Windows 10 task bar icon

[starship_troopers]

Have any of you noticed this? its the little windows 10 logo in the task bar basically saying "reserve your windows 10 upgrade now". I went ahead and reserved it just because why not its a free deal. but who here is actually going to upgrade day one? i read into this little "app" and it basically preloads the install for Win 10 on release day so you can just do an upgrade.

 

personally i want a windows 10 Disc so i can choose when to install it  and make sure i do a fresh install myself.

what are your guys' thoughts on this?

[mudmanc4]

Two things, you know your getting older when 'new' things tech wise seem simply ridiculous, second thing , refer to the first thing ;P 

[Pgoodwin1]

Never load a new OS release on your business or personal prime machine unless you want to be an unpaid Beta tester. And do a full backup before you upgrade.

[starship_troopers]

absolutely. If this were a few years ago before i invested so much money in a desktop i would have jumped on the test builds already as a primary OS just to see if i could break it and have fun on it. but now im not even sure i want to upgrade to win 10 for a while. dont get me wrong it feels/looks awesome but i have two main concerns about the "upgrade program" offered.

 

1, say someone installs win 10 through the upgrade, how do you format since you dont have an actual OS disc? sure you can make back up discs from a fresh install or you could hit the "refresh" button to supposedly format from within the operating system (which doesnt sound like a full format job).

 

2, say my hard drive crashes and i need to have media to install onto a new SSD or HDD, what do i do then? am i SOL and JWF? or what if the fresh release borks something i cant fix without an install disc to start from scratch?

 

im pretty sure there will be an ISO to download from microsoft, but still...what happened to the days of having a disc onhand?

 

plus i was reading some info posted by microsoft support and it was noted that you have approximately 5 rearms with your activation key then you may need to call technical support after that. ...why??

 

just to rub it in a bit more, the way the upgrade works is the genuine key you use for windows 7/8.1 is auto keyed in the ISO you are using to upgrade with and your whole account syncs with the cloud by default....seems to me that i want my privacy and i want to default have that BS off by default not on.

 

dont get me wrong i want to like windows 10, but the more i read about it and the more i read the fine print i have to stop and think to myself about getting back into linux distros and try out OpenSuse again haha.

[sparky]

Yeah, it appeared on mine a few days ago, I clicked it and went through the motions.... THEN IT CRASHED!.  Is this the sign of things to come?, I do hope not...

[mudmanc4]

If it is free, you are the product

 

As for the 5 'rearms' as stated before making that automated call to Microsoft, it's been this way, at the least since XP was let out in the wild, and likely win 2K

 

PC is non relevant to the point of personal computing is going the way of the Dodo. Underlying technology is more or less the same, however the networking itself is becoming 'community'. Users have fallen for the term coined 'the cloud', which in essence is anything that can be accessed on a network, nothing special of different there. Hence why OS developers have taken to deleting hardware software , to the point your data is included in 'the cloud'. Or on someone els's machine, settling down cozy in a datacenter. Reformat, does not appear a 'end user' solution is yet viable in this scenerio. If your into service calls to the average user, they have no experience in re imaging their machine, let alone even shipped a hard copy of said image. Not forgetting the knowledge of what is meant by ISO or image.

 

The inherent lazy gene is taking over, in general people could care less. So long as they can email and facebook, of course there are many that use accounting software either at home of work, and this is about as far as their knowledge extends. Do it to get a paycheck, done and where are we getting together this evening.

 

Enviornmentalists have played a large roll here, or the agenda itself to keep it clear. No more boxes and disks in the trash, and truth be told, makes sense. adding a recovery parition was the start, OS essentials stored locally accessed on boot if needed to repair system files.

 

The future here is more than clear. 'netbook' will eventually become the standard, OS as a service. One, centralised 'operating service running 'in the cloud', basic BIOS locally for networking and hardware associations, each and every 'application' as a service accessed 'in the cloud', while all data created or required is as well networked. One system, we'll simply be allocated an allotment of resources depending on our personalised requirements.

 

add: If you think about it, it's already here and been here for a long time. As each machine, yours, mine, his and hers, is no more than a node of the core, which requires updating, hence 'wiondows update' , connect to the repo and see what is not there, that should be, what has changed which requires updating to the latest version. And you don't use the software / hardware, unless the specific licence is speaking the the server{s}

[sparky]

People really are dumbing down, I think something is in the water.  People are lazy, ignorant and just don't give a crap anymore.  lol

[starship_troopers]

the whole "windows as a service' im pretty sure is what they are going for. they even talked about some kind of subscription model. that would be a huge money maker as people would just say "oh you want more money and it means i dont have to learn a new OS, sure".  then again most of the time if i help someone with a pc problem they describe it as "yeah my version of windows is Dell". or something similar. so i get what you guys are saying about the lazy public.

 

cloud storage is complete BS, sure its a server you send things to to save data, but with the cloud name its a brand new exciting thing that people want to use to store everything. personally i dont feel that way and have opted out of as much of this "every device connected as one" mentality as i could, but it never ends. only getting worse as far as i can tell.

 

as far as having an OS disc, or at least an ISO i can download, i still cant figure out if they will offer that or not without trying to get behind a pay wall, but more than likely thats how it will be. it is designed to get the most money from the average consumer because they are too stubborn or lazy to learn how a computer actually works. im no expert myself, very very far from it, but i at least try to research and learn as much as i can, not just say "take my money!!!".

 

also, the 5 rearm thing has been here all along? i've never encountered this myself, good to know though. just in case of future problems.

[sparky]

Cloud storage, well it's not good for everyone.  People with slow internet is one type, people that do not want their stuff stored on a shared server is another.  Me, I fit into both categories... yuk, no thank you.

[mudmanc4]

The cloud has been used to the point of idiocy, instead of a server, even if it's a VM is now some fantasy item called the cloud. Oo

 

If you installed or should I say activated, a windows OS more than 5 times, give or take, you had to call in an automated system to toss you a new key, is this the same thing as what is now being called 're arm' ? 

[starship_troopers]

weird thing about the re arm deal. i've reinstalled windows 7 numerous times and never had to mess with anything. it has always accepted my key. and i've used windows 7 since RC1 lol. needless to say my tinkering with stuff usually leads me to a format.

[mudmanc4]

weird thing about the re arm deal. i've reinstalled windows 7 numerous times and never had to mess with anything. it has always accepted my key. and i've used windows 7 since RC1 lol. needless to say my tinkering with stuff usually leads me to a format.

My first thought, not having imaged repeatedly the same OS/disk of 7, would be microsoft has implemented something to the effect of mac address storage, along with whatever machine ID they can gather. In terms of manufacturer ID , proc, core system devices i should say.  

 

If you care to test this for us, next time, change the NIC between re imaging. 

[mudmanc4]

Anyone else have input on the free windows 10 garb? Again myop is if it is free, you are the product in the sense of such softwares. 

 

Last year when the windows 10 keylogger issue came up, Microsoft quickly released a notice claiming the following:

 

When you acquire, install and use the Program, Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage. For example, when you:

• install the Program, we may collect information about your device and applications and use it for purposes such as determining or improving compatibility,
• use voice input features like speech-to-text, we may collect voice information and use it for purposes such as improving speech processing,
• open a file, we may collect information about the file, the application used to open the file, and how long it takes any use it for purposes such as improving performance, or
• enter text, we may collect typed characters and use them for purposes such as improving autocomplete and spellcheck features.

 

and then.......

 

 

 

We must stress that the feedback being collected in the Windows Technical Preview will only occur within the Technical Preview period. Once Windows 10 launches to the public as RTM, the data Microsoft collects will be removed from the operating system. This isn't a permanent feature within Windows 10, and therefore should not be a concern to your average Joe.

 

 

Of course beta releases are setup this way. So duh-me? 

 

At any rate, hence moving you to that dreaded overused washed up, and in fact my opinion, complete and utter misrepresentation of reality, "the cloud" and OS as a service, still, does not appeal to me in any sense. Have I grabbed the preview, yes, have I used it, no, will I, dunno. 

 

Will I cram this on each box in the place, oh hell no. Slowly moving everyone to Debian. No reason not to, none at all. Unless I were somehow hooked to Microsoft, which I am not, I only use them here to continue my ability in repair for clients. 

 

Moved one person to Debian Jessie, he logs on and says " whoa what did you do to my desktop, cool" , and has yet to file a ticket in the last two weeks. never even taking notice it's no longer windows. Yet all his documents and office programs are a little different yet accomplish the very same thing, only much more easily. aka=LibreOffice (his words not mine)

[Sean]

I plan installing it on my laptop, which currently has Windows 8.1.  I generally only use my laptop while away from home, such as visiting my brother for a weekend.  Like Windows 8.1, it will give me experience of using it.  I'm an IT technician at work, so it's handy knowing my way around the OS for when someone has an issue.

 

My desktop PC is dual-boot Windows 7 and 8.1.  I bought the Windows 8.1 pro upgrade when Microsoft ran the €30 promotion, but deliberately installed it to a second partition.  I very seldom boot into it and only recently did so to reserve the Windows 10 in it also. 

 

From what I heard, the Windows 10 upgrade will provide the ability to do a clean install.  Going by this article, once the upgrade is available, a Windows 10 key will be provided and can be used to install the OS without the requirement of having Windows 7 or 8.1 preinstalled. 

 

Based on my experience with the Windows 8 upgrade, it took two attempts to install it as a clean installation on my laptop as I changed the hard disk with an SSD and obviously didn't want to go through the hassle of transferring the original bloated OEM Windows 7 installation first.  When I first installed Windows 8, it failed to activate and Windows updates kept failing in a loop.  So what I did was boot the Windows 8 installation again, deleted the partition in its disk management and let it install on the blank SSD.  It then installed, activated fine and is still working to this date, obviously since updated to 8.1. 

 

I think what happened with the second attempt is that the Windows 8 installation saw there was already an existing Windows installation (despite being the failed Windows 8 installation) and treated this installation as an upgrade even though I deleted the existing partition.  This tip might come in handy if anyone else here would like to install their Windows 8 upgrade from scratch, i.e. install Windows 8, then when it completes boot the Windows 8 installation again, delete the partition and install again. On an SSD, a full installation only takes about 10 minutes anyway.

 

I've tried the Windows 10 preview, but so far didn't see too much exciting about it other than it's bringing back the start menu.  It is nice that it's finally allowing apps to be run as resizable Windows, a bit like going from Windows 1.0 to 2.0 for those that remember the times.

 

As for the cloud, I don't really trust it for keeping data safe.  All it takes is for a provider to go out of business and then it's good luck trying to get your data back!  One thing I really wish is that cloud providers would provide the ability to map the cloud storage as a drive letter rather than depend on a sync product and their web interface, especially for quickly retrieving certain files on another computer that doesn't have the sync product installed.  Microsoft's OneDrive is the only product I've seen that can be mapped as network drive letter (even its free version) although performance is obviously like using a mapped network drive over a Workplace VPN connection.