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Urthman

Windows 10: "It wouldn't be right to call it Windows 9."

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Make sure you do an upgrade first, not a clean install. It needs to upgrade over an activated Windows. Otherwise your Win10 installation won't be activated, and you won't have a code to enter to make it valid.

 

If you want to do a clean install, you'll have to do the upgrade first and check that it's activated. The activation will be tied to the PC hardware and stored on MS's servers. Then the clean install will be activated by checking against that stored data.

 

You can force an upgrade by grabbing the media creation tool from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10, running it, and choosing 'Upgrade now'.

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Make sure you do an upgrade first, not a clean install. It needs to upgrade over an activated Windows. Otherwise your Win10 installation won't be activated, and you won't have a code to enter to make it valid.

 

If you want to do a clean install, you'll have to do the upgrade first and check that it's activated. The activation will be tied to the PC hardware and stored on MS's servers. Then the clean install will be activated by checking against that stored data.

 

Ah, so there goes the idea of upgrading to an SSD and installing there. Hmm, I guess I could upgrade to an SSD, Install Win7, then immediately upgrade to Win10, then wipe the drive and install Win10 fresh. :(

 

Edit: Windows privacy settings article reminds me of the other reason I don't want to upgrade. I want my desktop to be my desktop and my tablet to be my tablet. I don't want to sync settings between them because they have completely different use cases and completely different hard drive sizes.

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Ah, so there goes the idea of upgrading to an SSD and installing there. Hmm, I guess I could upgrade to an SSD, Install Win7, then immediately upgrade to Win10, then wipe the drive and install Win10 fresh. :(

 

Edit: Windows privacy settings article reminds me of the other reason I don't want to upgrade. I want my desktop to be my desktop and my tablet to be my tablet. I don't want to sync settings between them because they have completely different use cases and completely different hard drive sizes.

 

I just did almost this exact same thing!  Finally picked up an SSD, and was very excited to get it before 10 rolled out.  I was having problems doing a fresh install because I have a rather odd method of getting Windows (University discount that only offers Win7 upgrade disks alongside an ISO of an old XP build... makes it very difficult), so I ended up using the disk copying software that came with the SSD, then upgrading to Windows 10 from there.  I was expecting to need a fresh install over top of that using the control panel tools, but I'm actually very impressed with the performance increases so far and so I'm going to hold off on trying to move everything to another drive so I can wipe and reinstall.

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New Vegas is working for me too, although I don't run ENB. Windows 10 did hose up my graphics driver which was causing the game to crash, but a reinstall of the drivers fixed it.

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Okay, a couple weird things:

 

One, it looks like Skyrim's throwing an error with ENB but the ENB is actually present and works just fine (though I have a feeling that I accidentally moved a couple files instead of copying them when I installed ENBs into FO3 and FONV).

 

Two, New Vegas now works (after I booted up this evening--I turn my machine off when I'm at work), but FO3 does not. This appears to be a GFWL issue, as I'm missing xlive.dll. The thing is, this worked fine on Win7 (I did whatever evil magics were required to make FO3 large address-aware and not have to use GFWL), but it refuses to launch even when using the script extender launcher as part of Nexus Mods.

 

Either way, I'm a have to do some digging and figure out what all exactly is missing.

 

Has anyone come down on the side of whether a clean install makes a difference or not? I feel like my machine's not as fast as it was before yesterday, but that could just be the bitter taste of some of my broken shit.

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I'm currently planning to upgrade and then fresh install once I get back in the country, so I'd be curious to hear how anyone who's done that finds it.

Also, does anyone know whether there's any issue with fresh installing into a different primary hard drive? At the moment I have an SSD as a secondary drive but I'd like to end up with Windows installed on it to get the proper benefit out of it.

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I upgraded by downloading the media-tool. I didn't use a usb or nothin. Just downloaded the thing, went through the upgrade-path, then once Windows 10 was set up I went into the settings>update&security>recovery>reset pc and the chose the one that erases everything.

It went smoothly until I took some advice online about how to make it so I wouldn't have to log in everytime. The login is an annoyance to me, I like turning the pc on when I get home and having everything warmed up by the time I get settled; now I have to come back to the computer and type in a pin during start-up.

Anyway, I adjusted account stuff and somehow lost admin permissions. I had to do the recovery/reset again. Now everything is fine (except my external webcam isn't compatible).

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I upgraded by downloading the media-tool. I didn't use a usb or nothin. Just downloaded the thing, went through the upgrade-path, then once Windows 10 was set up I went into the settings>update&security>recovery>reset pc and the chose the one that erases everything.

Do you recall whether the reset offered you a choice of installation drive or just immediately reinstalled on the current drive? If it offers I may do that rather than my plan below.

Currently I'm planning to do the standard upgrade, then use the media tool and a USB to fresh install on the SSD. My only concern is that it won't recognise its authenticity after changing drive, but apparently there is a tool that will show your product key after updating to 10, so I'll probably do that and write it down so that I have it during the manual reinstall.

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Do you recall whether the reset offered you a choice of installation drive or just immediately reinstalled on the current drive? If it offers I may do that rather than my plan below.

 

 

I don't think it ever gave me that option, but I only have one harddrive installed.

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Has anyone else tried the new stock mail client? I was positively surprised about how easy it was to set-up my Gmail and Exchange accounts, but slightly disappointed (and not that surprised) that it did not download any of my emails on either account.

 

I can see the folder structure and contacts so the account settings should be correct. I can even send emails using the app. I just don't see any of the emails, no matter what settings I use.

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I gave it a go and it's pretty good. Clean and simple.

I'm too used to Inbox by Gmail though. But I'm interested in trying to switch to all of Windows' native apps to see how well everything synergizes.

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I have upgraded my windows 7 to windows 10 and honestly I'm kind of disappointed by how the same everything is, at least on the surface.  One of the fun things I really liked about getting an Android tablet is how once I logged into google, it spent 20 minutes downloading my entire life history and knew everything there was to know about me.  I logged into Windows 10 with my microsoft account and I'm kind of dismayed that it doesn't immediately link up with my xbox and skype.  Boo! Spy on me harder, microsoft!!

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I like that there is a 3D app along the lines of a 3D MS Paint. Something about the simplicity and the fact that it's distributed in the OS is inspirational for me.

Here is a spiky tree

 

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I had a pre-build of windows 10 on my macbook a few weeks ago via virtual machine. I really liked it, if I had a bigger SSD I would dual boot it properly. I am currently updating my sisters 8.1 laptop to 10 now. I had to manually download that tool link though.

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Cortana just seems like someone who claims that they are helpful, but really just Bings things for you.That's not helpful to me.

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Cortana just seems like someone who claims that they are helpful, but really just Bings things for you.That's not helpful to me.

 

I have been finding a couple of uses for her.  If you're not too creeped out about having a microphone listening, having the "Hey Cortana" prompt is nice for some things.  I called up my Teamspeak client and a video game while making my coffee in another room, and by the time I sit down everything's ready to go.  I'm assuming it can be applied to productive things, too ;)

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Can she turn the volume down while you are in a non Windows-app game? That would be useful. I lack a shortcut  to do that and the game will often close when I go back to the desktop to turn it down.

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I stupidly bought a mid-range mic to try Cortana. Should have tried with a cheap mic first, it's not very good. Indeed just a way to do a search with voice input.

 

Overall I like Windows 10 though (upgraded from 7). I also like how easy it is to switch languages now, although some things seem to be messed up in Spanish (like cortana config menu would open a different thing rather than what the item named). I switched both work and home computers to Spanish, but the fact that Ctrl+S is no longer save may make me switch back to English eventually.

 

Apps: WTF Deezer app, what a useless crap. And a local news reel app that scrolls horizontally. Are all Windows 8 store apps so far that bad? Hopefully this will improve with Windows 10.

 

Built-in apps e.g. Edge, Mail: good, although Mail app doesn't search in Gmail history. The new configuration apps are good, but I wish they would move everything from the old config panel dialogues to the new apps.

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Can she turn the volume down while you are in a non Windows-app game? That would be useful. I lack a shortcut  to do that and the game will often close when I go back to the desktop to turn it down.

 

Just tried this and couldn't get it to work.  I don't think Cortana will recognize the command, I tried several different words but it just kept searching the internet.  During game it had the added frustration of alt-tabbing to desktop, which you noted crashed your game.  I personally use a keyboard shortcut, you might be able to make one with AutoHotkey or something?

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Has anyone else tried the new stock mail client? I was positively surprised about how easy it was to set-up my Gmail and Exchange accounts, but slightly disappointed (and not that surprised) that it did not download any of my emails on either account.

 

I can see the folder structure and contacts so the account settings should be correct. I can even send emails using the app. I just don't see any of the emails, no matter what settings I use.

 

In case anyone is experiencing the same issue, the solution was to go to the Privacy settings and re-enable "Let apps access my calendar". Makes no sense, but there you go.

 

I'm digging the Weather app and the performance monitor of Task Manager. Data!

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Apps: WTF Deezer app, what a useless crap. And a local news reel app that scrolls horizontally. Are all Windows 8 store apps so far that bad? Hopefully this will improve with Windows 10.

 

Built-in apps e.g. Edge, Mail: good, although Mail app doesn't search in Gmail history. The new configuration apps are good, but I wish they would move everything from the old config panel dialogues to the new apps.

 

I like how the Twitter and Mail app throw notifications into my little Civ5 hopper on the right margin. In Windows 7, I kept a Twitter notifications tab and my Gmail tab open at all times in case someone sent me a message.

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So after a day of noodling with windows 10, here is what I am digging:

 

-The installation process was stupid easy, if you discount the 4gb download and all the updating. After the install, my laptop's desktop was basically the same except for the taskbar had a cosmetic makeover. Everything feels very familiar.

-I actually kind of like live tiles.  I kind of wish I had more live tiles for everything. I made my start menu fullscreen and put all my most-frequently-used applications on the start menu as tiles, where before I had them as desktop shortcuts.  I want live tiles for steam activity and xbox friends and I want Google to get on the ball and make some win10 live tiles apps so that I can have Google Now cards on my start menu, because Google is way better at tracking my every movement and figuring out what I want before I want it than Win10 is.

-I told Cortana to refer to me as 'friend' and she is now the correct level of Living In the Creepy Future for me.  I set up my news headlines to report only on AI, space exploration, genetic science, and robotics, so that Cortana mostly just wants to talk to me about how afraid I should be of her people.

-The mail app worked quickly and hooked right into my Gmail.  I actually went and created another email address for a new domain name I'd registered a few months ago just so that I could go and set it up in Mail.

 

Not digging quite so much:

 

-I was really excited to dig through the app store just so that I could find more apps to festoon my start menu with live tiles, but the microsoft app store is like the Ross Dress for Less of app stores. I kind of expect more of the major app developers will get on the ball as the windows 10 install base mushrooms over the next few months but right now it's kind of sad.  I installed the Trello, VLC, Netflix, Xbox, and native Twitter apps, but I kinda want the apps I use on my Android tablet to have more counterparts in the windows app store.

-Oh, oh, oh, and and and: would you believe that the native Twitter app is terrible?? It's true!

-Everything kind of looks.. too familiar?  I was actually kind of dismayed by how little seemed to have changed on first impression.  I mean that impression has changed now that I've gone in and thoroughly dug through the settings but I thought it would be more exciting.  (That said, when I had to help one of my grandmother's friends get her windows 8 laptop set up I was kind of infuriated by how many unnecessary barriers they put in front of you when you are setting up a new install - requiring an internet connection and a microsoft account before you can think about using your laptop for anything was regulation bullshit. I suspect this was a universal reaction and, as other people in this thread have observed, windows 10 was an effort to make a less radical change.)

-Skype wants me to update way harder than it did in windows 7. You don't get to update, Skype, so sit down before you fall down.

-I know that I am the odd person out in that I'm super into having corporations surveil me if it means that I am able to derive value from the data that they learn about me (like: I love Google Now, and Netflix and Amazon's suggestion algorithms), but so far Microsoft really kind of does a terrible job of doing anything useful with that information.  Microsoft's approach to advertising - at least, in my experience - has been a pretty milquetoast effort that mostly involves putting things in front of me that their advertising partners want them to put in front of me based on broad demographic information (age, gender, presumed voting habits, location), rather than my specific browsing, purchasing, or email history.

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Root are you using the Skype app, or the oldschool Skype program?  I went to use it today and realized that I have my old executable (I upgraded to 10 from 7), and also the ability to download the Windows integrated app.  I can't really decide if I want to try uninstalling the program and committing to the app, so figured I'd ask to see your impressions.

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