Windows 9, er, 10.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Tue Feb 02, 2016 11:32 pm

The forced download begins today.

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:04 am

Thanks for the update. I will eventually pull the trigger, but I'd rather not allow them to hijack my bandwidth in a marketing move. Assholes.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:15 am

For anyone that hasn't properly adjusted their Windows 7 update settings to prevent the obnoxious urging to "Get Windows 10", the free GWX Control Panel greatly simplifies the process, and can also permanently remove the tray icon for you.

Works great if you prefer to keep on trucking with Windows 7 (or 8, for that matter) without worrying about Microsoft force-feeding otherwise unwanted updates upon your system.

Cortilian · Post by **Cortilian** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:15 am

My job uses a program that is not Windows 10 compatible and, ohhhh, 80% of the people working for the company are 1099, work out of their own home on their own computer and are 100% in charge of all their own settings.

This will be a very interesting week.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:45 pm

wonderpug wrote:
Moliere wrote:biggest concerns are ... the possibility that I might be building a new rig in the next 6 months. If so, that means the new Win10 upgrade probably won't work and I will be reinstalling Win7 anyway.
I'll be doing my CPU & mobo upgrade in about a week and attempting to do a Win10 license transfer dance. I'll be sure to post about how it goes.

This ended up being super easy to do. I installed the new CPU & mobo, sure enough Windows 10 yelled at me saying it was no longer activated. I did an online chat with Microsoft support and all I had to do was have Windows 10 updated to version 1511, hit 'change product key' in settings, and then enter my old Windows 7 key.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:56 pm

What version of 7 did you have? OEM or full retail?

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:49 pm

Blackhawk wrote:What version of 7 did you have? OEM or full retail?

Good question. Retail, I believe. Is there an obvious way to tell the difference? It's a Windows 7 Upgrade disc in a pretty plastic box with no mention of OEM anywhere on it, so I'm pretty sure it's retail.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:54 pm

I am finally taking the plunge with my desktop machine today. Other than Classic Shell to get the Win 7 start menu back, are there any other must-have tweaks or fixes? I've only used Win 10 a few times so I haven't developed any peeves yet beyond its useless start menu tiles.

(edit) ...and that was quick and painless. A quick once-over looks like everything came through just fine.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:13 pm

Kraken wrote:I am finally taking the plunge with my desktop machine today. Other than Classic Shell to get the Win 7 start menu back, are there any other must-have tweaks or fixes? I've only used Win 10 a few times so I haven't developed any peeves yet beyond its useless start menu tiles.

This article from LaptopMag.com contains plenty of useful tips and advice for making Windows 10 look and feel more like Windows 7, beyond just the Start Menu. Also, if you prefer the looks of the Aero glass transparency UI from Windows 7 over the bland and flat appearance of Windows 10, here's some useful info on getting the Windows 7 Aero theme working on Windows 10.

If you value your privacy, ShutUp10 is one of the better free Windows 10 privacy tools I've come across. It simplifies the various necessary tweaks, and also provides decent explanations of what they do (and does so without trying to install any obnoxious adware on your system).

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:14 pm

Jeff V wrote:
Carpet_pissr wrote:
Kraken wrote:I still haven't done the upgrade. I don't really want to; I'm happy with Win 7, but I know that ultimately I'll need to do it or be left behind. Thinking about doing my desktop machine this weekend.
If I could go back in time, I would not have upgraded from Win 7 - just too many little things that piss me off, which IMO are worse than previous versions. Primarily, for games, I now need to change the permissions manually to get them to run, and/or they won't run at all. Far too many games in this category than I was expecting.
Never had to do this even once. Do you have something set to ridiculously high security?
Nope. Unless it's that way by default, I usually move the security level down a notch or two as my first step when installing a new ver of Windows.

Also, just stupid small stuff. For some reason, on prior versions (not sure about 8), Windows Update would be HAPPY to show you what was being updated, so you could decide whether or not you needed or even wanted it. Just try to find out what that last update did for Win 10, or even what the proposed update will do! It's maddening, and pretty obvious that they intentionally hid the details as a conscious design decision.

Other small quirks: I dislike the lack of an easy "look" for installed programs where you can click UNINSTALL like in previous versions.
You mean Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features? Works exactly the same as it did in Windows 7.
I have nothing in Start that shows Control Panel, nor even when I click on ALL APPS or SETTINGS.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:39 pm

Control panel options are called Settings in Windows 10 start menu...from the bottom it should go All Apps, Power, then Settings.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:59 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:
Kraken wrote:I am finally taking the plunge with my desktop machine today. Other than Classic Shell to get the Win 7 start menu back, are there any other must-have tweaks or fixes? I've only used Win 10 a few times so I haven't developed any peeves yet beyond its useless start menu tiles.
This article from LaptopMag.com contains plenty of useful tips and advice for making Windows 10 look and feel more like Windows 7, beyond just the Start Menu. Also, if you prefer the looks of the Aero glass transparency UI from Windows 7 over the bland and flat appearance of Windows 10, here's some useful info on getting the Windows 7 Aero theme working on Windows 10.

If you value your privacy, ShutUp10 is one of the better free Windows 10 privacy tools I've come across. It simplifies the various necessary tweaks, and also provides decent explanations of what they do (and does so without trying to install any obnoxious adware on your system).

Oh goodie, I was just about to go looking for the security settings. I know from this thread that Win 10 is basically reporting everything I do to MS.

I'll take a look at the GUI editor, too, as the Win 10 default is truly ugly. I know it's oversimplified for the hammy fingers of mobile device users, but that ain't me.

My PC seems a little zippier and I'm sure I'll like Win 10 just fine after I restore a more pleasing interface.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:09 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:For anyone that hasn't properly adjusted their Windows 7 update settings to prevent the obnoxious urging to "Get Windows 10", the free GWX Control Panel greatly simplifies the process, and can also permanently remove the tray icon for you.

My computer has been generally running like crap on startup for months now and I figured maybe it was the symptom of a 5+ year old Win7 installation. I'm pretty militant about running crap cleaner, but it still was really chugging. Magically, using that linked tool, now the PC boots up and into Windows the way I remembered. Should you ever make it to our lovely state, I owe you a beer or Scotch of your choosing. Thanks.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:35 pm

stessier wrote:Control panel options are called Settings in Windows 10 start menu...from the bottom it should go All Apps, Power, then Settings.

Or just right-click on Windows start and choose 'Control Panel'.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:38 pm

Couple of silly questions:

How to I stop it from requiring a password when it wakes up from sleep? (never mind, found this right after I posted of course)

How to stop the Alert Center notification that I have startup items that I might want to disable because of the time they take'? I don't need to see it over and over and over, thank you very much.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:40 pm

Smoove_B wrote:
Anonymous Bosch wrote:For anyone that hasn't properly adjusted their Windows 7 update settings to prevent the obnoxious urging to "Get Windows 10", the free GWX Control Panel greatly simplifies the process, and can also permanently remove the tray icon for you.
My computer has been generally running like crap on startup for months now and I figured maybe it was the symptom of a 5+ year old Win7 installation. I'm pretty militant about running crap cleaner, but it still was really chugging. Magically, using that linked tool, now the PC boots up and into Windows the way I remembered. Should you ever make it to our lovely state, I owe you a beer or Scotch of your choosing. Thanks.

Glad to hear it helped.

If I had my druthers, I'd likely be sticking with Windows 7 myself, but I recently acquired an ASUS ROG gaming laptop that came with Windows 10 preinstalled, and doesn't officially provide any driver support for Windows 7, so downgrading to Win 7 would be more trouble than it's worth.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:03 pm

I've been perfectly happy with the Windows 10 start menu. I remember when Vista and 7 came out and people were trying to make it work like XP. I'm perfectly happy learning a slightly different way of running my system.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:00 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I've been perfectly happy with the Windows 10 start menu. I remember when Vista and 7 came out and people were trying to make it work like XP. I'm perfectly happy learning a slightly different way of running my system.

I remember when XP came out and Trent Steel insisted on making it work like Win95.

This is a side effect of mostly interacting with old curmudgeons that are stuck in 2003 from here on out. Windows 10 is plenty fine. As will be Windows 11, 12, etc (yes, I know MS is off the full scale release thing now, but you get my point - the next change that cranky old men bitch about will work just fine too).

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:28 pm

I'd highly recommend not participating in the Insider Preview program unless you're a glutton for punishment.

I've been part of it since I was in the Windows 10 beta from way back, and the last couple of insider previews would habitually break my NIC to the point I'd have to reinstall the driver.

Last night's update, however, took the cake. Not only did it break my NIC, after I got the NIC drivers reinstalled the PC would freeze for 10-15 seconds any time I went to File Explorer. Sometimes the explorer.exe would just crash and reset itself.

Even better, if I went to opt out of the Insider Preview program, the wizard would send me through a set of links that would lead me to a webpage that told me to follow the steps I had just done to get to the webpage. Endless loop.

So last night I just wiped the whole damn thing. The good news is if you do a clean wipe, it doesn't opt you back into the preview program automatically (I was afraid it was linked to my MS account and would just shove me back in there).

At any rate, it's running like a champ now.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Feb 07, 2016 12:54 am

Well, dammit, I can't run Sword of the Stars. The screen flickers and the game doesn't load (it's not listed in Task Manager either). Tried reinstalling, tried compatibility mode. Tried launching through Steam and from my local .exe. Nada.

This doesn't appear to be a general complaint -- others are running the game in Win 10. Ideas? I was really enjoying this game!

(edit) I've launched a couple of other old games without problems so this looks like a specific SOTS complaint.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:44 am

Kraken wrote:Well, dammit, I can't run Sword of the Stars. The screen flickers and the game doesn't load (it's not listed in Task Manager either). Tried reinstalling, tried compatibility mode. Tried launching through Steam and from my local .exe. Nada.

This doesn't appear to be a general complaint -- others are running the game in Win 10. Ideas? I was really enjoying this game!

(edit) I've launched a couple of other old games without problems so this looks like a specific SOTS complaint.

I suspect the problem may stem from the absence of DirectX 9 on Windows 10 (in which case you could try following these instructions for installing DX9 on Windows 10).

BTW. installing DirectX 9 won't hurt your system, and won't break anything. It doesn't remove or replace DirectX 12; it just installs some additional libraries, giving older games like SotS the option of which to use. Any games that benefit from DirectX 11 or 12 will still use those. Installing DX9 just adds another layer, allowing for greater backwards compatibility with older games.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Feb 07, 2016 2:31 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:
Kraken wrote:Well, dammit, I can't run Sword of the Stars. The screen flickers and the game doesn't load (it's not listed in Task Manager either). Tried reinstalling, tried compatibility mode. Tried launching through Steam and from my local .exe. Nada.

This doesn't appear to be a general complaint -- others are running the game in Win 10. Ideas? I was really enjoying this game!

(edit) I've launched a couple of other old games without problems so this looks like a specific SOTS complaint.
I suspect the problem may stem from the absence of DirectX 9 on Windows 10 (in which case you could try following these instructions for installing DX9 on Windows 10).

Still no joy. Steam loads, the sots.exe loads, windows asks for permission to make changes, then I get the same flicker with nothing else.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:19 pm

HAH! Figured it out. The flicker looked like the game was failing to match my screen resolution or failing to reset it, so after uninstalling again I deleted the game folder to get rid of any lingering .ini or settings files.

That did the trick. It wants to load up in 1024x768 and the config file from my previous install was preventing that.

Now it remains to be seen if kicking the resolution back up to my monitor's native 1680x1050 will kill the game again. Obviously, I didn't change my resolution between OS versions, so maybe it's a video driver thing.

Anyway, I can play again, if in a lower resolution than I would like.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:41 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote:
JetFred wrote:I have decided it was jv16 Power Tools that long ago hosed my Windows install so that everything runs fine but Windows update is broken beyond repair. I still can't get my primary desktop to upgrade, and now I've hit a point where it won't even update. No MS Fixit and Update Diagnostic don't fix it.
Have you tried the Tweaking.com Windows Repair tool? It worked for me when I needed to rectify the Windows Update service on a colleague's laptop, so ir's probably worth a shot (especially since it's free).

Okay, I have been fighting this for 6 and 1/2 months, wasting days trying every suggested MS fix and other random crap on the web. I got to the point where my wireless printer would only print if I ran the troubleshooter after every print job, my slide show wallpaper would only change on a restart, IE would only open if I right-clicked and ran it as administrator, and no more Windows updates would install at all but would try and fail on every single restart.

Then I tried the program Anonymous Bosch pointed out, and I did every step, many of which I had tried alone before, sfc scans and such, and all that took about 30 hours of my computer sitting there puzzling over the whole mess.

Guess who is on Windows 10 now.

And the only hiccup after the lengthy repair and upgrade was apparently that Windows tried to install a microphone and I don't have a microphone.

AB, you are my man of the year. It's not that I wanted to be on 10 so bad, because I'll probably find games that are a pain to run, but all those other things I named were starting to drive me batty. Every one of them is fixed.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:45 am

Does anyone else think Chrome is noticeably slower in 10 than 7?

tjg_marantz · Post by **tjg_marantz** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:36 pm

Nope. Maybe a non optimized extension?

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 7:49 pm

tjg_marantz wrote:Nope. Maybe a non optimized extension?

I only had Mega and Steam Database turned on. I'll turn them both off and see if it helps.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 8:09 pm

I think you can run into issues if you have more than 10,000 games installed in Steam.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:29 pm

Well, yes, but some issues are worth putting up with

[edit] ...irony to follow...

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 1:48 pm

I found the weirdest glitch. My Edge and calculator icons on the taskbar went invisible, meaning I could left click the blank space and they'd work, but I couldn't right click. I also couldn't left click on the start menu or double-click the calendar/time. Restart didn't help, restarting file explorer didn't help. I found a guy on YouTube with the same problem, and he fixed it with something to do with Power Shell, and then I saw a site saying not to do that. Then I realized I had let my C: get almost full (Steam games) where there was 181 MB left. I uninstalled one game and it all fixed. What an odd symptom for a simple problem.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 2:36 pm

Okay, never mind. Even weirder, it only partially fixed it. Icons appeared and start menu worked, then didn't, and Edge and calculator don't actually load. Calendar still doesn't appear either. Anyone?

[edit] I did a reparse point repair and a sfc, restarted, and everything is back. I don't like not knowing what happened.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:17 pm

Made the switch last night. Aside from an initial panic when I had the "no start menu" bug that was fixed with a restart, it's been smooth so far.

I did a lot of unnecessary backups of various program settings. Everything seems to have transferred over OK (knock on wood). Have only tried a few games though.

Carpet_pissr wrote: I have nothing in Start that shows Control Panel, nor even when I click on ALL APPS or SETTINGS.

If you go to Settings and then search for "control panel" in the search box, it will come up. All of the old favorites are there, Device Manager, Sounds, Admin tools, etc. Annoyingly, however, I haven't found a way to pin Control Panel to the start menu or taskbar.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:37 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: If you go to Settings and then search for "control panel" in the search box, it will come up. All of the old favorites are there, Device Manager, Sounds, Admin tools, etc. Annoyingly, however, I haven't found a way to pin Control Panel to the start menu or taskbar.

Click the search box in the taskbar, search for Control Panel. Right click it, "Pin to Start".

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:41 pm

So far on my laptop with Win10 I've had the infamous "black screen" error and a problem with the start menu. Essentially if I click on it nothing happens. Or maybe sometimes it opens the OW MY BALLS window of icons. It's totally random and apparently not uncommon based on my Google searches. I'll wait for people to tell me I'm an idiot or I should be using mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts to open the start menu, because why would I expect something like that to just work? I'm the crazy person, apparently.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:14 pm

Blackhawk wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote: If you go to Settings and then search for "control panel" in the search box, it will come up. All of the old favorites are there, Device Manager, Sounds, Admin tools, etc. Annoyingly, however, I haven't found a way to pin Control Panel to the start menu or taskbar.
Click the search box in the taskbar, search for Control Panel. Right click it, "Pin to Start".

Ah, thanks. I turned off the Cortana search box in the task bar and it wouldn't pin from the Settings search.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:18 pm

Smoove_B wrote:So far on my laptop with Win10 I've had the infamous "black screen" error and a problem with the start menu. Essentially if I click on it nothing happens. Or maybe sometimes it opens the OW MY BALLS window of icons. It's totally random and apparently not uncommon based on my Google searches. I'll wait for people to tell me I'm an idiot or I should be using mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts to open the start menu, because why would I expect something like that to just work? I'm the crazy person, apparently.

You're not the crazy person, your just in the extreme minority. And you care more because you're old and scared of change.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 10:36 am

Blackhawk wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote: If you go to Settings and then search for "control panel" in the search box, it will come up. All of the old favorites are there, Device Manager, Sounds, Admin tools, etc. Annoyingly, however, I haven't found a way to pin Control Panel to the start menu or taskbar.
Click the search box in the taskbar, search for Control Panel. Right click it, "Pin to Start".

You can also right-click on the Start icon... all kinds of things there for the taking.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:58 pm

So, did any of you who upgraded to Win 10 start with a 32-bit OS (and therefore upgraded to Win 10 32-bit)? And if so, did you upgrade to 64-bit? And if so, how did that go?

nm - I tried to install Win10 again and, again, it failed. Not going to bother with it.

em2nought · Post by **em2nought** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:19 pm

So, if I just close the window that offers me an upgrade from 7 to 10 am I good, or will my computer start upgrading to the all seeing all knowing Windows 10 anyway? Is there something you must do if you want your PC to stay in Windows 7? Thanks for any feedback.

gilraen · Post by **gilraen** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 12:19 am

em2nought wrote:So, if I just close the window that offers me an upgrade from 7 to 10 am I good

Yes.

em2nought wrote:Is there something you must do if you want your PC to stay in Windows 7? Thanks for any feedback.

The Win 10 installer thingy is in KB 3035583 which you can uninstall from your Windows updates, so it will stop bugging you. There are more details here.