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Urthman

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

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I'm still using the windows 7 executable, and even before it would nag me to update, it just seems like it's happening more often now.  I haven't tried to see if the win8 skype app works alongside the old executable, but I guess I can try it now!

 

Edit: I just installed the Skype app and opened it and it is literally a button with a download link that says 'download skype'.  Which is what I thought I just did. I'm not so curious that I'm willing to risk a new skype application overwriting my old executable, so that is really all I have to report.

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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).

 

Did you have a Windows key already? That's really what's keeping me from just forcing the upgrade. It says you need a key first or you'll have issues and I'm wary.

 

Plus, I have 4 hard drives- a root SSD, a gaming SSD, and two old platter drives because I'm old and haven't just bought a 3 TB drive (shame me). I would like a fresh install, but worried about the fragmentation of my software (rather than platter data fragmentation). I just haven't had the time, but I'd still like to sit down to an old fashioned evening of computer tinkering.

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I didn't input any key. From what I understand, you just need to choose the upgrade path (not the clean install) once you download the tool, set everything up and then check in the settings to make sure your windows 10 license has been activated. Then you can do the "clean" install that is called something like "reset pc" (it's not so clean that it will remove your desktop background, but it is clean enough to fix my video-card driver problems). I didn't have any trouble with licensing when I did it the second or third time. I'm no expert though.

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I upgraded from 7 to 10 this weekend. I also did what a lot of people here seem to be doing and installed a new SSD at the same time. I opted for a full reformat and clean install, for that total new computer feel.
 
I kinda understand Root's complaint about how "the same" everything is, because the most positive changes I'm feeling have nothing to do with the new OS. I mean: everything is much snappier and pleasant, but surely that has much more to do with the new hardware. Also, I'm enjoying my uncluttered desktop and menus, but those are mostly to do with the clean install that I could've done at any point in the past with Windows 7 if I wanted.
 
This is compounded by how I've spent the first hour or so after installation disabling new features. I turned off everything that requires a Microsoft account (ie Cortana), made it so the search bar only searches my computer and not the web, etc etc. I may turn some of these back on at a later date if I feel like I might use them. I don't feel like I'm particularly naive nor paranoid about tracking stuff (I realize that everything tracks my activity nowadays), but I'd prefer these sorts of features to be disabled by default and opted-in incrementally (if ever).
 
All that said, this is what I like about Windows 10 (from the perspective of someone upgrading from 7):
  • Much simpler, cleaner, more "modern" looking UI across the board. Bells/whistles that aren't wanted are fairly easily removed or replaced. Tiny things like changing system volume just feels friendlier. In comparison, Windows 7 feels like XP with a third party transparent UI mod installed.
     
  • I also quite like the tiled interface on the start menu (do we still say "metro"?). Admittedly, it's not much more than a slick-looking alternative to keeping shortcuts on my desktop. But I actually want that. I only wish the applications I use had live tiles, or at least let me manipulate the size of their tiles. 90% of my time spent on my PC is in Chrome or a Steam app, so I wanted to make those icons wider or bigger in some way. But nope, it can't be done.
     
  • The new Edge browser feels like it could actually be pretty good! I like all the gui bits a lot; I was disproportionately impressed with how the downloads sidebar felt when I opened it up to find where my Chrome installer went (haha). It's such a bummer how there's no extension support yet... this was their one and only chance to get my attention, the only time in the foreseeable future when I could've possibly been tempted to give their new browser a trial. But no extensions is an insta-dealbreaker, and I'm probably never looking back.
     
  • I haven't had a reason to type in another language yet but I'm excited to hear that language-switching is better. I've typed in Japanese in OSX, Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP/Vista/7 and Windows has definitely been the worst at it thus far. That language bar is so ugly!
     
  • It cost nothing! Definitely the best feature of them all.

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"Metro" ended up being a problematic term for one reason or another, so those apps are "modern"

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Is there anything cool I can put in the new metro tab of the start menu? I cleared everything out thinking it might collapse down, but now its just empty space. Unless there's a new classic shell for 10 already?

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I forgot to mention this in my post but I've yet to figure out a way to yank out Onedrive to my complete satisfaction.  I have so many cloud storage accounts, Microsoft, I don't need another one.

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I love that OneDrive syncs with the Microsoft music players so that I don't have to try and maintain music libraries across 3 computers and a phone, and everything will be accessible everywhere.

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I don't remember if I already mentioned this, but one thing is driving me nuts on my work computer: the search just isn't working as fast as it should. It takes about 5 seconds for a search for "Correo" to find the mail app. It also keeps saying that its preparing the search (indexing probably) or something like that. Just one time it worked fast, like it does on my own computer, but then it went back to "preparing the search".

 

It shouldn't be about the language settings as both computers are Spanish w/ region set to Estonia. Although they have different locales for non-unicode apps and the default input language doesn't seem to stick to Estonian in my work computer. Both have Cortana switched off (not allowed for my region), and also the search history setting is turned off.

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My biggest pet peeve with Win 10 so far is that it seems terrible at lining up windows when I want to snap them to half of the screen. It'll work fine at first, but somehow they inevitably drift away from the edge of the screen or down under the taskbar. It's a minor thing, but it's baffling that it even happens (I never had this problem with 7 or 8).

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I still don't seem to be allowed this update, any reason why they are holding out still? I probably won't be able to install it for about 2 weeks because I don't want to mess with my settings on stuff in the middle of a few projects, but it would be nice to get going during down time. Is it because I built my computer that it is not necessarily going to work?

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No I built mine and bought OEM W7 from Newegg and I just got my invite to install W10 so that wouldn't be it.

 

Also holding off on the invite though cause middle of project and I'm easily scared.

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I still don't seem to be allowed this update, any reason why they are holding out still? I probably won't be able to install it for about 2 weeks because I don't want to mess with my settings on stuff in the middle of a few projects, but it would be nice to get going during down time. Is it because I built my computer that it is not necessarily going to work?

 
The invite doesn't actually seem necessary at all, I never got one. I just did this as per Doug's suggestion:
 

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'.

 

My initial impression is: Seems fine. Feels like Windows.

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The updates are being rolled out in waves.  Microsoft has said it will probably be weeks before everyone who reserved a copy gets the option, assuming you're waiting for a proper invite.

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What is the advantage (or, if lacking an advantage, the difference) of waiting for an invite as opposed to just forcing the update like I did?

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No advantage to you. It's an advantage to Microsoft. In aggregate, most people will wait for the invite, which lets them do a slow rollout and see what problems surface before they affect the whole Windows userbase.

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The advantage to Microsoft was understood, but it's good to know I wasn't missing anything.

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Got it! I briefly thought about holding off until more kinks are worked out but that button called to me.

 

My games (Spelunky and Rocket League tested) ran really slow. For whatever reason, this fix worked http://www.rbrussell.com/2015/02/25/possible-fix-windows-10-running-very-slow/

 

Now my Xbox 360 controllers won't connect. My googling isn't turning up answers so easily for this one. Anyone run into this?

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I can't get my SD card reader to work and it's driving me insane. Windows sees the device in Device Mgr, says the drivers are up to date and the hardware's working as intended and yet Explorer doesn't display the device and I can't seem to find a way to import files from the card.

 

There's zero information on this online as far as I can tell and it's really frustrating me.

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I used the Windows compatibility tool for Knytt Stories world-manager (first time I've used a Windows compatibilty-tool) and it worked!

Next I need to try it on RPGMaker 2003.

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I can't get my SD card reader to work and it's driving me insane. Windows sees the device in Device Mgr, says the drivers are up to date and the hardware's working as intended and yet Explorer doesn't display the device and I can't seem to find a way to import files from the card.

 

There's zero information on this online as far as I can tell and it's really frustrating me.

Old post I know, but does the card have a drive letter assigned in Disk Management? I have run into a few issues where USB sticks just never claimed a drive letter for some reason.

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When will we finally get expanded character set options for drive letters, so I can dir ☃:\

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