This year sees the increased rollout of Microsoft’s latest platform. Window 10.
All computers as standard now come pre installed with windows 10 – so if purchasing a new computer – there is potentially no escape.
But we ask ourselves – is it ready to be put into the public domain? This was witnessed first hand many years ago with the arrival of Vista back in 2006/2007.
The OS (Operating System) was released to early and not only contained many bugs that made the platform unstable, but it missed the vital software that enabled printers and onboard devices to function correctly. This left many users unable to use their computers after the upgrade and at that point – there was no way of going back after the upgrade had taken place.
It is feared that this same situation could happen again and business owners are not advised to take that risk. Just yet.
Luckily windows 10 does come with a rollback feature – so if any issues happen things should be reset, which has managed to save many of our IT Support customers who have experienced problems or clicked the free upgrade by mistake and asked us for our assistance.
One downfall is that users currently happy with their OS are clearly not happy as they will need to learn the new layout. Using a tiled/compact view can confuse basic users who are used to the start menu and usual area’s. This can have a large impact on business users as they would then need to up skill their staff to use the OS efficiently, which will decrease productivity in the process loosing many hours that businesses just can’t afford.
Whats New:
Layout:
One of the biggest changes that can clearly be noticed is the new layout style. Even though confusing to the standard user the layout uses tiles instead of the basic old look of windows 7 and is an improvement over windows 8 as it is more compact and has all features available on the main screen instead of having to access the dropdown windows at the bottom of the screen that takes you to were to need to be.
Your Face Is Your Password:
This feature did appear during the windows 8 upgrade, but has since been made more efficient with better functionality and recognition abilities. Having this feature ensures that nobody will ever be able to access your computer without your authorisation, which until now has not been able to be achieved.
Direct integration with social media:
In todays digital age – we all connect somehow via social media, whether that be personally or for business purposes. Windows are ahead of the game – they now work closely with social media providers and have incorporated these into the OS itself enabling them to stay connected at all times. The main social media platform they work with is facebook because of it’s popularity and focus to grow bigger that their competitors.
Return of skype:
In it’s day Skype was one of the first VOIP providers to break into consumer markets How-ever – over the past few years – skpye has slowly faded into the background. Windows 10 plans on changing that by making skype its main telephony software and promoting the VIOP to all customers on a free or paid basis.
Conclusion:
Windows 10 is a very good OS and we do like it very much, but we believe that it is not quite time to make the move just yet from your trusted Microsoft product that you currently rely on.
We suggest that you leave the upgrade for another 12 months and by then – they will have identified major pitfalls and bugs from their free trial they are currently offering, meaning you can enjoy windows 10 with minimal hassle.
Plus – it will also give businesses and personal users the opportunity to become familiar with the new processes ready for that time of change to arrive.
Update: 14.10.16
Since our last update above – we have been speaking with other IT Support professionals to see if Windows 10 was now ready for business.
To our surprise – Microsoft still haven’t resolved all issue’s when it comes to business. There were two main area’s of problem if trying to perform an upgrade from your previous OS to the latest.
The issue’s were as follows:
Files:
After the upgrade process had completed – many have reported that they have lost files that were stored on their computers. If these files were backed up on a regular basis then all would have been fine, but in this case – they weren’t. Then the business must try and find which files are missing, which can be a nightmare for you or your technical support provider that you hire to resolve the problem.
365 Email:
Compatibility between 365 and Windows 10 is still not correct. An IT Support company that we are in connection with has stated that they lost mail during the migration/transition – even though they followed the correct procedures. They are now warning businesses to still hold back from making the move in an attempt to help them avoid the same problems that they faced.
So – again – we still believe that it’s still not time to make that move for your business just yet. Personal use seems to be fine providing that you have a good backup of your data. How-ever – it is still going to be some time to introduce the change to your business.
Update pending.
DIGITALCONFIG Team.