Upgrading to Windows 10 anyone?

[bigfield]

Until Saturday, my partner's father was still running XP on an old Pentium.

Since Windows 10 would require him to buy new hardware and learn how to use a new operating system, I decided to skip the new-hardware bit and introduced him to Linux Mint, instead.

Saved him a few hundred bucks, and now he has a computer that easy to use and is almost immune to viruses.

Being almost immune to viruses, do you still use antivirus software like Norton or whatever (or perhaps some other software is more compatible?), or is Linux secure enough on its own?

Sooner or later I'll most likely go to Linux and give W10 a miss. You have largely convinced me to go with it.

You can't use antivirus products made for Windows, so instead you could use ClamAV. However it is common practice to use none at all as Linux is bloody difficult to infect.

 

[crazyfingers]

I broke my own promise to myself and just installed Windows 10 to this, my new notebook. Turned all of the options off to send info to Microsoft, as I did on the old notebook.

So far so good. My email works and so does Firefox. No issues installing. It took 70 minutes.

Now to testing and configuring my stuff as I want it.

 

[crazyfingers]

The move to Win10 appears to have been flawless, except for two tiny items. iTunes needed to be reauthorized the computer and I had to deauthorize the now nonexistent Win7 computer. And Windows would not recognize my HP printer. I turned the printer off and on again and HP installed new drivers and that fixed that.

 

[DBT]

Being almost immune to viruses, do you still use antivirus software like Norton or whatever (or perhaps some other software is more compatible?), or is Linux secure enough on its own?

Sooner or later I'll most likely go to Linux and give W10 a miss. You have largely convinced me to go with it.

You can't use antivirus products made for Windows, so instead you could use ClamAV. However it is common practice to use none at all as Linux is bloody difficult to infect.

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I have a brand new (6 weeks old) computer that came with Windows 7. I have already had to do a total Windows factory reset on windows because, it seems, an update broke stuff. After my system reinstall Windows started the update thing again and I have stopped allowing updates at this point when it reached the point where an update screwed up the system. The first symptom before all hell broke loose the first time was that the updates did not automatically install on shut down and the update icon did not appear as it was supposed to so I did the update from Windows Update.

Right now i am at the point again where updates don't install on shutdown even though all the settings are such that it should. So while otherwise my Windows 7 is performing correctly, Windows Update is semi-busted. It's collecting updates to install but doesn't put the icon on the shut down button and I'm extremely reluctant to install them from Windows Update for rear that all hell will break loose again.

So now Windows 10 is on the verge of release. But I have a Nvidia graphics card and news is that Windows 10 installs a faulty driver making the graphics card faulty.

So what to do?

Are you going to update to Windows 10? And if you are how does it go?

I had a computer with Windows 8 on it. I upgraded that since it was no loss. Win 8 sucks ass. I haven't had it long. But so far it's mostly annoying. But it's growing on me. On my other computers I have Win 7. So far I prefer Win 7. I probably will for quite some time because it is such a classic.

It's pretty obvious that they want to make working with tablets, phones and Windows to be seamless. They basically want to be Android or Mac, but with all the frills. Android has gone for the light-weight segment. Mac the high end design segment. And since Android/Mac has been winning so far, I think Win 10 is the way to go for the future. But I don't use my other computers that way. My job pays for my iphone and my Macbookpro. They do all the cross-device synching needs for me. I really don't need yet another seamless cross-device type operating system. All my Windows machines are stand alone. So for me Windows 7 is actually better.

 

[bilby]

You can't use antivirus products made for Windows, so instead you could use ClamAV. However it is common practice to use none at all as Linux is bloody difficult to infect.

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

Hotmail is a browser based, server side mail system - effectively it is a website, not an application running on your machine, like Outlook or Outlook Express. It doesn't care what OS you use, as long as your browser is vaguely standards compliant; I use Hotmail via Firefox and/or Chrome and/or Chromium, all on Linux OSes, with no problems at all.

You would no more have a problem with hotmail on a linux machine than you would have a problem with any other website - hotmail is out there on the web, and doesn't care a whit about your computer - it just talks to whatever browser you use.

 

[DBT]

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

Hotmail is a browser based, server side mail system - effectively it is a website, not an application running on your machine, like Outlook or Outlook Express. It doesn't care what OS you use, as long as your browser is vaguely standards compliant; I use Hotmail via Firefox and/or Chrome and/or Chromium, all on Linux OSes, with no problems at all.

You would no more have a problem with hotmail on a linux machine than you would have a problem with any other website - hotmail is out there on the web, and doesn't care a whit about your computer - it just talks to whatever browser you use.

Thanks, that was the last of my concerns...now to find the time for the task of installation.

 

[blastula]

I have Windows 8 and don't understand the complaints from anyone who likes Windows 7. You can just click on the desktop view and from there it runs mostly just like Windows 7.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I have Windows 8 and don't understand the complaints from anyone who likes Windows 7. You can just click on the desktop view and from there it runs mostly just like Windows 7.

I really like the start button

 

[crazyfingers]

I have Windows 8 and don't understand the complaints from anyone who likes Windows 7. You can just click on the desktop view and from there it runs mostly just like Windows 7.

I really like the start button

I couldn't stand win8 when I got the kids new computers. All that crap that slides out from the side and it was so difficult to even catch the shutdown button with it sliding in and out. It was a monster. I eventually learned about Classic Shell that installed a Win7 start button and allowed Boot straight to the desktop but still it was a mess.

On my computers I had Win7 and have moved them to Win10. I'm still getting to know the options or customizing tthe start button but so far I really like it and overall I really like Win10 because it's just plain faster than Win7 expectantly on my older 2009 notebook. Boot took 20 minutes and now takes 3 minutes.

The new Settings organizations is a learning process but not bad. My main complaint is that it lacks explanation on what some of the less obvious settings actually do. Getting outlook to just make a sound and show an icon when I get new mail without doing a popup and adding a notification to the notification icon has been a process.

However so far I like Win10 at least as much as Win7 and probably a bit more mainly because of the speed.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

On my computers I had Win7 and have moved them to Win10. I'm still getting to know the options or customizing tthe start button but so far I really like it and overall I really like Win10 because it's just plain faster than Win7 expectantly on my older 2009 notebook. Boot took 20 minutes and now takes 3 minutes.

Are they really that slow? I run Windows 7 on two laptops, one (pentium) from 2010 and one (core i5) from 2011, and neither of them take anywhere near that long to boot up.

 

[crazyfingers]

On my computers I had Win7 and have moved them to Win10. I'm still getting to know the options or customizing tthe start button but so far I really like it and overall I really like Win10 because it's just plain faster than Win7 expectantly on my older 2009 notebook. Boot took 20 minutes and now takes 3 minutes.

Are they really that slow? I run Windows 7 on two laptops, one (pentium) from 2010 and one (core i5) from 2011, and neither of them take anywhere near that long to boot up.

The old one yes.

Over vacation when I was just using the old one to play movies at night, 20 minutes to boot and 15 minutes to launch iTunes. The old one wasn't originally anything like that slow but over the years I'm sure a lot of crap got added. I suspect that Win10 just cleared it out. A reinstall of Win7 probably would have done a lot the same thing but Win10 is here so I used that.

But even the new one is faster but by no means such a drastic improvement. Maybe just a minute cut out. The new one loads Outlook on startup. I'd say after installing Win10 I'm saving a minute or two. Overall total bootup and Outlook are about 3-4 minutes I'd guess.

 

[DBT]

You can't use antivirus products made for Windows, so instead you could use ClamAV. However it is common practice to use none at all as Linux is bloody difficult to infect.

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

Not having much joy with installing Linux.... Cinnamon'' ''primary mirrors'' ''secondry mirrors'' ''iinet'' ''AARnet'' options, none of which seem to relate to what I'm using, which Telstra broadband...looks like I need to do a course on installing Linux.

Shortly after the download began it stalled halfway through, so a couple of hours later I lost patience and deleted it.

Looks like I'll have to go with Windows10 after all.

 

[beero1000]

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

Not having much joy with installing Linux.... Cinnamon'' ''primary mirrors'' ''secondry mirrors'' ''iinet'' ''AARnet'' options, none of which seem to relate to what I'm using, which Telstra broadband...looks like I need to do a course on installing Linux.

Shortly after the download began it stalled halfway through, so a couple of hours later I lost patience and deleted it.

Looks like I'll have to go with Windows10 after all.

"Mirrors" just refer to websites that distribute the software. The descriptors are just names for them - the names do not need to match anything about your setup.

 

[bigfield]

I have one concern with installing Linux...I have been using Hotmail for a long time and it would be quite inconvenient to have to contact and provide a new email address to all the people and businesses that I deal with, if Hotmail is not available on Linux.

Not having much joy with installing Linux.... Cinnamon'' ''primary mirrors'' ''secondry mirrors'' ''iinet'' ''AARnet'' options, none of which seem to relate to what I'm using, which Telstra broadband...looks like I need to do a course on installing Linux.

Shortly after the download began it stalled halfway through, so a couple of hours later I lost patience and deleted it.

Looks like I'll have to go with Windows10 after all.

You were on the right track with iiNet and AARNet. "Mirror" means that the company iiNet keeps a copy of the installer so that people can download it. There are lots of mirrors so that people can choose one that is close to them geographically for a faster download. You could pick just about any mirror you want, but picking an Australian one like AARNet or iiNet will give you the fastest download.

Unfortunately, since internet in Australia is shithouse anyway, downloading big files doesn't always work on the first try. It would probably work better on your second attempt.

Primary mirrors are kept up to date more often than secondary mirrors, but you could pick any of them and get the same result.

 

[NobleSavage]

This start menu makes me want to puke:



It looks like there are ads in there. How hard is it to turn that shit off? I'm going to have to deal with this sooner or later.

 

[Juma]

This start menu makes me want to puke:

View attachment 3796

It looks like there are ads in there. How hard is it to turn that shit off? I'm going to have to deal with this sooner or later.

What do you mean? There are no ads there. Just your apps.

 

[DBT]

Not having much joy with installing Linux.... Cinnamon'' ''primary mirrors'' ''secondry mirrors'' ''iinet'' ''AARnet'' options, none of which seem to relate to what I'm using, which Telstra broadband...looks like I need to do a course on installing Linux.

Shortly after the download began it stalled halfway through, so a couple of hours later I lost patience and deleted it.

Looks like I'll have to go with Windows10 after all.

You were on the right track with iiNet and AARNet. "Mirror" means that the company iiNet keeps a copy of the installer so that people can download it. There are lots of mirrors so that people can choose one that is close to them geographically for a faster download. You could pick just about any mirror you want, but picking an Australian one like AARNet or iiNet will give you the fastest download.

Unfortunately, since internet in Australia is shithouse anyway, downloading big files doesn't always work on the first try. It would probably work better on your second attempt.

Primary mirrors are kept up to date more often than secondary mirrors, but you could pick any of them and get the same result.

Thanks, you'd think they'd make it clearer and simpler for newbies installing these systems, like me for example...but I'll try it again on my old netbook, which still has windows xp, and see how it goes.

 

[NobleSavage]

This start menu makes me want to puke:

It looks like there are ads in there. How hard is it to turn that shit off? I'm going to have to deal with this sooner or later.

What do you mean? There are no ads there. Just your apps.

Ok, it's hard to tell by looking at that image so I did a google search:

In the default state on our machine there are 18 tiles. We haven’t moved any. We haven’t modified anything. This is the Start Menu we saw (and, with very minor variation) millions of other people will see.

Let’s look at that screenshot of the Windows 10 Start Menu we shared earlier. We didn’t do anything to tweak or adjust the menu. We just booted into a brand new clean copy of Windows 10 and took a snapshot.




Of those 18 tiles 10 of them are advertisements and/or otherwise monetized. If you count the fact that the OneNote tile prompts you to buy an Office 365 license then 11 out of the 18 tiles are not links to useful system functions or apps but some form of promotion.


Further, of those 18 tiles five of them, by default, are news (and in most cases that term should be applied lightly). You know what we don’t want? We don’t want a Start Menu that tells us “7 Tips for Handling Hot Summer Hikes”, what’s going on with oil futures, what the current state of the hearing of (insert the name of the most recent domestic terrorist here) is, or how things are going in the NFL. We don’t want burger recipes, tips on clearing brain fog, or suggestions for crap we should buy in the Xbox Live store. When did the Start Menu become a BuzzFeed ad?

http://www.howtogeek.com/224805/the...acred-but-its-still-a-disaster-in-windows-10/

 

[crazyfingers]

Easy as can be to remove them all. Then I put my apps there and made the icons small. No clashy stuff any more.

Ever since installing win10, I have had no issues. I had so many problems with win7 just before upgrading. I almost thinkk Microsoft was adding updates to break win7 just to get me to upgrade.