NOW that I’ve had a few weeks to play with it, here’s a short update on some things I’ve found with Windows 10.
What’s Good
IN general, I haven’t found any problems with any of the applications I use frequently. Microsoft Word, Scrivener, PaintShop Pro, and so on, all work just fine. Google Chrome’s been having a few problems but I think those are bugs in Chrome itself and not related to the OS.
What’s Bad
I’M continuing to have problems related to device drivers and antivirus:
- The touch pad driver no longer has the setting to disable the pad when a USB mouse is plugged in, which is annoying and inconvenient. Hoping for a driver update that’ll fix that, but so far nothing.
- There’s a problem with the screen driver that causes an error message to pop up when I switch from mains to battery power. Again, hoping for an update that’ll fix that.
- Despite the report that told me all the laptop hardware is compatible, it turns out that the driver for the CD/DVD drive is out of date, and because it’s an older device Sony aren’t likely to release an updated driver for Win10. Which means the drive is unusable. I might be able to fix that if I can find a newer drive that will fit. This is particularly annoying, since Microsoft said it would work.
- Certain commonly-used antivirus programs cause problems that stop Windows Update working (it sticks at 0% when “preparing to install updates”). I googled the details and found dozens of “fixes”, all different, all suspect. I the end I called Microsoft’s Denver office and talked to tech support, and they were able to help. They advised running SFC with the /scannow option; it didn’t report any errors, but after a reboot the update worked. So at least if it happens again I know what to try first.
Pete Ford 