Poll: Are you happy with Windows 10?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This thread is going to outlive me.

 

[El Greco]

People were abusing the free'ness.
They gave the opportunity to keep your 15Gb if you ticked a box.
I did.
Next option up is £1.99/month for 50Gb
There are still craploads of free alternatives out there also.

Of course there are craploads of free alternatives out there, that's one more reason why it was a moronic move from Microsoft.

They were abusing MS's free space but they are not abusing the free space of the "craploads of other free alternatives" ? And of all those free alternatives, it's MS that can't deal with it ?

At the very least they could have reduced the free space for NEW users. Not for EXISTING ones.

It was a moronic move. Stupid. Idiotic. Pathetic.

 

[ComfySlippers]

...
At the very least they could have reduced the free space for NEW users. Not for EXISTING ones.

It was a moronic move. Stupid. Idiotic. Pathetic.

Um, they offered all existing users the chance to keep their 15gb plus 15gb Camera Roll.
They even threw in a free year of Office365 with the offer.
Not their fault if you didn't act on that.

If anyone has a genuine need for more than 5gb that really must be hosted by Microsoft they can pony up £1.99/month, or whatever it is in their location.

ETA: ("Genuine" doesn't include storing hundreds of gbs of ripped DVDs)

 

[paulhutch]

Of course there are craploads of free alternatives out there, that's one more reason why it was a moronic move from Microsoft.

They were abusing MS's free space but they are not abusing the free space of the "craploads of other free alternatives" ? And of all those free alternatives, it's MS that can't deal with it ?

At the very least they could have reduced the free space for NEW users. Not for EXISTING ones.

It was a moronic move. Stupid. Idiotic. Pathetic.

I think it was stupid too, since they did not email customers directly about the change in policy when they made the change in November. The first direct notification I got was an email yesterday saying my 30G will be reduced to 5G in June. It doesn't really affect me since I hadn't used it for much and I was already leaning toward Google Drive for a paid plan. Although I had thought it could be a nice feature for Win8/10 users with it being so well integrated with the OS.

Here's the official blog announcement from November:
https://blog.onedrive.com/onedrive_changes/

Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average. Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high-value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users.

They had no problem with normal users, their problem was only paid Office365 users who actually used the unlimited storage that Microsoft sold them, so they changed the policies for everyone.

Here are the changes:

• We’re no longer planning to offer unlimited storage to Office 365 Home, Personal, or University subscribers. Starting now, those subscriptions will include 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
• 100 GB and 200 GB paid plans are going away as an option for new users and will be replaced with a 50 GB plan for $1.99 per month in early 2016.
• Free OneDrive storage will decrease from 15 GB to 5 GB for all users, current and new. The 15 GB camera roll storage bonus will also be discontinued. These changes will start rolling out in early 2016.

At some point later, after the uproar from consumers, they announced somewhere (can't find where) that if you signed up somewhere by January 31st you could keep your 15G and only lose the Camera roll 15G. Microsoft seems to have decided that home users who don't want Office365 might be enticed to buy it for the cheap 1T of OneDrive storage, not sure how that will work out.

 

[Damien Evans]

I had to go with the option "No, not happy at all, can't uninstall" because there isn't an option for "It's all right, but there are some defects I'd like to see fixed."

The two defects I'm seeing are:

• No more Safe Mode. Until I can figure out how to reliably get Windows starting in Recovery mode this is a major impediment to fixing problems.
• I went to create recovery media the other day. It works ONLY with a USB FLASH DRIVE! W. T. F.?? What about external USB hard drives? Nope, they don't work--has to be a FLASH drive. What about DVDs? No option. Network share? No option. SD card? No option. An old firewire drive? No option. Thou shalt use a USB flash drive, and only USB flash drive shalt thou use.

It appears the more Windows matures, the more options they take away from their users. General users may appreciate the simplicity, but it's a royal pain for power users or people who have to fix broken installations.

That's not true, I downloaded a recovery ISO and burned it to disc several weeks ago.

 

[bruto]

Of course there are craploads of free alternatives out there, that's one more reason why it was a moronic move from Microsoft.

They were abusing MS's free space but they are not abusing the free space of the "craploads of other free alternatives" ? And of all those free alternatives, it's MS that can't deal with it ?

At the very least they could have reduced the free space for NEW users. Not for EXISTING ones.

It was a moronic move. Stupid. Idiotic. Pathetic.

I seem to recall that Jumpshare has a free terabyte, along with a free app that lets you drag and drop a file into their box and puts a link in your clipboard.

 

[paulhutch]

I seem to recall that Jumpshare has a free terabyte, along with a free app that lets you drag and drop a file into their box and puts a link in your clipboard.

OneDrive, Google Drive & iCloud are storage solutions, Jumpshare is a sharing solution. A storage solution automatically keeps all your document files synchronized across multiple PCs and the cloud.

 

[bruto]

OneDrive, Google Drive & iCloud are storage solutions, Jumpshare is a sharing solution. A storage solution automatically keeps all your document files synchronized across multiple PCs and the cloud.

True, there's no synchronizing, but of course you don't have to share the stuff. You can just store it. In any case my point is simply that these days it's not all that big a deal to offer a substantial amount of space.

 

[paulhutch]

True, there's no synchronizing, but of course you don't have to share the stuff. You can just store it. In any case my point is simply that these days it's not all that big a deal to offer a substantial amount of space.

Actually it is a big deal for cloud storage. Many companies have gone belly up or shifted to paid only in the past few years so AFAIK there are only 4 contenders left for consumer friendly free cloud storage.

DropBox = 2G
iCloud = 5G
OneDrive = 5G
Google Drive 15G

If you know of any others please let me know.

Of course the big dog in cloud storage, Amazon, may jump in with a free offering at some point and shake up the market.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Actually it is a big deal for cloud storage. Many companies have gone belly up or shifted to paid only in the past few years so AFAIK there are only 4 contenders left for consumer friendly free cloud storage.

DropBox = 2G
iCloud = 5G
OneDrive = 5G
Google Drive 15G

If you know of any others please let me know.

Of course the big dog in cloud storage, Amazon, may jump in with a free offering at some point and shake up the market.

I just signed up with Sync at sync.com as I was looking of a solution with their servers in Canada. You get 5 Gig for free. Looks pretty full featured based on my limited use.

However, I did a TRACERT to sync.com and my dear ISP (Bell Canada) sends all my data to a node in Chicago where it then goes to Amazon and rattles around a bunch of their routers before timing out after 30 hops. What happened to bangpath? So much for any protection from the NSA. Does anyone have a clue how the Internet routes traffic?

 

[ComfySlippers]

I think it was stupid too, since they did not email customers directly about the change in policy when they made the change in November.
...

Except they did.
Or are you saying they emailed them indirectly,via carrier pigeon or something?

At some point later, after the uproar from consumers, they announced somewhere (can't find where) that if you signed up somewhere by January 31st you could keep your 15G and only lose the Camera roll 15GB. Microsoft seems to have decided that home users who don't want Office365 might be enticed to buy it for the cheap 1T of OneDrive storage, not sure how that will work out.

All anyone had to do was click a button.
The link is still active, although the offer is not:
https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/
Pretty sure I didn't accidentally type random letters and come up with that link when I used it. They told me.
By clicking the button you kept your 15GB storage and 15GB Camera Roll.

...
DropBox = 2G
iCloud = 5G
OneDrive = 5G
Google Drive 15G

If you know of any others please let me know.
...

ME (Free):

DropBox : 2Gb : Only use it for apps/programs that insist on it.
box : 50Gb
iCloud (inc. iCloud Drive) : 5Gb
OneDrive : 15Gb & 15Gb CameraRoll : FREE
pCloud :11Gb
Amazon Cloud : 5Gb? : No idea
Google Drive : 17Gb

 

[quadraginta]

Actually it is a big deal for cloud storage. Many companies have gone belly up or shifted to paid only in the past few years so AFAIK there are only 4 contenders left for consumer friendly free cloud storage.

DropBox = 2G
iCloud = 5G
OneDrive = 5G
Google Drive 15G

If you know of any others please let me know.

<snip>

Kim Dotcom's comeback offering MEGA offers 50Gb free.

Here's a relatively up-to-date review.

 

[bruto]

I think I was mistaken anyway about what Jumpshare offers free. It seems you have to pay for that terabyte.

 

[paulhutch]

Except they did.
Or are you saying they emailed them indirectly,via carrier pigeon or something?

They did not notify me or anyone else I know by email prior to yesterday and as the blog post says the keep your 15G promotion ended Jan. 31.

All anyone had to do was click a button.

And since they didn't tell me or anyone I know about the existence of the button you think we should have psychically known.

The link is still active, although the offer is not:
https://preview.onedrive.com/bonus/
Pretty sure I didn't accidentally type random letters and come up with that link when I used it. They told me.
By clicking the button you kept your 15GB storage and 15GB Camera Roll.

Perhaps you heard about the offer from some press outlet last November or December (a google search shows many wrote about it). I and the people I know do not normally follow the PC press and since they didn't tell us about it by directly emailing us we missed out.

 

[paulhutch]

Kim Dotcom's comeback offering MEGA offers 50Gb free.

Here's a relatively up-to-date review.

Thanks for the info but it also is a sharing site not a storage site. The page you linked says so:

No native syncing client.

 

[Blue Mountain]

You said you'd tried to create a recovery disk.
This indicates you'd got past the login screen.

You missed the word "If" at the start of my sentence. As a computer professional for 35 years now, I've learned to look for problems that may arise and try to resolve some of them in advance. Therefore, how does one reliably start the on-disc Windows recovery process if Windows hangs before getting to the login screen, or hangs after you log in but don't get a desktop?

You make a recovery disk as I described. It lets you create a DVD.
(If there's none in the drive you just get the Flash option)

The .iso file, should you not have it, is available as paulhutch described. It doesn't need four discs though. Just one. You can download it on any machine regardless of O.S. It's a full copy of Windows.

Yes, I have it now, and have created the DVD. However, that was a separate process from the one Windows initially gave me, which was a menu option titled "Create USB Recovery." Note it's USB recovery; not Create Recovery media, such as ISOs to burn to DVD, or take a USB hard drive, write a recovery folder it it, and make it bootable. That way I could use, for example, one of four USB hard drives I currently use for backing up my computers.

Some Stuff

An intersting hack. Basically you put the computer into non-secure non-UEFI mode, boot the legacy Windows-XP era loader, and bang on F8 as the system is coming up. Gee, that's so bloody obvious! (NOT!)

Or Boot from the DVD you've just created.

Provided I have one. How many Windows 10 users have any sort of off-line recovery media?

Question for the readers of this thread: Do you have a DVD or USB flash drive that you can use to boot your Windows 10 system in the event you can't get to the login screen when starting your system normally?

 

[Blue Mountain]

Man, is Windows 10 ever fragile!

I'm testing backup and recovery scenarios. After reducing my primary Windows 10 partition to 80 GB in preparation for a Linux install, I used Clonezilla to back up the first three partitions of my new Dell laptop (a 500 GB hard disc) and restored them to a smaller disc (200 GB).

The first three partitions on the 200 GB drive (EFI, Microsoft Reserved, and Windows) are in the exact same locations and have the exact same length as the original 500 GB drive. The partition contents are bit for bit identical to the 500 GB drive.

What happens when I try to start Windows? I get a Recovery screen!

Your PC/Device needs to be repaired.
A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.

The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains an error.

File: C:\Windows\system32\winload.efi
Error code: 0xc0000225

You'll need to use recovery tools. If you don't have any installation media (like a disc or USB device,) contact your PC administrator or PC/Device manufacturer.

Press Enter to try again.
Press F8 for Startup Settings.
Press Esc for UEFI Firmware Settings

Again, WTF? The file "C:\Windows\system32\winload.efi" is on the Windows partition. So what's this crap about it not being there or being corrupted.

And the really stupid thing about this? The drive as shipped from the factory has a Recovery Tools partition and a Recovery Image partition, but Windows has no way of starting them. Now if one had a dead disc the point would be moot, but if all that was wrong was Windows needed a bit of TLC why is it not possible to boot a secondary copy of Windows that's already on the drive?

 

[bruto]

....Provided I have one. How many Windows 10 users have any sort of off-line recovery media?

Question for the readers of this thread: Do you have a DVD or USB flash drive that you can use to boot your Windows 10 system in the event you can't get to the login screen when starting your system normally?

Just today I created a USB flash backup, that supposedly will boot, though I have yet to try it out.

Just for information, this process was very very slow - so slow it could easily be mistaken for a crash. I just walked away and did something else for a couple of hours. Eventually it finished, but patience is in order here.

 

[Blue Mountain]

I used the DVD I created from the downloaded ISO to attempt to fix the copy of Windows that won't start on my 200 GB disc even though it's supposedly bit-for-bit identical to the one on the 500 GB disc.

Upon booting the DVD, you're prompted for language to install, time and currency format, and keyboard or input method. The next screen asks for "Install" or "Repair your computer."

Clicking "Repair your computer" gives you four options:

• Continue - Exit and continue to Windows 10
• Use a device - Use a USB drive, network connection, or Windows recovery DVD
• Troubleshoot - Reset your PC or see advanced options
• Turn off your PC

Use a device simply prompts for either the USB flash drive you may have created earlier--and know where it is, and hope its contents haven't been corrupted by a random decaying alpha particle or static discharge. Or you might be able to use a recovery DVD, which this disc is not.

Troubleshoot gives you two options:

• Reset this PC - lets you choose to keep or remove files, then reinstalls Windows
• Advanced options

There are six Advanced options

• System Restore - Use a restore point recorded on your PC to restore Windows
• System Image Recovery - Recover Windows using a specific system image file
• Startup Repair - Fix problems that keep Windows from loading
• Command Prompt - Use the command prompt for advanced troubleshooting
• UEFI Firmware Settings - Change settings in your PC's UEFI firmware
• Go back to the previous build

I selected Startup Repair > Windows 10. I got "Diagnosing your PC" and "Attempting Repairs", spinning its spinney little spinner round and round for 31 minutes. As is typical of Windows, it gave absolutely no indication if any progress was being made, or if it was stuck in a loop trying the same things over and over again, or simply stalled and wasn't doing anything at all. All I got was the spinner until the process came to an end.

After fully half an hour, the system rebooted ...

... back to the "Your PC/Device needs to be repaired" screen!

 

[Blue Mountain]

I'm all out of time for tonight. Tomorrow evening I'll try using the DVD to do as gentle a reinstall of Windows as it will let me. I'm really happy I'm working on a scratch drive and not desperately trying to recover a crashed system.

There's another option: System Image. It's still there in Windows 10, hidden in Control Panel > System and Security > Backup and Restore (Windows 7) > Create a System Image. There's also a "Create a System Repair Disc" option.

So yeah ... the backup option I was looking for in Windows 10 is squirrelled away under an option labelled Windows 7.

Just how is this an improvement over Windows 7?