New
#21
If by point a) you mean forced driver update then yes, that is an issue (although there are ways to work around that).
Point b) is what bothers me; I was one of the biggest W7 fanboys out, I rejected W8 on face value (which in hindsight was wrong as with the installation of Start8 it looked and acted just like a square W7) but was intrigued by W10 to see what changes were being made from 8. Now I've been running Preview builds for months and am using W10 as an OBE and it behaves eactly like my 7 install, no matter which OS I boot into I can do my computing exactly the same. It doesn't take long to get used to 10, it's a damn good OS.
You are comparing a software app to an operating system. One has many superfluous features where as the other has necessary components. You could customize Windows 7, and you could customize the crap out of 8/8.1. Seems to be true in 10 as well. If you want to know why Microsoft is building in mobile options, you simply need to look at the latest hardware offerings. The lines separating desktops, laptops, and tablets are blurring. My Surface Pro 3 is a perfect example of that.
If the OS doesn't offer these features, hardware manufacturers won't innovate. In this case, it doesn't matter who comes first, the chicken (software) or the egg (hardware) as long as someone takes the first step. No one would make touch screen monitors if the OS didn't support it. It sounds like you don't take a look at the big picture of the industry.
True, MS have cut down on customisation options a LOT. Some of that can be fixed with third party tools, like the Winaero Tweaker (I couldn't stand the default white title bars!) I suspect there's a way to change the desktop font, but you'll probably have to do it via the registry.
You can just turn Cortana and web searching off, and then the search button just behaves as it did in Windows 7/8. Modern apps take up very, very little hard drive space.
There's a powershell command to remove the default apps, either individually or all at once. I agree it was stupid not to let users choose to remove them via the add/remove components dialog, but it is still possible.
In terms of both memory and storage space it's considerably more efficient than Windows 7. I have it running on a tablet with 1 GB of ram and a paltry 16 GB SSD and it flies along. Yes it's annoying that Cortana's sitting there occupying 22 MB of ram when it's technically turned off, but it seems MS has made improvements elsewhere that more than offset that.
It's a HUGE improvement on Windows 8 for desktop users. I've now, happily, replaced Windows 8.1 on all machines I had running it. I'm keeping Windows 7 for my serious work machines, but for casual use Windows 10 is already pretty competent.
I'm sure there are many XP users that will be saying this right up to the point they get hit by something really nasty. I've seen elsewhere on this forum users who don't believe even antivirus software is necessary! Some people are setting themselves up for a world of hurt, but what can you do?
For the record I don't think Windows 10 is ready for prime time just yet, and I can see businesses passing on it until the constant "phoning home" practice is abolished, but it's not the disaster 8 was. I do wish it wasn't so screwed down in terms of customisation, you should never be telling users they need to use powershell, the command prompt or the registry editor to uninstall things or make simple UI changes.
Geez ... the emotions in this thread ... it's like I told them their child was ugly or something. LMAO
Relax people ... I'm not here slamming all Microsoft products .... I'm just trying to figure out why they made Windows 10 the way it is.
When I beta tested Windows 2000 ... right from the very first build I could tell it was solid and stable and a no nonsense OS and couldn't wait to get off of Win98. Each OS since has had less of a "wow" factor, and now Windows 10 just makes me scratch my head and ask why.
I'm here to see if someone can help me understand its existence.
yes BunnyJ .. thank you for that tut thread link. I'll look it over and see what it does.
As I posted once a thread starts going off into outer space, it just keeps on going and going and going and going and going. Sorta like for 500,000 light years for a short start.