Part 1 – Windows Insider Preview
Back in the March, 2015, issue of DACS.doc, I wrote about two ways to install the technical (aka Windows Insider) preview of Windows 10. So from February until a few weeks ago I lived with Windows 10 as it morphed from the early public beta to the, shall we say, not quite ready for prime time early release to manufacturing version. There is a lot of innuendo in those two sentences so hang on as I relate my experiences.
As noted in the March article, I installed the Insider technical preview as a virtual machine (VM) on my primary laptop, an ASUS Q550L and directly on my ASUS Transformer T100AS, a tablet with a 10” screen and removable keyboard. The VM is like dipping in a toe to test the water. Side effects are minimal and it is easy to totally remove Win10 at any point. The tablet install was more of a commitment – like running full speed to the end of the pier and diving in head first.
Now that I’m writing this I wish I had kept notes of the build numbers. Every version of Windows has both a version and a build number. Moving thru the various machines in my house, I find:
Windows version | Version | Build |
XP Pro SP3 | 5.1 | 2600 |
Server 2003 SP2 | 5.2 | 3790 |
Windows 7 Pro SP1 | 6.1 | 7601 |
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 | 6.1 | 7601 |
Windows 8.1 Pro | 6.3 | 9600 |
Windows Server 2012 R2 | 6.3 | 9600 |
Windows 10 Insider beta | 6.4 | 9860 |
Windows 10 release | 10.0 | 10240 |
I was surprised to see the same build number on both workstation and server versions, except for XP. Note that the build number changed with the Win7/Server 2008 R2 service pack, but did not change over three service packs on XP. This would be more curious if it weren’t Microsoft. For more fun information on build numbers you can check the WikiPedia article on build numbering and on relating version numbers to names. Of the many blogs, How-To-Geek has an interesting article on this. For an insider view, try Raymond Chen’s blog.
For most of the insider program I was on the fast ring for new builds. If you selected “slow” you received fewer new builds but there were more changes in each. On the fast track, builds came more often and some were less stable than others. I recall at least one build that left the tablet unusable. I had to find and download a new ISO image and reinstall to get things working again. As I noted in the March article, I used Windows 8 drivers from the ASUS website as these were all that were available. At the very end of the test, ASUS released two drivers specifically to “improve stability” after the Win10 upgrade. More on this later.
Something I haven’t mentioned so far is that I was testing the Enterprise version of Win10. I do not know if the insider program differentiated between the general public and Microsoft partners, but the Microsoft account I used for the program is also my Microsoft Partner account. Windows XP introduced a “home” version that cost less and did not include “enterprise” features like the ability to join an Active Directory domain where a server handles user authentication. I do not know if there was a home version in the Insider Preview. I joined the tablet to the Active Directory domain that I run on the servers in the basement.
One of the reasons Microsoft did the public beta as they did, was to include the upgrade process in the testing and as you might imagine, some upgrades went better than others. The key is that the build upgrades were delivered via the same process as normal Windows Updates. Unlike installing a typical patch, when a new build comes down, it essentially replaces your entire Windows installation, so here is my totally unofficial description of what happens:
- The preview offered no settings options for Windows Updates, so both updates and build upgrades automatically downloaded in the background and would be installed on a reboot.
- When Windows is ready, it announces there are updates to install, just like Vista, Win7 and Win8. If you shut down or reboot the computer, the updates are installed, again just like previous Windows set for automatic updates. Since both updates and a build upgrade could be waiting at the same time, updates seemed to be installed first. I could be wrong on that because if you selected the build upgrade, any updates applied to the old build would be moot unless they were needed to fix bugs in the upgrade process.
- As the build upgrade process starts, the computer reboots into a special “installation” mode where it does what it wants, including several reboots.
- If all went well, you would eventually see the login screen.
During the Insider Preview beta program, whenever a new build was delivered I would immediately check the build number. If the increment from the previous build was large, I would hope for better performance and more new features. Such was not always the case.
On the tablet, two build upgrades did not – how should I put it? – result it total success. Midway thru the test, one build resulted in an unusable machine. The tablet would boot but I could not login, or if the login worked, the machine would hang as soon as I opened the Mail app. The second failure was the final build at the end of the test. I blame the problems with the last build on device drivers specific to the ASUS tablet. Both times I had to find the ISO for the new build on the Microsoft website and reinstall from scratch.
The final build has been a different story. The automatic build upgrade failed miserably leaving the machine unbootable. At that point, the word on the blogs was that the final build ISO would not be released, so I downloaded the next to last ISO from the Insider website and tried to reinstall with the intention that the final build would upgrade automatically. None of this went well, which led me to install new BIOS on the tablet and call ASUS support. A helpful technician with a sense of humor (so rare) helped me find two new device drivers intended to “prevent problems after the Windows 10 upgrade.”
By this time, the Win10 Enterprise release version was available thru my Microsoft Partner Action Pack subscription so I downloaded that and installed it. In a process that has repeated several times, I tried installing the drivers in different sequences. The main problem seems to involve the video driver that is part of a package of drivers from Intel (maker of the chip set) that has been tweaked by ASUS. The initial few reboots after installing the drivers would seem to be OK. During these reboots I installed additional drivers – the ones specifically to prevent problems in Win10. Once these are installed, the machine goes into a loop after login while the desktop is initializing. The screen flashes with a typical Windows error message about unreadable memory. The error message reappears as soon as it is dismissed, so I force the machine to power down. After two or three repeats of this process, the machine settled down. Once I could reboot successfully several times, I headed for Windows Update to see what was available. The first “patch Tuesday” update for Win10 installed along with an ASUS device driver. There were no details on the driver but naturally I was hopeful – what other choice do I have? With both installed, we are so far, so good. Win10 seems to be stable, at least for now.
Final note: I do not see how anyone could have done this on a true tablet, one without any keyboard. The Windows setup program does not know about touch screens so there would be no way to move thru the few screens needed. A USB keyboard might work provided there are sufficient USB ports.
Part 2 – Life with 10
So what is it like to live with Windows 10? Over most of the last six months I used the Transformer daily to help manage email – to read a few, but mostly to delete the stuff I will never read. I did this using the “Mail” app that comes with Windows. By the end of the beta I had five or six email accounts set up in Mail; two of these were Office 365 accounts (Exchange server in the cloud) while the others include Yahoo and MSN plus “standard email” on Bluehost web hosting accounts. All of the latter use IMAP protocol to synchronize changes with other machines. Because of the limited space, each account is set to maintain only one or two weeks of email on the device. Other apps I used with regularity were People and Calendar. In actuality, these are treated as one app in the Windows Store. Both synchronize with Outlook and Office 365 so I could get along without Outlook.
About half way thru the beta, a build installed that broke Mail, Calendar and People. The icons were there but did not display properly and they would no longer launch. The apps also disappeared from both the regular and beta Windows Stores – at least if you search from Win10. Without Mail, the tablet was useless! After a week of searching blogs for a solution, Microsoft acknowledged the faux pas. This state continued for another build and finally a build arrived with new Mail, Calendar and People apps. People is now Microsoft People and is separated from Mail and Calendar which are still just “Mail and Calendar”.
During the test I used Win10 in “desktop mode” on both machines. I now feel this was a mistake. Using the final release build in tablet mode makes the tablet easier to use. Who would have guessed? Tablet mode looks more like Win8 in that the Start Menu is full screen, like Win8, and most apps are launched full screen. On a small tablet screen this makes sense. In his talk at the August General Meeting, Jay Ferron said that if an application runs on Win7 or Win8, then it will run on Win10. This includes “modern” or “metro” apps from the Windows Store, but with one difference – they no longer run full screen. This means they can mix on screen with your old regular apps. I never used many Win8 apps because at home I connect my main laptop to a 27” monitor and running anything full screen on a 27” monitor seems ludicrous. Under Win10, apps like Mail and People can be run at a size that makes sense. For a small screen, tablet mode gives an experience more like Win8. Once you have Win10 on a device, I believe most people will quickly settle on one or the other.
You may have noted some things I did not test. I did not test any application compatibility for two reasons. First, the Transformer has only 32GB of storage and that has to hold Windows, so there is not much left over. I made a big mistake buying this model, but I was seduced by the low price. Second, whenever I found problems I did not want to be wondering if it was a bug in Win10 or if I caused the problem with something I installed. The only exceptions to this rule were the Firefox and Chrome browsers plus RoboForm. I cannot live without RoboForm as I need passwords to access websites, etc. Win10 includes a new browser that Microsoft is now calling “Edge.” I installed the other browsers to compare them to Edge. I really have nothing to report on Edge because I hardly used it. My main problem being that it does not yet integrate with RoboForm. There were no problems using Firefox or Chrome beyond the problems of using desktop applications on a small touch screen. As soon as I have some time I plan to invent the Automatic Finger Sharpener™. It will be very popular with guys who have big hands and will come in two models: the regular model will work with all Windows, while the classier gold-plated Trump Finger Sharpener™ will make rude remarks when you point to loser websites.
The bottom line question: Is Windows 10 ready for prime time? My answer is a solid maybe. It depends on your device. Before you run the free upgrade, I recommend you visit the device manufacturer’s website and make sure your device will be supported with Windows 10. If there are any Win10-specific device drivers, download them before you run the upgrade and have the drivers ready on a thumb drive. Best to be prepared. For my own machines, I’ll continue to run Win10 on the tablet. It appears ASUS supports the combination. My “main machine”, the Q55 laptop continues to run Windows 8.1 with a great little tweak called Classic Start Menu or Classic Shell and I plan to keep it this way for some time to come.