Windows 10 Anniversary Update starts to roll out today

[aidanjt]

Windows key and search has been the most efficient way to access everything for a while now

While that's true, it's only true as long as search finds what you need. Sadly that's not always the case, and it doesn't behave predictably.

[aniilv]

Windows key and search has been the most efficient way to access everything for a while now (going back to Windows 7 at least).

Except it uses something like bing to actually find stuff and never finds what you look for... The search bar never has worked anything like ctrl+f

[WritersBlock]

Awesome more spyware; glad I uninstalled it on the laptop I bought and put on W8

[crossy]

Except it uses something like bing to actually find stuff and never finds what you look for... The search bar never has worked anything like ctrl+f

If you mean that god-awful Cortana bar then I'd agree 100%. I usually just hit the Windows key and start typing.

Awesome more spyware; glad I uninstalled it on the laptop I bought and put on W8

Seriously?! While I'm not a big fan of W10, I'd put a lot of money on it being waaaaayyyy better than 8. Still, each to their own I suppose.

[DDY]

Well, Win 10 just updated on my laptop.

I installed Win 10 about three weeks ago on my laptop because the existing Win 8.1 install was playing up, it was my first Win 10 experience and I was content with Windows 10 the way I had set it up... But post anniversary edition update, it's fudged.

1) A minor but fixable annoyance... During the update, the hardware drivers had reinstalled, not only resetting all my changes but also reinstalling bad drivers which I had specifically removed and replaced.

2) Group policy editor has been neutered - the lock screen is back, Windows apps are back, Windows tips are back... and there's no way to turn it off again.

Time to reinstall Windows 8.1

EDIT: Fudge it. I'm still really annoyed at Microsoft. I'm installing Linux.

EDIT2: Thankfully the 'restore previous build' function works and 'defer upgrades' has been ticked, for now. I'm still not happy with MS's direction with Win 10* and will be uninstalling it on the weekend.

* Not that I was happy to begin with, but this was the last straw.

[Saracen]

Welcome to the light, DDY.

Converts = Converts + 1.

Only a few hundred million to go.

This may take a while. I guess I'd better lay in sandwiches and some coffee. Could be a long night .... er, lifetime.

[DDY]

I have to say, it will be a reluctant conversion.

Having spent some time with Linux in the past, I'd learnt to only ever make changes during a free weekend because I'd end up spending hours web searching for a solution to an unexpected problem.

But that's preferable to Microsoft stopping me from doing something relatively trivial with my own equipment because doing so will make them less money.

[peterb]

I have to say, it will be a reluctant conversion.

Having spent some time with Linux in the past, I'd learnt to only ever make changes during a free weekend because I'd end up spending hours web searching for a solution to an unexpected problem.

But that's preferable to Microsoft stopping me from doing something relatively trivial with my own equipment because doing so will make them less money.

I know what you mean, although in recent years those problems seem to have become fewer. Running plain old office applications on one of the standard desktops is fine, and even if you want to run standard advanced applications like mail or we servers, most of those are available as binaries.

But I'm sure you know all that!

[Saracen]

I have to say, it will be a reluctant conversion.

Having spent some time with Linux in the past, I'd learnt to only ever make changes during a free weekend because I'd end up spending hours web searching for a solution to an unexpected problem.

But that's preferable to Microsoft stopping me from doing something relatively trivial with my own equipment because doing so will make them less money.

I'm reluctant, too, not least because I've been largely or entirely MS since, oh, the early-ish 1980s, before even '286's had been invented. I did have the odd diversion with Netware and OS/2 (still have, but don't use) both.

So going Linux was very reluctantly.

But for a while now, MS have been making decisions I didn't like. It really started in earnest with Win8, and wasn't just what they did but the way they did it, abd the way they reacted to feedback. That's when the rot set in. I said back then that reading between the lines of their actions and remarks most of it in public but a small amount of private comment from insiders too, I thought the writing was on the wall. It's not, for me, even as simple as what Win10 is, but the very firmly indicated direction of travel of the Windows roadmap. The final straw, the absolutely uncrossable red line for me was mandatory updates that I could not prevent or opt out of, that have the ability to completrly change the character of the OS on my machines, whether I wsnted it or not.

When Win10 was released, I said I wasn't prepared to even consider installing unless several criteria eere met, and three central ones were :-

- not required to have an MS account. Well, that can (so far) still be achieved.
- Cortana was utterly disabled. Not just a soft "off" but not evrn running in the background.
- I get control back over update opt-out.

The third never materialised .... not that I thought it would. Cortana could be turned off, and in fact required an nS account so using only Local Accounts appeared to disable it, But it wasn't clear if backgtound analysis was disabled, or if it was still running but Cortana simply wouldn't to user interaction.

Now, if reports are correct, Cortana csn't be disabled.

And that it entirely consistent with, and indeed predicted by, the road I believed, and still believe, MS is on.

So yeah, I use Linux reluctantly. I didn't want to switch. It's a bit like my stance on the EU. I was never wild about, but was reasonably content, with tge EEC. But then, without permission from the people, out Powers That Be moved the goalposts, with Maastricht and then Lisbon. The transmutation of EEC to EU had the same effect on me (skin crawling, wanting to puke) that the transmutation from Win7 to Win10 had. That is to say, oh, hell no, no way, forget it.

In both cases, the solution, for me was, albeit reluctantly, Leave.

[Attila the Bun]

I have recently bought a new laptop, mainly for the use of Girlfriend the Bun, but also so I have some gaming abilty when on holiday.
It has Win 10 pre-installed and I must admit that so far it just annoys me but this is probably because I know that there in the background there is MS not-so-quietly dredging my stuff. The trouble is that Windows is still the way to go (currently at least) for PC gaming so I can't divorce myself completely from MS but I am seriously considering a WIN 7 licence for it.

Anyway, because of this, I was thinking that I would like to try out Linux on my old laptop and wondered if there was a version that fellow Hexites would recommend to a complete newbie. Ubuntu is one I'm aware of but I've read that Mint is also easy to use. Essentially I would like something that offers a switch on and use capability but with the option of me being able to learn more as and when I have the time.

[peterb]

I use Fedora. It is a bit of a test bed for Red Hat who market Linux commercially but because of that backing, it is well supported and has quite o lot of features (mainly background) that eventually make their way into the commercial offering.

But most of the mainstream Linux distro S are well supported, and fairly easy to install, so either Ubuntu or mint would be good to try.

You can get versions that run off a DVD, so you don't have to install anything to try them out.

[surya kumar]

Week before upgraded seems good, But I has to check with more enhancements, like gaming, work environment. Speed and ease of access.

[SineWave]

Except it uses something like bing to actually find stuff and never finds what you look for... The search bar never has worked anything like ctrl+f

If you mean that god-awful Cortana bar then I'd agree 100%. I usually just hit the Windows key and start typing.

Awesome more spyware; glad I uninstalled it on the laptop I bought and put on W8

Seriously?! While I'm not a big fan of W10, I'd put a lot of money on it being waaaaayyyy better than 8. Still, each to their own I suppose.

When you say "seriously?!" to a guy that likes W8 you just confirm how biased you are towards Windows 10. The reason for that must be being either too young to remember anything else but W10, being a Microsoft [paid?] shill, or maybe just simply not thinking straight? I can now say "seriously?!", too, because I find W8 better than W10, and W7 even better than W9. Go figure, everybody has an opinion eh?

But even more seriously, I don't use either of them. I use Debian Linux instead of that MS just-plain-bad-ware and annoyance-ware, and W7 for music making only. W10 is a serious pile of completely unnecessary and annoying MS crap. Seriously! Linux = peace of mind and all I can do is laugh at all these poor W10 users.

I'm starting to be a Microsoft fan because they're doing so much for the Linux and OSX communities by making W10 such a hard and extremely annoying pill to swallow! Way to go Microsoft! Cheers!

[virtuo]

Well I installed the anniversary update and everything seems to be okay, I think the gfx driver is bit wobbly as the desktop/task bar refreshes periodically - but I haven't updated to the latest nvidia drivers yet.

Surprised at how good the ubuntu integration is (there's a few hoops to jump through to get it set up). Can grep, ssh and emacs around just fine - even seen someone's managed to get the unity desktop running..!

[peterb]

When you say "seriously?!" to a guy that likes W8 you just confirm how biased you are towards Windows 10. The reason for that must be being either too young to remember anything else but W10, being a Microsoft [paid?] shill, or maybe just simply not thinking straight? I can now say "seriously?!", too, because I find W8 better than W10, and W7 even better than W9. Go figure, everybody has an opinion eh?

But even more seriously, I don't use either of them. I use Debian Linux instead of that MS just-plain-bad-ware and annoyance-ware, and W7 for music making only. W10 is a serious pile of completely unnecessary and annoying MS crap. Seriously! Linux = peace of mind and all I can do is laugh at all these poor W10 users.

I'm starting to be a Microsoft fan because they're doing so much for the Linux and OSX communities by making W10 such a hard and extremely annoying pill to swallow! Way to go Microsoft! Cheers!

Well, while I agree with the general sentiment of that post, and it did make me smile, the fact that crossy thinks that W10 is waaaayyyy better than Windows 8 may be more of a reflection of how bad he thinks Windows 8 is/was (not that I wish for a minute to interpret his intentions)

Although I have only had a brief exposure to 10 (setting something up for someone else) the GUI does seem more intuitive that win8 (almost as good as 7!)

However the other 'features' that Microsoft have introduced almost certainly mean that Win7 will be the last Windows operating system I will be purchasing for the foreseeable future.

[aidanjt]

Yeah, Windows 8.1 stops being horrible the moment you install a 3rd party start menu.