Windows 10

I never understood that hatred

Same here. I think it was oversold, and people installed in on older hardware, so it didn’t work that well. On up to date systems, I think it was fine. I had it at work as well as home and didn’t have any issues.

Yep Cougar, the Sub deal might not be on but the tech could be in there, the ability to throw a kill switch could be in the guts of it.

I really can’t envisage Microsoft having a massive push to get people onto a common infrastructure, including giving out loads of free software to millions of software pirates, just to go “gotcha, that’ll be a hundred quid please” in a year’s time. Aside from being a PR disaster, it’d be the antithesis of what they seem to be trying to achieve.

you tried 7?

Of course. Sat at work in front of 7 right now, with a second copy running in a VM.

It’s really not very different from Vista to be honest. Only immediate thing I can think of is the window docking which is sometimes handy.

people installed in on older hardware, so it didn’t work that well.

That’s actually a very good point. Vista was diabolically slow on RAM-starved machines.

Interesting theme here amongst the “professionals” on this thread – I also had Vista running quite happily until the laptop it was on finally died (my other laptop had 7 until that died, hence Fedora and Windows VMs at the moment). Though as I hinted up there we also still had XP running until last week, and I found nothing wrong with that either – we’re still in 32 bit land though, and I wouldn’t touch XP x64.

It’s only an OS at the end of the day – like molgrips, and I suspect the others happily using Vista, I’d rather it got in the way as little as possible. Those machines we were running XP on were also running Centos 6, but you’d never know (just as you’d never know that bit switched to Fedora 21 with the W7 upgrade – decided not to go with 22 as I’d not had time to test the release version).

I really can’t envisage Microsoft having a massive push to get people onto a common infrastructure, including giving out loads of free software….

Agreed – Microsoft seem to be evolving to the new reality of free software everywhere and constant upgrades rather than big retail boxed versions.

The move towards supporting C#/.Net on Linux, as open source, and pushing into the Internet of Things arena shows a new direction for them.

Those machines we were running XP on were also running Centos

Funnily enough, that’s what I have in the other VM.

Does the upgrade require you to reinstall all your software or have they finally worked out how to keep your installation and replace only the OS?

i think MS dropped such an enormous bollock with 8 that they have to get everyone on side with 10. hardly anyone in industrial ( manufacturing ) use has gone to 8 IME.

Cortana doesn’t work; voice recognition doesn’t work

That could be down to accent settings, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve only got the US version in the preview.

that was actually stated in some of the ‘before you download’ blurb i read – cortana only enabled in the US version.
WRT Vista the howls of frustration from my fellow engineers in the next office who all had new PCs at the same time, all with Vista, was enough to persuade me to hang on for 7, which i’ve found excellent. have the preview installed on a laptop here. haven’t used it a great deal but it looks a lot more 7 alike than 8.

we’ll have to do a ‘please don’t update yet’ PIB to our Customers too.

They’ve said as much in their press releases – for those who’ve missed it 10 will be the last “version” of Windows before they go to rolling upgrades.

Does the upgrade require you to reinstall all your software or have they finally worked out how to keep your installation and replace only the OS?

colleague ran the upgrade on a system with 7. doesn’t look a lot different ( looks different to the preview i installed clean ).

I’ve been running Windows 10 as my main OS for a few months on a desktop and a laptop. A lot of the stuff that’s been added is geared towards power users e.g. better command prompt, virtual desktops, etc.

Vista got more bearable once the service packs were released but the original version was dreadful. I pulled an old 8 year old desktop out of the attic (single core, 2GB RAM, Vista) to try Windows 10 and it seems OK.

Cortana is working fine now on the British English version too. You need to downloaded the latest ISO and perform a clean install for it to work though…

I think MS are trying to get as many people to run it as possible to try and get them developing for their App Store…

Does the upgrade require you to reinstall all your software or have they finally worked out how to keep your installation and replace only the OS?

It’s been a reliable process for the last ten years and at least possible for the last twenty, so I’d say that’s likely.

Interesting – not tried doing an upgrade install. It looks like it should be very easy http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/02/02/windows-10-automatic-install/

Vista … the original version was dreadful. .. (single core, 2GB RAM, Vista)

No wonder you thought it was dreadful! Even my ancient home desktop is dual-core and has 4GB in it.

gotcha, that’ll be a hundred quid please

Hmmm, wondering if it’ll be more like a tenner/yr for security upgrades though. Also wondering if with 10 there’ll be tighter integration with other devices which might be their way of getting more people onto Window phones. I like my Windows phone so kinda hoping.

I do wonder whether they’re just not arsed about consumer sales any more beyond getting the product out there, and are making their money from corporates instead.

I can’t see them charging consumers for updates; then consumers don’t pay, OSes get out of date, viruses and trojans and wah wah Windows is shit. I can absolutely see a subscription model for Enterprise customers though, we’re halfway there already with Volume Licensing and Office 365.

No wonder you thought it was dreadful! Even my ancient home desktop is dual-core and has 4GB in it.
[/quote]

Though W7 would probably work fine on that – as mentioned above we’re running VMs with a single core and 512MB. Vista was fine as long as you had a good enough system – it got the (partly deserved) bad rep because people were trying to run it on low spec machines which worked fine with XP, something which does in general work with 7. I did actually run it for quite a while with only 2GB, and whilst it was OK, it was a lot worse than with 4GB.

Hopefully this. It works well enough for RedHat etc. (admittedly much smaller scale). The big question for me is how they’ll view the educational market – currently it’s cheaper than the home market, but I can see them wanting to charge something even if home use becomes free, as education will in general pay if they have to. Interesting times – I’m wondering whether the license terms will allow us to legitimately upgrade pirated licenses for use in education 😈

IMHO Windows upgrades will stay free. Apple have changed the game with their free updates.

I think Microsoft’s main consumer strategy is to nudge people towards the paid subscriptions of OneDrive, office 365 etc. and worry less about selling the OS.

I never had a problem with Vista and now much prefer 8.1 over 7. Quickly bash the windows key and start typing what it is you want in Metro to open it. Far faster than the older search tools or clicking through the start menus.

Gnome 3 is one of my favorite desktops environments now, it has some of the best bits of Win 8.1 and OSX. The less I actually have to use the mouse the better. Hopefully Windows 10 will be a bit like that, I’ve not bothered with the previews yet.

I do wonder whether they’re just not arsed about consumer sales any more beyond getting the product out there, and are making their money from corporates instead.

I haven’t seen any figures but I doubt whether consumer upgrades has been a huge market since the days of Win95 hype (remember those news reports of people queuing outside shops?) – I suspect OEMs and corporates are where the money is to be made. I recall some years ago having a conversation with Microsoft about this – the desktop OS our users were clambering for at work was the one they had at home, so there’s some merit in driving the home market to upgrade in the hope that corporates are pressured to follow. And of course that also helps corporates when they overcome the inertia of their IT people and upgrade as the user shock is less; they’ve already trained themselves on the new OS at home.

Apple have changed the game with their free updates.

OSX 4.2%
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
hardly leading the way

much prefer 8.1 over 7. Quickly bash the windows key and start typing what it is you want in Metro to open it.

Exactly what you do in W7 (only without the full-screen shenanigans).

the desktop OS our users were clambering for at work was the one they had at home,

Having seen a workplace that was totally MS, it was quite impressive. The social media/calendar stuff transfers very well to workplace collaboration. Having your appointments, threads and such on screen savers and on live tiles looked great. And the workplace stuff like Lync /Outlook looked impressive.

I reckon it makes far more sense for work – there’s hardly anything in my home calendar, but lots in my work one, which is logical when you think about it.

Still don’t get the hate for W8, it pretty much works the same way as w7 and even XP tbh.

Can’t say i have any problem with it whatsoever. the metro/tablet thing is a bit shite and clearly just a transition stage, but you can ignore than and never have to see it.

I reckon the hate is just rumour that’s grown legs and people just automatically hate because that’s the general consensus.

I guess W10 will be decent, but as always with these things, I’ll wait for 6 months or so after release before I install it.

I reckon the hate is just rumour that’s grown legs and people just automatically hate because that’s the general consensus.

Yeah, that’s social media for you. Encourages herd behaviour 🙂

I guess Win 8 would be fine if you hadn’t used an O/S before, most coming from previous versions got confused.

Or if you were able to learn and adapt quickly.

i used to hate windows 8 until I got a touchscreen laptop. I quite like it now.

Can’t say I’ve had a problem with 8.1 either – the GUI is a bit odd but it’s just a matter of getting used to a new set of inconsistencies, and it’s been rock solid – I can only recall one blue-screen since I’ve been using it and even that turned out to be related to a hardware problem.

I installed 8.1 on my Vaio P. There weren’t any 8 drivers for the GMA500 graphics, so I installed the 7 ones which work fine but appear not to have 2D acceleration, so it’s all rather slow.

Odd but that’s what happend with old hardware.

Problem with 8 is it was designed for touch screen primarily and they haven’t taken off in a big way for laptop / desktop that MS possibly though they would. Still 8.1 is fine albeit a bit clunky flipping between Metro and Classic. Everything from Vistas (with Service Packs) on has been very stable IME, which is what I want from an OS primarily.

Surely the drive by MS to get everyone on Win10 is then to make money off Xbox, WinPhone, Office, App Store etc. kind of the way Apple does, but MS with Xbox and the like can make a bigger impact if done correctly. Unfortunately MS don’t have a good record on doing it correctly.

Isn’t it 8.1 rather than 8 which needs different drivers? W7 drivers certainly didn’t work with my W10 install, but W8.1 drivers did (unfortunately the 8.1 drivers are messy beta – not old hardware, just Spice stuff for VMs).

That’s interesting. I tried W8 on the P when it was a release preview, and it seemed snappy – so perhaps something has changed. In any case, I’m trying Ubuntu with some bastard hellish driver hack thing on it now, and if I get fed up I’ll be putting W7 back on.

I’m a teacher (currently doing an OU computer science degree) and I believe MS are shitting themselves as Apple take over education. If you have a generation using Macs at school, you’re not going to win them back later in life. They’re thinking long term. Our school (admittedly a private one), will require* students to have a Mac from year 6 onwards.

I have a dodgy copy of Win 8.1 on a PC and a legitimate 7 on another. I was surprised to see the upgrade notice on both machines. FWIW, I quite like 8.1 although I can’t remember the last time I used the Metro aspect. I’ll be installing and playingnwith 10 when it’s available.

*as near as makes no odds

Our school (admittedly a private one), will require* students to have a Mac from year 6 onwards.

That’s frankly outrageous.

The only reason for doing that is to make themselves look posh. Like having school trips skiing in Provence. Boils my piss, that does. Built-in exclusivity.

I kind of like win 8. I must be in the minority though.

To be fair there are state schools paying well over the odds for ipads when there are cheaper alternatives.

The pupils will have a shock when the go to work and find the bulk of companies are running MS.

makecoldplayhistory – Member
Our school (admittedly a private one), will require* students to have a Mac from year 6 onwards.

If a school isn’t teaching people to be comfortable on any OS, I reckon they are falling short on what they should be teaching people about computers.