Windows 10

[mastamak]

Just in case anybody has missed the announcement, you have until Friday this week to upgrade free to Windows 10. After Friday the upgrade will cost the same as a fresh install - about $175.

I know that there are as many opinions as there are stars in the sky as the the advantages or otherwise of upgrading and as someone who resisted doing so until forced to by Adobe CC I have to say that Windows 10 is is a big improvement over previous operating systems and I have used them all. It pains me greatly to say it but I think Windows 10 may even be better than XP
Grant

[Shadowman]

The complaints are less than what was heard about previous versions. Would make a good marketing slogan "our customers don't complaint as much as they used to".

[davidedric]

On the other hand, whilst I would never be on the bleeding edge, I have usually found that being on a manufacturer's preferred path is beneficial.

Dave

[dje]

I took the plunge a few days ago and upgraded from 7 to 10. So far so good. Actually I can't really see huge differences in features between the two.

I hope these are not famous last words!

Dave

[russellsnr]

Hi, I have two computers both working Win 7. One I use for every day use cost under 300 UKP the other just for photography cost over 600 UKP I upgraded the first one to Win 10some time ago and works fine but number two when I upgraded kept coming back with an error about power and kept shutting down after about 15 minutes when working in Photoshop or Lightroom so rolled back to Win 7 and works fine.

[mastamak]

I took the plunge a few days ago and upgraded from 7 to 10. So far so good. Actually I can't really see huge differences in features between the two.

One of the benefits of Windows 10 IMO is the ability to easily relocate your users folder from C-Drive to an alternative drive. This is really handy if your C-Drive is a solid state drive of limited capacity. I can't remember ever being able to do that with Windows 7 - perhaps you could?

I have found over the years that those who have most trouble with upgrading issues are those who resist change and leave it to the last minute. I think I have resigned myself to the understanding that resistance is futile so when I get those messages "do you want to upgrade" I just press 'Enter", shut my eyes and think of England! It generally turns out OK.

Grant

[Mike Buckley]

It generally turns out OK.

While I agree that it generally turns out OK, the problem is that I have read so many horror stories to appreciate that when it doesn't turn out OK, it can so often turn out really, really bad. As a result, my motto is that there must be a compelling reason to make a change.

[Donald]

... when it doesn't turn out OK, it can so often turn out really, really bad.

I was obviously one of the fortunate ones. I was one of the early-adopters, installing it just after it had been launched. The installation and operation ever since has been completely trouble-free. I took the advice of others on here and switched off all the stuff that was concerned with Microsoft grabbing data about my computer usage.

[ccphoto]

It absolutely trashed my computer. Fortunately I had a good original master and did an uninstall and reinstall with little difficulty. I wouldn't touch it again.

[Dave Humphries]

I upgraded my Win 8/8.1 laptop, used largely for web browsing, months ago to Win 10 - no problems.

After backing up most things and creating recovery disks, et al, I took the plunge last night on my main (Win 7) machine - it took about 3.5. hours all told, but so far (fingers crossed), seems OK, not that I have tried all my apps yet.

I had to buy a new USB dual TV tuner stick that was Win 10 compatible - it works on the laptop so far, so there's another task I have yet to complete.

I did manually set to opt out of nearly all the privacy things.

All in all, too soon to say it is OK - watch this space.

Update 1:
Had to change almost everything to the UK language, date and time formats (I had before), even the keyboard was US!

[Manfred M]

I built a new computer about a month ago and went Windows 10 with the motherboard. I use the "Classic Shell" interface with it, have it locked down as much as possible from a privacy standpoint, so from an end-user standpoint, I run it very much like my Windows 7 machine. The only reason I went Win 10 is that Windows 7 Home allowed a maximum of 16 GB of RAM. The new machine has 32GB.

I don't use most of the bloatware that comes with Win 10 and have uninstalled everything I can. Unfortunately Edge and Cortana (I have no interest in using either) cannot be uninstalled. I don't love the fact that I can't disable the Windows updates (in the past I would install them a week or two after their rollout date). The "Win 10 Anniversary" update that is coming in August seems to be nothing more than bloatware that I will never use.

I have a Windows 8.1 laptop that will not be upgraded, if for no other reason than potential driver issues. It too runs under "Classic Shell" and most of the bloatware has been uninstalled.

[Mike Buckley]

Unfortunately Edge and Cortana...cannot be uninstalled.

I thought it was my inability to figure out how to uninstall them. I was able to configure Adobe Reader to automatically open PDFs but there are certain situations, I think when PDFs are opened on the Internet, when Edge opens them.

[dje]

One of the benefits of Windows 10 IMO is the ability to easily relocate your users folder from C-Drive to an alternative drive. This is really handy if your C-Drive is a solid state drive of limited capacity. I can't remember ever being able to do that with Windows 7 - perhaps you could?

No Grant to be honest I've never really thought about that before. It's not a problem for me because my 250G SSD is only half full but I must look into this a bit further.

Dave

[marlunn]

switched off all the stuff that was concerned with Microsoft grabbing data about my computer usage.

Sorry Donald - i dont think so - MS does a huge amount of data harvesting that you cannot turn off - a lot of pro users are agast at the links it makes back to 'home' even after they have 'locked it down'

Manfred, I went win7 pro 64bit for £20 worth every penny on a ssd machine - max ram capable - Professional: 192GB think thats enought for me

[Shadowman]

Hi, I have two computers both working Win 7. One I use for every day use cost under 300 UKP the other just for photography cost over 600 UKP I upgraded the first one to Win 10some time ago and works fine but number two when I upgraded kept coming back with an error about power and kept shutting down after about 15 minutes when working in Photoshop or Lightroom so rolled back to Win 7 and works fine.

I have the same issue but only when running certain programs. Usually I can run PSE 12, LR, and a few other programs at the same time, but when I run PSE 14 (which is 64 bit) I have slower service; so I either run just the one program or shut down PSE 14 when I'm done.

[george013]

Sorry Donald - i dont think so - MS does a huge amount of data harvesting that you cannot turn off - a lot of pro users are agast at the links it makes back to 'home' even after they have 'locked it down'

Manfred, I went win7 pro 64bit for £20 worth every penny on a ssd machine - max ram capable - Professional: 192GB think thats enought for me

An overview for different windows and the max. memory.

George

[Manfred M]

I thought it was my inability to figure out how to uninstall them. I was able to configure Adobe Reader to automatically open PDFs but there are certain situations, I think when PDFs are opened on the Internet, when Edge opens them.

I changed the default to Adobe Reader and Edige no longer opens pdf files.

[Manfred M]

Sorry Donald - i dont think so - MS does a huge amount of data harvesting that you cannot turn off - a lot of pro users are agast at the links it makes back to 'home' even after they have 'locked it down'

Manfred, I went win7 pro 64bit for £20 worth every penny on a ssd machine - max ram capable - Professional: 192GB think thats enought for me

I looked at that and could not go that route anymore as MS does not support that upgrade anymore. The memory management in both Win 8.1 and Win 10 is better than Win 7, so there is some consolation in that.

[DickyOZ]

Love it or hate it we are no doubt stuck with Windows 10. We no longer have the choice when or if updates are done. MS and Adobe now update whatever and whenever they want without so much as if you please or by your leave. I have sat for twenty minutes waiting for MS updates to install when all I wanted to do was check my email. I got fed up and checked Email by phone.

I trust nobody runs Windows under Administrator (except when doing Administrator tasks) and you all have a normal user under which you do normal work. If not all I can say is you are most unwise.

Win 10 is not bug free, a common bug is "Group Policy Client service fails to start" the text below shows how to fix that annoying and regular bug.
http://www.googledrive.com/host/0B9U...V9GTEs2UUpNaDQ

Another common bug is caused by power failure when Windows is doing certain critical tasks. It results in the 'Windows' icon on the Taskbar only responding to 'right-click' not 'left-click'. A real PITA, there is a fix for that that can be found if you Google the symptom.

Dicky.

[DanK]

I have sat for twenty minutes waiting for MS updates to install when all I wanted to do was check my email.

Many of the mandatory updates are security fixes.