08 December 2015

Should you switch to Windows 10?

More and more of my friends and acquaintances are switching to Windows 10, something I'm resisting as I'm quite happy with Windows 7 and don't need the trial of another learning curve at present.

I'm still with the majority.

42% of the last 500 visitors to this blog were using Windows 7, while 9.8% had transitioned to Windows 10.

That's fairly comparable with the statistics from NewMarketShare  where, just for desktops and laptops, 56% are running Windows 7, 11.1% Windows 8.1, 10.6% Windows XP, and 9% Windows 10.

Microsoft promises Windows 7 and later users have until June to "upgrade" at no financial cost. While I will eventually switch I'm not looking forward to it.

If you've switched what was your experience? Is there a capability with Windows 10 you find especially valuable?

11 comments:

PatG said...

Linux for me. However, there are very few good reasons not to keep using whatever OS you are most comfortable with. The only one that would really concern me for Windows (and to a lesser degree Mac), is that Microsoft has stopped fixing vulnerabilities in some earlier versions leaving users open to attacks. I find this forced upgrade through intentional insecurity slightly immoral.

Leslie C said...

I installed Windows 10 only to discover that my keyboard and mouse were not compatible. I uninstalled the update and will postpone doing anything further as long as possible.

AC said...

The upgrade was very smooth, and I really don't notice much difference at all from Windows 7.

Gail B said...

I would like to stay with Windows 7 as I have heard too many stories from friends who find Windows 10 daunting. But I will be forced to do so at some time. I know 10 does not support certain things, like Thunderbird, a problem for me.

My husband writes text books for Oxford U. P. He has a desktop, a laptop, and a tablet. Does all his writing on the desktop, with Windows 8. For several years he has used a Beta version of Windows 10 on his laptop. Once he felt comfortable with it, he switched his desktop to Windows 10 and immediately discovered it did not support his adapter, his driver and would not connect to the wifi. Nothing Microsoft ever said informed him that he would have to buy a new adapter in order to continue working on his desktop. This does not bode well for me, who would just like Windows 10 to disappear.

Unknown said...

I installed Windows 10 on both my laptop and desktop (my desktop is 5+ years old). I have not had any issues with the hardware or software on either computer. I did verify before installation that my computers would be able to update to Windows 10. I made sure that my computers were clean and optimized (I use PC Matic weekly) and then created an image of my hard drives before finally installing. Learning Windows 10 was not a steep learning curve especially as I had used both Windows 7 and 8.1. If you use more that one computer, I would recommend installing it on only one machine until you feel comfortable.

Mike More said...

I am with John on this and will likely wait a while. I have heard few issues with Windows 10 but one recently pointed out was that Windows 10 will not handle more than two monitors, so if you have three or more, it's an issue.

jon said...

Was running Win 7. Last week I clicked the install button and walked away. An hour later I looked in and all was done.

Everything works just as it did. No problems at all. No learning curve either.

Cheers

jon

Claudia said...

This last summer m 7 died and I purchased 8.1. My computer was relatively pristine so I made sure all the updates were done. The download and transition was seamless, I had no problems at all. Except for installing FTM which did not work, and no we all know the reason, they had not planned for it to work with 10.

John McConkey said...

I've upgraded 4 computers from 8.1 to 10. The upgrade is time-consuming (2 hours or more) and data allowance consuming (3 Gig download). 2 of the computers were desktops and upgraded without issues, one was a Lenovo laptop which took 5 download attempts (but now runs fine). The 4th computer is my own Toshiba laptop. The upgrade worked first time but I find that the webcam occasionally is not recognized by Skype. A restart corrects this but I suspect a new driver would be the permanent solution. As far as learning curve is concerned for the new operating system I would say that if you are comfortable with 7 then you will be comfortable with 10. 10 has a lot more features than 7 but you can choose to ignore them. I think a lot of people recall the move from 7 to 8 which was a huge learning curve (although 8.1 partially solved this issue). I would recommend moving to 10 - certainly before June 2016 - if you don't like it or if it presents problems you can still go back to 7.

John McConkey said...

Be aware that Microsoft has now upgraded the Windows 10 update from an "optional" update to a "recommended" update. If you want to avoid moving to Windows 10 check your Windows Update settings - you might be updated automatically.

John McConkey said...

One more comment. Windows systems no longer ship with "recovery disks". It's up to you to create these yourself. Better still you can use a USB thumb drive. Search for "Recovery Media Creator" and follow the straightforward process to backup your operating system. This can get you up and going if your hard drive fails or get you back from Windows 10 to what you had before. I think you're only allowed 3 months to revert if you upgrade to Windows 10 unless you have a recovery drive.