SimRacing.org.uk

So, should we or shouldn't we? Probably too early to tell its impact on our racing, but sure like most of you, am getting the offers for a free upgrade to it. I am still on windows 7 as I couldn't stand win8 in its gaudiness and front end. The tempting aspect for me is that my PC has got to that bloated windows stage after several years where a fresh reinstall would probably speed it all up again. But the flip side is I have so many heavily modded sims on my PC that it would be a major ball ache reinstalling it all.

+1

Microsoft and free does not compute

Am running win7 too. In fact I bought my current PC only recently, making sure it didn't run on win8. As it also doubles up as the family computer, I would be reluctant, at this point in time anyway, to upset any apple carts with any MS recommended upgrades, free or otherwise. Having said that, I suspect we will need to do something further down the line if the usual support etc is, as it usually is, withdrawn.

So am happy to keep things as they are ftb.

I had spent months trying to find an ultrabook type laptop running windows 7 without a touch screen. Every laptop now has touchscreen which i cant see the point of, but they are cheap and it would mean i would have to install win7. In the end i would have to look at older, less efficient laptops or spend near 1000quid for the early ultrabooks. However having to set up my parents laptop, once you set it to default to the desktop and internet explorer to desktop version then it becomes quite manageable.

In the end i mananged to find a new Asus laptop that was offered without touch and i could upgrade the SSD.

The most annoying things i find are that any settings seem to be distributed around compared to Win7, so you need to search for the options you know are there somewhere. especially the network settings, which i need to access when switching between wirlesss and usb ethernet.  The annoying and stupidly named charms bar is activated by moving you cursor to the bottom right corner, which is what I normally have to do to click on the down scroll arrow!
 
I'm not sure i want to use win 8 on my main PC, but everything i've heard about win10 sounds positive and knowing ints coming out this year also help me decide to go with my win8 laptop. I intend to swithc when i can. Then i'll decide to see if its worth upgrading my gaming PC.

I will be upgrading as soon as possible. i am currently using windows 8.1 at home and work and would not go back to 7 despite the UI I not being as easy to work with. Tbh if you ignore the store apps and just use desktop apps the main difference on windows 8 is that the start menu is a start screen but you use it exactly the same way so it's not really an issue despite what some people say.

A family member has Windows 8, and they ask me for help whenever anything is awry. I have reluctantly adjusted to the interface, but it seems like Microsoft is trying to hide features that used to be in a simple menu. Sometimes you have to use the search to find what you are looking for. Of course, there are other things that irritate me about it. Such as Win 8 did not allow me to create a system restore disk on a DVD-RW (However, I am starting to question my memory now of what happened).     

I had been playing with the 10 insider preview and came to the conclusion that it was just 8.1 rejigged to make the start screen look more like the old W7 start menu on desktop machines. Everything worked fine... right up until the final build - the one which is supposed to be the RTM release - when it suddenly broke Money 2001 (yes, 2001!). :thumbdown:

I wouldn't upgrade any W7/8 'Home' edition machine though until the relent on the no opt-out for automatic patches. I've had W7 updates break machines and there's no way I'm going to let them just push whatever carpy changes they like without an escape hatch!

I'm using Money 2005 and ever since XP I've had to do hacked installations and registry editing to get it to work properly, but then that's what happens when you use old software that wasn't written to be installed on anything but XP. I wish MS had never stopped making Money as I would have bought new versions!

There are a number of programs that give you the old start menu. I had to use them as they are hidden all over the place wheres W7 had everything in one place.

Can I go back to my previous version of Windows if I don’t like Windows 10?
Yes, while we think you will love all the features of Windows 10, you will have one month after upgrading to revert back to the previous version of Windows on your device.

Can I reinstall Windows 10 on my computer after upgrading?
Yes. Once you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 using the free upgrade offer, you will be able to reinstall, including a clean install, on the same device. You won’t need a product key for re-activations on the same hardware. If you make a meaningful change to your hardware, you may need to contact customer support to help with activation. You’ll also be able to create your own installation media like a USB drive or DVD, and use that to upgrade your device or reinstall after you’ve upgraded.

My Windows 7 Pro always asks if I want to download the latest weekly patches etc. Does this feature not apply to the Home versions?

Today's W10 bug - !Too many Start menu apps BREAK it"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/29/windows_10_bug_alert_start_menu_breaks_512_entries/

LOL, still going to upgrade my work machine JUST to piss off IT cause they have no control over me!  :-*

The Windows Update stuff does have Advanced Options where you can choose to "Notify to download" rather than automatically download, just like Windows 7/8.

Is this a recent addition due to the nvidia driver update fiasco from a couple of days ago?

Nvidia driver update fiasco?

I haven't tried Windows 10 in ages so this is my first place with it for a while. I simply upgraded my work machine and the windows update options look the same as always just in a new UI/style.

If you ignored the Windows Store apps in Windows 8 it was essentially the same as Windows 7 + start screen rather than start menu and charms bar instead of right click + improved explorer. The Windows 10 UI is even more confused than the Windows 8 one imho. It's the styling of it, it's half desktop half modern UI, which is even more apparently cyborg than W8 because you can now put Windows Store apps inside windows. It will however be a lot more familiar to Windows 7 users simply because it has a start menu and everything runs in a window but it looks just weird with the concoction of desktop meets touch. I'm sure I'll get used to it. The new EDGE browser is very quick it has to be said and overall the operation is quite slick.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/28/windows_10_update_nvidia_driver_conflict/

I will be going across but in a few months i think.

I actually have got used to W8 on my laptop as you can go desktop only basically, i havent used the tiles interface at all. Sounds like you cant go desktop only? whats the start screen? worrying.

You can use Start Menu or Start Screen (if you liked the one in Windows 8). The start menu is a menu with a resizable start screen integrated on the right.

You can go desktop, but some of the windows applications are now metro style, e.g. calculator. It just means some applications look weird compared to others.

Can you reject a single option, and is it the Pro or Home version? The Pro one is supposed to be okay, it's the Home edition with no per-update opt-out.

For eons now ive only ever done the critical updates, and i've only just realised recently, wondering why i never got the W10 notification, that it recommends to install all updates!

Enterprise edition.

I don't know as my settings are locked by our domain policies so I can't actually change the drop-list from "Never check for updates"!

There is a "defer upgrades (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-hk/windows-10/defer-upgrades-in-windows-10)" option for Enterprise too, not sure whether that's on Pro as it's "certain" editions...

Used the downloader tool to grab ISOs for later offline use - at one point it ran out of disk space, and I was greeted with the less than entirely helpful 'error' screen:


Thanks, Windows...

It's so advanced they're using telepathy, that's how you really knew to check the disk space ;)

The new Microsoft EDGE browser is fast, but it's not finished imho, seems to have a lot of bugs and missing features. Its like they released it before it was finished. ;)

Also on EDGE menus why do they insist on using triple line spacing everywhere, so something you could fit on a 3rd of the screen in the past takes up the entire screen now!

Windows 10 itself I've now got looking like a Windows 7/8 hybrid and generally seems fine. Dunno what the driver support is like or whether the Windows 8 drivers will work perfectly well on Windows 10 which is why I'm not jumping in straight away with my home machine. Quite happy to muck up my work machine, but not my home machine. LOL.

Careful if you've got a transfer cap on your Internet connection

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/windows_10_torrent_updates/

It's bad enough to assume everyone has high speed Internet but to, by default, steal your Internet to feed other computers must border on theft!

Ok, BUT, the advanced option has the option to only stream from PCs on your local network and not internet, so if you don't like it then you can change it.

It's set to "PCs on my local network" on my machine and I don't remember changing it so I guess that was the default option, so possibly some scaremongering reporting, but I honestly can't remember whether I changed that or not.

Ah just read why mine is set to that by default, is because it's Enterprise Edition...

It's ok if you know about but for most it will just steal their bandwidth and they'll suffer from an extra bill at the end of the month or limited bandwidth until their next billing period and they'll have no idea why they've used all their allowance.

True, very strange default I agree.

So I thought I'd install Windows 10 on my laptop. It says

"Continuing with the installation will change your display language"

Doesn't give a clue as to what language it will change it to. Do these people do any form of usability testing?

Oh dear what have I done  ::)

After the system rebooted with a blue screen when installing the default W10 apps, which actually resulted in 2 dozen reboots when Windows wouldn't start as it kept giving Stop Code 0xc000021a, you'd think I might give up. But no it did finally give me a desktop.

So I tried to fun FSX Steam Edition, just got a black screen with a white mouse cursor on it. After a little playing around I got it's loading screen - stuck at 80%. Ok let's kill it, nope Alt-F4 doesn't quit, how about close Window from its icon on the task bar - nope. Ctrl-Alt-Delete then, great there is task manager except it won't display it over the FSX Window. 

Really doesn't look ready for my laptop......

So i've looking to see what update i need ot download just to get the windows icon so i can 'reserve' it. But i thought once its there it would download it! Grr.. how do i actually tell it i want to install W10 NOW!?

Of any use?  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO)

Good luck :)

Cheers,
Dave.

That's the utility I  used to get the laptop to 'upgrade' as it had sat there for 3 days not doing anything. It's not the utility (Windows update) to display the reserve icon in the system tray. I think the update you would need is this one https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583

However I suspect the tool Dave linked to will upgrade regardless of whether you've reserved it or not.

It just lets you download an ISO or some sort of flash stick based installer - there are 32-bit and 64-bit versions and a 'both' version (which doesn't work ::) ). AAUI there's no need to reserve if you upgrade using the ISO.

Thus far all my testing has been in virtual machines, and on the basis of what I've seen I'm not going to be putting it anywhere near a phyiscal machine that I can't just roll back to the previous snapshot when (not if) it goes horribly wrong. ::)

In the case of Windows 8.1 Pro in Windows Update in the Control Panel there is a Windows 10 update to select.

Just installed Win10 64bit before the weekend on my second machine. Runs very well without problems still. Even GPL is working very smooth. Planning now to install it on my first Computer.

If you have Kaspersky Internet Security installed you need to download the very latest version otherwise it will go AWOL after W10 is installed.

Can report that GTL runs under W10 but you must give it Administrator rights.

Well  :( >:(... I can report that I used to have a perfectly functioning laptop running Win 7 before I accepted the invitation to download and allowed win 10 to install itself!

Now I have a flat box with a lid, an on/off button that illuminates and a screen that glows a light grey for as long as I care to leave it switched on!!!  Oh yes and a slide out drink cup holder on one side.  :-\

Needless to say, not overly impressed with Microsoft and Win 10, and I a use for my semi illuminated flat box does not spring to mind  ???

Going in search of my win 7 recovery disk, but I'm not confident that will work as I appear to have no access to bios for boot options.

Within one month of installing Windows 10 you get the option to do a full revert back to your previous OS. But I guess as you cannot get anything on your screen that's little comfort  :(

So now with continuous screen warning me that Windows 10 will automatically update in a hour with a count down, I continually have to slip installation to the right by a few days!

The question is if I upgrade to Win 10 from Win7 Professional what problems will I experience after the upgrade eg GTL, G25 wheel, etc? How long does it take to reconfigure?

Advice please.

Speaking from ignorance here (I've put off W10 ) I think the only difference will be having to set everything to run as Administrator. But others may/will have better info?

To be honest I kept putting it off fearing it fubaring my system or game installs etc but got to say it installed like a dream, I didn't have to do anything else, all my hardware and software ran straight away with no dramas...I was quite frankly amazed  :). Been running it for a month now.

I allowed both my game machines to downgrade to WIn10. For things like R3E it works fine. It seemed to work ok for GTL
but strange things were happening that I could not blame 10 for, but only started happening since moving from Win7
Like things work ok off line but on line would do odd things like I was getting stuck with the same car once I went online.
I have since reinstalled Win7 on both machines, as Battlezone also had trouble, it didn't have drivers for my printer, it doesn't
see the DV drive on one box, the mouse goes out of control,it doesn't see usb devices some of the time.

WIn 7 is now seeing everything, and everything works fine.

Thanks that's where I am now, getting POd with continually having to defer every few days but some tech sites are impressed with Windows 10, particularly with Steam Gaming, ::) and refer to it as the new Windows 7!

Thanks Matt, I think that supports my worries about changing to Win 10.

My main concern i've noticed from running W10 on my laptop; the lack of control over updates. It will download them and potential install them without your permission, so you cant control when it happens.

I've built a new Windows 10 PC over the last couple of months and finally got around to putting the racing games on it over the weekend, including my Thrustmaster T500RS. Now I have no working clutch pedal  ::) Not seen in the USB Game Control Panel widget so no chance any game's going to see it.

Have I broken it while moving it? Is it because I have a Thrustmaster HOTAS plugged in, is Windows 10 USB support a bit suspect....

Don't know yet.

Could be any of the above, but one of my Win10 installs sometimes had to be booted twice to see the USB mouse
also lost my wheel at times. So Win10 usb support has been dodgy in the past, I lost my rag with it when i almost
missed a race waiting for it to do one of it's several 20 minute update procedures.

Reboots/unplugging etc failed to fix it. However plugging it back into a Windows 7 laptop then back seems to have!

Wonder what it will do tomorrow!