Consensus on Windows 10?

Paul wrote on 7/15/2015 5:08 PM:
On an entirely separate issue...

Well, this is interesting. If you take the "free" upgrade,
you have 30 days to decide to downgrade again.

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/07/02/com...de-windows-10/

Paul
Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

mike wrote:


You can bet that everything that microsoft does is aimed at increasing
profit and shareholder equity. You/we are merely a source of funds.

If people are not gonna buy the upgrade, they might as well give it away.

Correct but with offsetting adjustments to revenue thereby impacting
profit due to the negative impact of giving Win10 aways for free.

But as you've noted...a public corporations objective is to turn a
profit and return to shareholders.






--
...winston
msft mvp windows experience

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:18:49 -0700, T wrote:

Otherwise, just stay with XP or W7. Or get off Windows altogether.

A friend of mine has been after me for years to switch to Linux. He started
out in Windows, and once he discovered Linux he never looked back.

Tom

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remove .invalid to reply by email

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 16:04:16 -0400, Slimer wrote:

Nobody cares what some Linux loser like you thinks.

and nobody really cares what you think.

Tom

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remove .invalid to reply by email

Tom Hall wrote:

In my long history with Windows, I've never been one to jump on the
bandwagon when a new release hits the street. I've always waited until the
first service pack is released.

Is Windows 10 ready for release?

Will Microsoft wait a year before releasing a service pack (if indeed there
is one), so that those like me who hold back from upgrading won't be able
to benefit from the free upgrade? I can't help but wonder if the free
upgrade is a trojan horse.

In the past, at best, "final" releases of Windows have been what I would
consider a late beta. I always waited until the Service Pack 1
release before considering upgrading. Of course, that last upgrade was
to Windows XP. ;-)

As far as W10, I'd wait and see how it's doing after 6 month. Should
have most of the big problems solved by then.

I don't plan to upgrade to 10. Just like I didn't to 7 and 8. XP
still does what I need to do with it.

Stef

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

On 7/16/2015 4:36 AM, mechanic wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

That's the $64 question.
If you had a preinstalled win7, the key is the generic vendor key.
They can't blacklist that...can they?

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 08:38:00 -0600, Tom Hall
wrote:

In my long history with Windows, I've never been one to jump on the
bandwagon when a new release hits the street. I've always waited until the
first service pack is released.

Is Windows 10 ready for release?

Is it ready for release? That depends on your definition of "ready".

10166 seems fairly feature-complete and as bug-free as any *.0
Microsoft release. They seem to have brought together their vision of
what their new OS should be, and in that regard it is probably ready
to go.

Is it something worth upgrading to? Opinions on this will vary, but -
aside from some of the hyped-up articles in magazines - the general
consensus of the users I've talked to is "no", especially if the users
already have Windows7. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that W10
doesn't really have any major advantages over the older versions and
it comes with some significant disadvantages (a still-terrible
touch-centric interface that the half-assed reintroduction of the
start button does nothing to mitigate, less control over the OS and
upgrades, an integration with Microsoft's online services that borders
on creepy, etc.).

The fact that Microsoft is trying to give (force!) this product away
for free is rather telling. It implies even they do not have
confidence that the OS is strong enough to make it on its own merits.


Will Microsoft wait a year before releasing a service pack (if indeed there
is one), so that those like me who hold back from upgrading won't be able
to benefit from the free upgrade? I can't help but wonder if the free
upgrade is a trojan horse.

Indications are that MS has no intention* of offering service packs
anymore, just an endless and unscheduled stream of rolling updates
released willy-nilly in a manner that will doubtlessly drive both the
average user and system administrators to tears. You may wish to wait
a year until the most obvious bugs are squashed but there won't be any
significant service-pack milestones for you to wait on.

In any event, it is unlikely that any of these patches will fix most
of the true issues with the OS anyway. For that we'll have to wait for
the next version of Windows, which I think is going to eventually
materialize regardless of Nadella's current plans.

So if your question is, should I upgrade to Windows10 on release, my
answer is a firm "no". There is no significant reason to do so, there
are several disadvantages and Microsoft *.0 releases aren't worth
installing anyway.


* Nonetheless, I think Microsoft is going to back down on this one
sooner rather than later. The lack of an "update Tuesday" and
checkpoint versions for the OS are major disadvantages for
administrators and developers and I think the pressure they will put
on Redmond will make them reconsider their erroneous plans. Rolling
updates work with smaller apps but an OS needs more stability.

mike wrote:
On 7/16/2015 4:36 AM, mechanic wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before
upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

That's the $64 question.
If you had a preinstalled win7, the key is the generic vendor key.
They can't blacklist that...can they?

They have the key... plus they have the NIC MAC address.
Your laptop may have the generic Dell Win7 royalty
OEM license key used in the OS installation, but
they will still have the hardware hash as "identification
of who you are". MAC addresses are intended to be
unique, which is why you buy them in blocks from the IEEE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_address

Easy peasy to stick up a "Not Genuine" if their
record keeping system says to do it.

What we need now, is some sucker with hours and
hours of time on his/her/its hands, to test
the gazillion permutations and combinations.
And that person, must now include these test
cases.

Win7SP1 -- Win10 -- wait 30 days -- downgrade to Win7SP1 again
Win7SP1 -- Win10 -- wait 31 days -- downgrade to Win7SP1 again (denied)

So some parts of the matrix have temporal components.
The other case would be these free upgrade attempts.

Win7SP1 -- Win10 (July29,2015)
Win7SP1 -- Win10 (July29,2016) (denied)

The support interval for the OS may not be as long,
which makes the "effective price" higher. Maybe soon,
the Lifecycle page at Microsoft, will get a new addition.

Paul

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 14:50:23 +0000, Stormin' Norman
wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 08:38:00 -0600, Tom Hall wrote:

In my long history with Windows, I've never been one to jump on the
bandwagon when a new release hits the street. I've always waited until the
first service pack is released.

Is Windows 10 ready for release?

Will Microsoft wait a year before releasing a service pack (if indeed there
is one), so that those like me who hold back from upgrading won't be able
to benefit from the free upgrade? I can't help but wonder if the free
upgrade is a trojan horse.


Smart man. I will take it one step further, I have made a significant effort to
discover the advantages of W10 over W7 or W8.1, so far I cannot find anything
substantive.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Hey, I feel the same way about 7 over XP. I had to switch,
because my XP system died. I am still finding the occasional glitch.
I have 16-bit code that I still use, and I greatly resent that Windows
7 64-bit does not run 16-bit code without me jumping through hoops.

From this and other case, my feelings about new versions of
Microsoft software is "What have they broken now?"

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:36:52 +0100, mechanic wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

There are multiple workarounds if that becomes the case...

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 23:46:35 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:36:52 +0100, mechanic wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

There are multiple workarounds if that becomes the case...

Such as?

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 10:51:34 -0400, Paul wrote:

mike wrote:
On 7/16/2015 4:36 AM, mechanic wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before
upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

That's the $64 question.
If you had a preinstalled win7, the key is the generic vendor key.
They can't blacklist that...can they?

They have the key... plus they have the NIC MAC address.
Your laptop may have the generic Dell Win7 royalty
OEM license key used in the OS installation, but
they will still have the hardware hash as "identification
of who you are". MAC addresses are intended to be
unique, which is why you buy them in blocks from the IEEE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_address

Easy peasy to stick up a "Not Genuine" if their
record keeping system says to do it.

Back in about 2009-2010, I tried an experiment. I replaced the genuine COA
key on one PC with a 'self-registering' method of activation that doesn't
involve MS. By early 2012 I was sufficiently satisfied that such a method
had no ill effects, so I replicated the method across the rest of my PCs,
except for the one 8.x laptop that I sometimes use for work. I have genuine
keys for everything, but I no longer use them. Now my 'Genuine' status is
determined locally, not by MS.

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 10:12:29 -0700, Gene Wirchenko
wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 14:50:23 +0000, Stormin' Norman
wrote:

[snip]

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Hey, I feel the same way about 7 over XP. I had to switch,
because my XP system died. I am still finding the occasional glitch.
I have 16-bit code that I still use, and I greatly resent that Windows
7 64-bit does not run 16-bit code without me jumping through hoops.

From this and other case, my feelings about new versions of
Microsoft software is "What have they broken now?"

I had a query in E-mail about this and am replying here. (Please
keep the conversations here so more than one person can benefit.)

I use DOSBox. It is intended for running games, and the
implementers are very strict about that, but it has worked fairly well
for me for years.

You can download it from dosbox.com. The base version does not
support printer output, but there are various version that add this. I
use DOSBox_Megabuild6-win32-installer.exe (DOSBox Megabuild with
parallel printer support) which can be downloaded from
http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-9000/index.html

You will have to crank up the cycles value to get decent speed.
On my systems, I use 70000; the default is only 3000.

There is a quirk with DOSBox screen refresh when switching
between DOSBox and other programs. I have not figured out how to
eliminate this, but I can get the screen to refresh by minimising the
DOSBox window then displaying it again.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:22:47 +0100, mechanic wrote:

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 23:46:35 -0500, Char Jackson wrote:

On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:36:52 +0100, mechanic wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:24:25 -0400, Big_Al wrote:

Or just reload your image. You did image the drive before upgrading right??? :-)

But your key for win7/8 might no longer work...

There are multiple workarounds if that becomes the case...

Such as?

Since the tools and methods can be used for evil just as easily as for good,
I'd prefer to let anyone who's interested do their own research. I hope you
understand.