Windows 10 – The First Impression

(Photo : Meilleur Mobile/Google Creative Commons)

They say that the first impression is the last impression.

I’ve been waiting for windows 10 ever since it was announced. Actually ever since it was announced that it would be free upgrade to windows 7 and windows 8 license holders. I had earlier joined the windows insider programme and had installed windows 10 on my old laptop. The start button was back and the interface was refreshing. I was bit impressed. The launch of the finished product was slated for July 2015 and positive reviews were pouring in from the insiders programme.

It was natural that the windows release for upgrade would be in phases mainly for two reasons. a) The feedback from early adopters would be used for further quick bug fixes and b) the download servers had to be protected from overload. It was launched on 29th July with a fanfare and critic reviews started pouring in. And they were good overall.

My laptop was in the waiting line without any timeline which would indicate when I would get the update. So I searched the internet and found a work around. It actually worked. And before I knew, windows 10 was up and running on my laptop. Congratulations and all!!

That was two days back. Today I write this post after reverting back to windows 8.1.

Windows 10 is bug filled at this moment. It lags a lot. Whenever I want to click anywhere, it just doesn’t click. It takes about 5 – 10 seconds to respond again. In intermittent periods, it runs like magic. Very smooth. But I guess, windows 10 would run smooth on blank laptop as of now. I had upgraded from a very stable and smooth windows 8.1 and completely new “user experience” was harrowing. Thanks Microsoft that they kept the option to revert back to older version in case you don’t like windows 10.

My suggestion for regular users, don’t upgrade for now. At this level of stability, it seems more a developers preview than a user release. Stay on the older versions till all the lag and bugs get fixed. We still have one year to upgrade fro free!!

If you still want to upgrade but do not get any option in update, do the following, the workaround that I mentioned. This might or might not work for you:

• Go to c:\windows\softwareDistribution\download and delete all the files and folders present in the download folder.
• Open Command prompt as administrator
• Run the following command wuauclt.exe /updatenow
• Now go to windows update and search for update. If all is well, you should be able to download windows 10 update

If you already have installed windows 10 and want to revert back to windows 7/8(whichever was your previous version), search for windows update and recovery. In the recovery section, you should have the option to go back to previous version. Use it to recover your previous installation.

The windows 10 first impression for me, is not the last impression yet and I will be waiting for a better build before upgrading.