This Old Neon Forum

Slurmee wrote:

The Shoemaker wrote:I'm still on Windows XP! Wasn't a huge fan of how Windows 8 looked. But I'm the kind of person that doesn't upgrade until I buy a whole new computer.

Hasn't Microsoft stopped supporting XP? So you're more prone to virus/malware/hacking?

XP is so outdated security-wise that even with Microsoft's support over the last few years, users with the OS were much easier to target with malicious software. XP released way back in 2001, so virus developers have had a super long time to understand the intricacies of that OS.

I upgraded on day 1 because Windows 8 was a piece of crap. I liked Windows 7 much better, but ended up having to use Windows 8 after one of my hard drives fried.

Windows 10 seems like an improvement. As far as I can tell, it has the strengths of Windows 8 (protection for example) while getting rid of its clunky, awful interface. There are still some things about the UI which I'm not entirely fond of, but they've definitely made improvements.

Personally I hate Solitaire and couldn't care less about it even if they wanted to charge people $50.00 to play it.

Kong Wen wrote: Also, what's all this freemium Solitaire nonsense?

The solitaire collection being freemium it nothing new really, its been that way since day 1 with Windows 8.
The only difference is that it's actually included with the Win10 install instead of having to download it from the store.
The purchase is to remove ads for 3 6 or 12 months.
Other than that you can still play all 4 games, play challenges & earn Xbox achievements. So you got everything there.
I never bothered with ad removals myself & I'm sure Microsoft have better ways to earn money than to have ad sponsored games anyway.

Looks like the free upgrades are coming in waves for those that received the free upgrade notification in there system tray.
Still those that can't wait can still download the media creation tool here like myself.

Anyway it looks like they improved a lot on the performance issues from win8 & of coarse you might know they brought back the Start Menu.
The start menu still have some bugs to iron out & they could have let me keep the groups & there naming that I had with 8.1 & maybe even have folders as well, yet it's a start anyway.

The only issue I had was download the ISO file from the Tool where at first Something Happened at least the second time around the ISO file successfully downloaded & ready to go.

Microsoft Edge while I might explore it a little bit more looks to be afine replacement for the old IE as a basic browser.

in the end they inproved the performance even more from what 8 already had & so far it's a pretty good version of windows, just that there are kinks still need to be ironed out & some features to add.

As much as I preferred 10 over 8.1 I had to revert back due to having my laptop black screen after being idle for a while and a few shut down issues.

Kinda sucks but I really just don't have the patients to fix these issues especially when all the drivers are up to date and stuff.

Slurmee wrote:As much as I preferred 10 over 8.1 I had to revert back due to having my laptop black screen after being idle for a while and a few shut down issues.

Kinda sucks but I really just don't have the patients to fix these issues especially when all the drivers are up to date and stuff.

I guess that sucks, at least it's better to have a stable system.
Also you not the only one, My father almost went back to 7 due to various issues he had, including iTunes not loading up, settings screwing up, ect, ect.

unfortunately not everyones windows 10 stories be good, due to a wide difference in systems out there.

Spore wrote:

Slurmee wrote:

The Shoemaker wrote:I'm still on Windows XP! Wasn't a huge fan of how Windows 8 looked. But I'm the kind of person that doesn't upgrade until I buy a whole new computer.

Hasn't Microsoft stopped supporting XP? So you're more prone to virus/malware/hacking?

XP is so outdated security-wise that even with Microsoft's support over the last few years, users with the OS were much easier to target with malicious software. XP released way back in 2001, so virus developers have had a super long time to understand the intricacies of that OS.

I take it back, apparently I'm actually using Windows 7, silly me.

I know it's old news by now Microsoft is releasing a basic DVD program for $15.
Thats after getting rid of the media centre.
I find it's a cash grab especially there are pretty good free alternatives available like VLC.

kawaiipikachu wrote:I know it's old news by now Microsoft is releasing a basic DVD program for $15.
Thats after getting rid of the media centre.
I find it's a cash grab especially there are pretty good free alternatives available like VLC.

I read it's because Microsoft uses official DVD playing codecs which cost money to license. Usually that fee is built into the operating system cost, but with Microsoft giving out literally tens of millions of copies of the OS for free, it wouldn't be feasible. I wouldn't want to throw away a few hundred million dollars for licensing if I was a company. With that said, other programs such as VLC use their own free codecs so it's really a non-issue.

Spore wrote:

kawaiipikachu wrote:I know it's old news by now Microsoft is releasing a basic DVD program for $15.
Thats after getting rid of the media centre.
I find it's a cash grab especially there are pretty good free alternatives available like VLC.

I read it's because Microsoft uses official DVD playing codecs which cost money to license. Usually that fee is built into the operating system cost, but with Microsoft giving out literally tens of millions of copies of the OS for free, it wouldn't be feasible. I wouldn't want to throw away a few hundred million dollars for licensing if I was a company. With that said, other programs such as VLC use their own free codecs so it's really a non-issue.

I guess your point makes sense & somewhat fair, just Microsoft could have at least made a full on media player to help offset the cost a little bit.

Microsoft is telling me I can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. My question is, is there any reason I wouldn't want to?

I don't use any external hardware with my laptop, no USB mouse, USB drives or anything like that. The only non-microsoft software I use is itunes, Steam, Google Chrome and Skype. I can only assume all of those will work with Windows 10.

The only concern I have about upgrading (beyond the normal concerns of being an early adopter) is what will happen to my Office software. I use Powerpoint and Word, both the free versions with limited access. The limited access doesn't bother me because I only need to view powepoints, not create them, and the limited word is enough for me to write my papers. I'm not sure if Microsoft offers the free versions of these anymore and I'd rather not purchase them, so if I upgrade will I lose the software?