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Windows 10 Preview - First Impressions?

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  1. BigAndos

    Windows 10 Preview - First Impressions?

    Thought I'd start a hopefully flamewar free topic for anyone who has given Windows 10 a test drive. I downloaded it last night onto my Asus Zenbook. Impressions so far:

    1. The upgrade from Windows 7 was a doddle. Apart from pressing a button to restart once I didn't have to do anything for the upgrade to proceed. It took about 1 hour all in.

    2. Bootup time slightly slower than Windows 7 but I would probably do a clean install for a real life upgrade.

    3. New start menu is ok. That's it, just ok. I don't think the live tiles add very much but at least it wasn't as wide as it appeared in screenshots I've seen. Seems to be a real lack of customisation options apart from adding/removing live tiles.

    I haven't had much time to do a really deep test but most of my applications and drivers seem work ok. Therefore verdict thus far is "not bad but why would I buy it?". Thoughts from anyone else?

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    1. sltech
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      Re: Windows 10 Preview - First Impressions?

      I like it so far, and I'm a beta tester/"Windows Insider". It's better than Win8 definitely, and once rid of all the major bugs, equal to Win7. It's also cool that as a Win8 purchaser, I get a free upgrade for the life of my device. I'm guessing that if I get a new motherboard, you have to purchase a new copy.

      I also like the fact that MS is actively soliciting feedback, and some of mine has been brutally frank. Hopefully they won't be arrogant and will actually listen to what people want. If you're going to pay good money for an OS (when Linux is free), you better get your money's worth.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    It's an improvement

    I hated Windows 8 for many reasons but I thought I'd give 10 a look (can't comment on it otherwise).

    It installed and ran fine in a Virtualbox VM on Windows 7. I liked the way various privacy-related settings were offered during the setup.

    It's definitely better now that it goes to a proper desktop.

    On the downside - I had to sign in to outlook.com to use it and I didn't see any way to avoid it. The presumption is that you want to be online for everything you do (it seems), and I'm not sure I want to go that far.

    Other than that, i'd say it isn't a turkey. Maybe I'll come to love it. But maybe not.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Phil W
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      Re: It's an improvement

      Not tried it yet but if it's anything like 8.1 you can circumvent the online account requirement by simply disconnecting frim the network during setup.

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      1. Phil W
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        Re: It's an improvement

        Have just installed, with network cable unplugged and no Microsoft account required (obviously need to add one if you want to use the Store)

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It's an improvement

          Also it's possible to subsequently create a user with a username rather than a Microsoft account ID. So they seem to have covered the point.

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          1. jason 7
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            Re: It's an improvement

            Yes to get past the need for using a Outlook account you simply click the "Create new account" and then you see an option to login using a plain local account.

            A little counter intuitive but going forward the more logins they get the better for them I guess. Plus it helps when customers moan they can't get into the Apps store.

            I have tried 8/10 with a MS login and its pretty neat as soon as I logged into my first 10 VM it automatically looked like my Windows 8.1 machine even down to the desktop theme.

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  3. alisnikol

    Windows 10 much better than windows8

    Well, no doubt windows8 has many pitfalls and it is legging behind in terms of many features but now Windows10 solved most of the problems. As a developers I have tested it and found improvement in windows10. Hope it will make you happy to all. Thanks.

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  4. MikeHuk

    Win 10 is really looking good!

    I am writing this comment on the latest build (10122) of Windows 10 preview and as a Windows 7 user am very impressed so far. I loaded it onto a fresh partition on a Lenovo Laptop which took ages to boot and crawled under Windows 7 Professional. It has rejuvenated this laptop! boots in about 40 seconds and is much, much faster in use. I loaded up some old games(Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena) and they run better than on my desktop Win 7 PC. All my usual apps run perfectly - Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, VLC, Irfanview, etc. I have actually grown to like the start menu and the tile apps - news, finance, food, sport, video, photos, etc. As someone who never upgraded to Win 8/8.1 as I really was put off the new interface, I now am using Win 10 preview in preference to my Quad core Win 7 PC.

    There are still a few bugs and it is a bit rough around the edges but it is stable and no show stoppers.

    If you haven't tried it give it a go.

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  6. David 132 Silver badge
    Windows

    Does anyone else think Win10 is a privacy nightmare?

    I just installed one of the latest builds (101xx).

    During installation, I chose "custom" rather than "express" settings. That's where I started to get a bad feeling...

    1) The "customize settings" option is tiny text, but the "Express" settings option is a BIG PROMINENT BUTTON.

    2) The default option in just about every case is the worse privacy choice. Had I left them unchanged, the OS would be sending info to Microsoft about my: contacts, browsing habits, location, downloads, applications. It would be allowing apps to view my location, associate me with a default advertising ID, and access just about everything in my profile.

    3) By default the Search box on the task-bar / Start Menu searches via Bing for everything I type. So if I type "common", for example, the top result is the local file "Show/Hide Common Icons on the desktop" - but I also get search predictions showing what every schmuck on the web has searched for ("Common Venereal diseases", etc). To turn this behaviour off, I had to ferret deep into the Group Policy editor (which, I'm guessing, won't even be an option on "Home" versions of the OS).

    That latter point is the one that concerns me; what if I don't WANT Microsoft/Bing/their advertisers to get copies of all my searches? Hypothetically, what if I work for Acme Corp, and search for a local file called "Acme Corp Bankruptcy Plans July 2015.xlsx", or less dramatically, "Acme Corp takeover of FooBar Corp plans.docx"? MS will have a record of that term. Would anyone else using Bing to search for "Acme Corp" get that as a search prediction?

    I'd rather have the Windows 7 behaviour, where the Start menu search box was limited to local files/applications.

    Am I being a tinfoil-hatter, or does anyone else think this OS is shaping up to be sinister? Considering all the noise Microsoft have been making about protecting users' privacy, this seems... hypocritical? Their default stance with Windows 10 seems to be to datamine the user.

    Apart from that I think it's generally an improvement over Windows 8. Anyone else agree?

    2 0 Reply
    1. jake Silver badge
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      Re: Does anyone else think Win10 is a privacy nightmare?

      IMO, Redmond & Cupertino have both been privacy nightmares for well over a decade.

      1 1 Reply

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. David 132 Silver badge
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          Thumb Down

          Re: Does anyone else think Win10 is a privacy nightmare?

          I'm pretty sure that @david 132 means, "privacy nightmare relative to other Windows".

          Correct. I should have made that clearer. And yes, I know Windows 7 isn't spotless in this regard, but what irked me (and prompted my rant above) is that EVERY. SINGLE. OPTION. in Windows 10 seems to be geared towards "tell us about everything you do". The "predictive browsing", for example, which is described as - paraphrasing - "To predict which web-pages you'll want to view and pre-load them for you, details of your browsing habits will be sent to Microsoft". Is that not the least-privacy-friendly and most intrusive way to accomplish the goal? Why not do it locally? "Oh, every day for the last 3 weeks he reads bbc.co.uk/news then goes to bbc.co.uk/news/UK, so I will pre-load the latter while he's reading the former"?

          And it's not as if this related to it being a public beta; as far as I can tell, these are the standard options that every user will face. If the options were prefaced with something like "Because this is a preview, we need to collect as much information about how you use this OS as possible." that would be different.

          Oh, and on that topic; the "feedback" tool only works if you sign into Windows with your MSDN/Windows Insider cloud login. I don't; I always use a local account to sign in (because I don't see any advantages to giving MS & the NSA/GCHQ/whoever my username and password). So I can't submit any feedback on Windows 10. Ergo, Microsoft are excluding the voices of people like me who are concerned about privacy, and (arguably?) have valid points. When they release Windows 10 and people complain about the pervasive snooping, they will look around, bemused, and say "But no-one gave us any negative feedback about this during the beta phase..."

          Grrr.

          1 0 Reply

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    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Out of interest, (and this is a genuine question, as I am a complete non-Microsoft shop here), how aware were you/would a typical user be, of the issues you describe, if you had done the, 'express', install?

      That's a good question 1980s_coder, and I don't know the answer. I haven't tested it, because I always when installing software, pick the "custom install" option; a habit that has allowed me to dodge countless Ask Toolbar / Bonzi Buddy installs, for a start!

      Would it make any sense for MS to pick the most privacy-friendly options when "Express" is selected, but pre-select the opposites when "Custom" is chosen?

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  9. Aasha09

    Windows 10 Preview - First Impressions?

    1. Everyone told them this idea was stupid to begin with and they insisted on doing it anyways

    2. Beta testing is a thing, you can test features without putting them in the final version.

    3. You can actually add an alternative option rather then removing the current method of doing things. If people got a choice between aero and that metro shit there wouldn't be a problem. But they removed aero because they didn't want people choosing to not use metro. They overestimated their power over users.

    4. Having support for multiple APIs does not, in fact, make an OS unmanageable.

    1 0 Reply
  10. cutesunita21

    Many apps are undergoing development mode. However start menu and settings application avail convenience.

    0 0 Reply
  11. sunsj

    I have update all my PC to WIN10, it's great.

    0 0 Reply

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