My old Dell laser printer simply wouldn't talk to Win 10 properly. So out it went.
And the funny thing...I couldn't even give away for free on craigslist.
I certainly wouldn't go back to Win 8.1 just for a printer.
I was all ready to go back to 8.1 due to the aggro of the first 7 days of my win 10 build.
It has much to recommend it
- The much maligned start menu is superior
- It was extremely stable, never had an issue on either of two builds
- It did a very thorough index search of file names and file content on the computer without trying to drown me in internet BS
- Great all around performance in gaming and home theater
- Worked with all my increasingly obsolete peripherals
I really like having a flat screen rather than a feed through scanner because I often have to do pages from books
- my desktop shortcuts worked (log off, restart, shut down, sleep). I have searched in vain for command syntax that makes them work in Win 10.
- Never got a note from ESET or anyone else warning me about updates. It all just worked.
- It never ever tried to lure me out into an internet account which somehow then renamed my computer and my own account and denied me admin powers
Win 8.1 to me was "friendly." Win 10, and this is my personal view, is "hostile," actively trying to do things that I don't want. Chrome gives you a specific note when you install to ignore the warning that Edge offers a "superior experience." I had to spend an hour researching how to turn off the internet search results on the search bar.
Win 10 reminds me of all the kuhrap that would install itself on your search engine if you weren't ultra careful. I suppose that stuff is still out there but I haven't encountered it recently. Until I installed Windows 10.
All that said, when I was forced into this new build and a new OS install I just figured that my future had arrived earlier than I wanted and that I had to roll with it. But if this latest install had not worked, I'm 99% sure I would have used Win 8.1.
I'm also of the view that "resistance is futile." I've been using computers since DOS + dual 5 inch floppy days, when all you had to do to get an OS was do a * . * command copy of your friend's OS. So I am registering my discontent, but i know that ultimately we have to roll with the new OS's.
I was surprised at all the bellyaching when Win XP went away I chalked it up to the idea that with a ten year reign a lot of users had never had the experience of being pushed off one platform on to another. And it was a real relief to get a system that could do more than 2 gigs of RAM.
Coming back to the topic, I don't think I would set my life up so that I had to switch from one drive/OS to another to get the printer to work. Not even my scanner. I've had to throw out perfectly good scanners because of OS changes and the knowledge that no OEM is ever ever going to provide new drivers for a $50 scanner. The thing to bear in mind is that every time you go into the PC case to switch drives there is an opportunity to screw things up. It might be quite small, but is higher than zero.
And the boot order may not work unless you disconnect EVERYTHING. That was my experience a few days ago with a Win 8.1 mirrored drive (upgrading to 500 GB from 128) on the computer upstairs. It all went very smoothly but I could not get the boot to work--it kept hanging up and giving me a blue screen that there was no bootable drive even though there was--until I had disconnected the storage drive and the DVD bays. Finally it booted, I went into UEFI, slipped the new drive into first place for boot, and all is OK, even with other drives in place. But I'm thinking it's not impossible that to switch OS's you'll have to disconnect stray drives and go into UEFI if you want to switch from an 8.1 OS to a 10 OS and back again etc. Lotta work to print a file.
Greg N
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