Windows 10 preview on death row, will be executed on Thursday Those who downloaded many Windows 10 preview editions will have to upgrade by Thursday or face an unbootable PC. On Thursday, 11 of the past 14 preview builds will time out, Microsoft support engineer RajithR explained in a forum posting. Builds 9926 through to 10166 will go out of service if users haven't upgraded them in the …
8.1 w/ Classic Shell is just as good, if not better, than 7 IMHO.
However 10 is just a huge mess for me. On one of my Acer laptops, 7 & 8.1 work fine, as soon as I go to 10 (either clean install or upgrade), the 2nd HDD and DVD drives both stop working. I've tried all kinds of workarounds, registry edits, hacks, etc. I've just given up and gone back to 8.1. Next step, Mac!
I have an old laptop running XP (it's no longer connected to the web) for various legacy applications. I saw no need to upgrade it to Win7, so definitely won't be upgrading to Win10.
I suspect a great number of people are in the same situation. It works, it's standalone, so why upgrade it?
Well, my dad updated his and mum's computers to Win 10 (from Win8 and Win 7 respectively). Mum now can't use her PC because nothing is where it was, what's these tiles for? etc.
Microsoft seriously needs a Windows 7 desktop including start menu and menus for computer illerate people (like my mum). Telling them to re-learn does not encourage them to use technology.
Me? Win 7 and Ubuntu for PC's , Android for tablets. Does what I need.
I've used Classic Shell with 8/8.1/8.1u since launch, and it is excellent. But why should I need it for Windows 10? Classic Shell was required because the clowns of Redmond messed up the whole UI. WIndows 10's only promise was a fixed UI, and a side order of silly toys like Cortana.
They delivered the silly toys, they didn't fix the UI, so why would anybody upgrade from either W7, or W8+Classic Shell? And that's why I'm not taking up Microsoft's "free upgrade", because it isn't. It might be free, but it isn't an upgrade, so why take a chance on having to find where they've hidden everything, risk things that work suddenly not working, and have to reinstall Classic Shell?
I hope that business schools around the world are teaching Microsoft's OS strategy as a real time masterclass in how not to do things.
This is actually a very good question. Looking back at the development of MS-DOS and Windows and we see a very different Microsoft; a company that on seeing a successful essential addition to Dos/Windows, would include their own variant in the next release. So having made a mistake with Win8, why didn't they move fast and rectify it?
I suggest having basically omitted the Start Menu from Win8.1 and Win10, MS have given themselves a new headache - can they actually reinstate the start menu without causing third-parties such as Stardock (Start8) and Ivo Beltchev (Classic Shell) to call foul?
I suspect many people on the earlier builds are there because they still haven't found a way to get them to upgrade. And why bother anyway - they won't activate any more, or so I understand.
No problem for me. Mine were much more recent, but I toasted them anyway. Taking up valuable disk space to no good end.
"What Microsoft has to crack with Windows 10 is the XP problem"
But the XP problem wasn't hard to crack, MS had with XP created a loyal and profitable business user base, who would most probably happily upgraded to XP-R2 if MS had the commercial sense to offer it. Instead MS decided that the way to deal with these loyal users was to punish them and in no uncertain terms kill off XP and the product stability it represented.
What MS really has to crack with Windows 10, which it is currently failing to do, is to convince enterprise that it is still a serious player in the enterprise desktop game. With Win7 reaching end of life in January 2020, and we are approaching the end of 2015, time is not on MS's side.
Exactly Roland6! Look at OSX, it's hardly changed in yonks yet they keep releasing new versions but they don't screw around with the core functionality of the interface and it seems to keep their fans happy and loyal. MS know that for the most part they have a captive audience with Windows on most typical PC owners machines, so they know that users will more or less put up with any old shite flavour-of-the-month interface they decide to release this year.
"No, Microsoft has to crack the Windows 10 phoning home problem."
Windows 10 is "essentially a free upgrade for the first year" translates as:
'these handcuffs won't cost you anything if you put them on within a year, after which there's no taking them off--since you won't be able to go back those old, obsolete ones--but at that point, for a modest monthly fee, we will loosen them for you to keep the swelling down'?
Treating your Insider diehard fans like software pirates and criminals.
At least show your appreciation to them for reporting bugs and suggesting features by allowing them to keep the Preview installation indefinitely.No one is going to 'steal sales' of legal copies of Windows 10.
If you worked for Microsoft and actually wanted to destroy the business, how would you go about it?
Well, you'd probably want to make sure at least two versions of your flagship product were unusable to most people who had the previous one. Then alienating your customers would be a sound next step. There are dozens and dozens of previously large and successful corporations which have committed suicide by strategic stupidity, usually because it meant someone got a bigger bonus this year.
Seems like the carcass of Nokia could not help Microsoft's mobile ambitions.
If you somehow still want to use the Microsoft ecosystem, most of it has already been ported over to iOS and Android. Skype, Outlook, Onedrive, Office etc. What then, is the unique selling point of Windows phones?
Let's not even talk about the fluff e.g. games, photography. If banks and newspapers won't make a Windows mobile app, that is the end for Microsoft's mobile ambitions.
Had Steve Ballmer been sacked in 2008-2009 and someone competent been chosen to replace him, things might have been different. Oh no, "Microsoft is still making money and I still receive my MSFT share dividends!" was the knee-jerk response.
It's too late now. But feel free to continue burning money. After all, Microsoft has lots of money.
What then, is the unique selling point of Windows phones?
Cheaper than Apple, not as painful for IT departments as the million and one unsupported Android variants a business quickly finds on its asset register.
Note that "popular", "nice to use", "requested by users", "good" aren't part of that proposition. The day of WIndows Phone may yet come, but if it does, it will be exclusively in situations where somebody else decides what phone you should have.
If the laptops I have end up needing a re-install, which I think it will, it won't be Windows 10.
One will get Linux, the other will get XP, (for the occasions I actually am forced to use Windows).
I guess the next thing will be for them to kill Skype on XP. (Which will probably kill the work around, that I just found out about that allows version 2.x to run on Macs)
Get a copy of VirtualBox for free and bung XP inside a VM, freeze/unfreeze it when you need it. I have to use XP for a very old app and remote access software, a VM works perfectly as XP can be run in as little as 512M memory on any host O/S I choose, Windows, OSX or Linux whichever I happen to find myself playing with that month. VirtualBox has a version for main O/Ss. Alright VB is owned by the Great Satan that is Oracle but it's still a free download and less grief than VMWare or HyperV.
As a Win 7 user, Win 10 represents a step backwards.
Performance tests show no change in performance between the two.
The only thing Win10 brings is less privacy, more survielance, and a more closed and closing
operating system that can restrict what hardware changes you may wish to make.
To top that off, many programs and games do not run yet on Win10 representing a step backwards in utility.
When my Win7 box dies, I will be going Linux. Win10 jumps the shark.
Win 7 user also (again).
Tried Win 10 on my home built desktop/game rig. (i7 3770k, GTX 780, 16GB RAM yada yada).
System was rock solid with Win 7 64 bit, can't remember the last time I had a blue screen, or needed to hard reset etc.
Tried Win 10 for a couple of weeks. No complaints during install other than stating I needed to reinstall VMWare, and booted up fine. Steam etc ran okay.
A few days later noticed the system would no longer shut-down. Selecting shut-down would start the process, you'd then be greeted by the shut-down screen with the spinning circle of dots, which would sit there for about 10 minutes. Eventually some time-out would kick in, and the system would reset itself, and so start the boot up process back into Windows! Once in Windows, no errors reported. Only way to shut-down was a hard power off, button of death move. Seemed to be some power management issue (unable to switch something off).
After that it was downhill, drivers failing to load properly, HDDs showing as failing (including a new 3TB one), despite being perfectly okay when view with appropriate tools. Constantly spinning up HDDs that were not in use (I run on SSDs, the HDDs are data storage only, with a few VM images that were not in use). Screen lock-ups, inability to recognise some devices on boot (like the keyboard or mouse), devices dropping out, and back in again as if being unplugged, and so on.
Hit the 'Get me the hell out of here' button under Recovery, to restore my Win 7.
Had to re-do a couple of drivers, and some apps that had updated to their Win 10 versions (which didn't play nice under 7). And of course removed and blocked the appropriate Windows updates, to get rid of the annoying Windows 10 branding that was added to Windows Update.
But once done, I'm back on a rock solid Win 7 system again. I have no plans to go to Win 10 any time soon. If I ever do (first time something comes out on Win 10 only, so maybe in 2021), I'll likely dual-boot.
What Microsoft has to crack with Windows 10 is the XP problem. About 12 per cent of Windows users are still running the outdated and unsecured operating system. Upgrading all the way to Windows 10 is going to be an arduous process for them.
Microsoft aren't likely to completely crack the XP problem if the past is anything to go by. It took many years for Windows 3, 95 and 98 to fall completely off the radar and Windows Server 2003 is hardly the only unsupported version of the server system still found in the wild. In a lot of cases upgrading the OS isn't going to be that arduous a task. Chances are that upgrading the hardware and porting the data and software will be the biggest bugger.
But that always depends on if they can, if they want to and if they can afford to.
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