My only complaint is that on my gaming laptop, avast and windows 10 did not initially get along but I think that’s resolved now. On the old laptop, interestingly enough, sometimes the wifi connection is lost and the troubleshooter blames it on “missing sockets”. All my other devices continue to see the wireless network so I’m not sure what the old laptop’s deal is. A restart usually fixes it which is a bad long-term solution but I’m easy.
Personally I would not update to 10, atleast not yet, but I would consider 8.1. I’m switching people in my company from 7 to 8.1 and 10. We use Dell Optiplex mainly, but some computers don’t have 8 licenses so I have to give them 10. I just find the security to be better, and we need Hyper-V and Azure network. Also 8 and newer have better drivers detection so you don’t have to hunt them, and easy to move the harddrive to different PCs (with 7, if it’s not the exactly same PC model, Windows wouldn’t boot.)
One thing I don’t like about 10 is the forced updates, since it can be a problem for us running legacy software. Yes I know you can set it to notify, it annoyed the people while working. (Yes I am aware there ‘hacks’ and tools to get around it, no I want something simple and official like 7 and 8 that allow the user to simply disable auto updating.)
Secondly is unless you buy the actual Windows 10 keys, if you just upgrade 7 or 8 to 10, Windows create a unique key for that machine so you can’t move the harddrive from one Dell Optiplex to a different one and retain the license. With 7 and 8, you can move the hdd and it’ll activate the license in that motherboard.
I hated Windows 8 at first, but 8.1 with latest updates is working pretty fast and stable. I feel it retains the good designs from 7 and while including stuff from 10. I love the Control Panel, and I feel 10 goes too far with the “PC Settings” and have serious disparity in the settings being split between them.
I uninstall and ‘hide’ the hotfix “KB3035583” on all our Windows 7 and 8 computers.
Apologies for bumping this thread, but I’m in a very similar place to the OP. The big difference is that this is a win7 pro work computer that I have discretion to upgrade. I’m looking at upgrading for one reason only - allowing compatibility of work software well into the future. (Going off office history, this thing will likely still be hanging round 10 years from now…)
So my big concerns are
[ul]
[li]Forced updates - there is an option to allow updates at the user’s discretion, right? Given Microsoft’s completely oafish method of introducing the operating system, I’m concerned about what they might do with the next operating system and want the option of removing offending updates.[/li][li]OS bloat and performance issues - Going off this thread I hear this is not a big concern at present.[/li][li]I don’t want irrelevant shit like Cortana or Edge interrupting me at any stage. These need to be turned off/hidden easily if they have nag screens or the like. [/li][li]Rollback - If proprietry software turns out to not be compatible, I need the rollback to be reasonably painless; If I lose more than one workday, people are going to be pissed (Including me!)[/li][li]Internet usage - I know that programs are always phoning home these days, but I’d like them to remain at win 7 levels, in particular I don’t want it to be sending out data while sitting at idle. 8.1 having internet usage in the start menu annoys me.[/li][li]I’ve seen some concerns about the filing system being hidden away, but these appear to be unfounded - It would be very annoying, as I’m always shuffling files around and downloading files to various locations on the office network.[/li][/ul]
Thoughts?
The only way to exert control over updates is by hacking services and registry stuff (or by running the machine in an enterprise environment with central deployment of updates)
Yup, in general, it’s leaner than Win7.
Cortana can be turned off. Edge can be simply ignored and never used (it’s just a browser). I guess it’s possible that Microsoft might force Cortana on users somewhere downstream of here, which would be a dick move, if it happens.
Yes, but you might want to do an image-based backup of your whole machine before upgrading, as an added safety net.
Dunno - this seems to be changing on Windows 7 anyway. I think this is a ‘privacy and control in the modern age’ thing as much as anything.
It’s ‘hidden’ in the sense that the default view in the file browser has the tree collapsed down to ‘this PC’ - but a few clicks will get you to the C drive (and you can set up shortcuts that take you straight there).
Microsoft wants people to use ‘libraries’ rather than caring about exactly where a file is stored. It’s not a bad idea, as it allows the system to collect your data together so you don’t miss anything important when you back it up. It’s also pretty much the way that the Apple file system has worked for a long time.
Thanks Mangetout! It’s the first that concerns me most. The upgrade thing left a very sour taste in my mouth last month when I arrived back from the field to find it upgrading without my permission. It made me late for an army reserve exercise trying to cancel the upgrade! I prevented it from completing by uninstalling some updates, so if I lose that ability it’ll be a big pain in the arse.
Does this mean that we have no choice?
That we must use OneDrive?
That we cannot refuse the backup?
Answer needed quick.
Cortana can be switched off. I don’t think Onedrive backs up anything until you tell it to.
Even on Win 10?
I thought OneDrive only “backed up” data that you put in the OneDrive folder? If you don’t put anything in the OneDrive folder, nothing should get uploaded to the cloud.
I went from Windows 7 to 10 on my Sony Vaio…everything worked fine EXCEPT all my iPod electronics. Couldn’t sync the iPod touch, 160GB Classic (3 of them), seems to be some type of driver issue I couldn’t resolve. I went back to Windows 7. I never had any issues with this version.
I think I’ll keep Win 8.1.
Unless Win 10 lets me run my old Civ 2 game.
Then, maybe.
Onedrive only backs up what you put in it. You can enable photos to get uploaded automatically (at least from my Note 4).
Use this if you want to run old O/S: VM VirtualBox | Virtualization | Oracle
Are the privacy concerns I see about Windows 10 overblown or is there any smoke at all there?
What privacy concerns? It is probably the most secure windows version.
I have read stories that that it sends a great deal of data back to Microsoft unless you dig through and turn many settings off and that some things can’t be turned off.
This sums it up:
Yes.
Pretty much, although there are ways to make it so that library contents (for example photos) are automatically synchronised.
I think there may be deployment flavours of Win10 that do by default save things to Onedrive (tablets with minimal internal storage, perhaps), but the behaviour is very easy to configure.
I finally broke down and upgraded from Win7 to Win10 on my desktop last week. It’s been behaving for me. There’s still some getting used to it going on. In a couple of months, I probably won’t remember the differences. I can probably live with the new start menu. I’m not all that impressed with the live tiles but I haven’t seriously worked on changing much.
Cortana can indeed be switched off, though she occasionally sneaks back to whine about why you don’t love and need her.
I find the OP’s username and thread title to be oddly harmonious.
I upgraded and overall it was a big success. My computer was not even Win8 compatible, but there were only two minor issues.
[ul]
[li]Microsoft Edge won’t play sound – it just craps out and needs to be restared. Solution: use another browser.[/li][li]For some reason, it thought I had two monitors. When I tried to log in, the screen went black (it came back after a minute). Evidently, it was displaying the login on the nonexistent second monitor. You can log in if you start the on-screen keyboard to log in and fix it by turning off the fast boot option under power options (this probably isn’t an issue for newer computers, too).[/li][/ul]
Some advantages:
[ul]
[li]I like the menu setup – it’s a compromise that uses the best features of Win 7 and 8[/li][li]When you open Windows explorer, the most commonly used folders appear at the top.[/li][li]Using multiple windows is much better. You drag one window to the edge (like in other versions) to snap it to a half screen, but it will then show all your other open windows so you just have to click to fill the other half of the screen.[/li][li]The snap has a half-size option, so you can arrange three windows.[/li][/ul]