Octopus Overlords

Giles Habibula wrote:As hard as they've been pushing it, I'm guessing they will continue offering it for free. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

Me, I'm waiting until I buy my next computer in a year or two. My current rig works just fine with Win7, so I have no real motivation to upgrade.

And Daehawk, just use GWX, as others have already mentioned. I'm using it, and it does a terrific job. No more nagging to upgrade, plus I still get all of my Windows updates just like before. Nothing to it; just install and configure to your liking - just a few check boxes for what you want or don't want. Took me about one minute for the whole procedure, including the download and install. Tiny program.

I second that. And if you do want to eventually upgrade to 10 just go back in and uncheck the boxes.

Chaz wrote: for the first time ever, sleep mode actually seems to work as intended.

Sleep mode worked flawlessly for me in Win 7. I routinely go a week or 10 days between boots and let my laptop sleep overnight. Win 10 also has no problems waking back up, although I do get a bit chuffed when it wants my password every time. Not chuffed enough to track down the setting and change it, though.

Having finally fixed that QuickBooks printing problem, I only have an issue with my wireless card occasionally losing its connection and then complaining that network protocols aren't installed (this is unrelated to its sleep/wake cycle). Fn+F2 twice to enter/exit airplane mode resets the card and reconnects in seconds. It's not a big enough nuisance to bother with replacing drivers.

I think external hard drives always screwed with my sleep mode behavior, so bad that I gave up and haven't even tried it on Win10. Maybe I should.

Ill look at that GWX. Thank you.

Usually, my desktops have done some kind of weird hang when waking from sleep mode. This seems to be working great though. I did track down how to disable requiring passwords on startup and waking from sleep. Of course, they're in two different places. Ironrod, if it's just asking for a password on wake, the setting is under Power & Sleep > Additional Power Settings, and there's a radio button under Password protection on wakeup. To turn it off on startup, run "netplwiz" from the Run command, then it's just a checkbox.

I've got the theme set to grab a color from the active wallpaper. Problem is that it displays a random wallpaper on each monitor, and only grabs a color from one. That doesn't always work great.

Here's something that irks me. Sometimes I copy files, like images, with a common name to a folder and there is already a file of that name there, and I want to keep both. In every recent version of windows, an option immediately popped up to allow one click for replacing and one click for keeping both (with a modified file name "* (1)"). Now there is one click to replace, and four clicks to keep. I have to click to compare, check boxes for both file sources, and click OK. I understand that you might want to compare the files because in this case you can see thumbnails of both images to remind you if they are really the same, but it seems like it should be more clicks to lose data, not more clicks to keep it. Replacing loses data. Keeping both does not. If you have to do this over and over again, it really grates.

Well, it turns out that the "defer update" option in Windows 10 Pro only buys you an additional 6 months before the update becomes non-deferrable. When the November Update came out last year, it wouldn't install on my PC. It just stopped part way through and never completed. After a reboot, it would revert to the previous version. After a couple of go-arounds and no solution in sight, I just deferred it and let the issue slide. My 6 months are up tonight, so the system is going to update itself whether I like it or not.

Edit: And... 45 minutes later, no joy. The update gets to 32% complete (Features and Drivers 5%), then the screen goes black and the update process stalls. The last time, I let it go over night, and it never completed. Now to wait and see how long it gives me until the next forced restart. At least it's almost time for a new computer.

Well, after my backup took like four days, I pulled the trigger and upgraded. Time will tell.

It's been around a week since I decided to upgrade on a whim without backup. Other than some minor quirks that worked themselves out no regrets yet. Now the big question is when to burn my digital bridge and delete the old Windows 7 files. It sure will free up some space.

$iljanus wrote: Now the big question is when to burn my digital bridge and delete the old Windows 7 files. It sure will free up some space.

I think Windows does that for you after 30 days, if you're talking about the windows.old file.

Kraken wrote:

$iljanus wrote: Now the big question is when to burn my digital bridge and delete the old Windows 7 files. It sure will free up some space.

I think Windows does that for you after 30 days, if you're talking about the windows.old file.

Wow that's a little pushy if that's the case. Granted it would have been 30 days but still.

$iljanus wrote:

Kraken wrote:

$iljanus wrote: Now the big question is when to burn my digital bridge and delete the old Windows 7 files. It sure will free up some space.

I think Windows does that for you after 30 days, if you're talking about the windows.old file.

Wow that's a little pushy if that's the case. Granted it would have been 30 days but still.

I remember checking the menu options that deletes it and seem to recall it saying something like that... and yet mine was still there 6+ months later. And then I nuked it.

MonkeyFinger wrote:

$iljanus wrote:

Kraken wrote:

$iljanus wrote: Now the big question is when to burn my digital bridge and delete the old Windows 7 files. It sure will free up some space.

I think Windows does that for you after 30 days, if you're talking about the windows.old file.

Wow that's a little pushy if that's the case. Granted it would have been 30 days but still.

I remember checking the menu options that deletes it and seem to recall it saying something like that... and yet mine was still there 6+ months later. And then I nuked it.

When I thought to nuke my desktop machine's file it was already gone. I should check my laptop and see if it cleaned up after itself, too.

Anyway, if you want to preserve it maybe you could rename it. (Not going to suggest copying it though!)

I think I'm gonna clean it up. What's the worst that can happen...

Edit: Ahhh, that looks better and all that space freed up. Everything is running gr

My mother-in-law is trying to upgrade her laptop from Win 7 ->10 and it is stuck on Update 11 of 24. Well, stuck might be relative - they started 2 hours ago and it has been on this screen for sometime. Anyone know how long I might expect the upgrade to take? Is the only way to escape from the update to pull the battery? How long do we give it before trying? For added fun, she's 1000 miles away and not computer literate. My wife is visiting and helping with this but is only a bit more literate.

Is that the upgrade process itself that is stuck? I have done it a few times, and I don't remember the entire process ever taking more than maybe 30 minutes to an hour, not counting download time.

I'm not sure of the solution, but I'd be worried that pulling the battery with an OS half installed would lead to failed boots.

I mean, I think it is. I'll ask exactly what they did to start the install.

They took a screen shot for me and it says

"Please do not power off or unplug your machine. Installing update 11 of 24."

So I'm guess pulling the battery falls under "bad", but how long would one wait? Asking more questions, it's been on that one step for over an hour.

So they got the pop-up "Upgrade to Windows 10?" and clicked "OK"...so yes, this should be the upgrade. Unless it does something before upgrading in that situation.

Maybe I asked this before..cant remember. Is there a way to download the entire upgrade to pc and burn it to dvd? Or download the full Win 10 and burn it? I want to have a physical install disc and not some in the air thing to download because if and when I Foosball by system and it wont work or connect to the web I want to be able to install a OS and not be stuck.

Daehawk wrote:Maybe I asked this before..cant remember. Is there a way to download the entire upgrade to pc and burn it to dvd? Or download the full Win 10 and burn it? I want to have a physical install disc and not some in the air thing to download because if and when I Foosball by system and it wont work or connect to the web I want to be able to install a OS and not be stuck.

Yep. Download tool. It is the key you pay for, so the install data is free.

I suppose I'll at least sign up for it, even if I don't install it.

a warning:

If you try to update to Win 10 and it fails and rolls back or if you rollback after installing Win 10, your Win 7 license could be deactivated and not be considered genuine.

Happened to my mom's computer last month. She called me and said her screen was black and it said this version of Windows in not genuine. Took it to the guy who built it and he said he's seen 4 other cases like this the past few months. He said you have to call Microsoft and have them reactivate your license.

But in one case they convinced a woman to pay for a new license instead.

He was not sure what was triggering it but his guess was the roll back to Win 7 and he doesn't know if it is an error or Microsoft.

I used Blackhawk's link to create a Win 10 DVD (I'm sure if I actually decide to use it to upgrade, it will find a reason not to work )

At this point I decided that my current computer will live out its remaining life as a Win 7 machine. I have another computer, that only gets used rarely for very specific tasks (e.g. video conversion), and I was going to use it as an experiment but since TheMix got Win 10 on his PC, that's experiment enough for this household

OK, so on my son's laptop, we finally went around to 'Schedule an Update' for Windows 10. It says that's all we need to do... and at some point we will get a message to update.

When will that happen? Today? Weeks from now? Is this how it's done? Are we doing it wrong?

I upgraded my mother in law's laptop last night. I would up just going to Microsoft.com/windows and doing the small download which kicks off the upgrade immediately.

Ringa-ding! thank you , I didn't realize we could do that. It's started! Man this better work.

Unagi wrote:Ringa-ding! thank you , I didn't realize we could do that. It's started! Man this better work.

How did it go? I have avoided upgrading my computer with Win 7. My daughters went fine from 8.1 to 10.

Upgrading my son's laptop from 8.1 to 10 worked like a charm. Easiest OS upgrade I've ever experienced.

My older, Windows 7 'Allienware' desktop - - I started up last night, and it got stuck at 99% it would seem. I've restarted the upgrade again, but worry that it's gonna do the same thing this time too.

So, I have a question...

My son's laptop was my only experience with Windows 8.1
My PC has Windows 7.

When we got the laptop, a while back, I was forced to create an online Windows login (my email address) for that Laptop. We upgraded to Windows 10, and of course we still log on to that laptop now with that same login.

Now, on my Windows 7 Desktop, I have what I would describe as an ol'fashion local computer 'Login'. If I ever get this PC to upgrade, what should I do when Windows 10 asks me to login?

Will it just show my old Windows login that I've been using?
Should I type in my 'online Windows' login ? I'm confused about that greatly.

It will use whatever login you had it using before the upgrade.

To your larger question, you can use a Microsoft login (email) or a local account on 10 (or 8 or 8.1). On a new machine they encourage you to use a MS login, but there's an option to create local instead.

OK, thanks - I didn't realize it was an option on the 8.1 machine at the time.

Just so you know, I went through much the same thing and when I upgraded my laptop from 8.1 to 10 and set 10 up with my "online id" (the same one I use on my Win 10 desktop) all of my cosmetic settings on my desktop came popping into existence on my laptop - custom wallpapers, etc. And then the profile photo I took on the laptop showed up on the desktop. It was both very cool and terrifying at the same time.

I'm still using it to log on but set it to ask for a PIN instead, way more quicker.

Unagi wrote: My older, Windows 7 'Allienware' desktop - - I started up last night, and it got stuck at 99% it would seem. I've restarted the upgrade again, but worry that it's gonna do the same thing this time too.

that's is the reason why I have not even attempted it on my Win 7 desktop. Plus I love Win7 and want to hang onto it as long as possible.

Lassr wrote:

Unagi wrote: My older, Windows 7 'Allienware' desktop - - I started up last night, and it got stuck at 99% it would seem. I've restarted the upgrade again, but worry that it's gonna do the same thing this time too.

that's is the reason why I have not even attempted it on my Win 7 desktop. Plus I love Win7 and want to hang onto it as long as possible.

I got it upgrade eventually. (And this old man hardly notices it!)

My problem (googled a bit) was that I needed to turn of windows updater, cause it was causing the problem. (I also did a malware cleanup that may have helped).
if you end up having the same problem I have, I can help with it.

So, in the end - I got it upgraded after a little fiddling, and I'm not to rattled by it. (I was very turned off Windows 8.1 before I realized you could just ignore that monstrosity it added.)

Frankly, I think they skipped Windows 9, just to get as far away from 8 as they could.

Unagi wrote:
Frankly, I think they skipped Windows 9, just to get as far away from 8 as they could.

MS just wants to erase all memory of Millennium.

I upgraded to 10 the other day. It balked at the direct upgrade because my recovery partition was full. Had to do some command line surgery to purge some transactions to free up some megabytes it'll never use. But the rest went off without incident.

I quickly downloaded Classic Shell so I am dealing with Win7-like start menu rather than the Win8 style menu. So it's as if I'm still in Win 7. Though there are little hints that not all is as it was. Some hot keys no longer work, for example. Haven't tried games much, but they seem okay.