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How is Windows 10 these days?

W

whatsinaname

Member
M3d10n said:
Ah, you want to completely disable the lock screen? I'd have to look into that.

I'm not entirely sure what the deal is, however. You just press any random key before typing your password.
Click to expand...

It's my personal desktop OS. It would be nice if it let me do basic things I want. If it isn't a big deal, why doesn't MS let me turn it off? I am on a desktop. There is 0 reason for this thing to exist. People find registry settings to turn it off and then MS breaks those in updates.

(And it is a pain for me because the key press registration has no audio feedback if I start typing before my monitor starts up. I haven't had these many incorrect logins ever before.)

Numerous design decisions like this in the OS is why us "old men yell at clouds". When MS starts ignoring even registry and group policy settings, it tells us something.
 
Y

yyr

Member
4Tran said:
The biggest problem with it is that its main problems seem more philosophical than technological - it's the direction Microsoft wants to move the OS towards, and I don't like this direction one bit.
Click to expand...

This.

Windows 8, under the hood, was awesome. Everything was snappy and responsive. OS took up a lot less drive space, too. Windows 10 continues this. With the exception of the data mining (which was back-ported to Windows 7 and 8, by the way), the internals are fantastic and it makes me love working within my apps in Windows 10.

But the interface.

If it weren't for the Win+X menu I would hate it a lot more than I do. But why can't we just have Windows 7 Explorer in Windows 10? That would fix almost everything (except perhaps for the dual Control Panel nonsense).
 
s_mirage

s_mirage

Member
A couple of other things that bug me: Microsoft doesn't seem to value OS customizability any more, instead prioritising forcing people into using its new UI. The last major update removed the ability to change the font sizes of the various UI elements. This was useful for some people in customizing Windows to best match their personal usage. Why is it gone? Because it didn't work with new Windows UI elements like the start bar, and instead of fixing those they just removed the options, replacing them with crude UI scaling.

Also UI related: they removed control panel from the Win+X shortcut menu, instead wanting people to use the Settings menu. That would be fine if the settings menu offered the functionality and customizability of the control panel. It doesn't, and altering settings on Windows still relies on an annoying hodgepodge of UI paradigms. A lot of advanced settings still require using Win32 GUI based settings panels, so it is rather premature to attempt to depreciate control panel through the backdoor when it is still serves a very useful function with no meaningful replacement. Again, Microsoft are prioritising pushing the new UI design over OS functionality.
 
D

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
For the most part I'm finding Windows 10 to be decent, but for two nagging issues that are exacerbated by the fact that I have low bandwidth. It seems that at least once a day, usually when I get home from work or in the morning on my days off, some process called "Service Host: Delivery Optimization" will just start hogging the hell out of all my bandwidth. I know this is used for Windows Updates and definition updates for Windows Defender, but in those cases, I can actually see the update in progress when I open up the Windows Update menu. Most days it does this, there's nothing at all supposedly being updated. I've had to wait an entire hour one several occasions as it did this, unable to do anything productive with my Internet connection. I know all the peer to peer update stuff is off, so that can't be part of it.

There's a similar process called Microsoft Account Download/Upload Host that causes similar problems, though not usually for as long. It's just really annoying that both of these processes can start seemingly at random, such as right when I'm in the middle of an online game in some sort of team PvE event where it would be detrimental for me to lag out.

Does anyone know how to stop this crap?
 
M

M3d10n

Member
whatsinaname said:
It's my personal desktop OS. It would be nice if it let me do basic things I want. If it isn't a big deal, why doesn't MS let me turn it off? I am on a desktop. There is 0 reason for this thing to exist. People find registry settings to turn it off and then MS breaks those in updates.

(And it is a pain for me because the key press registration has no audio feedback if I start typing before my monitor starts up. I haven't had these many incorrect logins ever before.)

Numerous design decisions like this in the OS is why us "old men yell at clouds". When MS starts ignoring even registry and group policy settings, it tells us something.
Click to expand...

That's a fair complaint. I've never had it break on me, however. I just press enter and my password and it works even if my monitor is booting up (as long as I know the PC has been on).
 
M

M3d10n

Member
DarthWoo said:
For the most part I'm finding Windows 10 to be decent, but for two nagging issues that are exacerbated by the fact that I have low bandwidth. It seems that at least once a day, usually when I get home from work or in the morning on my days off, some process called "Service Host: Delivery Optimization" will just start hogging the hell out of all my bandwidth. I know this is used for Windows Updates and definition updates for Windows Defender, but in those cases, I can actually see the update in progress when I open up the Windows Update menu. Most days it does this, there's nothing at all supposedly being updated. I've had to wait an entire hour one several occasions as it did this, unable to do anything productive with my Internet connection. I know all the peer to peer update stuff is off, so that can't be part of it.

There's a similar process called Microsoft Account Download/Upload Host that causes similar problems, though not usually for as long. It's just really annoying that both of these processes can start seemingly at random, such as right when I'm in the middle of an online game in some sort of team PvE event where it would be detrimental for me to lag out.

Does anyone know how to stop this crap?
Click to expand...

That is one thing Microsoft fixed a bit too much from 7/8. Whereas Windows Update used to be slow as fuck, on 10 it often uses as much bandwidth as it possibly can and can saturate routers without robust QoS.

I never tested it, but you could try clicking on your wifi connection on the tray, then properties and enable the "treat this as a limited connection" option. It works for ethernet too since a recent update. This should cause Windows to back off internet-intensive stuff, but I have no idea how it affects updates.
 
C

CTE

Member
Win 10 plus Spybot Anti-Beacon is fantastic for me. It takes 10 from an ok OS to a great one. I would never go back to 7 at this point.
 
T

Two Words

Member
Vixdean said:
I dunno, maybe because I started in Windows world but I've never found anything in Finder intuitive. Enter to rename a file just makes no sense. I find myself constantly having to resize the window/tabs to view files in separate folders. There's no view as easy to browse as the Explorer detail view. I did manage to find a combination of settings that made Finder palpable but it still feels like I'm fighting the way they want me to use it.
Click to expand...

I do think your default impacts that a lot. I will say that Windows behavior of trying to stuff in the extension name for you can be extremely infuriating because it does it wrong so many times. Explorer has made me waste several hours because of how it handles file extensions when creating a file and I'll end up debugging a file that has a name mismatch.

Honestly, a lot of how Windows handles files at a directory level is extremely annoying. At least from my perspective. Though that is getting into command line stuff.
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Threads like these really make me realize how many masters Microsoft has to serve. There are so many different types of users working with this one piece of software.
 
J

jokingbird

Member
It's a good OS as long as you get the pro version and disable some settings. Turning off cortona and setting your connection to metered will fix most of the issues. I run the updates separately when I need them and just run my virus definitions daily. MS dropped the ball with the forced updates although I believe that is fixed with the most recent update. I feel most people who complain are using the home version which is more locked down and is trying to be idiot proof with the updates.

I also use the Enterprise version at work and haven't had any issues.

As always the most vocal users will be those that have had issues in the past. Not many people will go out of their way to give an endorsement.
 
F

FiggyCal

Banned
Social said:
Mine is starting to break down a bit after the latest updates. Odd bugs like not waking up the monitor from hibernation all of a sudden, not showing overlays when clicking files randomly... Might have to do a reinstall after the next big update. It's stilla great OS but I seriously wonder when Microsoft is going to streamline the UI and make up their mind as to what it is they want exactly, modern new UI, or classic UI burried deeper and deeper each time.
Click to expand...
Yes holy shit. This is driving me nuts!
 
dc3k

dc3k

Member
I like it a lot. In most cases it's significantly better than any other OS I've used.

The only thing that continually bugs me is the search fails.

If I hit Windows key and type some math equation, sometimes it shows me a calculator result, sometimes it doesn't. And when it does, I can't copy the result to my clipboard.
If I search for a program, it does a horrible job of finding it. If I type "Hex" it brings up "HexChat", if I type "chat" it doesn't find it. I feel like 7 and 8 did a better job of this.

Also as of the last couple of days, in order to start a search I have to hit the Windows key three times to get the search box to be immediately focused
 
B

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
I do agree with a lot of the UI issues, such as digging through the 'settings' menu onluy to realize that what I needed was in the 'Control Panel'. Purposefully hiding away some regularly useful features I would like easier access to.

My biggest issue is more isolated, but I have a constant problem with the damn system going into sleep mode. I have tried everything, and ensured hundreds of times all settings are correct(turn off monitor after 15m of inactivity, then sleep after 1 hour), but it never actually does it.

I have nearly popped blood vessels waking up in the morning or coming home from work to see that the goddamn PC is still brightly showing the same webpage or desktop as it did when I left it 8-10 hours ago. It literally makes me want to explode knowing my screen has been burning itself displaying an image to an empty house for such long stretches. I have gotten into the habit of manually entering sleep mode whenever I get up from the desk, but that is BS. Something is interrupting the process, but registry is clear and tech support is stumped.

So fuck Win 10 for that one issue. Otherwise it's mostly fine.
 
P

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
One annoying issue I keep having is the nvidia control panel keeps disappearing from the desktop context menu and the only way to restore it is to either reinstall the drivers or edit registry, but it makes no difference because if I restart the computer afterwards it disappears all over again and reverts at least one setting I changed within the control panel each time too. Even running nvcplui.exe as admin doesn't open it, has to be reinstalled or registry edited.
 
D

Dezzy

Member
BreezyLimbo said:
So Im building a new pc soon

If you had to choose between 7 or 10 Pro, what would you go for?
Click to expand...

Windows 10. It easily supports the latest tech. No reason to use an outdated OS just for the start menu and other such things. Windows 10 works perfectly fine.
 
J

jelly

Member
BoboBrazil said:
Yep installs shit without you asking it to. Had several games installed and show up in start menu without ever agreeing to it. Windows 10 is no bueno.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for this. Even saw it start in the menu out of nowhere and it wasn't just filling in the blanks from a fresh install, this was after. It was some racing game from the store and other apps. To be fair it hasn't done it since but whether that's fortunate or a once off slice of the Store or me turning off a setting, I don't know. Didn't like it either way.
 
XOMTOR

XOMTOR

Member
Branson said:
Devils advocate: Did you feel the same way about Minesweeper and Solitaire?
Click to expand...

Been a looooong time but I recall that with '95 and '98, you could select whether or not to install the games when doing a custom Windows install. Also, just checked my Windows 7 laptop and no games of any kind installed and I don't recall doing anything special.
 
M

MartyStu

Member
Works well in all the ways an OS should work, so that is a plus I suppose.

It is, however, the first OS I have used where I felt that I did not have as much control as I should.

To be quite frank, if I had any other option, I would bail immediately.

In fact, I am looking into just playing all my games in a VM using GPU passthrough. Depending on how doable that turns out to be, I am definitely dumping windows as my main OS at home.

CreepingFear said:
10. I use/see 7 a lot in my workplace as someone who works in IT. It's so amazing how 10 will pretty much install all the drivers it needs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a great OS for non-personal use.
 
P

pestul

Member
Why do people need classic start.. I don't remember the last time I clicked start, except for the superior right-click menu. I just hit the Windows key and type what I want.
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
pestul said:
Why do people need classic start.. I don't remember the last time I clicked start, except for the superior right-click menu. I just hit the Windows key and type what I want.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Anyone who relies on clicking the start menu has been working inefficient for far too long. Same thing as people who use icons. My desktop is a background. No task bar (or hidden rather), no icons. If I need something I press win key and then 99% the time 2 keystrokes before it knows what I'm after.
 
M

MartyStu

Member
pestul said:
Why do people need classic start.. I don't remember the last time I clicked start, except for the superior right-click menu. I just hit the Windows key and type what I want.
Click to expand...

As someone who generally enjoys Keyboard-only navigation in Linux, I want to agree with you, but the typical windows workflow allows for mouse-only navigation. That being the case, I definitely see why people would prefer the familiarity and functionality of the classic menu for their clicking needs.
 
Woo-Fu

Woo-Fu

Banned
Windows 10 works OK for me. I guess the biggest problem I have with it is that most of the things it does better for me(than win 7/8) are under the hood, not really noticeable. Whereas the new things that I absolutely detest are painfully obvious/recurring.
 
R

Random Human

They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
Every new update brings a bunch of features I never use and a bunch of bugs that seem to last for months.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
They need to stop with trying to push advertisements as "recommendations" and "helpful tips", as well as rethink the auto-updating. Strongly pushing updates is good for security purposes, but the way they've implemented it is too intrusive and you more or less don't have control over it unless you're running group policies or something. The pushing of Win 10 upgrades from old windows on people who didn't know any better (or were actively trying to not do it) was flat out bad and I'm shocked they had the gall to do it the way they did.

The features and functionality of the OS itself ranges from good to very good. Window snapping was improved with the adjustable boundary, which is something I use pretty much daily. It's more or less a synthesis of Win 7 and Win 8 with a few improvements in most areas. The only place it went backwards was as a pure touchscreen OS - I found 8 more usable than 10 in this respect. I find cortana to be relatively convenient for setting reminders and similar basic tasks, particularly given that I'm on a Win Phone and phone messages, alarms, reminders, calendar events etc to both PC and Phone. I don't use virtual desktops or whatever it's called but I understand they're pretty useful for some people.

In terms of stability it can be hit and miss. I haven't had a BSOD for any reason other than actual hardware failure since upgrading, but there have been quirks. Most recently, an update made Nvidia control panel disappear. I have to go through like a convoluted process to open it now, and I'm hoping it comes back soon because that's annoying af.
 
V

valeo

Member
As someone who just implemented Windows 10 in a business environment; FUCK WINDOWS 10.

Love it as a home user, but as a business user it's infuriating.
 
M

Mohasus

Member
whatsinaname said:
It's my personal desktop OS. It would be nice if it let me do basic things I want. If it isn't a big deal, why doesn't MS let me turn it off? I am on a desktop. There is 0 reason for this thing to exist. People find registry settings to turn it off and then MS breaks those in updates.

(And it is a pain for me because the key press registration has no audio feedback if I start typing before my monitor starts up. I haven't had these many incorrect logins ever before.)

Numerous design decisions like this in the OS is why us "old men yell at clouds". When MS starts ignoring even registry and group policy settings, it tells us something.
Click to expand...

If you want to login directly without typing anything > change your account to a local one.
If you don't want that background in your lock screen > just change from windows spotlight to another option.

No need to change registry settings.
 
s_mirage

s_mirage

Member
StoneFox said:
If you mean why you have to use Windows 10 on a 7th processor it is because the processors lack support for Windows 7.
Microsoft TOTALLY didn't bribe manufacturers to drop support for it /s
Click to expand...

I'm reading that 7 will work fine, but Microsoft won't let you install any updates for it without a workaround. I don't remotely trust Microsoft's stated reasons for this.
 
mhayes86

mhayes86

Member
Windows 10 isn't too bad. I'll admit that I actually like it a bit more than W7, but I don't care for all of the web related settings.

First thing I do is turn off the telemetry stuff, disable the Spotlight ads, and disable OneDrive. I immediately turn off Cortana and web search through it since it's pretty slow, especially when I'm trying to do a standard file search. I also disable all of the Store related apps.
 
D

djplaeskool

Member
I thought it was 'just alright' at launch, 'pretty damn good' after the anniversary update, and regressed down to 'okay but kinda unstable' after the creators update.
 
S

SpyGuy239

Member
Never had issues with windows 10 (except the store sometimes, but I hardly use it and nothing a quick reinstall without wiping your data won't fix).

It's not as pretty as 7, but its responsive and stable.
 
A

Advocatus Diaboli

Member
My OS progression has been: DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, Me (!), Gentoo Linux, Ubuntu, 7, and then MacOS for the past few years.

I can't stand 10, though it's infinitely better than Windows 8, which I'm forced to use on my work computer. 10 is functional, especially after disabling stuff like Cortana, telemetry, and the ads that show up in Windows Explorer. It's not as bad as 8 was, which basically grafted the Metro-like interface onto Windows 7 without, you know, smoothing out the edges, but there's still so much that's just unpleasant. Like having "System Settings" and then "Control Panel." I'm not a fan of the start menu/live tiles system that automatically downloads stuff, either.

So, yeah, if Windows is your thing, it's probably the best version. Can't really speak to stability, aside from the damn thing breaking during the installation of the last big update (Creators?) and requiring a full reinstallation.

If I had to abandon MacOS, I'd go back to Linux before I touched Windows 10 again -- though, I'm looking forward to Windows 11 to see what MS' engineers have in store.
 
H

Herne

Member
Forced updates are arse. On my desktop, Creator's Update killed some of the programs I use forcing me to reinstall them (RTSS, Everything, Sunset Screen, WinAmp, Logitech keyboard software, more I can't remember), reset my power settings (because that needed to happen, for some reason). It installed on my laptop the next day and was fine, because Microsoft are all about consistency.

People praising Windows Search when Everything exists is beyond me. Example search for a PNG file on my C: drive using both -

Windows Search

Everything

Edit - .JPG file >_>
 
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