Windows 10

[glenwilson]

Many of you will have spotted the Get Windows 10 icon thingy in your taskbar. Basically it says that you can get an upgrade to Windows 10 for free to the equivalent version that is already installed. This offer will be valid for a year and DOESN'T mean that you will have to pay anything after that and you will continue to get updates until Win 10 goes end of life. You won't suddenly have to start paying a subscription or anything in the future. Is Win 10 worth it? If you are on Win 8 or 8.1 then it definitely is worth it. The OS becomes a desktop system on desktop PCs and not that hybrid FrakenOS that 8 was and was toned down a bit by 8.1. If you want to do a clean install then that should be possible though I've not seen any details on how you do that. It may be that you have to do the upgrade then wipe the PC and install Win 10 again. Don't forget to do a full back up of everything before you start in the install. Also remember to deactivate any software before the upgrade too. Also note that it doesn't support floppy drives out of the box. If you still use them you will have to install drivers for it! You don't need a Microsoft account - though a few features will still require one.

It will be available on July 29th.



To upgrade you will need “the latest version either Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows 8.1 with Update 2.

Processor: 1 GHz or faster processor or SoC (system on a chip). 64-bit versions of Windows 10 require a processor that supports CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF capabilities.
RAM: 1 GB for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit or 20 GB for 64-bit
Graphics: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver. Some games and apps might require DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance.
Display: 1024 x 600. The number of applications that can be snapped depends upon the minimum resolution for each application.
Touch: A tablet or a monitor that supports multi-touch. You can learn more here.
Internet access
Microsoft account: Required for some features.
Cortana support: Cortana is only supported in the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. Speech recognition requires a microphone.
Windows Hello: A specialized illuminated infrared camera for facial recognition or iris detection, or a finger print reader which supports the Window Biometric Framework.
Continuum: A tablets or 2-in-1 PC with GPIO indicators. Others can enter and exit Tablet Mode manually.
Music and Video streaming: The Xbox Music and Xbox Video streaming capabilities are only available in certain regions.
Secure Boot: Firmware that supports UEFI v2.3.1 Errata B and has the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority in the UEFI signature database.
Device Guard: Only available in Windows 10 Enterprise. Requires UEFI Secure Boot with 3rd party UEFI CA removed from the UEFI database, TPM 2.0, virtualization support configured on by default in the System Firmware (BIOS), Intel VT-x or AMD RVI virtualization extensions, Intel EPT or AMD RVI Second Level Address Translation, Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi IOMMU, UEFI BIOS configured to prevent unauthorized user from disabling Device Guard hardware security features, and Microsoft signed and compatible kernel mode drivers.
Device encryption. A PC with InstantGo and TPM 2.0.
BitLocker: Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2, TPM 2.0 or a USB flash drive.
BitLocker To Go: Windows 10 Pro or higher, a USB flash drive.
Client Hyper-V: Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise 64-bit, second level address translation (SLAT) capabilities and an additional 2 GB of RAM.
Miracast: A Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.3-compatible display adapter and a Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct.
Wi-Fi Direct Printing: A Wi-Fi adapter that supports Wi-Fi Direct and a device that supports Wi-Fi Direct Printing.
InstantGo: Only with computers designed for Connected Standby.

 

[Deleted member 432]

If something is working fine i think i should not rock the boat. Or dont even get in that boat if i can stay on solid ground. So i maybe consider that Win 10 after i see how it works to other people.

 

[glenwilson]

Perfectly valid. I'm stupid so I will dive in straight away! 10.0.00 versions can always be iffy so may be worth waiting for the 10.0.01 or later.

One thing I do like is that there have been plenty of people officially using beta builds so they have got a large user base testing it which hasn't really happened in the past with Windows. Battlefield games would benefit from a larger and longer beta test period to iron out a lot of the major problems that may occur. You will always get bugs and stuff in any piece of software and making a change to it will inevitably add bugs to it too. BF4 seemed to be particularly bad at the start but isn't too bad now. Not had it crash on me for a while.

 

[General_Misery]

I'll install it and "hope for the best". Some signs are good: it's free (imagine Micro$soft doing that), it comes with the standard PC folks in mind too (and not that tablet oriented version that Win 8 was), it's supposed to speed up things and last but not least it comes with DX12 promising significant speed gains for games.

Or am I just a naive old fool?

 

[lakaelo]

I'll install it and "hope for the best". Some signs are good: it's free (imagine Micro$soft doing that), it comes with the standard PC folks in mind too (and not that tablet oriented version that Win 8 was), it's supposed to speed up things and last but not least it comes with DX12 promising significant speed gains for games.

Or am I just a naive old fool?

yes, hihi <-- not particularize where the yes belongs too :joker:

i will use download win10 also as fast as possible. hate all the new install stuff but how staffan said, also for gaming it will give you some advantage speed gains. so why not.

 

[glenwilson]

Windows 10 drops tomorrow and in theory should be available to install on Wednesday (29th July if you are reading this after today). Chances are the bits have already been downloaded if you said yes to the upgrade as this would save loads of computers trying to download the software all at the same time.

If you have Windows 7 or 8 home you will get the equivalent home version and the same for the other versions too.

The main thing about Windows 10 upgrade is that it will be automatically updated. There are some slight differences as to how this works between versions. If you have Windows Home you will get updates and they will be installed – no choice about this. Other versions will give you the chance to defer the update (for about a few months) but eventually you WILL have to update Windows 10. Corporate versions will be different.

The idea is that Windows will be up to date with latest security patches and other stuff. Being able to defer the updates can be useful if you are doing important work and you want to make sure that nothing is going to get borked by an update.


May be unrelated to Windows 10 but for the last week, when starting the PC I get the password/pin screen appear after about 10 seconds. I enter my pin and then it goes back to the lock screen for a while and then back to the user screen and logs in as usual. Just takes about 30 seconds longer than it used to before I could use the PC. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

 

[lakaelo]

May be unrelated to Windows 10 but for the last week, when starting the PC I get the password/pin screen appear after about 10 seconds. I enter my pin and then it goes back to the lock screen for a while and then back to the user screen and logs in as usual. Just takes about 30 seconds longer than it used to before I could use the PC. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

nope, nothing like that.

 

[General_Misery]

Me neither. Must be all that yeast you have in your house

 

[glenwilson]

Weird. Not had any other problems. Checked the updates list and there were a couple of security related ones - so I will dig a little further.

 

[samoz83]

This on build 10240?

 

[glenwilson]

Will need to check what build it is. I know it is 8.1

For anyone wanting to do a clean Windows 10 install you can download the ISO from here.

Windows 10 ISO

 

[lakaelo]

Will need to check what build it is. I know it is 8.1

For anyone wanting to do a clean Windows 10 install you can download the ISO from here.

Windows 10 ISO

i really think about if i do a clean install at all my pc or not. know its the only right way to clear all this old stuff but also i see all the work i will have with that to reinstall all the stuff again. maybe i should try to install win10 first on my company netbook and how fast and easy it goes i do it on the other pc´s.

just realise how many pc´s we have lol

- my office / gaming pc
- my big business laptop
- my small 10" business laptop
- sandras laptop
- nicos pc

i think i need a week or more to install and update all this stuff lol not to talk about my nerves sitting before the screen and waiting.

 

[glenwilson]

Initial impressions are similar but different. Most things are where you expect them to be and it works OK.

Couple of notes though. After it said it was ready there were a few things that seemed to take ages and some that became non-responsive. Tried running BF4 via Origin and it started Edge (the IE replacement) and it asked for the plug-in to be downloaded. Did that and tried to join a server and just got the loading screen and it seemed to be stuck there.

Restarted the PC and so far everything has worked OK. Started BF4, again through Origin, but this time it started IE and I was able to join a server and play (albeit on my own). Will try a longer game soon.

 

[glenwilson]

Had some problems which is why there are multi copies but this one is the full one -just ignore the others and I will try and delete the other two posts.

Rather than download Win 10 to each PC you can create a USB stick.

01 Get a 4GB or bigger USB drive
02 Go to Windows 10
03 Click on the downloader tool for the version you want 32 or 64 bit
04 Choose “Create installation media for another PC
05 Choose the language and other options you need
06 Choose between USB flash drive or ISO file (for a DVD)
07 Select the flash drive
08 Download will start
09 The download actually took quite a while but that could be due to the servers being busy.
10 Windows 10 gets written to the USB drive and you are done!

 

[glenwilson]

The download for the USB drive is STILL going - 74% since 10:00ish this morning! Glad I got in early for the upgrade.

 

[General_Misery]

Not received the "ready" info yet for install and the USB install option didn't work.

I'm not surprised.

Update: you may, as I did, get into problems with entering the Win key and there's supposed to be a tedious workaround:

How to do a clean install of Windows 10 - gHacks Tech News

 

[glenwilson]

I didn't get the ready either. I just clicked through from the Window in the notification area. The USB download and creation took about 6 hours to complete.

There are quite a few web sites that don't like Edge but you ca use IE or something else. Overall it has a nice feel to it and I've not had any issues running any app that I had got installed.

I would like to do a clean install in the near future and it should be a lot less painful than previously because most apps are downloads (Office and Photoshop/Lightroom) plus I have been very good in not installing a load of rubbish like I used to do.

 

[RIZLOID]

Download and install start to end 40 mins. Not had time to really prod around yet but so far no problems at all. Was using win 7 ultimate and has installed win 10 pro. Do I like it ? Only time will tell.

 

[glenwilson]

I'm running a few SSDs for OS and BF and for video/photo stuff and Windows 8.1 would take about 1.7 minutes from pressing the on button to being able to actually doing something. Windows 10? 49 seconds! Everything else is the same.

 

[glenwilson]

Just found this out - if you do an upgrade install first then the PC will be automatically activated. At this point, if you then do a clean install you can just skip the "enter software key" and carry on with the install. The PC, once Windows 10 has been installed, it will activate automatically (allegedly) - this may take a few days to do so don't worry.

As usual make sure you do a backup before starting.

Windows 10 does have a roll back feature which will give you 30 days to see if you like it. If you don't you can roll back to the previous version.