Move with the times, that's what I thought. Leave behind the supremely stable and perfectly working Windows 7 arrangement I had, and move on. Yes, despite the absurd and unusable Windows 8 effort, I decided to give the big 10 a try. Does it work? Yes. Does it work with anything I personally require it to? No.
It may suprise readers at this point that the gripe here is not with Microsoft, it's with Qobuz. The situation is that the Qobuz Desktop app when in WASAPI exclusive mode (bit-perfect and bypassing the Windows mixer) crackles and stutters like you wouldn't believe. It is unlistenable. Now, I do know something of how their application works, and because it has always sounded so impressive until now, I created my own music player application using the same sound engine, something called Fmod Ex. I also knew when I did that, Fmod Ex was a legacy product, and the company that created it has moved away from Studio Recording type stuff, and is solely focussed on the big budget computer gaming industry. However, I can re-write my own player, which suffers the same issues for the record, and take advantage of Windows 10s Audio Graph API, I cannot do that with the Qobuz Application.
Trying the Qobuz 'App' (things always 'just work' if they're an app, and not a program or application), seemed like the logical next step. When you launch it, you see a brief glimpse of what it looks like, all very nice, then it crashes and that's it. From the 1 star reviews I read on the app store, I think it probably applys to everyone on Windows 10.
Windows 10 will have been a free upgrade to most PC users, and will be the default operating system for any new PC owners, so in the new appy world Qobuz has an offering that does not work at all. Zero. I can make the old desktop version work, by not using the exlusive mode, but that is not what I want to do, and most potential users wouldn't look at anything outside the app store.
For me it's not a huge problem, I can just roll-back to Windows7 and everthing will be fine. I also know that hardly anyone uses a Windows PC in the way that I have chosen to, so all this waffle will be of little interest. Tough luck there, I just felt the need to type my thoughts. As for Qobuz, they won't care either for the same reasons. Now, how much was that MAC Mini again? .......Really? $$$$ that For that spec? ;-)
Posted on: 11 February 2017 by SongStream
Windows 10 has been a pain for me so far in a general sense. My new laptop can freeze a couple times per evening, and only a hard reset fixes the problem. So issues are not only the software working on it....
Oh dear. I downgraded the media PC as it has little installed on it, easy to revert back, nothing to lose etc. A colleague of mine said to me recently that quality of software development peaked years ago, when it was developed by engineers with a particular problem to solve. Now it's bunch of hippies sat about saying 'wouldn't it be cool if.....'.
Posted on: 11 February 2017 by Allan Milne
Its the Laphroaig malt whisky speaking here but as a retired software engineer its because its not professional software developers that are making these apps... just look at the Naim app 
They don't get "hippies" (rather derogative term since I was one once ) to do their electronics so why not pay the big bucks and get proper software engineers.
Allan
PS - just away to pour another big Laphroaig to myself ...
PPs. my windows 10 works fine"
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Windows 10 has been a pain for me so far in a general sense. My new laptop can freeze a couple times per evening, and only a hard reset fixes the problem. So issues are not only the software working on it....
Windows 10 is generally perceived as a well designed OS, and I think it's way above previous and current OS from Microsoft and Apple.
if the laptop is freezing, it suggests there is a fault with its hardware or it's manufacturers low level drivers.. I would send it back under warranty ... not quite sure why you think it's to do with Windows 10, unless you wiped the previous install that was fine .. and the 10 has the issues.. but even if so, then it's really likely to be manufacturers own low level software. Who makes it and what does their support say? Intrigued..
Simon
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by garyi
Windows 10 is what convinced me to move to PC in my day to day work. Aside from the cost/hardware benefits, I felt windows 10 looks more modern than OSX.
In daily use, I find it fine. Its not actually as good as OSX, my biggest issues being no 'quick look'. The other biggy is no spotlight, something you really miss. I have not to date found anything that covers these bases third party.
But other than that, its fast, stable and as powerful or simple as you want it.
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by Mike-B
My Win-10 runs perfectly, however I do know people who have similar problems as this thread that installed it over previous Windows, but I get the impression the problem is they have installed on an OS that does not have enough speed and/or RAM. I installed my laptop Win-10 over Win-8.1 on a 24GHz x 8GB 64bit system, its never frozen, stalled or hesitated. If its of any help to the problem I have it set to auto-update each MS new release s/w so its always up to date & whatever bugs that MS find need attention are zapped.
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by Bananahead
Windows 10 is what convinced me to move to PC in my day to day work. Aside from the cost/hardware benefits, I felt windows 10 looks more modern than OSX.
In daily use, I find it fine. Its not actually as good as OSX, my biggest issues being no 'quick look'. The other biggy is no spotlight, something you really miss. I have not to date found anything that covers these bases third party.
But other than that, its fast, stable and as powerful or simple as you want it.
Quick look is Preview and Spotlight is just Search. Both are standard Win 10 features.
All three of my Win 10 devices work perfectly except that sometimes my Surface doesn't recognize that it has a keyboard attached.
All three have had over-the-top installs (even if there is really no such thing).
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by garyi
Windows 10 is what convinced me to move to PC in my day to day work. Aside from the cost/hardware benefits, I felt windows 10 looks more modern than OSX.
In daily use, I find it fine. Its not actually as good as OSX, my biggest issues being no 'quick look'. The other biggy is no spotlight, something you really miss. I have not to date found anything that covers these bases third party.
But other than that, its fast, stable and as powerful or simple as you want it.
Quick look is Preview and Spotlight is just Search. Both are standard Win 10 features.
All three of my Win 10 devices work perfectly except that sometimes my Surface doesn't recognize that it has a keyboard attached.
All three have had over-the-top installs (even if there is really no such thing).
Not sure how much experience you have of OSX, but Preview is not nearly as good as quick look, if nothing else no photoshop previews no illustrator previews (essential for me) and Search is most definitely not even in the ball park of spotlight, its actually atrocious. I installed listary which is a bit better, but ugly as sin and with a preference of pulling up older files and ignoring newer ones.
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by Hmack
Windows 10 has been a pain for me so far in a general sense. My new laptop can freeze a couple times per evening, and only a hard reset fixes the problem. So issues are not only the software working on it....
Windows 10 is generally perceived as a well designed OS, and I think it's way above previous and current OS from Microsoft and Apple.
if the laptop is freezing, it suggests there is a fault with its hardware or it's manufacturers low level drivers.. I would send it back under warranty ... not quite sure why you think it's to do with Windows 10, unless you wiped the previous install that was fine .. and the 10 has the issues.. but even if so, then it's really likely to be manufacturers own low level software. Who makes it and what does their support say? Intrigued..
Simon
I agree with Simon on this. I recently built a pretty high spec PC, used Windows 7 to test that there were no major problems, then chose to reformat my SSD and install Windows 10 Pro (from scratch) and have not regretted my decision at all.
Songstream, I do agree with you about the Qobuz Desktop App that is available from the Microsoft Apps Store. It simply does not work, and caused me quite a bit of grief when recently trying to download their 59 disc Maria Callas offering. However, there is an older (pre Windows 10) version of the Qobuz Desktop App that is downloadable from the Qobuz website that I found works perfectly.
Windows 10 works very well for me on both this high spec desktop, and also on a fairly elderly and not very high specced Samsung laptop (upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10) I use occasionally.
Posted on: 12 February 2017 by SongStream
I should perhaps make it clearer that I'm not having problems with Windows 10 in general, the issues are specifically with the Qobuz Desktop (Pre Windows 8 / 10 version, not the app store one, which as pointed out above simply does not work at all. Foobar 2000 works fine for example, including in WASAPI exclusive mode, Chrome for Netflix, Youtube etc all fine also. I believe it the Qobuz application, or more specifically a component embedded in it, where there is a compatibility issue.
Hmack - I would be interested to know what setting you're using on the Qobuz Desktop version you have. For the best performance WASAPI Exclusive mode should be the way to go, and how I've always had it set in Windows 7, but that setting in 10 is where the problem is for me, WASAPI shared works fine, as does Direct Sound. However, both of those will be at the mercy of the windows mixer, and depending on how that is configured, will be up / down sampling to various degrees, rather than leaving the audio unmolested. If you're not currently using WASAPI exclusive and prepared to experiment, don't have the volume cranked right up when you do; I doubt its life threatening to anything, but its not a pleasant noise. ;-) Would be good to know if its a problem in general, or a combination of drivers and config that's causing the problem.
The behaviour has all the hallmarks of a buffer not keeping up, it has brief moments of sounding perfectly fine in between all the stuttering and crackling. Having a program using the same sound engine and suffering the same problem, I've obviously been able to take that apart and experiment, but nothing I've tried so far changes the behaviour at all.
