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Microsoft has been criticised over its Windows 10 software by consumer rights group Which?.
The body said it had received hundreds of complaints about the upgrade, including lost files, emails no longer syncing and broken wi-fi and printing.
In some cases, it said, users had had to pay for their computer to be repaired.
Microsoft defended its software and highlighted that it provided help online and by phone.
"The Windows 10 upgrade is a choice designed to help people take advantage of the most secure and most productive Windows," said a spokesman.
"Customers have distinct options. Should a customer need help with the upgrade experience, we have numerous options including free customer support."
Which? surveyed more than 5,500 of its members in June, and said that 12% of the 2,500 who had upgraded to Windows 10 had later reverted to an earlier version.
It's not a surprise to anyone on Soylent, but this is the sort of thing that causes conventional wisdom to shift.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @05:45AM
Windows XP what I assume everyone here considers an amazing thing and a mistake for MS to ditch. Was not very good at first and memory thirsty. It was not until sp2 that it took on a decent well rounded worth using set of features. It was flaky and BSOD prone. I remember the silly nicknames everyone gave it. These days it is 'from my cold dead fingers'.
Right now win10 is at about the sp1 level. There was a quick hot fix pack right after launch. But the aug push was 'the big one'. So basically sp1. Prob mid next year we will something what we used to call sp2.
MS has done this crap for years. It was usually wasnt until sp2 of whatever came out before their OS stabilized to be worth using. Win7 *is* vista sp2. It was a 100% re-branding issue. Everyone ate it up. They would play up how awesome the new version is. Everyone figures out they were full of crap and use the old version until they fixed it or bought a new computer.
People are acting like this is new. Its not.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @07:06AM
Personally, the only Windows OS that got close to "from my cold dead fingers" was Windows 2000.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 23 2016, @08:49AM
Windows 3.1 kinda grew on me. It will run (well) in 6MB of RAM.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday September 23 2016, @01:17PM
I used to run 3.1 on a 286 with 1MB of ram, did the job just fine.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @09:29AM
Not at all. Well, it was amazing that Microsoft managed to make something that didn't completely suck, but that alone didn't make Windows XP into an amazing OS.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday September 23 2016, @12:49PM
Windows XP what I assume everyone here considers an amazing thing
You assume too much. Any amazement would have been about Windows NT (of which you could say was XP was SP2), the amazement being not that is was amazingly good by any standards, but amazingly good for Microsoft who prevously could write no better crap than Win 3.x.
MS has done this crap for years. It was usually wasnt until sp2 of whatever came out before their OS stabilized to be worth using.
Many of the complaints have been about the nagging and the "upgrading" which to less savvy users (ie most, not you and I) was effectively forced and out of their control. MS had not done that before.
Everyone figures out they [MS] were full of crap and use the old version [of Windows] until they [MS] fixed it [with a sp] or bought a new computer.
As I said, most people were involutarily "upgraded" to Win10 before any service packs came along, so were unable to keep with the old version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @07:55PM
You assume too much
Same sentiment I saw over on the other site. Yet the stats said otherwise.
As I said, most people were involutarily "upgraded" to Win10
Pretty much the opposite of my experience with people and their computers. Almost every single person I 'support' with windows wanted to move to 10. A few were cautious but said 'i will eventually'.
The only people that seem to be complaining are the people on tech sites. Much like how the ipad and XP was going to be a flop because it did not do some mythical list of things.
so were unable to keep with the old version
There is an uninstall. It puts you right back to the prev OS you were on.
It feels like you are just using confirmation bias to justify your dislike.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 23 2016, @08:26PM
There have been lots of reports of the machine being bricked during the install, sometimes clearly because it didn't meet the minimum requirements for installation. There have been reports of attached equipment with proprietary drivers refusing to work after the install, and on uninstall option available. There have been reports of the uninstaller bricking their systems. There have even been reports of the installation "down load in the background" rendering their machines unbootable. (My guess is their disk got full.)
I don't find your attempt at a whitewash job very believable. I can't refute you, as I won't let any Microsoft products anywhere near any machine that I have anything to do with anymore, but this doesn't mean I need to believe you. There's too much history saying the reports are accurate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 27 2016, @10:38PM
What's interesting is that this thread holds XP SP2 as the gold standard, yet I recall months of hearing about the exact same kinds of issues when SP2 was first released. I never upgraded a single one of my XP systems -- that disaster was a large part of why I stopped dual-booting and went all Linux instead. I think my parents STILL own a machine that is only running SP1, although I think they stopped using it a few months ago. The only difference with Win10 is that this time Microsoft is really trying to force users to upgrade, where with SP2 many of us saw the problems and just decided to wait or to skip it entirely.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday September 23 2016, @01:35PM
Windows XP what I assume everyone here considers an amazing thing and a mistake for MS to ditch.
15 years ago it was safe to assume most people "here" used some form of linux, at least at home, and the arguments were about whether debian or slackware was the true OS.
Sometime in the mid-00s the clientelle changed.
However regardless, there were plenty of people talking about the newly released windows XP. Just for fun here's some comments from when XP was launched:
I'd agree, except I guess the only problem is the people who aren't really aware of what they're getting into until after they buy a copy of XP and install it.
Despite all the marketing information and even a few screen shots I looked at online, I had no idea what the XP overall "feel" would be until I installed a release-candidate 30-day trial for myself. The average user doesn't wipe their hard drive and install 30-day trials of operating systems, just to decide if they should buy it or not.
(For the record, I wiped XP off my drive after giving it about 5 days. My wife refused to use it, saying it looked too "cartoon-like" and was noticeably slower launching several programs she commonly uses. I could deal with the new appearance of things, but I really disliked all the attempts to coerce me into using MS products for everything. It installed MSN messenger by default, and each "mouse-over" to the shortcut in the system tray reminded me to click to sign up and activate it. Then, they kept bugging me to go to their web site and sign up for a Passport account, to use their .net functionality. Uh, no thanks.)
Parent
About a month or so ago, a rep from Microsoft called me to give me the pitch for XP and how it would make 'everything so much better.' I actually had a great deal of fun with that call. Essentially, I told him that I had absolutely no intention of going to any XP product anytime soon. He courteously informed me that if I didn't it would cost us way more when we finally upgraded. I responded by saying that 'anytime soon' was just my nice way of saying that I'd never goto XP. He balked at that one and asked why. I told him that, frankly, I didn't care one bit for MS's licensing practices, the quality (or lack thereof) of their products, the inherent insecurity of their products and a few others that I can't remember. When he asked what our intentions were, I told him that we would stay with the 2000 line for a couple years. After that we would begin evaluating alternative operating systems and applications -- primarily Linux. I then told him that our core application was a client server model that already had a web based front end and could easily be ported to Apache & Oracle or MySQL. As for Office and messaging applications, I told him that there were many solid alternatives to Exchange already on the market and StarOffice would work just fine for our Office Suite needs. At that point he said "Oh. Thank you for your time." and hung up.
XP will be the doom of Microsoft. One day in the future, XP will be studied along with the Apple III, IBM Micro Channel Architecture, and Intel/Rambus as an example of corporate arrogance trumping common sense with DISATEROUS results.
As one /. poster has put it (brilliantly, I might add), that with XP, Microsoft has done to itself what the DOJ never could have done: Release a product that will ENABLE competition, and possibly ruin the company.
XP is the product of the two biggest sins a corporation can commit: arrogance and contempt. It's arrogant in that it's overpriced, offers NOTHING new over WIndows 2000, and in fact, takes away from it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday September 23 2016, @02:17PM
I think there were much more important battles to fight.
* tabs vs spaces
* emacs vs vi
* kde vs gnome
* rpm vs deb
* lilo vs grub
etc
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday September 23 2016, @04:50PM
* tabs vs spaces
* emacs vs vi
* kde vs gnome
* rpm vs deb
* lilo vs grub
The only battle there is lilo vs grub, the rest only have one answer.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Friday September 23 2016, @07:09PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2, Insightful) by manyon on Saturday September 24 2016, @09:16PM
i know right, so why grub gets installed all the time is beyond me :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @08:06PM
This was my point and I was too tired to find the quotes. Thank you.
It is at the 'it sucks' part of the release cycle for them (for the techies). Yet most of the market is moving towards it. They are gaining 1-3% per month. That is the rate people replace their computers. MOST people do not care. Those who wanted to upgrade either did so or were unable to do so at this point.
It frankly is just 'different' than the previous versions people have been using. We as a tech community are *very* conservative with things that already work. We do not mind trying new things. But deploying them full scale? Not so much. We move very very very cautiously.
The only complaints I am getting from 'normal users' is 'they moved stuff around again'. Not much else. Its windows. It does an 'ok' job at being a operating system. Just like most others out there. It also happens to run most of the software people want.
My father wanted to move to win10 but for some reason his computer just would not do the upgrade. I spent about 5 mins looking into it and said 'dont bother'. What he has is fine for what he does. When he buys a new computer he will get win10 then. He was fine with that. He probably could get away with some linux distro and not know the difference. There is little reason to bother with it and makes it a pain if he takes it in somewhere to get fixed.