W10

[jhwalker]

.....My credit card solves many of those problems..........

I am not quite sure how a credit card helps? Perhaps you are saying that you can simply purchase a new desk top, or laptop, or whatever you might consider a computer and that it would come all configured? But, it would take me weeks to clean up any of the current commercially available computers as they tend to have bloat ware and activated free trials of other nasty software, such as anything from Symantec. And, these days they come with W8.1, which I despise.

I also realize that many now use smart phones and tablets and that desk top computers may no longer be necessary. But, I need a giant monitor (I keep watching for a larger one that the 27" one that I currently have) as I am blind. And, I need to use a wired mouse, or I am not happy. I also need a real keyboard as my fat, numb, fingers, can not handle touch screen stuff.

So, I still build, configure, and maintain all my computers, and I couldn't pay to have that done, as I have my own ideas about how things should look and feel, and, in my case, that means that if I could have been transported in time from when I was using Windows 3.0 or 3.1 for workgroups, the desktop on that ancient computer would have matched the one on my current computer, both in Linux Mint and Windows 7. And, by the time Win95 came out, it was even a lot the same under the hood, although there were still some DOS related things that needed to be addressed until W2000.

But, for those that can adapt and those that are fans of touch screens, I suppose that buying a new device could solve any issues with the old one.

You are doing things with computers that I don't do. Every computer I have bought in the past 10 years, including my current Surface Pro 2, was running perfectly (for my needs) within 2 hours of getting home with it. I run NO old software, and don't care about the placement of things on the screen. I do hold off on a clearly bad release. I use email, Word, Excel, some photo stuff, Skype, Acrobat. Soon I will try to process a GoPro vid on the Surface -- hope it works... Moving to a touch pad a couple of years ago, and now a stylus pen on the Surface is fun for me. I am actually very fond of the Surface Pro 2, and carry it around with me in my backpack in town, as its ability to find connections is very good. I like the swipe areas, the touch points. I never got into tinkering with computers or PC software, since the technical support department that I was in charge of for the last 10 years that I worked was responsible for consistency of operation of maybe 3 thousand computers scattered around 100+ locations across the country and at home office, and locking down the software on them so our new application releases would run with no human involvement was a key to our company success -- since we thrived by being better than our competitors. Having screwed with computers since 1967 (vacuum tubes then), computers have always simply been a means to an end for me. I don't play computer games. But I admire those of you who did dig in and know all of that stuff you know. Perhaps a bit envious, but not sure what I would have had to give up to do that. I was always an "understand the business, design solutions, design databases, write software" guy in an era that let us do that stuff, never a hardware guy -- but seemed to have luck in finding good hardware guys.

[Tetge]

You are doing things with computers that I don't do. Every computer I have bought in the past 10 years, including my current Surface Pro 2, was running perfectly (for my needs) within 2 hours of getting home with it. I run NO old software, and don't care about the placement of things on the screen. I do hold off on a clearly bad release. I use email, Word, Excel, some photo stuff, Skype, Acrobat. Soon I will try to process a GoPro vid on the Surface -- hope it works... Moving to a touch pad a couple of years ago, and now a stylus pen on the Surface is fun for me. I am actually very fond of the Surface Pro 2, and carry it around with me in my backpack in town, as its ability to find connections is very good. I like the swipe areas, the touch points. I never got into tinkering with computers or PC software, since the technical support department that I was in charge of for the last 10 years that I worked was responsible for consistency of operation of maybe 3 thousand computers scattered around 100+ locations across the country and at home office, and locking down the software on them so our new application releases would run with no human involvement was a key to our company success -- since we thrived by being better than our competitors. Having screwed with computers since 1967 (vacuum tubes then), computers have always simply been a means to an end for me. I don't play computer games. But I admire those of you who did dig in and know all of that stuff you know. Perhaps a bit envious, but not sure what I would have had to give up to do that. I was always an "understand the business, design solutions, design databases, write software" guy in an era that let us do that stuff, never a hardware guy -- but seemed to have luck in finding good hardware guys.

I don't do anything with my computer other than browse the net and process a HD video now and then. No games. But, I found that processing GoPro videos did want some configuration and it also rewarded good hardware. Of course, hardware keeps advancing, so I am way behind the curve, and, I'd overclock as it would be quicker, but, even at stock frequencies, my water cooled rig heats up while it crunches raw video into an exportable edited video.

I guess tablets and other hand held devices are a lot more powerful that I was aware of if they can satisfactorily deal with GoPro HD video creation.

[jhwalker]

That remains to be seen. My specs are marginal. I may end up getting a cheap desktop for nothing but GoPro work if I can find a way to get into it. But if so I will buy it, not build it. I don't know why I have not gotten into using the GoPro. I equate it to my being unwilling to time shift, record stuff and watch later. Still, all of these years later. I do not have a DVR or whatever people use these days. Seems like I am always doing something later. Right now I should be in the garage patching the mtn bike tire that I got a stupid thorn in yesterday instead of posting. Then feed the cats, dogs, and birds... Then develop a plan for the day. Go to town or not? Hope not. Check to see if I have dinero for Friday afternoon payday. Anything in the house to eat with Terri not here? Anything I committed to that is not done?

life IS good. Even with my whining. Off to patch that tube.

[Tetge]

I grabbed the .iso of the final release version of W10 that MS made available for systems folks and others that do not wish to do an immediate upgrade and after I burned the .iso to a usb stick, I ran the setup.exe while in W8.1 and it did the update. My W8.1 was the free update to W8 Pro that I purchased, and I hated, and still hate the new OS, so it is not particularly configured nor loaded with programs. So, it upgraded just fine using the option of keeping my apps.

Now the computer has W10 on it, although I did full backups of the W7 it usually runs as well as the W8.1 prior to upgrading, and, I will no doubt go back to W7 in a bit. But, at least, God Mode was still there after the W10 update and this is a real lifesaver, as every single user input is listed in God Mode, which is good, since I can never find them using the W8/8.1/10 Windows shell. I still do not like what I see but I will fool with it a bit, although figuring out how to install it sort of wore me out for the time being.

I also reserved an upgrade to W10 via the W8.1 update, but, that is no longer necessary due to using the .iso.

[SonicVenum]

I reserved my copies of W10 for both my PC and the new laptop we picked up last week. I got a Seagate 1TB external HDD to use for backups of both machines. Using Clonezilla, I successfully backed up my fully configured W8.1 setup on my laptop, however, I continue to fail to successfully backup my PC with Clonezilla. I keep getting an error during the Image Check at the end of the process, which states that I have a corrupted partition, and the image failed. A little frustrating. I've run CHKDSK through the C:/ prompt to no avail. The check says everything is clear, but the Clonezilla imaging still fails. Last time, I just used the Windows utility to create a backup of my OS drive. I may do the same thing again before updating to W10.

Does anybody know how the upgrade is supposed to work? I signed up both machines with two different email addresses, but I didn't receive any notification or a link to a download page. Everything I've read said the update would be available today, but still nothing in my email inbox.

[Tetge]

I just went to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 and selected the option to upgrade this computer and then let it do its thing. Doing this eliminates waiting for your turn via Windows Update. It downloaded all the files and upgraded W8.1 to W10, no problem, from within W8.1. I let it keep my files and they all seemed to work although I did reinstall Classic Shell beta which works with W10.

I still do not like ( I actually despise them) W10 or 8.1 or 8, but it works perfectly at this point. And, I successfully backed it up and checked the image with CloneZilla, which always works for me. I have made many backups and also many restorations using CloneZilla so I have a lot of faith in it. I have no idea why CloneZilla give errors on one of your systems as you apparently know how to use it since it works on one of your computers. But, figuring such things out is the stuff that separates the nerds from the sheep. I would take it as a challenge.

I even found instructions on how to manage a clean install of W10. It is convoluted, and, since I never really configured W8 or W8.1, my upgrade is pretty clean so I would not gain anything with a clean install, but it is good to know how.

You can find out quite a bit already about W10 issues, using the internet, and, I am sure, that as W10 gets widely distributed, there will be more information on how to configure it.

[SonicVenum]

Turns out, all I had to do was click on the Windows icon in the tray, and it opened a window leading me to the download. I upgraded the laptop to W10, and I have an image of my SSD (I upgraded the laptop immediately with the extra I bought for my PC) running W8.1, and with all my necessary programs installed.

First impressions are definitely positive. I like the new look, and I like the new start menu. I immediately customized it to my most commonly used programs/features. One thing I noticed immediately is that the Smart Gestures on my touchpad were no longer working, but I quickly found the solution with an web search.

Next step will be to figure out backing up the OS on my Desktop PC, and upgrading it to W10. I already like the newer OS, so I very likely will never need the saved images of my W8.1 setups. Once I have everything how I like it, I'll save another image of each system.

[Tetge]

Turns out, all I had to do was click on the Windows icon in the tray, and it opened a window leading me to the download. I upgraded the laptop to W10, and I have an image of my SSD (I upgraded the laptop immediately with the extra I bought for my PC) running W8.1, and with all my necessary programs installed.

First impressions are definitely positive. I like the new look, and I like the new start menu. I immediately customized it to my most commonly used programs/features. One thing I noticed immediately is that the Smart Gestures on my touchpad were no longer working, but I quickly found the solution with an web search.

Next step will be to figure out backing up the OS on my Desktop PC, and upgrading it to W10. I already like the newer OS, so I very likely will never need the saved images of my W8.1 setups. Once I have everything how I like it, I'll save another image of each system.

If you liked W8, and W8.1, I expect that you will like W10, perhaps even more. But, I still don't like the way it looks and feels as I want the same look and feel that I have started using since W3, and which has not changed at all since W95. Aas it stands, I can't even use my custom desktop solid background color on W10. And, I do not like the file explorer layout. I also do not use tabbed browsing and I have no touch screen. But, I understand that I am in the minority and it is said that PC users are a declining group.

At least I can keep W7 for a few more years before I have to deal with W8/8.1/10. And, when and if I do, I will have a registered image to restore of an up to date version of 10, as they are saying that it will be the last OS build released by MS and it will just be upgraded from here on in....

And, I forgot to mention that you better be careful because once you master restorable complete system backups, you might start to become an early adopter and even a tester of other OS's and stuff, since you can make an image of your current set up to restore after you play around with other things, such as Linux. Next thing you know, it's 4am on a workday, and you are surrounded by empty junk food wrappers and empty soda cans, and you didn't have a clue what time it got to be...

Just a warning about the effects of having a feeling of being bullet proof due to the mastery of imaging. And, yes, I used CloneZilla three times today. Why do you ask?

[jhwalker]

I want the same look and feel that I have started using since W3, and which has not changed at all since W95

With all of the promo going on, I am surprised that they are not badgering us about using W10. Heck, is the difference great enough that I will even know I am using W10?

[Tetge]

I want the same look and feel that I have started using since W3, and which has not changed at all since W95

With all of the promo going on, I am surprised that they are not badgering us about using W10. Heck, is the difference great enough that I will even know I am using W10?

If you are already using W8 or W8.1, I do not think that you will note much difference in look and feel. Since I did not like 8 or 8.1, my archived build was fully updated with all the patches but, it was not richly configured with the software tools that I add to my builds so that I can process video and music and pics. and the like. As a consequence, the almost immediate update to W8.1 from the W8.0 Pro that I purchased, went very smoothly, and the upgrade to W10 Pro from within W8.1 carried over all my preferences and the result appeared to preserve everything perfectly with no errors.

I will play with it for a few more days since it is on my secondary backup computer (which is no weakling, BTW), and then I will restore good old W7 again. Now and then I will restore W10 and bring it up to date and then back it up just to have it ready for some future time when W7 is churned out of existence. I may even install W10 on my main computer, as I have a pristine, unopened legit version of W7 Pro that I could install and upgrade and save. I may as well use the W7 Pro since it will be churned out before I ever build a fresh box that needs a MS OS.

As I warned Juan, playing with computers is only fun if it is clearly a hobby, and then, it is sort of like doing a crossword puzzle. No real reason to do it other than the mild challenge of making things work well since for the same money and a lot less time, you can buy a new desktop or laptop with a guarantee that is all configured and ready to use.