Well, that was quick. One week ago, I downloaded Windows 10 for my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro laptop (late 2013 vintage) as a purported “upgrade” for my schizophrenic but functional Windows 8.1. As of today, I have booted Windows 10 out the window and returned to 8.1. Thank you, Microsoft, for giving me a thirty-day grace period to get out. But that is all the appreciation I can muster for you.
Many people have encountered serious problems switching to Windows 10; others have had no issues. In my case, the problem was the laptop display flashing or blanking out. Other Yoga 2 Pro users had this same problem — the cause seems to be a “panel refresh” option in the display driver. To get rid of the problem, you can roll back the display driver to a previous version and turn off panel refresh. But this fix lasts only until Windows 10 scans your drivers, detects that your driver is out-of-date, and reinstalls newer drivers (without giving you a choice), which reintroduces the display problem.
I am not going to spend hours fighting Windows 10. You win, Microsoft. I retreat.
We have two laptops in our family. Both had Windows 8.1 and I chose to upgrade both of them to Windows 10. And both of our laptops had problems. Although I decided to throw in the towel on mine, I was able to fix the touchpad functionality on my wife’s Asus laptop by installing a program called “Smart Gesture.” Again, the only reason I knew about this is because other Asus owners had the same issue.
Microsoft, do me a favor: if you intend to uninstall Smart Gesture from my wife’s laptop, please tell Windows to do so in the next 23 days, so I can throw her copy of Windows 10 out the same window I threw mine.
I yearn for the days when my blog may once again turn its attention to something other than the disaster that is Donald Trump. I cannot begin to tell you how ashamed I am that this man, the leader of my government, presumes to speak for me. His words and actions embarrass me to the marrow.
The trope “Ugly American” originally described those Americans who traveled overseas and imposed their arrogant expectations of service, privilege and obeisance upon the peoples and places they visited. Trump has managed to bring the Ugly American home, modelling for us how Americans can be ugly to each other. This he has nailed.
Photo Credit: AP/Evan Vucci