Windows 10 backlash: Which? demands compo for forced upgrades Microsoft has been given a roasting by consumer group Which? over Windows 10 woes reported by users, with the organisation calling for compensation for those who found their PCs bricked after auto-updates. Which? said that it had surveyed its members for their experiences with the latest version of Windows, which was released …
"is this 15 months too late ?"
Maybe not 15 months because it's dealing with customer experience which wouldn't start to accumulate until victimsusers were running it. But the sort of early and ongoing feedback that el Reg provides might have been helpful to their readers.
Yes and no: As M$ are pushing out updates without notification (depending on which version you have) and as these updates can brick or otherwise damage your computer, then it's relevant now, too.
For example: A few day ago my Win10 PC started rebooting shortly after I'd turned it on. didn't matter what I was doing, it just rebooted. I checked the logs and found this was happening just after an update had been downloaded. Not the same update - any update. Further digging showed this was due to a 'corruption' in the update system - which Windows 'fixed' while detecting the fault... but the fault was caused by Windows trying to download and install a new (aniversary) edition to Windows... and to get past that, I had to download and install that manually for the PC to start behaving again...
So no, not too late, just late.
This should be fun. I know several people who had assorted machines borked by the Win10AU, and several others by the forced upgrade to Win10 in the first place. I called MS myself on behalf of one of them; MS non-support told me to try to revert, in this case back to Win 8.1. When informed that I'd already tried that and it didn't work, the idiot said that the revert has to work, so if there's a problem, it's at my end. This resulted in the urge to reach through the phone and punch a MS drone silly, followed by the urge to reformat the hard drive of the machine in question and put Win 8.1 back until the user, or, more probably, I, can find replacements for all her apps which will run in some Linux distro, probably Mint.
Cutting edge games are among the most difficult to get through WINE, and you can probably forget about DX12 games working on them. As for a VM, that incurs serious performance penalties, not to mention, again, the newer a game is, the less likely it is to be VM-friendly due to the need to get closer to the GPU's metal.
But too many apps are Windows ONLY, to say nothing of games...
If there is a choice between carrying on with your business OR going back to using Windows so that you can play a game or two which one will you choose?
A friend of mine didn't manage to stop the W10 upgrade and got a totally borked system. Would not boot.
MS was SFA at helpimh him. So two of us spent the best part of a weekend rebuilding his system to run Windows 7.
He was able to carry on his business the following Monday.
This was back in April.
He's about to give windows the chop once and for all and move to a Linux solution. MS has lost a customer that has been paying them for the last 20 years (since windows 95).
If enough people do that then it might start to hurt but I fear it won't and MS will carry on getting $$/£££ from their customers and locking them in for the next 50years.
I finally escape from the MS camp next Friday. After than no more MS in my life. Yay! I'll be having a few pints to celebrate.
Not just that Win 8.x was terrible, but that it marked the dividing line between Microsoft trying to make most of its money from users paying (if sometimes indirectly) for the products it made to trying to make its money by manipulating the users through the products it made..
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Did you read some of the issues that were related to the update installing itself even when dismissed? Why would anyone buy a SSD or another HDD and software to make a backup when they don't want to upgrade in the first place?
Yes, Win 10 did install itself even when "dismissed", if dismissed means clicking the X of the dialog box that asks whether you want to install it. For a time, anyway, the X did not have the effect of killing the process, so the install just went on its merry way. So how in the world does one prepare for something unexpected? Yeah, I know, "prepare, prepare, prepare + backup,backup,backup". And people have more things to do with their time than to back up every hour.
Why would anyone buy a SSD or another HDD and software to make a backup when they don't want to upgrade in the first place?
Upgrades aside ... it is never wrong to make a backup. Not if you place any value at all on your data, anyway ... your mileage may vary.
'I think you'll find the accepted modern usage (in the UK at least, not sure about elsewhere) is:
"could of had"'
Oh dear. That usage is certainly not accepted by me.
"Could've" is a contraction of "could have."
"Could of" simply is not valid grammar.
Now, bear with me on this one Wilsus.
Up North we use 'Could've had', but if i lived at Downton Abbey, then a case could be put forward for 'Could of had'. Its a question of grammatical context! If i was a posh twat, i could definitely use ' Could of had' in a sentence.......just try it now in a posh accent, go on..........you see? Now try this sentence, 'He could of had a brand new Rolls Royce, but instead plumped for the Bentley instead'. You see, it works doesn't it?
Now lets try up North: (so with a northern accent in your head)
'He could of have had a plate of fish n chips, but instead he had a plate of black puddings'.
Now try: 'He could've had a plate of fish n chips, but instead he had a plate of black puddings'.
Hope thats cleared up things.....or is that, cleared things up?
"Could have".and "would have" etc
This is the conditional form of a phrase that contains the structure of have + verb. As in "We have eaten our lunch." Just as you could never say "I of eaten my lunch" you can not say " I would of eaten my lunch."
So, "We have eaten our lunch" becomes "We should have eaten...."
This is not grammatical policing.
This is about using the same verb phrase consistently across standard and conditional forms.
"If i was a posh twat, i could definitely use ' Could of had' in a sentence......."
No you couldn't
"If i was a thick ignorant illiterate twat, i could definitely use ' Could of had' in a sentence......."
YES! Then you could...........
PS - I not i.............
"Now, bear with me on this one Wilsus.
Up North we use 'Could've had', but if i lived at Downton Abbey, then a case could be put forward for 'Could of had'. Its a question of grammatical context! If i was a posh twat, i could definitely use ' Could of had' in a sentence.......just try it now in a posh accent, go on..........you see? Now try this sentence, 'He could of had a brand new Rolls Royce, but instead plumped for the Bentley instead'. You see, it works doesn't it?
Now lets try up North: (so with a northern accent in your head)
'He could of have had a plate of fish n chips, but instead he had a plate of black puddings'.
Now try: 'He could've had a plate of fish n chips, but instead he had a plate of black puddings'.
Hope thats cleared up things.....or is that, cleared things up?"
Sorry, I can't say I agree. Surely that's just poor pronunciation? Downton Abbey isn't real, so can hardly be used as evidence in this regard.
P.S. When you say something like, "if I was a posh twat" you should really use the subjunctive, "if I were a posh twat." :)
"Could of" simply is not valid grammar.
It is perfectly cromulent usage for the average chav on the street. Except they probably would not understand the last two words of the sentence, especially when paired in that way.
The Grammer Police are out in full today. I now see what happens when you upset a loyal Which? reader. FFS. My problem with Which? is the weasel words timing of this, the day after Microsoft removes Windows 10 nagware? Coincidence?
Its 15 months late and its pointless to suddenly start getting upset about it now. Damage has been done. If Which? gave a shit they'd have backed a prosecution early on (especially in respect of partially sighted/disabled users).
All these tech companies are at it, look at Google's Privacy check up, 31 clicks to fully opt out.
The Grammer Police are out in full [force] today.
The issue here is that using constructions like "could of" is a shorthand way of saying: "I'm a gormless twat". If you want people to take what you have to say at all seriously, commencing with "I'm a gormless twat" isn't going to take you very far.
"My problem with Which? is the weasel words timing of this, the day after Microsoft removes Windows 10 nagware? Coincidence?"
Are you saying MS timed this to coincide with Which?'s publication date?
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