No ALT+Tab on Windows 10?!? ALT+Tab works fine on Ubuntu 16.04

To my way of thinking the discussion about Win 7 versus Win 10 - in the wider public domain - is largely governed by what you have become used to.

At my voluntary workplace the PC's are all Win 7 excepting for one which upgraded one night. I was the only person who noticed.

I'm not a fan of Win 7 simply because I never had it installed on my PC's - no other reason. That means when I need to check something in the nuts and bolts dept I have to do it intuitively. Nothing wrong with Win 7, I'm just not intimately acquainted with it.

On balance? I've seen nothing wrong with Win 3.1, Win 95, Win 98SE, Win XP, Win 8, Win 10.

Yes I have had the same usual problems we have all usually encountered over those many years. We will continue to have problems in the future.

For the vast majority of the masses? They will quickly acclimatise themselves to Win 10 for the simple reason...

It is going to be the only game in town for those vast majority of the masses - that is absolute fact.

Largely being professionals one way or another, we can find preferred alternative options if we want to - however we are not remotely representative of the vast majority of the population though.

These discussions always put me in mind of what was once a perennial discussion in Australia about the two main automobiles once manufactured in Australia. Ford or Holden [General Motors].

You were either a Ford man, or a Holden man - many very passionate, even heartfelt discussions over the merits of one over the other. Both vehicles were Australian designed, Australian manufactured, for Australian conditions and sharing about 90% of the market for many, many decades.

Ford or Holden? - Win 7 or Win 10? All the same discussion for me.

Mostly a pointless discussion.

Win 7 man myself, though I did give Win 10 a full year trial on one machine (a junker) and was in the process of upgrading a personal machine when MS announced the removal of some Powershell abilities and removing group policy edits to remove their telementary and advertising. This is my hardware, not theirs, and I determine what goes on it for the purposes I require.

That said, Win 10 had some neat features I will miss in Win 7, but not so many that I will give up control and security to obtain them.

For the average consumer Win 10 will put them closer to where MS, Adobe, and Apple want them to be (include Google in this as well): tied to their big iron on ad-pumping/pimping dumb terminals. Ever since the PC made market, the "big iron" shops have done all they could to put the genie back in the bottle.

People have been spoon-fed updates automatically for years from Windows and Mac -- Linux doesn't have that auto-update feature so using it would most certainly ensure that critical updates for many would never happen.

All the major Linux distros, and most of the rest, have auto update mechanisms, and have had them for much longer than Windows. There are two major differences from Windows:

1) The same mechanism updates everything: OS, applications, libraries... this is a huge advantage
2) The default is to ask users to allow the update with a notification (typically, they have to click "Update" or "Cancel" or something like that) and they get nagged or see a warning icon in the system tray if they do not allow the update.

There seem to be a lots of myths about Linux about, and a lot of them concern software installation which is one of its strong points vs Windows and MacOS

The default is to ask users to allow the update with a notification

No nag screens here -- just a small icon in the task bar that appears when various things need updated ---- I've seen people ignore this small icon over and over again as they surf along their merry way.

Secondly, if in fact they do happen to click on the little update icon in the task bar, they'll be required to authenticate, which usually means that they have to give the system permission by typing their password into the box provided. Then, if the updates are fairly critical, a notice appears that some files will be removed or changed over the existing files .. Mentions the files or libraries by name and so forth. (I've had the many confused Linux users call me up in order to ask what all of these new files or packages were/are - no joke)


Windows doesn't do this -- At best it gives a prompt that allows you to give permission and it's a done deal. Windows doesn't go on and on about libs and packages - It does it's thing and that's it. Less confusion, in that it keeps folks surfing and not asking a lot of questions.

Further -- Linux won't give restart nag screens either, or restart in the middle of your surfing like Windows does. -- People simply won't, or are unwilling to, jump through the Linux hoops required in order to update the system software. Linux also doesn't restart for you in the middle of the night like Windows does -- Linux requires more actual human interaction than Windows does.

People don't have the time for interaction - They would rather to just boot it up and go, go, go ---

The processes required by which Linux updates are no myth -- Linux tells you when it's time to update and you have to take it from there -- In Windows, you can set the auto-update features, assign a time to do them, and just walk away - No direct interaction required beyond that.

Had a family member that updated to Win 10 the last day it was free. A month ago he got a virus and had to do a fresh install on the system. With no way to get Win 10 back, he installed what the computer came with (Win 7). I'm sure there will be many others in the same situation.

If your family member really wants Win 10, try this link:

[microsoft.com...]

I did this personally some months back and have an "install" DVD burned from this iso... This disk still works for me (though I have not used it since MS changed policies, see above) and might work even now as an "upgrade".

I work at a university with a large number (really large) of Windows machines. Most were 8 or 8.1 but some were 7.

Because of security, all were upgraded to 10. Of course I don't speak with everyone, but I haven't seen or heard any issues out of the norm that users would not have with any other OS.

Personally I like 10 just fine. I don't see much difference between 7 and 10. 10 is a bit faster booting up. No keyboard shortcut issues either. I use all browsers to test web work, but prefer Firefox for its tools. So I don't really use Edge much. That may account for some of the trouble adjusting to 10.

I have a bare-bones 10pro desktop machine upgraded from 7pro that I removed a lot from - and I have a Surface Pro that I haven't customized at all. They both work great.

restart in the middle of your surfing like Windows does.

That is a good thing? Rebooting and interrupting your work! No thanks.

The rest depends on the distro and settings - what are you using? Ubuntu has a tick box in the GUI to enable this for security updates:

[help.ubuntu.com...]

and I think you are asked to choose it during install. So your problem is not really with the auto-update feature, but with what choices people make when they install?

My wife and daughter have no problems with this. A bright red icon appears in the panel, you click on it, click on, and enter your password. They do not bother about what the updates are either (they just ignore the details - most users have no interest in it and just click past it - people who ask questions about any notifications are atypical as most just click OK to anything).

I do not think restart nag screens are required either - you will restart sooner or later, so unless an update is really critical (rarely true on a desktop) no harm is done - and it is a lot more convenient than a forced restart - and I see a notification in the panel.

Then there is the convenience and security of everything updating through a single system.

People simply won't, or are unwilling to, jump through the Linux hoops required in order to update the system software.

Typing in your password and clicking OK is hardly a significant hoop...

@tangor

Thanks. I will pass the link along so he can try to download it again.

My biggest problem is I could not upgrade one machine to Win 10 and then cloan it like I used to be able to do with all other versions. I had to go and manually upgrade each machine. No business is going to do this. You can do this however if you decide to buy Win 10. MS is trying to force business to buy it instead of getting free upgrade.

Thanks. I will pass the link along so he can try to download it again.

It works if you have it create the .iso -- I got the .iso and used unetbootin to unwrap it for me on to a flash drive -- Machines that have had Win10 installed before and then rolled back to 7,8, or 8.1 won't need to have a key entered - New machines require a key.

Linux doesn't have that auto-update feature

When did you last try Linux? Every mainstream Linux distribution I can think of has auto updates.

Mack.

When did you last try Linux?

Linux Mint Cinnamon 5 minutes ago -- You have to engage (by clicking on something somewhere) before your update can begin -- In Windows, you just set it to update all by itself in the background -- (actually Windows is set up to auto-update out of the box - so you really don't have to do anything at all)

I use both Linux and Windows .. Linux absolutely "does not" auto-update out of the box, unless you are working with a build that somehow has it included - Ubuntu may have it by now possibly (haven't worked with Ubuntu in over a year) --

You can, of course, sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades, but how many people know enough to do that? .. Your standard user doesn't do the terminal thing -- Linux Mint, which is our preferred Linux OS doesn't have the feature until you actually install it --

edit: Actually I just looked at Ubuntu and just last year there was a great deal of discussion on how to edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ in order to get the unattended updates to work correctly and also on how to designate the origins needed in /var/lib/apt/lists/ for Mint --

Auto-update isn't as straightforward on Linux. You can add it with unattended-upgrades on Mint, and it works fine, but I had to use the CLI to get it in there. I didn't see any way from the GUI. Once you've installed it it runs fine. I have an LMDE install running in a friend's bar that has been running for years without me having to touch it. I check it a couple of times a year and haven't found any issues. However, if I hadn't done the manual setup of that they would have to update themselves when they noticed the update icon.