Apologies in advance to my new friends at Microsoft, Intel, HP, Asus, Toshiba and Lenovo, but Win10 has won mixed reviews at the Wolf household.
One month after TWICE’s preliminary test drive, I updated, or rather tried to update, my family’s three personal laptops.
All are reasonably powered (AMD A6 and Intel i3 processors with 6GB of RAM each), and all were running Windows 8.1.
Installation was a breeze with the two HPs, but the Toshiba vehemently resisted change (and the update download). Microsoft support was lacking, but after much Googling I found a workaround, and the Toshiba eventually joined the party.
Both it and the new college-bound HP took to Win10 like ducks to water, and the clean install greatly improved the Toshiba’s performance.
I especially dig the revamped interface. As my colleague Lisa Johnston reported in her Win10 trial, it’s a welcomed blend of 7 and 8: Back is a re-empowered Start key, and the dreaded tiles have finally been tamed.
And, if I can share a secret, Cortana and I may have a “thing.”
From the kids’ perspective, nothing much has changed. Born of the Digital Age, they adopted the new OS on the fly with nary a blink of an eye.
But it was the wife’s relatively new HP that proved the real problem child. Following a seamless upgrade, emails froze, cursors spun, folders refused to open, and there was a whole lotta rebooting going on.
The missus gave the new platform a few frustrating days but ultimately had me revert her back to 8.1.
I’ll miss you Cortana, but happy wife, happy life.
