Jump to content

Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions


xper

Recommended Posts

I just downloaded (for Win 8.1) the dumbed-down ATI 16.7.2 display driver I'll need to be using if I choose to move to Win 10.  They've completely removed my ability to calibrate my multiple displays via direct tweaks to the graphics card outputs.  As a result I've had to try to calibrate my monitors using only the on-monitor controls and the few remaining controls the driver offers.

What is this BS of removing features in new releases and just telling customers, "tough, get over it"?!?  (see this thread)

I've got it reasonably close, but it's not as good as before, and if I can't tolerate the remaining miscalibration I will have to revert to one of the past ATI driver releases that supports the calibration I need, which would completely cinch the decision whether to stay on Win 8.1, as using old drivers on Win 10 proabably won't be viable. 

Certainly I've found no offsetting, value-adding reasons FOR "up"grading to Win 10.  It's like a constant "choose the lesser of evils" battle any more.

-Noel

Edit:  I reverted to 16.3.2 after my system crashed overnight.  This system never crashes.  Not only are there fewer features in the latest display driver - making perfect calibration impossible - but also there is less stability.  It figures.

That pretty much says this computer is staying on Win 8.1 with the current software set, and probably no more Windows Updates either.

Edited by NoelC
Link to comment
Share on other sites


On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 1:50 PM, xpclient said:

To be honest, I am worried that once all the stupid people "arrived" and took over the industry via Facebook, :P , the tech industry has fallen into a trap of mindless conformity where the most popular technology wins regardless of whether or not it is actually better. New and different equals cool and hip. Fashion and social media play a big role in what is successful. This trend is so dangerously worrying and enough to drive a sane clever engineer to insanity.

The "upgrade" was supposed to do wonders for your productivity, your workflow & bring new capabilities without wasting your time and past investments and the steady evolution and progress which happened in the past. That is why those top engineers were so highly paid. But that's not what's happening today. It's extremely disturbing. Big companies do changes and manipulate people so easily. Fanboys can't set their emotions aside and realize that the ultimate goal of exploitative companies is now only to profit even if it screws all your past investment, time and effort, and takes the product in the opposite direction.

IMHO another factor in this, is kids at their first job at Google/Apple/Microsoft who can't resist the temptation to mess with millions of people's lives. Here we have arrogant twits who think they're smarter than everyone else, trying to shape our (onscreen) environment. The temptation is hard to resist if you have the knowledge to do it, but neither the wisdom nor the experience to steer you away from it.

It's also the sense of power. If it were simply a matter of money and profit, it seems to me that, in the wide-open Internet market, sooner or later someone would come along offering stable products that don't change the location of the buttons or the color scheme just for the h3!! of it; while customers who'd rather focus on getting actual work done than on learning the Cool New Features that arrive every other month would flock to such vendors.

But then, most vendors seem to be infested with arrogant twit developers who enjoy scr*wing with users' workflow... Because They Can.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
addition
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Saturday, July 16, 2016 at 11:35 AM, helpdesk98 said:

I wounder if there counting all the reinstalls. I have reinstalled dozens of times in VMs just messing around and only had them online once before there destruction lol.

You can be sure of that. Anything to puff up the numbers.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Friday, July 15, 2016 at 4:04 PM, TELVM said:

The quote from the MSFT spokescritter needed a little editing:

Quote

"Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in history with over 350m monthly active devices, with record customer satisfaction and engagement. We're pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing failure of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices. In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices -- and increasing customer delight with Windows."

[one word struck out, new word added in its place with emphasis]

WTF does "the focusing of our phone hardware business" mean?? There are a few nouns that fit better in that sentence; I gave one of them above. Others include "disaster," "debacle," "fiasco."

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Confirmed: Only Microsoft Edge will play Netflix content at 1080p on your PC
Reports down in the comments section:

Quote

Article should be updated to reflect the fact that this is only in Windows 10.

After reading I tested Chrome and Firefox in both Windows 10 and 7. In 7 both can play 1080p fine but in 10 both are locked at 720p.

Microsoft paying someone off to try and force its products/its Windows 10 store? No way!

Quote

I'm sure all browsers are technically capable of 1080p streaming. This appears as if Microsoft paid Netflix to have it disabled on all other browsers just to make Edge look better. A marketing ploy; not a technical limitation. Nope, still not switching to Edge.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, JorgeA said:
Quote

I'm sure all browsers are technically capable of 1080p streaming. This appears as if Microsoft paid Netflix to have it disabled on all other browsers just to make Edge look better. A marketing ploy; not a technical limitation. Nope, still not switching to Edge.

This one is especially interesting, because even on XP, both Firefox and Chrome can handle 1080p YouTube streams. (both HTML5 and Flash players)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm really disappointed by Microsoft on this one.

I mean, really? That's such an obviously anti-competitive move on their part that it looks *really* bad, and what's worse is that nobody (beyond this forum) seems to be catching on to it, so far.

And I don't mean this specific incident. It just serves as a convenient example of how this "new" Microsoft has become totally stupid (for all it's flaws, I like the "old" MS better, and even with all he did during his tenure as CEO, I think Bill Gates did a good job (for what it's worth, even Steve Ballmer did a better job of at least *attempting* to continue Gates' vision, although I found his handling of the Vista incident somewhat questionable). The new CEO seems to just want to copy Apple (which, granted, MS has done one way or another from the very beginning) and shove everything to "The Cloud", leaving us poor users with almost dumb terminals with ugly, difficult to use interfaces.

With that, I have an older, low-budget laptop that I decided to do the "upgrade" on, and so far, I'm not totally impressed. The machine came with Windows 7, and can actually run XP with some work, but both run rings around 10! Not totally, unusably slow, but slow enough to be annoying (granted, it's not the fastest machine in the world, with an anemic single-core Celeron and 2 GB of RAM, so it's probably a bad example as it's not in its nature to be fast).

So, I'll probably stick with XP and 7 on my main machines.

c

Edited by cc333
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, cc333 said:

what's worse is that nobody (beyond this forum) seems to be catching on to it, so far.

Paraphrasing in my best K accent:

A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.  Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe.  Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes before the upgrade the Windows user couldn't imagine Microsoft could just fail like this.

-Noel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, NoelC said:

Paraphrasing in my best K accent:

A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.  Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe.  Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes before the upgrade the Windows user couldn't imagine Microsoft could just fail like this.

-Noel

Well stated. I won't get too political, but the way people are supporting a certain republican candidate terrifies me, and this statement very aptly describes that as well I think.

c

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/11/2016 at 0:44 PM, JorgeA said:

Here's my new leading candidate for that "if and when" it comes time to say good-bye to Windows

It's nice a distro, that's for sure, but according to distrowatch.com it doesn't support x86_64. Doesn't that seem like an issue?

On 7/18/2016 at 8:50 PM, NoelC said:

fifteen minutes before the upgrade the Windows user couldn't imagine Microsoft could just fail like this.

More like the average Windows user. All the power users remember what a disaster Vista and 8 were and knew there are plenty of ways Microsoft could screw it up. And true to form, they did.

Edited by ptd163
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/18/2016 at 6:11 PM, cc333 said:

Well stated. I won't get too political, but the way people are supporting a certain republican candidate terrifies me, and this statement very aptly describes that as well I think.

c

If the lips are moving, he's lying.  Applies to M$ or the candidate, it's their business thing to do.  Yup, the road to bankruptcy. The IBM slide all over again.  The new M$ apparently don't know about computer history.  And then there's plagiarism.  Is the wife a Democrat?  Why does Win 10 run better on the Apple Boot Camp 10 year old MacBook?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guys, I advise against getting political. Not only is it OT, but it's the surest way to get this nice long thread to come to a screeching halt, either from "above" or from "below" -- or both.

I know that here in the U.S. we're suffering through an unusually heated election cycle :rolleyes::puke:, but on MSFN that topic belongs (if anywhere) in the general subforum.

Pleasepleaseplease, let's keep the thread on Microsoft and related tech issues! :)

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

About MakuluLinux,

1 hour ago, ptd163 said:

It's nice a distro, that's for sure, but according to distrowatch.com it doesn't support x86_64. Doesn't that seem like an issue?

I took a screenshot tonight:

Screenshot from 2016-07-20 07_25_11.png

From a live DVD session on my (Vista) laptop. Hopefully this will help. Let me know if I should provide more info.

--JorgeA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...