WINDOWS 10, 8.1, 8, 7 - MICROSOFT FAILS ON ALL FRONTS!

I bought two identical desk top computers three years ago. One was for my partner for his 90th birthday. He had a very old desk top with windows xp and it has very small memory and a fairly small hard disc and it was time to upgrade.

My desk top was not that old but as windows xp was coming to an end and these new ones had windows 7, it seemed a good time to upgrade.

When I bought the two desk tops I was told that windows 8 would be out in 3 months and for a special offer of $15 I would be able to upgrade to the latest Microsoft operating system.

Not having used windows 7 before and therefore knowing nothing about it, I thought I would bring myself up to date with the latest and install windows 8 as soon as it was available, and did just that.

Disaster struck from day one as I discovered that windows 8 was unusable. Fortunately there were still some windows xp laptops and desk tops still working in the house so I was not completely disabled. Looking on the web I found there were thousands around the world horrified by windows 8's disaster and it didn't take long for someone with knowledge to design a start button which could be easily downloaded and installed and give some measure of normality back to this ghastly operating system.

Windows 8 caused such an outcry that microsoft issued windows 8.1 which returned some sort of sanity for those of us who are not geniuses and are also geriatrics and needed something simpler and more rational than windows 8.

Then, Microsoft, wanting to make its next fortune, did an upgrade and produced windows 10, supposedly designed to simplify operation for those of us who needed something easy to follow.

As if windows 8 hadn't provided a host of problems, windows 10 came along and did some irreparable harm from which I am still trying to recover.

The first disaster was to affect my keyboard by swopping two keys around, one of those everybody uses to send emails the @ sign, and the other the double inverted comma sign ". Only by accident did this come to light.

The next disaster was to tell me - and my web upload programme is designed around them - that "access was denied" when I had to use notepad pages.

Thus endeth the FTP programme on the windows 10 desk top computer.

Microsoft told us we could uninstall windows 10 if we weren't happy with it and that is what I did. The outcome was I was back to windows 8.1 but the windows 10 disasters remained!

So as my partner hadn't used his new computer because of all the problems I had had, and because it was still packed in its box, I decided to unpack it and learn to use windows 7.

Mistake and disaster! The windows 7 computer has now decided it doesn't like something installed on it and it freezes all the time!

Thank goodness for my Linux laptop - none of these microsoft disasters. Never again!

I was too late to send an entry to Choice Magazine's 2015  Shonky Awards - an annual competition for people to submit companies which make claims for their products and which fail lamentably for many reasons.

If possible I will submit Microsoft windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 as my entry for the Shonkys. 

 

WINDOWS 10 HAS RUINED MY DESKTOP PC!

Windows 10 gives the option of uninstalling  so that you can return to - in my case - windows 8.1. When I tried this, the problems that windows 10 had caused with its installation would not go away on windows 8.1, so I thought I would have nothing to lose by reinstalling windows 10.

How wrong can one be??? Not only were the previous problems caused by windows 10 still there but there were now new ones added to the old.

The main lesson I have learnt from this exercise of microsoft and its upgrading to new operating systems is that if something is working and it is not broken, don't try and fix it. You will make it worse and disaster looms.

I am now doing my best to keep my laptops which still have windows xp and also my laptops which have linux.

The sooner I can rid myself of anything to do with microsoft, the better.


............and good luck to all those who think they will be better off with windows 10! I wish them well.

WINDOWS 10 - DISASTER ONCE MORE FROM MICROSOFT

When I bought a new PC a few years ago it came with windows 7 installed. The shop where I bought the computer advised that windows 6 was being released in a few months' time and would be able to be downloaded for a small amount of $15.

Who could refuse an offer like that! - although I know nothing about windows 8 at that stage.

However, ever a glutton for punishment I bought and installed windows 8.

Disaster of course hit immediately and I found windows 8 unworkable. My mini notebook had windows xp installed - thank goodness - and when I had trouble on the PC with windows 8 I did what I needed to do on the mini.

Looking on the web I discovered that I was not alone in having problems with windows 8 and some enterprising developers had developed a start button to install and life with windows 8 improved considerably.

Then came windows 8.1 which improved matters somewhat.

When windows 10 was announced as a free download if one had 7, 8 or 8.1 installed I thought that 10 could not possibly be worse than what I had been struggling with on my PC, but how wrong could one possibly be!!

To start with, two of the uppercase symbols seem to have been changed around so that the @ symbol is now where the " symbol is and vice versa!

Then the sidebar almost disappears when one uses it and it becomes impossible to find where it has disappeared to.

The next problem appeared in my ftp programme which I have been using for the last 10 years and more.

In order to upload pages to the web from one's local documents one has them loaded onto a notepad page which then gets uploaded with its contents to the web for everyone to have access to - except that windows 10 has made alterations to my ftp programme and I am now not able to access my notepad pages and so am unable to upload anything on my windows 10 PC.

Thank goodness for my old windows xp computers - and thank goodness I have now got a new laptop with linux installed.

Ultimately I will get rid of windows for ever and start having peace of mind. If windows continues going from one disaster to another, I don't want to be one of the guinea pigs! 

I have now just discovered that I am unable to save word documents in word as I have been doing for years! What is the next disaster I will be facing?

Thank goodness for my LINUX laptop!

WINDOWS 8 IS AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER!

For those of us who aren't "geeks" or whatever words are used these days for "tech-heads", Windows 8 is virtually unusable!

Maybe Windows 8 has been designed for use only on notebooks and laptops, but it doesn't remotely become usable for those of us who use desktop PCs and are used to Windows XP.

Because I was in such a hurry to accept the offer of a very much reduced purchase price of Windows 8 so soon after buying the new computer which came with Windows 7 installed, I am not in a position to comment on Windows 7 because Windows 8 does not allow one to revert to Windows 7.

Fortunately my old computer is still functioning and has Windows XP installed so when I am in trouble with the new computer I can revert to the old one.

One of the biggest problems with Windows 8 is that, if by accident, you are trying to access one of your documents and somehow you get onto a picture programme or something similar, when you try and get back to your normal documents it becomes virtually impossible.

Then if you close down the computer and restart it, you are confronted with Windows 8 start pages and the carefully installed Win8Startup programme which has been designed to allow some form of Windows 7 or Windows XP start and shut down system of the sort one has been used to operating, you find the button has disappeared and has to be re-installed!

I have had to do this so often that I have decided to obtain a Windows XP package and install it on the new computer. Maybe I will then be able to operate my computer as before!

MICROSOFT 2010 AND WINDOWS 8 - SO USER UNFRIENDLY THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OPERATE EITHER!

Having upgraded my new computer which came with Windows 7 to Windows 8 from a special offer, I hadn't even got used to Windows 7 when I was trying to contend with Windows 8.

Windows 8 has some word programme which works without problems, but when I transferred my word documents from my old computer which runs on Windows XP to my new computer, this installed word programme didn't recognise the old word documents and told me to download Microsoft 2010.

When I tried to download Microsoft 2010 I was told I needed to insert the Product Key which came with Windows 8, so I duly tried to use it to download Microsoft 2010.

While typing in the Product Key - remember this was sent to me by Microsoft when I upgraded to Windows 8 from Windows 7 - I was told I was making an error because Product Keys did not have the letter "N" in them!!

This was an astonishing statement because I was typing in the Product Key from the email sent to me with the Windows 8 information!

It was fortunate that Charles Wright had written an article about Windows 8 in the "Livewire" section of that week's Greenguide programmes in The Age newspaper. I wrote to Charles Wright who sent me some possible links to download in order to have - once more - the start button so sorely lacking in Windows 8 together with all sorts of other necessary operating buttons such as had successfully operated Windows in all its manifestations over the last 20 years.

As I didn't succeed with those links I looked for others and found a most successful FREE DOWNLOAD link at

windows8startbutton.com

Next I reinstalled my original word programme from my Windows XP set of CDs and at last I was out of the woods.

Microsoft may think that Windows 8 is very "jazzy and snazzy" for those who use IPads and apps all the time, but it is hardly suitable for a PC, and this is what it is also supposed to be for.

Send Microsoft back to the drawing board - in my case, once bitten, twice shy!

WINDOWS 8 - DID MICROSOFT THINK WINDOWS 8 WOULD BE A CHALLENGE TO APPLE??

When we bought new computers in September from Officeworks they had Windowes 7 installed. There was an offer that came with the purchase which was that we could order Windows 8 for a special price until the end of January 2013, and we could install it on the new comupters.

The offer seemed too good to be true, and as it has turned out, it is too good to be true.

I have been using computers since 1980 with various operating systems and programmes, and in this 30-year period, NOTHING has been as user-unfriendly as Windows 8.

Did Microsoft really think they had something which would be in competition with Apple? If so, they have seriously miscalculated.

It is easy enough to get started, but it is downhill all the way after that.

All one has to do is put Windows 8 into a search engine with one of the problems one is having, and already, in such a short time, people are saying how appallling the system is!

I am thinking of uninstalling Windows 8 and going back to Windows 7, which, after many years of Window XP, was different but accessible.

It reminded me of a children's poem from many years ago which I have changed slightly for reasons which are obvious:

"Win 8 tumbled down the drain;
Couldn't scramble out again.
Now it's floating down the sewer,
And there's one Win 8 the fewer."

One thing is for certain and for sure - I will certainly wait to let new operating systems settle down before rushing in to buy because of special offers - which in the light of our experiences did not seem to have been the best decision. Just remember what happened to Windows Vista which was somewhat of a disaster, and probably Windows 8 will prove to be the same!