Five reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10

[RV_]

I love Windows 10 and disagree with much of what this article is about. But in the spirit of fairness here is the other side of the Windows 10 upgrade argument.

 

Excerpt:

 

"From privacy to compatibility and control, these are the reasons why you might want to give the upgrade to Windows 10 a miss.

 

At the end of this month Windows 10 will, at least for now, cease to be available as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users.

Microsoft is engaged in a final push to get users to upgrade, stressing the new OS introduces fresh features to Windows and overhauls its design. However, is Windows 10 right for you? Here are some of the reasons you might not want to upgrade.

 

1. You're worried about privacy

 

By default Windows 10 collects more data than many users are comfortable with. This includes information about how Windows and Windows apps are used, what you type, your contacts, your location, calendar appointments and more. If the virtual assistant Cortana is enabled, this data extends to web browsing history, voice commands and even more information about your activity.

 

Users of Home and Pro versions of Windows 10 can only reduce this data collection to the "Basic" level. On this setting, Windows 10 collects information about security settings, quality-related info (such as crashes and hangs), and application compatibility. Microsoft describes this information as being essential for maintaining and improving the quality of Windows 10 and says that only "anonymous identifiers" are transmitted.

 

However, questions remain about the information that Windows 10 sends back to Microsoft, even when you turn the data gathering settings down a minimum. Tech website Arstechnica found that even with the virtual assistant Cortana disabled, Windows 10 sends a request to www.bing.com that appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.

 

Similarly, even when Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage was disabled and Windows 10 was not tied to a Microsoft account, the OS still seemed to be sending information to a server connected to OneDrive. While Microsoft stressed there is no query or search data being sent, Arstechnica queried the inclusion of a machine ID.

 

ZDNet's Ed Bott has said the very basic telemetry data collected by Microsoft is anonymized and doesn't reveal anything more than very high-level information along the lines of an unidentified Windows 10 user ran a particular app for half an hour.

 

However, for some users, even the gathering of anonymized usage data is more than they're willing to put up with.

 

2. It might cause pain for older machines

 

Windows 10 can run on a computer with relatively modest specs, working on many older PCs that shipped with Windows 7. But just because you can run Windows 10 on paper, you may not be able to in practice.

 

While the Get Windows 10 app that schedules the upgrade from Windows 7 or 8.x should check your system compatibility, some users that pass this test complain the upgrade still fails or devices don't work properly.

 

As Microsoft states: "The upgradability of a device includes factors beyond the system specification."

 

Microsoft gives you the option to rollback your machine to its previous OS, but there are reports from multiple people who claim the upgrade left their machine virtually unusable. In these cases either the rollback feature didn't work or it did work but the earlier OS is no longer stable, with previously working programs crashing.

 

If the upgrade process completes successfully, missing driver and firmware support has also caused difficulties for some Windows 10 users. Those affected cite problems such as monitors not working at their native resolution. Some of the Intel integrated graphics chips used in older laptops are also incompatible with Windows 10, though Windows 10 should warn of this fact.

 

These problems don't seem to affect the majority of upgraders, but it's worth being aware they exist, particularly if upgrading an older machine.

 

On a less serious level, upgrading to Windows 10 may not break your machine but it could mess with your settings. Microsoft has come under fire for Windows 10 changing users' default settings in a number of areas, such as swapping the default browser to its own Microsoft Edge."

 

You can find reasons 3-5 in the full article here: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/five-reasons-not-to-upgrade-to-windows-10/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=19724681974700635514865380622813