Windows 10
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:19 pm
Hi y'all. So I recently upgraded my HP Envy 17 to Microsoft Windows 10 in an effort to revive my wifi adapter.
It worked and I'm very happy. Like, NASA Mission Control at Houston after Apollo 13 came out of Blackout after 4+ minutes happy.
But... Well, since I'm basically doing a review here, I'm gonna be a grump about some stuff too.
So, shall we get started?
The Installation
Due to a borked wifi adapter, I used an Ethernet cord to download the update. That, surprisingly, took less than an hour. (Sorry, I wasn't really timing it, I was too focused on if my adapter would be fixed). It wasn't a huge file, is what I'm saying. Nice and quick.
The installation, however, took quite some time. The better part of my evening, in fact. It finished and was asking for user input right as I was getting ready to go to bed.
The next morning, I got up and got to work on the laptop again. The user input needed was basically "can we have your history and data and personal information?"
Naturally, I said "no." I intent to start at nothing and enable what I need as I use the laptop. I'm a private kind of guy when it comes to massive faceless corporations.
It was a bit confusing at first, because the option to actually decline wasn't plainly visible. The thing I had to click was written in blue on a slightly darker blue background.
Yeah. Bit sneaky, but whatever.
After I got through that, the laptop told me "we're setting things up for you" or something like that. So I grabbed myself a grilled cheese sandwich and a fried egg.
By the time I got back, I could log in. That went without issue (sadly, number lock is STILL not defaulted to "on", grumblegrumble).
My desktop was right as I had left it. Even the pictures of my wifi adapter were still there from when I submitted them to this website as supplemental info, in case anyone knew anything special about that particular model.
HOWEVER: the start menu? Ugh. Nothing from my preexisting start menu persisted through the upgrade. So I've got to reconstruct that again.
The most unpleasant surprise by far was the return of the wretched BLOATWARE. ARGH.
Right off the bat, I see Flipboard and Minecraft for Windows 10 beta. Sitting right there in my start menu.
Cheeky bastards.
Waterfox freaked out a couple times, as did the graphics, which I assume was caused by drivers being installed and whatnot. When I saw my screen black out and glitch, I walked away and just let the computer settle for a while.
Once I came back, Waterfox is working like a champ, playing pandora constantly without interruptions (yay wifi), and the screen hasn't freaked again so far.
But while we are on the topic of drivers, I do have one complaint: the trackpad doesn't work. So I went into device manager and checked for updates to the corresponding driver. None were found, but windows did tell me to reboot anyway.
So that's what's happening now.
I shall return with news of how my laptop is behaving after the first restart.
...
Oh, gawd, the restart screen is a horrible shade of pink. I hope I can do something about that. Eeuugh.
It worked and I'm very happy. Like, NASA Mission Control at Houston after Apollo 13 came out of Blackout after 4+ minutes happy.
But... Well, since I'm basically doing a review here, I'm gonna be a grump about some stuff too.
So, shall we get started?
The Installation
Due to a borked wifi adapter, I used an Ethernet cord to download the update. That, surprisingly, took less than an hour. (Sorry, I wasn't really timing it, I was too focused on if my adapter would be fixed). It wasn't a huge file, is what I'm saying. Nice and quick.
The installation, however, took quite some time. The better part of my evening, in fact. It finished and was asking for user input right as I was getting ready to go to bed.
The next morning, I got up and got to work on the laptop again. The user input needed was basically "can we have your history and data and personal information?"
Naturally, I said "no." I intent to start at nothing and enable what I need as I use the laptop. I'm a private kind of guy when it comes to massive faceless corporations.
It was a bit confusing at first, because the option to actually decline wasn't plainly visible. The thing I had to click was written in blue on a slightly darker blue background.
Yeah. Bit sneaky, but whatever.
After I got through that, the laptop told me "we're setting things up for you" or something like that. So I grabbed myself a grilled cheese sandwich and a fried egg.
By the time I got back, I could log in. That went without issue (sadly, number lock is STILL not defaulted to "on", grumblegrumble).
My desktop was right as I had left it. Even the pictures of my wifi adapter were still there from when I submitted them to this website as supplemental info, in case anyone knew anything special about that particular model.
HOWEVER: the start menu? Ugh. Nothing from my preexisting start menu persisted through the upgrade. So I've got to reconstruct that again.
The most unpleasant surprise by far was the return of the wretched BLOATWARE. ARGH.
Right off the bat, I see Flipboard and Minecraft for Windows 10 beta. Sitting right there in my start menu.
Cheeky bastards.
Waterfox freaked out a couple times, as did the graphics, which I assume was caused by drivers being installed and whatnot. When I saw my screen black out and glitch, I walked away and just let the computer settle for a while.
Once I came back, Waterfox is working like a champ, playing pandora constantly without interruptions (yay wifi), and the screen hasn't freaked again so far.
But while we are on the topic of drivers, I do have one complaint: the trackpad doesn't work. So I went into device manager and checked for updates to the corresponding driver. None were found, but windows did tell me to reboot anyway.
So that's what's happening now.
I shall return with news of how my laptop is behaving after the first restart.
...
Oh, gawd, the restart screen is a horrible shade of pink. I hope I can do something about that. Eeuugh.