Windows 10: Three Years In

Full circle: the current Windows logo is as flat as the original 1985 version.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since Microsoft rolled out Windows 10. Usually, the thought of Microsoft releasing a new version of Windows is about as much fun as  contemplating a root canal. So naturally, there was much skepticism at the time about this release. Could an “operating system as a service” be reliable or would this be another Microsoft fumble? The Giant of Redmond was still stinging from the botched release of Windows 8 and although 8.1 addressed many of the complaints, the damage was done. Users were holding on to Windows 7 (which at the time was probably the best Windows ever) like it was gold.

Back in 2015, I was running 8.1 on my big work machine. To me, 8.1 was pretty meh so I figured I might as well upgrade to Windows 10. At that time, Microsoft was also pushing 10 to an annoying degree and, yes, I succumbed. Truth be told, I am kind of a sucker for new versions of software…be they applications or OS. So I was damn curious. I gave it a few weeks just to make sure there were no major complaints of catastrophe from other users and then I took the plunge.

My experience over the past three years has been overwhelmingly positive. No, really. Windows 10 has been, dare I say, extremely reliable. Weekly updates are scheduled for off-hours and aren’t intrusive. Since 2015, Redmond has also released five major updates to Windows 10 (Threshold 2 and Redstones 1-4) and, at least for me, updates have occurred without any hitches or glitches. Is this really a Microsoft product? To be sure, there have been a few bumps for Microsoft along the way. The push to get a new version of the OS out on a regular schedule has occasionally brought trouble: witness the rushed release of current build 1803 (Redstone 4) earlier this year which Redmond had to quickly pull due to increased numbers of BSODs. But they got things sorted before I even updated, and this release Windows 10 has been reliable.

While there has been no radical overhaul to the OS since 2015, each major release has added useful features. I know that there are already scads of tech blogs and review sites that have analyzed every minute detail of the operating system to the nth degree, but indulge me while I sum up a few things that I have found to be the most handy:

Virtual Desktops

Yes I know Mac OS had already offered this for years, but it was about time Microsoft caught up with this highly useful feature. It debuted with the first iteration of 10 back in 2015 and was very welcome indeed.

Cortana

I was a little late jumping on the Cortana bandwagon and yes I can stubbornly cling to old ways of doing things. But I have come around to using Cortana which I have discovered to be a much more intuitive search tool compared to the old “search” of pre-10 builds.  And they have been making improvements to Cortana with each major release. It now features a Lists feature app that lets you create lists that sync across devices. So if I create my “to do” list on my big machine, it is synced with my laptop.

Redstone 4’s incorporation of a timeline and its integration with Cortana, I have to admit, is pretty freaking amazing. It works brilliantly on my 2-monitor set-up and is evidence that Microsoft understands they still need to cater to multi-taskers like me. If 8 was an attempt to shift the OS to a more mobile-friendly interface–something Windows users weren’t really asking for–then 10 has, if not taking the OS in the opposite direction, created an even better interface for power users who have lots of screen real estate.

 

The timeline lets you scroll down the screen to select recently used documents.

Windows Hello

This was another one that seemed dubious to me before I tried it. I don’t have a webcam on my big machine, but my Samsung Notebook 9 has one and I use Hello’s facial recognition to log into the machine. I have to say it works pretty darn well, most of the time. Even in low light or when I’m not wearing my glasses, it seems to have no problem recognizing me. Perhaps this is an indicator of an increasingly rushed (or lazy?) society, but it’s nice not having to login in with a PIN or password.

Windows Action Center

Although this feature was available in previous versions of Windows, it was dramatically transformed with 10. Whereas the old “Action Center” looked like a simple pop-up menu alerting you to security and maintenance issues, the current one appears as an entire sidebar and is much more customizable. You can receive notifications from a whole host of apps, or you can turn them off in Settings. Some users still find the Action Center annoying, but there’s also a “focus assist” setting (formerly known as “quiet hours”) that allows you to turn on and off notifications and create rules for alarms and priority notifications.

Design and Interface

Microsoft returned the Windows UI to flatland with the release of Windows 8. The theme continued with Windows 10, but with more refinements and with a more integrated feel between the modern theme introduced with 8 and Windows explorer. Recent updates have begun to add Windows’ new “Fluent Design” features that add a little more visual spice to the OS. My favorite is “acrylic” which adds a slight transparency and blur to certain windows. It’s a bit like a revival of Aero, but much more subtle and sophisticated. I’m hoping Microsoft will introduce fluent design elements into other parts of the OS- especially Explorer.

Shades of Aero: the acrylic effect has a subtle but handsome frosted-glass look.

If I have any complaints, there still remain some inconsistencies between the “old” Windows (versions 7 and earlier) and the modern interface first introduced with Windows 8. For example, you can perform many of the same maintenance tasks using either the traditional Control Panel or the more contemporary-looking “Settings” dashboard. I can understand why Microsoft has done this- they were burned when they took away the beloved Start button in Windows 8, so they are probably loathe to remove long-used and familiar features.

The Control Panel, one of the most familiar Windows features, has been around since since v. 2.0. The shortcut-based interface was introduced with Windows 95 and the category view debuted with XP.

 

The settings dashboard looks much more modern than the Control Panel and is better integrated into the Windows 10 design language.

There’s also whole other raft of stuff that I really don’t care about, but some people might find useful. I won’t bother discussing those here…there’s plenty of information about them at other sources.

Overall, I don’t have any major gripes with 10 and the experience has been mostly smooth sailing thus far. I know a lot of readers of this blog are Mac users, but if you are a Windows user who has 10, I’d be curious to learn of your experiences. Has it been trouble-free? A nightmare? Do you feel like you’re marching into a brave new future or do you long for the good ol’ days when Mark Zuckerberg was still in diapers and software came in a box?

These beautiful and intelligent people wrote

  • MikkoReply
    September 10, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    Virtual Desktops existed on Linux dists first

  • GJBReply
    September 11, 2018 at 7:57 am

    I’ve had a few problems with Windows 10.

    For a long time after one of the updates, my NIC would not work reliably. I’d often have to reboot 2-4 times to get it to be recognized. Was a major pain.

    Recently, it stopped recognizing that my Logitech headset was a known USB device, It just couldn’t figure it out. I’d unplug it from my PC, plug it into my Mac Pro and it would work. Plug it back into the PC and Windows 10 would basically go, “What’s this?” Something in the last update appears to have fixed this.

    • Matt StriebyReply
      September 11, 2018 at 10:23 am

      Thankfully, I’ve had no trouble running peripherals. It’s always a little unnerving each time there is a major update, of course. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

    • Matt StriebyReply
      September 11, 2018 at 10:31 am

      I’m curious- were you ever able to get things sorted out with the NIC? If so, what did you do?

      • GJBReply
        September 12, 2018 at 7:50 am

        Whoops. That got lost in my original comment where I accidentally went to the previous page.

        It stopped doing that after one of the updates. I tried many things to fix it, but it kept on saying I had the best driver for the NIC already installed.

        • Matt StriebyReply
          September 13, 2018 at 1:06 pm

          I’m glad things worked out. Sometimes just waiting for an update will take care of the problem, but it’s frustrating to have to wait, of course. When I have issues, I often search forums like https://www.tenforums.com/ (or whatever-version-of -Windows- you’re- using.com). and have sometimes been able to solve issues that way. I have found that since switching to 10, I’m not visiting those forums very often and that’s one way I have measured 10’s overall reliability for me.

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