Windows 10 for free, there has to be a snag??

[David Hewison]

Still running Win 10 on 3 PCs and laptop.  No issues and not one hangup to date. 

 

I also use Malwarebytes - works like a dream - and very fast.  Stops a lot of stuff dead it it's tracks ( a brief popup appears).

 

I have to say I'm also still very impressed, it's an absolute pleasure to use Win 10. So far, no glitches running Ps CC, Lr, Id or anything else.  I updated the minister of finances laptop last week end - she hates technology, but loves win 10 too, even though she was against the update 

 

Having said that, last week i caught a virus.. not a cough.. a computer virus. I've had them before, but nothing like this. It completely took over my PC, as if someone had logged in remotely. It deleted data, and changed the permission settings on all of my server folders so that I couldn't access them.. anywhere. Nasty stuff. 

 

I don't know where I got it, and no, I wasn't looking at porn.  My network is tighter than a fish's backside. 

 

Anyway, it took 2 full days to get rid of it, then another half day to reset all the permissions on my server folders, talk about tedious. 

 

I had backups of all data lost, so that wasn't a drama.

 

Oh, and i use Malwarebytes too.. as well as the inbuilt defender that ships with win10. Somehow Malwarebytes missed it, I love the software, it's looked after me for years. Nothing is perfect though - I'm not sure whether it was a fault with malwarebytes, or a security flaw in win10.. but whatever it was - it got in.  Interestingly, Malwarebytes picked it up in a scan, but couldn't kill it. I eventually used SpyHunter 4 and that did the trick, but it took over 10 scans and some manual rummaging in the registry.

 

I don't want to put anyone off win 10, because for all I know it may still have happened if i was using win 7.. I have no idea. 

 

Moral of the story - run regular virus scans, make sure win 10 is up to date (although it does a great job of doing that in the background anyway), and backup, back up and back up some more!

[M.Chapman]

I took the plunge and carried out an in place upgrade to Windows 10 on my main PC (Dell 15R notebook) about a fortnight ago. Most stuff seems to work, but I found a few gremlins

 

Date format reverted to US mm-dd-yy and I had to create a custom format for UK to get dd-mm-yyyy

 

Windows 10 replaced my Intel Graphics software with a new version that lost all the RGB gain settings, so my screen calibration was way out. I had to recalibrate. No big deal, but just another thing.

 

I'm getting occasional crashes on start-up with "thread stuck in driver" message. Machine reboots itself, then it's OK. According to Dell support I may need to update the graphics driver (again) and the BIOS, but I'm away from home at the moment, so will do that when I get back to base for fear of making matters worse.

 

Copying large files to USB quickly reaches 99%, and then just hangs for a minute or so before completing. Hopefully the Dell BIOS update will fix this too?

 

PSE 7 and LR 4 both seem to work fine

 

I still don't like Windows 10 as much as Windows 7, the user interface is too inconsistent. At the moment I feel I'd have preferred a new service pack for Windows 7.

[Mal Knight]

Just found this article by Forbes / Tech and I think it makes very interesting issues regarding Windows 10, it gives you the Pro's and Con's, personally I am going off "W10" and I never thought I would say it but I am beginning to miss Windows 7 and even Windows 8.1

 

You can find the articles here and there are quite a few to read ...  http://tinyurl.com/nhvz4zq

[Michael Halberstadt]

I upgraded a few of my PCs to Windows 10. Generally that went without a hitch. I did have a problem on my desktop where a previous version of a Microsoft anti-virus (Security Essentials) migrated to the new OS though it was not supposed to. So the new Windows Defender couldn't run and every time I started my machine I'd get an error message warning me that I was at risk for viruses. There's a simple fix if this happens to you - and you won't get it from Microsoft, their suggestion was to go back to W7, uninstall MSE, then re-upgrade. I think that task would have taken a weekend. In short the easy fix is to turn off real time monitoring on MSE and that allows Defender to turn on.

 

Another warning.... OneDrive.

 

I subscribed for Office that included unlimited OneDrive storage. Or so they said. But after six months of uploading and organizing and starting to use Word instead of Google docs, I hit 1tb and could upload no more. In short, they reneged in such a way that really messed with my life and I don't trust MS. They drastically cut free storage too, but I paid $100 for a year. I'd stay away from One Drive.

[Bryan]

The latest incarnation of Win10 was running very nicely on my machine until last night when Chrome crashed.  In the past it has hung up under Win 10, but this time it just shut down completely. It restarted OK, but without saving my latest epistles, and has worked fine since.

 

Scanned the machine with Malwarebytes this morning and found nothing. 

 

Need to save work regularly in case it happens again, Oh joy....

[Phil Preston]

I upgraded my PC from Win 8.1 to Win 10 this week. All went very smoothly taking about 45 minutes to complete the process. So far, everything seems to be working fine, including LR4 and Chrome 

[M.Chapman]

I took the plunge and carried out an in place upgrade to Windows 10 on my main PC (Dell 15R notebook) about a fortnight ago. Most stuff seems to work, but I found a few gremlins

 

Date format reverted to US mm-dd-yy and I had to create a custom format for UK to get dd-mm-yyyy

 

Windows 10 replaced my Intel Graphics software with a new version that lost all the RGB gain settings, so my screen calibration was way out. I had to recalibrate. No big deal, but just another thing.

 

I'm getting occasional crashes on start-up with "thread stuck in driver" message. Machine reboots itself, then it's OK. According to Dell support I may need to update the graphics driver (again) and the BIOS, but I'm away from home at the moment, so will do that when I get back to base for fear of making matters worse.

 

Copying large files to USB quickly reaches 99%, and then just hangs for a minute or so before completing. Hopefully the Dell BIOS update will fix this too?

 

PSE 7 and LR 4 both seem to work fine

 

I still don't like Windows 10 as much as Windows 7, the user interface is too inconsistent. At the moment I feel I'd have preferred a new service pack for Windows 7.

 

I've just discovered another problem I didn't realise would occur by upgrading to Windows 10, until it was too late. I came to connect and synch my iPhone with iTunes, only to find that the in place upgrade to Windows 10 had completely trashed my iTunes/iPhone synchronisation. All my music and books had disappeared from the library. iTunes stated my phone was synched with a different PC (actually the same PC, but when it had Win 7 on it), and synching with this one would cause everything on my phone to be erased. Also this PC was not authorised with iCloud and online iTunes accounts.

 

Rats.... It's partially my fault, I should have de-authorised the PC and taken copies of the key iTunes folders, and probably un-installed iTunes, before I did the upgrade to Windows 10.

 

iTunes seems to consider a Windows 10 PC as a different PC (to the same PC with Windows 7 on it).

 

Luckily I had backups of all my music and books simply reimported them into iTunes, but getting the other stuff sorted was more complex.

 

Oh.. and I've just found that since upgrading to Windows 10 I can no longer play my .mov and .mts video files for some reason.

 

I've found to my cost that the in-place upgrade to Windows 10 is far from idiot proof 

 

The article above suggests it won't be long before MS are more aggressively pushing the Windows 10 on all Windows 7 and 8 users. The upgrade may happen automatically unless you actively stop it. You have been warned....

[Betty LaRue]

My hubby has windows 8. Let's see if they push 10, rather hard to do since his computer is not connected t the Internet and all he does is download his pictures to it, work on them, and burn CDs.

I do all the surfing on my Mac.

Betty

[spacecadet]

 

 

The article above suggests it won't be long before MS are more aggressively pushing the Windows 10 on all Windows 7 and 8 users. The upgrade may happen automatically unless you actively stop it. You have been warned....

 

I've had Windows Update (Win7) turned off since May with no ill effects so far.

Control panel>Windows update. Or just type Windows update into the start menu search  box.

[Sprocket]

I've had Windows Update (Win7) turned off since May with no ill effects so far.

 

..

 

 

 

A wise decision. The latest update has been causing a lot of problems

 

http://www.zdnet.com/article/outlook-crashing-after-windows-security-updates-you-are-not-alone/

 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/482486ba-a378-4dcd-bd21-08ae19760b93/crashes-since-111115-updates-in-both-outlook-2010-and-2013-when-viewing-html-emails?forum=officeitproprevious

 

http://myonlinesecurity.co.uk/kb3097877-causing-severe-difficulties-for-some-windows-7-users-november-2015-windows-updates/

[Johnnie5]

I just ran across this minutes ago so beware.  This sounds like a major update so you may or may not want to accept it.  http://pocketnow.com/2015/11/12/windows-10-update

[M.Chapman]

More snags.... The first of my 2 PCs that I upgraded to Windows 10 has now been hit with the compulsory "November Version 1511 update " - (pretty much a complete reinstall).

 

After a huge download that took 3 hrs (I think it was around 3GB), the PC rebooted and spent 10 mins "updating" itself. Once it had finished I checked if the update was successful, and no it wasn't. Windows still showed the previous version and the update had failed. 

 

Rechecking for updates shows the same update is pending, and it's just started downloading it all over again, and there's no way to stop it (short of disconnecting from the Internet)

 

Arrrgggghhhh!

 

If you want to see some of the issues come with this November update, see this.

 

I'm currently investigating how to run a clean install of Windows 7 in a Virtual Machine "sandbox" on my Mac (with all updates turned off). I'll do browsing, email and most stuff on the Mac and only use Windows when I have to.

 

I'm totally fed up with Microsoft. 

[Bryan]

Just taken a look at my Windows 10 version and all I see is Build 10240, so I have no idea if my system has updated or not. Last time it threw a fit (started to update in front of my eyes without human intervention) I had to use a hard reboot to get it going again, so it probably has not updated properly.

 

Latest bug -  when the machine goes to sleep, on awakening the mouse works but it occasionally fails to rouse the keyboard from its slumbers, and a restart is needed to bring it back into life.

 

I have to say that it has been very stable this last week or so, no crashes or freezing up using Chrome.

 

My biggest remaining gripe is that Windows Photo Viewer no longer shows my photos in the order arranged by Explorer. I've tried a registry edit fix that is going the rounds (that I didn't understand) but that didn't work. The new alternative product provided within Win 10 just doesn't cut the mustard at all.  Given that I use this feature virtually every session this is a big problem for me.

[M.Chapman]

Just taken a look at my Windows 10 version and all I see is Build 10240, so I have no idea if my system has updated or not.

 

I believe the updated build no is 10586, although I've yet to see it due to failed installs. 

[Bryan]

 

 

Just taken a look at my Windows 10 version and all I see is Build 10240, so I have no idea if my system has updated or not.

I believe the updated build no is 10586, although I've yet to see it due to failed installs.

 

 

Thanks for that. I forced an update this morning and all appeared to be well, with a message in the update window saying that I was up to date etc, but then another message popped up (bottom right corner of screen) to say that Windows was unable to update!

 

Restarted computer and checked Windows version. The build is still 10240 so no update, apparently.

 

Now seeing this message in the update window "There were problems installing some updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help:"

 

Crackers Mr Microsoft, I have no wish to search the web. I want you to fix your operating system - or allow users to peacefully revert back to Win 7.

[Niels Quist]

 

Restarted computer and checked Windows version. The build is still 10240 so no update, apparently.

 

Now seeing this message in the update window "There were problems installing some updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help:"

 

 

I had this experience last week. Now my computer awaits a restart to try again. I am not in a rush.

[M.Chapman]

 

 

Just taken a look at my Windows 10 version and all I see is Build 10240, so I have no idea if my system has updated or not.

I believe the updated build no is 10586, although I've yet to see it due to failed installs.

 

 

Thanks for that. I forced an update this morning and all appeared to be well, with a message in the update window saying that I was up to date etc, but then another message popped up (bottom right corner of screen) to say that Windows was unable to update!

 

Restarted computer and checked Windows version. The build is still 10240 so no update, apparently.

 

Now seeing this message in the update window "There were problems installing some updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help:"

 

Crackers Mr Microsoft, I have no wish to search the web. I want you to fix your operating system - or allow users to peacefully revert back to Win 7.

 

 

Pretty much identical to what I'm seeing. It really annoyed me when I saw it start downloading the huge update all over again. I have a 10GB monthly limit, and pay extra if it goes over. Until I got Windows 10 I only used about 5GB a month, so no problems. But since getting Windows 10 (including the original update) I've used well over 10GB each month (we've got 2 PCs running Windows 10). It'll be interesting to see what happens when the same update rolls out to our second Windows 10 PC....

[John Mitchell]

How big is the Windows 10 download? I'm planning to stick with Windows 7 for as long as I possibly can, but I'm wondering if my rather slow Internet connection will allow me to successfully pull off an upgrade to 10 when/if I decide to take the plunge.

 

Also, is it possible that Microsoft will eventually start charging $ for Windows 10 upgrades?

[M.Chapman]

How big is the Windows 10 download? I'm planning to stick with Windows 7 for as long as I possibly can, but I'm wondering if my rather slow Internet connection will allow me to successfully pull off an upgrade to 10 when/if I decide to take the plunge.

 

Over 3GB. But, since I installed it there have been 2 big updates involving large downloads, the latest I think is close to another 3GB. There's not much respect for users' internet bandwidth.

[John Mitchell]

 

How big is the Windows 10 download? I'm planning to stick with Windows 7 for as long as I possibly can, but I'm wondering if my rather slow Internet connection will allow me to successfully pull off an upgrade to 10 when/if I decide to take the plunge.

 

Over 3GB. But, since I installed it there have been 2 big updates involving large downloads, the latest I think is close to another 3GB. There's not much respect for users' internet bandwidth.

 

 

Thanks, it looks as if it might be Windows 7 forever for me, or at least until I buy a new computer with 10 pre-installed. I believe that Microsoft will continue supporting Windows 7 for a few more years, but who knows.

[John Walker]

Found this on line - looks promising but no guarantees.

Microsoft doesn't plan to stop fixing security problems in Windows 7 until extended support ends. That's January 14, 2020--five years and a day from the end of mainstream support. If that doesn't put you at ease, consider this: XP's mainstream support ended in April, 2009. It caused no problems whatsoever.

 

John

[Doc]

I wonder whether people who have upgraded from 8.1 to 10 have had less problems than those who upgraded from 7?

 

Kumar

[Phil Preston]

I wonder whether people who have upgraded from 8.1 to 10 have had less problems than those who upgraded from 7?

 

Kumar

The move from 8.1 to 10 was certainly easy and painless for me ☺

[Jill Morgan]

 

 

I wonder whether people who have upgraded from 8.1 to 10 have had less problems than those who upgraded from 7?

 

Kumar

The move from 8.1 to 10 was certainly easy and painless for me ☺

 

 

Same here. No complaints.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

 

I had no issues either going from 8.1 to 10.

 

Jill

[M.Chapman]

I wonder whether people who have upgraded from 8.1 to 10 have had less problems than those who upgraded from 7?

 

Kumar

The first PC I put Windows 10 on was an upgrade from 7 to 10, but once this was activated (to claim my free update) it was followed by a completely clean install of Windows 10. It's this PC that is currently stuck in the "November upgrade" loop. I'll try updating it again next week.