Windows 10 - Build 10158 - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
So of course the day after I raised the subject of whether or not MS would release another preview build of Windows 10 - June 29 - MS released build 10158 to the Fast Ring.
I have now expanded my sample systems to include a traditional desktop, All-in-One (AIO) desktop, laptop and tablet.
So here is the good , the bad and the ugly around 10158... starting with the upgrade process..
First the good...
The upgrade on the desktop and the laptop went flawlessly - both saw and downloaded 10158 with no issues and both installed with no issues...
Windows 10 still takes the better part of an hour Post install to update all of the Apps from the store - including the Store app itself. I would like to see them place notification in the fancy new notifications pane that Windows is doing that and to wait until it is done before starting to use the machine.
Now the Bad & Ugly...
The tablet again was a nightmare. Like many others I had experienced errors with several post 10130 updates that were known to have caused Windows update to not see 10158. I tried several of the traditional approaches to correcting Windows Update issues and also did a disk cleanup to insure there was enough room for 10158 to install.
Finally - I the tablet did see 10158, downloaded and installed. But then the trouble started. I started noticing some odd behavior from the tablet after the install and then all of a sudden got a modern BSOD screen noting a DPC failure.
After reboot the login screen was fine, but when the desktop appeared - it would begin to flash on & off and effectively the device became unusable. Then I went though this massive attempt to rollback to 10130. Somehow or another Windows got confused and during the rollback - went all the way back to Windows 8.1 via the Recovery partition on my Venue Pro. Then during attempts to upgrade 8.1 to get to Windows 10 - the device started experiencing issues even getting Windows 8 updates to apply properly.
Eventually it meant a clean install from ISO of 10130. But again I experience a failure of several Post 10130 updates to install - so as of right now I will mostly likely have to wait until the 10158 ISOs are posted to make the upgrade.
One additional note - during my clean install of 10130 from USB - I had to install many of the device drivers. When I went to the vendors support site it recognized I was running Windows 10 and stated is large red letters that Windows 10 was not supported on this device..
This raises a concern to me. In theory all existing Windows 7 - 8.1 users are to be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free during its first year of release. How are folks to do that when OEMs are stating that their existing device - like my Windows 8.1 tablet - is not supported. More on this subject to come..
Finally on the AIO desktop - I had performed a clean install of build 10130 from DVD. But like my tablet the machine did not process the post 10130 updates properly and therefore cannot see 10158.
Basically MS batted .500 for the upgrade process - not very acceptable in my opinion...
Now on to the apps - experience....again starting with the good...
10158 is definitely an improvement over 10130 but not dramatically so. Yes it appears stable on both devices - all of the devices did light up okay and functions in the settings app appeared to work...
All of the MSN and native universal apps appear to work okay. Photos still seems a slow. I have a library of some 14,000 photos and the app takes forever to index and preview them. I have not tried the Album feature..
Music and Movies&TV seem better - fast load - but I also see a lot of duplicates albums in music that really aren't there.. My H.264 encoded movies play fine and sound is good.
The bad...
But simple things are buried. For example I noticed that after upgrade the desktop icons - This PC, Network, My Documents, etc were all missing. But right clicking on the Desktop and selecting Personalization did not A) open the Settings App for personalization and B) the legacy personalization screen did had removed the Desktop Icons selection.
So now - you must "search" for desktop icons - and it then takes you to a control panel applet and allows you to select them. Just awful.. One of the key goals in Windows 10 was to return the desktop and you can't even easily place icons there. Really, really short sighted on the part of MS...
And then there is "Edge" the replacement for IE. It has a nice new look and tries to have a Google like navigation method and seems somewhat fast in terms of page rendering. But honestly I use Chrome - have for several years now and so Edge is not a big deal to me. Certainly I'll use it - but I rely more on Google's Search than Cortana's or MSNs - so why not just do it in Chrome.
The Ugly...
To me the ugliest part of a Windows 10 upgrade is the post OS install tasks. First they can take forever - an hour or more. Second Windows provide you no notification that is it doing them or control over the process.
Typically your first instinct when you login into a new OS is to begin to launch some of the apps to see how well they work... Well the app you initially launch may not be the most current version and in fact the Windows Store may be trying to upgrade it as you are running and fail because it is running..
Additionally MS has still not cleaned up legacy chum left over from previous builds or installs. So when you open All Apps - you'll often see a list of previous apps that you uninstalled - but their icons are still there - you see a little box - with some cryptic description. Obviously this team has not lived through the same upgrade overlays we have and have access to new ISOs anytime they want and do clean installs.
Bottom line
While I was happy to see a new Windows 10 Preview build - 10158 has not really changed by opinion dramatically about the readiness of Windows 10 for the general public come July 29.
In my opinion MS still has a lot of work to do in the upgrade process, post OS install app upgrades.. If MS can not get this all corrected - Windows 10 is going to get panned by both the community and the press...
I have now expanded my sample systems to include a traditional desktop, All-in-One (AIO) desktop, laptop and tablet.
So here is the good , the bad and the ugly around 10158... starting with the upgrade process..
First the good...
The upgrade on the desktop and the laptop went flawlessly - both saw and downloaded 10158 with no issues and both installed with no issues...
Windows 10 still takes the better part of an hour Post install to update all of the Apps from the store - including the Store app itself. I would like to see them place notification in the fancy new notifications pane that Windows is doing that and to wait until it is done before starting to use the machine.
Now the Bad & Ugly...
The tablet again was a nightmare. Like many others I had experienced errors with several post 10130 updates that were known to have caused Windows update to not see 10158. I tried several of the traditional approaches to correcting Windows Update issues and also did a disk cleanup to insure there was enough room for 10158 to install.
Finally - I the tablet did see 10158, downloaded and installed. But then the trouble started. I started noticing some odd behavior from the tablet after the install and then all of a sudden got a modern BSOD screen noting a DPC failure.
After reboot the login screen was fine, but when the desktop appeared - it would begin to flash on & off and effectively the device became unusable. Then I went though this massive attempt to rollback to 10130. Somehow or another Windows got confused and during the rollback - went all the way back to Windows 8.1 via the Recovery partition on my Venue Pro. Then during attempts to upgrade 8.1 to get to Windows 10 - the device started experiencing issues even getting Windows 8 updates to apply properly.
Eventually it meant a clean install from ISO of 10130. But again I experience a failure of several Post 10130 updates to install - so as of right now I will mostly likely have to wait until the 10158 ISOs are posted to make the upgrade.
One additional note - during my clean install of 10130 from USB - I had to install many of the device drivers. When I went to the vendors support site it recognized I was running Windows 10 and stated is large red letters that Windows 10 was not supported on this device..
This raises a concern to me. In theory all existing Windows 7 - 8.1 users are to be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free during its first year of release. How are folks to do that when OEMs are stating that their existing device - like my Windows 8.1 tablet - is not supported. More on this subject to come..
Finally on the AIO desktop - I had performed a clean install of build 10130 from DVD. But like my tablet the machine did not process the post 10130 updates properly and therefore cannot see 10158.
Basically MS batted .500 for the upgrade process - not very acceptable in my opinion...
Now on to the apps - experience....again starting with the good...
10158 is definitely an improvement over 10130 but not dramatically so. Yes it appears stable on both devices - all of the devices did light up okay and functions in the settings app appeared to work...
All of the MSN and native universal apps appear to work okay. Photos still seems a slow. I have a library of some 14,000 photos and the app takes forever to index and preview them. I have not tried the Album feature..
Music and Movies&TV seem better - fast load - but I also see a lot of duplicates albums in music that really aren't there.. My H.264 encoded movies play fine and sound is good.
The bad...
But simple things are buried. For example I noticed that after upgrade the desktop icons - This PC, Network, My Documents, etc were all missing. But right clicking on the Desktop and selecting Personalization did not A) open the Settings App for personalization and B) the legacy personalization screen did had removed the Desktop Icons selection.
So now - you must "search" for desktop icons - and it then takes you to a control panel applet and allows you to select them. Just awful.. One of the key goals in Windows 10 was to return the desktop and you can't even easily place icons there. Really, really short sighted on the part of MS...
And then there is "Edge" the replacement for IE. It has a nice new look and tries to have a Google like navigation method and seems somewhat fast in terms of page rendering. But honestly I use Chrome - have for several years now and so Edge is not a big deal to me. Certainly I'll use it - but I rely more on Google's Search than Cortana's or MSNs - so why not just do it in Chrome.
The Ugly...
To me the ugliest part of a Windows 10 upgrade is the post OS install tasks. First they can take forever - an hour or more. Second Windows provide you no notification that is it doing them or control over the process.
Typically your first instinct when you login into a new OS is to begin to launch some of the apps to see how well they work... Well the app you initially launch may not be the most current version and in fact the Windows Store may be trying to upgrade it as you are running and fail because it is running..
Additionally MS has still not cleaned up legacy chum left over from previous builds or installs. So when you open All Apps - you'll often see a list of previous apps that you uninstalled - but their icons are still there - you see a little box - with some cryptic description. Obviously this team has not lived through the same upgrade overlays we have and have access to new ISOs anytime they want and do clean installs.
Bottom line
While I was happy to see a new Windows 10 Preview build - 10158 has not really changed by opinion dramatically about the readiness of Windows 10 for the general public come July 29.
In my opinion MS still has a lot of work to do in the upgrade process, post OS install app upgrades.. If MS can not get this all corrected - Windows 10 is going to get panned by both the community and the press...
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