Windows 10, The Continuing Adventure

[Bad Penny II]

There are still ISPs who limit traffic out there..? Or are you on one of them wireless links?

There was and is no broadband available on the copper land line that comes to my house, I cancelled the phone service a few years back.

In 2007 a Labor government was elected with a grand plan for a national broadband network, fibre to the home for most, some satellite and fixed wireless the likes of me probably. 

Still waiting, good times are coming though.

So it's a tethered mobile phone, or create a wireless hotspot, then you can set it as metered connection.
$17.33 a month for enough phone and 3.33GB of data, I can live with that but I don't like MS having free reign with it.  There was a 900mb update about a month ago, with the anniversary release so close, I didn't appreciate that.

Windows 10 has taken control out of the hands of the users, especially for home edition folk.  I don't like that.

[Bad Penny II]

I disagree with Microsoft's decision that the customer is always right and therefore deserves a start button to begin with. There is a Windows-key on every modern keyboard (Yes, even the Apple ones, although it's a different key)

I didn't like their decision to disregard customer preference and force a UI change (Win8) that was in my opinion ugly and inefficient. 
There are a range of different customers, some may spend 16 hours a day taping away others may only use it an hour a week.  Do the light users deserve to be disregarded?  They may have taken a course to learn how to use the new fangled things.  They know where the things they use are but then a decision is made to radically change the interface.
I didn't like the reasons for the change or the result. 

I can live with Win 10, takes taming but that's always been the way.  Those tiles, I'd kill them all if I had my way.
There's the guides to using Powershell to get rid of apps like xbox.
The start menu of the Anniversary edition is annoying though, now I see a list of apps I have no use for, what was wrong with leaving it hidden and having it available by using the all apps button?

That being said, I approve of pretty much everything else with Win 10, but mine is also styled nicely by myself to suit my own needs. (No additional plug-ins or the like. Just the built-in functionality)

That seems an odd attitude to me, I've heard you say it before.  I don't  see any virtue in this minimalist shunning of 3rd party software.  There are much better free software options available than what Windows comes with.

[Davin]

There are still ISPs who limit traffic out there..? Or are you on one of them wireless links?

Yes, it's been a big fight with people who like an open competitive internet with the support of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), to get ISPs to stop trying to hurt start up companies and make the internet cost more for no reason other than they want to make more money for absolutely nothing. Not only are many ISPs holding back faster internet, but they are also capping and slowing down traffic. It's now several times a year that ISPs are trying to push in legislation that will give them the power to make the internet and bogged down, expensive thing to use. And it's for no reason.

And worse, companies like Comcast have in many cities and states received millions of dollars of tax payers money to increase internet speeds, and instead of doing that, they got state and city governments to change the definition of "broadband" down to a paltry 5 Mb/s. Of course most people don't understand how the internet works, and it's not easy to understand, so they get to say pretty much any bullshit and lots of people will believe them.

On top of the knowledge of how networks and the internet work, for the layman, just take a look at what happens whenever google fiber shows up. The ISPs who have been serving up "high speed" internet at 30-50 Mb/s, can finally serve it up at 500-1000 Mb/s. Like magic, but more likely assholes. I'm fine with people trying to make a profit, but when a company takes public money, they need to be serving the public. Of course they can't seem to get the price down as far as google fiber, because...? Whatever, that's my rant about internet neutrality.

[Firebird]

What Davin said, at least in the US. In response to that, some municipalities and towns have set up their own broadband services which were faster and cheaper. So the big ISP's pressured some states to pass laws either forbidding towns from setting up their own broadband or forbidding its further expansion because they didn't want the competition. The FCC tried to ban those laws, but a federal court just ruled that the FCC can't do that. Will probably get appealed, but it's been a constant battle to keep the  principle of net neutrality alive.

[Steeler]

I wish I had better times ahead as far as data goes. I'm paying 80 a month for 10 gigs of data on my home computer.
That is with Verizon, pretty much my only option. I could do satellite, but it's priced about the same and slower, from what I've read. No cable service, no dsl. Cable company has service 5 miles away but they told me they have no plans to expand in my direction due to lack of enough homes this way. Phone company says no dsl coming my way either.
Verizon is the only reliable network where I live, so I'm just screwed, and it sucks.

[Dave]

I wish I had better times ahead as far as data goes. I'm paying 80 a month for 10 gigs of data on my home computer.
That is with Verizon, pretty much my only option. I could do satellite, but it's priced about the same and slower, from what I've read. No cable service, no dsl. Cable company has service 5 miles away but they told me they have no plans to expand in my direction due to lack of enough homes this way. Phone company says no dsl coming my way either.
Verizon is the only reliable network where I live, so I'm just screwed, and it sucks.

After rearing the posts on this I am never going to complain about my service again!

I have 50Mb/s if I use the cable rather than wifi (20Mb/s on the tablet and phone on wifi), no limit on either direction, unmetered UK landline calls less than 60 minutes duration.

All for less than £40/month. And I could save a little by changing to another ISP. There are currently about 20 ISPs available in this area.

[Asmodean]

That seems an odd attitude to me, I've heard you say it before.  I don't  see any virtue in this minimalist shunning of 3rd party software.  There are much better free software options available than what Windows comes with.

I did speak about it before, but let me sum up my views on the case;

1. Windows 10 as an OS
Yes, the upgrade might seem the biggest to regular users since the first generation of Windows replaced DOS. People learned to live with it. They will learn to live with increased use of touch screen and the following touch screen friendliness of software. At work, we are upgrading to Win10 in May. Those of my colleagues who have not yet been exposed to it (as well as everyone else) can then count on a small army of IT consultants ready to respond to their queries and teach them what they need to learn about the OS. If a work place does not do it that way, then frankly, their IT deprartment is not very well managed.

When it comes to home users, learn as you go is a fair approach. Windows 10 is not radically different from 7 in the way it's used. The earlier versions of 8 had a few excentricities, but 10... Doesn't. Not really. So there is no start menu in a classical sense. So what? The same functionality is still there and still available at a click of the Windows-key, in the same way the start menu was. So they replaced "All programs" with an app list feature. Well, good. The start screen is also much easier to tailor to your own use and preferences than the start menu was.

Windows explorer and the like are still pretty much the same.

I see you call the UI changes radical, but they really are not. It's changing your dashboard with a cassette player and a heater knob into one with a big tablet in the middle that does pretty much everything and has a cell phone dock. You still get an accelerator pedal, a steering wheel and window wipers.

For the purpose of this response, I'm not going into the underlying technical stuff, simply because it's not really all that relevant to me as a user, regardless of how good I find it as an IT professional.

2. Minimalist attitudes, bloatware and other concerns.
This one is quite personal, and personally, I disagree that the free options available out there are better than the built-in functionality in Windows. I mean, yes, of course GIMP is better than Microsoft Paint for most uses. (it's not exactly free for any sort of commercial use, if memory serves, but that's not the issue) In what way, however, is Google Chrome better than Microsoft Edge? In what way is a third party calculator better than the OS-bundled one? Same questions for various e-mail applications, compression tools and the like.

Yes, there are circumstances where you may need functions certain applications do not provide, but Microsoft does offer a nicely balanced package that satisfies most basic functionality related needs in home and corporate use.

[Dave]

Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system developed and released by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems..

And NT was the pinnacle (IMHO) of the Windows system.

Yes, there are apps now, not always a good thing and the selection for Windows has a long way to go. Personally I try to run it as close to 7/8 as I can on the laptop.

On my tablet it is lousy. Not sure if it is Windows or the tablet but the touch point is about 2-3mm above right of the icon/hypertext, can take several stabs with a stylus to hit the right place.  The icons are not much larger than that in the task bar. And if there is a "tight" list of links getting the right one means expanding the image to max. If you can do so.

Keep looking for a screen calibration app but not found one so far.

[Asmodean]

I may be able to assist with your calibration issues. What manner of tab is this?

[Dave]

It's a Linx 1010B

Have now found an upgraded driver from the manufacturer but have not road tested it yet.

Any advice very welcome.

Needs a bit of education for website designers. Crowded lists of links, like that near the "Hello" bit top left, are a psin, need a 2mm stylus, but thats too small for capacitive systems. Just glad the "show unread..." link is at tbe top! I use that a lot, wish it was a decent icon.

[Asmodean]

Hmm... Yes. I've been playing with the idea of having an m.happyatheistforum.com mobile-domain since it would be a lot of work to restyle SMF to self-adjusting mobile friendliness.

When it comes to calibration, those settings are in a file called touchsettings.gt; I would not recommend changing them yourself without a fair understanding of what's going on [Basically, it's a binary matrix], so we shan't delve into it unless we must.

Yes, I recommend downloading and installing the latest driver. If the problem persists, run the bundled screen calibration tool. It is not very difficult and I will walk you through it if the driver fails to properly address the problem. 

[Dave]

Hmm... Yes. I've been playing with the idea of having an m.happyatheistforum.com mobile-domain since it would be a lot of work to restyle SMF to self-adjusting mobile friendliness.

When it comes to calibration, those settings are in a file called touchsettings.gt; I would not recommend changing them yourself without a fair understanding of what's going on, so we shan't delve into it unless we must.

Yes, I recommend downloading and installing the latest driver. If the problem persists, run the bundled screen calibration tool. It is not very difficult and I will walk you through it if the driver fails to properly address the problem. 

Now what "bundled calibration tool"? That was what I have looked for! On my old non-smart phone you bad to tiuch five points on the screen, corners and centre, to calibrate. You could use a sharp plastic stylus on that screen, can't get the location accyracy with a finger or stylus. On this Samsung the pen gives a 1.5mm accuracy.

Perhaps W10 is getting like Android, just because you have Jelly-baby 99.9 on your Panasung Slab 3 does not mean it is identical to the Jelly-baby 99.9 on your friend's Samsonic Tile 4 in every detail. And nothing at all like that on the  Mississippi Windle.

Slightly different implimentations for each manufacturer above the basic common core.

[Asmodean]

You should have a "Calibrate" button under Display Settings in Tablet PC Settings in Control Panel.

Basically,

Control Panel (Icons) ->
Tablet PC Settings ->
Display ->
Calibrate

I need one of my home computers if I'm to explain with pics or video, so words are the best I can do for now.

[Dave]

Thanks oh humungus Grey One.

Not so easy to navigate on 10, slight changes in terminlogy get confudion but I got there in the end and it does seem more responsive.

Did not notice owt like that when I searched.

Ta ever so.

[Kekerusey]

Practically everyone I know who try Linux end up hating Windows.

I think that kind of thing depends on your social circle ... my friends are pretty much the opposite (IT engineers all of us, Windows users and a bit "meh" about Linux).

I tried Linux, long time ago, for six months and eventually ran back to Windows because I wanted to actually do things.

I still occasionally try various Linux distros and it always ends up the same ... I install it, I look at it for a while thinking "that's pretty", maybe even play a few games but eventually I shut it down and get on with the things I need to do. Guess I'm just a Windows guy and yes, I really quite like Win 10

That said I think I have to learn some of it since I just got made redundant so I'm back on the training again ... bah humbug

Keke