[LeDave]

Hey guys, we all have until July 29th to install the new Windows 10. I was wondering how many of you did download it or panning to download it. And what is your OS that you upgraded from or what is it now before you decide to upgrade?

I have Windows 8.1 and I don't know! Your opinions are what I need, talk away!

[Kerrowdown]

Sorry can't help I'm a Mac user, I'm sure some folk will be along shortly to help out with which ever route you choose.

[Unregistered User 8]

Your opinions are what I need, talk away!

Hi LeDave. I went from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on a Toshiba laptop Satellite 500 ( 32 bit ) and found that some of the " drivers " were inadequate for the change. Luckily Toshiba found this out pretty quickly and updated them so a few downloads were needed as a fix. It changes the computer quite a lot. Each user has the ability to configure the computer to their needs. Separate screen savers, separate shortcuts on their user screen etc. Each user must log in from the lock screen which then configures the computer to their personal user settings. A bit of a pain to initially set everything up, but pretty good IMO when done. From memory you have 30 days to revert to your previous Windows if not satisfied with the change. The driver issue was the biggest problem. There was no warning that this was an issue, and much troubleshooting and diagnostic work needed to be done. Some older programs no longer work as they did ( Windows Media Player as an example ) and some new features added. For me the change has more positives than negatives. Good luck.

[mee]

Windows 7 64bit -> Windows 10 64bit

I appreciate the extra memory support and DirectX 12 (for gaming)

Otherwise I was perfectly happy with Windows 7. There is a lot of telemetry and seemingly spyware in win 10 that has to be blocked. I'm not sure if they went back and did the same thing to Windows 7.

I don't like the flat gui and all the extra stuff included.. I'm not one to use the bells and whistles. I just want a fast, stable platform for my software.

I have used windows 8.1 and (to me) Windows 10 feels like slightly more polished Windows 8.1 with a start menu..

Driver issues were apparent when I upgraded a year ago. Today I don't think so much. I started off with new parts (custom desktop) though..

I also made a backup ISO of the windows 10 installer and fished out the serial number just in case I ever need to reinstall. I'm not even sure that will function but I have it to try. Normally, I think we're supposed to install the old OS and then use the upgrader to push win10 with the free upgrade.

But I haven't looked into that in a year.. so maybe a solid method of backing up the installer and installing fresh from bare metal is possible today (with the free win10 upgrade). Maybe worth researching..

[Adam]

Hey guys, we all have until July 29th to install the new Windows 10. I was wondering how many of you did download it or panning to download it. And what is your OS that you upgraded from or what is it now before you decide to upgrade?

I have Windows 8.1 and I don't know! Your opinions are what I need, talk away!

I upgraded my 2012 Sony laptop from windows 7 to windows 10 late last year. Following some registry patches (to remove the stupid second click requirement on the lock screen) and software tweaks (classic shell, disabling most metro apps, disabling Microsoft's spyware), I like it overall.

I also have a MSI gaming laptop with windows 10. The main issue there is that it has a 4K display, and lots of programs (including photoshop CS6 and many IDEs) still fail to properly scale windows, let alone natively support the higher screen resolution. That said, photos and web site graphics look so much better thanks to the high pixel density! I followed the same patching procedure on this machine. The lock screen really drove me nuts since it only makes sense on touch-enabled devices!

My main complaint about windows 10 is that it doesn't yet strike a balance between the old and new control panel, and metro and non-metro apps. Half of my system settings are found in the "new" settings app, while others are only accessible through the classic control panel. I also prefer a more traditional start menu layout; to that end Classic Shell does a great job of balancing the old style with the new.

My desktop is still running windows 7 as I have not yet received the download notification. I'm not too worried about upgrading since the hardware is modern and if it ain't broke, don't fix it

[Erikka]

also remember for those NOT wanting Win10 there is a tool to stop the upgrade nags dead in their tracks called Never10 from steve gibson, at grc.com it also removes the already downloaded upgrade files which windows receives even before you decide to upgrade but only works on win 7 & 8.1 I'm not a windows user but others may find this extremely tiny tool useful

[Not a Number]

Upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 is not as big of a leap as from 7 to 10. If you upgrade your system rather than do a custom / clean install you have 30 days to downgrade back to your old OS.

The only reported downside of downgrading is loss of the Media Center in Windows 7.

You could always make a backup image of your system before upgrading with the backup software that comes with retail packages of new drives. You can usually download the software from Seagate or Western Digital. You'd have to backup and restore any personal data that changed after the image backup separately.

Besides the privacy issues of Windows 10 I dislike not be able to control the updates it installs. You can delay new feature installs but that's it. I don't like some of the apps and utilities that come with my graphics driver and do a custom install from a download of the driver from the Nvidia site. Windows 10 automatically updated the driver when a later version came out and installed all the apps and utilities without regard to my preferences.

[mee]

I also prefer a more traditional start menu layout; to that end Classic Shell does a great job of balancing the old style with the new.

Glad you mentioned that. I've been running Classic Shell since day 1 of upgrading to win10. I found win10 horrible without it... I probably would have reverted back to 7 if classic shell wasn't around.

But that is because I'm used to the Windows pathing from 7 all the way back to 95.

---------- Post added 07-10-16 at 09:19 PM ----------

Oh and please please please backup your data before upgrading!!!!

I've read horror stories of some having trouble with the upgrade and losing their data.. it just makes sense to backup important data either way before making large system changes.

[Racer X 69]

So here is my take on this.


Microsoft is pushing real hard for all Windows users to upgrade, so much so that they are giving it away for free.


Free?


Operating system software typically costs $150 to $200.


Smells fishy to me.


I know, Microsoft is filthy rich, and giving away millions of dollars in software likely won't hurt their bottom line.


But.


There has to be a financial benefit, or the software giant wouldn't be doing this.


I'm happy with Windows 7 Pro. I was satisfied with Windows XP Pro.


Windows Vista sucked.


I have a tablet with Windows 8. It sucks.


I'm sticking with Windows 7 Pro.


I even have a machine that is running Windows 2000.


My .02 cents.


Your mileage may vary.

[SpecialK]

I did not upgrade - I bought new with Windows 10 on it. Does not recognize my Canon Selphy 400 photo printer, and evidently Canon has no new drivers. Otherwise it is OK with a couple nice features, lots of unknown/useless stuff like Groove music player.

A couple machines ago was a Vista version that came with a (when released) upgrade to W7. That did not go so well and eventually the upgrade was buggy enough I had to buy the full-pop Windows 7, which worked fine.

[beachgardener]

No, my win. partition will stay win 7 for lightroom and an old Nikon scanner,

on my test box the win partition is 10 (just to see what it is about), for all other use LinuxMint does it

[mohb]

I also made a backup ISO of the windows 10 installer and fished out the serial number just in case I ever need to reinstall. I'm not even sure that will function but I have it to try. Normally, I think we're supposed to install the old OS and then use the upgrader to push win10 with the free upgrade.

But I haven't looked into that in a year.. so maybe a solid method of backing up the installer and installing fresh from bare metal is possible today (with the free win10 upgrade). Maybe worth researching..

You can download a win 10 iso that will allow you to do a clean install after you have upgraded ( then you don't need a product key as your PC is registered or whatever with Microsoft)

[Ray-uk]

I upgraded from windows 7 pro to windows 10 and wasn't impressed.
There was no driver available for my graphics card so it just ran as basic graphics and I lost a lot of the cards capabilities.
It decided that one of my printers was too old and again there was no driver so that wouldn't work at all.
Once I had disabled all of the uneccessary flashy effects that I didn't need I found I was really back to a poor imitation of windows 7 with extreme limitations.
After a month I wiped the lot and reinstalled my old windows 7 pro.

In my opinion it is a lot of hype with a lot of flashy effects that I don't need.

[k5astro]

Yeah, I like windows 10. No problems. I have a MacBook Pro dual booting to windows 7 that I upgraded to win10 and it works just fine. I like the new look. However, I turned off all the telemetry and now Cortana is basically a bing search window that I never use.

[janneman]

For one I lost all my profiles in the process..