Windows 10 (aka Windows AE)

I did it. I killed Vista on the laptop.

On the plus side, I found out how to set up Win10 from the start without a Microsoft account. So there.

I do know the benefits of a connected, logged-in device. But, really, I don't need it on a PC where I don't run mobile apps. I haven't gone looking at the Windows Store yet, no time, but I don't anticipate a single thing I'd want an "app" for that I cannot do better on the desktop. Perhaps some stand-alone games, rather than running them on Facebook, but certainly nothing more than that. At least not for the time being.

I'm still not sure whether I want live tiles on the start menu. they actually make sense there, as opposed to being on the desktop, or having gadgets on the desktop (start screen? What start screen?). I rarely look at the desktop. But it would be convenient, perhaps, to press the start button and see updated info on mail, weather, news, etc. If that can work without an MS account, that is, because I'm not subjecting myself to typing my password every freaking time I boot up.

Perhaps I'd find more use for a connected laptop on the road, but I so rarely take it on the road as to be unimportant.

On a tablet I would want to be logged-in full time. My current tablet is a Nexus, running Android and making use of a Google account, though. If I get a surface 3 Pro (is it "Pro" still??), then ok.

I stumbled upon something interesting: Windows 8 diehards.

See, I made some comments on Win10 at some tech site, and got two people to respond that all that I was praising was available in Win8(.1). well, I won't get into the specifics, but yes, it was available; just not in a comfortable, easy-to-use form, or not without employing third-party stuff like Start8.

What surprises me is these people are still defending Windows 8((.1)Update(1)) as the best ever OS Microsoft has ever released, even when MS is in the process of killing it. They remind me nothing so much as "conservatives" (used as a convenient label) against marriage equality, who still think they can turn back the tide and ban all same-sex marriages in all states for all time.

Anyway, I brought the laptop over to the office and showed it around a bit. First comments from the hoi polloi:

1) It boots up really fast (it does, even accounting for the fact that it's a pristine install on a formatted HD).
2) Why did they keep the effing tiles? (soothed by explaining they can be removed forever)
3) How do you turn this thing off? (followed by "Why would they move the power button?")

As for me, my only real problem is the "flat" (ie awful) desktop theme. I could get used to it with little trouble, except for the damned transparent taskbar which cannot be made opaque under any circumstances (that, BTW, decide me on a Win7 PC at home last year rather than a Win8.1 with Start8 and other modifications).

So it's time to start agitating for full Aero Glass.

What will make it difficult is that another bunch of people at MS's feedback forums are agitating for removing all vestiges of Aero Glass (mostly some icons).

Fortunately this is all only cosmetic and both sides ought to be able to get what they want.

I can't get access to the internet at the office with the laptop, unless I submit it to be modified for "approved" office use by IT (ie ruined). Much as I'd like to see them try adapt a beta preview, I shall pass. Instead I'll begin to install some real programs into it. after all, the point of the preview is to make use of the PC running it.

This has given me two problems:

1) The "new" (year-old, almost) Win7 all-in-one in my desk is very big and leaves little to no room for the laptop. I could use my old monitor with it, in fact I will, but there's little room for it, too. One option is to temporarily decommission the Win7. Another is to move laptop ops to the living room, but I don't have a desk there.

1.1) the Win7 has been giving me a spot of trouble lately when the graphics card runs hot (it crashes). I might take the chance to get it looked at, and see if they can cram more RAM into it. Time to look up local Lenovo service centers.

2) Installing lots of stuff will eat up a lot of the weekend. So I'd best settle on something simple to cook.

Microsoft announced new gestures for use wit a track pad.

Did I mention I'm not very keen on gestures and the only god track pad is an inactive one? good.

On other things, John Dvorak, best known for his photo in the dictionary's definition of "curmudgeon," wrote a piece today blasting the hell out of Windows 7, calling it even worse than Vista <roll-eyes>. This in connection with MS's recent announcement that sales of Win7, except for Pro, have ended. You can still get a Win7 PC, but only if the OEM has a license left, likewise if you have a license you can use and the bits to implement it.

I moved my laptop with the Win10 Preview front and center. I used it exclusively for the whole weekend.

To begin with I didn't think it through. I should have moved some files and definitely should have moved my Firefox bookmarks to the laptop. I'll do that soon (no, syncing Firefox is useless because I never synced the old set of bookmarks).

What can I say? It's an old laptop, c.2007, running on a Celeron Centrino Duo at some speed I haven't bothered to check, and the system tools tell me it has 1.5 GB RAM (which strikes me as extremely odd). Overall it runs a lot better than it did with its native Vista. In some respects, it runs as well as my desktop with the i5 core and 2 GB RAM (which tells me I need to get more RAM into it). But some things are slow. To wit: Anything running on shockwave or flash is slow. Very slow, but it doesn't stop suddenly or get stuck. Nor has the plug-in crashed thus far. Windows Store apps (aka the Metro Apps), are excruciatingly slow, and this includes the PC settings "app."

The thing that really bugs me is the Microsoft account. I found out how to log in without one, but whenever you even try to use a Microsoft program or app, you're pushed to log in with your MS account. If you do, then it's really hard to get rid of it and log back in without it. It happened to me while trying to check the Xbox app. I wound up "testing" the re-install Windows feature to get a fresh start. it's nice, but then you have to download Firefox, games, and whatever else you've added.

The theme is still depressing, but you can learn to ignore it much of the time. Except for the transparent task bar. Whenever I chance upon it I feel as though someone placed a strip of blue cellophane tape on the bottom of the monitor. I may try some third-party utilities next weekend.

Boot time is freakishly fast, even accounting for the fact the laptop acts new (ie freshly formatted HD, not many programs yet installed or run to clutter up the registry with entries, etc). Recovery time from sleep is slower, but fast enough for most purposes, and faster than my desktop PC (which, again, could sue more RAM).

What I haven't played much with is the start menu. I've used it plenty of times, but haven't tried to configure it much. It may be I'll wind up using a third-party utility on that as well, if/when Start8 et, al. release one for Windows 10. Why? because I can't figure out, yet, how to get the "recent items" to show up. I don't use the feature often, but when I do it tends to be important.

But overall Windows 10 is a winner.

[snide time-travel comment removed]

As for the metro apps --I'm sorry, the Windows Store Apps--, I've still yet to find one that I can use, or need or want to use. I did look up Candy Crush but didn't find it. And I've yet to try using the metro side of the start menu to run "live" tiles I might care about, if any. the only ones I sue are PC settings and Windows Feedback.

I forgot to mention I also installed Office 365. I had a gift card for Office Depot worth around $11, so I thought I might as well apply it to the first year's rent.

I prevented it from opening yet another MS account wormhole (black hole?) in my laptop. I opened Excel just to see if it runs. I gagged at the design, placed some commands on the bar on top, then closed it down for the week. We'll see when I actually do something with it. I'll put it in the desktop, too, and see what I can do with the three other licenses.

Yesterday the laptop got what looked like paralysis. Nothing responded, nothing ran. Eventually I was able to peek at the notification center and saw there was a scan going on courtesy of Windows Defender (one thinks that program should have a superhero icon).

I stopped it and things resumed their normal pace, until the PC decided to do the daily maintenance. Again, stopping it saved everything.

And then a few minutes later everything went to hell again. this time it was the BOINC program eating up 90% of the disk usage and pretty much all the RAM. Pausing it solved things.

The last concerns me. The first two can be solved by scheduling (like "when I know the laptop will be off"), but BOINC is supposed to run at all times. When the laptop ran Vista, BOINC hardly ever bothered it. I need to check the computing preferences for the projects I'm running. Perhaps that's the problem.

The laptop with the old processor and oddly limited RAM is hardly ideal to test an OS. yet its limitations rather exaggerate the strengths and weaknesses of Win10. It's still rather good overall, but with some quirks one needs to watch out for.

And now I'm getting shockwave and flash crashes, not to mention unresponsive scripts left and right.

That's when the laptop begins to act its age.

Much as I don't want to, I'll try using IE for a bit and see how that behaves. It may all be a Firefox problem in the end.

Other than that there's nothing new to report. Win10 will be a nice OS to have, if Microsoft doesn't screw it up. I don't think they'll do something as monumentally stupid as removing the start menu again, naturally, or even force the charms back on the desktop. In fact, I can't think of a way in which they could screw this up. This only means the ways to screw up Win10 remain to be discovered. I hope I don't see any unpleasant surprises down the line.

Having used Win10 exclusively for the past week in an old laptop, makes me wonder whether Vista was really as bad as I thought or whether the machines it ran in were woefully underpowered.

Win10 runs better than Vista did in that old laptop, yes, but it doesn't run well with the same load. The load consists of 2 instances of Firefox, Boinc running two projects, one instance of Word and one of Excel. The laptop will freeze sometimes, slow down sometimes, and according to the task manager often the resources (CPU, RAM, Disk) are maxed out much of the time. Plus I get a lot of unresponsive scripts and plug-in crashes.

The latter might be a weakness of running new software on older hardware, or a failing of the OS in Beta version.

Yet at the start it ran better. I can't believe it would degrade over the span of one week, updates or not (there have been two updates thus far).

The most important thing remains the interface, as far as Win10 goes. For that my only complain is I can't get the taskbar preview windows to refrain from displaying. And the theme, of course, which I've been unhappy with since Win8.

I was set to put the laptop away, when a new update got released. Though it won't get to me for days yet, one feature is the ability to hide the two offending fixed buttons next to the start button. I want to see whether that means there will now be a permanently blank space there, or whether they will go away for good. The articles about the update don't say.