January marked the end for Windows 7. After ten years and more than a few extensions, Microsoft finally made the cut-off and will no longer be updating what many would call its most reliable operating system ever.
Many businesses held out as long as possible, and some have even paid for privatized extended support.
Microsoft certainly had to split its focus while having more than one operating system in production, but with the end of Windows 7, one would assume that Windows 10 would have more developers working on the issues and updates as they arise.
It hasn’t been long, but so far, we have not seen anything to indicate a brighter future for Windows 10.
Now, Microsoft is no stranger to a failed OS. Who can forget Windows ME (Millennium Edition), Windows Vista, and even Windows 8? These were deemed failures and had a much shorter life span than favorites like Windows XP and Windows 7.
That said, Windows 10 won’t fall into the same category as ME, Vista, or Windows 8. Windows 10, when correctly functional, really is one of the better user experiences there has been. It has already proven commercially to be more successful with a larger market share than any of the failed systems.
Of course, that could also be attributed to the fact that there was another OS available at the times of ME, Vista, and Windows 8. Windows ME couldn’t break the grasp that Windows XP had. Vista was a victim of Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows 8 was decimated by Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Windows 10 from a user standpoint is not a failure, but there are a few ways that it exceeds the issues that some of these failed operating systems had.
Windows 10 has had some fairly widespread issues. The most recent problem? A majority of Windows 10 users found themselves unable to use the search feature in Windows. The start menu would allow you to open it, but the search never returned results.
Microsoft was able to fix the issue within a day or so, but what caused the issue?
The broken search was related to a broken link to Bing search. The search function is integrated with Bing, and the functionality of the feature was completely broken because of it.
There have been other issues as well. One of my favorite and most unique problems with Windows 10 was a few month span during an entire feature update where Microsoft had broken the ability to install Microsoft Office.
There was no fix. If the problem occurred, you had to either roll back to install Office or wait until the next feature update.
You almost expect there to be issues with third party software during a new update, but when it’s the company’s own product? It is definitely a headscratcher. Relatedly, there were frequent problems with Office activation and the Microsoft store being completely missing or broken.
While Windows 7 didn’t have all of the features that Windows 10 did, it seemed to be much more reliable.
We can only hope that Microsoft gets those extra developers working so Windows 10 can be as reliable as its predecessor. Despite these issues, the potential is there.