Here's what happened, as I can piece it together and as told from my own perspective and through my own experience.
I agreed to an upgrade, though I balked at initiating it for fear of ending up with a 16x16x7 paperweight. Windows 7 had been installed by the store and I didn't have any CD for it. Plus I had tried to run the Windows 10 compatibility test and the entire evolution devolved into Microsoft's attempt to follow itself up its own aft orifice -- it seemed very upset that their Internet Explorer was not my default browser. And of course all that filled me with the appropriate amount of confidence in the system.
Then early last week they announced that my upgrade would start on Thursday, 19 May, at 2300h. So I backed up what I could and left my computer on overnight. The next morning, Windows 10 had installed and for the most part everything is working. I'm not comfortable with the entire look-and-feel, since as retired military I prefer everything inside an ugly gray box (AKA "Windows Classic"). Every time I switch to a new version of Windows, I feel very hampered, like I cannot do anything useful anymore. It can take me a few years to work past that. Windows XP was great, once I switched from its ugly Fisher-Price user interface, so I wish that we still had that interface (especially the search function!). I have Windows 8.1 on a laptop and it is exactly like Apple software: it reminds me that I still keep my hair cut very short so I don't rip it all out in frustration.
But, Windows 10, so far OK.
The only thing I haven't been able to find is my set of games, but they are very hard on my eyes so I'm glad to be rid of them. I hope I don't discover where tney are hiding out
Yeah, I used to play Freecell so much I just created a desktop shortcut for it. Gone. It looks like they've gotten rid of all their own games and instead point you to some games vendors. All for the better, since this way I won't be wasting so much time on a game and can spend more time updating my creation/evolution pages (
http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/ -- I'm currently updating my page on Kent Hovind's bogus solar-mass-loss claim).
There is a voice-activated feature that I can't use because I don't have the necessary audio arrangement -- and let's put it this way: if I do have it hidden somewhere I don't want to find it.
That would be Cortana, which is Microsoft's answer to Siri. Yes, you can hide it. Also, you can type in your query rather than deliver it verbally. Play with her and decide whether she can do the job or not.
Cortana is also on my phone (Windows 8.1 -- absolutely hate it on a laptop, but it works well on a phone). I've asked her a few questions and she would always respond with some totally unrelated links. So I asked her, "Hey, Cortana. Do you always change the subject?" And she completely changed the subject. OK, so now I know exactly where I stand. No, I hardly ever talk to her at all.
I have a new car that links to my phone via BlueTooth. It has its own "Bitching Betty" (standard Naval terminology for a user interface that employs a female voice (which, according to "The Andromeda Strain", is fairly standard since pilots respond better to a female voice, though a local radio DJ would disagree -- see below). My car's "Bitching Betty" does such a poor job of understanding me that I just don't use her. But when my phone receives a text, the car will play it for me and then Cortana will take dictation as I give my reply. Cortana takes dictation far better than Bitching Betty ever did.
So if you were to ever get a microphone or headset, you might want to give Cortana a try. Also, there's a speech recognition feature since Win7 or possibly earlier in which you can speak your text instead of just typing it in. I don't think that such audio hardware is very expensive. Just a thought.
Andromeda Strain and that local DJ. One of the more fascinating aspects of Michael Crichton's first well-known novel was his inclusion of various scientific and government studies supporting the premises of his novel, even though I'm sure he had made up most of them (eg, the "Odd Man Hypothesis" which most married men would immediately recognize as absolutely true).
One such study had supposedly found that both men and women respond more readily to a female voice, so the decision had been made to use a female voice in all such interfaces, such as in fighter jet cockpits. Different information about that from actual fighter pilots in Vietnam revealed that they were being so bombarded by sensory inputs that their brains literally started ignoring most of it. A classic case was an American pilot shot down over Vietnam who had no idea whatsoever that there was a bandit on his tail, and yet in the recordings we can plainly hear his wing-man warn him repeatedly of the bandit who was on his tail.
Then a few or more years ago one morning on a local radio show, we heard of a conflicting study. The DJ was informed of a study that women's voices operated in a frequency range that men just do not hear. So on the air he called his wife to tell her that this study explains everything. She had been asleep, so his call woke her up. Excitedly, he explained everything to her. All she did was to hang up on him. Every single married man in the area knew that he was a dead man walking.
Other than that, Faith, some of what you knew may still be there. Yes, you are now supposed to work through the Settings dialogs, but you can still access the Control Panel if that is easier for you.
The future has snuck up on us yet again! Maybe we can get it to work.
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