Correct me if I'm wrong but I understood from a thread earlier in the week
that upgrading to Windows 10 will be free from Microsoft.
-----Original Message-----
From: JAWS-Users-List [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On
Behalf Of Baracco, Andrew W
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 11:55 AM
To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] [EXTERNAL] Clinging to XP.
I migrated from XP to 7 3 years ago when I bought a new PC. It really
isn't
that different from XP, and is much more stable. It is true that in time
XP
users will have a harder and harder time accessing their favorite web
sites
and taking advantage of added web functionality. One way that you can get
around not being able to update IE is to use Firefox. I haven't heard
anything about later versions of Firefox not working with XP.
Besides security, another issue will be what will happen when you need to
replace peripherals like printers, scanners, etc. that do not have drivers
for XP. My work stuck to XP as long as they dared, but we finally migrated
to 7 in late 2013. Win 7 is not in the situation that XP is yet. MS will
provide updates and security fixes until 2020. You can probably find Win 7
machines for sale, and you can update them to 10 at a later time if you
wish.
Andy
-----Original Message-----
From: JAWS-Users-List [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On
Behalf Of Carolyn Arnold
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 5:37 AM
To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [JAWS-Users] Clinging to XP.
The problem with clinging to XP is that if I continue to do so, eventually
I
will not be able to get on the Internet. I keep getting warnings, but I
cannot update Internet Explorer with this system.
GIFT (God is forever true),
Carolyn
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisle, Ted (CHFS DMS)" <ted.li...@ky.gov>
To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 7:54 AM
Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Windows 10, Here's what Microsoft should have
done
instead
Doesn't sound like something I'd break my neck to acquire. That's why so
many folks are still desperately clinging to XP like a drowning man
holding
a rope. That's why my builder and I agreed to go with Windows 7 as late
as
December, 2013. When it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Ted
-----Original Message-----
From: JAWS-Users-List [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On
Behalf Of Trish
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 10:27 AM
To: Jaws-users-list
Subject: Windows 10, Here's what Microsoft should have done instead
Windows 10, Here's what Microsoft should have done instead
a.. By David Cardinal on June 9 2015 from the
b.. Extreme Tech Staff
c.. 'Document source Link:
d..
e..
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/207780-windows-10-heres-what-micros
oft-should-have-done-instead?mailing_id=1276983&mailing=ExtremeTech&mail
ingID=F98C71CE61AECF34AC8B64A964276FEA
f..
*
* Windows 10 is a well-meaning effort by Microsoft to mollify
Windows 8 haters and coax Windows 7 loyalists to upgrade - all while
stubbornly sticking to its goal of a single OS for every possible
platform.
And by framing the problem that way, Microsoft has given itself a nearly
impossible task.
* To the company's credit, each new build lurches closer to
being
usable, although with new bugs every time, it is difficult to evaluate how
smooth the final release version will be. Best case: It may earn the
grudging acceptance of Windows 7 users who refuse to move to Windows 8.
And
part of that acceptance will come not from sudden enthusiasm for a new way
of interacting with the desktop, but from a desire to take advantage of
the
clear core benefits Windows 10 provides in performance, security,
administration, and memory usage over Windows 7 and even Windows 8.
* So why is it so hard to convince users to move to a brand-new,
free, feature-packed, more efficient OS?
*
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205320-microsoft-windows-10-will-be
-the-last-version-of-windows
*
* Apple does it all the time. Simply put, because Microsoft
didn't
build Windows 8 or Windows 10 for Windows users. It built them to further
its own business strategy of using the power of the once-ubiquitous
Windows
platform to extend its dominance into the rapidly growing mobile space.
The
result is an OS whose features are now flipping and flopping with each new
build - as Microsoft tries to fix problems of its own creation.
* Imagine how good a desktop OS Windows 10 could have been
* What if instead, after realizing what a terrible mistake
Windows 8
was, Microsoft had made the truly brave decision to come clean and change
its strategy? If Windows 10 had been designed from the beginning to be the
best possible desktop OS, and the thousands of developer years spent
trying
to make it everything to everyone were instead spent providing services
and
applications for the mobile OS platforms people actually want? If in
tandem
Microsoft was willing to let go of its sub-3% market share in mobile, it
could also have spent the cash it used to buy Nokia to build out its
cross-platform services offerings instead. We could have had a really
excellent desktop OS - worth paying for -
*
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/201601-microsoft-desperately-wants-
you-to-move-to-windows-10
*
* and great integration with the leading mobile platforms.
* Certainly Microsoft has woken up to providing competitive
versions
of its applications on Android and iOS. But imagine how much further along
it would have been if it had put real work into the effort starting years
ago. Perhaps we wouldn't have to use third-party utilities to sync our
information between Google and Outlook, for example. Or OneNote might have
supported syncing on Android during the first several years it was
available, instead of only recently. Pick any Microsoft desktop technology
you access from your iOS or Android device and you can come up with a list
of features that would make it much more useful.
*
* It's not like there isn't anything to fix in Windows
* Anyone who thinks Microsoft didn't focus on desktop users as
it
evolved Windows 8 and 10 because its desktop OS has "no need for
improvement" hasn't spent enough time wrestling with the inscrutable hex
error codes from Windows Update, or debugging driver version mismatches,
or
finding information they're sure is somewhere on their disk. While Windows
10 isn't final, judging by the builds so far, all of those problems are
still there. Even support for high-resolution displays is still spotty.
Windows 10 adds some new Zoom options, but there is still no serious
scalable-font solution that works across the full range of possible
displays.
* As a good example of how this alternate direction would have
worked, let's look at the Control Panel. No one doubts that it is an old,
crufty system for managing a computer. A desktop-focused OS project would
have overhauled it completely while preserving its functionality.
Instead,
Microsoft seems determined to replace it in bits and pieces with new
"touch-friendly" settings that aren't much more intuitive, and that become
even more frustrating when you need to go back to the old system for
pieces
that are still missing. Windows 10 is supposed to address this problem,
but
we're less than two months from shipment and Settings are still far from
being either intuitive or finished.
* Tablet mode and Continuum are also inventions seeking to solve
a
problem Microsoft has invented for itself. For the few of us who actually
own and use a Surface Tablet mode, it's sort of a good thing. (I love that
I
can both taken written notes and run Outlook on my SP3, but with the
addition of desktop apps to Android, I'm not sure how many others will see
the need to spend that kind of money for basic productivity.) It's good
because it is better than Windows 8, where often the touch keyboard
wouldn't
pop up when needed, and icons could be hard to finger.
* It's still only sort of good, though, because it's confusing
and
forces the user to have one more thing to think about. Somehow iPads and
Android tablets seem to easily survive the addition of a keyboard without
the need for an entire special OS mode. Like many of the other new
features
in Windows 10, it seems like a "throw it against the wall and hope it
sticks" attempt to solve a user pain point - not a from-the-ground-up
technology architected to support the broad range of devices that can now
run Windows.
*
* Windows 10 internals are actually pretty impressive
* There is a lot to like about Windows 10 - in addition to
having
the best kernel Windows has ever had. Edge (aka Spartan) is promising
(although it too is only a prototype version, and certainly could have
been
shipped separately). Cortana might be useful, but is so limited and buggy
in
the current builds that it is hard to tell. If it doesn't get sorted out
by
July, Microsoft risks taking yet another step backwards in desktop search
functionality, which would be a shame. Virtual desktops are a nice
feature,
although hardly groundbreaking.
* The included apps are certainly way ahead of the ones
Microsoft
shipped with Windows 8, but Microsoft has had many excellent desktop apps
over the years - including the now-dead Windows Media Center, LiveWriter,
and MovieMaker. It is the company's own fault that it feels the need to
start over time and again. On the tablet side, if Microsoft is serious
about
usability, it should be providing a better touch keyboard - one that
includes swipe-through typing, for example. I also wish the company had
finally fixed Windows Update. Mobile users won't put up with the way it
works now - they are spoiled by seamless OTAs from Apple and even many
Android vendors.
* Perhaps the ultimate warning sign about Windows 10 for me is
that
for many, its positioning is summed up as being "no worse than the
six-year-old Windows 7, while adding support for tablets and phones."
That
sounds pretty silly, but maybe not far from the truth. I run a Windows 7
desktop for some of my business-critical applications right next to a
couple
of Windows 8.1 machines and a couple of Windows 10 machines. I don't
really
feel any less productive when I'm on the Windows 7 machine, and I can't
imagine that I'll upgrade it to Windows 10 and risk something breaking.
* Tablets are certainly a different story. I've already put
Windows
10 on almost all my Windows tablets, and suspect most of the small number
of
Windows tablet users will also. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Windows
tablets
are a relatively small market, and may never become mainstream.
* Laptops are the most interesting case. While each version of
Windows adds new power management features, that may not be enough to get
laptop users to upgrade. For example, Microsoft keeps changing the WiFi
settings interface, and for many of us, the new version is lame compared
to
the more powerful one that preceded it. Engineering laptops still ship
primarily with Windows 7, and I don't see anything about Windows 10
changing
that. Mainstream laptops will get dragged along onto Windows 10 because of
the Microsoft marketing machine, but I don't know how many current laptop
users will bother to take advantage of the free upgrade. No doubt that is
part of why Microsoft is inflicting its Windows 10 adware on the already
confusing Windows Update process.
* At this point the die is cast, and we'll need to live with
whatever we get on July 29th - or stay put and hope the little
Get-Windows-10 nagware goes away.
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