I'm shocked.
I just installed Windows 10 on my wife's laptop and I like it. Not as much as I like Xubuntu (what I use on my laptop), but compared to 8.1 or Vista it's a huge step in the right direction. Multiple desktops, minimalist design, a start menu (again), and a slightly less crappy default browser (project Spartan) all make Windows 10 a much nicer OS than 8.
It remains to be seen whether it will beat out 7 for stability and ease-of-use, but so far I'm excited to have a reasonable gaming OS that doesn't suck at everything else.
Right now I'm under the impression that it will just update from whatever version you have to 10, and keep your files. Don't know for sure though.
I am too, I love the way windows 10 looks but I'm afraid of losing all of my files on both of my computers, I have too much schoolwork, and too many media files and games between the two... Edit: I might wait and see what happens so I know if I have to migrate files between the two to update them...
I've been on OSX for many years now, mostly because of the Unix backend and good support. MS is certainly moving in the right direction, I believe, with Win10. MS is doing what Apple hasn't been doing for a lot of time: taking himself seriously and move forward with their technology. Every year or so, Apple improves OSX by adding fancy "toys" to its interface, that can help from time to time with productivity (e.g. the continuity feature, that allows users to complete a task either on laptop/mac or on iOS device), but that's where it stops. Quality control also became an issue for many users, to the point that (finally) the next OSX will be a "stability-focussed" release. Hopefully they'll get this right this time. MS is seriously trying to re-invent its software offering by refining and improving both interface and backend. Cortana and its searches is a clear example, even "Spartan" shows effects like these. The one thing I can still appreciate Apple sw over is their actual dedication to user privacy, which is apparent not only from a business model perspective, but also technologically speaking. "Our money is not on user data" is their slogan. Unfortunately, this also encompasses their, I believe, main problem with latest sw releases: their money is not on high quality OSs. They do not sell neither OSX nor iOS. Therefore, their main value switches from "direct revenue" to "self-advertisement revenue". Fancy, easy to understand, "cool" feature become central to their development as these are the features that will attract customers to their platforms (i.e. where the actual money is). This comes with all the minuses in terms of sw quality, stability, refinement and thoughtfulness that professional or "power" users (as the Apple community loves to call its more technical professionals) are, I believe, increasingly feeling the lack of. p.s. Hi, I'm from Reddit, nice to meet you all.
MS will fail , I have write a my thought on this blog http://blog.sudoask.com/great-dictator-on-software-dying-and-unix-like-systems-is-the-will-back-again/
I like my Windows 8.1 more than Windows 7. To me it feels somewhat more snappy and some parts work better, I also like faster boot times. Also, as a long time Ubuntu user, I stopped using menus long ago in favor of pressing the launcher button (on keyaboard) and typing what I need. It's much faster.
I agree with the bit about launching apps. On Win7 I launched apps by typing into the start menu search, so Win8 was only a slight change in that regard. Otherwise most things seems to work as smooth as Win7. My only real complaint is that the integration between metro apps and the traditional desktop is garbage.
yeah, you cannot even get shortcuts on the desktop of metro apps!!! e.g. you cannot have the calculator on desktop or -as I do- in a taskbar shortcut toolbar
I've been running Windows 10 Preview Builds for a few months now. Besides a few issues like the start button not working (fixed that easily) and problems with nVidia drivers, it's been pretty nice. I'm a sucker for dark themes and Windows 10 comes with one by default.
Oooh yeah. Dark themes. My wife is less enthusiastic about it, but she likes the highlight thing, where the theme changes based on the background.
You're the first person I've come across to bring up the dark themes. Dark themes are a big winner in my book. I've contemplated giving Windows 10 a try on my laptop but haven't actually jumped for it yet. I like that dark themes are becoming more common in general as blindingly white windows can be headache inducing.
I'm not really a Windows user (Debian with Cinnamon). I tried to use Windows 8 for a little while. I liked the ambition in trying to unify a mobile UI and Desktop UI, but it really just felt jarring switching back and forth. Does Windows 10 do anything to make this a bit more seamless or clean?
It's nothing revolutionary but they have tidied a few things up. The main changes that make the transitions less jarring are: 1. If the computer uses a keyboard and mouse (rather than a touchscreen) it will default to desktop mode. 2. In desktop mode, the start button brings up a menu, not the full screen Start thing as in Windows 8. 3. In desktop mode, the "Modern" applications can now be opened in a window instead of full screen. This is my experience from testing it in a VM on a desktop PC. Tablets will do something that looks more like Windows 8, and I'm not sure about touchscreen laptops.
Same. No idea how it works with tablets or convertibles. Desktop works fine though, and you can add/remove/rearrange the tiles in the start menu.
I've run Windows 7, 8.1 and I've also ran 10 on a test machine and out of the three I'm shocked to say that I think Windows 10 is the best out of the three. Windows 10 in my experience is more or less a beefed up 7 without the shitty charms/metro bs.
good. I can't wait. Running 8.1 for my gaming machine and its pathetic. Navigating installed software is so much worse than anything else. Looking forward to having some kind of start menu. Hated charms in Windows 8. So many clicks to get anywhere. Navigating the OS at all is a chore.
I've gotten used to most of 8's kinks by now, but I absolutely agree. Navigating the OS just feels so disjointed because of metro/charms. There are a few keyboard shortcuts which are pretty useful in Windows 8 to make life a little bit easier though (in case someone hasn't heard of these): Win+Q: brings up the quick search panel without dragging you out of desktop mode (it's equivalent to pressing the windows key and typing, but you get to avoid most of the metro interface) Win+I: brings up the settings panel within the charms bar for quick access to the shutdown/reboot menu Win+C: brings up the charms bar Win+X: displays a context menu for easy access to the Control Panel as well as a few useful system features
I know the feeling. Windows 10 did away with charms and the metro-fullscreen thing, which makes me happy. 8.1 was a mess- not as bad as Vista, but a couple steps back from 7.
Windows 10 has worked quite well for me. no major issues over the last few builds. Spartan is pretty good as well, but it still has some issues to be worked out. I feel there could be more customization options for the start menu. While its much better than 8 I feel people are going to still be installing Classic Shell to get something they can customize a bit more. Its seems to be less memory intensive that windows 7, but that could just be the lake of services I have running. I do notice the built in Anti-Malware software can get high CPU usage for a extended period of time. I just added it to my Daughters ancient laptop with only 2G Ram and its been working great so far. I will probably dual boot for sometime to make sure there are no major issues at launch, but it looks to be a vast improvement over windows 8.
I am excited about Windows 10, and DX12, but I am really worried about the stability especially pertaining to video games. I adopted 8 very early on and found that I had problems with a few games so I returned to 7. Does it seem that 10 will do a better job of supporting games?
To early to tell really. It took to the games I've installed so far pretty well, with no problems. So far it's just Steam and WoW on this machine. Haven't installed any steam games yet.
Admittedly, I haven't gamed as much on it, but I've otherwise had no issues with games in particular. Only thing I had issues with was Virtualbox.
I have a pretty full Steam library as well as some retro games running on my Windows 10 desktop. I am running the same setup on a Surface Pro 2 as well. The desktop is running everything fine. There are lookup issues with certain retro games, but the steam stuff tends to run perfectly. The best specific answer I can give you is I run Diablo 2 a couple of times a year to remind myself how awesome it is. It is way more stable than 8 or 8.1. There are still issues between my graphics card (Radeon R9) and the last few builds, though this mornings updates finally didn't require a work around. Fun times!
Same here! I really like the new start menu, only some of the new icons look kinda ugly IMO. I'm not a big fan of having apps instead of desktop programs, but I have to admit that Microsoft implemented it really well. I'm definitely installing it on my desktop PC as soon as it comes out.
I'm not a fan of desktop "apps" either, but they do work much better than they did in 8. They open in a window for one thing, ad of going fullscreen.
This laptop had 8.1 on it. It's much more responsive with 10.
Haven't played any retro games on it yet, unless you count vanilla WoW, which works fine. I've got steam installed, and that works perfectly. So far, no compatibility issues with anything.
Blizzard released the original WoW client, and now there are free servers all over the place. I play Nostalrius Begins. They have their own client package that uses their servers automatically.
It will be free to anyone who has Windows 7 or 8 (maybe Vista?) when it's released. Right now there is a technical preview, which is what I'm using. Pirated copies of windows will also update to Windows 10 and allow account creation/receive updates etc.
It was my understanding that Pirated copies will still be labeled as pirated even after a upgrade. Not sure how this will work or what the implications are though.
I skipped it, and haven't logged into an MS account yet. That said, to use Cortana, you have to give it access to a bunch of stuff and have a microsoft account. Other than that, you can ignore it.