Windows 10: Your thoughts so far?

My father in law has a 3GB laptop running Vista. I'm wondering if he'll see a
significant performance increase with 10.

I installed Windows 10 on four computers - three desktops and one laptop. The installations were upgrades over Win 8.1 or Win 7. The desktop installations were essentially flawless. (I've been a Windows Insider and have been experimenting with Windows 10 builds since late 2014. Two of the desktops and the laptop did not recieve Windows 10 until the official release.)

The laptop is a six year-old + Toshiba with an AMD Turion 2-Core, an AMD X1300 discrete graphics card, 3GB of RAM, and a 7200 RPM hard drive. The laptop originally had Vista, which I had upgraded to 7 Pro. It now runs faster and smoother with 10 than it did with 7. It feels as if I just added a couple more years of practical usability to the laptop. Drivers installation and functionality was very good right after the installation, with the exception of the video card. The Windows generic driver, although newer than the AMD (ATI) driver, would not allow the monitor to scale to the full resolution available. I uninstalled the generic graphics driver and installed X1300 drivers I found on the Internet. All graphics functionality immediately returned to full performance.

A couple programs required re-installation in compatibility mode; and they now work perfectly. I may have had to install the X1300 drivers in compatibility as well. I don't remember.
 
Happy camper here. Got drivers from ASUS and Creative Labs today that fixed my Bluetooth adapter and updated my sound card. Everything works the way it did under 7. No real complaints except that I did prefer the 'look' of 7. Oh well, everything changes.

Performance wise I am impressed. Boot times are nothing I would even bother to time anymore. Some programs that lagged before seem to be snappy now. PowerDVD is much faster to see the Bluray drive and load a movie. No real change in game FPS or useless benchmark scores.

Bring on the optimized DX12 games!!
 
Happy camper here. Got drivers from ASUS and Creative Labs today that fixed my Bluetooth adapter and updated my sound card. Everything works the way it did under 7. No real complaints except that I did prefer the 'look' of 7. Oh well, everything changes.

Performance wise I am impressed. Boot times are nothing I would even bother to time anymore. Some programs that lagged before seem to be snappy now. PowerDVD is much faster to see the Bluray drive and load a movie. No real change in game FPS or useless benchmark scores.

Bring on the optimized DX12 games!!

I'm curious to see if Nvidia will be able to regain their performance lead with DX12 or did AMD just hit the jackpot.
 
I just installed it on my work PC a few days ago, and the only real complaint is that it's significantly slower to logon and open programs than 7 was. Visual Studio 2010 takes twice as long to load up a project, and login takes about twice as long as well.

The machine I'm using is relatively powerful (Dell Precision T3600 with Xeon E5-1607, 8GB of RAM, GTX 750 Ti), but I think I'm being bottlenecked by the HDD. Either that, or the National Instruments software is just a huge drag on Windows 10. I really just need to get myself an SSD.
 
Uninstalled Win10 and reverted to Win8.1 backup.

I don't like bipolar control panels and half a dozen of menu styles.
Plus games (WoW, BF4, etc) keep crashing because of lame ATI drivers.

May give it another try after SP1.
 
Heads up: For those who still use Norton. UNINSTALL Norton first, then do the upgrade. Then reinstall Norton.

Otherwise, you get a flashing screen, and the install hung.
 
Overall impressions :

Slower boot times.
Fancy look.
Weird app search.

I just upgraded because it is the "new" os. Was totally happy with 8.1 :)
 
has anyone else had the search field go non-responsive?

in windows 7 I live by the Windows Key +start typing

in windows 10 I hit windows Key + start typing and sometimes I don't get anything.. and sometimes when I get the result and goto click on it or hit enter the search window closes..

so Frustrating..
 
Was totally happy with 8.1 :)

surprised-doctor.gif
 
Whats with long ass boot up and shut down times on SSD boot drive?

My boot times are fairly instantaneous on my 6-year-old Gateway P-7915u laptop upgraded with a Crucial MX200 500gig drive. It's even quick on my desktop with my old 1.5TB Seagate. I need to upgraded that to an SSD.
 
Boot times on three desktops are about the same, or even better, than with 8.1. On a six year-old laptop upgraded from Win 7, 10 is faster in boot-up and faster overall (if not faster, definitely feels faster).
 
I installed it on my Surface Pro 3. It starts up faster than 8.1 and now the SP3 actually wakes up when I flip down the keyboard. I've noticed that signing in takes longer after waking it up from sleep. I also installed it on my WinBook TW700 tablet. That took a couple days to maneuver around that 16GB SSD. I like it a lot on the tablet, but it was fine with 8.1. I don't think this will get installed on my laptop or media center/game machines which run 7 just fine.
 
Wife's laptop has been fine with W10. Unfortunately my desktop has a severe problem -- watching youtube videos crashes my intel graphics driver and freezes the computer. Intel says my HD2000 chip isn't W10 compatible so tough luck. That's a pretty common chip, not sure how that will fly with Joe Public, doesn't fly well with me.
 
Try the AMD ones they may work better for ya. :D:D:D:eek::p

ATI, AMD.. what's the difference anyway? Haven't had any crashes with Win8.1 playing the same stuff. As I see, W10 15.8 beta driver description shows nothing about my issue.. so I guess it is too soon to re-install W10.
 
What card do you have? I haven't had any issues. Not saying you're wrong.
 
What card do you have? I haven't had any issues. Not saying you're wrong.

XFX 290 Black DD.. used 15.7.1 drivers for Win 10 x64, fresh install, obviously. Had a few dozens of crashes WoW in atidxx64.dll (The instruction at "0x0000xxxxxxxxx" referenced memory at 0x0000000000000000". The memory could not be "read".)
and BF4 with Mantle.
 
FYI: I'm posting this across multiple forums. :) I'm also making this link rich.

It seems to me that when I got through technology upgrades, it goes in the cycle of long periods without any significant upgrade, followed by spurts of multiple upgrades. Last Fall, for example, I finally upgraded my dual-core E6600 which I had built in spring, 2007 to the UberBoxen - a i7-4790K beast of a machine, along with upgrading the home DSL to a 15Mb connection and changing the home phone line to a VoIP connection (sorry, folks, we still use a fax machine). Then, in the past two months, I upgraded my mothers cell phone from a five year old flip phone to a Samsung S5, while I upgraded my own cell phone from a Samsung S3 to a LG G4, plus obtaining a new color duplex printer, a Brother HLL8350CDW Wireless Color Laser Printer. And, oh yeah, upgrade from Windows 7 Home to Windows 10.

I am particularly interested in the Windows 10 upgrade. During a Black Friday sale, I had obtained a deal on some good memory to upgrade my UberBoxen from 8 GB to 32 GB. It wasn't until the day after I placed the order that I realized that Windows 7 Home Premium has a 16GB limit. Whoops. Now, I realize that, for the typical user, there are diminishing returns once you get beyond 8 GB... unless you plan on running a virtualization platform like Virtualbox or Lightworks video editing. Until very recently, games were compiled for 32bits as well, so they did not even exceed 4GB. If I were to advise someone building a computer, I would suggest doing a price comparison between 8 GB and 16 GB. Plus, RAM is always easy to expand later.

I did not receive the Windows 10 upgrade for the UberBoxen until just before I went on a 10 day vacation. As I am a big believer in both Murphy's Law and Chaos Theory, I figured I would wait until I get back from vacation. Boy, was I glad I did that. While I did make a full drive image just in case I have to go back, that was not needed. However, I had a few stumblesteps along the way.

First time I initiated the Windows 7 upgrade, I got.... "We couldn't update the system reserved partition" error message. Well, that's just great. Pull up Google, and I found this message thread pointing to this Windows 7 Forum post about moving the boot partition to the C: drive using EasyBCD. Quick fix, but now I have a 100MB partition that is not being used. This isn't 1990. I can't worry too much about 100MB on a 500GB SSD drive.

Time to try Windows update again, and yet another error message: "Windows Update Error Code 80070103". Aaarrrgghhhh.... and it's related to drivers. I figured I would remove the the AntiVirus and visit my motherboard support page to download updated drivers. Because I had no anti-virus installed, Windows insisted that I install Windows Security. This will turn out to be a bad idea. :(

Third time attempting updates.... and it WORKS! But, it's too early to celebrate. Another error message pops up: "Error This device can't release to failure!". Seriously, who writes up these error messages? Another Google search shows this forum post relating to the GigaByte apps. Sigh. Time to remove and reinstall those applications. I won't get into the mess of trying to remove Microsoft Security Essentials in order to reinstall Kapersky's Anti-Virus. (But, it's FREE!)

And, the end result? To me, it feels like Windows 10 is running faster than my Windows 7. The Start menu takes a little getting used to, but it's not the travesty that Windows 8 Metro (or is it TETRIS) that marred Windows 8 and doomed an otherwise good release. I'm still having to tweak a few things in the background, like resetting Notepad++ to be the default editor instead of Windows Notepad. And, I downloaded Ultimate Windows Tweaker for Windows 10, so I want to explore that too. Unfortunately, Windows Edge isn't exactly done yet, so I'm still using Chrome and Firefox. I have integrated my Google Calendar and Google Mail account into Windows 10, and it seems to work.... just not well.

Inevitably, someone is going to post their list of must have applications for Windows. Not to be left out, here is my list:
  • KeePass and LastPass Password Managers - Yes, I use both! Keepass is my master password list, but it is also handy for holding my registration keys for products. LastPass contains a subset of my passwords, and is cloud based. Both have strong encryption for keeping the passwords secure.
  • FreeFileSync - If you are like me, you probably carry a USB stick of files with you. With me, it's two USB sticks.... one containing my personal files, and one containing a set of utilities "just in case". FreeFileSync is an excellent utility to back up those files to a hard drive.
  • ShareX - As part of my job in technical support, screen shots are essential when diagnosing an issue. I had been using PicPick, but just stumbled upon a free yet more powerful screen capturing tool. Want your screen shot to be automatically saved with a time stamp? No problem. Timed screen shots? No problem. MP4 video of what is occurring? No problem.
  • Paint.net - Want a powerful yet free photo editing program? Paint.net should be one of the first programs to look at. I often use it to annotate screen shots in my work.
  • VLC - Another "Free yet powerful" video player that plays multiple formats. It's worth mentioning that is can also play back DVDs... something that Microsoft wants you to pay for!
  • Notepad++ - Did I mention that I hate Windows Notepad? This notepad replacement is multi-tabbed, and extremely powerful. Now, they need to fix and re-enable spell-checking.
 
FYI: I'm posting this across multiple forums. :) I'm also making this link rich.

It seems to me that when I got through technology upgrades, it goes in the cycle of long periods without any significant upgrade, followed by spurts of multiple upgrades. Last Fall, for example, I finally upgraded my dual-core E6600 which I had built in spring, 2007 to the UberBoxen - a i7-4790K beast of a machine, along with upgrading the home DSL to a 15Mb connection and changing the home phone line to a VoIP connection (sorry, folks, we still use a fax machine). Then, in the past two months, I upgraded my mothers cell phone from a five year old flip phone to a Samsung S5, while I upgraded my own cell phone from a Samsung S3 to a LG G4, plus obtaining a new color duplex printer, a Brother HLL8350CDW Wireless Color Laser Printer. And, oh yeah, upgrade from Windows 7 Home to Windows 10.

I am particularly interested in the Windows 10 upgrade. During a Black Friday sale, I had obtained a deal on some good memory to upgrade my UberBoxen from 8 GB to 32 GB. It wasn't until the day after I placed the order that I realized that Windows 7 Home Premium has a 16GB limit. Whoops. Now, I realize that, for the typical user, there are diminishing returns once you get beyond 8 GB... unless you plan on running a virtualization platform like Virtualbox or Lightworks video editing. Until very recently, games were compiled for 32bits as well, so they did not even exceed 4GB. If I were to advise someone building a computer, I would suggest doing a price comparison between 8 GB and 16 GB. Plus, RAM is always easy to expand later.

I did not receive the Windows 10 upgrade for the UberBoxen until just before I went on a 10 day vacation. As I am a big believer in both Murphy's Law and Chaos Theory, I figured I would wait until I get back from vacation. Boy, was I glad I did that. While I did make a full drive image just in case I have to go back, that was not needed. However, I had a few stumblesteps along the way.

First time I initiated the Windows 7 upgrade, I got.... "We couldn't update the system reserved partition" error message. Well, that's just great. Pull up Google, and I found this message thread pointing to this Windows 7 Forum post about moving the boot partition to the C: drive using EasyBCD. Quick fix, but now I have a 100MB partition that is not being used. This isn't 1990. I can't worry too much about 100MB on a 500GB SSD drive.

Time to try Windows update again, and yet another error message: "Windows Update Error Code 80070103". Aaarrrgghhhh.... and it's related to drivers. I figured I would remove the the AntiVirus and visit my motherboard support page to download updated drivers. Because I had no anti-virus installed, Windows insisted that I install Windows Security. This will turn out to be a bad idea. :(

Third time attempting updates.... and it WORKS! But, it's too early to celebrate. Another error message pops up: "Error This device can't release to failure!". Seriously, who writes up these error messages? Another Google search shows this forum post relating to the GigaByte apps. Sigh. Time to remove and reinstall those applications. I won't get into the mess of trying to remove Microsoft Security Essentials in order to reinstall Kapersky's Anti-Virus. (But, it's FREE!)

And, the end result? To me, it feels like Windows 10 is running faster than my Windows 7. The Start menu takes a little getting used to, but it's not the travesty that Windows 8 Metro (or is it TETRIS) that marred Windows 8 and doomed an otherwise good release. I'm still having to tweak a few things in the background, like resetting Notepad++ to be the default editor instead of Windows Notepad. And, I downloaded Ultimate Windows Tweaker for Windows 10, so I want to explore that too. Unfortunately, Windows Edge isn't exactly done yet, so I'm still using Chrome and Firefox. I have integrated my Google Calendar and Google Mail account into Windows 10, and it seems to work.... just not well.

Inevitably, someone is going to post their list of must have applications for Windows. Not to be left out, here is my list:
  • KeePass and LastPass Password Managers - Yes, I use both! Keepass is my master password list, but it is also handy for holding my registration keys for products. LastPass contains a subset of my passwords, and is cloud based. Both have strong encryption for keeping the passwords secure.
  • FreeFileSync - If you are like me, you probably carry a USB stick of files with you. With me, it's two USB sticks.... one containing my personal files, and one containing a set of utilities "just in case". FreeFileSync is an excellent utility to back up those files to a hard drive.
  • ShareX - As part of my job in technical support, screen shots are essential when diagnosing an issue. I had been using PicPick, but just stumbled upon a free yet more powerful screen capturing tool. Want your screen shot to be automatically saved with a time stamp? No problem. Timed screen shots? No problem. MP4 video of what is occurring? No problem.
  • Paint.net - Want a powerful yet free photo editing program? Paint.net should be one of the first programs to look at. I often use it to annotate screen shots in my work.
  • VLC - Another "Free yet powerful" video player that plays multiple formats. It's worth mentioning that is can also play back DVDs... something that Microsoft wants you to pay for!
  • Notepad++ - Did I mention that I hate Windows Notepad? This notepad replacement is multi-tabbed, and extremely powerful. Now, they need to fix and re-enable spell-checking.

Good post. However, I find it odd that you did not simply download and install the Windows 10 install files on one of your flash drives. I have always used the flash drives except when doing a remote install and they have had very few issues. It does not surprise me that OEM software could interfere with it since I saw that happen with a Lenovo laptop as well. (Had to do a full checkdisk on the drive too so that corrupted files were fixed.)

Not really sure why you would install MSSE since in Windows 10, you cannot anyways since Windows Defender is built in. Now, if you tried to remove that, you cannot and do not need to. Any antivirus you install will work and Windows defender will be disabled without issue. As for the 100MB partition, it was supposed to be 350MB so that leads me to believe you never reinstalled your OS but simply kept using the same installation for from your previous build.

Enjoy that 32GB of ram, the more the better no matter what. :D Besides, I do not think that Windows 10 has the same limit as Windows 7. Also, I think it would be worth backing up your data and redoing everything from scratch including deleting all your partitions. Install it as a GPT partitioned drive in UEFI mode, you will not regret it. :)

One other thing: STAY AWAY FROM VIRTUALBOX! I used to use it but it has ongoing issues with Windows 10. I use VMWare Player 7 and it works pretty well.
 
Not really sure why you would install MSSE since in Windows 10, you cannot anyways since Windows Defender is built in.

A distinction lost on people since they seem to have ignored Windows 8: Microsoft Security Essentials was renamed Windows Defender as of 8, so Windows Defender IS MSE. You do not need to separately install MSE: it's already there on your system by default. Don't like it? Install a third party antivirus app and it'll turn off any features that the third party AV registers itself for.
 
This is not a promotion of any AV or anti-malware software; it's merely anecdotal and factual information. It is not my intent to start a which-security-software=-is-the-bestest- evar.

Install a third party antivirus app and it'll turn off any features that the third party AV registers itself for.
If you do though, wish to revert to Windows Defender later, some of the third party anti-virus programs can be a royal pain to completely remove. Just last week, when I was upgrading my son's Windows 8.1 laptop to 10, I had to remove the trial-ware Norton security suite. The task of removing that monstrosity required more time than than the Windows 10 upgrade.

If you wish to run Malwarebytes in addition to Windows Defender - no problem at all. MWB installs without issue and runs just as well as with any previous Windows version. Windows Defender will also run just fine with MWB installed.
 
Not really sure why you would install MSSE since in Windows 10, you cannot anyways since Windows Defender is built in. Now, if you tried to remove that, you cannot and do not need to.
I had uninstalled Kaspersky AntiVirus to resolve one of the issues with the upgrade, and didn't think too much about temporarily installing Windows Security Essentials. Uh, big mistake. Kaspersky didn't want to install until I removed Windows Security Essentials, but Windows Security Essentials didn't want to uninstall after upgrade to Windows 10. As I said, long story, very painful.

My advice.... remove the anti-virus prior to the upgrade.
Enjoy that 32GB of ram, the more the better no matter what. :D Besides, I do not think that Windows 10 has the same limit as Windows 7.
No, it doesn't. Like Windows 8, all 32GB are recognized now. (OK, 31.9GB)
One other thing: STAY AWAY FROM VIRTUALBOX! I used to use it but it has ongoing issues with Windows 10.
Even the Virtualbox web page, in big red letters, states "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!"
 
I had uninstalled Kaspersky AntiVirus to resolve one of the issues with the upgrade, and didn't think too much about temporarily installing Windows Security Essentials. Uh, big mistake. Kaspersky didn't want to install until I removed Windows Security Essentials, but Windows Security Essentials didn't want to uninstall after upgrade to Windows 10. As I said, long story, very painful.

My advice.... remove the anti-virus prior to the upgrade. No, it doesn't. Like Windows 8, all 32GB are recognized now. (OK, 31.9GB)Even the Virtualbox web page, in big red letters, states "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!"

With the rapid release schedule of Windows 10 major updates, I doubt Virtualbox will ever truly support Windows 10 correctly. VMWare Player 7 is not having any issues so far, however. Oh, and virtualbox chokes when using an RDP connection into a machine with Virtualbox running.
 
i the only thing i hate about windows 10 is the friking microsoft edge!!! i hate edge. i hate edge, i hate edge. now i am using chrome as my main browser. cant use ie anymore since it wont be upgraded anymore, ms killed ie, for no good reason.
 
i the only thing i hate about windows 10 is the friking microsoft edge!!! i hate edge. i hate edge, i hate edge. now i am using chrome as my main browser. cant use ie anymore since it wont be upgraded anymore, ms killed ie, for no good reason.

If you like ie use it. No there will not be a version upgrade but they sure as hell are going to support and patch it for years to come. With all the machines that will continue to use 7 or 8.x they have no choice but to continue support.
 
i the only thing i hate about windows 10 is the friking microsoft edge!!! i hate edge. i hate edge, i hate edge. now i am using chrome as my main browser. cant use ie anymore since it wont be upgraded anymore, ms killed ie, for no good reason.

internet explorer has always sucked, ive been using chrome or firefox for years, they are 1000x better, lol!
 
i the only thing i hate about windows 10 is the friking microsoft edge!!! i hate edge. i hate edge, i hate edge. now i am using chrome as my main browser. cant use ie anymore since it wont be upgraded anymore, ms killed ie, for no good reason.

Yep. Very first website I went to with Edge, CNN or something just to test Internet, and I was immediately getting hit over the head by a video ad that starts by itself. Straight to Chrome w/ Adblock I went.

Shame MS removed the ability to uninstall Edge completely. Its like they knew some of their crap is so bad that people might want to uninstall - Windows 10 store app being another one - so "Well we better block customers from doing that!" (spare me the "but it's critical to the core functionality of the OS" b.s.)
 
Last edited:
Yep. Very first website I went to with Edge, CNN or something just to test Internet, and I was immediately getting hit over the head by a video ad that starts by itself. Straight to Chrome w/ Adblock I went.

Shame MS removed the ability to uninstall Edge completely. Its like they knew some of their crap is so bad that people might want to uninstall - Windows 10 store app being another one - so "Well we better block customers from doing that!" (spare me the "but it's critical to the core functionality of the OS" b.s.)

Most news sites have found ways to auto-start videos even with ad blockers installed. This is in no way somehow a failing specific to Edge.

I wonder how many people won't even realize when Edge gets extension support in a couple of months.
 
Yep. Very first website I went to with Edge, CNN or something just to test Internet, and I was immediately getting hit over the head by a video ad that starts by itself. Straight to Chrome w/ Adblock I went.

Shame MS removed the ability to uninstall Edge completely. Its like they knew some of their crap is so bad that people might want to uninstall - Windows 10 store app being another one - so "Well we better block customers from doing that!" (spare me the "but it's critical to the core functionality of the OS" b.s.)

You don't have to uninstall something to never use it. Most of the stuff installed on the typical consumer PC probably never gets used anyway. In any case at this point Edge was added to replace IE 11 modern because it's basically the same as the current state of Edge without extensions. But those are coming hopefully sooner rather than later. And I'm sure ad blocking extensions will be very popular. In any case I've got IE, Chrome, FF and Edge all installed. It's kind of silly to confine oneself to any particular browser because they do tend to have strengths. Edge is pretty good on battery, if you're not hitting a ton of video ads. And Win32 Chrome still is still not so great on a tablet.
 
Most news sites have found ways to auto-start videos even with ad blockers installed. This is in no way somehow a failing specific to Edge.

I wonder how many people won't even realize when Edge gets extension support in a couple of months.

How many people even use extensions? I imagine ad blockers are probably by far the most popular but as you point out they aren't from bullet proof. If there's a site where the ads kill the site I the reading mode in Edge is very useful though the ads still load and aren't blocked. But yeah, sometimes the ads just get insane, even on sites with good content.
 
it boggles my mind on how people is so fucking cheap, put the word "free" on something and they could put up with anything, geez.

internet explorer has always sucked, ive been using chrome or firefox for years, they are 1000x better, lol!

lol "SultanGris" hows that Utanc bish treating you brah, you know thats a trap dont you? :D
 
I've been using it for a month now no turning back I really hate the Edge browser so I use Firefox instead with a theme. I really missed the Start Menu I'm glad it's back makes opening of programs in the background easier without having to click multiple times.

Waiting on a Stardocks Windowblinds skin for the Edge browser.
 
Yep. Very first website I went to with Edge, CNN or something just to test Internet, and I was immediately getting hit over the head by a video ad that starts by itself. Straight to Chrome w/ Adblock I went.

Shame MS removed the ability to uninstall Edge completely. Its like they knew some of their crap is so bad that people might want to uninstall - Windows 10 store app being another one - so "Well we better block customers from doing that!" (spare me the "but it's critical to the core functionality of the OS" b.s.)

CNN? :eek: Well, there is your problem right there. I tend not to go to any of the news sites, now you gave me another reason not to. As far as Edge is concerned, it is fast and stable but, I have only used it sparingly so far. The whole Microsoft world is not out to get you. :p
 
Most news sites have found ways to auto-start videos even with ad blockers installed. This is in no way somehow a failing specific to Edge.

I dunno, the problem went away as soon as I installed chrome and went to the exact same site.
 
Last edited:
Have a rare bug where I boot to my desktop and the taskbar doesn't load. If you mouse towards the bottom of the screen it just shows the spinning wheel. Has happened twice since 10's launch. But it's only happened on one of my PC's.
 
Last edited:
WRT to Edge, it is still a work in progress. That is the official Microsoft word. No, at this stage, I don't care for it much at all. I will though, keep trying it as it progresses. Well, I hope there's progress!
 
Back
Top