Should I take the 'leap'?
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
I have "taken the leap" on two of our PCs here, both Win 7, one 32 bit, the other 64bit. The 32 bit upgrade went fairly painlessly and everything worked except for the MachineID having changed and forcing re-registration of a couple of bits of software (CfosSpeed and SmartFTP). The 64 bit is another story, it is on an Asus Z87-Pro with an i7-4770K - so fairly recent hardware. After the various reboots during the upgrade it lost the Ethernet connection and all USB2 ports luckily the USB3 worked so I could get a mouse and keyboard connected. Looking in the device manager the NIC and USB ports were there and 'working' - only they didn't. Re-installing the chipset and NIC drivers from Asus fixed the problem. Same problem as for the 32 bit with needing to re-register the same software. HOWEVER, it has just gone and upgraded to build 10586 and I had to go through the whole driver and license rigmarole again. An even bigger HOWEVER is that one of these computers is also my PVR for UK Freesat. I went away for the weekend having set Downton Abbey to record and came back to find a screen saying "Howdy, we've got some delicious updates waiting for a reboot, we reckon 3 am tomorrow would be a good time for this, whad'ya think?" - well I think that it sucks because the message appeared to have halted all other programmes (or at least inhibited the task scheduler from starting new ones) and I didn't get my recording of Downton. I don't find 10 any faster than 7. I have upgraded a single core Sempron laptop and performance is just the same (once you have waited 2 days for 10 to finish indexing everything again). I hope that this helps
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I am not sure. I upgraded in early august and all went really well up until mid november. Since the "Threshold 2" update all sorts of stuff is going haywire. Interfacing with drivers is particularly bad: some peripherals no longer work or work erratically. Other new ones install and work perfectly well under windows 7 but don't under Windows 10 although the driver is reportedly windows 10 compatible ( FTDI CDM drivers ). I wouldn't be surprised if it was compatible with the "original" windows 10 but not with the new one. Don't they know at microsoft they shouldn't fix it if it ain't broke ?
That happened on my laptop too. I booted to recovery, rolled back to the previous Windows 10 build and turned on "defer upgrades" in system settings once everything was up and running again.
Anna (@annajayne) Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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it's fine. it's not going to change your life or anything.
I played with it on and off for awhile and finally decided it just didn't offer anything I needed for the little headaches I had to work around. My DEV machine is solid running on Win7. I have "10" confined to a VM where I can use it for testing but I doubt that I'll go to it (at least on that equipment) at all. There's just no features compelling enough to upgrade right now, IMHO.
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
I would. Imho, it is just silly to wait. I like it a lot. Has been pretty solid. My only realy complaint is the large lack of basic functionality in many of the new "apps" like mail, for instance. But I just use other mail clients instead. For me, it is probably worth it for the time saved using Cortana alone. Searching for things such as where to set some setting for something or finding some file I know the name of but can't remember where I put it are big time savers.
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
Win 10 is still in beta state. I wouldn't upgrade from Win 7 just yet, unless you are having system-related problems that would require serious work fixing. I've upgraded my Win 8 Ultrabook because I really hated W8 - compared to that, in spite of some rough edges, Win 10 is an improvement. That said, the upgrade from Win 8 wasn't clean. I have occasional shutdowns (no warning, no bluescreen - just an instant power down), and experience a few odd quirks. Mary Jo Fowley apparently had the same issues, but in an article she declared they went away after a fresh installation, so that's what I'll try shortly. My Win 7 desktop works fine, and I'll leave it that way. I'll buy a new one next year, and it will also be Win 7. I't s the most stable OS I ever had besides Win XP (after a couple of service packs) and I really don't see why I should instead use a juvenile OS that endangers my privacy and introduces UI changes that are inherently unhelpful (I hate how in the flat UI design it's impossible to distinguish labels from flat buttons :mad: ) The only things that would make me consider upgrading a Win 7 system to Win 10 is (1) being able to take advantage of DX 12 (if your graphics adapter supports it) and (2) Support for W7 ending (in 2020)
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
I've upgraded several machines and am quite happy this far. No big advances, no big show-stoppers, but you're aware of that. Move forward. Don't be Luddite.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
Anders, I am a late adopter. So consider that. I am on win 7 and loving it. We have 2 windows 10 machines here, and feedback from 2 other developers who had to make the plunge: 1) Audio Drivers no longer work, or are crazy flaky, making one guy dial in with a phone on meetings! 2) Edge Browser does not make a multi-line web field sizeable (works in IE, and chrome) (mantis site) 3) Privacy Concerns: The default is that they can record your keystrokes and send them to Redmond 4) The WONDERFUL Windows Key: Add -> Add or Remove Programs. NOT QUITE as nice in Windows 10. Half the time, it cannot find what I am searching for. Worse, it gives me WEB search results, and takes me to a web page as a penalty for clicking on it (I did finally disable this) 5) A couple of old stalwart programs started crashing on windows 10. 6) Other hardware issues. (builtin web cam issues) 7) Having weird crap, until a full powerdown and reboot. About 4 times on one computer. I barely reboot my win 7 machine. Windows 10, we can't keep it for 7 days without it getting flaky. 8) Once MSFT sends you updates in the background, it appears to make #7 worse, It half installs them, and then you need to go through the long reboot/install cycle. 9) On the plus side, my color laser printer was supported out of the box! So, there is risk. Losing the built in Mic for my meetings would kill me. If I were to do it, I would clone my system to fresh new disks. I would do the upgrade on the new disks. And if I hated it, I would revert back by swapping to the other disks. (Admittedly I am on webmail and version control for everything). YMMV
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I would. Imho, it is just silly to wait. I like it a lot. Has been pretty solid. My only realy complaint is the large lack of basic functionality in many of the new "apps" like mail, for instance. But I just use other mail clients instead. For me, it is probably worth it for the time saved using Cortana alone. Searching for things such as where to set some setting for something or finding some file I know the name of but can't remember where I put it are big time savers.
Cortana sure is an awesome feature. However, I'm rather reluctant to open up any information about me, what I do, or what is on my computer to the cloud - and if I stop Cortana from doing that, it is hardly any more advanced a search feature than that already present in Win 7. I did do AI programming myself in the past, and therefore I do understand why Cortana needs that much data to learn. But at this point I am not (yet) willing to give up my data to a service that may or may not be responsible, secure, and also valiant in defending my privacy against the likes of the NSA. Maybe Microsoft deserves my trust in this. But if it does, it does an incredibly horrible job to convince me. Hint: aggressive schemes to push W10 on my W7 system through intrusive, unwanted nagging ads does not serve to build trust!
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Cortana sure is an awesome feature. However, I'm rather reluctant to open up any information about me, what I do, or what is on my computer to the cloud - and if I stop Cortana from doing that, it is hardly any more advanced a search feature than that already present in Win 7. I did do AI programming myself in the past, and therefore I do understand why Cortana needs that much data to learn. But at this point I am not (yet) willing to give up my data to a service that may or may not be responsible, secure, and also valiant in defending my privacy against the likes of the NSA. Maybe Microsoft deserves my trust in this. But if it does, it does an incredibly horrible job to convince me. Hint: aggressive schemes to push W10 on my W7 system through intrusive, unwanted nagging ads does not serve to build trust!
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
Personally, I fail to see the depth of concern. I understand the argument, I just don't care if Cortana needs information or not. And I don't care what Microsoft does with it. However, I think Cortana's search features are FASTER by a lot on my Win10 box versus previous Win 7. I suspect more stuff is being indexed AND the Win10 box is newer. But it finds more stuff than was found in Win7. And I'm just talking about local things. Not AI networked things. Like, I know I used a file yesterday and I know what I called it, but I can't remember where I put it. Just type the name in Cortana's window and it QUICKLY finds it. I am ALL in favor of pushing out stuff instead of people not updating their machines and making themselves and everyone around them more vulnerable because they haven't got the latest security updates. Look at all the people still running XP with IE6!!
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Albert Holguin wrote:
(notably, Matlab)
I'm sorry. X|
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Love Matlab! ...great tool for modeling.
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I played with it on and off for awhile and finally decided it just didn't offer anything I needed for the little headaches I had to work around. My DEV machine is solid running on Win7. I have "10" confined to a VM where I can use it for testing but I doubt that I'll go to it (at least on that equipment) at all. There's just no features compelling enough to upgrade right now, IMHO.
You do need to have at least Windows 8 to develop or play with Universal Apps and use the emulator.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
My almost 4 years old Alienware laptop became faster after I installed Win 10 over Win 8.1 I liked it very much. Has several goodies that can make your life easier if you know they exist.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
I upgraded 3 of my systems from Win 7 to 10, all 3 are 64-bit hardware but one had 32-bit Win 7 Pro installed. I've not experienced any serious issues but have noticed the boot and login times are longer on all three systems than under Win 7. The one thing I've encountered that I find exasperating is that programs which display a startup splash screen tend to remain hidden behind the window of the program that was active. Consequently I don't always know the program I just launched is already running so I try to start another instance. On a positive note some programs I thought would be an issue just work. One in particular is Fender Fuse which is a program that is used to configure a Fender guitar amp via a USB connection. I've had no problems with it even though it was a bit finicky under Win 7 and relies on Silverlight.
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Love Matlab! ...great tool for modeling.
In my opinion, Kate Upton is a great tool for modeling. :-\
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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In my opinion, Kate Upton is a great tool for modeling. :-\
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Well...... can't argue with that! :cool:
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I've been pondering for a while whether to upgrade to Windows 10 or not and would like the opinion of the brave ones out there that have been working with it for a while. The old Dell Vostro 3500 has been running well on Win 7 and I don't really need to upgrade so it's more out of curiosity than anything else. Cheers!
Andrés
I've upgraded a couple of PCs (one W7, one W8.1) and assisted in helping out non-techies with obscure problems (all W7s with loads of malware) and have to say that upgrading was fairly painless. I wouldn't go back to W7 - it did not take long (maybe an hour) to get reasonably comfortable. I get good response times and faster booting / closing down, but that may be because my W7 was a clean (not OEM) build and I migrated to an SSD as part of the transition. Watch the time for making the go / no-go decision. You have a month to decide whether to revert back to W7 / W8.x. I did not use the option and there seems to not be an approved way to remove the backout to W7 files (nearly 6GB) after the month is up. I am considering deleting the $Windows.~WS file and hoping as none of the things that I have searched on the web give techniques that seem applicable for removing W7 backout option after the month finishes. As you will have seen, some other respondents have had difficulties and regret moving, others ahev found it easy and worthwhile. So, no-one can really tell you what to do. All that I will say is ... BACKUP YOUR OLD SYSTEM FIRST.
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I pondered this question quite a bit a few weeks back when I was upgrading my disk to solid state. I ended up just keeping my Win7 install (dual boots to Linux Mint) because well... it works. I also have a few expensive pieces of software on there that would really piss me off if they didn't work after the switch (notably, Matlab), so why mess with it. If you don't have anything to lose, you can always back everything up and give it a try. In my case, I was more concerned about improving my boot times... I mostly use Linux nowadays anyway.
I agree. I put (avoiding the word upgraded) Win10 on my Vostro 5740. Most noticable issue was that Autocad stopped working reliably. Some other programs refused to start and I got fed up with the automatic updates maxing out my SSD so that I couldn't use the machine.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.