First apologies...
If something I say here doesn't seem to make sense, you might be right -- getting some small portion of my language skills back after a setback with this stupid illness is always iffy. [Parts of the brain in effect turn off, & alas it's not always as simple as stuff turning back on -- it's kind of like needing PT after a muscle injury.]
Second, while the thrust & title of this post both regard Windows 10, separate events prompted me to write it today rather than later. One event was the exchange of comments I read on another, in that case Windows site... if I were to title that exchange it would probably be "No Mercy", as a qualified IT guy expressed doubts about win10, & the response, by IT pros & not, was merciless. The 2nd was news that Twitter might change the order of listed or presented tweets -- without much in the way of details, or even confirmation, loads of folks were terribly upset. Third on the list is yesterday's comments on the GOTD game site. And 4th, Microsoft got more aggressive last week force-feeding 10.
I'm not going to go into some commentary on the sad state of affairs nowadays, or even complain at all. I will say, note that maybe less desirable habits have a way of spreading, like a cold or the flu -- if everyone else seems to behave a certain way, more & more people seem to feel that it's OK to be that way themselves. Again, just observation -- no commentary.
What concerns me is that with older folks, having a made up, perhaps even closed mind when it comes to new stuff &/or trends -- yeah, like Windows 10 -- might end up hurting themselves. If a PC or laptop is abandoned in favor of say an Android tablet, it's likely no big deal, because you can still do games & such to exercise your mind, & still use online & other tools to stay in touch, make life easier & hopefully better. Abandoning this stuff entirely OTOH might have negative effects -- there's a fine line between eccentric &/or crotchety & things like dementia & maybe even Alzheimers. Exercising your brain, keeping it active, has been shown to help avoid that sort of thing, plus if [or maybe even as] intolerance grows more common in society, people tend to be less kind to what they consider crotchety old folks.
Now I'm not saying you have to actually like anything new, & again that includes Windows 10, but suggest that folks come to their own terms with stuff that's new &/or changing. A maybe decent example, I'm not thrilled [to say the least] with changes to my health care, but that doesn't stop me from seeing the doc. That would be silly. With the changes to the GOTD game page yesterday, some were talking like it was too much bother now to download & play any games. They're only hurting themselves [in some cases along with possibly any caregivers if/when they're in the picture].
I don't think that the folks complaining in the GOTD comments about Facebook should realistically expect their complaints to mean much -- they might hope otherwise, but with a billion Facebook users out there, implying that that billion users might be stupid is *at best* only going to get them ignored. It's like age -- complain all you want, you're not going to get younger. If you don't willingly come to terms with your age as you get older, it will be forced on you anyway, too often in ways you like even less.
And so it's time I think to also come to terms with Windows 10. Start getting used to the idea of 10 taking over, & figure out how you're going to deal with that. If your PC/laptop won't run it, you can probably buy some extra time by running 8.1, or you can start saving &/or budgeting for new hardware, or you can start looking at alternatives, whether that's a Android tablet or moving to Linux or Apple.
Microsoft is getting more aggressive re: 10, moving it up a notch in Windows Upgrade category, releasing 3 hotfixes this past week alone designed to help you move to 10 from 7/8.1. And those are updates that specifically mention 10 -- you can assume I think that all patches moving forward will be designed to accommodate that upgrade, whether anything says so or not.
At the same time support for Windows older than 10 is decreasing. Regardless whether Microsoft intentionally limits features in 7& 8.1 or not, at the same time that they laid off people from the Nokia buy, they got rid of a significant number of people that had been working on Windows -- the same people who write the code are now responsible for testing it & QA. If the Windows folks at Microsoft are being pushed on Windows 10 & Windows 10 Mobile, there are fewer left to support 7 & 8.1 -- with both reduced staff & pressure regarding 10 & 10 Mobile [Mobile's behind & 10 isn't feature complete yet], there's no way previous levels of support for 7 & 8.1 can be maintained.
Together with something Chris has talked about -- new version software supports 10 1st, older versions not as much -- you can probably notice the difference in 7 & 8.1 already, even if it is so far relatively slight. I know I've been having slight problems in our 7 installs reminiscent of Vista, as it 1st started on the road to what I consider unusable. Depending on how you use your systems, what software you run, & your individual threshold or tolerance, you might get a few more years out of 7 or 8.1, or you might feel the need to move on much sooner -- it's no longer IF but WHEN. If you've been managing to hold on with XP or Vista, I'd expect those doors to close almost entirely.
If your hardware will run 10, make plans accordingly... You might want to try it in a VM [Virtual Machine] to get better acquainted. You might want to make sure you have backup software that works for you, & that you have somewhere to store a backup. If you have the hard disk space you might want to create a partition for win10, getting the software to do that & learning how if needed, and add 10 to that new partition.
Windows 10 is a free upgrade from 7-8.1 for one year from 10's release, on the hardware you have when you upgrade. If you need or are thinking about a hardware upgrade of most any sort, it's safer to do that before activating your free copy of 10 for the 1st time. If your hard drive is old enough to be within range of failure, a $40-$50 hard drive is roughly half the price you'll pay for a win10 license if Microsoft doesn't let you reactivate 10 after replacing a failed drive -- they might or might not, depending on policy at the time & the rep you get when you call. Remember that you probably own your current version of Windows, & can usually reactivate it after a hardware change, so you might well want to hold on to your old copy, or at least everything you'll need to reinstall & reactivate it.
Another reason to hold on to the Windows you've already got, your hardware may pass all the tests, may meet the requirements per 10's installation routine, but be incompatible, now or after a future update. If you run 10 Home, & a build upgrade won't work properly, you can be caught in a sort of loop -- 10 will automatically roll back to the prior build, then try to upgrade again, roll back to the prior build, & so on.
I realize the contradiction there -- move to 10 but keep the old version to move back. The intent is to buy you time. Time & a functioning PC/laptop gives you a little breathing room to figure out what's next. Obviously you'd have more time today rather than a couple few years from now -- the whole idea is to get you thinking about the how & when that works best for you.
Somewhat of a gray area, after updating activated Insider Builds of 10 that were never licensed per se [they did not upgrade or use an activated 7 or 8 license] to the last regular build 1511, without turning the feature to get Insider builds on, they appear to be normal, activated, regular copies of win10 [& that's after waiting a few months to make sure]. I also had a trial copy of win7 Ult installed. It would not upgrade to 10 -- I tried as they say for grins & giggles. Installing 10 [build 1511] from an ISO to that same partition, not formatting or clearing the partition, but leaving the 7 trial in place, 10 not only installed but automatically activated -- I had intended to use the key from this copy of 7 that I'm using at the moment.
I do not know if that was an anomaly, if it had to do with using a Microsoft acct. that was already associated with 10 & the Insider program, if it didn't see that that copy of 7 was a trial, if 10's setup routine saw & went off of one of the other Windows installs on this PC, if Microsoft loosened their requirements re: reactivation, seeing that as a reinstall with a new drive etc. There are too many possibilities frankly, & not enough virgin partitions on the drive to make further testing easy -- If I find out more I'll let everyone know, but at least this might give some folks something to try.
Assuming your hardware will run 10, if you've got Vista maybe install the win7 trial, & install 10 from an ISO over it & see what happens -- most it'll cost is your time. Or if you've got win7 HP, which upgrades to 10 Home, maybe there's a way there to install & activate 10 Pro? The main difference with Pro may only be the ability to delay updates, but that alone can be worth it, e.g. with graphics drivers that don't work.
Next step, assuming you get 10 installed somewhere, is try to ignore everything new, at least at 1st. You don't actually & absolutely need to know much at all to use it -- if you could work &/or play in win95 you can work/play in 10. My wife plays so-called casual games -- the typical stuff offered on GOTD weekends -- & she loves 10. She doesn't know anything else about it, other than entering her PIN at login, & double clicking the shortcut for whatever game, but she feels that her games run smoother, faster. In time she'll learn what she needs -- in that respect it's no different than her Kindle Fire HD or her cell phone.
My personal hate is that 10 is designed for typical office use, so it updates in the background with the focus on having less impact on what you're doing, assuming you're running typical office stuff. I don't want the performance hit [to disk, RAM, CPU, network, or other running processes] when I'm doing something that requires more than minimal resources, IOW not your typical office stuff, so I try to get updates out of the way when I 1st sign into win10. Being designed for lower impact, that can sometimes seem like it takes forever. Bleh...
But I deal with it, which doesn't have ANY regard whether I'm happy about it or not, same with my age, or any other forced change. We can, probably should put efforts toward achieving the world we want, but in the mean time we have to live in the world we're in. 10's here, & neither it nor Microsoft care whether you like it or not -- Microsoft shows every intent of making their numbers, no matter what. Now *Your* ideal world of the future may be devices running *nix &/or Android, or sold by Apple, or even none at all, but if you want to run Windows, chances are it'll have to be Windows 10.
