I think 10 is probably the last thing I would blame for the PC’s decline. 8 may have played a small part, but tablets and smart phones are the reason the PC industry is going down. Most people simply do not need one. They can do everything they want on their phones and tablets, and if they need to do some word processing or whatever, they can get a cheap Chromebook or they can just use the perfectly fine computer they bought half a decade ago. “Untold millions” are walking away from buying PCs because of Windows 10? Bullshit.
wumpus
1862
Yeah if anything that was Windows 8, which probably retroactively was the “worst” version of Windows, even moreso than Vista.
Anyway Windows 10 mostly pulls a Windows 7 and cleans up things … again … to where it’s recommendable … again. So all good.
As far as macro level trends, 100% about smartphones. “A PC on every desktop!” was not ambitious enough in retrospect. Sorry BillG.
stusser
1863
Everybody in their 20s has a laptop and a smartphone. Usually a macbook air or pro. Computers are still very healthy.
In sharp contrast, essentially none of them own a TV or a tablet. They watch netflix on their laptops.
I know an assload of university students without laptops, so I’m thinking you might be slightly off.
I skipped Windows 8 and went from 7 to 10. I think it’s ugly, and I’m pretty sure I won’t use a lot of the features as my PC is mostly a game box, but most everything I need to do is pretty much done the same way as before. I just ignore the crap I don’t need.
Discounting the whole UI debacle with Win8, On 8.1 I can still choose when and which updates to install, they come with a description (for now, I suspect), and I also do not have several services tracking everything for “telemitry” + it has better Performance than Win7. So with that in mind I’d rate it as better than Win7 and a lot better than Win 10.
Command line is where it is at anyway, who needs a Start button anyway. :)
Daagar
1867
I’m not sure if this is still true.
Really? My vote is still with Windows Me.
All of those 9x kernel OSes are simply awful compared to anything Microsoft released after XP, even just judged solely on stability. Before XP came out you’d be lucky to get a week of uptime. With XP you could keep a system running for months without issue. It was a revelation. A lot of people have rose-tinted glasses when talking about 98 especially. They must not remember the countless illegal operations, BSODs, disc scan errors, and Registry errors.
Pepperidge Farm remembers!
Not to mention IRQ conflicts.
wumpus
1871
Yeah the whole 9x stack was a house of cards on top of DOS, basically.
Windows 2000 was pretty solid as well, really the first NT kernel OS that was worth using, but has been forgotten due to the overwhelming (and arguably deserved) success of Windows XP.
Windows ME a) wasn’t that bad and b) very few people actually ran it since it was a bit of a stopgap OS
Windows 8 wasn’t just buggy, it was kind of an intentional slap in the face to the entire desktop window metaphor.
Hidden updates
Couldn’t tell you what all of these does right now, but I did decide to not install them at some point.
@WinME: I think it ran nicely as I didn’t have any of the compatibility problems some people did (which I guess was one of the reasons it got bad press). Course, I always did a fresh install and I’d think many people who “upgrade” are the majority of those who run into problems.
Vista was certainly a worse release than Win8 in terms of Performance. They didn’t have the whole “micro-kernel” settled yet, and I believe Russinovich wasn’t fully onboard during the development of Vista. The problem with Windows 8 was the user-interface and Microsoft changing direction to be an “Apple 2.0” with their Mobile First approach, the underlying architecture was quite good.
Code name Nashville was the most fun OS Microsoft ever did though. Believe it was the code name for the Shell Replacement (think IE 3 or 4) Windows 95 release.
Considering updating my new 8.1 and old 7 systems to 10 today. Is it safe yet? Things to look out for? I’ve skimmed through the thread, but would appreciate some up-to-date thoughts.
I suggest using the media creation tool rather than the updater. And make sure to backup all important files, just in case. Also, deactivate any software on your machines than can be deactivated.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
You should be fine. It’s been out 5 months. MS has already gotten a whole new build number, as well as ton of incremental updates. They’re already way past the “Wait until SP1” phase of older Windows.
Thanks, Woolen. Is the media creation tool approach just in case I get stuck without internet? Sounds like a good idea. Should I take that as an implied recommendation to do a clean install, or is that a separate question?
With past versions of Windows, I’ve done clean installs. With this one I feel like it may not matter. I have two drives, with pretty much everything I want to save on the second one (non-SSD) and I have only had the computer for a few months without installing a whole lot on top of it. So a clean install doesn’t have the danger of wiping anything I want, but an upgrade probably won’t conflict with much, either.
You will need to do an upgrade first (using either method) in order for your free Windows 10 licenses to activate. Once they are activated (make sure to check), then you can do a clean install. Just remember that when you do a clean install you do not need to enter any keys. If the PCs had previously been activated with Windows 10, the activation servers will remember them.
Aleck
1877
Weirdly, the windows update method appears to fuck up every now and then in ways the media creation tool doesn’t, so the media creation tool is really just the easier and more foolproof way to upgrade.
I upgraded my last system (other than my DVR running Windows Media Center) last week, using the media creation tool, and it was a piece of cake.
Had my first Win 10 BSOD earlier this week, and since then 4 more, all with the same error relating to “dxgmms2.sys”. A bit of Googling tells me it’s probably something hosed with the NVidia driver. It’s only happened when playing SWTOR to this point. I’m living with it for now, but I suppose at some point I’m going to have to mess around with downgrading my driver or something.
I went the updater route last week, after backing up my important files on One Drive. It went so smoothly, that I almost didn’t realize that it was done already.
I’m not sure whether I will do a clean install or not.
Yup, this was my experience too.
