Windows 10 free version

[Ink stained Fingers]

it's situations like yours which make the Win 10 upgrades unpredictable, checks beforehand by the upgrade installer are apparently not very thorough, and error messages after the upgrade are mostly not very helpful, or don't appear at all, so a general advice is not possible.

 

[Emulator]

Although WIN10 continues to function, I find intermittent problems pop up, like one of my old 1TB HDs is now "access banned" for some reason. The worst thing seems to be that you cannot now return to WIN7 even if you re-format all your drives and start from scratch.

I have an older system with WIN7 on it which I have not run for months, if I run it now it looks as though it would be immediately disabled if it was connected to the net.

All things considered, my view at the moment, is that WIN10 has provided no benefit and has created little but problems.

It is also becoming apparent that my impression that I control the computer, rather than WIN10, may well be in error.

 

[pharmacist]

The best way is to clean install a fresh install of Windows 7 and immediately upgrade to Windows 10, without installing the upgrades. This way the installation will be clean and neat. I did this on my new Core i7-6700K/32 GB DDR4/500 GB Samsung SSD machine. The system is now lightning fast.

 

[stratman]

The worst thing seems to be that you cannot now return to WIN7

How to downgrade Windows 10

http://www.howtogeek.com/220723/how-to-uninstall-windows-10-and-downgrade-to-windows-7-or-8.1/

 

[mikling]

The display scaling capabilities of win 10 is actually superior to that of Win 7.

Although WIN10 continues to function, I find intermittent problems pop up, like one of my old 1TB HDs is now "access banned" for some reason. The worst thing seems to be that you cannot now return to WIN7 even if you re-format all your drives and start from scratch.

I have an older system with WIN7 on it which I have not run for months, if I run it now it looks as though it would be immediately disabled if it was connected to the net.

All things considered, my view at the moment, is that WIN10 has provided no benefit and has created little but problems.

Before embarking on ANY upgrade or update, it is best to completely "back up" the OS partition in its entirely or as an image. While Win 10 can restore back to the previous OS, in the event it cannot, there is another way. In the last year, I had the opportunity to both restore from an image as well as use Win 10 rollback and they both worked. That extra avenue of what if is more comforting.

Having had my share of drive failures over the years, I am now one of the converted. Get a good backup program and use it. Even if you buy an SSD with a 10 year warranty it can still fail if another component fails and takes it down with it, like I recently experienced with my old PSU. Another word of advice, do not skimp on the quality of your Power Supply. This concept is misunderstood. Some may think just getting one larger than your needs is adequate. No it is better to acquire a higher quality power supply with a lower power rating than getting a low quality one with a high power rating. High quality ones are more stable, have more protection, last longer and are more efficient thus creating less heat and wasted energy and also are generally quieter. The question then becomes should I use my power supply till it fails.? The real answer is not really but how to determine what the right time is is extremely difficult. It is somewhat like the question of when planes should be retired from service.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Doing regular backups is a must and saves you lots of hazzles. I'm using a little program like Mirrorfolder which can run and copy by demand or run as a software Raid 0 depending on the settings. But this approach has some drawbacks - a PS failure, or other failing components could kill the backup drive as well, and if you catch a virus the backup drive would be infected , so I just connect the backup drive (for the system partition) now and then, at least always after the Microsoft patch day, or more frequently, after installing some new software. The mirror drive is directly bootable if needed. I do backups of image data as new photos come in. I'm not using any SSD for data/backup storage at all.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

From Fred Langa and his Langalist:

http://windowssecrets.com/author/fred-langa/
http://windowssecrets.com/author/fred-langa/
Windows 7 users:
We should no longer have to say this, but it keeps coming up in emails to the newsletter. If you're happy with Win7 or you have older software/hardware that's incompatible with Win10, there is no compelling reason to upgrade. Windows 7 will continue to get fixes until 2020 ! By then, you'll probably need a new machine anyway, and you'll have to upgrade to a new Windows. (Future hardware with new chipsets might not support older versions of Windows.) But you have plenty of time to plan for that change.


rs

 

[stratman]

I just upgraded to Windows 10 from Win 8.1. Smooth. Took ~50 minutes from download to desktop with my Samsung 840 Pro. Now the task of customizing settings and looking at what did not install. I quickly noticed that my Canon MP830 and CCleaner did not transfer over in the upgrade. Otherwise, so far so good.

 

[Emulator]

Brave Man!! No only joking. You will find a WIN10 version of CCleaner is available. The printer driver will likely work if you turn off the requirement to have signed versions only.

I wonder what the price of WIN10 will be after 29th July and what discounts will apply to WIN7 etc.

 

[stratman]

@Emulator

Thanks. I installed the latest version of CCleaner. Works as expected.

I then downloaded the driver for the MP830. No Windows 10 version. The most recent is for Windows 8.1. I installed the driver exactly the same as I did for XP and Win 8.x: Disconnected and powered down the printer, ran the .exe driver installation file, followed the prompt to plug in USB cable and turn on printer. Within seconds I had a window pop up telling me the printer was installed.

Easy breezy, lemon squeazy. No workarounds needed. Maybe I benefited waiting so long to upgrade and Microsoft fixed the install routines for older printers.

Now comes the labor of customizing Win 10 to my preferences. Any value in the "Cortina" thingy that is occupying 1/4 of my task bar?