which version of skype is best to use on W10 Anniversary Update

So Skype Preview is already installed but is it stable and does it have the full feature set? For example, screen sharing?

The ‘preview’ part of the name makes me a little nervous about expecting it to work reliably.

Is it better to install the normal PC version that runs on W7 and W8? And if so, do you have to unintall or disable the Preview version so that you don’t have two instances running at once (would it double ring when someone calls?)

Thanks!

 

Conversation 2 comments

  • 1570

    Premium Member
    14 December, 2016 - 1:51 am

    <p>Surprisingly the Windows 10 preview app is actually&nbsp;very good. And&nbsp;this is&nbsp;coming from somebody who *tried* to use the Windows 8 experience (Messaging + Video) many times but kept going back to the full-blown Win32 client.</p>
    <p>Notifications are reliable across the board (I have Skype Preview on my Windows Phone, Surface, Desktop and I have Skype on my iPad and Android devices too), conversations come in timely (within seconds of them being sent to me), and all the functionality I care about is now there.</p>
    <p>Very (very) occasionally, I’ll get the odd issue where a notification comes in a few minutes after the message (but that’s very rare now), or if I switch on a device that I’ve not been using I’m occasionally flooded with "old" notifications, but in general it is a lot smarter about knowing which of my devices I’m currently active on and not bombarding my non-active devices (and it does sync which messages are read/unread).</p>
    <p>Up until very recently, I kept the Win32 version of Skype on my machine, and it would prompt me to pick my default version and wouldn’t send me two notifications, so that’s something you could do until you’ve decided which is best for you.</p>
    <p>For me, the Skype Preview now does everything I need, and is a lot faster and cleaner than the Win32 version so a few weeks back I moved to using it full time (and removed the Win32 app).</p>
    <p>For me, those things I needed were… Screen sharing, being able to change audio/video inputs and outputs, stable notifications, drag and drop of files (and storing them in the cloud so I can get to them from any device), voice/video messages, and obviously messages coming through in the first place (which had been so unreliable in the Windows 8 version of Skype with those two Messaging + Video apps).</p>
    <p>Hope that helps!</p>

  • 4763

    14 December, 2016 - 2:02 am

    <p>I used the preview for a couple of months but have now switched to the normal desktop version. I liked the black theme of the preview version but that was about the only thing it did better. They broke the preview version for me with an update and people I called said my video was stretched wide. A feature I really missed on the preview version was that I couldn’t see the person I was talking to when I didn’t have the Skype window open like you can on the desktop versions <em>small always on top window</em>, instead I got an all <em>black big none removable or moveable square&nbsp;</em>that showed no information and blocked the use of my notification area icons.</p>
    <p>I uninstalled the preview on this machine so can’t answer your other question.</p>

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