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Windows 10

Discussion in 'Tilted Gear' started by martian, Aug 6, 2015.

  1. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    So who's using Windows 10 so far? Thoughts, opinions? Are you considering taking advantage of the free upgrade, if you're eligible? If not, why not?

    Personally, I'm pretty impressed. I actually set it up using the Insider Preview a couple of months ago, so I've had it running for a while. There were a few bugs at first but they got ironed out pretty quickly. Most of the UX feels just like Windows 7, so that's bound to make a lot of people happy (there's a toggle switch buried in the settings if you want the Windows 8 "tablet" experience).

    It's also nice that they're giving it away for free to anyone who has a valid license for Windows 7 or 8. Turns out that folks on the Insider Preview get to keep theirs as well as long as they agree to be perpetual guinea pigs, so my Basecamp partition will remain. The realist/cynic in me understands that the motive for the giveaway is to get people off of the older versions and avoid a repeat of the Windows XP EOL madness, but free is free.

    Less good: there have been a bunch of reports that Windows 10 is "spying" on users. A lot of this stuff falls into usability enhancements but if the idea that your usage patterns and search history are going to live on some Microsoft server forever bothers you that might be a downer. You can disable a lot of the options but since Microsoft controls the software there's no guarantee that this will actually stop the data collection, really.

    Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out | BGR
     
  2. Speed_Gibson

    Speed_Gibson Hacking the Gibson

    Location:
    Wolf 359
    Pondering it. I hate Windows 8 on almost every level, but have seen Windows 10 and actually liked it.
    Just upgraded my system to a dualboot again with Linux Mint 17.2 and that one I definitely love working with that
     
  3. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    I'm still waiting for mine. I check every day, but they keep saying, "We'll let you know."

    OH HEY, I just checked and it's ready!
     
  4. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    So, with the privacy thing: one click on "custom" before it booted fully into the OS, and it brought up two screens' worth of privacy settings to opt out of. My take: people can't read.

    I'm playing around with the settings now. I like the look for it--very sharp and clean. Plus, I got to turn the edges of things this really classy shade of orange.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Speed_Gibson

    Speed_Gibson Hacking the Gibson

    Location:
    Wolf 359
    I do not have the taskbar icon to update windows, but I also did just install some updates this morning after just cherry picking a select few over the past few years.
    ......Turns out there is a Service Pack 1 for Win 7 64 bit.
     
  6. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    One thing that irks me is that Cortana doesn't work for me. I don't know if it hasn't been turned on for Canada yet or if it's something to do with my preview install, but I can't enable it with my location set correctly. If I set my location to New York it works but it wasn't blowing my socks off the way people say it ought to, so it might still be not quite right. Most things I asked it just launched a Bing search, which means it's on par with Google Now ca. 2013. Not terribly impressive.
     
  7. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    I opted out of Cortana completely.
     
  8. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    I'm just wondering if it will run more efficiently on my older hardware compared to Windows 7. I'm eligible for the free upgrade apparently.
     
  9. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    SimCity 4 Deluxe does not work on Windows 10. The compatibility checker won't even open. That's frustrating, as I finally had figured out how to stabilize it in 7, as it really does not like multiple cores.
     
  10. POPEYE

    POPEYE Very Tilted

    Location:
    Tulsa
    My son loaded window's 10 for me and I am so looking forward to learning and using it
     
  11. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    Oddly enough I've never had much of a problem making Simcity 4 go. I just tried Simcity 4 Deluxe here and it worked fine, though I had to add a command line switch to get it to do widescreen.

    My copy is the Steam edition. Maybe it's been optimized in some fashion?
     
  12. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    I'm perfectly happy running Win7, thank you very much.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Lordeden

    Lordeden Part of the Problem

    Location:
    Redneckhell, NC
    We ran it on a single core P4 processor with 1.5gbs of Ram. It ran it pretty well after turning off effects. I was impressed.

    I got thoughts on this, but I'll have to come back to this thread later.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  14. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    I'd like to know more about this, as my processor is quad core (Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600). If Windows 10 takes better advantage of multicore processors, it would be worth it to upgrade, no?
     
  15. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    That's the culpit, ultimately: mine is the original edition from 2003, and there is apparently some security feature it doesn't have because it's an older game. I can redeem my game code on the game for a digital version from Origin, but so far, that is a process that isn't working for me.
    You misread that, and I apologize if my pronoun usage was unclear. SimCity 4, the original version, does not like multiple cores. In 7, it had an issue with repeated crashing, and I was only able to stabilize it by assigning the game to use only 1 core.
     
  16. Lordeden

    Lordeden Part of the Problem

    Location:
    Redneckhell, NC
    Older games and (external) hardware WILL NOT play nice with win 10. 6+ year old anything will crap the bucket. Printers mainly.

    Also, if you have alienware or anything Dell related. Don't upgrade. They haven't got their shit right yet with drivers.

    If you upgrade, your product key (unless you are running an OEM manufacturer's key) will become invalid (we are testing this theory right now) and only the windows 10 key (which I don't know how to rip out of a system) will remain. You have 30 days to roll back but don't run any tuneup type programs, because it will get rid of your Windows.OLD folder that allows you to roll back.

    If you upgrade and then have to reload windows 10 directly on a new hard drive, it will not register. This also goes for transferring the HDD to another computer and booting.

    Turn off the privacy shit, turn off the bot-net update push, turn off Cortana (she will send info you look up back to MS).

    I got more, but can't think of it right now.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  17. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Yes, I did. My bad. I was in the middle of recaffeinating.
    --- merged: Aug 7, 2015 2:51 PM ---
    Welp, I guess I'm not upgrading.

    No big deal, really.

    Thanks, Win-nerd.

    /6+-year-old thing
    /Dell-related
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 14, 2015
  18. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 14, 2015
  19. Speed_Gibson

    Speed_Gibson Hacking the Gibson

    Location:
    Wolf 359
    Windows Update has informed me there is an Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7. Definitely didn't miss that update before.
     
  20. Street Pattern

    Street Pattern Very Tilted

    I have two laptops here. The one I'm typing on right now, a Toshiba, connected to the Internet, has Windows 7. The other one, an HP, is never allowed online for security reasons, and runs Windows XP, because I have an old application I still need.

    I am not interested in being on the bleeding edge. I have seen a few new version upgrades crash and burn. For example, a few years ago, a bunch of my staff had to do receipts by hand for a while, because a new version of something broke the cash system, and it couldn't be undone.