Poll: Do You Plan to Upgrade to Windows 10?

[Bestwifeever]

I picked other - because I bought a new computer a few weeks ago, and it has Windows 10. Seems OK so far. We were still on Vista!

You were smart! If I hadn't had a newish PC running Windows 8, which I hated, I would have just waited to get a new computer with Windows 10, and I know I would have been perfectly happy--no one seems to have complaints about W10 when it is the original OS on a new computer, only the upgrade.

 

[NW-Bound]

With Win 10 update offer expiring soon, today I sacrificed the least used desktop in the home to the Windows 10 god at the Microsoft altar (but only after making my own full backup as I never trust MS uninstall process).

Soon after the installation process, it asked if I wanted to check for updates. The machine has been sitting there for 1 hour, stuck at 0% complete!

Does not look like a good beginning...

 

[NW-Bound]

So....

After 1-1/2 hour of seeing the screen displaying "Getting update... This may take a few minutes... 0% complete", I thought that perhaps there was a lot of download that the WiFi link was the bottleneck.

So, I canceled the operation with the intention of running a long CAT-5 cable to link this desktop to the router to speed up the operation.

Now, one hour and counting, and the screen still says "Set Up is cleaning up before it closes.... This may take a few minutes".

Should they say a few days? Or weeks? Or years?

I have been punished by MS god for blasphemy.

 

[NW-Bound]

It occurred to me that I could have plugged in the CAT-5 cable for the LAN, which is faster than the WiFi, with the computer still running. So, did that then disabled the WiFi to see that the wired link is taking over.

Well, no visible change so far to the screen "Set Up is cleaning up before it closes... This will take a few minutes". Well, that cleaning up operation does not use the Internet anyway. I can just ignore that screen, and use the computer as usual. That task is now permanently attached to this sacrificial lamb.

Man, no wonder MS is losing out to its competition. Its top programmers have all gone off to Google and the like.

 

[rbmrtn]

With Win 10 update offer expiring soon, today I sacrificed the least used desktop in the home to the Windows 10 god at the Microsoft altar (but only after making my own full backup as I never trust MS uninstall process).

I use a spare HD, hook it up to the PC I want to upgrade, do a quick install of 7, then upgrade to 10. Once the PC ( mostly the motherboard) has been digitally activated you can do a clean install at a later time. You can keep on using the original setup and upgrade to 10 when you want.

When installing 7 I have seen the initial updates take hours, seemingly stuck at 0%, then all of a sudden go to 100% and start installing. Let it go overnight and see what happens, it is a common issue.

 

[NW-Bound]

Thanks for the tip. I may try that.

On the other hand, I wonder if it is worthwhile to jump through hoops to get Win 10. Nowadays, computer maintenance is not much of a hobby to me. I've got other toys like scopes, microwave signal generators, and spectrum analyzers that beckon me. I don't have that much time to spend on PCs.

 

[bUU]

Man, no wonder MS is losing out to its competition. Its top programmers have all gone off to Google and the like.

Its top programmers have all gone off to develop software that is far more gratifying - software that doesn't involve the ruthless profitability optimization and abusive customer brinkmanship of consumer operating systems. Who wants to deal with that nonsense when they can be researching machine intelligence? So consumer software trends toward the disaffected or disinterested developers, or those on a certain glidepath.

This kind of thing is inevitable with all commoditized products, but especially consumer software. I'm padding my ER at this point, holding my nose and doing the work because it pays, but I've given up all hopes of ever deriving fulfillment from my work to satisfy customer needs, because even in my B2B side of the industry customers apparently view being reasonably satisfied as weakness and therefore something to be avoided at all costs, and there is no room in the budget to consider actually resourcing work so as to be able to do good work.

 

[jonesalice34]

I will be fine with Windows 7

 

[NW-Bound]

I heed the advice to be a bit more patient, so let the computer running with the display "Set Up is cleaning up... This takes a few minutes" overnight. Woke up to see the computer cleaned itself and has rebooted.

I recalled a thread recently where people got furious about Win 10 installing itself against their desire to keep Win 7.

Well, as I have gone this far with stringing the LAN cable and having made a full backup, I decided to continue the experiment and restarted the update. I will be more patient this time and allow more time.

By the way, I am installing off a DVD which I made from an ISO file downloaded off MS site. The idea is that if I like Win 10, I will use that DVD on 4 more desktops/laptops. This remains to be seen.

 

[Marita40]

I decided to upgrade today after finally realizing it won't be free much longer. We also just got 10 at work and there was little learning curve. It is taking hours; it sat at 13% done for at least 45 minutes but is now at 29% after 2 hours.

 

[harley]

I decided to upgrade today after finally realizing it won't be free much longer.

I hope that happens. I'm not sure I believe it. I have noticed the nag box is popping up on my Win7 machine more and more often these days. I decided not to hide the update this time just to watch how it behaves.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, the "Checking for Updates" ran through a lot faster with the LAN cable than over WiFi, and it is now really installing. I have hardwired LAN for all the desktops, except this one that is at a corner without a jack.

I thought running the installation off a DVD would not require much Internet download, yet it was so painful. Wonder how much patience one would need to do everything over a WiFi.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I use a spare HD, hook it up to the PC I want to upgrade, do a quick install of 7, then upgrade to 10. Once the PC ( mostly the motherboard) has been digitally activated you can do a clean install at a later time. You can keep on using the original setup and upgrade to 10 when you want.....

This is essentially what I did - do the 'upgrade' in order to register my motherboard on Microsofts server, then continue to use win 7 until the updates stop early 2020. Switch to Win10 after that. I 'upgraded' to a clean updated, cloned hard drive - no problems even with XP/Vista era machines.

I hope that happens. I'm not sure I believe it. I have noticed the nag box is popping up on my Win7 machine more and more often these days. I decided not to hide the update this time just to watch how it behaves.

This article explains it -

What happens to those free Windows 10 upgrades after July 29, 2016? | ZDNet

 

[NW-Bound]

Saving your place on Windows 10 just in case is a good move.

It just requires some work, as I have several PCs. And some of the PCs, I intend to keep old OS as I have much legacy scientific software that may not run under new OS's. For example, I have a PCB layout program that hangs on Win 7, but not XP, requiring me to have a virtual XP installed on it. And there are compilers, math software, etc...

Darn, why can't I let go of w*rk software? I guess I have so much time, experience, and emotion invested over the years that I am still hanging on to. I even miss work sometimes. Sad, isn't it?

 

[NW-Bound]

OK. It's done. A heck of a lot faster with a hard-wired LAN than with WiFi, even if you install from a DVD. Son of a gun!

I will need to play with it to see what Windows 10 is all about. Logging off now.

 

[ERD50]

OK, the "Checking for Updates" ran through a lot faster with the LAN cable than over WiFi, and it is now really installing. I have hardwired LAN for all the desktops, except this one that is at a corner without a jack. ...

Are you getting a weak wifi signal to that computer? Even the older versions of wifi are generally faster than most peoples internet connection, so they should not be a bottleneck. Unless you have super-fast internet, and very old wifi?

Something does not seem right.

I thought running the installation off a DVD would not require much Internet download, yet it was so painful. Wonder how much patience one would need to do everything over a WiFi.

My experience with other OSs (OSes?), Mac and Linux, is that the DVD is generally out of date enough that there are many, many updates to download. The DVD install may not save so much time.

This really aggravated me when I went to do a major upgrade to my Mom's mini-Mac. She had a fairly slow connection, and I wouldn't have time to do the download and install while I was there. I found Apple had some sort of 'combined updates' (I forget their term for them) that you could download, so I did that at home, and saved the 'combined update' to an external hard drive, and took that over to her house. Should have been a quick install.

Well, boot up and it's giving me security warnings, says it really needs to make xyz update... OK. But then of course, that update requires another update and a reboot, and that update requires another update and another reboot, and on and on... very frustrating.

I complained on the forums that Apple should keep these 'combined update' files more up to date (it was ~ 6 months old, with several large xxx MB updates released afterwards ), or they don't help much. You'd have thought I said bad things about Steve Job's mother! All the rationalization of why this is a perfect system, I should get fast internet, update every time one is available (trust me - you don't want to throw every update at a 'frail' computer user!), etc, etc

It's often a mess.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Are you getting a weak wifi signal to that computer? Even the older versions of wifi are generally faster than most peoples internet connection, so they should not be a bottleneck. Unless you have super-fast internet, and very old wifi?

Something does not seem right...

I found the answer!

So, I disconnected the wired LAN cable because it was not needed anymore, and rebooted the computer. It came up, looked on the WiFi but could not get on. OK, so I opened up the "Network Connection" to see if I needed to retype the password. Nope, it did not work. Brought up Task Manager. The process hung, and had to be killed.

OK, so that explains it. The installation was not slow, but hung up with the WiFi. Fortunately for me, it worked with the LAN.

Is the WiFi card old? Well, it's a NetGear board with a triple diversity antenna, so it's not really really old. And the desktop sits in the line of sight of the WiFi router.

Anyway, MS did not check for compatibility of the hardware before forging ahead with the installation. Apple knows exactly what their hardware is like, but MS has to deal with a myriad of hardware configuration. Still, the number of peripheral add-on cards is finite, and can be tested. They just did not want to spend the money, and let the users figure it out.

 

[W2R]

OK, so that explains it. The installation was not slow, but hung up with the WiFi. Fortunately for me, it worked with the LAN.

Is the WiFi card old? Well, it's a NetGear board with a triple diversity antenna, so it's not really really old. And the desktop sits in the line of sight of the WiFi router.

That does sound like a Wifi problem, nevertheless, especially since your internet connection seems to be working. Either that, or gremlins.

 

[NW-Bound]

No, it's no gremlins. The WiFi adapter worked great under Win 7, moving gigabytes between the PCs. Win 10 does not work with that WiFi card, not during installation nor after installation.

The Ethernet LAN connection on the other hand works without a hitch, before, during, and after installation.

The whole effect is repeatable. It's a compatibility problem that MS does not, or fails to identify before starting the process.

 

[rbmrtn]

No, it's no gremlins. Win 10 does not work with that WiFi card, not during installation nor after installation.

The Ethernet LAN connection on the other hand works without a hitch.

If it was working with 7, try reinstalling the wifi drivers using compatibility mode. I've installed windows 10 on an old 2003 vintage XP machine but pretty much had to manually install most drivers using compatibility mode.

 

[NW-Bound]

I guess that's what I will have to do, if I want to keep this machine on Win 10. Else, will have to buy a new WiFi card, which I really do not want to do.

Too much hardware already that I collect because I do not want to throw anything away that still works.

 

[W2R]

If it was working with 7, try reinstalling the wifi drivers using compatibility mode. I've installed windows 10 on an old 2003 vintage XP machine but pretty much had to manually install most drivers using compatibility mode.

+1

When upgrading from any one operating system to the next, you pretty much have to upgrade the drivers too as part of the upgrading process. Sometimes you have to go directly to the website of the company making the item to get the upgraded drivers for it.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have done my share of looking for device drivers since the early days of Windows. The reason is that I own a lot of oddball peripherals and also build my own PCs.

Windows update normally detects and substitutes in the new drivers if necessary for the video chip, and various peripheral chips like USB interface, touch pad (for laptops), Ethernet, etc...

It just does not do it reliably and some peripherals fell through the cracks. And if the unsupported peripheral is depended upon for the installation, how does the process continue? The result is a hung PC. They should have detected that they could not support that WiFi, announce the incompatibility to the user and abort.

I believe I have seen this before. A Windows installation is made from an external USB DVD drive. The setup program is loaded fine from the drive (because it is the old software that loads it), but when it starts up and overwrites the existing USB driver, the computer hangs because the new software suddenly cannot read the DVD anymore.

No, you need to know if the peripherals that you are going to use in the installation remain compatible before you start the process. No point in starting up something that you should know in advance that you cannot finish and leave the machine inoperative.

Something not essential like a printer, a scanner, a camera, a microphone, the user can update the drivers later. Not the screen display, the mouse, the Internet link in use, the hard drive, the touchpad, the USB interface if it is used, the DVD drive whether internal or external.

About the screen display, in the past I have had the new OS not being able to drive the graphics chip in high resolution mode and downshifting it to 640x480 original VGA resolution. This was the default basic mode, and was acceptable for the user to limp along to look for the new video driver.

 

[harley]

This is essentially what I did - do the 'upgrade' in order to register my motherboard on Microsofts server, then continue to use win 7 until the updates stop early 2020. Switch to Win10 after that. I 'upgraded' to a clean updated, cloned hard drive - no problems even with XP/Vista era machines.



This article explains it -

What happens to those free Windows 10 upgrades after July 29, 2016? | ZDNet

Thanks. I'm included in this paragraph:

Asking existing Windows 7 users to pay $99 or more after they've spent a year avoiding the free upgrade seems like a surefire way to guarantee that they never upgrade. That significantly increases the risk of an XP-style mess come 2020.

No mess for me, though. I fully accept responsibility for whatever happens after EOL onWin7. The laptop probably won't make it that long anyway.

 

[NW-Bound]

Here's an update on my Win 10 upgrade and the fiasco with the WiFi adapter card.

I turned the computer off yesterday, deciding that I had enough of it for one day. Turned it on today. Still did not work, but the process was not hung. Went into "Network Connections" and saw that all the WiFi networks, mine and the neighbors, were identified. Tried to log into my router. Nope, did not work. The task did not crash though.

Went to "Device Manager" (good thing they keep the name), and deleted the WiFi driver from "Network Adapter" category. Scan for new hardware. It did not see that adapter card. Clicking around for a bit, and happened to see it now reappear in "Network Adapter" list. Clicked "Update Driver". The doggone thing now worked.

So, it was really a Gremlin. Something never changes from earlier versions of Windoze. When something does not work, delete its driver, and let it reinstall. Twice or three times may be the charm. Sigh...