[eye30]

Microsoft has been criticised over its Windows 10 software by consumer rights group Which?.

The body said it had received hundreds of complaints about the upgrade, including lost files, emails no longer syncing and broken wi-fi and printing.

In some cases, it said, users had had to pay for their computer to be repaired.

Microsoft defended its software and highlighted that it provided help online and by phone.

"The Windows 10 upgrade is a choice designed to help people take advantage of the most secure and most productive Windows," said a spokesman.

"Customers have distinct options. Should a customer need help with the upgrade experience, we have numerous options including free customer support."

Which? surveyed more than 5,500 of its members in June, and said that 12% of the 2,500 who had upgraded to Windows 10 had later reverted to an earlier version.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37431343

[CraigB]

Wont get me reverting back, absolutely love Win10

The biggest issue for those that have had problems is that they don't know how or where to get newer drivers ( and sometimes you cant ) to make their systems more compatible and stable with the upgrade.

[Dazzler]

Yeah, I don't love it, but got used to it now. No major issues so far... 

I must turn of some of their spy settings at some stage.

[CraigB]

I must turn of some of their spy settings at some stage.

Easy! open the windows search icon, click on the tools icon lower left of the panel and turn off everything there and that should disable " Cortana"  in the Edge browser advanced settings.

Use CCleaner's uninstall screen to remove unwanted apps "don't delete the store app" unless you never want anything from the store.

You can also open Settings - Privacy and under the General section turn off the options there as well, I advise leaving the Windows Smartscreen tab set to on as a security preventative.

[Dazzler]

Turned everything off that you suggested. Thanks Craig. What apps do you recommend removing?

[Doggie 1]

I did too.
Thanks Craig.

[CraigB]

Turned everything off that you suggested. Thanks Craig. What apps do you recommend removing?

Whatever you don't want, I removed all bar the Calculator and Store app, I reinstalled the Mail and Calendar app at a later date from the store as I thought I'd give it a go.

[CraigB]

I did too.
Thanks Craig.

You're welcome

[CraigB]

Dazz, you might also want the Weather app though I find their information inaccurate and prefer the Phone weather app, if you don't remove the Store app you can always go back and re-install apps again.

[Doggie 1]

I got rid of all the games apps too which I will never use.
I have been having big problems with my laptop in recent times, very, very slow.
Tonight I removed Firefox and am now using Microsoft Edge and it is massively faster.
Not sure if I did the right thing because I'm far from expert in this area but it's a lot easier to use.

[CraigB]

I got rid of all the games apps too which I will never use.
I have been having big problems with my laptop in recent times, very, very slow.
Tonight I removed Firefox and am now using Microsoft Edge and it is massively faster.
Not sure if I did the right thing because I'm far from expert in this area but it's a lot easier to use.

I only use Edge these days as well, works with everything I do so far and you can also disable flash in the Edge settings as HTML5 is safer.

[Dazzler]

Thanks Craig, All good.

[CraigB]

Thanks Craig, All good.

No problem Dazz

[Surferdude]

Bookmarked for the next few days as I've just installed a new desktop pc with W10 and finding my way around Edge and mail etc.
So, thanks in advance,

[CraigB]

If you have any problems Trev...ask and you shall receive

[rustynutz]

I must turn of some of their spy settings at some stage.

I've used this:  https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
It's a free download... 

[rustynutz]

I installed Windows 10 on my laptop a few months back.
Only trouble is I hardly bother using it although I did drag it out last week to have a play around.
Decided to install the "anniversary update" which (surprisingly) installed without dramas... 

I know it's early days but at this stage I think I'll continue to stick with Windows 7 on my desktop...

[CraigB]

I must turn of some of their spy settings at some stage.

I've used this:  http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
It's a free download... 

Not really a necessary program if you follow the steps I've already mentioned, if you shut down to much stuff you'll find things not working or updating and no matter how much you think you've stopped any spying all you metadata is still transmitted through your ISP for them to sell off, your ISP collects far more information than Microsoft wants

Another thing I find amusing is people complaining about Win10 privacy issues you only know about it because Microsoft came forward and stated what they were collecting, meanwhile they were collecting just as much info from every previous system before Win10 but they never told anyone about it 

[rustynutz]

Might not be necessary but it makes the job easy for those not that confident with their computers... 

[CraigB]

Might not be necessary but it makes the job easy for those not that confident with their computers... 

Actually I think the Shut Up program only confuses people more as there are numerous setting tabs to shut of with no real information on what affect it'll have on the system and the ability for the system itself to auto search for a required driver or some other function that requires fixing but can only do so by uploading a certain amount of data to solve the problem.

I see the issues caused by these programs everyday when working on security forums but in the end we can only advise and say "your system your choice"

[rustynutz]

Clicking on each option brings up an explanation as to what it does...

Anyhow, I'm really not interested in a "my way is better than yours" contest, I simply offered a program to help members turn off all the crap... 

The choice is theirs as to whether they use it or not...

[CraigB]

It never was a contest Rusty, I'm just advising people against snake oil programs that somewhere down the track cause more issues than they're worth and users don't know the reason for it.

If people search for the right information they'll fine the OS is capable of most things through either small adjustment in the settings or by getting more in-depth via gpedit and the registry for the more advanced.

[rustynutz]

O&O can hardly be called a snake oil company, Craig... 

A quick "google"search will see that there are many many websites recommending shutup 10.
Searching "issues using O&O shutup" doesn't bring up anything...

[The Gonz]

Gents, I see value on both sides of the argument. From Craig's perspective, I can relate to a certain level of uninformed power applied through such tools and have countless times had to deal with fellow workers' problems on the phone over the dinner table, as a network admin for one of my postings back in fun days of W4W311 and Novell Netware. I personally gravitate to power tools that open up functionality rather than close it.

However, plenty of tools such as what's been posted here have proven useful and popular over time. CCleaner may have been viewed this way early on. I thank you both for your views and the forum is better for it, providing both opportunity and education. As for the emerging argument, let's agree to disagree.

[CraigB]

I never said the company was snake oil Rusty, just the program, as mentioned earlier I see the issues that have arisen from the use of these programs first hand in security forums where people turn up complaining usually that there AV or system has an issue only to find that after reviewing many logs that certain necessary features were disabled by said program and others as the root of the issue, and also as pre-mentioned "your program your choice" I'm just an adviser.

End of story

[rustynutz]

All I'd like to say is...those that are interested in turning off the "spyware" in Windows 10, do consider "shutup 10", do some research for yourself, I have and have yet to find any indication that the program doesn't do what it's advertised to do...

Here are a couple of reviews:

O&O ShutUp10 v1.4.1383 - Security - Downloads - PC Advisor
O&O ShutUp10: Configure Security And Privacy Settings In Windows 10

 

[Surferdude]

So, I have now got a week of W10 ownership behind me.  Some observations and queries follow.

* You have virtually no control over updates. They come regardless, pretty much every day. Which, when you have a 20GB download limit/ month, can be dangerous.
I discovered all this the hard way. A day or so after going live, a major download began.
There's also no advice when it happens. Just everything else goes slow (ADSL1 only here). You can check in the Settings and see it happening. Anyway, there was a problem with the download, several times it failed. Message said "installing" so I just kept hitting "Retry". Unfortunately it was downloading again each time. In the end I had to turn off a heap of background processes to get it to work. The end result was over 3.5GB of downloads in one day. Fixed now but I have to turn it on before 8am (2pm-8am I have an extra 20GB Off Peak).

Also unfortunately, it seems (not sure about this yet) that Microsoft sends out its updates about 10am our time so if the 'puter is running after this time, more downloads happen.

* Minor thing but I notice if you hit "Delete", there's no "Are you sure?" message. Just Boom. Gone.

* All my mail works fine except GMail. I keep getting a message saying my GMail settings are out of date. I've reloaded it a few times. Says it's established but doesn't work. Fortunately I have tablet access. I've tried a few Google options without success.

* W10 won't recognise my Lexmark X1195 printer scanner. Doesn't look like there's any options on the web either. Unfortunate because I use it as a scanner. But it WILL work on my old XP laptop. Just annoying.

* Having said that, most of my supplementary software isn't recognised, but some I can get updates off the web. Brother Laser Printer, Magix Video Easy are OK now. Colin McRae Rally 2 works surprisingly but only off the keyboard. The Logitech Wingman steering wheel controls for it work but with no finesse. Looks like CMR2 might have to live on the laptop as well.

*It seems W10 doesn't bother with Movie Maker. That's crazy. Lots of after market stuff but I can make do with Magix Video Easy.

*W10 also wants me to BUY something to recognise the local surf web cam. Strange because the other mob's surf cams work fine. However, I've set up Mozilla Firefox and I can access it through there.

* I run VLC which is good, too.

*So, I'm using Edge and Mail straight from W10, with a backup option of Firefox and Thunderbird just in case. I haven't used my copy of Kaspersky as my son assures me the W10 security is good enough.

* Incidentally, I did a System Recovery Disc and a Backup. The backup says it's saving to a file called "Backup and Restore W7". What's the go with that.

* Unloaded Microsoft Office 2010 from the W7 computer and reloaded it on the W10 device. No way I'll be using the Cloud based version.

* One good aspect of all this is that I've finally got around to sorting and culling my many, varied backup versions of Pictures, Videos and Music. By the time I'd finished I'd gone from nearly 250Gb to about 110GB.

[Dazzler]

Not a great success then Trevor. I haven't discovered any such issues yet. I have 200 GB download limit + 3 by free top ups per year.

[CraigB]

Trev, updates that large sound like the anniversary update to me, they're usually around 3gb about once every 6 months so your 20gb plan should be very adequate as I managed 2 Win10 systems on a wireless 8gb plan for several months

There is no set time for updates anymore either, it used to be the 2nd Tuesday of every month ( Wednesday in Australia ) but they are pushed out out when necessary now so that security concerns can be patched quicker, mostly around two updates a month now I receive though several Defender updates will come through daily.

Printer issues are known problem with Win10 as it doesn't like older drivers and that can sometime be related to dodgy companies supplying hardware running on old software, eg...A 6 month old Win7 system I upgraded some time ago wouldn't accept it's wireless keyboard after the update to Win10 and after stuffing around with it for 15mins discovered the drivers for a 6 month old Microsoft keyboard were Win98 ( what you get when buying budget crap )

If you are getting offers you might need to go through the settings option and disable certain features like the last tab in the pic below.

[CraigB]

Also if you right click Disc Clean-up and choose run as administrator you'll be given more options to delete Windows old and the Win7 recovery backup if you are going to stick with Win10, you'll get back 20gb of space or so then you can use the built in image function to make an image of the system on an external drive in case shit hits the fan and you need a quick recovery