Posted By: MarkG
Initial experience with Windows 10 on new laptop - 12/25/19 09:38 PM
I picked up a couple of el-cheapo laptops from Office Depot, one for us and one for my parents. They'll replace our dying/dead Windows 7 laptops, although parents now mostly use Apple iPads (shown are Windows 10 and Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.3)...
Lenovo™ IdeaPad™ L340 Laptop, 15.6" Screen, Intel® Core™ i3 [8th Gen - 8145U CPU @ 2.10GHz x 2], 8GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, Windows® 10
https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/9008531/Lenovo-IdeaPad-L340-Laptop-156-Screen/
A couple of selling points for me were...
- 15.6" LCD screen with 1366 x 768 HD resolution (my trifocals don't see so well my wife's higher-res work laptop, even with larger screen size).
- Plays and burns DVDs and CDs (optical drives not a given these days).
Nice bang for ~$300.00, IMO.
++++++++++
I'm dual-booting mine with lots of testing, corrupting and factory restoring as I go (lol). Windows 10 vs. Linux Mint, so who wins?
To me, the champ is still Windows 2000 on my Dell 1.7GHz/512MB SDRAM/40GB HDD/Radeon 9600!
Many years of tweaking and streamlining...so lean, fast, smooth and business-like, with a Norton Ghost image of my entire partition including all production software ready to go (CAD, Dev, Office, etc.) fitting on a single CD with room to spare. A full dual-boot drive restore takes just a few minutes!
IMO, Win2k was the best NT as it was easier to deal with than NT4 and especially NT3.51. XP was the beginning of the end, the first NT that started offering the "consumer experience" of 9x/Me (also first with online activation). IMO, Windows has been ruined ever since. MS needs to bring back a lean no-nonsense production OS that doesn't insist on constantly reloading install icons of Candy Crush and Spotify on your PC (among other settings issues on updates, not yet confirmed).
One word I'd describe Windows 10 would be...unprofessional. As I understand it, the "Professional" version of 10 is not much better, only the Enterprise version (rental OS, 5-seat minimum) would give me the experience I'm looking for. This one lacks Microsoft's "consumer experience" and doesn't fight you for control of your own PC, although I'm sure it's still as bloated and cumbersome as Windows 7, but with 10's schizophrenic UI (is this for a tablet/touchscreen or traditional desktop?).
Of course, I can't go online with Win2k (my Win2k and XP desktops/laptops are physically connected to a hub with no modem), but I'm still of the mentality that a PC is a production tool first and source of entertainment second. I spent thousands of dollars on my first *real* PC (486 DX2 w/NEC 17" CRT) with no thoughts of gaming whatsoever, only computer drafting, programming and various office needs. But once I added a Creative Labs Soundblaster Multimedia kit (CD-ROM/sound card/speakers), my attitude about gaming changed...a little.
But I digress...
By comparison, I'm blown away with what you get for the money these days!
++++++++++
Fortunately I've found the solution to making Windows 10 Home behave...
And that is to NEVER let it connect online! In my case, I started over yet again with a factory reset and in the initial setup, I withheld my router password (mine is a HughesNet router/modem combo). Cortana will #%&*$# and moan until you shut her up, and 10 will keep bugging and reminding you that it can't connect with messages like, "Ah snap, I can't connect" to "The Web just isn't the same without you" with pic of broken heart. Very professional, MS. I will never again connect with a Windows OS, only Linux (and the current Mint flies on this laptop, same Linux OS on my 2008 Vista laptop so it makes sense that it's so fast).
But for testing my Win2K compiled executables on current Windows, managing music, pics and very large drives, this permanently offline secondary-boot Windows 10 should serve me well. Eventually I'll figure out how to do most things in Linux, but for now my dual-boot is working great. Mom isn't ready to go Linux yet so she'll be going online with 10 (Edge, but still includes I.E.), so we'll see how that goes.
Lenovo™ IdeaPad™ L340 Laptop, 15.6" Screen, Intel® Core™ i3 [8th Gen - 8145U CPU @ 2.10GHz x 2], 8GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, Windows® 10
https:/
A couple of selling points for me were...
- 15.6" LCD screen with 1366 x 768 HD resolution (my trifocals don't see so well my wife's higher-res work laptop, even with larger screen size).
- Plays and burns DVDs and CDs (optical drives not a given these days).
Nice bang for ~$300.00, IMO.
++++++++++
I'm dual-booting mine with lots of testing, corrupting and factory restoring as I go (lol). Windows 10 vs. Linux Mint, so who wins?
To me, the champ is still Windows 2000 on my Dell 1.7GHz/512MB SDRAM/40GB HDD/Radeon 9600!
Many years of tweaking and streamlining...so lean, fast, smooth and business-like, with a Norton Ghost image of my entire partition including all production software ready to go (CAD, Dev, Office, etc.) fitting on a single CD with room to spare. A full dual-boot drive restore takes just a few minutes!
IMO, Win2k was the best NT as it was easier to deal with than NT4 and especially NT3.51. XP was the beginning of the end, the first NT that started offering the "consumer experience" of 9x/Me (also first with online activation). IMO, Windows has been ruined ever since. MS needs to bring back a lean no-nonsense production OS that doesn't insist on constantly reloading install icons of Candy Crush and Spotify on your PC (among other settings issues on updates, not yet confirmed).
One word I'd describe Windows 10 would be...unprofessional. As I understand it, the "Professional" version of 10 is not much better, only the Enterprise version (rental OS, 5-seat minimum) would give me the experience I'm looking for. This one lacks Microsoft's "consumer experience" and doesn't fight you for control of your own PC, although I'm sure it's still as bloated and cumbersome as Windows 7, but with 10's schizophrenic UI (is this for a tablet/touchscreen or traditional desktop?).
Of course, I can't go online with Win2k (my Win2k and XP desktops/laptops are physically connected to a hub with no modem), but I'm still of the mentality that a PC is a production tool first and source of entertainment second. I spent thousands of dollars on my first *real* PC (486 DX2 w/NEC 17" CRT) with no thoughts of gaming whatsoever, only computer drafting, programming and various office needs. But once I added a Creative Labs Soundblaster Multimedia kit (CD-ROM/sound card/speakers), my attitude about gaming changed...a little.
But I digress...
By comparison, I'm blown away with what you get for the money these days!
++++++++++
Fortunately I've found the solution to making Windows 10 Home behave...
And that is to NEVER let it connect online! In my case, I started over yet again with a factory reset and in the initial setup, I withheld my router password (mine is a HughesNet router/modem combo). Cortana will #%&*$# and moan until you shut her up, and 10 will keep bugging and reminding you that it can't connect with messages like, "Ah snap, I can't connect" to "The Web just isn't the same without you" with pic of broken heart. Very professional, MS. I will never again connect with a Windows OS, only Linux (and the current Mint flies on this laptop, same Linux OS on my 2008 Vista laptop so it makes sense that it's so fast).
But for testing my Win2K compiled executables on current Windows, managing music, pics and very large drives, this permanently offline secondary-boot Windows 10 should serve me well. Eventually I'll figure out how to do most things in Linux, but for now my dual-boot is working great. Mom isn't ready to go Linux yet so she'll be going online with 10 (Edge, but still includes I.E.), so we'll see how that goes.