Windows 10 - yes or no?

What steps are involved in changing my PC's OS from Vista to Windows 7? Sounds difficult.

Thanks!

Kerrybuchanan said:

I have just upgraded to Windows 10 and wondered what other windows users are thinking about it.

It seems to me so far that it might just be another Microsoft gimmick, but I'm definitely not up to date in IT gossip these days. Any comments?

Cue @Ray McCarthy to tell me not to use Windows anything lol!

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Hey Kerry, I quite liked 8.1 (no choice, I got a new computer with it preinstalled) and never had a problem with it. But then I changed to 10 today, really because I've never ever had a problem with any windows operating system and I just get on and quickly pick up any changes.

As for the Beta aspect...well yeah that's an issue, but then to be frank practically every software code is now being continually patched up - some on a daily basis (it you are playing EVE Online or Minecraft for example!) Truth be told I probably don't use my PC for anything more technical than a bit of simple C# programming, word & excel and perma-camping on Chrons. I probably have never and will never use 90% of the software they are trying to make me use.

Cue getting shouted at by more technical minded bods...

There you go, folks. Great advice Ray. I remember learning how to hover and check out URLS, and to not DL anything .exe, com, bat etc. - anything that isn't what it says it is. Learn this and you eliminate the chance of actually DLing and installing malware. If confused, refer back to this post and look up all the stuff Ray is on about, lots of which is news to me, and very helpful.

J Riff said:

There you go, folks. Great advice Ray. I remember learning how to hover and check out URLS, and to not DL anything .exe, com, bat etc. - anything that isn't what it says it is. Learn this and you eliminate the chance of actually DLing and installing malware. If confused, refer back to this post and look up all the stuff Ray is on about, lots of which is news to me, and very helpful.

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Exactly, malware avoidance 101 - the human is the weakest link - been avoiding strange attachments and downloads since I started using Windows 95.

Arrrrgh ... it gets worse!

Windows 10 employs a system of sharing updates between users’ PCs and across their own networks rather than download direct from Microsoft. The system is called Windows Update Delivery Optimisation, or WUDO.

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This means YOUR upload (which is usually more limited speed) is SLOWER because Microsoft is using it instead of their own servers (aka so called "cloud"). If you have a data cap, it's the sum of ALL activity on your internet package, not just file downloads.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/windows_10_torrent_updates/

EVIL!

The system is turned on by default and can only be turned off by digging into advanced options under Windows Update, diving deep in update and then poking about in security and settings.

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Browser Choice.
If you upgrade in place to Win 10, Microsoft removes you current browser choice and has a new different method for you to select default browser. This breaks their agreement with EU.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/0...in_nadellas_face_says_microsoft_kills_choice/

... if users opt for 'express' installation, then everything will get reset to whatever defaults MS deem necessary/desirable, whereas those who opt for a fully controlled install get to determine exactly what stays and what goes.
...
Yeah, like the on-by-default sending your browsing history to Microsoft, it's aimed at the unsuspecting majority.

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That is a horrendous one. I live in the highlands of Scotland and my upload speeds are not great. The last thing I need is to have my operating system chewing up a chunk of that bandwidth supplying others with the updates.

However my biggest fear is not being able to turn off the automatic updates. I travel a fair bit and the last thing I need when travelling is for Windows to announce that I mustn't turn off my computer for the next hour as it's doing updates and if I do turn it off I'm liable to mess up the whole os. No Thank you!

For years we had NT4.0 Server enterprise at home in attic (only on LAN). Then the updates got to much for 10 computers, we had to upgrade to W2K server for WSUS, the HW wasn't suitable for Server 2003! Then as machines used linux or kids grew up, married and left home WSUS was an annoyance, so we re-installed Server with Debian (not the same server HW as 1997 when we changed from a 386 running NT3.51 to a 486 for NT 4.0 Server). Then the XP updates stopped anyway. Most update traffic here is now for Linux, when we want to. The PS4 gets taken to a house with Cable Broadband, it's not allowed our LAN!

P.S. With ANY Software on ANYTHING, NEVER EVER select typical/express/automatic. ALWAYS choose Manual or Customise and UNDERSTAND what each option does. Expand the selection/option tree.

Ray McCarthy said:

Browser Choice.
If you upgrade in place to Win 10, Microsoft removes you current browser choice and has a new different method for you to select default browser. This breaks their agreement with EU.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/0...in_nadellas_face_says_microsoft_kills_choice/

Click to expand...

That is definitely true - however I had changed my default browser back to what it had been originally within a minute of Win 10 starting up

Think I'll just stick with 8.1 for now. Thanks folks!

@Kerrybuchanan Well after under a week I decided to go back to 8.1. Why?

Three reasons

1) It's very easy to go back to 8.1 from 10 - only takes minutes.
2) I had a whole bunch of games that required Directx 9 to work. For some reason they work fine in 8.1 but in 10 they've upgraded to Directx 12 and try as I could to make the damn system recognise some sort of backwards compatibility on this matter, it would not allow Directx 9 games to work (if the games were current, they would of course be patched, but these are ancient fossils that either someone will have to find a workaround or they will just have to stay broken)
3) In the few days I had Windows 10 it actually froze on me a couple of times, needing me to restart my whole machine. Also had problems with Excel. I never had anything at all like this with Windows 8.1. And it's not because I've got an old machine - I only bought this machine last year, it's a beast.

p.s. for those that are thinking about it - you have a month to recover Windows 8.1 very simply (it in the settings menu - system - recovery from memory) After that I think it becomes quite a chore if you want to.

I think I'll leave windows 10 for my next PC, whenever that is...

I might back up and do the same....

Since I upgraded, Microsoft Outlook will not send any emails with attachments, although it will receive them fine and sends some without attachments. I've had to resort to webmail to be safe, or use the ipad.

It might be OK in 6 months, or it may be obvious then that this is Win ME.

My husband is an OpenSource devotee (Over the last 13 years we've been married, only brand new machines have any Microsoft products on them). Windows 98 is the last one I used consistently. However, he's been working with Windows 10, the professional version for awhile and quite likes it. It's clearly not giving him any major headaches at work and the people across the organisation are adjusting to it fairly easily.

I've had Windows 8 on a laptop for a week and want to smash the whole machine. All I want is to be able to type, listen to music and check the internet sites I like without jumping through hoops to do it. I won't be updating - I'll be asking for whatever Linux operating system we're on right now.

First impressions are good. I think its less 'clunky' that 8.1, certainly less clunky than windows 8 - runs faster and appears to be user friendly. I love the synchronisation it plans to have with the Xbox One but that is a bad thing I suppose as that is most definitely a distraction from my writing! Although I have had a couple of problems trying to play older games - possibly Direct X issues - however I have been assured that a patch is coming to the rescue....

I have Linux Mint with Mate GUI.

I also have on various machines, plain Debian, Ubuntu, Win3.11 Win98, Wn2K, XP, Android, DOS 3.3, DOS 6.22 and CP/M
Did have CentOS, Redhat, OS/2 Warp, NT3.15, NT4.0, Minix, Cromix, DRMultiDos, UCSD-p system, Windows CE 6.0, Server 2003

Currently best solution for Windows is 7.
It's FAR too early for Win 10 and Shame on MS foisting it unfinished and rushed. Also most people are going to be VERY unhappy to discover it's free to start and subscription to keep. Dishonest marketing.

DPWright said:

First impressions are good. I think its less 'clunky' that 8.1, certainly less clunky than windows 8 - runs faster and appears to be user friendly. I love the synchronisation it plans to have with the Xbox One but that is a bad thing I suppose as that is most definitely a distraction from my writing! Although I have had a couple of problems trying to play older games - possibly Direct X issues - however I have been assured that a patch is coming to the rescue....

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it's a Direct X issue - as that the error message that kept coming up when I tried to run my old XP games.

However I doubt they will ever issue a patch for Rome: Total War to work on Win 10, one of my old school favourites. I do find it relaxing slaughtering thousands upon thousands of little digital men on dusty middle Eastern plains, dark Teutonic forests or well watered Mediterranean coastlines, and can't quite let go of it.

There may some bright spark that figures out how to make it work however. I'll keep an eye out for that to happen before even contemplating returning to 10!

Direct X has in the past been leveraged with new titles to force people to upgrade. Next year there may be new games that won't work on Win10 that doesn't have a subscription and a newer automatic update of Direct X. There are no "new" windows after 10, only incremental updates and you'll need a MS Cloud subscription and decent broadband.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/01/windows_10_whats_in_it_for_microsoft_to_give_it_away_now/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/04/windows_10_start_menu_replacements_hot_cakes/

Eventually I'll keep a copy of XP on a machine never connected to Internet (last half decent version).

Ray McCarthy said:

Direct X has in the past been leveraged with new titles to force people to upgrade. Next year there may be new games that won't work on Win10 that doesn't have a subscription and a newer automatic update of Direct X. There are no "new" windows after 10, only incremental updates and you'll need a MS Cloud subscription and decent broadband.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/01/windows_10_whats_in_it_for_microsoft_to_give_it_away_now/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/04/windows_10_start_menu_replacements_hot_cakes/

Eventually I'll keep a copy of XP on a machine never connected to Internet (last half decent version).

Click to expand...

Many/most games are subscription, downloading patches every day/week anyway, so they can adapt to the changing windows ecosystem.

However yeah, I'm thinking that the Beast I'm using now has a good half-decade or so of life or more (if handled well) and if I absolutely need to get Win 10 then I'll get a Bigger Beast and run the two concurrently. So have a legacy PC and a messed up one

Unfortunately my little Beast's hard drive died taking me beloved copy of XP with it

I have disks / CD / DVD, I think of every MS OS from DOS 2.11 up to Server 2003, even 64 bit XP for Itanium!, XP Media Edition and XP Tablet Edition.
MS permits copies of the media. You need your own serial number though. P.M. me. I also have Word 2.0a and most versions up to Word or Offiice 2003 inc Visio, Map point etc. SBE servers, SQL, Visual Studios. Entirety of under the bed is old MS CDs and DVDs.

After NT3.51 MS lost the plot on OS development, it fell off a cliff after XP and Server 2003 was shipped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
It was immoral that Vista users didn't get Win7 free. Vista was unfinished mess and Win 7 is purely a bug fix of it.
Then with 8 they tried to force the Zune derived Win Phone GUI that replaced Windows CE on Desktop/laptop users, designed for an ARM tablet that would be a total failure (wrote of 1Billion) because ARM tablets can't sensibly run real Windows x86-64 applications.

One Windows for everything is a DOOMED Approach.
Win 8 was so bad that Win 8.1 was rushed out. There is no Win 9 for a variety of reasons.
Win10 is the worst mess since Win ME and Vista. The intentions are a mix of good and bad:
1) Google Android style Tracking (BAD, Google is Spyware)
2) Only Cloud Subscription model (BAD).
3) Fix mistakes of Sinofsky era and Win 8, (GOOD), but it's too disjointed and rushed to market to meet an artificial deadline. They think the updates will fix it. But the "you can't turn them off unless your subscription expires" updates will likely be poorly regression tested and cause grief for millions of users.

This will be the worst product since 1981 of MS to be an early adopter with. I've been using MS products since 1981 and often selling / supporting / programming etc them as the "day job".

cheers for the offer Ray, I am currently going through a bit of a life upheaval at the moment, so I am not looking to expand my digital empire, but in a few months time who knows...