There has been a lot said around win10, much of it reconstituted from others experience or from other views and not a lot from first hand experience. A lot has been said around privacy and the fact that win10 collects data and meta data about users habits and who has possible access to the data collected.

There has been some spirited and slightly heated discussions on the message boards around many subjects related to win10 some of which I have been party to and some that I have thought better to stay clear of.

There has been the odd forum post relating personal experiences with win10, but in large they have been negative which is to be expected as people will be more likely to post something when they have a issue rather than when everything is fantastic and they don't have a problem. This of course leaves the impression that there is much that is wrong with win10 as it relates to flight simmers and not a lot that is positive. This causes confusion and doubts over if you should upgrade to the new OS.

The discussions around win10 and the concerns are not new. They are discussions that have happened every time a new OS has emerged and the concerns are the same. I remember these well from the win95 days.

So my personal experience with win10 not only on my personal computers but customer built systems as well may help anyone that reads this come to a better understanding of the reality of the OS and I hope a more balanced view on weather changing is something that you should do or not do.

There is much to like about win10, the ultra fast boot time ( 10 seconds on a standard 7200rpm HHD ), the fact that everything is quick, the fact its more like win7 on steroids than it is win8.1. Windows defender is back and better than ever and is a real anti-virus now that gives real time protection with updated definitions. The user interface is more intuitive as it has ever been and the fact that the OS constantly learns about what you do and don't do in the OS environment. This is just a small sample of what I find great about win10.

There has been much written about issues with drivers and a perceived incomparability with hardware, manly GPUs. I have not had a issue with this as of yet, I have found however that once win10 is installed and it starts to run its updates it will at first install a standard GPU driver at first so that the system is up and running and then as it goes through the update process will install the correct and latest driver for your GPU. I believe that many people have panicked during this process and have tried to stop or install a driver from the manufactures site which in turn does not work correctly because the OS is mid way through installing a driver for the hardware so wont except a attempt to override that process during the download and install process. As this takes a little time again people have panicked and believe that a driver wont work with the OS and stop any further downloads. I have found for both AMD and NiVida that the correct up to date manufacture driver and associated software will be downloaded and installed, this process just takes a little time.

I have also found that FSX and all my add-on software works fine, in fact I have had a 10 to 15fps increase across the board with win10 which when it comes to FSX is a giant leap in performance. I as yet have not changed my main FSX computer to win10 from win7 but I will be as soon as I get time to do so as my test bench results where fantastic. If you asked me a few months ago if I would do that my answer would of been a firm "NO" as I believe if its not broken don't fix it, however the performance gain in win10 is just to good to overlook.

Auto updates have been a hot subject with many people disliking the fact that you cant in fact turn it off but only suspend the update for a period of time. I understand both sides of the argument and why MS went with this function. To me its not such a big of a issue that would sway me away from win10. I would prefer to be able to run updates myself and choose what I do and don't update but its not a game changer. You can set your OS up so that it will update only during what it calls quiet times on your PC so it wont have a impact on what you are doing, this strikes a better balance than what could of been just a straight out regimented update process.

There has also been much discussion around the data and meta data that is sent from your PC. The fact that win10 verifies licence codes on a regular basis ( once a week I believe ) and that it can identify possible illegal copied software including the OS has people worried as to what in fact MS is gathering in regards to your data and what its being used for and who else may have access to that data. This is not new, if you are running a OS that came out after XP then much of what win10 is doing is the same. The new development is the constant licence verifications and the ability to identify illegal downloaded software running in the OS. Now if you are someone who has this on your PC then of course you are not going to be at all happy, and my view on that is good. But of course it raises privacy concerns, and weather MS has the right to do this. That is a bigger and more complex question to answer than can be answered here. But if you like me have legitimate software on your PC then its a issue that does not effect us beyond being philosophical argument.

The last thing I will mention is win10s browser "Edge", its a shocker, it reminds me a lot of when explorer first came out. Its slow, clunky and just feels wrong on many levels. It is easy to get rid of fortunately and that was the first thing I did after playing around with it for a few hours.

For what its worth I believe win10 has the potential of being the best OS yet, and the most divisive yet. It is not friendly to those who wish to keep their internet footprint as small as possible, or those who don't use the internet at home at all, it is very dependant on being online to get the best and some say the worst out of it. For me I like it and am pleased that I made the change. I have the view and have always had the view that what I do on the internet no matter how small and insignificant its in the public domain, so what is on my PCs is nothing that I would seek to hide or not share if asked. I don't and never had on my PCs address books over and above email addresses, stored passwords, questionable material or pirated software. So I like many don't have the big brother fear when it comes to my PC or my internet usage. I believe you have more to fear outside of your PC when it comes to "big brother" and the gathering of information about you.