Upgrade to Windows 10 yay or nay?

[BurnItDwn]

Unfortunately while gaming on Linux has gotten a lot better thanks to Steam, it's still not where it needs to be for most of us gamers to switch.

My Understanding is that virtualization has gotten a lot better though. Supposedly, windows in a VM running DIrectX can handle 3d stuff pretty well these days.... So, you could run Linux as your base, and then throw windows on top of it.

 

[PingSpike]

My Understanding is that virtualization has gotten a lot better though. Supposedly, windows in a VM running DIrectX can handle 3d stuff pretty well these days.... So, you could run Linux as your base, and then throw windows on top of it.

Vmware products can pass some calls to the host GPU from their virtual GPU to get some kind of 3D performance from the virtual machine but its nowhere near native performance and really only suitable for running really simple stuff.

Typically, people use pci device passthrough to assign a full graphics card to the windows VM. That's my setup anyway. Then the performance is like 95% of native. The burden here is you can't easily share one graphics card with the host and guest and if you want to game on the host for native linux titles as well you're basically stuck buying two graphics cards.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Vmware products can pass some calls to the host GPU from their virtual GPU to get some kind of 3D performance from the virtual machine but its nowhere near native performance and really only suitable for running really simple stuff.

Typically, people use pci device passthrough to assign a full graphics card to the windows VM. That's my setup anyway. Then the performance is like 95% of native. The burden here is you can't easily share one graphics card with the host and guest and if you want to game on the host for native linux titles as well you're basically stuck buying two graphics cards.

Thank you, yes, PCI passthrough! that is what I had read a little bit about.
I've played around with xen in the distant past, and have played with some vmware and some virtualbox in the past as well, so have a rudimentary understanding of VMs. Though this was only for running servers in the past.

In any case, these days, I believe KVM and Xen both support PCI passthrough.

At one time, I was heavily devoted to OpenBSD due to their rigorous and strict security implementation and code audits, but, these days, I am much less of a purist, and will gladly settle for "whatever works"

 

[bigi]

Also, with NTLite, Windows7 can be customized very well with integrated newer drivers and tons of other stuff.

 

[fire400]

Impressed how fast computers can fully update after fresh installing the Microsoft Win10 October 2018 Update (provided the Internet connection to update the computer is fairly fast).

Automatic driver installs for Win10 are vastly improved versus on Win7 and Win8.1, the Microsoft driver database is more intelligent than it has ever been, not perfect and not exactly universally unflawed, but much, much better.

Performance-wise, impressive with modern-day hardware and even hardware dating back to 2010.

Don't like the Start Menu, too much crap and too many ads and way-way too long of up-down scrolling (too lazy to type in word search sometimes), don't like the updated Windows+X start menu as they took out the 'control panel' shortcut, for example.
I just stopped caring about the specific telemetry and privacy crap, which if you shut off, can reset several months later after a major spring/fall update.

A little bit of light research on modifying your Win10 environment and learning the hotkeys can go a long ways in not having to be overly concerned about small/major annoyances.

Probably the biggest thing for me I don't like about Win10, is the upgrade-updates that happen twice a year; hence why keeping your valuable data safeguarded on managed backup either cloud or NAS or whichever, where the OS has limited access to backup archives.
Advanced managed service tools (which don't cost much) can also prevent the OS from randomly restarting after updating or can stall updates that normally force the major Win10 spring/fall updates w/o your discrete permission (stupid countdown timer).

 

[Murloc]

I like W10 and there are some neat additions compared to W7, I think it's also faster and updates work better, but if you don't need those and privacy is more important to you then don't upgrade I guess.

If you don't play computer games or do work with windows software maybe you should just switch to linux.

 

[pmv]

Come to think of it, what I dislike most about W10 is the constant emphasis that comes with it on 'Windows is a service'. In general I dislike this shift to everything being a 'service' that you subscribe to or licence, rather than a product you actually own. W10, with, for example, it's forced updates, seems to be taking that further than earlier versions of windows.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Come to think of it, what I dislike most about W10 is the constant emphasis that comes with it on 'Windows is a service'. In general I dislike this shift to everything being a 'service' that you subscribe to or licence, rather than a product you actually own. W10, with, for example, it's forced updates, seems to be taking that further than earlier versions of windows.

That's not the only thing I hate about it but yeah that is one major aspect. I don't want a service, I want a product that I own and have control over. It's MY computer, not Microsoft's. (but the EULA probably says otherwise). Unfortunately it seems to be a trend that's not just with software but even physical devices. I was reading up on the Tesla powerwall, holy crap I won't touch that with a 10 foot pole. You HAVE to have it connected to the internet for it to even work. What kind of BS is that? I wonder if their cars are the same... It seems that they treat it as a service more than something you can just buy and install and have control over. Wonder how many people with those are going to have dead solar systems when Tesla decides to pull the plug on the web service in 10-20 years from now.

The other thing about W10 I hate is the horrible UI. Too much white, not enough borders or colour changes or other visual cues to delimit different UI elements, hard to tell what you can even click on or not because they seem to not really have any buttons or anything like that. The text is gray and fuzzy making it harder to read, and the UI just wastes a lot of space for nothing. The start menu is garbage too, but at least you can fix that with Classic Shell.

That said if I was forced to use win10 on my gaming machine then it would not be THAT bad, since it would not really be my every day use computer and be dedicated to games, so pretty much boot it up, and double click an icon on the desktop to launch a game. I would not really be dealing with the OS itself that much. The only thing I'd really want to do is figure out a way to kill the forced updates as it would suck to be forced rebooted right in the middle of a game.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I just completely disagree with the direction. The use case for a PC is not the same as a phone. You don't tell me when you are going to upgrade or force me to at all. "I" make that decision and I ultimately decide if I want it or not, not you. Sure, if all I did was game it might be different, but I don't. I get that people want things easy, but this isn't it. It doesn't matter how much better it is under the hood if everything else about it is trash.The fact that people actually accept Win10 is just insane. It shows how much MS has people wrapped around their finger, just like Apple. It blows my mind that anyone with technical know how will defend it.

 

[Mike64]

The only thing I'd really want to do is figure out a way to kill the forced updates as it would suck to be forced rebooted right in the middle of a game.

That's the least of the issues with Win10 and its forced updates. You can't stop (or even postpone, except with the enterprise version) the updating, but you do have a fair amount of short-term control over when when it reboots (and when it does not) as part of the updating process - certainly enough to avoid getting rebooted in the middle of a game or other specific activity...

 

[pmv]

That's the least of the issues with Win10 and its forced updates. You can't stop (or even postpone, except with the enterprise version) the updating, but you do have a fair amount of short-term control over when when it reboots (and when it does not) as part of the updating process - certainly enough to avoid getting rebooted in the middle of a game or other specific activity...

I've been caught out by that several times. It's easy to miss the 'warning' countdown, especially if you've stepped away from the PC for a while. Then you come back and find you've lost whatever you were working on.

Then there's the way it would wake itself from hibernation to do an update, and fail to rehibernate afterwards, which led on a few occasions to the PC being left on for entire days when I wasn't there (I now always hiberate and then unplug it...ha, deal with that Microsoft! There are still limits to your domininon, you haven't yet gained control of my electrical sockets!).

Finally it would sometimes reboot to update when it was running an unattended task (sleep mode also messes up in that respect as well - why can't it tell the difference between 'no activity' and 'no user input', and why can't you set a sleep delay more than 6 hours?).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah this force reboot business sounds like a nightmare. Good luck trying to do any tasks on that OS that require the PC to be on for a long time, like rendering anything. I guess if you disconnect it from the internet it won't still try to update and reboot anyway right, or will it?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yeah this force reboot business sounds like a nightmare. Good luck trying to do any tasks on that OS that require the PC to be on for a long time, like rendering anything. I guess if you disconnect it from the internet it won't still try to update and reboot anyway right, or will it?

At some point I imagine you won't even be able to log into your system without an internet connection that can talk to the MS servers before letting you on. We can pretend it's not going there, but we all know it is.

 

[Red Squirrel]

At some point I imagine you won't even be able to log into your system without an internet connection that can talk to the MS servers before letting you on. We can pretend it's not going there, but we all know it is.

You're probably right. I could see them do that crap. They already try to push you to use a cloud tied account for your login. You can bypass that, but for how long?

 

[pmv]

Yeah this force reboot business sounds like a nightmare. Good luck trying to do any tasks on that OS that require the PC to be on for a long time, like rendering anything. I guess if you disconnect it from the internet it won't still try to update and reboot anyway right, or will it?

As I remember it that's what happened. At least, it was hibernating so not actively connected to the internet, and _still_ woke itself up (event log gave source of waking as'update orchestrator' or something like that). But unplugging the thing kept it from happening. I think strictly that was some sort of bug, as it would sometimes wake itself up to do an unpdate and then not actually update anything, but I don't want the PC on for days at a time when I'm not even at home, thank you very much Microsoft!

Actually as power meters show the PC still draws a small bit of power even when hibernating and even when shut down I generally unplug it when not using it just to save on electricity. (I have wondered whether doing so has any 'bad' effect, say, reducing the lifespan of the PSU capacitors or something?)

 

[pmv]

At some point I imagine you won't even be able to log into your system without an internet connection that can talk to the MS servers before letting you on. We can pretend it's not going there, but we all know it is.

Yeah, on the one hand I feel this is being a bit paranoid, but on the other, that is _undeniably_ the 'direction of travel' with technology. That's definitely what they _want_ to do (history seems to suggest they never quite get what they want, though). The internet gives corporations the chance to try and maintain control over everything they sell you, forever.

It's quite fortunate that the music and literature industries never had all this tech when it got started. To some extent the music industry especially, let the cat out of the bag too early, releasing all that product into the wild in a state where they couldn't control people's use of it.

Can you imagine if they'd had EULAs and limited licencing and pay-per-play, and DRM, with books and hifis always connected to the internet etc, right from the start? If literature had had DLC, where you had to pay for additional characters and plot-elements, which could be removed from the work again if you didn't pay a subscription? Won't pay for the premium edition? Only two Brothers Karamazov for you! Only half the number of literary themes in War And Peace!

 

[DrDoug]

I had my customers hold off on upgrading to Win10 until last fall with the Creator's Update (1709). I kept apace of Win10 developments since release and felt that methods of neutering and cleaning up 10 had progressed to the point where it's not bad at all. My recommendations:

Clean install 10 - If upgrading for free, do so then do to obtain your free license and then make an image of your current system. Afterward, do a clean install of 10 for a fresh start.

Win10 Pro - If you're on 7 Pro or Ultimate you will upgrade to 10 Pro. If you aren't on Professional, do the free upgrade to 10, buy a key off of ebay for a few bucks and install it through the activation settings under Updates & Security in Win 10. Once you have the Pro version installed, go to Windows Settings/Updates & Security, select Advanced Options and set your Branch readiness level to Semi-Annual Channel (NOT Targeted). Set the Feature Update spinbox to 365 (days) and set the Quality Update spinbox to 30 (days). Next, click the back arrow at the top of the Settings window and then select Change Active Hours and set the active hours to the max (18) and set them so the inactive hours are when you are sleeping (and the computer is off!). Save those settings and then click on Home at the top left of the settings window, select Network & Internet and then select your connection type on the left (Ethernet or Wi-Fi). Click on your network connection and then set the Metered Connection to ON. Last (for Pro systems), if you want to disable Windows installing drivers on your system; open the run dialog, type in gpedit.msc and hit Run. When the Group Policy Editor opens, select Administrative templates on the left and then on the right side scroll down to Windows Update and open that folder. Search down to "Do not include drivers with Windows Update", double click on it, enable that policy and save it. Close the policy editor!

The above settings on will lock you in to your current Win 10 version for a year or more (I still haven't upgraded this computer from 1709 yet) and the most you will get after a couple of months are once a day nags that Windows Update can't update your system with your current settings. I don't mind it as I just dismiss the prompt and it reminds me that I eventually need to set aside time for running updates. The active hours settings prevents Windows from doing anything during those 18 hours you have blacked out and as long as you shut down your system at the end of your day, you won't see an update. When you do want to run security updates and the next to last quality update, all you do is turn off your metered network setting, go in to Updates & Security and hit the button to check for updates. Once updated, turn the metered connection back on. If you use a laptop and connect to multiple networks, make sure to set that connection to metered too so it keeps updates at bay. Currently my customers are on the Spring 2018 build (1803) and they will not be upgrading to the next Windows build until September of next year when I will move them to the Fall 2018 build (1809). One other note is that setting the quality updates to 30 days keeps Microsoft from installing that month's (invariably buggy) updates, saving you further potential headaches.

Next, install Spybot Anti-Beacon and configure it to block everything. Real easy to do!

Next, go in to Windows Settings, select System and on the right, turn on the Night Light and set the color temperature to what you like when it is on. Blue light is bad for you so do it!! Next, select Notifications & actions and turn everything off on the right side of the window. Afterward, click Home at the top left and select Privacy. There's a crapton of stuff in there to turn off and it's readily apparent what it is so get to work putting tape over Microsoft's eyes and ears! The last big thing to do is to kill the store and the crap associated with it. There are a bunch of tutorials online about using Powershell to strip this stuff out but if you are interested in easy instructions, PM me and I'll send you a list that you can copypasta into Powershell that will rip that crap out. Once it is gone, you can re-purpose the tile side of the Start Menu as a favorite programs launcher instead of polluting your Desktop or Taskbar with quick launch shortcuts.

Some other things you can do is to go to Personalize (right click desktop), select Lock Screen and change it from Windows Spotlight to Picture and select one, or slideshow and point it at your favorite pictures. Be sure to turn off the Get Fun Facts, Tips... etc switch too! If you want the Win 10 game crap out of the way, go to Windows Settings, Gaming and start turning stuff off!

There is a bit more that you can do but this is what I would consider a good start to whipping Win 10 into shape. I've been using it this way for over a year now and between the 11 systems I have and the 72 systems I maintain for my customers, it works for us. As always, YMMV.

 

[snoopy7548]

Yeah this force reboot business sounds like a nightmare. Good luck trying to do any tasks on that OS that require the PC to be on for a long time, like rendering anything. I guess if you disconnect it from the internet it won't still try to update and reboot anyway right, or will it?

I use a trick on my desktop PC - if you set your internet connection to "Metered", Windows won't automatically download updates. You have to go into PC Settings -> Windows Update and click Download and Install on your own.

The "Metered" option has no effect on anything else, at least as far as I can tell from my usage.

It may sound like a hassle, but in older versions of windows you still need to set an option if you don't want Windows to automatically download/install updates. I just consider this the same thing but under a different name.

Here's a good write-up on it...

https://www.howtogeek.com/226722/how-when-and-why-to-set-a-connection-as-metered-on-windows-10/

 

[WilliamM2]

As I remember it that's what happened. At least, it was hibernating so not actively connected to the internet, and _still_ woke itself up (event log gave source of waking as'update orchestrator' or something like that). But unplugging the thing kept it from happening. I think strictly that was some sort of bug, as it would sometimes wake itself up to do an unpdate and then not actually update anything, but I don't want the PC on for days at a time when I'm not even at home, thank you very much Microsoft!

Actually as power meters show the PC still draws a small bit of power even when hibernating and even when shut down I generally unplug it when not using it just to save on electricity. (I have wondered whether doing so has any 'bad' effect, say, reducing the lifespan of the PSU capacitors or something?)

If you are going to be gone how about just shutting the PC off? I have not used hibernation since SSD's came out. Current PC boots on less that 10 seconds, who needs to hibernate?

 

[pmv]

If you are going to be gone how about just shutting the PC off? I have not used hibernation since SSD's came out. Current PC boots on less that 10 seconds, who needs to hibernate?

It's not the time to boot that's the issue so much as the time to shut-down! I don't mind waiting to boot up ('cos I'm usually thinking about something else as I press the power button, or drinking coffee or something!), but when I want to go I want to go now!

Not least because it means quitting everything I have open and working out where I want to save anything that needs saving, book-marking any web page I have open and haven't finished with etc. Why bother when I can just hibernate?

Then turning power off at the wall to ensure it _stays_ hibernated, takes a fraction of a second. As far as I can see, the only reason to do a full shut down is for the possible stability gain of occasionally doing a full reboot.

Incidentally with every version of windows we hear about how much faster it is to boot, and it never seems to actually be true. Likewise I didn't notice the SSD making anything any quicker at all. I didn't notice any difference when I got my first SSD C:drive. Not that I care how long it takes to boot up, really.

Really, I'd say the reverse - who needs to do anything other than hibernate?

 

[KentState]

Really, I'd say the reverse - who needs to do anything other than hibernate?

For that very reason, I haven't powered off any of my laptops intentionally in years, just let them hibernate.

 

[PingSpike]

That said if I was forced to use win10 on my gaming machine then it would not be THAT bad, since it would not really be my every day use computer and be dedicated to games, so pretty much boot it up, and double click an icon on the desktop to launch a game. I would not really be dealing with the OS itself that much. The only thing I'd really want to do is figure out a way to kill the forced updates as it would suck to be forced rebooted right in the middle of a game.

Lots of people have different ways to turn off the updates so they can do it on their schedule. The trouble is you're up against teams of programmers in Redmond that spend all day thinking of how to thwart you. You will always lose. And I don't really want to spend a lot of my time fighting this fight over and over again.

I've thought about using pihole to blackhole all traffic to Microsoft, but I think it might be more effective to just whitelist steam or something. It still seems brittle and like a lot of work though.

Actually as power meters show the PC still draws a small bit of power even when hibernating and even when shut down I generally unplug it when not using it just to save on electricity. (I have wondered whether doing so has any 'bad' effect, say, reducing the lifespan of the PSU capacitors or something?)

You can probably automate this process with a relay or one of those special power strips that turns off when there's only a trickle of power usage.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's probably what I'd do if I went win10 for my gaming machine I'd just block off the Microsoft IPs right at the firewall. It would be a cat and mouse game to some extent as they probably always add new IP ranges but it would probably be decently effective. Could block it at the DNS level too but if MS is smart they probably also have stuff hard coded by IP so kind of want to do both.