Technology Ramblings

Today - MS released Windows 10 Build 10240 to Fast Ring members.    Some in the press are calling this the RTM version - as the Evaluation Copy markings have been removed.    I am travelling so was only able to initially update one device my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet.   From Gabe Aul's posts - one of the goals of this release was to test the "production" release mechanism.   So the good news was that Windows 10 10240 did download and install okay on my Venue.   it was painful slow for me mostly because I did this from Hotel broadband.   I installed over build 10166. So here is the good bad and ugly and why I say Windows 10 is not for everyone. First the good news - the install did recognize and install all the proper drivers - so Device Manager showed all good.   So a big yea there. But that's about where the yea's end.    I can not say 100% that build 10240 is the actual GA release build that will be publicly available on...

MS recently released Windows 10 Mobile - Build 10166 now keeping in sync with Windows 10 Pro builds. I installed on a Lumia 635 & 735.   The install was easy on both devices and some of the performance issues I had with 10149 are improved.   Not completely gone - but improved. It is very interesting to begin to really experience the universal approach of Windows 10 when using it on a mobile device.   For example the Settings App - look and acts almost identically to what you see on a PC or laptop.    In some ways this is what I have always wanted to see in a mobile OS - an OS that treats a phone device as to what it truly is - a micro PC.  In fact what I would love to see is the equivalent of "This PC" and being able to launch consoles like Device Manager.  Same with My Documents, etc.   Obviously the Start UI remains unchanged and Live tiles all work okay.   Doing a quick test drive - most 3rd party apps launched and ran okay...

On July 9 - MS released Windows 10 build 10166 to Fast Ring participants.  I installed the build on 5 devices - 2 traditional desktops, a laptop, an AIO and a tablet. Starting with the install process - let's cover the good the bad and the ugly... For the most part the install process went well on all devices - including the tablet, the hardest part was the time it took for the update to download and process.    Starting with 10162 and continuing with 10166 however there are some challenges around proper device driver installation.  In some cases either A) not all of the devices are properly identified and/or B) the drivers install but fail.. MS has published a work around which simply requests that users delete and re-install the drivers - but this can be a problem for some folks.   For example on my tablet - initially the WiFi worked - but then failed.  I had to re-install the driver.  So effectively I had no connectivity.  Luckily the d...

In a very public announcement by Satya Nadella, Microsoft recently announced a $7.6B write down and layoff of some 7,800 employees mostly around the division developing Windows Phone and combined phone development into the overall Windows group. Considering MS paid $7.2B for Nokia's phone group less than 2 years ago - this is a big change in MS's approach to mobile and reflects how poor of an acquisition decision this was. MS also announced that they will only develop around 6 phones / year.  So what does this mean to the future of Windows Phone and Microsoft's position in Mobile. Many enthusiast's have been asking for what is described generally as a "Surface" model for Windows Phone.  That means one or two "reference" architectures that showcase the capabilities of the platform with the hope that 3rd party OEMs then take that model and develop their own interpretations. Initially Surface lost money - but with the Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro...

For the 3rd time in a week MS released a Windows 10 Build - 10162. I installed 10162 on 4 devices - a desktop, laptop, AIO and tablet  Here's the good, bad and ugly...  Let's start with the install/upgrade process...  Like previous builds, the desktop and laptop were pretty painless. The desktop took a few attempts running Windows update to actually get the 10162 to download, but then ran flawlessly - the laptop saw and downloaded with no problem and also installed flawlessly... The tablet once again was a different story and quite a path to get to 10162.   It started with downgrading the previous 10130 Core edition to 10074.  The Core edition of 10130 had a known issue with seeing new builds and failing to properly install some KBs to correct the issue. So the path to get there started by copying the 10074 ISO to an SD drive and then mounting and running setup.   10074 installed okay and after some time to stabilize I ran Windows update to get ...

This week I had to perform a clean install of Windows 10 onto my Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet.  The upgrade from 10130 to 10158 did not go well and I needed to do a clean install anyway.. During that process I went out to the Dell Support site to downloaded the latest OS deployment driver package to insure all the devices would work on the Venue.  Since the core of Windows 10 is very much like Windows 8 most if not all drivers work perfectly.   And these did as well...  But a funny thing happened along the way.... Like many support sites today - the Dell site recognizes what OS you are running and then shows you the downloads available for that OS. When I did that with Windows 10 - I got huge notice that Windows 10 was not supported on my device... Wait a minute - what ? So the Venue 8 Pro I have is a model 5830 - built in late 2013 and came with Windows 8.1...it runs an Intel Atom Z3740D dual core 1.3Ghz processor with 2GB of RAM and a 64Gb HD and ...

So no sooner than most of us got done installing Windows 10 Build 10158 - MS announced the availability of 10159 to Fast Ring... Since only two of the 4 test machines I have can actually see 10159 in Windows Update - I was only able to update my desktop and laptop.   Due to post build 10130 OS install Windows Update issues with both my AIO and Tablet - it looks as though they'll have to wait for ISOs to become available to upgrade them. The initial challenge with 10159 was getting it or even knowing that is was downloading.   On the desktop I saw 10159 - but the downloading progress bar sat at 0%.  Several re-attempts reported errors downloading and a lot of notes on the community site stated the servers were overloaded.  So I rebooted and started Windows update and let the system sit overnight.   In the morning it was still at 0%.    So my desktop dual boots to Windows 8.1/Windows 10 and I rebooted over to Windows 8.1 for while and and then when...

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...