Windows 10 User Poll

[Billy F 1988]

So far, Windows 10 has been a good system on my Dell laptop. I did have to reboot one time on this new system because my Sound Blaster USB sound card was wizzing out (a la locking up, my volume panel locked at 100%), and I can see why people are annoyed with the notifications panel. I just pretend it's nothing, even though you can't get rid of it. It sucks that you can't, but hey, I try to look at what's good and the Start menu returning to W10 was a great welcome. The Task View button is something entirely new that I'm still getting a hang of. So far, it's a good system being that my laptop was originally built for Windows 8.1, but I think the improvements in Windows 10 do help alleviate at least some of the bigger nuances in 8.1.

[WillWeaverRVA]

It's pretty good. If I were using 7, I wouldn't upgrade, but upgrading from 8 or 8.1 is a no-brainer. The interface doesn't look too shabby either.

[iBallasticwolf2]

I finished upgrading my crappy laptop from Windows 8.1 to 10 and the speed difference is pretty good. It makes the laptop almost usable.

[Billy F 1988]

The other thing I'd like to add on to what I've mentioned is that it's so annoying to find out that after you turn your computer on to get it off sleep mode, surprise! You got an auto update function! (heh! I solved that one by just telling it to notify me about restarts instead of it doing the auto update and restart on its own volition!)

[Thing 342]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I miss Windows 8.1. Sometime between when I installed 10 on my Surface 3 and now the thing has become an absolute dog, taking as long as 30 seconds just to load the battery menu, as well as frequent UI freezes and blue screens. This, on top of pre-existing touchscreen and charging issues has made using my Surface a massive pain in the ass. I never did like 8's split UI, but at least it worked properly.

[wolfiefrick]

Thank god the metro interface is gone in lieu of it being contained within half of the Start menu. It rocks. Even though I use a Mac on a daily basis, Windows 10 would be my second choice of operating system had OS X not been introduced to my life five years ago.

[Rothman]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I miss Windows 8.1. Sometime between when I installed 10 on my Surface 3 and now the thing has become an absolute dog, taking as long as 30 seconds just to load the battery menu, as well as frequent UI freezes and blue screens. This, on top of pre-existing touchscreen and charging issues has made using my Surface a massive pain in the ass. I never did like 8's split UI, but at least it worked properly.

Odd.  My system is heckuva lot more stable with Windows 10 than it was with 8.1.

[Thing 342]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I miss Windows 8.1. Sometime between when I installed 10 on my Surface 3 and now the thing has become an absolute dog, taking as long as 30 seconds just to load the battery menu, as well as frequent UI freezes and blue screens. This, on top of pre-existing touchscreen and charging issues has made using my Surface a massive pain in the ass. I never did like 8's split UI, but at least it worked properly.

Odd.  My system is heckuva lot more stable with Windows 10 than it was with 8.1.

It did seem a bit more stable for awhile, then everything went to shit. I think my problems are likely device-specific as opposed with the OS, but it's still frustrating that Microsoft hasn't bothered to optimize it for its own-made product that only came out two months before its release.

[Darkchylde]

From what I've seen of it, I haven't upgraded, and I'm planning to stick with 7 until they quit putting out security updates. Then I'll be going Linux-only.

[slorydn1]

I deployed 10 not long after making reply#12 above, probably about 2 weeks after.

Windows 10 worked great on my laptop for a while, so much so that every computer in my family is now running it.

Then around late December, early January my laptop starting acting funny. First my Broadcom Wireless utility stopped working (the dreaded "not supported on this OS" message pops up on initial start). Not sure why, it worked great for months after I deployed 10. Oh, now it takes forever to just open a saved spreadsheet or document. No errors or anything like that, its just like my computer has slowed to an absolute crawl.

I really like the UI, they way I have mine set up it's not much different than 7, my wife has hers set up more like 8 and she loves it too. I'm just not sure what he heck is going on with all the stability issues I am having now with it.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

My opinion is "don't really care". The only problem I have is how every time I have to restart the computer, the "tap to click" function re-enables itself and I have to turn it off again.

[1995hoo]

The "upgrade" bricked my PC last weekend and I haven't solved it yet. Extremely unhappy. I may winding up buying a new boot drive and a new copy of Windows and starting over. At least I had backed up my data!

[authenticroadgeek]

I think it is actually really good. I love how the search feature on the startmenu is like the quick search which was in Windows 8 in that pesky pullout menu. The start-menu is 1000 times better than any third party one.

My little brother uses Windows 10, and despite the fact that the Start Menu is amazing, him being autistic still had to change the start orb (and menu) to the Windows 7 orb. I see no point, but okay...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But my opinion? It's okay, although I mostly use my Windows 7 computer.

[JoePCool14]

I still love Windows 10 (although I am a sucker for new software and products). I used Windows 8.1, 7, Vista, and XP, and just because here is how I'd rank them personally, loved to not so loved:

7, 10, 8.1, XP, Vista

[dcbjms]

Still on the fence.  Both our desktops run WinXP, my laptop (which needs to get fixed due to a fan error) runs Win7.  Most likely I'll wait 'til the first service pack gets released, but even then both the desktops need massive upgrades anyway (and I don't want to pay for new computers just yet).

[AsphaltPlanet]

I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10 back in the fall and have been pretty happy with it, though I haven't found it really does anything that Windows 7 (which was native on my laptop) didn't do.

I did have a problem with my touchpad lagging when I first upgraded, which was pretty annoying.  A quick search of the internet revealed that my old mouse driver was likely the culprit, and once I deleted that, it's worked fine ever since.

I still run Windows 7 on my desktop computer, though I can see myself upgrading it to ten in the not too distant future.  Particularly now since I have upgraded to 16 gigs of ramp.

[SidS1045]

I have an old HP Compaq 6820s laptop, which came with Vista Business downgraded to XP Pro, and which was running 7 Pro for a long time (all 32-bit; the laptop will only hold 4GB of RAM).  I did an in-place upgrade to 10 Pro, which proceeded to tank the networking.  Because the hardware is so old (2008) it also installed Microsoft's generic display driver instead of the ATI Mobility Radeon X1350 driver.

After spending some time with Google, I found out that doing an in-place upgrade with a VPN client installed (WatchGuard, which I use for work) will usually crump the networking.  Win10 has some VPN capability of its own and apparently doesn't like other VPN clients being installed during the upgrade.

So, I backed up, wiped the HDD and did a clean install.  Muuuuuuch better.  Considering how old the hardware is and how little RAM there is, it's no speed demon, but it runs acceptably.  I managed to find a compatible VPN client from ShrewSoft that Win10 didn't object to, so that's usable now.  The Microsoft Solitaire Collection that comes with Win10 is a non-starter, however.  You really need to have up-to-date display hardware and drivers for that program to work.  Otherwise, all you get are a screen full of jagged lines.  Fortunately, the Games set from Windows 7 is available for Windows 10 as a free download.  Everything else, including Office 2016, runs well.

[paulthemapguy]

I was using Windows 8.  Then one day, without my consent, as I was on the computer, my laptop just started upgrading to Windows 10.  WTF?  I was actually in the middle of doing something on my computer and it was like "HEY STOP I HAVE TO DO THE WINDOWS 10 THING NOW K BBL."  Aside from that insanity, Windows 10 is definitely superior to Windows 8.  I didn't like what they did with the start menu in 7 or 8, but I like what they've done with it in 10.  The Cortana thing is pretty good too, but it still cracks me up that they took the idea from Halo 

[Rothman]

I actually got Windows 10 to freeze last night.  Haven't had my computer freeze up like that in quite a while (Months?  Years?).  I was loading up an application and then decided midway through the loading to open an Internet browser, so I suppose it was too much for it.

[authenticroadgeek]

I was using Windows 8.  Then one day, without my consent, as I was on the computer, my laptop just started upgrading to Windows 10.  WTF?  I was actually in the middle of doing something on my computer and it was like "HEY STOP I HAVE TO DO THE WINDOWS 10 THING NOW K BBL."  Aside from that insanity, Windows 10 is definitely superior to Windows 8.  I didn't like what they did with the start menu in 7 or 8, but I like what they've done with it in 10.  The Cortana thing is pretty good too, but it still cracks me up that they took the idea from Halo 

When your computer isn't compatible with Windows 10 and it lets you keep using 7

[roadman]

The other thing I'd like to add on to what I've mentioned is that it's so annoying to find out that after you turn your computer on to get it off sleep mode, surprise! You got an auto update function! (heh! I solved that one by just telling it to notify me about restarts instead of it doing the auto update and restart on its own volition!)

The magic "We presume you want Windows 10 instead of your perfectly good operating system" bit almost happened to me earlier tonight.  My question is that, given that a) the prompt presumes you want the upgrade UNLESS you say NO and, b) that they will eventually charge money for having given you the upgrade, would this actually be considered a deceptive consumer practice.

On a different note, is Microsoft ever going to finally wake up and recognize that NOBODY these days uses keyboard commands to activate menus or functions anymore.  I am a faster typist than many people, and I am sick and tired of having Word or Excel or whatever else I'm working in (including on websites like this one) suddenly go into an unexpected mode just because the computer confused my fast typing with a command.  All because the programmers they hire don't understand how to remove outdated code instead of just building on top of it.

[Zeffy]

On a different note, is Microsoft ever going to finally wake up and recognize that NOBODY these days uses keyboard commands to activate menus or functions anymore.  I am a faster typist than many people, and I am sick and tired of having Word or Excel or whatever else I'm working in (including on websites like this one) suddenly go into an unexpected mode just because the computer confused my fast typing with a command.  All because the programmers they hire don't understand how to remove outdated code instead of just building on top of it.

I work with Excel on a daily basis at-work, and do use some of the keyboard combinations to trigger menu items and such, simply because it allows me to keep both hands on the keyboard. One of our applications we use is built on the IBM 3270 terminal, and while there is a simplified web-interface that includes many buttons to navigate, it is often faster to just tab-and-type instead of clicking.

[oscar]

The magic "We presume you want Windows 10 instead of your perfectly good operating system" bit almost happened to me earlier tonight.  My question is that, given that a) the prompt presumes you want the upgrade UNLESS you say NO and, b) that they will eventually charge money for having given you the upgrade, would this actually be considered a deceptive consumer practice.

That happened to me a few nights ago, despite my best efforts to delay the Windows 10 upgrade until late June when I'll be (a) off the road, and (b) with another PC at hand to use while my notebook was upgraded. It did not help that Microsloth kept asking me to schedule an upgrade, but the only scheduling options were a few days out, no option to wait a month as I wanted.

Most aggravating was I was at a small cheap motel with a limited wireless network, and they asked me not to do major downloads on their network. Also, my PC was crippled for several hours during the upgrade, no option to stop the upgrade in progress. The upgrade went through OK (still have to smooth out some stuff), but that was about the worst time and place to do the upgrade.

[corco]

On a different note, is Microsoft ever going to finally wake up and recognize that NOBODY these days uses keyboard commands to activate menus or functions anymore.  I am a faster typist than many people, and I am sick and tired of having Word or Excel or whatever else I'm working in (including on websites like this one) suddenly go into an unexpected mode just because the computer confused my fast typing with a command.  All because the programmers they hire don't understand how to remove outdated code instead of just building on top of it.

I work with Excel on a daily basis at-work, and do use some of the keyboard combinations to trigger menu items and such, simply because it allows me to keep both hands on the keyboard. One of our applications we use is built on the IBM 3270 terminal, and while there is a simplified web-interface that includes many buttons to navigate, it is often faster to just tab-and-type instead of clicking.

Yeah, I use key commands to access menus all the time. It's still quite a bit faster than reaching for the mouse once you have the key sequence memorized.

[Roadrunner75]

The other thing I'd like to add on to what I've mentioned is that it's so annoying to find out that after you turn your computer on to get it off sleep mode, surprise! You got an auto update function! (heh! I solved that one by just telling it to notify me about restarts instead of it doing the auto update and restart on its own volition!)

The magic "We presume you want Windows 10 instead of your perfectly good operating system" bit almost happened to me earlier tonight.  My question is that, given that a) the prompt presumes you want the upgrade UNLESS you say NO and, b) that they will eventually charge money for having given you the upgrade, would this actually be considered a deceptive consumer practice.

My mother's computer kept trying to sneak the Windows 10 update on her.  A couple of times she came back and found it mid-process after she specifically declined the scheduling, and she turned off the computer in a panic to stop it.  I came over and disabled automatic updates for her.  Now I have her check the available updates every few days (set to download but not install) and manually select the updates that aren't obviously the Windows 10 upgrade.  So far my own PC hasn't pulled this stunt yet, but as soon as I get the nags I'll be doing the same.