Windows 10 - Coming to a device near you

Wow. It's really fast. It feels much snappier than my main system-- while running in vmware! And I only gave it one core!

I'm happier now. Windows 8 didn't improve speed under the hood worth anything, and made everything else worse. Windows 10 puts the interface back to normal, and is much faster.

I might actually get it when it comes out!


Also, DX12 should be nice.

I respectfully disagree on Windows 8, based on my experience of an identical quadruple boot of fresh installed 7/XP/8/Vista. Windows 8 is snappier in direct comparison with other OS on the same system... and after Classic Shell freeware makes Metro optional rather than mandatory, Windows 8 becomes better and faster than any other OS. I always assumed Windows 10 is heavily based on Windows 8... I fully intend to install classic shell on all future Windows versions so I can customize the Start Menu as I see fit. So I am not a 100% on just what it is major that Windows 10 brings to the table since Classic Shell and not Microsoft developers will determine the Start Menu experience, which I assume will be the #1 selling point of Windows 10.

Err... Classic Shell is only for us nerds who know it exists. Microsoft dictates the start menu for everyone else.
About Windows 8 speed. I've admittedly only used 8, not 8.1, but boy does it not seem much faster. And the updater is still lightning slow.
I'm under the impression that Windows 10 has a decent chunk re-written, given how blistering fast it was in the VM. Kinda assumed it was partly influenced by the windows phone team, but that's just poor speculation.

I've got some thoughts about classic shell, but this is already a decent chunk to respond to

That is excellent news about 10 being even faster than 8!

My first encounter with Classic Shell was actually not with Start Menu but when Windows 7 came out and it allowed me to create custom Explorer buttons, better than the ones that existed previously in Windows XP.

Without Classic Shell, Windows 8 for me would not be useable. I tried Metro for an entire month when I purchased Windows 8 on the day it came out. Please post what is wrong with Classic Shell.

That's kinda funny about the XP customization. I've got my theme going all the way back to 95, so I approve strongly.

You know, it's funny. Every time I heavily customize a windows install, something goes wrong, and I have to re-format. I don't know where the blame belongs, but it's made me really leary of installing system level applications. You should see what Civ V looked like when I tried to play it-- nothing worked.

So that's my thing with classic shell. It's another variable in the system, and not an insignificant one. It's awesome for making windows 8 efficient again... but I'm scared of it breaking.

Finally got around to installing 10 in a dual boot with my trusty 7 x64. Seemed pretty crappy as far as networking and internet connectivity at first. I ended up opening IE in my Win 7 HDD from in 10 and suddenly Win 10 was zipping right along. Apparently it's teachable. Useful quality in a new OS. It supports my monitor's 1440 x 900 native resolution , which Win 7s drivers do not , so I'll hold off on the Catalyst install. I have a lousy network/internet connection at present , so gaming will have to wait a little while.
Start menu is nice , everything seems pretty fast now that everything (so far) works. I think I could like it if it maintains the choices and current equilibrium. I give it a thumbs up until/unless it proves otherwise. I may eventually add Classic Shell , but I'll give myself and Win 10 a fair chance to get used to the new look first.

Arbiter Odie, what you describe has happened to me in Windows 95 days, I found out the hard way about it too, but I did something about it then and it is the solution that works for me today. After getting sick of modifying Windows 98 for four days straight then having it break on me, then four days again.... I asked myself if only there was a way for me to get things just right... then freeze that moment in time, in some sort of... an image... that I could then... reimage... and have things be the way I want them to be... always

So today my Windows 8 reimages in a couple of minutes and I reimage all the time. So partition your SSD, install Windows on a relatively small partition, move your Desktop, and personal files elsewhere, install large apps on a different partition then maybe install a dual boot and image one OS from the other in two minutes. You can perfect your image over time... I actually have a txt file where I write the changes I need to make every patch Tuesday when I image, update, make changes, make a new image. I save certain old image files on another hard drive just in case anything goes wrong.


That way WHEN, not IF.... WHEN something goes wrong I can identify the culprit easier. Latest Classic Shell version has been out for a while and it does not cause problems of the nature you fear...

Stop reformatting an entire drive, learn about partitions and the wonderful world of 2-3 minute OS partition reimaging!

IE 11 seems to get stupid when W10 is booted or restarted. Anybody else having this issue ? After slapping it around a few times it gets better * , but I can't tell if it's my lousy connection or if the OS is just being a little buggy.

* Lots of refreshing and general do-overs with connections and opening web pages.

Just try Firefox on the side and compare directly accessing the same web sites...

Arbiter Odie said:

Wow. It's really fast. It feels much snappier than my main system-- while running in vmware! And I only gave it one core!

I'm happier now. Windows 8 didn't improve speed under the hood worth anything, and made everything else worse. Windows 10 puts the interface back to normal, and is much faster.

I might actually get it when it comes out!


Also, DX12 should be nice.

Click to expand...

I completely disagree, I noticed leaps and bounds with speed going from 7 to 8 on the same system.

Everything from booting up to browsing was faster on my laptop (i3 with 4gb 1333 and an SSD)... On my desktop I only noticed reduced boot time though.

Yea.

But it does apply to Desktops too, nothing huge but boot time is a couple of seconds faster on my Win8 partition on which identical programs are installed as on my Win7 partition. So something extra must be booting on your Win8 that wasn't there on Win7?

c627627 said:

Just try Firefox on the side and compare directly accessing the same web sites...

Click to expand...

I have Waterfox in my Win 7 installation , but it won't connect at all with my current network. It keeps timing out and it's a memory hog. Besides , M$ let me play with a brand new OS and only asked me to tell them what I think of it. I just got it loaded last night , so I'll try it for a full day or so before I start declaring parts bad. I actually like IE 11 , and it's as fast or faster than Firefox for me , and I don't like Chrome at all. So IE for me (mostly).

...ok. You said

Alaric said:

IE 11 seems to get stupid when W10 is booted or restarted.... but I can't tell if it's my lousy connection or if the OS is just being a little buggy.

Click to expand...

to which you got a suggestion how to isolate a browser as being the culprit or not.
This has nothing to do with personal preference of browsers for main use...

I have Waterfox in my Win 7 installation , but it won't connect at all with my current network. It keeps timing out

Click to expand...

To which I responded it's unusable in my current situation. It's slower than IE connecting under optimal situations for me. Useless here.

To test if IE is the culprit, why not just try Chrome or Chrome Portable or Firefox may have better luck than Waterfox, even though Waterfox is based on it....

Good point. "Based on" isn't "same as". Don't want Chrome in my box , but I'll get Firefox and try it again. Bottom line:It's probably silly to try evaluating an OS with changing peripheral performance issues , but I was curious and now I'm starting to like Win 10. I can envision paying for it , and Windows 7 is the last OS I felt that way about.

I use Mozilla Aurora as a browser, and it works fine in the Tech Preview.

Why use Alpha versions, they can be highly unstable? Even Beta Firefox versions are iffy from time to time, let alone Alphas...

Alaric said:

Windows 7 is the last OS I felt that way about.

Click to expand...

9/10 people feel that way only because of Windows 8 Metro.... and Metro is optional under Classic Shell...

c627627 said:

Why use Alpha versions, they can be highly unstable? Even Beta Firefox versions are iffy from time to time, let alone Alphas...

9/10 people feel that way only because of Windows 8 Metro.... and Metro is optional under Classic Shell...

Click to expand...

I've only had some rare minor issues with the alpha versions of FF. They definitely aren't for the casual user.

They're for testing only, in the past few months, even the final versions didn't stick for more than a week before a stability rewrite was required... Even the mid cycle Firefox 33.1 Final had a crush bug only days after going gold... It's true that if you're lucky not to own hardware that is affected, no crashing for you but every Firefox release now has more and more major bugs only days after a new final version comes out.

Then less than a week after a new final release - Mozilla finally gets it right with an incremental .1 version.

But what are we going to do, can't use Chrome because they don't have as many useful add-ons and for other reasons...