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Windows 10

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STEVIEBOY1

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Good morning,

I was wondering if any of you have any knowledge of Windows 10, my system which is Windows 7, keeps wanting to download it whether I want it or not, a similar thing has already happened to a friend.. If it does load, are there likely to be any problems with my BT or Gmails and word processing system etc.

I am quite happy with windows 7. What are advantages of windows 10?

Many Thanks.
 
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Harpers Tate

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I voluntarily upgraded all my PCs to 10, having first tried it on one of them.

As I was unsure, I first took a full system image of my 7 setup, using a free tool (Macrium Reflect free) so that I could revert it fully at any time afterwards if I needed to.

You have until the end of July to get any given PC updated to 10 for free, after which time it will cost.

Note that once a given machine has had its 10 upgrade installed and activated, then its details are recorded and THAT machine can be updated again (if it was reverted, or if you ever have to do a reinstall) at any time without cost. So the time to do this is now.

In fact I have had no desire to revert to my 7 setup and so I won't be using the image I created - unless something goes horribly wrong.

So, if you are in doubt then that's the way to do it:

- create a system image on a separate drive
- update to 10 and try it for a few weeks or so; I recommend NOT allowing the automated update process to do it; I suggest downloading the Win10 ISO onto a USB stick or similar and then installing from there; this will mean you can update other machines or re-update after a revert, or restart it if it fails for some reason, without having to do the (big) download again. I think it may be more reliable as well, because your download and installation processes are kept separate and a failure in the one won't affect the other.
- after you have tried it, keep it or revert using your image file
 

Howardh

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A lot of software, mainly stuff that worked in 7 but was built for XP, might not work in 10 even after fiddling with compatability stuff. (Magix Music Editor, Curling Granite 2 and Ulead Photoshop 5 all don't for me).

I find the stuff on files eg photos evry difficult to manage, if I want to delete a file it opens it first, grrr.

Windows 10 won't let you run Virtual XP mode (like 7 pro does) which was a back-door method of getting XP software to run.

My local second-hand PC/Laptop shop used to upgrade all the used stock from 7 to 10; but found they didn't sell and customers "overwhelmingly" wanted 7/7pro.

The most asked phrase in "Cortana search" was "How do I get rid of Cortana?"

But if none of the above bother you...go for it. 10's big plus is it's apps, one of which, Cricinfo, you can click on and get a full screen scoreboard.

But I'd go for 7 pro or XP pro every day!!
 

radamfi

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I'm going to stick with Windows 7 until 2020 when support ends.
 

Howardh

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I'm going to stick with Windows 7 until 2020 when support ends.

My PC upstairs is still XP and I've not encountered any problems...that I'm aware of! I don't use it for banking, emails or buying stuff so should avoid any problems that way. It's mainly used for photo and music editing which isn't on line anyway.
 

SS4

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Drivers are most likely to be show stoppers, especially if your PC isn't the modern modern: if your WiFi driver doesn't work getting online to download it will suck. I would recommend using google to find out if your hardware is supported - I've not used windows for a long time but it should still be in device manager

Your email will be fine as it's based on a web server and can be accessed through the browser. If you're using MS Office I'd imagine they've ensured that works but other office suites may be less compatible.

Harper's Tate gives excellent backup advice further up the thread so that's worth following even if you don't plan to "upgrade"
 

russdx

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My win7 upgraded to win10 by it self over night which i was not to hapoy about. But had no problems so far. We have also been upgraded at work and everything is fine. Win10 includes a lot of generic drivers to get most hardware working.
 

Howardh

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My win7 upgraded to win10 by it self over night which i was not to hapoy about. But had no problems so far. We have also been upgraded at work and everything is fine. Win10 includes a lot of generic drivers to get most hardware working.

It shoudn't have done that - Microsoft said they were disabling that so it could only down...sorry, upgrade with permission.

Happily on my Win 7 the win 10 box on my taskbar (which you click to start downgrading) has now disappeared; hopefully that's the end of the nagging too!
 

DynamicSpirit

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I wonder if, now the free period for upgrading to Windows 10 is over, those of us who've managed to avoid the upgrade will no longer have to suffer Windows's constant attempts to get us to upgrade :)
 

507021

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I've upgraded to Windows 10 recently and I'm happy with it so far, it's better than Windows 8.1 in my view.
 

Crossover

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I've had Windows 10 on my home PC for a while and get on with most of it OK (I work in IT though, so I need to learn it either way!) though the way the photos auto-rotate can cause a problem when then uploading them to somewhere like here where it uploads the un-rotated photo.

At work I have upgraded any Windows 8.1 machines to clear them out of the estate but anything that was on Windows 7 still is

Is 2020 the definite date still?

Yes, extended support ends on 4th January 2020, at which time patching will cease.

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended a month or so ago which means it will no longer receive any new features, just security patches
 

AM9

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I have Win 10 on two desktop pCs, both of which have video editing suites installed on them. Non-linear video editors are among the most complex programs around and I don't seem to have any problems.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended a month or so ago which means it will no longer receive any new features, just security patches

Thanks for that information, as I can live with just the security patches for Windows 7 until the start of 2020, when I will be getting on for 75 years of age then.

Incidentally, do many people think that Windows 7 was better than anything Windows 8 had to offer?
 

Peter Mugridge

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I have Win 10 on two desktop pCs, both of which have video editing suites installed on them. Non-linear video editors are among the most complex programs around and I don't seem to have any problems.

I wonder if I'm the only person on here with a dedicated video editing computer that has Windows 7 combined with a Thunderbolt* connection...?






*It's compatible with any format from Hi-8 through to the new Thunderbolt.
 

AM9

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Boot up times are quicker for Win 8.1, even taking into account if Windows is on a SSD.

I use 250GB SSD boot drives now and minimise the local storage of data. Most is stored on two NASs via a cat6 network. All of this is transparent to whatever OSs I'm using, - even the Android tablet that I'm typing this on.
I wasn't so keen on the 'Fisher-Price' interface of Win8 & 8.1 but otherwise it worked as well as 7 did.
 

SteveP29

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Upgraded from 8.1 to 10 last September.
Absolutely detested 8.1, very clunky, built for touchscreens, not desktops, so the functionality in action was very poor.
10 is a massive improvement on 8.1, but nowhere near as good as 7 or Vista (yes, I loved Vista, only gave it up about 2 months ago when I bought a new laptop)

Only problem I've had with 10 is Microsoft Outlook (in Office, not the standalone email program), my parents have hotmail accounts and I had it configured with the Outlook connector so that they were able to use the Outlook program with their hotmail accounts.
Receiving emails is fine, but they just cannot send.
I ended up downloading Mozilla Thunderbird for them, as they couldn't get their heads around web based emailing from outlook.com
 

radamfi

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After seeing the dramatic improvement in performance after replacing my hard drive with a SSD, I would never buy a computer without it now. I'm disappointed that most new laptops for sale still don't offer SSD and it is usually a case of swapping them after purchase.
 

Crossover

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Thanks for that information, as I can live with just the security patches for Windows 7 until the start of 2020, when I will be getting on for 75 years of age then.

Incidentally, do many people think that Windows 7 was better than anything Windows 8 had to offer?

I hardly used 8/8.1 except setting up a few machines at work that came with it and couldn't be easily downgraded, but from what I saw, you're not the only one by a long way. Granted, on the devices we had at work, 8.1 made some sense as they were touchscreens. Windows 10 is much better suited to both though with the option of swapping into tablet mode (which removes the infernal habit of IE trying to launch in app mode on 8.1 and causing utter chaos (a few of our LoB (Line of Business) applications didn't take kindly to the tablet mode)

Only problem I've had with 10 is Microsoft Outlook (in Office, not the standalone email program), my parents have hotmail accounts and I had it configured with the Outlook connector so that they were able to use the Outlook program with their hotmail accounts.
Receiving emails is fine, but they just cannot send.
I ended up downloading Mozilla Thunderbird for them, as they couldn't get their heads around web based emailing from outlook.com

I'm guessing you're on Outlook/Office 2007/2010? The Outlook Connector has never seemed to work right for me, but it is apparently deprecated in Outlook 2013 onwards and instead just works in the same way as the likes of Exchange for synching email. I'm not there yet but I do intend to try it sometime

After seeing the dramatic improvement in performance after replacing my hard drive with a SSD, I would never buy a computer without it now. I'm disappointed that most new laptops for sale still don't offer SSD and it is usually a case of swapping them after purchase.

I have seen a few now that come with SSD's. At work, all the recent laptop acquisitions have SSD's as there is little reason not to (we can stand having smaller SSD's as most storage is central and we've never had any real use for the 500-750GB drives the laptops usually come with)
 

507021

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Upgraded from 8.1 to 10 last September.
Absolutely detested 8.1, very clunky, built for touchscreens, not desktops, so the functionality in action was very poor.
10 is a massive improvement on 8.1, but nowhere near as good as 7 or Vista (yes, I loved Vista, only gave it up about 2 months ago when I bought a new laptop)

I agree with this, I found Windows 8.1 very unsuited to laptops and desktop machines, Windows 10 is much better in that sense. I didn't like the lack of a start menu, and like yourself I thought it was very clunky and not very functional. I think my laptop runs better with 10 than 8.1, so I'm glad I decided to take advantage of the free upgrade.

I liked Windows Vista and Windows 7 too. I was planning to go from using Windows 7 on my last machine and go to Windows 10 on a new machine last year, but my last laptop gave up not long before Windows 10 was released, so I had to buy a machine with 8.1 instead.
 

Crossover

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Just a warning that the anniversary update (1607) was released earlier this week - not a huge download that I could tell, but it took my desktop the best part of an hour to apply it. A couple of minor changes I have noticed so far (start menu is slightly redesigned and network credentials box looks a bit different)
 

Temple Meads

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I really like 8.1..

Maybe I'm very adaptable, or maybe I'm just weird, but after changing a few settings I find it as easy to use as XP, which I came from. I also have a laptop running 7, and again I find there isn't much to choose between the different OS's.

As I have 8.1 running well I swerved the update to W10.
 

DaleCooper

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I expect the next wersion of Windows to be compulsory not optional. That's why it's Ubuntu for me, it seems to do everything I need (my needs are very simple).
 
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