The biggest barrier to Windows 10 success is still Windows 7

ZDNet ^ | Jan 22, 2017 | Steve Ranger

[Taxman]

Thanks for the explanation, Bob434. I can certainly understand why many folks might resent that sort of “Microsoft has more control of my computer than I do” sentiment. I’m not a hard core cumputerist, so it is not that much of a concern to me.

As I said “So far, so good.” If Win 10 “features” begin to piss me off, I’ll re-install Win 7.

[Taxman]

How, then, are you preventing this information sharing?

[dayglored]

> ... if I install Classic Shell and disable (to the extent possible) a bunch of the privacy "features" of W10, do you think I will ~more or less~ have a similar experience?

More or less, yeah. You'll still have to either accept the Metro UI's goofy wide window borders and huge, ugly buttons, or find a way to make them more like the older UIs. I imagine there are third-party add-ons that can do that (or perhaps Classic Shell can do it, I haven't looked that far into it yet).

I would say, you can get close enough that you won't constantly feel like puking and/or screaming, which is a huge improvement. As time goes on I expect to seek and discover ways to further "brain damage" the UI back into a more suitable presentation, and I'll share them here with the Windows Ping List folks for discussion.

[Chode]

that's the problem, i don't know if you can. W10 calls home almost everyday and reports all manor of things

dayglored knows chapter and verse what's what and how to turn off as much as possible and i'm sure he'd be happy to advise

[dayglored]

There have been many FR threads in the past year that deal in great detail with the Windows 10 telemetry (a.k.a. spyware) and how to turn it off. I recommend you follow this FR search link for keyword "windowspinglist" and then either peruse the thread titles, or refine the search further for things like "security", "telemetry", "spyware", and so on.

[dayglored]

Classic Shell’s settings for “Skin” give you some options for how the windows look. I usually set for either “none” or “classic”.

[Chode]

thank you!

[Bob434]

well i don;t resent that they took control away- they are of course free to do that- but what i am conferenced with in regards to windows 10 is the privacy issues- these two issues pushed me to linux- the major issue being the privacy issue- (Not that i expect completely private online experience, but I certainly don’t want my os making it an open book by forcing changes that I can’t opt out of- The loss of control over the updates was a 50-50 deal with me- I understood why they implemented it for those that aren’t more computer savvy- but at the same time, I didn’t like that updates break things and we can’t control whether they get broken or not like we could under previous windows os’s by learning about each update, and opting either to install or not- knowing what it could potentially break

While not a huge deal- there are always some updates that cause issues, sometimes serious issues- and they don’t always get fixed right away-

For instance, i ran norton’s internet security and an update caused the dang computer to go into sleep mode every 15 minutes of downtime- it was super annoying and hard to wake hte computer back up without rebooting at one point (till i learned how to do it through workarounds)

It took a long time to even figure out what caused the problem, and once i did I was able to uninstall the offending MS update KB and block it until MS fixed the issue many months later- The issue was well documented and discussed on FR awhile back- as many people used Norton’s and didn’t know what the heck was happening- it was a classic example of an update breaking things-

I also didn’t like having to go through many settings in windows 10 to turn off the phone home actions- only to have all my preferences changed back to fully on gain at next update- That’s a little intrusive when they start over riding your preferences-

Well, I’m not trying to talk you our of MS- of course- just relaying the reasons why i personally chose to dual boot using linux as main online os, and use windows 7 instead of 10 in the secondary boot os

[Bob434]

Yes you can- although there will still be soem phone home crap that you won’t be able to turn off and you will just have to trust that Ms ‘won’t do anything nefarious’ with hte info they gather

Classic shell is an absolute must when i ran windows 10- it made everything familiar again, just like i liked it- I don’t use any style of menu- setting it to ‘none’ and i get a nice clean folder type flyout menu just as i like- just like the classic view in windows 7

You won’t be disappointed with classic shell- it turns the ugly menus beautiful again

[daniel1212]

Win 10 dropped the ‘classic’ theme after an early release.

Windows never offered the ‘classic’ theme I referred to, which is a well known 3rd party application, classic shell, which works on W/10.

The other themes just did not have the same feel. Borders were unclear, scroll bars were tiny and difficult to use. It was a mess that was not worth fooling with.

Then try Winaero Tweaker

Hope these help. Grace and peace thru Jesus the Lord.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have both. Win10 is really no better than Win7 although it is loads better the Win8.

The problem with Win10 (on my laptop) is the amount of time I am denied use of the laptop because the stupid thing is updating.

Right now it has been "updating" since I turned it on this morning. An update should not take over eight hours.

[Taxman]

Thanks for your interest in clarifying the Win 10 situation.

I have not experienced many of the problems you mentioned, and the ones I have experienced I have been able to correct.

I looked into Linux a few months ago, and decided that installing Linux was well above my understanding and abilities.

I AM annoyed at MS intrusiveness, but short of going to a Linux or Apple OS, I don’t know that there is much I can do about it except be VEWWY CAREFUL!

[Taxman]

Thanks! I’ll check it out.

[Bob434]

lol, it’s not really difficult, linux will install right alongside windows for a dual boot situation, or install on it’s own as easily as windows installs- but again, not trying to sell you on the idea- just pointing out it’s pretty easy- the hardest part is burning an .ISO disk, but even that’s not hard-

Did you try linux at all? If you just wanted to try it, You can burn an .ISO disk and run it without installing it actually- (you just have to keep booting up into the disk if you wanna keep using it- and youting up into the disk if you wanna keep using it- and you ill lose all your custom settings because it’s not actually installed, just running off the disk- it’;s very safe to do- nothing gets installed)

If you were interested in checking it out- I would suggest linux mint cinnamon edition for a close match to windows- it will run a bit slower from the disk, but it’s fun to check out- and plenty usable, you can even go online with it- even install your mail client and check mail if you want but you’ll lose whatever you install as soon as you reboot- because it sets it all up in virtual memory- which gets wiped out upon reboot- no changes will be made to your computer-

I’ve checked out an umber of different ‘flavors’ of linux this way- but always go back to linux mint cinnamon edition- I’ve found it very easy to use- the other flavors are a bit more complicated- and I’m too old to learn the geeky linux stuff-

aNYways- there’s pros and cons to both os’es windows and linux- one big pro for me about linux was the fact that there aren’t nearly as many viruses out there as there are for windows- There are a few of course, but it would be like the chances of getting struck by lightening to get one almost- so nice to go to a website and not be immediately redirected to an infected site or malicious code or whatever- That’s been a peace of mind to me- much more so than with windows- it seemed like it was happening constantly with windows=- bam- virus detected- malware detected- possible Trojan found on site- etc- it got to be a chore combatting the issues-

anyways- yeah, there isn’t much in the way of good alternative choice to windows really- linux has some pros- but some cons too- mac you can i think use some windows program on it? Not sure- and many softwares are made both for windows and mac- whereas that’s not the case so much for linux-

[CyberAnt]

FINE - TAKE WINDOWS 7 - AND GIVE ME BACK WINDOWS-XP

OTHERWISE .. SHUT UP.

[dayglored]

> FINE - TAKE WINDOWS 7 - AND GIVE ME BACK WINDOWS-XP OTHERWISE .. SHUT UP.

No need to shut up. :-)

XP is just as easy to run these days as 7 or 8.1 or 10.

Option #1 -- Run it on older hardware (because newer hardware typically needs newer drivers, and most manufacturers aren't compiling drivers for WinXP these days).

Option #2 (what I do) -- Run something else (Windows, Linux, or MacOS) and install a virtualization package like VMware or VirtualBox, and make a virtual machine (VM) of WinXP. Runs great, and the "drivers" available in the virtualization packages will not only work with WinXP, they'll generally work fine with Win2K or even ancient systems like Win98.

I've got programs that only run on WinXP, and they run fine in the VM. There's no reason you can't do it too. Let me know if you have questions.

[CyberAnt]

Well, I have a book which is telling me that I can adjust some of the items on Win7 .. which will basically convert it to XP.

I’m not sure I want to mess with it .. and then have to try to get Win7 back again.

Oh yeah, I was not telling you to shut up .. I was really talking to Microsoft.

[dayglored]

> ... I can adjust some of the items on Win7 .. which will basically convert it to XP.

It's certainly true that you can get Win7 to look and act -- superficially -- a lot like XP. I do that every time I set up a new system for my own use.

But be aware that it's superficial -- look and feel, not actual operation. Under the hood, Win7 is still WinVista, but done correctly. It's not XP, and in some posisbly important ways, will not act like XP. For one thing, the security and permissions are much tighter than on XP, so some things require authorization. And some tools are different (they're like the Vista versions, not the XP versions), for example the "QuickLaunch" feature of XP.

That said, you can get Win7 to look and feel very close to XP, and really, that's what you want. IMO it's the best of both worlds -- the security of 7 with the UI of XP.