Does Win10 need to be physically INSTALLED before July 29? Or just ISO downloaded?

[Craig234]

4 hours, 98%

 

[SilentRunning]

How fast was your slowest machine? My Atom 330 always takes a very, very long time to get stuff installed, but it's slow as molasses. It even has SSD, but here it seems CPU speed is important. 40 minutes would have been luxury on this machine, but it took way longer. (For the past couple of days I was having problems updating my old Win 10 install through Windows Update, so instead yesterday I did a Win 10 to Win 10 1511 upgrade using the ISO, and yes I turned off checking for WU for the ISO install.)

Slowest was an A10-7850k underclocked. I did clone each OS drive to an empty 1TB drive before performing the upgrade. I performed the upgrade on the cloned drive. Each computer except for one mini-itx has at least one hot swap bay. The other processors are i3-4360, i5-3570K, i5-4690K, i7-4770K, and i7-4790K.

 

[Craig234]

I almost restarted the computer, because the upgrade window disappeared from the taskbar and alt-tab didn't see it.

The first time I did restart. But it had got an error it was already running when I re-ran it.

The second time I checked the little minimized icon list in the lower right and found it. Don't remember seeing a program do that.

 

[Eug]

Slowest was an A10-7850k underclocked. I did clone each OS drive to an empty 1TB drive before performing the upgrade. I performed the upgrade on the cloned drive. Each computer except for one mini-itx has at least one hot swap bay. The other processors are i3-4360, i5-3570K, i5-4690K, i7-4770K, and i7-4790K.

Heh, no wonder. Your slowest Windows machine, even underclocked, is much, much faster than my fastest Windows machine.

And the one I mentioned above, Atom 330, probably has only 10% of the speed of that CPU. 😛 Mind you, yours has a TDP of 95 W and mine has a TDP of 8 W. 😀 And yours is much more recent too.

 

[Craig234]

It's been 99% over an hour - and says it needs to burn a file to disc. I wonder if I need to put a blank disk in and burn it to get this to finish.

I tried once, and it started getting 'Windows Explorer is not responding' errors (I had started Explorer and tried to look at the disc, and it started this burn program).

 

[Craig234]

Well crap. over 5 hours in, the window upgrading just closed on its own. No message, and now it's not on the icon menu in the lower right either. No reboot, no nothing.

 

[Craig234]

The DVD burn completed and it kicked out the DVD. That's it. No Windows 10.

It's weird. When I try to use Windows Explorer to look at the disk, it doesn't show any filed, it says a file is ready to burn again like the one it just did.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Are you using the media creation tool?

 

[Craig234]

Are you using the media creation tool?

First I did, but when that burned a DVD and seemed to do nothing else, I instead clicked their upgrade link that started the upgrade.

It's interesting. After 5 hours, it finished - and nothing. No reboot no message. I used the PC for a while, figured oh well it didn't work and left it alone for hours.

When I came back, the Windows 10 login was up.

So, I'm on Windows 10 and it completed.

First impressions: where it's the same, good. My logins were disactivated on web sites.

The biggest thing I'm seeing and not liking is the aggressive marketing. I feel like they're treating my PC like a portal for their revenue.

Tools try to switch my applications to theirs, default preferences are set for them to collect all my data and advertise, they have windows pushing things.

The look sometimes I don't like as much - sometimes it's a bit dark, black coloring.

The only other issue I've noticed is sometimes when I click things there's a couple seconds delay before it notices. It's intermittent.

The start menu, 'most used' sure isn't. Programs I run daily aren't on it, a program I haven't used in months and rarely used is. 'Recently added' is some DVD player I didn't run.

And I said 'no' to Cortana but there's this banner ad nagging to click it anyway on the screen.

It's next to the start button without a close button.

So, I saw someone say you only have 30 days to go back to Windows 7? If that's the case they sure hide that information.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Well at least you got it and yes in settings you can roll back within 30 days if you wish. I've found that a clean install works better for me which I did on all of my pc's.

 

[escrow4]

Heh, no wonder. Your slowest Windows machine, even underclocked, is much, much faster than my fastest Windows machine.

And the one I mentioned above, Atom 330, probably has only 10% of the speed of that CPU. 😛 Mind you, yours has a TDP of 95 W and mine has a TDP of 8 W. 😀 And yours is much more recent too.

Clean install took less than 15min on this 5930K and 500GB EVO. Less than 30min for full updates.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[Craig234]

Thanks for the info. I'd rollback, because this system has 8 years of data and I ain't about to clean install over that.

It seems like there's an added incentive to rollback to 7, since I can always re-upgrade to 10 (I assume that's available instead of a clean install), but not rollback.

I do get nervous in the 'do not turn your computer off' part though because I know that's a loss of an an unbackedup system and mine spontaneously reboots up to 2x a day.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[Eug]

Perhaps turn off fast startup in the system settings. That can cause some weird behaviour if things don't go right. And if you're on an SSD, it doesn't speed things up much anyway.

 

[Craig234]

I just haven't been able to find an easy to use backup I like yet. I bought an external backdrive years ago and haven't hooked up. A convenient online backup would be good.

Anyone know about whether that 10 upgrade (not fresh install) remains available if you downgrade? My feeling right now is a 'no clear reason to use 10' feeling, little annoyances with it.

 

[vailr]

Either one should be activate-able at any future point in time: Win10 upgrade install or fresh install.
What exact type + capacity of external backup drive are you talking about?

 

[nerp]

I just haven't been able to find an easy to use backup I like yet. I bought an external backdrive years ago and haven't hooked up. A convenient online backup would be good.

Anyone know about whether that 10 upgrade (not fresh install) remains available if you downgrade? My feeling right now is a 'no clear reason to use 10' feeling, little annoyances with it.

Yes, once Windows 10 is activated on that machine, it has a Windows 10 entitlement for the life of the machine.

 

[bruceb]

For doing backups, you should try to find Ghost 11.5 or Ghost 15 ... They are usually part of Ghost Solution Suite (but you can find them if you look for them) .. Best way to image any system is from the image program itself and never while the OS is actually running. Norton Ghost meets that criteria. Some people have tried Acronis TruImage and claim it can not restore properly. That may be an issue with the program or more likely, with the end user not understanding how it should be used. Easus also has a very good image backup program, that some have said is very easy to use and works.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I've got a copy of 10 education that I'll use on my next new build.

 

[vailr]

For doing backups, you should try to find Ghost 11.5 or Ghost 15 ... They are usually part of Ghost Solution Suite (but you can find them if you look for them) .. Best way to image any system is from the image program itself and never while the OS is actually running. Norton Ghost meets that criteria. Some people have tried Acronis TruImage and claim it can not restore properly. That may be an issue with the program or more likely, with the end user not understanding how it should be used. Easus also has a very good image backup program, that some have said is very easy to use and works.

Aomei Partition Assistant (free) can be run while booted in Windows, then the system re-boots in a special "pure DOS" (Windows pre-boot) mode in order to completely clone a running copy of Windows, similar to what Ghost can do. Very useful for upgrade cloning a spinning HD to an SSD, for example.

 

[bruceb]

Didn't know about Aomei Partition Assistant. Right now my old Dell XP system uses Ghost 2003 and it works the same. You start it from within Windows and after you pick your options and image name, it reboots to DOS to make the image. You do need to make or have a Boot Floppy in order to restore the image. On the older Ghost, it did not have the ability to see an External USB Hard Drive, but I am sure that the latest (and also last, as it has been discontinued) version does have that support.

 

[Craig234]

Yes, once Windows 10 is activated on that machine, it has a Windows 10 entitlement for the life of the machine.

I understand that.

I was asking whether it can just be used for an install, or the upgrade can be repeated.

 

[Elixer]

I just haven't been able to find an easy to use backup I like yet. I bought an external backdrive years ago and haven't hooked up. A convenient online backup would be good.

Anyone know about whether that 10 upgrade (not fresh install) remains available if you downgrade? My feeling right now is a 'no clear reason to use 10' feeling, little annoyances with it.

As long as it was activated before the downgrade, your machine's hardware ID/hash is in their database, so you can clean install win 10 later, and it should auto-activate.

 

[nerp]

I understand that.

I was asking whether it can just be used for an install, or the upgrade can be repeated.

Yes, the Windows 7 install will still work and you can upgrade that. You might need to use the Media Creation Tool, but the upgrade option will work.