Windows 10 report card after 2 years

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/
Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F

On Thu, 03 Aug 2017 17:43:12 +0100, Blake Snyder wrote:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/
Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F

Works fine for me. As with every Windows except ME, it's better than the last. And as it was FREE, stop moaning!

--
I got the strangest recording when I called the phone company the other day.
It said, "You have been connected to the correct department on the first try. This is against company policy. Please hang up and redial."

On 08/03/2017 12:43 PM, Blake Snyder wrote:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/
Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F


Sounds very biased. Not sure I'm a fan of Ed Bott.

On 8/3/2017 12:43 PM, Blake Snyder wrote:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/
Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F

I agree with most of what you say. I have had no problems with programs
that could be attributed to MS

(For my i7 laptop 8GB RAM 1TB disk) As for updates, I wish they would
fix what ever is causing the system to go buggy when upgrades are
available. I think either just before or just after every Windows 10
update, things go weird. ie Program will not load, mouse acts strange,
little things. Usually rebooting a couple of times corrects the problem.

I have Windows 10 on my Tablet ( 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z37356 Quad Core
Processor 32GB on board storage 32 GB card) I find it runs well. In
fact I was quite pleased when I put Creator on the tablet and gain 2GB
on storage.

--
2017: The year we lean to play the great game of Euchre

On 8/3/2017 3:53 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 8/3/2017 12:43 PM, Blake Snyder wrote:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/

Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report
card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F

I agree with most of what you say. I have had no problems with programs
that could be attributed to MS

(For my i7 laptop 8GB RAM 1TB disk) As for updates, I wish they would
fix what ever is causing the system to go buggy when upgrades are
available. I think either just before or just after every Windows 10
update, things go weird. ie Program will not load, mouse acts strange,
little things. Usually rebooting a couple of times corrects the problem.

I have Windows 10 on my Tablet ( 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z37356 Quad Core
Processor 32GB on board storage 32 GB card) I find it runs well. In
fact I was quite pleased when I put Creator on the tablet and gain 2GB
on storage.

If there is one thing I could change in Windows 10 it would be the
creation of thousands of files in the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
folder when for some reason the update is interrupted or fails.

On my tablet with discussed above, I just deleted over 100,000 files for
updates that were interrupted or failed. It takes time to delete these
files. If you don't eventually the very number of files prevent the
update or them selves cause the update to fail. I have gotten failed
updates to install by cleaning out this directory.

When you only have 32GB on in that area 100000 files starts eating up
the space available.





--
2017: The year we lean to play the great game of Euchre

Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 8/3/2017 3:53 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 8/3/2017 12:43 PM, Blake Snyder wrote:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows...d-report-card/

Windows 10 after two years: Microsoft's mixed report card
Two years after its splashy debut, Windows 10 is now running on more
than
500 million PCs worldwide. Was the upgrade worth it? Here's my report
card.

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | August 3, 2017

ADOPTION RATE: A-
UPGRADES AND UPDATES: C+
PRIVACY: B
SECURITY: A-/B-
APPS: INCOMPLETE
TABLETS AND PHONES: F

I agree with most of what you say. I have had no problems with
programs that could be attributed to MS

(For my i7 laptop 8GB RAM 1TB disk) As for updates, I wish they would
fix what ever is causing the system to go buggy when upgrades are
available. I think either just before or just after every Windows 10
update, things go weird. ie Program will not load, mouse acts strange,
little things. Usually rebooting a couple of times corrects the problem.

I have Windows 10 on my Tablet ( 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z37356 Quad Core
Processor 32GB on board storage 32 GB card) I find it runs well. In
fact I was quite pleased when I put Creator on the tablet and gain 2GB
on storage.

If there is one thing I could change in Windows 10 it would be the
creation of thousands of files in the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
folder when for some reason the update is interrupted or fails.

On my tablet with discussed above, I just deleted over 100,000 files for
updates that were interrupted or failed. It takes time to delete these
files. If you don't eventually the very number of files prevent the
update or them selves cause the update to fail. I have gotten failed
updates to install by cleaning out this directory.

When you only have 32GB on in that area 100000 files starts eating up
the space available.

It's standard operating practice (SOP) on Win10 Insider,
to delete SoftwareDistribution, before the next OS version
comes in. The install process works better with a clean slate.

Paul

On 08/03/2017 11:54 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

Works fine for me. As with every Windows except ME, it's better than
the last. And as it was FREE, stop moaning!


ME came with the USB storage driver, making it a LITTLE better. Not
nearly as much better as was promised.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe
and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants
of heir human interests." [George Santayana 1863-1952]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2017 12:47:17 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 08/03/2017 11:54 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

Works fine for me. As with every Windows except ME, it's better than
the last. And as it was FREE, stop moaning!


ME came with the USB storage driver, making it a LITTLE better. Not
nearly as much better as was promised.

All I can say for sure about Windows ME is that it was the most
unstable piece of trash I had ever used in my life until I installed
beta versions of Windows Vista for testing purposes. The final of
Vista though was a lot better than ME could ever wish to be.

However, I used to work with a guy who ran an Athlon processor. At the
time, he claimed that ME worked wonderfully on it. It's possible that
the ridiculous instability was limited to Intel's offerings.

--
Doomsdrzej
EFF & OpenMedia member,
TheRebel.media & Infowars supporter

Linux: The Chrysler of operating systems.

On Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:55:50 +0100, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:47:17 +0100, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 08/03/2017 11:54 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

Works fine for me. As with every Windows except ME, it's better than
the last. And as it was FREE, stop moaning!

ME came with the USB storage driver, making it a LITTLE better. Not
nearly as much better as was promised.

It may have been better than 98, but it was substantially worse than 2000, which was already out. A very illogical release. 2000 had already combined 98 and NT4 so we no longer had to have two seperate OSs.

In what way did 2000 include 98, pray tell? I can't imagine anyone
stating that ME was better than the relatively stable 98 though.

The only problem I had with 98 was the fact that it had a Second
Edition which wasn't a free upgrade to the first edition.

--
Doomsdrzej
EFF & OpenMedia member,
TheRebel.media & Infowars supporter

Linux: The Chrysler of operating systems.

On 08/04/2017 12:55 PM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

ME came with the USB storage driver, making it a LITTLE better. Not
nearly as much better as was promised.

It may have been better than 98, but it was substantially worse than
2000, which was already out. A very illogical release. 2000 had
already combined 98 and NT4 so we no longer had to have two seperate OSs.


Yes, 2000 is MUCH better than either 98 or ME. I tend to think of the
order in which I upgraded. If I already had 2000, I would have no reason
to go to ME. If I needed DOS, I could boot to it instead of Windows.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at
them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." [Jack
Handey, "Deep Thoughts"]

On 08/05/2017 10:32 AM, Doomsdrzej wrote:

[snip]

All I can say for sure about Windows ME is that it was the most
unstable piece of trash I had ever used in my life until I installed
beta versions of Windows Vista for testing purposes. The final of
Vista though was a lot better than ME could ever wish to be.

However, I used to work with a guy who ran an Athlon processor. At the
time, he claimed that ME worked wonderfully on it. It's possible that
the ridiculous instability was limited to Intel's offerings.


I'm not sure which I had then (probably Intel). ME did crash a lot, but
no more than 98.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you
can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it
can't be taken on its own merits." -- Dan Barker

On 08/05/2017 11:03 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

Why do people not like Vista? It was a brilliant OS.

I remember spending an excessive amount of time on Vista trying to find
some simple thing that was easy to find on 2000/XP. M$ seems to want to
penalize people for actually knowing how to use their computer.

BTW, then there's all the crapware (including A/V) that was
pre-installed on someone's PC. There would be numerous prompts
(subscription and otherwise) to get through before doing anything else.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you
can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it
can't be taken on its own merits." -- Dan Barker

On Sat, 05 Aug 2017 17:04:21 +0100, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Aug 2017 16:33:54 +0100, Doomsdrzej wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:55:50 +0100, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2017 18:47:17 +0100, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 08/03/2017 11:54 AM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:

[snip]

Works fine for me. As with every Windows except ME, it's better than
the last. And as it was FREE, stop moaning!

ME came with the USB storage driver, making it a LITTLE better. Not
nearly as much better as was promised.

It may have been better than 98, but it was substantially worse than 2000, which was already out. A very illogical release. 2000 had already combined 98 and NT4 so we no longer had to have two seperate OSs.

In what way did 2000 include 98, pray tell?

Try playing games on NT4.

While I hear that games played in Windows 2000, as far as I know it
was only after a few updates. When I used it, before SP3 or so, games
were not a priority and did not work. I'd love for someone to correct
me if I'm wrong though.

I can't imagine anyone stating that ME was better than the relatively stable 98 though.

So pointless.

The only problem I had with 98 was the fact that it had a Second
Edition which wasn't a free upgrade to the first edition.

Wasn't it? Not sure, I never paid for any of them.

LOL, me neither.

--
Doomsdrzej
EFF & OpenMedia member,
TheRebel.media & Infowars supporter

Linux: The Chrysler of operating systems.

Paul wrote on 8/3/2017 7:28 PM:

It's standard operating practice (SOP) on Win10 Insider,
to delete SoftwareDistribution, before the next OS version
comes in. The install process works better with a clean slate.

Is it safe for the rest of us to delete that directory? Mine has 5G of
stuff.

However, the entries in the log file for today say,


{89C77F3A-123E-45B5-9FBE-C8BC4A9E05EB} 2017-08-05 04:45:11:594-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 PROCESS:
CompatTelRunner.exe Success Software Synchronization Windows Update
Client successfully detected 0 updates.
{4ED9F766-33EC-414F-B524-6280ED6D23FD} 2017-08-05 04:45:12:226-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 PROCESS:
CompatTelRunner.exe Success Software Synchronization Windows Update
Client successfully detected 6 updates.
{B14035EA-9687-40AF-B327-9B2C797ABE67} 2017-08-05 13:33:45:980-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 Update;taskhostw Success
Software Synchronization Windows Update Client successfully detected 0
updates.
{02CD6239-3742-4C5D-BCE1-60E8A61B131D} 2017-08-05 14:04:45:018-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 8024402c UpdateOrchestrator Failure Software Synchronization Windows
Update Client failed to detect with error 0x8024402c.
{B7E1BB93-66CB-4897-B2C2-B32F445CFD1A} 2017-08-05 14:04:47:672-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 8024402c UpdateOrchestrator Failure Software Synchronization Windows
Update Client failed to detect with error 0x8024402c.
{E1423985-9E90-4213-97BA-8278DC527879} 2017-08-05 14:05:06:504-0400 1
167 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_STARTED] 101 {A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095}
201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success Content Download Download started.
{F1E1BAA0-DBFC-4D30-B8EE-09479FF32123} 2017-08-05 14:07:19:724-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 80240438 Windows Defender Antivirus
(77BDAF73-B396-481F-9042-AD358843EC24) Failure Software Synchronization
Windows Update Client failed to detect with error 0x80240438.
{81D7AA72-E3EA-4D9F-9EE2-4E931313452E} 2017-08-05 14:07:19:827-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 80240438 Windows Defender Antivirus
(77BDAF73-B396-481F-9042-AD358843EC24) Failure Software Synchronization
Windows Update Client failed to detect with error 0x80240438.
{6F3AC288-FD88-4022-8BB9-D1E8BAF7FCCB} 2017-08-05 14:41:08:780-0400 1
162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success
Content Download Download succeeded.
{C419EF85-2CB1-4B23-A955-988B7833FB13} 2017-08-05 15:26:02:464-0400 1
181 [AGENT_INSTALLING_STARTED] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success
Content Install Installation Started: Windows has started installing the
following update: 2017-07 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1703
for x64-based Systems (KB4032188)
{3800C079-3964-4864-83A1-68779812B665} 2017-08-05 15:26:56:376-0400 1
201 [AGENT_INSTALLING_PENDING] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 240005 UpdateOrchestrator
Success Content Install Installation pending.


Lots of "FAILURE" !!

Alek wrote:
Paul wrote on 8/3/2017 7:28 PM:
It's standard operating practice (SOP) on Win10 Insider,
to delete SoftwareDistribution, before the next OS version
comes in. The install process works better with a clean slate.

Is it safe for the rest of us to delete that directory? Mine has 5G of
stuff.

However, the entries in the log file for today say,


{89C77F3A-123E-45B5-9FBE-C8BC4A9E05EB} 2017-08-05 04:45:11:594-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 PROCESS:
CompatTelRunner.exe Success Software Synchronization Windows Update
Client successfully detected 0 updates.
{4ED9F766-33EC-414F-B524-6280ED6D23FD} 2017-08-05 04:45:12:226-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 PROCESS:
CompatTelRunner.exe Success Software Synchronization Windows Update
Client successfully detected 6 updates.
{B14035EA-9687-40AF-B327-9B2C797ABE67} 2017-08-05 13:33:45:980-0400 1
147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED] 101
{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 Update;taskhostw Success
Software Synchronization Windows Update Client successfully detected 0
updates.
{02CD6239-3742-4C5D-BCE1-60E8A61B131D} 2017-08-05 14:04:45:018-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 8024402c UpdateOrchestrator Failure Software Synchronization Windows
Update Client failed to detect with error 0x8024402c.
{B7E1BB93-66CB-4897-B2C2-B32F445CFD1A} 2017-08-05 14:04:47:672-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 8024402c UpdateOrchestrator Failure Software Synchronization Windows
Update Client failed to detect with error 0x8024402c.
{E1423985-9E90-4213-97BA-8278DC527879} 2017-08-05 14:05:06:504-0400 1
167 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_STARTED] 101 {A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095}
201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success Content Download Download started.
{F1E1BAA0-DBFC-4D30-B8EE-09479FF32123} 2017-08-05 14:07:19:724-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 80240438 Windows Defender Antivirus
(77BDAF73-B396-481F-9042-AD358843EC24) Failure Software Synchronization
Windows Update Client failed to detect with error 0x80240438.
{81D7AA72-E3EA-4D9F-9EE2-4E931313452E} 2017-08-05 14:07:19:827-0400 1
148 [AGENT_DETECTION_FAILED] 101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
0 80240438 Windows Defender Antivirus
(77BDAF73-B396-481F-9042-AD358843EC24) Failure Software Synchronization
Windows Update Client failed to detect with error 0x80240438.
{6F3AC288-FD88-4022-8BB9-D1E8BAF7FCCB} 2017-08-05 14:41:08:780-0400 1
162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success
Content Download Download succeeded.
{C419EF85-2CB1-4B23-A955-988B7833FB13} 2017-08-05 15:26:02:464-0400 1
181 [AGENT_INSTALLING_STARTED] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 0 UpdateOrchestrator Success
Content Install Installation Started: Windows has started installing the
following update: 2017-07 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1703
for x64-based Systems (KB4032188)
{3800C079-3964-4864-83A1-68779812B665} 2017-08-05 15:26:56:376-0400 1
201 [AGENT_INSTALLING_PENDING] 101
{A3DE3923-323C-4609-B0DC-0CCA060FD095} 201 240005 UpdateOrchestrator
Success Content Install Installation pending.


Lots of "FAILURE" !!

At least one of those is a network error.

Are you running Torrents on a second machine ? You can
actually lock up your router and prevent routes for the
machine that's trying to run Windows Update. Even other
kinds of software can brick a router - I ran "git" on
the machine here to get Chromium source, and a status
LED on my router started to blink. It was power cycle time.

I eventually got my little git run to finish, but it
was like pulling teeth. My router sucks... :-)

*******

I generally find on the Release version of Win10, that
very few "resets" are required. I think I needed to reset
WU once, after it got into some kind of loop and kept
downloading stuff and failing, over and over again.
So I had to give it a whack in that case.

For everything else, if you spot a "failure" in the
History listing, and no "success" comes after it, you
can download the update from catalog.update.microsoft.com
and install the MSU from there, correcting the situation.

*******

The situation on the Win10 Insider is entirely different.
The OS installer isn't very good. Windows Update isn't
very good (it keeps doing stuff in the wrong order, and
jams itself up on purpose). As a consequence of this,
I have my own retaliatory "list of things to do", to
slap some sense into it. Deleting SoftwareDistribution
is part of a "pre-emptive strike". Since it normally
downloads a copy of Windows and then fails, I find it
is cheaper on bandwidth, to just clean out that folder
so it succeeds on the first try. But first I have
to jam in the latest Windows Defender update and whatever
other piece of cruft it's grabbed a hold of. Once I satisfy
all the unnecessary updates, it then concentrates on the
main update (a new OS).

Paul