WINDOWS 10 Advice Please
 

I'm still dithering whether to install it. (Got Win7 at present).
Can anyone offer some super compelling reason why I should go ahead?
Or does any one have a really good reason why I shouldn't?

I upgraded Liz's (my wife) windows 8 laptop and also my windows 7. Both are dual core pentium 5 machines, but hers is behaving very well under w10 whilst mine is running like a dog. All is working i.e. nothing has failed, but it hangs up for 30 seconds to 1 minute without warning. I wait and it comes back. It's neat and it seems stable enough, but it's driving me insane.

I'd wait a little longer maybe. I'm still getting updates every other day, so maybe they are still refining the system.

Just one man's opinion!

Thanks Graham, my instinct was to wait and you've reinforced that. Maybe see what the new year brings? My present PC is just four years old this week which is getting on a bit in PC terms. I hesitate to "fix" what ain't broken.

I'm like you Peter, haven';t upgraded my laptop or desktop yet

Thanks Clive - helped me decide to leave well enough alone for a while longer.

Used W10 for about month and no major problems... Yet. If your happy with what your using I would not rush to change but I had W8 and hated it.

Thanks Arthur - Yeah Margaret ('er indoors) has W8 on her laptop and she's ok with it but it drives me nuts. Maybe I'll talk to her about installing it on the lap top.

I've got W7, but run some XP software, which can be done with W7 but apparently not with W10. Therefore, I'm not upgrading to 10 as I don't want to have to fork out hundreds of pounds for new software.

Thanks Mike - another interesting angle.

Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole at present. Wait at least 12 months for all the bugs to get ironed out. We've got 2 Windows 8 computers which I've made to look like Windows 7 ("Classic Shell" and "Skip Metro Suite"), both freeware programs. I hate W8 GUI!

Dave

Thanks Dave - I've been using W8 on Margaret's laptop this week whilst PC was in for a "service". I don't like it at all.

I'm an insider with Win 10 and now running evaluation copy 10565. I made a post quite a few weeks ago listing the minor problems I encounted. However it is now running extremely well and I would recommend that you upgrade, if not now do it before you have to pay for it. I've upgraded two laptops and one desktop for two PC illiterate users one of them with learning difficulties and they are more than happy with the upgrade.
Win 10 is really nothing like Win 8 which I tried for a few days before binning it and as for the start menu well you can do various things as the attached photo shows.
I've been a big fan of Win 7, so what I did was clone my Win7 to another hard drive and update the cloned version to Win 10. I now use Win 10 probably 90% of the time, but at the moment save any work to a dedicated drive which can be accessed by both Win 7 and Win 10. I guess that shows I'm not totally committed to Win 10 just yet, but almost.
I hated the Win 8 start menu, even with classic shell, but with Win 10 you can change it quite easily as the photo shows.

I would advise that if you are eligible for the free upgrade to do so and if neccessary do the same as I did and do it on a cloned version. Oh and by the way, just in case you are not aware you can download it to DVD fromhttp://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-upgrade and install at you leisure

Harry

Thanks Harry. I can understand that desktop. {Win 8 on Margaret's laptop drives me to distraction}. I think I'll have a go when I get a few hours straight of free time. Off the subject but I still think that Vulcan shot is an absolute beauty.

Peter to get the desktop as in the photo you just delete the tiles as they are just duplicates.
Many thanks for the comment on the Vulcan. As you've probably guessed from my desktop it's a favourite of mine.

Harry

Oh! Calamity! Win10 update
 

Oh! Calamity! Installed Win10 late Saturday and by Sunday evening had rolled back to Win7. I simply could not install graphics (NVidia Ge-Force) drivers. Code 43 was the most consistent response.. Even when I cleared out the Registry and did a complete new instal. Problems compounded by occasional blank screen requiring crash-restart, Screen sometimes like an obscured window with dragging cursor (clearly driver conflicts) and re-start times measured in many minutes. I'll wait a while before I try that again.:)

Been reading reviews etc on Win 10, the free upgrade will be available to W7 & W* users for a year i.e until july 2016. Secondly if you install and dont like it it is quite easy to navigate to a section in settings to return to W7 or W8.
Its my friends issues of it not working properly with Lightroom 6 that worries me. He has had to go back to Lightroom 5 to get it working correctly.

I had one or two moments with Lightroom 6 with the earlier releases of Win 10, but it now works almost perfectly. The minor problem being on start-up were I get the message

'Server Busy' "This action cannot be completed because the other program is busy "Switch to the other program and correct the problem" below this message are the options 'Switch To' or 'Retry'

This is with no other program running, but clicking 'Retry' always solves the problem. A minor irritation, as Lightroom then runs perfectly.

Harry

Peter.
May I ask what graphics card you're using and how did you select the driver? The reason I ask, if you asked Nvidia to scan and select a suitable driver that may have been your problem. I did this initially and finished up with problems.
I'm using a Geoforce 640 and to get drivers that worked OK on my 64 bit version of Win 10 I went to Nvidia selected Drivers and did a manual search making sure I selected Win 10 64 bit as my OS. This gave me a different driver to the one suggested by the Nvidia scan, which I'm guessing was primarily a Win 7 driver.
As I mentioned previously I have a minor problem with Lightroom 6, but on doing a search many others also have this problem dating back from the early days of Lightroom on various version of Windows.

Harry

Harry thanks for your interest and it's a GeForce GT430. I originally selected driver 353.62 dated 29.July from their site as I'd seen this recommended somewhere, can't remember where. When that didn't work I went with increasing desperation through a series of later drivers waiting lengthy periods for restarts only to find no improvement. (Tried comprehensive uninstalls within the registry). Mostly Windows ignored the card (Code 43) and ran the basic graphics but sometimes I got massive conflicts with horrible distorted and cursor stuttering results. I'll "bounce back" in a week or two, after a period of reflective contemplation, and look into the application of KB3073930.
It's the time everything takes that makes it such a pain.:(

Peter I've just checked the driver for your system and come up with Version 358-50, released 7th Oct. However there are two drivers one for 32 bit and one for 64 bit systems.
Agree with you that the upgrade path can be a bit of a pain. The main reason I have worked on a cloned version of Win 7.

Harry

Thank you very much Harry. Although I tried a few I don't think I came across one as late as 9/10. I'm minded to give the 64 bit version a go and I'll post here later. (When I get it back on the planet!:D

Peter go to Nvidia Drivers UK, click on the driver tab at the top and then in the Manual Driver Search box, select your GPU i.e Geoforce 400 series. Then start seach. You then should see the drivers all of which have been tested by Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs.

see attached photo.

Harry

From Margaret Ann's laptop whilst I wait and wait and wait. Got the driver thanks and loaded onto a flash drive. Spent these last hours waiting for painfully slow "preparing for installation" For interest - disconnecting USB portable discs eventually speeded this! Now I'm "configuring windows 10 updates", Oh boy! I should have installed from the ISO. Just going outside------------:D
Thanks for your interest I'll post further reports but it may be Thursday - -busy elsewhere most of tomorrow.

Struggling. Have uninstalled/re-installed Win 10 - installed correct drivers from GeForce. Removed graphics card physically and uninstalled drivers. Re-installed card and drivers - problem is still there. Spent hours on this. Time to talk to the pro's:confused:

Think I'll stick with Windows 7 & maybe revisit this next year when hopefully most of the bugs etc will have been fixed. Free upgrade lasts until next July I believe.

Peter are you sure it's the Nvidia GPU that's creating the problem. Error 43 can be caused by a USB flash drive or external hard drive.

Microsoft web page has the following "If the steps above do not resolve the problems with the device, and if the device is an external drive, such as a USB flash drive or external hard drive, use the taskbar icon to safely eject the device, then unplug the device from the computer. For devices that use AC power, unplug the device from the electrical outlet or power strip, wait 30 seconds, and then plug it back in. Turn on the device power switch, and then plug it in to your computer. If the device includes a drivers disk, ensure that you have it handy to install the device drivers; otherwise, Windows should automatically locate the correct drivers and install them"

I assume you've looked in Device Manager to see if there is any yellow exclamation marks.

Harry

Hi Harry - this from Margaret's laptop. I was aware of the advice about USB's etc and had disconnected my back up disks. Device manager shows a yellow warning and details say driver (356.50) needs further installation. I've even powered down, removed the graphics card, uninstalled the drivers including clearing them from the registry "manually". Re-installed the card - re-installed the drivers - same problem.
Maybe Win10 needs a re-install.
Whatever at this stage it seems at least possible that the card has a fault (coincidentally) and I'm unable to test this so I handed over the whole issue to the local guru (professional ie I'm paying him) on Friday. Hadn't heard from him by close of play today - I'll be talking to him tomorrow.
Thank you for your interest and I'll post more when I have it.
Meanwhile to anyone thinking of installing Win 10 the old advice may still hold good
If It ain't broke - don't fix it.

Thanks for the update Peter, sorry to hear you are still having problems. Hopefully the
'Pro' will sort it out. As an insider I recieved another large update a few days ago, now on v 10576, which if my memory serves me well is two or three updates on the version you are trying to install. Apart from one or to very minor issues all is well.

Had a call from one PC illiterate whom I installed W10 for to say Exel had dissapeared from her PC. She hadn't noticed the small arrowhead alongside the Microsoft Office App denoting that she should click on Office to see all the other Apps. 10 mile round trip to find out the problem.
Harry

Back on the PC now and all is well. A new GeForce GT730 graphics card has solved the problem. Now getting familiar with Win 10 and quite pleased with it so far.

Please you are at last up and running. I'm sure you will find that W10 was worth all the trouble.

Harry

We're now into July, last chance this month for the free upgrade, anyone installed it who loves it/hates it ??

I'm half and half. My home computer is back on W7 it was slow and bogged down on W10. My net book that I take out is fine on 10 and I am happy to leave it with W10.
Personal feeling is W7 is better on a computer and W10 on net books.

I've been running Win 10 as an insider from the start, but to be on the safe side I've kept my Win 7 up and running and also have a cloned version of Win 10 which I keep one update behind the other. I switch over to Win 7 once a week, but must admit to feeling a little lost when I do so. Apart from Microsoft being able to know everything you do I'm very happy with Win 10. I'm on V1607, build 14379. I will still keep my Win 7 for some time yet, but it's doubtful I will keep it permanently. Plenty of problem initially with drivers, but all is OK now.

I like it mostly - sometimes find it slows horrendously while doing updates that it hasn't given me notice of. (ofwhich it hasn't given me notice:) sorry sir) Don't know where it is with back ups so seperately back up my most important stuff ie photographs. Stiil occasionally indicates driver conflict on start up - big red button and start again sorts it.

Peter it's strange that you say Win 10 does not give you notice of updates. This should always display in 'Settings' where you can set up the update to the time/date you want. As an insider over the past few weeks I've had several updates, but have always been notified in Setting. For backing up I use the free version of AOMEI Backupper freeware, but here's a full description of how to use Win 10 for backing up files or indeed a system image.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/wi...ws-10-3635397/

Harry

Thanks Harry I'd been geting a little slack in my attention to the PC.
Now turned on "Notify updates" and revised my back up options.

People I know have changed to Window 10 and complain constantly about it - so I'm sticking with what I know. Windows 7

My home machine is still Windows 7.

My 18 month old work machine came with Windows 8 and I resisted for a long time before upgrading to 10. The main complaint which seems to be common is the menu and task bar freeze and as of yet not seen any solution for it.

Windows 10 etc
 

We are running 2 Windows 8 computers, made to mimic Windows 7 (Skip Metro Suite and Classic Shell) and both are running fine. I keep both up to date with AV (Avast) and Anti malware (Zemana) and do weekly backups (separate hard drives) and do any software updates as available if they are of use to me. Here's where the cat gets amongst the pigeons-I never do Windows updates! I know people will say this is stupid but I've never had a problem and if you take the time to read what the updates are actually about, some of them are absurd.I've had more problems when I used to install them than I ever have when not doing them (and I've been using Windows since V3.11 (if you remember that!). I've no intention of upgrading to any newer versions of Windows at present. If I have to buy a new computer in the future and it comes with Windows 10/11/12 whatever then I'll put up with it. In a nutshell, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Bought a new Dell computer about 2 months ago and it came with Windows 10. I find it takes a bit of getting used to, ie, finding where things are. I think that windows 10 system is far to complicated when it does not need to be. My old computer was a Windows XP which I found was very easy to use. Why could the XP system not been brought up to-date, and made more secure. Also I find there are lots of Apps on this computer that I don't use or want to use but wonder if deleting them will cos any problems. I would say to anybody buying a new computer if you don't want or need Windows 10 try and get another system or even a Mac. I am getting used to it now but it takes a lot of time to do so.