The other day, as I was yelling at some kids to get off my lawn, I was thinking "I've been ignoring Windows 10 for a long time, maybe I haven't been fair. Maybe it's time to take another look".
It started with the crazy idea of installing Windows 10 on an external drive, maybe even a thumbdrive, which, it turns out, is actually possible and relatively simple, once you know the proper incantations. In the process I discovered The Windows 10 Random Error Generator.
Although installation went smoothly, once I was up and running I would always encounter some serious problem that neither I nor Google could figure out how to fix. Wipe the drive, start over, and the thing I encountered in the previous installation worked fine but now something different was broken.
A blank white screen flashing on and off. Trying to install programs and getting an error message about some DLL buried deep in the WinSXS directory. Windows Explorer is broken. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's almost like the installer has a random number generator which gives you a new problem each time you try to install.
So I gave up on the thumbdrive (which I always suspected would turn out to be a bad idea) and tried an external SSD. Other than being faster, things didn't work any better. A few attempts later, Fuck You Windows 10, Now it's personal. So I pull out my boot drive (don't want any Windows 10 cooties getting on it), replace it with a new SSD, and off I go.
Several attempts later, I've actually got a fully functional Windows 10 up and running, with all my most used programs installed. I guess I finally hit the right number in the Windows 10 Lottery.
Along the way, I discovered some fascinating things.
Windows 10 really ratcheted up the file permissions which, in addition to being really annoying, has exposed problems with some program's installers. Generally, the last thing an installer does is create shortcuts in the Start Menu. But, if the installer can't create those shortcuts (which also seems to occur randomly), some installers completely abort the installation!! What the fucking fuck? You installed the program just fine but aborted the installation and deleted everything because you couldn't create the Start Menu shortcuts?? And how in the fuck do you have permission to write to C:\Program Files, but not the Start Menu??
And then there's my current favorite. Windows update was throwing an error on some updates, so this morning I looked up the error number. Windows Update won't install some updates if Windows Firewall is turned off. This includes a couple of updates for Office 2003 which I still use at home, because, fuck you, that's why.
I haven't run Windows Firewall since, well since never, because there are better third party alternatives that give me much better control of what comes and goes. So I actually have to turn on Windows Firewall, run Windows Update, then turn it off again. What the fuck are these people thinking?
And I seem to have somehow accidentally killed Edge (the new IE replacement). But I didn't really like it much anyway.