The MS Windows 10 upgrade experience thread.
 

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.

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. B:mad:tards.

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.

Yet another download attempt...
 

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? :mad:

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.

MG23,

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

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.

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!

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.






.

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

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, :ok:

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. :ouch:

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.

Another W10 trap. Use W7 to get 10
 

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

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

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.

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.

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.........

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. :\

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!

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.

If you want to stop the W10 "upgrade"....
 

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).

Thanks andytug. I have been trying for months to get rid of all signs of this. It's like a recurring virus. Hopefully your suggestion will knock it out once and for all.

I am prefer to upgrade (from Win7/Win 8.1 etc etc - if you are eligible to upgrade), let the windows do the automatic update for me. Once I am in Windows 10 and fully activated, I just use 'fresh installation' from windows 10 to start over :D

Always backup your important documents though!

Cheers.

Blank Screen Problem and Solution
 

I have been using Windows 10 for some time but a few days ago while the computer was sitting on but unused, there was a beep and the screen blanked. Moved the mouse and the cursor appeared, but the screen remained otherwise black. No amount of keyboard tapping or moise clicking would bring the screen to life, other than the mouse cursor.

Power down, power up, sleep mode, wake up, nothing worked. So I ended up pulling the power lead and the battery pack while the computer was on.

Held down the shift key while pressing the power button and the computer appeared to boot normally. A quick check on the internet suggested that it was a graphics fault, so I disabled the graphics accelerator card. The computer screen stayed on for hours without any problems.

Further reading suggested that although Windows 10 and the graphics card manufacturers supplied driver programs for various graphics cards, these programs were of a generic type that worked okay for most cards, most of the time. Individual computer manufacturers are responsible for supplying specific driver programs to work with the computers they manufacture.

So I went into settings and deleted the driver and other programs associated with my graphics accelerator card. The next step was to log onto my computer manufacturers site (Hewlett Packard) using the support program supplied with the computer and request that the computer download the latest driver programs.

Once that was done, I reactivated the graphics accelerator card and everything seems to be back to normal.

The only fly in the ointment is that a pop up message appears from the graphics card manufacturer suggesting that a newer improved driver program is available that will enhance my graphics experience. That is where all the problems started. Do not download drivers direct from graphics card manufacturers, only use the ones supplied by your computer manufacturer (assembler). They have worked out all the bugs and customised the driver to work with their machine and all the other bits cobbled together to make the computer work. I have managed to shut down the graphics card manufacturers upgrade message by instructing the computer never to check.

So if you find yourself with a blank screen and just a mouse cursor visible, or perhaps just a blank screen and everything else seems to be running, it may be a problem with the computer getting conflicting instructions from two different graphics devices. A bog standard display driver is usually included on all computer motherboards, but this isn't great for playing games or watching high definition movies. So a second graphics accelerator card is fitted that does all the donkey work when high quality graphics are required. The two different graphics systems need to play nicely with one another otherwise you end up with a blank screen. The computer manufacturer makes sure this happens. Microsoft and the graphics card manufacturers have no idea what combination of other components you may have in your system. So go to your computer manufacturer for updates as the first port of call when, or if, you have any sort of problems. This applies to just about any devices you have fitted to your computer.

Over all Windows 10 has proved to be quite a lot better than Windows 8 if you can overlook all the stuff it wants to send back to Microsoft. If you are running Windows 7, I suggest you stick with that.

I was getting quite proud of the fact that I had allowed my laptop to convert to Win10 and after a week or so it had managed to sort itself out and I began to get used to it. That was a few months ago.
Last night, I ran the laptop up twice. On the first occasion at about 19.00 I did what I wanted to, noted that there were no messages about pending updates and shut down. At 23.30 I needed to do another quick job before bed. I switched on and the usual "whirly" thing appeared. A minute or so later this disappeared leaving a blank screen. I was about to shut down and try again when I noted that I could still hear my hard drive working away so I waited ... and waited ... and waited. After about half an hour the win10 start up screen appeared and announced that updates were being installed. After another long wait the machine completely re-booted and the remainder of the updates were put in. Then, at last my desktop reappeared and Win10 was ready for action. By this time I had completely forgotten what I had wanted to do so shut it down and retired! Grr!

At least I have now managed to make my desktop machine a dual booting one Win 10 - and XP.

P.P.

Windows XP is now an insecure OS (and has been for the last 18 months), placing you and others at risk by persisting with it. It has no place on a computer connected to the internet.

SD

But it works - and there are legacy programs that only work with it

It's fine to pontificate about internet security but sometimes the day job still has to be done.........................

Nothing wrong with continuing to use XP, if it's fully patched, with appropriate anti-virus and anti malware tools (e.g Malwarebytes) and all add-ons such as Flash are up to date. Long as you're not in the habit of clicking on unchecked links, replying to Nigerian generals or browsing dodgy sites (e.g. warez) that is....but no operating system is proof against the wetware using it!

Absolute nonsense.

It cannot be fully patched because no XP security patches have been released for over 18 months.

The problem about using XP is not necessarily for the person using it directly, it's for the rest of the world because that XP machine may have been infected without the end user being aware of it, and is then being used to the detriment of the web as a whole - for example in spamming and DDoS attacks.

This isn't pontification. We were recently hit (collateral damage, not the target) by a large DDoS attack on our network provider. Where do you think the botnet members come from? XP was more vulnerable to attack than Vista, 7 or 8 even when it was being supported, so it's reasonable to believe that it's even more vulnerable now, so it really, really should not be connected to the internet any more.

SD

More vulnerable than Vista? Citation please?
I have more than one XP PC and have no problems connecting them to the net - there are vulnerabilities in every OS (including Win10), a lot of them cut across every OS (*cough* Adobe). The XP botnet problem is more likely down to thousands if not millions of illegal copies without patches in places like China and Russia.

I had some serious dealings with a large telecom, in their shop next to their HQ. Some of those computers were still using XP as late as this week.

Kaspersky, who probably should know, as it's their business to do so:

https://blog.kaspersky.com/xp-eos-8apr-3/4417/

Running XP on internet-connected PCs is like driving with no insurance, saying that "it'll never happen to me, 'cos I'm a safe driver". Until you aren't, or are hit by something you didn't see coming.

Probably a sufficiently large organisation to have shelled out hundreds of thousands of pounds to MS to continue supplying security patches for XP!

SD

Unless you're part of a large organisation that's paid for the privilege of continuing support you will not be fully patched. The fact is there have been multiple patches released. So yes, more vulnerable than Vista which has continued to receive patches.

Saab - you still don't answer the question about what we do if we have some legacy programs that we HAVE to use under XP because they have never been updated or rewritten and the customer base is so small that no-one will rewrite under W10

If its a choice between running a Microsoft version of XP behind a modern firewall avoiding the Nigerians etc and not being able to carry out the job I'm afraid it's XP everytime for me.

I never asked them to replace it TBH...................

I'd suggest you stop using XP for anything but the specific task you need it for and unplug the network cable except when you absolutely must take it on-line. Very definitely no browsing. Also very definitely no running as admin user.

Sooner or later there will be no anti-virus software available for XP. What are you going to do when the XP computer dies? Maybe you need to investigate virtual machines, noting an infected system running in a virtual machine can infect/attack the host system.

Well, I took the "plunge" a couple of days ago (after no end of prompting by M$:*) and did the 10 installation. What a waste of time and effort. Sure, it looks very slick but I soon found out I couldn't scroll up/down webpages or documents using the touchpad on my laptop, I could open photos but i couldn't click to the next in the album like before. Really really basic functions that don't work anymore. I looked for solutions online including their own help centre and the answers I found were far too vague to be of any use or too complex for anyone but a clued up IT type to understand. The one I did try just didn't work. I lasted about 3 hours with it then back to 8.1, its not great but it works fine on this machine and I'm used to it now. The extremely limited and dubious "benefits" of 10 are just not worth the aggrovation.
Win10 just proves the old adage that what comes for free is cr@p and often involves some sort of complication, trick or hidden obligation.
No wonder Gates is spending his fortune trying to eradicate malaria, because he won't be remembered fondly for anything else.
Does anyone know if you revert to 8.1 then you don't have any nasty "cling-on" apps or bits of M$ spyware added on to it?
All the nerds that develop this junk should stick to watching Star Trek in future.

FWIW touchpad scrolling worked out of the box on a Lenovo X201 I upgraded from Win7 & I can move back or forwards when viewing photos in the Photos app by clicking on the arrows or using the arrow keys. Out of curiosity what hardware are you using?

I think you'll find Win8.1 has just as much MS "spyware" as Win10.

Pingoiun

It may well come to that - I know some outfits who have a range of VERY old machines kept in use because of this problem - I'm talking about pre Windows 3, some AMSTRADS and even older - also the relevant ancient tape & disk drives.

Sometimes it's software, other times it's a database or a tape

Generally they're in a locked room just in case they go walk-about but every few months someone seems to need them. You could get the code rewritten but why bother - it works fine

They're certainly not connected to the internet tho'...............

It's a HP Pavilion laptop.

HP should have the drivers. pavilion 10, for example: HP Products - Common Solutions for Windows 10 | HP® Customer Support