Today is the official release date for Windows 10. It is a free and very major upgrade for all Windows 7 and 8.x users that will staged as an automatic download for users in the upcoming weeks or months. However, you can skip to the front of the line if you choose to by triggering the update manually. I just did it and it took a little longer than I thought it would because I have a really fast internet connection and a speedy computer that is only a couple of months old. The update process still took about 90 minutes including many automatic restarts. The good news is that it worked fine (mostly) and I could have done it just before I went to bed and the upgrade process would have been seamless. I did lose my desktop wallpaper and my webcam in the process but those were easy to fix just by installing them again once everything was done.
Other than that, it seems like a good OS so far although still a little foreign. It took me a little while to get the new personal assistant, Cortana, to work with my web-cam microphone but she works well now. I wanted to see how many Easter eggs I could find and she has many. When I asked her if she was pretty, she replied that she came from “a long and attractive line of ones and zeros but she mostly favors the ones” :). Her favorite game is rock, paper, scissors although I can’t get her to actually play it with me.
If you are interested in upgrading early or on your schedule, you can do it by following the links below. It is simple and mostly automated but it does take time. Backups are recommended as always before you do it although I didn’t bother.
No offense, but ugh. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that I feel screws up Windows. What I want is a reliable operating system that lets me use the programs I want easily and doesn’t suck up all my memory. I don’t want gimmicks like Bob or Clippy or Cortana.
You can turn off most of Cortana if you want very easily. I am not sure what the practical use is for me with a desktop but she is good about telling me the weather forecast when I ask for it. She is at least as good as Apple’s version of Siri and probably better. However, you don’t have to use it as a voice recognition personal assistant on a desktop or any other device. The main use is for plain English help when you want to know how to do something or where something new and it is usually accessed by simply typing it into the question bar at the bottom of the screen. I am an IT professional and it took me a grand total of about 10 minutes to learn Windows 10. It is really intuitive for such a large upgrade. Cortana helped me out a great deal with figuring out some of it. Cortana probably needs some time to mature to be truly useful but it is already very impressive artificial intelligence. The cutting edge of it is of limited use to most people but those types of interfaces are the future and need to build data so that they can realize their potential.
They’re planning to dump support of Windows 7 like last week’s diapers, so if you want a supported OS, 10 is the way to go. It also incorporates some UI improvements that they tried to force on people in Window 8 which didn’t go over really well because they completely replaced large chunks of the UI functionality without asking people if they wanted to lose all that. This time around, they combined the two sets together and give you the option of picking and choosing whether you want the new shiny or the old standard.
Cortana’s not a gimmick. She’s an alternate interface method. The great thing about her is that she works on the desktop as well as the phone. Eventually, the Cortana on your phone will communicate with the Cortana on your machine. Looking long term, she will be a functioning AI (theoretically.)
Cortana’s not fully implemented yet. She especially needs more buy-in from third party developers. But we don’t get to the full implementation without going through the intermediate steps. Same with Oculus Rift. It’s still clunky and kind of nauseating but we don’t get to the Holodeck unless we practice, first.
It’s easy to forget how new all this stuff is, isn’t it?
Anyway - Windows 10. Did a clean install last night on my most complicated set up. It works flawlessly, but I still have more stuff I need to set up. I have three more computers to go but they’re more standardized. I’ll probably do the laptops tonight and then Mom’s computer tomorrow. Jump in folks, the water’s fine!
The article says “Note: We’ve only tested this with a computer that had a copy reserved; we don’t expect it would work if you haven’t reserved a copy of Windows 10 for the computer you’re upgrading.”
Has anyone tried this who didn’t have a reservation?
I have. I didn’t reserve on my 8.1 laptop and installed Win 10 using this method. Totally and pleasingly straightforward too. The only minor thing was that it forgot my printer, but I just re-added it and Windows downloaded the necessary drivers automatically.
Your not going to miss anything by staying with 7, it just brings back a lot of stuff that should have been on 8, and some new functionality with the powershell.
When you do jump to 10, if your planning on a new laptop or something soon. It will be a short learning curve.
My Toshiba Quasmio laptop is upgrading now. I didn’t even have the Win 10 app on my taskbar. My DSL is slow, so it’s taking quite a bit of time. I was out for a while so it sat for a few hours waiting for me to tell it to go ahead.
If you still don’t like the way the menus (particularly the Start menu) works in Windows 10, it is quite customizable even within Windows 10 itself. However, I got tired of trying to tweak it and just went with the free ClassicShell download. It is small, legit, free and has a number of different options to change how much of the basic interfaces look and work. I went with the Windows 7 style settings (no tiles for me thanks). It works splendidly and it is fully reversible if you ever change your preferences. It is highly recommended if you don’t like parts of the new interface. You can use it to change small things or just use its blanket settings to blast everything back to a more retro style. However, those style changes do not take away improvements like the greatly enhanced search functionality in Windows 10. It is purely cosmetic and organizational.