So, what's the general consensus on Windows 10?

[Mushkins]

her registry was messed up and the upgrade imported her problem to 10 so I clean installed 10 wiping out her drive and she's very happy with it.

I think a lot of the heat people are giving it about being "buggy" boils down to exactly this. They did an upgrade install on their four+ year old Windows 7 or 8 system with all sorts of orphaned garbage in their registry that was mostly benign but materialized into actual issues after the upgrade. Then they blame Windows 10 and call it a day, when the reality is they were just waaaaay overdue for a clean install and upgrade installs have a long history of ending poorly on junked-up systems.

The MS flub here was not letting us use a website to activate our old Win7/Win8 keys so we can do a clean install straight off. This upgrade, activate, *then* reinstall clean thing is a headache.

That being said, I had a new machine that I did a fresh install of Win8.1 and immediately upgraded to Win10 on release day and I'm more than happy with it. My only issue is some obscure thing where apparently they removed a video codec they used to supply with Win7/Win8 and certain videos come out green and janky in MPC. They work fine in VLC though, and I'm sure the popular codec packs will start rolling up the missing codec soon enough.

 

[quikah]

The MS flub here was not letting us use a website to activate our old Win7/Win8 keys so we can do a clean install straight off. This upgrade, activate, *then* reinstall clean thing is a headache.

The new insider build adds the ability to use a Win 7/8/8.1 key to activate. Guess it will roll into the mainstream build when TH2 gets released, I hear November maybe.

 

[corkyg]

Corgyg did start 10 give you the option to display the date and time in that format?

No - that is an app I have used since 98. It is called 1st Clock and it gives you many format choices, colors, etc. I really like my 24 hour format with visible seconds.

 

[bononos]

Yes that NSA style datamining everything that you do is a real deal breaker for me, at least until a 3rd party anti-spyware app comes along to stop it, and who ever does that is going to make a fortune.

The problem is that Win7/8 also have telemetry updates and worse you have no way to lower the settings like you do with Win10 (set to basic instead of enhanced/full). You have to uninstall and hide them otherwise they will be silently reinstalled again. And theres no telling that Microcrap will release the same telemetry updates again and again in future updates.

 

[Z15CAM]

The problem is that Win7/8 also have telemetry updates and worse you have no way to lower the settings like you do with Win10 (set to basic instead of enhanced/full). You have to uninstall and hide them otherwise they will be silently reinstalled again.

Win7 and I believe Win8 allows users the option to be Notified about Updates and the choice on whether to download and Install them.

It's just that with the intro of GWX back in mid July, Win7 and Win8 can not effectively HIDE GWX and it's Telemetry KB's and is Nagged to Update to WinX every month by MS and MS is responsible for this attack method - Not the Win7 or Win8 OS.

Right now I have no interest in WinX as it plainly has way too much telemetry and can infringe on your privacy rights.

 

[Executioner]

I think a lot of the heat people are giving it about being "buggy" boils down to exactly this. They did an upgrade install on their four+ year old Windows 7 or 8 system with all sorts of orphaned garbage in their registry that was mostly benign but materialized into actual issues after the upgrade. Then they blame Windows 10 and call it a day, when the reality is they were just waaaaay overdue for a clean install and upgrade installs have a long history of ending poorly on junked-up systems.

The MS flub here was not letting us use a website to activate our old Win7/Win8 keys so we can do a clean install straight off. This upgrade, activate, *then* reinstall clean thing is a headache.

That being said, I had a new machine that I did a fresh install of Win8.1 and immediately upgraded to Win10 on release day and I'm more than happy with it. My only issue is some obscure thing where apparently they removed a video codec they used to supply with Win7/Win8 and certain videos come out green and janky in MPC. They work fine in VLC though, and I'm sure the popular codec packs will start rolling up the missing codec soon enough.

I agree with the clean install method if I was to do it again. I installed it on my win 7 laptop, and noticed how much slower it was compared to 7, even though I have a SSD drive installed. That is the problem with an update: you bring over all the old baggage from the previous OS. If I was gong to update it again, I would perform a fresh install then the upgrade; however, I read yesterday that MS is going to allow you to perform a fresh install using your old win 7 or 8 product key, so this will make it more convenient. This will be on a future update being released soon.

With all that said, I'm still not happy with all the spying with this OS, and now they are doing the same with 7 and 8 with the telemetry KB's. I have disabled all updates to my desktop and laptop running 7. I have now moved on to using Autopatcher for my updates.

 

[Underclocked]

Apparently that feature (of using 7/8-8.1 keys) is incorporated on insider release 10565.

You could do a mostly clean install all along if you use the appropriate gatherosstate.exe found in the Win10 iso.


Credit for this method lies elsewhere, but I have used it without issue:

---------------------------------------------
There is one way to pre-generate your info. It might work as a backup method that ensures activation too.

Mount the iso or unzip it with 7-zip.

Copy gatherosstate.exe from Windows 10 10240 sources folder. (x64 version if you are running a 64 bit os)

Run gatherosstate.exe on your Windows 7/8 PC

It'll output GenuineTicket.xml. Copy GenuineTicket.xml to a thumb drive or some other storage.

Fresh install Windows 10 with the internet connection disabled.

Once it's installed copy GenuineTicket.xml to C:\programdata\microsoft\windows\clipsvc\genuineticket\

Reboot and connect online

It'll activate the same as an upgrade
-------------------------------------------------

 

[blankslate]

Its better than Win8 or 8.1, has DX12, but the privacy is terrible, the default setting on privacy are terrible and there are settings you can't even disable. Some you can disable by going into the registry and creating new values or deleting ones and changing stuff from the policy management and services, etc...

I think that the privacy issue concerns a large minority of people who are on the fence about windows 10. I don't think there are any inherent flaws in the UI design; and that security will be better than (and stability will be at least as good as) previous versions.

Those privacy concerns though. it's a big issue for me. I'll probably get a router from which I can block the telemetric IPs and use a non win10 machine to setup and change settings in that router.


....

 

[Raduque]

One thing I noticed among most Win 10 users: most are using either Firefox or Chrome instead of Edge, most are using an alternative Start menu instead of Win 10's menu with tiles, most are using VLC, PotPlayer or MPC-HC instead of Movies & TV, most are using either the classic Windows Photo viewer or third party app like Irfanview instead of Photos, etc. Why bother shipping all these apps in Windows when nobody's going to use them? MS may just as well ship the UI and kernel and let us install what we want. .

If you ask me, the issue lies with the users. The built-in apps are great, especially Edge. I can't use any other browser on my SP2 or the battery lasts less than 12 hours sleeping. With Edge, I can leave it for almost two days.

. Perhaps one day MS will understand that the 7 menu system is the most preferred of all and return to it as standard.

Menu system on 7 is terrrible. I can't stand nested menus. I hope it never comes back. Those excretory start menu apps will never use a single byte on any of my machines.

 

[Z15CAM]

MS really %&#* Up on this Win10 GWX Free UpGrade in my opinion and they are screwing legit Win7 and Win8 users to the point where consumers are going to loose all their data and privacy over the aspect of Telemetry and Inscription.

How much are you willing to pay to keep what you already have?

If you think it bad now just look ahead to the new year.

 

[Hugh Jass]

MS really %&#* Up on this Win10 GWX Free UpGrade in my opinion and they are screwing legit Win7 and Win8 users to the point where consumers are going to loose all their data and privacy over the aspect of Telemetry and Inscription.

How much are you willing to pay to keep what you already have?

If you think it bad now just look ahead to the new year.

 

[cohenfive]

Except for the fact that both pc's that I've upgraded have had catastrophic win10 failure, I'd say it's great.

 

[lifeblood]

I’ve been using Win10 on my main rig since its release and I’m just not feeling the love for it. It is, in many ways, what I’ve wanted, but it really hasn’t wow’d me. There is nothing about it that really gets me excited. I thought Cortana would but since installing it I’ve really not used it. DX12 has the potential, but I want to see actual games first.

With all the talk about its telemetry and other privacy problems, I don’t like where it’s going. Maybe they’re not shutting actually spying on you today, but they will tomorrow.

I also am absolutely against mandatory upgrades. I understand and even support mandatory security updates, but not things that add or remove features. I don’t want their feature updates to break things I've bought or created.

I know I will rebuild my PC soon and I still don’t know what I’ll put on it. Win8.1 with Start8 was great and I’m tempted to put it back on. Hopefully DX12 will knock my socks off soon and make me keep Win10.

 

[Z15CAM]

https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/b...merun/Hitfix/5cc45d548cbeb82d6e127bb3e1c2d011

Instead of the word "inscription", I should have use the word "conscription"

Hugh - That was great - LOL

 

[StrangerGuy]

Back to Win 7. The inability to boot direct to desktop once a MS account is logged in is simply godawful, and I noticed boot times also got slightly worse.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Hugh - That was great - LOL

Thanks.