I have been running Windows 8 on 2 of my machines and I know a lot of you out there did not like Windows 8 but I got on with it fine, anyway today I loaded Windows 10 onto my oldest Laptop and I was humming and R ing whether to do it or not but with a Windows 10 coming out yesterday and watching the feed back about Windows 10 I decided to go forth and install Windows 10 this morning.
The process takes about 2 hours to install and everything ran smoothly which I was very surprised there is always an hiccup along the line, but Windows 10 has done a great job of sorting all my drivers out and after careful investigation everything is working as it should be.
So what is new in Windows 10 that I have found, well the main one is Microsoft Edge and it is fast and has a useful tool where you can make notes about the web pages you are visiting, and there are more features on Edge more than I can list. Next is Cortana at first I thought its just a gimmick but it is not, I have filled my diary using Cortana and I find it a useful tool but it did have a nag at me when setting it up but that was mainly down to Language set up, now then we have the Start Button Back Yippee and yes and it is brilliant I can get to places in my computer where I could not with Windows 8 without installing a third party Button.
Windows 10 is fresh looking and it is more user friendly than any of the other operating systems they have pushed out at us and it is fast and responsive which we all like.
So why should you upgrade well if you have Windows 7 or Windows 8 then it is free for 12 months from yesterday and that was a big yes to me.
So if you decide to go with Windows 10 then back up all your files before taking on this operating system you just never know.
If you have signed up for Windows 10 and Microsoft has put you in a queue then do not worry go this site it tells you how to by pass the waiting list like I did.
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/jump-the-line-and-get-windows-10-right-now/ (http://www.cnet.com/how-to/jump-the-line-and-get-windows-10-right-now/)
I'll stick with W7 thanks, every time they change it it takes ages to get used to where everything is again! :D
As for that Cortana thing after seeing the adverts it's just another step in the direction of the Zager & Evans song "In The Year 2525" :no:
Paul
I've been using Windows 10 as part of the Microsoft Insider program from the start of January this year. Yes when you play with Beta software I had problems in the beginning. I've done clean installs and upgrade installs on on all the various pre-releases, using both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. (I used two different hard drives).
I found in all cases the problems only came with clean installs (driver issues), where as when I upgraded over Win7 or Win8.1 then problems were few if any. Yes there is a bit of relearning the odd thing to what you maybe used to, but all in all, my opinion on Windows 10 is the same as Geoff.
It is possible to download from Microsoft a copy that you can burn to DVD for installation if needed after the free period is over, you will need your genuine product key from your Win7/Win8 installation to use it.
I've considered it by am holding off for the time being.
I understand why they've provided the free upgrade route - one of the reasons applications have been so buggy in the past is because developers have had to concentrate on making each iteration of the software products compatible with multiple versions at the same time, which pushes up development and testing costs, and results in it not being possible to test every possible scenario.
By getting as many users as possible onto the same version of windows in a relatively short time, it means that developers can concentrate on compatibility with a single OS - don't be surprised it windows 7 is declared "end of life" much sooner than XP was!
However, I'm not convinced all of the answers surrounding the free upgrade route have been addressed :
Firstly, it has to be an upgrade, - so if my hard drive fails or I have to reinstall for any other reason, I'm going to have to go through the messy situation of
- installing the full copy of windows 7
- waiting a week for it to install all the updates (because Microsoft refuse to offer an up to date service pack for 7 and it has to be up to date before upgrading to ten
- and then upgrade to 10 again..
Secondly, the free upgrade path is only available for a year.
- I've not yet seen the question be answered on if that means you can only qualify for a free upgrade for the first year
- or if once qualifed, you can use that upgrade as many times as you need to long into the future
my worry is that if I have to reinstall in 18 months, along with the longwinded process above, I'd be forced to pay - Microsoft are being cagey on if the qualification of the free upgrade is linked to the PC's GUID (genuine unique id) which could change if a reinstall was required - if it is then come reinstall after 12 months, your :censored:
with any luck, within a couple of weeks someone will figure out an answer to the above and i'll be able to upgrade , as a reasonably tecchy person feels a bit strange not being on the newest one :)
Quote from: Jools on July 30, 2015, 07:49:18 PM
so if my hard drive fails or I have to reinstall for any other reason, I'm going to have to go through the messy situation of
- installing the full copy of windows 7
- waiting a week for it to install all the updates (because Microsoft refuse to offer an up to date service pack for 7 and it has to be up to date before upgrading to ten
- and then upgrade to 10 again..
Couldn't you get round that by just making a system backup onto an external drive before installing 10 for the first time?
Quote from: keithfre on July 30, 2015, 08:25:53 PM
Quote from: Jools on July 30, 2015, 07:49:18 PM
so if my hard drive fails or I have to reinstall for any other reason, I'm going to have to go through the messy situation of
- installing the full copy of windows 7
- waiting a week for it to install all the updates (because Microsoft refuse to offer an up to date service pack for 7 and it has to be up to date before upgrading to ten
- and then upgrade to 10 again..
Couldn't you get round that by just making a system backup onto an external drive before installing 10 for the first time?
If / When I goto 10 I'm planning on doing a clean install of 7 first, and doing as you say.
My current OS has been installed for around 2 years so its starting to show the odd bit of tardiness due to the accumulated junk that builds up in the registry and elsewhere over time.
While I'm fastidious about backing up personal data, for my personal machines i've never seen the point in backing up the system state - I've always treated hardware failures as an opportunity for a fresh OS install to clear out the accumulated junk - not to mention that if motherboard/CPU/ are changed the likelyhood is a system state restore isn't likely to work unless I could find the same motherboard/CPU combination, and that's never easy given the pace of change in PC's.
At work in a server environment its different, the same hardware is, if not produced, held in stock for at least 4 -6 years - we managed to get parts for a 8 year old server that runs a lot of our legacy applications , so a system state -> bare metal restore is usually viable.
i'm sure my reservations will be put to bed in the next few weeks anyway but for now i'm holding back!
Just put it on my main PC and it seem fine. The new Start Menu is most welcome and the Edge browser is nice and fast. The Electra website displays OK, so it gets my seal of approval!
Upgrading from Windows 8.1 was no hassle at all with all my files and programs transferring over properly.
Jools;
Apologises if I'm teaching "Granny" to suck eggs on this one.
As I said in my previous post, it is possible to download so as to do a clean install a copy of Windows 10 from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10?OCID=WIP_r_Win10_Body_AddPC (http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10?OCID=WIP_r_Win10_Body_AddPC)
You will need, as the instructions say, your Product Key from your Win7 or Win8.1 Installation. You will need to download any necessary drivers from the manufacturer.
If your installation was preinstalled on the computer you purchased then when that machine dies then so does your licence for the OS. That's the nature of OEM licences.
The only way a Full System Backup from another source will work in the event of a motherboard failure is if you can get a like for like replacement. Any slight difference and the backup will fail as the MB drivers are likely to be different. In the case of a machine being two years of age or older the probability of getting a like for like replacement will not be good unless you are able to return it to original manufacturer or their agents, under some form of extended warranty. Replacing a dead Hard Drive shouldn't be a problem, you could even use an SSD if one can fit your system.
Once again, I apologise if I'm teaching "Granny" to suck eggs.
Quote from: Jack on July 30, 2015, 09:14:05 PM
Jools;
Apologises if I'm teaching "Granny" to suck eggs on this one.
As I said in my previous post, it is possible to download so as to do a clean install a copy of Windows 10 from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10?OCID=WIP_r_Win10_Body_AddPC (http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10?OCID=WIP_r_Win10_Body_AddPC)
You will need, as the instructions say, your Product Key from your Win7 or Win8.1 Installation. You will need to download any necessary drivers from the manufacturer.
If your installation was preinstalled on the computer you purchased then when that machine dies then so does your licence for the OS. That's the nature of OEM licences.
The only way a Full System Backup from another source will work in the event of a motherboard failure is if you can get a like for like replacement. Any slight difference and the backup will fail as the MB drivers are likely to be different. In the case of a machine being two years of age or older the probability of getting a like for like replacement will not be good unless you are able to return it to original manufacturer or their agents, under some form of extended warranty. Replacing a dead Hard Drive shouldn't be a problem, you could even use an SSD if one can fit your system.
Once again, I apologise if I'm teaching "Granny" to suck eggs.
no need to apologise, I think you may be correct here Jack - on the Microsoft site you've linked to it clearly says that if you need to reinstall after upgrading you can do so as a fresh install.
however - two hours ago I read exactly the opposite on another Microsoft site :doh: so i think i'll wait untill someone's tried it and suffered through microsoft's support untill i try it myself :D
Quote from: Sprintex on July 30, 2015, 12:41:16 PM
I'll stick with W7 thanks, every time they change it it takes ages to get used to where everything is again! :D
As for that Cortana thing after seeing the adverts it's just another step in the direction of the Zager & Evans song "In The Year 2525" :no:
Paul
or the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation??
Did a Windows 10 upgrade yesterday - all went very smoothly.
Bitdefender did an automatic upgrade to Windows 10 version - no problems
Iolo System Mechanic asked me to spend a small amount of cash to upgrade to the Windows 10 version - no problems.
Microsoft Money 2001 (yes 2001!!) wouldn't run because it couldn't find the right version of Internet Explorer. Quick web search found a registry tweak which fixed the problem.
Everything else seems ok.
I have to say this is the easiest Windows upgrade I have ever done!!
I'll probably regret saying that when I try to run a program I'd forgotten all about!!
Quite impressed so far - not sure about 'Edge' the new browser. Haven't figured this one yet. Still using Chrome which works just fine.
:beers:
Can't say I agree with being impressed ...
Pulled it down from MS, & stuck it in a VM as a clean install. Went OK (well, it should, shouldn't it ::)) and had a play ...
Hmmm. The Edge browser is better than IE I guess ... but seems extremely cluttered with crap (why the :censored: do I care about the X Factor ???) ... Having a better default page will sort that out though, not to mention replacing with a non-MS browser ! Having to register for the Windows App Store for stuff is a pain ... as is the default settings of "I allow M$ to look all through this install & everything I ever do on it" ! That all got turned off on the actual install (I tend to select 'custom' rather than default because of this type of privacy invasion).
Will I allow this PC, or SWMBO's to go to Win 10 ? Only if I really have to ... Win7 is still around another 5 years (support ceases 14 Jan 2020) so I see no real hurry :P
Of course - YMMV ... but companies are avoiding Win 8.2 (oops sorry, I meant Win 10) & staying with Win 7 just like they avoided Win 8 & 8.1 ...
Quote from: Only Me on August 01, 2015, 08:34:09 PM
Ok. So as a test i upped the spare slaptop to 10.... It wont load the pr3 digitrax drivers now
SO BE WARNED DIGITRAX BRETHREN.....
Think I saw something on the Digitrax Yahoo group about following the Digitrax Win8 driver install to overcome the problem.
Just another note in windows update go to Advanced settings and un check the box or windows will update all your windows 10 computers when your not expecting it.
My Loco's are all running fine via Train Controller.
Quote from: Only Me on August 01, 2015, 08:34:09 PM
Ok. So as a test i upped the spare slaptop to 10.... It wont load the pr3 digitrax drivers now
SO BE WARNED DIGITRAX BRETHREN.....
I suppose we're going to get these variations in experience of Windows 10 upgrade with various programs for a while. Depends what you're running, what version etc.
I have found a lot of the problems people encounter already have solutions if you search the web and the microsoft forums.
:beers:
Good helpful forum here for Windows 10
https://windowsforum.com
After a couple of days with W10, things have settled down nicely. I found the "Edge" browser to be quite choppy and unresponsive compared to Chrome, so that's gone now but, other than that, it's all good! :thumbsup:
All in all, what Windows 8 should have been - well done MS.
Quote from: captainelectra on August 01, 2015, 09:03:48 PM
After a couple of days with W10, things have settled down nicely. I found the "Edge" browser to be quite choppy and unresponsive compared to Chrome, so that's gone now but, other than that, it's all good! :thumbsup:
All in all, what Windows 8 should have been - well done MS.
Likewise :beers:
Quote from: austinbob on August 01, 2015, 08:20:34 PM
Microsoft Money 2001 (yes 2001!!) wouldn't run because it couldn't find the right version of Internet Explorer. Quick web search found a registry tweak which fixed the problem.
Bob, I also use M/S Money, but mine is called 'Money Plus' - do you know if this is the same as 'Money 2001', if so, can you point me in the direction of the registry tweak? :thankyousign: David.
Quote from: dannyboy on August 01, 2015, 10:48:33 PM
Quote from: austinbob on August 01, 2015, 08:20:34 PM
Microsoft Money 2001 (yes 2001!!) wouldn't run because it couldn't find the right version of Internet Explorer. Quick web search found a registry tweak which fixed the problem.
Bob, I also use M/S Money, but mine is called 'Money Plus' - do you know if this is the same as 'Money 2001', if so, can you point me in the direction of the registry tweak? :thankyousign: David.
According to here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductDetailsViewer?Type=Software&Name=Microsoft+Money+Plus+Sunset+Deluxe&ModelOrVersion=17&Vendor=Microsoft&Locale=&LastSearchTerm=& (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductDetailsViewer?Type=Software&Name=Microsoft+Money+Plus+Sunset+Deluxe&ModelOrVersion=17&Vendor=Microsoft&Locale=&LastSearchTerm=&) you shouldn't have any problems.
Quote from: Jack on August 01, 2015, 10:55:28 PM
Quote from: dannyboy on August 01, 2015, 10:48:33 PM
Quote from: austinbob on August 01, 2015, 08:20:34 PM
Microsoft Money 2001 (yes 2001!!) wouldn't run because it couldn't find the right version of Internet Explorer. Quick web search found a registry tweak which fixed the problem.
Bob, I also use M/S Money, but mine is called 'Money Plus' - do you know if this is the same as 'Money 2001', if so, can you point me in the direction of the registry tweak? :thankyousign: David.
According to here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductDetailsViewer?Type=Software&Name=Microsoft+Money+Plus+Sunset+Deluxe&ModelOrVersion=17&Vendor=Microsoft&Locale=&LastSearchTerm=& (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductDetailsViewer?Type=Software&Name=Microsoft+Money+Plus+Sunset+Deluxe&ModelOrVersion=17&Vendor=Microsoft&Locale=&LastSearchTerm=&) you shouldn't have any problems.
Many people have reported problems with Money 2001 (that's earlier than MoneyPlus). You get an error message saying it needs to use IE5 or above.
The registry tweak Ifound fixes this problem and everything is ok now.
You can find it here https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce248a5f-6370-4fa0-8db5-aadde33fec14/after-win-10-102400-build-install-ie-is-gone-and-money-plus-doesnt-start?forum=mone (https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ce248a5f-6370-4fa0-8db5-aadde33fec14/after-win-10-102400-build-install-ie-is-gone-and-money-plus-doesnt-start?forum=mone)
:beers:
Still waiting my turn here. Got three to do so don't want all that at once, I have enough of that at work
As to Money. There is the Sunset version that is still free, that was put out when they stopped developing it. It's as new as you can get and might have less issues with later Windows versions. Well that is what I am hoping for
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=20738 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=20738)
Quote from: Parky on August 02, 2015, 08:16:31 AM
Still waiting my turn here. Got three to do so don't want all that at once, I have enough of that at work
As to Money. There is the Sunset version that is still free, that was put out when they stopped developing it. It's as new as you can get and might have less issues with later Windows versions. Well that is what I am hoping for
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=20738 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=20738)
I think I read that there are similar issues with all versions of Money - to do with Internet Explorer being needed.
:beers:
work computer upgraded the first release date from 8.1, love it, big compliments to Microsoft, no issues at all and all runs smoothly. the other windows 7 machines here are in the cue so just wait and see.
I don't like the sound of this
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/windows-10-spying-how-to-opt-out-of-microsofts-intrusive-terms-of-use-10432300.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/windows-10-spying-how-to-opt-out-of-microsofts-intrusive-terms-of-use-10432300.html)
This Luiddite will stay with Win7 thank you.
As I said earlier in the thread ...
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 01, 2015, 08:31:29 PMHaving to register for the Windows App Store for stuff is a pain ... as is the default settings of "I allow M$ to look all through this install & everything I ever do on it" ! That all got turned off on the actual install (I tend to select 'custom' rather than default because of this type of privacy invasion).
Just a small point on the those who are concerned about the info that MS might be gathering for different reasons, some of it they have to do for various laws within various countries post 9/11.
I wonder how many people use Google Chrome without releasing that Google have been doing a similar thing for quite a while. While I don't know about Apple but I'm betting they've being doing a similar thing for a while too. Social media is another harvester of personal data in the background, not that I use social media. For those who use apps on their smartphones have to accept similar data sharing. And so the list goes on.
Both MS & Google have ways of allowing you to switch some of the intrusions off, I don't know about the others.
Just a thought.....
Quote from: Jack on August 02, 2015, 11:43:44 AM
Just a small point on the those who are concerned about the info that MS might be gathering for different reasons, some of it they have to do for various laws within various countries post 9/11.
I wonder how many people use Google Chrome without releasing that Google have been doing a similar thing for quite a while. While I don't know about Apple but I'm betting they've being doing a similar thing for a while too. Social media is another harvester of personal data in the background, not that I use social media. For those who use apps on their smartphones have to accept similar data sharing. And so the list goes on.
Both MS & Google have ways of allowing you to switch some of the intrusions off, I don't know about the others.
Just a thought.....
Just another thought, if you had nothing to hide then what is the problem, we live in a terrible world and if it helps to uphold all of our safety then I am for it.
Oh please ... let's not go down that specious argument ... It's trotted out every time the Police & Gov't want to increase their monitoring powers ...
With regard to the updates issue in 10 of not having any control over them, what is installed and when, of serious concern to myself and my wife, not wanting automatic restarts in the midst of financial transactions etc.
Today my wife updated a failing Win 7 laptop to 10 as a test bed. It went without any problem, and there is an option in update prefs to control when restarts are done. Not as good as before, but better than nothing. Both boot-up and sign-in are quicker than 7.
As regards O/S backup there appears to be the ability to do this on her new Win 8.1 laptop through Windows (separate to the OEM backup of the recovery/clean install partition), and mention somewhere of doing this with 10 as well. We are going to double-check this. Just because a HDD fails shouldn't mean you need to re-purchase the OEM O/S.
Izzy
To Geoff and others -thanks for this thread; I probably would not have been aware of this and I have now successfully installed W10 on my laptop.
One question though - I have a 250Gb hard disk, and it is 90% full. My personal files are about 10Gb and I have MP3 files to the tune of about 11Gb. What are the other 200+ Gb? Is it all operating system? Or might the old Windows 7 files be there?
I di a complete fresh install - overwriting personal files, "apps" (!) and everything.
Cheers Jon :)
The OS is 11GB; I suggest you have a very hard look at all your extra files !
Thanks Mike,
Could you give me a bit more of a clue about what I should look for? Most of the directories on the C drive look like random digits...
The first is: OCa51595e888ffd4ae875c78c
The rest are mostly similar.
Sequence of events is
Install Windows 10 "fresh"
Install Microsoft office
Copy my files across from a removable hard drive
Install Avast virus checker....
Any tips gratefully received!
Cheers Jon :)
Could be anything, but sounds like a local cache of an installed application. Have a look inside the folder(s) ... see what you find.
Hmmm....
Checked the size of all the folders within C drive. Most of them are zero or trivial in size.
The only ones of any size are:
Windows 12.6Gb
Windows.old 40Gb
Users 24Gb
Which still doesn't add up to the 200Gb that it is telling me are used.
If I delete everything on the C drive, operating system, and all, and attempt to install Windows 10 again, will the installer still work?
Cheers Jon :)
Quote from: PostModN66 on August 02, 2015, 08:50:46 PM
Hmmm....
Checked the size of all the folders within C drive. Most of them are zero or trivial in size.
The only ones of any size are:
Windows 12.6Gb
Windows.old 40Gb
Users 24Gb
Which still doesn't add up to the 200Gb that it is telling me are used.
If I delete everything on the C drive, operating system, and all, and attempt to install Windows 10 again, will the installer still work?
Cheers Jon :)
Don't forget all the applications you have installed - this could easily make up the missing Gigabytes!!
:beers:
Hi Guys,
I am getting a bit out of my depth here, but just to be clear -
I did a completely fresh installation of Windows 10; all I then installed was Microsoft Office and Avast.
I imagined that doing it this way would not leave any legacy files or programs from my Windows 7 OS - in fact that was the whole reason for doing it!
So I haven't installed any "Apps......" (Actually I am not really 100% sure what an App is...!)
I will try deleting the C drive and reinstalling Windows 10 ........ here goes....!
Cheers Jon
Think I have sorted it.....
Seems to be "previous version of Windows" taking up 153Gb - now deleted.
What the hell was in there!!???
Cheers Jon :)
Quote from: PostModN66 on August 02, 2015, 09:42:30 PM
Think I have sorted it.....
Seems to be "previous version of Windows" taking up 153Gb - now deleted.
What the hell was in there!!???
Cheers Jon :)
Probably the previous version of Windows and all the crap you've accumulated over the years!! Glad you got it sorted Jon
:beers:
Yeah...it's a bit disappointing though - I had hoped that the fresh install would really start from scratch by deleting all the accumulated crap and effectively starting with a blank disk, but obviously not as fresh as advertised!
For my other PCs I wonder if there is a way to format the disk and truly start from fresh........
Cheers Jon :)
Sorry, but when you do an upgrade ... ... ::)
If you want a totally clean build, you need to d/load & save the installer (to USB or DVD), make that bootable, and select a clean build. Or buy a new disk & do it to there ... SSDs are cheap enough these days for a decent size for the OS.
Quote from: PostModN66 on August 02, 2015, 08:11:31 PM
One question though - I have a 250Gb hard disk, and it is 90% full. My personal files are about 10Gb and I have MP3 files to the tune of about 11Gb. What are the other 200+ Gb? Is it all operating system? Or might the old Windows 7 files be there?
I di a complete fresh install - overwriting personal files, "apps" (!) and everything.
Cheers Jon :)
Jon I believe that, even if you do a 'clean' install and reinstall all your applications, all the information relating to your previous Windows 7 installation and the installed applications are kept. This is done to allow you to roll back to your Windows 7 installation if you want to.
Once you're happy with your Windows 10 system you can Use Disk Clean to remove any files related to your previous Windows 7 installation and get all that precious disk space back.
:beers:
Just been delving into the issue of having to re-install Win 10 after the 1 year free upgrade period has ended, i.e. with regard to concerns that you'd then have to pay for it, should anything go wrong, failed HDD etc.
The answer, which may help those wanting a completely 'clean/fresh install' is to go here
and download this tool.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10)
It's the Win 10 installer, and the file from it can be put on USB flash drive or written as an ISO file to DVD. Although it states that you need to have a Win 10 product key, at the bottom is a clause that states that if you have previously upgraded the machine to Win 10 ( from 7/8/8.1) then this is not needed as activation will occurr when you go online. It seems to indicate that the server keeps a record of the upgrade to Win 10 status.
I thus take it that if you upgrade to Win 10 for free in the next year, and later the laptop/desktop whatever needs wiping and re-installing, then you can load Win 10 from this without problem. It is stated that if you have a Win 7 original machine all the OEM's hardware drivers may not be provided, (this might go for some Win 8/8.1 machines as well).
The answer here -as with the Vista upgrade discs of old - would be to use the OEM recovery discs you made (you did make them didn't you?) to load the machine as you first purchased it, and then upgrade it to Win 10.
It might be another option anyway.
Izzy
Out of interest how much space does Windows 10 take up when installed?
Curious as have a 32Gb SSD primary drive.
Quote from: Oldman on August 03, 2015, 12:08:27 PM
Out of interest how much space does Windows 10 take up when installed?
Curious as have a 32Gb SSD primary drive.
It seems that Windows keeps your old installation on disk in case you want to roll back. So 32gB may not be enough unless it stores the old stuff on different drive. I'm sure Microsoft must have considered this possibility and Windows 10 wil check for available disk space before installation.
:beers:
Quote from: Oldman on August 03, 2015, 12:08:27 PM
Out of interest how much space does Windows 10 take up when installed?
Curious as have a 32Gb SSD primary drive.
To quote myself off the previous page ::)
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 02, 2015, 08:14:02 PM
The OS is 11GB
Now ... you need to be a bit careful, as you will rapidly run out of space otherwise. Lots of tricks & tips on redirecting various items to other drives. I keep Users on another disk, and don't use virtual RAM (but you can send that to another disk too).
Apologies Mike, I missed that.
I currently have 7Gb clear so may not be able to do the upgrade.
All my documents and photos are either on the cloud and stored on an external stick. Don't know if I can move Office or not.
No worries ...
I'd not mess about with trying to relocate Office though ... shame you didn't deploy to the other drive. Although if you still have the media + license, you could uninstall & reinstall ...
Might be worth thinking about a new (larger) SSD though ? Assuming you can replace it & can boot off media with the Win10 installer on it ?
Cheers every thing came preinstalled apart from Office but should be able to download it again asI only got the computer this year.Version of Office is 365 with the cloud storage, same as is on my phone.
As I type this am copying every thing to the other disc.
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 03, 2015, 09:01:01 AM
Sorry, but when you do an upgrade ... ... ::)
If you want a totally clean build, you need to d/load & save the installer (to USB or DVD), make that bootable, and select a clean build. Or buy a new disk & do it to there ... SSDs are cheap enough these days for a decent size for the OS.
Yes, as I explained above (several times :D) I didn't do an upgrade but did a "fresh" install exactly as you describe - hence being surprised to find files still there (especially as on the menu it says "all files will be deleted"!!)
I think I will do it again, but this time use some software to destroy all data on the hard disk before booting from the USB, to make absolutely sure.
Cheers Jon :)
Quote from: PostModN66 on August 03, 2015, 02:12:09 PM
I think I will do it again, but this time use some software to destroy all data on the hard disk before booting from the USB, to make absolutely sure.
Cheers Jon :)
I downloaded the whole thing (both 32 and 64bit) from the Microsoft website and burnt it to a DVD and have installed from there onto my old WinXP laptop. :)
If you look at the install menus an option window comes up with various choices one of which is to format the donor hard drive, if you want to do a completely clean install then choose that option. I just let it install over my WinXP and I still have all my old files and programs available. I actually managed to run my old copy of Firefox that was in the "windowsOld" folder after Win10 was installed.
I've only installed Win10 to see what it was like and whether it would run on my 7 year old Dell laptop, using the MS Edge browser is a little slow but Firefox works fine. :)
Quote from: Oldman on August 03, 2015, 01:49:13 PM
Cheers every thing came preinstalled apart from Office but should be able to download it again asI only got the computer this year.Version of Office is 365 with the cloud storage, same as is on my phone.
As I type this am copying every thing to the other disc.
Ohhh, Office 365 ... shouldn't be much on your disk then for that ... Personally (and this goes just as much for Google's cloud-based apps as M$) I don't trust them with my data ... You give them permission to data-mine it when you store it with them, (well, why else are they offering you something free/cheap ? ::)); if my data is worth things to them, they can damn well pay me :P And it's not as if they never lose it either ! Just check out the reports of them managing to corrupt stored data ... But each to their own :)
Hi Caz,
For you to be able to try Win 10 on a computer running XP, did you have to do the download from your Win 7 Dell and then burn to disk?
Was there any issue with the system picking up that it was going onto an XP machine?
I've got an old computer running XP and wanted to give Win 10 a try on there.
Thank you
Trev
Quote from: Caz on August 03, 2015, 03:13:41 PM
Quote from: PostModN66 on August 03, 2015, 02:12:09 PM
I think I will do it again, but this time use some software to destroy all data on the hard disk before booting from the USB, to make absolutely sure.
Cheers Jon :)
I downloaded the whole thing (both 32 and 64bit) from the Microsoft website and burnt it to a DVD and have installed from there onto my old WinXP laptop. :)
If you look at the install menus an option window comes up with various choices one of which is to format the donor hard drive, if you want to do a completely clean install then choose that option. I just let it install over my WinXP and I still have all my old files and programs available. I actually managed to run my old copy of Firefox that was in the "windowsOld" folder after Win10 was installed.
I've only installed Win10 to see what it was like and whether it would run on my 7 year old Dell laptop, using the MS Edge browser is a little slow but Firefox works fine. :)
Yes - as I say (above, about five or six times), did the completely clean install option and it still left old Windows on....hence my surprise.
Cheers Jon :)
so if you installed over XP, how did it validate itself against an MS installatuion ( it looks for validated win 7/8 installs)?
I just logged on quickly but have been watching this thread since I "pre-booked" my upgrade some time ago (well watching anything W10 related really). I just can't wait to get rid of win 8 / 8.1 -but really all I want from it is a proper start bar back (hunting for something so simple as the power-off menu on mine is a mission most times). I just gave up the hope of anything as simple a user interface as windows XP now.
I'm a tad worried though: My pre-booking said I don't have to pay anything because I'm an 8.1 user -but worried I will have to now. Also, Sony have issued model numbers tested with no issues and whilst the serial number on mine is oh-so close, it's no cigar and it says not to install because of potential compatibility issues with my VAIO. I'm not sure what to make of that because it talks about all this new web browser stuff, which I don't use because I'm adamantly Firefox, and I don't use any on-line Microsoft account guff. My laptop is fairly workmanlike, very latest office should be OK? I use Corel for photo editing. Kaspersky should be OK?
...Would I get simple games like Solitaire and mahjong back? I miss very simple thing like that since going 8 > 8.1.
I have just cancelled my upgrade because there is a possible issue with doing a factory reset and on further investigation it appears that I will loose Media Player.
Quote from: Trev on August 03, 2015, 06:05:26 PM
Hi Caz,
For you to be able to try Win 10 on a computer running XP, did you have to do the download from your Win 7 Dell and then burn to disk?
Was there any issue with the system picking up that it was going onto an XP machine?
I've got an old computer running XP and wanted to give Win 10 a try on there.
Thank you
Trev
I used the link posted on this thread and selected the option to download now. From memory you have to select which package, I selected the top one and then it asks which language etc. It then offers you the choice of Win 32bit or 64bit so download whichever you need, my laptop is 32 bit but I also downloaded the 64bit for a friend.
At no time did it query that I had a WinXP machine even when installing (I've never had Win7 or Win8). Burn the image image file (iso) to a DVD, don't just copy it in file mode, it needs to burnt as an image. Once you have it burnt boot up with the DVD in drive and it should boot to the Win10 install option.
Even if you try a completely new install it still saves your old windows install in "windows_old" so you can still access the files and documents etc.
One caveat is that you need at least 2Gb of memory or it will be VERY slow, I've got 3Gb installed and haven't had a problem although the new Windows Edge browser is slow but Firefox and Opera run fine.
You will have to eventually buy a licence for Win10 as I think the install without a valid serial number is time limited. So far I'm really pleased with how it runs, runs faster than my XP sp3 did in the end and that is using a standard 2-1/2 inch 500Gb hard drive.
Quote from: Oldman on August 03, 2015, 08:04:59 PM
I have just cancelled my upgrade because there is a possible issue with doing a factory reset and on further investigation it appears that I will loose Media Player.
Which bit of media player are you worried about losing. I never used it for music but did for DVD's but there is a DVD player in Windows 10.
You might want to check this out in a bit more detail before you cancel your upgrade!!
:beers:
Many thanks Caz, much appreciated.
As I understand it, W10 does not have Windows Media Player. VLC is an excellent alternative. David.
Quote from: dannyboy on August 03, 2015, 08:31:16 PM
As I understand it, W10 does not have Windows Media Player. VLC is an excellent alternative. David.
I much prefer windows media player but I have VLC also because media player won't play everything. Much as I hate to admit, VLC is pretty darn good and plays most things without much fault -it's usually downloadable as a simple file also.
Further to my previous post I have found that if you navigate to the "windows_old" folder you will find sub folders for documents, program files etc, and if you go into the program files folder I have found a lot of my old WinXP programs still run fine. Paint Shop Pro is one I 've tried, likewise a couple of astronomy programs and also my main genealogy program "Ancestral Quest". Haven't been able to get Office to run, tells me to reinstall, likewise Adobe programs, that's tomorrow's task. :)
Further investigation has brought up other issues with some of my other software that I have to run under 8.1 is incompatibility with 10.
The particular software was designed for XP and is compatible with Windows 7.
Unfortunately the hardware cannot be changed without costing as much as the laptop.
can you use compatability mode? ( does it still exist?) for older programs
Quote from: dannyboy on August 03, 2015, 08:31:16 PM
As I understand it, W10 does not have Windows Media Player. VLC is an excellent alternative. David.
Just checked my installed Win10 and it certainly has Windows Media Player as part of the system. :)
There are various things that aren't installed anymore that may upset some people; and some of these have been wrongly interpreted in the Press ...
Media Player has, for example, been mixed up with Media Centre ... and I was asked why DVDs can no longer be used for anything :confused1: ...
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 03, 2015, 09:43:01 PM
There are various things that aren't installed anymore that may upset some people; and some of these have been wrongly interpreted in the Press ...
Media Player has, for example, been mixed up with Media Centre ... and I was asked why DVDs can no longer be used for anything :confused1: ...
Good point. :beers:
After going through Windows 10 I want to tell every one who has installed the operating system to go to your Privacy Settings because this is a must and very important if you do not want anyone looking at you via your web cam without invitation, plus there are plenty of ticked boxes to untick.
Careful Geoff ... you're on track (see what I did there :P Gotta keep it railway !) to upsetting all those who insist on no privacy settings; after all - disabling the webcam means you have something to hide !!! :hmmm:
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 04, 2015, 12:00:53 PM
Careful Geoff ... you're on track after all - disabling the webcam means you have something to hide !!! :hmmm:
Only my ugly face lol
I really like this new Windows, will finally officially update my XP when licences become available as it has some really good features..
I initially installed Win10 over XP on my oldish Dell laptop and it ran quite well so as an experiment I took the drive out of the Dell and put the drive into my slightly newer HP laptop which also has XP on it (came with Vista but I ditched it).
Thought it might protest, but no, was slow to start up and then proceeded to "configure the system" and then do updates, result was that it automatically installed all the right drivers for the HP, brilliant. It runs even better on this laptop mainly because it is a faster PC (has the same 3Gb of memory as the Dell).
Win10 is really a "breath of freshair" and once you get into it is quite configurable without too much hassle. A big :thumbsup: from me.
I can confirm Windows Media Player is very much alive and well. W10 has dedicated separate apps for TV/Video and Music but you can choose what to use as your default player quite happily.
I have had mixed fortunes on the Windows 10 front.
With my old(er) laptop the app appeared as expected and eventually I was invited to download and in due course install the update. My only complaint in this area was the length of time it took to download - some 12+ hours!!! The installation went ahead easily and quickly (under 2 hours) and I am now working my way through the wonderful world of a new OS.
My new(er) laptop did not and still does not display the upgrade app. I have tried all the fixes I have found within the help and troubleshooting areas of Microsoft but I still don't have the upgrade app. I have even tried a refresh then installation of all upgrades but it still won't play. Quite fed up with the whole mess really so I will leave things as is for now and maybe later I'll do a full return to factory setup and start again. There again maybe bypassing the upgrade app registration and loading direct may do the trick
I have heard that others have had similar problems and have given up. Maybe someone has found or will find a simple fix and will pass on the secret before I try any of the above.
you can still download the ISO files from MS and burn then to USB or DVD and then install from that
URl to follow
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO)
Or this guide:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2953843/windows/how-to-install-windows-10-on-your-pc.html#tk.nl_today (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2953843/windows/how-to-install-windows-10-on-your-pc.html#tk.nl_today)
Hi Railwaygun,
Thank you for your information and link. I will give it a try and let you know the results
Bill
Hi
I used the link supplied by Railwaygun and can report total success.
From start of download to the end of the installation took only 3½ hours, so I am now testing all the functions. Thank you once again
Bill
Its installed.
Its working (hence the post).
Its already annoyed me.
Won't let me use Cortana. I am not saying that is a massive problem, but why advertise something that cannot be used? Its saying "Cortana isn't supported in the region or language you have selected"
What, UK and English?!
Confused.
Skyline2uk
No longer confused.
Siri told me why...... ;)
Skyline2uk
my older laptop, win 7, has been displaying the upgrade icon for some time, so after backing up the hard drive onto an external, I went ahead, and here I am.
only disappointment so far is that there did not seem to be an option to choose what parts you wanted to install, so I've got edge which I was not worried about, and that car... thing which I would definitely not have bothered loading.
so far it seems to work ok, I left it last night to download, and then installed and updated drivers etc this morning while waiting for a call from the vet with the shepherd's blood test results.
my newer laptop, win 8, steadfastly refuses to upload one update, which the eligibility checker says is not installed, but when I click on the link for it, IE stops working, every :censored: time.
I'm just hoping that when I try to open a file on that one, which I have had opened on win 10, that it still works.
:hmmm: :uneasy:
alan
Quote from: class37025 on August 06, 2015, 04:08:00 PM
my newer laptop, win 8, steadfastly refuses to upload one update, which the eligibility checker says is not installed, but when I click on the link for it, IE stops working, every :censored: time.
Alan,
If you really must 'upgrade' ... on your Win10 system find the relevant KB article for the update & download the patch to USB; install that way.
Mike
cheers Mike,
I'll try that.
just would prefer to run the same system on both, though not a disaster if I can't.
alan
Installed (4 hours)
Turned everything I can off (Why the hell do I want Cortana/adverts/all sorts of monitoring etc?
Hate the new file manager.
It seems you can't turn off Windows defender permanently.
Laptop running very slow.
I'll give it a few days but not impressed.
That's all I needed to hear - definitely won't bother now!
:thankyousign:
Paul
anyone else on win 10 finding that graphics on the site are displaying in a weird way ?
piles of hatchings in certain areas, and members 'logos' also not displaying properly.
alan
Everything appears fine for me. I installed W10 three days ago and am quite pleased. One programme seems to have disappeared ??? and another would not work initially, but seems okay now.
Laptop upgrade from Windows 7.
It says it is downloaded.
Click on continue. It says it will take about 10 seconds to gather information before starting...........
8 hours later...............
I give up (for the time being)
Quote from: class37025 on August 06, 2015, 10:18:34 PM
anyone else on win 10 finding that graphics on the site are displaying in a weird way ?
piles of hatchings in certain areas, and members 'logos' also not displaying properly.
alan
working ok today, perhaps it just needed a restart,
I was also watching you tube, so don't know if that had anything to do with it.
alan
Quote from: GrahamB on August 06, 2015, 09:00:18 PM
Installed (4 hours)
Turned everything I can off (Why the hell do I want Cortana/adverts/all sorts of monitoring etc?
Hate the new file manager.
It seems you can't turn off Windows defender permanently.
Laptop running very slow.
I'll give it a few days but not impressed.
It seems I may have been a little hasty in my judgement. Yesterday, despite numerous reboots, my tired old laptop was doing a good impression of a slug having a lazy day.
This evening it's a Greyhound on steroids!
After installing the operating system it can take a few boots before things are back to normal, i have found this out with updating 4 computers.
started getting a popup on the side of explorer, some :censored: about deals. managed to opt out forever, which was confirmed, then it came back so went to programs, great find, and used its uninstaller.
hopefully that's it gone now.
used to get the skype window in the task bar with win 8, just used to click it and select exit skype, and it would disappear.
in win 10 it appeared again, but would not 'close window' or 'exit skype'
again into the files, and deleted it.
still got the logo on the task bar but hopefully that will go on the next restart.
alan
Having sorted out my laptop I started updating my daughters much newer desktop. That was over seven hours ago. It has failed three times so far. The screen just goes blank but the monitor says it's not in screen saver mode.
No amount of key pressing does anything. Left it blank for over an hour (1 hours since I decided to time it) so I don't think I'm rushing it.
Any ideas?
I've been hesitant to post this in fear of unleashing a firestorm, but here goes. My laptop was running Vista and was beginning to exhibit signs of the impending abandonment of that OS by Microsoft such as no more updates to IE and an increasing number of sites that tell me my browser is out of date. OK, I can use Firefox, but wait, Win10 was soon to come out...should I change to that :hmmm:? Then the Norton A/V subscription needed renewing, again :hmmm:. And the laptop hardware was getting a little long in the tooth (I'd already had one HDD die on me). And twice a week an average of 15 "Security Updates" were being downloaded and installed from MS, tying up the machine for at least half an hour at a time.
SWMBO said "why don't you just get a Mac, I love mine? That way you can be my tech support and not hide behind the claim that my iMac is too different from the PC."
Yikes, they're expensive! But wait, I have a keyboard, mouse, printer, monitor (actually a 24" TV)...why not a Mac Mini at under US$700 with all the software I need built in and bulletproof? It could have been under US$500, but I wanted to future-proof it with a healthy RAM and HDD.
So two weeks ago I bit the bullet and sprang for one. Reading this thread, I'm SOOO glad I did. Yes I know Win10 is a free update (although officially Vista users have to buy a new Win 7, Win 8 or Win 10 license), but did I really want to stay on the MS jalopy? So far, the only issues I have are that the "End" key takes me to the end of a page and not the end of the text when editing, and for some reason the "Insert Hyperlink" button on this forum no longer seems to be needed.
Sorry, I'll get the hat and coat and I know where the door is.
Jon
My laptop finally allowed me to do the upgrade.
I nearly panicked when my Rhino 3 CAD software would not let me save files in .stl format. However, all I had to do was re-load some add-ons. Problem solved.
My e-mails worked, Waterfox, Corel Draw 9, Nettfab Studio, Paint Shop Pro 7, all seem to be working.....................
So I have agreed to update the wife's laptop as well...................
I'm afraid that, for me, the breath of fresh air has turned rather stale.
Quite a few annoying little bugs had developed like...
Windows DVD player didn't work
Kept getting annoying pop up messages about virus programs and defender being switched off (Bitdefender always indicated it was on)
Internet connection kept dropping although my other computer worked fine.
BSOD with error message - eventually fixed
etc. etc. etc.
So I've now reloaded my Windows 7 system image to get back where I was before.
>:(
??? You reloaded Win7 or you used the regression option in Win10 ?
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 09, 2015, 10:09:24 AM
??? You reloaded Win7 or you used the regression option in Win10 ?
Neither Mike.
Before I 'upgraded' to Windows 10 I made a system image of my Windows 7 installation using Windows Backup and also made a Windows repair disk to boot from.
So all I did was to reload my Windows 7 system image by booting from the repair disk. So now everything is exactly as it was before I installed Windows 7 including all applications, settings etc.
:beers:
anyone know how to remove something from favourites in Win10 ?
I've tried right click on item, then click on remove, but nothing happens, and even after a restart the item is still there.
re going back to Win7, I too made an image of my hard drive, but forgot to make a repair disk. :dunce:
is there another way of 'going back' if I decide that Win10 is not for me ?
alan
Win10 has built-in regression, but only for 30 days I think
thank you Mike, guess I need to make my mind up then
alan
Have decided not to update and am going to do a restore to factory on 8.1
This is all putting me off... I can drive this forum with Vista!!!!
Or Anderpants, depending on which device I'm on :uneasy:
Got a message last week to say that Win10 was ready on my PC but decided to leave it until I had some time this week. Tried the link from the icon twice but both times the 10 sec prep time extended to over an hour so I gave up. Then I looked at Windows Update and it told me the download was ready so I clicked on that and off we went. Two hours later we had completed 75% of the upgrade when the screen went blank. As it had said it would be restarting several times I left it for an hour but then lost my patience. As I couldn't get it to wake I switched it off which it refused to do and then restarted by attempting to configure Win10. After 2 attempts the machine gave up and automatically went back to Win7. The following day I tried again but this time I left it to do its own thing and went out. When I came back after a couple of hours the screen was black and the machine would not wake. Eventually it sprung to life and revealed that is was once again at the 75% point of the upgrade and then it proceeded to configure Win10.
That was two days ago. Currently I have a working PC but if it doesn't start behaving itself by this time next week it is definitely going back to Win7. I do not like Edge and I hate it being plastered with adverts for rubbish I have no interest in. I cannot get Mozilla Firefox to work at all. I cannot get the new Mail app to work although I still have Outlook 2010, albeit constantly pestered with error message. I cannot open pdf documents with Adobe Reader, I have just about managed to open some Word and Excel documents but with error messages. AVG Antivirus appears to be working but AVG Tune Up won't open. None of the other programmes will work at all so the whole thing is a mess. As I am typing this I keep getting Application Error messages but I don't know which app it is talking about. Somebody please tell me that it will all sort itself out in a couple of days.
Frustrated of Leyland (aka Ron) :veryangry: :veryangry: :help:
I am using Waterfox on mine with no problems (so far)
Another question,do any of the free antivirus programs work properly?
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 09:31:25 AM
Another question,do any of the free antivirus programs work properly?
No antivirus programmes are 100%, (even the paid for ones). I use Avast along with Malwarebytes and have never had a problem. Avast will give you a sign that a site is ok and it has on a couple of occasions warned me that a site is not okay. I feel quite confident in my security using these two programmes. The main thing is not to open unsolicited links in emails and to use different passwords for each site - 'LastPass' is good in this respect. :) David.
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 09:31:25 AM
Another question,do any of the free antivirus programs work properly?
Do you mean in general (see DannyBoy's answer) on in Win10 specifically ?
'Win10, breath of fresh air'-----Really!!!!! :veryangry: :censored: :veryangry: :censored: :veryangry:
Decided to take the plunge and upgrade my daughters Asus laptop running 8.1 to Win10....What a :censored: nightmare!!!
Take one working machine, running reasonably fast, considering all the crap she's got on it like Spotify etc. Add 1 free Win10 upgrade, which actually worked fine to install = 1 disappointed daughter as her machine now runs like me doing a marathon (if you know me then you'll understand ;) ) Basically, when it boots she gets a very nice picture, but cannot get past this picture unless she presses CTL-ALT-DEL to get to the login screen, it then takes an age to boot, then if she selects the Notifications flag in the bottom right of the Taskbar, brings up that 'window' and selects any of the notifications, the process just hangs. "Press CTL-ALT-DEL and select Task Manager" I hear you all cry, did that and then the whole Machine just sits there, looking at me, goading me into pressing them again....so I do and that's it the Laptop just does nothing then, the HDD is active so I think that either 1. She has a bad sector on the HDD or 2. I just need to re-install Win10.
So how do I do that then??? When the Laptop itself won't work properly, long enough for me to navigate around to find the said install, or regression link???
The result is I've now had to drop it off to a PC shop I know to fix, as I don't have the time, as she needs it for Saturday morning.
I think I'll be hanging on for SP1 before I upgrade my Win7 Home PC, even though I have done a Recovery Disk.
Oh one more question, if I've partitioned my HDD to create a Windows Partition & Data Partition, does a Win10 upgrade override these partitions or will it just install straight to the Windows Partition??
Cheers
Neal.
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 12, 2015, 10:04:42 AM
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 09:31:25 AM
Another question,do any of the free antivirus programs work properly?
Do you mean in general (see DannyBoy's answer) on in Win10 specifically ?
Windows 10 specifically, currently using Avast on 8.1
Quote from: Calnefoxile on August 12, 2015, 10:29:36 AM
The result is I've now had to drop it off to a PC shop I know to fix, as I don't have the time, as she needs it for Saturday morning.
Shame you didn't ask here before dropping it off; as all it may need is some time (day or so) running to settle down. It may have been indexing things ...
CTRL-ALT-DEL is just because at some point (either before or during the upgrade) a password was set; useful in multi-person households, essential for business - but not really needed as you described.
Oh well ...
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 10:37:10 AM
Windows 10 specifically, currently using Avast on 8.1
No reason why not ? Are you on the latest version of Avast ? Current free release is 10.3.2225, definitions 150812-1 ... might be time up update !
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 10:37:10 AM
Quote from: MikeDunn on August 12, 2015, 10:04:42 AM
Quote from: Oldman on August 12, 2015, 09:31:25 AM
Another question,do any of the free antivirus programs work properly?
Do you mean in general (see DannyBoy's answer) on in Win10 specifically ?
Windows 10 specifically, currently using Avast on 8.1
I should have added that I have upgraded to W10 and am using Avast and Malwarebytes. As others have stated, there were one or two teething problems after installing W10, but now I am quite pleased with it. :) David.
All our computers are running fine with Windows 10, the 64 bit laptop would not run Edge but since an update night before last all is now fine, Microsoft do say that you do not need any antivirus programs but me being the sceptical person I have installed Avast and AVG on separate computers and all seems well at the moment.
Sorry to hear there are some of you having problems with the install, I have noticed with Dell Computers that they have published a compatibility sheet stating which models will run with Windows 10.
Yes Windows 10 is a breath of Fresh Air for some of us.
Maybe if you are having problems it could be down to certain hardware and might need investigating a little further with the manufacturers.
Well I have taken the plunge and updated. BUT cannot activate Windows 10 because the product key is blocked. Illegal copy? I am frustrated but a month to decide to revert or pay for a new product key at 2400 Rands, divide that by 20 and you'll know how I feel :veryangry:
When I installed on my 2 machines, I was all ready with the key, but it never asked me. When I checked in the help section, under activation, it said activated.
Quote from: Malc on August 12, 2015, 10:56:19 PM
When I installed on my 2 machines, I was all ready with the key, but it never asked me. When I checked in the help section, under activation, it said activated.
Thanks Malc that really makes me feel better :no: this process seems hit and miss. You got the hit and me :censored:
Hi Trev, it may be because after I burnt the ISO files, I couldn't boot from the Cd drives because I was dual booting with Linux. So just ran the startup.exe files on the cd instead.
Been doing more investigations and Edge was not going as fast as I would like it so I uninstalled Java from my machine and reinstalled it, then went to Start/All Apps/Java/Configure Java and in the security tab there is a tick box "Enable Java Content in the Browser" just untick, this made Edge work faster for me.
I installed W10 a couple of weeks ago, and all has been fine since. Quick bootup, and stable so far. The only thing I find annoying is that all of my favourites have got the associated URL with them, which means I get fewer on a screen, and I can't work out how to switch this off.
W10 decided to do an update this evening. That's 45 minutes of my life I won't see again. :veryangry:
Which version of Windows 10 do you have installed Graham is it home or pro?
If it is pro then you can choose to update when you are ready to update instead of Microsoft forcing it on you. I have to say that Microsoft slipped up not giving you this option in Home.
Quote from: Geoff on August 13, 2015, 10:43:50 PM
Which version of Windows 10 do you have installed Graham is it home or pro?
If it is pro then you can choose to update when you are ready to update instead of Microsoft forcing it on you. I have to say that Microsoft slipped up not giving you this option in Home.
It's pro and I've just changed the setting. Thanks.
:thankyousign:
Quote from: Calnefoxile on August 12, 2015, 10:29:36 AM
'Win10, breath of fresh air'-----Really!!!!! :veryangry: :censored: :veryangry: :censored: :veryangry:
Decided to take the plunge and upgrade my daughters Asus laptop running 8.1 to Win10....What a :censored: nightmare!!!
Take one working machine, running reasonably fast, considering all the crap she's got on it like Spotify etc. Add 1 free Win10 upgrade, which actually worked fine to install = 1 disappointed daughter as her machine now runs like me doing a marathon (if you know me then you'll understand ;) ) Basically, when it boots she gets a very nice picture, but cannot get past this picture unless she presses CTL-ALT-DEL to get to the login screen, it then takes an age to boot, then if she selects the Notifications flag in the bottom right of the Taskbar, brings up that 'window' and selects any of the notifications, the process just hangs. "Press CTL-ALT-DEL and select Task Manager" I hear you all cry, did that and then the whole Machine just sits there, looking at me, goading me into pressing them again....so I do and that's it the Laptop just does nothing then, the HDD is active so I think that either 1. She has a bad sector on the HDD or 2. I just need to re-install Win10.
So how do I do that then??? When the Laptop itself won't work properly, long enough for me to navigate around to find the said install, or regression link???
The result is I've now had to drop it off to a PC shop I know to fix, as I don't have the time, as she needs it for Saturday morning.
I think I'll be hanging on for SP1 before I upgrade my Win7 Home PC, even though I have done a Recovery Disk.
Oh one more question, if I've partitioned my HDD to create a Windows Partition & Data Partition, does a Win10 upgrade override these partitions or will it just install straight to the Windows Partition??
Cheers
Neal.
Right I've just got No2 Daughters Laptop back and it turns out her HDD was on the way out. This has now been replaced and Win8.1 has been reinstalled on her machine. I've also been advised not to install Win10 until I've upgraded her memory from 4Gb to 8Gb and SP1 has been released.
I was going to do my PC, but I think I'll hang on for the same reasons.
Cheers
Neal.
I have now installed Win10 on both a 32bit and 64bit laptop both which ran WinXP and both have only 3Gb of memory and Win10 runs fine, surprisingly the 32bit computer seems a little faster.
Still struggling with mine. Last night I got a message that I had to sign in to WiFiSense. What on earth is that? If I don't know what it is then I don't want it so why do I have to sign in to it? If it is something cloud based then I definitely don't want it. Anyway I couldn't find it so ended up signing in to my Microsoft account at which point the PC decided to restart and carry out a major upgrade, all on its own! Surprisingly a lot of things that didn't work suddenly started working. I even got Mozilla Firefox working but not for long before it crashed and now refuses to restart. It seems that everything that had a license key has lost the key rendering it useless or reverting to a trial version of the program. Fortunately my AVG Tune Up program, which I had just renewed suddenly started working so It is now beavering away putting everything back together. I am currently using Edge but I still don't like it.
Ron
So.....I replied (by email) to the little pop up from Microsoft about 10 days ago.
Hear nothing since.
Is there a long wait ?
So.....once I realised that the files had downloaded it was so easy.
Strarted at 1.30 and all up and running in less than 90 mins.
Looks good so far and no problems that I can see.
Hi,
Installed and seemed to be running ok but then I found out Outlook was receiving but not sending e-mails. Found a fix to this here:
https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Outlook-Send-Receive-error-0x800CCC13-after-upgrading-to-Windows-10-e8c575fa-3ac6-4d8d-89c8-dcb1bbb33085
Followed the instructions and everything seems fine now.
Regards,
Andy Hoskins
edge keeps shutting down :veryangry:
keep getting a pop up asking me what program I want to open something, when I have not opened anything new :veryangry:
win10 :censored:
where is the restore to proper windows button when you want it.
win 10 seems to have a life of it's own, one day fine, the next absolute :censored:
:help:
Seems a good place to for my first post! Upgraded to W10 yesterday, and it took an hour or so, and the machine seems faster. As I use W7 at work and W8.1 at home, W10 seems the best of both worlds. However, there was a small catch...
I use Onedrive and have been very happy with its integration with W8.1. It took me several hours of reading forums and testing options to stop Onedrive synchronising every 2 seconds, and get rid of the duplicate Onedrive icon in Windows Explorer.
But now that's fixed, all seems to be working, and I can go back to learning QGIS....
Jon
Leaving my PC on overnight on Friday with AVG Tune Up Disc Doctor running seems to have sorted everything out. Got up Saturday morning and everything was working fine. Only took five days to install. Been stable since apart from Windows Media Player crashing last night. My computer does seem to be a lot quicker generally but I still don't like Edge. I will stick with Mozilla Firefox now that it is working properly and they have updated it to be compatible with Windows 10. Firefox is now lightning fast.
Ron
Quote from: Sprintex on July 30, 2015, 12:41:16 PM
I'll stick with W7 thanks, every time they change it it takes ages to get used to where everything is again! :D
As for that Cortana thing after seeing the adverts it's just another step in the direction of the Zager & Evans song "In The Year 2525" :no:
Paul
Been running w10 for about 2 weeks now. It is simply wonderful IMHO. My only problem with it is that if it wants to update anything Microsoft it tends it interrupt programs. However, the system is so simple to use once set up (which takes a little time) even an idiot like me can use it. :o
Go back to w7, w8, vista and the like....absolutely no way.
Quote from: N Gauge Bob on August 19, 2015, 06:08:55 PM
Quote from: Sprintex on July 30, 2015, 12:41:16 PM
I'll stick with W7 thanks, every time they change it it takes ages to get used to where everything is again! :D
As for that Cortana thing after seeing the adverts it's just another step in the direction of the Zager & Evans song "In The Year 2525" :no:
Paul
Been running w10 for about 2 weeks now. It is simply wonderful IMHO. My only problem with it is that if it wants to update anything Microsoft it tends it interrupt programs. However, the system is so simple to use once set up (which takes a little time) even an idiot like me can use it. :o
Go back to w7, w8, vista and the like....absolutely no way.
Maybe I should give it another try. I did have quite a few problems when I installed it and I went back to Windows 7.
A lot of people have had no problems and like W10 - such as your good self.
I'll give it a few weeks so Microsoft can put out a few more updates and then try again
:beers:
Did one of my PC's over to Windows 10 From Windows 8 last night, It was an absolute breeze.
Its slightly different but I'm used to adapting as I was running one PC on Windows 8, one on Windows 7, And one on Vista :worried:
After I had upgraded to Windows 10 I did have one issue which was, when you shut the PC down it would start itself up again after 5 minutes, And every time you re shut it down it would just re start up again after 5 minutes.
Its an easy fix to prevent it should anybody get the same problem. Click on the link below to watch a video which has step by step instructions to guide you how to rectify it.
https://youtu.be/C_z0FyX86lo
Will I be upgrading the other PC's to Windows 10 :hmmm:
Too right I will!!! :D
Been running it for 10 days now and very happy with it.
Back to the old windows. Windows 8 was just so user unfriendly.
Quote from: austinbob on August 19, 2015, 06:12:48 PM
Maybe I should give it another try. I did have quite a few problems when I installed it and I went back to Windows 7.
A lot of people have had no problems and like W10 - such as your good self.
I'll give it a few weeks so Microsoft can put out a few more updates and then try again
:beers:
Ok... So I bit the bullet and reinstalled W10. The automatic upgrade whatsit didn't work so I had to download the media tool and install W10 that way.
No problems with installation at all. Windows DVD player worked for a while and then collapsed saying it had error 0x8004027d with no text. Dumped it and used VLC media player (free) which works great. Microsoft edge crashes out my ethernet adapter (it did the last time I installed it also) so set Google Chrome as default browser - no further problems so far.
Money 2001 worked this time without a registry hack but didn't recognise my old Money file. So spent a happy few hours setting Money up again - happy days!!
Touch wood everything is ok now. I like the Start menu where you can group all the programs you usually use without having shortcuts all over the desk top or in the task bar. - My Windows phone does that and its really nice to use.
Not much else is different to Windows 7. I won't be using Cortana, Edge, or DVD player.
So - lets see how we get on for the next 2 or 3 weeks. If all is ok I'll be happy and keep W10.
:beers:
Quote from: austinbob on August 24, 2015, 06:15:22 PMMicrosoft edge crashes out my ethernet adapter (it did the last time I installed it also) so set Google Chrome as default browser - no further problems so far.
Spoke too soon. Ethernet adapter crashed out on Chrome. Now trying Wireless connection which is slightly slower (40 Mbs rather than up to 60Mbs.
:'(
QuoteI won't be using Cortana, Edge,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, even if you don't actually use Edge, Win10 uses it all the time with no way of un-installing it. Those who use Ccleaner would have discovered that Ccleaner always asks to close Edge to continue cleaning even though Edge was never "opened" by a user.
When I asked a client of mine who works for Cisco (very large US computer Systems company) as a Computer Systems engineer about this issue he told me that basically if you use Windows 10 you have no choice as Edge is the way MS are turning towards a cloud based system.
Quote from: Jack on August 24, 2015, 07:32:30 PM
QuoteI won't be using Cortana, Edge,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, even if you don't actually use Edge, Win10 uses it all the time with no way of un-installing it. Those who use Ccleaner would have discovered that Ccleaner always asks to close Edge to continue cleaning even though Edge was never "opened" by a user.
When I asked a client of mine who works for Cisco (very large US computer Systems company) as a Computer Systems engineer about this issue he told me that basically if you use Windows 10 you have no choice as Edge is the way MS are turning towards a cloud based system.
So far all is ok using Wireless connection - even with Edge. Edge would crash the Ethernet connection very frequently.
:beers:
After a couple of weeks of relative stability Win 10 has started being stupid again and very little works so I decided that it was time to revert to Win 7. Found the button that says this option is only available for up to one month so, as I am well inside one month, I clicked. Then I got a message to say that I cannot revert to Win 7 "as all the files needed to do this have been removed from my PC!!!!" Now who did that?? I didn't because I wouldn't know how to! So it appears that I am stuck with Win 10. I AM NOT HAPPY!!!! GRRRR!!!
At the moment I am using Edge because Firefox won't open, neither will Outlook. I desperately need to do some urgent correspondence but Word keeps crashing and refusing to open documents. I can't connect my phone to sync my diary using Samsung Kies and I keep getting endless error messages that it can't do something because it can't read the memory. No wonder if somebody has pinched the files!!!
So far as I am concerned Microsoft have got a lot to answer for. Just give me back my tried, tested and trusted Win 7.
Ron
:confused1:
Sounds like you need to do a full rebuild :( ... hope you still have the original media for all your apps ?
Quote from: Lankyman on August 25, 2015, 05:19:21 PM
After a couple of weeks of relative stability Win 10 has started being stupid again and very little works so I decided that it was time to revert to Win 7. Found the button that says this option is only available for up to one month so, as I am well inside one month, I clicked. Then I got a message to say that I cannot revert to Win 7 "as all the files needed to do this have been removed from my PC!!!!" Now who did that?? I didn't because I wouldn't know how to! So it appears that I am stuck with Win 10. I AM NOT HAPPY!!!! GRRRR!!!
At the moment I am using Edge because Firefox won't open, neither will Outlook. I desperately need to do some urgent correspondence but Word keeps crashing and refusing to open documents. I can't connect my phone to sync my diary using Samsung Kies and I keep getting endless error messages that it can't do something because it can't read the memory. No wonder if somebody has pinched the files!!!
So far as I am concerned Microsoft have got a lot to answer for. Just give me back my tried, tested and trusted Win 7.
Ron
There is a reset computer option that reinstalls W10. Might be worth a try if you've run out of options.
:beers:
Thanks Bob but I would rather not have Win 10 although your suggestion might be my only option now. I would really like to go back to Win 7 and that is what Microsft promised I could do within one month. I didn't remove the files - Microsoft did when they installed Win 10. Are they in breach of contract? Can I sue them for the pain and suffering they are causing me. I don't really have the time to search the Microsft help site for a solution as I need to complete my correspondence. I can only do this now because Outlook and Firefox have temporarily restored after Word let me do one short document and then crashed again.
At my age time is too precious to be pratting about trying to get a stupid computer to work.
Ron
Quote from: Lankyman on August 25, 2015, 06:04:30 PM
Thanks Bob but I would rather not have Win 10 although your suggestion might be my only option now. I would really like to go back to Win 7 and that is what Microsft promised I could do within one month. I didn't remove the files - Microsoft did when they installed Win 10. Are they in breach of contract? Can I sue them for the pain and suffering they are causing me. I don't really have the time to search the Microsft help site for a solution as I need to complete my correspondence. I can only do this now because Outlook and Firefox have temporarily restored after Word let me do one short document and then crashed again.
At my age time is too precious to be pratting about trying to get a stupid computer to work.
Ron
Ron - another possibility is to go back to a system restore point before you had the problem. If you have one that is.
:beers:
Do you not have your original Win 7 disc? If not you can get Win 7 discs here
http://itrevive.co.uk/windows-7-home-premium-key-64bit.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6deeBRCswoauquC8haUBEiQAdq5zh0uuxZGtQT17G-BDngJ76LFvC9-gVayVfurh5Owpc0UaApv_8P8HAQ (http://itrevive.co.uk/windows-7-home-premium-key-64bit.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6deeBRCswoauquC8haUBEiQAdq5zh0uuxZGtQT17G-BDngJ76LFvC9-gVayVfurh5Owpc0UaApv_8P8HAQ)
Scroll down to the discs, the first item is only a licence for win 7 home .
If you already have a disc with another machine, then you can get the licence only and use that, you can also get a licence for Win 7 Pro if you have the relevant disc disc
I Did A laptop onto Windows 10 last night, So that's a desktop and a laptop done and both without any grief :bounce:
Quote from: austinbob on August 24, 2015, 07:17:16 PM
Quote from: austinbob on August 24, 2015, 06:15:22 PMMicrosoft edge crashes out my ethernet adapter (it did the last time I installed it also) so set Google Chrome as default browser - no further problems so far.
Spoke too soon. Ethernet adapter crashed out on Chrome. Now trying Wireless connection which is slightly slower (40 Mbs rather than up to 60Mbs.
:'(
Apparently this is a known issue with Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet adapters and is a driver issue. Have installed latest driver version 17.2.0.0 - so far so good even with Edge.
There are instructions on how to download and install the updated driver here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/broadcom-netlink-gigabit-ethernet-driver-network/c891eb95-8cea-4271-909e-21140eaaa1d2?auth=1 (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/broadcom-netlink-gigabit-ethernet-driver-network/c891eb95-8cea-4271-909e-21140eaaa1d2?auth=1)
Check out the 2nd post down for instructions
:beers:
A word of warning:
I installed it on mother-in-laws laptop. It's been OK for less than a week. Now on start-up it puts up a box saying 'Critical Error - Start and Cortana have stopped working....' etc etc. Only way out of the box is to close account (shut down) and restart, trouble is you get it when you start up again!
Searching on google reveals that this is a known and unfixed problem and has been present since early alpha days! Microsoft's only work around, which they admit will only work on some PCs, is to restart the PC in safe mode, then reboot in normal mode, may work, may not.
I'm now holding back and staying with Windows 7 for the time being!!
It's my turn to migrate from Windows 8.1 to 10, and it is scheduled to take place on the 1st September at 9pm (my choice).
So today been busy backing up everything I can in case of any problems.
The misses who was running Windows XP on her own Laptop and got upgraded to W10 2 days ago - but not without a few problems.
Keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly - what I didn't like with W8.1 was the Apps, as I prefer not to use them at all and run my PC from the Desktop screen.
When I moved to W8 from W7 also had a few problems with some software packages that would no longer run - even in any sort of compatibilty mode.
Hope all the software I now regularly use will work O.K. with W10 and I don't have to install and learn some new alternatives - keeping my fingers crossed.
I currently use Firefox, Gmail, and Incredimail, plus LibreOffice for Word Processing, Spreadsheets etc., on my Toshiba Satellite core I7 Laptop which has plenty of RAM & a 1 Terrabyte hard disk, so it should cope with W10 O.K..
Apart from the Windows Operating System, I avoid using any other Microsoft offerings if I can.
Quote from: Tdm on August 30, 2015, 06:39:08 PM
The misses who was running Windows XP on her own Laptop and got upgraded to W10 2 days ago - but not without a few problems.
I'm intrigued. How did she get upgraded to Windows 10 whilst on xP? I assume this was a paid for upgrade? Criteria for the free upgrade is that you must have Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. If that's not the case, please tell all!! I have an xP laptop that I'd risk a go at if it was free!
However, I do once again refer all to my post before TDM's regards the critical error problems!
Quote from: Wishmaster on August 31, 2015, 12:25:53 AM
Quote from: Tdm on August 30, 2015, 06:39:08 PM
The misses who was running Windows XP on her own Laptop and got upgraded to W10 2 days ago - but not without a few problems.
I'm intrigued. How did she get upgraded to Windows 10 whilst on xP? I assume this was a paid for upgrade? Criteria for the free upgrade is that you must have Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. If that's not the case, please tell all!! I have an xP laptop that I'd risk a go at if it was free!
However, I do once again refer all to my post before TDM's regards the critical error problems!
Microsoft have left a loophole, people with windows 7 and windows 8 who had a pc but never had an OEM number are being allowed to have the update for free after doing a fresh install, so XP users have been jumping on the band wagon, but it has to be a fresh install but you do have to talk to Microsoft to get the key and bluff them stating windows 7 or 8 was on your pc.
This is well publicised on the internet, do not take my word for this do your home work first, I am just stating what I have read on technical sites.
I run Vista at home (on phone at moment) and have done for 7 years. Vista was universally rubbished, but it does what I want and haven't had a prob with it. If it works, don't fix it, I reckon.
Mrs Bealman just bought a new laptop with Windows 8.1 on it, with the option of downloading W10. Nah, I'll leave well alone, methinks. Windows to the nth degree is meaningless to her anyway. Like I say, if it works, don't fix it.
Quote from: Geoff on August 31, 2015, 08:29:51 AM
Quote from: Wishmaster on August 31, 2015, 12:25:53 AM
Quote from: Tdm on August 30, 2015, 06:39:08 PM
The misses who was running Windows XP on her own Laptop and got upgraded to W10 2 days ago - but not without a few problems.
I'm intrigued. How did she get upgraded to Windows 10 whilst on xP? I assume this was a paid for upgrade? Criteria for the free upgrade is that you must have Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. If that's not the case, please tell all!! I have an xP laptop that I'd risk a go at if it was free!
However, I do once again refer all to my post before TDM's regards the critical error problems!
Microsoft have left a loophole, people with windows 7 and windows 8 who had a pc but never had an OEM number are being allowed to have the update for free after doing a fresh install, so XP users have been jumping on the band wagon, but it has to be a fresh install but you do have to talk to Microsoft to get the key and bluff them stating windows 7 or 8 was on your pc.
This is well publicised on the internet, do not take my word for this do your home work first, I am just stating what I have read on technical sites.
It could have been Windows 7 on her PC and not XP, it's just that we still have a couple of previously used Laptops with XP on them which I now & again use, and I may have got confused.
As most people on this Forum know I have an old Sony camcorder that writes to 3" disks, and my latest Laptop CD ROM won't read these disks when I want to Import some new video footage for some reason, but my previous XP Laptop reads them fine, so I 1st copy the 3" disk content using the old Laptop & Sony s/ware, then output the resultant files to a flashdive which I then put in the new Laptop, for importing into AVS Video Editor which I use to create the final Video.
You are suposed to be able to connect the camcorder direct to a PC via a USB port as apposed to physically manhandling disks, but that option doesn't work either with W8.1.
Curiously, my PC is dual boot with Zorin, so the boot from CD option doesn't work. I downloaded the image and blew it onto a Cd, but just ran the install.exe file from the windows 7 desktop and away it went. Had to sit and watch it as when it tries to reboot during the installation, it defaults to Zorin. Never asked for a key though. Been OK for about 3 weeks now.
Been using Windows 10 for a few days now, and apart from one piece of software I use daily that no longer displays on the screen as it should, everything else seems to be working fine, but it is early days at the moment.
Quote from: Wishmaster on August 31, 2015, 12:25:53 AM
Quote from: Tdm on August 30, 2015, 06:39:08 PM
The misses who was running Windows XP on her own Laptop and got upgraded to W10 2 days ago - but not without a few problems.
I'm intrigued. How did she get upgraded to Windows 10 whilst on xP? I assume this was a paid for upgrade? Criteria for the free upgrade is that you must have Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. If that's not the case, please tell all!! I have an xP laptop that I'd risk a go at if it was free!
However, I do once again refer all to my post before TDM's regards the critical error problems!
Upgrade XP to 7 then to 7.1 and then on to 10 all of which are free but do it over a few days.
The September 2015 of the Aussie electronics mag Silicon Chip has a very interesting letter by Geoff Graham in it's mailbag section. Geoff is a respected contributor to the magazine, and the designer of the Maximite, Minimite and Micromite computer projects. His website is here for anyone interested:
http://geoffg.net/index.html (http://geoffg.net/index.html)
Anyway, the gist of his letter concerns a recent trip to Europe (he lives in Australia), when he purchased a local 1GB SIM card for his phone. Without asking, Microsoft apparently proceeded to download Windows 10, and used up his entire data allocation!
He also mentions that apparently one of the features of Windows 10 is that you cannot opt out of their automatic update service, essentially putting hundreds of millions of computers under their control!!
I think I'm going to give this product a wide berth, at least for the time being!
Quote from: Bealman on September 04, 2015, 03:00:56 AM
The September 2015 of the Aussie electronics mag Silicon Chip has a very interesting letter by Geoff Graham in it's mailbag section. Geoff is a respected contributor to the magazine, and the designer of the Maximite, Minimite and Micromite computer projects. His website is here for anyone interested:
http://geoffg.net/index.html (http://geoffg.net/index.html)
Anyway, the gist of his letter concerns a recent trip to Europe (he lives in Australia), when he purchased a local 1GB SIM card for his phone. Without asking, Microsoft apparently proceeded to download Windows 10, and used up his entire data allocation!
He also mentions that apparently one of the features of Windows 10 is that you cannot opt out of their automatic update service, essentially putting hundreds of millions of computers under their control!!
I think I'm going to give this product a wide berth, at least for the time being!
Automatic updates are only automatic on windows 10 home and not on the pro, Automatic updates are there to protect you from hackers I doubt microsoft are going to hack you they might have data going back to them about what programs you use on your system.
Actually, the author of the letter voiced similar sentiments at the end of his piece, but added that while Microsoft would not do the intentional wrong thing, an unscrupulous CEO might.
Quote from: Bealman on September 04, 2015, 06:47:45 AM
Actually, the author of the letter voiced similar sentiments at the end of his piece, but added that while Microsoft would not do the intentional wrong thing, an unscrupulous CEO might.
For a part of my life I hated Microsoft and thought they were a money robbing company and were not friendly towards users, I went over to Ubuntu and I thought it was fantastic but I could not run any programs I owned, not sure what it is like now but I am so grounded with Microsoft, I have tried Linux and Microsoft and Microsoft wins hands down, I use to have more PC's than I could handle at one time with different operating systems on them, I understand there are people out there who totally hate Microsoft and like to ward people off and go over to other operating systems, and this is what I do not understand if folks want Microsoft new operating systems then its there choice its not bad, the start up times and shutting down times are fat, remember the days of window 3.1 well it has come on leaps and bounds and I for one am happy with my experience, so Microsoft keep throwing out free software lol.
Microsoft does not rule there are other choices but for me at the moment I am sticking with Bill Gates.
Thanks, Geoff. Frankly I don't really care... I run Vista on my laptop 'cos that's what it came with. I am a big believer in "if it works, don't fix it" and it does what I want it to do, even to the point of working my new toy... running Arduino.
The guy who wrote the letter is no techno slouch, and I just found his thoughts worth sharing here. :thumbsup:
George
Well, Windows 10 has now finally done for my PC. The other, day, when things had just got too bad to handle and Windows couldn't go back to Windows 7 I decided to do a manufacturer's restore to factory settings, it failed with 99% of the installation complete. Now if the PC is plugged in it keeps trying to reinstall, then fails and keeps going round in a loop. Every time you switch it off it starts again so the only way to shut it down is to unplug it.
I rang Microsoft and after an hour they declared that my PC was indeed corrupted by the upgrade and that it had been caused by the manufacturer not updating the drivers. They advised that I ring Packard Bell and get a system restore disc. My PC is just under 4 years old so not, in my opinion, "old." However PB confirmed that no manufacturer has issued updated drivers for "old" computers and it seems that their definition of old is "out of warranty."
My gripe is that no-one issued a warning that such a situation could arise and I don't believe I am the only one in this situation in the world. It's now costing me £51 for a rescue disc which will arrive in 5 to 7 days. Then I will have to replace the software programs that were for one computer only as they probably won't install again.
If you have a PC that is out of warranty and are considering upgrading to Windows 10 then DON'T. :veryangry: :veryangry: :veryangry:
Ron
Lankyman - the problem could be geographical!?.
1st Leyland man NewportNobby has his hard drive go belly up, then yourself, also from Leyland has W10 bugger up your PC.
No - seriously sorry to here of your problem, but is there not a Computer "buff" near you that you know you could get to take a look at your PC to see if he can fix it?
Quote from: Bealman on September 04, 2015, 08:41:47 AM
I am a big believer in "if it works, don't fix it" and it does what I want it to do,
Great minds think alike ;) I wouldn't dream of trying to stick W10 on my Win7 laptop after reading this thread :no:
Paul
I'm always amazed when someone does a major upgrade (such as Windows 10) but doesn't take basic precautions such as making a system backup first ... :doh: Surely that's just common sense ???
Oh well ... ::)
Quote from: MikeDunn on September 09, 2015, 10:14:47 PM
I'm always amazed when someone does a major upgrade (such as Windows 10) but doesn't take basic precautions such as making a system backup first ... :doh: Surely that's just common sense ???
Oh well ... ::)
The thing is Mike is that not everyone is as computer savvy as you. Many people take software upgrades on trust and believe things will work out ok because the big Microsoft says everything is ok.
That's a perfectly reasonable stance to take. Now those of us who have had our fingers burnt with dodgy updates know better but lets give others a bit of slack. :beers:
Bob,
Allowing a patch update to go on is one thing - but not backing up before a full-blown operating system replacement though ???
Even my wife (who is not computer-savvy in the slightest !) knows she should make backups before anything of that magnitude.
Ron sorry to hear about your upgrade troubles, 4 Years is not an old PC but it just goes to show how fast hardware goes out of date and manufacturers do not want to update its drivers for loyal customers hardware, my laptop is 8 years old and it accepted Windows 10 with no problem, £51 does seem a lot for a rescue disk, seems strange you could not revert back to Windows 7 but I am sure you tried all options, only thing I can suggest to any one is to check that your computer can accept windows 10 from the Manufacturers site, My 2 year old Dell laptop was listed, but my 8 year old Acer was not but I did back up my system before going for it, also I have a home built PC which is about 4 years old and all was fine.
All the best with your rescue disks and I hope you get up and running asap.
Windows 10 has been specified to get rid of the bodges introduced to get around the failings poor designs of PCs by hardware manufacturers.
As I understand it the habit of hardware manufacturers overwriting Windows code to get their PC to work, that has historically resulted in incompatibilities has been banned by Microsoft.
If the Windows 10 rules are kept, only the PC BIOS can be changed to bring a PC in line with Windows 10 and there after every upgrade form Microsoft will work without tripping up over a hardware manufacturers bodge, or so the theory goes.
Well good luck to them I applaud the idea, and if it works great.
However it means that all the previously bodged PC designs wont upgrade, and its probably just as well they don't as they would be highly unstable if they were upgraded (there are ways to do it!).
My best advice is if your PC wont upgrade easily then its not a good idea to upgrade it.
As for those who have been able to upgrade, it is definitely worth doing.
As a point of reference I (and my family ) have seven PC's between us. Three upgraded and the other four - all Dell computers - failed on a memory sharing violation, where Dell had stuck some code where Windows expected it ti be free.
Quote from: MikeDunn on September 09, 2015, 10:37:08 PM
Bob,
Allowing a patch update to go on is one thing - but not backing up before a full-blown operating system replacement though ???
Even my wife (who is not computer-savvy in the slightest !) knows she should make backups before anything of that magnitude.
Like you Mike, I'd like to think that everyone knows to back their systems up under these circumstances but many don't or won't. Many people rightly or wrongly trust Microsoft and as this update to Windows was largely automatic (with no Microsoft warning to back up their previous system as far as I am aware) they take it on trust that the upgrade will just work.
:beers:
For the record - I did a full system back up onto a separate hard drive and I still have that. I also copied all my personal documents onto a different portable drive and that now what I have to use plugged into my Notepad. When the Windows 10 upgrade started the first thing it did was create a system restore point and a back up. When we looked last week there is a hidden drive with the Packard Bell restore system. When I started the Packard Bell restore system the first thing it did was a back up which was 100% complete. Then it commenced the installation which got to 99% after an hour and then it froze for the next three hours. Thinking it had completed the installation but only tripped up at the final hurdle, on the advice of an expert I restarted the PC at which point I lost everything as I cannot now open the PC as there is no functioning operating system. Fortunately I do still have the back up and all my files on separate drives which will help the restoration once I get the OS restored.
I admit that I am not computer savvy although I am probably above average.and I have taken advice at every stage. Therefore I do not see what else I could have done. The problem with the world today is that people like Microsoft and Packard Bell think that everybody is an expert these days. If they have put out a warning about checking compatibility then I have missed it. I do find the Microsft website very confusing and lacking in real advice when you have a problem. Ron
Quote from: Lankyman on September 10, 2015, 09:49:55 AM
For the record - I did a full system back up onto a separate hard drive and I still have that. I also copied all my personal documents onto a different portable drive and that now what I have to use plugged into my Notepad.
Good man :thumbsup: The problems you have experienced are exactly why this is essential. You should be back to normal soon, once you get the Recovery Disk applied & can restore (still surprised you were charged £50+ for it though :hmmm:)
Quote
I do find the Microsft website very confusing and lacking in real advice when you have a problem. Ron
Depends what part ... certainly, the TechNet is not aimed at the userbase but at the techie community. And sometimes, even us techies read stuff there & go "What the..... ???" ::) One of the biggest problems is because MS is such a large company with a massive software base. That can make finding appropriate material very tricky.
Old Joke from the 90's
A Helicopter is lost in the fog over Seattle.
Finally the pilot edges up to a building and shouts
"Where am I?"
The reply came back immediately.
"You are in a helicopter"
The pilot thanks them and flies directly to the airport and lands.
"How did you do that asked the passenger"
"Well" says the pilot "I asked a simple question and got a perfectly correct but useless answer"
"So I knew I was next to the Microsoft building"
Quote from: Bealman on September 04, 2015, 03:00:56 AM
The September 2015 of the Aussie electronics mag Silicon Chip has a very interesting letter by Geoff Graham in it's mailbag section. Geoff is a respected contributor to the magazine, and the designer of the Maximite, Minimite and Micromite computer projects. His website is here for anyone interested:
http://geoffg.net/index.html (http://geoffg.net/index.html)
Anyway, the gist of his letter concerns a recent trip to Europe (he lives in Australia), when he purchased a local 1GB SIM card for his phone. Without asking, Microsoft apparently proceeded to download Windows 10, and used up his entire data allocation!
He also mentions that apparently one of the features of Windows 10 is that you cannot opt out of their automatic update service, essentially putting hundreds of millions of computers under their control!!
I think I'm going to give this product a wide berth, at least for the time being!
All of which makes this guy's letter in a globally respected magazine seem more relevant.
Quote from: Bealman on September 10, 2015, 10:20:27 AM
Quote from: Bealman on September 04, 2015, 03:00:56 AM
The September 2015 of the Aussie electronics mag Silicon Chip has a very interesting letter by Geoff Graham in it's mailbag section. Geoff is a respected contributor to the magazine, and the designer of the Maximite, Minimite and Micromite computer projects. His website is here for anyone interested:
http://geoffg.net/index.html (http://geoffg.net/index.html)
Anyway, the gist of his letter concerns a recent trip to Europe (he lives in Australia), when he purchased a local 1GB SIM card for his phone. Without asking, Microsoft apparently proceeded to download Windows 10, and used up his entire data allocation!
He also mentions that apparently one of the features of Windows 10 is that you cannot opt out of their automatic update service, essentially putting hundreds of millions of computers under their control!!
I think I'm going to give this product a wide berth, at least for the time being!
All of which makes this guy's letter in a globally respected magazine seem more relevant.
That makes sense.
If the manufacturers stick to the rule automatic updates are not going to be a problem, but in the next six months a lot of people will be pulling their hair out with old hardware.
A footnote to my last post.
Has anyone noticed how few PC manufacturers are offering new Windows 10 machines.
The reason is most motherboards are suspect for windows 10.
The time to go to windows 10 is when you buy a new PC - that does not need come with a "special" manufacturers drivers disk. I would guess in about six months.
My wife's Sony Vaio Laptop which is quite a few years old, upgraded from from W7 Home Premium to W10 O.K., and my newer Toshiba Laptop which was running W8.1 has also upgraded to W10 sucessfully with just a couple of minor anomolies noticed so far when running some old s/ware.
I think the poster on here who said some manufactuers who previosly overwrote bits of Windows s/ware to suit their machines was correct, and it is these that are now giving problems.
If you use CNET's Download.com software at all, in their current online newsletter they are offering "tips" on W10 on how to do or correct certain things and it is woth taking a look at this.
Mrs Bealman just bought a new one which was advertised as immediate update from 8.1111 (recurring) :worried:
When she powered it up it immediately presented an upgrade now screen.
I suggested she decline, and so far it still works.
That's the point... it WORKS. :thumbsup:
Now beginning to have some reservations about Windows 10.
Finding some of my regularly used s/ware applications will not run as they did before, or are no longer giving me the menus & options I once had.
Latest one is Microsofts own Digital Image Editor (albeit a 2006 version) which ran fine under W8.1 but won't load a useable Menu screen under W10 like it did previosly.
Just had my first problem with Windows 10 after about a month.
Was using MS Excel earlier and sent a document to print which failed as I'd forgotten to switch on the printer.
This seemed to phase Office completely to the fact that I couldn't print, change or save any document in any of the Office suite.
Tried running the Office repair facility which froze on me.
So....had to uninstall office and reinstall. This worked OK but then had to reset my printer and browser options to other than the Microsoft defaults.
Anyway, after about two hours I'm back to where I should be and all is working again.
Windows 10 working for over a month or so then BSOD 'Kernel_Security_Check_Failure - system will restart.
Restarted OK but what was that all about???
Google seems to come up with loads of possibilities but what the :censored:
Anyone any REAL clues about this?
>:(
Quote from: Tdm on September 11, 2015, 02:18:06 PM
Now beginning to have some reservations about Windows 10.
Finding some of my regularly used s/ware applications will not run as they did before, or are no longer giving me the menus & options I once had.
Latest one is Microsofts own Digital Image Editor (albeit a 2006 version) which ran fine under W8.1 but won't load a useable Menu screen under W10 like it did previosly.
Mine is strange.
Every once in a while...sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes an hour...... my screen goes completely blank for a second or two.
Quote from: N Gauge Bob on September 13, 2015, 07:31:06 AM
Quote from: Tdm on September 11, 2015, 02:18:06 PM
Now beginning to have some reservations about Windows 10.
Finding some of my regularly used s/ware applications will not run as they did before, or are no longer giving me the menus & options I once had.
Latest one is Microsofts own Digital Image Editor (albeit a 2006 version) which ran fine under W8.1 but won't load a useable Menu screen under W10 like it did previosly.
Mine is strange.
Every once in a while...sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes an hour...... my screen goes completely blank for a second or two.
Check your graphic drivers are up to date.
Alternatively, remember what Adam said to Eve: "If you're that frustrated, go get an apple!"
And look at all the trouble that then happened ... >:D >:D >:D >:D
Sorry, but you left yourself wiiiiiiiiiiiide open :P
Hallelujah!!! I've got my PC back in full working order thanks to the seven recovery discs from Packard Bell and a lot of patience. I also have all my files back in place thanks to my back ups. However, I don't have all the programmes I had installed before so it will be a long time before I get it like it was, if ever. The most annoying thing is that I used Outlook 2010 to manage my e-mails but I lost that and I have had to buy a copy of Outlook 2013 which is not quite the same. Although I have folder of archived Outlook files the new Outlook doesn't seem to want to connect with them and I have also lost my contacts list which has taken me many years to build up. Hopefully my phone and iPad might come to the rescue with that one when I download the appropriate programmes to get them to connect. A lot of work to be done but getting there.
Ron
And for each uninstall of any program,you have to restart your pc..which was a pain..back to win7 again. :claphappy:
Quote from: iceboy on February 23, 2016, 07:59:30 PM
And for each uninstall of any program,you have to restart your pc..which was a pain..back to win7 again. :claphappy:
Never had a problem with windows 10, we have 4 machines running windows 10 with no problems would never go back always forward, you know it makes sense.
When I loaded W10 initially it worked quite well - no problems, installed OK and seemed easy to get on with. First upgrade took quite a while but seemed OK.
Now two upgrades down the line it runs slower, hangs up or takes ages to open the required application. Where it locks up completely the only option is to shut down (or one or two occasions, just switch off the power completely as it would not respond) and then restart.
Edge is slow now. Cortana has never worked for me. Mail is probably the worst e-mail package ever, does not synch for ages or not at all, Archive is where you put things you want to lose forever :thumbsdown: There were many features that were really useful and protected users in Outlook that have been omitted completely in Mail - a massive step backwards. Despite looking at the user noticeboards, requested improvements to bring it up to the standard that was offered in W7/W8 are not mentioned as part of upgrades nor are any dates for their possible implementation forthcoming.
I'm glad I only added this to one of my machines. Too late now to change back - too much aggravation especially as planning on new PC.
Regrettably, W10 looks like it was released long before any bugs or problems were ironed out.
Unfortunately with a new PC, W10 will be the operating system offered - unless I can find a W8 one on offer.
Maybe I am one of the lucky ones who has no problems, I have never had any lock ups all the programs I use start up fast, I have 32 bit and 64 bit machines the main one I use all the time at work is 7 year old laptop and I thought it would not run windows 10 well, the only thing I do is make sure the is no rubbish on my machines, I run Advanced system care and make sure all my drivers are up to date I do believe this is an important factor, I can access all printers easily at home and work, I have had the odd one piece of malware that I took care of straight away, maybe I am computer savvy and there are certain things I have stopped windows from doing I think that has been spoke about on this thread.
My Windows 10 are the professional versions and on one machine I had to change over to professional version because I did not like windows restarting my machine when I was working on it and that was my only main gripe.
I run Windows live mail which I like and on my works machine I am running Office 7 and I have Office 10 on my other machines at home.
I do find that a lot of people do not like change but I am the complete opposite and if there is a niggle
I try to find where it is.
Windows 8 I detested from day 1 but I changed things on board like the start button for instance but I have fitted a lot of windows 8 tablets to control panels which boot straight to a program to control heating systems with Windows 8.1 and a lot of companies will not go over to Windows 10 until certain niggles are sorted.
My 32 bit machine came with Windows Vista and that was full of bugs I could not wait to upgrade from that so maybe thats why I enjoy installing and using new operating systems.
If I was starting out again with no machines to my name then I would go down the Apple route, even though they are more expensive I feel they have less problems than what Microsof have had in the past.
I have to say, apart from one or two problems I much prefer Windows 10 to Windows 8.
I only have the standard version though, whereas on my previous machine I had Windows 7 Professional which was quite good.
Still finding the odd thing happening, and have still one major outstanding problem with Windows 10 in that I can't access one of my online Bank a/cs on it, whereas I still can on the W7 machine. It is a Spanish Bank a/c that I am having problems with since upgrading from W8 to W10, but accessing my U.K. Bank a/c works fine. Must call into the local branch of my local Bank to see if I need an upgrade to their software to solve the problem.
Quote from: Geoff on February 24, 2016, 09:22:08 AM
If I was starting out again with no machines to my name then I would go down the Apple route, even though they are more expensive I feel they have less problems than what Microsof have had in the past.
Speaking as someone who works with computers professionally, I HATE ALL COMPUTERS. But on the whole I've got very good value for money from my MacBook Pro, which is coming up to 5 years old and still running fine, despite having effectively circumnavigated the globe several times (I keep thinking I should buy a new one, but then I work out what the price is in new trains and decide it can keep going for a while longer). Moreover, I persuaded my parents to make the switch, which has reduced the number of support calls to about zero.
The only time I ever use Windows is to run SCARM (yes, I could probably run it under WINE but it's less hassle on a VM under Windows 7). I did try Windows 8 (in a VM) but it reminded me so much of Windows 3 without the intuitive usability I gave it up right away.
Posted from a Linux desktop
Quote from: railsquid on February 24, 2016, 02:46:10 PM
Quote from: Geoff on February 24, 2016, 09:22:08 AM
If I was starting out again with no machines to my name then I would go down the Apple route, even though they are more expensive I feel they have less problems than what Microsof have had in the past.
Speaking as someone who works with computers professionally, I HATE ALL COMPUTERS. But on the whole I've got very good value for money from my MacBook Pro, which is coming up to 5 years old and still running fine, despite having effectively circumnavigated the globe several times (I keep thinking I should buy a new one, but then I work out what the price is in new trains and decide it can keep going for a while longer). Moreover, I persuaded my parents to make the switch, which has reduced the number of support calls to about zero.
The only time I ever use Windows is to run SCARM (yes, I could probably run it under WINE but it's less hassle on a VM under Windows 7). I did try Windows 8 (in a VM) but it reminded me so much of Windows 3 without the intuitive usability I gave it up right away.
Posted from a Linux desktop
I tried Linux but could not get use to it and that was in the early days I suppose it runs a little better now with updated Kernals.
Quote from: Geoff on February 24, 2016, 03:05:57 PM
Quote from: railsquid on February 24, 2016, 02:46:10 PM
Quote from: Geoff on February 24, 2016, 09:22:08 AM
If I was starting out again with no machines to my name then I would go down the Apple route, even though they are more expensive I feel they have less problems than what Microsof have had in the past.
Speaking as someone who works with computers professionally, I HATE ALL COMPUTERS. But on the whole I've got very good value for money from my MacBook Pro, which is coming up to 5 years old and still running fine, despite having effectively circumnavigated the globe several times (I keep thinking I should buy a new one, but then I work out what the price is in new trains and decide it can keep going for a while longer). Moreover, I persuaded my parents to make the switch, which has reduced the number of support calls to about zero.
The only time I ever use Windows is to run SCARM (yes, I could probably run it under WINE but it's less hassle on a VM under Windows 7). I did try Windows 8 (in a VM) but it reminded me so much of Windows 3 without the intuitive usability I gave it up right away.
Posted from a Linux desktop
I tried Linux but could not get use to it and that was in the early days I suppose it runs a little better now with updated Kernals.
It's a lot better than it used to be, I'm always surprised by how much just works out of the box, and reading various woes with recent Windows versions I wonder why people still think Windows is somehow "easy". However if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to choose between my Linux desktop and the MacBook I'd choose the MacBook, as things like Skype and video editing are way easier. (If the choice was between the bullet and Windows I'd go with the bullet).
not sure if anyone else has been having the same problem, but over the last 7 - 14 days broadband has been really bad.
large numbers of site wont display, and if I use the troubleshooter sometimes comes up as a network protocol missing, sometimes unable to diagnose problem.
I'm using windows 10 on a laptop, with fibre optic broadband from plusnet.
I also use their plusnet/MacAfee security suite, which says all ok, no problems on the regular scans.
had a 'chat' with one of their guys this evening, and he said they are aware of an issue with, I think, one of their routers [he just referred to a item with letters and numbers] with users running windows 8.1 and 10, and said their tech department would send an update to my router which should solve the problem, should be done in 24 - 72 hours time.
don't know if this of any help to anyone else.
regards
alan
Hi Alan
Thanks for that.
We have been having EXACTLY the same problems here running on fibre optic broadband from PlusNet (Windows 10 on one pc and 8.1 on the other).
However, our iphones and ipad run normally.
We also run Norton and Super Antispy which show up no unusual problems.
We've also been in contact with PlusNet but they haven't mentioned to us anything about a known fault.
Their only suggestion was to suggest changing channels on the router which hasn't altered anything.
I have raised a priority support call from them (on Monday) but have heard nothing since.
Martin
Quote from: port perran on February 24, 2016, 09:02:00 PM
Hi Alan
Thanks for that.
We have been having EXACTLY the same problems here running on fibre optic broadband from PlusNet (Windows 10 on one pc and 8.1 on the other).
However, our iphones and ipad run normally.
We also run Norton and Super Antispy which show up no unusual problems.
We've also been in contact with PlusNet but they haven't mentioned to us anything about a known fault.
Their only suggestion was to suggest changing channels on the router which hasn't altered anything.
I have raised a priority support call from them (on Monday) but have heard nothing since.
Martin
Hi Martin,
don't know if this be of any help, but the relevant piece of 'chat' reads as follows :
"Ok we have had an issue with the TG582n and computers using windows 8.1 and windows 10. I will send an email to our products team and they will be able to send an update to your router to resolve the issue. This should be done within the next 24-72 hours."
regards
alan
Oh dear ... one of them ... to my knowledge, this has been replaced by PN at least once - can you not get them to issue you the current unit to plug into your BT box ? What you have is pretty basic and under-specced for the fibre service you should be getting ...
this is the router they fitted when they did the upgrade to fibre optic.
unfortunately it looks like you have to take what you are given, but if it doesn't get sorted by the update, then I shall be asking for a better router, plus something for the last two weeks of :censored: internet 'service' :veryangry:
Received a reply today from Plusnet which was totally unhelpful.
They seem only interested in passing the buck.
I had a look at their Community Forum and am staggered by the number of complaints and problems.
I have decided the easiest resolution is to switch suppliers Asaph
Quote from: port perran on February 25, 2016, 07:17:13 PM
I had a look at their Community Forum and am staggered by the number of complaints and problems.
Of course there's loads of complaints ... be honest : when things were great for you, did
you go on the boards & praise the ISP ?
Grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere -
every ISP's boards have loads of complaints : that's the nature of them. The trick is to find an ISP that deals with the complaints ;)
Quote from: MikeDunn on February 25, 2016, 08:06:44 PM
Quote from: port perran on February 25, 2016, 07:17:13 PM
I had a look at their Community Forum and am staggered by the number of complaints and problems.
Of course there's loads of complaints ... be honest : when things were great for you, did you go on the boards & praise the ISP ?
Grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere - every ISP's boards have loads of complaints : that's the nature of them. The trick is to find an ISP that deals with the complaints ;)
Do you have a suggestion?
Well, I left Virgin & joined PlusNet ;) Does that help you ? :P
Whatever you do - avoid EE & TalkTalk ... !!! Use sites such as http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php) to see who is getting good current ratings, draw your shortlist from those & see which are in your area.
MikeDunn says <Whatever you do - avoid EE & TalkTalk ...>.
What leads you to say that - do you have evidence that they are not to be used? Is it just a personal opinion that you can't substantiate?
Norman
You mean apart from the appalling ratings they get pretty much everywhere ? The abysmal customer service they give ?
Read the independent reviews - no-one rates them at all ... I surmise from your tone that you use one of them ? ::)
Yes I do use one of them, without any problems. I would venture that only the moaners and whingers go onto the forums to complain. You don't see many posts praising the good service people have had.
Which was my point earlier - however, that does not mean that these are good providers. Like I said - read the independent reviews (such as Which?), they pan them - and for good reason.
I know people on each, and they can't wait until their contracts expire so they can get the hell away from them.
I was with o2 Broadband and it was brilliant until the router went silly and asked for another and they could not care less that is about 8 years ago, went to Plusnet worse thing I have ever done, thought I would try Talk Talk and that was a joke I would be lucky if a page would load, been with BT ever since best connection I have ever had it has never let me down, but I do know if you want to talk to someone its hard work keep getting some one in India and can never understand what they say.
Always a nightmare choosing the right Broadband for your area I know been there got the T-shirt, we have Talk Talk at work and its good not sure if they look after businesses more than Joe Public but we have been through 3 routers failing, so maybe it is a hardware thing as well.
I've used BT for years now and only ever had one problem in that time. Geoff is right about the overseas call centre. It took me days to get it sorted out. They just kept asking me to do standard checks which most people would already have done before they reported a problem. Apart from that problem BT have been very reliable so far. :beers:
Well ... the acid test for any ISP is : how well do they deal with problems ? Not queries etc but actual problems. And a lot of the large ones do very poorly on this test, especially for residential customers (commercial ones, especially large commercial, get far better service than us mugs). And you also need to look at who owns who - BT, for example, own PlusNet ... and I think TalkTalk own AOL ::) Or is it EE who own them ? One or other, I recall.
[edit : seems BT has bought out EE broadband ... !]
WRT hardware at our end of the link ... unless you've gone out & bought something decent (remember the days of 9600 modems and earlier ? ;)) you are given low-end kit - for what you pay for the service, no way will the ISP give you anything decent unless you're paying an arm & a leg ! I took one look at what Virgin provided me for ADSL & bought something far superior ! Rarely had any issues ... unlike those who stuck with the freebie ... Worst problem I had was when my box died of old age ... lasted me through 3 house moves, on 24/7 for many years :thumbsup: NetGear used to make good kit in those days !
Sadly, on fibre the choices are more limited - the residential market is still in its infancy. There is good kit out there - at a high price (£100 upwards), happily more is coming along at lower prices that promise to be as good. I'm still using the BT modem + DSL/fibre router from PlusNet because of the limited and expensive choice to replace them with (I don't like having two boxes & want a combined fibre modem/router, for example - that increases the cost); it's adequate (especially now I can access the proper mgmt interface instead of the lobotomised one PlusNet tell you about !) but some bits do annoy me about it (occasional drop of service that the system tells me aren't happening - in that case, how come I have no connection, hmmm ?). When a decent alternative at a decent price comes out, I'll move on; but some people don't have this option, as the ISP ties them onto hardware they provide only <cough>Sky<cough>. Another area to research before you move ...
Never had a problem with my 'cheap and nasty' BT kit, neither have others I know. Most problems I've come across have been problems with the BT network and the call centre. :beers:
My BT router failed after 3 years then after passing through the india call centre and spoke to someone with an English voice I had a new one sent to me, took about 1 hour to get there but all was fine in the end.
I have been thinking of going for the slower speed but I think that might effect my BT TV.
Update.......
had an e-mail from PlusNet yesterday morning to say the update had been applied to my router, apologising for the delay, and suggesting reboot of computer to ensure update worked.
re-booted, and all seems well so far.
I'd made a list of a pile of the sites that would not display, so I worked my way through them and all now open with no problems.......
so far ......
touch wood ...... :)
hopefully they've got on top of this now.
regards
alan
Quote from: port perran on February 24, 2016, 09:02:00 PM
Hi Alan
Thanks for that.
We have been having EXACTLY the same problems here running on fibre optic broadband from PlusNet (Windows 10 on one pc and 8.1 on the other).
However, our iphones and ipad run normally.
We also run Norton and Super Antispy which show up no unusual problems.
We've also been in contact with PlusNet but they haven't mentioned to us anything about a known fault.
Their only suggestion was to suggest changing channels on the router which hasn't altered anything.
I have raised a priority support call from them (on Monday) but have heard nothing since.
Martin
Hi Martin,
how did you get on ?
did they manage to sort it out for you ?
regards
alan
I'll send you a PM later explaining what we did
update :
whatever they did to the router worked ........UNTIL TODAY..........back to the same problem.
went on the plusnet website and advised them their router update had NOT sorted the problem, requested a router that would work properly, and told them I expected some sort of compensation for the poor service I had had to endure for the last month.
still waiting for a reply.
problem is where to go ......
BT with it's 'can I be helping you' so called customer services in India,
or one of the other companies, all of which seem to get poor comments when mentioned.
years ago I was with Tesco for broadband, dial up in those days, but now they've sold out to talk-talk.
makes you want to cry, or reach for the bottle of Scottish water :beers:
I am fuming with windows 10 latest update has crashed my older laptop just goes to black screen and nothing can get me to the last known working copy, I have tried everything to get it back but to no avail, I use the old laptop with my sprog to program my loco,s .
That laptop is running at 32 bit, for some reason I cannot find my backup discs but I am going to try and get an iso through the other laptop, but I hope they do not try and charge me for a new copy.
I do not think it is the hard drive because it seems to be working OK, some one told me to connect a computer screen to the laptop to see if that helps.
Any suggestions could be helpful.
Quote from: Geoff on October 16, 2016, 11:36:40 AM
I am fuming with windows 10 latest update has crashed my older laptop just goes to black screen and nothing can get me to the last known working copy,
Too late now, but in future I would suggest you get yourself an external hard drive and back up the system to it regularly. I use Norton Ghost, which works pretty well (it's sometimes been unable to restore a particular system backup, but worked OK with one of a different date). Or there are free Linux alternatives: I've successfully used Redo Backup and Recovery (discontinued but apparently still available) and found it fairly self-explanatory. Either way the recovery problem will need to boot from an external source (USB stick or CD-ROM).
In other words, never rely on Windows, take control of your system and keep it in your hands ;)
@Geoff (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=156)
Had similar problem with Windows update and my 3 year old Acer.
Update warned it would have to restart laptop several times, after one restart simply had that little revolving wheel for about an hour!
Eventually turn it off as needed to go to bed after all it was nearly 2 am.
Later that morning turned it back on and received the advice Restoring earlier version of Windows.
Everything now returned to normal but live in fear of another Update.
Ray
Assuming you can recover your system, when you reinstall the latest version of Windows 10, unplug all your usb peripherals first.
My system crashed during the Anniversary update and I had to do a complete system recovery because I had the 'blank screen with infinite spinning wheel' syndrome.
Googled the problem and disconnecting USB devices was recommended. Worked for me.
:beers:
Don't know about everyone else but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with Windows and PCs generally.
I use a laptop for work ( I only work 3 days per week) but for everything else I'm becoming increasingly reliant on my ipad and iPhone.
It seems to me that Microsoft have completely lost their direction.
@Geoff (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=156)
I had the same problem the other day after an update, (and it is not the first time :veryangry:). The only way I seem to be able to get round the problem is, after leaving the laptop alone - just in case - for about 20 minutes, do a hard shutdown, (or whatever the proper term is), i.e. press and hold the power button until the laptop turns off. After about 5 minutes I switch it back on and then everything seems to work right. :censored: annoying though. I am running 64 bit.
Although Windows users for nearly 20 years and still using at present laptops with Win 7 and 8.1, having used both a Macbook Pro and an i-phone over the last year due to problems with both the Windows laptops with the o/s and Win 10 pushed upgrade and Google's android o/s on phones, both my wife and I have resolved to move to apple stuff when replacements are needed. More expensive and requiring workarounds for some stuff that only runs on windows, but we are finished with Microsoft whatever the cost.
Izzy
Well I booted into windows safe mode did a system restore and rebooted, I get the log in screen but I am getting no further, I wonder if the graphic drivers are causing the problem.
OK it's coming up with gpsvc service failed the sign in.
The universal unique identifier (UUID) type is not supported.
Thanks for any input
For backup I have a spare disc derive in a caddy. Using free drive cloning software called EaseUS I copy the entire disc including system tracks. I then have a restore copy or a drive to install in place of the current drive if necessary. Cost around £70. It takes a while but I just leave everything running overnight once a month. In between a backup of data onto a memory stick is all I need
There is no 100% fool proof way of insuring against a corrupted system drive , I used Acronis true image and a 1TB external drive and thought I was safe but then my Motherboard spat out it's Dummy blew it's USB controller and destroyed the external drive and then the Motherboard itself , nothing in this life is truly guaranteed except maybe the fact that Politicians of any flavour exist only to rip you off .
Quote from: Izzy on October 16, 2016, 07:53:48 PM
Although Windows users for nearly 20 years and still using at present laptops with Win 7 and 8.1, having used both a Macbook Pro and an i-phone over the last year due to problems with both the Windows laptops with the o/s and Win 10 pushed upgrade and Google's android o/s on phones, both my wife and I have resolved to move to apple stuff when replacements are needed. More expensive and requiring workarounds for some stuff that only runs on windows, but we are finished with Microsoft whatever the cost.
Izzy
I came to that conclusion over three years ago and bought a Mac desktop and Macbook pro.
I have Windoze 7 on a bootcamp partition on my desktop for the odd windoze programs I use and will not allow it access to the internet,this means I am no longer plagued with the costant updates and the need for so much extra software to keep it safe.
At least Apple have telephone support in this country if needed.
Allan
windoze a breath of fresh air? so this wonderfull expensive new operating system that cant use the motherboards built in graphics and network cards without using the manufacturer drivers,insists its the only operating system you can install without tinkering and cant successfully install muliple upgrades in one go,and even then those upgrades run the risk of trashing your install. Meanwhile on another partition the free os installs itself whilst im still using a trial version.,manages to get the network and graphics working without wanting driver discs,gets updates and installs them quietly in the background without needing a reboot every 2 minutes and just works,even on hardware thats nearly 10 years old.
One issue I have come across and I have been using Win10 a year now is that the last big update a month ago will fail if you have a USB dongle plugged in, so a wireless mouse/keyboard dongle or anything like that.
I updated 8 systems at work and one refused to update and I eventually tracked down via google search and comparison to the other systems that the ONLY difference in these identical machines was this one user had a 2.4ghz mouse using a USB dongle, as soon as it was unplugged the update all happened with no problems. It could then be plugged back in and all was good.
A couple of other machines did revert to MS Basic graphic drivers but just going to the Update Driver in the properties from System Info fixed them both.
One other word of caution found last year upgrading from Win 7 to 10... it takes a LONG time so if it is chuntering away on a % for a long time then leave it, overnight if necessary it should get through... obviously after 24 hours I would then look at forcing a reboot but often that will then allow it to complete...
Win 10 as a OS is a vast improvement over anything MS have done before IMHO.
Quote from: Only Me on October 17, 2016, 02:30:30 PM
that explains why my update failed then cheers @Fardap (http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=5581), my issue is I have a dongle for the wifi so I guess it could never update!! ?
Once it has downloaded, the update should run without access to Wifi being needed, then just plug it back in when it is ready to login again...
Assuming it is the issue...
Maybe that was my problem I had a mouse with dongle plugged in when updating.
All my PC's have mouse with dongle and updated correctly. I did have a problem initially in that USB and SD cards were not recognised. Microsoft have stated that there is a problem with having a second drive that is solid state will cause a problem either internally wired or USB. that might have been corrected with the rather large installation of fixes last week.
Since the anniversary update my accounting software (Sage) would not allow anyone to log on until a work around was set up.
I have tried the Microsoft fix but after signing I get a black screen but my antiviral adverts show up, so I am thinking my graphics drivers have not loaded properly or the desktop has not loaded, it's all very strange.
Seeing I only use that laptop for programming trains, I am thinking about loading unbuntu, does anyone use there sprog with Linux at all?
Cheers.
I finally got into windows 10, and reset doing a fresh install. Panic over.
have installed windows 10 on 9 PC's so far and in my opinion it is much better than windows 7 (I won't even consider windows 8), the only complaint is around the updates. The PC suddenly runs slow as the automatic updates are being downloaded to the PC. Although the updates are not installed until the time stated they are downloaded onto the PC disc.
Connected with that is the control of updates. At the theatre we run our lighting and sound systems under windows 10 and just before a show we put them into flight mode to stop updates affecting the controls.There is a problem with the flight mode indicator on the latest update and yesterday in the middle of running the lights for a TV recording the PC did an update wile showing it was in flight mode resulting in the PC being restarted.
Despite that and the minor hiccup logging onto Sage I have already meantioned I think it is the best Microsoft operating system produced.
I recently bought a new laptop. It came with Win10 installed. On first starting up and running it immediately did a Windows update and all was fine. I then proceded to get the laptop set up how I wanted it, rather than how Microsoft wanted it to look.
Two weeks ago it decided to do a system update. After, it was significantly slower, completely set up differently and that sodding Cortana was all over the system.
I backed out the updates and then spent 2 hours ridding my system of the :poop: that MicroSoft is determined to try and ram down our throats whether we like it or not.
There is no way, from the standard user interface, to turn off system updates.
BUT. YOU CAN TURN OFF THE AUTOMATIC SYSTEM UPDATES!!!
I Google'd it and there is a way, a couple of key presses will take you to a dialogue box with "tick" boxes that allow you to turn off system updates.
You still can't turn off "security updates" , but then it's Windows so you going to NEED security updates as the thing is going to be riddled with "holes" in the security.
The other thing I can't stress enough is DON'T use a Microsoft browser. Turn off Internet Explorer, it's overly hungry on resources, unstable and full of security issues. Use another browser like Firefox or Opera.
I have a very stable system, but it's taken too long to get it like this.
Just remember. MicroSoft don't give a damn about you and me.
There is really nothing more to develop for PC operating systems. So the only way they can keep the profits rolling in is by constantly pushing the next OS, they're not worried about getting them right, because if they do you won't need to upgrade in three or four years time.
Good luck.
8)
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I have to agree that Microsoft give you stuff you do not need ie Edge, Cortana etc, maybe there are others who can make use of it but not me, also I do not like the new mail system, lots of stuff I could do with out.
Updates are necessary as they stop any nasties coming on the computer in future, I am trying Defender out at the moment not sure what it is like but will give it a go.
It's not true saying no more money for microsoft, they now charge for windows 10. The business versions, which are their main business are fairly expensive and support will still cost business whatever guise it is presented. The introduction of free forced upgrade for home users was to get over the resistance that occurred with windows 8, they are experimenting now with carrying adverts on the windows pages. Trust me they won't starve.
I agree the home user will not be paying anything for upgrades. The money made from home users will probably be for targeted adverts like Google and Facebook et al already do.
I don't use edge as it like chrome reports your useage back so that adverts can be targeted. Slightly off topic Facebook are bypassing some popup blockers so that their sponsored adverts will always get through.
Whatever you use on PC's today unless you write it yourself someone has a way of making some money out of it either directly through subscription or indirectly through adverts. few adverts is a small price to pay for free use of programs / operating systems.
QuoteAt the theatre we run our lighting and sound systems under windows 10
why o why are your control computers allowed anywhere near the Internet?my lighting pc,running chamsys has never been online,and still runs very stable under xp,ok its a bit more work to get fixture profiles and software upgrades,but id rather that than risking the latest upgrade blacking the rig out just as the talent walks on stage.
At the end of the day it all depends on what you want from an O/S and what you use it for , if like me you use a Lenz based Automation system then as far as i'm concerned Windoze 7 is still my best option ,win 8 and 8.1 remind me very much of the appalling Vista ( which in it's Beta versions was pretty much win 7 then they neutered it on release) Win 10 is great if you want a direct line to GCHQ /NSA , MAC is for Fashionistas ( but i'm still fond of them although do not use one ) and then there's Linux ( takes a little re learning and then the world is your Oyster co's there's deffo a Pearl inside .
Although I would have agreed about turning off Internet Explorer, I haven't used it in years use Chrome mainly... The Edge browser in Win10 is a refreshing change and having had some issues with Chrome running very slow (it seems to do that once a year after an update so assume they occasionally get it wrong) I have been using Edge as default browser since it was updated with more functionality.
Still has some things that I have to revert to Chrome/Firefox for - certain websites and dialog boxes that send it into a mini meltdown, but other than that it is really worth a try if you have the latest version of it Microsoft Edge 38.14393.0.0 is the one I am using with Microsoft EdgeHTML 14.14393
Quote from: themadhippy on October 20, 2016, 11:54:33 AM
QuoteAt the theatre we run our lighting and sound systems under windows 10
why o why are your control computers allowed anywhere near the Internet?my lighting pc,running chamsys has never been online,and still runs very stable under xp,ok its a bit more work to get fixture profiles and software upgrades,but id rather that than risking the latest upgrade blacking the rig out just as the talent walks on stage.
We use lightfactory and also communicate with the servers held elsewhere in the building. The software allows remote control over the network for setting up using mobile phones. We put the PC's into flight mode before shows. It's never been a problem until anniversary update.
QuoteWe use lightfactory and also communicate with the servers held elsewhere in the building. The software allows remote control over the network for setting up using mobile phones.
I also use my phone as a focus remote,however theres still no need to have external Internet access turned on,as for external servers,apart from media servers,which again are dedicated machines only carrying out that task, there should be no need to connect to any other server, sounds like your using a multii purpose machine to also run your lighting software,a rather risky move in my opinion.