
The woes of Windows 10 - hourislate
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21715831-why-so-many-pc-users-are-refusing-upgrade-windows-10-woes-windows-10
======
hfsktr
I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10
(if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked.

I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99%
gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to
go horribly wrong but so far it's been great.

I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open
has a shortcut on the desktop or is pinned to the toolbar.

Having a functional toolbar on both monitors. That right there was all I
wished windows 7 would do but otherwise I can barely tell that the OS is
different.

I never used windows 8 so I don't have a comparison to that but I've seen
Windows ME...

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I run - using the word very loosely - Win 10 on a mid-spec 8GB Dell Laptop.
It's literally unusably slow. Opening File Manager takes many minutes.

This is practically a fresh install. I have Office 365 installed, but very
little else. I don't even have a mail client set up.

I dual-boot to Ubuntu on the same machine, and the latter is perfectly usable.

~~~
alkonaut
You either have a hardware problem (mechanical disk?) or a problem with some
preinstalled software running in the background.

8GB with even a several years old CPU should be perfectly usable. SSD is
absolutely required though. No number of cores and gigs will compensate for
the lack of ssd.

~~~
xemdetia
I have similar problems, the amount of uncoordinated disk accesses that seem
to happen constantly are murder for older spinning disks. After a while it
levels out but that's usually after the first hour of usage- resource monitor
clearly indicates what sent my disk queues up as Microsoft code that's
recommended to be on such as defender. An SSD is absolutely required, or at
least a modern hard drive with SATA 3.0 instead of SATA 2.0 for the extra
iops.

~~~
wtallis
> or at least a modern hard drive with SATA 3.0 instead of SATA 2.0 for the
> extra iops.

The interface is unrelated to the IOPS you get out of a hard drive. 3Gbps SATA
II has no trouble delivering far more than the ~200 IOPS a 7200RPM hard drive
is capable of.

------
akappa
I think there's an obvious and more general question here to be answered: if a
piece of software is good enough, namely, it "disappears" when you are trying
to do your job, then why bother to change it?

Yes, the new version might enable a more efficient workflow, or might be
faster to boot-up.

But people hate changes and you need to invest considerable time in upgrading
a piece of software (the upgrade itself + learning to navigate the new system
+ solving whatever goes wrong during the process). And that this is not just
limited to "novices": I've heard wonderful things about Arch Linux, but my
Ubuntu system works well enough and I've been using it for forever, so the
incentives are pretty low and the time to be invested pretty high.

~~~
davidf18
Interesting, readers of HN should know that upgrades to the newest version of
Windows and updates is essential for reasons of software security. Newer
versions of Windows incorporates security measures not in older versions --
sometimes even taking advantages of new security features in Intel hardware.

For example, Target and Home Depot were hacked because they failed to upgrade
their point-of-sale hardware from Windows XP embedded to Windows 7 embedded or
later which was an upgrade recommended by Microsoft. Windows XP embedded had a
security flaw later patched in later versions of Windows.

~~~
kristianc
People vastly underestimate how massive, complex and heterogenous the likes of
Target, Home Depot, Walmart's stacks are.

I've worked with people very used to working with enormously complex systems
and even they say Walmart etc is on the higher end of that scale. We're
talking weeks of people on site to get new software stood up.

This isn't to diminish your point about the need for upgrades, but it's
nothing like a push button process.

~~~
davidf18
Shouldn't these stores standardize on vendors? Why would they use different
vendors which only adds to complexity unless they've bought out a different
store chain and are integrating existing systems?

Also, they should pay the vendors contracts for maintenance instead of trying
to do the upgrades themselves. The vendors are generally more likely to do the
testing necessary and have the skills for upgrading systems across from
various customers.

At any rate, as you put it, eventually they still should do the upgrade.

~~~
1_2__3
Not to be crude but what you call "standardizing on vendors" I call a great
way to spend your days getting screwed by said vendor(s).

~~~
davidf18
Sometimes one has to pay that price. Can you suggest an alternative that
reduces complexity?

------
Unbeliever69
I am a manager at a small architecture firm and Windows 10 has brought nothing
but woe to my office. We have spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars
troubleshooting and fixing problems (many of which remain unresolved) that
occurred as a result of this draconian forced upgrade (and updates that
followed). So what if we got the upgrade for free. I've paid for it many times
over in labor!

~~~
eumoria
Every time I hear about updates being "forced," yes, Microsoft did some shady
things to trick non-tech people into the upgrade which I agree is shady.
However any competent IT manager would know how to stop that from happening.
Even a cursory google search shows you how to remove the windows update that
starts the upgrade. Also all computers on a network domain will not auto
update. Each time I read of an IT manager who says he/she was "tricked" into
upgrading all I read is "Incompetent IT Manager Makes Massive Mistake"

EDIT: I should probably reference the single small command that stops the
bugging notifications and upgrade. Open admin level command line:

wusa /uninstall /KB:3035583

~~~
Retr0spectrum
Clearly something has gone very wrong when an IT manager allowing a software
update is considered to be making a "Massive Mistake".

~~~
shubb
Not trusting vendors is part of the job. IT departments will typically turn
off automatic updates from vendors, and instead role them out in an automated
way that they control.

If they are too slow in doing that, then they are doing it wrong sure. But
Microsoft updates do brick computers, undo obscure enterprisy settings, or
role out unevenly across your estate so people are on different versions. You
want to see if that happens to someone else before you roll out.

This is even more true with windows based servers, where you'd probably want
to switch in an alternative or do everything at 3am on Saturday morning.

~~~
Terr_
> Not trusting vendors is part of the job.

But at the same time, for an OS company _being_ trustworthy is part of _their_
job.

------
jacquesc
I got a Windows 10 laptop (Razer) for Christmas for gaming / media / browsing
purposes (been a Mac user for 10+ yrs).

It's buggy as hell. The shortcut icons on the desktop and taskbar kept going
away (replacing all the icons with a "not found" placeholder), forcing me to
reinstall the OS. Now none of the search functions work (e.g. windows key ->
search for app.. no results). Whatever, I just use 2 apps anyways (Chrome and
Steam).

Windows settings panels have at least 2 diff ways to configure anything, the
"old" and the "new". Graphics settings have 4 places to change stuff (Intel,
Nvidia, built in old and new). It's just a jumbled mess.

Bluetooth never recognizes device names (it's a guessing game as to which
"Unknown Device" is the one I want). The trackpad is mediocre, and the config
panel from Synaptics probably hasn't changed since Windows 95.

With the tech press in love with Windows 10, I was definitely expecting more.
Feels like people just want to love every other version of Windows (7 "good",
8 "bad", 10 "good again).

~~~
tw04
>Windows settings panels have at least 2 diff ways to configure anything, the
"old" and the "new". Graphics settings have 4 places to change stuff (Intel,
Nvidia, built in old and new). It's just a jumbled mess.

They're well aware of that, and if you follow the insider previews, every new
build is moving more of the features into the "new" way of doing things. Is it
annoying there are two places? Absolutely... but the alternative is not
changing anything and waiting 5 years while everything gets rolle dup.

>Bluetooth never recognizes device names (it's a guessing game as to which
"Unknown Device" is the one I want). The trackpad is mediocre, and the config
panel from Synaptics probably hasn't changed since Windows 95.

Not sure what to tell you there other than a buggy driver on your laptop. All
of my bluetooth devices tell me exactly what they are before and after adding
them.

The trackpad thing isn't Windows, it's the trackpad razer chose to use, or the
driver. One of the reasons that MS finally said f-it and introduced precision
touchpad. If you still have the old-school synaptics panel, then Razer chose
not to participate.

~~~
wtallis
> but the alternative is not changing anything and waiting 5 years while
> everything gets rolle dup.

Windows 7 was released 7.5 years ago, and Windows 8 was released 4.5 years
ago. Whether or not they make interim releases, Microsoft clearly cannot pull
off a user interface overhaul in any reasonable span of time.

~~~
Sargos
You underestimate the complexity and depth of Windows. There's a TON of forms
and code out there and you literally cannot just port that 15-30 year old C
code to C# without taking a step back to think about the design and
functionality of the new screen. There's a LOT of work that goes into each
transition from ancient Win32 to a modern interface.

~~~
chris_wot
The complexity is mind blowing. And yet, does it need to be? Recently I
started looking at how Windows Update works. It self-updates first with a
reasonably complex web services API, then it has this ridiculious way of
checking what is installed by looking at undocumented registry keys and even
loads its own registry component hive.

It then works out via web services what needs to be updated, and uses deltas
to download file chunks.

It downloads and installs the new updates into the winsxs folder, then updates
hardlinks from this folder into the c:\windows\system32 directory, but does
not remove the old package.

Then it installs the updates, which can be done with a cab file, mum file, msi
file or some other mechanism.

To do all if this it uses WSUS, Component Based Servicing (CBS), Component
Servicing Interface (CSI), Windows Side by Side (winsxs), NTFS link features,
Windows Installer and probably much more besides.

And yet it is unbelievably fragile. I can't tell you how many times I've found
broken packages. Microsoft have turned on CBS logging on all systems and
recently I've found that hard drives have run out of space because it has
taken up gigabytes of space (this is because Microsoft archives log files in
CAB files, but these have 2GB limits and if the log file goes over 2 GB it
can't handle this), gigabytes of dusk space is taken up with useless old
updates that until very recently you couldn't remove.... the datastore.edb
file is massive and can corrupt, security patches had issues because there
have been so many of them and Microsoft had to make a new CAB file format, and
Windows 7 and later has the most insane package dependency generating
algorithm that I kid you not but it spends hours just generating it. Some of
this stuff still hasn't been fixed.

Then I look at a Debian based system. I've literally never had an issue I
couldn't work out how to solve in 10 minutes. It just works, and in an
incredibly fast time - and I virtually never have to reboot!

------
frik
No wonder that Win10 fails like Win8 - Microsoft doesn't care about users,
they only care about their shareholders. Win8 and Win10 looks like designed by
color blind designers with a bad taste the brutalism of UI design plus the
phone-home spyware features that cannot be deactivated. Windows 7 is too good
and the perfect OS, if you don't install some recent spyware updates it will
last at least until 2020 - and who knows if Android/Fuchsia or whatever OS is
a proper alternative than.

~~~
happypants23
I rather like the clean aesthetic of Windows 10, and am now using it as my
main OS. Sure, it's by no means perfect, and there is still work to be done.
But by and large I am happier with Windows 10 than with MacOS, Ubuntu, GNOME,
and so on.

Oh, and the whole "spyware" trope is becoming overworn. User analytics is here
to stay, and practically every website and browser does it anyway. At least
you can disable it in Win 10 if you are so inclined. Me - I would gladly give
Microsoft my data to they can prioritize features for windows 10.

~~~
jasonkostempski
"At least you can disable it in Win 10 if you are so inclined."

Where is that option? Also, it's easy to get a browser that doesn't phone home
and a plugin that stops websites from doing it.

~~~
lineindc
The Group Policy Editor lets you disable telemetry.

~~~
Karunamon
..if you're on an Enterprise SKU. Maybe.

------
nul_byte
I have a dual boot PC which is Arch Linux and Windows 7.

The Windows 7 machine is only for gaming / steam, I never browse the internet
on there and have pretty strict firewall ruleset. To be honest, I would
consider upgrading it to 10, but I missed the free window, so I really don't
fancy paying for it.

My hope is that by the time that Windows 7 goes EOL, I can delete it and game
just on Linux. Either that or I will get a console (as most of my gaming takes
place in my living room anyhow, using a steam box).

~~~
overcast
You didn't miss any free window, you can still just download the image from
Microsoft and upgrade. Upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 7 is archaic, especially
for gaming as its primary use.

~~~
aluhut
What are the advances of using 10 instead of 7 for gaming?

~~~
burkaman
You need Windows 10 to use DirectX 12, that's probably the biggest advance.
The Windows Display Driver Model is also updated, I don't know if this
actually matters for most games though.

~~~
aluhut
> You need Windows 10 to use DirectX 12, that's probably the biggest advance.

More like a threat ;)

------
shmerl
_> But he has also dusted down his four-year-old Apple MacBook Pro and
upgraded his Windows 7 desktop to the latest version of Linux Mint rather than
Windows 10. <...> Despite their idiosyncrasies, Macintosh and Linux have never
looked so attractive._

Linux gets refugees both from Windows and MacOS because MS just keeps messing
Windows up (seems to be happening every other version), and Apple simply lets
MacOS rot by not giving it any attention.

~~~
dom0
Seeing someone trying to work with it sometimes reminds me of someone trying
to hold a hot potato in their hands. For example, today someone tried to
display two PDFs and a word doc on a large screen. Well. I guess you know how
long that took to work out.

~~~
WayneBro
Which windowing system does it more easily and more obviously than Windows 10
though?

Here's a 2 minute demo of "Snap Assist" which is turned on by default in
Windows 10. Near the end you can see the user snapping three documents into
place.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk8yTBLEj3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk8yTBLEj3c)

------
bayeslives
I've been using both Windows (work) and Linux (home) on the desktop for many
years. I far prefer Linux (I tried many distros, settled on Arch and Mint
now). Package management and window management is way better in Linux. To name
just a few.

To me, Windows10 is not better than Windows7. The package management is still
a mess. Forced updates, no rollbacks, reboots, you name it. Permissions are
also strange: why are admin rights needed to install some fonts? We still have
this "Registry" with its voodoo. We still miss tools like dmesg. When thing go
wrong, Windows gives some sort of simple log file, of course not in txt-form
but in some proprietary format that needs it's own reader (to read some flat
text, for crying out loud). The file manager ("Explorer") is still confusing.
Microsoft seems hellbent in obfuscating where files are stored. Going to the
terminal, the difference is even clearer. Linux offers first rate terminals;
Windows look like an afterthought. Is it even possible to use a terminal full
screen in Windows, nowadays? Tab completion, a decent history, pipes?

The funny thing is that Ranger, my favorite file manager, is able to give
previews of files in MS formats (such as .docx) where Windows Explorer is
unable to do so.... ????

Two big steps back are privacy and font rendering. It's bad enough that apps
spy on me, I don't want my OS to"phone home". The font rendering is optimized
for the few Windows on mobile devices users, at the expense of the bulk of the
users (like me) who use it on the desktop and are now confronted with blurry
fonts.

My OS must help me with my personal computer tasks. Personal means a) I want
to customize the hell out of it, and b) my data is _mine_. Also, I'd like a
nice readable font on my screen. Sadly, Windows10 does not meet those
requirements.

~~~
tdkl
>The package management is still a mess. If you mean for system updates I'd
agree, but software package management is a shit show on Linux and it shows
why less people bother writing software with & why Electron is popular there.

What's more easier then clicking an .exe ?

~~~
executesorder66
You don't just click the .exe

You first have to open a browser, then find the sotware's website. Then find
the download page, then download it. Then open explorer to where the .exe was
downloaded. Then double click it. Then click next a bunch of times. And if the
software's dependencies are not bundled in the installer, then you have to
redo this whole process again.

On Linux you just open your terminal and execute a single command.

~~~
tdkl
>On Linux you just open your terminal and execute a single command.

Lmao, yes speculating that it includes that certain software package or that
it's the latest version.

That burden is on the developer (if there's no maintainer) which has to waste
time packaging same thing for X distros. Windows developer uploads the .exe to
the web and he's done.

------
ZeroClickOk
I dont know why name Windows 10 a fail, when the bigger competitors of Windows
are... Windows! Mac and Linux mostly are used for niche users (as us). I'm
really really happy we CAN upgrade for a new Windows version easily, just
compare with Android. More: the reason to most people dont upgrade isn't why
"Windows 7 is better than Windows 10", but the actual reason is they are
comfortable with Win7 and dont want/can take time to "learn" a new OS. Even
Win7 being an awesome OS, took years to take most of XP users (even today
there are a lot of loyal XP users out there...)

~~~
cowardlydragon
Android and iOS have probably surpassed windows in number of consumer
installations.

The PC will be invaded by Android at some point, and it will be like a
blitzkreig when it happens. Google would make all their money back shortly off
of appstore sales.

~~~
Infinitesimus
> The PC will be invaded by Android at some point

As much as I enjoy using Android on mobile, Google's horrible track record
with security updates means I'll be appalled if after all the noise people
have made about Win 10's privacy, they accept Android with Google everywhere +
security updates EOL after 3 years...

------
0xFFC
Just fix fucking font rendering, I did use Windows machine as my workstation
for 4 year (although being in love with linux), But I had to switch to Ubuntu,
because of ridiculous font rendering. I don't have money to pay for new
monitor every 2 year, and I am quite happy with my dual monitor 27 inch 1080p
until windows 10 changed font rendering to DirectWrite. It is fucking disaster
in low dpi monitor.

As always Microsoft ignored their current users in pursue of new users. I
haven't seen this attitude from any other company. I haven't seen apple make
font rendering on old MacBook worse to force people to switch to new MacBooks.
Or I haven't seen something similar from Google.

This is fucking total disaster.

As someone who reads text for whole day (programmer) I care about my eyes and
it fucking hurts my eye to see font rendering in new UI (UWP) and Edge.

p.s. Old/win32 application do use old rendering engine and are acceptable.

~~~
TimJYoung
We're re-vamping some of our Windows products this year to support high-DPI
usage under Windows 10, so if you could be so kind, I would be curious as to
what exactly you're seeing that is causing your issue: is it that older
Windows applications look blurry because they _aren 't_ high-DPI-aware and
Windows 10 auto-scales them, or is it that you don't like the high-DPI look
because it's too sharp/jagged, looks weird on older monitors, etc. ?

I don't want to piss off our customers by making their usage experience poorer
under Windows 10, so I would really appreciate any input you can provide.

~~~
0xFFC
Quite the opposite, Microsoft changed their font rendering engine to introduce
GreyScale (IIRC), But the problem with this new engine is it is horrible on
low-dpi monitor.

Traditionally Windows does have problem with high dpi monitors, but I think
there is workaround it (scaling and etc), but with windows 10, fonts on low
dpi (by low dpi I mean most of the monitors sold until 1,2 years ago, 20+ inch
with 1080p) windows looks like shit (literally). If you are using old
framework (WPF and etc) it is okay, because underlying framework is same. Same
good old rendering (not in par with Mac or FreeType, but quite acceptable).
But if you are using UWP, then quite honestly you are in trouble, in low-dpi
monitors. Because Microsoft UWP only does have DirectWrite engine.

The problem with old engine (which is used in Win32, WPF, etc) was it was slow
on mobile, and as always Microsoft wanted to compete with Apple and Google on
Mobile platform and because they have 99% market share of mobile os. So what
is better option than ruining people experience in desktop to force them to
switch to WinRT/UWP bullshit ? (I am being sarcastic)

~~~
bayeslives
Correct. I use Linux at home. Ubuntu and Mint have nice rendering OOTB, Arch
got that great with the Infinality package.

OSX also has decent rendering (albeit too fat for my taste), Windows'
subpixelrendering + matching fonts used to give sharp letters, yes too skinny,
but legible.

With their new engine, texts are less legible. The letters are still skinny,
but now they're also blurry.

All this to cater to the very small fraction that uses Windows on a mobile
device; throwing existing desktop users under the bus.

------
digi_owl
Win10 fails for different reacons than Win8.

While 8 tried to make tablet the priority use case, and thus breaking the
muscle memory of many long term users, 10 abandons the notion of the owner of
the hardware being in charge (sadly one that is increasingly taking root in
FOSS circles as well).

Thus you have things like updates being ramrodded through even if the user
says no, and keep saying no.

Damn it, i keep having to roll back the driver of my igpu because for some
reason MS keep trying to update it along with the dgpu. This even though the
support has been discontinued by AMD...

~~~
eikenberry
> [..] (sadly one that is increasingly taking root in FOSS circles as well).

What are you talking about? The modern prevalence of binary firmware blobs is
the only concern I can think of in this area.

------
cwyers
The thing is, people don't upgrade Windows, in the large. They use the version
of Windows their computer came with until they replace it. Microsoft has done
more work getting people to upgrade to 10 than any previous version of
Windows. I don't see what more they can do.

------
webwielder2
It's bizarre that people continue to think of Windows PCs as being
predominantly owned by individuals or even individuals with a specific
interest in technology.

~~~
fetbaffe
Correct! Compare it to a group that care about their PC, i.e. gamers, 50% of
Steam users run Windows 10.

[https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-hardware-survey-
windows-10-ad...](https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-hardware-survey-
windows-10-adoption-rate)

~~~
corin_
Maybe I'm misreading your comment but I think you're implying that people who
care (like gamers) are less likely to be using Windows 10, but it's the
opposite - 50% is far higher than the total market share Windows 10 has.

If I misunderstood your meaning, then this comment can just be a clarification
instead of a correction :)

~~~
stock_toaster
Presumably gamers are after newer directx versions, which are only provided in
windows10, no?

------
casparz
Stopped reading at: "There is no question that Windows 10 is an impressive
piece of software, and quite the most secure operating system ever devised."

~~~
oldsj
Yea that was really strange to see. I had to look up and double check what
website I was on when I saw that

------
valine
> There is no question that Windows 10 is an impressive piece of software, and
> quite the most secure operating system ever devised.

This is simply not true. Windows is in no way the most secure operating system
ever devised. Microsoft has support pages devoted to removing malware from
Windows 10 _, while there has never been a major malware outbreak on iOS. For
the average user iOS is by far the most secure OS.

Now obviously a lot of iOS's security can be attributed to Apple's walled
garden approach to apps. If you limit the question to desktop operating
systems I supose it's slightly less cut and dry, but I'd still rank macOS
significantly higher than windows in terms of overall security.

_[https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/instantanswers/eed4ec56-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/instantanswers/eed4ec56-375f-4e6d-9813-e504e9ddf7de/how-to-remove-malware-
or-viruses-from-my-windows-10-pc)

~~~
kogepathic
> There is no question that Windows 10 is an impressive piece of software, and
> quite the most secure operating system ever devised.

I think the author should have said "the most secure version of Windows sever
devised" instead, as it would be much harder to disagree with.

------
rwc
> _Chromebooks are now outselling MacBooks in the crucial education market,
> where long-term preferences tend to be established._

Apple has historically held a dominant position in the education market, so
how does one square the "long-term preferences tend to be established" portion
of that sentence with the 8% marketshare MacOS commands?

~~~
trendia
Unfortunately, Chromebooks will struggle with the engineering crowd, where
software like ANSYS, Matlab, AutoCAD, etc. are required.

~~~
protomyth
Plus the crowd who cannot have data go to external servers. I would love to
use something like Chromebooks but the lack of a local storage server and user
management kill it. I got to follow the rules after all.

If I could get a group of Chromebooks that sync with an on-site server then do
my backups to someone like Tarsnap, I would be happy and following the local
rules.

------
pdog
Windows 10 is a great operating system, but if you have an existing business-
critical workflow, why would you update your major version? Stick with what
works unless you have a reason to update. It's why some multinational
companies are still running COBOL programs after nearly sixty years.

------
dmalvarado
Well that was weird.

tldr;

Windows has 92% OS share. Windows 10 only accounts for 24% (maybe).

Windows 10 is so, so secure. How to make people upgrade?

Windows 10 new update will have advertising. Other OS's sure look good now.

I feel like this section of the Economist doesn't get much editorial review.

~~~
acqq
> Windows 10 new update will have advertising.

And I don't see anybody blinks here on HN about that. Why?

[https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/85341/microsoft-...](https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/85341/microsoft-
cheapens-windows-10-ads)

"So Windows 10 pops-up little advertising windows—sorry, tips—on the Edge icon
in the taskbar, or in the Action Center UI, or in the Settings interface where
you can change your defaults, because it really, really, really doesn’t want
you to exercise free will and make a better decision for yourself."

"For the next version of Windows 10, Microsoft is even experimenting with
ads—sorry, tips—that will appear in File Explorer. You don’t get any more “in
the OS user interface” than that, folks, unless Microsoft starts displaying
ads in event logs next. Don’t laugh.

So repeat after me: There are ads all over Windows. And it’s just getting
worse."

~~~
Infinitesimus
> And I don't see anybody blinks here on HN about that. Why?

People did complain about start menu ads a lot when it first came out.

I don't see their "Edge is faster/more battery friendly" ads as entirely bad
though

1\. Edge _is_ more battery friendly on Windows laptops 2\. Google does the
same thing by prompting you to install Chrome does it not?

Difference is OS vs website but google.com is the default "internet" for an
awful lot of people...

------
dcdevito
Windows 10 gets a lot of flak, but it's honestly the best OS I have ever used.
It's fast, stable, reliable and secure. Oh, and I should mention I'm a
developer, and WSL is getting better with every release. Is it perfect? Heck
no, but it's sure a lot better than Linux on the desktop and Macs are just not
worth my money anymore.

~~~
vacri
I don't really count a forced reboot "now or in 15 minutes, no delays" as
reliable. There are people who've had this happen in the middle of
presentations at meetings.

Similarly, I've had these forced updates happen, and on relogin "click here to
see what was updated" -> nothing listed.

~~~
dcdevito
I don't understand this whole "forced updates" FUD. Just configure the times
you want your machine to be updated and it gets out of the way.

~~~
aninhumer
Except that the configuration options force you to choose at least a 12 hour
contiguous period in which updates are allowed. If I could tell it to reboot
at 4am when I'm definitely asleep that would be fine, but apparently that's
not an option.

------
nxrabl
> _There is no question that Windows 10 is ... quite the most secure operating
> system ever devised._

Telemetry aside, can anyone comment on this?

~~~
marcoperaza
* Secure Boot

* BitLocker: Hard-drive encryption backed by TPM & Secure Boot

With the above two and DMA protection, physical access attacks become very
difficult.

* Virtual Secure Mode (VSM) - separate OS running on the hypervisor that can perform sensitive operations. Which enables:

1\. Device Guard - Runs code integrity protection, i.e. only allowing signed
code to run, from within the VSM.

2\. Credential Guard - Runs user-mode security subsystem (LSA) inside VSM.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Regarding hard drive encryption backed by TPM, a) this has been a thing since
Win7, and b) google tells me it only works OOTB on Win10 if you sign into
Windows with your Microsoft account; how many people do that?

If that's the secret sauce that makes Win10 so much better, color me
unimpressed. And neither of those features offer additional protection against
zero-days (neither does VSM), which are what the TFA discusses.

~~~
marcoperaza
It only works OOTB with a Microsoft Account because the OS needs a place to
backup the key. The alternative is that if the user forgets their password,
they lose their data forever. You can still turn it on manually very easily
with a local account.

------
arca_vorago
I also don't think you can have this discussion without talking about the
influence the NSA and OGA's are having on big tech companies products. If game
developers really pulled their shit together and started doing AAA/AA titles
on linux you would quickly see the piss taken out of the likes of M$.

------
rkapsoro
I'm normally very fond of The Economist, but this is one of their "blog
posts", which seem to not receive quite the same careful, nuanced care that
their other articles for their weekly edition do.

Part of the challenge of Windows 10 was the transformation of Windows from a
large-release product into a trickle-release service with much faster cycle
times with an incremental and continuously-learned approach to ongoing product
changes.

At it's core, that's a valid and (I think) mostly welcome change, but
Microsoft's solution to the impedance mismatch between the two categories of
offering was to force it down and ask for forgiveness later. :/

------
yokohummer7
IMO the success of Windows 7 was an exception, not the norm. Comparing the
adoption rate of Windows 10 to that of Windows 7 might be a little harsh. 24%
isn't actually that bad, considering Windows 7 is still good enough.

------
mark-r
Microsoft is their own worst enemy. My wife can't transition fully from XP to
the Windows 7 PC I built for her, because it doesn't have Outlook Express or
any reasonable substitute. We can't upgrade the living room PC because Windows
10 doesn't include Media Center.

I'm also not fond of the way Windows 10 updates are so aggressive, you'll
essentially be replacing your OS every so often without any say-so. If I had
any faith that this would be painless I might be tempted to try it, but see
above. Windows 7 is darn near perfect, you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

~~~
ac29
Windows Live Mail was the replacement for Outlook Express. Microsoft ended
support last month and pulled the download links, but I found a direct link
here:
[http://wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/C/1/B/C1BA42D6-6A...](http://wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/C/1/B/C1BA42D6-6A50-4A4A-90E5-FA9347E9360C/en/wlsetup-
all.exe?f2ICLGTvUQrvXvpDNLqgjmeK_sM&cuid=808513)

~~~
WorldMaker
Outlook Mail and Calendar is the replacement for Windows Live Mail.
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/mail-and-
calendar/9w...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/mail-and-
calendar/9wzdncrfhvqm)

~~~
mark-r
But apparently you need Windows 10 to use it. Not gonna happen, see above.

~~~
WorldMaker
There was a version of it for Windows 8 as well. I was completing the chain
for anyone curious about application lineage that wasn't opposed to Windows
8+.

------
ajmurmann
Do users actually desire changes to the actual user experience of modern
operating systems. I would be totally fine with the OS experience itself I had
on Windows 2000 or OS X from 2010. Software that runs on top of the OS and
support of it is a different issue. Of course also security and driver
support. To me OS user experience is a solved problem and most changed to what
I'm used to just make things different without providing value, but require me
to retrain muscle memory. I do upgrade regularly because security. If that
wasn't an issue I would never upgrade.

------
mschuster91
Well, the reason why corporate users are holding on to W7 is easy: training
costs. With XP and even W7, you could at least switch the majority of the GUI
to look and feel like good old W95/98/ME... no way to do so with W10.

Also many companies don't want the legal risk associated with telemetry (you
never know what data leaves your premises and heads towards MS), and small-ish
businesses are afraid of the non-disableable automatic updates - I certainly
wouldn't want to get into the office and $essential_program has stopped
working over night due to an update gone bad.

------
nyolfen
i must give windows10 credit for one thing -- it finally convinced me to dive
into linux

------
microcolonel
>...and quite the most secure operating system ever devised.

What are they smoking over there at the economist? Perhaps they meant "the
most secure iteration of Windows yet".

------
stevebmark
I'm someone who stuck with Windows 7. The history of Windows has been so
shaky, and the general software quality of Microsoft is so low, that the only
rational strategy with Windows is "if it ain't broken, don't fix it."

I have both Windows and Mac hardware, and I prefer to update my Mac OS as soon
as updates are available. On reflection, I suppose it's because the software
quality is always high, and I know the core linux-based OS won't have any
major changes. Upgrading, except for the occasional "I guess networking
doesn't work now," is a pleasant and expected process. There are also rarely,
at least for me, compatibility issues with existing software and newer Mac OS
versions.

It seems like major versions of Windows are completely different operating
systems, with "improvements" built on top of original hacks and poor code, and
news reports of zero day crippling flaws in every new version. And of course,
Windows 10 looks visually terrible. Flat design in general looks bad, but
Windows 10 seems to have done something especially colorblind with it.

~~~
Laforet
As someone stuck with Windows Vista (no sarcasm intended, although I shall be
upgrading later this year when patches stop coming) I beg to differ. There is
a continued degree of improvement since the Windows 9x days and in the
meantime Windows have displaced Mac OS and Linux in certain market segments
because of its code quality not despite of it. It is impressive that they have
maintained great legacy support alongside it.

The current tirade against Windows 10 is not really that different to the
period after Windows XP came out just because it is radically different to its
predecessor, yet the latter eventually became the most long lived MS product
ever. A similar torrent of FUD did kill Vista's reputation, but as we all know
Windows 7 is just minor upgrade but this rebranding is enough to pacify the
most vocal critics. Make me wonder if Jobs was right that users really have no
idea whats the best for them.

------
Twisell
What bother me is that they use net application data only... However I tend to
question that source as we have now reached a strange situation where MacOS
market share is around 6% according to netapplication (netmarketshare) and
around 11% with globalstatscounter.

They can't be both right and that is a huge divergence.

[https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qptimefra...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=206&qpnp=11&qpch=350&qpdisplay=111111111111110&qpdt=1&qpct=4&qpcustomb=0&qpcid=fw215634&qpf=1)

[http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
share/desktop/worldwide/...](http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-201701-201701-bar)

------
myrandomcomment
"There is no question that Windows 10 is an impressive piece of software, and
quite the most secure operating system ever devised."

What? Sorry had to have a bit of a chuckle. That being said it is the most
secure version of Windows, well with the expection of collecting tons of your
personal habits.

------
boznz
Forget any other reason, for $150 a licence (NZ$199) my other computers will
never ever see windows 10.. ever

~~~
jjcm
Is $150 that crazy? The original prices for 7 were:

Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade) $119.99

Windows 7 Home Premium (Full) $199.99

Windows 7 Family Pack (Upgrade, retail only) $149.99

Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade) $199.99

Windows 7 Professional (Full) $299.99

Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade) $219.99

Windows 7 Ultimate (Full) $319.99

$150 seems completely in line with pricing of previous windows versions.

~~~
boznz
Fine if that's their strategy, my argument still stands.

------
todd8
I am surprised by how hard it is to find reliable information about Window
issues. Most pages I find look like thinly veiled pitches to get me to buy
some stupid utility or online service. Its easy to find authoritative
information on Mac OS or Linux issues, but I can't trust most of what I read
about solving any Windows issue.

I would like to swap out my system dive and replace it with an SSD. Every
discussion on the web I come across wants me to download some third party
backup/restore or cloning software. Isn't there anything in Windows or that
comes from Microsoft for me to do it?

------
elorant
I had a rather odd problem with Win10 and that is it hurt my eyes. I don't
know whether they changed something with ClearType or for some other reason
but after two days I reverted back to Win7.

Other than that, I really didn't like the UI. To change colors in menus you
have to use a hack because the preselected list of colors is just dreadful,
the start menu once again is all over the place and various other mishaps that
give the impression that it's not a finished product. They try to build a
unified OS for all devices when all I want is a simple desktop OS.

~~~
ino
They don't care. Even the default background has big JPEG artifacts.

------
k__
I installed it yesterday for the first time and it still seems to have
problems.

Somehow Chrome always freezes every few minutes. Didn't do this on Win8.1 or
Win7 :/

------
mysterydip
You don't really realize just how much win10 is doing in the background until
you try it (preinstalled) on a cheap low-end notebook. It was literally
unusable out of the box (which I suspect is why I was able to get mine as an
"open box" discount). Minutes of freezes and waiting for anything to open or
run. I installed win8.1 on it and everything runs smooth by comparison.

------
Animats
The basic problem with Windows 10 is that it was intended for tablets/mobile
first. On a desktop, there's just not much need for it.

------
Jaruzel
I'm not a a massive fan of Windows 10, so I'm certainly not trying to sell it,
but here are some takeaways:

1\. After holding out until December 2016, and only really using Windows 10 on
dev machines/VMs , I finally threw caution to the wind an attempted to upgrade
my very heavily loaded (software wise) main Windows 7 machine to Windows 10.
Upgrade went fine, absolutely zero issues, and everything still worked 100%
afterwards. No-one was more surprised than I was about this. I actually think
it's because the hardware is a brand name (HP) desktop, and not a self build.

2\. I've turned everything off I don't wont, all the privacy snoops; Cortana
is gone completely; and the OneDrive icon does nothing.

3\. Since early Windows 7, I switched to a menu bar type launcher that sits
on-top at the top edge of the screen, it's populated with links to everything
I use. I _never_ click on the start menu, so it's bad behavior and stupid
tiles don't really bother me. Screenshot:
[https://www.weegeeks.com/upload/ApplicationBar-2014-09-29.pn...](https://www.weegeeks.com/upload/ApplicationBar-2014-09-29.png)

4\. The forced updates really irritate me. It's my PC why am I being dictated
to on this?

5\. VB6 apps still work without issue! (LOL!)

6\. By comparison, whose bright idea was it not to include .NET runtime
2.0-3.5 by default? This leaves a schism for older apps - Run fine on Windows
7 and 8.1, but needs the runtime to (try) and auto install on Windows 10, or
recompile the app targeting .NET 4.0+ and run fine on Windows 10, but
completely fail on Windows 7/8.1 with a dialog saying the runtime is missing.
Arrrgh.

Overall, I'm living with it, mainly because I've banished all the bad bits, so
now it's doing what a good OS should - support me, but also not get in my way.
I'm not sure I could use Windows 10 in it's default state though, which is why
I'm slowly moving towards a completely customised shell (once I find/write one
I like).

Edit: Forgot to mention - if you can lay your hands on it, have a look at
'Windows 10 2016 LTSB' edition - it's designed for corporates who don't want
all the consumer crap, so a lot of the stupid stuff is not installed by
default. It also ONLY accepts security updates, and refuses any updated that
are 'feature updates'. Downside, it needs a KMS keyserver for activation.

------
AstralStorm
I stopped reading at "quite the most secure operating system ever devised".

------
anneBarcelona
this is good news for having only to test for <10 but bad for my Node.JS
projects with native bindings which have been only fixable in recent versions
due to node gyp.

------
youdontknowtho
In which the economist finally succumbs to clickbait.

WEAK.

------
jest3r1
We've got a bunch of Win 8 computers at work, but we missed the free upgrade.
So were stuck.

Would be nice to get the free upgrade back.

~~~
windows10rules
>Would be nice to get the free upgrade back.

You're not missing as much as you think :)

------
epx
I miss Windows 7. It did work just like Windows 95. It was just downhill from
that.

------
mdekkers
It appears that I have reached some kind of "article limit"

~~~
aq3cn
click on go to old version.

------
testUser69
>The business world has been even more recalcitrant. In a recent study by
Softchoice, an info-tech consultancy, corporate computers were found to be
running a whole gamut of legacy versions of Windows. Fewer than 1% of them had
been upgraded to Windows 10.

One thing I've learned over the years: you don't need a high IQ to run a
successful business. Without a lot of smarts you're never going to compete
with google, but you don't need to compete with google to make a living
running your own business.

>Chromebooks are now outselling MacBooks in the crucial education market,
where long-term preferences tend to be established.

It's unfortunate that proprietary software ever came to dominate schooling.
Hopefully ChromeOS will open things up just enough so that cross platform
tools become the norm. Schools using both Windows and Chrome will be more
aware of proprietary/incompatible software and file formats and choose to use
open formats.

>It is impossible to retrofit older Windows versions with the sort of defense-
in-depth that has been built into Windows 10. Nor would Microsoft do so even
if it could. If anything, it is about to do the opposite. Windows 7 users will
soon lose access to a stand-alone toolkit for mitigating zero-day exploits.

Another reason why Windows is a joke OS for serious tech enthusiasts.

>A word of warning, though: such upgrades do not necessarily go without a
hitch. A Windows 10 tablet your correspondent relied upon for much of his
mobile computing was broken irreparably when a recent update corrupted the
display driver, rendering the touchscreen useless.

......... makes you wonder why they lock these things down, are tech
enthusiasts even designing them?

>But he has also dusted down his four-year-old Apple MacBook Pro and upgraded
his Windows 7 desktop to the latest version of Linux Mint rather than Windows
10.

Yes I prefer Linux to Windows in most cases too. I never have good long term
experiences with Windows.

>It used to be that only free software came with advertising; users paid a
fee, if they chose to do so, to get the software free of advertising.
Microsoft charges top dollar for Windows 10 ($120 or $200, depending on the
edition) and now wants to bombard users with sales pitches to boot—without so
much as by your leave, let alone the option to turn the nuisance off. Despite
their idiosyncrasies, Macintosh and Linux have never looked so attractive.

Yeah these days pretty much the only people who are using Windows are people
who don't know any better. Most people aren't even exposed to Linux except
those of us in the tech sector, and it seems to be just as popular as windows
and OS X at the shops I've worked at.

~~~
newplagiarist
What makes a serious tech enthusiast? I consider myself one and I enjoy using
Windows 10 as my desktop PC. I have had almost no issues or qualms with how
Windows 10 has performed for me since launch.

------
mmanfrin

      More than 700m of the world's 1.5bn or so computers continue
      to run on Windows 7, a piece of software three generations old
    

Win 7, Win 8, Win 10; 2 generations old. Preeeetty easy to check, WSJ. If your
lede carries such a glaring mistake, why do I trust anything in this article.

~~~
sgift
They probably count 8.1 extra which was a pretty significant overhaul compared
to 8.

~~~
boznz
significant in that they put the start menu back.

