I usually use Google Docs to type my blog post drafts out. It’s simple and free, and saves automatically. What’s more, I can continue writing my post from anywhere, thanks to the Android tablet version of the same.
Right now though, I am writing this review on my trial copy of Microsoft Word 2016, hitting Ctrl+S religiously after every sentence. And why is that? It’s because the new Windows 10 update has debilitated my laptop’s WiFi card. Yes, a recent bug currently affecting thousands of new Windows 10 users including me, is going around limiting WiFi access. I have tried a few Google-search-recommended quick-fixes, but I’m yet to rectify it fully. With an intermittent internet connection, it is hard to use Google Docs as it runs online for the most part.
Not a very promising start, is it?
I first downloaded Windows 10 when Microsoft announced its Windows Insider Program some ten months ago. It was a public beta programme, in essence. Previously, I had downloaded and tried the ‘Preview’ versions of Windows 8 and 8.1 and thought I’d continue the tradition with 10 as well.
Having constantly monitored changes to the UI closely, build after build, when Microsoft released the final build (#10240) a week before the official release date, I was a little taken aback. It felt incomplete somehow, or maybe it was just my expectation to see a lot more in the final release because that’s how it was with Windows 8. At any rate, I began to familiarise myself with it and over the last few weeks, here’s what I’ve noticed.
The Start Menu
The much missed start menu is back and unmissable on the new Windows 10. While it’s nice that it’s once again back to being a ‘menu’ and not an entire screen for desktops, I still think the placement of the menu items are not well thought-out. The venerable Windows 7 had the power button in a corner that made it easy to locate, but here, it just sits in the middle of the rest of the items on the left column. On the right column, by default, a bunch of preinstalled apps (News, Stocks, Sports, Candy Crush, etc. that you’ll never use) appear first, under the name ‘Life at a Glance.’ So if you have just updated to 10 and are trying to find an app that you installed in 8, you’ll have to scroll past all this junk to find it. Maybe that’s why there’s that obnoxiously large search bar on the taskbar.
The Taskbar
Noticeably, this is the most evolved bit on the Windows desktop. The new additions are the task view button, the large search bar, a shortcut to the new Edge browser, new system icons borrowed from the Lumia phone series, and an ‘Action Centre’ icon. The notification toasts are a little annoying as they keep peeking in and chiming to draw your attention to every little unimportant update (when a file updates on your Dropbox, for example). The bubbles that popped up quietly earlier were just right. Also, the entire taskbar is now all black with white text on it, something that can grow sore on your eyes quickly, or maybe that’s just me. Luckily, you can colour it.
The Action Centre
The Action Centre that previously maintained security information now shows past notifications and some quick settings. I can’t understand why you’d ever want to see expired notifications like ‘USB drive ejected,’ and the system tray icon turns white indicating new notifications even when there is nothing new. The quick setting buttons at the bottom, which look like the only form of replacement for the retired Charms bar, by default show buttons like 'Tablet Mode' (even when you’re on a desktop), and 'Quiet Hours' which may prove useful in time. On the whole however, I find the Action Centre is almost unnecessary.
The Lock-screen
The rather subtle lock-screen that existed previously now has a slightly new layout. The user icon is now circular, a shape that has caught up with Google as well. The clock on the lock-screen shows time in 24-hour format even if you have set it to 12-hour and changes back to 12-hour only after you have logged in. The default wallpaper is shown while logging in and doesn’t look like it can be changed easily. Windows Hello can log you in using face or fingerprint recognition and I can confirm that fingerprint recognition works well most of the time.
Cortana
Sadly, Cortana, the personalised digital assistant integrated with the search bar isn’t available for India yet. One can always change the location to US or UK to try it out though. I shall reserve my comments on it till I have had the chance to try it out for a month or two.
No matter how much Microsoft pushes Windows 10 as a whole new beginning for Windows, it still feels only like a minor update, like how the 8.1 was to 8, and frankly, a lot of undue yet anticipated ballyhoo has been going on of late; this is mostly likely because for the first time, the upgrade is free for many users.
I’m not saying that just because it doesn’t look a whole lot new; Windows releases seldom do. Windows always has and still does maintain its signature desktop feel by having those eponymous windows and that familiar taskbar. But what it’s still missing is the much-needed harmony between the new tablet apps and classic dialog boxes. It’s so clunky to have to keep switching between interfaces.
Ever since the release of Windows 8 where it acquired a whole new interface for tablet devices (the tiled start screen, the new app store, etc.), Microsoft has been trying to mesh both the (tablet and classic desktop) worlds together, and has been failing badly. It seems that with Windows 10, their effort to achieve that harmony still continues. For example, you still have Settings and Control Panel as two different portals to tweak the same settings. This was one confusion I expected to be rectified in 10.
Microsoft’s idea this time around is to get as many users as they can on the Windows 10 bandwagon, and that means that anyone with a licenced copy of Windows 7 or 8.1 can upgrade to 10 for free. This clever move seems to be aimed primarily at 7-users who are still reluctant to update because of how strange 8 was, what with the removal of the famed Start button and the introduction of the Metro UI that made it desktop-unfriendly and confusing. Microsoft wants to wipe that stigma away and let its customers know that Windows is now a refreshed product that's now equally at home on desktop and tablet devices.
Microsoft's heart then, is clearly in the right place, but if they really want to make this work, they're going to have to meet their customers halfway, because right now, users trying to clean-install Windows 10 on their PCs are faced with several activation errors.
I was one of them. I've used Windows long enough to know that when it updates to a newer version, there are bound to be a few inexplicable bugs and lags that can only be fixed by performing a clean-install. So I, like many others hoped to clean-install 10 on all my devices. But I also knew that a clean-install wasn’t possible because it would require me to have a dedicated product key for 10. So I first updated Windows to 10, and then chose to do a reset. The reset feature, an option that reverts Windows back to factory settings, went awry and my computer was stuck in a limbo until I decided to install 10 using a USB drive anyway. And that’s when Windows refused to activate my product, and made me climb the upgrade-ladder all over again from 8. Calling Microsoft support about this was as helpful as talking to a brick wall; at least you don’t have to redial a hundred times to get through to a wall.
Climbing this ladder is an arduous task - Windows 8 itself is an upgrade from Windows 7, so the licence key confusion begins right there, and there are countless little updates and patches that must be installed before getting to 8.1. And then you can download 10’s installation wizard and wait another few hours to reach the top. My point is that if activation has gone wrong for you, you simply have to go back to Windows 7 or 8, whichever you bought, and slowly clamber up to 10. I have had to do this on four of my computers, and I am thoroughly miffed by the whole experience.
Why should I be doing this? Why can’t the reset function just work? Why should I be juggling around old installation discs and product keys just to claim my free upgrade? I assure you there is nothing more turning off than Windows setup showing you those artificially pleasant one-line progress updates one minute, and an equally short error message the next. The whole Windows setup is easy-breezy as long as it’s showing a message like, “We’re getting things ready for you,” but the minute you see an error screen with just one error code to go on, that’s when you know it’s time to pull out another computer and Google that error code. Oh wait, that was your only computer? Too bad. Hope you’ve got a smartphone.
So even after some three years of employing the ‘upgrade’ scheme to update Windows versions, it still is a pain to go through. Aside from the UI integration that is still a hit or miss, Cortana and the new browser and Windows Hello are the only notable additions. All things considered, Windows 10 is still only so-so. To make matters worse, Windows 10 is quite buggy from what I read and experience. Many device drivers seem to be incompatible, my nVidia graphics driver and the aforesaid WiFi card being one of them. A month or two of injecting the necessary patches should have these holes fixed.
I started out writing this post on Microsoft Word because my WiFi card was misbehaving, but now, after a squeaky-clean-install of 10, things are back to normal and I am back to Google Docs.
Until next time...
Vignesh
Right now though, I am writing this review on my trial copy of Microsoft Word 2016, hitting Ctrl+S religiously after every sentence. And why is that? It’s because the new Windows 10 update has debilitated my laptop’s WiFi card. Yes, a recent bug currently affecting thousands of new Windows 10 users including me, is going around limiting WiFi access. I have tried a few Google-search-recommended quick-fixes, but I’m yet to rectify it fully. With an intermittent internet connection, it is hard to use Google Docs as it runs online for the most part.
Not a very promising start, is it?
I first downloaded Windows 10 when Microsoft announced its Windows Insider Program some ten months ago. It was a public beta programme, in essence. Previously, I had downloaded and tried the ‘Preview’ versions of Windows 8 and 8.1 and thought I’d continue the tradition with 10 as well.
Having constantly monitored changes to the UI closely, build after build, when Microsoft released the final build (#10240) a week before the official release date, I was a little taken aback. It felt incomplete somehow, or maybe it was just my expectation to see a lot more in the final release because that’s how it was with Windows 8. At any rate, I began to familiarise myself with it and over the last few weeks, here’s what I’ve noticed.
THE NEW ADDITIONS
The Start Menu
The much missed start menu is back and unmissable on the new Windows 10. While it’s nice that it’s once again back to being a ‘menu’ and not an entire screen for desktops, I still think the placement of the menu items are not well thought-out. The venerable Windows 7 had the power button in a corner that made it easy to locate, but here, it just sits in the middle of the rest of the items on the left column. On the right column, by default, a bunch of preinstalled apps (News, Stocks, Sports, Candy Crush, etc. that you’ll never use) appear first, under the name ‘Life at a Glance.’ So if you have just updated to 10 and are trying to find an app that you installed in 8, you’ll have to scroll past all this junk to find it. Maybe that’s why there’s that obnoxiously large search bar on the taskbar.
The Taskbar
Noticeably, this is the most evolved bit on the Windows desktop. The new additions are the task view button, the large search bar, a shortcut to the new Edge browser, new system icons borrowed from the Lumia phone series, and an ‘Action Centre’ icon. The notification toasts are a little annoying as they keep peeking in and chiming to draw your attention to every little unimportant update (when a file updates on your Dropbox, for example). The bubbles that popped up quietly earlier were just right. Also, the entire taskbar is now all black with white text on it, something that can grow sore on your eyes quickly, or maybe that’s just me. Luckily, you can colour it.
The Action Centre
The Action Centre that previously maintained security information now shows past notifications and some quick settings. I can’t understand why you’d ever want to see expired notifications like ‘USB drive ejected,’ and the system tray icon turns white indicating new notifications even when there is nothing new. The quick setting buttons at the bottom, which look like the only form of replacement for the retired Charms bar, by default show buttons like 'Tablet Mode' (even when you’re on a desktop), and 'Quiet Hours' which may prove useful in time. On the whole however, I find the Action Centre is almost unnecessary.
The Lock-screen
The rather subtle lock-screen that existed previously now has a slightly new layout. The user icon is now circular, a shape that has caught up with Google as well. The clock on the lock-screen shows time in 24-hour format even if you have set it to 12-hour and changes back to 12-hour only after you have logged in. The default wallpaper is shown while logging in and doesn’t look like it can be changed easily. Windows Hello can log you in using face or fingerprint recognition and I can confirm that fingerprint recognition works well most of the time.
Cortana
Sadly, Cortana, the personalised digital assistant integrated with the search bar isn’t available for India yet. One can always change the location to US or UK to try it out though. I shall reserve my comments on it till I have had the chance to try it out for a month or two.
THE UNDERLYING PROBLEMS
No matter how much Microsoft pushes Windows 10 as a whole new beginning for Windows, it still feels only like a minor update, like how the 8.1 was to 8, and frankly, a lot of undue yet anticipated ballyhoo has been going on of late; this is mostly likely because for the first time, the upgrade is free for many users.
I’m not saying that just because it doesn’t look a whole lot new; Windows releases seldom do. Windows always has and still does maintain its signature desktop feel by having those eponymous windows and that familiar taskbar. But what it’s still missing is the much-needed harmony between the new tablet apps and classic dialog boxes. It’s so clunky to have to keep switching between interfaces.
Ever since the release of Windows 8 where it acquired a whole new interface for tablet devices (the tiled start screen, the new app store, etc.), Microsoft has been trying to mesh both the (tablet and classic desktop) worlds together, and has been failing badly. It seems that with Windows 10, their effort to achieve that harmony still continues. For example, you still have Settings and Control Panel as two different portals to tweak the same settings. This was one confusion I expected to be rectified in 10.
Microsoft’s idea this time around is to get as many users as they can on the Windows 10 bandwagon, and that means that anyone with a licenced copy of Windows 7 or 8.1 can upgrade to 10 for free. This clever move seems to be aimed primarily at 7-users who are still reluctant to update because of how strange 8 was, what with the removal of the famed Start button and the introduction of the Metro UI that made it desktop-unfriendly and confusing. Microsoft wants to wipe that stigma away and let its customers know that Windows is now a refreshed product that's now equally at home on desktop and tablet devices.
Microsoft's heart then, is clearly in the right place, but if they really want to make this work, they're going to have to meet their customers halfway, because right now, users trying to clean-install Windows 10 on their PCs are faced with several activation errors.
I was one of them. I've used Windows long enough to know that when it updates to a newer version, there are bound to be a few inexplicable bugs and lags that can only be fixed by performing a clean-install. So I, like many others hoped to clean-install 10 on all my devices. But I also knew that a clean-install wasn’t possible because it would require me to have a dedicated product key for 10. So I first updated Windows to 10, and then chose to do a reset. The reset feature, an option that reverts Windows back to factory settings, went awry and my computer was stuck in a limbo until I decided to install 10 using a USB drive anyway. And that’s when Windows refused to activate my product, and made me climb the upgrade-ladder all over again from 8. Calling Microsoft support about this was as helpful as talking to a brick wall; at least you don’t have to redial a hundred times to get through to a wall.
Climbing this ladder is an arduous task - Windows 8 itself is an upgrade from Windows 7, so the licence key confusion begins right there, and there are countless little updates and patches that must be installed before getting to 8.1. And then you can download 10’s installation wizard and wait another few hours to reach the top. My point is that if activation has gone wrong for you, you simply have to go back to Windows 7 or 8, whichever you bought, and slowly clamber up to 10. I have had to do this on four of my computers, and I am thoroughly miffed by the whole experience.
Why should I be doing this? Why can’t the reset function just work? Why should I be juggling around old installation discs and product keys just to claim my free upgrade? I assure you there is nothing more turning off than Windows setup showing you those artificially pleasant one-line progress updates one minute, and an equally short error message the next. The whole Windows setup is easy-breezy as long as it’s showing a message like, “We’re getting things ready for you,” but the minute you see an error screen with just one error code to go on, that’s when you know it’s time to pull out another computer and Google that error code. Oh wait, that was your only computer? Too bad. Hope you’ve got a smartphone.
So even after some three years of employing the ‘upgrade’ scheme to update Windows versions, it still is a pain to go through. Aside from the UI integration that is still a hit or miss, Cortana and the new browser and Windows Hello are the only notable additions. All things considered, Windows 10 is still only so-so. To make matters worse, Windows 10 is quite buggy from what I read and experience. Many device drivers seem to be incompatible, my nVidia graphics driver and the aforesaid WiFi card being one of them. A month or two of injecting the necessary patches should have these holes fixed.
I started out writing this post on Microsoft Word because my WiFi card was misbehaving, but now, after a squeaky-clean-install of 10, things are back to normal and I am back to Google Docs.
Until next time...
Vignesh
