Seems OK so far, unlike my old joke...I thought I'd be a bit of a guinea pig and jump ahead in line with the Media Creation Tool and see the OS even given its supposedly buggy state.
The install process was very easy and surprisingly quick - much better than I'd anticipated. This is using a direct upgrade process. After the initial download, there's one notification, after which the thing handled itself entirely. The first thing I noticed was actually that all the icons left on my desktop were in the exact same positions as before - Windows 7 could never manage to show them properly and here Windows 10 had preserved them even after a complete update to the system!
Quick and dirty game compatibility check
There's a growing list of compatible games here
Soldier of Fortune: Platinum doesn't have any sound, but otherwise loads and plays from a savegame correctly.
Rainbow Six: Black Thorn complains about being unable to create a DirectSound device, and won't launch.
I downloaded Gameloft's Modern Combat 5 (which is now free to play) and spent a minute with it - I don't see any way to reconfigure the controls, and it looks as if some text in the options menu gets cut off. Can always play with a 360 controller I've heard.
Anti-hype
I know the 'net is abuzz with "spyware," "keylogger," "Windows won't let you change your default browser" talk, and it's all garbage. The OS clearly threw up notifications about data collection at the first boot, and while they defaulted to max information gathering, it took literally 15 seconds to choose through them all. The same went with Firefox - one of the tech blogs claimed there were settings buried deep within menus, but Windows took me directly to the appropriate place immediately after I opened Firefox and attempted to set it as the default. To change any default program back to what it was, all I have to do is rightclick -> Open with -> Choose Another App. On a related note, the built-in media programs have very clean UIs, but on the down side this means they are the typically feature-bereft Microsoft default offerings. The image viewer also doesn't seem to play GIFs at correct speeds, compared with Irfanview. Ultimately this doesn't matter because I didn't buy Windows 10 for...oh, wait.
There are some bad notes. It was kind of bittersweet watching the old Windows 7 style logoff screen, since I knew I'd not be seeing that muted but cheerful animation style again. The new Windows 10 animations and overall look isn't psuedo-modernistic, but almost brutalist...not fun, and I'll hope for a theme to change that.
The Alt-Tab menu and stacked applications show little thumbnails - can get too visually noisy, and probably uses more RAM, but can be beneficial over the old Win 7 way that just showed the file name. What's critical for me is whether it allows faster scrolling through all the choices; Win 7 got very sluggish by design if you stacked applications all the way to the top of the screen, as you had to slowly wait for them to auto-scroll through, or click repeatedly, or wrap around to get to the end of the list.
The new file replace dialog is garbage. It unhelpfully asks a rhetorical question instead of immediately comparing the two files, so you have to click a button to get that detail. Microsoft still has some work to make this a really flexible file replace tool. Windows 7 was good enough in most cases but could have been improved still.
The taskbar has a search bar near the start button - to me this just wastes taskbar space, but then again, I don't ever get icons stretching all the way across. Maybe this is a good thing and will get me to stop living on the left side of my monitor. On a related note, something about the taskbar itself seems off. Maybe it's smaller than the Windows 7 classic style one I used, but icons seem much smaller than they should be, with thick black borders above and below. I'm not sure if it's actually freeing up space for applications.
IMEs (useful for anybody who likes to enter text in another language) doesn't seem to work as well, but I'm not the expert on using these. In Windows 7, right-clicking or hovering over the IME style for a language with multiple input types (i.e., Japanese, obviously) would immediately bring up the full list. For some reason, here it defaults to just switching between hiragana and alphanumeric, and insists on showing the tooltip that you have to right click to get the full list. Maybe this is actually more convenient for some users, but I'm not sure.
One thing which was nice is the integration of a Microsoft account with the OS. Instead of fooling around with your password every time you want to go do something that ties into that account, here it seems as if there's more stuff built into the OS (i.e., the Microsoft store) and that the OS itself can even push the password over to some other programs if you want to do that.
Overall, it does most of what I want, and it is nice to finally (?) be out of the cycle of new releases breaking compatibility with the old models. Under the old system, we were looking at unavoidable bloat and breakage in support for older system paradigms. Of course, it remains to be seen if the core Windows and Intel PE models are really flexible enough to survive into the future, but for the moment things seem pretty good here.
Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Tue Aug 04, 2015 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I'm waiting until my Outboard Soundcard (audiophile DAC) drives work ok on Windows 10 before doing the jump. They will always be glitches early on so I might just wait 6-8 months until I upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.
The only thing I hope for once I upgrade is older program support. Some of the older Doujin Titles I have are picky when it comes to compatibility.
The only thing I hope for once I upgrade is older program support. Some of the older Doujin Titles I have are picky when it comes to compatibility.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
What OS are you coming from? I've had problems with doujin games on Windows 7, and I figured that I wasn't going to break anything here.
Guxt (both versions, 1.0.1.0 and 1020) seems to play fine. I seem to have misplaced my copy of Val & Rick...
Maldita Castilla prompts Windows to ask you to install DirectPlay, which took me half a minute. Doesn't require a restart (game launches after) and plays / sounds fine after that.
Spelunky still plays and sounds well. Dr. Coffin's Cursed Maze (made by a forum user here, Andre Hagen!) plays like it did before (it's a game made using this), of course without sound of any kind. Ramble Planet still rambles on, with sound and with the ability to maximize the window (same engine, newer version, I think). Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, ditto...fuck you, pump. Speaking of which, pulling one of Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw's games out of a hat (Trilby's Notes) seems to work too. Twin Tiger Shark, works from clicking the .jar file, but lines flicker at certain points on the screen (could have happened before, though).
Abbaye Des Morts (also Locomalito) works fine.
The Objection Game doesn't work, what a tragedy. (Of course, there's always DOSbox.)
Iwanaga was the one I knew would be challenging: It pauses, and throws up an error message about DirectDraw before closing. I never had any luck with that one in Windows 7, either - it had slowdown when using some rendering modes (seems to be a thing with many Japanese doujins).
Pretty good so far - nothing doesn't work which did before, except for Iwanaga which is more broken. I did read something in the past about some semi-recent games requiring a DirectX installer. I'll have to research that a bit - I'd like to get sound in games that had it, but I'd not like games to default to older, buggier DirectX distros when DX12 is good.
Guxt (both versions, 1.0.1.0 and 1020) seems to play fine. I seem to have misplaced my copy of Val & Rick...
Maldita Castilla prompts Windows to ask you to install DirectPlay, which took me half a minute. Doesn't require a restart (game launches after) and plays / sounds fine after that.
Spelunky still plays and sounds well. Dr. Coffin's Cursed Maze (made by a forum user here, Andre Hagen!) plays like it did before (it's a game made using this), of course without sound of any kind. Ramble Planet still rambles on, with sound and with the ability to maximize the window (same engine, newer version, I think). Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, ditto...fuck you, pump. Speaking of which, pulling one of Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw's games out of a hat (Trilby's Notes) seems to work too. Twin Tiger Shark, works from clicking the .jar file, but lines flicker at certain points on the screen (could have happened before, though).
Abbaye Des Morts (also Locomalito) works fine.
The Objection Game doesn't work, what a tragedy. (Of course, there's always DOSbox.)
Iwanaga was the one I knew would be challenging: It pauses, and throws up an error message about DirectDraw before closing. I never had any luck with that one in Windows 7, either - it had slowdown when using some rendering modes (seems to be a thing with many Japanese doujins).
Pretty good so far - nothing doesn't work which did before, except for Iwanaga which is more broken. I did read something in the past about some semi-recent games requiring a DirectX installer. I'll have to research that a bit - I'd like to get sound in games that had it, but I'd not like games to default to older, buggier DirectX distros when DX12 is good.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Still using XP and NoScript.
Only problem is the Pokemon TCG discontinued support, which I assume was actually a deliberate hobbling with a If Ver == XP (FUCK_CUSTOMER) kind of function. Because why wouldn't it continue to work otherwise?
That is my in-depth report for 2015.
Only problem is the Pokemon TCG discontinued support, which I assume was actually a deliberate hobbling with a If Ver == XP (FUCK_CUSTOMER) kind of function. Because why wouldn't it continue to work otherwise?
That is my in-depth report for 2015.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Some other things I noticed: No drivers seem to have changed, at all. I'm still with Rapid Storage Technology drivers, which might not actually be the right ones for my motherboard (I've never been bothered to go in search of the "right" ones since, heh.) Process Explorer is still the default task manager. It's like somebody left the keys in the ignition and the pot of coffee warm...now where's the alien monsters out in the snow?
The Soldier of Fortune bizness might be related to running that from a Sandboxie folder (the Sandboxie control doesn't show up, so maybe that didn't get pulled along with the upgrade, but I don't think SoF requires anything in particular to get sound working).
My PC is/was running a bit warm - Modern Combat 5 seems to be idling correctly, but Chrome is hovering over 5% (one web flash game and some random Wikipedia windows), and before that MsMpEng.exe was using a lot of CPU - now it's back down to idle levels, though.
I'm finding that for even simple gaming, though, the new OS is the way to go for ultimately saving power and CPU cycles. If you don't do anything with DirectX, though, it's probably just fine to stick with XP, even with flash, except for the security stuff.
I suppose good power shells have always been available so my stubbornness in using the built-in file replace dialog might be self-inflicted. I don't insist on using Windows media players, after all.
The Soldier of Fortune bizness might be related to running that from a Sandboxie folder (the Sandboxie control doesn't show up, so maybe that didn't get pulled along with the upgrade, but I don't think SoF requires anything in particular to get sound working).
My PC is/was running a bit warm - Modern Combat 5 seems to be idling correctly, but Chrome is hovering over 5% (one web flash game and some random Wikipedia windows), and before that MsMpEng.exe was using a lot of CPU - now it's back down to idle levels, though.
Ha ha, I wish there was a more bare-metal version of XP with bugfixes. It's getting unsafe to even run that in a virtual box if you need to connect to the 'net.BryanM wrote:Still using XP and NoScript.
I'm finding that for even simple gaming, though, the new OS is the way to go for ultimately saving power and CPU cycles. If you don't do anything with DirectX, though, it's probably just fine to stick with XP, even with flash, except for the security stuff.
I suppose good power shells have always been available so my stubbornness in using the built-in file replace dialog might be self-inflicted. I don't insist on using Windows media players, after all.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Did you remember to turn this off?
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001116.html
Also worth noting that some things can't be fully disabled:
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable- ... indows-10/
By buying this, you're supporting a company who thinks it's OK to have all this enabled by default.
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001116.html
Also worth noting that some things can't be fully disabled:
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable- ... indows-10/
By buying this, you're supporting a company who thinks it's OK to have all this enabled by default.
System11's random blog, with things - and stuff!
http://blog.system11.org
http://blog.system11.org
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I disable automatic updates on my humble laptops because the Svchost process always manages to eat up 50% of the CPU and slow the machine down when running (I manually update every weekend). Any idea if Win10 would do the same since they cannot be turned off or delayed? Also, the last thing I want is for a laptop to start installing updates just as I turn it off because the battery is going to die.
Don't hold grudges. GET EVEN.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Cool, thanks for the info system11!
Yes, I changed that. I'll deliver updates to other PCs on the 'network, across the router, but I'm not ready to try delivering them across the Internet, not on Comcast.
Incidentally, the Windows Update menu drop-downs reminded me of another problem with the style of this new release - the ultra-minimalism means that drop-down menus don't have a border. I can click on something and it's not immediately apparent what text is part of the drop-down, and what's part of the previous window. White on white violence!
I've still got to mess with more things - like making the Control Panel options make a lick of sense. In my first attempt I didn't even find Windows Update. Being able to search it out from the Start Menu is no replacement for actually knowing where it is.
As for the telemetry stuff, there's nothing in there (at least on Pro) that I can't disable which I disagree with. Firefox also includes telemetry options, by default, which seem the same as what I left enabled with Windows. If a program or app crashes, I damn well want the telemetry to go back to Microsoft.
Yes, I changed that. I'll deliver updates to other PCs on the 'network, across the router, but I'm not ready to try delivering them across the Internet, not on Comcast.
Incidentally, the Windows Update menu drop-downs reminded me of another problem with the style of this new release - the ultra-minimalism means that drop-down menus don't have a border. I can click on something and it's not immediately apparent what text is part of the drop-down, and what's part of the previous window. White on white violence!
I've still got to mess with more things - like making the Control Panel options make a lick of sense. In my first attempt I didn't even find Windows Update. Being able to search it out from the Start Menu is no replacement for actually knowing where it is.
As for the telemetry stuff, there's nothing in there (at least on Pro) that I can't disable which I disagree with. Firefox also includes telemetry options, by default, which seem the same as what I left enabled with Windows. If a program or app crashes, I damn well want the telemetry to go back to Microsoft.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
You might be in for a surprise. Windows 8+ no longer natively supports 8/16 bit color and exclusive fullscreen for old DX games. Lots of stuff is broken.Ed Oscuro wrote:What OS are you coming from? I've had problems with doujin games on Windows 7, and I figured that I wasn't going to break anything here.
99% of it is fixable with tools like dgVoodoo2, DXGL and DxWnd though (including Iwanaga).
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Tried updating and got stuck at 83%, reverted and I'll try again later with more precautions.
In search of great justice, sailing on a sea of stars.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
(Former) CIA chief "We'll spy on you through your dish-washer"system11 wrote:you're supporting a company who thinks it's OK to have all this enabled by default.
"A bleeding heart welcomes the sharks."
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Well, it turns out that Microsoft still has some shitheads working there.
Had a forced reboot, then I'm greeted by my email address at the login. Uh oh.
Yeah, I can understand why this happened (I tied my Live account to some stuff on the desktop), but not fully. I never told fucking Windows to replace my default password with my deliberately unwieldy Live one. Gonna light them up at their Feedback over this one too.
Edit: Of course this is a Win8-era issue, but it's totally news to this crusty old Win7 user. There is a big problem here - functionality vs. not being able to log in if somebody hijacks Hotmail.
Had a forced reboot, then I'm greeted by my email address at the login. Uh oh.
Yeah, I can understand why this happened (I tied my Live account to some stuff on the desktop), but not fully. I never told fucking Windows to replace my default password with my deliberately unwieldy Live one. Gonna light them up at their Feedback over this one too.
Edit: Of course this is a Win8-era issue, but it's totally news to this crusty old Win7 user. There is a big problem here - functionality vs. not being able to log in if somebody hijacks Hotmail.
"Something happened?"Captain wrote:Tried updating and got stuck at 83%, reverted and I'll try again later with more precautions.
Last edited by Ed Oscuro on Tue Aug 04, 2015 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
No surprises here, but that's a helpful post - what was working before Win8 with 8/16 bit color that isn't now?ZellSF wrote:You might be in for a surprise. Windows 8+ no longer natively supports 8/16 bit color and exclusive fullscreen for old DX games. Lots of stuff is broken.
99% of it is fixable with tools like dgVoodoo2, DXGL and DxWnd though (including Iwanaga).
Right now, I'm not seeing any problems with games that used old-style exclusive fullscreen. SoF is outputting 1600x1200 and my graphics card is pushing that across VGA to my monitor, with no issues.
And what exactly are you using to get Iwanaga working? I tried DxWnd with Win7, pretty sure, but got no love. Slowdown. Lots of Japanese doujins seem to get slowdown based on color depth - sometimes dropping down allows better color depth. I'll have to look at that again.
At the moment I'm installing the DX12-enabled July 29th Catalyst drivers, will see if anything changes in games.
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Lord Satori
- Posts: 2061
- Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:39 pm
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
This is Xbone all over again. You think people would learn their lesson, but I guess not.system11 wrote:By buying this, you're supporting a company who thinks it's OK to have all this enabled by default.
I mean, is this really surprising people?
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Before Windows 8, 8 and 16 bit color was working.Ed Oscuro wrote:No surprises here, but that's a helpful post - what was working before Win8 with 8/16 bit color that isn't now?ZellSF wrote:You might be in for a surprise. Windows 8+ no longer natively supports 8/16 bit color and exclusive fullscreen for old DX games. Lots of stuff is broken.
99% of it is fixable with tools like dgVoodoo2, DXGL and DxWnd though (including Iwanaga).
After Windows 8, it is not working. At all. Microsoft emulates it, but that breaks some games pretty badly and severely slows down others.
dgVoodoo2 seems to work the best.And what exactly are you using to get Iwanaga working?
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Lord Satori
- Posts: 2061
- Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:39 pm
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Yeah, even in Windows 7, some of the older color modes go wonky. Why is it so hard to keep supporting already existing software?
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I'm on W7 but from my experience any OS upgrade will always have bugs/glitches. From the other posts it might just be worth it to wait for a few months.Ed Oscuro wrote:What OS are you coming from? I've had problems with doujin games on Windows 7, and I figured that I wasn't going to break anything here.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Some years ago I had the displeasure of using Google Chrome for some months. The whole "the best interface is no interface at all!!!" thing was excruciating. I get it, people are idiots; you can still let me look at a fucking options menu if I go looking for it. Christ.ultra-minimalism
It does give me great pause that these are the corporations that're supposedly going to bring us automated cars and humanoid interfaces. To linger on the point too long is a bit terrifying; if these trends were to continue personally I think many of us would prefer to be on the receiving end of a hellish Terminator-style genocide.
The genocide which would be carried out by cute robot mice that play a catchy but non-threatening advertising jingle after they've injected you with Google HappyTime (C)(TM) Cyanide.
Bwaha. Gotta love it when they fuck you like this.Ed Oscuro wrote:Well, it turns out that Microsoft still has some shitheads working there.
Yeah, I can understand why this happened (I tied my Live account to some stuff on the desktop), but not fully. I never told fucking Windows to replace my default password with my deliberately unwieldy Live one. Gonna light them up at their Feedback over this one too.
Like... Youtube sharing your Gmail account login status. Because that's just what I want - my private life intermixing with the dark shady world of Youtube. Yeah.
I'm being good and not giving them $$$ for a product I already bought back in the mid 2000's. I'm not supporting terrorism/child molestation/whatever this is, where's my pat on the head?Lord Satori wrote:This is Xbone all over again. You think people would learn their lesson, but I guess not.system11 wrote:By buying this, you're supporting a company who thinks it's OK to have all this enabled by default.
I mean, is this really surprising people?
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Minor update: I went with the clean install. Now it's working great. Their nonsensical UI designs screwed me over well and truly during the install process for a while - who knew the 64-bit Media Creation Tool doesn't guarantee you'll install 64-bit Windows? Asus was along for the ride with some of its own shenanigans - who knew that you'd not want to boot from the copy of the flash drive marked UEFI? Why it would show up twice I can't fathom. Once I had gotten past all the trouble of finding the right USB port and the right version of the install media, then the installer tried starting up a second time! Once all that was done, though, things were good. AMD drivers needed to be installed, and that looks like about all I need for now. Everything else seems to be working fine. I tried using the Intel driver check utility, and it didn't find anything. Suits me well enough.
A lot of problems from my already-troubled Win7 account have been blasted away. I believe that the majority of issues I found with games and sound were related to Sandboxie - before formatting that drive, I tried running programs again, and Sandboxie was reporting some problems creating processes. That probably explains it. I've yet to try any 8- or 16-bit color programs, however.
I also have an update on the Microsoft account thing. I could have avoided this mess by following these steps. You can still choose to login with that Microsoft account, and use a numeric PIN instead of a regular password (I'd have preferred a password). Alternatively, you can log in using a normal account. Microsoft doesn't put the option to switch in an especially convenient place - it's in Settings > Accounts > Sign in with a local account instead.
Overall, I get the feeling that Microsoft's up to some newfangled carnival barker tricks, trying to find a way to stay relevant. While the OS is very nice in many ways, many of the attempts to up-sell fall flat and don't seem necessary. In fact, I've found you don't need to be logged into your Microsoft Account all the time, even if you download apps from the Store. While I was almost ready to convince myself that I wasn't at much risk using a Microsoft Account for logging into the OS (since my files are elsewhere), I've decided that I need to follow through with these steps to "devolve" my account to an old-fashioned Windows 7 style account, to keep Microsoft at arm's length.
As for supporting Microsoft, as soon as somebody comes up with a good way to deliver and improve on some of the technology Microsoft uses, I'll be right there. It is the vicious cycle, to an extent, but I don't feel bad at all for taking the free upgrade. I do feel bad for the handful of unused OEM copies of Vista I've got, though.
Chrome is good for online flash games...why anybody would want to play online flash games is another question. There's YouTube, too, though. The mess over YouTube's attempt to streamline accounts and pull everything (including YouTube) in still rankles some folks, but I like to use Chrome as a place to access everything Google. It's not a lot, but it's got its uses.
A lot of problems from my already-troubled Win7 account have been blasted away. I believe that the majority of issues I found with games and sound were related to Sandboxie - before formatting that drive, I tried running programs again, and Sandboxie was reporting some problems creating processes. That probably explains it. I've yet to try any 8- or 16-bit color programs, however.
I also have an update on the Microsoft account thing. I could have avoided this mess by following these steps. You can still choose to login with that Microsoft account, and use a numeric PIN instead of a regular password (I'd have preferred a password). Alternatively, you can log in using a normal account. Microsoft doesn't put the option to switch in an especially convenient place - it's in Settings > Accounts > Sign in with a local account instead.
Overall, I get the feeling that Microsoft's up to some newfangled carnival barker tricks, trying to find a way to stay relevant. While the OS is very nice in many ways, many of the attempts to up-sell fall flat and don't seem necessary. In fact, I've found you don't need to be logged into your Microsoft Account all the time, even if you download apps from the Store. While I was almost ready to convince myself that I wasn't at much risk using a Microsoft Account for logging into the OS (since my files are elsewhere), I've decided that I need to follow through with these steps to "devolve" my account to an old-fashioned Windows 7 style account, to keep Microsoft at arm's length.
As for supporting Microsoft, as soon as somebody comes up with a good way to deliver and improve on some of the technology Microsoft uses, I'll be right there. It is the vicious cycle, to an extent, but I don't feel bad at all for taking the free upgrade. I do feel bad for the handful of unused OEM copies of Vista I've got, though.
Chrome is good for online flash games...why anybody would want to play online flash games is another question. There's YouTube, too, though. The mess over YouTube's attempt to streamline accounts and pull everything (including YouTube) in still rankles some folks, but I like to use Chrome as a place to access everything Google. It's not a lot, but it's got its uses.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I hope Microsoft doesn't end support for Windows 8 too soon. I'm not in the hurry to update, Windows 8 is serving my simple needs fine for a year already.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
You've got a year (since the 29th, I think) to reserve and install the upgrade. I think it's important to do this because, despite all the privacy concerns and the like, Windows that isn't up to date with security fixes is a really bad idea, and once you get it, you won't have to get it again (at least "through the lifetime of the device," which is potentially forever in my case of a custom-built PC). It's also a bad idea for compatibility to try and keep using an old version. Already Windows 7 users are updating in huge amounts, and I'm expecting that Windows 10 will get the lion's share of development and bugfixes, probably sooner rather than later.
There's no need to rush into it, you can wait a few months if you like.
Just make sure you have another PC ready in order to get on the 'net in case the upgrade doesn't go smoothly.
I'm also a big fan of the instructions The Verge website put out: First do the upgrade, then do a clean installation, skipping the two useless prompts to put in your product key.
There's no need to rush into it, you can wait a few months if you like.
Just make sure you have another PC ready in order to get on the 'net in case the upgrade doesn't go smoothly.
I'm also a big fan of the instructions The Verge website put out: First do the upgrade, then do a clean installation, skipping the two useless prompts to put in your product key.
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Lord Satori
- Posts: 2061
- Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:39 pm
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
What?BryanM wrote:terrorism/child molestation/whatever this is
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I just realized I'm a bit fuzzy on one of the finer points of this version (though I don't blame myself since it feels like they release 12 new OS's built from scratch every year. Which includes rebuilding their naming conventions from scratch, as well.). Is 10 the one where they demo'd the command prompt on stage at some trade show, or was that an earlier one? Or one still waiting for us in the future?
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
"Something happened?"
Nope, update just stops advancing even after two hours.
In search of great justice, sailing on a sea of stars.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Silly Windows lets Irfanview hijack the thumbnails for things.
I don't know why the Settings app (from the Store) lets you change to a local account, but there's nothing in the Control Panel.
Just switching between the two, there's some odd overlap and gaps between the two. It seems Microsoft still can't make up its mind about where to put things.
I don't know why the Settings app (from the Store) lets you change to a local account, but there's nothing in the Control Panel.
Just switching between the two, there's some odd overlap and gaps between the two. It seems Microsoft still can't make up its mind about where to put things.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
I got caught up in the hype a little bit (my feeds were going mad about win 10 talk) so I decided to install it on my laptop, 1st gen Surface Pro, which is mostly doing av A/V duties around the house anyway right now. After having trouble with the update process not liking my language (but not actually telling me what settings to change in order to fix this) and having to re-download the thole thing every time, restoring the administrative region settings to "english (US)" worked for me - I bought my Surface 2nd hand and I'm fairly sure it's an US import.
Upgrade process was smooth and painless and wallpaper, screensaver, rocket dock and other essential things were remembered and showed up correctly.
Had to regain control over some default apps but nothing major. Cortana and the related services are currently disabled in my region so I didn't have to turn off much at all there, since most of it was greyed out.
Things I've had some issues with:
To sum up my thoughts:
While Windows 10 is perfectly useable, I like Windows 7 - and to a certain degree Win 8.1 (eh?!) better.
Let's back up a sec, Windows 8.1? Really?
Yup, for a device like the Surface Pro I have to admit that Windows 8 actually made a certain kind of sense, and once you regain control over the desktop experience I could actually consider using it even for a desktop machine, although reluctantly. The only thing Windows 10 has that I'm actually interested in, and won't get otherwise because I don't know why, is the new version of Direct X.
That is the only thing that would eventually force me to upgrade my main desktop one day, and what a sad day that would be. It is however good to know that the upgrade process probably will be relatively painless....
From a user point of view, Windows 10 is not that bad at all, for some probably less jarring than Windows 8, however the important thing for me is that Windows 10 feels like yet another stepping stone into a future I don't like.
Upgrade process was smooth and painless and wallpaper, screensaver, rocket dock and other essential things were remembered and showed up correctly.
Had to regain control over some default apps but nothing major. Cortana and the related services are currently disabled in my region so I didn't have to turn off much at all there, since most of it was greyed out.
Things I've had some issues with:
- * The login screen cannot be changed through normal means it seems. The lock screen can be changed under "personalisation" along with wallpaper and such things, however the login screen used a rather awful Windows 10 background that looked super cheap and reminded me of Win XP/Vista era photoshop wallpapers. It's supposedly called the "hero" wallpaper or something.
Anyway, I eventually found some guide that helped me switch from a wallpaper to a solid color related to my color settings by tinkering in regedit.
The omission of a "change login screen"-button is to me mighty odd.
* Although keeping up with the times, the styling is too minimalistic and readability (especially at a glance) suffers as result. Every icon on the taskbar consist of thin, small lines and they tend to blur together a bit for me. I prefer a more classic solid icon styling that's easier and quicker to understand.
Also the icons look a bit sub par with the trash can looking especially...trashy *snicker*
* I think the scaling might work a little differently. The Surface pro has a 10 inches something 1080p screen and I've always thought that it was hard on the eyes to read text and so on because of the small size and high resolution. Therefore I used the 125% scaling in Win 8.1 but things look decidedly blurrier now I think, making me revert back to normal zoom levels.
* The start menu is still not good enough. I probably should look into classic shell or something.
To sum up my thoughts:
While Windows 10 is perfectly useable, I like Windows 7 - and to a certain degree Win 8.1 (eh?!) better.
Let's back up a sec, Windows 8.1? Really?
Yup, for a device like the Surface Pro I have to admit that Windows 8 actually made a certain kind of sense, and once you regain control over the desktop experience I could actually consider using it even for a desktop machine, although reluctantly. The only thing Windows 10 has that I'm actually interested in, and won't get otherwise because I don't know why, is the new version of Direct X.
That is the only thing that would eventually force me to upgrade my main desktop one day, and what a sad day that would be. It is however good to know that the upgrade process probably will be relatively painless....
From a user point of view, Windows 10 is not that bad at all, for some probably less jarring than Windows 8, however the important thing for me is that Windows 10 feels like yet another stepping stone into a future I don't like.
CHECKPOINT!
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Upgrade went mostly smoothly, bumps I noted:
1. Did not offer in-place upgrade until I reverted to English and used an English install.
I'm usually using a Japanese language setting so that my games work properly.
2. Adobe apps freaked out (photoshop, illustrator, etc), licenses are invalid.
Running the "license recovery" program (google it) with the "0" option fixed this for me.
3. Search does not seem to work properly. None of my app shortcuts appear when I begin typing them in the run box.
For example if I type "steam" the steam icon usually comes up right away in Win7; in Win10 it doesn't even show up.
I tried all manner of things: rebuilding the search index, restarting the search service, etc. to no avail. This is quite annoying,
and it seems that other users have run into this issue as well.
4. Language bar seems to have disappeared? I can select between languages but the extra icons for setting hiragana/katakana/etc are gone.
1. Did not offer in-place upgrade until I reverted to English and used an English install.
I'm usually using a Japanese language setting so that my games work properly.
2. Adobe apps freaked out (photoshop, illustrator, etc), licenses are invalid.
Running the "license recovery" program (google it) with the "0" option fixed this for me.
3. Search does not seem to work properly. None of my app shortcuts appear when I begin typing them in the run box.
For example if I type "steam" the steam icon usually comes up right away in Win7; in Win10 it doesn't even show up.
I tried all manner of things: rebuilding the search index, restarting the search service, etc. to no avail. This is quite annoying,
and it seems that other users have run into this issue as well.
4. Language bar seems to have disappeared? I can select between languages but the extra icons for setting hiragana/katakana/etc are gone.
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
Don't you need to switch the menu to the apps side before you start a search for an app ?
(they're listed here in alphabetical order)
Search seems potent but working differently somehow.
No issues for me so far everything works but there are some strange things like IE that got carried over with the update or the recovery tools menu that's labelled as 'Windows 7'. Wut ?
And frankly there was no use for that 'settings/parameters' overlay when the Control Panel still exists and is much better and more complete.
What can I say... it's still Windows, not much different from 8.1 if you put the new M$-branded app and features aside and the fact that the annoying and invasive Metro tablet overlay shit is gone (and that's GOOD!)
I too have found some bits not in my language, and read there are still hardware compatibility issues with older parts and stuff like nVidia Optimus, etc.
Typically the kind of update that's worth only for the new DirectX and future games that will take advantage of it, but for now it's really only useful for those who want the old desktop+taskbar+startmenu formula back.
(they're listed here in alphabetical order)
Search seems potent but working differently somehow.
No issues for me so far everything works but there are some strange things like IE that got carried over with the update or the recovery tools menu that's labelled as 'Windows 7'. Wut ?
And frankly there was no use for that 'settings/parameters' overlay when the Control Panel still exists and is much better and more complete.
What can I say... it's still Windows, not much different from 8.1 if you put the new M$-branded app and features aside and the fact that the annoying and invasive Metro tablet overlay shit is gone (and that's GOOD!)
I too have found some bits not in my language, and read there are still hardware compatibility issues with older parts and stuff like nVidia Optimus, etc.
Typically the kind of update that's worth only for the new DirectX and future games that will take advantage of it, but for now it's really only useful for those who want the old desktop+taskbar+startmenu formula back.
Strikers1945guy wrote:"Do we....eat chicken balls?!"
Re: Windows "it doesn't go to 11"
That's fixable. Right click on the taskbar and a context menu will pop up, allowing you to configure the search bar to become a small search button or disappear entirely. I made mine go away entirely because I use the keyboard shortcut win+s to search. You can also just press the win key and start typing, that will search too.Ed Oscuro wrote:The taskbar has a search bar near the start button - to me this just wastes taskbar space