Microsoft Needs to Kill Windows 8 to Make Windows 10 a Hit, Says HP

alphanumeric said:

Multi monitor support has improved. Modern Apps now remember what screen they were last opened on. Snap works better. Start Screen is easier to organize, etc, etc. I run triple monitors. That by itself makes it worth my while to run 10 over 8.1. Windows 10 is going to see new features. Windows 8.1, not so much, if at all.

Valid points, I suppose Windows 10 has it's place. I would hardly call triple monitors, the "norm", and Windows 8.1 remembers the previous screen app positions. I personally, like playing with my personalize tools, and my DVDs and home movies, so Windows 10 just leaves me dry. I really much prefer the Windows 8 tablet mode over 10, with my 3rd party menu, for me it is far, far more functional then 10 ever could be.

Not saying it is bad, just don't think it is any better. After the free upgrade thing, wears off, I think Windows 10 will have a slow adoption, some reports already show a decline. In the future if I have to spend bucks, I would sooner buy 8 over 10, but that is just me. LOL but I still use Windows 7 as my main work engine

mrgeek said:

If I then try to use the 'Create Recovery Drive' tool in Control Panel, I'm assuming there's nothing there to copy. Can I put the .wim image off of my Windows 10 install DVD created from the MS media creation tool there in it's place ? Does my line of thinking seem sound ? Thanks for your help, as always.

You might be better off asking these questions in a specific thread for recovery drives, or the tutorial for creating a recovery drive, rather than in a 'Windows 10 News' thread.

However my experience is:

1. the Create Recovery Drive process is different in Windows 10. Even with no OEM partition, it can create a USB that will reinstall Windows for you on a "bare-metal" drive, if you select the option to include system files when you create it.
2. Perhaps because of this complexity, the process to Create a Recovery Drive is flaky and doesn't always work if you use the aforementioned option to include system files. Also, even on the same machine, you can run it twice and one attempt will work but the other might not.
3. If you have a fresh setup, and if you're lucky enough to have a computer which will create a Recovery Drive, you can generate a 'provisioning package' to capture your installed software, like an OEM would, so the Recovery process reinstalls your software (plugging my own tutorial )

But I would give it a go - if you're lucky it might just work and you wouldn't need to worry about manually copying WIMs etc.

I created the recovery drive and it test booted fine. I'll look over your tutorial which seems to take care of the problem of re-installing programs. I always back up files every couple days so the combo of the three tools should take care of any disaster scenario, I hope.

I will ride 8.1 as long as possible. I tried W-10 for a full 30 days and saw enough to make me want to go back to 8.1. I used to think I would try W-10 again while it's still free and many of the kinks were worked but after seeing the direction MS is going NO Way! With W-10 MS will eventually take control of every aspect of the device. This is just the beginning.

I think Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell is a fine operating system. I also like Windows 10 though i initially feared installing it for some months because of privacy concerns and because of how aggressive M was pushing it in notifications. I finally relented on a 2GB netbook I have and upgraded it since I figure I should be familiar with Win 10 in case I have to help family with it. That worked out well. Now I've put it on a couple of laptops. I find that the start menu in Win 10 is customizable enough that I don't need Classic Shell. And Win 10 feels a little smoother overall. It's still a little disjointed with a Settings menu and a Control Panel and it has some other issues but overall I'm OK with the switch so far.

ARC1020 said:

Microsoft are going in the advertising and search direction, instead of focusing on business and productivity that Microsoft used to be about. We've already seen some of the affects of that with Cortana and Bing Search being built-in at OS level, ads in apps, etc. and this is still early days, with forced updates they can push out whatever they want in the future.

I used to like Microsoft and their products because they were an engineering company with a strong lean towards business and productivity, not a sales and marketing company pretending to be a tech company so they can target consumers with the latest fad and cash in on their users data. With Microsoft being in the advertising and search business, it creates a conflict of interest because it's not just you who's their customer by paying for the Windows licence, but the advertising companies and various other agencies are as well. And with corporations being the greedy entities they are, monitoring, data collecting and tracking people in order to obtain greater advertising revenue would be inevitable.

Also, Microsoft are systematically replacing proper desktop software with low functionality, poorly thought out, screen-space wasting, mobile phone apps. With Windows 8.1 it's possible to just ignore all the 'apps' and carry on as normal, but with Windows 10 it's only a matter of time before all the legacy software disappears and we're just left with dumbed down apps. We've already seen it happen with Windows Photo Viewer, where a reg hack is needed to bring it back after a clean install. And we've already seen the effects of forced updates with the Windows 10 Mail App, where it isn't possible to go back to or keep using older versions of the app even if the latest version has functionality removed and you don't get on with the changes that have been implemented. Universal apps sounded like a nice idea, until the realisation sunk in that they would be dictatorship style apps created to accommodate for the lowest common denominator, which is a consumer mobile phone.

Subscription apps are likely to be the next thing to come to the Windows store, where you will be held ransom by your software. Keep paying up, or else it stops functioning properly. And if it's not subscriptions, you'll no doubt have to put up with distracting ads in your software instead, while all the time it hoovering up as much data about you as it can in order to sell on.

Windows is now facing an identity crisis. At a time where Microsoft are promoting the idea of 'One Windows', I think if ever there was a need to split Windows between consumer and business this is it. On one hand you have consumers where quite a few of them view their computer as merely a gadget/toy, the cheaper and trendier the better and don't consider functionality or privacy implications. On the other end you have people who are very much business orientated, consider Windows to be a tool, and strongly consider functionality and privacy implications. It's naive of Microsoft to assume people just use Windows to browse the web and keep up with whatever the latest app craze is.

All in all, for the time being Windows 10 doesn't offer me anything new that I want or need, other than it comes with a built-in PDF printer now. Most of the changes are things I don't want or need from a desktop PC. It's only my own interests I have in mind, Microsoft still get paid whether the licence I get is Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, especially if I end up going for a barebones PC with a retail version of Windows 8.1 Pro. But by going for Windows 8.1 I keep my options open for now. So that's what I mean by saying I want more time to assess just what direction Microsoft is going in.

Truly nice write-up

As to the highlighted assertion, there are the Home, Professional, and Enterprise versions of Windows/Programs/apps. What is lacking?