RJM62
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2007
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- 13,157
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- Upstate New York
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Display name:
Geek on the Hill
Some more Windows 10 observations.
As I said before, I'm not a big fan of upgrading an OS that's still in support, works well, and does whatever you need it to do. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has always worked well for me. But when buying or building a new machine, using an OS that has less time left before sunset doesn't make sense unless you have a specific reason for doing so.
I'd been debating building a new machine, buying a new Windows machine, or switching to Mac. A week ago, I decided to take a trip to Micro Center with no specific mission other than fact finding. It's about a two-hour trip from where I live to the nearest Micro Center, but there's no other place even remotely acceptable anywhere closer to me. They're also an authorized Apple seller, so I could compare options. Also, Micro Center has a 15-day no-nonsense return policy that they actually honor.
As for Mac, I like Macs. I like Apple as a company, for the most part. I like iOS as far as stability and security are concerned. I am not a fan of the iOS GUI, but I could live with it if I had to.
But it would be an adjustment for me. I'm used to doing things on Windows. And frankly, Windows works well for me in terms of actually doing what I need done. Win2K was rock solid, XP was okay if you just used it for work and avoided programs that relied on VxDs, Vista was okay if you disabled UAC, and both 7 and 8 were excellent in terms of stability unless you really abused them.
So I looked at Macs, I looked at parts to build a PC, and I looked at factory-made PCs. I bounced to and fro in all three directions for a couple of hours. I even had most of the parts to build a new PC in my cart at one point.
But I ultimately walked out with an HP ProDesk 400 G3 MT because it was on sale for a lower price than I could build or buy a comparable machine. The price was about $75.00 lower than I would have paid for the identical machine with my HP employee discount (compliments of First Tech Fed), and about $125.00 lower than I would have paid for a comparable Lenovo machine with my SUNY faculty discount.
I also liked that it's one of HP's business-class machines, which I've always had good luck with as a user and a consultant. I've found them to be well-made and well-supported, and they don't come with the mounds of crapware that most of HP's consumer-class machines have.
The only thing I would have preferred would have been an i7 processor rather than the i5-6600 (3.3 GHz). But the i5-6600 is at or near the top of the i5 line, and the only software I occasionally use where an i7 would make a difference is Premier, which I use only a few times a year. Also, the mobo will support an i7 if I ever do decide to upgrade.
The computer was manufactured in November of 2015 and came with Win7Pro pre-installed, along with a license and DVD for Win10Pro. I bought a spare hard drive and did a fresh install of Win10Pro with the intent of testing it intensively during the return privilege period. If I didn't like it, I could then return it in salable condition. Barring any major disasters in the next seven days, however, I have decided to keep it.
Having spent a little over a week testing the machine and Win10Pro, here are my observations.
Good Things about Windows 10 Pro
With all the trash-talk about Win10, I thought it only fair to start with some good things about it. Please note that these comments apply to Pro only. There have been so many settings that were only accessible via the Group Policy Editor that I already would have either returned the machine or upgraded to Pro had come with Win10Home.
Here are a things about Win10Pro that I like.
1. It's fast, smooth, and stable, with one annoying exception that I'll get into later.
2. Its legacy software support is far superior to that of Win7 or Win8. I installed some old programs that required Compatibility Mode in Win7 and Win8, but which installed and ran perfectly without it in Win10.
3. Resource management is excellent, especially its multicore processor management. Note, however, that I did a fresh install. From my research, it seems that failure to utilize all available cores and other resource management issues are common problems with upgrades.
4. Anything network-related is a breeze to set up. Network discovery works beautifully. It quickly found, installed, and installed the software for almost every printer and other device on my network very quickly and very automatically. I didn't even need to point it at the IPs. I was impressed.
The only hiccup was with my HP CLJ-3600 printer, which it found, but wasn't sure about which driver to use. I used the Vista driver because it's the one that HP recommends for Win10, but several others that were in the list also would have worked.
5. As far as I can tell, all of the snooping and almost all of the advertising can be fairly-easily disabled. I've been watching my router logs, and I haven't come across anything suspicious since doing so. The only ad I haven't been able to disable is the one on Solitaire, which I really don't care about. Presumably some of the other games and apps also have some ads, but I didn't try most of them, so I can't say for sure.
I won't go into detail about what to disable because it can be found in about a bazillion places on the Interwebs, and because everyone has different definitions of what constitutes a privacy invasion. Because the advertising ID can be completely disabled, I'm mainly concerned about stuff that identifies me and/or might contain information that could be used for identity theft if it were hacked, or stuff that consumes resources for purposes that I don't need. The software I actually use is not ad-supported, so the advertising part of it is pretty much a moot point for me.
Bad Things About Windows 10 Pro
1. I don't like that the snoopware is enabled by default, and I don't like that Microsoft is moving in that direction. Yes, it can be disabled. But I think it should be disabled by default. One Google in the world is enough, thank you.
2. The native Start Menu / Search box has an annoying habit of breaking. When this happens, you can't type into the search box, you can't right-click any shortcuts in the toolbar or quick-launch, and you can't left-click the Windows Start button. (You can right-click the Start Button, however, for whatever bizarre reason.)
This is not an easy nor a fast problem to fix. There are several ways to try, all of which are very time-consuming, most of which would be intimidating to someone who's not comfortable in Powershell, and none of which will necessarily work. I gave up and created a new profile and moved my stuff into it. Which brings me to:
3. Except for what was limited by Group Policy (which is only available in Pro, by the way), new profiles re-enable the snoopware by default. It is possible to disable it system-wide in Group Policy and/or in the Registry if you plan on having multiple users and want it disabled machine-wide, but it would be extremely tedious.
4. There is no more tapping F8 during boot to get to Safe Mode. The only way to get to Safe Mode, from what I've read (I haven't actually tried it) is to interrupt the boot three times in a row, which is likely to cause even more harm to a damaged system.
Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking can be added as boot options rather easily (as can other options, such as booting to a recovery environment), but unless you do that, those options will not be available to you if and when you need them.
5. The native GUI is still horrid. It's not quite so horrid as the native Win8/8.1 GUI, but it's not much better. It's like the Metro interface with some grudging concessions to people who hated it. Classic Shell fixes that problem, however.
6. Automatic updates are enabled by default. This can only be easily changed in Group Policy Editor, which is only available in Win10Pro and higher. If you've dealt with enough systems that were hosed by an update, then you can understand why this is problematic. I want the opportunity to refresh my backups before installing updates.
7. Windows Defender keeps on checking for signature updates and notifying me to download them even when it's turned off. I have not yet found a way to disable this (but I really haven't tried that hard yet). Also, I know of no easy way to permanently turn off Windows Defender itself other than in the Group Policy Editor, which again is a Pro and higher feature.
Other Observations Based on MyFarting Around Scientific Testing
1. As with other recent versions of Windows, the Administrator account is not available for login by default. This means that if your profile gets hosed and you're the only user, you can't easily boot into another admin profile. The Administrator login can be easily enabled, but you have to do it yourself. If you're the only user, then I suggest you do so.
2. If you like to make hard drive clones, don't assume that your long-beloved software will produce usable copies. In my tests, a clone made by Casper 8.0 failed to boot. A clone made by Macrium did boot.
3. Also, don't assume that the bootable recovery media for your beloved imaging software will work. This is probably more a hardware issue than a software one, but test it first anyway. In my case, a Macrium recovery environment saved to a flash drive worked, but a recovery CD made by the same software did not. I know not why.
4. The only performance problem I've had has been one that also happened on occasion with Win8.1, and it only happened once on 10: Adobe Fireworks sometimes crashes if you try to open a file with it when it's not already running. When this happens, the only thing that seems to fix it is a reboot. The temporary workaround until it's convenient to reboot is to open Fireworks first, then open the files.
In fairness, Adobe hates Fireworks and has basically stopped supporting it. The only reason they even make it available is because enough of us have threatened to cancel our Creative Cloud accounts if they ever pull it. Adobe wants everyone to use Photoshop, which is a great photo editor, but was not designed for the Web like Fireworks was.
Conclusion
Windows 10 Professional runs my current software at least as well as 8.1 does (probably a little better), and legacy software better than 8.1. It's a fast, stable platform for what I do. It has excellent resource management and superb, simple, and largely automated networking that actually works. All in all, it's a competent and capable OS.
Unfortunately, it's marred by snoopware that must be disabled manually, has a horrid GUI, lacks important and customary system recovery options by default (which can be manually added back), has an automatic update feature that can only be disabled in Pro and higher, and has an annoying (and as-yet unsolved) bug that causes the Start Menu / Toolbars / Taskbar / Quick Launch / Search functions to collectively **** the bed from time to time, and which can be very difficult to fix.
My advice, if you want to use Windows 10, is:
1. Use only the Pro version.
2. Disable the snoopware as you see fit, according to your own definitions of what constitutes a privacy violation and/or security risk.
3. I use a local login, not a Microsoft account, as my login. Most (but not all) MS services can be accessed from within a local account if you log in to Microsoft for the session. If you want all your data and settings synced across multiple devices, however, a local account will not do that. (Or at least I don't think it will. I haven't looked into it that deeply.)
4. I personally did not configure One Drive. But then again, I already have all the online storage I could possibly want. One Drive probably is a perfectly good service. I just don't need it.
5. I suggest you refuse Cortana's offer to "get to know you." She'll pout, but she'll get over it. She's tougher than she looks.
6. Disable automatic updates so as to be able to make backups first.
7. Add the Safe Mode and whatever other recovery boot options you love back into the boot options.
8. Enable the Administrator login if you're the only user with an admin account.
9. Make frequent restore points. System restore might fix the Start Menu problem if it occurs.
10. Obtain and test good system backup software, and back up very religiously. In fact, make multiple backups. I make both clones and images of the system drive in addition to online data backups. The one phrase I never heard a client say after a data disaster was, "We have too damn many backups to choose from!"
Rich
As I said before, I'm not a big fan of upgrading an OS that's still in support, works well, and does whatever you need it to do. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has always worked well for me. But when buying or building a new machine, using an OS that has less time left before sunset doesn't make sense unless you have a specific reason for doing so.
I'd been debating building a new machine, buying a new Windows machine, or switching to Mac. A week ago, I decided to take a trip to Micro Center with no specific mission other than fact finding. It's about a two-hour trip from where I live to the nearest Micro Center, but there's no other place even remotely acceptable anywhere closer to me. They're also an authorized Apple seller, so I could compare options. Also, Micro Center has a 15-day no-nonsense return policy that they actually honor.
As for Mac, I like Macs. I like Apple as a company, for the most part. I like iOS as far as stability and security are concerned. I am not a fan of the iOS GUI, but I could live with it if I had to.
But it would be an adjustment for me. I'm used to doing things on Windows. And frankly, Windows works well for me in terms of actually doing what I need done. Win2K was rock solid, XP was okay if you just used it for work and avoided programs that relied on VxDs, Vista was okay if you disabled UAC, and both 7 and 8 were excellent in terms of stability unless you really abused them.
So I looked at Macs, I looked at parts to build a PC, and I looked at factory-made PCs. I bounced to and fro in all three directions for a couple of hours. I even had most of the parts to build a new PC in my cart at one point.
But I ultimately walked out with an HP ProDesk 400 G3 MT because it was on sale for a lower price than I could build or buy a comparable machine. The price was about $75.00 lower than I would have paid for the identical machine with my HP employee discount (compliments of First Tech Fed), and about $125.00 lower than I would have paid for a comparable Lenovo machine with my SUNY faculty discount.
I also liked that it's one of HP's business-class machines, which I've always had good luck with as a user and a consultant. I've found them to be well-made and well-supported, and they don't come with the mounds of crapware that most of HP's consumer-class machines have.
The only thing I would have preferred would have been an i7 processor rather than the i5-6600 (3.3 GHz). But the i5-6600 is at or near the top of the i5 line, and the only software I occasionally use where an i7 would make a difference is Premier, which I use only a few times a year. Also, the mobo will support an i7 if I ever do decide to upgrade.
The computer was manufactured in November of 2015 and came with Win7Pro pre-installed, along with a license and DVD for Win10Pro. I bought a spare hard drive and did a fresh install of Win10Pro with the intent of testing it intensively during the return privilege period. If I didn't like it, I could then return it in salable condition. Barring any major disasters in the next seven days, however, I have decided to keep it.
Having spent a little over a week testing the machine and Win10Pro, here are my observations.
Good Things about Windows 10 Pro
With all the trash-talk about Win10, I thought it only fair to start with some good things about it. Please note that these comments apply to Pro only. There have been so many settings that were only accessible via the Group Policy Editor that I already would have either returned the machine or upgraded to Pro had come with Win10Home.
Here are a things about Win10Pro that I like.
1. It's fast, smooth, and stable, with one annoying exception that I'll get into later.
2. Its legacy software support is far superior to that of Win7 or Win8. I installed some old programs that required Compatibility Mode in Win7 and Win8, but which installed and ran perfectly without it in Win10.
3. Resource management is excellent, especially its multicore processor management. Note, however, that I did a fresh install. From my research, it seems that failure to utilize all available cores and other resource management issues are common problems with upgrades.
4. Anything network-related is a breeze to set up. Network discovery works beautifully. It quickly found, installed, and installed the software for almost every printer and other device on my network very quickly and very automatically. I didn't even need to point it at the IPs. I was impressed.
The only hiccup was with my HP CLJ-3600 printer, which it found, but wasn't sure about which driver to use. I used the Vista driver because it's the one that HP recommends for Win10, but several others that were in the list also would have worked.
5. As far as I can tell, all of the snooping and almost all of the advertising can be fairly-easily disabled. I've been watching my router logs, and I haven't come across anything suspicious since doing so. The only ad I haven't been able to disable is the one on Solitaire, which I really don't care about. Presumably some of the other games and apps also have some ads, but I didn't try most of them, so I can't say for sure.
I won't go into detail about what to disable because it can be found in about a bazillion places on the Interwebs, and because everyone has different definitions of what constitutes a privacy invasion. Because the advertising ID can be completely disabled, I'm mainly concerned about stuff that identifies me and/or might contain information that could be used for identity theft if it were hacked, or stuff that consumes resources for purposes that I don't need. The software I actually use is not ad-supported, so the advertising part of it is pretty much a moot point for me.
Bad Things About Windows 10 Pro
1. I don't like that the snoopware is enabled by default, and I don't like that Microsoft is moving in that direction. Yes, it can be disabled. But I think it should be disabled by default. One Google in the world is enough, thank you.
2. The native Start Menu / Search box has an annoying habit of breaking. When this happens, you can't type into the search box, you can't right-click any shortcuts in the toolbar or quick-launch, and you can't left-click the Windows Start button. (You can right-click the Start Button, however, for whatever bizarre reason.)
This is not an easy nor a fast problem to fix. There are several ways to try, all of which are very time-consuming, most of which would be intimidating to someone who's not comfortable in Powershell, and none of which will necessarily work. I gave up and created a new profile and moved my stuff into it. Which brings me to:
3. Except for what was limited by Group Policy (which is only available in Pro, by the way), new profiles re-enable the snoopware by default. It is possible to disable it system-wide in Group Policy and/or in the Registry if you plan on having multiple users and want it disabled machine-wide, but it would be extremely tedious.
4. There is no more tapping F8 during boot to get to Safe Mode. The only way to get to Safe Mode, from what I've read (I haven't actually tried it) is to interrupt the boot three times in a row, which is likely to cause even more harm to a damaged system.
Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking can be added as boot options rather easily (as can other options, such as booting to a recovery environment), but unless you do that, those options will not be available to you if and when you need them.
5. The native GUI is still horrid. It's not quite so horrid as the native Win8/8.1 GUI, but it's not much better. It's like the Metro interface with some grudging concessions to people who hated it. Classic Shell fixes that problem, however.
6. Automatic updates are enabled by default. This can only be easily changed in Group Policy Editor, which is only available in Win10Pro and higher. If you've dealt with enough systems that were hosed by an update, then you can understand why this is problematic. I want the opportunity to refresh my backups before installing updates.
7. Windows Defender keeps on checking for signature updates and notifying me to download them even when it's turned off. I have not yet found a way to disable this (but I really haven't tried that hard yet). Also, I know of no easy way to permanently turn off Windows Defender itself other than in the Group Policy Editor, which again is a Pro and higher feature.
Other Observations Based on My
1. As with other recent versions of Windows, the Administrator account is not available for login by default. This means that if your profile gets hosed and you're the only user, you can't easily boot into another admin profile. The Administrator login can be easily enabled, but you have to do it yourself. If you're the only user, then I suggest you do so.
2. If you like to make hard drive clones, don't assume that your long-beloved software will produce usable copies. In my tests, a clone made by Casper 8.0 failed to boot. A clone made by Macrium did boot.
3. Also, don't assume that the bootable recovery media for your beloved imaging software will work. This is probably more a hardware issue than a software one, but test it first anyway. In my case, a Macrium recovery environment saved to a flash drive worked, but a recovery CD made by the same software did not. I know not why.
4. The only performance problem I've had has been one that also happened on occasion with Win8.1, and it only happened once on 10: Adobe Fireworks sometimes crashes if you try to open a file with it when it's not already running. When this happens, the only thing that seems to fix it is a reboot. The temporary workaround until it's convenient to reboot is to open Fireworks first, then open the files.
In fairness, Adobe hates Fireworks and has basically stopped supporting it. The only reason they even make it available is because enough of us have threatened to cancel our Creative Cloud accounts if they ever pull it. Adobe wants everyone to use Photoshop, which is a great photo editor, but was not designed for the Web like Fireworks was.
Conclusion
Windows 10 Professional runs my current software at least as well as 8.1 does (probably a little better), and legacy software better than 8.1. It's a fast, stable platform for what I do. It has excellent resource management and superb, simple, and largely automated networking that actually works. All in all, it's a competent and capable OS.
Unfortunately, it's marred by snoopware that must be disabled manually, has a horrid GUI, lacks important and customary system recovery options by default (which can be manually added back), has an automatic update feature that can only be disabled in Pro and higher, and has an annoying (and as-yet unsolved) bug that causes the Start Menu / Toolbars / Taskbar / Quick Launch / Search functions to collectively **** the bed from time to time, and which can be very difficult to fix.
My advice, if you want to use Windows 10, is:
1. Use only the Pro version.
2. Disable the snoopware as you see fit, according to your own definitions of what constitutes a privacy violation and/or security risk.
3. I use a local login, not a Microsoft account, as my login. Most (but not all) MS services can be accessed from within a local account if you log in to Microsoft for the session. If you want all your data and settings synced across multiple devices, however, a local account will not do that. (Or at least I don't think it will. I haven't looked into it that deeply.)
4. I personally did not configure One Drive. But then again, I already have all the online storage I could possibly want. One Drive probably is a perfectly good service. I just don't need it.
5. I suggest you refuse Cortana's offer to "get to know you." She'll pout, but she'll get over it. She's tougher than she looks.
6. Disable automatic updates so as to be able to make backups first.
7. Add the Safe Mode and whatever other recovery boot options you love back into the boot options.
8. Enable the Administrator login if you're the only user with an admin account.
9. Make frequent restore points. System restore might fix the Start Menu problem if it occurs.
10. Obtain and test good system backup software, and back up very religiously. In fact, make multiple backups. I make both clones and images of the system drive in addition to online data backups. The one phrase I never heard a client say after a data disaster was, "We have too damn many backups to choose from!"
Rich
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