Upgrade to Windows 10 yay or nay?

[Zeze]

I'm currently on Win7 Ultimate. It feels light and clean.

I feel like if I upgrade to Win 10, it would be bloated and also get bombarded with ads and stealing my data.

Why should I upgrade and is it worth it today?

 

[Chaotic42]

Not unless you have a need to. It comes loaded with crap like Minecraft and Candy Crush and it takes a bit of work to get the UI where it needs to be. It also forgets which audio output I want to use randomly.

 

[Zeze]

Not unless you have a need to. It comes loaded with crap like Minecraft and Candy Crush and it takes a bit of work to get the UI where it needs to be. It also forgets which audio output I want to use randomly.

I can't play Forza Horizon 4 on Win7... wtf... these bastards already give up on Windows 7???

 

[Sonikku]

Depends on what you do with your machine. If it's just a word processor and web browser and it works, why change what isn't broken? I only the other hand had to switch to 10 for DX12 and other exclusive features. After a night of toggling off all the privacy sucking options that come on as a default it hasn't been have bad.

 

[13Gigatons]

Windows 10 is a great OS, probably Microsoft's best ever but it's also the point at which they sold their soul to the Devil and rape personal privacy for profit.

Just be sure to install the anti-spy programs and shutoff all the built in services which annoy everyone.

 

[WilliamM2]

I just installed Win 10 on my neighbor's 6 year old laptop today. It's much faster than it was with 7. It also only took 13.5 GB on the hard drive, after all updates. Much less bloated than 7. And the upgrade was still free.

I've been running Win 10 since t came out on my machines, no issues at all. Why stick with an OS that only has one year left? Get 10 while it's still free.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Windows 10 is a great OS, probably Microsoft's best ever but it's also the point at which they sold their soul to the Devil and rape personal privacy for profit.

Just be sure to install the anti-spy programs and shutoff all the built in services which annoy everyone.

And disable all the automatic driver update settings (not just in the Windows Update part, if you don't turn off the others as well it still updates drivers without asking), and don't use line-in devices if you don't have a separate line-in port on the computer (I've had several customers where Windows kept switching Line-In microphones to Mic In)

 

[pmv]

I just installed Win 10 on my neighbor's 6 year old laptop today. It's much faster than it was with 7. It also only took 13.5 GB on the hard drive, after all updates. Much less bloated than 7. And the upgrade was still free.

I've been running Win 10 since t came out on my machines, no issues at all. Why stick with an OS that only has one year left? Get 10 while it's still free.

I didn't realise it was still free. Or did you upgrade back when it was first available and then roll it back for a while?

I prefer the look of Windows 7, find a lot about W10's UI/aesthetic a bit irritating, but all the most annoying bits (e.g. the start menu mysteriously stopping working) seem to have been ironed out in updates now. And W7 is not long for this world anyway, so you'll have to do the work of switching off all the spy-stuff at some point anyway.
Also the DRM incompatibilities with vast numbers of games now applies to 7 as well, thanks to its updates.

 

[KMFJD]

Best version of windows yet, not sure why your holding back.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think a lot of people think that Win10 is noticeably faster without realising that MS has been employing the same trick for about 15 years: Remove stuff out of the OS boot cycle and drop it in shortly after user login.

The only compelling reason I can think of to upgrade to Win10 is either DX12 (if that's of interest) or that Win7 will stop being supported with security updates in 2020. Having said that, Win10 on an older machine might drop key hardware support with a feature update (that's something that's already happened) even before 2020.

 

[ImpulsE69]

DX12 is barely a reason at this point. OP you could dual boot maybe to see if you like it? Personally, I still can't stand it. It might be faster, but not great enough to deal with the BS attached to it. It's a 'good' OS if you like a phone OS. If you like to have control, then no, it isn't worth it. Every other large update resets most the stuff you changed.

 

[Captante]

I like Win 10 but after my install was borked by updates twice I went back to 7 Pro for most stuff. Will go back to 10 when support for 7 ends.

 

[PingSpike]

When I read about Windows 10 I switched to linux. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my wife's machine once Windows 7 support ends though. I don't think she's up for linux herself, although she begrudgingly uses our set top box with it. I'm not an Apple fan myself but she has a burning disdain for Apple for some reason, I think it has to do with a bad iTunes experience.

I run a Windows VM that has snapshots to protect (me) from having to spend all day fixing it if it breaks. I might try to incorporate something like that into her bare metal install of Windows 10 to save me from suffering. I'm pretty concerned about the invalidating old hardware thing mikeymikec mentioned as a longer term problem.

Who knows? Maybe support will be extended or there will be a trick like XP embedded.

I'm ready for my updated PC at work even if it has Windows 10. There's an IT department who can manage the mess for me there.

 

[WilliamM2]

I didn't realise it was still free. Or did you upgrade back when it was first available and then roll it back for a while?

Just updated it from the 1809 USB install download. never been updated before.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Win10 has been nothing but a nightmare at our work. It's almost to the point they don't even try to fix things anymore...everyone just has a 'that's how it is' mentality. I suppose that they'll just have to accept it takes more time to do less these days.

 

[luv2liv]

Win7 for life!
if it works, dont touch it.

 

[PingSpike]

Win7 for life!
if it works, dont touch it.

Except when it comes to plumbing. Then the rule is "If it sort of works, still don't touch it."

 

[nakedfrog]

It's been pretty much fine on the gaming PC I built this year. First step was to disable all the telemetry and Cortana and such. It's been stable and responsive for me.

 

[Fritzo]

Win7 for life!
if it works, dont touch it.

Windows 7 is being retired Jan 2020. It's actually pretty archaic by today's standards too.

Windows 10 is completely fine. It works a lot like Windows 7, there are a lot of nice enhancements (hardware support and cloud integration are really good), and it's a lot more efficient than Windows 7 on low-powered PCs.

As a side note- if you do a fresh install, you can use your Windows 7 key to activate Windows 10. Also Windows 10 doesn't have an "Ultimate" edition, so if you use the media player features you may need to find alternate solutions.

 

[Fritzo]

Not unless you have a need to. It comes loaded with crap like Minecraft and Candy Crush and it takes a bit of work to get the UI where it needs to be. It also forgets which audio output I want to use randomly.

The games aren't "preloaded"....there are shortcuts to them on the start menu that allow you to install them. You can simply right-click the tiles and unpin them from the start menu.

The audio input issue is causing by Windows trying to guess what input you want to use. If you left-click the speaker icon (next to the clock), you can choose a drop-down menu of what audio device you want to play. I switch between speakers, a BT earpiece, and a soundbar a lot and don't seem to have any issues.

 

[kt]

Windows 10 is fast and responsive. Just turn off all the privacy stealing stuff and you'll be fine.

 

[Chaotic42]

The games aren't "preloaded"....there are shortcuts to them on the start menu that allow you to install them. You can simply right-click the tiles and unpin them from the start menu.

The audio input issue is causing by Windows trying to guess what input you want to use. If you left-click the speaker icon (next to the clock), you can choose a drop-down menu of what audio device you want to play. I switch between speakers, a BT earpiece, and a soundbar a lot and don't seem to have any issues.

Honestly the mere presence of the games in the Start Menu on a "Professional" operating system is a problem for me. For extra fun, there's a bug with at least the current version of Win10 where depending on your system clock's settings when you install it (for example having your system clock set to UTC), you aren't allowed to make any changes to the Start Menu until your system clock wraps back around to the local time it would have been when you installed it. That was a heck of a bug to figure out.

As for the audio thing, it's definitely a bug. Yes, you can select the output that way, but Windows 10 will, seemingly randomly, decide to direct the output to another device. It can be fixed by reselecting the correct output, but it will even go so far as to create copies (not re-enable) disabled audio outputs when it decides it wants to use something other than what you had selected when last you booted. Hopefully this gets fixed soon. It's happened on every multi-sound-output capable Windows 10 computer I've had.

They also made it hard to use Windows Picture Viewer, but it's possible through a registry hack.

I will say that once it's up and running, it's not a bad experience sans the sound output thing.

 

[Iron Woode]

I didn't realise it was still free. Or did you upgrade back when it was first available and then roll it back for a while?

I prefer the look of Windows 7, find a lot about W10's UI/aesthetic a bit irritating, but all the most annoying bits (e.g. the start menu mysteriously stopping working) seem to have been ironed out in updates now. And W7 is not long for this world anyway, so you'll have to do the work of switching off all the spy-stuff at some point anyway.
Also the DRM incompatibilities with vast numbers of games now applies to 7 as well, thanks to its updates.

Just install Classic Shell to get that Win7 experience.

Development continues here: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

 

[LikeLinus]

The privacy stuff is easy enough to turn off in Windows 10. I have 7 machines running Win 10 in my house and haven't noticed any audio issues? Never seem it switch for no reason and it just works. So not sure what to tell you there. My work computers are the same way.

I do have 2 Win 7 machines still running as I use Windows Media Center with Ceton cards for IPTV. If I would, I would upgrade them to Win 10 as well. But MS screwed the pooch with WMC and it's been very annoying. I was running WMC for a short time on Win10, but MS kept releasing updates that would disable it. Very annoying.

 

[lxskllr]

If you're staying with windows, you might as well run the latest. Just rip the bandaid off and get it over with, cause you'll be doing it at some point anyway. I upgraded to debian years ago. Best windows version yet :^D