(Sorry if this has been hashed over already - “10” doesn’t register in searches.)
I have a 4 or 5 year old laptop running Windows 7. Mouse navigation, no touchscreen. It works fine.
So far I’ve ignored the frequent prompts to install Windows 10. I’ve read a few articles on both sides of the debate. Now, I’d like to hear from the Dopers. What say you?
Follow-up question: If I decide to stick with 7, can I get my computer to stop asking me to upgrade?
Well, windows 10 is, for me, definetly better than 8, 8.1 or 7 but you should consider if it is worth risking your apps compatibility, if you have any app that’s old and theese kind of things. Also, I don’t think perfomance should be an issue but who knows. My statement is: To stay up to things today in terms of apps and functionality, go for it. If it works and it does everything you need it to do, then stay and you’ll skip a bunch of potential problems.
If you’re worried about hardware or software not working under Windows 10, this article describes a tool that will check and let you know if any problems are anticipated. It’s probably not perfect, but if the reports are positive, you will probably be OK.
Your laptop will probably run slower with it with the default express install.
I took the plunge and am very happy. It was a big gamble for me too as my computer is hooked up to my main TV. No computer, no TV. For a guy like me, that would suck. But fortunately, I had no issues with my upgrade.
I upgraded my five year old Toshiba laptop (originally Win 7). No regrets; it works fine, even a bit better now. But, there are plenty of other people who reported horror stories on this very message board.
In my opinion:
Battery life seems to be a bit better under windows 10 - particularly the power saving feature which allows you to select a mode for battery saving.
However:
Quite a few apps/games/programs that I have, that used to work in 7 no problem, have had issues in windows 10. I have since got around it by getting my laptop dual booted windows 7 and 10 (the hard drive was big enough and I had a spare windows 7 license).
My advice:
If you are on windows 8 or 8.1, go for 10. It’ll feel a bit more natural to those of us that don’t have touch screens. However, if you have windows 7, I’d be tempted to stay on 7. I know that my windows 7 machine is staying on 7, but my 8.1 machine will be upgraded to 10 soon.
(My dual boot machine will be staying dual boot 7/10 - and the 7 will NEVER be upgraded to 10. The dual boot was for compatibility sake.)
Interesting.
What kind of programs had compatibility issues? Was there any sort of trend?
I mostly use my computer for internet, MS Office, storing photos & music, etc. I don’t have a lot of games and stuff loaded in.
I’ve done a dual Win 7/8.1 as there are some VPN clients I use for work that don’t work too well on 8.1 and not at all on 10. I think I will up the 8.1 to 10, as I did run it on an older laptop for a short time and found everything but the VPN client worked fine on 10. I reverted to 7 on that laptop but I don’t use that much anymore as the WiFi seems to be broken and I can’t be bothered trying to fix it as I have the newer laptop working fine.
Is it true W-10 won’t allow you to partion the hard drive for installations like Linux?
No, not true.
As for the OP, I personally had a bad experience with Windows 10 upgrade that ultimately caused me to roll back to 8.1. My problems included frequent lagging with the file explorer (Windows 10’s version of Windows Explorer) and Google Chrome. Turns out I wasn’t the only one (as a simple Google search will tell you), but no solution from those posted online solved my problem, so I downgraded.
What I do know for a fact is that right after upgrading to 10, you get 30 days during which you can simply go back to your 7 or 8.1 without the hassle of restoring factory settings or re-installing your programs.
So if you want to give it a go, go ahead, but make sure you exhaustively use all your programs and test all functions to make sure everything’s running smoothly.
I guess it’s important to note that both operations - the upgrade and the rollback - are not entirely without risk. Either one could go wrong, potentially quite catastrophically. IMO this is a banal truth as the risk is small, and is present with any kind of major upgrade on any platform.
In terms of advice about whether you should upgrade or not, I’ll need to talk about Win8.x first…
What was improved in Win8:
[ul]
[li]The OS (Kernel, memory management, permissions management) was a bit more stable and functional than in previous versions[/li][li]There were some good improvements to minor things like the file copy dialog, file history (sort of a file backup mechanism)[/li][li]It typically ran faster than Windows 7 on the same hardware due in part to ‘flattening’ of the visual elements (removal of the ‘aero glass’ stuff)[/li][/ul]
What people didn’t like in Win8:
[ul]
[li]Loss of the Start Menu. I didn’t care, but I think Microsoft really badly misjudged the public reaction to this. The (tiled) Start screen was in some ways a usable alternative, but removal of the actual Start Menu took away some features (jump lists for example) that people like, without offering any alternative.[/li][li]The Start Screen itself - Many people took one look at the new ‘Metro’ tiled Start screen and turned away right there and then. It led to (IMO incorrect) views that Win8 could only be used properly with a touchscreen and (provably incorrect) views that the Win32/desktop application environment was dead and gone.[/li][li]The dumbing down of control panel type screens - in order to be more touch-friendly, many of the control panel applets for system settings were hidden away and replaced by touch-enabled Metro apps, but this was done quite clumsily and some features were a pain in the ass to configure. One of the major changes in the Win8.1 update was to give back the traditional control panel stuff.[/li][/ul]
What’s new in Windows 10
[ul]
[li]The Start Menu is back, and is a bit better than it was in Windows 7.[/li][li]The tiled Start screen is now a sidebar on the start menu (in desktop mode) and the tiles support jump lists (best of both worlds)[/li][li]There is a distinct ‘tablet mode’ that favours touchscreen modes of operation.[/li][li]Some of the touch-friendly user-friendly control panel stuff is back, but works better this time.[/li][/ul]
What’s different in Windows 10 (that you might not like)
[ul]
[li]Updates can’t easily be postponed forever in the ‘home’ versions of the OS.[/li][li]The choice of colours in the theming engine is sort of limited. [/li][li]The user-friendly versions of the Control Panel applets may create a sense of unease (they work fine, but as they look less ‘technical’, they could make you feel like you have less control)[/li][/ul]
My overall view: I upgraded my Win8.1 machine to Windows 10 and I think it’s OK. I like the new Start Menu, but I sort of miss the Win8 Start screen too. I haven’t had any problems with hardware or software.
I also recently bought a Windows 10 tablet and I will be honest here: Windows 10 is not as good a tablet OS as iOS or Android. It has the advantage of being able to run full-blown Windows desktop apps (so it could potentially completely replace a laptop), but because it’s a desktop OS worked over to run on tablets, it’s still a bit clunky in places - in particular, the integration of the touchscreen keyboard - it doesn’t always appear when you want it; it doesn’t always disappear when you’re done with it, and when it does appear, it very often obscures the place you’re trying to enter text into.
Should you upgrade? Check for compatibility of your printer and your important applications first (Google “[whatever it is] not working in Windows 10” and see if you find people reporting a problem with something that is critical to you.
If you like Windows 7, you’re going to be OK with Windows 10, but if you’re perfectly happy with Windows 7 (and especially if you plan to replace your machine before Windows 7’s End Of Life), there might not be any hugely compelling reason for you to upgrade.
Thing about win10 is that it has the quickboot enabled by default. This means that windows won’t shutdown ompletely and it’ll give you problems at the oint of starting from another partition or mounting the windows partition on linux. You need to turn off quickboot mode, that’ll get you rid of a lot of problems.
In a word … no.
If you decide you do not want Windows 10 the easiest way I’ve found to stop the nags is to use GWX Control Panel. It’s a simple install, it works, and if you change your mind at some point there is a one-click option to allow the Windows 10 update.
I downloaded Windows 10. What happens …
Now Shockwave constantly starts crashing.
The sound driving starts crashing.
The Cortana thing randomly stops working.
Excel spreadsheets don’t open unless you backdoor your way into them.
Windows 10 sux.
Clone your drive, then get it. If it works well for you, great. If not, go back to yoru old Windows 7. You’ll at least have the free upgrade, and you can go back to it if and when you need it.
Personally, I didn’t find anything about it that made it any better, so even if a clean install fixed all my problems with it, it hasn’t been worth my time. The only thing I did kinda like is that I still had my free copy of Fruit Ninja from when I installed Windows 8 to try it out. But I have that on a tablet now.
I cannot stress the bolded part enough. I up(?)graded my Win 7 laptop twice, and both times the rollback wouldn’t work; as it was, I could restore the disk image and things were back to their previous state.
I had the same experience. In my case, it was because I had burned a Windows 10 installation DVD after the upgrade; turns out that burning that DVD breaks the rollback feature.