JorgeA

Yeah, sure, as if the good Nvidia guys haven't botched enough systems with their crazy drivers experience. I do understand how since a few years a graphic card is more similar to a "complete" computer than to anything else and that managing the firmware and drivers for it while attemtong to squeeze all the juice from the hardware must be complex, but raise your hand those that have never experienced an issue with Nvidia cards because of the crappy drivers or because they were updated or because they failed to update or updated but removed 1/ to 3/4th if your settings. jaclaz <raising hand> I guess I've been fortunate in that respect. I use GPUs for a distributed-computing project, and sometimes a new Nvidia driver is slower (creates less throughput) than the previous one, but that's about the extent of it for me. After some bad experiences, though, I do shy away from downloading AMD drivers via Microsoft. Now I download those, too, directly from the manufacturer. --JorgeA

Microsoft has supposedly taken care to preserve compatibility of existing programs with Windows 10. Now, though, we appear to have a case where a major vendor's attempt to make its sofrtware compatible with Win10 actually broke compatibility with Windows 7 and 8: Norton’s beta update 22.5.0.124 meant for Windows 10 sends Win 7, Win 8.1 PCs in a loopy reboot Norton for Windows 10 is NOT a box-borking beta, insists Symantec --JorgeA

My take on that article (which BTW was a fantastic read) is that MSFT shareholders should feel some jitters over what's shaping up for the company's flagship product. Forced mass updates are a disaster waiting to happen. Lots of good quotable material in the piece, but here's the one that I found most compelling: Interesting angle on that "dictatorial" thing. To borrow terms from political philosophy, Windows had always been to a significant extent a "libertarian" system, where a few ground rules were set and people (users) were otherwise free to customize their experience to suit their own needs and preferences. But in recent years, starting with the introduction of Windows 8 and accelerating with Windows 10, the company is taking on an increasingly "authoritarian" stance toward its users, removing choices in important areas ranging from the look-and-feel of the OS to whether and how it will be updated, and generally pushing its presence more aggressively upon the user (read: Microsoft Account, Cortana with Bing, and Windows Store). --JorgeA

Microsoft's rolling Windows 10 launch: What's coming next [emphasis added] Perhaps not what Nadella meant by "retail execution," but Win10 just might administer the final blow to the retail market for Windows, and for PCs generally. --JorgeA

Just for the record/FYI I had a quick peek at that package (and didn't like what I saw ): http://reboot.pro/topic/20601-win10-downgrade/ jaclaz You're right that it's a less than perfect package, but the idea is that Windows 10 might be generating a wave of such "safety net" applications for people who are leery of Win10. --JorgeA

You see, MS will just stop producing buggy updates! No need to worry! Good points you make there. I take note of the pathetic attempts made in that thread to defend the forced-updates policy. I doubt that the Insiders program will be an adequate substitute for a professional testing department. I, for one, may (or may not) stay in the Insiders but one thing is for sure and that is that, given the monitoring/tracking, I will not be doing anything on Windows 10 that involves personal or business information. Therefore I won't be installing Office or any other program I might use for home or work purposes, which limits the amount of data Microsoft will be getting from me regarding compatibility issues and crashes. --JorgeA

I'm with you. Unfortunately, it may take several high-profile cybersecurity nightmares for the public to sour on the idea of connecting everything they own to the Internet. For the time being, though, the "coolness of it all" factor may have the upper hand. And good point about car software. How long before "if it saves even one life" demagogues will start demanding that people "upgrade" their cars to stay current with the new safety software that's "incompatible" with previous years' models? --JorgeA

I'm definitely with you on that one. Every time I need to select the settings on Windows Media Player (and it seems to be more and more often lately), I choose Custom settings and turn off all options that involve communicating with anything beyond my PC. None of their d*mn business what I play on my computer. --JorgeA

I could be wrong, but I think that jaclaz's post here, about SRWare Iron as an alternative to Chrome, was actually meant to be posted in this thread in response to your post above. At least here it makes sense. Cheers and Regards Nice catch, bphlpt! I'll bet that's exactly what @jaclaz had intended. Maybe @dencorso or @Tripredacus can move that post over here, and then remove our discussion of it. --JorgeA

User rejection of forced automatic updates is spreading beyond Windows 10: Why I’m dumping Google Chrome You've got to read the whole post for the infuriating details of Google's hostility to user choice. But here's the conclusion: And then there's this fellow who's totally fed up with Chrome, automatic updates being one reason. (I doubt he'll be happy with Microsoft Edge, but let him find out for himself. ) --JorgeA

I have Win10 on a laptop, dual-booting with Windows 7 on separate partitions of the same HDD. When I boot into Win10, the Win7 partition becomes drive D:, but the same partition is labeled C: when I boot into Win7. My understanding of it (which could be wrong) has been that Windows, in order to work properly, requires the drive of the active OS to be labeled C:. So I just live with the shifting drive labels as I boot into one or the other version of Windows. --JorgeA

There is a sense of dread out there regarding the invasion takeover launch of Windows 10, and enterprising companies are stepping in to provide an easy-to-use safety net: Worried about upgrading to Windows 10? EaseUS System GoBack Free provides you with an escape route --JorgeA

That jibes with what I've heard, too. It's not only their customers that they're treating with contempt, but also their volunteers and enthusiasts. --JorgeA

Very true. But, then again, quite a lot has been undone, already! Another thing that was undone in Win10: Windows 10 won't let you sync installed apps or Start layouts across devices Details: You know Windows 10 is bad when it manages to cramp the style of both Win7 and Win8 users. As one commenter put it, --JorgeA

Hmmm, so these gamers' monomaniacal focus on speed at any cost will end up aiding Microsoft's efforts to foist Windows 10 on the public. "Thanks," people. --JorgeA

That was interesting. But as their own website indicates, these are racing cars intended to become collector items. If a major automaker were to phase out its existing product line and try to push this on its customers, I suspect that the vast majority of the customers would go to somebody else to get the type of car they prefer. It's the attempt to railroad the customer base into this that makes the idea absurd. --JorgeA

They can (try to) get away with this only because they dominate the PC market so greatly. Imagine if Ford or Toyota were to introduce cars that did 12 MPG, had to be hand-cranked to start, and lacked power steering and air conditioning, intending to add these back year by year so that people felt the product was getting better. How fast can you say "bankruptcy court"? We could use a strong competitor in the OS market to keep Microsoft on their toes. If I were an Internet billionaire I would think seriously about backing a project to create a Windows-compatible operating system, carefully designed to avoid stepping on legal mines. (Think ReactOS, but with real drive.) I might not even care that I could lose a few hundred million: it would be fun to see how fast the 'Softies shaped up and started making a decent Windows again. --JorgeA

Wonder how many of them follow Microsoft around like puppies and install whatever their masters tell them, just so they can get their newest morsel. --JorgeA

I can attest to the fact that this works. Tried it on a Win7 system running IE11, and the scrollbar is much easier to spot now. --JorgeA

The key sentence: So, they continue to fail in the very market segment (phones) for which they've wrecked the Windows UI. Seems to me the sensible thing to do is to euthanize the crippled horse of mobile already and put an end to the pain, then allow Windows to start healing. Another interesting point: the CNN piece describes Microsoft's strategy thus -- A parallel idea was expressed recently on The Verge: The author's assessment? Creating apps and cloud services (Office 365, etc.) that will run on Android isn't going to convince people to buy Windows 10 devices -- it's going to encourage them to stay on Android. The path to increasing the sales of Windows devices isn't there. And yet, Nadella & Co. are busy trying to turn our PCs into big smartphones full of "apps." --JorgeA

Edge had better work OK on MSN! If not on Microsoft's own sites, then where would it ever work?? I'll have to try visiting MSFN via Edge and see how it performs. Thanks for the rundown on this browser. --JorgeA

Actually it's mind-boggling to me that anybody could think (and some really do) that the Win10 look is somehow more esthetic than that of Vista/7. When I open the new PC Settings, I feel like I've walked into a warehouse with gray floors and metal mesh shelves. Incidentally, I wanted to contribute some pro-con so as to participate in this thread's purpose, but I couldn't find anything "pro" to say about Windows 10. --JorgeA

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Joining the tech-fascist trend, Twitter reportedly has removed users' ability to place custom backgrounds on their profile pages and replaced all of them with a uniform, bright white background. --JorgeA