I'm really into technology, so naturally I was excited when Microsoft announced Windows 10 to the public two weeks ago on September 30th. Since then, I've installed it on my Toshiba Satellite E55t-A5320 (i5-4200U, 12GB RAM, 500GB HDD) which is my only computer (except for three early-2000s IBM's) and I use it as a daily driver. It runs very smoothly, maybe even faster than stock 8.1, and hasn't crashed or had any errors. The only thing that doesn't work is Geekbench which crashes on the splash screen. Even FSX, which is notorious for 8.1 compatibility issues, has only crashed twice in a week.

Regarding the features themselves, I notice quite a big difference. For example, when you snap a window to part of the screen, it will predict which app you're going to snap next. Multiple desktops aren't very intuitive though, which you have to tediously right click every window you want to send to the next desktop. I think Dexpot with it's keyboard shortcuts worked better here. Charms search for the most part is gone, and I still sometimes mouse into the corner by accident until I realize that I have to use the start menu. The dedicated search button is useless and duplicates functionality found in the start menu. I don't use it because of Bing. Hopefully Microsoft gets these bugs ironed out before the release in mid-2015.

Anybody using the preview? Post your comments on this thread.

Thanks for the thread - haven't yet tried out Windows 10 (I'm sort of stuck in Windows 7 and Windows XP and in denial about Windows 8!) but will probably give it a try and install it.

It has lots of potential, but I'm sure M$ will do something to really screw it up so we'll have to wait until 10.1 or 10.2 to fully appreciate it.

Windows follows the law of alternate releases.

Windows XP was awesome.
Windows Vista was garbage.
Windows 7 was awesome.
Windows 8 was garbage.
Windows 10 or whatever the hell they want to call it will be awesome.

I'm a huge fan of virtual desktops and looking forward to seeing how this feature will be implemented once they start polishing it.

Well considering they've been very clear about emphasizing this is a pre-beta release and it DOES contain bugs and unfinished features, and they're more receptive to feedback then they've ever been, I'd say it's a bit early to be worrying about this kind of stuff. If this was a Release Candidate build then yeah, I'd be worried.

Has Microsoft lost the ability to count? What happened to Windows 9?

“It came and it went,” Prophet said of Windows 9. “Windows 10 is not going to be an incremental step from Window 8.1. Windows 10 is going to be a material step. We’re trying to create one platform, one eco-system that unites as many of the devices from the small embedded Internet of Things, through tablets, through phones, through PCs and, ultimately, into the Xbox.”

So there you have it: Windows 10 is such a big leap forward for the platform that just increasing its number by one numeral wouldn’t have cut it.

http://bgr.com/2014/10/14/windows-9-...-10-microsoft/

Windows 10 still uses version 6.x of the NT kernel is actually like the 13th version of Windows, so it's not like the version number actually matters anyway.

Rumor has it Windows 95 and 98 are the reason why they skipped Windows 9. According to the rumor, there are many third party apps that were developed with code such as:

If the new version of Windows was named Windows 9, these apps would think the OS was really 95/98. And thus skipping straight to Windows 10 solved this issue.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/01/w...-naming-rumor/

It's actually true. There's a bunch of third party code like that, I looked it up. And that's just the open source example. Link was shared by a member of Reddit who claimed to be a Microsoft dev.

Could actually be true.
I installed it today at work and it does look very good. More like a Windows 8.2. I think they are on the right track for users that still want or have to use a normal PC without touchscreen.

Yeah. As stated above, works really well on my daily driver. Doesn't lag a bit and the new start menu works really well. Only caveat is that multiple displays are a pain in the a$$ to get set up, but that might just be a hardware issue.

Which means that 30 years from now, we'll go right from Windows 69 to Windows 110 for the same reasons.

I did not try that yet. It's strange, I had the feeling they improved that from Win 7 to 8... How many displays did you connect to your PC?

Trying this out on a desktop machine. Like it overall but text on the LCD display is much less clear than with Windows 7 with ClearType turned on.