Win10x64Pro upgrade from Win8.1 thoughts and musings...

There's useful features in Win10?

You are being over-dramatic, to a degree that's flat-out ludicrous. There's no hard reasons to adopt Win10. None at all. Sure, I know you imagine being vastly more productive with it, but plenty of people feel differently.

So what? Adoption of Windows 10 has been pushed harder than for any other OS in history, including surreptitious upgrades, constant nagging and, of course, the fact that there is no monetary cost associated with it. Despite all of these efforts, adoption of Windows 10 has slowed down substantially.

 

Until you use the O/S for yourself, you won't know what features are useful or not. Many articles out there to give you a hint though...

No 'hard' reasons to use Win10? And I'm the one that is being ludicrous? DX12, too many improvements to list/repeat here - especially in W10 Fall Update 1511, backporting of all the 'negatives' into earlier operating systems giving them the same 'bad rap' with none of the benefits... and even giving a 30% increase to W10-1511 on the same hardware vs. Win7.

Sure, I can see why you feel there are no benefits.

When long standing major issues with Windows get resolved three months after release (even your pet peeve; the 512 start menu limit), when memory management improvements get implemented (and yes, it works on my T100TA w/2GB RAM) and when support for the latest gen (6th) of Intel platforms gets a significant performance boost (up to 50% for specific use cases), that is being more productive.

'Vastly'? Maybe not. But you know what? I'll take small incremental improvements on an O/S that is stable and mature over 'vast' improvements on a two times a decade cycle (if that) any day.

And the fact that adaption has slowed down is key to you for it's imminent failure? Of course it has (slowed down...). Simple logic would dictate that (you know; the old bell curve...).

But that it is still being downloaded and installed by millions each month is still relevant too.

Slowed down, does not mean stopped. And with Xbox and China now into the loop, those slowing trends may well reverse too.

 

A slight correction on my part:

That 30% improvement for Win10-1511 vs. Win7 seems to be for boot up times. Yawn.

Can't find any 'proof/links' that other aspects are faster too.

But the under the hood improvements and the fact that this was effectively a 'clean install' of the O/S (in just over 3 months on some systems) does make the systems I use on a regular basis feel snappier even vs. the previous Win10-10240 version (which was already noticeably snappier/faster/smoother than any other Windows version I've used).

Where I mostly feel this increase in addition to navigating the O/S, is in the responsiveness in the online research/surfing I do (on many different networks (plurals;wired and wireless), btw). The web now feels more like it is local (i.e. on my storage drive), vs. some distant entity that I'm trying to connect and display pages from. And this is still on IE11 too, not the much faster Edge browser either (but I haven't made the switch yet...).

Sorry for my incorrect assumption(s) before about this significant (30%) increase.

But, we're still friends, right?

 

Of course, why would we not? You having a different opinion than me has nothing to do with it. All I am saying is that you should be cautious trying to extrapolate your experience. And, DX12, seriously? First of all, there's practically no DX12 games out, I think, but I hasten to add that I don't game, so I really know next to nothing about what I am talking about here. However, you started out talking about business productivity, and when challenged you switch to gaming? Not a good sign. Other than that, performance improvements are marginal, at best, as they would be for any OS. Why? That would be because any OS pretty much tries to get as muh performance out of hardware as it can, and the people coding the Win7 kernel (or Vista, or XP, etc.) weren't idiots, either. So, (a), there's little room for improvement in the first place, and (b) additional features in any new OS cost performance. Just the other day I booted up Windows 2000 on a 12-year-old laptop, and you wouldn't believe how snappy that felt. So there.

 

30% improvement for Win10-1511 vs Win7 in benchmark tests and @Mr. Fox would kissed Bill Gates Long time ago.

 

And, we're back.

See:
http://www.redmondpie.com/windows-1...vember-update-is-out-heres-how-to-update-now/

Maybe there are other improvements in the 30% range? And Mr.Fox still needs to kiss Bill?


I need to find a Win7 computer to compare to (lol... I don't know of one within 200 miles).

 

The concerns of some in this thread seem a little funny now, no?

See:
http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-clarifies-privacy-statement-newest-update

But seriously, I think this should tone down this aspect of using Win10 for at least a few more people.

 

That is a crock, they need to collect my email before displaying it. Plenty of email clients before W10 that would load up email without collecting data on a server before displaying it to me, fact is there still are!

 

Well you may think so but not me. They still have a long way to go before I install Wintrash10 on any of my laptops. Even the company I work for had all there new laptops (160+) downgraded to W7. Now that should tell you something. Makes you wonder how many other company's are doing the same.

 

Not only companies... A lot of ordinary users as well. There are a bunch of computers that struggle with Win 10. When these computer owners ask for help for their new issues, recommends support service that you return to Win 7/8. Not all PCs can use Win 10 even if they run nice with Win 7/8. If someone says that everything work well with Win 10 on all newer hardware; Shoot them in the head with something hard...

 

Really? How is the email magically received and delivered if not on a server somewhere? Read the link again and consider how data flows. This issue really is overblown.

(Btw, what clients can do what you think is 'still' possible)?

(In general) If I was at a company that downgraded new equipment to a 6+ year old O/S... I'd be looking to work at another company. Not very forward thinking and not very confident of their skills or their workforces' of how capable they would be to use a tool that is simply better.

I know of no other companies that are doing the same. The ones I read about are doing it for reasons other than perceived security/privacy risks and/or compatibility with their current workflows (i.e. it is just the $$$$$$$ that are holding them back - which is a sad case in itself...).

What platforms have you seen struggle with Win10? Very curious here?



To all; I guess we have three hardcore users here that won't run Win10 at any cost. Cool.

But that means very little on the overall adaption rate of Win10. Or the reasons to stay with outdated O/S's.

And means even less to the people that were running clunky systems before that were transformed using the exact same hardware before their eyes upon installing Win10(1511).

One client asked me how best to re-install Win7 on an 11 year old nephews computer that seemed to be constantly crashing (on games) with Win10. When I asked him how it went a few days later, he laughed and said the young person had figured it out and his reaction to replacing Win10 with Win7 was 'What? No!'... (guess the threat of Win7 was enough motivation to make him find the answers needed to fix the issues.

I'm pretty sure that anyone on this forum can also make Win10 work for them too, if they tried.

The performance benefits were there from launch. Even for gaming.

See:
http://www.maximumpc.com/windows-10-but-what-about-performance/


Sure, not a lot (but certainly no regression either as other O/S's often debut).

And today, it is only better.


As for business' resistance to Win10? Now that is a crock.

See:
http://www.winbeta.org/news/windows-10-interest-49-businesses-ready-upgrade-2016

 

tilleroftheearth, please stop, you are embarrassing yourself...

The explicit parts of the EULA that call out using access to our personal files and actions as material to provide to 3rd parties for whatever reason they see fit is clear.

They can talk down specific examples, but the general commitment to invade our privacy, and share it with others, can't be denied.

They said in the EULA they are not collecting this information for directed advertising, but they are collecting it, why??

Of course they are going to try to play it down, they don't want to - or can't - change their course.

They have clearly stated what is happening, in the EULA. To bury your head in the sand as to the ramifications is your affair, to your potential personal detriment.

You don't need to turn yourself into a shill to try to convince yourself through us that everything is gonna be ok.

 

Embarrassing myself? I don't care. If I am proven wrong I will do a 180 degree about face and say 'I'm sorry' too. I just do not see any real world consequences with my direct experience with the O/S in question that would indicate even half of the things said against it.

I am no shill - just trying to bring some common sense into this discussion.

And no, officially, you're wrong, they are not collecting it. At least they specifically said they're not anyway.

Others are just as guilty of being shills and burying their heads as I am; they just happen to support the side of the issue you obviously support too.

 

It just occurred to me, WTH is Microsoft back porting all that Telemetry stuff into Windows 7/8 from Windows 10??

If MS isn't going to back port features like DX12, Skylake Speed Shift, etc into Windows 7/8, WTH does Microsoft need Telemetry feedback on usage from Windows 7/8, OS's that aren't getting feature updates???

The Telemetry additions across the board fit much more into an invasion of Privacy motivation, than explaining why they need it in Windows 10 for new feature debugging support - they sure as hell don't need it in Windows 7/8, WTF is going on??

 

I've already touched on that issue.

See my previous posts.

 

Post #16
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/is-windows-10-worth-installing.784057/page-2#post-10137202

 

Emails are pulled from my private server and directly displayed for me in W7. They do not come down for any data to be stripped and sent to an outside server before, or after, displaying to me.

 

I think it was very smart. W10 is a new OS with to many bugs. If something was to go wrong it would shut down our network of 9 plants in Canada and USA since we are all connected together. No company could afford the downtime a new OS brings. It's just to soon to try it. I have seen what can happen first hand. I have worked here for 32 years and we are the largest company in North Amercia, of what we do. Our customers rely on us and we have no plans on letting them down with some flaky OS. I think anyone in IT who works for any company will agree, it's just to soon.

 

If you want to see the opposite of what is written in the links included in you post, no one can help you.

 

Or so you hope. That would depend on who you're communicating with. Are their mail servers privately (and securely) run too?

 

And if the world ended tomorrow, that too would be a catastrophe.

Don't you think the 14 million other businesses have thought of those aspects too? Were they (and I) delusional in making a conscious decision to move forward with Win10?

The 'too many bugs', 'some flakey OS' and 'too soon to try it' is just an excuse to not only stay behind the times, but to defer what is no doubt a monumental task further into the future while at the same time becoming more detached from that inevitability with each passing day.

In other words; it won't get easier to migrate. It can only get harder, as time goes on.

 

Nice try

 

Lol...

 

Or are they running W10.

 

@tilleroftheearth Do you think this looks beautiful? How many do you think will experience exactly the same?

How many do you think will experience exactly the same when Win update push new crippled drivers who do not work as expected with your hardware. Everyone knows that Win update drivers can be a big problem .
http://www.hd.engadget.com/2015/11/05/pc-support-discourages-using-windows-10/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...illing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/
Nice reading? If you have time and haven't read this thread yet... Read the entire thread from page 1 to the end. You will find several similar examples if you Google

 

Theres a reason why companies stick with a older reliable O/S instead of a newer one (Win 10) that is filled with bugs. Newer is not always better especially with the crap that comes with Win 10 like telemary, forced driver/windows updates and so on. Companies stick with a O/S that is reliable like Win 7 and before then Win XP, Most companies didnt upgrade to Win 8 so why do you expect them to upgrade to Win 10 just like that? Besides consumers, Businesses takes the longest to upgrade and they'll upgrade whenever Microsoft stop supporting their current O/S. Personally i'll never install a new OS until most of the bugs are fixed with it but Win 10 i will never install it even if Microsoft keep shoving it down my throat for years. No offense but do you even know why Microsoft is forcing Win7/8.1 users to upgrade to 10 even though they dont want to?

 

Telemary? Is that a lady named Mary who steals your data and phones it in to MS?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Good catch ...I never even seen that.

 

Microsoft chose the wrong name on their personal assistant. TeleMary is better. Apple has the name Siri. Microsoft thought that a woman's name would associate Win 10 with gossip.

 

What does that have to do with MS? Alienware products and support are the issue, not the new O/S, imo.

This is a reason to get rid of Alienware, not the O/S.

 

Lol, just noticed i spelled it wrong

Everything went better than expected

 

You're assuming a lot of things in your post - standard 'stock' negatives for a new O/S and 'supposed' positives for staying with the old crappy one, indefinitely.

The truth is that of all the people and businesses (including my company) that has given Win10 a try. NONE will go back.

And that number keeps growing (14 million at last count).

Stick to your view of the world where MS = stoopid and businesses run by numbers guys give great advice like 'keep using the old O/S until the wheels fall off'.

Smart businesses don't sit still. They move proactively and they take (calculated) risks too.

Moving to Windows 10 is a 5 minute decision and a few weeks (or a full business cycle) of testing to implement and implement well.

Nobody is recommending to install with the (privacy) defaults. And nobody is recommending to do this blindly either.

Move forward with your eyes open, a willingness to learn as needed and the attitude that problems will show up and be overcome in due course.

The alternative is waking up and find yourself or your business running a great (for 2009) O/S in 2020 that is slow, security hole ridden, costs heavily to support and is so long after it's prime (since 2011, mind you... with Win8 which began life before Win7, btw...), that combined all the above and more issues will weigh mightily and heavily on your (and your company's) productivity each and every day that you continue using it.

This is a new MS that is showing it's hand. The days of the old MS are already a distant memory to me since Win8 and certainly with Win8.1.

Today's Win10 is the perfect recipe for the hardware we are about to enjoy in the next few months. Old, ancient and decrepit O/S's need not apply.

Neither do the once true assumptions you're trying to apply to Win10 either.

 

Did you also mean Dell? Include also Win 10. Dell does exactly the same across the board.

 

Yeah; Dell. Worst example of PC's that I've ever seen - crapple without the fruity finish and now, with 100% more annoyance when dealing with their patented non-'support'.

Again, Win10 runs beautifully on everything else I've used it on. No need to lump it in there with other garbage.

 

Too busy to post previously:

Just two days ago, MS released the cumulative update to Win10 1511 'KB3118754' which has incremented the version (type winver in a search box) to MS Windows 1511 (OS Build 10586.11).

With Windows 7 machines (at my disposal) still hundreds of miles away, I still can't compare them directly.

But with 10586.11, I can easily see the increased responsiveness throughout the O/S (and not just during boot up).

 

Can some brave person try Win10 built in memory checker, I ran it the other day and now i cannot get the icon off my taskbar, be warned this may happen to you.

John.

EDIT: FIX Gets rid of icon on taskbar.

 

How did you run it?

 

Just click the windows logo bottom left of the desktop and type "memory" then click on "windows memory diagnostic" and then select "restart now and check for problems" it could take 30min+ to run the memory check.

On reboot i dont get an pass or fail message like i did with Win8.1, but the stupid icon on my taskbar does nothing when i click on it, and will not go away.

John.

 

So you're basically saying that Microsoft knows whats best for consumers? Thats funny after Windows 8 was considered as a disaster and most of its consumers didnt upgrade to windows 8 and stayed with 7 and wow only 14million people installed Win10 on their PCs? you didnt realize thats pretty low for a free OS dont you think after almost 4 months since its release? Even Microsoft's hardcore supporters are making programs trying to disable all of Windows 10 default privacy settings, even with that there still another serious issue with Win10 which are forced driver updates which most people here will tell you that installing generic driver updates from windows update is a bad idea and ends up breaking a device especially WIFI and after Nvidia continues to release bad drivers that causes a decrease of their GPUs performance in certain games, thats is another problem and basically taking away people freedoms of what they do on their own PC

As stated before newer is not always better and this saying goes too "Dont fix things when they're not broken". Theres a reason why over 50% of people are still using Windows 7 while people who are using Windows 8.1 is only about 11% and Win 10 is close to 8% for a free OS. Its still funny how you continue to ignore that Microsoft is literally trying to force Win7/8.1 users to upgrade to 10 when they dont want to after all of the crap that comes with it, Like 3 weeks ago i think, many consumers including me found out that the Windows 10 update was autoselected in optional updates it nearly installed on their PCs until they stopped the setup menu. I dont how you can continue to blindly defend Microsoft's bad business decisions especially with Windows 10? But gonna say this, its up to the user if they want to Upgrade to 10 on their systems and not Microsoft.

 

Please read the complete thread - I don't want to rehash the same old stuff over and over. And you're simply repeating what has been put to bed already.

Quick facts:
~140 Million Windows downloads to date. Of those; 14 Million are business/ enterprise users.

I have personally converted over 250 systems myself and know of at least 10x that number. Of complete failures of those? 2 systems. And a clean install brought them back to equality to the other Win10 upgrades (or other clean installs).

Windows 8 is ancient news. That program started before Windows 7 (sometime before or during 2009...) and call it what you will, but to me and many others, it wasn't a failure at the time. Why? Because I have the capabilities to make it work for my company and my clients' workflows too. And for me personally; it took all of 10 minutes to change gears and get on the better (than Win7) O/S so many years ago.

The numbers of people still on Win7 has nothing to do with how adapt it is at handling a modern workload on a modern platform with modern software and hardware components. Zilch. The proof of that is how many are on crapOS/x and don't see their time and capabilities dwindling away with each new release (el stupidio being the latest crap shoot for the fruitily inclined).

When Win7 was new - I was the first to embrace it (from betas even...). Same with Win 8 and Win8.1 and now four different versions of Win10 (betas, 10240, 10586 and now 10586.11).

I have not seen forced driver updates that did not improve the user experience (but granted; I don't game, don't care about gaming and don't support anyone that does to any real extent - but I do care about multi-monitor support and fast refresh (2D) rates on my displays).

The reasons you state are the same dribble against MS that has been repeated ad nauseam since Bill Gates became a household name when he was in his twenties.

But you know what? Give today's MS a fair chance at 'your' workflows and you'll be pleasantly surprised (I've been since Win7 and Win8/8.1/10 has simply taken that to a different level with each jump).

Will there be glitches for the next little while with Win10? YES. But the workarounds are there just as quickly (if need be).

Will staying with ancient O/S's be detrimental to a small business, an individual or a corporate enterprise? Definitely.

You can site as many problems as you want, but the facts remain:

Windows 10 supports about 1.7 kajillion different device combinations and permutations. And it does it very, very well. And soon, that same type of O/S kernel will power Windows Phone too which will eventually add another billion or so to that supported number and will finally allow me to drop this idiocy called an iPhone into the toilet and flush it so that it ends up where it belongs.

In the space of four months, Windows 10 has transformed itself into the best of every O/S I've ever used.

Can't say that about anything else in the tech sphere...

This is not supporting MS.

This is about being able to get the best O/S to power my workflow.

It has always been MS Windows (with varying amounts of grief depending on the version).

But Win10, by combining the best of everything they've learned to date and releasing that experience to us sooner rather than later, is what makes it exceptional.

 

Would you like to modify the above statement, or do you prefer to look like a fool? You know very well that the above is just flat-out false. Just read this forum. Plenty of people have reported going back to their previous OS.

Ouch. Now you've done it and completely disqualified yourself. As far as I know even at Microsoft nobody has any hope whatsoever that that poor excuse for a phone OS will ever go anywhere. It's the apps, stupid: There are no apps for Windows phones, and a "smartphone" without apps is completely and utterly useless. Given this, the incompetent user interface they have chosen for these things is just icing on the cake. Windows phones will never go anywhere, period, end of story. I know it, Microsoft knows this and so does anyone else who's not completely deluded. Heck, I'd give the Blackberry a better shot at surviving than Windows phones.

 

Once games are shipping with DX12 everybody will switch regardless.

But after a couple of months with it, 10 is far better than 8/8.1, the only real choices are 7 or 10 now. And again, gamers will eventually all move to 10 anyway. As much as I'd love for Linux to finally be a proper alternative it's not happening anytime soon.

 

Come back in in 1 year, then 2 years, then 3 years, maybe by then enough new games will have DX12 *and* performance improvements will *begin* to make a compelling reason to migrate to Windows 10.

DX12 as a reason to suffer through Windows 10 buggy beginnings is silly.

Or, MS will want to hold on to gaming market share and back port DX12 to Windows 7/8.1.

 

Hmm, I must have missed the memo. Windows 10 has made me embrace Windows 8.1 Pro as the best thing MS has ever made. OK /sarc off.

I refuse to accept forced updates on any of my gaming rigs. Too bad 80% of my Steam games are Windows based or i'd run Linux instead. And as the previous poster mentioned, you won't see only DX 12 games anytime soon. Most games will run on DX 11 and i'm still not sold that DX 12 will be all it's cracked up to be.

If one doesn't mind a free buggy OS, forced updates, MS giving you a trojan horse, then yeah Windows 10 is pure awesomeness.

 

Maybe it would take alot for some people to switch, but Battlefield 5 shipping with DX12 would be enough for most people to be honest. As for buggy beginnings, it's not that bad. 8 at launch was considerably worse, I haven't actually had problems with 10 myself, though I know others have.

MS would never back port DX12. They would gain nothing. Gamers will make the switch, it's just a matter of when.

The forced updates are not really a big deal once you turn off driver updates. Most people don't seem to realise you can do that, or they think it doesn't work. It does work.

Or are you taking issue with the general OS updates? Can I ask why? Is it actually normal for people to not update their OS? I've never heard of this prior to 10 launching.

 

I have to disagree with @Pirx on the phone thing. Not that it will fail, that is a good probability. M$ wants W10 phone and tablet to work and become a player. It is the reason for the push, they want everything W10.

 

There actually is a partner API to DX12 for Windows 8.1/7 - DX11.3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#DirectX_11

" DirectX 11.3 was announced along with DirectX 12 at GDC and will be released in 2015. It is meant to complement DirectX 12 as a higher-level alternative."

Microsoft Details Direct3D 11.3 & 12 New Rendering Features by Ryan Smith on September 18, 2014 11:30 PM EST
Direct3D 11.3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8544/microsoft-details-direct3d-113-12-new-features

" First and foremost then, Microsoft has announced that there will be a new version of Direct3D 11 coinciding with Direct3D 12. Dubbed Direct3D 11.3, this new version of Direct3D is a continuation of the development and evolution of the Direct3D 11 API and like the previous point updates will be adding API support for features found in upcoming hardware."

"...For these reasons there is a need to offer both high level and low level APIs. Direct3D 12 will be the low level API, and Direct3D 11 will continue to be developed to offer the same features through a high level API."

The reason to have API's available across all active Windows OS's is that people buy Microsoft and Microsoft Partner games.

They all want to sell games to make money, and seeing the backlash for poorly performing games, MS will make sure games perform as well on all Windows OS's.

Check out this forum post #1 maintains a list of what you can do to stop Windows 10 updates, Windows 7.8.10 telemetry, and related tweaks:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-windows-10-upgrade-disable-telemetry.780476/

There are plenty of complaints about MS KB's forcing through updates, even though all the tricks have been pulled to stop them. People want specific drivers installed, and MS comes through randomly and replaces them.

Even without the Invasion of Privacy gotcha, that stops me and many others completely from moving on to Windows 10, there is the matter of Windows 10 buggy and unsettled feature set. MS is going to be bug fixing bugs and features for the next year.

If you want to get work done and not be interrupted randomly by a new feature or bug, you want to avoid Windows 10 until it is completed and bug free - including all the 3rd party drivers and applications.

It's best to recommend people to stay on Windows 8.1/7 until after Windows 10 settles down in a year or so.

Until then you aren't doing friends and family any favors recommending they move to Windows 10 - for one thing there is nothing in Windows 10 that isn't in Windows 8.1/7 - and no performance improvements.

There is really no reason to play with Windows 10 except to play with Windows 10.

 

If DX11.3 is not low level then it doesn't bring to the table the biggest benefit of DX12 - performance from the massive overhead reduction.

Gamers will still switch.

 

If everyone programmed in low level assembly, I might agree with you. But, most modern programmers wouldn't be bothered to dig down deep and code optimally.

If the API in 11.3 gives programmers 50% of the performance of the 12.x API, and the 12.x API takes 10x as long to code it, you will find most will opt for the quickest path to delivery.

Whatever the performance difference, it won't make anyone give up their personal freedom for a better playing game

 

Personal freedom isn't black and white, all or nothing. You don't just sacrifice it, you make concessions. Everybody does every single day. I've been through American airports before, plenty of people are willing to go through that to get on a plane. The more obvious everyday example is smart devices.