The Win 10 Question thread

I think it’s time to put all these questions that come up in one thread so they’ll be easy to find. Like the Guitar thread.

Anyway, I’ve had Win 10 on my desktop for maybe 2 months now. In the new “Improved” start window, it’s suggested I download and install a Facebook app that’s free and rated 3.5 stars. Now, I have a bookmark to take me to FB now that gets me there. Why would I want to install a special app for this? :confused:

The only reason I could see to use the Facebook app is if you were using it on a tablet, or you just tried it and preferred that interface, for some reason.

The pictures make it look like it’s just Facebook’s website, with maybe bigger click targets to accommodate using fingers, so it looks useless to keyboard-and-mouse users.

I guess it might also open faster than your web browser. But It also might not. And, if you’re like me, your web browser is already nearly always open, even if it’s just one tab for Gmail.

The only Universal Apps that ever interested me were the ones that were ports from mobile games that weren’t previously available on desktop. Anything that has a desktop app that works or a website, I would pretty much use those instead. (In theory I could see wanting an app that loaded more quickly than its website counterpart, but I never ran into that issue.)

The idea behind W10 is that it should work on a PC with a mouse, and on a tablet with a touch screen. A lot of the tablet stuff is redundant on a PC.

Actually, that’s MS Windows 8. Mrs. FtG has a touch screen laptop running that. Of course, installed Classic Shell to make it more reasonable to use. Part of MS Windows 10 is to make it a little easier to get by without Classic Shell. I.e., a bit of a step back.

And it’s not just tablets, the real goal of all this is to integrate the interface with all those Windows Phones that everyone and his uncle are buying.:wink:

Windows 8 prioritized touchscreen use. Windows 10 tries to get the balance back. Both are designed to work with both touch screen and mouse.

10 works in a similar fashion but is a bit more clever about it - it adapts to the available interface options.

I am liking Win10 that came pre-installed on my laptop and tablet. Also was successful in upgrading my mother’s desktop from Win8.1 to Win10 (oh, the obscenities I screamed back when it was Win8 and I had to do tech support for it :smack:).

However, my father’s desktop has Win7 Pro on it. One program he loves using is the Windows DVD Maker that comes with it (removed on Win8 iteration :mad:). He uses it to make DVDs of slideshows he has set to music, and would be heartbroken if he can no longer do so.

My father has a tablet with Win10 on it, so I do not see any problem with him navigating the system. It’s only the Windows DVD Maker’s musical slideshow DVD-making that would upset him if it disappeared.

Are there any free alternative programs that give the same function as Windows DVD Maker for Win10? If I can get some suggestions, I will try them out first on my laptop before upgrading my father’s desktop.

Thank you in advance.

If he’s making slideshows, he probably should just use Windows Movie Maker. While it doesn’t come with Windows 10, it’s a free download, and it still works.

Windows 10 - Excel - XML files
This isn’t a question but it might be an answer for somebody -

I expected some compatibility issues but was surprised to find that The problem occurred with a Microsoft product.

When I upgraded to windows 10 I had some Excel Macros quit working. Those macros which manipulated XML files erred. I had to change a referenced library to a lower version.

Works - Microsoft XML, v5.0
Doesn’t Work - Microsoft XML, v6.0

This is probably a whole lot more technical than other comments here but I though it may just be helpful to some Excel VBA users who are crashing their spreadsheets under Windows 10.

I haven’t had any other technical problems but I know in the future to test lower library versions if my macro fails.

Windows 10. Not even once.

Thank you, BigT! I will try it out this weekend (my Win10 laptop is at my parents’ place, while I am here using a supposedly-on-its-last-legs Win7 laptop).

Hope I can get things to work…

It’s been a month since I got advice here. (For the Windows DVD Maker alternative, Freemake Video Converter has won out. Just need to convince my father to try it out. Windows Movie Maker was just way too complicated and prone to error warnings.)

Now, with the free Win10 upgrade deadline fast approaching (July 29) I am wondering if the following plan is feasible (I have external hard drives available):

  1. Make system image of current Win7 Pro (using Win7’s own system backup).
  2. Do free upgrade to Win10.
  3. After getting the Win10 updates done, make system image of Win10 (using Win10’s system backup).
  4. Do a Reset of Win10 so that I can make a system image of “clean” Win10.
  5. Use system image from Step #3 to revert back to Win10 upgraded.

Questions:

Is it okay to assume that Win7 Pro system image from Step #1 can be reverted to from Win10 (assuming more than a month goes by)?

If, after reverting back to Win7 Pro, can either of the Win10 system images (from Steps #3 and #4) be applied AFTER the July 29 deadline?

Thanks in advance for any answers or advice!