What do "we" think about upgrading to Win10?

thewolfe · Post by **thewolfe** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:11 pm

What say you?

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:39 pm

“We are not amused”

Heh, sorry I just couldn’t resist.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:22 pm

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 8:02 am

Lol, I guess I should have taken this thread more seriously…I just got the “upgrade” icon in my tray….

So Sirius…how do I turn it off?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:36 am

Does it go away if you ignore it? I haven't had it show up myself. I can try checking TechNet/Answers to see if this has been covered.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:56 am

I'll be upgrading at least two of my machines, but because Microsoft decided to drop WMC in Win10, that means that my media center machines (which use WMC as a TV/DVR) won't be getting upgraded.

Regarding the icon, here's how it can be disabled:
http://superuser.com/questions/922068/h ... -area-tray

vision · Post by **vision** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:06 pm

I'm looking forward to Win10, though I rarely use Windows because I'm a Linux user.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:09 pm

I don't like the fact I have to d/l it and install. I'd rather install it from a USB stick or DVD later. What happens if I don't like Win10 and want to go back, do I have to reinstall Win 7 or will the Restore Point work?

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:55 pm

it has a rollback system, and they'll be offering install ISOs.

you'll probably need a microsoft account if you want to do a fresh install.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 3:43 pm

At the very least, I'm going to image my drive(s) again before I install that update.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:21 pm

Sirius wrote:Does it go away if you ignore it? I haven't had it show up myself. I can try checking TechNet/Answers to see if this has been covered.

It was one of those recommended updates, not an important one. Just uninstall KB3035583.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/29 ... tices.html

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:35 pm

It's looking more and more like there's a catch for users who upgrade to Windows 10 for free.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly ... 0-charges/

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jul 12, 2015 3:27 pm

Whoa, saw some of his other articles... what is this clown doing writing for Forbes? I thought they were supposed to be business-focused, and... okay, this whole thing comes from the following line at the bottom of a slide in a presentation sent to investors (it's not "internal", as he claimed it was - this is not a leak) about accounting details:

For illustrative purposes only. Revenue allocated is deferred and recognized on a straight-line basis over the estimated period the software upgrades are expected to be provided by estimated device life, which can range from two to four years. Estimated device lives are primarily determined by customer type. As a result, deferral periods will vary.

That means... well, it's not the clearest thing in the world. I note the example on the slide illustrates a three-year cycle, probably chosen because it's in the middle of that range. This seems to suggest it's how Microsoft is modelling revenue reporting, factoring in upgrades, assuming the purchaser (seems to be a business for the illustration) is going to hold onto their system for three years before buying a new one, at which point Microsoft gets paid again.

If that interpretation is right, this says nothing whatsoever about how long updates will be provided. They could be free forever and it wouldn't change the numbers on the slide (actually, if they weren't free, I suspect they would change the numbers).

My impression is that Gordon Kelly is into alarmist click-bait, not honest journalism.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Sun Jul 12, 2015 5:23 pm

most business analysts are largely fancy bullshitters.

its basically if you don't have a legit licence for windows, then you are stuck with the demo version of windows 10.

If you are willing to be a participant in MS's perpetual testing imitative you will have a legit copy of beta software; if you want off that roller-coaster, you need to buy a license.

I think that is what is currently the situation.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:42 pm

Sirius wrote:Whoa, saw some of his other articles... what is this clown doing writing for Forbes? I thought they were supposed to be business-focused, and... okay, this whole thing comes from the following line at the bottom of a slide in a presentation sent to investors (it's not "internal", as he claimed it was - this is not a leak) about accounting details:

Whenever you get a link to a Forbes article, take a look at the URL and see if it includes "/sites/". If it does, then the article is actually an independent piece by one of their "contributors," not an actual legitimate news story from their reporters. Essentially, it's a glorified blog post. That isn't to say that every "sites" article is complete BS, but at the very least you should take them with several more grains of salt than an official Forbes report. Unfortunately Forbes doesn't exactly make the distinction very clear on the page itself, and as a result I've seen people cite them in discussions despite the posts in question being sheer nonsense.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Jul 13, 2015 11:31 am

Got it, thanks Top Gun.

fliptw wrote:If you are willing to be a participant in MS's perpetual testing imitative you will have a legit copy of beta software; if you want off that roller-coaster, you need to buy a license.

I'm not personally sure exactly how it's going to work, but I figure some sectors in (especially) business are going to need to not get automatically updated. There'll be a solution for them, but whether it consists of paying more I haven't heard.

For the record, the way Windows 10 is going to be sold to consumers - at least for now - isn't hugely different from the past. You buy the OS, either by itself or with a new PC, and you get updates for it until the next version comes out. The two big differences are that for the first year after release, buying the OS by itself is discounted to free (it's not a one-year subscription, contrary to what some people think); and Microsoft is claiming there won't be a "next version".

What that could possibly mean:
1) At some point, there will be bigger updates that you'll have to pay for, kind of like what OS X used to do before they stopped charging for them.
2) MS is just ditching the revenue stream from boxed sales of new versions of Windows (recalling that the OEM PC cut and enterprise agreements are still there).
I'm not sure which it is; but I do know what the strategy behind the "free" thing is, and that's to move as many people as possible to Windows 10 as quickly as possible (unlike 8/8.1) so they've got that billion-device market to pitch to developers. Microsoft just wants apps, lots of apps, and preferably to be part of the initial wave of platforms that developers target (alongside Android and iOS) so they can actually sell tablets and phones for once.

Which is all well and good, but the question on top of my mind is... is it really ready? I guess we'll find out in two weeks

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:16 pm

enterprise and pro editions have the options of deferring updates.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 11:11 am

fliptw wrote:enterprise and pro editions have the options of deferring updates.

Thankfully. Microsoft is unfortunately going to follow the Android model with Windows 10 updates, the anytime they please update model. Plus, I'd like to be able to opt out of any junkware, especially Microsoft's.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mandatory- ... ially-ugly

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:09 pm

tunnelcat wrote:Thankfully. Microsoft is unfortunately going to follow the Android model with Windows 10 updates, the anytime they please update model.

Android allows you to disable automatic updates.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:17 pm

Setting your firewall to block certain IPs can also disable automatic updates.

In theory anyway...

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:45 pm

Jeff250 wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:Thankfully. Microsoft is unfortunately going to follow the Android model with Windows 10 updates, the anytime they please update model.
Android allows you to disable automatic updates.

Actually, I have mine set to "notify". That way I can run them on my schedule, like when I'm not in the middle of doing something else for instance. My gripe has to do with the constant updates, many of them installing "features" and then bug fixes (because some new feature they've installed is now crashing the app) at any random time they please. I swear, every time I turn the pad on, there's 2 to 6 app updates. It's become a disease you can't cure. In other words, it's software feature creep that's not being managed at the company level. It's starting to fill up my device's drive like a filling closet. Plus the apps that come with an Android device are usually uninstallable. So that means that my device is filled up with crap apps that I will never use. Mark my words, Microsoft will have that same disease too once they load up everyone with Windows 10. Junkware and crapware galore, when all we want is a stable and secure operating system.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:17 pm

This is a place where I wish we had more government regulation.

Example:

The default setting for any software offer should always be “NO”. The perfect example is when you update Flash Player…the website always has the two offers set as “checked” as default.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:38 pm

TC, all the major junk and crap on your phone is the result of your phone company, not google or android. If google was calling the shots on what was pre-installed on phones, you would not have that problem. Kinda like how apple seems to have a "no bull★■◆● carrier software on our devices" model that keeps stupid people happy with their otherwise overpriced iProducts.

Similarly to if you buy a dell or hp or whatever brand computer at a brick and mortar store or online, it comes with a whole bunch of worthless bull★■◆● software pre-installed that consumes an absurd amount of system resources for mostly locking up the system trying to do stuff that isn't even remotely useful to the user.

I'd almost say Microsoft has gone a bit too far in removing features from Windows for the last few cycles instead of adding too much. They seem to take more stuff away than they add. If they keep it up, some later version of Windows will literally be just the core desktop with the control panel, and you will have to go to the windows store to get notepad/paint/calculator/etc.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:28 pm

Krom wrote:TC, all the major junk and crap on your phone is the result of your phone company, not google or android. If google was calling the shots on what was pre-installed on phones, you would not have that problem. Kinda like how apple seems to have a "no **** carrier software on our devices" model that keeps stupid people happy with their otherwise overpriced iProducts.

Similarly to if you buy a dell or hp or whatever brand computer at a brick and mortar store or online, it comes with a whole bunch of worthless **** software pre-installed that consumes an absurd amount of system resources for mostly locking up the system trying to do stuff that isn't even remotely useful to the user.

I'd almost say Microsoft has gone a bit too far in removing features from Windows for the last few cycles instead of adding too much. They seem to take more stuff away than they add. If they keep it up, some later version of Windows will literally be just the core desktop with the control panel, and you will have to go to the windows store to get notepad/paint/calculator/etc.

I don't have a phone. I'm talking about my Samsung 10 Tab 3. It came preloaded with a bunch of apps I don't wan't and can't uninstall because they either were put on by Samsung or Google. The Android OS gripes that the apps came with the system and says they can't be uninstalled if you try to uninstall them. When I upgraded to Android 4.4, several more worthless apps were installed that cannot be uninstalled either. Those definitely came from Google because they gave no opt out ability and they showed up after the upgrade. How else do you think Google is making money and getting their stock price up to almost $700 a share? All I can do is force a stop on the ones I don't want to use, but they are still taking up precious space. I mean, The New York Times? Trip Advisor? They're nothing but adware essentially. If I'd wanted them, which I don't, I'd install or buy them.

I agree that Microsoft is going too far in removing software that's been around for a long time and are well used, like Paint, Notepad, Solitaire and even the loathed Media Center. I know some people hate them, but why remove them NOW? They're throughly debugged programs and a lot of people still use them. So what if Solitaire ruins productivity.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:37 am

That will be Samsung's fault. I have a laptop made by them, and yeah, they ship it with a pretty decent chunk of rubbish.

The reasons quite a lot of stuff is going out of the default Windows install and into the store is that it lets them make upgrades on their own timeframe, without going through Windows Update. In the case of Solitaire, it isn't even installed by default - probably because the Windows 8+ version of Solitaire is kind of huge (several hundred MB I think) due to all the graphics. That eats up quite a bit of space on some machines. It's still free if you want it, but it does have ads now

From what I hear, they do that to fund ongoing development (...yes, really) but naturally there are many people who preferred the Windows XP/7 versions for exactly that reason.

Paint and Notepad are still included in Windows. Calculator also is, I think, but it is one of those "universal" apps in Windows 10 instead of a Win32 one.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:53 pm

Well, I guess it could be worse. You or I could have bought a Lenovo installed with Superfish adware.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887392/ ... snafu.html

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:10 pm

Uh oh. For sure people who want full control over the updating of their OS's will NOT want to buy the Home edition of Windows 10.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/29 ... dates.html

It doesn't help they keep screwing up security updates for Windows 7 either. There's a new out of sequence one today just to patch a hole that one was supposed to have been plugged last week.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/295023 ... 74667.html

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 10:04 am

Yeah, Home is more for the people who don't care and/or who update anyway.

Assuming the article is accurate, the security advisory stuff really ought to be improved - there are customers who legitimately need to know that sort of stuff. It could just be that they're skipping the usual process for pre-GA hotfixes, but combining features and security/non-security bugfixes in the same QFE is a little weird. Even if non-business users don't pick and choose, enterprise IT departments are going to want to be able to.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:33 pm

They laid off a bunch of people at Microsoft last year. Maybe they're stretched too thin now to perform adequately. We have had a bunch of updates as of late that have almost bricked many people's computers, or at least caused major headaches. Sure, they pruned their Nokia acquisition, but when does making a company lean and mean end up as stretched too thin to viably function for the customer? Plus, PC sales are way down, so that's not helping their bottom line either.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... -memo.html

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:05 pm

Did it on the two tablets and my dads PC so far, working well.

My dads PC had a bit of a hangup because the samsung magician cloning software messed up some flags on the system reserved partition which resulted in its log files growing till it was out of space (680 KB free), but deleting/trimming the logs got it back to 58 MB free space which was sufficient to process the upgrade.

Update: Did it on my desktop and my moms desktop as well, both went without much trouble. The part it had the most trouble with out of any of the 4 computers we did it on was sorting out the drivers for the two nvidia video cards I have in my system (A GTX 980 renderer, and a GTX 680 dedicated to PhysX) which took deleting the "microsoft basic vga adapter" device then scanning for hardware changes and a couple reboots.

Otherwise a difference I noticed where I wasn't expecting, I'm getting another 10-20 megabits out of my connection on the same hardware compared to Windows 7, couldn't really check the limits of 8.x because it was only on the tablets which run into the bandwidth limit of their 2x2 5 GHz wifi way before they even come close to the internet. At any rate, thanks to that I was able to set a new record for this connection:

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Aug 08, 2015 11:30 am

Out of curiosity, what have you had to do to set up privacy (I hear there are a lot of settings to go through to keep Microsoft from spying on the user) and updating behaviors? Did you get rid of Cortana yet?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Aug 08, 2015 12:17 pm

Cortana requires you to switch from a local user account to a Microsoft account for your windows login, my Microsoft account password like all my other online passwords is a machine generated jumble of characters that can barely be typed out on a regular keyboard let alone the on-screen keyboard for the tablets, which makes logging in to the PC via that account unrealistic. So Cortana was never an option to begin with.

Pumo · Post by **Pumo** » Sat Aug 08, 2015 12:59 pm

Well, I've been pretty happy with Windows 10 overall, except for the fact that I'm getting some issues with the new Windows 10 drivers from nVidia with some of my games (i.e. got bad framerates, stuttering and bad response on Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed).

I had to use this utility from MS to prevent my graphics card drivers to be updated: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930 and roll back drivers.

And I don't know if this is right or not (or perhaps risky?), but I've rolled way back to the 344.75 GeForce drivers (that are from late 2014 and for Windows 8.1) on my Windows 10 install and my framerate/stuttering issues got away, and everything seems to be working fairly well, finally.

I do have a GeForce GTX 650 BTW, and never had bad FPS on those games until I updated to the nVidia Windows 10 drivers.

Do anybody here thinks it's not a good idea to stick to the old Win 8.1 drivers while using Windows 10?

Vander · Post by **Vander** » Sat Aug 08, 2015 2:14 pm

I put Windows 10 on my desktop. The upgrade was pretty uneventful. I downloaded the .iso to do the upgrade, and chose the “don’t save anything” option. The OS seems alright, I guess. There’s another round of “try to find where a settings change is made because we’ve moved and/or renamed everything again.” Configuration is still split between Control Panel and Settings, but I imagine it will be like that for a while due to compatibility.

There aren’t really any cool new features that I would use. I don’t have a mic so Cortana got disabled right away, not that I’d want to talk to my computer. I would refuse to use a Microsoft Account anyways. At least this time around, they made it slightly easier to use a local account during installation.

The new start menu is better than 8/8.1, but still lacking for me. All Programs kinda sucks. I liked organizing things how I want them. I don’t like how the alphabetized groups have titles with the Letter, as if I couldn’t figure out which letter I’m at by actually looking at the name of the program. I could do without the silly live tiles. Pinning programs to the start menu is an incredible waste of space now. Psst, Microsoft, I’m never going to have a touch screen on my desktop, I don’t need big Fisher Price buttons to launch programs. I’ll probably just reinstall StartIsBack that I purchased for 8.1, but I want to give the new menu a try first.

I don’t care much for the Theme settings. Browsers have a big white title bar now, which is pretty annoying. I imagine Firefox/Chrome will get more refined in the future, since Microsoft’s new browser doesn’t have the ugly white title bar. I do like the minimal side and bottom borders.

I hear Windows will support SSH sometime in the future. That’ll be nice.

I don’t do much gaming anymore, so my desktop basically functions as a file/media server, with some web browsing mixed in. I use a Linux VM for VPN, Plex, and various other services so I only had to reinstall VirtualBox rather than do a bunch of configuration.

I was going to install Windows 10 on my laptop, but I bought a Macbook Air instead. I plan on loading Windows 10 into a virtual rather than using Boot Camp. It’ll give me a chance to check out the Enterprise version as well.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:54 am

Pumo wrote:Do anybody here thinks it's not a good idea to stick to the old Win 8.1 drivers while using Windows 10?

The only thing I can think of is that the 8.1 drivers might not support DX12. I forget - you might need a new video card for that anyway - if that's the case then you're probably not losing much.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Aug 10, 2015 5:37 pm

Most AMD and Nvidia GPUs made in the last year should eventually roll out DX12 support. But yes, only Windows 10 drivers will actually work with DX12, although there is no major rush at the moment since there are no games that require it yet.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:34 am

One of my rigs is a gaming rig with an Nvidia 680 card, the other is a specialized media center rig with single touch support, too obsolete. It would turn into a toaster if I tried upgrading it. Not going to bother with Windows 10 on either of them. My husband's workstation will also not be upgraded. He's used to using 7 and too blind to figure out the new nuances of 10.They all work fine with Win 7 and I don't need DX12 for gaming right now. A new rig in the future is where I'll have Windows 10, or even a Steam machine with another OS.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Tue Aug 11, 2015 12:04 pm

I've upgraded two machines (my Surface Pro 3 and my gaming rig) to Win10. So far, so good, with only a couple of minor annoyances:

Getting a clean Win10 install is a bit annoying, but straightforward; it's basically a matter of doing the upgrade install and activating online, then doing a clean install from disc or thumbdrive and re-activating.

One minor annoyance on my gaming rig is that I can't change some of my audio settings because the Win8 drivers for my audio card don't work correctly with Win10, and the manufacturer won't be releasing updated drivers for a couple of months.

Getting the Win8 tablet-mode menu off the desktop is really nice, and I love that my Surface switches modes based on whether I have the keyboard/touchpad clicked in or not.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Aug 11, 2015 4:16 pm

Drivers, still the killer issue, as usual. If I was stuck with Windows 8, I'd upgrade in a flash. Since I'm still running 7, not going to do it. Especially the HP Touchsmart. It'd end up a brick and right now, it's still got some use as is.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:06 pm

Which sound card is that? I have a Creative X-Fi and so far have been holding off... if they're the guys, then I might have to wait for their drivers.

As it happens, I also have a TouchSmart (524) at work - it runs Win10 and the touchscreen (2-point optical) works, but it's a test machine so I'm not necessarily putting it under the same load a home/power user might. AND... you may have heard they dropped Media Center from Win10. If you're using that, no, do not upgrade.