Question about Windows 10 upgrade

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dar124

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 21, 2012
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I helped out a co-workers parents a little over a year ago with their PC. Their HD craped out, so I got them a new HD and reinstalled Windows 7 on the PC. Everything was good until a couple of days ago when the co-worker said his parents were having problems now after trying to do the "Free Windows 10 upgrade". I called the parents to see what was going on, and they said after doing the upgrade their keyboard no longer works and are also having some issues connecting to the internet.

I'm going to stop over there to look at it today after work. I know this isnt much info for me to post here. But I've never really used Windows 10 (maybe once just playing around while looking at someone's laptop, but nothing where I'd have a solid knowledge of it), so I figured that I'd check here to see if there are any known issues after the free upgrade or basic things for me to look for. It sort of sounds like they're having some kind of driver issues. But I'd think that the basic Windows drivers would be sufficient for any kind of keyboard that they have.

So just want to see if there is anything that I should look for right off the bat. And then if they are unhappy with Windows 10, is there an easy / reliable way to revert back to W7??

Thanks in advance.
 
Only truly reliable way to back-step is a clean install of Windows 7 - I wouldn't trust the Windows 10 upgrade but that's just me so for clarification I never recommend upgrades, ever. Unfortunately, because of how Microsoft has structured this damned WIndows 10 "free upgrade" there's no way to get it for free without installing it as an upgrade on top of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Having said that, once the upgrade is done and it's up and running and you verify it's activated, you can - if you choose to do so given the situation (some people just won't allow a full clean install for various reasons) - a clean install of Windows 10 on the same hardware and it will be activated after the installation is complete and only. Microsoft stores the activation hash on their end nowadays so after a clean install (given the free upgrade was successful) it just contacts Microsoft and says "Hey, it's me again, activate me..." and that's about all it takes, a few seconds at most and it's done.

Now, having said all that there could potentially be an issue with keyboard drivers depending on the keyboard. The basic functionality should always be available but if that's some kind of "media" keyboard with additional function buttons, media control stuff, there's where the issues could be coming from so you'll learn more when you get there and have the chance to do a hands-on with the actual hardware and see what's going on. A potential update to the drivers or software for the keyboard might be necessary and hoping that they are Windows 10 compatible will be a concern as well.

With the Internet connection issues, the way Windows 10 handles Wi-Fi connections is a complete bitch nowadays compared to how easy it was in the past to access/edit/add/delete connections and information (that's just the truth, like it or not). They could be having an issue because the options and controls for the Wi-Fi or even the hardwired NIC are literally buried compared to where they exist on Windows 7 (and more difficult than even Windows 8/8.1 too). It'll just take them time to learn how things have changed (for no really good reasons IMO) and get used to doing things the "new" but stupidly ridiculous way (personal opinion there).

But get there and do the hands-on, you'll figure it out. ;)
 
W10 is pretty solid technically so I'd be surprised if there was an issue with something as simple as a keyboard. Go check it out, at this point its speculation.
 
Thanks Tiberian & Monkey God. Sounds good, just wanted avoid going in cold to an OS that I wasn't 100% familiar with.

Hands on here we come!!!
 
Had a neighbor a few months ago that when he upgraded, his keyboard stopped working, but it was due to USB chip not being recognized correctly. I just plugged his keyboard into a normal USB2 port instead of the USB3 port he had it plugged. Just try changing the ports is all, I guess, would be the bullet point to take away...
 
Yea like many have said.....its probably some very simple stuff to get it working perfect. All in all even the win 10 (non clean install) upgrades do just fine. Also just updating a few drivers in device manager might help. You just have to go look at it....it will be fine:)
 
Tiberian said:
Only truly reliable way to back-step is a clean install of Windows 7 - I wouldn't trust the Windows 10 upgrade but that's just me so for clarification I never recommend upgrades, ever. Unfortunately, because of how Microsoft has structured this damned WIndows 10 "free upgrade" there's no way to get it for free without installing it as an upgrade on top of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.
Click to expand...
You are as wrong as you could possibly be...since the November update, Win10 can be installed just fine using a legitimate Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 key.

Download the latest Windows Media Creation Tool, and go for it on a blank partition.
 
Monkey God said:
W10 is pretty solid technically so I'd be surprised if there was an issue with something as simple as a keyboard. Go check it out, at this point its speculation.
Click to expand...

I just upgraded my 3770K setup to 10 earlier this evening, after the upgrade I got stuck on the blue screen where you click next as my wireless mouse and keyboard weren't working in 10.
I happened to have Team Viewer installed and was able to remote in and click the next button from the remote computer. Really strange issue.
 
So I stopped out to look at the computer on Friday. Turns out the wireless issues were with their laptop and tablet. Those were resolved by rebooting the modem / router.

The keyboard was lit up (num lock, caps lock, etc) and made a sound when keys were pressed. It also showed up in the "connected devices" and I didn't see any errors. I'm going to head back there this week with a replacement keyboard to see if it's just a damaged peripheral. Hopefully it's that simple to fix for them.
 
I went back yesterday with a new USB and a PS2 keyboard and still had the same issue. Keyboard lights up, shows in "connected devices", but wont type anything it just makes a noise when the keys are pressed. It does seem like multiple presses of a key will register, I pressed the Windows key 7-8 times and eventually the Windows menu came up.

I did some Googling, and tried a handful of things, but still the same issue. No errors showed up in Device Manager. I tried to uninstall the keyboard from Device Manager and reboot. Tried uninstalling the keyboard driver and reboot. Tried uninstalling the USB controllers from Device Manager and reboot. But still the keyboard dosent work. I brought the PC back with me so I can work on it. I'm going to do some more Googling hoping to find something. One thing that I found online was that the Windows 10 upgrade sometimes wipes out the mother boards USB drivers?? Seems odd, but I'll look around a bit for the motherboard USB drivers to see if that helps anything.

If not he said it's ok to reimage back to W7. But hopefully I'll get a bit more info to get the keyboard to work in Windows 10.
 
I got a copy of "Driver DR professional" today. I'm gonna install it this evening and see if it'll find any thing that's "missing".
 
An easy way to revert back is to do a clean install of Windows 7. You can't revert back once you've upgraded to 10 unless something goes wrong with during the 10 process ... then it will roll back for you. I would maybe try and do a clean install of Windows 10 and see if that works better. Upgrading can cause some strange issues.
 
After messing around with this for the past couple of days. It seems that the Narrator in the Ease of Use area was turned on and set to start with Windows. That somehow messed with the keyboard. I turned it off and removed it from the start up folder and I have been rebooting and typing away with out any issues.

Crazy, but glad I got that figured out!!!
 
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