Windows 10 thread

[Lolcomputer]

Nothing Valve related, but since Windows 10 is the new thing, this thread is propably inevitable.

I haven't upgraded to Windows 10 yet, since I kind of don't wan't to leave Windows 7. Altough if someone has upgraded, then why not share your initital thoughts on this thread? Is it worth it or not?

Also, if you're not aware, DX12 is only compatable with Windows 10, so if you're interested in that, it's either upgrading or wating for Vulkan's glnext API to arrive. But even if you upgrade, you're only preparing yourself for the future since DX12 has not even beeen entirely activated. People have been experiencing less framedrops, so perhaps it's well optimised for once.

At the same time, I have heard of some privacy issues...

Share your thougts!

 

[Karim]

I'm a game developer and college student, and I use a wide variety of programs (3ds Max, Visual Studio, tons of games, Office, etc). I've been in the beta test for a few months, and I've found no awful bugs so far. It's an awesome upgrade. It's far better than Win 8.1 and 7, IMO. The design is much better. There's not much to say for gaming unless you have an XBox and can stream games from it. There's also a menu for games that allows you to take videos.

 

[_Kat_]

I was wondering, is Windows 10 64 bit native??

 

[Fatikis]

I've had a preview of 10 on my test computer for a few months. I haven't had any problem. I hated Win8 but love Win10. Can't wait to update my primary PC.

The privacy issues are annoying but can be fixed with only minor annoyance. It is like they tried to hide the privacy issue from inexperienced users. I found the settings easily. I imagine others found it more difficult.

 

[-smash-]

I was wondering, is Windows 10 64 bit native??

There's a 32-bit version.

 

[Stigmata]

I see no compelling reason to install a f2p keylogger when Win7 works perfectly fine.

 

[Fatikis]

I see no compelling reason to install a f2p keylogger when Win7 works perfectly fine.

Any privacy issue is pretty easy to fix. It takes minutes.

Other than that Windows 10 has better architecture so less likely to have security issues, it loads quite a bit quicker that Windows 7, DX12 is Windows 10 exclusive, and if you have a mobile device power management is greatly improved.

I heard pretty much the same thing about switching from XP to Win7 back in the day. XP works perfectly fine...I guess if you ignore the flaws, security issues, and the improvements in 7.

 

[Lolcomputer]

Just found out that Home Premium version of Windows 7 can't upgrade... Guess which edition I have ):

 

[DevonWC]

Any privacy issue is pretty easy to fix. It takes minutes.

Other than that Windows 10 has better architecture so less likely to have security issues, it loads quite a bit quicker that Windows 7, DX12 is Windows 10 exclusive, and if you have a mobile device power management is greatly improved.

I heard pretty much the same thing about switching from XP to Win7 back in the day. XP works perfectly fine...I guess if you ignore the flaws, security issues, and the improvements in 7.

AND IT'S FREE!!

 

[Fatikis]

Just found out that Home Premium version of Windows 7 can't upgrade... Guess which edition I have ):

Heh? Windows Home Premium should upgrade to Windows 10 Home.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Windows-10-specifications#upgrade

 

[Lolcomputer]

Heh? Windows Home Premium should upgrade to Windows 10 Home.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Windows-10-specifications#upgrade

Yea, okay, so it's propably the ones who build the computer for me. Perhaps they used a reused copy of Windows, I honestly don't know anymore since the option to reserve Windows 10 doesn't show up for me.

Right now I'm updating Windows for the 5th time, maybe I'm lucky this time.

 

[Fatikis]

Yea, okay, so it's propably the ones who build the computer for me. Perhaps they used a reused copy of Windows, I honestly don't know anymore since the option to reserve Windows 10 doesn't show up for me.

Right now I'm updating Windows for the 5th time, maybe I'm lucky this time.

The option wouldn't appear for me until I downloaded every single update. Considering, I hadn't run Windows updates on my primary PC in a year it took 4 times searching for updates, downloading and restarting.

 

[tomemozok]

So consensus? Should i upgrade?

 

[Stigmata]

AND IT'S FREE!!

you know what they say - if you're not paying, you're the product :V

 

[Alienmoge]

I see no compelling reason to install a f2p keylogger when Win7 works perfectly fine.

you know what they say - if you're not paying, you're the product :V

 

[Pikminiman]

 

[Stigmata]

ayy sick counter-argument, thank god the CIA was there for you 40 years ago to plant the "conspiracy theorist" meme as a go-to win state any time you face off against someone who disagrees with the status quo

 

[Fatikis]

So consensus? Should i upgrade?

My opinion as an IT person is

 

[DevonWC]

ayy sick counter-argument, thank god the CIA was there for you 40 years ago to plant the "conspiracy theorist" meme as a go-to win state any time you face off against someone who disagrees with the status quo

What OS do you use?

 

[Stigmata]

Win7 because I'm waiting on Vulkan for better Linux gaming. I will never upgrade to 8 or 10. Win7 may have several backdoors like all Windows OSes but at least I get Solitaire for free with no ads and no keylogger B)

 

[DevonWC]

Win7 because I'm waiting on Vulkan for better Linux gaming. I will never upgrade to 8 or 10. Win7 may have several backdoors like all Windows OSes but at least I get Solitaire for free with no ads and no keylogger B)

you should try a GNU/linux OS then, they're excellent, Opensource and free.

 

[Stigmata]

But I'm lazy, so I'm just waiting for better frames in Dota. Once SteamOS and Vulkan are primetime, the switch to Linux will be easy and will have high-tier game compatibility. Until then I'm comfortable using Backdoor7 instead of Frontdoor10.

 

[Alienmoge]

Win7 because I'm waiting on Vulkan for better Linux gaming. I will never upgrade to 8 or 10. Win7 may have several backdoors like all Windows OSes but at least I get Solitaire for free with no ads and no keylogger B)

ayy sick counter-argument, thank god the CIA was there for you 40 years ago to plant the "conspiracy theorist" meme as a go-to win state any time you face off against someone who disagrees with the status quo

boy if ur this concerned about keyloggers you should probably consider becoming a Luddite

also be careful with the edge there my dude, don't wanna cut your finger on the "im challenging ur status quo B^/"

 

[kineaesth]

shh

 

[Stigmata]

boy if ur this concerned about keyloggers you should probably consider becoming a Luddite

or i could install Linux

 

[Skyace65]

just a note on game compatibility. Before I upgraded I wasn't able to play Sim City 4. The game would never stay up for some reason it would just keep minimizing. After installing windows 10 I can actually run it now.

Not sure If that's going to be the same for other old games. But I think it's worth trying out some games you might normally have had compatibility issues on.

 

[Fatikis]

just a note on game compatibility. Before I upgraded I wasn't able to play Sim City 4. The game would never stay up for some reason it would just keep minimizing. After installing windows 10 I can actually run it now.

Not sure If that's going to be the same for other old games. But I think it's worth trying out some games you might normally have had compatibility issues on.

It is strange after my wife upgraded the original Witcher no longer runs. However she was having problems with Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition on 8.1, and it now runs normally.

 

[DevonWC]

just a note on game compatibility. Before I upgraded I wasn't able to play Sim City 4. The game would never stay up for some reason it would just keep minimizing. After installing windows 10 I can actually run it now.

Not sure If that's going to be the same for other old games. But I think it's worth trying out some games you might normally have had compatibility issues on.

Also just want to add that i'm no longer getting Kernel crashes on the Nvidia drivers, haven't got one since the upgrade, and it used to crash at least once a day (specially when using chrome).

 

[Fatikis]

Just in case anyone doesn't know.
You can remove the live tile pane by unpinning all of the tiles. I've seen a number of people complain about it.

This gets you something pretty close to the standard start menu.

 

[Stigmata]

just a note on game compatibility. Before I upgraded I wasn't able to play Sim City 4. The game would never stay up for some reason it would just keep minimizing. After installing windows 10 I can actually run it now.

Not sure If that's going to be the same for other old games. But I think it's worth trying out some games you might normally have had compatibility issues on.

It is strange after my wife upgraded the original Witcher no longer runs. However she was having problems with Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition on 8.1, and it now runs normally.

Also just want to add that i'm no longer getting Kernel crashes on the Nvidia drivers, haven't got one since the upgrade, and it used to crash at least once a day (specially when using chrome).

Are you sure this was because of Win10? It's more likely to be the result of a fresh GPU driver install.

 

[DevonWC]

Are you sure this was because of Win10? It's more likely to be the result of a fresh GPU driver install.

I did a few fresh installs before upgrading to windows 10 and was still getting crashes, after i upgraded to 10 i did another fresh install and no crashes yet. could be that windows 10 has nothing to do with it, i might try installing windows 7 in another HDD and test it out later.

 

[Stigmata]

By "fresh install" do you mean cleaning out all driver files before installing the newest, or just using nvidia/amd uninstall utilities? The official utilities are notorious for missing files, and there shouldn't be any reason why you can't play Witcher or SimCity 4 or any number of other titles on Win7 or Win8.

 

[DevonWC]

By "fresh install" do you mean cleaning out all driver files before installing the newest, or just using nvidia/amd uninstall utilities? The official utilities are notorious for missing files, and there shouldn't be any reason why you can't play Witcher or SimCity 4 or any number of other titles on Win7 or Win8.

Using the official ultilities then manually removing anything left that is Nvidia-related, including reg entries and hidden files.

 

[Aizawa]

Yea, okay, so it's propably the ones who build the computer for me. Perhaps they used a reused copy of Windows, I honestly don't know anymore since the option to reserve Windows 10 doesn't show up for me.

Right now I'm updating Windows for the 5th time, maybe I'm lucky this time.

I don't know exactly how to do it, but you can upgrade to Windows 10 even if the small icon in your System tray doesn`t show up. Somewhere on the Microsoft website. If you google a bit you should find it easily.

 

[DevonWC]

I don't know exactly how to do it, but you can upgrade to Windows 10 even if the small icon in your System tray doesn`t show up. Somewhere on the Microsoft website. If you google a bit you should find it easily.

I used this.

 

[Aizawa]

I used this.

thats exactly what I meant

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I like it.

 

[Bad Asteroid]

My impressions after using it for a day or two:

The new organization features are very neat. The virtual desktops feature works as expected, and the snapping feature is much better (if you snap a window to the side using the hotkey, this window pops up and will automatically resize whatever other window you select: http://puu.sh/jvvx8/e29d371da9.jpg )

I'm not a huge fan of the new window borders though, they look very out of place a lot of the time ( http://puu.sh/jvvK6/34ed8313e6.png – you can't change the color of of that title border, by the way. I'm not sure why Microsoft is forcing it to be white.) Programs designed without the thinner borders in mind may look a bit off ( http://puu.sh/jvw7E/2e5b2b1fcc.png )

The sound design is MUCH better:

As far as the privacy concerns go, you can disable most of the features during installation. There isn't anything that stands out as particularly invasive compared to what I've come to expect from Microsoft, but I did get a desktop notification ad (!!!) for Microsoft Office on the day I installed the OS. It seems to be a one time thing, but don't be surprised if Microsoft starts doing more of this (I think these kind of ads can be disabled, but I'm not 100% sure).

I would recommend upgrading, but you have a year to decide.
Also worth noting: when Microsoft releases a new OS, don't be surprised if they do this same free year offer, but only for Windows 10 users. Sticking with an old operating system is often a bad idea in the long run for many reasons.

 

[Eejit]

Also worth noting: when Microsoft releases a new OS, don't be surprised if they do this same free year offer, but only for Windows 10 users. Sticking with an old operating system is often a bad idea in the long run for many reasons.

Isn't the idea of 10 supposed to be that it's the last one you'll buy, the rest will be upgrades, possibly with a subscription? Like Office 365.

 

[Bad Asteroid]

Isn't the idea of 10 supposed to be that it's the last one you'll buy, the rest will be upgrades, possibly with a subscription? Like Office 365.

I'm don't know. Microsoft says this on the Windows website (http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next-generation-of-windows-windows-10/):
"With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet. And just like any Internet service, the idea of asking “What version are you on?” will cease to make sense"

However, on their Windows lifecycle page (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/lifecycle), Microsoft claims that mainstream support for Windows 10 will be phased out in five years.

I haven't been paying much attention to Microsoft lately, but I assume you are correct (if I'm understanding what you're saying) in that they don't intend on creating any big 'new' versions of Windows, but instead will focus on continuous major updates for their current version.