For those complaining about the Start Menu in 10, but seemingly liking Windows 8.1 and its Start Screen, you can also have the Start Screen in Windows 10, you know. Right click desktop -> Personalization -> Start -> Use Start full screen.
Note also there are options to adjust what is shown on the Start Menu in there, Shane.
Oh look, by unpinning all of the apps from the Start Menu and resizing it a bit, I now have a small and simple Start Menu, a bit like what we now see in the latest Windows Server builds (I got my hands on 10147). It took all of about 20 seconds to unpin the default pinned apps and you can change whether the recently added apps etc are shown on the Start Menu in the settings option shown above. If you ask me, it's quicker and easier to customise a Windows 10 Start Menu than it is a Windows 8 Start Screen!
Below is Windows Server 10147.
Don't like Edge? Then don't use it! I bet you didn't like Internet Explorer either. Continue to use the browser you like using. Nobody is forcing you to use Edge.
As for Cortana I find it really useful having the search bar on the taskbar but you can remove it if it's taking up too much space on the taskbar or if you don't want it there. I know in previous versions of Windows you could have Windows Search on the taskbar (XP) but my god that slowed your PC down as Windows indexed every file. Cortana in Windows 10 is more than the assistant, it's now basically the search functionality of the OS, so whilst perhaps the assistant is 'gimmicky' for some people, the search functionality is very useful. Again, if you don't like the assistant, don't use it. When you first install Windows 10 there is the option to set up the assistant and voice recognition, just skip it. The first time you use the search in 10, you can just click 'not now' to skip setting up Cortana.
This is a free upgrade and it does appear to be a good solid upgrade. Yes, 8.1 is a very good OS and yes 7 was good in its day but it really does feel outdated now, 6 years on, but I really think 10 is going to be a great OS too. You can customise it to fit your needs. I think you'd be daft not to upgrade for
free especially since it's not a whole lot different to 8.1! I could maybe understand not wanting to upgrade if you had to buy it because it is quite similar to 8.1, but it's free! The things you've pointed out that you don't like you can either not use or customise to suit your needs, so I don't really see what the problem is.
One thing I've noticed that is much improved in Windows 10 from previous versions is fingerprint recognition. Using the fingerprint reader to log into Windows on my ThinkPad when it was running Windows 8.1 was a bit temperamental, sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't, so I rarely bothered. However, in Windows 10 more often than not it works perfectly and on one finger swipe - probably thanks to Windows Hello which is a new feature introduced in 10 that certainly seems to have improved the reliability of the fingerprint reader to me and made it a much more useful feature of my ThinkPad! I think it only doesn't work when I either don't scan my finger properly or scan a finger that isn't registered.
