Taking on Windows 10

The Zen of Windows 10 .. Poster courtesy of Wikipedia

by Trebor Snillor
THIS WEEKEND

This has been my weekend of household mishaps. My Mr. Coffee got clogged and overflowed frothy dark coffee all over my new kitchen. In a separate event, I spilled bleach on my expensive green bath rug, ruining it. I now have a new, “true white” rug which has accumulated two big size 11 footprints in the 1st two hours of use.

My front yard has 3 large dead spots despite the new sprinkler system. The harsh August sun has scorched it mercilessly. I doubled down on the water but probably too late.

WINDOWS 10

Enough of my home travails. Let’s talk about the new Windows 10 which debuted on July 29th. I went ahead and converted my devices to 10 – couldn’t resist the appeal of something new and free. As one of the relatively few people who used and liked Windows 8.1, I’m not as awestruck by Windows 10 as some reviewers. It basically restores the desktop mode as a default interface and corrals all the tiles over to the windows menu key. If you truly want all tiles all the time (i.e. Mobile interface) you can specify that in a special setting.

It does a few other things you may or may not love. It replaces Internet Explorer with Edge. All I can make of Edge is that it seems like a simplified, dumbed-down Explorer. It’s less configurable and it does annoying things when I right-click a page or try to print my bank statement. Explorer is still available on your C drive as a fallback and you’ll probably be falling back.

I’m at Starbucks (of course) and clicking on the Wi-Fi symbol failed to display any networks, even my iPhone hotspot. This is probably a training issue – Bill Gates could set me on the right path in 3 seconds if he were looking over my shoulder.

Windows Update has been removed as an option. Windows 10 handles your updates quietly in the background. That’s fine for a computer that is in sleep mode or continuously connected. Am wondering how it will function on my devices that are shut down for days or weeks at a time. There are some things you’ll like almost for certain. It has clean, simple icons that reminds me a bit of iOS8 on the iPhone. It’s pulled movies and TV shows into the Windows Store – giving an iTunes-like experience without the confusion of iTunes. It has Xbox as an app and gives you nearly an Xbox experience for the price of a tablet.

Overall my impression is favorable – I figure I’ll navigate the issues I’ve described. I skipped the training video being the impatient creature that I am.

DEEP THOUGHTS

I’m on the other side of a thin divider from two young men having a heart-to-heart talk. The thin wood slats are not a sound barrier. I’m getting an ear load about Christian divorce counseling and revenge credit card spending. I’m going to terminate this blog entry so that I can give these gents back their privacy. If you have the option of a Windows 10 upgrade – my advice is … Go for it! 

© 2015 Snillor Productions