Windows 10

Sorry if old.

Windows 10 to ship on USB drives

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/11746193/Windows-10-to-ship-on-USB-drives.html

John.

 

Good. Finally.

USB are so much faster than DVD drives

 

Nice Free Image/Clone SSD/HDD software, works great with UEFI x64 and x86 UEFI which Acronis True Image does not, for Win8.1 Tablets.

Install the software in windows and create an recovery dvd/usb so you can boot Macrium to do a recovery.

Make a image of your current Win8.1 ect before you upgrade to Win10 in case something goes wrong

Macrium Reflect Free

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

John.

 

sounds good!

 

OK, here is an instruction for Windows 7 users about how to get REAL FREE Windows 10.

1. Activate Windows 7 with BUILT-IN OEM code and keep your sticker-Code intact.
For this you may either fiddle with this instructions or... install Windows 7 from scratch which I suggest.
Installation:
- download proper iso distributive (Home Premium or whatever) and create USB installation Media.
- Put this $OEM$ folder inside Source folder of installation media.
- Install as usual. If your laptop has fitted SLIC code in BIOS it will be already activated.
2. Update to Windows 10 from booted Windows 7.
- Just replace all Win7 installations folders and files with newer from Win10 iso and run Setup.exe
- Follow onscreen instructions.

 

Just to throw this out there......Yesterday I decided to install what many are saying could be the RTM version of Windows 10 (Build 10240). Benchmark wise, it seems to be the worst yet. I saw a roughly 1500 point decrease in physics score in 3DMark 11 when compared to Windows 7. The GPU score was lower as well, but not to the degree that the CPU performance fell.

 

Wow! Not good! Do you have any game benchmarks & other benchmarks to compare performance against?

 

I was thinking if one can fool the system to believe that the Internet connection is metered connection won't that stop autoupdating?

AFAIK windows 10 won't force updates on metered connections

 

Not for nothing, but if I have to go through such rigor mortis in order to run the OS in question, is it worth it to begin with?

 

Don't worry about updates. In a matter of month or two hackers will provide aftermarket WUpdater where you can choose what to hide for ever... hope so

 

Micro$lop's Win10's update preferences - final news (?)
http://arstechnica.com/information-...to-be-automatic-and-mandatory-for-home-users/

 

At the moment, I do not. I ran 3DMark 11 last night just to see what the numbers would look like, and then in disgust reimaged my computer back to Windows 7 immediately after.

 

just great!

 

"In Windows 10, the options are cut to two: check, download, install, and reboot automatically; and check, download, install automatically and then choose to reboot."

Haha, at least Home users get to choose whether Micro$haft should reboot their system for them or not, whew! How ridiculous and unnecessarily draconian this change seems. 8 months delay or not, Pro users will virtually be in the same boat. The EULA section is equally laughable.

People that say they're O.K. with this, I respect that as your choice but it all just strikes me as another step toward more abuse of user choice (ie. worse things). Simply put, the OS is becoming less and less under your control and in due time, what little privacy is left will follow suit. It'll continue to trend that way unless there's a genuine adoption backlash. Micro$haft are trying to minimize that with the "Free" label. As Mr. Fox would call them, "Papa Micro$haft" is truly in your Home now, whether you like it or not. At the very least remain vigilant of this possibility people.

 

this makes having aftermarket upgrades on laptops difficult because it might download the drivers for the GPU.

 

Yes, I've considered this too, but it won't be able to install the drivers because it would require a modified inf in order to do so. I also think that it probably wouldn't even prompt a download, because it probably would realise that the NVidia drivers it wants to download are incompatible. As long as Windows 10 doesn't block the install of non-standard GPUs and modified inf's, then we'll be OK from that perspective.

 

If I decide to play online game and won't be able due to high ping thanks to downloading Windows Update... I say "Bye-bye Win10 till you fix your sh#$".

 

So the best thing to do is have all your device id's modded so it never downloads anything.

 

I don't know how to change device ID's, but if you could then you'd have to modify each driver you install too - what a pain!

 

Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away. It only allows them to become bigger problems. And, public service is also high calling. How can they hear the truth without a preacher?

That's how I tend to look at things, too. If it requires that much rigmarole all we are doing is exacerbating the problem and masking the stench with workarounds to try to make a seriously flawed product more palatable. And, ultimately for what? This encourages more of the same behavior. Outright refusal to become part of the problem will get more attention. They typically only fix their failures that affect cash flow and generate broadly harmful public opinion, but they're not even doing a good job of that any more. Windows 8 failed, so they respond by giving us a more crippled version of Windows 8. When you mix stupid with evil, it produces a very nasty cocktail. The overwhelming majority of customers say, "We hate the tiles, give us back our Start menu." What do the retards do? They give us a bloated Start menu with tiles. That's what my wife likes to call a "Stupid Alert" LOL.

 

You can delete all the tiles from the start menu without any difficulty. That's not a problem (thankfully - even though I personally intend to use some tiles).

 

Yes, I deleted all of them. But, then I added them back. The only reasonable solution for those that hate the tiles is to use a third-party utility the same as we have needed to do since Windows 8. They just don't get it. If you delete the screen-hogging tile crap, you lose functionality because you do not get this... which is far better unless you are fond of the tiles. The tiles are a nice feature on my Windows 8.1 Nokia phone. They're just the right size for my fingertips. I don't want a smartphone OS on my beast computers.

 

Isn't this pretty much identical functionality-wise though?

 

Since Day 1 of using Win10 TP I got this stupid situation: Win10 i trying to install driver update on cardreader after clean Windows install and it fails with error "This driver can't be used on this OS".
Phantasmagoria. For over a year OS auto installs driver which can't be installed on this OS! OVER A YEAR, Clark!

Looks like I will have to post feedback.

 

No, unfortunately it is not the same functionality. I wish it were, but those links are not the ones that I want on my start menu. That is an improvement, however. The earlier builds did not have that. It left us with a skinny and less functional menu once the tiles were removed. I see Aero transparency is still broken, and that sucks. Thankfully, there is AeroGlass for Windows 10. So, long story short... Micro$lop hasn't learned anything from their mistakes. They continue to remove features, reduce functionality, and don't fix what was broken. Last time I checked, the Windows 8/8.1 RTC errors were still broken in Windows 10. Have they fixed that yet?

Yes, Macrium Reflect FTW! By far, my favorite drive imaging program. Works excellent, and has been a better product than Acronis for quite a few years now. I like it enough that I have ponied up some cash for the paid versions and have upgraded two generations on the paid versions. The free version does a fantastic job and will be sufficient for more users as a basic imaging program.

A nice feature of the full paid version is the WinPE Recovery Environment boot menu option. It will add a boot menu to Windows so you can create or recover drive images without having to use bootable USB media. I have my images on my internal 4TB HDD RAID0 partition in my M18xR2, so I can backup or recover my OS drive on the road, from my living room recliner, any time, any place, in just a matter of a few minutes.

I used to be an Acronis fan and used it for many years. It was fine until one day it failed to restore drive images that I depended on. The original backup images were corrupted and I could not use them. I haven't used Acronis for anything since then. It only takes once on something this important. There are no second chances.

 

It's Windows 8.1, not 10.

 

The screen shot from @Cakefish is 8.1 or 10? I know mine is 8.1 and that was the point. My screen shot shows what a "repaired" Windows 8 system looks like on the desktop.

So, if you remove all of the icky tiles, does Windows 10 still have a skinny menu with no links?

Either way, the need for using a bevy of third-party utilities to get the basic Windows 7 functionality and aesthetic pleasure from Windoze OS X should be assumed as a given.

 

I just Googled 'Windows 10 start menu no tiles'

http://mobile.extremetech.com/lates...closer-look?origref=https://www.google.co.uk/

Turns out it is Windows 10 but a very old build from October 2014.

 

Oh, sorry. I thought you were providing an example from your system. My bad.

 

I would have installed the RTM build but Microsoft are no longer accepting new Insider registrations. Will have to wait until launch day.

 

So all this fluff is from someone with no Windows 10 experience?

 

OK, I apologise if I seem to be all Microsoft Defence Force. I have my fair share of criticisms for Windows, trust me.

Oh and @Mr Fox, I'm surprised that you are a fan of Aero. Seeing as you love to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your system I would have thought you would be the first to dance on top of Aero's corpse. For the record, I like Aero transparency too.

 

One of the things I cannot wrap my head around, and with Windows 10 there are many, is why on earth did they think they needed to put the Apps in the Start Menu mixed right in with the installed programs? They couldn't have tucked them all into a folder called "Tiled Apps" or something?

Unless there is a way to do that? I haven't messed with it enough to know. I just end up installing Start Is Back.

 

If it's anything like 8.1's start menu you'll be able to pin desktop programs there too, not just the tablet apps.

 

Apparently they are hell bent on convincing the world that everyone needs tiles hogging up screen space and adding no value. They don't listen and don't care. The way I see it, giving us a Start menu and sticking tiles on it feels like the ultimate insult.

 

They might start caring soon, but not because of you and me...

There's a pink elephant that walked into the room with the introduction of W8. Some of us around here have advised of its presence, but were ridiculed by The Defenders Of The Redmond Faith who kept on stating that we had no clue on what we were talking about whatsoever...anyways...

The mammal in question is the fact that compatibility with a lot of older and proprietary software has been irretrievably broken in W8 and that quite a few Important Places were not happy about it in the least. I've heard the same complaint from IT professionals coming from (at least) four different industries, so it's *not* a single piece of software that is being referred to. Every single one of these companies buys volume licenses for tens of thousands PCs in an upgrade cycle.

But they stayed with W7 across the board. In all fairness, some of them would've passed on W8 anyway due to the fact that they had just recently moved from XP to W7. Nevertheless, there was a very strong expectation that the compatibility issue would be addressed in what was then supposed to be W9. Or else..

"Other options are already being looked into", I was told, more than just once.

Now, I don't know *for a fact* whether the issue at hand will be fixed in W10, but have a sense that it won't. And therein might lie the problem that could shake Redmond quite severely.

"Well, you can't expect MS to provide compatibility for software dating from the past millenium eternally. The companies in question will just have to find another solution."

Fair enough statement on a theoretical level. However, we all know that "corporations are people" albeit in a very different way from what Governer Romney meant to imply.

All corporations have their own specific cultures. As well as habits. Business Management 101, really.

And they're not above holding grudges either.

If you're looking at an OS which brings value to your needs, but is simply incompatible with some of the stuff - as important as it may be - currently in use, one of the Big Guys/Gals will eventually shrug his/hers shoulders and say "Fine, contact XY12 Corp, throw them $2M and have them write a piece of software which will do what we need but be compatible with The New And Improved OS.

While we're burning money, let's remember to add our 10K hourly employees for 16 hours each at $10/h to the expense sheet. We'll write it off taxes as a business expense anyway."

(Please do bear in mind that the real-world figures for such a move are likely to be higher. Significantly higher.)

All is well up to the point when they realize that in order to control their own infrastructure, now an additional expense of moving to Enterprise LTS Edition on *every* PC on their network is required.

Sure, they can stay with Professional. And wake up one morning with 10K+ computers that have bluescreened overnight from a forced update.

At that point, the three scariest words ever to be uttered in any meeting room in corporate HQ are heard:

" Imagine the lawsuits..."

And if you're a hospital chain, bank or an ISP - anyone with any type of name recognition, really - yes, you can bet there would be lawsuits.

Didn't anyone ever tell you NOT to feed PCP to an elephant, pink or not?

That's when a whole new set of figures gets evaluated.
Along with - quite inevitably - a complete new ecosystem.
In some places, the figures as well as habits might work in Redmond's favour.
In others, absolutely not.

It's the balance between the former and latter that will make or break W10. Not us measly consumers who buy one, three or five licenses. Not by a long stretch.

Microsoft will have to come up with a very strong sedative for that pink elephant. Or risk getting crushed by it for good.

 

Or they simply focus on consumers and care less about other markets, like the fruit computer has been doing for a while.

I have no idea why they would do it, but it's not like they would die doing so.


What were the "other options", by the way? Porting your legacy app from XP to 8 and get it deployed is probably easier than switching to Mac/GNU/whatever.

 

Let's just say that the parties that I've spoken to were not interested in remaining within the Windows ecosystem unless the issues were addressed in the manner that would be satisfactory to them. And were reasonably specific on the direction where they would be heading in the given turn of events.

 

Good luck to them through the retraining period then, especially if getting people to interact with the interfaces correctly is harder than getting the software itself to run reliably in their industries.

 

I really couldn't care less, one way or another. As I've stated in another thread: from the day that W7 loses support to the day that I'm supposed to retire - presuming that I'm alive to begin with - there's less than a year and a half to be killed. Between vacation, sick time, short term disability...I'll manage.

While I'm still very much keeping an open mind to W10 and its successors - if any - I could convert my personal ecosystem within a matter of 10 days or less if *really* needed to.

 

Personally it's easy if you care. But imagine the horror if you have to convert your entire fleet without messing up the on going business somehow.

I code geological simulation/inverse software which is highly vertical, targeted at people who are presumably computer-savvy, runs only under GNU/Linux, and given the experience I have with the current user base I can't even imagine the madness if I have to switch to, say, BSD. Now getting a group of doctors, pharmacists and nurses to move from Windows workstations? I'm going to end up killing some people indirectly for sure.

 

I am certainly ready for the destructive testing. Even if I hate it, it will still be fun to highlight all of its flaws and mock Micro$oft for being such a lame outfit. Alternatively, I'll be shocked about how great it is and fall in love with it. Not likely given my experience with Insider Preview, but still a remote chance because I keep an open mind about things. Real shame though... used to think very highly of them. Windows 8 and Ballsmurf were the beginning of the end of what was once a great thing. Here's hoping we all luck out and it turns out nice.

 

No kidding. But guess what: getting sued by families of five people that you've killed while switching operating systems is far less painful than getting sued by thousands of those who were not admitted into the hospital due to the entire system being down after a forced overnight upgrade. Damage control *is* everything. Nothing else matters.

What may very well happen - especially if the stakes on either/both end(s) are high enough - that some of these places end up buying an extended support package for W7. It has happened with XP on certain levels.

 

This may be something that everyone else was already aware of - and if that's indeed the case I apologize for digging out a dead dog - but it seems that Intel is dropping support for Sandy Bridge graphics in W10...

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-034343.htm#core

I'm surprised and not really pleased with that turn of events...

 

At first I was thinking "come on, the registration server is not running Windows to begin with", then I realized "OMG, all the clients are down on the same day".

 

Right now Aero glass is either a hack that is not 100% or a third part program for Windows 10. My biggest issue with these 3rd party apps, like menu's etc., is if on the phone with a friend troubleshooting Windows 7 then I can close my eyes and get them where they need to go. All the other apps can have their procedures to get somewhere and those small differences can put them on a screen or dialog where I can say click ok and it formats the persons drive.

 

Wow, that's really bad news for some folks. For those that use only discrete graphics it is inconsequential, but there are tons of perfectly functional notebooks without discrete graphics, in addition to those using Optimus. Luckily, it doesn't appear they will be missing much by not being able to upgrade to Windoze OS X.

I've been using AeroGlass since Windows 8 first came out and it works great. I hope it will for Windoze OS X also. I believe the author already has beta testers for it, so it will likely be ready to go on or immediately after launch day.

 

I'm still scratching my head over that one. They've smacked the business users - folks that are still hanging onto their well-kept SB Latitudes, ThinkPads and EliteBooks - right across the face. Makes absolutely zero sense to me and reminds me of the "forced GPU upgrades" from the early days of Vista.

Indeed. Let's face it: for any purpose that doesn't explicitly require a dedicated GPU - such as gaming or video-intensive applications - Sandy Bridge is above and beyond being perfectly fine for daily use, and could remain so for a few more years.

LOL.

 

I had tried it but it was buggy on my end, when you moved a dialog it would flash but it could be my system as the screen is a 120hz and between dwm/DX/drivers they may not have liked it.

 

Absolutely right. That alone will be financially devastating to some, and for others there is simply no incentive to waste money on new hardware when what they have meets all of their needs perfectly. This is an excellent example of how short-sighted they are. Who knows the underlying reason(s)... collusion between Intel and Micro$haft? Intel sees a new avenue to take advantage of the public and sell more of their own product? Windows 10 too messed up for Intel to bother trying to make it work? A combination of all three?

I wouldn't trade my 2920XM CPU for any of the lackluster Haswell processors that are standard fare on most laptops now. It is a far superior product than these pathetic new CPUs.