Windows 10 Beta Tester

[Lawrence]

Installed Windows 10, and I must admit, MS done everything right, one of the best OS's from MS, and a lot better than iOS in my opinion.

Cortana is not available to Canadians yet, they need to make her "Canadian" according to Microsoft, i.e. loves hockey. My bet is they are trying to figure out how she is going to interpret the "eh?", and then there are beaver tails, moose milk, screech... we'll have her in therapy in no time, I reckon.

 

[keith.arvixe]

OMG, just found this out about the Windows 10 EULA:

“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary.”

Just lovely.

'
You have to remember here that while this is true, you can turn all of these options off at any time. Most users from what I understand have done this. I know that I have. I have no complaints with Windows 10. In fact I love it. My biggest reason for switching is the support for Direct X 12 games. That is what I am looking forward too.

 

[jauburn]

I don't give a hoot about games. The other "features" I've read about are a huge yawn for me.

 

[Brad L]

After only a few hours of playing with the new version I reverted back to Win7

In general I thought Windows 10 looked pretty good. There were some minor issues with performance and the interface that i'm sure will be fixed soon. I decided to change back for two main reasons:

1. Automatic and mandatory upgrades. Not only that but Microsoft will no longer disclose the specific purpose of their upgrades.
2. Ads! I saw ads on the actual desktop marketing Office products. There were also ads for third party products in the start menu. I expected some subtle advertisements and media synergy to help cover the costs of a free operating system, but what I saw crossed a line for me personally. If you think the amount of ads will remain static for the next 5 years then you're simply naive.

rant over

 

[jauburn]

There were some minor issues with performance and the interface that i'm sure will be fixed soon

I was a technology journalist for about 17 years...covered the entire rise of Windows from 3.0 up to 7. With each new iteration of Windows, the claims were the same: better performance, faster startup. It became a joke after a while, especially the faster startup. Windows 7 is marginally faster on startup, but this can change quickly, depending upon what you load. Windows 10 comes along, and what do I see as one of the benefits? Faster startup! LOL.

Ads! I saw ads on the actual desktop marketing Office products.

How disgusting. I remember when WordPerfect starting throwing pop-up nags at users when starting the application. What an offense! You pay for software, and still have to deal with ads. Pathetic.

 

[AdamD]

Hmm, I must admit, I've not seen any ads since upgrading to W10, has anyone else?

 

[Creaky]

Hmm, I must admit, I've not seen any ads since upgrading to W10, has anyone else?

I haven't seen any ads in Windows 10 at all

 

[Static-Xbox]

Hmm, I must admit, I've not seen any ads since upgrading to W10, has anyone else?

I saw the "Get Office" thing, which I deleted, but that was it...

 

[llorephie]

I saw the "Get Office" thing, which I deleted, but that was it...

After 10 deletions it doesn't appear again

 

[Sheratan]

No ads in here too.

 

[Zynektic]

I upgraded for 5 minutes then went back to Windows 7 straight away, not my cup of tea. I hated how it looks for Windows 8.1 too even when disabled all the metro stuff and what not.

 

[Shelley]

After only a few hours of playing with the new version I reverted back to Win7

In general I thought Windows 10 looked pretty good. There were some minor issues with performance and the interface that i'm sure will be fixed soon. I decided to change back for two main reasons:

1. Automatic and mandatory upgrades. Not only that but Microsoft will no longer disclose the specific purpose of their upgrades.
2. Ads! I saw ads on the actual desktop marketing Office products. There were also ads for third party products in the start menu. I expected some subtle advertisements and media synergy to help cover the costs of a free operating system, but what I saw crossed a line for me personally. If you think the amount of ads will remain static for the next 5 years then you're simply naive.

rant over

The automatic (forced) updates are something I dislike. Especially 3rd party updates where nvidia messed up with a dodgy update that killed one monitor from displaying. The thing I'm concerned about is obviously the forced update but when i reverted back to previous nvidia drivers windows forced me to update to the latest dodgy Nvidia drivers. Not a good thing imo.

As for the UI. It's a vast improvement over 8, 8.1 even Windows 7. Unless your on mobile you'll see minimal tiles/metro which I'm sure can be disabled anyway.

One (what i thought was minor) which is now becoming a PIA is Bitdefender is causing some adverse issue with western digital quickview which seems to be blocking some quick to get too options for the NAS. It's definitely a windows 10 issue because the same setup is working fine on a windows 7 laptop of mine. I suppose that might entail the guys at bitdefender to do some fixing.

Another pain I noticed (and provided feedback for) is when you capture game play with the new windows 10 app you only have the option to save your game capture on the C drive (ssd) which I think is oversight. I'd like to be saving captures to the larger drives on my system or even to the NAS.

There's still a few niggles I do have but overall i'm happy with it. Regarding Ads - I've not come across any ads though I'm sure I've disabled them when i first installed win10 when i upgraded.

I don't think Microsoft can afford to mess up since it takes a few minutes with a USB stick to revert back or through their system setup.

 

[jauburn]

One thing that no one talks about with enthusiasm is the "flat design" of Win8/10. I find it to be just awful. Beyond boring, it also makes applications actually more difficult to use, as one loses the contours provided by visual elements such as shadows. Just look at Office 2013, for example: finding the edge of an application in order to resize the window is more difficult than with previous iterations. How is this progress? Design fad, yes. Improvement? Not in my book.

 

[Zynektic]

One thing that no one talks about with enthusiasm is the "flat design" of Win8/10. I find it to be just awful. Beyond boring, it also makes applications actually more difficult to use, as one loses the contours provided by visual elements such as shadows. Just look at Office 2013, for example: finding the edge of an application in order to resize the window is more difficult than with previous iterations. How is this progress? Design fad, yes. Improvement? Not in my book.

I updated it on my netbook whilst laptop/desktop are in storage and my eyes hurt trying to work out the taskbar. It looks like something even worse than Windows Basic from what I could see and even ran slower than Windows 7 on this poor thing.

 

[jauburn]

I updated it on my netbook whilst laptop/desktop are in storage and my eyes hurt trying to work out the taskbar. It looks like something even worse than Windows Basic from what I could see and even ran slower than Windows 7 on this poor thing.

And yet anyone who has worked in the software industry (or any industry, for that matter) knows how this kind of thing happens. Someone at the top has a bright idea, gets a bunch of folks into the whiteboard room, and maps it out. The participants largely nod their heads in agreement, if they're even there to express an opinion (most just want to get the day over with on the way to the next paycheck). The ones who are not sheep or merely cubicle drones are far and few between. Bad ideas aren't tested or challenged; they're implemented. So it goes, and so we have Windows 8/10. The market is left to render a verdict on mistakes that never should have made it out of the whiteboard room.

For all you young cats out there, the most valuable contributions you can make to an organization come when you speak up, not when you sit back and nod your head in agreement to everything that's said or done. Don't be a sheep.

The Start Menu Should Be Sacred (But It’s Still a Disaster in Windows 10)

Insanity:

In the default state on our machine there are 18 tiles. We haven’t moved any. We haven’t modified anything. This is the Start Menu we saw (and, with very minor variation) millions of other people will see.

Of those 18 tiles 10 of them are advertisements and/or otherwise monetized. If you count the fact that the OneNote tile prompts you to buy an Office 365 license then 11 out of the 18 tiles are not links to useful system functions or apps but some form of promotion.

Further, of those 18 tiles five of them, by default, are news (and in most cases that term should be applied lightly). You know what we don’t want? We don’t want a Start Menu that tells us “7 Tips for Handling Hot Summer Hikes”, what’s going on with oil futures, what the current state of the hearing of (insert the name of the most recent domestic terrorist here) is, or how things are going in the NFL. We don’t want burger recipes, tips on clearing brain fog, or suggestions for crap we should buy in the Xbox Live store. When did the Start Menu become a BuzzFeed ad?

 

[DEZero]

I don't have any of that on my start menu.....the only thing it had was the Get Office tile for "ads". The system boots quicker than windows 7 did, mind you this is on a system with quick boot and and ssd.

 

[Sheratan]

I dont have any problem with it. I like to read news and some info. Some people like to read news or know whats going on out there.

ps: google material design is "some kind of" flat design

 

[Static-Xbox]

I don't have any of that on my start menu.....the only thing it had was the Get Office tile for "ads". The system boots quicker than windows 7 did, mind you this is on a system with quick boot and and ssd.

Same with me, and it was easy enough to uninstall. Win 10 works perfectly fine for me...

 

[whynot]

I like to read news and some info. Some people like to read news or know whats going on out there.

And Microsoft likes to know what's going on in your computer.

 

[Sheratan]

And Microsoft likes to know what's going on in your computer.

I dont use cortana, and I disable service that use my data. So no problem.

Google use the same thing. If you like to browse tech news, you will see tech ad in gmail.
If you have a lot of tech topic in your mail, you will see tech ad in gmail.

So google reading our cookies and internet habit, and email too.