the transition from XP to Windows 7 because the Windows 10 desktop works much like Windows 7.
Are you sure you want to tackle the learning curve? Er, curves? See the nearby sidebar about switching to a Mac. Or try a Chromebook — see the other sidebar.
That said, if you didn’t plunge into the Windows 7 or Vista madness, or the Windows 8/8.1 diversion, and instead sat back and waited for something better to come along, many improvements indeed await in Windows 10.
Improved performance
Windows 10 (and Windows 8 and 7 before it) actually places fewer demands on your PC’s hardware. I know that’s hard to believe, but as long as you have a fairly powerful video card and 4GB or more of RAM memory, moving from XP to Windows 10 will make your PC run faster.
WOULDN’T IT BE SMARTER TO GET A MAC?
Knowledgeable Windows XP users may find it easier — or at least more rewarding — to jump to a Mac, rather than upgrading to Windows 10. I know that’s heretical. Microsoft will never speak to me again. But there’s much to be said for making the switch.
Why? XP cognoscenti face a double whammy: learning Windows 7 (for the Windows 10 desktop) and learning how to deal with Metro/Modern Universal Windows apps. If you don’t mind paying the higher price — and, yes, Macs are marginally more expensive than PCs, feature-for-feature — Macs have a distinct advantage in being able to work easily in the Apple ecosystem: iPads, iPhones, the App Store, iTunes, iCloud, and Apple TV all work together remarkably well. That’s a big advantage held by Apple, where the software, hardware, cloud support, and content all come from the same company. “It just works” may be overblown, but there’s more than a nugget of truth in it. Give or take a buggy iOS update.
Yes, Macs have a variant of the Blue Screen of Death. Yes, Macs do get viruses. Yes, Macs have all sorts of problems. Yes, you may have to stand in line at an Apple Store to get help — I guess there’s a reason why Microsoft Stores seem so empty.
If you’re thinking about switching sides, I bet you’ll be surprised at the similarities between macOS and Windows XP.
EXTOLLING THE VIRTUES OF CHROMEBOOKS
If you’re looking to buy a new computer, you should definitely consider getting a Chromebook. You know, the machines that Microsoft says “scroogle” you? Yeah. They’re amazingly powerful, almost impervious to infections, start on a dime, sip batteries, don’t get tied up for hours on end installing upgrades — and they’re pretty darn cheap.
How to tell if you’re ready for a Chromebook? Try using nothing but the Google Chrome browser on your aging computer for a bit. If you can do everything that you need to do with the Chrome browser, you’re automatically ready for a Chromebook. Even if you can’t, chances are pretty good that what you need is available in Chromebook land. No, you won’t find Photoshop, but you will find plenty of cheap photo-editing packages. No, you won’t find the full-blown Office suite, but you can use Office Online. I’ve moved almost everything to Google Docs and Sheets and rarely turn back to the big guns.
Chromebooks are a breath of fresh air if you don’t absolutely need any Windows-based programs. I use mine all the time, and suggest you try it, too.
Better video
Windows 10 doesn’t sport the Aero interface made popular in Vista and Windows 7, but some of the Aero improvements persist. The new Windows 10 reveal feature lights up items as you hover your cursor over them if that sort of thing appeals.
FIGURE 2-4: Drag a window to the edge or a corner, and the other available windows appear, ready for you to click into place.
Windows 10’s desktop shows you thumbnails of running programs when you hover your mouse cursor over a program on the taskbar (see Figure 2-4).
Video efficiency is also substantially improved: If you have a video that drips and drops in Windows XP, the same video running on the same hardware may go straight through in Windows 10.
A genuinely better browser is emerging
Internet Explorer lives in Windows 10, but it’s buried deep. If you’re lucky, you’ll never see it when you use Windows 10. Internet Explorer is old and buggy, and Microsoft has stopped developing it. It became a bloated slug with incredibly stupid and infection-prone “features”: ActiveX, COM extensions, custom crap-filled toolbars, and don’t get me started on Silverlight. It deserves to die if only in retaliation for all the infections it’s brought to millions of machines.
In its place, the new, light, standards-happy, fast Microsoft Edge is everything Internet Explorer should have been, without the legacy garbage. Microsoft built Edge from the ground up as a Windows 10 app that runs on the desktop in its own resizable window. It’s a poster boy for the new apps that are coming down the pike. It took Microsoft forever to build, but the final result is well worth the effort.
Unfortunately, Microsoft Edge is still an unfinished work. Few people use it because it lacks many important browser features. The situation’s slowly improving, and Microsoft has just launched a revamped version based on the same rendering engine as Google Chrome. Unfortunately, this new version is not built into Windows 10 yet. You have to download it from www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge. Edge might well be ready for prime time at some point.
If you live in fear of Internet Explorer getting you infected and/or hate the massive patches that used to appear every month, Microsoft Edge will be a refreshing change.
Cortana
Apple has Siri. Google has Google Assistant. Amazon has Alexa. Microsoft has Cortana, the Redmond version of an AI-based personal assistant, shown in Figure 2-5. Unlike Siri and Google Assistant, though, Cortana used to take over the Windows 10 search function, so it had a larger potential footprint than its AI cousins.
Cortana never took off, and it was used a lot less than Siri or Google Assistant.
