Thoughts on Windows 10

Last year, I found a 10$ PC at a flea market. I bought the PC thinking that there would be an old operating system in it and possibly an old RuneScape cache, but it turns out that the computer only contained a fresh install of Windows 10. Oh well.

I never wanted to have this OS, but since I have it, I may as well write my thoughts on it...

The main reason I never upgraded my main computer is that anything past Windows 7 does not have a really good reputation. Most people I know that have it regrets upgrading it. A lot of people claim that it contains spyware. The fact that it force you to do updates is not really great.

I like having control over my software, Windows 10 seemed to be the antithesis of that.

Anyway, since I had my doubts about this OS, I pretty much only used this computer as another backup location. I also used it to compile some RuneScape datamining tools that required it.

My very first impression was that the UI looked completely devoid of souls. Gone are the days of pretty pixel art and gorgeous 3D models for icons I guess.

One thing I immediately noticed is that there was ads in the start menu. I hate this. Also I seriously wonder what they were thinking when they made the search bar search the internet. It's so weird and it slows everything down.

Anyhow, one day I was forced to an update. This is where the problem began.

I noticed the update was taking a while to install. I initially just shrugged it off as a big update or bad optimization. I went to sleep and let the computer do its thing.

Next morning, it was still on the update screen. It had been 7+ hours at this point. I concluded that the update system was garbage and that it must have soft locked itself. I force the computer to shut down.

Upon booting up the system again, I discovered that the HDD was apparently corrupted. Now granted there is a real possibility that the drive was already falling when I bought the computer and that Windows 10 had nothing to do with this.

Anyway, I took my computer to the local computer repair shop. Upon inspection, they found nothing wrong with the drive, but apparently Windows 10 thought it was corrupted. They offered me to replace the drive with an SSD. I decided it was the safest thing do it in case the drive really was failling.

After this point, things went relatively well. That being said I still have a lot of gripes with it.

For instance, an update occurring sometimes in early 2022 added "doodles" to the start menu search bar. It's similar to what Google does, instead now it's on the UI of your OS.

I hate this. It creates a visual nuance in the corner of your screen.

Overall, my experience was not very good. The only thing I like about Windows 10 is that it's less buggy than Windows 8 but that's not exactly a high bar to overcome...

Written by manpaint on 20 August 2022.