Windows 10 discuss - Now with Screen Shots

What flavor of Linux do you like? I`m considering Zorin.
People considering Linux might want to start here http://distrowatch.com/

I run straight-up Ubuntu at the moment, but possibly the best option for a new Windows refugee would be the Mate Edition of Ubuntu:

Or if you have any other preferences or special requirements there are a million (almost literally) other options, of which I have used most of them. :slight_smile:

But the thing is, at least the way I understand it, is that Windows will always check to see if it has a valid license, and after upgrading to Windows 10 your license gets marked in Microsoft’s database as having been upgraded to Windows 10 and they revoke it for prior versions (after the 1-month grace period.) So even if you restore a disk image, it will contact the MS license server and be rejected.

Or maybe I’m wrong?

I’m really glad you posted this O-L, and I’m glad for other’s opinions as well. I have been considering the upgrade, and now I definitely will leave it alone.

Well, it was obviously intentional. Windows 9 would have been the next good one, and they skipped that number entirely. J) I used to think the bad ones were accidents that just happened to come in a steady rhythm - apparently not!

I use Linux on all my machines at home. Ubuntu is installed in all the laptops and the desktop, and all of our phones are Android. At work, I have to use Windows. I actually kept Windows 7 Home Premium on my laptop as a second OS for a while and liked using it. But, at work, they have Windows 7 Professional and it is a nightmare to use.

Probably the best advertisement for Linux I ever ran across was the old Win XP netbook. Those things had 8GB SSD’s and a fully updated Win XP SP3 install required significantly MORE than that! I converted netbooks for two different people who complained that their drives were full, they had no more personal files to delete to make space, and Windows was wanting to install more updates! Ubuntu, with all the apps installed that they could possibly need, left over half the drive for user files! :bigsmile:

Interesting perspective, how long have you been using OSX? I’ve always admired their hardware, but it always seemed a bit overpriced. My, ahem budget alternative is a Thinkpad T-series laptop running Ubuntu. Has all the good looks and pizazz of a Mac, good stability, extremely durable and well-designed hardware, at a pretty nice price.

Yep, Linux’s disk footprint is incredibly small compared to Windows. And that’s with drivers for practically all the supported hardware already pre-installed! Must be due to the use of shared libs, and general geekiness that prefers lean-‘n’-mean coding.

+1 I’d take a ThinkPad over just about anything else out there.

Ubuntu is one of the most “bloated” versions you can get, by the way. It amazes me that Microsoft is able to fill up so much space on a hard drive. What are they putting in there?

I've been using OSX since 2002 along with Windows. I love both for different reasons. So I installed Windows 10 with my legal RETAIL activation code from Windows 7 on a brand new HD, it told me my code was no good. That did it for me!. This is after the upgrade failed 5 times on my original Windows 7 install. I'm so fed up right now I want to explode like a bad 18650!!!

I don’t know about retail licenses, where you have to type in the actual product key to activate, but many OEMs use BIOS activation where the unique product key isn’t ever used when restoring from factory images. I also haven’t read anything that mentioned MS will deactivate the key on the OS being upgraded from and they never have in the past, though that’s not to say they can’t change their minds.

KuoH

Irritating! Sounds like they only allow free upgrading, not fresh installs.

I want from 8.1 to 10 about 5 minutes ago, having tried it before for a few days with the windows insider program. Feels good and familiar, I don’t get the hate here in this forum. No, we should not be using old, unsafe and antequated software just because “it was better back then”. When Linux will support my whole 200 game Steam library sure, I’ll give it a chance. Until then Windows is the OS.
Sb, they allow for fresh install after you upgrade to 10.

That’s part of the reason the 7 to 8 transition was so difficult. There was such a drastic change in the interface design philosophy that made the learning curve rather steep for many, not to mention their decision to force Metro on everyone by default. Sure, you could install a third party app to bring back “most” of the familiarity of the Win 7 desktop, but MS should’ve included that by default to ease the transition. Now with Win 10, they’re seeing the error of that decision and making the desktop and start menu more Win 7 like. About the only thing I completely despise is the forced patching, given their past history of intermittently breaking working machines. Even some of the Win 10 TP patches rendered some machines unusable.

KuoH

I love 8.1 (i don’t use metro, lol) … I had thought about going to 10…. I’ll wait, thanks :smiley:

You forgot Windows 95b, Windows 95c and NT4.

Other than ignoring Windows 2000 (AKA NT5), why no love for Windows 2000. It took me a while to upgrade from 2000 to XP because I felt that it wasn’t broken.

I went from XP to 8.1 and like it a lot, I think the overwhelming opinion is that 10 is great, but I will wait a few month until I download it, to avoid the first month kinks.

We have a year, so there is no rush, so we might as well see if others have any glitches that need to be dealt with before we download it.

Win 10 looks minimal, just like a tablet and I don’t care for the look. I shouldn’t have to be forced into the new browser look if I don’t want to. Even with that, I might live with it, but I will not live with Microsoft recording every word I type into a browser, or right off the search window now, in the taskbar, so that they can sell that info to retailers, so that the advertisements are tailored to my search entries. If you or others don’t mind that, then that is fine and is absolutely your right, but I, for one, believe that it should be illegal and I also believe it is immoral. That is my right to believe that way. So, if you like the new Windows 10, then good on you. I am glad you like it and I hope you do good with it. I just do not believe that all the hidden information “sharing” is, or should be legal that’s all. I don’t believe in “social media” either, but there is just about no choice any more. I hate it with a passion and regret it every time I have to use it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else shouldn’t use it, if they want to, or that it isn’t right, just not right in my eyes and that’s all.

I'm back on Win 8.1 now.

I don’t use the new browser or Cortana either, not because I don’t like them just that I’m too invested in the Google ecosystem with my bookmarks and all so I installed Chrome the second I upgraded to 10. As for your fears of Microsoft recording your words or whatever, Google, Facebook and others have been doing it for years, it’s status quo among the big companies. I think the only way you can avoid that is to unplug from the internet or use another OS as Linux. Every service these days comes with strings attached, it’s our choice in the end what we do.
None of that matters, after all we upgrade because of under the hood improvements, not because of some cute icon or resizable window.