Your Experience with Windows 10

[RunLuke]

I understand only so many had the ability to download 10 and the rest have to "wait". I feel like it was meant for the first few that jumped on it to do what we are doing before it hit main population harder. First wave sort of.

I just contacted Microsoft on release date and told them to bind my key to windows 10, the used this tool to install:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

[julianorca]

So far, I'm not impressed.This is essentially Windows 8.2 (and 8.1 annoyed me more than enough). Running into a number of issues, affecting all inbuilt apps. I know this is a new OS and there'll be bugs, but some stuff looks like it should have been caught a long time ago. A couple of things I've had
- Auto corruption during sfc /scannow relating to a folder that doesn't exist
- Inbuilt apps crash randomly
- Mail app inboxes don't work. You get stuck in one inbox, or it just won't accept settings (Gmail) even if they're correct
- The start menu is a bit cumbersome, it's okay, but 7, Vista and XP had this right. The inclusion of tiles in the start menu is redundant (Action Centre shows the same thing as does Cortana), as does the desktop (I'm removing tiles and desktop icons so that programs only appear in the list. Speaking of redundancy, there's control panel and settings. Don't these two do the same thing?
- Cortana goes comatose a lot and does not respond to Hey Cortana, even if the program clearly heard you (had instances where it types Hey Cortana and then says it heard nothing
- Cortana is kind of pointless, since it pretty much Bings most things which I can just do myself. It's great for once in a while stuff and the weather, but I tried it for a bit yesterday and then got bored of it
- Programs say they install, but are nowhere to be found
- The flat pastel design is ugly imo, bring back the colour from from XP (anyone remember that silver theme) and/or aero from Vista and 7
- Indexing never finishes. It's been 4 days, it still claims to be indexing
- Edge. Tried it, went back to Chrome. No add ons available, like Ghostery and Adblock
- Game bar doesn't work. Crashes when it attempts to do anything or just doesn't show up at all

There's also way too much dead space everywhere, which ties into the pastel colours thing. Y u no make a pretty looking OS for once (see 7, Vista and XP)
^ Some of those issues I saw were reported when this was beta, so why are they still here?

Also, this is minor, but the placement and spacing of the window resize controls in Metro apps is off. X has a huge amount of space compared to the other two buttons and minimise is not correctly lined up in its spot. They've changed the sizing of the taskbar icons so they're smaller now, don't know why, but they have

Suggestions:
- The calendar on the taskbar should link to the Windows calendar so you can see what events you've got coming

On the plus side it is stable, but other than that Windows 10 is all hype train. See whether I think different by the end of the week. Considering sticking 8.1 back on this once I've got what I want from it. Some of the talked about features I don't need or don't care about (Xbox One to PC streaming. I don't own an Xbox One, at this time I never will and my PC can do just as good a job as the One can, if not better. Don't need the game bar, but tried it, will be sticking to Shadowplay).

This is the middle of day 4. On day 1 (or 2) after playing around with it for a bit, saw there wasn't much to write home about in 10. Failing to find 10 features I like from it so far

With all problems u guys are saying about this new windows, I will not upgrade from 7 64-bit. If in 1 year i check here and u guys still complain about this new OS, I buy, I upgrade with money from windows 7, jesus, i believe Microsoft regreted about free OS and is making * OS so none upgrade, after 1 year, when u need to pay, will be good OS like 7. I just cant believe. Incompetent. Believe me, they regreted about free upgrade.

 

[egmccann]

I installed late the first day, via the "make media" tool (picking "update now.")
Result- very smooth in place update. I still may wipe-and-install, since my Win7 install had been there for a while, but the only thing I've had any issue with is Command and Conquer 3 (regular and Kane's Wrath) freezing - and I'm 80% sure that's video driver versus Win10 due to the errors I'm seeing. Everything else... golden.

Though Start10 brings back my jump lists... far more useful to me than side-tiles.

Mm. Should also say I'm not fond of not having a separate properties dialog or way to really reset Edge. Barely using it, though I see how it works with the sites I go to. Though the scam popup that locked it up for a while misidentified it as Chrome.

 

[Ranjha Singh]

OK my experience is this windows 10 does not activate windows people say go back to windows 8 for which windows old folder is gone thus I can't go there gateway people say buy 100$ service we will think or try help you. Microsoft people tried activating now they can't activate they say go buy yourself new windows 10. so I am with windows which does not activate eventhough I upgraded from Legal windows 8 to windows 10 which was perfectly legal such a brilliant way for Microsoft to make you pay for so called free window

and World is Fair this is just brilliant

 

[julianorca]

I installed late the first day, via the "make media" tool (picking "update now.")
Result- very smooth in place update. I still may wipe-and-install, since my Win7 install had been there for a while, but the only thing I've had any issue with is Command and Conquer 3 (regular and Kane's Wrath) freezing - and I'm 80% sure that's video driver versus Win10 due to the errors I'm seeing. Everything else... golden.

Though Start10 brings back my jump lists... far more useful to me than side-tiles.

Mm. Should also say I'm not fond of not having a separate properties dialog or way to really reset Edge. Barely using it, though I see how it works with the sites I go to. Though the scam popup that locked it up for a while misidentified it as Chrome.

Do u think I will have problems with Battlefield 2 ? I have R9 290X. Are u serious ? Why everyone complaning ? Do u think its good as win 7 but faster ?

 

[GObonzo]

awesome so far.

i really like the mix of start\metro better than being stuck with 8\8.1's version. if they could integrate something like OblyTile into Windows to customize our Start Screen tiles it would be very welcome. then i would have no qualm about 10 at all.

seems a few ms quicker with file & folder actions. searching an entire 2TB drive for a file takes about half the time it did in 8.1.

all the games i've tried worked fine after the upgrade. even Warhammer 40,000 that i could not run on 8.1. and Arkham Knight that was a horrible stutter-fest on 8.1 is slightly more smooth on 10 with no new developer updates installed. some others like Advanced Warfare, Dying Light, Dirt Rally, + others have benefited from the upgrade with a few more frames per second. also 3DMark scores went up slightly.

decided to delete the Tech Preview's partition and just take 8.1 up to 10. was nervous about the upgrade after all the tin-foil hat rants about shady things MS was trying to pull. thinking i may lose my Windows 8 activation permanently. but, that turned out as I expected: total bs on their part. Windows 8.1 upgraded to 10 and a new serial was generated and activated. then reinstalled 8.1 on the old partition that used to house the 10TP, activated with no problem with the serial that came with it years before. now is a dual-boot system with no problems, both activated and working great!

 

[GObonzo]

Amongst all the Nvidia driver issues, has anyone seen similar with AMD graphics drivers?
I'm upgrading my main PC in a few days (R9 280X) and just seeing if anyone has had any issues.

after upgrading from 8.1 to 10RTM and installing the latest CCC package, Control Center would launch and game profiles were still there and worked but i could not use VSR. the option had disappeared from Digital Flat Panel Properties. same problem i had through the whole Tech Preview. had to run AMD's atih_cleanup_tool_s_e and reinstall the latest v15.7.1 package. after that VSR was back and everything is great.

 

[Atte]

I actually love the way Windows 10 looks. It's modern and fast, but I have 2 main gripes with it that essentially destroy my experience.

First of all, the DPI scaling. On just my basic 1080p monitors 60% of applications are blurry (including some built in ones like when you right click - properties on any file: that screen is blurry). This gets extremely annoying and has actually started to hurt my eyes.

Second, and much worse, is some issue with my ethernet adapter. I have a laptop, so it is not replaceable. Ethernet keeps disconnecting and not working, giving me gateway and DNS errors left and right. WiFi works fine, but being a pretty intense gamer WiFi just doesn't cut it. I have tried nearly every solution on the face of the earth and cannot find a solution. As for now, I've deemed it a driver incompatibility (Screw you Realtek!) with Windows 10.

 

[unplanned bacon]

So far, I'm not impressed.This is essentially Windows 8.2 (and 8.1 annoyed me more than enough). Running into a number of issues, affecting all inbuilt apps. I know this is a new OS and there'll be bugs, but some stuff looks like it should have been caught a long time ago. A couple of things I've had
- Auto corruption during sfc /scannow relating to a folder that doesn't exist
- Inbuilt apps crash randomly
- Mail app inboxes don't work. You get stuck in one inbox, or it just won't accept settings (Gmail) even if they're correct
- The start menu is a bit cumbersome, it's okay, but 7, Vista and XP had this right. The inclusion of tiles in the start menu is redundant (Action Centre shows the same thing as does Cortana), as does the desktop (I'm removing tiles and desktop icons so that programs only appear in the list. Speaking of redundancy, there's control panel and settings. Don't these two do the same thing?
- Cortana goes comatose a lot and does not respond to Hey Cortana, even if the program clearly heard you (had instances where it types Hey Cortana and then says it heard nothing
- Cortana is kind of pointless, since it pretty much Bings most things which I can just do myself. It's great for once in a while stuff and the weather, but I tried it for a bit yesterday and then got bored of it
- Programs say they install, but are nowhere to be found
- The flat pastel design is ugly imo, bring back the colour from from XP (anyone remember that silver theme) and/or aero from Vista and 7
- Indexing never finishes. It's been 4 days, it still claims to be indexing
- Edge. Tried it, went back to Chrome. No add ons available, like Ghostery and Adblock
- Game bar doesn't work. Crashes when it attempts to do anything or just doesn't show up at all

There's also way too much dead space everywhere, which ties into the pastel colours thing. Y u no make a pretty looking OS for once (see 7, Vista and XP)
^ Some of those issues I saw were reported when this was beta, so why are they still here?

Also, this is minor, but the placement and spacing of the window resize controls in Metro apps is off. X has a huge amount of space compared to the other two buttons and minimise is not correctly lined up in its spot. They've changed the sizing of the taskbar icons so they're smaller now, don't know why, but they have

Suggestions:
- The calendar on the taskbar should link to the Windows calendar so you can see what events you've got coming

On the plus side it is stable, but other than that Windows 10 is all hype train. See whether I think different by the end of the week. Considering sticking 8.1 back on this once I've got what I want from it. Some of the talked about features I don't need or don't care about (Xbox One to PC streaming. I don't own an Xbox One, at this time I never will and my PC can do just as good a job as the One can, if not better. Don't need the game bar, but tried it, will be sticking to Shadowplay).

This is the middle of day 4. On day 1 (or 2) after playing around with it for a bit, saw there wasn't much to write home about in 10. Failing to find 10 features I like from it so far

With all problems u guys are saying about this new windows, I will not upgrade from 7 64-bit. If in 1 year i check here and u guys still complain about this new OS, I buy, I upgrade with money from windows 7, jesus, i believe Microsoft regreted about free OS and is making * OS so none upgrade, after 1 year, when u need to pay, will be good OS like 7. I just cant believe. Incompetent. Believe me, they regreted about free upgrade.

My overall feel towards the OS after one week is favourable, but the OS is unfinished. Doesn't mean those issues don't exist, they do

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to5q3J4s0Zs"][/video]

 

[USAFRet]

Amongst all the Nvidia driver issues, has anyone seen similar with AMD graphics drivers?
I'm upgrading my main PC in a few days (R9 280X) and just seeing if anyone has had any issues.

after upgrading from 8.1 to 10RTM and installing the latest CCC package, Control Center would launch and game profiles were still there and worked but i could not use VSR. the option had disappeared from Digital Flat Panel Properties. same problem i had through the whole Tech Preview. had to run AMD's atih_cleanup_tool_s_e and reinstall the latest v15.7.1 package. after that VSR was back and everything is great.

Awesome. Thanks.

 

[NarekUnited]

Experience? Shocking. No WiFi and Bluetooth toggle switch to turn them on/off. No Airplane mode either.

 

[USAFRet]

Experience? Shocking. No WiFi and Bluetooth toggle switch to turn them on/off. No Airplane mode either.

No airplane mode? Mine does.
No WiFi toggle? Just click the box labeled 'WiFi'. Off and on.

 

[NarekUnited]

I don't have wifi box either. I can access wifi settings from Settings->Network & Internet->Wifi but there is no toggle to switch it on/off the same problem with bluetooth. I am not even talking about Airplane mode its just not existing on my pc.
From surfing the net I find that a lot of people have those problems too.
For example you can reed the comments under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuPAzKLqK0Y

 

[USAFRet]

I don't have wifi box either. I can access wifi settings from Settings->Network & Internet->Wifi but there is no toggle to switch it on/off the same problem with bluetooth. I am not even talking about Airplane mode its just not existing on my pc.
From surfing the net I find that a lot of people have those problems too.
For example you can reed the comments under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuPAzKLqK0Y

This was accessed directly from the WiFi icon on the taskbar.

This laptop does not have bluetooth, so I can't comment on that.

 

[RunLuke]

SO, yeah, strange issue, I copied this from google: @

I can no longer create @-symbol - with neither real or on screen keyboard.

And yes, keyboard layout is the correct one.

What the hell, windows 10, you blow.

 

[Mightyena]

This was accessed directly from the WiFi icon on the taskbar.

Hmm, I don't have anything in my WiFI icon except a list of SSIDs either...



Anyway, here follows my first impressions of Windows 10... Sorry, It's a bit long...


Having spent the best part of a day playing around with Windows 10 pro, I have to say I have decidedly mixed feelings.

I decided to install it on my secondary PC, which is fairly mediocre, to see how it would run:
Pentium G645 2.9GHz Sandy Bridge
MSi B75 Mobo
nVidia GTX 570
8GB RAM
500GB 7200rpm OS drive

First impressions were, interesting... upon completing the install it attempted to activate, and was apparently successful. Only about a minute later as I was browsing for drivers to install, it decided to restart in order to upgrade me to Windows 10 Enterprise... Huh?
It did that, said it wasn't activated, made me re-enter my key and promptly downgraded back to pro. I have no idea why it decided to do this, but after that everything worked swimmingly.

In terms of performance, It's been pretty good. It's nice and responsive, even on a slow mechanical drive, and apart from the one BSoD (I'll get to that in a bit), hasn't had any major crashes or failures.

To me, the start menu is disappointing. I suspect that's partly because I'm used to the windows 7/8 with classic shell style menu, but still, in my opinion whoever decided to just bung all the apps in one huge lump without any real attempt at organisation needs to be smacked round the head with the device they did it on! Also I liked the fact that when you were browsing programs previously, the 'fixed' items (computer, control panel etc) were still visible. I think it just reminds me a little too much of the windows 9x/2000 menu.
Having said that, installed classic shell and everything's great! (although the lack of colour on the title bars is a bit strange, I guess I can live with it)

When it came to actually using Windows 10, it was kind of a mixed bag. On one hand compatability was excellent, I haven't yet come across a program I've needed that wouldn't run, and most of the features seemed to do what they were meant to with little fuss.

On the other hand, things started to get a little weird behind-the-scenes... Cortana caused the PC to BSoD the first time I tried to use it, but then worked flawlessly every other time. Also installing GPU drivers was a little difficult. I downloaded the latest Windows 10 drivers for my card, and for some reason, after installing them I was unable to select any resolution other than 1024x768... Uninstalling the drivers and reverting back to the standard VGA one instantly set my screen back to native res. Re-downloaded, and tried a reinstall, at which point nVidia warned me that bad things might happen if I continued to install these Win10 drivers on Win8... Eh? Installed, rebooted and the card now works fine, although 1024x768 is still the "reccommended" resolution. I assume this was just a weird driver thing, and put this down to having a very old card, in a fairly new PC, with brand new drivers/OS, hopefully nVidia will deal with it soon.

The only thing I really didn't like was the fact that they kept the half-hearted husk of the control panel! OK, you want us to move over and use the Metro/Modern/Whatever the heck it's called these days app to manage settings? Fine, I can live with that. Just don't leave the broken old control panel still in there! That was one of the main things that annoyed me about win8 too, you're going through the control panel to adjust some sett...BAM! SUDDEN METRO! It's irritating. Either unify them completely, or duplicate functionality so they have nothing to do with one another, please. At least with windowed Metro apps, the effect is considerably less jarring when it inevitably happens than with windows 8, but I'd still rather it didn't happen at all.

I think on the whole, Windows 10 is looking to be a pretty good OS. Most of my issues with it either seem to be teething problems or things that can be patched fairly easily. Out of the three (7, 8.1 and 10), I still find myself gravitating back towards 7, but I'm keeping 10 around on this PC, since I reckon with some updates, it'll be a really good OS.

My ranking at the moment is like this:

1. Windows 7
2. Windows 8.1+Classic Shell (Tied with 10+CS)
2. Windows 10+Classic Shell (Tied with 8+CS)
4. Windows 10
5. Windows 8.1

Hopefully that lengthy post of inane ramblings was useful to somebody...

 

[GObonzo]

I don't have wifi box either. I can access wifi settings from Settings->Network & Internet->Wifi but there is no toggle to switch it on/off the same problem with bluetooth. I am not even talking about Airplane mode its just not existing on my pc. From surfing the net I find that a lot of people have those problems too. For example you can reed the comments under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuPAzKLqK0Y

the notification icon on the task manager, when clicked, fills up the right side of the desktop and has a few boxes at the bottom. just clicking the coinciding box turns wi-fi, bluetooth, and a few other options on\off. the boxes with be slightly highlighted when enabled, clear when disabled.

also i have a separate bluetooth icon in task manager that right-click > open settings > takes you right to all the options you may need to setup bluetooth. if that isn't there then your bluetooth receiver\transmitter isn't working correctly.

 

[Ranjha Singh]

has windows 10 been pushed to all the people or not yet

 

[USAFRet]

has windows 10 been pushed to all the people or not yet

Not yet.

 

[nukemaster]

Never got invites on some systems, but the update that does it shows as optional, so I do not expect to get them on those systems. I downloaded the ISO for all my upgrade needs.

 

[dimar]

Start Screen
Extremely feature limited (terrible) - good thing there's Classic Shell

Settings
Disorganized, illogical, makes no sense - MS should discontinue this feature, or make it efficient.

Updates
Need to figure out how to update manually - Automatic drivers update scares me.

Explorer
Navigation pane is bloated. Whoever decided to put Docs, Pics etc.. with drives should be fired and never work in this profession! Just leave the drives alone..

I'd like CTRL+E to close apps based apps.

Forgetting Wi-Fi network used to be super easy with 8.1, now it's like 10 menus away. Same for VPN connection.

 

[Ranjha Singh]

now i want to block windows 10 update i want to wait 6 months anybody know how to do that

 

[nukemaster]

Start Screen
Extremely feature limited (terrible) - good thing there's Classic Shell

Settings
Disorganized, illogical, makes no sense - MS should discontinue this feature, or make it efficient.

Updates
Need to figure out how to update manually - Automatic drivers update scares me.

Explorer
Navigation pane is bloated. Whoever decided to put Docs, Pics etc.. with drives should be fired and never work in this profession! Just leave the drives alone..

I'd like CTRL+E to close apps based apps.

The rest is OK I guess.

They are still in a transition. It is the biggest move away from control panels that have been used since the 90s. I am sure in some time all options will be moved and work from settings. It has a search feature to help. I have never dug in the control panel since Vista added search.

You can use View to remove it(should look much cleaner that way). 7 and 8/8.1 had the same thing and Vista had favorites in that location

Alt + F4 still works to close anything

 

[dimar]

MS should've transitioned Settings during alpha/beta testing. Or let us have fully featured Control Panel + Unfinished Settings.
I don't want to remove the Navigation Pane, because I'm using it all the time. I just want it to be efficient.
Tell me which is easier ALT+F4 or CTRL+E? Most Explorer Windows, many programs, and browsers tabs can be closed with CTRL+E. Why was it so hard to include CTRL+E to close apps Windows?
I really want to like Win10, but MS keeps making the same mistakes over and over again with each Windows release. Then they complain about low sales.

 

[USAFRet]

MS should've transitioned Settings during alpha/beta testing. Or let us have fully featured Control Panel + Unfinished Settings.
I don't want to remove the Navigation Pane, because I'm using it all the time. I just want it to be efficient.
Tell me which is easier ALT+F4 or CTRL+E? Most Explorer Windows, many programs, and browsers tabs can be closed with CTRL+E. Why was it so hard to include CTRL+E to close apps Windows?
I really want to like Win10, but MS keeps making the same mistakes over and over again with each Windows release. Then they complain about low sales.

Low sales? The vast majority of people do not upgrade their OS. They get and use whatever comes on the PC they buy, and that is it until that PC dies, or something new is pushed on them, either from a geek friend or directly from MS.
Or whatever their employer provides on the PC at work.

Buying a new OS and upgrading is a niche market. Like the audience here at Tom's.