I may have mentioned this before... just a few hundred times... but I REALLY detest Windows.

I do most of my stuff on Linux, but there are some tasks that just demand Windows - usually because some software supplier can't be arsed to create a Linux version (as many hundreds of others do). For this reason I keep a lower-powered machine under my desk, running Windoze 8.1. It's got loads of disk space & RAM, but the processor is only 'medium-strength'. It's good enough for the occasions when only Windoze will do. It's all modern components though, as it was only assembled last year.

This machine I keep up to date, using Windows Update - at least once a week, often more frequently. Today, an 'important update' appeared so I set it off... and shortly after I got an error "Code 80070005: Windows update ran into a problem". After some faffing around I found out that this means that it thinks that I don't have enough user privileges to run the update. Trouble is, my account has full admin authority.

Looked up the error code, and the only solutions offered by MS are dated 2009/2010 - and they don't work.

So now I hate Windoze even more...


[Edited on 23/7/15 by David Jenkins]

The only reason I run Windoze is to run megajolt. I bought a £5 serial laptop from a carboot and did a fresh install of XP. It never goes on the internet and it never ever gets updated. Runs perfect.

I never update my computers anymore - Even my big fat Mac Pro. If everything is working don't bother. The last update I did was over a gigabyte download. Does anyone realise how much information is in a GIGABYTE. How is it they messed up the original release so much it needs that much updated!!! After the update my sodding wifi doesn't work!

My new work laptop had a 'vanilla' 7 build on it, that then updated when I first connected. I think it was 3Gb in total? Good job I have unlimited fibre!!

Having said that, I am keeping an eye out for my 'get Windows 10' message...

What really pigs me off is that on Linux Mint I get updates almost every day, and all they require is for me to authorise the update (10 seconds max) and then I can go away and do my own thing... the update happens in the background, and takes one or two minutes at the most. There was a major upgrade a month or so back and that took about 20 minutes to download and install, and the system was useable throughout this process.

Basically, on Linux Mint, upgrades just happen, and don't much affect the running of the system while they are implemented. I believe that Mac users get a similar experience.

I'm on Windoz 7 and I now have a 'get windows 10' icon on my tool bar that I didn't ask for. My laptop is about 3 years old and is getting slower and slower to boot up, despite me running clean up utilities, no doubt due to all the updates that I also didn't ask for that happen automatically (the usual "installing x of 53 million updates" that you get when you shut down).

Is it worth doing the Windows 10 update or is this just another excuse to make my laptop run even slower so that I eventually have to buy another one just to keep up with the demands of the operating system. What do people think of 10 compared with 7 - is it worth it?

Windows 8.1 is already a vast improvement on speed over Windows 7, and Windows 10 is supposed to be as good or better. However, being an early adopter for MS operating systems is a mugs game IMO (unless you actually want to do beta testing). I'd wait a while for the inevitable bugs to be ironed out before considering an upgrade.

When updates are pending or installing on my Windows 7 machine at work, it slows down to a crawl, and becomes pretty much unusable. I've never noticed any impact whilst updates are installing on my Windows 8.1 PC at home, other than occasionally having to reboot which is a very minor inconvenience as it boots in around 5-6 seconds.


[Edited on 24/7/15 by MikeRJ]

My dad did an update on his pc 3 weeks ago and never it keeps coming up with errors on start up. He is pretty $h1t hot on PCs but has had enough with this error.

Its intermittent which bugs him more. Now he is just going to buy a new one. The spec is good, albeit about 10 years old. The thing would of been fine for the emailing book reading internet stuff he wants it for now. His days of trying to get games running on it are long gone, but now he cant be bothered to even turn it on, buying a new PC means MS wins and its soooo annoying.

NEVER UPDATE!!

Homestly - if all he's doing is internet, emailing, book reading and such like then just load Linux Mint - it'll run many times faster, will take far less space on the machine, and updates are a doddle. There is a learning curve when changing over to Linux, but Mint makes it quite painless.

If he's uncertain, load Linux as 'dual boot' (it's an option on installation) and he can choose which system to load at startup. Whichever OS he chooses at startup will run as though the other one doesn't exist on his system.

Load LibreOffice as well and he'll have an application that is almost fully compatible with Microsoft Office - and it's free.

[Edited on 24/7/15 by David Jenkins]

quote:

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Originally posted by David Jenkins
Homestly - if all he's doing is internet, emailing, book reading and such like then just load Linux Mint - it'll run many times faster, will take far less space on the machine, and updates are a doddle. There is a learning curve when changing over to Linux, but Mint makes it quite painless.

If he's uncertain, load Linux as 'dual boot' (it's an option on installation) and he can choose which system to load at startup. Whichever OS he chooses at startup will run as though the other one doesn't exist on his system.

Load LibreOffice as well and he'll have an application that is almost fully compatible with Microsoft Office - and it's free.

[Edited on 24/7/15 by David Jenkins]

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I can live without the macros... I found them unreliable when I had to use them as part of my job (although that was a LOOOONG time ago!)

I bought a new Toshiba laptop a couple of months ago running 8.1.

My old Toshiba ran on Windows Vista and although there was a lot of bad press about that operating system, I never had any problems with it. It never updated itself, did everything I wanted it to do, and the only reason I replaced it was the battery was fubar.

This new one is a real PITA by comparison. Every couple of days it shuts down to install updates. It doesn't give me any choice, it just says it is shutting down in 15 minutes and off it goes. There are these bl^&*y annoying flyouts with completely useless information which block what I am doing everytime I point anywhere near the edge of the screen. I hate Windows now!

Can Linux do what i want and how easy is it to install and can I run all my usual programs?

I'm sure that you can defer the shutdown.

As to the screen edge, if you download and install Classic Start Menu, you can boot straight to the desktop, have a proper start menu and disable the automatic "charms" selection.

By coincidence it has just come up now ".. shutting down in 14 minutes and 52 seconds" I get given two options, close the notice to finish what I am doing, or shut down now.

Must dash ... now says 4 minutes and 28 seconds!

Sorry, you are right. However, you can apparently prevent this if you edit the registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU, create a new DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and set the value to 1. Then reboot for the change to take effect.

quote:

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Originally posted by SteveWalker
Sorry, you are right. However, you can apparently prevent this if you edit the registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU, create a new DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and set the value to 1. Then reboot for the change to take effect.

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quote:

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Originally posted by plentywahalla
Can Linux do what i want and how easy is it to install and can I run all my usual programs?

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quote:

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Originally posted by David Jenkins
I can live without the macros... I found them unreliable when I had to use them as part of my job (although that was a LOOOONG time ago!)

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Perhaps we can agree to differ in our opinions of Windows and Linux...

Hopefully I've now fixed my Windows problem - I had to revert to a recovery image about 1 week old, then carefully re-apply the Windows Updates one by one. All worked OK this time, although it took me 2 or 3 attempts to get the recovery image to work (quite a few hours of effort).

Thankfully I hadn't changed anything during that period, so all I had to do was get the system running again without errors.

[Edited on 25/7/15 by David Jenkins]

Hey you chaps are having some bad luck! In the last 5 years or so I have never had a problem with Windows despite writing memory heavy documents.
W7 is best thing since sliced bread.
What are you fiddling about with to break it?
Cheers

I've got 6 PCs at home on win 7/8/10 and never really have any problems. I hate iTunes though.

quote:

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Originally posted by v8kid
What are you fiddling about with to break it?

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Aaaargh!

In my foolishness I'd put myself on the queue for Windows 10 (yes, I know, don't say it...)

Noticed that Windows Update had been giving error codes over the past few days - this was the Win10 installer failing to run. So I looked up the codes, no help to be found there, and learned that many, many others are encountering the same codes during the update. Great.

In the end, I told Win8.1 to reset itself - this wipes all of my data, but this is no great loss as I don't keep anything significant on that machine (everything is on shared drives or Dropbox). I did this because I needed to preserve the product key (lost/hidden after the Win 8 to 8.1 update). This took around 7 or 8 hours. When it got to the end, it then told me that there was a Win10 update available, and did I want to install it. I said yes, and that bit took another hour or so to complete.

tl/dr: Updating from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 was a nightmare, but eventually successful.

Final note: I must say that Windows 10 is very respectable, at first glance... I feel no need to install the Classic Shell, as the interface is much like Windows 7.


[Edited on 4/8/15 by David Jenkins]