Windows 10: Good, but is it good enough?

Windows 10: Good, but is it good enough?

As even cave-dwelling monks probably know by now, Windows 10 is out for all the world to see — and it appears to be a qualified success.

Is downloading and installing the new OS a no-brainer? If you use Win8, the answer is almost assuredly yes; but if you’re a Win7 fan, some serious considerations await.

Build 10240: The first-final Windows 10

More than with any previous version of Windows, it’s difficult to talk about a “final” version of the OS. Build 10240 is the official July 29 release, but it’s hardly final; it’ll undoubtedly evolve over time.

When I talked about Win10 build 10122 in the May 28 Top Story, almost all “final” features were intact. They have, however, been tweaked a bit in the official Win10 release — and some will get further adjustments.

For example, we now know that the Universal (formerly “Metro”) Skype app doesn’t work worth beans. So Microsoft cut it loose, offering instead a link on the initial start menu to install the old desktop version of Skype. Even at that, desktop Skype is underwhelming, and there are many rumors at this point that Microsoft will finally come up with something simpler for texting, calling, and video-haranguing.

In a similar vein, Microsoft cut the Universal OneDrive app. Microsoft’s reworking it to bring back “smart files,” the ability to show thumbnails of files in Explorer on your machine while keeping the entire file in the cloud. The result is quite a mess. Win10 setup steps you through the task of specifying which files get stored locally and which are kept in the cloud.

Those files stored on your machine work just as you’d expect. Unfortunately, at this time, File Explorer isn’t smart enough to show you anything that’s cloud-only — you have to go into the browser to see everything.

As you’ll see below, there are many other Win10 features — many new to the OS — that are not completely baked.

It all starts with the return of Start

Through the various Win Preview builds, the start menu has had various incarnations. The final version, shown in Figure 1, is nearly identical to the one in build 10122, with text links on the left and live tiles on the right. But there are some worthwhile tweaks.

Figure 1. The final start menu combines a Win7-like list with Win8-like smart tiles; it also includes a few surprises.

The entries at the bottom-left of the start menu can be changed a bit, but everything else on the left is pretty much set in stone — unlike Windows 7, which gave you numerous display options. Still, something is better than nothing — as we had in Windows 8.

Right-clicking apps listed in the left column gives you many of the same choices found in Win7 — plus the option to uninstall the app.

The exhaustive All apps list (Figure 2) shows every program/app that’s installed on your computer. But here, too, you can’t do much to manage the way the list is displayed; for example, entries can’t be grouped or renamed. (Fortunately, you can still pin favorite apps to the taskbar.) Even the placement of the All apps icon seems a bit odd. If feels as if it should lead or follow the left column’s list of used or added apps, not be stuck below the Power icon.

Figure 2. The All apps list lacks any organizational options.

Happily, entering the Windows key + X still pops up the handy power-users’ menu. On the other hand, the Power icon seems to have lost some of its smarts. For example, it no longer lets you assign “Lock” to the button itself and use a drop-down menu for other options. (If enabled, Lock shows up when you click your picture icon at the top of the start menu.)

As with Win10 Preview, the right side of the start menu holds live tiles. I think of them as Win7 gadgets that have finally become truly useful. But if they bug you, just right-click the offensive ones and choose Unpin from Start.

You can add or remove a tile for any installed application — not just Universal apps. You also have some control over height and width of the start menu. For example, simply drag the right edge of the start menu to make it wider or narrower. When you make the menu narrower, tiles on the right edge move automatically beneath those to the left.

Edge: The successor to Internet Explorer

The default browser for Windows 10 is the new Edge browser. You can still find IE, but you’ll have to dig for it. Given that Edge is completely new, it’s surprising that it still lags well behind Chrome and Firefox for both features and usability. For example, Edge doesn’t have any plugins; you’re stuck without, oh, AdBlocker or (crucial for me) LastPass. On the plus side, Microsoft has promised that Edge will run Chrome extensions with little or no modification — quite a trick, if Microsoft can pull it off.

You can have Edge open to a specific set of pages, but to do so you need to open settings and enter the URL for each page manually. The offline reader — Reading view — garbles too many pages. Dragging tabs doesn’t work right: as with other browsers, dragging a tab onto a blank part of the desktop will create a separate browser window. However, if you drag that new tab back to the original window, the tab will meld back in but the second window is left open to a generic page. You also can’t swipe to move back and forth between pages.

Changing or adding search engines is also not especially easy. You have to navigate to the search engine’s home page, then open Edge’s advanced setting. Next, in the Search section, click the down arrow in the box listing Bing as the default. You then get the options shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Edge makes changing search engines somewhat convoluted.

Edge has some hooks into Cortana; you can right-click a selected phrase on a webpage and let Cortana have at it. Edge comes with a PDF reader and Flash built-in, and you can turn Flash off by simply flipping a switch in settings. Edge also lets you turn a webpage into a OneNote page and annotate it — something that looks good in demos, but I’m not sure how I’ll use it.

Cortana: The digital assistant on the desktop

Microsoft’s transplanted phone AI continues to improve, but seemingly in fits and starts. The biggest problem I’ve had, time and again, is getting Cortana to understand me. For example, “How cold is it in Antarctica?” typically turns into “How cold is it in America?” Yes, I’m using a good mike — a Blue Snowball — but Cortana isn’t impressed.

Far too often, my simple, factual questions just get tossed out to a Bing search in Edge. And yes, Cortana always uses Bing, not your default search engine. When you type something into Cortana’s search bar (next to the start button), the AI first searches your computer and then searches Bing. If you activate voice recognition, everything you ask about (using “Hey, Cortana!”) goes through Bing. In other words, Edge might let you use a different search engine, but everything else is Bing, Bing, Bing.

No wonder Microsoft’s predicting a 10 to 15 percent increase in Bing use by September. See this cached copy of an announcement from Bing GM of MS Search Advertising David Pann. (The original post doesn’t appear to be on Microsoft’s servers anymore.)

I’ve talked about Cortana and her data-gathering ways before. Suffice it to say that Cortana controls the gates to search on your computer and — unless you explicitly turn it off (inside Cortana, click the Notebook icon, then Settings, then the link “Manage what Cortana knows about me in the cloud”) — Cortana funnels a whole lotta stuff into Microsoft’s bit bucket.

To be fair, you have to agree to be snooped upon (the default in Win10’s express setup), and Cortana really does need that info to do her job. The fact that the data can be used to target ads shouldn’t upset you any more (or less!) than, say, using Google search and free Gmail, which are both milked for the purpose of serving up ads.

To keep on top of your privacy profile, see the Microsoft privacy choices site (sign-in required).

Other half-baked pieces that might trip you up

The new Mail app still has some gaping holes. You can’t combine inboxes, for example, to get all of your mail delivered in one place. Moreover, you can see messages only in conversation view, not chronologically. I’m seeing lots of reports of Mail crashing, particularly when it encounters complex messages with extensive formatting and multiple images.

Mail has much better editing capabilities than the 8.1-era Metro Mail app, but new-mail notifications rarely pop up in the Action area.

On the other hand, the new Windows Universal Calendar app continues to sync properly with my Gmail calendar. And the multiple desktop/task view capability works well, though it’s strangely hampered by two simple shortcomings: all desktops must have the same background, and there’s no way to easily tag or identify individual desktops — all you get is 1, 2, 3 for labels.

Many other native apps hardly work at all. Photos has rudimentary editing capabilities but no tagging or retrieval features; People looks as if it were thrown together by two interns over a weekend.

I’ve never liked Microsoft Music or Xbox Music, and now I like Win10’s Groove Music even less. It has cumbersome playlist handling, no tagging to speak of — basically nothing that would make it a music-management app. It’s good only as a player and as a funnel to buy more music from Microsoft. With Movies & TV, you have to go through the Windows Store to buy or rent a movie.

Windows Store is one of the low points of the Win10 experience. It’s not terribly stable and, even when you can keep it running, the junk in there is still appalling. Content’s been vetted a little bit, but on a scale from 1 to 10, the typical Windows Store app might rate a 2 — if I’m feeling charitable.

Microsoft has generally had a hard time getting its Universal apps in order for this release. We have robust — if stunted — Universal apps for the four core Office apps. But programming for the new WinRT API-based Universal platform is apparently so hard that Microsoft couldn’t get us new apps for such key tools as OneDrive or Skype. That speaks volumes.

Whether third-party developers will be lured to the tiled Windows side still remains a big point of conjecture. Once upon a time, Microsoft could dangle Windows Phone as a carrot for developers, as Universal apps are supposed to run equally well on Windows 10 and Win10 Mobile. But with the Windows Phone market still failing to gain much traction, Windows Phone isn’t much of a draw.

In other words, developers looking to write for the Win10 platform might just opt to stick with the older “classic” desktop and eschew the tiled side completely. It’ll be interesting to see whether Microsoft can lure any major app over to the Universal format.

Patching: The Windows 10 Achilles’ heel

By now, you probably know that Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro machines will get all updates from Microsoft, automatically — whether you want them or not. (Pro machines connected to an update server apparently won’t get force-fed updates quite so quickly.) Four months ago that fact would’ve (and did!) send me on an apoplectic bender. Now, though, the situation’s not quite so dire. At least, not yet.

Microsoft has quietly released a tool — KB 307930 — that makes it possible to turn off certain updates. But it works only if the update has already been applied and uninstalled, and it isn’t clear how long you’ll be able to hold off on the updates. Moreover, I’ve had problems getting it to work. (For more on this option, see my July 22 InfoWorld post.)

The availability of that tool, combined with the remarkable fact that Microsoft has had very few botched patches in the past four months, makes me want to give the Softies the benefit of the doubt. They might just be able to keep Windows 10 updated in a way that’s less disruptive than what we’ve seen over the past dozen years.

Or maybe not.

The decision: Whether and when to get Windows 10

Everybody wants to know whether I recommend upgrading to Windows 10. (Yes, even my barber and my son’s teachers have asked me that question this past week.) The answer is not simple; here’s the three-minute yes/no flow chart.

First, if you haven’t yet signed up for the queue, Microsoft has detailed instructions for how to do so.

If you haven’t received notification from Microsoft that your copy of the Windows 10 download is ready, cool your heels until it arrives — there’s a reason for the delay. Keep in mind that Microsoft is also fixing all sorts of things in record time. The company has started with simple configurations and is holding back on upgrades for configurations that have caused problems. Have patience.

That said, my general advice for Windows 8/8.1 users is to go ahead and install Win10. There are exceptions: If you’re a touch-first or touch-only Windows 8.1 user, you might have difficulty adapting to the new Tablet Mode. Charms is gone (yay!), but you have to cope with a taskbar that won’t go away and swiping doesn’t work the same. If you’re happy with Windows 8.1 in touch mode, get yourself to a retailer and try Windows 10 in Tablet Mode before you jump ship.

Also, if you use Windows 8.1 and you rely on OneDrive’s thumbnail approach to keeping your files sorted out, you’ll have to change your ways with Windows 10. (That feature doesn’t appear in Win7 or Win8, only in Win8.1.)

For Windows 7 users, the recommendation isn’t so clear-cut. While Windows 10 has a lot of fun, interesting, useful stuff (despite the shortcomings I’ve noted above), I can’t point to one killer feature that makes the upgrade a no-brainer — especially if you’re already using Chrome or Firefox for browsing. Windows 10’s going to get a lot of improvement and support in the near term, and Win7 is effectively a dead duck — it’ll get fixes in the future but few, if any, enhancements.

Win10 is undeniably more secure, and it’s faster on reboot. But then, how often do you reboot? For gamers, Win10’s DirectX 12 will make fancy games run much faster. Touch input’s nice but hardly a game changer, and it takes extra hardware.

All that said, the upgrade’s free for legitimate consumer systems — you don’t have to make up your mind until July 29, 2016. Those rumors about charging you a monthly fee sometime down the line are pure fantasy.

There are really no significant downsides for most Win7 users. Issues with some applications and drivers for older devices are probably your main concerns. You can take a fully updated Win7 or Win8.1 machine and upgrade it directly to Windows 10 without needing to install your apps or data (although you might want to consider starting with a clean installation of the OS). After it’s installed, Win10 will run much like Win7.

Keep in mind that if you upgrade (i.e., you don’t do a “clean” install), you can roll back to your previous version of Windows within 30 days. From what I’ve seen, the rollback works fine; your programs, settings, and data remain intact.

Typically, I tell Win7 users to wait a while. Let’s see what Microsoft brings out for the “TH2” update reportedly scheduled for October or the “Redstone” update(s) due out next year. At least, many of the current holes will be plugged, and no doubt a big crop of bugs will get cut down as well.

That’s what I tell people whose job isn’t to review technology. I do cover tech, so I upgraded my Windows 8.1 production machine this past weekend. I received the offer to upgrade in my system tray, and I’m glad I did — the upgrade went flawlessly. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wants us to all love Win10. I won’t go there, but I feel a heck of a lot better about using Windows — now that the 8.1 noose is off.

The old saying goes that “Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.” In this case, the “chances” are minimal for common Windows systems — and the money stays yours.

Making Windows 10 a bit more private and secure

During and after Windows 10 installation, there are security settings you’ll want to review to help protect your personal information.

If you used the Express settings option during Win10 setup, you’ll want to go back and review some of the default configurations.

Deciding whether to upgrade to the next Windows

Choosing whether and when to upgrade to Windows 10 depends, of course, on many factors, but the general consensus is: Many, if not most, Win7 users will be happy to stick with their current OS until it reaches its official end of life in 2020 — or when they’re forced to purchase a new PC.

On the other hand, arguments for upgrading from Win8 to Win10 are a bit more compelling. Microsoft bowed to public opinion and removed the tiled UI and the charms bar. With Win10, Microsoft restored the start menu, added virtual desktops, and ported its AI assistant — Cortana — to the desktop platform. Win10 also has better integration between desktop and mobile devices.

On the other hand, the new Windows Store is both a bit of a curse and a blessing, depending on whether you’re looking for cool apps or you want to sync your custom settings between desktop and mobile devices. In the same vein, the new browser — Edge — is certainly an improvement over Internet Explorer, but it still lags behind Chrome, Firefox, and other third-party browsers.

But perhaps the most significant benefit/curse is Windows 10 updating. Consumer systems will no longer be able to defer or block selected feature and security updates. These systems will get updated on Microsoft’s schedule. (Business systems can put off feature updates — more on that in a moment.)

This new updating process won’t affect the many personal PCs that have automatic updating turned on, but it could be annoying for users who like to have more control over what’s put on their systems and when. Ultimately, the success of this change will depend on the number of botched updates Microsoft releases in the future.

Microsoft has clearly stated its intent to focus on a mobile-first strategy. That’s evident in some of the default settings included in Windows 10; they don’t make much sense on the desktop but appear to be more suited for use on phones or tablets.

Tweaking Windows 10 for better security

Once you have the new OS installed, here are three recommended changes you’ll want to make soon.

Enable System Restore:

• In the search box, enter “system protection” and then click Create a restore point when it appears.
• In the Systems Properties dialog box, click the Configure button to enable system recovery on the C: drive.
  

  Figure 1. By default, System Restore is disabled in Windows 10.

• Select Turn on system protection and click OK.

Sync user profile information: Many Windows users have a love/hate relationship with their Microsoft account. We wonder how much information Microsoft collects while we’re signed in. As with Windows 8, Microsoft would prefer we use an MS account to sign in to Windows 10, but we’re not required to.

That said, there are advantages to connecting to the Microsoft cloud. It can provide password recovery, allow synching of your custom Windows settings, and store data in the cloud.

But signing in to an MS account has some drawbacks. If you use the express-configuration option when installing Win10, automatic account settings–synching is enabled by default. Synching personal settings could be convenient, but some of us don’t want the same settings on all of our various Windows devices. There’s also the remote possibility of data leakage.

You can control synching with the following steps:

• Click start menu/Settings/Accounts/Sync your settings.
• Turn off Sync settings to disable all synching.
• Alternatively, review the Individual sync settings section and selectively disable options such as Theme, Web browser settings, Passwords, and others.
  

  Figure 2. By default, Win10 synch your custom settings between your various devices. For various reasons, you might prefer to limit synching or turn it off altogether.

Control Wi-Fi-credentials sharing: A new Win10 feature — Wi-Fi Sense (online FAQ) — has generated more than its share of controversy. It’s my guess that it was inserted by the Windows Phone team. There’s been much discussion online about whether Wi-Fi-credentials sharing is a significant security threat. Security reporter Brian Krebs believes it is, as noted in a recent column.

Win10 inherited this feature from Windows 8 phone. In short, it allows people on your Facebook friends list or Outlook and Skype contact lists to automatically sign in to your Wi-Fi router when they’re within range. The process uses an encrypted-and-shared version of your password — you don’t have to give them your plain-text password. (Your network credentials aren’t shared, by default.)

If you accepted the Express settings when installing Win10, this Wi-Fi–sharing feature was automatically enabled. You can turn it off (or on) with the following steps (see a Howtoconnect post for more details).

• Open Settings/Network & Internet/Wi-Fi.
• Scroll past your wireless networks and click Manage Wi-Fi settings.
• Turn off both Connect to suggested open hotspots and Connect to networks shared by my contacts.

Cortana and I are not the best of friends

Best friends and sisters know a lot about a girl. Your computer should be a bit more restrained. Yet both Microsoft and Apple (who effectively started AI-help on personal computers with Siri) would sure like to know a lot more about us. The End User License Agreement (EULA) for Windows 10 clearly states that Cortana has the ability to collect and use various types of personal information, including your location, calendar data, and apps you use (Figure 3). Cortana collects information about your choice of music, alarm settings, what you view and purchase online, your Bing search history, your use of other Microsoft services, and more.

Figure 3. Cortana collects a variety of personal information, as noted on first setup.

If that level of data collection truly worries you, you probably want to stick with Win7 or even Win8.1. On the other hand, happy Cortana users probably assume 1) the information is securely stored in the cloud, and 2) there’s so much data collected online that it will be difficult for hackers to tie parsed data to a specific individual.

If your level of trust falls somewhere in between, you can disable Cortana. Simply enter “cortana” into the search box, click Cortana & Search settings, and then review/disable the Cortana settings (Figure 4), both locally and online. You might also want to disable Cortana in the Edge browser by opening the browser’s advanced settings and scrolling down to Privacy and services.

Figure 4. Cortana can be disabled via its settings box.

Ad-free games require a paid subscription

Another setting is getting a lot of attention. Ever since Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be free, folks have been waiting for the catch. Surprisingly, it came with the ubiquitous game of Solitaire. This popular app is included with the new OS, but it includes advertising. To remove the ads, you have to pay a monthly subscription, as reported in a Business Insider story. I know of no hack to get around this.

Using OneDrive to store encryption keys

The first time I ran a system recovery on a Surface RT device, it walked me through recovering my BitLocker encryption key. I didn’t even know the device had a key, but I was glad I’d tied the tablet to a Microsoft account.

If Win10 encryption is turned on, it uploads the encryption key to OneDrive. That’s not necessarily a security threat; just be aware of how key storage works and that using an MS account will ensure an easy recovery or reset.

Pulling out security tidbits from the fine print

Cloud services commonly have a lot of legal wording about your online data storage. Microsoft has revamped its privacy document, along with the release of Windows 10.

Buried in this document is a notification that each Win10 device generates a unique advertising ID that can be used to target you with specific ads. This “feature” can be turned off in settings (Figure 5). Click Settings/Privacy; then switch off Let apps use my advertising ID ….

Figure 5. A setting in the Privacy section lets you disable the use of unique advertising IDs.

You can also go online and opt out of personalized advertising. Go to the website Choice.microsoft.com and set how you want the Edge browser to behave.

Windows updating: Peer-to-peer patching

Along with forced updates, Win10 also includes — again, on by default — the option to share patches with other computers on your local network or the Internet. No, this isn’t as unsecure as BitTorrent, but you still might want to disable update sharing. There are concerns that attackers might find a way to inject malicious code into the process.

Fortunately, that shouldn’t be easy, based on past experiences. For example, the Flame malware exploit was used to inject malicious updates into targeted systems. But the attackers had to have physical access to the network, and they had to have access to Microsoft’s code-signing certificates. The exploits worked because of a fluke: code-signing certs could be generated by an MS Terminal Server bug that has since been removed.

Following those attacks, Microsoft replaced its Windows Update certificates. You now obtain patch files directly from the Microsoft servers. The patches are then put back together on your PC and compared against a hash value. If the hash value matches the master record from Microsoft, the updates are deemed secure and are installed.

Even though I’d never say a malicious man-in-the-middle attack is impossible, it’s highly unlikely, given the security now built into the updating process.

To disable peer-to-peer updating and to obtain patches only directly from Microsoft, open Settings/Update & security and click Windows Update. (Note that you’ll no longer find Windows Update in the Control Panel.) Select Advanced options and then click the link Choose how updates are delivered. In the next window (Figure 6), turn off or limit update sharing.

Figure 6. Win10 lets you share updates among multiple systems, both locally and on the Internet.

Buy more control over Win10 updates and settings

Obviously, the ultimate way to exert control over Windows 10 is not to install it. Barring that, your next best bet is to purchase the Enterprise edition. Doing so isn’t easy for individuals, but neither is it impossible — you merely have to play the volume-license game.

This game requires purchasing the one thing you want plus four of the cheapest things Microsoft offers. As long as the total is five items, you technically qualify for a volume-license contract.

I’d recommend working through a vendor such as CDW or SoftwareONE to assist in this process. You’ll need to purchase Windows 8.1 with Windows Software Assurance (yes, I know, that seems backwards), but that will give you rights to Windows 10 Enterprise or Enterprise 2015 LTSB.

(The LTSB — or Long-Term Servicing Branch — version is meant to be placed on dedicated devices such as ATMs and industrial equipment. The OS is locked down and rarely updated. I use earlier embedded operating systems for my office’s thin clients that connect remotely into the computer that’s actually doing the work.)

Using Group Policy: You can go even further and block a system’s ability to send data-collection and telemetry information back to Microsoft. To set this up, you need the standard Win10 Enterprise edition, which includes Group Policy control. (Note: Home editions don’t have this advanced tool, and the Pro edition’s GP doesn’t have the ability to disable telemetry.) The steps for blocking data-logging are detailed in a Reddit post.

Windows 10 makes a lot of changes to our computer systems, some of which are controversial. But for every convenience, there is inevitably a drawback. Take some time to configure your preferred security before putting Win10 into heavy use.

A trip around the Windows 10 Start menu

Yes! After massive howls of complaint from Windows 8 users, Microsoft put the familiar start menu back in Windows 10.

Familiar, but not identical to the start menu we learned to love in Win7 (and as far back as Windows 95). It’s going to take some time to learn how to use the new menu — and how to configure it to your tastes and habits.

To create the Win10 start menu, Microsoft took something from Win7 and combined it with the essence of Win8 (see Figure 1). The left side of the menu lists frequently used programs, some with jump lists. That should make Win7 users feel right at home. The right side looks like a scaled-down version of the infamous Win8 Home screen, with tiles you can resize, rearrange, and group.

Figure 1. With app lists and live tiles, the new Windows 10 start menu has elements of Win7 and Win8.

It takes a bit of experimenting and practice to learn how to use these pieces together — but not much. Once you get used to it, Windows 10 has a remarkably friendly interface. Here’s help for getting over the learning curve’s hump.

How you point in Win10: Mousing vs. touching

Every Windows version through 7 was designed primarily to be controlled by a mouse or similar pointing device. Windows 8 was designed largely for touchscreens, but with mouse support. Switching between the two methods was a bit tricky to master because mice and fingers behave very differently.

Win8 users will already know how Microsoft handles mousing and touch-and-swipe. But Windows 7 users might need a quick tutorial:

First, tapping with your finger is the same as clicking with the mouse. Moving your finger across the screen is the same as dragging the mouse. That’s pretty obvious.

What isn’t so obvious is the touch equivalent to right-clicking. You can’t “right-click” by using a different finger; the screen can’t differentiate. So how do you right-click on a touch screen? You touch and hold for a second, then remove your finger.

For the rest of this article, I’ll keep it simple and stick with mouse-friendly terms. So if you’re using a touchscreen, when I say click, you’ll tap; when I say right-click, you’ll tap, hold, and release.

The left start-menu pane: Not quite Win7

Clicking the Win10 start button will pop up the menu, where you’ll find a familiar list in the left pane. It’s not an exact replica of Win7’s, but it’s close enough.

Let’s look at it from the top down.

You’ll find yourself at the very top of this pane — not in a spiritual sense, but in the digital sense: you’ll see your sign-in name and avatar photo. (I really do need to get rid of that silly photo of me in the Viking helmet.) Click or right-click, and you’ll get a modest menu (Figure 2) with options to change your account settings, lock the PC, or sign out.

Figure 2. The system Lock option is now accessed by right-clicking your username in the start menu.

Next down, you’ll find the Most used section (see Figure 1) — the largest section in this pane, and the one that looks most like Win7’s start menu. Here you’ll find icons for programs you’ve been using a lot lately. As with Windows 7, some of them have arrows that, when clicked, bring up a jump list of recently used files (Figure 3).

Figure 3. If an app has an attached right-arrow, you can pop up a list of recently used files.

Right-click one of these icons, and you’ll find some interesting options on the resulting menu. I’ll discuss Pin to Start below. The others are self-explanatory.

But isn’t that Uninstall option a great idea?

Below Most used, you might have a section called Recently added. It all depends on when you last installed a program. And sometimes, the new program doesn’t turn up at all. (Hopefully, that’ll be fixed.)

The unnamed bottom section of the left pane contains various commonly used tools. For example, you’ve got a quick link to File Explorer that includes a jump list. Settings takes you to a Modern Interface version of Control Panel. (Some things still require the old one.) Power lets you shut down, sleep, or reboot the PC. Missing are Lock and Sign out; Win7 users will have to get used to selecting those by right-clicking their user name at the top.

Finally, All apps changes the pane to list all installed programs — both classic “desktop” and new “Universal” — in alphabetical order (Figure 4). Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any option for grouping apps within this list.

Figure 4. Clicking All apps near the bottom of the start menu brings up a list of all installed applications.

The right pane: Windows 8 Start in a window

The start menu’s right pane is considerably larger than the left one, as shown in Figure 1. So much so, in fact, that I’m tempted to call it the Big Pane — but that really isn’t fair.

Like Win8, this pane has tiles — large shortcuts to programs and folders. Unlike the list of apps in the start menu’s left pane, some of these tiles are “live” — they display new information in real time.

Moving a tile is easy: just drag and drop it, and the other tiles will get out of the way.

The main point of the tiles is to provide quick, touch-friendly access to your favorite programs. Since you don’t want Microsoft deciding what apps are your favorites, you have to pin your favorites to this pane.

If a frequently used program is already listed in Most used or Recently added, you can simply drag it onto the right pane — or you can right-click it and select Pin to Start. If it’s not on either of those lists, click All apps; you’ll find it there.

To pin a folder, find it in File Explorer, right-click it, and select Pin to Start.

You’ll also probably want to remove some of the tiles Microsoft thought you’d like. Right-click the tile and select Unpin from Start (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Right-clicking a tile pops up a box of options — including unpinning the tile.

Note the other options when you right-click a tile. They vary a bit with the program, but all of them offer Resize, which provides a submenu of tile sizes.

When it comes to handling tiles on a touchscreen, tap-hold-release doesn’t behave exactly like a right-click. Instead, it brings up two little icons: a thumbtack and an ellipsis (three dots). Tap the thumbtack, and you unpin the tile; tap the ellipsis, and you’ll get a pop-up menu.

But it’s not the same menu you’d get with a mouse. Basically, it’s the Size submenu — and maybe an option to turn the live tile on or off. There’s also a More options selection, which will bring up the other items on the right-click-with-the-mouse menu.

You can easily organize your tiles into groups. To create a new group, drag a tile down to the very bottom of the pane — and then drag it down some more. A bar will appear separating that tile from the others.

That bar is the group header. Click it and then type in the name for the group (Figure 6). You can also drag and drop other tiles into the group.

Figure 6. Win10 makes it easy to group tiles under a custom name.

You can also move the group up or down. Simply drag the group’s title bar up or down, rearranging the order of the groups.

Giving the start menu the look you want

Now that you understand start-menu organization, let’s configure it for your convenience and esthetics.

Start by clicking Start/Settings/Personalization, and then select the Start section. It contains only four yes/no options (Figure 7), and they should probably be left in their default settings. But feel free to experiment.

Figure 7. The start-menu settings lets you control the menus' contents and look.

Do click the “Choose which folders appear on Start” link. Here you can tag important folders — Documents, Homegroup, and so forth — that should appear on the left pane above the File Explorer icon.

While you’re in Personalization, click the Colors section. Turning on Automatically pick an accent color from my background makes Windows automatically pick a color for the taskbar and start menu that works well with your wallpaper image. With that option off, you’ll be able to pick your own colors.

If you liked Aero in Win7, turn on Make Start, taskbar, and action center transparent.

Once you have all the tiles up you wish to use, you can resize the start menu — not through Settings, but via the menu itself. Simply drag the top or right edge of the menu.

Searching for the Win10 search field

Win7 users are used to clicking start for the search field. Win8 users had to adapt to the Search charm, launched with a swiping gesture or just typing when at the Start Screen. Win10 has a search field built into the taskbar.

That’s really convenient — if you have plenty of spare room on your taskbar. If you don’t, you can hide that Search field and still bring it up quickly.

Right-click the taskbar, select Search, and pick one of these options:

• Hidden: No search field is visible, but bring up the start menu and start typing; the search field will appear.
• Show search icon: Again, there’s no search field on the taskbar, but now there’s a magnifying-glass icon. You can guess what happens when you click it.
• Show search box: This is the default, with the big search field taking up room.

Note that, by default, the search tool searches both your computer and the Internet. If you feel, as I do, that a local search and an Internet search are entirely different things, once the search results are up, click My stuff near the bottom of the results box to ignore the Internet search.

If you search for a program, you might get a long list of results. But the highlighted item near the top of search is almost certainly what you’re looking for.

So what’s missing from the Win10 start menu?

Windows 10 has an excellent user interface, bridging the gap between mouse and touch better than any other OS I’ve seen. But it’s not perfect. Here are three features, all found elsewhere, that the new Windows sorely lacks:

A configurable All apps: In Win8.1’s Apps screen, you can sort by name, date installed, most used, and type of program (category). In Win10, All apps sorts only by name.

Pin to Start with jump lists: In Win7, you can pin a program to the start menu’s left pane. Not so in Windows 10.

One can reasonably argue that that’s redundant, since Win10 lets you pin programs to the right pane as tiles. But applications in the left pane, in both Win7 and Win10, often have jump lists that give you quick access to recently used and pinned files. The tiles don’t.

Microsoft could fix this in one of two ways: it could let you pin programs to the left pane, or it could add jump lists to the tiles’ pop-up menus.

Collapse groups to make more room on the right pane: In both Apple’s iOS and Android, you can group apps into folders on the home screen. This not only allows better organization, it lets you put far more icons on the home screen, with easier access.

With Win10’s start menu, groups give you the organization. However, every tile is always visible, which wastes space. If you could collapse a group and display only the header, the right pane would be easier to work in.

The final analysis: Compared to Windows 8, Windows 10 provides a vastly improved start menu and user interface. But it’s not significantly better than Windows 7’s start menu — especially if you don’t have a touchscreen.

If you haven’t already upgraded to Win10 from Win8.1, I recommend waiting a few months. That way, you’ll avoid the inevitable bugs and incompatibilities in the new OS and Microsoft will have had a chance to fix them. If you’re using Windows 7 … well, you’ll have to consider whether you really want to live with the new interface. Your choice!

Surprising results from early Win10 benchmarks

Windows 10 might be the first Windows upgrade ever that doesn’t exact a performance penalty. In fact, based on these preliminary benchmark tests, Win10 actually makes some systems run slightly faster than they did under Win7 or Win8!

Plus: A reader argues that it’s better to stick with Win7 or 8 than to upgrade to 10.

Preliminary speed results for Win10 installs

Microsoft has stated repeatedly that — unlike many past Windows upgrades — Win10 is designed not to require major hardware upgrades.

In fact, Win10’s minimum hardware requirements are decidedly modest:

• CPU: 1 GHz or faster
• RAM: 1GB for 32-bit Win10; 2GB for 64-bit
• Hard-disk space: 16GB for 32-bit Win10; 20GB for 64-bit
• Graphics: DirectX 9 with Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.0
• Display: 800 by 600

Note that these are the requirements to run Win10 — but not necessarily to run it well.

So, to see how Win10 performs on hardware in real life, I upgraded six PCs — a mix of Win7 and Win8.1 systems.

On two of the systems — one Win7, one Win8.1 — I ran formal performance tests using the well-regarded, synthetic benchmarking tools PCMark 7 1.4.0 (site), NovaBench 3.0.4 (site), and SiSoftware Sandra Lite 21.42 (site).

For the other four machines, I used a more subjective test: the overall feel of upgraded systems.

After running the initial “baseline” tests, I upgraded each PC using the Win10 Media Creation tool available on the “Download Windows 10” page. For the two formal test machines, I then ran all three benchmark suites again to measure the effects of the Win10 upgrade.

I also performed clean Win10 installs on those two systems, again using the Win10 Media Creation tool. (To get a clean install, I selected the “keep nothing” option during the Win10 setup. This completely replaces the existing OS with a virgin copy of Win10 — no active files, settings, drivers, etc. are carried over from a previous version.)

Then I again ran the full suite of benchmarks, measuring the effects of a Win10 clean install.

Picking older and newer PCs for real-life tests

In this case, “real-life” doesn’t mean pristine, laboratory-perfect systems. Rather, I picked two machines I use routinely for work.

PC 1 is a modest, high-mileage system that started life running Vista! It was subsequently upgraded to Win7 — and now to Win10. I use it as a live backup, essentially a data lifeboat I can switch to in short order, should my main system fail.

PC 1 specs:

• OS: Win7 SP1 x32
• RAM: 3GB
• Hard drive: 232GB (mechanical)
• CPU: Intel Pentium, 2-core/1GHz

PC 2 is my “daily driver” — in fact, I’m using it to write this article. It’s a fairly average, two-year-old system that originally came with Win8.0 and was subsequently upgraded to 8.1. It’s now running Win10. (I keep solid backups, so I was ready to quickly roll back to Win8.1 if needed.)

PC 2 specs:

• OS: Win8.1 x64
• RAM: 8GB
• Hard drive:476GB (solid-state)
• CPU: Intel Core i7, 3.2 GHz

Both systems have been well maintained using the techniques and tools documented in several Windows Secrets articles, including the July 2 LangaList Plus, “Prepping a Win7 PC for the Win10 upgrade”; the Jan. 16, 2014, Top Story, “Keep a healthy PC: A routine-maintenance guide”; and the Jan. 10, 2013, Top Story, “Let your PC start the new year right!”

Note that these are exactly the same tools and techniques available to all PC users; I used no “secret sauce” or undocumented maintenance techniques to get these systems ready for the upgrade.

The usual caution: Your mileage will vary

Though there’s nothing weird or unusual about my test systems, my prep work, or the upgrade procedures, it must be said that my test results are not indicative of all systems. Your setup could have very different test results.

Let me briefly explain.

Benchmarks can offer a guide to performance changes, but they truly apply only to the machines tested. The more your PC, your maintenance techniques, and your upgrade procedures differ from mine, the more likely you’ll get different results.

Running your own tests, on your own PCs, is the only way to know exactly how Win10 will affect your specific combination of software and hardware.

With that said, here are the benchmark results I got.

Some surprises in the benchmark results

The following figures show the benchmark results for the original baseline Win7 and 8 setups, for those same systems after an upgrade to Win10, and after a clean install of Win10.

Figures 1 and 3 show the raw scores in whatever units each benchmark tool uses. But in all cases, a higher score means better performance. Figures 2 and 4 show the results as percentage changes, where the baseline scores are assigned a value of 100 percent.

Figure 1 shows the raw benchmark scores for the Win7 PC — and they surprised me.

Figure 1: Upgrading my aging Win7 PC to Win10 changed system performance insignificantly.

I expected Win10 to significantly decrease the performance of the older Win7 system. But instead, the upgrade had almost no effect at all. Before and after the upgrade, the results were either the same or showed very small increases or decreases — in the range of 1 percent to 5 percent. Those differences are beneath the level of most human detection. Confirming those results, my Win7 system felt the same after the upgrade.

Figure 2 graphically shows the same results expressed as percentage change, where the original system’s score is set to 100 percent. Despite jumping two full OS levels, the older machine performed essentially the same after being upgraded to Win10 — an impressive result!

Figure 2: This graph clearly shows the minor performance changes after upgrading my older PC to Win10.

The Win8 results were even more surprising. As Figure 3 shows, the Win8 PC gained a smidgen of speed, both upgrading the existing configuration and creating a clean install. However, as with the Win7 system, the changes were small — not anything that would be obvious in real-life use. Still, that’s an achievement for a new OS.

Figure 3: Upgraded to Win10, the Win8.1 PC gained a smidgen of speed in two out of the three benchmark tests.

Figure 4 graphically shows benchmark results for the Win8.1 to Win10 upgrade.

Figure 4. This graph shows that upgrading my newer system from Win8.1 resulted mostly in speed improvements — though, again, the changes were very small.

In 30 years of covering Windows, I have never seen results like these. Previously, it was axiomatic that installing a new Windows version on an older PC always meant a significant and noticeable decrease in performance.

In fact, it was almost a rule of thumb that a new version required a hardware upgrade to maintain good performance.

But Windows 10 appears to break that mold. On the systems I formally benchmarked (above), and on all the other PCs I gauged subjectively, Win10 felt about as fast as Win7 or Win8 — or even a skosh faster.

It is, of course, early days: Win10 is brand new, and we’re just starting to explore all its nooks and crannies.

But so far, at least in terms of raw performance, it’s looking like Win10 could be the best Windows upgrade ever.

A user’s dissent: Win10 is the end of the line

Reader Rvitalis is very unhappy with Microsoft — and with Windows 10.

• “With Windows 10, and all the hype that comes with a (new?) operating system, I feel the need to ask you to have a sober look at this latest and final saga called Microsoft!

  “Make no mistake, this really is the end of Windows.

  “As I understand, you buy all your applications from the Windows Store! Also, there’s no more .NET, which is needed for Media Player and Media Center!

  “In fact, there’s no Windows Media Center and no Outlook.

  “I cannot accept that everyone is so gullible as to believe that this “free upgrade” is really free.

  “I’m a supporter of Windows Secrets, I have a dual-boot system with Windows 7 Pro Media Center and Windows 8.1 Pro.

  “But take away NET 1.1, and Media Player and Media Center are gone!

  “Windows 10 will take everything away from me!”

I think you might have gotten some bad information.

First, you don’t have to buy all your applications from the Windows Store. Win10 runs third-party apps just fine. In fact, I have never purchased any apps — not a single one — from the Windows store for any of my Win8 or Win10 PCs.

As for third-party add-ons, there are tons of options available, many free or ad-supported. For example, if Win10’s native support for media playback isn’t sufficient for you, a quick peek at Download.com shows there are currently 565 third-party media players available for Windows — and that’s just one software library! Surely one of the many hundreds of available apps will meet your needs.

You are right about Media Center: it’s being phased out. It’s also going through some changes in the short term, as noted in a SuperSite for Windows article.

There’s a good reason for Microsoft to drop Media Center. It was innovative in its day — way back in 2002 — but that day is done.

Today, almost all cable/satellite boxes come with their own DVRs. Moreover, almost all TVs allow live streaming audio/video via Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It might be built-in or use an add-on device to support services such as Roku, Chromecast, Fire TV Stick, and so forth. With dedicated options such as these, there’s really no need to use a PC as the hub of a media center anymore. In fact, it’s kind of clumsy to do so.

But if you really want to, there are plenty of third-party media-center replacements available. Here’s more information:

• “5 Alternatives to Windows Media Center on Windows 8 or 10” – How-To Geek article
• “Alternatives to Windows Media Center (Make your own home theater PC)” – Liliputing article
• “Windows Media Center is dead — here are the best alternatives” – ExtremeTech article

As for .Net, Microsoft is killing it for good reasons. Also dating back to 2002, it’s now hopelessly outmoded — a clunky, hard-to-maintain, teetering structure of patches upon updates upon still more patches.

To me, it’s just not reasonable to expect that old technology will be supported forever, especially when so many more-current and equally capable (or even superior) alternatives exist.

But maybe your interests and needs lie elsewhere. In which case, Win10 might well not be suitable for you. That’s perfectly fine; for now, you can stick with Win7 — a truly great OS — and Win8.1, which is modern and capable. No one is forcing you to change.

Both operating systems have years of life left; Win7 will continue to be supported until 2020 and Win8.1 until 2023.

But Win10 looks good to me — it’s fully modern, carries no performance penalty, and is free. Try it; you just might like it!

Quick and flawless upgrade or a different kind?

Lounge member Drew1903 began a jaunty new thread this week in the Windows 10 forum, reporting his good experience upgrading from Win8.1 to Windows 10.

And he was pretty certain he wasn’t alone in happy circumstances; he said that he’d heard “there were 63 million upgrades in 72 hours, averaging 250 installs per second — 14 million on the first day.”

Still, you don’t have to leave this thread to read about different Win10 upgrade experiences. The Windows 10 forum in general is a busy Internet destination with a lot of Windows 10 conversations going on. You ought to drop in.

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions for which you might have answers:

Office Applications
General Productivity	Making a mailing list
Word Processing	Word punctuation problem
Spreadsheets	Excel dates to Outlook reminder
Databases	ODBC error handling on lost connection
Visual Basic for Apps	Runtime error 91
Microsoft Outlook	Outlook 2007 can’t send on Comcast (worked fine on Verizon)
Non-Outlook E-mail	How to get free AOL email account closed out without being able to sign in?
Other MS Apps	Windows 10 OneNote iteration
Windows
General Windows	Errors found by SFC
Windows 10	Quick and flawless upgrade
Windows 8	HDD locked?
Windows 7	Today’s the day; has anyone updated?
Windows XP	Microsoft.netframework with Just in Time (JIT) debugging
Internet/Connectivity
Internet Explorer and Edge	Edge
Third-Party Browsers	Can’t turn off Google SafeSearch
Networking	Limited Internet connection
Software Development
Windows Programming	Toggle USB storage on/off
Web Design & Development	Website being hacked?
Other Technologies
Security & Scams	Nearly caught in scam
Maintenance	Macrium versus Acronis
Hardware	TV not working on DVI output
Graphics/Multimedia	Is Microsoft PhotoDraw v3.1.0.1811 real?
Other Applications	Any software to partially change case of file/folder name?

starred posts: particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

Hills are alive with the sound of airplanes

Boats, planes, and bicycles are arguably Seattle’s favorite machines — although we have an impressive number of Subaru and Volvo cars also traversing the region. During Seafair, however, boats and planes take over the city. Bridges over Lake Washington close on workdays so that the Blue Angels can practice; conversations halt while jets roar over the city and hydrofoils charge up and down our big in-town mountain lake, Lake Washington. Attitudes among human residents range from “partying all week!” to “leaving for Montana NOW!” Most of the city’s other animals, domestic or wild, go into hiding until the noise stops. This video gives you a glimpse of the visual thrills without the signature sound; you get to hear music, instead. Click below or go to the original YouTube video.

Getting started with the new Windows

Venturing into the new/old world of Windows 10 proves an interesting journey — but certainly not a pain-free one.

Here are some highlights and lessons from the first two days with the new operating system.

A morning spent looking for the ignition switch

I have two PCs in my office: one is a domain-connected Win7 system I use to produce the newsletter, the other I use to test applications and methods. The just-released version of Win10 isn’t designed for corporate systems, nor would I want to put the new OS on a production system just yet. On the other hand, the Win8.1 test system had been fully prepped for upgrading — all optional updates added and the “Get Windows 10” reservation system activated.

Thus, on the day Microsoft released Win10, it was annoying to find that the “Get Windows 10” icon had disappeared from the taskbar — nor was there an upgrade notification in Windows Update. (To be fair, I’d made some changes to the Registry that might have upset the upgrade process.) After fussing around with system restores and update reinstalls, I decided that my best path forward was to do an upgrade from the Win10 ISO installer file.

In past versions of Windows, this process would typically require downloading the proper file and burning it to a DVD. But Win10 makes this task significantly easier, via Media Creation Tool (site).

Once downloaded and launched, MCT has some pleasant surprises. As expected, I could create a Win10 installation DVD or flash drive. But the tool also lets you run a direct upgrade (see Figure 1). Moreover, you have the choice of either keeping your applications and data or doing a “clean” installation.

Figure 1. Microsoft's free, downloadable Media Creation Tool not only lets you create installation media, you can use it to directly upgrade to Win10.

Almost everything works after the upgrade

After migrating the two systems to Win10, my first impression was: What changed? Fundamentally, the PCs have the same icons, background, and overall appearance as their original configurations. The start menu looks somewhat different — but it is a fully functional start menu. (My Win8.1 system had Start Menu 8 installed — which disappeared after the upgrade to Win10 — so it already had a traditional start menu.)

Unfortunately, on the formerly Win7 system, Windows 10 didn’t like my Logitech Bluetooth keyboard drivers. It took a bit of time to fix that issue; I had to download the latest SetPoint app and drivers from Logitech and restart the system. The keyboard is now functional. (Win10 had no problem with my Wacom pen tablet.)

On the formerly Win8.1 test system, the only app (aside from Start Menu 8) that failed was iTunes. That, too, was fixed by downloading the latest version and rebooting the system. (First rule of computer service: when in doubt, reboot.)

Initially, I also had a problem with Mouse Without Borders. See below for more on that. I’ve not run through all the dozens of applications I keep on my systems, so there might be other failures yet to be found. But so far, so good.

Resurrecting the vital Mouse Without Borders

As mentioned, I have two PCs at my work desk. To save desk space, I use Microsoft’s free utility, Mouse Without Borders, to control the two systems with a single keyboard and mouse. (Occasionally, MWB fails or one of the systems is shut down, so I also have a physical KVM switch.)

When I upgraded the test machine from Win8.1 to Win10, MWB disappeared. Since I’m constantly switching between the two systems, getting the app working again was imperative. And that meant another download and fresh install of MWB.

I was surprised to find MWB in the Windows Store — though I wish I hadn’t. To put it bluntly, the universal (native) version sucks. I must have wasted a half-hour trying to get it to work. The app has no obviously accessible settings or configuration wizard, and the error messages were worse than useless — and this is a Microsoft product. Obviously, some programmer took 10 minutes to port it into a universal format and then dumped it into the Store.

This brought to mind what I believe is Microsoft’s most egregious failure (after Windows 8, of course). The Store was, and apparently still is, full of poorly built offerings. Microsoft needs to dump the junk and stop playing a numbers game — i.e., it really should focus on quality over quantity.

I did get Mouse Without Borders working again across systems. I downloaded it from the original Microsoft Garage site. (I recommend visiting The Garage from time to time to see what “unofficial” projects Microsoft programmers have cooked up in their spare time.)

Groove Music not so groovy, but it’s functional

With iTunes temporarily down, I took a look at Microsoft’s answer to Windows Media Center — the Groove Music app. It had no difficultly importing the music in my iTunes folder, but it also had one more clever trick: it can import iTunes playlists.

Figure 2. Win10's basic, native music player — Groove Music — imports both local music files and iTunes playlists.

That’s all well and good, but Groove Music is little more than a simple playback app. It’s not something you’re likely to use to manage your music library. Fortunately, there are many third-party applications that can easily manage that task.

Overall, a relatively painless migration

Obviously, there’s much more to know about the new Windows. For example, the start menu is back, but it’s not the same as what we’re used to. (Lincoln Spector discusses the start-menu changes in his Briefing Session story, in the paid section of the newsletter.) And, of course, we’re still trying to understand future updates to the OS.

I also strongly recommend reading Susan Bradley’s On Security column for tips on making Win10 a bit more secure. You might also want to check out Lincoln Spector’s ongoing Win10 diary in the In Brief section of the Windows Secrets site. We’ll post other short bits of Win10 information there, as we can.

Windows 10 is a step forward — not a big step, which is probably for the best. But it will be fun getting to know it.

UPDATE: Yesterday, Aug. 5, Microsoft released its first cumulative patch for Windows 10, in the form of KB 3081424 — undoubtedly the first of many more to come. There’s little information on the update, other than it contains “improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.”