On my Win 8.1 computer I keep getting the Install Win 10 for free pop up about once a day. Is there a way to turn off that pop up? Thanks.
Download and install GWX Control Panel. It’ll stop the Win 10 nags, sneaky background downloads etc, but use at own risk.
no … i have not used the method listed above … i allowed microsoft to upgrade from 8.1 to 10.
I’ve had GWX Control Panel on my Windows 7 machine for a couple of months … works fine, no problems.
Good info here. Tyvm.
Just FYI, I was one of the few people in the world to not have ever actually used Windows XP or 7 (I grew up with DOS in the 80s, was basically computer-less throughout the 90s, and had nothing but Macs from 2000 until about just 1.5 years ago) so I dove into the Windows pool with 8, then immediately to 8.1, and was also perfectly happy with it, but I made the switch to 10 and am happy with that decision. It actually fixed a lot of the major problems I had with 8.1, which was basically everything that assumed I was working with a touchscreen by default, which I was not.
I switched to Win10 for the same reason I switched to Win8 (I can’t afford to fall behind). I can understand the OP’s position - although I think Win10 is a decent OS, I’m the guy who actually enjoyed losing the Start Menu* in Win8.
It’s back now, and I don’t mind it - but Win10 doesn’t feel quite as light on its feet as Win8.1 did, at least on my hardware.
*My Start Menu, pre-Win8 was an atrocious mess of deeply nested folders - finding anything in there was a logical process, but a painfully laborious one. I didn’t realise this until the Start Menu was taken away and I switched to searching for the thing I wanted each time - which was quick, reliable and required fewer operations than navigating my old Start Menu.
So… the OP says he’s happy with Win 8.1 and does want to change, and bunch of people drop by to say they’re happy with changing to to Win 10… what’s up with that? I don’t get why people do that, are you trying to convince him to make a change he doesn’t want?
OP here. Since I originally posted I’ve been looking into the pros and cons of Win 10. Seems people either love it or they hate it. Since my PC works absolutely perfectly with Win 8.1 and I’ve learned where to find everything I’m not enthusiastic about changing over. I find plenty of testimony of people who switched to Win 10, hated it, and switched right back to their old OS. And there are an equal number of people who prefer Win 10.
Who are you talking about? Albino_manatee provided useful information, plus a comment as to why he/she could not claim to have tested the info provided. I posted pretty much in sympathy with the OP’s preference for Win8 (which I miss a little). Nobody else said anything about win10.
Nobody has done the thing you claim.
Win 8 should be supported for quite some time so don’t feel compelled to switch to 10 if you like it. The only thing that might push you to upgrading is that the free upgrade will supposedly expire in June. But if you like 8, by the time it reaches the end of its lifecycle your hardware may need replacing anyway. And Microsoft may have a new OS by then.
Just another note - if you like the Windows 8 Start screen, you need to know that its counterpart in Windows 10 is not directly equivalent - in Win10, even if you opt for full-screen Start page, it scrolls vertically vs Win8’s horizontal scrolling. I didn’t like this, so had to settle for using the Start Menu sidebar tiled area.
OTOH, Tiles in Win10’s Start screen (or sidebar) have jump lists - so you right-click them and see a short list of recent documents opened by the application in question.
Do you have DCnDC on ignore?
no, although i overlooked his/her post, but:
Even DCnDC’s post is at best a weak example of the thing Broomstick complained about
it still wouldn’t constitute ‘a bunch’ of people trying to convince the OP of something or other.
The only real salvation in this thread is that we had three good answers to the actual General Question OP asked before the witnessing about Windows 10 started. It doesn’t always work that way. :smack:
seriously? who was witnessing?
Also (or perhaps besides):
The OP’s straightforward question was answered completely and perfectly in the first post. What do you want? A whole thread of people repeating the same correct answer?
Once the question is definitively answered, it’s not at all rude to begin discussing things that lie on the periphery of the question.
It sometimes turns out that the straightforward initial question actually conceals a different problem that has a simple solution (and the solution may be better than the one that addresses the straightforward question) - as an IT support professional, I see this a lot - the answer that people ask for is not necessarily the best answer they need
Take for example this recent thread. The OP asks how to run Linux on a trashed Windows computer. It turns out, however, that retrieving the Windows licence key (so that Windows can be reinstalled) would actually be a desirable alternative goal.
I am interested to know Stinky Pete’s reasons for preferring Win8.x - partly out of pure curiosity; partly because I have opinions of my own about things that I liked better in Win8; partly because the problem being asked might not be the actual problem. NONE of this constitutes evangelism about a specific OS.
Op here. I’m asking both for me and my mother. In her case, her computer is a family computer. Used by my brothers and various family members who visit her every week. Youngest of them is nine years old. I’ve been advising her to delay installing Win 10 because she and others who use the computer have trouble adjusting to new technology and also because I fear some software and devices associated with her computer will stop operating and this will cause them problems. I’m tech savvy but I live 250 miles away, they are not tech savvy. I prefer to wait on this until I visit to have her change if at all(deadline for free upgrade is July 29th). So I don’t want some clicky person to install Win 10 on my mom’s PC because of the pop up.
As for me, I’m looking into the pros and cons of Win 10 before I take the plunge. I also have until July 29th to decide and as I’ve said my Win 8.1 PC is running absolutely perfectly so I’m not hot to fix something that is far from broken. The new features advertised for Win 10 don’t excite me.
And why don’t I want the pop up reminding me to get Win 10. Hehehe. Because I play online MMORPG games, and right in the middle of some crucial battle the Win 10 pop up appears and minimizes my game window and makes me die. Or even makes the whole party I’m in die when I my game window minimizes. I’m the party’s healer.
Thank you for the explanation - all of which seems pretty sensible to me.
Without any pressure to influence you one way or the other, here are some facts that might help you decide which way to go:
In a nutshell, Win10 is pretty much the same as Win8 with a different user interface - to wit:
[ul]
[li]Start Menu is back (with a few new features)[/li][li]Tiled Start screen is now either a sidebar on the start menu, or (in Tablet mode) a fullscreen tiled area, but in both cases, now scrolls vertically[/li][li]Tiles on the start sidebar/screen now have jump lists[/li][li]The charms menu is gone[/li][li]Swipe-from-right now brings up a notification area which also contains a bunch of toggle buttons for Wifi, power saving, etc.[/li][li]Metro apps now behave more like conventional Windows programs[/li][li]Cortana (Microsoft’s answer to Siri) is built in for searching but can be turned off (and it’s possible to turn off Cortana but still have a search bar)[/li][/ul]
As with any upgrade, there’s a risk it will break during the process, perhaps catastrophically - we’ve seen threads about it here. IMO, the risk is pretty small but may not sound like it, because everyone it happens to, will be unhappy about it, and is likely to say so - whereas the people who have no problems are more likely just to be quietly getting on with their lives. Confirmation bias or some such is a factor here.
My honest experience as someone who has extensively every version of Windows since 3.11 :-
[ul]
[li]I like some of the new features[/li][li]I turned off Cortana. Don’t feel the need for it - no matter how clever it is.[/li][li]I find the performance of the UI a little more sluggish than Windows 8.1 was on the same machine - programs run OK, but the response time for the Start screen, searching, application launching etc seems a bit slower[/li][li]I miss the fullscreen horizontal scrolling Start screen just a bit (I had it set up just right in Win8.1)[/li][li]I provide support for several family members who currently use (and love) Windows 8.1 - they want me to upgrade them to Win10 - I am anticipating that they will cope OK with it, but will find it less user-friendly for their level of ability. Win8 was actually quite a shallow learning curve for inexperienced/non-advanced new users (depending of course on what you want to do).[/li][/ul]
We don’t seem to have a single Windows 10 Love/Hate thread anywhere, so there’s no collection point for experiences/wisdom/kvetching. Mangetout’s got a pretty good high-level overview.
Other things to look out for: device drivers don’t always work exactly the same in Windows 10 as they did in 8. E.g., Bluetooth drivers for Broadcom 20732 chip. I can’t get BT working in Win 10 although it worked perfectly in Win 7. There’s may be a fix in the next Windows 10 Preview Release build, but since I opted to use only local accounts (no Microsoft account), I’m a second-class citizen and have to wait for that build to be formally released.
Still, it wasn’t horrible for the one machine I allowed the upgrade, after I neutered most of the “telemetry”. The apps I use seemed to survive the transition. I think there’s a tiny increase in graphics responsiveness for the games that I play (which is the main reason I allowed the upgrade to begin with), but I haven’t measured it so it could just be placebo.