thefluteboy

Wednesday the 29th saw Windows 10 come out. I have been running it on my PC since Friday, and am so far impressed. The only issue so far is waking the computer from sleep mode. This sees the computer whirr into life but the monitor remaining black, which is only really cured by way of that dreaded reboot button. But that remains a minor issue - for the moment!

Back in October 2009 I posted about Windows 7. My experience of that was thoroughly positive. After getting it rather wrong in 2006 with the very beautiful, but downright slow and hungry Windows Vista, Windows 7 was to be a make-or-break for Microsoft. They certainly earned their make with that one.

Windows 8 reared its ugly head in 2012, and was not the same resounding success. Yes, tablets were coming to dominate, and touchscreens were becoming affordable, but old Joe Public was not best pleased with having the beloved Start button replaced by a screen that unfortunately resembled an AOL menu from 1996!

An update in the form of Windows 8.1 came a year later, but Microsoft just had to face the fact that people and businesses were not prepared to make the change to an operating system that was just a little too radical. There are a frightening number of businesses out there still getting by perfectly well with Windows XP, which dates way back to 2001. Banks too - the people who we entrust our money to - still using the Fisher-Price world of XP. That says so much about how bad Windows 8/8.1 is!

Following this disaster, Microsoft had to get it properly right, and this they did by skipping over the number nine. The start button and its associated menu has returned properly - now with the addition of the apps that debuted with version 8. The Facebook and Twitter apps are good and solid.

Also making its debut is Microsoft Edge - a slimmed-down browser intended to replace the infamous, hack-prone relic that was/is Internet Explorer. This new browser is light and very capable (and displays this blog without any issues), but whether it can overtake the likes of Chrome and Firefox remains to be seen. Will it "smoke the competition" like IE9 claimed to do in 2012? Hmmm...


Windows Media Centre has been removed, with Windows DVD Player serving as a replacement for DVD playback functionality.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Windows 10 is the fact that users of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 can upgrade for the unbelievable price of free. I am guessing that come next year it will cost something in the region of $99/€99/£79, but it is jolly well hard to beat free. This could be the way to finally get us all on board and update our computers to something a little more up-to-date. Even all those sods over in China with their pirated copies of Windows XP? Time will tell!

For further reading, see also my post of Thursday 22 October 2009, entitled Windows 7.