Windows 10

I just switched to Windows 10. Why? Because it was free, and because I didn’t have to do anything except click a few buttons saying essentially, “Yeah, sure.” I’ve been hearing for a while that it did away with some of the annoying things in Windows 8, and lately I’ve even been hearing that it’s better than 8. So contained in that brave-but-innocuous “Yeah, sure” is a year an a half of loathing over Windows 8. I was willing to risk all my data to get away from Win8 and move to…well, anything different.

To be sure, I’ve yet to have a Windows upgrade destroy data (at least that I noticed). And so far the only problem I’ve seen there is that Edge, the new web browser, didn’t automatically import bookmarks from IE. I’ll bet they’re around somewhere, but I haven’t had time yet to look for them. And the home page I had set will need to be re-set.

I have to admit, though, that Microsoft really caught my attention when they offered Win10 for free. That’s…just not something Microsoft does. And better yet, I wouldn’t have to go get install disks or anything. It would run overnight and I’d have a new upgrade in the morning. The only problem there is that I told it I wanted to upgrade at 10 pm and it started pressuring my wife at 9:30, confusing her into running the upgrade then instead of doing what she needed to do first. But when I woke up this morning (blues riff) my computer was fine (blues riff) it took some time for setups (riff), and then I was online (riff). I’ve not had much time to check anything out, except Edge does indeed seem faster. For now. Their picture browser seems better somehow. I think it’s the screen utilization–less visible UI, more focus on the picture.

The breathing blue screen of waiting was a little creepy. I don’t want a computer that breathes.

I probably shouldn’t even write a review until I’ve had more time on the computer to try things out. But I will say this much: the upgrade was smooth (I literally did it in my sleep) and, so far, relatively painless. The only problem I’ve found is that whenever I turn on the wireless card on my XP laptop, Windows 10 loses its connection to our wi-fi network. Something’s not playing nice, and I’m not sure what’s going on. The good news, I suppose, is that I can control my kids’ internet access from anywhere in the house.