Friday 21 August 2015

Lovely Windows 10

I have been running Windows 10 for several days and in all honesty I like it. Yes, it has the odd quirk that will be addressed in the next update no doubt, but on the whole the cross-over has been painless and relatively smooth.


The download and installation itself took around 3 - 4 hours. Then once that was done I would guess a further three hours to fiddle with, and tweak Windows 10 to my way of doing things and visual taste.

One aspect I do like is the login. Windows 10 requires that you set up a password to access your pc after boot up. Once this is done you will need to create (if you do not have one already) a Microsoft account, and when all complete your password will be replaced by a four digit PIN set by you.

When typing in your PIN no other action is required, as Windows 10 fires up as soonas the last number is typed in. Regarding its visual aspect: it's a cross between the flat basic style of Windows 98 and the 'trendy' styling of Windows 8. There is the tiling to contend with but at least we have the Start Up menu back when you click on the Windows icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.

The 'real' Cortana from the Halo series of games by Microsoft.
 Cortana was something I was looking forward to, but she's proved tobe rather lacklustre and a tad boring. So if you have dreams of chit-chatting to your machine on lonely nights, forget it. She is a basic, voice command search tool. Setting Cortana up was a bit of a pain, as they (Microsoft) require it-Cortana-has access to your Microsoft account and location in order to function in 'serving your needs'. What they fail to explain clearly is that when prompted by Cortana in text to, "Enter your old password for the last time", they don't mean the password for the Microsoft account you've created, but your Windos LOGIN password. I'm glad Cortana isn't interactive on an AI level, as all the swearing and cursing I did in setting it up would have had her wailing.

Windows 10 is definitely a step in the right direction, from my point of view, at least; a nice touch is that it actively monitors your system to check performance and alerts you if certain processes are running too high and are in danger of slowing down your system's performance.

But such things always have a double-edged aspect. I read recently that Windows 10 will also (as to exactly how true this part is I cannot say) be able to detect, and disable, illegal software running on your system. Only time will tell if this is actually true and how much of a backlash it might cause for Microsoft?

So, in conclusion, Windows 10 is, on the whole, a very positive experience for me - mysystem boots up quicker, shuts down faster and various applications now run smoother and a bit quicker: YouTube especially seems to benefit from this.

If I had to score it out of 10 I would give it a 7. Why not higher? you might ask. Only because I'm curious as to see how this develops as Microsoft tweak it. Oh, and something you should know, if you don't like Windows 10 you only have 30 days within which to revert back to your original OS. So keep that in mind. Have fun  :)

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