Pelikal

This is a 'rant'.

I have a small 7" Windows 8.1 tablet (Connect 7 which is a Tesco rebrand of the Linx7, I believe). 32Gb drive, of which 8Gb is a recovery partition. So not much space left over.

I thought I would install Windows 10. Ha! Joke.

I have one USB port and a slot for an SD micro card. From what I've read, an SD card can be used for installation and copying files leaving the USB port free for a constant power supply. Formatted my 16Gb SD to NTFS.

Should all be straight forward, I think. What a fcuking mess. MS have screwed up big time with the installation of W10 on small tablets, going by what I've read on various forums (inc. the MS Community forum).

4 times now and installation hangs up on copying files, latest error code C1900101. Each attempt seems to bring up a different code. At least I rolled back to 8.1 ok.

I bloody hate MS for causing all this misery. They can't even get the damn upgrade facility to work correctly. Bollocs to them.

Rant over.

Loose rivets

I was thinking of starting such a thread but I know nowt about tablets. The Rivetess in Texas has just loaded 10 on a diddy laptop that used to have W7 Starter on it. It seems to be obeying her, but then, it wouldn't dare do anything else.


About Two weeks of my life has vanished due to 10 tricking me into loading. Get Now, Load Later. A bare faced lie - well, not quite. It downloaded and immediately started 'Preparing'. Pulled the plug on it first time, but then let it have its way second go. "You can load it later, but you only get one date. Tell us now or load the damn thing." Words to that effect. They know, we all know, we do not have a clue when we'll have those hours to set aside. Btards.

So, it was with a heavy heart I loaded 10. I'd played with it on a spare laptop. Not too bad, thinks I. It'll work, thinks I. Yes it will, and while it does so it will be sucking bits of your soul from your very being.

FireFox rewrite stuff. Kaspersky gets caught by this and the two major players seem to spar for a while and then get an old bloke in Essex to help them spread the word - to Barclays. Rubbish? I got two lots of 25 quid for my efforts. Most of that energy went into making Barclays believe me.

Skype, on which I rely, is being blamed by Kasper for the light blue screen of death I keep getting. Kasper sent me the soft to have a look at my PC's inner workings. They really did put a lot of effort into seeking out anything that's not gelling in this wondrous world of 10.

GooGoo and MS now know more about me than I know about myself. Well, that must be exciting for them, but I've just turned off Cortana's 5 settings that have her knowing my innermost secrets. I'll stop there as it's kind of a family forum.

I'm kind of frustrated that I can't get far with hold down Shift + Restart. It seems to get to the exciting bit I have to have qualifications that I, even as the builder and OS loader, am not privy to. I hate when that happens.

All in all, I imagine W10 will be masterable by geeks. I used to love all this stuff, but now all I want is for the machine to work and not go into secret routines when I access certain sites.

Of all the barmy things I've read this PM is their learning from the monitoring of our keystrokes is for our own good. It will help them in their subservience.

No, it's called spying - at best - and we want you to STOP IT. Oh, apart from one spotty little chap in Southend that rather likes it.

Pelikal

I gave it another crack, download failed at the same point. Perhaps I didn't make it clear what my gripe is. I can't get the download/upgrade to work!

A little more detail:

After around 2 hours of starting the download and clicking various things (lack of disk space, directed it to my micro SD card etc) the screen changed to the black one with the white circle showing a percentage.

Underneath that there is a list of 3 processes.

1) Copying files
2) Installing features and drivers
3) Configuring settings

Each of these has their own percentage as well as the overall one in the circle.

Copying files turned blue with the % in the circle being 32. So that was done and it started Installing drivers/features. It hung up at 20% with the % in the circle being 39 complete. I left it for 5 hours!! Nothing.

All I have is some error code that means sod-all to me. If I look up the code I see a whole list of stuff to try. I'm not a geek. Why all this? Just damn well do what you are supposed to do. And Microsoft want thanks?

MG23

Microsoft is self-destructing in front of our eyes. They've tried giving Windows 10 away, and can't even manage that, because, while it may be an improvement over Windows 8, those who still have Windows 7 are happy with it and see no reason to downgrade.

The desktop PC market is shrinking as many people can do everything they need with a tablet or phone, and the rest of us keep our PCs much longer than we used to, because there's no good reason to upgrade. Microsoft could have kept that market forever, but threw everything into a crazed attempt to become relevant on phones.

And failed.

So now they're doubling-down, pushing downgrades to people who don't want them. I'm waiting for the day my girlfriend's mother calls to say she booted up her PC for the first time in weeks and it's all different to the last time she used it and half her software doesn't work.

Pelikal

MG23,

Yup, sticking with Win7 on my laptop. Just thought I would try Win10 on the tablet. 8.1 works fine on it.

Specaircrew

Hmmm, well I suppose you could call a Surface Pro 3 a small tablet.........no problems upgrading mine from Windows 8.1, took about 40 mins though. Did you make sure that all the most recent Windows Updates were installed before starting the process? I've updated 6 PC's so far, some of which were over 5 years old, without any problems yet......perhaps I've just been lucky.

John Marsh

MG23:

Quote:

Microsoft is self-destructing in front of our eyes. They've tried giving Windows 10 away, and can't even manage that, because, while it may be an improvement over Windows 8, those who still have Windows 7 are happy with it and see no reason to downgrade.

Quite. I find 7 to be less convenient than XP, but definitely preferable to 10. 'Downgrade' is spot on.

I am a little stunned at the extent of the data farming embedded in Windows 10. I went through the customizing options during initial setup, then went through all the nooks & crannies in the OS when running. Still finding more: I took care of 'Edge' today.

I don't like the idea of any searches being monitored and reported to M$. This includes looking for my own documents, on my own PC. Nor do I like the way the tiles automatically go online.

A valuable tool is TCPView, a free utility that shows what processes are connected to where, in the PC and online.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...s/tcpview.aspx

Use it even when you think you've killed all the spying apps!

Loose rivets

I called the local guru last night. I've chatted to him in the past about photography - he had some of the latest Nikon kit and is one of those people that really goes deeply into the technicalities. Anyway, W10 is a good earner for him - taking the f'in thing off and formatting their drives. It seems to be steady work as he's very hard to get time with. Nice.

Since someone high up in MS said, "Anyone that gets Ten now will never have to pay for the use of it". Something like that and pretty close. I can only gather they mean to eventually charge the world for the use of new OS's.

In the mean time they are using the world as a testing ground for a series of silly toys that most serious users don't want, and an OS that spies on you by the minute.

For the first time since I used to sell DOS and early Windows with my workstations (AutoCAD) I've not minded paying for software. The Gates Foundation is good and I hope it can be funded in the long term - but not by annoying the hell out of folk that have been computing for . . . Well, over three decades in my case.

what's the answer? XP was superb, and many big companies are still using it. Vista was a glimpse of the future but weighed the machine down to absurd levels. W7 looked like the future, but then 8 appeared, and it's said only three people in the world liked it, and they are quite mad. 8.1, finished by a lone individual so people could drive it, looked like it might be fun - if it was on someone else's machine!
W9. Now there's an OS. Trouble is, no humans are allowed to use it. Ten. Stripped of toys and spying equipment. Mmm, could be.






.

Bushfiva

pelikal, assuming your Windows 8.1 is completely up-to-date, try this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135

Pelikal

Bushfiva, thanks for link. Yet to have a good look through it, and to be honest I'm not feeling particularly brave at the moment.Cheers though,

Loose rivets

Me too with John's link. Bit above my head I'd think.


However, part of me feels it's a shame to give in and not master 10. We'll see . . . erm, that's the point. Off to hospital today to show the surgeon my eye. Last bubble was gone this AM. I can look down without seeing a shiny black ball-bearing in the way. Still, it was better than when it filled my vision. That was scary.

On my i7 Vaio with W7. Check for updates. Offered nothing but W10 whatever I do. Maybe it's because it's up to date.

Loose rivets

I've just seen on the MS site, that downloading a clean OS to say, DVD or USB stick could render existing Temp files useless.

I'd thought of taking advantage of changing to 64bit since it was a free 'upgrade'. It seems I'd have to do it on my W7 laptop to be safe.

I've just thought of another trap. It seems one does not need the key to put the new 10 in. So somewhere, it's embedded in the system. BUT, the ISO has to be created on another machine, so what key will the ISO be allocated?



https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/soft...load/windows10

Pelikal

Thanks Mr. Loose, my remaining brain cells are now totally scrambled.

themidge

The ISO won't have a key assigned. The machine running Windows 10 will be authorised once you've installed from the ISO, supplied a valid Windows 7/8 key (that hasn't already been used to upgrade to Windows 10) and then activated online. You won't need to supply the Windows 7 key again if you wanted to do a fresh install further down the line.

I recently upgraded a laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. A week later the motherboard died. I swapped out the motherboard and then Windows 10 booted fine but then reported that it wasn't activated. After about half an hour on live chat to Microsoft, they had re-activated Windows 10 so it was associated with the new motherboard.

tomahawk_pa38

I did the free upgrade and now regretting it. Can't synch my IPOD anymore, my backup external hard - drive won't function and I have a number of older games I can't run because they've done something with W10 with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which means you can't read some older disks anymore.

dazdaz1

tomahawk...."I did the free upgrade and now regretting it. Can't synch my IPOD anymore, my backup external hard - drive won't function and I have a number of older games I can't run because they've done something with W10 with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which means you can't read some older disks anymore"

The point is W10 is a new OS (as it would, of a new purchase of a laptop with W10 installed) you have to sort out the issues (as above) yourself. Me? I'm sticking to W7

Having said that, kudos to you for taking the plunge and posting your problems on this forum.

I'm sure he'll post soon as to your post. Some say...... He designed the pyramid shape tea bag, I give you.........

Loose rivets

themidge. Hang on a minute. In fact, hang on a lot of minutes cos I'm sure there's something wrong with the logic, but I'm darned if I can bring it into focus.

In the above site we have a clear statement that there's no need to put in a key.

As stressed, it says if the ISO data is loaded onto a W10 machine there's a danger of immediate activity which could screw that machine up. (via Temp Files) But, it's safe to carry out the download onto a W7 machine and take that presumably prepared ISO to a W10 machine which can have a formatted drive C.

Are you saying the key is totally provided by MS records of hardware, or is the key left in some exotic hiding place? Yep, my brain cell is also failing.

themidge

Apologies, I'm getting a little confused about which machine is running which version of Windows.

As you stated, using the Windows 10 media creation tool on a Windows 10 machine that was upgraded from Windows 7/8.1 could damage temporary files that would prevent a roll-back to either Windows 7/8.1. If you don't intend to revert to either of those, no need to worry.

Licensing works differently depending on how you install Windows 10:

If you're installing from the ISO on a machine that has a formatted HDD, you will need a valid licence key to install. This can be a Windows 7/8/8.1 licence that hasn't yet been used to upgrade to Windows 10 or it can be a new Windows 10 licence purchased from Microsoft.

If you're installing Windows 10 while running Windows 7, for example, using the 'Upgrade now' link on the Windows 10 site, the tool will detect your current Windows 7 licence key and Windows 10 will be activated.

The end result is the same, once the machine has an activated copy of Windows 10, any subsequent re-installations of Windows 10 on that machine will not require the key. Microsoft will detect by a hardware profile that it's the same machine.

Hope that clears it up a little!

Loose rivets

This is the issue. In my case, I wanted to 'upgrade' to a 64 bit OS and it seems this can be done for free - once you've gone from 7 to 10 and it's all running. Odd that, since it's the complete wiping of the 32 bit that's so critical.

To me, this implied (past tense) that there must be a key hiding on that machine as the statement that a key would NOT be required was unequivocal. However, we have to go to a spare W7 machine to download the ISO.

The site is above, but I'm scanning letters from my dad in the war and can't be diverted too far off that project. One gets drawn into a world where he was sent on a course to learn about 'wireless'. It takes time to bring one's mind back to Large Scale Integration.

andytug

there's a handy little utility called "GWX Control Panel" that puts a stop to it all by disabling the updates and processes for it.

Ultimate Outsider - Software Downloads

Been using it for 6 months now and no nagging prompts (Win7 SP1).