Windows 10 . Anybody downloaded it yet?

[Tim Dubya]

I given it a go and after three weeks I've finally admitted defeat and gone back to 7 on my PC and back to 8.1  on my old man's laptop.

 

It simply isn't ready for all devices at the moment.

 

[melmerby]

 

 

It simply isn't ready for all devices at the moment.

 

What devices?

 

I've got it running on a newish 8.1 laptop and an old ex XP, ex Win 7 desktop. No problem on the ex 8.1 laptop, IMHO it is vastly superior to that.

 

Don't know what the problem with the Jpegs is as they won't open in XP, 7 or 10!

I have one complete folder on a disk where no Jpegs are readable by any program! It's certainly not a problem with Win 10.

 

Keith

[Tim Dubya]

What devices?

 

PC:

 

AMD FX8350 Black Edition CPU @ 4.0GHz

Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard

MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB GDDR5 Graphics

16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 PC3-12800 RAM

Crucial 128GB M4 SSD

2 x WD 500GB Caviar Black HDD

 

Laptop:

 

HP 15-g094sa

 

[melmerby]

 

PC:

 

AMD FX8350 Black Edition CPU @ 4.0GHz

Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard

MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB GDDR5 Graphics

16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 PC3-12800 RAM

Crucial 128GB M4 SSD

2 x WD 500GB Caviar Black HDD

 

Laptop:

 

HP 15-g094sa

 

Interesting selection of Kit.

 

I'll see how my main PC and Main laptop go after I've finished shaking down in the lower spec models.

Both main computers are Core i7, The desktop has a 240GB Mushkin SSD and 16Gb DDR3 Ram with 8Gb graphics card (also DDR3 I think!) and a couple of big sata drives, although overall not as high spec as yours.

The laptop is an Acer Aspire 5755G with 8Gb Ram and a separate nVidia GT540M 2Gb graphics card.

 

(Both run Win 7)

 

Keith

Edited August 24, 2015 by melmerby

[melmerby]

For information the two computers I have Win 10 running on are:

My "old" PC with an AMD Athlon x4 620 quad core with 4Gb of DDR2 800 memory

AMD Radeon HD 6850 card with 2Gb memory

3 Sata HDDs

CD-RW and a DVD-RW

It started out with 2Gb memory and Windows XP, It now has 4Gb memory and both Win XP on one HDD and Win 10 (previously Win 7) on another with the third HDD for Music files.

As I play/rip a lot of music files it also has a 20W+20W class D amplifier inside it!

 

The laptop is a Acer Aspire ES1-512 with a dual core Celeron, Integrated Graphics, 4Gb Memory and 500Gb HDD

 

Both seem to be doing fine

 

Keith

[raymw]

I thought this may give some relief, to those who may be constipated ...http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-explains-poop-windows

[ScRSG]

Just finished updating a laptop with W7 and a desktop with W8.1 - both successfully. What I didn't realise and was happy with was that it did not remove Internet Explorer on both and Live Mail on the W7 machine. I had thought that it would have done given it replaced IE with "Edge". So all original programs still available and no data loss or other problems. Seems to be more stable than previous and quicker to load. 

[RFS]

IE is not being replaced with Edge in W10.  Both are available and I certainly won't be using Edge until it has all of its features delivered.

[Bill Radford]

Well that's 4 weeks with Win 10.

 

Absolutely no problems. Much improved from 8.1. All jpegs are viewable - selected Picassa as default, in fact all my previous defaults were selectable. Lap top now takes less than a minute to be ready to use after switching on and also shuts down in under a minute.

 

Now if only they allowed a free upgrade from Vista for this pc...

[raymw]

If you are concerned about privacy, then Microsoft have gathered the info/faqs in more or less one place. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-10/windows-privacy-faq interesting to see how it is used

[melmerby]

My Athlon PC with Win 10 has now decided it has had enough after 3-4 weeks of working fine.

I plugged in a USB stick to copy some files and it locked up.

 

I then got a BSOD with the message "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart, We'll restart for you"

It had the error code DPC Watchdog Violation

 

It now only gets part way through loading Win 10 and does the same again and again in a never ending loop.

 

Is it Win 10 or a hardware problem?

The BIOS now takes ages to do it's startup (10x longer than it did) so I'm wondering whether the Motherboard has decided to play up.

 

Keith

[melmerby]

Try booting from a Linux disk (cdrom, USB or otherwise). If that works fine, the issue is Win-OS. If that takes ages too, your hardware needs replacing, probably.

Just booted up in Win XP instead

 

The disk I was trying to copy to was reported as having errors which were "fixed"

I then tried to copy from the USB stick to that disk and guess what? It locked up in Win XP as well. Must be a hardware problem.

 

Disconnected the disk I was trying to copy to and Win 10 now boots up properly.

Looks like another HDD failure, that's two in as many months!

 

Keith

[antrobuscp]

Looks like another HDD failure, that's two in as many months!

 

Keith

Hmmm. I remember going on holiday once with a laptop in which the drive was becoming noisy. It started to give trouble whilst we were away, and I "nursed" it until we were home with the intention of replacing the drive at that point. We arrived home and I started the desktop - all fine. Next day, the desktop wouldn't start - hard drive dead. Fortunately the laptop survived until the desktop was repaired, but that's when I learnt to take multiple backups on a number of drives. If it can happen, sooner or later, it will.

 

Colin

[Bill]

By way od being informative..

The Microsoft representative called me as scheduled on 28th August.

Which was excellent.

He proceeded to take control of the computer and told me to ring off, as what he was doing would take a while.

He would contact me when next he needed to talk.

So I rang off and went to have supper...

I took a peek about half an hour later and saw he was 2% into downloading a new build of Windows Ten.

Three hours later - Bingo!

Windows Ten was re-installed and up and running.

And so far the computer has stayed up and running - along with everything else being fully functional by 97%..

I say 97% - I have a Microsoft Life Cam -

Windows Ten prompted me to download a software update for it, that it then refused to install.

I could no longer access the camera as it had removed the previous programme..

But I did discover an 'App' in the Start Menu called 'Camera' that works it.

And I can now make a movie of myself - should I wish!

In homage to Pavlov...

I now need to re-programme myself not to cringe whenever I click on the Start Menu button!

Edited August 28, 2015 by Bill

[melmerby]

Hmmm. I remember going on holiday once with a laptop in which the drive was becoming noisy. It started to give trouble whilst we were away, and I "nursed" it until we were home with the intention of replacing the drive at that point. We arrived home and I started the desktop - all fine. Next day, the desktop wouldn't start - hard drive dead. Fortunately the laptop survived until the desktop was repaired, but that's when I learnt to take multiple backups on a number of drives. If it can happen, sooner or later, it will.

 

Colin

No data lost. It's all duplicated elsewhere on other drives/computers. (I learnt from experience years ago)

It's just the hassle of doing something about it!

 

Just a bit curious as to the different reaction to the problem by the two OSs. Win10 got stuck in an endless boot up loop whereas Win XP promptly "errored" the drive and did a chkdsk/f

 

The computer has three HDDs. One partitioned into two with Win XP and a data area, Another partitioned into two with Win 10 and a data area and a third with just music files on it.

It was the one with music files that is playing up.

 

Keith

[RFS]

Win10 got stuck in an endless boot up loop whereas Win XP promptly "errored" the drive and did a chkdsk/f

 

Keith

 

Windows 8 onwards changes the way the hard drives are handled (called Hybrid Boot).  If you use a drive on Windows 8/10, then try to use it on an earlier OS (Win 7, XP etc.) that OS will run chkdsk at start-up.

 

See http://www.pagestart.com/win8dbchkdsk121912.html

Edited August 29, 2015 by RFS

[Jol Wilkinson]

Having followed this thread prior to posssibly upgrading(?) from W7 I am now wondering whether I should finally give up with Microsoft and buy an iMac.

 

Windows gets increasingly slower as it downloads upgrades and I have found it best to wipe the HDD and do a clean reinstall to get back to a reasonable level of performance after some time. Will W10 be the same?

[melmerby]

Having followed this thread prior to posssibly upgrading(?) from W7 I am now wondering whether I should finally give up with Microsoft and buy an iMac.

 

Windows gets increasingly slower as it downloads upgrades and I have found it best to wipe the HDD and do a clean reinstall to get back to a reasonable level of performance after some time. Will W10 be the same?

Win 10 is faster than Win 7 not slower.

My Win 7 on this (my main) PC has not got noticeably slower from when I installed it and I have had no problems with it or my Win 7 laptop

 

My trials and tribulations with Win 10 are with a basically 10 year old home brew machine which I am using as a test bed. Unfortunately some of the components are starting to creak a little

 

I won't buy a Mac whilst they are at least 3 times the price of an equivalent Win PC and don't really do any more. Some software won't run on a Mac so you have to have Windows as well.

 

Considering most of the bits come from the same factories, IMHO Apple's prices are scandalous but people are prepared to pay for the name, so that's their prerogative.

 

Keith

[Jol Wilkinson]

Keith,

 

I most certainly agree with your views on Apple pricing.

 

My fastest PC is an old, self built unit (as most have mine have been) running XP and used With CorelDraw, Adobe In design, etc. It isn't connected to the Internet and therefore is not clogged up with loads of downloads to fix problems I have never experienced.

 

My experience of Macs is entirely second hand. Even puttting aside the brand loyaly of its users, they do seem more reliable. The graphics department of my former (pre-retirement) employer used them and swore by them (rather than at them). They were apparently the industry standard in that dicipline.

 

Jol

[antrobuscp]

No data lost. It's all duplicated elsewhere on other drives/computers. (I learnt from experience years ago)

 

Keith

Keith,

 

Given your obvious computer knowledge, I didn't think you would have lost data. However, it never ceases to amaze me how many people, who often hold important data(even if only to them) on their machines, do not take adequate steps to ensure that it remains available in case of hardware failure, which is only one of the more obvious and immediate threats to the data. As with yourself, I learnt that lesson a very long time ago. I do sometimes have trouble getting the message over to the younger members of this family, though.

 

Colin

[melmerby]

Keith,

 

I most certainly agree with your views on Apple pricing.

 

My fastest PC is an old, self built unit (as most have mine have been) running XP and used With CorelDraw, Adobe In design, etc. It isn't connected to the Internet and therefore is not clogged up with loads of downloads to fix problems I have never experienced.

 

My experience of Macs is entirely second hand. Even puttting aside the brand loyaly of its users, they do seem more reliable. The graphics department of my former (pre-retirement) employer used them and swore by them (rather than at them). They were apparently the industry standard in that dicipline.

 

Jol

There's certainly been some good graphic software for Macs over the years but how many people that pay the 3x price for one ever use it for anything other than general surfing/mail/BBC iPlayer etc.

You can see them lounging in the coffee shops any day, whilst from what I have seen business types using spreadsheets, documents etc. generally don't have Macs but Sonys, HPs, Dells etc. (Maybe the company pays and wont buy Macs?)

 

There was one exception I noted, a chap who I became on speaking terms with, used to go to Starbucks because it was quieter than his office (yes!) and developed software on a Mac Book Pro whilst there.

 

I have been Building/modifying/playing with computers from the days Nascoms/Pets/Apple IIs etc. Even this PC which I bought is non-standard, having added a SSD and extra HDDs and replaced the PSU with a 750W one after the original 480W one gave up the ghost.

I don't understand modern computer programming however!

 

Keith

 

PS I don't think the problems with Windows can necessarily all be laid at the foot of MS, after all they are producing an OS which has to work on computers constructed with an almost infinite combination of parts, some of which are of dubious "standardisation" unlike Apple which only needs it's OS to work on a few, very tightly specified machines.

Edited August 29, 2015 by melmerby

[beast66606]

Having followed this thread prior to posssibly upgrading(?) from W7 I am now wondering whether I should finally give up with Microsoft and buy an iMac.

 

Windows gets increasingly slower as it downloads upgrades and I have found it best to wipe the HDD and do a clean reinstall to get back to a reasonable level of performance after some time. Will W10 be the same?

 

There is a big difference between an upgrade and a service pack / fix - Windows 10 is the first one which has been pushed as an upgrade over the Net, when a problem is resolved Microsoft need to release fixes to close loopholes

 

As Keith says, Windows supports an almost infinite combination of hardware and software and does very well considering. They've tightened some areas (well lots but I'm highlighting one particular major problem of old) such as drivers which used to be responsible for lots of problems and crashes, but with the permutations available there is no 100% guarantee that some problems won't appear. Macs still have problems and Apple control the hardware - google mac os problems.

 

As Windows is the most common OS, it's the target for most of the hacks in the world - that's many many thousands, "competing" against a much smaller number of Microsoft engineers actually developing and fixing Windows.

 

Many years ago Macs were streets ahead of Windows systems for graphics, I don't think that's the case these days.

[beast66606]

No they don't. Win-OS provides basic, limited function, generic drivers to get stuff running but M$ relies heavily on 3rd party vendors to provide proper drivers for the hardware they sell. (hint: video drivers ) "Out of the box", Win-OS only supports a limited amount of hardware, especially compared to Linux kernel: ever waded through the configuration options when compiling a new kernel? Trust me, it's enormous! (FYI: the 3.12.18 kernel I use has a config file of 127kB. This equates to 127 pages of pure text, each in A4 size )

 

Yes they do - there are lots of devices which Windows supports without third party drivers - hint screen drivers. Yes some manufacturers provide better ones, but Windows still does a reasonable job of driving a lot of hardware on it's own.

 

Why would I want to compile a new kernel - I don't even need to think at that level with Windows ? (Should I buy a c++ compiler for when I need to rebuild Windows to add a new bit of hardware ?.) same with a 128K config, no need to worry about such things.

 

Windows isn't actually a bad OS BUT those who think it is are free to choose another, however some of us are happy using Windows.

[roundhouse]

I am quite enjoying using Windows 10. Much of it can be set to work very similar to Win 7 and on a tablet it's only a quick swipe and click to change between tablet mode and more normal settings.

 

Still a few things to get used to but that will come with use.

 

Much better than win 8 / 8.1.

[raymw]

w10 seems to fine on the pc/s so far, so I'm allowing it to upgrade my small w7 machine which is more or less assigned to running one program. I can't remember, since I upgraded differently, and it was a month ago, but does a message appear on the pc screen when it is downloaded and ready to install, and also an email is also sent to you to say it is ready to install? Currently having to go elsewhere to check the screen. I will install from usb if it takes too long to get in the download queue, if there is one.