Other than a few niggles with the anniversary update (see elsewhere), W10 is ok for me too. Parts of it still look as though they were designed by an infant though.

Has his account been hacked?

If Windows 10 was Windows 8.1 + Start8 + ModernMix it would be acceptable, even with cumulative updates.

What about "production OS" quality (set and forget)?. Schedule restarts? MS thinks everything is a smartphone...

Build your own and put on it what you like.

Works for me...

A possible solution to the Windows 10 Automatic Update issue.  Please note that I am using Windows 10 Pro so no idea if this will work for the Home version.  It is not a good idea to turn updates off completely but we can no longer have Windows wait to download and install them using the old method.  

But...there is a way to keep Windows Updates on without them being automatically installed.  I found this on Windows Club.  Now I have to hope it actually still works.  Windows 10 updates can be set to Manual.  That means the user has to be responsible enough to check for new updates.  For me, that makes a huge difference because I can save my work, disconnect from sensitive sites and then run the needed updates AFTER verifying exactly what they are for.  What I still cannot prevent is "Maintenance" which can also mess things up.  IF the Manual setting works, I may be able to stand Windows 10.  Fingers Crossed!

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-windows-update-in-windows-10  

Nothing will ever beat Windows 7, period. End of story. 

Yes!  Completely.

Yes, the look of 10 is bloody awful, and frankly, an infant could have done better.  Thank goodness for 3rd-parties like Stardock and the tools they create to fix MS' sad, sad efforts.  Seriously, the default start menu, icons and GUI are quite ugly, so without Start10, Iconpackager and Windowblinds, I'd have stripped 10 off this machine and installed a version of Linux, OS-X.... even fechen Android, rather than go to bed every night after 10 and having Fisher Price related nightmares

Nope!  It is me, and you read it right.  Now that I've tweaked 10 to my liking I like it better than before.  I'm not saying it is the best thing since sliced bread, but it is more usable now.  Admittedly, I used some 3rd party apps to get where I wanted it to be, cos 10 out of the box is a real pig, but I see fixing core issues that way as being no different to using Stardock apps to make the GUI more appealing, and I can live with it. 

What I forgot to mention in the above post is that I shut down my internet connection when I turn off my machine, in the hope I circumvent the 3.00am Scheduled Maintenance.  I've not noticed anything unusual or untoward of late, so maybe that works.  Well I hope it does!

Kaboom!  

Remember there is always an option linux

Quoting LightStar,

reply 12

Nothing will ever beat Windows 7, period. End of story. 

I totally agree, LightStar.  I wish Microsoft had simply tightened up security for Windows 7.  I loved Windows 7 and, as I mentioned before, I purchased it before it was released.  I did some beta testing on Windows 7 and loved it right from the start.  Windows 10 has been an adventure.  One can only hope things start to smooth out.  There is a big announcement coming on Oct 26th and it appears to be about Windows 10. I am hoping they are not going to mess with the kernel again.  If they do, I will need to make a difficult decision.    

Here is a link to the Microsoft article: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/microsofts-next-event-on-windows-10-not-hardware-is-in-nyc-on-october-26/

Having said that, I now have a Windows 10 phone.  I was using a pricey LG G4 (Android) and I couldn't stand the bloat anymore.  Google kept dumping "updates" aka more junk on it all the time and the phone's battery life was awful because of that - and you can disable the apps but you cannot uninstall them.  I found a refurbished Nokia Lumia 735 on eBay from a reputable seller and grabbed it for $89.95 (much better than $600.00 for the G4).  It came with Windows 8.1 which wasn't bad. As soon as I got it up and running, it upgraded to Windows 10.  

I actually like Windows 10 on the Nokia phone much better than I do on my PC.  It works well and has none of the bloat like I had with the G4. The Lumia 735 got middling reviews with Windows 8.1 but it's getting very good reviews running Windows 10. It's not a fancy phone but the darned thing works and I am getting a better signal and much better battery life. You can order a brand new Lumia 735 from Verizon (not sure who else has them) for $120.00.  BTW Nokia has announced that they will be building phones again.  They will be built by Foxconn who makes the Apple phones.  It sounds as though they will be Android but fingers crossed that they will do some Windows phones in the future.  

In case some of you haven't heard, the Google Play store has approx 400 apps that contain malware.  I am sure they are working on the problem but if you have installed games, etc. you might want to make sure they are clean.  Ars Technica has a good article on the issue.  Ironically, the article came out right after I got the Lumia 735.  My G4 is clean though. 

Concerning my previous post about turning off Windows 10 updates, I decided to change them to "manual" instead.  The screen shows updates as "triggered." That means I have to check for updates which is fine.  Please note that I do not know for sure if it will actually work.  Patch Tuesday is coming up so I will let everyone know how that goes.  

 

When I log off for the night I shut my internet down before Scheduled Maintenance is due to start at 3.00am, which seems to work.  Well I've seen no changes that I didn't know about.  I too hope for a registry edit or a 3rd-party app to fix the issue properly.  It would save having to reboot my modem/router every morning.  Some people may think that's paranoid and going overboard, but after MS totally borked my machine 3 times with unwanted, unnecessary and flawed updates, it makes sense to me to take every precaution to safeguard MY machine. 

The last time they messed it up I couldn't get into anything... no Windows, no recovery options.  Apart from the BIOS, everything was frozen, all because of an overnight update I neither scheduled or gave permissions for.  I took me hours to recover my machine, but not until I was forced to reformat the drive and perform a clean install of Win 10, meaning I lost everything from the previous installation.  Luckily I keep nothing of importance on it, so no major loss, just a huge, huge inconvenience.  The same thing happened to mrs_starkers machine, so I'm out a day because MS feched up. 

No, users should not have to go to such extremes to safeguard their machines and wrest back some control, but MS forced the issue with some shoddy decisions and shonky software/updates.  Win 10 could have been a great OS, and it would have been if MS hadn't assassinated it well before it came out of the box for users to try.