I have experience of using it (and Windows 8.x before it. I adopted both and pushed through the initial change shock. I do believe that qualifies me to say a few things about what it is like to use, and what it can and cannot do - certainly more so than anyone who has flatly refused to touch it.
I do expect to be regarded as an authority on the subject, but I do try to remain objective and keep the discussion factual.and non emotive. It’s a fallacy to argue that a product is bad because of the unfortunate experiences of a small number of users. That isn’t to belittle or downplay the severity of those people, or to imply that their problems are less than completely genuine.
It’s ok to complain about a genuinely bad experience. It’s not ok for everyone else to complain on the basis that they fear they might also have had a bad experience, but didn’t.
Actually, read the few posts above the one you chastised me for. There’s a non-user of Windows 10 thanking another non-user for reinforcing their fear and reluctance - and I see this a lot - not just here, but elsewhere in blogs etc - people’s negative but unfounded fears, or in some cases, completely counterfactual assertions get repeated as facts and the whole thing snowballs into a collection of negativity that is quite out of proportion with reality.
My best suggestion is in post #23 - try a system restore from boot. I’m not sure if the OP tried that, or was unable, or has since given up.
Given the way the problem presented - that is, it happened some time after what appeared to be a relatively successful install, I’m inclined to suggest that it sounds like a broken update - Windows update, drivers, or some such, that were applied to the system after the initial upgrade - I’ve seen Windows Update destroy systems that all the way back to XP.
If you can get into System Restore and go back to a point before the problem, then reapply any pending updates one at a time, it’s sometimes possible to identify the troublesome one and exclude it from future updates. In some cases, the simple act of segregating the updates and applying them separately actually gets past the problem entirely.
But the thing is, for me it comes down to comparing the possible gains with the possible losses. And I’ve seen nothing mentioned about W10 that would likely enhance my computer using experience on the upside, and stories (such as the OP’s) make it clear just how time consuming and frustrating the downsides could be. So… <shrug>
I will be perfectly accepting of W10 WHEN it arrives here on a new computer where some manufacturer has already (one hopes) determined that all the parts in the computer will work properly under that OS without me needed to experiment and know how to fix things myself.
My upgrade to Windows 10 went off without a hitch and I rather like it. Even the major upgrade they just did a little while ago went smoothly. I lost my sound for a little while but a quick Google search solved that toot suite.
So far, all avenues to resolve the situation have failed miserably. Since the computer itself doesn’t boot, my only options involve a Windows 10 Media Disk, which I successfully created. It sadly hasn’t helped.
Turning on the computer with the media disk in, and changing the BIOS to boot from DVD, I first get the message “You are in the middle of an upgrade and inserted a media disk. Press Cancel to resume upgrading.” I hit OK to boot from the media disk and try its various options.
Repair Windows 10 Startup…Failed (“Unable to repair”)
Reset Windows 10, Preserve Files…Failed at 1%
So then I went to the Command Prompt (via the boot CD, not my actual computer) and used the command:
Bootrec /RebuildBCD
This added my original Windows 7 OS as a boot option in the various menus on the disk.
Repair Windows 7 Startup…Failed (“Unable to repair”)
Reset Windows 7, Preserve Files…Failed at 1%
So, yeah. It’s looking like I have no chance at saving any existing files, which is a bummer. I backed up all my critical files, but there’s a ton of media files on there I’m unhappy about losing, and took up too much space to reasonably back up.
I also tried plugging in my old CRT monitor just in case the display was being routed to the wrong monitor. Not only did that not work, the old CRT monitor was physically damaged by this attempt; everything looks much, much worse than the already bad picture it had to begin with.
Next up is to try and Reset Windows 10 (delete all files) but to be honest I doubt that will work either.
I don’t see the idea’s been suggested (which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist), but you might try downloading a Linux live disk and booting from that. It won’t help your Win10 griefs, but it could allow you to locate and salvage your files.
That’s exactly what i was going to suggest. An Ubuntu installation disc will do it nicely, with the added advantage that Ubuntu is pretty easy to navigate if you’re a Windows or Mac user. Unless there’s problems with the hard drive itself, this should certainly allow the OP to retrieve those media files that he doesn’t want to lose.
Good plan. Some linux boot disks include tools to recover the Windows installation key, so after recovering files, a clean wipe and reinstall may be possible
My only reason for the Win 10 upgrade was my dislike of Win 8 that came with my last desktop purchase. Early scuttlebutt was: “Hate 8? Move to 10, you’ll love it!” So I bit. As you mentioned, the exercise certainly hasn’t enhanced my user experience, it’s only complicated it.
Mangetout: Let me explain. I do not profess any technical ability with any Microsoft product since the 3.0/'98 era. At that time, I became somewhat interested in all the intricacies of those OSs, but essentially became aggravated and bored. I had very simple needs then, and very simple needs now related to computers: Email, the occasional You Tube video, a little shopping, and some research/reading. Pretty much the same as it was, almost two decades ago.
A good analogy would be: I appreciate the fact that my kitchen light comes on when I throw the switch. I’m glad it isn’t necessary for me to understand and manipulate all the complex technologies in the background that allow this to happen… Much less alter the entire procedure every couple of years. I just want to throw the switch, and have light happen.
It would be nice for me (and many others) if that were the case here. We don’t need, want, nor care, about … NEW RULES! DIFFERENT OS!! EXCITING (meh) CHANGES!!!
I simply want my email without a fight. I simply want the damn thing to run and function properly when I throw the switch.
Ironically, Win8 was actually trying to serve the needs of people wo just wanted to turn it on and use it indeed I know some older people who bought win8 machines as their first computer, and loved the simplicity. For many people with existing experience of Windows, the change was too much.
Mind you, I remember people complaining about how much they hated win95 ‘forcing’ them to keep stuff in ‘my documents’, and fretting about the loss of DOS legacy compatibility in XP. Change is frightening and painful for some.
That sounds perfect, I’ll give that a shot. I assume a cursory google search will locate an iso I can download?
Will there be any user account access issues? The media I’d like to recover is in both \Users\Public\Music and \Users\Me\Videos, plus I don’t think I properly backed up either Firefox profiles, which are in \Users(User)\AppData(Local? Roaming? I forget)\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles.
Neither account has a password associated with it. Will Linux have any trouble accessing those paths, do you think?
EDIT: If I can access those and transfer them onto either a flash drive or burn them to dvd, I’ll consider myself salvaged and happily reformat the drive for a clean install of Win10. I think it’s around 60 gigs, and I have a 32gig flash drive. (12 gigs of which are already taken with my “critical file” backup.) I don’t mind doing 3-4 passes to get them all over to this old XP box for temporary storage while I reformat.
The colors were completely blown out, to the point that I can no longer set them to anything that isn’t hideously awful. The best I can manage is to make text legible.
I’ve never seen physical damage from just plugging it in, either. Until now.
First, for an ISO, i think the easiest is just to download the latest version of Ubuntu. The installation ISO also works as a live disc that can run from the optical drive. It probably about the most user-friendly version of Linux for someone who doesn’t use Linux much.
In my experience, there should not be any path or account or password issues. I had to rescue my wife’s laptop this way some years back, and as far as i remember, Linux basically does not respect any Windows password or user restrictions. It just shows you the pathways and lets you grab the files. My experience was with WinXP though; i don’t know if later version of Windows are more sophisticated in their ability to keep a Linux OS from getting into the file system.
The windows 10 upgrade is available to Pro users as well. I know that because I have just got a new windows 10 laptop dual booted. (some programs will not work on 10)
The windows 7 partition, which is windows 7 professional N, has the windows 10 flag pop up in the task bar. But I will not upgrade to 10, as I already have 10!
Burning that disc and booting from it allows you to try and repair startup problems, or reinstall, or do a fresh install. None of that worked (haven’t tried a fresh install yet) but it also gives you access to a command prompt. Woohoo, DOS!
My normal drive setup is:
C: hard drive
D: optical drive
E: removable drive (flash drive, mp3 player, etc…)
Booting from the DVD and going to that command prompt, then plugging in my flash drive, my broken computer’s drives showed as:
X: admin access (not sure what this was; it was the default, and I switched drives immediately)
C: blank
D: my actual hard drive
E: not sure
F: not sure
G: my actual flash drive
I got into computers in the 80s, so I used DOS as my primary operating system for maybe 6 years or so before switching to Windows 3.1, so for me using DOS is as second nature as riding a bicycle. I was able to easily (if tediously) locate and back up all files I wanted to preserve. I had full and complete access to the entire tree structure for the entire hard drive; no “hidden” or user-protected paths to worry about. (ie: I could copy C:\Users(User)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles for both users without issue.)
It’s been years (maybe decades) since I’d used xcopy to copy entire trees at once, and the dir switches for sorting and pausing between screenfuls, but it all came flooding back very quickly.
So yay! I’m fairly confident I have gotten everything off that computer I wanted; now I just need to do a fresh Windows 10 install with that disk and then spend an ocean of time re-configuring everything, but at least I’m no longer stuck in a holding pattern.
It might still be worth downloading and booting a linux utilities disk and performing some intensive tests on system memory, cpu, graphics memory etc - just in case the root cause of all this is some sort of hardware failure.