Windows 10 . Anybody downloaded it yet?

[melmerby]

Conversely to the above (3 PCs updated in minutes) SWMBO's laptop has spent most of the afternoon at it.

Firstly the final 1903 update failed, asked for a restart to retry and the machine got locked in boot-up mode. (Windows loading do not switch off or something like that)

After about 30mins waiting for it to start I'd had enough and switched it off.

Power up again and it's back to the update page after a rather slow boot up.

Now showing ready to install the 1903 update again and now also the feature update to 1909, which wasn't offered initially.

Decided to go straight to the feature update and got another very slow install, re-start and boot up.

I thought "At least It will now have the 1909 version". Wrong, actually it installed the 1903 one it failed on before and was offering the 1909 update again.

Selected the 1909 update again and it did do it (slowly). Now on 1909 after several hours faffing.

 

As a result of this aggro I decided to install Norton Utilities which was a revelation.

2195 Registry errors and a badly fragmented HDD.

After resolving those errors the Laptop now boots up quicker, so I hope the next update will be less dramatic.

 

N.B. this laptop has a slow 5400rpm HDD and a Celeron 2 core processor, so spends days doing what other PCs do in minutes

 

 

 

[John Tomlinson]

I've followed this thread with interest for a few months, following a problem with the March 2019 update to my Windows 1809.

 

The impact of that update, presumably in conjunction with some other piece of code in my machine, was to disable the "search" box, and also semi-paralyse "restarts", the latter taking three plus hours to complete. It also deleted Microsoft Edge and the related paraphanalia with same. I also ceased to have Auto updates, despite being set for these, and accordingly have for the past seven months done "check for updates" around the 20th of the month, and updated that way.

 

Last night I decided to go for the latest batch of updates, and lo and behold the "blockage" seems to have cleared, my "search" box is working and my restarts are a matter of seconds. I've become used to Firefox and so the loss of Edge is not an issue.

 

Despite still being on 1809, I see I am being offered a Features update to 1909, so I'm not sure what happened to 1903! As I seem to have little use for any of the Features "improvements" generally, I'm not proposing to bother, unless this could in some way impact any mainstream updates in the future. I wonder if anyone has a view on this?

 

Many thanks,

 

John.

[RFS]

8 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

I've followed this thread with interest for a few months, following a problem with the March 2019 update to my Windows 1809.

 

The impact of that update, presumably in conjunction with some other piece of code in my machine, was to disable the "search" box, and also semi-paralyse "restarts", the latter taking three plus hours to complete. It also deleted Microsoft Edge and the related paraphanalia with same. I also ceased to have Auto updates, despite being set for these, and accordingly have for the past seven months done "check for updates" around the 20th of the month, and updated that way.

 

Last night I decided to go for the latest batch of updates, and lo and behold the "blockage" seems to have cleared, my "search" box is working and my restarts are a matter of seconds. I've become used to Firefox and so the loss of Edge is not an issue.

 

Despite still being on 1809, I see I am being offered a Features update to 1909, so I'm not sure what happened to 1903! As I seem to have little use for any of the Features "improvements" generally, I'm not proposing to bother, unless this could in some way impact any mainstream updates in the future. I wonder if anyone has a view on this?

 

Many thanks,

 

John.

 

1909 is now officially available and supersedes 1903 so no-one now is going to be offered the upgrade to 1903. I do not know what the problems are that caused your issues, but you say it was after the March 2019 update which is to install 1903, yet you say you are still on 1809?

 

There is a limited life-cycle on these various versions of Windows 10, and at some point 1809 will go out of support. What will happen then is you will find yourself being updated by Microsoft to the current supported level. 

 

Not sure what your skills are in this area, but my inclination would be to carry out a clean install of Windows 10 at some point, using the latest 1909 version which you can download from here and then create a bootable DVD or flash drive.

Edited November 19, 2019 by RFS

[Scottish Modeller]

Hi all,

 

Now totally fed up with Windows 10 and it's update process.

 

Having managed to get a stable, non crashing version set up and working properly - along comes the latest update.

 

I now have a Windows 10 pc that crashes with monotonous regularity - at least 3 times a day.

 

Windows reports itself as 1909 when I check, but even as I checked, it crashed again.

 

After the last big update I ended up having to do a clean install with all the mess of having to reinstall everything else.

 

With version 1909 I can no longer get my Sprog II with decoderpro to work, even after following all the advise which suggests how this can be resolved.

 

Thanks

Phil H

[RFS]

49 minutes ago, Scottish Modeller said:

Hi all,

 

Now totally fed up with Windows 10 and it's update process.

 

Having managed to get a stable, non crashing version set up and working properly - along comes the latest update.

 

I now have a Windows 10 pc that crashes with monotonous regularity - at least 3 times a day.

 

Windows reports itself as 1909 when I check, but even as I checked, it crashed again.

 

After the last big update I ended up having to do a clean install with all the mess of having to reinstall everything else.

 

With version 1909 I can no longer get my Sprog II with decoderpro to work, even after following all the advise which suggests how this can be resolved.

 

Thanks

Phil H

 

Windows 10, especially the latest 1909 version, is extremely stable. If your PC running this software is crashing 3 times a day the cause is almost certainly your PC, with the most likely reason being third-party software (especially device drivers) or hardware. 

 

Do you know what the failures are from the logs? If it's failing with blue screen errors, I would recommend running this utility and posting a screenshot of the summary page here so that we can help you with your problem. 

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, Scottish Modeller said:

With version 1909 I can no longer get my Sprog II with decoderpro to work, even after following all the advise which suggests how this can be resolved.

Tried made and it works okay but I had previously installed the FTDI drivers described at https://groups.io/g/sprog-dcc/message/2909

[melmerby]

A Sprog is a simple thing for a PC to deal with, the only exception on Win 10 is using unsigned drivers, which Windows rejects by default.

However the solution is a simple one whereby you temporarily allow installation of unsigned drivers from the recovery options.

Once they have been installed Windows does not reject them during later updates.

 

I've got JMRI and  Sprog installed on 3x Win 10 PCs and never a murmur from the operating system.

Edited November 21, 2019 by melmerby

[Butler Henderson]

18 hours ago, melmerby said:

A Sprog is a simple thing for a PC to deal with, the only exception on Win 10 is using unsigned drivers, which Windows rejects by default.

However the solution is a simple one whereby you temporarily allow installation of unsigned drivers from the recovery options.

Once they have been installed Windows does not reject them during later updates.

 

I've got JMRI and  Sprog installed on 3x Win 10 PCs and never a murmur from the operating system.

The FTDI drivers I referred to in my previous posting were provided because users were finding W10 updates did kill the previous Sprog II installation ; later versions of Sprogs are not so affected.

[RFS]

2 minutes ago, Butler Henderson said:

The FTDI drivers I referred to in my previous posting were provided because users were finding W10 updates did kill the previous Sprog II installation ; later versions of Sprogs are not so affected.

 

When you update Windows to the next version, Windows will remove unsigned drivers. I don't have a Sprog but my Lenz decoder programmer also uses the FTDI drivers and the process is the same. The solution is to ensure your FTDI driver is a signed version which will not be removed. To do this go Control Panel -> Device Manager and drill down to the entry for your device. There select "properties" and from the "driver" tab select "update driver". Windows 10 knows about the FTDI driver and will update it to the current, signed version. 

 

Note that if you follow the procedure to re-install your unsigned driver, as mentioned by Melmerby above, Windows will remove it again at the next update so worth taking the time to update it before then. 

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, RFS said:

 

When you update Windows to the next version, Windows will remove unsigned drivers.

 

Is that something new on recent updates? It didn't used to do it.

My Sprog AFAIK has unsigned drivers and it's still working.

I did update the Lenz 100 drivers to a compatible version to stop the shenanigans when doing a fresh Windows install.

[RFS]

8 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Is that something new on recent updates? It didn't used to do it.

My Sprog AFAIK has unsigned drivers and it's still working.

I did update the Lenz 100 drivers to a compatible version to stop the shenanigans when doing a fresh Windows install.

 

It did knock my Lenz driver out again which is also FTDI as I assume it uses the same chip as the Sprog. Perhaps your Sprog has had its drivers updated automatically? If not always worth doing though.

[melmerby]

52 minutes ago, RFS said:

 

It did knock my Lenz driver out again which is also FTDI as I assume it uses the same chip as the Sprog. Perhaps your Sprog has had its drivers updated automatically? If not always worth doing though.

The Lenz 23150 FTDI chip originally had a unique ID pertaining to Lenz (&D780), so just substituting a newer version wasn't easy. It wasn't updated for years.

AFAIK Lenz did change it to a Win 10 compatible one later.

IIRC The 23151 is a different chip and just uses generic drivers, so no update problems

 

The Sprog AFAIK also uses a generic coded version.

Maybe Andrew (Crosland) could confirm?

 

EDIT

I installed drivers for both the Lenz 23151 and Sprog on 25 Sept 2018 on a fresh install of Win 10 on a new PC

 

The Lenz 23151 reports Microsoft driver 10.0.18362.1

The Sprog reports FTDI driver 2.6.0.0 Not Digitally Signed.

I have not re-installed either since the computer was first started up and the Sprog is working fine, even after Windows feature updates.

Edited November 22, 2019 by melmerby
add extra info

[RFS]

22 minutes ago, melmerby said:

The Lenz 23150 FTDI chip originally had a unique ID pertaining to Lenz (&D780), so just substituting a newer version wasn't easy. It wasn't updated for years.

AFAIK Lenz did change it to a Win 10 compatible one later.

IIRC The 23151 is a different chip and just uses generic drivers, so no update problems

 

The Sprog AFAIK also uses a generic coded version.

Maybe Andrew (Crosland) could confirm?

 

As I understand things, I believe the unique Lenz id was only there so that when you displayed the device it identified as Lenz. When I was having problems with my 23150, I tried to resolve them by downloading the latest driver from the FTDI web-site and it worked fine, although didn't solve my problems.

 

The reason for Lenz making a Win 10 compatible version was more to do with people needing a 64-bit version. However the version they used was unsigned but getting Windows to update to the latest version solved that.

 

With the LZV200, Lenz have gone back to using an FTDI chip but they don't supply the drivers. You are told to simply switch on the PC and Windows will then automatically install the driver, which it does. 

[Butler Henderson]

Since installing the FTDI drivers I have had at least three main W10 updates without requiring any reinstallation being needed; the Sprog II being recognised without any problem. As indicated previously later versions of Sprog are not so affected by Windows removing unsigned drivers.

 

On a separate topic how are people finding Windows Defender - is it adequate or is an additional anti-malware program needed as a number of online reviews suggest.  

[Brit70053]

Seems an opportune moment to mention the 'Windows 10 Urgent Update' Email scam that has been drawn attention to on various on line news feeds.

                 The email purports to be from Microsoft, alerting recipients to an urgent update required to make their device secure and , of course providing a 'link' to said update. Unfortunately the 'link' is crammed with ransomware which embeds in the hard drive, first appearing  shortly after the link has been activated, but also capable of re appearing sometime afterwards, whether or not the user has paid ransom and or thinks they have resolved the problem.

                 Of course, most folk will be aware that Microsoft would never make an update available via email and smell a rodent immediately,  but there's always the possibility of someone being 'caught cold' which is what the scammers are banking on.

                Regards,

                               John

[raymw]

I've only used defender for years. It updates regularly, my main pc is on 24/7. I occasionally, if something appears to be running slow, run Malwarebytes - the free version - which may or may not find something. I would think, since Microsoft have continuous access to your pc, they should know what should be on there, that they should have the best chance of finding stuff that should not be on there, and be able to take appropriate action. The best defense is the user, however, don't click on links that you don't know where they go to, for example.

[RAF96]

I found if Windosy has  screwed up and I could still get the pc/laptop on its feet , if I ran Windows Update Assistant, which essentially is there to check if your pre-Win10 PC will actually update, that it simply takes on board and sorts out any previous Wi dows failed updates.

[RAF96]

6 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

Since installing the FTDI drivers I have had at least three main W10 updates without requiring any reinstallation being needed; the Sprog II being recognised without any problem. As indicated previously later versions of Sprog are not so affected by Windows removing unsigned drivers.

 

On a separate topic how are people finding Windows Defender - is it adequate or is an additional anti-malware program needed as a number of online reviews suggest.  

 

 

I only have Win Defender and Malware Bytes free edition on all my kit. I have dumped all other ‘helpers’ like Advanced System, AVG, etc as they were taking control of my PC and I don’t need that. Norton and McAfee were dumped years ago as being too aggressive for everyday use. Also getting rid of them needs a full term of night classes in computer studies to gain the skills.

[raymw]

Quote

Also getting rid of them needs a full term of night classes in computer studies to gain the skills.

Revo uninstaller is pretty good at removing junk programs.

[Guest CLARENCE]

Bu&&er Windows10!!  Reading through some of the previous problems the experts have had, I'm sticking with what I've been using for a while now, Windows 8.1. I know its slow compared with what some of you guys are used to, but it'll do all I want without too much hassle. 

Now I'm bracing myself to be told off for being desperately slow and old-fashioned!

 

Cheers,  David

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, CLARENCE said:

Bu&&er Windows10!!  Reading through some of the previous problems the experts have had, I'm sticking with what I've been using for a while now, Windows 8.1. I know its slow compared with what some of you guys are used to, but it'll do all I want without too much hassle. 

Now I'm bracing myself to be told off for being desperately slow and old-fashioned!

 

Cheers,  David

Windows 10 is Windows 8.1 with the bugs removed.............

[Guest CLARENCE]

53 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Windows 10 is Windows 8.1 with the bugs removed.............

Then I'm DEFINITELY staying with Windows 8.1 - it does all I want from my computer. I don't get any bugs I can't deal with.

Edited November 24, 2019 by CLARENCE
SPELLINGGG

[raymw]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Most window's users would be able to do all they need with a half decent Android tablet, and windows 8 was the stepping stone for Microsoft to develop the multi-platform successor, w10. Here's a relatively recent comparison of the two   https://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-systems/25123/windows-10-vs-windows-81-which-is-best-for-you-1     and apart from the support expiry date (2023- and that is completely meaningless for many folk) there is really not that much difference.

[Butler Henderson]

On the other hand W8 was about the worse version of Windows for a pc their has been with all those stupid swipes needed to access various functions and most users were appreciative of W10. Not sure at the end of the day their are that many problems with W10, certainly having sorted out the SPROG II have no issues apart from, and I've not tried it recently, an elderly A3 scanner would not be recognised so a 14 year old XP desktop gets kicked out of its slumbers.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Butler Henderson

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

On the other hand W8 was about the worse version of Windows for a pc their has been with all those stupid swipes needed to access various functions and most users were appreciative of W10. Not sure at the end of the day their are that many problems with W10, certainly having sorted out the SPROG II have no issues apart from, and I've not tried it recently, an elderly A3 scanner would not be recognised so a 14 year old XP desktop gets kicked out of its slumbers.

I would go for Windows 95 as the worst. Blue Screens were more common than working pages. MS took Win 3.1 and made it worse.

Win 98 was a vast improvement on 95 and XP carried on the improvements.

When they got to Win XP SP3 it was pretty well sorted.

 

I converted three PCs ( two desktop, 1 laptop) from Win 7 to Win 10 without any hassle and 1 PC from Win 8.1 to Win 10

I thought Win 8.1 was pretty awful and the free upgrade was taken gladly.

That PC was also a laptop and a purchase I now regret as the lower price than the other laptop (same make - Acer) left it with serious performance compromises.

 

There are now 4 PCs in the household on Win 10 but set up so they look like Win 7 (e.g. no tiles!)