After being out of town for a week, I came back to a desktop ready for an upgrade.
Surprisingly, my wireless track pad worked after the upgrade, but my graphics driver did not. I was greeted with a windows 10 on one monitor (of 2) at what I’m guessing was a 1024x768 resolution. I was able to update that manually enough but I could definitely see someone like my mom in this situation not knowing what to do.
The transition from Win7 isn’t so bad. This is what Win8 should have been, really (for desktop users). We see some of the tablet/phone-style tiles in the start menu which is nice, and overall the start menu seems more responsive.
I have my display extending between two monitors and noticing both monitors having a version of the start menu and taskbar icons, though the primary monitor has application icons with text while the secondary has the icons only. The secondary also has no tray icons or clock; they seem reserved for the primary.
Settings dialogs are more consistent and less scattered, but still not completely coherent. I think its probably one of the better experiences for windows in a while, but there’s still room for improvement.
Windowing has some minor improvements such as a new “Task View” icon in the task bar which will show an expose-esque view of all windows. You can also dock to the side of a monitor, not just the desktop which I love and have been wanting since the beginning. It can mean a slight hiccup when moving windows across monitors, but its totally worth it. When you dock to the side, you get a task view of other windows on the opposite side of the monitor for a complimentary view, if desired. I do have trouble discerning where title bars start and stop. I’ll often miss when trying to move windows, and its easy for windows to get lost because everything is so white. I have yet found a way to change that. Also, Chrome seems to have some issues redrawing when resizing a window in Win10. Its not catastrophic, but it does lag a bit and looks unhealthy.
I got the Netflix app from the Windows Store which was a painless process. The app runs well in a window though it does drop out of full screen occasionally, especially if something happens with another app in that same monitor, but more annoyingly it also backs out of the video into the main info page which is obnoxious. Uninstalling was a different issue. Seems like you can’t do it from the store? And store apps aren’t listed in the uninstall programs list from the control panel, they have they’re own place in the Apps section of the settings. Found that confusing.
I played with Cortana a little bit. Its very much like Google Now cards. Took me a little while to realize that the settings were in the “Notebook” section of the hamburger menu. Not quite following that one. But I have it set up now that I can just say “Hey Cortana” to activate it which is the game changer. “Hey Cortana, go to Netflix” and the netflix app opens. Woot! Now if only the netflix app (and others) was setup to recognize voice commands a la Xbox, I’d be set. Also any attempts to open a website directly seemed to go through bing which isn’t ideal. It’s also not as fun as something like Echo. “Hey Cortana, make me a sandwich” = bing search 
(I guess you have more room to play with something like Echo which has a limited interface). Still need to play around with it more.
