Are you upgrading to Windows 10?

[Lebkuecher]

So I have this little Windows icon in my system tray inviting me to reserve my free Windows 10 upgrade and all I have to do is agree to reserve it and someday in the near future I will be notified that the upgrade has downloaded and is ready to be installed. After giving the idea a little thought I decided to go ahead and agree to the upgrade but I have to say I am more than a little nervous. I have a four year old Dell laptop that easily meets the listed requirements but the laptop works great so I’m not sure what the real upside is but more importantly I have no idea what the possible downside may be. My concern is after the upgrade will everything work or will I have to spend the next two weeks tinkering around troubleshooting oddities that will basically drive me crazy. Dell’s website has a section dedicated to Windows 10 upgrades and when I checked my laptop is listed as not tested so I’m guessing there will be no support if I upgrade.

I know I’m not the only person wondering if I should upgrade so I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread dedicated to Windows 10 upgrade experiences. Are you going to upgrade and if so why or why not? If you already upgraded what was your experience like?

 

[more_vampires]

So I have this little Windows icon in my system tray inviting me to reserve my free Windows 10 upgrade and all I have to do is agree to reserve it and someday in the near future I will be notified that the upgrade has downloaded and is ready to be installed.

That is so shady of MS.

I hate being forced to upgrade/$$$. Where possible (not locked in by applications,) I have switched to Linux Mint. Great distro. Used to advocate Ubuntu, but they sold out to the devil and started trying to monetize absolutely everything.

MS has a long history of selling the exact same product again. In the past, we've seen registry tweaks to make it claim that it was an older version of windows.

Many times in the past, using a program called a "resource hacker" displays splash screens and logos from older versions. Windows 2000 said it was windows NT under the hood. Like that.

Sticking with 7 due to some unfortunate application lockin until EOL of 7. 8 was insanity... I do not want a mobile phone interface on a PC, nor do I want a touch screen. It's hard enough as it is to keep people from touching my screens. Grr.

 

[braddy]

Definitely I will be upgrading, but I will be waiting for a few months.

 

[GlassMan]

I just got my upgrade yesterday from MS on the reserve list. Took just a little over 1 hr to install - everything went good and working just fine & it was "free"!

 

[WarRaven]

Mines waiting for authorisation after download.
You can roll back it says anywhere up to 30 days from install, then restore point or back up img is destroyed
My old GT70 laptop starts and is full booted in under twenty seconds, (SSDs)on Seven pro, this is supposed to be faster, I'm looking forward to testing that.
Hiberboot, we'll see. ☺

 

[chaosdsm]

IMO: If you're on Windows 7 - STAY with Windows 7 there's no compelling reason to upgrade (again - my opinion) If you're on Windows 8 and don't really like it - UPGRADE

But you may want to wait a couple months....

There are a few thousand issues already popped up on the retail build version. I personally have posted more than a dozen issues with the release build.

> Some are specific to new features, like video playback issues with the new browser: Microsoft Edge.
> Some are hardware related, like the backlight on my laptop keyboard that works as intended under Windows 7, but doesn't work at all in Windows 10.
> Some software that works fine in Win7 or Win8 won't even install on Win10.
> On both my laptop & desktop, if I put the computer to sleep, when it wakes up, the keyboard won't work until I reboot the computer.
> Most annoying one for me.... writing a post in a forum, and Microsoft Edge decides to refresh the page.... and all that typing is gone

 

[more_vampires]

To the polite literati, MS has both a history of "free public beta test" and known bug injection. If you use windows 10 for serious business where malfunction causes loss of life... Just don't.

i don't miss corporate IT trenches one bit, but I know a "Mongol CF" when I see one.

 

[WarRaven]

OK, I was not in my right mind, thanks guys.
My GT stays on 7Pro, garage laptop can test W10.

 

[recDNA]

I stopped into Windows store. They swore installation of w10 would not affect any driver or program. I knew that was nonsense. Reading the post about the malfunctioning keyboard and sleep issues convinced me to stay away.

 

[hoop762]

Installing new software on old hardware, yes even 1 year old hardware is old, is always problematic. I'm no Microsoft apologists, but respect the fact that they try really hard not to leave legacy in the dust, unlike others, apple for example.

IMHO, if you're a nerd or techie, go ahead and upgrade. I will be on a few of my machines.

For you normal folks, would get windows 10 when you buy your next computer. That is, after all, how majority of us buy Windows, right?

How many folks here in the last 10 years went to the store and bought a retail version of a windows OS?

 

[more_vampires]

How many folks here in the last 10 years went to the store and bought a retail version of a windows OS?

*raises hand x 5*

Tires of paying "Microsoft Tax"

 

[hoop762]

*raises hand x 5*

Tires of paying "Microsoft Tax"

Haha, my hat is off to you, sir!

I have yet to do that. When windows 7 came out I was able to get several licenses on the student buy program. Don't remember how much they cost, but they were heavily discounted.

 

[more_vampires]

Haha, my hat is off to you, sir!

I have yet to do that. When windows 7 came out I was able to get several licenses on the student buy program. Don't remember how much they cost, but they were heavily discounted.

Lol, drug dealer tactics. "The first one is free... er, heavily discounted so you will tell your next employer that's all you know how to use."

Used to be IT in a former life. Skills came in handy for my safe "retirement job."

If MS is decent at supporting legacy hardware, then linux is better at it. AFAIK, there are still maintained distros for good ole i386 with text-mode install because you have just a few mb of ram. These items are not useless, they make print servers, file servers, firewalls, etc. The only real problem with them running a stripped server os is that the power consumption is super energy hog for what you get.

No way am I paying MS tax for my print server, file server, etc. OpenBSD handles that just fine. Secure the default!

 

[recDNA]

It's the lying that bothers me. Reps should say "we cannot guarantee drivers will work with update" or even better "if driver doesn't work properly we will help you get drivers to work at no charge. Just bring in your computer and we will fix it free."

 

[1DaveN]

Lol, drug dealer tactics. "The first one is free... er, heavily discounted so you will tell your next employer that's all you know how to use."

Used to be IT in a former life. Skills came in handy for my safe "retirement job."

If MS is decent at supporting legacy hardware, then linux is better at it. AFAIK, there are still maintained distros for good ole i386 with text-mode install because you have just a few mb of ram. These items are not useless, they make print servers, file servers, firewalls, etc. The only real problem with them running a stripped server os is that the power consumption is super energy hog for what you get.

No way am I paying MS tax for my print server, file server, etc. OpenBSD handles that just fine. Secure the default!

Sure, but as an experienced IT pro, you're about the only one who knows how to do any of that stuff. Even Apple hasn't been able to grab a noticeable share of the PC market from Windows, because people want to use what they already know, and that's not Linux

 

[more_vampires]

Sure, but as an experienced IT pro, you're about the only one who knows how to do any of that stuff. Even Apple hasn't been able to grab a noticeable share of the PC market from Windows, because people want to use what they already know, and that's not Linux

LOL! Apple is linux under the hood now!

Anyway, millions of people use "other operating systems" NetBSD, FreeBSD and other *BSD os everyday! They just don't know it. It's inside rather a whole lot of devices, really. Not necessarily "market share," as "mind share." Lots of turn-key set-top box devices are linux under the hood because the company figured out how to avoid paying MS tax themselves.

"Hey, sir! Your router and your TV are running NetBSD!"
"Really? What's that? Is it a virus?"



Also, basic "A+ certification" for computers is cheap and there are practice tests, study guides and all that. If you had nothing better to do, you yourselves could get certed in probably less than 2 weeks... particularly if you had some old junk to practice on.

Graphical wizard automagic OS installs are pretty painless these days.... not like the horror of how some things used to be....

Like before we had autoconfig automagic for X server (the thing that makes your desktop gui in Linux.) My god was configuring that stuff PAINFUL. OpenBSD used to be designed to explicitly fight you doing this in the name of security. Apparently, running a GUI desktop is, and always was, a security hole.

Also, a lot of Windows application lock-in can be circumvented (but not usually games.) It's called "Wine." Wine lets you run windows applications in linux. Unfortunately, some of the security issues inherent to these applications come along for the ride.

Other options include running a "virtual machine." You can basically run windows itself from a window under Linux. It's kinda fun, really. If an application chokes on Wine, you can usually make it work under VMWare or one of the other virtual machine programs.

Why upgrade to Windows 10? Upgrade to Linux, then run Windows in a Window (like it should be.) You can set aggressive security measures for a virtual machine, sort of like the *BSD concept of "chroot jails." Pretty much the same thing, plus a layer of emulation. You can limit how much memory Windows an have, disable networking (for better security,) and even ditch unwanted functionality, like sound support and many other things.

You can even prevent windows from writing to disk. That's a pretty strong security measure. It's like you open a fresh copy of Windows everytime. Not even Windows can do that, but Linux can.

Run Windows under Linux! This sounds hard, but it isn't. It's a whole lot of fun once it starts working. Makes you feel like a hacker!

 

[NoNotAgain]

Well, I've got 4 Win7 Ultimate licenses and 6 Win7 Pro. The Ultimate licenses I purchased because my HP workstations came with 64 bit Vista. Stupid thing was that 64 bit Vista didn't support dual processors. Normally they give you the option on what OS you want, but in my case HP said here it is. Couldn't even get them to allow the downgrade to XP Pro.

A few years back I discovered pay4keys and haven't paid full price for any software since. They're Microsoft and Adobe certified, service is good and will provide a download link for $5 to download the entire program.

Win 10 installed on this laptop early Sunday morning. Other than a known issue with the nVidia for drivers, it works OK. Don't like the start menu and it's a pain in the rear to find Office burred within. Also couldn't find and searched for Word Pad and the basic text utility. Windows couldn't find either. MS now charges for the games that used to be free. While replying to this post, MS pinged me to rate satisfaction on 10 and would I recommend to others.

I'll give it a couple of weeks, then I'm rolling back to 7.

 

[more_vampires]

Stupid thing was that 64 bit Vista didn't support dual processors. Normally they give you the option on what OS you want, but in my case HP said here it is. Couldn't even get them to allow the downgrade to XP Pro.

Ugh... Vista. There was nothing good about Vista.

Don't like the start menu and it's a pain in the rear to find Office burred within. Also couldn't find and searched for Word Pad and the basic text utility. Windows couldn't find either. MS now charges for the games that used to be free. While replying to this post, MS pinged me to rate satisfaction on 10 and would I recommend to others.

Never pay a single penny for Office ever again. Libre Office.

MS loves to roll out a new version of Office and break file compatibility with the new version to try to lock in as many businesses as possible. The answer is Open-source Libre Office. You can get it for Windows. Now, with 99% less evil! They are not motivated by money to break file formats and force lockins. In fact, their mentality is quite the opposite. They seem to seek maximum interoperability.

Two of my favorite text editors are "Bluefish" and "Geany." They support multi-threading file editing and have native support for HTML and programming languages. They are free open source.

Anyway, what is MS's problem with screwing up the user interface? They are endangering their cornered market of "people who only know Windows Classic/Windows Explorer." (Note that Windows explorer were wholesale ripped off from "Disk Commander," "Midnight Commander" and "Xtree," the first sortagraphic file managers. Us DOS-heads used those in the early 80s. This is back when 640k of RAM meant you were "The Man!")

The Metro interface was an absolute trainwreck! Would it have killed them to permit classic Explorer as an option? That ribbon stuff was junk, as well.

"Microsoft Bob," Windows ME, Vista, Metro, Aero, trainwreck after trainwreck. MS is so entrenched that they can shoot them selves repeatedly in the foot with rocket launchers and they're still not going anywhere.

How else can you explain chair-throwing monkey boy Steve Ballmer?

 

[braddy]

So I have this little Windows icon in my system tray inviting me to reserve my free Windows 10 upgrade and all I have to do is agree to reserve it and someday in the near future I will be notified that the upgrade has downloaded and is ready to be installed. After giving the idea a little thought I decided to go ahead and agree to the upgrade but I have to say I am more than a little nervous. I have a four year old Dell laptop that easily meets the listed requirements but the laptop works great so I’m not sure what the real upside is but more importantly I have no idea what the possible downside may be. My concern is after the upgrade will everything work or will I have to spend the next two weeks tinkering around troubleshooting oddities that will basically drive me crazy. Dell’s website has a section dedicated to Windows 10 upgrades and when I checked my laptop is listed as not tested so I’m guessing there will be no support if I upgrade.

I know I’m not the only person wondering if I should upgrade so I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread dedicated to Windows 10 upgrade experiences. Are you going to upgrade and if so why or why not? If you already upgraded what was your experience like?

As usual, your Windows thread will be hijacked by a Linux fanatic on a crusade, but most people will be upgrading before the year time limit, is over.

 

[Mr Floppy]

LOL! Apple is linux under the hood now!

Anyway, millions of people use "other operating systems" NetBSD, FreeBSD and other *BSD os everyday!

That is not right. Mac os x uses the BSD in the user space with a Mach kernel.

Linux lost me a bit with bloody systemd.