Windows 10

[Olowkow]

Since most people are not having the problems you're having, there's likely something about your specific hardware setup that does not agree with the new OS. If Windows 7 worked fine with it, just revert.

It's just a HP Pavilion p6370t with 16 gig of RAM. Nothing exotic. It might be that no one else here has IcloudPhotos or, iCloud for Windows, loading on startup. This is clearly the problem causing the screen flashing that I mentioned.

Icloudphotos is a program that permits automatic downloading of pictures taken with any Apple IOS device via WiFi to my PC. It worked beautifully in Windows 7.

I found a "fix" on the web which I tried. It involved changing the folder which Icloudphotos uses to contain the downloaded picture files. This worked insofar as preventing the flashing screen, but for some reason after doing so, I was unable to share the pictures on my home network. So, I reinstalled the program, and I am now back to a flashing screen if I try to run Icloudphotos.

I'm convinced it is some sort of inherent conflict, possibly in permissions or port use that are available to this program. I'm not much of a computer whiz though, so I doubt I can figure this out on my own.

The bottom line is that I am not willing to part with this useful feature just to acquire some unspecified gains which might result from the use of Windows 10 at this time, so unless I can find a satisfactory fix for this problem, I plan to revert to Windows 7 today.

 

[paulhutch]

It's just a HP Pavilion p6370t with 16 gig of RAM. Nothing exotic. It might be that no one else here has IcloudPhotos or, iCloud for Windows, loading on startup. This is clearly the problem causing the screen flashing that I mentioned.
<snip>
The bottom line is that I am not willing to part with this useful feature just to acquire some unspecified gains which might result from the use of Windows 10 at this time, so unless I can find a satisfactory fix for this problem, I plan to revert to Windows 7 today.

I'm sure Apple will update iCloud for Win10 compatibility long before the 1 year free upgrade period is over so you can always re-try Win10 at that point.

 

[Trebuchet]

Getting a new computer. Planning ahead, I want to kill Cortana. Her very existence offends me as a PlayStation fanboy.

Lock her in a cell with Siri and let them fight it out.

 

[davefoc]

How many of these miscellaneous problems are necessary?

I have never liked the way Microsoft packages the OS. Before Microsoft the OS was a platform for drivers and applications. Even the user interface can be seen as an application.

So what was the big need to modify the underlying OS in such a massive way that all these incompatibilities and problems arise? What is the cause of the bulk of these problems? Is it in the underlying OS or in the user interface or someplace else?

Does Linux go through anything like this when it updates? It seems like the answer is no because if they did the already small market for Linux would not exist? I assume Apple doesn't go through something like this because it is so closely linked to the hardware although obviously Apple went through a big transition when it changed to Intel type processors, but since then I don't remember hearing about all these kind of issues when Apple updates its OS.

 

[zooterkin]

Getting a new computer. Planning ahead, I want to kill Cortana. Her very existence offends me as a PlayStation fanboy.

I wouldn't have known Cortana was there if I hadn't seen it mentioned in this thread.

 

[eerok]

Does Linux go through anything like this when it updates?

There are certainly huge dramas when things change in the Linux world as well, for example: KDE4, GNOME3, and systemd were all big deals to many people. The difference is that Linux is not so monolithic that one can't just sidestep the hassles most of the time. For example, I don't run either KDE or GNOME, so I don't care how they change things except with respect to the particular apps I run.

Anyway, I'm still optimistic about Windows 10. The upgrade went very well on one machine, and reasonably well on another, though I admit I swore a lot. Long experience has shown me that upgrades like this can't be done sober, and I credit this bit of wisdom for getting me through it.

I sympathize with those whose upgrades completely bombed or simply refused to happen. Probably these issues will get resolved in the fullness of time.

 

[steve s]

Windows 10 seems to run a lot more efficiently on my computer than Win7. My laptop is fairly low-end. I'd sometimes play music in the background while surfing the net using either Youtube or the media player. Under Win7, whenever I'd click on a new webpage it would cause the music to pause for a second or two while the page loaded. With Windows 10 the music plays smoothly while I surf.

Steve S

 

[Olowkow]

I'm sure Apple will update iCloud for Win10 compatibility long before the 1 year free upgrade period is over so you can always re-try Win10 at that point.

I sure hope they get this figured out.

All's well that ends well, I guess. I reverted back to Win 7, and it was very successful, except for one thing. My iCloud still didn't work, and I could not reinstall the program either. Windows would not let me uninstall iCloud because it was missing icloud64.msi!!! Give me a break! I'm uninstalling the friggin' program, who cares!!! And, to top it off, all of my restore points were gone except for the various attempts at re-installing iCloud! This was like the perfect storm!

So, I found a very nice free uninstaller called Revo Uninstaller and set it loose on the most aggressive setting to get rid of any trace of iCloud. It worked. I reinstalled iCloud and all is well.

I can't help wondering why ever since I have been using Windows, their "uninstall" has often really worked very poorly. If I want to uninstall a program, why not just go out there and delete every reference in the registry?

I spent two days more or less with Windows 10, and the only thing I saw that was an improvement was the reworked task manager. Some features are downright bizarre, such as the way you type a command into the start menu. There is no text box. You see a bunch of icons and just start typing. Then then text box appears. Huh??

I agree with the critics that Cortana the answer lady is just a flat out silly addition, compared to what Siri can do. It reminds me of the little animated character providing help in Word for Windows that so annoyed users back in the day.

Ugh.

 

[grmcdorman]

Does Linux go through anything like this when it updates?

There are certainly huge dramas when things change in the Linux world as well, for example: KDE4, GNOME3, and systemd were all big deals to many people. The difference is that Linux is not so monolithic that one can't just sidestep the hassles most of the time. For example, I don't run either KDE or GNOME, so I don't care how they change things except with respect to the particular apps I run.

...

I think that's part of it. There are other factors as well:

• In the Linux world, many of the programs are open-source. This makes fixing them somewhat easier.
• As eerok mentions, Linux is considerably more modular than Windows. In Windows, everything (at least from the viewpoint of the applications) is one one big chunk: display (including things like start menu, window move/resize/minimize/close), storage subsystem (hard disk), and so forth. In Linux, not only is the graphical display a separate application, but the start menu and window operations is itself a separate application (called the window manager). Currently, the commonest graphical display is the X Window System, which is more than 30 years old, and started in Unix; there are a wide variety of applications to chose for the window manager component, including (as mentioned above) KDE, Gnome, and many, many others. This splits upgrade pain into smaller chunks: you upgrade KDE, or you upgrade X, or you upgrade the kernel; you usually don't upgrade all of them at once.
• The Linux world is more fragmented. In addition to the different window managers, there are many whole packagings of Linux (called 'distros') that have their own release schedules.
• Linux has a smaller user base; thus problems get less attention.

All of this combines to make problems somewhat smaller; and, more importantly, make problems less apparent. Generally, in the Linux world, not everyone upgrades at once; there is nothing equivalent to switching everybody to Windows 10, as Microsoft is now attempting.

Having said that, there have been dramas; in addition to the upgrades of KDE and Gnome that eerok mentioned, in the Unix world, about 1992, Sun switched their operating system from SunOS (based on a Unix variant called BSD) to Solaris (based on a variant called System V, or SysV). This caused a lot of pain for system administrators, as all of their procedures changed.

Some of the Gnome changes, in particular, have been rather contentious. The current Ubuntu desktop is nothing like previous versions (and personally, I do not like it). There have been accusations that the Gnome developers are too "ivory tower" and do not listen to their existing user base.

There are also ongoing attempts to switch away from X; Mac desktops use something called Quartz, and there is a proposed Linux replacement called Wayland. The problem is that there are a massive number of programs that use X, mostly open source; on Mac desktops, there's a free X application you can download to allow you run these. Any system that replaces X will need to provide a way to run these legacy programs.

Wiki references:

• X Window System^WP
• Window manager^WP
• KDE^WP
• Gnome^WP
• Quartz^WP
• Wayland^WP
• SunOS^WP
• Solaris^WP

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

How many of these miscellaneous problems are necessary?

I have never liked the way Microsoft packages the OS. Before Microsoft the OS was a platform for drivers and applications. Even the user interface can be seen as an application.

So what was the big need to modify the underlying OS in such a massive way that all these incompatibilities and problems arise? What is the cause of the bulk of these problems? Is it in the underlying OS or in the user interface or someplace else?

Does Linux go through anything like this when it updates? It seems like the answer is no because if they did the already small market for Linux would not exist? I assume Apple doesn't go through something like this because it is so closely linked to the hardware although obviously Apple went through a big transition when it changed to Intel type processors, but since then I don't remember hearing about all these kind of issues when Apple updates its OS.

It depends on the distro. Fedora and Mint are rather infamous for "needing" a fresh install instead of updating. A big problem is that they try to create a curated experience, so version of software in the repos are limited for each release. Then software comes up with a requirement for libx=1.4 which isn't in your repo and things go to hell.

To the other extreme is Arch, which is rolling and contains almost nothing. There are no releases and no slicing and dicing of software availability. Your software is updated as new versions are made available, even the core ones.

For the pessimist, this will mean having a crap time updating in the first case, or having random crap times during regular updates in the second.

 

[uvar]

I agree with the critics that Cortana the answer lady is just a flat out silly addition, compared to what Siri can do. It reminds me of the little animated character providing help in Word for Windows that so annoyed users back in the day.

Ugh.

What kind of stuff are/were you comparing the two on? I've found Cortana more than useful enough on my phone - it's more similar to Google Now than Siri anyway. Some questions aren't as useful on a desktop that never moves, but it'd be stranger to cut out that kind of functionality. (P.S. The textbox is outside the start menu in Cortana - why open the start menu first if you're not going to click anything?)

Then again, she's a fan of the little guy from Word:

 

[Olowkow]

What kind of stuff are/were you comparing the two on? I've found Cortana more than useful enough on my phone - it's more similar to Google Now than Siri anyway. Some questions aren't as useful on a desktop that never moves, but it'd be stranger to cut out that kind of functionality. (P.S. The textbox is outside the start menu in Cortana - why open the start menu first if you're not going to click anything?)

Then again, she's a fan of the little guy from Word:
[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/iqYCUMg.png[/qimg]

My memory of most of my Windows 10 experience is a blur, but I remember trying to see if commands to open the various parts of the control panel would work, but all I got was some search engine, Bing I think. I hate Bing. I guess I was hoping that it would combine computer voice commands and google searches.

So I asked, "What was the closing stock price on Tesla today?" More search engine nonsense that was not even close. I tried a few more questions, but by this time I was very unimpressed and gave up. I find Siri uncannily accurate and useful when using my ipod touch.

I am used to opening the start menu in Windows 7 and typing in the text box for commands. I figured it was the same in W10, but no box appeared. So I typed and it worked. It didn't occur to me that this had been changed.

Most of what I was doing was driven by my frantic attempt to get my computer to recover to the point where I could get emails and open a web browser after experiencing the disastrous screen flashing which might have signaled the end of my computer. So I wasn't very coherent.

 

[ComfySlippers]

Wrt to Olowkow's post he is quite correct to say that Siris abilities are uncannily good/weird/scary/amusing. Other than for laughs she, (or he for me in The UK), has only solved a real world problem once for me. But I'm glad (s)he did.

Siri learns, as does Cortana, and guess what?..... They do this by....drumroll.... Uploading things.
Tiny pieces of data. Shock/horror.

Cortana called me "FlowerPot" for a few days but no biggie.

If I had the patience to train her more I'm sure she would be an effective companion like Siri.

How people complain that they can't see or find that big box to type things in baffles me.

Wrt the iCloud issues, no issues here. I'll try to break it and see what I can find out.

 

[eerok]

I am used to opening the start menu in Windows 7 and typing in the text box for commands. I figured it was the same in W10, but no box appeared. So I typed and it worked. It didn't occur to me that this had been changed.

You can also right click on the start menu icon, and you'll get a list that includes a Run option that basically works. Windows 10 is a weird pastiche of various UIs, and there's often more than one way to do things.

 

[Damien Evans]

What kind of stuff are/were you comparing the two on? I've found Cortana more than useful enough on my phone - it's more similar to Google Now than Siri anyway. Some questions aren't as useful on a desktop that never moves, but it'd be stranger to cut out that kind of functionality. (P.S. The textbox is outside the start menu in Cortana - why open the start menu first if you're not going to click anything?)

Then again, she's a fan of the little guy from Word:
[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/iqYCUMg.png[/qimg]

That's actually pretty funny.

 

[Olowkow]

...
How people complain that they can't see or find that big box to type things in baffles me.

Wrt the iCloud issues, no issues here. I'll try to break it and see what I can find out.

I'm curious to know whether you already had iCloud installed when you converted to Windows 10 or installed it afterwards. Some day when Ihave nothing better to do, I might give it another try by uninstalling iCloud first before I go to W10, then installing it after the conversion. iCloud got so corrupted after reverting to W7, that the iCloud.msi file could not be found, and it would not uninstall or reinstall until I excised it with Revo.

I'm fairly sure I would have noticed a "big box" to type in if it had been there. Do you have a screen grab or a site that shows the "big box" you mentioned? At the time, I was just trying to save my computer from oblivion, and as I said I may have missed it somehow. I found it odd that, for me, the (search programs and files) text box only appeared when I typed something with the start menu open. In my experience, very few programs behave that way, though not unheard of.

 

[BenBurch]

Still not released for my platform. I'm wondering if it even will be.

 

[Lerxst]

I'm curious to know whether you already had iCloud installed when you converted to Windows 10 or installed it afterwards. Some day when Ihave nothing better to do, I might give it another try by uninstalling iCloud first before I go to W10, then installing it after the conversion. iCloud got so corrupted after reverting to W7, that the iCloud.msi file could not be found, and it would not uninstall or reinstall until I excised it with Revo.

I'm fairly sure I would have noticed a "big box" to type in if it had been there. Do you have a screen grab or a site that shows the "big box" you mentioned? At the time, I was just trying to save my computer from oblivion, and as I said I may have missed it somehow. I found it odd that, for me, the (search programs and files) text box only appeared when I typed something with the start menu open. In my experience, very few programs behave that way, though not unheard of.

A screenshot is in post 471

 

[grmcdorman]

I am used to opening the start menu in Windows 7 and typing in the text box for commands. I figured it was the same in W10, but no box appeared. So I typed and it worked. It didn't occur to me that this had been changed.

You can also right click on the start menu icon, and you'll get a list that includes a Run option that basically works. Windows 10 is a weird pastiche of various UIs, and there's often more than one way to do things.

Also try Win+X (Windows key and X at the same time).

 

[Olowkow]

A screenshot is in post 471

I think we are talking about two separate things.

In Windows 7, if I want to run "msconfig", for instance, I click "start", then type in "msconfig" into the text box. I was under the impression that the Windows 10 text box in post 471 was for a web search only, using Bing, or by voice using "Cortana". Apparently I'm mistaken, and I should have typed a command into the box shown in post #471. I don't think I ever tried that...not sure anymore.

In Windows 10, I clicked "start", the menus with icons opened, but no text box appeared, so I just typed in "msconfig", and the text box appeared as soon as I typed the first letter /m/, and finally containing "msconfig", and msconfig.exe appeared above.