Windows 10 A breath of fresh air.

[Geoff]

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.

[Bealman]

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.

[Tdm]

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.

[Malc]

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.

[Tdm]

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.

[N Gauge Bob]

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.

[Bealman]

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
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!

[Geoff]

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
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.

[Bealman]

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.

[Geoff]

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.

[Bealman]

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. 

George

[Lankyman]

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.

Ron

[Tdm]

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?

[Sprintex]

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


Paul

[MikeDunn]

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 ...    Surely that's just common sense 

Oh well ...