No real hassles here. I upgraded rather than clean-installed, however.
I quite like it - it seems like the OS 8 should have been in the first place.
Windows 9 is now Windows 10
Windows Edge is a fairly competent browser but I'm currently debating whether I can stick with it. Dragging a tab out into a window of its own can be done far too easily, as even a quick click as the mouse moves is enough for it to separate. Getting it to stick back to the other window again can be a bit awkward at times too, as sometimes it will display a symbol to show that it cannot do it, and it'll be a few tries until it does. When a tab does reattach to the rest of the group again, the window that housed the split tab doesn't close, so a few times I've had to close the three or four extra instances of Edge that have been running as a result of the split/rejoin of tabs.
Almost daily updates have been coming out for Windows 10 this week, including a 300MB-ish update which some are already dubbing 'Windows 10 SR1', and Microsoft have advised there will be major updates weekly for the first month or so. All in all, it does seem to have been rushed out before it's quite ready in order to hit the back to school season, this schedule of updating is a far cry from a monthly patch Tuesday and Windows 10 RTM certainly isn't like any RTM release they've done before. There's still loads of hangovers from the technical preview still around - advanced options in Windows Update still has the option to 'uninstall latest preview build', Internet Explorer still has the sad face icon to report websites which don't work properly in it etc etc.
And on the matter of enforced updates, it turns out that (for the Pro edition at least) it's not so big a deal to control them after all - all of the traditional update options, including the one to review and choose which updates to download which I've always used can still be hard set using Group Policy Editor, over-riding the (lack of) choices exposed in the UI. Nothing similar has come out for the Home edition yet (although someone has pointed out that if you set your network connection to 'metered', then it won't download any updates until you 'unmeter' it, but that still gives no control over what is downloaded).
And on the matter of enforced updates, it turns out that (for the Pro edition at least) it's not so big a deal to control them after all - all of the traditional update options, including the one to review and choose which updates to download which I've always used can still be hard set using Group Policy Editor, over-riding the (lack of) choices exposed in the UI. Nothing similar has come out for the Home edition yet (although someone has pointed out that if you set your network connection to 'metered', then it won't download any updates until you 'unmeter' it, but that still gives no control over what is downloaded).
Update went super smooth, although had to force it to upgrade by deleting the Windows Update cache in Win 7
Biggest annoyance so far is that the time and date in the taskbar are in US format despite other time/date stuff being in UK.
Very sloppy
Biggest annoyance so far is that the time and date in the taskbar are in US format despite other time/date stuff being in UK.
Very sloppy
"He has to be larger than bacon"
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Nick Harvey
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Had similar on one of mine. Make sure you "remove" the US language pack, or you'll permanently have "ENG" stuck down next to the clock.
Anyone else have issues getting Cortana to work? I've got everything installed and set to English UK, but get told that it's not available in the language I've selected?
On the subject of updates, turns out my little hack wasn't so great afterall. It does indeed now ask before downloading and installing updates, but infuriatingly this also applies to definition updates for Defender so I get prompted daily to install updates (in Windows 7 security essentials will still update definitions automatically regardless of Windows Update settings), but also when it does find updates the only option is to install everything it wants, you can't pick and choose.
An issue with Windows Update which still isn't fixed is that the updater for Microsoft Office has no intelligence - it just pulls down every update for the version of Office you have, including for programs that aren't even installed - I have never in my life installed Project, Infopath or Visio but it still wants to pull down updates for these applications. A lot of disk space is going to get wasted here when there's no option not to install these.
Has anyone yet played with the Enterprise version and seen whether that gives you the option to pick updates, or does 'control over updates' merely do what I've done through group policy?
All in all though, it's going pretty well. Planning a few system upgrades for my main system at the end of the month and will probably move it over then.
On the subject of updates, turns out my little hack wasn't so great afterall. It does indeed now ask before downloading and installing updates, but infuriatingly this also applies to definition updates for Defender so I get prompted daily to install updates (in Windows 7 security essentials will still update definitions automatically regardless of Windows Update settings), but also when it does find updates the only option is to install everything it wants, you can't pick and choose.
An issue with Windows Update which still isn't fixed is that the updater for Microsoft Office has no intelligence - it just pulls down every update for the version of Office you have, including for programs that aren't even installed - I have never in my life installed Project, Infopath or Visio but it still wants to pull down updates for these applications. A lot of disk space is going to get wasted here when there's no option not to install these.
Has anyone yet played with the Enterprise version and seen whether that gives you the option to pick updates, or does 'control over updates' merely do what I've done through group policy?
All in all though, it's going pretty well. Planning a few system upgrades for my main system at the end of the month and will probably move it over then.
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Martin Phillp
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- Joined: Wed 11 May, 2011 01.28
As far as I'm aware, Cortana is still not available for English UK users.cwathen wrote:Anyone else have issues getting Cortana to work? I've got everything installed and set to English UK, but get told that it's not available in the language I've selected?
TVF's London Lite.
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Nick Harvey
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- Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 22.26
- Location: Deepest Wiltshire
- Contact:
Cortana *does* work for English UK. We ('er indoors, actually) has got it working on her ex-W7 machine.
The trick is to hunt down the obscure, little used, language setting, that's still set to English US, and change that to UK as well.
Cortana only works if every single language setting is set the same, and I never realised there were so many different ones till we went hunting. The one we found to still be on US was something to do with handwriting, something we've never used, so never looked at.
I've got Cortana firmly turned off on my ex-W8.1 machine. The last thing I want is some woman starting up and nagging me while I'm on the wireless!
One little problem I *have* found, however (if you're not an AVG user, look away now).
The security's much tighter in W10. If you manually start, what you think is, a whole computer scan, in AVG, it *doesn't* scan any files belonging to users other than the one under which you manually started the scan.
The only way, now, to do a *real* whole computer scan, is to schedule it to run automatically, so it starts in the System user, and therefore gets access to files belonging to *all* the users on the machine.
The trick is to hunt down the obscure, little used, language setting, that's still set to English US, and change that to UK as well.
Cortana only works if every single language setting is set the same, and I never realised there were so many different ones till we went hunting. The one we found to still be on US was something to do with handwriting, something we've never used, so never looked at.
I've got Cortana firmly turned off on my ex-W8.1 machine. The last thing I want is some woman starting up and nagging me while I'm on the wireless!
One little problem I *have* found, however (if you're not an AVG user, look away now).
The security's much tighter in W10. If you manually start, what you think is, a whole computer scan, in AVG, it *doesn't* scan any files belonging to users other than the one under which you manually started the scan.
The only way, now, to do a *real* whole computer scan, is to schedule it to run automatically, so it starts in the System user, and therefore gets access to files belonging to *all* the users on the machine.
The whole language setting thing managed to confuse me a fair bit - from the off things were set to English UK, but I had the US keyboard. Control Panel (as keyboard settings weren't moved into PC settings) was telling me that I only had one language in use and that it was UK English, and in keyboard language it said English UK. By accident I eventually clicked on the language icon in the status bar and it gave me the option between English UK (US Keyboard) and English UK (United Kingdom Keyboard), so now things are fixed on that front.
As for Cortana, I'm a bit confused as to how she works. I've got it set to always respond to 'Hey Cortana' and have let it learn my voice and whatnot, but she seems to work on random occasions. She popped up uninvited when I was in the middle of a Skype call a few days ago, but otherwise it doesn't start-up when you give it the audio cue, although if you manually start speech recognition it hears everything fine. On a perhaps related note, Audacity now needs me to tell it whether to record and playback audio from my headphones or my speakers - before it did this automatically.
As for Cortana, I'm a bit confused as to how she works. I've got it set to always respond to 'Hey Cortana' and have let it learn my voice and whatnot, but she seems to work on random occasions. She popped up uninvited when I was in the middle of a Skype call a few days ago, but otherwise it doesn't start-up when you give it the audio cue, although if you manually start speech recognition it hears everything fine. On a perhaps related note, Audacity now needs me to tell it whether to record and playback audio from my headphones or my speakers - before it did this automatically.
As promised, Microsoft have pushed out an update to Windows RT (users of which will get left behind, as there is no Windows 10 upgrade path for these devices) which includes a Start Menu.
What was slightly surprising is that what they've delivered is the original Start Menu that was in the early builds of Windows 10 (and which is still in Windows Server 2016 preview builds)...the one which Microsoft got flamed alive for scrapping and replacing it with what we've ended up with yet refused to comment at all on all the negative feedback. The earlier version was IMO better in 3 fundamental ways:
* It was 'native' - as with every other previous start menu it was part of the code for Explorer rather than being essentially a launcher app as the final version was. The benefit here is that it always appears instantly on any device, rather than the lag you get in Windows 10 on slow devices. The effect on my netbook is so extreme that if it's being particularly taxed than I'm already in the habit of just hitting Win+R to get the Run box and directly type in the command line to the program I want to run rather than bother with using the start menu.
* You can pin apps to the left hand column, in Windows 10 you can only pin apps as tiles on the right hand side.
* You have the option to display folders first in the all apps view as with every other start menu going back to Windows 95, rather than the Windows 10 way of mixing them in the alphabetical list and giving you no other choice.
Here's hoping this will eventually be dressed up as a 'corporate' start menu and pushed (back) out to Windows 10 as an option too.
Apart from that though, Windows 10 seems to be settling down nicely. There are still weekly updates coming out, but they're not as huge as they were at the start. No real stability or compatibility problems to speak of, they've done pretty well here.
What was slightly surprising is that what they've delivered is the original Start Menu that was in the early builds of Windows 10 (and which is still in Windows Server 2016 preview builds)...the one which Microsoft got flamed alive for scrapping and replacing it with what we've ended up with yet refused to comment at all on all the negative feedback. The earlier version was IMO better in 3 fundamental ways:
* It was 'native' - as with every other previous start menu it was part of the code for Explorer rather than being essentially a launcher app as the final version was. The benefit here is that it always appears instantly on any device, rather than the lag you get in Windows 10 on slow devices. The effect on my netbook is so extreme that if it's being particularly taxed than I'm already in the habit of just hitting Win+R to get the Run box and directly type in the command line to the program I want to run rather than bother with using the start menu.
* You can pin apps to the left hand column, in Windows 10 you can only pin apps as tiles on the right hand side.
* You have the option to display folders first in the all apps view as with every other start menu going back to Windows 95, rather than the Windows 10 way of mixing them in the alphabetical list and giving you no other choice.
Here's hoping this will eventually be dressed up as a 'corporate' start menu and pushed (back) out to Windows 10 as an option too.
Apart from that though, Windows 10 seems to be settling down nicely. There are still weekly updates coming out, but they're not as huge as they were at the start. No real stability or compatibility problems to speak of, they've done pretty well here.