One of the nifty things about the modern computing age is that you don’t have to wait months to read about an operating system upgrade. For example, when DOS 5 came out, the magazines and other material on DOS 5 didn’t hit the shelves for weeks — and most of the early stuff was based on the beta, so it was wrong.
With Windows 10, I get to tell you about my experiences from the upgrade just two days ago, Wednesday 29 July, 2015.
Of course, all the Big Boys on the Internet have already weighed in. Then again, based on what I’ve read, a lot of that material appears to be written about the early release candidate and it doesn’t really relate to what I experienced in my home office or what dozens of others went through on Win 10 Wednesday.
My update adventure actually began late Tuesday night.
I set my sites on bed around 22:00 (10:00 PM) as I enjoy getting up early. Just before that time, I popped open my laptop with the Windows 10 beta and checked for the update. Nothing. Then I checked on the Microsoft Surface 3 Pro — the same one that I couldn’t get to update a few weeks ago. Lo and behold, the Windows 10 update was read and began to install.
Even though the screen said to “sit back and relax,” I didn’t.
The update took its time, probably because so many systems were downloading the Windows 10 update files. The size was about 4 gigabytes. The system restarted probably 5 times.
Two hours later, it was done. I watched the entire thing, being nervous about the multiple failed upgrade attempts last week. In the end, I noticed that the version of Windows 10 on the Surface was identical to the version on my laptop, the final beta. So I suppose the final beta was the release candidate (RC), and I’ve actually been running Windows 10 on my laptop for the past two weeks or so.
My desktop system is scheduled to receive the Windows update, and apparently it’s still in the update queue. This is the same system that died under one of the betas. I had to reformat the hard drive and re-install Windows 7 raw.
My son Jonah, who sat with me and watched the ordeal, asked whether he should update his PC to Windows 10. I told him what I tell everyone: Wait.
While I need to update, and I’ll update my test computers, I’ll wait on everything else. I may never update my writing computer from Windows 7. But unlike previous Windows updates — Windows Me, Windows Vista, and Windows 8 — I think eventually people who can update will update and should update to Windows 10.
These opinions are subject to change. Next week you may find yet another Windows 10 rant. Who knows?
