Windows 10 free?

[Chris Barcellos]

First nice thing about Windows 10 update is it is indeed free, at least until next year.

Second thing is that when you install over 7 or 8, you can roll back easily to your prior OS. I actually have done that several times on one machine, trying different things to solve a problem. Just remember, you only have 30 days to roll back, or the install will become permanent, and roll back impossilbe. I couldn't get Vegas 12 to render properly on my main edit machine. I am pretty sure it is probably a driver problem with my Dell XPS box, because in Window's 10 installs on my laptop, and another one that I have now turned into my main Edit system, I have had no problem with either of those. I do know I had USB issues continually on the Dell Box too, so this direction was fine for me. I also installed 10 over my little NoBrand tablet with good results.

I too believe 10 is snappier with most applications.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Battle Vaughan

MS is not in the business of giving the store away.

I was also surprised about them giving away a new windows version for existing windows users, they are either desperate or they have a hidden agenda, time will tell. I tried it out yesterday on my edit machine, I made a image first from the entire disc with "reflect", which btw is an excellent free imaging software, so I could go back if things went wrong. I didn't do a fresh install, only updated windows and selected the option not to delete the programs.

I have a 2 screen set up and at first only one screen was working and it had a low resolution because the graphics driver was not updated yet, but without me doing anything windows installed the right driver and activated the second screen, pretty cool :) Edius worked fine and quick sync acceleration was also there.

Everything else seemed to be working as well, the windows interface was at least a big upgrade from windows 8, it looks a lot more intuitive.

But for whatever reason after a few hours when I started up edius I had to give in the default location for my edius projects, something that only happens when you first install edius and then I saw all my presets where gone, quicksync also didn't work anymore, as if I just done a brandnew installation. Weirdest thing was that just an hour before I had been editing in edius and all looked like it was on windows 7.

The only thing I changed was for windows defender not to scan the edius folders.

I changed everything back to win 7 pro as I still have a few editing projects to finish but as soon as those are done I"m going back to 10 to see if I can figure out what went wrong. As long as I have a image from windows 7 I still can go back just incase.

[Bryan Worsley]

I'm still running Win7 64-bit and see no compelling need to upgrade to Win 10 at this point.

What perplexes me though is that for previous Windows system upgrades Microsoft made available a tool (Upgrade Assistant) that would scan your PC for hardware/driver and software compatibility and provide a report e.g.

Upgrade Assistant: FAQ - Windows Help

One wonders why such a tool has not been provided for the Win 10 upgrade ? Is it simply because Microsoft, pressing to get Win10 on PC's (in part to boost their OS distribution statistics), think that once people have gone through the hassle of upgrading, they are less likely to roll-back within the 30 day period, and even more likely go on to performing a clean install, sealing their fate? Or put the other way round - if such a tool was made available and the report revealed incompatibilities that required or recommended changing/upgrading software or hardware, they would (obviously) be less inclined to upgrade?

This "suck it and see" upgrade strategy doesn't sit well with me at all.

[Noa Put]

This "suck it and see" upgrade strategy doesn't sit well with me at all.

It still remains to be seen if Microsoft has a hidden agenda but I mean, what's not to like about a fully functional OS that is given for free? I don't mind in such a case to find out for myself what hard/software is not compatible.

[Bryan Worsley]

Well, yes I agree, there is that perspective.

I think if I were to try-out Win10 I think I might be more inclined to create a full disc image back-up (I use Acronis True Image 2016) beforehand and use that to restore Win7 (using ATI's boot time recovery tool) in the event that Win10 didn't suit me or there were compatibility problems that could not be easily resolved.

I see you did that Noa (with your back-up/recovery software), but I'm just wondering, if one restores after the 30 day 'roll-back' window has lapsed, would there be problems with license verification of the restored Win7 system or would it be just like nothing had changed?

[Bryan Worsley]

Ah, so there is a Windows10 compatibility report 'tool' after all. It's a component of the widget that Microsoft released as an optional windows update (KB3035583) for upgrading to Win10.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583

I don't usually install optional updates unless it's one to fix a specific problem and so missed that. You know I might give it a whirl after all. Probably better to find out now if there any compatibility issues and address them now than down the road.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

Plus, if you care about privacy, prepare to have none.

I just found this here: O&O ShutUp10: download free antispy tool for Windows 10 which seems to be able to block most, if not all, attempts for windows to phone home, might be worth a try since it is free.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Bryan Worsley

I see you did that Noa (with your back-up/recovery software), but I'm just wondering, if one restores after the 30 day 'roll-back' window has lapsed, would there be problems with license verification of the restored Win7 system or would it be just like nothing had changed?

I have no idea how this works and if they would terminate the license of your win 7 version, only one way to find out I guess :) I have acronis to back up my pc but it doesn't work on my pc, I am able to restore an image from inside windows but if I want to boot from a rescue media like a dvd or usb incase your pc doesn't start then this doesn't work, Acronis does start but ends up in a black screen with nothing happening, also when I restore an image from inside windows then during this process the screen also turns black giving you no clue what is going on until after a while your pc restarts and you have your recovered image. I have read more users having the same issue so basically my acronis version is useless.

I now use the free reflect which does work, I rather use this then the roll back thing from win 10, I guess that as long as you don't use the update function you should be able to go back to win 7 using imaging software.

[Andrew Smith]

Noah is right to be suspicious of the Windows 10 "free" upgrade.

Firstly, you lose the ability to take your Win 10 licence with you from one computer to another. With Windows 7 you can still do this with as part of the licensing.

Windows 10 also introduces intra-OS advertising. An example of this (that I haven't bothered to look at yet) is advertising in Solitaire. There is also advertising coming in to other parts of the operating system: see here and here.

And this is what we know of whilst they pull a sneaky or two in trying to force us all to migrate to the new platform.

Why? I suspect that Microsoft want to go the way that Adobe did with their Creative Cloud software subscription/rental model. There's almost nil 'pain' or desire reasons to upgrade so the income from that part of their business just isn't doing it for them. The income has to be generated from elsewhere and this is what you are now beginning to see.

Of course, once you're permanently on Windows 10 you are quite stuck, short of installing another operating system and starting over again. I plan to use Win 7 as long as possible, if not forever.

Andrew

[Ron Evans]

I think Microsoft are just moving into the same space as Mac OS and Android. If you are bothered about privacy do not connect to the internet !!! Microsoft is likely the least of your worries !! I have Acronis 2016 with a 5 seat license and it happily backs up Win 10, Win 8.1 and 3 PC's of Win 7 . I think Win 10 backup needs Acronis 2016 rather than prior versions. I did update my Win 8.1 laptop so now have 2 Win 10's and 3 Win 7. The Win 10 PC's run fine and I have them both set up so they look just like Win 7 when they boot up. I will stay with Win 7 on my editing and email PC's because they have hardware and software that are not compatible with Win 10 and never will be. But next year I will make a new PC for EDIUS 8 WG and will start with Win 10 then and turn off things like driver updates etc as needed.

Ron Evans

EDIT found this http://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 which may be what you area looking for.

[Bryan Worsley]

Well I took the plunge last night.

Created a full disc image back-up of the Win7 system before installing the Win10 update widget (KB3035583). Rebooted and opened the widget, which reported that my PC is compatible for upgrade. I requested a full compatibility report only to be told that was not possible at this time( ?) but that on proceeding to upgrade a full compatibility scan would be performed before installation.

Went ahead with the upgrade now option. The installation was quite painless - no problems there. Was quite relieved to find that all of my existing programs worked, even some non-proprietary/open-source software - I still use VirtualDub (in conjunction with AVISynth) for some video processing. The only program that was deleted was Microsoft Security Essentials, which phased me a bit until I learned that Microsoft Defender has replaced MSE.

So, so far so good. The only issue I'm having is with an NAS drive (WD My Book Live) that I store most of my archived video files on. I can access it by FTP (Filezilla) but not with File Explorer or with any of the installed program file browsers, even though the My Book Live icon for the file server shows up on the File Explorer > Network list of connected devices. So, today I'm looking for a fix for that - appears to be a long standing issue.

Another thing worth mentioning, which I only picked up when testing True Image to ensure that back-up and recovery were working properly, was that on installation had snaffled a portion of the C drive space to create an additional un-allotted partition of 450Mb or so. I was tempted to expand the C drive partition to re-claim the space until I learned that this un-allotted space is created for system recovery and should not be tampered with.

I was going to go on to test recovery of the backed up Win7 system image, but this extra un-allotted partition that Win10 has created makes me a bit hesitant until I've done some research on the possible implications.

[Bryan Worsley]

Well I took the plunge last night.

Created a full disc image back-up of the Win7 system before installing the Win10 update widget (KB3035583). Rebooted and opened the widget, which reported that my PC is compatible for upgrade. I requested a full compatibility report only to be told that was not possible at this time( ?) but that on proceeding to upgrade a full compatibility scan would be performed before installation.

Went ahead with the upgrade now, which was quite painless. No problems there. Was quite relieved to find that all of my existing programs worked, even some non-proprietary/open-source software - I still use VirtualDub (in conjunction with AVISynth) for some video processing. The only program that was deleted was Microsoft Security Essentials, which phased me a bit until I learned that Microsoft Defender has replaced MSE.

So, so far so good. The only issue I'm having is with an NAS drive (WD My Book Live) that I store most of my archived video files on. I can access it by FTP (Filezilla) but not with File Explorer or with any of the installed program file browsers, even though the My Book Live icon for the file server shows up on the File Explorer > Network list of connected devices. So, today I'm looking for a fix for that - appears to be a long standing issue.

Another thing worth mentioning, which I only picked up when testing True Image to ensure that back-up and recovery were working properly, was that on installation had snaffled a portion of the C drive space to create an additional un-allotted partition of 450Mb or so. I was tempted to expand the C drive partition to re-claim the space until I learned that this un-allotted space is created for system recovery and should not be tampered with.

I was going to go on to test recovery of the backed up Win7 system image, but this extra un-allotted partition that Win10 has created makes me a bit hesitant until I've done some research on the possible implications.

Edit: Re:

Originally Posted by Noa Put

...Acronis does start but ends up in a black screen with nothing happening, also when I restore an image from inside windows then during this process the screen also turns black giving you no clue what is going on until after a while your pc restarts and you have your recovered image. I have read more users having the same issue so basically my acronis version is useless.

Actually, now you've mentioned it, I did experience something similar when testing backup and recovery of the installed Win10 system with ATI 2016. This was using the boot-time Startup Recovery Manager, which I always use for restoring backups, as it's faster. Keyed F11 at boot to open the splash screen that gives the choice to proceed to ATI or boot to Windows. On selecting ATI, the screen went black with some error codes and hung (i.e. crashed). Had to hard-power off. On the second try, it proceeded to the ATI Recovery Manager OK, but took a little longer than normal, so looks like the first time around something didn't catch. The other thing I noticed when browsing for the Win10 back-up in Recovery Manager was that the assigned drive letters were no longer respected, as they were when I was running Win7. Not a bit deal such, but means that one has to be extra careful when selecting the target drive.

P.S. Sorry about the double-post .......must have been Windows10 ;>)

[Bryan Worsley]

Well, things were going well with Win10, but having tried various things to resolve the MyBookLive access issue without success I needed to restore the last good backup, and that's when things started going wild.

Firstly, after recovering the backup, Acronis True Image kept trying to make further multiple backups depleting the entire space of the partition on a secondary drive that I reserve for backups. Then the PC wouldn't power down because ATI2016 was doing its thing, so I have to do a hard-power off. Only to find on rebooting that the un-allotted partition created by Win10 has disappeared and another partition on the secondary drive was no longer recognized as a volume and Disk Management wouldn't let me do anything with it. Fortunately, I only had a few duplicate video files stored on it. So probably ATI was at the root off it, and possibly this unallocated partition complicated matters.

But, that's enough for me. I've rolled back to Win7 for now to preserve my sanity. Fortunately that appears to have gone OK.

[Ron Evans]

Mine are all still working fine. However I may have done some things differently to the rest of you so will detail what I did. First created an image of the disc with the WD version of Acronis as if I was replacing the drive with new WD drive to a spare drive . My backups with Acronis on my NAS are just in a directory not a partition. I then removed ACRONIS as well as AVAST ( including using the AVAST removal tool ) so that there was no anti virus or backup somewhere running on the PC. Then used CCleaner to clean and then let Microsoft do the update. After that reinstalled AVAST and ACRONIS 2016. Created another directory on the NAS for ACRONIS with label ACRONIS WIN10 to backup to. So a full backup of course since it was the first but avoids getting ACRONIS confused as to the many changes.

Ron Evans

[Bryan Worsley]

Thanks for that Ron. I wouldn't want my last experience to mar others, and I'm not rubbishing Win10 or ATI.

I'd used ATI for years with Win7, and before that XP Pro, without any problems and it saved my bacon on a number of occasions. I was still using ATI 2013 on Win7 up to a month back until I started experiencing some issues with ATI failing to launch after booting into Win and hangs on power-down, which I'm certain were related to MSSE and windows update. Upgrading to ATI 2016 and re-installing MSSE resolved that. When I'm in a better frame of mind, I'll try and figure what went wrong, or what I did wrong on the last Win10 restore, taking on board your experience Ron. Before retreating back to Win7, I was tempted to try re-installing ATI 2016 and, for a brief moment, to re-set Win10, but by then I'd had enough.

As for Win10. Well, the ATI and MyBookLive issues aside, I actually liked it. Didn't really put it to task for video processing, but general file browsing, launching programs and web browsing was definitely snappier.