My Windows 10 Update Experience

Just like millions of others, I tried the free upgrade to Windows 10. I waited a few weeks after it was available before trying it, just to see what the early fallout was before committing myself. It was pretty much a disaster.

On my system it was

  • Too buggy
  • Too slow
  • Too nosy

Let’s start with the upgrade experience itself. I have a reasonably powerful system:

  • Intel i7 running at 3.4Ghz
  • 16 Gb RAM
  • Recently upgraded NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 with 4 Gb video RAM
  • A few high-performance hard drives with capacities ranging from 1 - 4 TB.
  • Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit

I run this system dual-boot with Ubuntu Linux.

After doing a complete backup, I followed the on-screen instructions. I did the custom upgrade, setting all of the privacy settings to reflect actual privacy. The upgrade process was straightforward, but took several hours for some reason.

When the upgrade was complete, I was pleasantly surprised that the Linux boot manager had not been overwritten – I could still boot into either Linux or Windows. The boot into Windows was relatively quick too. Things looked attractive and the new start menu was interesting. Most programs appeared to have been migrated successfully. User accounts seemed to be migrated correctly as well.

The first issues appeared when trying to do searches from the start menu. Searches would start, but never finish. There would be a notification that search was continuing but they never completed, even after running for hours.

Then the slowness began to manifest. Just switching from one window to another would take several seconds to minutes. Sometimes the windows would just go to black, un-painting themselves for no apparent reason.

We spent a few days dealing with this thinking things might get better. In the meantime we kept reading about all the privacy issues with the new Windows sending on information that it had been told not to or “forgetting” the privacy settings put in place earlier.

There were also some driver issues. The annoying one for me was that there was no Windows 10 compatible driver for my Fujitsu ScanSanp scanner. I use that scanner a lot, trying to become relatively paper free. This probably isn’t Microsoft’s fault – Fujitsu is responsible for the driver for their scanner, but just another glitch to deal with. (As far as I can tell, Fujitsu still has not provided a Windows 10 driver.)

After a few days, the start menu would not work at all for my admin account. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We decided to revert back to Windows 7. But without a start menu on the admin account there was no way to do it. Luckily, I was able to convert my wife’s user account to an admin. Finally got the rollback to work.

Since then, things have been running fine back on Windows 7. There is really nothing about Windows 10 that I miss.

The Privacy Mess

It just seems to keep getting worse. My government believes it has a right to surveil me. So does my computer and the web sites I visit. I don’t use a smart phone, so maybe that isn’t an issue, but I doubt it.

My machine is my own. It is not a platform for OS vendors (or anyone else) to shove advertising at me. Period. My machine works for me, not you. I don’t care if you think you are providing me with a “service”. If I didn’t ask for it, I don’t want it. And I am greatly offended if you take it upon yourself to decide that you have some right to my information, attention and time.

I know web sites, Mac OS, Linux and others also violate this, but Windows 10 is just so egregious. It looks like version 7 will be the last version of Windows I ever use. I’ve already started the process of looking at new machines. Windows won’t be on whatever I end up with unless something fundamentally changes.