Windows 10

[cindybubbles]

This is thread for all the personal suck that we members experience with Windows 10 and the rants and debates that come with it. For general non-fratching stuff, here is the thread.

For example, my mother was stuck while being unable to connect to a network while setting up Windows 10. I worked around that step and now, she's happily playing her mahjongg and freecell games.

I still get cries for help from her, especially regarding her Facebook news feed (as in too much MSN, not enough friends) and helping her find her Favorites section in Microsoft's Edge browser. My own experience is about to begin either today or tomorrow.

Therefore, without further ado, let the ranting begin!

[Greenday]

It took me less than an hour, I haven't lost anything, my laptop runs even faster than before (Previously Windows 7), and I have yet to have one single issue.

Plus I like Cortana and having the apps in my start menu.

Windows 10 is fantastic.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm still pissed off that they hate customization. >_>

[cindybubbles]

Mine is still downloading.... I got the notice that the upgrade was ready yesterday, and I hit the download button.

How long, in general, does it take to download stuff in the background? I am allowed 300GB/month in bandwidth and my first-floor PC is connected to the second-floor router/modem through Wi-Fi.

[the_std]

Your download speed will be influenced primarily by the download speed allotted by your ISP (for example, your package could hypothetically by 25mb up/50mb down), network congestion, and the size of the file. Seeing as how network congestion fluctuates throughout the day, it's pretty much impossible to say for sure.

[Tama]

It looks like I might actually use a Windows 10 then. I want Cortana, plus, da da da daaaaaaa, a START MENU. I won't get fucking lost trying to find something.

[Greenday]

Oh, I do have one gripe. Can't find minesweeper.

[Nekojin]

Oh, I do have one gripe. Can't find minesweeper.

Download a better version. Or play it online.

[HYHYBT]

7 was my favorite Windows version; when it was current, I was even considering switching from Mac the next time my laptop died. But then 8 came along, with the evil charms bar that popped up when it wasn't wanted and the pointer wasn't even anywhere near the area that was supposed to activate it, then, when it *was* wanted, would vanish just as I was about to click on what I wanted. If I had 8/8.1, it would be worth every complaint I've ever heard about Windows 10 just to get rid of that one thing.

But I actually like 10. Not sure why, exactly, and I haven't used it all that much despite having the preview version for months because all my my stuff's on the Mac side and I don't have any Windows software except what's built in. Anyway, it works well and is reasonably easy to navigate, and it doesn't seem to kill my battery. Put it on one of Dad's laptops, too, the one that never did get over the "restarting never finishes" problem until now; his one complaint so far is that the weather app doesn't show hourly forecasts like it does on 8.1.

The total installation process, using the link on Microsoft's site to download and install *now* instead of whenever, took about six hours. The annoying part was "checking for updates," which 1) came after the main download reached 100% and after the license agreement but, bizarrely, BEFORE the installation itself, and 2) was about a third of the total downloading time. If you're expecting 100% to be the end (and why wouldn't you) it's an aggravating disappointment. Because agreeing to the license and clicking a couple other buttons is in between, you can't even let it do all the downloading while you sleep because it will just stop there.

[Gravekeeper]

Oh, I do have one gripe. Can't find minesweeper.

I think they pulled it out of 10 so they could sell it back to you as an app. -.-

I'm wary of 10 because of all its creepy privacy problems. It was annoying enough configuring 8 to not be a weird stalker.

[Nekojin]

I think they pulled it out of 10 so they could sell it back to you as an app. -.-

Nope. Microsoft has plainly said that it'll be released (along with Solitaire and - *bleah* - Candy Crush), they just don't have a release date for it. They've given Solitaire a significant facelift; it stands to reason that they might be doing the same for Minesweeper. It's a Win95 game that hasn't had a single upgrade... ever.

Edit: The above is half-wrong. A facelifted Minesweeper IS available for free in the Win10 Windows Store, but it's "freemium" - you get ads, or pay a subscription to be ad-free. =>_>=

Also, according to some people, you can go get the files from WinXP or Win7 for Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts (Sol and Hearts require cards.dll in addition to the game's .exe) and install them on Win10 without problems.

[KabeRinnaul]

I'm personally going to stick with 7 until either I'm forced to change due to obsolescence, or a trusted tech-minded friend assures me 10 has been fixed and is the way to go.

[Andara Bledin]

The game is actually based on concepts from the mainframe era. I always thought the Mac version superior to the Win95 implementation.

I'm likely going to end up upgrading to 10 for the same reason I upgraded to 7 - game compatibility.

I won't worry about Win10 having Minesweeper as an app. That just means that there will be a million clones on the market that don't requirea subscription pretty much immediately. Having it be a separate thing will show to be a mistake on MS' part.

[DGoddess]

We've gotten both my brother's desktop and my Toshiba laptop upgraded to 10 between Friday and yesterday.

My download went pretty easy . . . but for my brother, however, we ran into some issues.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to get him to grasp that some things take time to get the bugs worked out (my brother is developmentally challenged and his brain process doesn't understand that he can't have everything nownowNOW right off the bat. Extremely frustrating for us and he creates a lot of unnecessary drama, but I digress.)

He can't burn DVD's now on Windows 10, which we've sent a feedback comment on that earlier this evening (rather he pulled it up on his computer and I typed it in, since his typing skills aren't that great and neither is his spelling.) Hopefully they'll have a fix for that since they decided not to be compatible with Windows DVD Maker (which is what I use when I burn movies online and want to make DVD's as well.)

Another thing we ran into is that Windows 10 didn't recognize that there is a built in DVD RW drive. I went into File Explorer and found the C, and saw F, G, H, I but no D.

Searched online for a bit and tried to contact online support chat (there is a waiting period for everything - the call center had a wait time of 588 minutes!) so while I was waiting, I asked Cortana and was directed to the support forums.

While browsing the forum to read the answers that had already been given since the question had been asked by numerous people, the Chat window came up and the rep was ready, so I let him know that we had upgraded but lost the DVD drive - Windows wasn't recognizing it.

Guy had no idea what I was talking about. He asked what kind of message i got - I had NO MESSAGE, THERE WAS NOTHING TO DISPLAY!!!! Not what I typed in, but how hard is it to understand that Windows is not recognizing the DVD drive in the desktop PC?

Then while he was being quiet, I went back to the Message Board and found the answer. Turned out all I needed to do was to copy and paste in a command into the Command Prompt (running as Administrator) and reboot.

I quickly ended that chat, had my brother connect his wireless mouse (the one he had connected wouldn't allow me to do a copy and paste - cheap ass thing) and I had it set up within a couple of minutes.

At least I can have some peace now and I can happily tweak and play with mine until I deicde to go to bed.

I deleted the Candy Crush (I gave up on that game when I got stuck on level 149 b/c I can't seem to play the damn level upside down) but I did find a pretty good Mah jhong game and I've not tried out the Free Cell Solitaire yet but I may save that for tomorrow.

Typing Tutor is a bit of a challenge . . . . I'll play more with that tomorrow as well. I do have some of my vintage wallpapers transferred in from CD, as well as my fanfic that I want to get finished at some point.

So far I like it but, like anything else, it'll take some getting used to.

[cindybubbles]

After so many headaches regarding why it hasn't started downloading and after updating my PC and encountering and fixing the resulting update errors for the umpteenth time, I've begun to finally download Windows 10. If that also results in an error, I'm using the media creation tool.