Windows 10 Stuff, questions & advice

Starting this topic because of suggestions that W10-related comments in this page of "Another Pointless Thread" were getting "too serious"!

Not going to repeat what I or others said on that page, but, briefly, it was about there still being a free upgrade path from Windows 7 & 8.1, the views and issues that people have with Windows 10, and some possible ways to remove/reduce such problems.

Therefore, this new topic is for anything that anyone wants to raise/query/comment on/about Windows 10 - which, after all, means the Operating System that a large proportion of the Members here are/will be/most definitely won't be using on the PCs on which they do their digital photo PP (and, of course, participate in this forum!)

Never had an issue with Windows 10, 99.9999% stable, most issues with windows of all flavours are 3rd party software and drivers, have a good house keeping regime and you will most likely never have any problems.

The free grade is long gone:

Is the Windows 10 free upgrade offer still available?
The Windows 10 free upgrade through the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app ended on July 29, 2016.

The current upgrade you see on the MS site is a "Build" upgrade, i.e. fix bits and add bits, think of it as a Firmware upgrade.

Windows 10 is absolutely fine and what I use on my computer. Can't say I've ever had any issues... Cortana was turned off immediately and I typically choose not to share data either. Have had the computer running for almost 3 years now and it's been faultless. Updated periodically and recently used for more photo editing stuff but it's handled that easily (more down to specs than OS, but still).

I'd advise that the free upgrade is taken (yes, it's still available - they are not rolling out new laptops, pre-installed with Windows 10 for additional cost).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10?fbclid=IwAR1SGbn4yUg...

Above link is what jeallen01 pointed towards first of all - it relies on a verified licence key, which you should have on win 7/8.1 unless installed illicitly back then, so it should progress without issue!

Very happy with win10 here.

If your computer is getting a bit long in the tooth also, why not get a new rig with a SSD for the OS and programs to run on. Get one with win10 installed and you will have a clean install. The SSD really speeds things up.

This is the #1 suggestion in my book. Regardless of age of computer etc. a SSD will make the biggest improvement.

Brian

W.r.t. the link to the free upgrade, it works fine from Win 7 (Pro in my case on all but one of our machines) to Win 10, and I've used it quite a number of times in the last couple of years!

There was only two failures:
- a 10yr old nettop which stubbornly refuses to upgrade and reverts back to W7 Home every time I try - seems to be a s/w error of some sort which I must try to investigate before W7 support runs out in 2020.
- another very compact nettop to which I fitted a very cheap no-name SSD, which then failed, probably due to overheating and fried the processor after the latter must have gone into continuous looping mode during a periodic update to the W10 Pro that was already installed (by the "same route") and that fried the not-very-well cooled processor.

Benz3ene & Peter

As for having to get new rigs with 10 already installed, I've upgraded 2x Win 10 machines (8 yr old laptop and 3-4 yr old HPdesktop which replaced the fried nettop ) and the W7 nettop to SSDs (now mainly using Macrium Reflect Free - better than whatever comes with the SSDs!) and the difference is like night and day!

Would I spend four/six hundred quid on a new rig when I can get pretty much as good performance with an SSD costing around £50-£60 for a 500GB SSD of a reputable brand? Certainly not ATM.

OH & BTW, been reading that many modern laptops are almost impossible to repair/upgrade because they are being put together like Apple makes its phones = almost impossible to get inside because you have to break all the seals and keyboard connections - which sometimes used welded plastic rivets instead of actual metal bolts - and thus are then nearly impossible to reassemble correctly. That's why many modern machines are so cheap!

Not true.

If you create installation media using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool you can then install Windows 10. If you have a Microsoft Account and a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 Home or Professional or Ultimate product key you can use that to activate Windows 10. It will then be activated with a digital licence associated with your Microsoft account. It works, I've done it as recently as a week ago.

I was given an old Asus laptop, did as I have written above, no problem. I've also, within the last 3 months, upgraded a Windows 10 Home licence to Windows 10 Pro using a Windows 8.1 Professional product key.

The main thing to remember is that Windows 10 is more resource hungry than any previous version. If you hardware is not up to it you may not have a pleasant experience, especially if you have Intel 3000 series graphics. I think the latest version you can use for some Intel 3000 graphics is 1603 (I think).

The media creation tool is available from https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

I was happy with Windows 10 until the update issued about 3 weeks ago. This affected both my PC and my sons, so much so that my son's PC kept rebooting and mine went very slow. However the recent fix that was issued last week has sorted out the rebooting issue and speeded things up a bit, but certainly not back to its previous levels.

These problems with updates affecting the performance of Windows have always occurred and to all previous versions. Performance then returns once the next version of Windows is issued.

I also use a Macbook and Apple have less updates but more frequent new full versions of the OS. This does help maintain a more stable performance, you just have to suffer more frequent full OS installs.

Mannesty & the others

Yes, W10 is more resource hungry, but a lot of the resource issues come from all the cr*p (both visible and "hidden") that come with W10 installs - e.g. why would I have wanted all the X-Box Apps (there were 4 or 5) that were installed automatically when I don't have, and won't be buying, an X-Box??= now long gone!

As I suggested in the other thread, use something like IObit "Uninstaller Free" to identify and get rid of a lot of that stuff - as will, I understand O&O AppBuster. Worth noting that Windows 10 updates have happened many times since then but those deleted Apps have not reappeared.

Same problems with the s/w that comes with peripherals like printers - you would (almost!) NOT believe the amount of extraneous junk that got installed by the autoinstallation App that came with the Canon TR8550 that I bought at the begining of the year! Got rid of most that as well,

Oh, & BTW, W10 Task Manager is a lot better than than it was in previous Windows versions as it reveals a lot more about what is running and what Apps are consuming resources - use that to find that out and then delete where possible!

Microsofts web pages are pretty confusing regarding upgrading Win 7/8 to Win 10.

Here's the best explanation page I can find.
link

Brian

Many thanks from all of us for the link (BUT - to everyone - review the terms and cookie collection page that pops up, and switch off EVERYTHING that is on by default before you progress any further!!)

BTW: doesn't that kinda contradict what you said in your first post??

Slightly on and off topic but with black Friday being here I'm debating a SSD to speed up the system. Does anyone know how I can clone exactly the full contents on the HHD onto the SSD so I can just unplug one and plug the other in?

Ta

Gareth

You'll need an external USB HDD/SDD dock (preferably USB3 as that's far faster than a USB2 version) and then download and use Macrium Reflect Free,
BTW - Macrium is simple and straightforward to use, is more easily controllably, and is faster, than most of the "OEM" supplied/linked s/w (especially that coming with Western Digital drives!) with the SSDs that one can generally buy.

PS: Please DO buy an SSD from a decent brand (do some searching on reliability - although, personally, I stick with Sandisk and Western Digital, but there are quite a few other good ones. Just avoid "cheap" "no-name" SSDs as decent branded ones are hardly that much more expensive).

PPS: pleased that this new thread is getting a good and sensible response .

I use a desktop computer. I have a 220 GB SSD and a 2TB HDD drive. I keep data like picture files on the HDD, and OS and program files on the SSD. It is the latter that speeds things up.

That's exactly my approach - and with multiple other backups on a directly connected USB drive and also 2x Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems.

BTW: this discussion about SSDs and backup systems is getting just a little "off-thread" from the Windows 10-centric one that I was trying to "get going".