Windows 10: I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed

February 9th, 2017 | Categories: Microsoft, Windows | Tags:

I’ve been a OS X user for just over 3 years when I migrated from a laptop that dual booted Windows 7 and Linux. I like my MacBook Pro a lot but time moves on and I needed a new laptop. For reasons that I’ll write about in more depth another time, I’ve decided to move back into the Microsoft ecosystem for a while and try using Windows 10 on a Dell XPS 15 as my daily driver.

Windows is a lot better for Research Software Engineers than it used to be (See Bash on Windows: The scripting game just changed for an example of why) and I find myself enjoying using it rather than suffering it just because my clients use it. Mostly!

Windows is cheap and tacky

So why am I disappointed? In short, its because Windows still hasn’t grown up. It’s cheap, tacky and is constantly trying to sell me stuff.

It started off in the lock screen

Windows 10 nagging advert

Other people were quick to agree. Adverts in Windows 10 are a problem

Capture

The Start Menu is also full of third party applications that I’d rather not have…Games like Candy Crush Soda Saga and Royal Revolt 2 for example. These used to be the sort of bloatware you’d get with OEM’s when you bought a new, cheap laptop and the solution used to be ‘Wipe the laptop and install a clean copy of Windows’ but now the bloatware is coming from Windows itself.  Sure, I can uninstall it but I shouldn’t have to.

We’re not in Mac OS X anymore toto!

Cleaning up Windows’ act

How to disable Windows 10 built in advertising   from HowToGeek can help turn off all of this tat and others have pointed to scripted options that I’ve not tried myself (I suggest caution before running PowerShell scripts you do not understand).

All of this shouldn’t be necessary. I paid over £2,000 for this laptop and I expect a professional experience from the operating system that it comes with.

I expected better. I’m disappointed.

  1. Steeve
    February 10th, 2017 at 02:18
    Reply | Quote | #1

    I don’t understand why you’re complaining about the Windows ecosystem, when the origin of your problem is the lacking macOS ecosystem.

  2. Mike Croucher
    February 10th, 2017 at 08:14
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Neither ecosystem is great at the moment. I moved away from Apple because I feel that the new MacBook Pro was not made for professionals. I’m not alone in this thinking. For example https://blog.devteam.space/new-macbook-pro-is-not-a-laptop-for-developers-anymore-d0d4b1b8b7de

    The XPS laptops offered by Dell currently look like strong, viable hardware alternatives which leaves Windows and Linux as operating systems.

    My Dell came with Windows 10 and I’d like to give it a chance.

  3. February 10th, 2017 at 09:46
    Reply | Quote | #3

    In contrast, to take the sting off a bit, I have a late 2015 Dell XPS 13. It took me 2 days to install Linux and because I encrypted my partition I have to go through the grub menu to boot.

  4. Ian
    February 10th, 2017 at 10:40
    Reply | Quote | #4

    Are you sure this stuff comes with windows? I’ve never had adverts for Candy Crush Saga or Photoshop elements? Mind you, I did upgrade from 8 rather than buying OEM, and unticked as many things as a I could on the install options, maybe something I did there nurfed the ads.

  5. February 10th, 2017 at 13:24
    Reply | Quote | #5

    Windows 10 is not for professionals, either – unless you’re stuck in the M$ hell, that is. :-)

  6. Will F
    February 10th, 2017 at 14:31
    Reply | Quote | #6

    @David Jones at least you can still use grub. To get Arch to boot from the NVMe SSD in my XPS 15 9550 I had to learn wot systemd-boot is.

  7. Royi
    February 10th, 2017 at 15:39
    Reply | Quote | #7

    I really think Windows 10 is great.
    Much better platform than OS X (I can really take hardware to extreme and pay less for better hardware).

    I was never bothered by those ads and removing the applications can be done in 2 seconds.

    Windows 10 is stable, fast and modern.

    If those ads are your case against Windows 10, well, it seems you are in the correct OS.

  8. February 10th, 2017 at 18:42
    Reply | Quote | #8

    I recently bought a Chillblast desktop PC (https://www.chillblast.com/) with Windows 10 Home. I’ve not noticed any of the things you mentioned. Could some of them be due to the way Dell set things up?

  9. February 10th, 2017 at 23:07
    Reply | Quote | #9

    If you buy products from the Microsoft Store, you typically get a “Black Edition” with no 3rd party bloatware. So, I haven’t noticed this “feature” of OEMs for years as I’ve been a loyal Surface customer.

  10. Mike Croucher
    February 11th, 2017 at 11:14

    Let’s be clear here — I am not saying that I’ll not use Windows 10 because of the ads. As I wrote in the post and as others have said here and on twitter, they can easily be removed. I just feel that they make Microsoft look cheap.

    The experience seems to vary wildly. Some have reported exactly what I see here. For example: http://www.howtogeek.com/269331/how-to-disable-all-of-windows-10s-built-in-advertising/ while others say ‘no adverts here!’

    Microsoft are doing better every day and I feel that they are listening to customers. Perhaps they’ll listen here and remove the ads?

  11. Mike Croucher
    February 11th, 2017 at 11:25

    @David Cuccia I was extremely tempted by the surface line. The more powerful hardware is what swayed me to the Dell.

    @Nick Higham – The experience seems to vary wildly. It could have been Dell but some report similar experiences on other hardware.

    @Royi – OS X certainly has limits that bother me. I’ve not yet pushed my new hardware — would love to know more about what you are up to.

  12. Jim
    February 13th, 2017 at 11:42

    I would suggest something like http://getblackbird.net/ to get rid of annoying features and improve security/privacy.

  13. Royi
    February 15th, 2017 at 19:40

    Mike,
    What I meant is Windows let you do what ever you want.
    Everything is exposed (Drivers, Registry Settings, etc…).

    You can configure easily the background Processes of the Operating System (Turn off those you don’t need).

    Windows 10 is very stable in my experience.

    And, at least my impression, same software on the same hardware seems to be faster on Windows (Checked on Photoshop).