Windows 10?

[kathysart_decoration]

I have a Windows 7 machine - little older than 4 years old. Like everyone else, I assume, I am now getting the box popping up telling me to install Windows 10. So far I have resisted because I am afraid it will mess up my laptop and I won't know how to fix it. Unfortunately, I am not computer savvy at all, though I have managed to set up the last 3 laptops in this house, plus 3 printers. Still, I don't know the pitfalls of a Windows 10 installation. Should I just wait until it is time to purchase a new laptop or go ahead with this installation? Does anyone know if there is good phone support for the installation in case my laptop becomes unusable during installation? Thanks for any advice given.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. You can try out the update to windows 10 and if you decide it doesn't work

you can revert back to windows 7. Most people are quite happy with the update, win10 is pretty good and just about everything - apps, devices etc will work.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. You don't have to install it and...

can just wait until you replace the laptop. Win10 has a lot of good stuff, but not enough that you absolutely need that makes upgrading necessary.

Personally, I hated the Win7 on a Lenovo laptop I have and turned it into a Linux laptop. Others, however, seem to love it, and if it works for you, that's just fine.

FWIW, upgrading from 8.1 to 10 took an hour or two and worked flawlessly. After a lot of nailbiting during the installation, it popped up exactly the way I left it, but with all the new goodies.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

31. Mine took about 15 minutes start to finish.

All of my settings were intact, macros and toolbar shortcuts were transferred, Microsoft Office license transferred. Completely smooth transition.

The OS an absolute beast. Super fast and super smooth.

[packman]

3. I just uninstalled Win10 and went back to 8

A lot of bells and whistles, unnecessary - IMHO - junk. What sent me back was what it did to my internet settings. I used IE and am used to it , even with all its faults. Win10 drove me crazy trying to learn its browser settings - I couldn't find anything I was used to.

Bottom line is I uninstalled it after 2 weeks and am back on familiar ground. Give it a shot to satisfy your curiosity, easy enough to download (takes awhile) and easy enough to uninstall.

Some people claim that Win10 after you install it still lingers on in the background collecting data, but that doesn't bother me.

I want to warn all that there is a hellofa learning curve on ANY Win upgrade. When I went from Vista to Win8 I thought I was ready to pitch the whole thing. But I find 8 now a good platform.

[Tipperary]

10. How do I uninstall it?

I hate it!

[steve2470]

11. I would recommend doing a clean install of Win8 or Win7

That way, you have the best chances of NO problems. If you do a clean install, of course save all your data first on a thumb drive or DVD or external drive, etc.

If you don't have a Win8 or Win7 disc, this is how you do it:

1- click Start button in lower left hand corner

2- Click Settings in the menu that pops up in lower left hand corner

3- click Update and Security icon on the Settings menu

4- Click Recovery

5- click "Get Started" under "Go Back to an Earlier Build"

If you have problems, let us know. I know a few things. If it's too complicated, I'll refer you to the official Microsoft forum.
Good luck.

[Tipperary]

12. This is what has happened since i did the download of 10.

I can only see my desktop (you know, just the pic I have there). When I click start (as I used to do on win 8) the menu still comes up, but nothing will open. When I put my cursor over the icon which is now on the taskbar at the bottom, I can see settings or explorer or whatever, but it simply will not open. I assume it must be open behind the desktop pic, but I cannot get to it.

I am not very good at computers, but I have never had a problem like this. The problem is on my desktop machine, so I have been using my laptop since that time. Essentially the desktop is useless at this point. I am not a happy camper.

[steve2470]

13. ok do what you can to go back to Win8, we'll help you nt

[steve2470]

14. if you don't have a Windows 8 disk handy, I'll have to teach you a few things

Let me know.

[Tipperary]

15. No, I sure do not. The laptop came with it.

I still cannot get past my desktop page. I used to be able to put the cursor far to the right and settings, etc would come up that way too, but nothing happening now.

[steve2470]

16. ok can you right click the Taskbar to get a menu ?

If you can get that menu in the pic, click Task Manager. Then click File in the upper left hand corner of the Task Manager, then click Run New Task.

If you can get that far, then type this into the box it gives you: cmd

Be sure to click the box that says "Create this task with administrative privileges" . Now click the OK button. That should give you a black window.

If you can get this far, we'll keep going.

ETA: I'm going to assume you CAN get this far. Now type this in the black window at the blinking white cursor: chkdsk /f
Make sure there is a space after chkdsk and before the / sign. There is NO space after the / sign.

Now hit the Enter key. It will now ask you if you want to schedule the volume (the hard drive) to be checked on reboot (system restarts). type Y and hit Enter key again. Now, reboot your computer and let the disk get scanned. We're doing this to eliminate any possible hard drive corruption.

If you cannot even get this far, I'll have to refer you to the official Microsoft forum.

[Tipperary]

17. Hey thank you very much! I intend to try this later.

I have used task manager successfully at work before, so at least I am somewhat familiar with it. I will let you know how it goes. Since this is a Downton Abbey night, it might be tomorrow before I try.

I really, really appreciate your help here.

[steve2470]

18. glad to help, let me know how far you get :) nt

[Tipperary]

19. Ok, just went back to look at the damn machine and settings has mysteriously appeared while I was

gone. Can I uninstall 10 from here?

[steve2470]

21. yea try it if you can nt

[steve2470]

22. steps on how to do it

1- click Start button in lower left hand corner

2- Click Settings in the menu that pops up in lower left hand corner

3- click Update and Security icon on the Settings menu

4- Click Recovery

5- click "Get Started" under "Go Back to an Earlier Build"

If you have problems, let us know. I know a few things. If it's too complicated, I'll refer you to the official Microsoft forum.
Good luck.

[steve2470]

20. ok, going to assume everything went OK with the chkdsk, next step....

ok, fire up that cmd black window again using the exact same procedure you did before.

Now, do this: type sfc /scannow at the blinking white cursor. There is a space after sfc and before the / sign, and NO space after the / sign.

Hit the Enter key. Just wait a few minutes and let the black window do its thing. My guess is you're going to see one of two messages:

Possibility #1: "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%LogsCBSCBS.log". That's a GOOD message, meaning you made progress towards fixing Windows 10. If you see this message, reboot your computer and see if it works normally. If it works normally in all ways, congrats, we're done!

Possibility #2: Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%LogsCBSCBS.log. This is NOT a good message. It means, of course, that you still have corrupted files in Windows 10, which is a bad thing. Reboot the computer, and let's do the next step.

Ok, at this point, we're assuming you got nasty message #2. You need to fire up that cmd black window again using the exact same procedure. Make sure you are connected to the internet before you do these next steps. Now, type this at the blinking white cursor in the black window:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth

There is a space after DISM.exe and no space after the first / sign, a space after Online and no space after the second / sign, and a space after Cleanup-image and no space after the third / sign.

Hit the Enter key. Give the black window a few minutes to do its thing. You will probably get a message indicating that the "store" is corrupted, meaning simply that Windows 10 is corrupted. Duh, we already knew that. Ok, next step. Type this at the blinking white cursor in the black window:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

There is a space after DISM.exe and no space after the first / sign, a space after Online and no space after the second / sign, and a space after Cleanup-image and no space after the third / sign.

Hit the Enter key. Again, give the black window a few minutes to do its thing. With any luck, you will see a message stating that the "store" has been repaired and there's a log in your Windows folder somewhere. If that's the case, reboot the computer and see if it will work normally in all ways. If so, congrats, we're done!

If you don't get a good message from the Restorehealth step, then I'll send you to the forum in this post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/109515719

[Tipperary]

23. I will fill you in tomorrow. I had to go back into the living room for Downton Abbey lol.

I did find that all the other windows had also opened, so at this point I left them as they were. I have yet to start trying to do anything.

[steve2470]

24. any news on the computer front ? nt

[Tipperary]

25. Gah! The screen went back to the desktop pic again all day. Then just now I saw all the windows

again. I do not see a security icon on the settings page. I can see everything I downloaded on 12/28, which is when I did the download, but nothing says Windows10; it seems to be a bunch of different things downloaded that day.

[steve2470]

26. can you do all the stuff in this post ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1095&pid=16417

[OxQQme]

4. Installed 10 on a 5 year old desktop Win7

and a laptop that came with 8/updated to win8.1

Both installs went smoothly and kept all my 3rd party purchased apps and settings.
I have music programs that use externals devices. Win10 even configured the drivers for those.

There are dozens/hundreds of tutorials on how to change the privacy settings and get rid of the new unwanted stuff.

btw, google chrome is a much safer browser the IE

I'm satisfied that I bit the bullet and went for it.

[freebrew]

5. If your connection is limited...

make sure to check the wi-fi box that tells the system you're on a metered connection. Win10 defaults to the unlimited connection. Very costly if you pay per Gb. My PC used 8Gb in the first 2 days w/o me noticing(was away from the box).

Still afraid to plug in the wi-fi card...

[TygrBright]

6. A few things to be aware of-

-and they may not affect you, so, if not, go ahead and update.

First, MS decided to "monetize" some things that used to be freebies with older Windows versions, such as solitaire games, etc. Thus, they now carry advertising with them, and if you want to eliminate the advertising, the option is a paid subscription their games platform.

If you are a desktop/laptop computer user, you may want to find the options to change the user interface from the mobile device-oriented version that began with Win8. This is *possible,* but they really would rather you didn't do it, so they don't make it easy. If you can find your browser once the update completes, you can go online and look up the many blogs and help posts created by people who have worked their way through the process and know where all the buttons and menus are hidden.

You may also find that Win10 has not scooped up all your default file type/application preferences. Several folks I know have had to go back in and reattach filetypes that have been automatically "redirected" to various Win10 bells and whistles, to their preferred applications.

Also, I recommend you do a *thorough* check of all the applications you use regularly for compatibility with Win10. One reason I decided not to go with it is that several of the older applications I rely on for specific tasks cannot use the Win10 platform, and there appear to be no updates to them as yet. And MS certainly has no interest in backward app compatibility.

Good luck!

helpfully,
Bright

[uriel1972]

9. Older games esp. may not run, or require workarounds... nt

[steve2470]

7. if you do decide to install Windows 10, here's the official Microsoft support forum

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10?tab=Threads

Here's my guide to using that forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/109515719

[Gore1FL]

8. It was one (well, actually two) of the easiest upgrades I ever did.

In my opinion the UI is much better than 8. While there are some things I like less about it than 7, the inconveniences are minor compared to the enhancements.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

27. I was hesitant at first, but I'm glad I upgraded.

Windows 10 is a very good and stable operating system. A lot quicker than 8.1 (what I had prior).

I recommend downloading it.

Also, Microsoft has help pages for each issue within their website, so you'll have that in case you have an issue. I can't speak to the phone support question other than I've had no issues, so I don't need to use them.

Best of luck to you! Happy Upgrading!

[OhZone]

28. I refuse to get a win10.

I'm so done with MS. The spyware crap is ridiculous.

I just recently bought a new windows 7 professional. I will either buy used win7's for a while or I'll go to Linux in the future.

[ian cameron dromore]

29. Stay right where you are!

I thought Windows 7 was one of the best systems to use as it undid a lot of crimes of Windows Vista. It was the last of the basic windows and menus systems that was easy to use and navigate. Windows 8 was worse than Vista with unusable navigation and odd non intuitive windows behaviors. Windows 10 is an attempt to undo the rubbish from Windows 8 and I have to say it really is a mixed bag. If you are not computer savvy Microsoft will end up owning you with all kinds of default an unnecessary settings and bloated software addons, A mix of functionality completely robbed from Linux which works brilliantly and a mixed bag of new Windows 10 and legacy Windows 8 stuff that it just ridiculous. (The amount of times I have had to look up a discussion forum for windows 10 on a brand new laptop is a joke quite frankly).

Stick it out, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Let all the other suckers (me included) ride out all the bugs and when you get a new laptop you would like to think Microsoft have sorted things out...

[Canadian Interloper]

30. If you have 7, keep it

8 and 10 aren't as good, imho.