PC tech support to customers: steer clear of Windows 10

I've upgraded about 10 completely different PC's with no major issues. Had a problem with stuttering video on one, had a look on some forums and found out it was actually caused by a crappy HP sound driver. Removed this and downloaded and installed the stock one from the hardware vendor and all was well.

I run my own machine on Windows 10 doing a heavy workload of development and design tools during the day and some gaming in the evenings and it runs smoothly and faultlessly. I can't remember having a single problem with win 10 since the install.

Downgrading to a previous OS because you can't get something working in 5 minutes is just the typical response of a call center that has no clue how to properly diagnose problems. 1) Reboot machine 2) Reinstall Driver - if that doesn't fix it go straight to script item 99 - downgrade OS. This article speaks badly of the Dells and HPs of this world, not Microsoft. They insist on writing really poor custom drivers on top of the hardware manufacturers driver which they then support and upgrade horribly. This has been the same for years and shows no sign of changing.
 
Running Win10 on an Intel NUC. Didn't even need to install any drivers (as with windows 7 I had about 700 Megs of drivers that needed installing. Rock solid. Not one glitch. Win10 takes up just over 10 Gigs of HDD space with all programmes installed. Win7 used 15 Gigs. Relevat on a 120 Gig SSD. Faster boot than 7.

Running Win10 on an Acer laptop. Core i7-2670QM. Only needed third-party usb3 driver and asus hotkey driver. Everything works perfect. Haven't had a single error yet. And I use it for video editing.

Running Win10 on a HP laptop. Core i5-5200U. Didn't need to install any drivers. Stable as a rock. Better battery life that Win8.1, uses less RAM (4Gig soldered to mobo), and a lot less HDD space.

Running Win 8.1 on another HP laptop. Exactly the same machine as above. (The wife's - she's conservative). Always sluggish, sometimes programmes crash running out of ram. Battery life a lot less than the 10 machine.

I'm never going back to 8 or 7. Only thing I don't use in 10 is Edge. My trusty Chrome browser still performes best.

So I cannot recognize the problems some of you have had.
 
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Typical tech support:
"Is your PC turned on? If turning it on doesn't work then we suggest buying a new PC from us. The new one might work, if not just give us a call and we'll help you again."
 
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@Corkydk Have a look at Win7's space usage to see why. It has a massive number of patches now and caches the installers. You can't really remove them as they are used when repairing and sometimes when upgrading with another patch. Win10 will most likely have the same problem in time.

Also, you did have to track down at least one driver. Not hard for a pc enthusiast but certainly a potential pain point for a non-tech user.
 
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It's almost as if people who have no idea what they're doing but just follow a script haven't received an updated script. If only there were some way of having trained people on the phone instead of minimum wage drones.
 
I'm an SCCM admin (among many other things) at my place of employment and I can tell you that Windows 10 has been very easy to deal with since release. I've built almost all of the Win10 related objects in our instance and it's been relatively effortless - and these objects/packages/applications/drivers are used by IT admins across the entire organization to manage over 10,000 PCs. From my viewpoint it's been a very good OS.
 
OEM tech support is for the morons of the world. These people seem to be trained in one area, how to read a step-by-step"fix script" written by someone else.

As far as Windows 10, I've upgraded about 12 computers with 100% success, no issues at all. The only real issue I have with it is that Microsoft pushes it's own ads, I.e. "get Office 360" kind of crap. This is why the upgrade is "free", MS is planning on a different way to monetise the OS via ads and apps (the Store). I predict that OS updates and patches will eventually be a $1 or 2 each too. I still have to recommend the upgrade though since it's just a matter of time before they stop patching Win 7/8 and then you'll be stuck with an outdated OS and forced to pay for Win 10.....or deal with the slew of exploits and malware/viruses that come along with it.
 
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This article seems to be giving only 1 side of the story. I'm saying this as I've 3 legal win7/8/8.1 licenses (2 desktops & 1 laptop). I've upgraded 2 to win-10 without any probs. OK drivers were / are / will be an issue but do not blame OS for that.

Due to guidelines as issued by Microsoft I was pleasantly surprised to see that new drivers / utils were there for my son's 3 year old Z77 extreme 4 Motherboard. Believe me I was able to use the same win7 Ultimate key & migrate to win-10 Pro within 20-25 minutes. Of course I'd readied a USB drive for my mobo / sound card drivers & upgraded using thew build 10565 was an excellent experience. This is the very 1st build where you can enter a valid prod-key of win 7/8/8.1 into 10 & upgrade extremely FAST. Hats off to win-10 Team headed by Gabe Aul to make such innovative product so that upgrading becomes BREEZE.

My age is 55 years & I've been in IT industry for 30+ years & have been using CP/M, DOS & then windows. I recollected that in my early IT years we'd to at least sit back for 3-4 hours (maybe more at times) to install OS thro floppies / CD's. It was only after 4.7 GB & 8.5 GB DVDs came that install became easy / a breeze.

Its ok some guys may have had bad experiences in win-10 upgrade process but that does not mean that it is a Bad OS. I would say with a certain amount of responsibility that win-10 is the best OS after win7 & congrats for doing a Gr8 job.

Please note that I am not saying this as a Windows Insider Program member but as an IT Professional.
 
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Viraf P Chinoy said:
This article seems to be giving only 1 side of the story.
<snip>
Please note that I am not saying this as a Windows Insider Program member but as an IT Professional.
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I agree the article seems to be extremely one sided even most of the comments. Where though do we meet in the middle with your comment being so far one sided to the opposite side of the stick? Where do those of us that do know what we are doing meet in the middle for those who do not? Are we supposed to act all arrogant and suggest we don't have issues?

I'd be willing to bet the majority of issues would be from upgrading an OS with heavy baggage. As an IT professional you probably don't have that habit. As an IT professional you have more experience than the average PC Tech Support. It doesn't surprise me that an IT professional doesn't have issues upgrading/installing operating systems. This thread is not questioning the competence of an IT Professional (or enthusiast such as myself for that matter). It is however questioning the blind leading the blind through tech support, for an OS that does have issues.

I've installed Windows 10 fresh after upgrading first (call it a double install if you will). For the most part I'm not having issues either. But then that is partly due to the fact I'm hardly using any of MS features(by features I mean all the little applications that could be removed) they've bloated the OS with. Once the OS is loaded, it is all third party applications for me. Since Windows 7 I can't comfortably use their Start Menu now. Which was just about the last feature of MS's OS I was using.
 
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Viraf P Chinoy said:
My age is 55 years & I've been in IT industry for 30+ years & have been using CP/M, DOS & then windows. I recollected that in my early IT years we'd to at least sit back for 3-4 hours (maybe more at times) to install OS thro floppies / CD's. It was only after 4.7 GB & 8.5 GB DVDs came that install became easy / a breeze.
Click to expand...
Right this is *exactly* my point. You have 30 years experience. You were prepared for the upgrade. Myself, I could upgrade my main to Win10 (I do run Win10 but on other machines than my main) and would expect I'd, like you, find missing drivers etc.

There are over a billion Windows users. Most of them do not have a strong IT background. They don't know how to track down drivers, rollback botched updates and so on. As good as Win10 is... forced upgrades on things like drivers are just such a bad idea particularly considering how badly they have been done on windows update in the past. E.g. NVIDIA drivers, countless other mobo drivers, security updates that prevent uninstallers running.

Microsoft should not be forcing this model on everyone because for a large portion of the userbase it is a terrible idea.
 
I've got to say that despite Win10 not coming with metro, it did come with a Win8 kind of feel that brought navigating around this new OS a feeling of confusion. Even the start button was organized in a confusing Win8 way. I think Microsoft have tried to listen but some how can't bring themselves to give the public what they want. If I could leave M$ with a message, it is to make all the components be removed or included.
 
DaveBG said:
Revert back to windows 8.1? The worst os ever invented? LOL...
Click to expand...

It's really not, with ClassicShell or something similar to get the regular Start menu back it's probably the best overall version of Windows right now. It's faster and less resource intensive, boots faster, is more secure, has a better Task Manager and better file management, and has native ISO support.

Say what you like about preferring 7 (like a good old pair of jeans?) but 8.1 is objectively better.
 
I have been testing and quite thoroughly putting Windows 10 through its paces for well over a year. I have submitted many bug reports and with each iteration of Windows 10 Insider Preview, those problems are fixed. I don't find any more wrong with Windows 10 than I did with XP or 7. What I do find much better is that Windows 10 is far easier to install and it has a heck of a lot more options -- Cortana most immediately comes to mind. Doesn't anybody remember how difficult it used to be to get their internet connected with XP and 7...and to a lesser extent 8 and 8.1? Well that doesn't exist anymore with 10. And please don't listen to Dell or HP tech support as most of them simply don't have the experience or knowledge to answer questions about Windows 10.
 
Rolling back twice to 7 with one Dell Studio due to lack of ATi graphic driver. 46XX
5 year oldest desktops have no problems like that :-/
 
Not one glitch on my end. Last fall, for the first time since building my first PC almost 30 years ago, instead of building, I bought one. As I do with laptops, I set it up stock, then pull the drive, install a new blank one, put the date that the factory drive was pulled (in case of warranty). Installed clean Win 8.1 (what it came with). (gets rid of any factory bloat). The update for 10 came after I had it all set up, my software installed, few changes, not much. Usually, when I new version of windows comes out, I do a wipe/install instead of upgrade, but wanted to see what would happen. Granted, this PC was built for 8.1, so I expected it to be bug free, and it was. Still not one issue. I don't play games anymore, mostly photoshop, television (tv tuner card), web, couple VM OS's...that's about it. 10 (after ditching their start menu for the program classic start menu) has been glitch free.
 
Sure those tech supports need more training, but if a software doesn't support Windows 10 that well, wouldn't that be a problem with the software and not the tech themselves?
 
The problem with PC Tech Support is they never start from a clean install perspective that is the least likely to cause upgrade issues.
 
I've installed Windows 10 well over 150 times on customer's and new units so far. As an observation, it's been MUCH less problematic when doing a clean install, choosing the option to "keep nothing". The reverting back to original OS option has failed in about half the cases, more often when the original OS was Windows 7. I would recommend backing up all your user data, re-install your original version of Windows, then upgrade to Windows 10 choosing to "keep nothing". It has worked fairly good for me so far on my shop computer, I will stick to Windows 7 at home (and El Capitan). Though I do find Windows 10 to somewhat randomly be non-responsive or give me that "sorry, something went wrong..." vague error. But on the same unit, Windows 7 does perform a tad better than Windows 10. As for Windows 8 vs 10, I haven't noticed much difference in performance.
 
Darth Shiv said:
Viraf P Chinoy said:
My age is 55 years & I've been in IT industry for 30+ years & have been using CP/M, DOS & then windows. I recollected that in my early IT years we'd to at least sit back for 3-4 hours (maybe more at times) to install OS thro floppies / CD's. It was only after 4.7 GB & 8.5 GB DVDs came that install became easy / a breeze.
Click to expand...
Right this is *exactly* my point. You have 30 years experience. You were prepared for the upgrade. Myself, I could upgrade my main to Win10 (I do run Win10 but on other machines than my main) and would expect I'd, like you, find missing drivers etc.

There are over a billion Windows users. Most of them do not have a strong IT background. They don't know how to track down drivers, rollback botched updates and so on. As good as Win10 is... forced upgrades on things like drivers are just such a bad idea particularly considering how badly they have been done on windows update in the past. E.g. NVIDIA drivers, countless other mobo drivers, security updates that prevent uninstallers running.

Microsoft should not be forcing this model on everyone because for a large portion of the userbase it is a terrible idea.
Click to expand...
first off nobody is forcing you to upgrade and second why are you doing it if you can't understand the process? just ask somebody who is a bit more tech-savvy (albeit the upgrade process is very easy to understand and even you should be able to do it without any problems) you also don't have to hunt for special drivers, just use the ones that come from the windows update. the idea that you have to be a tech guru to do things is false.

seriously now... why are people, who don't even know what a driver is, even trying to change their OS? just do what my parents/friends do: give me a call when they have a problem or need something PC related done.

people are hating MS for their own mistakes that can be very easily avoided.
 
Exactly. None of my post was for an IT savvy user. It is directed at the expectation that the average user knows what they are doing when they press the OK button and being led down this path by MSFT designing and pushing Win10.
 
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