Topic: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

Not sure why Win 9 was skipped but if you want to see what is next you can download a preview version.

The following link will tell you how to be a MS guinea pig or just do a direct download. All on the up and up.
From what I have read, it will run in a Virtual Machine just fine.

Have fun!

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/10/01/window … formation/

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

I loaded in vbox... I prefer keeping windows caged smile

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

So far it still feels and looks like Win8.

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

but it's got a start button back! mostly. of course, it's all scrambled from what 7 had.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

As my family and friends' "computer person", I decided to put Windows 10 on my PC (I back up all of my files on my NAS, so I didn't lose anything but moments of my life) so I could test it out before  any of them got new prebuilts with Windows 10, or want to upgrade to the "best new thing". As it is right now, I WOULD NOT recommend you follow my example and upgrade to the new OS on your main computer. But first, the good. Here's what I like about Windows 10 Technical Preview:

1. It brought the start menu back. As such, I don't have to install Classic Shell on peoples' computers any more. Allowing the user to remove the tiles in the Start menu (Slimming it down considerably, and making it more like the classic Windows 98/2000 Start menu) seems like a nice touch, as well.

2. The integrated Search functionality

Being able to search the Internet straight from the Desktop seems to be rather useful. I'm honestly surprised it wasn't introduced sooner.

3. The Expose rip-off (don't remember the actual name), and virtual desktops.

Finally a replacement for Windows Vista/7's "Win+Tab" shortcut has came out. It's easy to use, and a bit better than what came with Windows 7 as it shows the entire window. I don't use virtual desktops (They seem pointless when I have two monitors, and typically when I switch between two workflows, I quit the applications related to one of the two), but I know that a lot of people like them (They were in a Windows XP PowerToy, IIRC).

4. Speed improvements

Windows 7 was a bit faster than Vista (Honestly, Moore's law is the only reason that 7 gained more acceptance than Vista), Windows 8 was a bit faster than Windows 7, and Windows 10 is a bit faster than Windows 8.

Now, we move on to things that I dislike/ would recommend people not install this on your physical computer because.

1: Driver incompatibilities.

I couldn't install Windows 8.1 drivers for my graphics card on Windows 10. I had to wait for Windows Update to pick it up, and even then I'm not sure that it actually installed the right driver.

2. Program incompatibilities.

The .Net framework won't install, I couldn't get any VMs to work, and I had at least one program complain that I wasn't running a new enough version of Windows for some reason.

3. General bugginess.

The first time I opened the Expose ripoff, my computer froze, I heard the Windows "device disconnected" noise, and my screen went black, before coming back to life 15 seconds later. When I uninstalled VirtualBox after it didn't work, it was still listed in the "Programs and Features" section in the Control Panel. When I tried to run it again, the computer blue-screened and restarted. Also, when I tried to uninstall Windows 8-style apps, I had to log out and log back in before I could see that they were gone from the start menu.

4. Lack of configurability
A big selling point with Windows 10 is that it brought the Start Menu back, and customizing it and resizing it is easy. However, I could only get links to the Control Panel and my Documents to display as links, not menus, I couldn't hide the dedicated Search and "Expose ripoff" buttons, and I couldn't resize the Start menu while it had apps in it horizontally- I only wanted a one-app thick bank of apps on the side of the Start menu, and the minimum thickness is apparently two.

5. Local accounts

In Windows 8, you could choose between setting up a local account, and a Microsoft account. In this one, the only way I could find to make a local account was to unplug my Ethernet cable during the OOBE, so it couldn't find Microsoft's servers and had to give me a local account.

In conclusion, I'm going back to Windows 7.

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

Sounds like alpha software to me. Hopefully they still have enough time to iron out all the bugs before the official launch. I assume you filed bug reports. It seems like Microsoft is finally going in the general right direction. My biggest concern is how integrated the "cloud" will be. I have no interest in storing any of my files online. I only used Dropbox to move files from one machine to another before I set up my own Bittorrent Sync machine. Now I can host my own files and access them anywhere without trusting my files to anyone else. If they force their web offerings on users of Windows10 (9?) I suspect Windows7 will have as long a life as WindowXP had.

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

7 (edited by infocastme 2014-10-03 04:58:41)

Re: Windows 10 Preview Available for Download

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

My biggest concern is how integrated the "cloud" will be. I have no interest in storing any of my files online.

So far I see nothing that suggests not being able to keep your files local. I was able to install Win10 without a MS account as I have with Win8.

All in all, I see Win10 the fix for Win8 like Win7 was the fix for Vista. They actually went back and fixed the OS to be more desktop-centric for the majority of Windows and business users who use it that way.

It really is Win8.2 but if they named it that they would not be able to charge for it and the name is also tainted with the association of a poor version.