Windows 10 is coming - but think twice before upgrading if you use it on a boat...

[ffiill]

These days I hardly use my laptop at home and use my tablet for everything.
I no longer see the point of messing with a laptop onboard.
My hudl runs navigation software with a blue tooth gps,tide ap and not forgetting my ais engine.
I cannot think of anything else to use it for on board.
My latest addition is a suction cup secure tablet mount from banggood which solves the issue of bright background light blanking the display.
The only thing my old laptop system can do is run a weather fax interface with my ssb radio receiver.
I have yet to find an app for this.
To me laptops and windows are becoming defunct.

 

[maby]

These days I hardly use my laptop at home and use my tablet for everything.
I no longer see the point of messing with a laptop onboard.
My hudl runs navigation software with a blue tooth gps,tide ap and not forgetting my ais engine.
I cannot think of anything else to use it for on board.
My latest addition is a suction cup secure tablet mount from banggood which solves the issue of bright background light blanking the display.
The only thing my old laptop system can do is run a weather fax interface with my ssb radio receiver.
I have yet to find an app for this.
To me laptops and windows are becoming defunct.

Tablets are fine for browsing the web and lightweight navigation - I use a Samsung Note 10.1 for that sort of thing. But they can't compete for serious work - you try typing up a 100 page document on an iPad or Android tablet. They are not really up to creating a Power Point presentation or building a serious spreadsheet either. A Microsoft Surface Pro would do everything, but they are horribly expensive, so it's a Lenovo laptop for real work and a Samsung tablet for play.

As far as "on-board" is concerned, it all depends on your lifestyle - I often live and work on the boat, so the networking issues associated with Windows 10 are very relevant to me.

 

[ex-Gladys]

I've been on the WIndows Insider Preview (basically WIn 10 Guinea-pig) and have to say there's an awful lot of rubbish rumour being spread about the final build. FIrstly, it's not out yet, so how does anyone know that you can't control updates? This is an OS that's designed for corporates as much as anyone, and updating is NOT done through the internet, and not done on SUper Tuesday due to the need to check any impacts of updates on old apps, so there WILL be a way to control Updates.

Secondly, I'm running 10 on a laptop that Win 7 ran like a dog on - even with a fresh install. All Win 10 builds I've used have performed incredibly well, and the latest is the best of the lot. Boot up and login is about 10 sec, and that is with a slow old ATA HDD

 

[maby]

I've been on the WIndows Insider Preview (basically WIn 10 Guinea-pig) and have to say there's an awful lot of rubbish rumour being spread about the final build. FIrstly, it's not out yet, so how does anyone know that you can't control updates? This is an OS that's designed for corporates as much as anyone, and updating is NOT done through the internet, and not done on SUper Tuesday due to the need to check any impacts of updates on old apps, so there WILL be a way to control Updates.

Secondly, I'm running 10 on a laptop that Win 7 ran like a dog on - even with a fresh install. All Win 10 builds I've used have performed incredibly well, and the latest is the best of the lot. Boot up and login is about 10 sec, and that is with a slow old ATA HDD

I'm sure you are right - I have been looking forward to W10. The control of updates is described by Microsoft as a feature that is limited to corporate users - not available on the W10 Home edition. I have W7/W8 Pro on my work laptops and will presumably be able to control update delivery on them following an upgrade to W10, but I also have a couple of private laptops that are running W8 Home edition - they are a concern.

 

[nigelmercier]

i have a laptop from Lenovo with Windows 8 on it ....

You can't upgrade from Windows 8, you need 8.1

... updating is NOT done through the internet ...

Huh? Magic?

All will be revealed in a little over 14 hours (0700 GMT), hopefully.

 

[maby]

Huh? Magic?

....

Gladys is right - my laptop does not go to the internet for updates - it connects to our private update servers either through the LAN if I'm in one of our offices, or via a VPN tunnel (over the internet) if I'm on the road.

 

[BrianH]

Tablets are fine for browsing the web and lightweight navigation - I use a Samsung Note 10.1 for that sort of thing. But they can't compete for serious work - you try typing up a 100 page document on an iPad or Android tablet. They are not really up to creating a Power Point presentation or building a serious spreadsheet either. A Microsoft Surface Pro would do everything, but they are horribly expensive, so it's a Lenovo laptop for real work and a Samsung tablet for play.

As far as "on-board" is concerned, it all depends on your lifestyle - I often live and work on the boat, so the networking issues associated with Windows 10 are very relevant to me.

+1.
I spend most of the summer on board and write a lot - emails in the main, but also narrative logs, short stories, many, many pages. A proper keyboard is essential and I touch-type - fast.

I also process all my photos too, preferring to photograph raw images.

Tablets - I have one - are just a toy compared with what one can do with a notebook PC.

 

[ex-Gladys]

The other thing about the new W 10 update is that you can peer the updates from devices on your own LAN (so if you have a number of PC's at home, they'll effectively share the updates between them). As far as I recall the free update is Pro...


Errr, no it's version for version so HOme to HOme, but there is nothing that suggests the updates are mandatory, although this is the last big upgrade for Windows, the future is regular updates

 

[maby]

...As far as I recall the free update is Pro...

Is it really? I was under the impression that you got the equivalent to whatever version of 7 or 8 you had loaded...

 

[Forty_Two]

Huh? Magic?

Yes, WSUS

 

[nigelmercier]

Yes, WSUS

OK, but the updates originally come from Microsoft.

 

[nigelmercier]

I've just looked at my PC and the files have already downloaded: a hidden folder in root named $Windows.~BT

 

[nigelmercier]

I've just looked at my PC and the files have already downloaded: a hidden folder in root named $Windows.~BT

If you don't have this, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

[nigelmercier]

If you get an error in Windows Update saying it has failed to install Windows 10, try this:

Go to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ and rename or move the Download folder
Open an elevated Command Prompt and type this command: wuauclt.exe /updatenow
[To open an elevated Command Prompt, go to Start, type cmd then right click and select Run as administrator]

 

[AuntyRinum]

I'm amazed that people still bother with Windows when there are far superior OSs available. I have to use Windows for work (we've just been recently upgraded to Windows 7!) but I'd never choose it for personal use.

I'm not surprised you think like that if you've only just upgraded to 7. You are years out of date.

 

[maby]

I'm amazed that people still bother with Windows when there are far superior OSs available. I have to use Windows for work (we've just been recently upgraded to Windows 7!) but I'd never choose it for personal use.

It's not the operating system, it's the applications that are available to run on it. Yes, Unix and unix-based OSs are better engineered than Windows, but you don't use the OS, you use the applications - and there is nothing around to touch Microsoft Office or Visual Studio.

 

[ronsurf]

I'm not surprised you think like that if you've only just upgraded to 7. You are years out of date.

As I said in my post - it's a work machine. It was only 6 months ago that we upgraded from XP to Win7. This is not some tiny company, this is a major multinational service company. Business seem to be very wary of Windows OS, there have been so many duff releases in the past.

If you get an error in Windows Update saying it has failed to install Windows 10, try this:

Go to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ and rename or move the Download folder
Open an elevated Command Prompt and type this command: wuauclt.exe /updatenow
[To open an elevated Command Prompt, go to Start, type cmd then right click and select Run as administrator]

This is exactly the sort of thing that makes Windows OS a pain.

 

[maby]

As I said in my post - it's a work machine. It was only 6 months ago that we upgraded from XP to Win7. This is not some tiny company, this is a major multinational service company. Business seem to be very wary of Windows OS, there have been so many duff releases in the past.
....

We only upgraded from XP under duress, but that is not down to a suspicion of Windows OS, it's more a recognition that XP does everything that a professional user needs, so why risk the potential disruption of a large scale upgrade. Microsoft's problem is that a lot of the market is not "serious users" - it's fashion conscious home users. I'm running Windows 7 on my company laptop as I type this - does it do anything that I need which XP didn't? Of course it doesn't - I am not using the Operating System, I'm using MS Word, Powerpoint, Excel etc. - they worked perfectly well under XP. We only moved to W7 when Microsoft announced the termination of support for XP.

Microsoft are in competition with Apple and Android for the mass market which is fashion conscious - and they feel forced to keep on adding features and tarting up the user interface - which got them into trouble with Windows 8.

 

[Forty_Two]

OK, but the updates originally come from Microsoft.

You are of course totaly correct, I should have used a smiley...

 

[Birdseye]

I'm amazed that people still bother with Windows when there are far superior OSs available. I have to use Windows for work (we've just been recently upgraded to Windows 7!) but I'd never choose it for personal use.

There might or might not be superior OP systems available but not all of us are nerds willing to "mount" things and whats more lots of hardware doesnt have drivers for other OP systems. Which I guess is why 90% of users disagree with you and run windows.