Two days ago a friend of mine asked for some help as she was really fed up with Windows Update constantly bringing her computer to its knees. This time it was trying to update Windows 10 Home to version 1803. As usual there was the extremely long-winded download. Following that, the installation appeared to be working, but then it seized up with a completely black screen and no hard disk drive activity at all. After a few minutes of nothing happening, I had to force the power off. When I restarted the computer, the installation of version 1803 carried on, but after a while I got the usual disappointing message saying ‘Restoring your previous version of windows...’
Microsoft have had so many years to get the update mechanism right, yet customers are still subjected to this kind of nonsense. How non-technical people are supposed to handle this, I just don’t know. Microsoft’s approach is a real turn-off for anyone who’s trying to get some work done, which is nearly all of us. At the end of the day, my friend decided to go with Linux, and I promised to come back and install it today (11th July 2018).
Today I returned as promised and installed Linux Mint 19 alongside Windows 10 in a ‘dual-boot’ configuration. This meant that whenever the computer was turned on, it would ask whether it should run Linux Mint 19 or Windows 10 (the default being Linux Mint 19 if nobody said different within a ten-second countdown). I then spent all of ten minutes explaining to my friend how everything worked. After using Linux for just a few hours, it already looks very unlikely that she will ever be using Windows 10 seriously again. Most of what she does revolves around e-mail, web browsing, online banking, and checking the weather (she’s a keen gardener). I‘ve mentioned Linux to her many times before, but I think she thought it would all be confusingly different. However, after seeing a live demonstration which showed a familiar desktop and icons, she has finally bitten the bullet and doesn’t seem to have any regrets at all.