Dipped my toes into the world of W10

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Over Xmas break I decided to give Linux Mint 19.3 with the newer kernel a try on some newer hardware. Micro Center was having a sale on some 2nd gen Ryzen processors. Picked up Ryzen 3 2200G , Gigabyte motherboard and 8 Gb of ram for $160, already had a case, HDD and PSU in the back of the closet collecting dust.

These alleged improvements over 18.1 are in my opinion nonexistent. In fact I saw nothing but regressions and un-improvement. Still the same bugs, same lack of abilities, same junky half baked/abandoned software in the repositories, changes for the sake of changes, even to the point of being less efficient. I’ve just grown tired of thinking Linux could ever fully replace a Windows or Mac system, at least for what I need an OS to do.

So here I sit with a recently purchased 2nd gen Ryzen 3 processor and accompanying hardware. Also had a used Dell mini tower I bought on ebay that is currently a Hackintosh, with a genuine W7 Pro license sticker stuck on top of the case.

I downloaded 1909, used Rufus to make an installation disk, and installed it on the Ryzen system. No problems with the installation. I did the install without being online, was able to set it up with a local account. Was even able to personalize and install software. A soon as I went online, Windows grayed out all the personalization options and said I need to activate my copy of Windows. I was still able to install software.

I was able to activate my copy of W10 with the W7 Pro key from a different system. All in all, a stress free installation.

This is just a budget machine to tinker with, like I was doing with Linux. After using W10 for a day, I find it’s not nearly as bad as it’s distracters say, not nearly as good as it’s fanboys say either. That sorry excuse for a start menu needs to be addressed. A solution for the blurry fonts need to be looked into. Those ugly icons hurt the eyes. Some aspects of navigating through the system is different from W7/8.1, changed for the sake of change, and requiring more clicks to accomplish the same thing…

I was able to install a 2006 vintage Oki laser printer with the installer for w7/8.1 just fine. I have the full UI for accessing advanced features like on the older systems. Was not expecting that, thought I was going to have to use a generic driver for basic printing abilities, or try to find something usable from their Singapore site like I had to for Mac OS. All my other software that was for W7/8.1 installed just fine too.

This machine boots quite fast for an HDD, and is very responsive. The system is stable. Everything opens with a blink of the eye. I might splurge and buy an 860 Evo or MX 500 SSD. The mobo has NVME support, might go with a 970 Evo.

The jury is still out, we will see when the updates come…

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PMFJI, but I don’t think you need Rufus to make a bootable thumb drive if all you’re going to do is to install Win 10. Just boot from the stick made with Media Creator.

As to the blurry fonts, try disabling “use hardware acceleration” – see if that helps.

Zig

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Very similar to my experience.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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I’ve been dabbling with Linux Mint for awhile and find it to be satisfactory for my purposes.  I started on Mint 17.3 which I liked right off and later updated to 19.1 which is somewhat better, and still satisfactory for my purposes.  I still love my Win 7 which is fantastic IMHO and is great for practically anything I want to do, even after 8 years of use.

I don’t have Windows 10 and have never used it so I can’t really criticize it.  I pretty much go by what I’ve read here on this site and elsewhere about its shortcomings.  I did look at my sister’s laptop with Win 10 and could hardly recognize anything.

Your experiences with updates and upgrades will indeed be mainly what influences your opinion of Win 10.  Make sure you have lots of hard drive space (1 TB min.)  Those updates and upgrades are big.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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The thing that I find rather humorous is how many people complain about Win10, yet there are surely 1 billion devices using it at this point. Any way you slice it – the complainers are a drop in the bucket.

I hated Win10 at launch, and it wasn’t until 1703 that I liked it. Now, I love it. Running 1903 on everything. (I stay off the bleeding edge, for sanity’s sake…120 day feature update deferrals, 14 day quality update deferrals.)

Best version of Windows, bar none. Especially when you work on 2+ monitors every day like I do. The enhancements and usability added to the OS at this point… I can’t go back to older versions of Windows, they feel too archaic and rudimentary.

I’ve never been a fan of Mint. I think the Cinnamon DE is overrated and feels sluggish, even on more-than-capable hardware. The Linux VM’s and servers I run are all Ubuntu, which is a shock because I used to hate the Gnome DE on the home release. Ubuntu for me “just works”, so I’ve stuck with it despite trying dozens of distros over the years.

As for Win10 needing 1TB+ for updates, that is absurd. I’ve had Win10 running happily on everything from a 2GB RAM/32GB MMC netbook (Lenovo Ideapad 100s) to my workstation at home which is a 32GB RAM/5TB combined flash storage beast. I’ve never seen (or had) the need for a terabyte of blank space for updates. Come on now.

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Zero, Barry, Seattle27, b

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zero2dash wrote:

As for Win10 needing 1TB+ for updates, that is absurd. I’ve had Win10 running happily on everything from a 2GB RAM/32GB MMC netbook

Okay, you got Win 10 running on 2GB RAM/32GB MMC.  Was it running an Antivirus program too?  And a Web browser like Firefox? The OS + Antivirus + Firefox will push you over 2GB of RAM even running Win 7.  I’ll admit that a 1 Terabyte hard drive may not be required, but depending on what the computer is going to be used for it might be advisable.  That is unless you’re going to store all your 12 megapixel photos, HD videos, and 256 MP3’s on the Cloud.  It’s not just for the Updates & Upgrades.  I’ll also admit I should have made that clearer.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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To answer your questions:
Came that way from the factory; again, it’s a Lenovo Ideapad 100S. Similar to the HP Stream, Acer Cloudbook, and a plethora of other cheap somewhat disposable Win10 laptops around the $125-$150 range. I (luckily) did not have the issues with feature updates that Susan Bradley has had with her HP Stream. The 100S was able to upgrade without much hassle, despite only having about 9GB of free space.

Yes – Defender.

Yes – Fx and Chrome both.

Memory never maxed out on it…Win10 by itself only took up about a gig on that machine. If I overloaded Fx or Chrome with tabs, yes, it would get a little sluggish, but I never did so. In my experience, Win10 takes up less resources than 7 does, believe it or not. Could be the lack of Aero Glass, could be the refinements introduced in Win8/8.1.

I believe (don’t quote me on this though) that the feature updates are around 1 to 1.5GB.

Don’t get me wrong, Win10 isn’t perfect…it has room for improvement. But after using it exclusively for several years now, where and when I have to run Windows, it has to be 10.

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Charlie wrote:

I’ll admit that a 1 Terabyte hard drive may not be required, but depending on what the computer is going to be used for it might be advisable.  That is unless you’re going to store all your 12 megapixel photos, HD videos, and 256 MP3’s on the Cloud.  It’s not just for the Updates & Upgrades.

Is Windows 10 the only OS capable of handling “12 megapixel photos, HD videos, and 256 MPs’s?”

Is it the only OS that requires any sort of storage planning?

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No, and I think we may be stepping on the OP’s original thought.  Sorry MW.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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bassmanzam

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Anonymous wrote:

These alleged improvements over 18.1 are in my opinion nonexistent. In fact I saw nothing but regressions and un-improvement. Still the same bugs, same lack of abilities, same junky half baked/abandoned software in the repositories, changes for the sake of changes, even to the point of being less efficient. I’ve just grown tired of thinking Linux could ever fully replace a Windows or Mac system, at least for what I need an OS to do.

Mint 19.3 uses the same Ubuntu repo as 18.1 (they are both based on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver), so naturally the programs in it will be the same ones as with the older version.

The areas where things are improved in Mint 19.x are subjective.  There are improvements, but if a specific issue you were having is still present, or if new ones appear, the improvements aren’t going to matter much, especially if they are in things you don’t use.  If you are seeing bugs that are not being addressed, that’s a serious issue, and I absolutely loathe bugs… even an avoidable bug just gets to me, and I do think that bug fixing itself in general is far more important than any other changes to software.

Changes for the sake of changes… that’s something usually driven by marketing departments, and 10 is the poster child for that.  Win 10’s updates every six months is a result of that.  In Linux, there may be changes that don’t make sense (case in point: nearly everything in GNOME 3), but they’re usually because some person has (what you or I may consider) to be some harebrained idea, not change for its own sake.  Even the relentless amputation of valuable features from Firefox (which is not Linux, of course) isn’t change for the sake of change.  It’s change to become just like Chrome… a harebrained idea.

For the other stuff, someone here or elsewhere may have been able to help, but only you can really decide if an OS is right for you.  If 10 works better for you, then you should use that.  There’s no universal right or wrong… in my case, I dislike Windows 10 like vampires dislike the sun, but that’s me.  If 10 a better tool for you, then it’s good to discover that, since computers are tools, and anything that makes it more useful to you is a win.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Charlie, Cybertooth, jabeattyauditor

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I’m hoping why post didn’t come across as an announcement that I’m migrating to W10. Because I’m not. Until Microsoft makes some changes in their telemetry and updating policies that you have mentioned several times in the past, I won’t.

It’s kinda funny, of all the OS’s out there, Windows, Mac OS, all the Linux distros, Android, IOS, and I have them all, allow me to decline an update if I want to.., except Windows. Chrome OS is the only one I don’t have, so can’t comment on that one.

I just found myself in a situation with new hardware and the proverbial “nowhere to go” and a free license key to obtain W10. I like to tinker, already have plenty of Windows(7 & 8.1), Macs(both real and Hackintoshes) and 2 other Linux machines, so why not try W10. See what all the talk is about.

I have never been a basher of W10, Microsoft offered a product with certain characteristics. Like any other product offered by a company, if it doesn’t appeal to me, I pass. Nothing more, nothing less. But hey, I’m open to reassess my views. I’m too am also of the opinion, if it works for the individual, then by all means…

So this machine, along with my 2nd Linux machine I distro hop with from time to time, sit in the corner segregated from the rest sharing a monitor.

I’m enjoying my serenity of being Group W for almost 4 years now. But I’m not so naive to think that will last forever. I know in a few years a hard decision needs to be made, and by that time most of my hardware are going to be ancient relics. Time will tell.

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Zero, SueW, Ascaris, amber438, Charlie, Cybertooth

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Anonymous wrote:

I have never been a basher of W10, Microsoft offered a product with certain characteristics. Like any other product offered by a company, if it doesn’t appeal to me, I pass. Nothing more, nothing less.

I certainly have been a Windows 10 basher, but I always try to back it up with descriptions of the behavior that I consider bad, and the behavior I would like to see. I used MS Windows from 1990 (as 3.0, though at the time MS-DOS was primary) to 2015, and I am not one who likes change. It might seem strange that I then left the Windows world for a completely unfamiliar world of Linux, not liking change and all, but to me, this was the path of the least change.

Microsoft had made Windows popular by offering (in contrast to what lots of people say) a decent product that provided many/most/all of the benefits of a GUI to people without having to pay Apple prices, and it respected that the owner of the PC is the boss, among other good things, and it was in that climate that MS grew from an upstart riding IBM’s coattails to a legitimate giant in their own right.  Now that everyone’s dependent after that 25 year run of making a solid product, now that the field has been cleared of the likes of OS/2 (which they were supposed to be co-developing with IBM) they give us this.  It’s a product that is designed, through and through, to serve Microsoft’s interests rather than those of the hardware owner…  a product that I would not have adopted and championed for all those years, if it was like it is now back then.

Windows used to be an OS that served the PC’s owner without reservation, as an OS should.  As it must, if you’re me.  If you wanted to turn updates off, it would attempt to advise you it was not recommended, but it would do it.  It was your PC, after all.  Microsoft used to respect that.

This began to gradually erode starting with the introduction of Windows Genuine Advantage, which was the first time I recall when MS used the update system against the interests of the users.  I’m not talking about the pirates; they’re not the users I am concerned with.

WGA was a process that, at best, resulted in no change either way to users of Windows.  At worst, it would deliberately try to ruin your day.  Game theorists will tell you that embarking upon a game where the best possible outcome is the status quo is a losing move.

We began to see branding elevated above consumer preferences, as with signed themes with limited color selection (starting with Vista, and made mandatory in 8), and the removal of features that might make the OS seem anything less than cutting edge, like the classic start menu, which many people complained about losing as an option in Win 7.

“It’s more than 20 years old… time to move on,” or something like that, was the reply from MS.  Why is it time to move on?  What does its age have to do with it?  If you find something that works, keep it!  The concept of the steering wheel is considerably older than 20 years, and carmakers aren’t scrapping that just because it’s an idea that’s been around for a while.

If the customers want it, where’s the harm in leaving it as an option as it was in Vista?

In a word– branding.  Microsoft thought that the classic cascading start menu was too evocative of Windows 95, so it had to go, and the people that wanted it were told to “move on.”  Windows now had two duties… serving the user by being their OS, and serving Microsoft by being recognizable as Windows and by meeting Microsoft’s view of acceptable aesthetics while ignoring that of the user.

Windows 8.1 put much of the UI itself on “sell Windows phones” duty, which led to widespread rejection.  And then Nadella came on board, and there was no more Mr. Nice Guy when it came to skipping Windows versions that were not good enough.  No, you would not get to wait for the next version (which would always have tried to address customer complaints about the previous version in previous years), as there would be none.  You would take what Microsoft wants to give you and you would use it in the manner that Microsoft told you to use it.  You would sit there and be monetized as you were beta testing the product you’d paid for, and that was that.

That was the biggest change in Windows there’d ever been.  MS had been tinkering with ways to make the OS serve their needs directly (rather than just through sales revenue) for years, but it had always been within the context of Windows competing with other versions of Windows, both older and those yet to come.  Now the full monopoly power is being brought to bear like never before.

That was too much of a change for me to swallow.  Linux, based on a completely different… well, everything, was more like Windows of the past philosophically than Windows 10 now was.  I was still the boss in Linux, and in fact more so than I had ever been in Windows.  Linux still fit that most basic requirement of an OS, to serve the needs of the hardware owner, in a manner chosen by himself, without reservation.

That’s why I had to switch to Linux.  To me, Windows 10 (in any form it has taken since its release) hasn’t ever appeared on the list of candidates. The choice was between Linux, FreeBSD, Mac, and older versions of Windows.  Older versions of Windows were on numbered days, FreeBSD has even worse application support than Linux, and MacOS isn ‘t available for my own chosen hardware… so Linux it is.

There are a lot of areas where Linux (such that it is) distros come up short compared to Windows, but as long as “Windows” means “Windows 10” and “Windows 10” is as it has been ever since release, none of that even matters, ’cause 10 doesn’t even qualify to apply for the job.  Not only that, but Microsoft has dragged their own name through the mud so badly that even if there was a new Windows that was everything I had ever asked for, I’d be hard pressed to see it as a real candidate.

MS has shown what they’re made of in this “New MS” era, and it’s not good.  I might step partly back into the MS world if the aforementioned happened and MS surprised us all with what I would have considered a perfect Windows. I’d certainly check it out, and if I liked it, I’d consider setting it up as a dual boot (for real, I mean; technically, my main Linux PCs are all dual-boot with Windows, but Windows has been boxed into impossibly small partitions that won’t even let it update, insufficient for any real use).

I think I’d always have one foot out the door, though.  There’s a trust that’s been breached, lines that have been crossed, and it would take something really major to begin to turn that around, and MS has shown no sign that they even wish to.

Windows is more than just a product to avoid if one doesn’t like it.  It’s a product that is only successful, a product whose company is only in the position it is in, because that product possessed certain attributes, and it has wiped the field clear of any real competition.  People have very little choice.  Taking away that which made it popular now is more than just the usual “product going downhill” that we see so often.  This is a betrayal.  And I don’t like that.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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wavy, DriftyDonN, Steve S., Zero, T, kapnkirk, Bengalensis, SueW, Charlie, Alex5723, Tom in Az, keevan, Cybertooth, satrow

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Ascaris wrote:

Windows … has wiped the field clear of any real competition. People have very little choice.

And yet you’ve managed to live without Windows for five years?

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I had to clean install win 10 so decider it is a good time to go with 1909 since it is a way on the path. As for everything we do with software, as soon we introduce other programs we tinker with the structure of things which in my experience alter everything. Making the system over time unbalanced.

I have been tinkering with Windows Systems for quite a long time now, from win 98 on wards.

I find even if I install a windows version twice in succession they behave differently, from each other in the same PC. They seem to have a life of they er own they different characters. I have installed a window system didn’t like the character, wiped reformatted and just reinstalled the same system and voila more to my liking happy.

I use Linux Mint the latest version and updated the Kernel as well, I like Mint it is a nice Linux Operating system. I just have it on a SSD removable, so I can plug it in, boot in to it and use it.

I also use Linux Zorin System and also here, I have the latest version and I am very happy with it. Same as above I use a plug in SSD and boot in to it when I like to use it.

I also have a MAC laptop which works perfectly, even it is getting a bit old now it is about 10 Years old by now, also on the latest Operating system.

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Oh I use WuMgr to stop Windows Updates and that works a treat for me.

https://github.com/DavidXanatos/wumgr/releases

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If I don’t like something in a system, most likely there is a way to alter it, till it suits my demands if it is a program like in Win 10 I use Start Menu X to get what I want, there is most of the time, a way around things, we just have to be willing to look for an alternative. Nothing is and ever will be perfect.

Operating systems are not perfect, will have bugs and all wise will, full stop. They evolving like us Humans as a species. Individual characters at that too.

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