 7 and still does users complain about uac and they complained about the fact that it looked somewhat old. Then came windows 8, whole new way to think about the way to start apps, and once again the complaining.

    The startscreen is awesome for all not so experienced users and ppl like me who wants easy and fast access to starting stuff while at the same time having the option to make stuff I want to find fast larger and other smaller. Yeah my initial reaction was, nooo, but after a little while the startscreen meant so much faster access to starting what I wanted.

    The return of the startmenu is what makes me wanna run win 8.1 instead of win 10, but all my machines both win 7 and win 8 will be upgraded to win 10. It’s just that much easier to run one version than several.

    But, I find it sad that the greatest advance in ui since windows 95 has been removed in favor for the windows 95 way of doing stuff. The cluttered startmenu needs to go.

    To many times have I hit the uninstall application since it was next to the launch application on the startmenu.

    I prefer useability over customizations and as a individual that helps others I really liked the startscreen, so much easier to find, sort and select what to feature. it really was the greatest improvement since uac.

  87. Throthi Mondapl said on July 20, 2015 at 4:55 pm
    Reply

    People who have Windows Phone weren’t that surprised by Windows 8 but Microsoft certainly could have handled that all much better… Just like there are still kinks, altough most can probably be solved with 3rd party utilities or registry editing. Still, upgrading, not a requirement. If you don’t feel the need to upgrade, why upgrade? I ran an unsupported (not updated for 2 years) version of XP and didn’t bother moving until 8, because I was unimpressed by Vista and 7 both, I didn’t think either was as good as XP at all. And there’s still some 20-30% of users on XP yes? Yet 8 was okay enough to move and start getting updates again, and I thought it far faster than any of the times I tried Vista or 7 too. For all that though, there is at least one potential reason to move to 10 regardless, and that’s the integration with all other device OS versions and their push to finally get apps working on all platforms and so on. Unified OS. Sure sometimes it’s a pain to do upgrades, but so far the preview ones have been fairly seamless the last few weeks. And with the data already existing on external sources anyway (Secondary internal drives, NAS, USB 3 SATA external, One Drive, and webmail) far less a deal than in the old days when all we had was stacks of 3.5″ disks. :)

  88. Alexander said on July 18, 2015 at 8:54 am
    Reply

    I feel like the best windows are far and apart. 95, 98, XP and 7 are the ones that I feel have been worth it. They are certainly making upgrades too often and do too little testing to ever trust them.

    Often, one has to wait several years to evaluate if a new Windows is worth it because a new one is not necessarily a better one. Often it is worse IMO.

    Design wise – Everything after Windows 7 looks bad, I really can’t stand the new design trend that appeared a couple of years ago with everything looking colorful and cluttered like a children’s game. Usability should be the trendsetter, but it is like the trend is the trend for windows. Google is better at this, their Google chrome feels more like windows than windows does today with 8.

    As long as Windows does not give the option to have the full classic theme ready to go and the wonderful classic start menu and file manager, I will never switch from Windows 7 which is the last version to have this.

    1. Adam said on August 30, 2015 at 4:23 pm
      Reply

      I understand where windows 8 and up were going however, the execution has been overthought.

      I recently learned, that the new trend is like Apple’s iOS 7 flat design. Everything is flat to speed up the performance of the CPU. Websites have even adopted this!

      However, with Windows 8 and 8.1, presenting a UI that was touch screen biased to non touch screen users was a mess! They even forgot the start button that had to be downloaded by a 3rd party to increase functionality!

      Last week, tried out windows 10 and, as beautiful as it may seem, Microsoft overthought the OS again! Being universal, capable of streaming XBox One games, Holo Lens compatible, and multiple desktops is a definite pro! With automatic updates, it was poorly thought! Windows 10 home premium has all automatic updates pushed to you (including drivers that can cripple etc). With Windows 10 Pro, you can defer updates however, the most important security ones are installed automatically no matter what! These have the highest potential of crippling your computer and, you are not allowed to defer them?

      Also, as security is concerned, Microsoft has become more nosy than Google! Windows 10 gives you customized adds, suggestions, and, voice recordings that are all sent over to Microsoft’s servers!

      To top off the cherry, all of these services decrease bandwidth performance of your router and “hijack” it with redundant processes (this is what happened at my grandfather’s home in a scientific experiment!) So, by upgrading to Windows 10, you are ruining the internet speed and connectivity of the others around you!

      Since this is a early stage of the public release, Microsoft will realize there mistakes and hopefully patch them to make the best OS ever!

      1. TruthBeTold said on July 24, 2018 at 12:00 am
        Reply

        Windows10 will never be better than Windows 7 for the simple reasons mentioned——-It violates you, it treads upon you and it intrudes upon your personal, private life. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a great disappointment, and a sorry excuse as a reason the company uses in order to continue to pillage and manipulate everyday citizen’s of our hard earned living even more.

        As a societal moral precept, in general, we’re all expected to respect each other’s boundaries, (which exist for good reason)——-So why is it, do the corporations think such a principle shouldn’t apply to them?!

        Talk about being contrary, to say the least!

  89. Jon said on July 17, 2015 at 10:32 pm
    Reply

    Frankly, I’m so fed up with Microsoft I’m moving my personal-use computers to Linux. I seem to be in constant update hell. As I write this I have 150 updates installing on a Vista machine and I only updated about 10 days ago. My Windows 7 machine updated several times today – I simply can’t get any work done. I’ve been using some form of Microsoft OS since the mid 80s when Bill Gates was a young man. Since about Windows 98, new versions have been incremental and provided minimal user advantages that have made life noticeably better. When will Microsoft learn that an OS system should be clean, simple and fast. I JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO GET SOME WORK DONE NOT WAIT MINUTES FOR MY COMPUTER TO TELL ME TO WAIT FOR INSTALLS. WHEN I WANT TO GO HOME I DON’T WANT TO BE WAITING WHILE I’M TOLD NOT TO TURN MY MACHINE OFF WHILE UPDATES ARE DOWNLOADING. Mirosoft, your systems are now garbage. SharePoint – USELESS. Office 2013- RUBBISH. WINDOWS – DREADFUL.

    And now you want me to spend hours of my time moving to Windows 10? REALLY!!!!????

    Rant over ….

    1. Shay said on August 30, 2015 at 1:59 am
      Reply

      You should check out wsusoffline. You do download once all the updates once per month or every other quarter, save on single or multiple usbs as per the number of your office Pc’s and simply tick within the program shut down when update installs are done. That should save you some time and frustration the least :)

      “Knowledge not shared, is a wasted knowledge”

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXAOvbNJYyE

      This video will give you the gist.

    2. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:31 pm
      Reply

      Microsoft releases Windows updates once a month. Meanwhile a Linux distro update can happen at any time, on Linux you really can check for updates and find them 3 times a day – the only saving grace is typically only kernel updates and certain module updates require reboots.

  90. Simon said on July 16, 2015 at 1:36 am
    Reply

    I wont be upgrading now that MS have removed Media Centre (WMC) from the build – it was there to start with but now without thought for any of its users they decided it wont be in W10. There wont even be any software to play DVDs at the start – apparently that is coming later as they thought it may help WMC users but as the majority use it as a PVR it is not a lot of good.

    7 PC’s here wont be upgraded.

    1 step forward and 2 steps backward.

  91. rick said on July 13, 2015 at 10:46 pm
    Reply

    I won’t be upgrading simply because i would have to go and purchase over 4,000.00 worth of software because what i have will not run on windows 10. I am a graphics artist and all my 3d programs do not have cheap simple updates available for Windows 10. The manufacturer forces us to buy full updated versions. Bad move Microjoke. Most of us aren’t rich out here and having to replace all that software that won’t run on your stupid new software precludes many people from not upgrading to your useless upgrade. Put Bill Gates back in charge. The new people running the place have ruined your company. I will also be using windows 7 until hell freezes over. When they stop supporting it I will live with the security threats and just unplug my main machine from the internet.

    1. Dan A said on July 30, 2015 at 3:26 pm
      Reply

      “The manufacturer forces us to buy full updated versions. Bad move Microjoke.”

      So the software vendor hard locks their software to certain Windows versions and you blame it on Microsoft? That explicitly flies against each and every bit of advice and guidance Microsoft gives for developers.

  92. __init__ said on July 12, 2015 at 11:26 pm
    Reply

    Windows 7 is so fucking ugly. I don’t know why anybody would want to keep it. I’ve tried Windows 7 and 8 and 8 is so much better and more functional, and looks so much nicer. Now Windows 10 looks even better and offers a whole load of significant upgrades and new features, such as cortana, task view and microsoft edge, plus DirectX 12. Who wouldn’t want to upgrade? Also getting Windows 10 will give your computer a longer lifespan as support for 7 will end much earlier. Also 10 will probably be more stable and faster. And they’re offering it for free – who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 1:40 am
      Reply

      In response to __init__’s previous comment, of which I will not repeat for the sake of respecting everyone on this forum,

      The fact that you have to swear to make your point says a lot about your motivation to persuade users to use Win 10. Windows 7 is actually far more stable than Windows 10.

      DX12 support is not a major necessity and just because ‘official’ support for Win 7 will end at some point in the distant future, doesn’t mean users will not be able to still use Windows 7. The new features you talk about (mostly spyware implanted by Microsoft) are also a misnomer, as you can still log into all your other accounts with Windows 7. If having your computer talk to you, which is only possible if Microsoft first gets you to agree to their privacy-violating EULA and Tos Agreements, then by all means, go ahead and give yourself over to these corporate thugs and their machine empire.

      I for one, choose to live my life based upon good principles, one of which includes my right to privacy——-something which Windows 10 steals away from the user by getting us to agree to give up those rights.

      Microsoft’s lawyers are quite sneaky indeed——-but their not fooling this old fox.

    2. InYourDreams said on August 9, 2015 at 7:21 am
      Reply

      You should not open your mouth to speak. It lets others know how ignorant you are.
      It is very obvious you have zero hardware and software knowledge, skill, or abilities.
      Windows 10 is just for folks like you – go get it, be happy… Troll

  93. LegendFTL said on July 8, 2015 at 6:29 pm
    Reply

    No way will we be upgrading to windows 10 on any of our computers. We use our computers in our offices… we have way too many third-party programs that may not be compatible with windows 10 and we’re certainly not going to take any chances that those programs will not operate with windows 10. We will stick with windows 7 professional until hell freezes over or until someone from Microsoft personally comes to our office and proves that all of our current third party programs will operate on windows 10 and show everyone in the office EXACTLY where to locate all of our current (extremely important) documents, databases, etc. on windows 10. Until then; there is nothing in heaven or on Earth that will move us off of Windows 7 Professional to Windows 10. Good luck to anyone who does this.. it’s bad enough but not as bad with our Windows 8.1 Phones — those we will upgrade; but not our desktop computers except under the conditions as noted above.
    Footnote: As for security, we are running enough anti-virus and security programs on our desktops to stop 99.9% of anything infecting our computers (as a matter of fact, we pay a yearly fee for support in the event of some stupid virus getting into our system and we’ve never had to call them) and we most certainly do not do any gaming or watch any DVDs on our computers so for us Windows 10 is totally out of the question… upgrades to windows 7 pro will be on-going until 2020 — I’m sure not going to sit here and worry about what happens when that ends.. perhaps we’ll just do what we did with two of our laptops with Windows XP Professional (we loaded them with anti-virus software from two different third party providers and have had no issues with continuing to use those two laptops).

  94. Laura said on July 7, 2015 at 8:46 pm
    Reply

    I have had my HP windows 7 laptop since Christmas of 2009 and have never had a problem with it. It’s been 100% stable, especially when compared to my previous XP machines (and their blue screens, “lost recovery drives” etc). It was a cheapo laptop (under $300) purchased in the same year as two Toshiba Vista laptops, both of which have long been dead. I use it every day, for hours and hours, and other than a keyboard with worn down keys, it’s just a wonderful old friend (connected to an external HD for backing up files). No way am I upgrading. It might not be lightning fast, but it’s fast enough for me. My son will upgrade his 8.1 laptop, and my other machine, a surface RT tablet, is apparently not upgradeable. Oh well… bought used and didn’t pay much, so eh. Bottom line for me is stability and functionality. I’m just nerd enough to want to control MS services and I’m not a big fan of the tablet look on my PC; that’s what my tablet is for.

  95. greg said on July 3, 2015 at 10:43 am
    Reply

    I have 2 PCs running Windows 8.1 with startisback, and that gives me a laptop to test the update on as soon as I feel like. I’m one to jump on new software pretty quickly so at least I can test this without impacting my main computer. Even if this is a significant improvement, neither device has touch capability, so I won’t be able to take advantage, and I honestly have no need for it on either, but due to software compatibility, my main machine will probably stay with Windows 8.1. I had a nightmare time getting my DAW and hardware working now almost 100% when upgrading last year, that I really do not look forward to the overhaul again. I’ll stick with 8.1 as it has been great after a few fixes running what I need. I hate the flack it has gotten because it truly is better, at least in the ways I require, than Windows 7. I’ll hold out on the main machine until July next year and maybe, if I can’t live without it, upgrade before they charge me for it.

  96. Ernie said on June 27, 2015 at 4:59 am
    Reply

    I solved my Windows 8.1 menu frustrations with the installation of StartIsBack. I’ll download Windows 10 and hold it in reserve, but don’t see a need for it at this time.

    As for upgrading my Windows 7 machines. no way!

  97. Marc said on June 26, 2015 at 8:54 am
    Reply

    Easy one: I don’t want to pay a monthly fee, for any software, and even less for Microsoft. The whole upgrading business is all about keeping the pockets of Microsoft lined with cash, otherwise there would be regular free updates, like for ios.

    1. blkpanther said on June 26, 2015 at 9:54 pm
      Reply

      Yeah, except you generally only use a phone for a couple years, and then upgrade to a new one. Apple provides iOS updates for free because they’re still selling many iPhones. Companies are generally in this game to make money, why would you begrudge them that?

  98. Silvia said on June 20, 2015 at 6:56 pm
    Reply

    I refused 8 as I use my computer for *work* not pi**ing around with apps and got a brand new Dell with 7 a few months ago. There is no way on God’s green Earth I’m going to try and upgrade to 10. I use a slew of old fashioned programs to do very particular things so I’m not taking the risk. Hopefully I’ll be retiring by 2020, or perhaps something comes along before then I will like and that helps me do my job. Who knows?

    As far as security is concerned, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always unplug my 7 machines from the collective and upload my files via the silicon flex tablet strapped to my forearm, or the neural link, who is to say … ;->

  99. scylla said on June 18, 2015 at 10:51 pm
    Reply

    Internally 8.1 might be better (IS better, I accept the experts’ verdict)… but externally it is a complete MESS because it’s trying to be all things to all people/platforms, with desktop users hung out to dry. Were it not for Start8 and some other fixes thanks to Google Search, I would have trashed my laptops and myself by now.

    The unstable screen is a menace. Windows Explorer jumbles all sorts of ‘satellites’ under ThisPC, making it eye-wrinkling to access quickly the drives that really ARE on ThisPC.

    I don’t want a glamorous toy. If only I had the time I would “downgrade” my two 8.1 laptops to 7, but I don’t, so I’m stuck – and there’s no hope for future relief.

  100. Gman said on June 18, 2015 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    I purchased an ACER laptop with windows 8 for my business a few years ago. The conflict between W8 and the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth drivers meant that the computer only worked properly about 5% of the time. I would update the driver to get the wi-fi working then windows would mess it up again with an update. After a while I purchased an Apple laptop for myself and my manager. I will have my IT guy install W7 on the laptop so I can pass it along to a staff member (provided it works properly). As a company, Windows is a mess right now. They are sooooo out of touch with user capabilities and compatablity with 3rd party hardware companies.

  101. Matutina said on June 18, 2015 at 7:19 am
    Reply

    I was on Windows 7 since its beta release, tried Windows 8 and 8.1 for few months, now on Windows 10, in my opinion Windows 10 is best Windows ever, lots of improvement in GUI and performance. I’m a graphic designer, use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator and other graphic tools simultaneously, on Windows 10 start-up and quit time of all these app significantly reduced, multiple desktop feature is also very useful for managing windows.

  102. Ray said on June 16, 2015 at 10:53 pm
    Reply

    I Have an Old Dell E-1705 Laptop and upgraded the Processor, Ram and Installed Windows 7 Ultimate and a SSD. I Have this running perfectly for a long time now. My biggest reason for not upgrading this system is i have Configured Windows Media Player onto my wireless Network and use it All the time on any TV in my house to see my Pictures, Videos, etc.. Windows 10 will strip away Windows Media player,so “I’m Good” here with my Windows 7 Laptop. I See no benefit to experiment with Windows 10 when All is Good now.

    1. Dan A said on June 17, 2015 at 4:25 pm
      Reply

      Windows Media Player is in Windows 10.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 1:26 am
        Reply

        And WMP works just fine in Windows 7.

  103. Thierry de Coulon said on June 12, 2015 at 10:42 am
    Reply

    I don’t use Windows for work – for this I prefer Linux. I run (mostly older) games on Windows 7 (including DOS and win9.x games) as well as a Video Editor (Avid Studio).

    I installed Windows 10 preview: it did the upgrade well. It did keep all my Icons in the “Task”bar. It did find and use all my hardware. That’s for the good. For the bad: it’s personnal, but it looks ugly. The mixed UI does not bring anything. I can’t stand the compulsory updates. I have no use for the new features. Some (surprisingly few) of my games won’t run, but most important is that Avid Studio won’t run. It can’t be updated as it was bought by Corel. I did try an upgrade to Corel’s Video Studio 17 (so buggy at first it was unusable), but 17 won’t run either and Corel requires an upgrade to 18 which I won’t buy.

    So: nothing to win and a lot to loose, I’ll stay with 7.

    1. chesscanoe said on June 12, 2015 at 1:21 pm
      Reply

      I’m planning to upgrade from Win7 x64 SP1 Home to Win10 for apparently better security, a better OneNote tool, and just to play with it. I can live with automatic updates since I understand they can be optionally delayed some short period of time before you have to take the update. I hope these assumptions or rumors are correct….

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 1:23 am
        Reply

        The assertion that you will have better security with Windows 10 is a huge misnomer and a bold-faced lie perpetuated by Microsoft as a means to force users to Windows 10, an OS of which comes with enormous user privacy violations and a carefully-crafted ToS agreement meant to take control and ownership of your personal life on your (P)ersonal (C)omputer.

        Remember that slogan when Windows 7 came out?——-So much for the PC experience now!

        This push to Windows 10 is all a marketing ploy in order to benefit Microsoft and it’s advertising affiliates and simply gives them a pass to intrude upon and control even more aspects of our own private lives.

        If you care anything at all about you’re own privacy and security——-then I would stay clear of Windows 10 if I were you!——-It’s not necessary and a real disappointment coming from a company whom puts on the front that they care about and respect user privacy.

        Our life is ours to live and to protect period!

        When is enough going to be enough with how these advertising marketers get away with murder in regards to what they’re permitted to do with our personal information because of some vaguely worded EULA which benefits only them and if we agree to it, actually entitles them to take away our ownership rights of our own personal private lives. How dare they!!!

        I’ll tell you how——-because they are able to hind behind the already obscure nature of the internet itself and have so much wealth that they can also manipulate the judicial system to it’s own advantage——-often at the expense of our own freedoms and rights to privacy.

        Don’t buy their baloney!——-You will only regret it if you truly value your right to privacy!

  104. Alex said on June 9, 2015 at 10:26 am
    Reply

    Will upgrade my desktop from 8.1 to 10, but won’t upgrade my Surface Pro 3. Windows 10 seems to be not as good as Windows 8.1 for tablets.

  105. Matt said on June 9, 2015 at 8:37 am
    Reply

    Microsoft haven’t been able to make windows detect and install printers any better in the last 20 years. There’s also a host of other little issues that they’ve never addressed. Those guys don’t care if the OS is easy to use and convenient, any upgrades will now be to get ads on your system. Bill was so busy trying to kill off some pissy little Netscape business by giving IE away that he totally missed the ad boat that the Google guys saw. LOL

  106. Steven said on June 6, 2015 at 11:27 am
    Reply

    Windows XP has lost my Interest Windows 7 is best for me – its convenient.
    Why should I dump my near 2 year old computers because Intel refuses to update the software.
    I have tested their preview version of Windows 8 to Windows 10 therefore find it not something to use.
    Windows 8 to Windows 10 is not useable – too hard to use and etc.
    I have 3 Netbooks 3 Notebooks and near 5 Dell Optiplex Computers.
    When Microsoft changes it software my near new Computers must adjust.
    Intel refuses to update the software for Windows 8 to Windows 10 on these near 2 year old Computers.
    Therefore I am left with the best version of Windows until something better happens.

    1. Dan A said on June 7, 2015 at 9:44 pm
      Reply

      Intel is updating the drivers, they aren’t available on the Intel site at the moment. Updated Windows 10 drivers ship with Windows 10. The same goes for AMD – the Windows 10 Radeon drivers are delivered by Microsoft.

  107. Mickey G said on June 3, 2015 at 11:52 am
    Reply

    BTW I agree with Terry Hollett, Windows 8 was as slow as Windows 95 chock full of viruses. Trust me I don’t think my i7-4790K and SSD drive was the issue. With Windows 7 it is unbelievably fast. I’m not picking a fight with you Ashrak007 but 8 was the WORST. I couldn’t nuke my drive fast enough to put 7 back on. 8 might be fast for a phone.

  108. Mickey G said on June 3, 2015 at 11:26 am
    Reply

    To condense this I have been using Windows 7 on my desktop for almost 3 years after MS made a reinstall of XP impossible. To those of you who like 8 or 8.1 great but most people who have desktops love 7. It took me 3 years to figure out all the tricks in 7 and my computer hums. Just about everyone I know absolutely hates 8 or 8.1 especially for a desktop. Look if you want metro tiles and a all in one OS by all means upgrade to 10. I don’t need a an all in one solution, just a rock solid OS that works with my desktop. The BS that MS pulled a couple of days ago with KB 3035583 that was pretty much malware or to put it kindly “nagware” was ridiculous. “RESERVE YOUR COPY OF WINDOWS 10!” No how about we see if
    it is another abysmal failure like Vista 8 or 8.1 first. I paid $150 for Windows 7 SP1 3 years ago and it is supposed to be supported until 2020. I’m extremely happy with it. I don’t need Cortana or a All in one OS. On 6/1 people couldn’t figure out fast enough how to get the Windows 10 malware patch off their systems. Basically I am getting sick of all this as are many
    others. Is MS going to give me back my money I paid for Windows 7? I really don’t want 8 or 8.1 and definitely not 10 from what I’ve seen. Yet MS tries to force it on me. I don’t care if it’s free, I’m extremely happy with Windows 7 and expect MS to support it until 2020. I’m sick of learning a “new” OS every 3 years now. I especially don’t like what could be considered malware being put on my system under the guise of a security patch. I’ll stick with 7 until 2020, MS is legally obligated to support it or I see a class action lawsuit. I’m happy with Windows 7 thanks.

    1. Dan A said on June 7, 2015 at 9:54 pm
      Reply

      The 10 upgrader wasn’t delivered as a security patch, it is a recommended update. Microsoft doesn’t want people latching on like they did to XP. It was a disaster of an OS for them – from the abysmal security that forced a SP2 that changed as much code as some new releases of Windows to the super long term support that hamstrung the company’s new OSes. The only good thing that came out of the security issues was it made them rethink Vista – as many compatibility issues as it had it was a necessary step. Everything you love about 7 started in Vista.

      As for a new OS every 3 years – that is how things are supposed to work. Even Ubuntu with it’s 6 month release cycle has long term releases and those releases come out every other year. OS X also gets updated every year or two. The only Windows release that wasn’t followed up within 3 years was XP, which is one of the things that made it a disaster. People think the 6 year cycle is normal.

  109. DonGateley said on June 3, 2015 at 3:33 am
    Reply

    I hope there will be a way to find out exactly what “most” means for a given system before installing it. Or not.

    1. Andrew said on June 3, 2015 at 4:12 am
      Reply

      Don, the ‘reserve’ icon will allow you to check what apps can and cannot be kept… but for windows 7 I don’t think any programs are saved.

      1. DonGateley said on June 3, 2015 at 4:18 am
        Reply

        I sure hope that proves to be wrong. Seems to me that giving the backhand to the still predominant 7 user base is a fools errand.

    2. Dan A said on June 3, 2015 at 3:35 am
      Reply

      I did the upgrade on one of my 8.1 systems. Every program survived the upgrade. That’s kinda the point of an OS upgrade process. I think the word most is used to cover their butts and account for incompatibilities.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 12:59 am
        Reply

        What they don’t tell you is how Microsoft instantly installs all types of spyware onto the system by default during the upgrade process. One example of this is the new push for Google integration onto the system as well as the installation of Google spyware and unnecessary LSO’s. You can intentionally ignore these facts all you want, but Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare gone out of control.

        It’s no longer a PC when it’s no longer personal to you. Your privacy is your right period!

        If silicon valley were a gangster’s paradise, than Google and Microsoft would be the top two thug-families.

        Don’t be fooled by these corporate thugs and their deceptive tactics. Both companies have faced Anti-Trust violations for their unethical practices around the world, not to mention their many violations to user privacy, of which Google has shared the most blame for, and rightfully so!

      2. DonGateley said on June 3, 2015 at 3:49 am
        Reply

        Good news, Dan, thanks. I’ll feel more comfortable when someone reports similar success from Windows 7 using the released update.

        (I still don’t have the little upgrade advert in my tray and I do have all the updates installed that should put it there. I wonder if I should be concerned yet.)

  110. xxxx said on June 2, 2015 at 4:09 pm
    Reply

    what happen to my applications and files, if i upgrade my pc from windows 7 to window 10

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on June 2, 2015 at 6:52 pm
      Reply
      1. Dan A said on June 3, 2015 at 3:25 am
        Reply

        Doesn’t that article specifically state most apps are carried over?

        You Can Keep: “Windows settings, personal files, and most apps”

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on June 3, 2015 at 8:11 am
        Reply

        Oh, you are right. I let Don know about it.

      3. DonGateley said on June 3, 2015 at 1:53 am
        Reply

        Well, that’s that then. Any and all motivation I had to upgrade just left the room. My system is way, way less about the operating system on it than it is about the suite of applications and tweaks installed. That’s so ridiculous that it never even occurred to me to ask about application migration. It’s simply not a viable option without that.

  111. Michael said on June 2, 2015 at 4:03 pm
    Reply

    I’m with the author on this one. I’m writing about desktops here, not mobile devices. For desktops, upgrade to 10 if you’re using 8.x. If you are using 7, the reasons are far less compelling. In a lot of ways 10 is more like 8.2. I think MS is pretending they want user feedback, while still stubbornly plowing forward with their “one OS to rule them all” plan.

    Windows 7 is the Cadillac of desktop user interfaces. Windows 10 is like the Chevy Aveo of desktop user interfaces. The Aveo may get you there, but with a lot less comfort and style.

    P.S. I’ve been running W10 on my main desktop for a couple months now.

  112. Banzai Beagle said on June 2, 2015 at 3:35 pm
    Reply

    I’m happy with Windows 3.1…

  113. Jim Butler said on June 2, 2015 at 5:59 am
    Reply

    My cold dead fingers…

  114. Wilson Fisk said on May 20, 2015 at 4:21 pm
    Reply

    I had really high hopes for Win10 after MSFT seemed to have learned their lessons from 8->8.1 but while 8, 8.1 and 10 can all be made useful it’s just too much work. I’ll stick with Win7 or Linux Mint Cinnamon (a really functional desktop IMO). My main and possibly only problem is that I don’t like Metro/Modern “apps”. I like traditional applications and programs and that choice has been made for me. The latest build of Win10 has even removed the simple calculator that I’ve used since Win3.x in favor of a Win10 Metro/Modern calculator. If I had the option of choosing it would be one thing but the “classic” calculator has been removed so I’d have to try to migrate the Win8.x calculator or find an aftermarket solution. This is it, this is why I won’t switch; too much Metro/Modern by default. I could always use Firefox/Chrome in place of IE/Spartan, VLC in place of Music/Videos (or is it Movies?), etc. but it’s a lot of post installation work that I simply didn’t have to do with Win7 and don’t have to do with Mint 17.1 Cinnamon. I can have Mint running from bare metal to fully functional in < 20 minutes with little effort. I'm disappointed because I think Win7 is a masterpiece and their focus on Metro/Modern and nickel/diming people to death via the Windows store has killed Windows for me.

    1. Dan A said on June 1, 2015 at 1:31 pm
      Reply

      What is wrong with the new calculator? It does everything the old one did. So it runs on a new API – it is still a re-sizable window on the desktop. The music and movies apps have gotten more complex than the old tablet-first versions too in 10, but Media Player is still on the system too (and it gains the mkv playback too).

      Having some default Metro apps isn’t forcing you to use the store. I’m not sure why you have such hatred for an API.

      1. Andrew said on June 2, 2015 at 8:39 pm
        Reply
      2. Michael said on June 2, 2015 at 3:53 pm
        Reply

        The new calculator doesn’t allow multiple instances. This is an Achilles heel for someone who does a lot of financial work on their computer. It also does not maintain numerical formatting (commas) when you copy from it.

      3. Andrew said on June 1, 2015 at 5:20 pm
        Reply

        Last I checked you can’t do mortgage calculations with the new ‘metro’ calculator

  115. RTBones said on April 27, 2015 at 10:44 am
    Reply

    I plan to reserve final judgement, but from what I have seen so far, there is no reason for me to upgrade to Windows 10. If I decide to upgrade at all, it will be long after 10 is publicly released so that the user community has a chance to digest what Microsoft puts out. Many of the things Microsoft touts as features I simply don’t or won’t use. Though I am a gamer, DX12 is not a game-breaker for me. In most cases, I dont use DX11, so not using 12 doesnt faze me. I do not own an XBox, nor do I ever plan to as I am a PC gamer. I do not particularly care if all of my devices ‘sync’ or not, largely because I use the few devices I have differently – and news flash to Microsoft, they arent all Windows devices. I dont cloud – so OneDrive doesnt do anything for me (I am hoping I can at least turn it off). Neither do Cortana or Bing or holograms for that matter (again, I am hoping these features can be turned off). I am fairly certain Microsoft will make it as obtuse as possible to set up a local login instead of logging in with a Microsoft account, and passwords are just fine for me. I neither need nor want to have to use biometrics to use my own PC.

    I’m sure Microsoft will see a fair number of users upgrade to 10, largely because they are offering it for free. I just wont be one of them…at least not until I get a chance to see how it works, and how I can set it up to do things the way I want them done. Microsoft, in my view, seem desperate to have Windows 7 not become the next Windows XP – which is, I suspect, one of the reasons they are offering it for free for a year.

  116. Dan A said on April 25, 2015 at 1:23 am
    Reply

    All I see when I read an article like this is “I’m staying behind on purpose to be difficult and stubborn”. That’s basically the actual message too.

    And Pieter, OneDrive can’t be removed but you can ignore it. It isn’t even on by default. Also I’ve had that type of pic in OneDrive and Google’s backup without issue.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 12:47 am
      Reply

      Again, another ‘strong-arm’ response from a Microsoft troll trying to dissuade users from staying with a perfectly fine working operating system. The fact that you’re immediately calling us all difficult and stubborn says it all.

      Microsoft is playing dirty with this and they will continue to attempt to manipulate the masses on this one. My privacy is mine to control——-not Microsoft’s and I will not concede to the Evil Empire just because it flexes its muscles in some forum in order to push people around.

      Sorry Mr. A, you’re not fooling anyone here, especially me.

    2. DonGateley said on April 25, 2015 at 7:40 am
      Reply

      I see creative trolling and it seems to have worked. :-)

  117. DonGateley said on April 10, 2015 at 9:04 pm
    Reply

    People doing audio/visual stuff like VR are reporting very serious performance improvements with Win 8 and above. I know this is true in 8.1 over 7 from audio plugins I use. My Lenovo Y570 Win 7 laptop with the 2.2 Ghz I7-2670QM processor hits the wall and starts skipping using a VST modular plugin network well before it does with my with my Dell VenuePRO 8 Win 8.1 tablet with a 1.33 Ghz Atom-Z3740D processor.

    The tablet is far more responsive in general than is the laptop which I intend to upgrade as soon as 10 is officially out of whatever they are calling beta.

  118. chesscanoe said on April 10, 2015 at 3:30 pm
    Reply

    Although I have no plans to move to Win10 from Win7 in 2015 or 2016, I reserve the right to change my mind when I have more solid facts available to make a decision. I am installing the optional Win7 updates to make the transition easier to Win10, just in case…. There’s some initial overhead in doing so, but no real problem so far. The consequent information sent to Microsoft should be helpful to me and Win10 users in the future.

    1. chesscanoe said on June 1, 2015 at 12:10 pm
      Reply

      Today 2015-06-01 I have a new white Windows icon in the notification area of Win7 x64 sp1 Home. Hovering over it says “Get Windows 10”. Clicking on the icon gives me the opportunity to reserve a 3 GB download from Microsoft. As I’ve previously indicated, I’ll wait to reserve.

      1. chesscanoe said on June 4, 2015 at 4:41 am
        Reply

        I did reserve about 0700 EST 2015-06-01 and got an email confirmation about 1930 EST 2015-06-03. Windows Update showed a confirmation about 15:00 EST 2015-06-03. On 2015-06-02 clicking on the white Windows notification area icon showed a confirmation, along with 2 minor applications incompatible with win10, and one application Network Monitor 3 that will have to be reinstalled. This implies to me that all other applications will stay installed after an upgrade to Win10. However I don’t believe this, and if/when I install Win10 over Win7 x64 SP1 Home, it will be from scratch. FYI

  119. Pieter said on April 4, 2015 at 10:59 pm
    Reply

    And still people are not noticing the moste important part that many people will feel sorry for after buying into Windows 10.

    Dit you all READ the Agreement for OneDrive ?

    No ofcourse no one reads that, but iof you did you would not even need any discussion why you should never use W10.

    This is what MS says:

    “OneDrive cannot be removed from Windows 10…”

    Great!

    Lets look at this situation:

    1) User makes pictures of his child playing in the garden beeing 2 years old
    2) Picture is auto uploaded to OneDrive
    3) Picture is scanned by MS PhotoDNA and seen as pornographic
    4) Account is closed

    5) user made MS account in Windows 10, so bye bye Experience

    READ MS AGREEMENT:

    WE own your DATA.. We may use, modify, edit and scann all YOUR data.

    My Englisch is bad sorry.. but I might be the onlyone seeing this and caring about MY DATA and my Privacy.

    How MS can fix it and the will not:

    Ask me permission to use OneDrive and not autoinstall this by default.

    My data is mine and will NEVER be Microsofts, I am not a child to listen to their rules what I can download or not.

    I buy all my software but still if I wanted to have 2000 cracks, it is still MY dATA.

    If I wanted XXX Video’s it is still MY data. Every news center is talking about war… I prefer looking at great women and I do not care about what Microsoft thinks I can look at or not lol

    I will not and never use the cloud.

    BTW apps… apps have a lot of ADDS, this is how MS is making money ;)

    No cloud for me. My data is mine and Yes i pay for but if my girlfriend and I wanted to make a picture toghter in the pool, than I am the one who decides this and NOT Microsoft, Google or whoever thinks I am uploading naked shots.. which I am not lol

    But PhotoDNA is still a robot remember?

    Oh wait you get your account back If you remove it or it was a mistake – Great some wizzkidd VA is going to look at YOUR data,

    This ans only this is the main reason I will not move From Windows 7 till after 2020 :)

  120. Wrechid said on April 4, 2015 at 1:00 pm
    Reply

    I do not like the look and feel of 8, and 10 just seems to be a service pack to 8… Speaking of win 3.0, the file browser folder and file icons reminde me of win 3.0… Anyone notice the big improvement of Ubuntu ever since win 8 was forced upon us when buying a new computer…?

  121. Tim said on April 3, 2015 at 2:02 pm
    Reply

    I have two Windows PCs — a reasonably new 8.1 desktop and a netbook running Win7 SE.

    I can see reasons I might think about updating both to 10, as well as reasons not to. My 8.1 machine doesn’t get on very well with my (old) Wacom graphics tablet. It works, but I get the impression that the inbuilt finger-friendly tech built into 8.1 doesn’t entirely go away and argues with the Wacom drivers. 10 won’t change that — might even make it worse — but as I probably have to buy a new tablet for the 8.1 machine anyway just to get a device that works like it should, the OS update is probably irrelevant.

    My netbook has the same model of graphics tablet (when it’s not being used on the move) and that’ll definitely suffer. But (hopefully, anyway!) the benefits of upgrading to a non-cutdown version of Windows for free will gain me support for a second monitor and will probably also improve the homegroup integration between the two machines

    So it looks like I have more incentive to update from 7 to 10 than from 8 to 10, unlike Martin. :) But having been around since Windows 3.0 and having a rather jaundiced view of Microsoft’s usual standard of .0 releases, if I do either machine it won’t be before a .1 release starts looking round the corner and waggling its eyebrows suggestively at me. :)

  122. lapal101 said on March 30, 2015 at 3:45 pm
    Reply

    When we moved to Win 8.1 from Win 7 we lost some of the function on scanners and printers. The drivers do not always work the same as they did with Win 7 and we are not talking cheap equipment and network devices. Also some older software will not work.

    1. GBear said on July 19, 2015 at 7:42 pm
      Reply

      I recently upgraded my Windows 7 Pro SP1 machine to the latest Windows 10 build. After a lengthy period of time, the upgrade was finalized. I was looking forward to a functional new OS, including the return of the typical Start Menu. The new Start Menu is no different than Windows 8 in that respect. My Windows 7 OS has an organized tree structure, listed by software type. For example, accessories, communications, internet, multimedia, etc. I can easily navigate to installed software and Windows 7 applications with my eyes closed. Windows 10 Start Menu only lists applications, organized by A-Z categories. Furthermore, only 1/2 of installed applications are on the list. The Windows 10 Start Menu will be a disappointment to users of Windows 7 and previous versions ease of use and control. Also ran into several hardware issues, with no updates from Windows Update. For example, Windows 10 correctly installed my dual band wireless Wi-Fi card. With Windows 7, I had access to both 2.4 & 5ghz bands. With Windows 10, only 2.4ghz with all other settings greyed out. The card was operating correctly according to the OS, with latest driver installed. Only problem was Windows 10 could not see any Wi-Fi connections. Neither of my two bands, neighbors, etc, not a single one to connect to wirelessly. Fortunately, I clone my internal hard drive prior to any major installation of software. Stored on external hard drives by date. When Windows 8 rolled out, I performed my upgrade. Ran into similar problems as Windows 10, could not easily locate my programs, OS settings, etc. I am one who has used every Windows OS since 3.0 was rolled out so many years ago. Each new version has been a welcomed improvement. Until the roll out of Windows 8 and now 10. I have no reason to upgrade to Windows 10, as I find version 7 to be stable and easy to work with. I recommend that anyone considering the free upgrade to Windows 10, clone your current hard drive PRIOR to performing the upgrade. Otherwise, you will have the possibility of a bad upgrade and not a way to return to a clean running machine.

  123. jason said on March 27, 2015 at 12:21 am
    Reply

    There are things not available in Win7 that are in 8 and 10 beyond what you listed. For business use syport for smb3 and the advancements in direct access are great. I couldn’t stand 8, but 10 looks like it will be OK.

  124. Todd said on March 26, 2015 at 6:35 pm
    Reply

    I agree. It’s a useless upgrade with no real relevant features. I won’t even consider upgrading until they add a Classic Theme anyway.

  125. Tim said on March 25, 2015 at 5:13 pm
    Reply

    There isn’t anything Microsoft is offering that falls into the “must have” category for me. I don’t care if all my devices run the same OS, and it doesn’t matter if an app can run on any Windows 10 device. I don’t even use apps (or tablets or smartphones). I don’t want cloud integration. I refuse to buy anything from the Windows Store. I will never use Bing or Cortana. I don’t own an Xbox One and have zero plans to buy one. Who cares about Spartan? Until they can produce a functional holodeck, I’m not interested in holograms. Windows 10 has nothing I need and plenty I dislike.

    But that’s just me. I think most people that do want these things are already invested in Apple or Android, and it doesn’t seem to bother them one bit if they have combinations of differing IoT ecosystems. So if Microsoft wants to lure users away from their established tech circles, they had better offer something outstanding users can’t get anywhere else and can’t live without. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

    1. Glenn said on August 9, 2015 at 8:04 pm
      Reply

      i agree 100 %, with everything you said here, i used to have windows 7 until my computer broke, then i bought a new one and it came with 8 then i went to 8.1 but i will not go to 10, at least not right now anyway ! but t dont understand why now every time i start my computer the update kicks in and trys to download the windows 10, i have to cancel everytime, am i doing somthing wrong, i dont want windows 10 and it seems their trying to force it on me ???

  126. Fena said on March 23, 2015 at 4:34 am
    Reply

    Most people will go to 10 only because it’s free. Remember when Access first came out is was $99 most other programs then were about $350 so they got market share and killed the competition. I have been working with computers daily since 1975 and built systems for over 30 years. Work system was commodore & Amiga was magic at home.ME was the worst from Msoft, windows 8 is next at back of line. I use windows 7 and DO NOT install updates… maybe 3 years not one and I DO NOT use system restore. I never have problems. Should note IE is not installed and most updates are for IE.
    I enjoy programs NOT apps ?? I hate tiles with a passion.. ok for phones and tablets not for ‘puters. Windows 7 has been very stable and like firefox there are many programs/features/add-ons to make it even better.
    I play on virtualbox so have Linux & windows 10 to try out. Linux is ok but like going back in time because many times you must use command line. That’s fine if you enjoy it. Remember IBM warp.. never caught on but it was fine operating system.

    1. TruthBeTold said on July 23, 2018 at 11:17 pm
      Reply

      We can see through your Matrix and we will not be intimidated, manipulated nor propagandized!——We will not back down!

      My (P)ersonal (C)omputer is mine and mine alone to control. You corporate thugs and fascist creeps need to take your filthy and deceitful hands and prying eyes out of our personal, private lives!

      Get your hands off of whom we are, where we go and what we do with our own personal lives. They are ours to live and to control——-Not Yours!

    2. Andrew said on March 22, 2015 at 9:23 pm
      Reply

      I think this is the first time ever I have seen someone relate windows 8 to windows 98

  127. Scott said on March 22, 2015 at 3:13 am
    Reply

    Power users aren’t concerned with whether the UI meets an arbitrary aesthetic value. They are concerned with multitasking, system performance, flexibility and output. Features may enhance the UX but low level system enhancements are far more important.

    Client Hyper-V comes to mind, Storage Spaces, bit level sync for OneDrive, RemoteFX, etc… DirectX 12 will improve performance in many scenarios including improved battery life and lower resource utilization.

    Modern apps are fantastic where the use case fits. They are curated and controlled to improve end user privacy, system security and they don’t turn the registry into a pile of crap. How many times have you seen a dev build out their own Windows service because they are too lazy or stupid to realize that there is an existing W32 API?

    And yes, Cortana with app, system and cloud integration with built-in third party support combined with the Office Graph and Delve is amazing. The new Edge rendering engine will rise to the top of browser performance metrics particularly when you consider the GPU integration. OneGet with PS kicks ass too. You could automate system builds with PS.

    By all means, cuddle up at night with Windows 7 if you want to. Heard people say the same about every major change to Windows. None of them made sense to me either. We haven’t even seen a fully baked version with the core features and you have made up your mind.

    Pretty sure that you, and many others in this thread, wouldn’t be satisfied with Windows 10 even if it could suck the chrome off a bumper. They are either moving too fast for some or too slow for EVERYONE else. Designing Windows is like ordering pizza for 1.5 billion people. Guess you can’t make everyone happy with some more than others.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 12:34 am
      Reply

      In response to Scott’s comment:

      “Modern apps are fantastic where the use case fits. They are curated and controlled to improve end user privacy, system security and they don’t turn the registry into a pile of crap…”

      Apps or no, Windows 10 actually violates user privacy and removes configuration and update control from the end user. User choice and configuration have been hugely diminished in Windows 10.

      Also, if you know what you’re doing, the chances that your registry will turn into a pile of crap with Windows 7 are slim to almost none. Windows 7 can handle just about anything that people say they use Windows 10 for. And even when it comes to DX12 and such, these advantages are still nominal at best and are not majorly important with regard to the OS as a whole.

      Windows 7 will continue to be useful as a highly productive Operating System for quite some time. Sorry to say, but I’m not hopping on the Win 10 train simply cause Microsoft wants me to.

    2. It's Britney B**** said on March 22, 2015 at 8:44 pm
      Reply

      As I mentioned in my post above, the thing is that it’s not just “Power Users” that have a problem with what Microsoft are doing. Store apps are replacing all the normal software bundled with Windows and these store apps have such poor usability and functionality that it’s not just the ‘Power Users’ who are finding them problematic, but normal users like my mum as well.

      Here’s just one real life example of what I mean. Mum downloads holiday photos from her camera to her laptop. In the past she would click on the photos and they would open in Windows Photo Viewer. In Windows Photo Viewer, the menus are there nicely laid out at the top of the screen, where she can click to print a photo, or click to email the photo, or click a button to make the photo zoom to 100% (where she can look at it closer/pan around it), or she can look at the file properties to see what date it was taken.

      Now, when she opens a photo it opens in the Photos app, kicking here out of the familiar desktop environment where she was before. Then there are no nicely laid out menus at the top of the screen (which are consistent and familiar across all her other software). She has to right-click to bring up the clunky, disjointed menu with silly symbols. And then the menu won’t allow her to just click to print the photo, or click to email the photo, or click a button to make the photo zoom to 100%, or look at the file properties to see what date it was taken. So, then to email the photo she has to open the Mail app, and manually attach the photo, but now she has to deal with a really poorly designed ‘metro’ File Explorer to navigate to the photos folder she was in. Then to select the photo she wants to attach is a pain, because all she has to go on is a tiny thumbnail to figure out which photo it was that she actually wanted to attach to the email.

      Windows Store apps are a total mess. When you first play with them, you may think ‘Ooh, these look pretty’, but it’s not until you actually start trying to use them in a serious and proper productive way, that they quickly show how terrible they really are. They just don’t stand up well to real life usage neither for ‘Power Users’ nor normal users like my mum.

      The frustrating thing is Store apps could have potentially been great if they done them well, as the concept itself is sound, but Microsoft got them so very wrong. One thing Microsoft were originally good at was productivity software, but they don’t even have that anymore with these apps. Stop trying to be cool and down with the kids Microsoft and stick to what you used to be good at! Productivity, functionality, usability.

  128. george kinbote said on March 22, 2015 at 2:06 am
    Reply

    great article Hr Brinkmann; you are to be congratulated for bypassing all the hysteria and hype surrounding win10, and going straight to the heart of the matter: it’s would be a waste of time and effort to upgrade win7

    what I find surprising is that so many readers agree with you

  129. Declan said on March 21, 2015 at 3:19 pm
    Reply

    I totally agree with Martin…. nothing new here … move along. After tinkering around with the pre-release versions, I see Win-10 as little more than a push by MS to unify across desktop & mobile platforms. Nothing about it serves a specific purpose other than move past the embarrassment of 8/8.1. It’s more like they’re diluting the whole OS like General Motors did with making one platform of the same vehicle, but changing mostly the cosmetics and giving each a separate brand name so to get the consumer to think they’re getting something different. It’s still the same car across the GM platform for that model, just a little different in appearance for the different brand. To me, that’s what MS is doing here… pushing the same OS across platforms. Good marketing? Good production? good economics? I guess that depends on the end user’s opinion and personal tastes.

    So, I’ve decided what I will do (and regularly suggest to those who ask me about it) …. when the time comes I will clean my hard drive of junk files, malwares, unused applications, etc. Essentially it’s a serious clean up. Then I’ll get a new hard drive of the same size (or probably larger for $100 or less). Then make a direct clone of that drive and set the current drive aside. Then take the new drive and use it to “upgrade” to Win-10. After a while I’ll be able to decide if I want to keep Win-10 or revert to Win-7. I wont have to go through the hassle of going backwards on an OS uninstall if I don’t like it. I’ll just swap back to the hard drive with the Win-7 and get on with it. If I like Win-10 I’ll just learn to use it. That’s the process I’ve used with every OS upgrade and it totally keeps me safe and happy, regardless the decision I make.

    1. Bob Land said on June 25, 2015 at 8:25 pm
      Reply

      I am not a computer techie, I presume that you are referring to the hard drive on C, and not an external hard drive ?? Can you not publish a step by step plan of what to do, it seems that your idea is a very good one .Thank you

      1. Declan said on June 26, 2015 at 12:56 am
        Reply

        Don, You are correct. To clone to a USB external drive you will need a hard drive enclosure available at most computer stores for about $30-$40USD. It’s simple to pop a new hard drive (1TB usually under $100USD) into that enclosure and just plug it in and go. If it’s a fresh, new hard drive you’ll need to initialize it first, but that an easy step someone can cover at another time. But what Don says is correct, you can’t boot from a USB in a ‘friendly’ manner. But, the whole point is to create a new usable hard drive anyway, so just take the new one out of the enclosure and you are ready to replace the existing one with the new one whenever you choose. Use either one for the Win-10 migration, you’ll have a replacement back to Win-7 if you need. Plus, it’s a totally complete backup as well.

      2. DonGateley said on June 25, 2015 at 11:45 pm
        Reply

        @Declan: what you suggest is how I got from Win XP to Win 7 and what I definitely plan to do for upgrading to and checking out Win 10 as well. Just a note, anyone expecting to be able to boot from a USB connected drive will be flummoxed. Windows prohibits that. You can clone to a USB connected drive but you have to swap any clone in the place of the upgraded HDD to boot back to what you had.

      3. Declan said on June 25, 2015 at 10:37 pm
        Reply

        Bob, you can do that with either a second internal hard drive connected inside your PC (many people do that for simple backups), or you can use an external hard drive through a USB connection. Just make sure your new hard drive is the same size GB or larger. Then simply clone your main hard drive to the new hard drive and that’s it. Many common software products can do that for you (AOMEI, Easeus, Macrium, and others). The new hard drive should be an exact copy of the existing one. Then turn your computer off and swap it out. That’s it. I’ve seen several readers in this forum use that process for weekly backups, it’s something I do as well.

    2. Almanaticus said on March 21, 2015 at 7:40 pm
      Reply

      WOW, Declan, now THAT is the way to handle an upgrade with no downside. I can use that concept in a lot of different ways. Thanks for the suggestion.

  130. Terry Hollett said on March 21, 2015 at 2:26 pm
    Reply

    I have Windows 7 and have no plans to update. I’m happy with what I got. I’ve been fixing computers for a few years now and the common complaint with Windows 8, it is SLOW. I probably would upgrade if I had any version of Windows 8.

    1. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:01 pm
      Reply

      Say what you want about Windows 8. One thing it definitely IS NOT is slow. If Windows 8 it slow for you then you should be looking at your hardware…

      1. dmacleo said on March 28, 2015 at 2:33 pm
        Reply

        8 was slow for me where 8.1 was faster.
        server 2012 was slow for me while 2012r2 was faster.

  131. Paul(us) said on March 21, 2015 at 1:11 pm
    Reply

    succinctly stated: What you wrote made total sense.
    For me only when main hardware breaks down and i cant save main license and because of that i have to renew main license I am considering downgrading to the Windows 10 o.s.

    P.s. Maybe a idea for a article where you teaching us all the ways we can save or license when our system breaks down.

  132. Kent said on March 21, 2015 at 8:46 am
    Reply

    Well, I am finding there are actually no obvious reason why shouldn’t. Concerning about the start menu? I’ve seen plenty regular user survived through the learning curve. Concerning PC Settings or Control Panel? a normal user doesn’t seem to bother going there and a savvy user will figure out no matter what. Windows 10 is the next version of Windows so sooner we move towards it the better, unless you don’t live in Windows world.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 13, 2016 at 12:16 am
      Reply

      “Perceived Obsolescence” is not a valid enough reason to upgrade when Windows 7 works just fine. Microsoft already realizes that so many people were extremely ticked off by their attempt to automatically upgrade their systems without user consent. And even after that fiasco, Microsoft continues to demonize Windows 7 so that public opinion changes and they can finally corral the rest of the Windows 7 user community over to Windows 10.

      This is nothing more than a ploy on their part and if you think that there aren’t that many businesses holding on to Windows 7 anymore——-think again! And while your at it, check the stats. Windows 7 is still the gold standard for most businesses and will remain that way for quite some time.

      Microsoft is just desperate to get more users on board with Windows 10 because of its own hand-in-glove tactics being carried out behind the scenes with the help of the NSA. If you still use Skype——-now might also be a good time to consider using something else, such as Tango (which is also Android and Mac compatible).

      Make no mistake about it. The FBI has not given up on its intent to eviscerate our rights to privacy and neither has the majority of Silicon Valley. Add to that the fact that the U.S. still will not offer Edward Snowden amnesty and continues to flex it’s National Security muscles toward its own citizens as well as to the rest of the world and you can bet your bottom dollar the situation is still pretty much the same as it was even before the president told the public that our private information wasn’t being read or stored——-again just another bold-faced lie!

      And if you still think that your privacy isn’t really all that important anymore, than I kindly encourage you to read the article by Bruce Schneier, entitled, “The Eternal Value of Privacy.” You can find it at the following link:

      [ https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.html ]

      For additional resources on this topic, please also consider the Ted Talk’s below. They are quit informative, to say the least…

      [ https://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers ]

      [ https://www.ted.com/talks/mikko_hypponen_how_the_nsa_betrayed_the_world_s_trust_time_to_act ]

  133. br0adband said on March 21, 2015 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    After testing multiple builds of Windows 10 (including the latest leak, 10041), I can firmly and confidently say I will have no use for Windows 10 anytime soon whether it’s free or not. I find absolutely nothing useful in the new OS that would give me a single reason to upgrade or make use of Windows 10 compared to my rock solid always dependable Windows 7 installation that is simple, deadly efficient, and works very well. It provides every aspect I require a computer operating system to provide, cleanly and without muss or fuss at all.

    I’m still quite angry at Microsoft for how they just basically dumped Windows 7 like the proverbial “red-headed stepchild” – we really could stand to have a proper Service Pack 2: a clean installation of Windows 7 from Microsoft provided ISOs (no longer really available in the general sense like they used to be with a simple URL but they’re out there) ends up with a machine that requires slightly more than 2GB of updates to be downloaded to make it fully “patched” and current as of the time of the installation.

    That’s a bit ridiculous, but it’s what Microsoft has chosen to do.

    I recently created my own custom ISO that has all the updates as of mid-February 2015 already integrated so a clean install (rare thing for me considering I make images along the way and can roll back to them easily if needed) doesn’t require me to snag that many updates afterward.

    Still, Microsoft just dismissing Windows 7 this way is lame. That’s my $.02 I suppose…

  134. Dmitry said on March 21, 2015 at 4:54 am
    Reply

    I don’t see any sense in Control Panel and Settings either: one can find some settings only in CP, some only in Settings and some in both of them, and I must remember where to find what I need (or use search). Plus they move particular things with no obvious logic (no Windows Update in CP now, for example).
    But: they do change things people don’t like: no big window opening when you click on connection icon in tray in latest build. I guess they’ll do something with settings.

    And: I will update to Windows 10 on both my PC and Macbook Air (boot camp, hope there will be support for new trackpad gestures). What I like most are virtual desktops in new version.

  135. Ray said on March 21, 2015 at 4:11 am
    Reply

    In terms of gaming performance, Windows 10 is a more compelling operating system compared to Windows 7. However, I believe that Windows 10 also brings much better memory management and hardware requirements which can benefit productivity too. One example that comes to my mind is multiple monitor support (which is built in instead of through 3rd parties). Have you considered that Martin?

  136. Gonzo said on March 21, 2015 at 3:23 am
    Reply

    As a gamer, Vulkan might fit your needs. There seems to be a lot of interest in Vulkan from game engines. DX 12 may not be the best choice.

  137. fokka said on March 21, 2015 at 1:46 am
    Reply

    i enjoy reading your opinion pieces on ghacks martin, but reading this article and having the impression that you are generally very pro user-choice, pro privacy and pro open source (->firefox), i have to wonder what keeps you from switching to some kind of linux?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on March 22, 2015 at 11:13 am
      Reply

      Well, I write about Windows a lot and that won’t change in the near future. I could switch one system to Linux but somehow, I was always disappointed when I tried it out. With that said, I thought about turning my work PC into a Linux machine and run software tests on my other PC.

    2. Earl said on March 21, 2015 at 2:37 am
      Reply

      The less than 5% market share that Linux has (desktop/laptop OS)?

  138. Windows 10 said on March 20, 2015 at 11:58 pm
    Reply

    Martin Brinkmann is IGNORANT!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. DVD RAmbo said on March 21, 2015 at 6:04 pm
      Reply

      Martin is quite insightful and extremely helpful with his posts. This is one post that I entirely agree with. My three Windows 7 machines will stay Windows 7, while the three Windows 8.1 PC’s will be upgraded to Windows 10 as Windows 8.1 seems incomplete. I already came to the same conclusion that Martin did, all on my own.

      I applaud Martin’s ability to take abuse like yours and soldier on.

      1. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:07 pm
        Reply

        Windows 10 isn’t complete and you’ve made up your mind?

    2. Windows 7 said on March 21, 2015 at 1:24 pm
      Reply

      is NOT!!!!!!!!!

    3. Andrew said on March 21, 2015 at 7:35 am
      Reply

      why u mad bro?

  139. Earl said on March 20, 2015 at 11:52 pm
    Reply

    If I have to get a new machine, and it happens to have Win10 on it, then I’ll use it. Otherwise, I’ll stick with running Win7 on my current machine. My seldom-used laptop still has Win8 on it–didn’t update to 8.1 (no new & useful [to me] features), won’t update to Win10. Basically, I’ll keep running what I have till it breaks. Most of what I use are portable apps, so I just have to copy over to a new box (from a backup if need be). It’s more likely that if I see/use Win10 at all, it’ll be on a smartphone (something I don’t have and don’t need).

    1. jfjb said on March 21, 2015 at 5:19 pm
      Reply

      ditto… because :
      Win7 current machines aren’t broken
      Win8.x current machines are ‘ready’ to upgrade

      As always, changing one’s habits begins with a divorce from the past
      My 2 cents

      1. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:26 pm
        Reply

        “Changing one’s habits begins with a divorce from the past”

        This is exactly the problem. Windows 7 users CANNOT divorce themselves from the past which is why MS is now trying to drag us backwards with Windows 10. At least that’s how it looks to me. Based on reactions in this thread it’s all for nothing. They aren’t going to win over Windows 7 users no matter what they do (a lot of people are still refusing to leave XP!) and Windows 8.1 Users like myself will probably be mixed on Windows 10. What a mess…

  140. Windows 10 said on March 20, 2015 at 11:46 pm
    Reply

    Your article is very useless, and then I do not care to know your opinion. To me, you are an ignorant. If you do not want to upgrade, then keep your opinion to yourself because nobody cares. Windows 10 is higher than Windows 7. I renew my sentence, you are an ignorant

    1. silverfox43 said on June 12, 2016 at 11:51 pm
      Reply

      In response to (Windows 10’s) comment:

      “To me, you are an ignorant. If you do not want to upgrade, then keep your opinion to yourself because nobody cares. Windows 10 is higher than Windows 7…”

      It’s obvious you’re either a dis-information agent working for Microsoft or some other facet of their covert dealings within the technology markets. Either way, you just showed yourself up to be what most scrupulous users already realize, by your Strong-Arm attempt to sway our opinions about Windows 7, which, as a matter of fact, is the most user-friendly and most stable operating system Microsoft has ever created, not to mention the fact that it does not violate user privacy like Windows 10 does.

      Of course, since you are most likely a Microsoft troll, I don’t expect you to even acknowledge such a response. However even if you do, I’m sure it will just be more of the same——-just a bunch of meaningless conjecture only meant to, again, distort the truth in order to confuse and to corral consumers into Microsoft’s skewed future vision of a centralized, globalized and non-personal user experience.

      We can see through your matrix and we will not be silenced!——-We will not back down! The machines will not win——-they never do!——-It will only be a matter of time before your Evil Empire finally falls…

    2. Quantum777 said on March 25, 2015 at 12:37 pm
      Reply

      Is that you Cortana?

    3. theMike said on March 21, 2015 at 7:27 pm
      Reply

      must be a slow news day at neowin. nothing was spotted in the wild or no said “that said” fifty fckin times

    4. Larry said on March 21, 2015 at 10:29 am
      Reply

      @Windows 10, First of all that’s not your real name to begin with and your statement is nonsense. I visit ghacks.net daily and found to be very useful. You sir are cognitive miser maladaptive behavior IQ deficit pneumatic head.
      “Your article is very useless, and then I do not care to know your opinion. To me, you are an ignorant. If you do not want to upgrade, then keep your opinion to yourself because nobody cares. Windows 10 is higher than Windows 7. I renew my sentence, you are an ignorant”
      I’m just dumbfound and disappointed. I’m upset not because of your opinion but because of you’ve got a lack of politeness.

    5. Earl said on March 21, 2015 at 8:31 am
      Reply

      “Keeping it to himself” would kind of defeat the purpose of having this blog. “You don’t care”, and yet you came all this way to read the article? Given the higher than usual number of comments for an article, it seems quite a few people care. (An ignorant what? Are you Windows 10? I mean, are you the /genuine/ Windows 10? Are *you* high?)

      1. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 9:03 am
        Reply

        Considering the design and interface of 10 is like monkeys on dope doing it then yeah I think he is high or he is one of those monkeys on dope typing.

        I think MS and Google both use *bots* that are automatically programmed to respond to people the way they want it so they can say “We’re listening* but we are not caring.

        It’s time for the pitchforks and home-made shanks to come out. If immates can create weapons out of junk and hide it in their cells then we can do it easier and fight these monsters.

    6. Andrew said on March 21, 2015 at 7:35 am
      Reply

      So you say windows 10 is higher than windows 7? Good you can count! Martin has a right to have his opinion, it’s all preference anyway…

      Martin is knowledgeable to in a lot of computer software, so while it might not match with your view, it still gives insight to the other side of things.

      1. Earl said on March 21, 2015 at 8:20 am
        Reply

        Maybe he’s talking about altitude? or state of consciousness (like, weed, man)?

  141. Dan said on March 20, 2015 at 11:01 pm
    Reply

    Windows 7 was the last MS OS that caters to the power users. Martin’s points really resonate with me. I make extensive use of the Start Menu, customizing it to be “just right”. The Metro desktop is just eye-candy with little benefit. The impending loss of security updates after 2020 is a cause for concern. I wish MS would release a Win OS with the classic Win7 interface but with the newer under-the-surface upgrades of Win10.

  142. It's Britney B**** said on March 20, 2015 at 10:42 pm
    Reply

    I get the Store app concept, just not the way they’re implemented. The whole store app system is a mess and horrible to use. I use store apps daily in Windows 8.1 and still don’t get on with them even now, they’re just not natural to use like traditional Windows software was.

    Everything from not making them windowed in Windows 8 and therefore having such a disconnection between the apps and the desktop. To not having common menus and navigation, I mean in the past I could just say to my mum ‘go to File > Print’ if you want to print a page. Now it’s not that simple. Then the really poor way of navigating the file system to open, attach files, etc. Then the way customisation is limited, it’s Microsoft way or the highway. Then they are just sooo basic functionality wise. So much so that even the most basic functionality is missing, functionality that’s needed. Then stupid symbols with no text that you need to hover over to see what they do. Then when going between apps and desktop software, they minimise to the taskbar and suspend so they stop playing audio/video. Just everything about these apps is horrid.

    I really wanted them to work, as it would make it a lot easier maintaining my mums computer if they were secure, automatically updated themselves and can easily be transferred to a new computer. But they just don’t work very well, just a disjointed mess where it’s easier to just keep my mum on normal software for the time being, software that she’s already familiar with and just works well. Normal Windows software beats these apps in every way from a usability perspective. So much for the ‘productivity’ that Microsoft keep banging on about.

    And now you mention ‘Store App money’, it kinda makes me wonder whether Microsoft intentionally made their apps this bad in the hope third-party developers would made better versions, and therefore Microsoft didn’t need to anymore. I can’t think of any other reason why they’re so bad, when in the past Microsoft software has been quite polished and user friendly? The Office apps screenshots look like they could be about to turn the apps into something useful, but I guess time will tell…

  143. rswrc said on March 20, 2015 at 9:04 pm
    Reply

    I have Win7 and i will switch because:
    – i use Win7 for 5 years i think – i want something new
    – performance – recently i had a similar pc to mine witn WIn 8.1 Update 1 and the startup performance to mine was immense
    – i see the improvemnts made from win8 till 8.1 update1 and if they will continue in win10 i think it will be as good as win 7 now is
    – i have a nokia lumia which i think will be upgraded to win10 and i expect some nice integration with win10 on my desktop

    1. silverfox43 said on June 12, 2016 at 11:34 pm
      Reply

      Windows 10 is a gimmick and a sales pitch meant to force your hand into something that will take your privacy and your ability to configure your Personal Computer away!

      Two concepts readily come to mind here:

      “Planned Obsolescence” and “Perceived Obsolescence”

      In the case with Windows 10, the latter is meant to distort the truth to consumers, while the former is meant as model for Microsoft to continue to deceive and manipulate.

    2. dsfsdfdsfds said on August 29, 2015 at 8:14 pm
      Reply

      you compare 5 years running system to new fresh install? it is riddiculus

    3. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:29 pm
      Reply

      Which is better, The Windows 8.1 Update 1 Start Screen or this Windows 10 Start Screen/Menu Hybrid abomination? I’m interested in your opinion….

      1. Martin Brinkmann said on March 23, 2015 at 9:36 am
        Reply

        I like the Windows 10 option better as it does not switch between interfaces.

  144. Keith D said on March 20, 2015 at 8:33 pm
    Reply

    “While you can still remove all Modern apps from the start menu, the area remains as it is which means you end up with a blank area there.”
    …*insert face-palm image here*

    1. Ashrak007 said on March 20, 2015 at 9:01 pm
      Reply

      ……………………………………..________……………………
      ………………………………,.-‘”……………….“~.,………………
      ………………………..,.-”……………………………..“-.,…………
      …………………….,/………………………………………..”:,……..
      …………………,?………………………………………………\,…..
      ………………./…………………………………………………..,}….
      ……………../………………………………………………,:`^`..}….
      ……………/……………………………………………,:”………/…..
      …………..?…..__…………………………………..:`………../…..
      …………./__.(…..“~-,_…………………………,:`………./……..
      ………../(_….”~,_……..“~,_………………..,:`…….._/………..
      ……….{.._$;_……”=,_…….“-,_…….,.-~-,},.~”;/….}………..
      ………..((…..*~_…….”=-._……“;,,./`…./”…………../…………
      …,,,___.\`~,……“~.,………………..`…..}…………../………….
      …………(….`=-,,…….`……………………(……;_,,-”……………
      …………/.`~,……`-………………………….\……/\……………….
      ………….\`~.*-,……………………………….|,./…..\,__………..
      ,,_……….}.>-._\……………………………..|…………..`=~-,….
      …..`=~-,_\_……`\,……………………………\……………………
      ……………….`=~-,,.\,………………………….\…………………..
      …………………………..`:,,………………………`\…………..__..
      ……………………………….`=-,……………….,%`>–==“…….
      …………………………………._\……….._,-%…….`\……………
      ……………………………..,<`.._|_,-&“…………….`\…………..

      1. chesscanoe said on March 21, 2015 at 2:46 pm
        Reply

        I’ve upgraded my PC to the newest Microsoft OS ASAP since DOS 2.1 and through Win7x64 SP1. But I’m happy with Win7, and I prefer my native “AI” to working around Cortana AI as described at
        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/cortana_app_control_windows_10/
        Eventually I’ll get new hardware and software to justify using Win10 or Win11, but that’s a lot more than a year or two away.

      2. Earl said on March 20, 2015 at 11:45 pm
        Reply

        “Make it so.” ;)

  145. odin said on March 20, 2015 at 8:31 pm
    Reply

    Not long ago I was thinking of buying a new PC but all negativity surrounding Windows 8/8.1 had me seriously concerned. Well, I went ahead and bought one anyway. It has Windows 8.1 on it and to this day I can’t understand what people found wrong with Windows 8/8.1. Yes, I had to learn new ways of doing things, but what’s so wrong with that? For that matter I get along quite well without a third party start menu.

    After using Windows 8.1 for more than a year I still can’t understand what all the furor was about. I can only deduce that all the people who dislike Windows 8/8.1 are simply opposed to learning new ways of doing things. I’m sure they would be happier if nothing ever changed in the world.

    On reflecting, I really shouldn’t be surprised at all, after all, it’s just a case of deja vu, except this time it’s Windows 10.

    Well, listen up people. You have a one-time opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10 for 1 year and it’s FREE. Either you take it or shut up and stop grousing about something that’s free.

    1. . said on February 11, 2016 at 7:37 am
      Reply

      Did upgrading to 8 provide you any concrete benefit? Did you have more or less hardware and driver issues? Were performance gains significant enough to outweigh having to relearn how to perform tasks? Did the UI changes eventually come to make you more productive?

      To many people computers are a tool. Learning to do things in a new way isn’t a problem, but learning to do things in a new way for no apparent reason when the previous way was just as functional if not more is absolutely a problem. Windows 7 was objectively better than Vista in performance while maintaining all of the benefits in UI that Vista had over the XP; hence massive adoption of 7 and cringes about Vista. Win 8 has better performance than 7, but there are widespread complaints about compatibility and UI. That’s not resisting change that’s making a trade-off.

      Windows 10 doesn’t recognizes my smart card reader but cannot manage to use it with any DoD websites. The start menu is hideous and populated with absolutely nothing of value to me. There are still wide ranging security concerns about the amount of information that the OS stores and transmits even if you go through the effort of blocking and disabling all these great new “features.” I won’t be upgrading on my main system, there’s absolutely no benefit and a world of downsides. I’m glad I tried it out on my “browsing the web while watching TV” laptop before taking the plunge.

    2. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:43 pm
      Reply

      Tonnes of people are still using Vista or XP. I heard one lady the other day say she hated Windows 7 and loved Windows Vista. When I suggested an upgrade she said “NO WAY, I love my Windows Vista! No joke. I’ve been selling Windows 8/8.1 machines for a while now and I can’t see that it’s affected my sales all that much. People who are looking for a new computer generally don’t care if it’s Windows 7 or 8 or whatever as long as they can get on Facebook or play the Sims or whatever it is they do. It seems to be online where you hear the most vitriol about Windows 8. This whole Start Screen vs Start Menu debacle has been completely ridiculous and shows just exactly how ignorant and inflexible the public can really be. It’s depressing. Microsoft has handled this very poorly however. They needed to make the Start Menu accessible from Windows 8.0 day 1 and give users a choice. If they had done that things would have been quieter. Now again they are trying to force us into a regression back to the menu. There should be a choice here, Classic mode and Modern mode so everyone’s happy. It’s so simple.

  146. Brian said on March 20, 2015 at 8:24 pm
    Reply

    I just don’t get modern apps in general. I’m sure they’re fine for tablets and phones but what is their purpose to even exist on a traditional desktop or non-touchscreen laptop? The obvious answer is MS is desperate to get some of that “app store money” they see Apple and Google raking in. OSX also now forces their app store on Mac desktop users but my experience has been those apps work just like traditional apps once installed. I would guess they just want to force developers into the app store so they can charge desktop app developers to register their apps and get a cut just like they do with mobile developers.

    My dream feature for Windows 10 would be an option to select so that I don’t ever, under any circumstances see a modern app. To me, if a touchscreen isn’t sensed by the OS on bootup, modern apps should be disabled by default. I don’t care if I have a huge blank space on my start menu; those modern apps are gone the second I finish installing. I’m counting on a freeware app being released to uninstall all pre-installed modern apps by the time Windows 10 hits the streets.

    1. mofker said on August 24, 2015 at 11:27 pm
      Reply

      There is no huge blank space on the start menu, just hover over the edge and a resize cursor will pop up, then drag the edge left and presto, Start menu got his blank space bug fixed.

    2. Sarah said on April 25, 2015 at 8:26 pm
      Reply

      Modern Apps are about security (which considering all the data hacks of today’s world, should matter to people). Today any Win 32 App (or in layman’s terms, a desktop app) can gain access to your hardware and registry which makes them a gateway to hacking your machine, messing with settings etc. Modern Apps don’t allow hardware level access which makes them more secure to install and protect the end user. The beauty of Windows 10 is that it is more of a transition product, which is what Windows 8 should have done… that will allow the ecosystem and users acclimatize to the best of both worlds. Modern apps are the way of the future, so I’d suggest getting used to them now, in Windows 10 they are much more friendly to the experience that users have had with x32 Apps of the past.

      1. silverfox43 said on June 12, 2016 at 11:22 pm
        Reply

        Windows 10 is a privacy and spyware nightmare!

        You can ignore that fact all you want, but just because a modern app has some new appeal doesn’t mean I’m going to sacrifice the privacy and security of my Win 7 desktop and effectively give that up in Windows 10.

        You tout modern apps advantages while at the same time completely ignoring the major draw-backs with Windows 10 in regards to user privacy and security.

        I’m sorry to say, but if I ever decide upon another OS, it will not be from Microsoft!

        As far as my Win 7 is concerned, it suits my needs perfectly and in no way does it hinder my success!

      2. Anonymous said on August 17, 2015 at 1:06 pm
        Reply

        If people cared about security they wouldn’t be using Windows in the first place. The Microsoft store has little developer support after almost 4 years, so who exactly is going to create these super awesome killer universal apps? Besides, Microsoft is headed toward abandonment of their mobile effort (unless you think $7 billion dollar right-offs are a good thing). Shareholder’s are eventually going to put an end to this entire disaster. At that point MS will concentrate on Enterprise, complemented by a good workstation OS. Modern apps and universal apps will be a footnote in history.

    3. Mick said on March 23, 2015 at 3:40 pm
      Reply

      There is a couple of power shell commands that will allow you to do just that, at least it worked for me in windows 8.

  147. Ashrak007 said on March 20, 2015 at 8:22 pm
    Reply

    I’m not liking Windows 10 either but I’m coming at it from another direction. I had some issues with Windows 8.0 when it came out but I took the time to learn it and used it. Windows 8.1 Update 1 corrected most if not all of my problems with it and I have totally acclimated to the Start Screen as it is in Windows 8.1 Update 1. I can understand the frustration of average Joe or Jane coming from Windows XP, Vista or 7 and MS deserved SOME of the flak that it received. However, there is merit to some aspects of the Modern Interface. I for one was anxious for a change and felt that the old Start Menu paradigm was getting a little long in the tooth. Windows 8.1 is very slick on a multi screen setup and is great for gaming. In short I like Windows 8.1 and I could use it for a long time. I’ve tried the recent Windows 10 builds and I don’t like them. They’ve created a hybrid of the old start menu and the start screen and the results are terrible. As Martin has said the only game changer I can see here is DirectX 12 and that’s only slightly interesting. Everything else seems like a step backward and I don’t wanna go back. If my professional life I have to deal with people who are illiterate or ignorant and are unwilling or unable to learn new things. In my own time I don’t have to care about them. I honestly don’t care if a lot of people hate Windows 8.1. All the folks I’ve encountered who do really aren’t qualified to have an opinion or are just spouting what they’ve heard from someone else. “I’ve heard Windows 8.1 is terrible, I haven’t tried it myself but I still hate it”. Blah, blah blah. I sure hope Windows 10 ends all the whining because I can’t take it anymore. As for myself I will stick to Windows 8.1 unless there are some massive changes coming to the garbage Start Menu we have in the current build. I’m also pretty cheesed off about the removal of Windows Media Center but I will save that for another rant..

    1. Ashrak007 said on March 20, 2015 at 8:34 pm
      Reply

      *In not If..

  148. DonGateley said on March 20, 2015 at 8:01 pm
    Reply

    One possible reason I can see for upgrading my Win 7 system is migration. My system began life as an early XP system and has evolved along with its applications to the Win 7 system I use today. I am about due for a new machine and would expect migration from an old Win 10 machine to a new Win 10 machine to be smoother than directly from Win 7. Since a Win 10 upgrade is free and since some serious effort must have gone into app migration at the time of Win 10 installation I will likely prepare my current system for app migration to a new one using PCMover by upgrading it to Win 10 first. Of course that move awaits the existence of suitable new systems running OEM Win 10 and a Win 10 version of PCMover but I’m not in that big a hurry. It’s mainly to get better graphics performance for PC based VR.

  149. Dante said on March 20, 2015 at 7:54 pm
    Reply

    Does anyone know if it’s possible for one to download the Windows 10 within the free upgrade period but not use it. Will it still be free if one install it later on, say after the year expired?

  150. Karl said on March 20, 2015 at 7:50 pm
    Reply

    Here’s my suggestion for Martin. Keep the Win 8.1 –>10 for gaming and productivity for Windows software you have to work with. Then make sure you have a good supply of usb flashes of various sizes (2gb will be fine to write to for various Linux distros to “try or install from” – 32gb to install distros to that you want to try and boot from usb). Start off with Mint (debian-based, like Ubuntu) and try the various desktops it can run with (from the heavy-resource Cinammon to MATE to KDS (my fave) to Xfce (ultra lightweight). You’ll get to also try some file managers, too (like KDE’s Dolphin or the commonly popular Nautilus). There’s also choices for terminal emulators. I think you’ll be surprised how much quality software you can get free and the high degree of flexibility and customization you can achieve! Just remember to partition to ext4 wherever you install Linux to (the 2gb flashes can be fat32), and also partition around 4gb for linux-swap. I partition 3 sectors – the first one for root (“/”) as my boot sector Linux install with ext4, then a second sector for my app data called /home (ext4), then my last sector as linux-swap for memory usage. You can go on and try some of the RPM distros (Fedora, CentOS) as well as OpenSUSE and the highly customizable (though complex) Arch. OK, I’ll shut up now! :-D

  151. Tom Hawack said on March 20, 2015 at 7:19 pm
    Reply

    “[Windows 10] It still feels like a massive effort to get people to use Modern apps and Windows Store.”
    That for sure appears to me as a love killer. Integration, master word, is fine as long as it does not lead to obligation. I want an OS not a club membership. This is the trend, whatever business : have confidence, enjoy, forget your personal aspirations since we handle everything and that we know what is good for you. Live, we’ll do the rest.

    One thing is sure : I will not jump on a Windows 7 to 10 update. If within a short year (50-51 weeks) I have enough valid, good reasons (free of excitement for the brand new van) then, maybe, I’ll do the move. Anyway, I hate dirty installs and covering old Seven with fresh 10 is not an excitement here. If I can make a clean install of Windows 10 (providing the iso/dvd/stick) after a disk format then that will be my choice. Other than that …

  152. Boris said on March 20, 2015 at 6:43 pm
    Reply

    I will switch only if Cortana can work with browsers.

    1. Andrew said on March 20, 2015 at 6:44 pm
      Reply

      Cortana supposedly to be integrated with Project Spartan

      1. Boris said on March 20, 2015 at 7:24 pm
        Reply

        It won’t work for me if it would work with one browser only. I need Firefox, Chrome and Opera integration.

  153. YB said on March 20, 2015 at 6:19 pm
    Reply

    Windows 10 seems like Windows 8.2 as someone already stated above. I actually like the Start Screen and will only upgrade because of DirectX 12, but only after games actually take advantage and utilize that technology.

    Also, what the heck happened to Windows 9?

    1. Andrew said on March 20, 2015 at 6:46 pm
      Reply

      Windows 7 ‘8’ 9…

      Actually there’s speculation that is was for compatability because programs could see Windows 9 as a Windows 9x (95/98/ME) or that Microsoft is going the Apple route by having 10 be an OS that will gradually upgrade but keep its version.

  154. racorbin said on March 20, 2015 at 5:56 pm
    Reply

    A nice article and a reasonable discussion. I run Linux on two PCs, but my wife’s PC is an up to date Windows 7 machine with dual monitors. All your reasons to not upgrade are valid, but I will still upgrade her PC because I am assuming that internally Windows 10 is significantly better than Windows 7. She has been using Classic Shell for years because we both use the Start menu extensively and prefer the XP version of the Start menu. (We even still use the Quick Launch toolbar, so you can see how conservative we are with regard to the user interface.)

    I have virtualized the Windows 10 preview edition and so far with Classic Shell, etc. and so far am pleased with the new operating system.

    Using this logic I would have upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 (with Classic Shell, etc.) if Windows 8.1 were free.

  155. Zinc said on March 20, 2015 at 5:30 pm
    Reply

    Funny to see people still harping about the Start Menu…
    Who uses the Start Menu anyways?

    File associations…context menu…taskbar…desktop shortcuts…all pretty much make the Start Menu a “vestigial tail” that my Grandparents don’t even use…

    …and if you don’t “game”…why are you even talking about DirectX 12?

    1. silverfox43 said on June 12, 2016 at 11:07 pm
      Reply

      In response to Zinc’s statement:

      “File associations…context menu…taskbar…desktop shortcuts…all pretty much make the Start Menu a “vestigial tail…”

      That is what makes a system like Windows 7 so great because of its ability to be configured in the way in which you prefer——-something which Microsoft has effectively ripped out of users hands with Windows 10.

      And if you don’t know how to configure the Windows Operating System, then its about time you start taking some lessons and learning to do so. There is free course-material all over the web for how to navigate and customize Windows 7, of which it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand. This common digital trend with products like Win 10 is meant to force us into a vision which not only makes us lazier but also turns us into mindless automatons.

      It’s no longer a (P)ersonal (C)omputer when it is no longer personal to you!——-You can blame Micro-money——-I mean, Microsoft for that!

    2. Paranam Kid said on June 9, 2015 at 7:35 pm
      Reply

      +1

    3. Windows 7is4me said on June 1, 2015 at 9:17 am
      Reply

      Hey, I use the windows button all the time. When things go wonky, windows button is my first response. Not sure what I’d do without it… Multi-task the cloud?

      I’ll pass.

      Windows 7 has a definite cult following. That won’t change. And yeah, I’m going to pass on the upgrade myself. Everything works perfect, and when it doesn’t…

      I still have my windows button.

      But I have a question for those who upgrade. Is your life any better? I honestly haven’t seen any difference between Windows 7 and XP. And provided I can get online and access my file sharing programs … what possible merit is there to upgrading? It it just having the latest thing? I am curious.

    4. Martin Brinkmann said on March 20, 2015 at 5:36 pm
      Reply

      I don’t game on my Windows 7 system. I do game on my Windows 8.1 system. I still use the Start Menu frequently, especially on Windows 8.1 as I review lots of apps for my weekly series over on Betanews (oh the irony) and find it more suitable to start them and uninstall them again than the start screen interface.

      1. Ashrak007 said on March 22, 2015 at 8:50 pm
        Reply

        Did you know that you can right click on a tile on the Start Screen and uninstall the app? If its a modern app it will uninstall, if not it will pop up Programs and Features. Easy.

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on March 23, 2015 at 9:34 am
        Reply

        I don’t use tiles anymore but I know that you can uninstall apps from the start menu with a right-click, even if they are listed as text there.

    5. jimmyjamesjimmy said on March 20, 2015 at 5:36 pm
      Reply

      I agree Desktop shortcuts/kb shortcuts are great for experienced users, but there are people out there that need a basic intuitive well traveled path of an interface so they can navigate through to their favourite item. We’re not ready to give that up for total minimalism and voice control/mind control isn’t ready yet.

      1. DonGateley said on April 18, 2015 at 9:37 pm
        Reply

        Using 8.1 with the installation of the Start8 application you can retain the beloved start menu (as I have) and boot to desktop so that the tiled start screen need never be observed. With this simple add on to my Dell VenuePRo 8 I don’t often get a reminder that I’m on 8.1 instead of 7.

        Shutdown and boot times are radically improved. Boot for me is on the order of 10 seconds or less (with an Atom processor) and shutdown happens right now without lag. Audiovisual performance is enhanced to where even with an Atom 1.3 Ghz quad processor there is never a hiccup even with some pretty intense custom VST plugin based audio processing. I never see a problems or blockage with DPC real time latency. All of this is problematic on my Windows 7 machine with an i7 2.2 gHz quad processor. Very problematic.

        Using a Win 7 Acer Aspire Atom powered netbook that I got for demoing a while back proved to be completely unrealistic. (It will be immediately upgraded to 10 for an apples to apples comparison on audiovisual performance.)

        If you have a Windows touch tablet that’s really too small (or your fingers are too big) for an OS desktop there is an app called Touch Mouse Pointer that allows you to use your whole touch screen as a big touch pad with the desktop cursor moving around the desktop just as it would with a large external touch pad.

        I’m planning on upgrading my main system (after a full disk backup to recover from should needs be) from 7 to 10 as soon as it is out of whatever they are calling beta and is a full release. Based on experience with 8.1 and its app compatibility I just can’t find a reason not to. Only if there is no Start10 application yet and the renewed Start Menu isn’t sufficiently capable and familiar will I hold off.

  156. Andrew said on March 20, 2015 at 5:28 pm
    Reply

    If there’s one thing I loved after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8, it’s better multi-monitor support, that mixed with being able to double click vhd’s to mount makes my system that much more usable.

    I do find it kind of disappointing that you instantly dismissed the system without really using it on your primary system, and you are instantly dismissing 10 without even considering using it. As me, someone who was appalled by Windows 8 with the previews came out, I bit the bullet, jumped in and grew to like it. It’s not perfect (what system is?), but it isn’t bad either, and I personally prefer it on my system than windows 7.

    Instead of dismissing these new upgrades, why not install it and try it out for a month or two? you can always downgrade back.

    1. ProtossX said on April 18, 2015 at 1:40 am
      Reply

      Andrew PLEASE stop telling us to try out windows 8 and windows phone

      WE don’t WANT IT! WE DON’T WANT IT for multitasking

      people like windows 7 and chrome for multitasking

      if microsoft made stuff like those people WOULD WANT IT THEY WOULD

      trust me andrew they would if microsoft made a windows that is better for 7 for multitask ppl would even PAY for it an not do a free upgrade SO GO make a better OS then 7 instead of a crappier one

      1. SortingHat said on June 7, 2016 at 9:11 am
        Reply

        GAMES! Windows 7 is awesome for gaming especially older titles and/or hidden object games like Pop Cap Mystery PI series they have out.

        On Windows 10 hidden object games looks stupid font wise if you can even get them to work which 10 can’t run anything that isn’t designed for Windows 8.0

      2. Paranam Kid said on June 9, 2015 at 7:34 pm
        Reply

        I support Andrew & believe people’s hate of Win 8.1 is fed off each other & hyped up, just like Vista was. I have used both 8.1 & Vista & never had any issues with it. People make such a big deal about 8.1’s start menu: you don’t need the bloody thing, it’s pathetic.

      3. Andrew said on April 18, 2015 at 12:11 pm
        Reply

        People are split on windows 7 and windows 8… most power users that tried windows 8 loved the improvements in the OS itself. Everyone seems to complain about the start screen vs start menu, and I don’t blame them, it’s preference in that part, but you cannot ignore the improvements of the OS in general, including the improvements of multi-monitor support…

        So tell me, aside from the start menu/screen issue, why is 7 better than 8?

        p.s. where did I mention anything about the windows phone? I haven’t used a windows phone since windows mobile 6. I am curious about it and will probably give it a try on the next one, but I am in no means trying to push people to that OS for their phone.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on March 20, 2015 at 5:34 pm
      Reply

      Andrew, I did not really dismiss Windows 8 right away. I tested it quite extensively and covered it here on Ghacks. All in all I find it inferior to Windows 8 when it comes to its interface and design decisions.

      1. Andrew said on March 20, 2015 at 5:48 pm
        Reply

        I guess these lines threw me off:

        “When Windows 8 launched, I decided against upgrading the system… ”

        “My second PC runs Windows 8.1 currently…”

        “I’ll upgrade my Windows 8.1 system which I use mostly for gaming to Windows 10 once it comes out.”

        And by all means to each is their own, but I read it as you used your windows 8.x system stickily for gaming and not for anything else like you use your windows 7 PC. In other words, you don’t use the windows 8 system for multitasking and day to day stuff, but that is just an assumption on my part.

        Anyway, maybe (and probably most likely) I’ve just completely adapted to windows 8 by now to where i’m ‘over’ 7, because personally I hate having to use windows 7 at work.

  157. wasd said on March 20, 2015 at 5:27 pm
    Reply

    Literally the only reason I will do the upgrade is DX12 support, then I’ll spend hours double checking my settings that are just right now in 7 are still also set in 10, then more hours thinking about just doing a fresh install.

    1. Addison said on July 28, 2015 at 6:27 pm
      Reply

      In most cases, current benchmarks are only showing a marginal improvement on DX12 over DX11 anyway. I still game on my Win 7 box and I will not upgrade to Win 10 unless newer games require DX12 (GTA5 Runs on Max setting with no issues). I hate the Metro UI, I hate the Ribbon UI, I do not want Cortana search (when I search on my start menu I want to search through my local box), I don’t even have Office on my Home PC (I would just use the Office 365 Cloud Versions if I had to for Work) I use Libre Office. I also do not want the new IE (what ever they are calling it these days) as I use Firefox. I also have ZERO assurance that my GFX card drivers will work correctly on Win 10.

  158. Roman Podolyan said on March 20, 2015 at 5:24 pm
    Reply

    Home PC: still using Windows 7 see no reasons to upgrade to the newer. I’m not a “last titles” gamer, playing some rather older or not that hardware-demanding ones, so I think I’ll be fine with 7.
    Working notebook: still Windows 7, the new notebooks are supplied with 8, but those who got new aren’t much happier than me (also worth noting that new notebooks come with Classic Shell preinstalled by IT team)
    Home notebook: tried to live with Win 8.1, but downgraded to 7 soon after some issues. Don’t see any reason to upgrade as well (I’m not using it frequently).
    Home netbook: also don’t see much use, Win 7, no need to upgrade

  159. jimmyjamesjimmy said on March 20, 2015 at 5:19 pm
    Reply

    I think Windows 10 needed/needs something to make it decisively better. It will sell though because Windows still has too much saturation. I believe that is blinding innovation for MS. I’m not sure if there’s enough time for a killer feature to eventuate. So 10 is/will be a basic upgrade over Win8.1. It’s what WIn8.1 should have been. Skip, delete, endgame. So we will migrate but only if required. It’s slow evolution, but not disruptive. Sure Windows 10 or 8.1 Surfacepro3 has dented the laptop market but not because of Windows8.1 or the potential of 10, but because of weight and ssd storage performance (battery life is average) we’re still waiting on a number 1 killer feature (it’s required) and I guess MS are relying on the saturation of Windows desktop with their behind the 8ball apps market to carry them forward. How long will that last given the march of cloud lifestyle.

    What would move me. A killer feature in 10, but it’s not going to happen, we’re months away from release. We’re receiving a modest service pack like XP SP2 where we got the security center. I digress, I would kill to have Onedrive that has the ability to sync to multiple accounts. A Startmenu that’s more like Windows7/classicshell when I’m on a Desktop, but hybrid when I have a tablet so I can choose to use Metro if I need it. A leap forward in remote desktop and remote app capability. Killer file sync and cloud backup features with read/write/deny sharing capabilities no matter what folder/file I am accessing. My office app-Office365/2013 is visually unappealing and should be more like 2010 or a redesign without the white/grey/dark themes and I want my reply email to open in a new window not be mollusked to an Outlook theme that has extremely well camouflaged columns. I can’t see the damn column I’m looking at (rant over). Basic intuitive performance respecting interfaces are key. I want less clicks with configurable menus that give me options that improve my visual experience. It’s almost like MS have to break up with Metro to innovate, or they have to take Metro deep into the 6th dimension because the average user doesn’t care/understand the code in the background.

  160. Dwight Stegall said on March 20, 2015 at 5:19 pm
    Reply

    I have a Windows 7 laptop. No way is it staying that way. I like Windows 10 better. It seems faster to me than 7 or 8.1 and requires less RAM.

    1. silverfox43 said on June 12, 2016 at 10:44 pm
      Reply

      While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, to say that everyone felt the same way about Windows 7 when it was released, just like those whom complain now about Windows 10, I’m sorry to tell you is by far a gross over-statement to say the least.

      After all the hiccups and bugs that plagued the many builds prior to the release of Win7, when it was released it was the breath of fresh air that many pc-users the world over had long been waiting for and whom, the majority of, have now eagerly adopted with open-arms because of it finally being stable enough to facilitate a decent desktop experience.

      Windows 7 still has a multitude of potential with countless business and educational applications alike and is still highly favored among pc-users in the Windows community.

      After all the heartaches we also put up with regarding Windows Media Player——-that too seems to have been finally void of all the hang-ups and crashes so prevalent in the builds prior to Win 7.

      With all that Windows 7 still brings to the table and considering the fact that it has been aggressively adopted as a trust-worthy desktop operating system by a large percentage of residential and business-users alike——–it baffles me completely that Microsoft would choose to get rid of something that essentially works great and still offers plenty of modern capabilities through a build that has proven its stability and stood the test of time thus far.
      The technology Windows 7 is built upon is far superior to that of all its predecessors—yet somehow Microsoft expects us to believe that it’s absolutely necessary to now get rid of it?!

      Microsoft has a history of dropping the ball right when things seem to be working out for the better——-and now it wants to drop one of the best working desktop operating systems it has ever created to date——-and all for the sake of a few technological advances that aren’t even garnering that much appeal for the everyday computer user whom just needs a solid system that works.

      In fact Windows 10 has been causing more problems and headaches for upgraders than we’ve ever faced with Win Vista & Win 7 combined. Add to the that all the privacy implications indicative of Win 10 and you might as well call the NSA directly yourself and ask them to infiltrate and setup shop right next-door to you.

      Instead of steam-rolling the perfectly fine-working Windows 7 product and effectively dismantling it so soon——-wouldn’t it make sense to keep Windows 7 around for a lot longer than any of its shoddy predecessors, simply due to its success alone?!——-Never mind the fact that it really is a solid operating system that, again, still has more than an ample amount of potential. No doubt, as we have learned after the Snowden leaks, there are other reasons Microsoft would do something like——-of which they only wished had never been made public——-(Still using Skype anyone?)

      I think Microsoft is being very, very, very unfair with regard to the length of time it has sought not to keep Windows 7 as a viable contender and sustainable software product! But then again——-its obviously not just Microsoft pulling the strings here…

      Readers, kindly be aware, that Microsoft has its own team of forum trolls just scouring the net looking for dissenters so as to quell us into submission…Whatever you do, don’t fall for it——-It’s just a ruse meant to create doubt about the ugly truth on why Microsoft is really attempting to force everyone to Windows 10.

      Windows 7 works just fine and it will continue to be immensely useful for many years to come!

  161. Jeff said on March 20, 2015 at 5:18 pm
    Reply

    Win 10 is really just Windows 8.2, IMO. Yeah they brought ‘the start menu back’, but did they really? It’s more like throwing a bit of table scraps to desktop users, while still obviously trying to force feed “modern” apps and the Windows Store on people.

    Windows 8 was the first Windows OS I’ve ever skipped (since 1992). The design was awful and the Metro interface was utterly useless. It was an obvious staging area for MS products, such as SkyDrive, Windows Store, etc. It was the first Windows OS that I felt like I lost some control of the OS and it gave me the feeling that I have on a tablet … that is the OS designer (or tablet manufacturer) has the majority of control.

    Windows 7, IMO, is damn near perfect, and I see zero reason to “upgrade” at this time.

    1. Anonymous said on August 16, 2015 at 4:48 pm
      Reply

      And the same crap was spewed about 7 when it came out, XP rules or have you forgotten that? Blah Blah Blah 10 has new tech ignore it if you wish but all games are running better for me in 10 and the holography coming will be interesting to say the least.

    2. John said on August 3, 2015 at 3:55 pm
      Reply

      You might be interested to know that windows 8/8.1 fans (yes we do exist) aren’t too happy with windows 10 either. People are calling windows 10 the best of both worlds, but in some ways it’s the worst of both. Why microsoft had to mash up two launch systems is beyond me. All MS had to do was:
      1) Let users chose between start screen (as per 8.1) or start menu (as per 7)
      2) Make modern apps like normal windows (yes they have done this)
      3) Leave the rest of it more or less alone

    3. Andy said on June 8, 2015 at 3:15 pm
      Reply

      Agree absolutely. Tried windows 10 preview and it looks terrible compared to windows 7. I use win 7 for home recording and I don’t trust microsoft with automatic updates that can’t be turned off. Way too much control. I was thinking of upgrading but after having tried windows 10 I won’t be. Windows 7 on an ssd drive looks the superior product for desktop pc’s.

      1. Alex Rivera said on August 3, 2015 at 6:03 pm
        Reply

        Hi, Andi,
        Could you please coment more on the advantages of Win & versus Win 10 with Home Recording. Which kinds of updates should I be concerned about?

      2. Tim said on June 19, 2015 at 9:10 am
        Reply

        Someone would create a registry hack to control automatic updates in windows 10. There is always a hidden registry hack for everything.

      3. TruthBeTold said on July 23, 2018 at 10:49 pm
        Reply

        Not in Windows 10. Microsoft has made sure of that by completely locking down certain sets of keys.

  162. Vorsic said on March 20, 2015 at 5:15 pm
    Reply

    The only reason I run Windows is for games. I do everything else in a web browser. As far as I know Direct X 12 will be exclusive to Windows 10 so I have to upgrade. I don’t really care what they do with the interface. As long as I can launch Firefox and Steam, I’m good.

  163. tinwheeler said on March 20, 2015 at 5:14 pm
    Reply

    Martin, I totally agree with Dylan. I don’t mean to be trite but the old adage I’ve used on here before still goes. ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it””. Nuff said.

  164. Dylan said on March 20, 2015 at 5:06 pm
    Reply

    Martin, I applaud you for not upgrading to Windows 10 because it is not a true upgrade in every sense. It’s like some steps ahead, but several steps back. And Microsoft doesn’t care no matter how much feedback you send about those steps backwards. This trend started majorly with Vista but with Windows 8/8.1 it became simply unacceptable as the number of regressive changes skyrocketed.

    I recommend you to move all your systems to Windows 7 SP1 and not “support” Microsoft by even using a product like Windows 8/8.1. Windows 7 is supported until 2020. It’s time all PC users united and did that if they care about the future direction of Windows – extreme dumbing down and total loss of end user control over settings and the UI.

    1. Jill said on March 5, 2016 at 8:01 pm
      Reply

      Said wonderfully but also consider the telemetry and spying that Windows 10 is doing, even if you tell it not to. It phones home to the Microsoft collective servers often. And now you have to watch out because some of those spying tactics have made their way onto the Windows 7 and 8 product lines. Microsoft has this huge fetish to spy on people and I do not like that. They do not own my computer and if they say that they own their OS because its just a “license” then fine, buy my computer for me or shut up Microsoft.

      Whats sad is that I’ve been programming for MS since DOS 1.0. I will never ever move to Windows 10. Its Windows 7 for me until 2020 and then to another OS because my guess is they’re not going to listen to one damn person.

    2. Gary said on July 23, 2015 at 6:44 am
      Reply

      It could not have been said any better my freind (Dylan). The obvious push by microsoft to lessen user access to the data managed by a windows based system leaves me feeling absolutely betrayed!!

    3. Bob Gibson said on July 19, 2015 at 6:34 pm
      Reply

      AMEN Brother;
      You hit the nail square on the head!!

      1. S&W said on August 15, 2015 at 10:42 pm
        Reply

        Why support the crappy Microsoft at all, when you can use the Linux free platform.

    4. Martin Brinkmann said on March 20, 2015 at 5:17 pm
      Reply

      I believe that Windows 10 is better in most aspects as Windows 8.1 which is why I will upgrade my PC to it. Plus, I need on system running Windows 10 anyway for stories about it here on Ghacks.

      1. Tom said on March 20, 2015 at 6:43 pm
        Reply

        Running Win 7 and do not plan to upgrade because of Martin’s reasons mentioned in the post but also partially because of things Dylan said, especially about freely configuring the UI as you wish. Possibilities in this regard has been greatly reduced in 8+ and some of them cannot be changed by using 3rd party software, either.

  165. GunGunGun said on March 20, 2015 at 4:54 pm
    Reply

    I hope you will have a review about Windows 7 vs 8 vs 10 about perfomance (RAM, CPU, Disk’s Read and Write)

    1. Trixter808 said on December 18, 2015 at 3:43 am
      Reply

      windows 8 is all about money they nickel and dime you to use stuff that was free and easy to use now its a pain in the but and you have to shell out money for looking at your own dvd not to mention anything else you mite want to do with and it”s the same story for app’s that should come with the PC you just shelled $300-$2,000 for a new PC and then they still want more just like the government they must have taken over Microsoft like there not getting enough of our money as it is bunch of greedy don’t care about anyone but themselves generation never got spanked or made to pay for doing something wrong

    2. Howard said on August 7, 2015 at 7:28 pm
      Reply

      I can tell you a lot about an upgrade from 7 to 10. I’m going through it now. I had an older win7 machine with middle to lower specs to begin with. The hardware was aged 4 years as well. First off, if you don’t have a high spec machine I wouldn’t do it especially if it’s not a clean install meaning wiping out 7 and installing 10 clean. The ram and cpu usage is considerable higher putting a good deal of strain on my older machine with 4GB ram and slower dual core CPU. It works and is nice, but it has bugs. I’m having a heck of time with drivers, specifically my IDT codec-HP Laptop Pavilion G7. The sound is actually popping, then I get BSOD over and over, but reboots so far. I’m a die hard so I’ve been trying to solve it. Most people would have already gone back which Microsoft allows you to do. If you do upgrade like this do not delete or clean any registry entries. It will be difficult if not impossible to go back without reinstalling the whole operating system from scratch. I’ve reloaded audio drivers like 5 times already with no luck. The problem is compatible drivers aren’t available for 10 for my machine or through MS updates. The other issues are you lose the Media center, leaves tons of entries behind after upgrade in registry, plus you gain a few good things but nothing I couldn’t live without. Cortana still needs work. Directx 12 means nothing to a non-gamer which wouldn’t be happening on my machine anyway. The fonts are clean, and the interface is bland compared to 7, but it’s nice. The start menu is nice, but like someone commented you have all these places for settings including what I did have in the control panel. The menus are like 8.1 and pretty nice with extra features and copying capabilities, but nothing that I personally really needed. They’re actually too complex if you don’t use the header features. Boot and shutdown times are longer. A new machine or a hi spec clean install would probably be faster. Win7 was working fine for me, and it’s quite possible that I had a hardware issue that just decided to rear its head or the upgrade is causing it. It doesn’t seem to crash unless I use flash or one of my players, but that remains to be seen. The laptop could be dying. I just bought a 64gb stick to get most of my stuff off the machine just in case it dies. MS just pushed out their first patch. It did fix other things. There are some convenient features compared to 7, like maps, twitter, FB but that all comes at a CPU and memory cost. I can just log into the sites. BTW, Win updates are forced. You can’t opt out easily. I think MS is going for the kill on services.that’s what 8 on have been all about.

      1. Kevin said on August 24, 2015 at 7:40 pm
        Reply

        I tried it for two weeks and went back to 7. Now Microsoft will not stop trying to reinstall it on my pc automatically. I keep turning it off but it keeps checking the box to install it with other updates, and every time I log off it shows updates but its just windows 10 hoping I will forget and click shut down so it can auto install again. The driver problem you mentioned is a major thing too nothing works properly and since my gaming headset didn’t have drivers Microsoft just uninstalled it for me. And amazingly they did the same thing with some older programs I had to just deleted them completely from my hard drive with out asking. Microsoft is very invasive with windows 10 and they don’t care how you like it. If they see fit they will remove things from your pc. I payed money for those programs just to have Microsoft delete them, and not say anything no warnings it just removes them. As for going back to 7 the programs are still deleted from hard drive and have to be reinstalled, but now so does 7 because windows 10 is still removing things now. Microsoft is trying to make your pc a smart phone app this app that you have to buy our apps. Looks like Microsoft isn’t even hitting their every other operating system streak any more. Its immoral and borderline illegal what they are doing, but they don’t care cause you have to click agree on their terms agreement if you want to use your own pc.

    3. Ryan said on June 21, 2015 at 4:02 pm
      Reply

      I too won’t be upgrading to windows 10. I have found that updating windows automatically seriously slows down my pc.
      I too find that windows 7 is perfect for my needs and as I own 576 games as it is, I won’t need directx 12 as I won’t be buying any more games…

    4. Pearl said on March 21, 2015 at 10:43 am
      Reply

      I would never give up Windows 7 if I just had it back! I now have a new Dell that shipped with Windows 8.1. It is the most frustrating OS I have ever used. Would like to know when Windows 10 will be available.

      1. Mike said on March 31, 2023 at 6:41 am
        Reply

        HEY! what do you use to screen record with?

      2. silverfox43 said on May 15, 2016 at 5:09 am
        Reply

        You still don’t have to upgrade to Win10. It’s easy to downgrade back to Windows 7 and users whom care anything at all about their privacy and security should give it just as much consideration as they would the types of locks we put on our doors and windows at home…

        Windows 7 is still a very robust and versitile OS, of which you can still do just about anything with, and of which is still highly configurable to your own liking. The biggest problem with Windows 10 is it’s threat to your privacy and the fact that they take your complete control of the system away from you.

        One example of this is the Windows Update module. How many can sympathize with the fact that it really pays off to be scrupulous about what Microsoft is willling to send to our machines?——-The answer for me is a definite “Yes I can.” History has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that letting Microsoft have complete control over this aspect of our systems is not always in our best interests. Just tally up the many thousands of patch-flaws and update blunders the company has been rocked with over the past 20 years alone and its enough to make your head spin.

        The fact that Windows 7 users still have complete control over this aspect of the OS is a very good thing and for the pc-enthusiast, something we should never dismiss in favor of yet another marketing-ploy by Microsoft.

        The fact that the company was already partially implicated in the Snowden leaks as one of the many companies conceding to covert tactics being used by the NSA, should be enough to give anyone serious pause about what type of programs we permit such unbridled access to with regard to our personal lives. Starting with Windows 8, it has already been revealed that Microsoft made some adjustments to the program-code to permit them and their third-party affiliates greater, more detailed access to our machines. At least with Windows 7 you can still completely put the kibosh on all of that stuff.

        It’s no longer a (P)ersonal (C)omputer when you can no longer make it personal to you…

        Beware of the Evil Empire! Resist their attempts to commandeer your life into their pretty little box full of ad-hideous marketing techniques and, dare I say it, ‘Microsoft-style’ forced integration!——-We all know how well that went for Google when it chose to force unwanted nonsense onto it’s user-base. And to top it all off, Google’s CEO is still trying to remove himself from culpability for the many privacy and anti-trust violations Google now faces all around the world.

        Make no mistake about——-these companies are messing with our lives by manipulating the system to their advantage but at our expense!

        The true cost can easily be measured by how much of your privacy and your life they want to take away from you piece by piece, in one EULA after another full of vague explainations about their practices, but to their advantage, stern rules on how you forfeit your rights by agreeing to their carefully crafted policies.

        Don’t give in to their demands and deceptive mind-games that they have played and will continue to do so until we say——-Enough is Enough!

        Put it this way, if some stranger started to follow your children around everywhere they went, everyday, with a camera on their shoulder and a notepad and pen——-watching and recording every single thing your child does——-don’t tell me there isn’t a parent out there whom wouldn’t feel the need to immediately intervene——-even by force if necessary!

        The fact of the matter is that, we are, figuratively speaking, the children in this example, while companies like Microsoft and Google are really the strangers following us around, watching and recording everything we do just so they can make insane amounts of money——-again, at expense, and again, the real price we pay if we concede to their manipulative tactics are our rights to personal privacy.

        These companies are eroding our freedoms on purpose. Behind closed doors, they are really working hand-in-glove with the oligarghical factions of the world whom wield vast control over nation-states and whom also operate under a cloak of National Security. Ironically enough, it’s their very ideaologies which seek to directly threaten our way of life and usher in far greater suffering in the future than we can ever imagine possible.

        When ordinary citizens like you and I dream big, usually its in a way in which we hope to attain independence from a system that is constantly treading upon us and making our lives more difficult with each passing moment——-When the oligarghs and corporate thugs of the world dream big, they do so with the intent to contol and opress us in ways that make them rich——all the while, us commoners just cotinue to get sick.

        What’s really disgusting is that some of them have been so bold as to even publically acknowledge this to be true and often, when their caught spilling the beans about their desire for globalization (which, in reality is a misnomer), they do so with such a smug look on their face like they’re proud of that fact.

        Users, ordinary citizens, or should I say commoners, as the oligargh’s like to refer to us, really need to be very aware of how we use our digital communications and what we do with our machines. This is that serious!

      3. Rizooka said on January 12, 2016 at 7:25 am
        Reply

        Its quite easy to navigate. I have worked on many computers since the first windows 8 “upgrade”, however I call it 8 and above windows for dummies. They remind me of the toys they sell to preschoolers with the large buttons overlay so undeveloped brains can use them. I certainly don’t think they encourage computer learning. Most computers that I fix the owners don’t even know that the desktop is behind the big buttons. If it can’t be found on the preschoolers screen……. I am not saying adults have underdeveloped brains, just that microsoft is treating them that way and it is not doing anyone any favors. As for my own computer, it will stay with windows 7. I like to control my own system without having to close the preschool window. I don’t think microsoft meant to be insulting, but instead was going for “user friendly”.

      4. Pen said on October 11, 2015 at 10:18 pm
        Reply

        Following on from my last post.
        I have given it 3 months now and in that time I’ve had my router replaced with a fritzbox and have re-installed windows 10.
        I have had very little in disruption this time. It’s now been a week since re-installing win 10 on my desktop which replaces windows 7. I’ll give it another week before attempting the upgrade on my laptop from win 8. but so far so good.
        I will say that I think that the windows 10 upgrade in principle is a great thing, The finish of endless new operating systems. Now windows 10 is permanent and will only require updating rather than installing complete new OS.
        No matter what you think of the upgrade it’s still better than the restrictive Apple OS which isn’t so much a computer software as a multimedia system which is why it’s so popular with kids who want to listen to music and advertise their lives on social media rather than do useful work with their machines.
        I’m still a Microsoft fan and given the choice between windows and Apple I’ll always choose windows
        At lease I don’t have to go through Itunes for every little thing I wish to do.

      5. SortingHat said on September 5, 2015 at 9:43 pm
        Reply

        Windows 10 is designed for *social media* only as big industry is trying hard to push people in that direction.

        Look at what EA is doing to the Need For Speed franchise with it’s new *Grip* Game that is going to implement facebook *likes* in order to advance to the next level/rank. Sorry but nope! They seem to have forgotten their Sim City 2013 fiasco in which they had to issue a half hearted public apology *which is extremely rare of them*.

        I would love to see a Battle for Middle Earth 3 or something like that since the 2nd one came out in 06 and have the 3rd one take full advantage of DirectX12 drivers to *entice* people into getting Win 10 especially due to the Hobbit movies that were recently released.

        Battle For Middle Earth 2 focuses more on *The north* where you can have storyline *which is weak* or the skirmishes which are fun as hell using locations mostly from the mythology of middle earth where the first BFME is more movie centric focusing on Gondor and Rohan with some Mordor.

        I enjoy playing as Isenguard using the Wargs and *crazies* the glowing urks that costs more then normal urks.

      6. Pen said on August 15, 2015 at 6:22 pm
        Reply

        Do NOT upgrade to windows 10 unless you wish to lose all but ethernet connectivity.
        I did so and have no wan, intermittent lan.
        This is the poorest supported upgrade in the history of windows (and there have been some beauties)
        I kid you not. I have been updating drivers and trawling the internet for days trying to get answers to my connectivity problems and Microsoft are just hiding in the shadows.

      7. Beau Bander said on August 6, 2015 at 4:37 am
        Reply

        I’ll never upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10….

        Windows 7 works great for me, and is familiar.
        Why would I want to pay for solitaire or suffer through irritating ads when it’s free for me right not without ads.
        (for those who say that you’re getting Windows 10 for free, in one year it won’t be free and 10 Professional will cost $199. And still you’ll have ads in Solitaire or have to pay to remove them. After paying $199..? Total greedy bullshit).

        Also, you do realize that while all the news says that Microsoft has decided to include free DVD playback support in Windows 10, they also say it’s free “for a limited time”. So you’ll eventually have to pay for DVD playback support. Again after you pay $199. for Windows 10 professional one year out. So much greed for two simple things that have always, and should, be included in an operating system that you will in one year have to pay $199. for, in the case of Windows 10 if you decide to wait to upgrade.

        So I won’t support what I think is a rip-off attempt by Microsoft, who hides these facts as well as possible and just screams “Upgrade to Windows 10 totally free”.. It’s anything but totally free and I don’t approve of deceptive marketing.

        Regards.

      8. DonGateley said on April 20, 2015 at 12:45 am
        Reply

        @Adam: have you tried the Start8 application? With it and its “boot to desktop” option I hardly know I’m on 8.1 and not 7. There is also a Start10 in process so hopefully the goodness will carry forward.

      9. Adam said on April 19, 2015 at 5:38 pm
        Reply

        I was so close to purchasing a new Win 8.1 PC since my old Dell Inspiripon is on its last leg.

        However, I remembered my misery with the OS, tried it again and, still hate it. Thus, I am getting a HP Envy 15t running Windows 7 Pro (I also have an ultimate upgrade too) . If I were to get Win 10, I would have it duel boot between Win 7 and Win 10. First, I would duel boot 2 versions of Windows 7 and then use the second one for the “free” upgrade.

        My logic is that to me Windows 10 looks cool (and is definetly better than 8 and 8.1 combined). However, it lacks in the simplicity of Windows 7.

        Even with Classic shell, the experience does not cut it!

      10. Nicolas said on March 23, 2015 at 12:12 pm
        Reply

        Actually, the Windows license allows you to “downgrade” your OS to an older version, if that’s what you want.
        All you need is a Windows 7 DVD and a corresponding product key, which will be gladly provided by Microsoft as long as you can justify for your Windows 8.1 license.

      11. Wally said on March 23, 2015 at 12:06 pm
        Reply

        Seriously, give Classic Shell a try. You can configure it such that your computer behaves almost identical to Windows 7. There may be some edge cases where there are differences, but for my daily usage, it works just like Win7.

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.