Windows 10 Has windows complexity expanded beyond credibilty

[robint]

I guess Wusers could be divided into a) naive users who need a machine to performs tasks b) curious users who want to know whats going on inside the works

If you are a) then when problems occur you ask the IT guy to fix it.

If you are b) like most of viewers here then you open Pandora's box to see a can of worms lurking

I've been living with Windows since the Ark so forgive my grumpy old man's views and concerns
Ive still got a little Acer aspire one notebook 10" screen running XP SP3. Its 15 years old still going strong, never had any issues I can remember. I use it now to run data acquisition kit. Utterly reliable and lacking in tantrums. (AFAIK the NHS is still running this OS and has resisted any change - no doubt cant afford M$ support fees.)

I have a W7 machine I keep as a spare and from what others say its an improved XP and highly popular. I have limited experience using it in anger.

Then I had to get a new machine and had to jump to W8 (very difficult to get a machine with say Linux installed by default but I didnt go down that esoteric route)
I hated W8 at first cos it defaulted into tablet mode on start up and I didnt get my normal desktop. (millions also hated it) I was advised to upgrade to W8.1 for free. This was a nightmare and took 24 hours of tortuous downloads restarts etc - I had become suicidal. But I got through that phase and after 3 months the OS settled down and I had disable many of the annoying M$ inteferences that were forced on the hapless user. So I went on for 5 years or so without too much agro and felt comfortable, or so I thought!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was living in a fools paradise. As per XP practice I turned off automatic updates (with difficulty) and only accepted security ones monthly. This left my basic OS hopelessly out of date. So when I turned on full auto update, I entered a whole new world of horror - the Windows update system - OMG what a monster lurking in the background
Suffice to say it took 2 weeks of intermittent downloads of 100's of inter related KB files and lots of wasted down time before I got my m/c back up properly. Even now its set to overnight updates and next morning - will it wake up? dont bet on it. So thats where I am now with my main machine and my confidence level has sunk to 50%

Then I set about updating a Lenovo W8.1 laptop 15" heavyweight. Same issues of update problem stretching back to 2009 and 2 weeks to get it sorted ok now I think? but a lot of complex issues due to power saving and what to do when sleeping etc only 25% confident

Then I had a Lenovo W10 yoga, but update issues not so bad as I had this from new a year ago BUT what a pig. Trying to start it up invokes the Window Security Monster which goes into auto scheduled routines that make the m/c unusable for 15 mins on wake up. All the time there are background processes using 50 -100% cpu
I shut it down for 6 months a while back. When I came to restart it locked me out while it was updating for over 2 hours
Seems you must keep it connected all the time while asleep

I got a new Lenovo tower (special offer, couldnt refuse). Powered up and - you guessed it, took a week messing about updating itself

So you must all have fallen asleep by now or wandered off from boredom

Whats my point?

Well from a simple XP that does 95% of what I need with zero stress level say 1 to W8.1 much more complex but manageable stress level say 100 and now to an unmanageable monster W10 stress level 1000 and more and ive certainly lost control, W10 does what it wants and dont dare try to interfere with this command structure
There are no more new issues of Windows (no W20). W10 secretly upgrades itself without your consent so where will you be in another 5 years? Who knows where its going? Its determined to stamp out lesser versions XP disowned, W7 recently closed all further support (but howls of anger across the world cause M$ to make concessions. How long before W8.1 gets the chop. When I spoke to my local IT shop about the tortuous upgrade issues, he said stop fighting it you wont win go W10. We cant offer support because customers wont want to pay for our extended time needed to fix update problems - might as well buy a new machine.

Windows has become a monumental compost heap that is inherently riddled with security issues, hacking holes, backdoors etc. Impossible to contain hence patch it up everynight and pray. And the heap will continue to grow and fester

Still ignorance is bliss, dont open the lid, dont look inside

Anyone else see where M$ will be in 5 years? Subscription model in the cloud anyone

Robin

 

[Neemobeer]

Running XP is fine provided you don't connect to the internet. There are quite a few known exploits for it that since it's been end of life for years and no security patch available. Windows 10 works very well out of the box and you shouldn't need to nor would I recommend tinkering with it if you don't fully understand what you're doing as you will cause more problems then not.

The number one thing I've seen with transitioning to a new operating system or in general is they buy a cheap computer. Sure this should run the operating system but it will often be extremely underpowered and will give the user a bad experience. I always recommend going to a low-medium spec'd to medium spec'd system.

I don't see Windows for home users going cloud or subscription based anytime soon, it's just not viable for the home user and people would jump ship.

 

[patcooke]

Thus has it always been - a game of leapfrog battling to keep on top of hardware developments, increasingly sophisticated apps, bugs, security issues, hackers. All devices which are technology dependent (phones, credit cards, automobiles, aircraft . . .) have the same issues dealing with the same underlying causes). The increasingly widespread use of pc's creates increasingly larger and attractive targets for criminals from all walks of life. It's a battle which we can only survive if we keep our defences up - Captain Kirk's first line of defence was his shields - keep 'em up and keep the Klingons out!