Different voices, different opinions

7 years ago

I've long preferred PCs in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem and while family members enjoy their many excellent and clever Apple products, and I have to "maintain" several at great difficulty, they're not for me.

Many, many people have expressed dismay with how ham-fisted Microsoft has been over the last few years in mismanaging its flagship product, Windows. It completely missed the market with the initial UI changes made for Windows 8. It is/was an otherwise excellent product but the UI Microsoft went to was awful. Fortunately, it ultimately could be easily avoided with simple add-ons. But not before the damage was done and noses were twisted.

Damage control time, jump over issuing anything labeled Win 9 (to try to put distance between the new version and disastrous Win 8) and release a replacement branded as Win 10 with a familiar UI. But, again, the ham-fisted internal voices must have prevailed and been the cause of the unprecedented strong-arm tactics for the "optional" upgrade that has caused many, many people problems.

I have no doubt that Win 10 is a great operating system and I wouldn't hesitate to have it on a new PC. But too many people have experienced major issues in trying to get it to work right on older machines. Yes, very many have been successful, but that doesn't make those with difficulties go away.

My morning paper (the San Jose Mercury News, from the heart of Silicon Valley) had this article from its technology columnist Troy Wolverton, discussing the state of play for Windows 10. I've been reading his column for years. Wolverton is an objective person and is viewed in town as being very knowledgeable.

Yes, many have done the upgrade without issues. It's also true that many have not. If your PC has an earlier WIndows version and it's working fine, I'd say there's no need to fix what isn't broken because doing so CAN lead to new and sometimes unfix-able problems. Others can disagree.

Win 10 Upgrade doesn't always lead to happy results

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Elmer J Fudd
Original Author

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

I'm not sure what came over them to be so heavy-handed. I know what the intent is but they've lost friends and customers from the tactics.

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Comments (10)

User
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Over the weekend I used a Windows 10 machine. Arrgggh.
The only good change I saw was renaming Windows Explorer to File Explorer.

Luckily had my Windows 7 laptop with which to do my work.

Good article for those contemplating an upgrade.
mike_kaiser_gw
7 years ago
I'm using a Windows 10 machine (which was upgraded from Windows 7) right now and it works fine. I haven't done much on it but browse the web (with Firefox and Chrome) but frankly I don't see much of a difference between 7. Well, I couldn't find Notepad without typing into a search bar.

My objection has never been the operating system but rather the way that Microsoft foisted the upgrade on users
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katlan
7 years ago
I don't frequent this form enough, I wish I would have read this thread sooner.
bengz6westmd
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
mike_kaiser, if you can find your sendto folder in your users directory (mine's in users/**your name**/), you can put a shortcut to notebook in there (or any other shortcut you want). Then a right-click on any file will have notebook listed & can be "sent" to it. Convenient for me.

Of course, if you know where notebook is, you can also just put a shortcut to it on your desktop.
mikie_gw
7 years ago
With windows 10 you just click Cortana microphone and ask her to 'Open Notepad'
mike_kaiser_gw
7 years ago
I haven't quite gotten comfortable talking to my computer yet. Actually, I'm not sure the one I was using actually had a microphone...
jane__ny
7 years ago
Why couldn't Microsoft keep everything in the same place with the same names?? Having a new OS is fine, why keep changing everything? There is no point to changing names.

I have some Apple products, some are old. Everything stays the same. I can use a IPhone4 and the latest iPhone. Everything stays exactly the same. The changes do not affect your ability to find things, make changes or settings.

Same with IPads. They work exactly the same as the phones. I do not have an Apple computer, but I'm assuming it stays the same.

I think Microsoft is obnoxious changing everything around. Many of us older folks had a tough time just learning to use a computer years ago. Yet with each upgrade, Microsoft seems to feel the necessity to force a person to spend so much time trying to relearn everything all over again. Stupid!

Jane
User
7 years ago
I bought a new gaming pc right before win 10. It came with a free 10 upgrade. I upgraded. It seemed ok but now a lot of little stupid aggravations happen - like why does my calculator keep disappearing?

I do think once you get used to it the interface is fine.

The in-laws upgraded from, I think, 7. Beware.
bbbluz ~ DonnaB
7 years ago
I have always felt that if you are familiar with smart phones, etc. then the transition from W7 to W8/10 will be smooth. I have never had a smart phone and prefer not to have one. I like that my internet connection is at home and plan on keeping it that way.

I find it very disturbing that MS is forcing this W10 upgrade on people. This is America! Shouldn't we have the freedom to make our own choices, and I do not like the idea of upgrading on an older system. I have seen first hand the problems that have arisen from upgrades. If it is not incompatible drivers, its something else. If I want a W10 I will go out and buy a new computer that has W10 factory installed with a warranty. I can not afford to lose my W7. I have several versions of OS's for a really good reason and need them as is.

My son had an experience with his W8.1 that helped me to form my negative opinion concerning this free upgrade. Just before he shipped out for overseas he bought a W8.1 netbook for his wife since he took his W7 with, so they could Skype back and forth. She is familiar with her smart phone but not with Windows in general. During this time that my son was deployed is when the upgrade came out. My daughter in law had no idea what to do with this message that kept telling her to upgrade. Since she didn't know the difference between and update and an upgrade so when she asked my son if she should allow the update he said yes, so allowed the upgrade at the end of July (or was that August? I forget now.) Either way, the upgrade that he thought was an update went very badly and once complete the netbook would not boot into Windows and since he was in such a hurry to ship out he did not take the time to create the recovery media. To make an already long story short, I tried everything I could think of to fix this and ended up having to send it back to ASUS not even a week after the warranty ran out and have them reload the hard drive which cost him $210 USD's. He had paid almost $300 for it on base before he left so he ended up paying over $500 for this netbook. Very costly MS upgrade failure as far as I am concerned. I wish there were a way to make MS pay for the damage caused by this failed upgrade, but you know that would never happen and I have helped others online with the very same upgrade failure.

Kind of makes me feel like my son and everybody else whose upgrade failed in this manner were used as lab rats. Out of curiosity, I would give anything to know the percentage of how many of these upgrades failed, for what reason the upgrades failed, how severe the failures were and how much the victim had to pay out of their pockets to fix the damage done.

Different voices, different opinions

Elmer J Fudd
Original Author

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mike_kaiser_gw

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Different voices, different opinions

Elmer J FuddOriginal Author

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Elmer J Fudd
Original Author