From the Dark Side
by Tiny Ruisch
Tom wrote an article for the Newsletter titled “More Microsoft Aggravations”. I’ll state for the record that I am not in total agreement with him. I’m leaning towards being much more maddened than he is. It has been slowly building up for two years now. I’ll be happy to tell you why.
Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015. At that time I was running Windows 7 Professional on my desktop, Windows 7 Home on my laptop, Windows XP on an old desktop that I was using as a server, Windows 8.1 on a tablet, an older laptop with Linux Ubuntu and a laptop with the Windows 10 beta test (the club may remember me demonstrating the new OS with this machine in August 2015). With the exception of the tablet, I used all the machines almost daily.
I decided that I wasn’t going to upgrade my Windows 7 machines. This was partly because they were (and still are) both aging and I didn’t think Windows 10 would work well on them. Besides, I had spent seven years getting my desktop setup just the way I like it. Being only five years old, my laptop wasn’t quite so ancient. I still think I made the correct decision as both machines still run fairly well. In the past, I’ve written several articles on my maintenance and upkeep procedures.
With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft changed their marketing strategies. It wasn’t long before they released the (in)famous GWX update that attempted to install the new operating system on every computer in the world. There was a lot of deceit and trickery involved. Many people had a new OS installed even if they didn’t want it.
In the intervening two years I’ve purchased the Nextbook 11, a convertible tablet. It runs Windows 10 home and works well for my portability needs. My Windows 7 desktop and laptop are still my two main productivity machines. The laptop with the Windows 10 fast ring sits unused waiting for me to put a linux distribution on it. I’m thinking of turning it into a media server.
I find myself getting more upset with the Microsoft Windows world almost every day. I can’t say that there is any single, glaring thing, but instead a bunch of small aggravations.
- Updates install programs that I don’t want or need.
- Updates remove programs that I use.
- File associations getting changed.
- Getting unwanted advertisements (oops! Notifications).
- Difficulty in navigating Windows settings.
- Not having control over my hardware drivers.
These are just a few of the most noticeable gripes that I have. It doesn’t appear that things will improve in the near future. Maybe I will be surprised, but I’m thinking that things will get worse before they get better.
Linux is looking better every day.
Thanks for reading.