Upgrading to Windows 10 - What has changed?

Windows 7 mainstream (free) support is ending very soon, in January 2020. This means if you have been a windows 7 hold out, it might be a good idea to upgrade now. 

In fact, Microsoft is still offering free upgrades, which they are not advertising.

If you wish to continue with Windows 7, support can be bought from Microsoft for an additional 3 years.

While Windows 7 has its charm, it is longer an actively developed, meaning there will probably be no new features are added. Windows 10 often has new features added with each major update, twice a year. 

There are however some drawbacks to Windows 10. Updates are basically forced on you. This sounds good for security sake, but unfortunately these updates have open been bug ridden. From my owns experience, an update broke my sound, and was very difficult to fix. 

Windows 7 was a traditional OS, you purchase it, you own it, which is entirely how Microsoft makes money from the operating system.  With Windows 10, Microsoft makes revenue from selling info o advertisers and other data collectors. It is the same kind of concept as Google with their Android operating system. Collected data is not personally identifiable, before sending it to third parties. 

There is some worry that the percentage of people with Windows proficiency maybe going down. This would be unfortunate, as the Windows operating system is often used in the work place.

Many schools are now using Chromebooks, and many households instead have Apple MacIntosh computers, and actually a great percentage of people have no home computer at all, just smart phones and tablets.


It is worthwhile to learn and be proficient with the Windows operating system. Windows 10 is the latest version of the os.

Lessen 2 – Start Menu

The Start Menu is located on the bottom bar of your screen. Left click on the start icon to open the start menu. This is another way to find Internet Explorer and the My Documents folder, among other things. The left side of the Start Menu contains permanent objects (but customizable) that are commonly used such are Internet Explorer. Just below that on the left side are recently used objects. The lower left side contains the All Programs button, where you can find different programs installed on your computer.

On the right side on the start menu at the top is a short cut to the My Documents folder and My Computer. The My Computer object is used for advanced file browsing, and to open a CD/DVD, camera connected with a cord, external memory stick or other external device. However when most devices are connected to your Windows PC, there is an autoplay feature that will pop up and automatically find the device for you. If you connect a digital camera to your Windows PC (USB cable), you need to turn the camera on and select “viewing mode” on the camera. The autoplay should then pop up on your PC; select browse folder to view photos, or camera Wizard to download the photos. Browse to find where you would like to place the photos. Find the My Pictures folder and create a new folder with an appropriate name concerning those photos.

In the start menu is also an object called the Control Panel, which has advanced controls for your Windows PC. For example it contains the program called Add or Remove Programs, which is used to delete unwanted programs. Help and support is located in the Start Menu, which can answer many of your questions.

Lessen One – Basic Navigation

Microsoft Windows is meant to make the computer experience easily accessible for everyone. Here are some tips that should help you better use MS Windows.

Think of the desktop as like the floor that you are standing on, with many things on the “floor” that can be picked up, moved and opened.

Your mouse acts as your hand, where you can left click once to touch an object, and you will see object become highlighted. By just left clicking once it will act as just touching the object and nothing very noticeable will happen. If you however hold down the left mouse button, it acts like grasping the object with your hand. By grasping the object, you can move it around your desktop, or put it into a folder by just letting it go when put over a folder icon. You can also delete objects the same way by moving them into the recycling bin.

Left click twice using the left mouse button “double click” on an object to open a program such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, which either can be used to browse the internet. A media file (pictures, music, videos) can be opened by double clicking using the current default program. Open the “My Documents” folder by double left clicking on it, and inside of that folder double click again on a sub-folder. There you will find the “My Pictures” and “My Music” folders, which are among the many interesting folders contained in the “My Documents” folder.

Double click on an object such as the “My Documents” folder will open it wide in front you, which is called a Window. You can have many Windows open in front you at once. Three buttons are located in the top right corner of an opened window. The X button can be left clicked on to close the Window. The square button beside the X will make the Window grow or shrink; use it to make the Window fill the screen or shrink it somewhat. It is usually best that the Window is made to fill the screen. The last button in the top right corner of a window and has a line symbol in it. It is used to shrink the button to the bottom bar of your screen. Using the bar located at the bottom of your screen, you can quickly switch to many already opened objects. For example, an opened Internet Explorer program can be quickly switched to your already opened My Documents folder using the bottom bar.

Right clicking offers some more advanced features, but with only a few you need to be concerned about. By right clicking (once) on an object, a menu will come up that will have many options concerning the object. The options that probably concern you are deleting (destroying) or renaming an object. You can left click within the menu to accomplish the above actions. Conversely you can left click and hold (grasp) on an object to grasp and move it to the recycling bin.