Yes Dear Readers,
Windows 10 is poison to computers; stay away from it. You know me, I seldom write anything negative. But in this case, honesty is important; the negative stuff needs saying. Windows 10 is ridiculous and Microsoft help is woefully inadequate for the number and scale of problems arising. Here is an outline of my experience. I first wrote a 2400 word document which had all the names of tech support people and case numbers, but I decided no one would read it. Please read the shortened version…or just take my word for it…Windows 10 is poison.,
Day 1: Installed Windows 10 on my Surface Pro 3; installation was smooth. Decided it was safe to install on my Alienware desktop and ran into problems. Contacted Microsoft who after several hours told me I needed to let the process run for at least 1 to 3 hours. I let it run 17 hours.
Day 2: Connected with Microsoft again with a different agent. Explained the problem. Worked with her another 5 hours. At the end, she decided she needed to escalate my problem to a level 2 engineer. She set the call for between the hours of 10 and noon the next day.
Day 3: Microsoft level 2 engineer didn’t call. I call them around 2 PM and a level 1 tech suggested I wait and he was sure someone would call. I could wait, I didn’t have to install Windows 10, but it looked so neat and I believed all the press.
Day 4: The Microsoft level 2 engineer called around 10 AM. I worked with her for 11 hours. Most of that was downloading time. At the end of the day, no resolution was in sight. She couldn’t get Windows 10 to install. She promised to call the next day. Odd thing happened. My Surface Pro 3, which had worked fine before Windows 10, no longer could see my audio hardware. I no longer had sound.
Day 5: The level 2 engineer called and we continued working, but we kept getting failed attempts and various error messages. At 4 1/2 hours, I had to stop because I had a live session with a student scheduled. She tried one more time and this time my computer went to the screen of death or the blue screen. It restarted again, thank goodness. At the end of our call, the tech said that she didn’t know of anything else to do except wipe my computer and install Windows 10. No thank you was my reply. I mean really, she couldn’t promise that even that would work. We ended the call.
She had asked me to uninstall Norton and disconnect all peripherals from my computer before the last installation attempt. I set everything back up, started my computer, and immediately crashed to blue screen. I couldn’t correct the problem. Horrified, I called Microsoft back. The support tech informed me that since Windows 10 never installed and I was trying to get Windows 7 Ultimate back on the machine, I would have to call another department and pay for the support. I remained calm on the outside, but it was good that he couldn’t see my eyes, which I am sure would have shot laser beams penetrating his skull and vaporizing his brain on the spot. I then spent another 4 hours holding on the phone waiting for a tech at a different department, who informed me that the first tech should have never sent me to him. The other tech should have returned me to the level 2 tech I worked with. OK, I really am getting angry. It is 9 PM and he tells me he will contact the tech and her manager and they would call me within 2 hours. They didn’t call. I wonder if he contacted anyone or was just trying to placate me.
Day 6: My computer is still crashing to blue screen on opening. I am trying to restore to an earlier point, which also fails. I call Microsoft. During the 3 hour wait time, I decided to revert my Surface Pro 3 back to Windows 8.1. A miracle happened. The Surface was now able to see my audio hardware and play sound again. I then found out that Microsoft was aware of the problem and needed to give new drivers to the Window 10 users. Would have been nice if they had notified us, right? But, I guess it is way more fun to let its loyal customers flounder about.
OK, so I get a new level 2 tech who is very apologetic and says she will help me, right? She started by trying to restore my computer to an earlier time, which I patiently explained wouldn’t work. She did it anyway. It didn’t work. Then she asked me to do something, I couldn’t make it out. I asked her to repeat herself and she didn’t. Then she started saying hello and trying to get my attention. I could hear her, but she couldn’t hear me. She said that she had to end the call. Not ten minutes earlier I had given her my call back number and begged her to call me if we got disconnected. She did not call me back. I call Microsoft back once again. One hour into the wait time I get disconnected. To this point, my writing has been kind, but let me be perfectly frank. Microsoft’s help system sucks. I cannot write the words I am thinking…you can read between the lines. And, their product sucks, too. It killed one of my computers and disabled the other.
I called Alienware support and on bended knee, I asked if they could help. It probably took 5 minutes to reset the bad stuff that the repeated installation attempts and reverting back to Windows 7 created. I spent another 15 minutes with the tech while he ran diagnostics on my machine to see if all was OK and it is. Compare Alienware’s performance to Microsoft’s…15 minutes versus 6 days.
Please do not try to install Windows 10. I know it is safe for some folks, but you will not know that until you try. Then, you must call a help system that isn’t capable of correcting the problems that are occurring. Please share this post with others. Everyone needs to know the dangers here…and the appalling lack of support from Microsoft.
Alienware support is my hero, Microsoft support is the spawn of the devil.
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