Windows 10.... Am I safe to download this?

[gabagoo]

Running win 7 64 bit and am constantly, daily bothered by microsoft to download win 10. My computer for the last week or so is acting pretty strange to the point where Explorer stopped working (11) Can't even start it up. I switched over to Firefox, but half of all the sites like my banking or Facebook give me some sort of error about not having a secure connection. Have Run AVG full scan, Have run CCleaner have run Malewarebytes and Spybot but although they find the odd low level tracking cookies, nothing major seems to be wrong.

Yesterday I decided to run a system restore and I see over the last 2 weeks windows had some critical updates. I went back about 2 weeks and after the computer restarted it said it could not go back to that restore point, but oddly enough Explorer 11 was working again flawlessly and some super spyware program I had loaded in the last few days was absent. Did it restore? Can't tell. This morning Explorer again is not working and tried 2 new restore points with no success. I figure at this point maybe win 10 could straighten this out, but fear what might happen as far as my basic sign software is concerened.

Your thoughts?....and NO I don't use this computer to surf porn!!! ( I use a different one)

 

[webguru]

Start your computer in safe mode to do a sys restore. Anti virus programs will stop the restore from taking place a lot of the time.

 

[gabagoo]

Will do right now ty

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I wouldn't be surprised that it's actually downloaded Win 10 and it's just asking for you to install it.

To be honest, unless you want to run the chance of having to deal with "teething pains" will being "bleeding edge", I wouldn't run Win 10. I've run Fedora in a production environment (that OS goes EOL every 13 months) and you have to stay on top of it. Also MS is not known for the most stable and reliable updates (and if you update via Win 7 to Win 10, you will be forced to always do updates, I think if you buy Win 10 Pro outright, you can postpone updates, but not totally stop them from coming, atleast not via OEM method if connected to the internet, there are work arounds though). Now you may or may not have any issues, some do, some do not, but typically when it happens, it happens big. At least in my experience.

If you do decide to pull the trigger on Win 10, I would suggest that you go through the websites of all of your "must have" software and see what versions that they are willing to support running on Win 10. I know one guy that was running 1 generation back of my digitizing software and he upgraded to Win 10 without seeing if his version was supported. Install got broken and couldn't load from disk, called support, only option they gave him was to upgrade and upgraded even for 1 gen back is $1,400. Oddly enough, I know someone running 2 generations back, upgraded to Win 10 and it's running fine. Go figure.

 

[Chasez]

If you do decide to pull the trigger on Win 10, I would suggest that you go through the websites of all of your "must have" software and see what versions that they are willing to support running on Win 10. I know one guy that was running 1 generation back of my digitizing software and he upgraded to Win 10 without seeing if his version was supported. Install got broken and couldn't load from disk, called support, only option they gave him was to upgrade and upgraded even for 1 gen back is $1,400. Oddly enough, I know someone running 2 generations back, upgraded to Win 10 and it's running fine. Go figure.

I agree, I would check out if your software is compatible with win 10... I can say (at least it works for me) that Adobe CS6 runs flawlessly on win 10 on my surface book. Now I can't say that it would work on every ones system as I've seen weird things like that before (same program, same OS, different system but program doesn't run).

If you find that your software will all run on win 10 and you're willing to give it a try go for it... but my suggestion would be to do a fresh install of win 7 (if that's what your currently using) or throw in the disk and try and do a repair. Personally for a work station I would stick with 7 as it has proven itself... win 10 is still too new and no one knows how well it is going to work out (not saying that it isn't a good os, but at least I tend to stick to what I know works).

Chaz

 

[gabagoo]

Ran the restore from safe mode and again it failed..... something is definately wrong here.... I am not sure what to do at this point. i can deal with internet BS I suppose and use a different computer in the office. Even with all the virus and spybot software installed, still issues... I am thinking it has something to do with one of the windows updates in the last couple of weeks...but I see the word critical in there and figure I have to have it....

 

[webguru]

Ran the restore from safe mode and again it failed..... something is definately wrong here.... I am not sure what to do at this point.

Try to disable any anti virus before you restore. I run AVG and have to disable it first. Windows Defender will also cause failure, make sure to turn it off too.

 

[gabagoo]

Try to disable any anti virus before you restore. I run AVG and have to disable it first. Windows Defender will also cause failure, make sure to turn it off too.

I did not think they worked in safe mode, but OK worth a try

 

[Pippin Decals]

i wouldnt run windows 10....I have heard alot of people having issues with software and having to revert back to their old windows and the new issue of what it allows to happen to your computer without you knowing it...

 

[bob]

I downloaded Windows 10 and everything I was running under WIndows 7 seemed to function just fine. Flexi 8.6, Corel X6, Firefox, Outlook, Excel 2010 and 2013, and everything else I ran. But...I didn't particularly care for 10, the one thing I couldn't tolerate is the drop shadows on desktop icons that proved impossible to get rid of. There were other things with which I was less than thrilled as well. So I decided to remove 10 and resuscitate 7. Mechanically, the move back to 7 worked just fine but 10 left an enormous amount of detritus on my system and it took the efforts of a pair of pros laboring for two days to remove all of the crap and get the system back to normal. There's still a couple of file folders that are impossible to remove. So they just stay there hanging around. They appear to be benign in that they haven't proved to be harmful as of yet.

So, does Windows 10 function seamlessly from 7? Yes. Will you like it? You'd better to be prepared for a monumental housecleaning right down on the bare metal if you don't. At least that's what happened to me.

 

[gabagoo]

I downloaded Windows 10 and everything I was running under WIndows 7 seemed to function just fine. Flexi 8.6, Corel X6, Firefox, Outlook, Excel 2010 and 2013, and everything else I ran. But...I didn't particularly care for 10, the one thing I couldn't tolerate is the drop shadows on desktop icons that proved impossible to get rid of. There were other things with which I was less than thrilled as well. So I decided to remove 10 and resuscitate 7. Mechanically, the move back to 7 worked just fine but 10 left an enormous amount of detritus on my system and it took the efforts of a pair of pros laboring for two days to remove all of the crap and get the system back to normal. There's still a couple of file folders that are impossible to remove. So they just stay there hanging around. They appear to be benign in that they haven't proved to be harmful as of yet.

So, does Windows 10 function seamlessly from 7? Yes. Will you like it? You'd better to be prepared for a monumental housecleaning right down on the bare metal if you don't. At least that's what happened to me.

Thanks Bob...I will hold off for now.....but still can't figure out what happened to my comp.....very annoying.

 

[gabagoo]

...so in Firefox many sites come up with this message...including one of my emails and my banking.... how do I rectify this? Basically says server connection failed....gets to this site OK though

 

[player]

I cannot read the attachment. It is too small.

One thing people can do is get the licenses for W10 but stay in W7 or 8.
Clone your drive. Do the upgrade to W10. Copy down the license key. Format drive. Put clone of original disk back on.

Then you can wait and see, as there are rumors Microsoft will stop the free upgrades this summer.

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Are your date and time acting weird?

You might just need to replace your CMOS battery.

[Edit: To clarify, the CMOS battery, which is the flat, round battery on your motherboard, can cause all kind of crazy issues with your computer when it's dying or dead. If you're having a lot of weird, hard to pin down issues, it's always worth checking to make sure it's not the CMOS battery. Every time I've had it happen, the date and time on the computer won't stay synced.]

 

[untitled]

Instead of doing a restore make sure you have everything backed up onto an external hard drive and then just do a clean install of Windows 7. Make sure you have any software you have previously purchased to reinstall.

Here is a link to how to do a clean install.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/installing-reinstalling-windows#1TC=windows-7

Use the option that says.
[h=4]Using the Custom installation option and formatting the hard disk [/h]If you don't want the Windows 10 upgrade notifications, you can either just not connect the computer to the internet (which is probably not a viable solution) or you can edit the registry key by

Navigating to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx
-Create a new REG_DWORD registry value called: DisableGwx
-Give it a value of: 1.

Do any of this is at your own risk. You can lose data if you don't do your backup properly, editing the registry can have unintended effects. I haven't personally done this registry edit so can't guarantee it works. Doing a clean install is the best way to get it working properly instead of installing over old operating systems. I usually wipe my whole system once a year to keep my computers running fast.

I downloaded Windows 10 and everything I was running under WIndows 7 seemed to function just fine. Flexi 8.6, Corel X6, Firefox, Outlook, Excel 2010 and 2013, and everything else I ran. But...I didn't particularly care for 10, the one thing I couldn't tolerate is the drop shadows on desktop icons that proved impossible to get rid of. There were other things with which I was less than thrilled as well. So I decided to remove 10 and resuscitate 7. Mechanically, the move back to 7 worked just fine but 10 left an enormous amount of detritus on my system and it took the efforts of a pair of pros laboring for two days to remove all of the crap and get the system back to normal. There's still a couple of file folders that are impossible to remove. So they just stay there hanging around. They appear to be benign in that they haven't proved to be harmful as of yet.

So, does Windows 10 function seamlessly from 7? Yes. Will you like it? You'd better to be prepared for a monumental housecleaning right down on the bare metal if you don't. At least that's what happened to me.

I hope your pair of "pros" were not charging you. It shouldn't take a "pro", let alone two pros more than a few hours to do a complete back up and clean install of an Operating System, including the sitting around time waiting for the backup and install to complete. Once completed there should not be any folder or anything left from the old operating system as they should have formatted the hard drive.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Instead of doing a restore make sure you have everything backed up onto an external hard drive and then just do a clean install of Windows 7. Make sure you have any software you have previously purchased to reinstall.

I have to agree with doing a clean install. Just make sure to deactivate (where appropriate) any software that needs to have that done. Might lose a registered copy of something like DRAW (I don't think they have a deactivate for their program, but X5 is my one and only real experience with the program).

Then if you want Win 7 up to date (I personally wouldn't do past just SP1 to not only avoid the telemetry updates, but also the key update that starts the nag ware process for Win 10 upgrade), you can do your updates and go through the process that was outlines in the above post (which I believe is from here).

 

[rossmosh]

Since Windows Vista, from my understanding, Windows has been building on a very similar platform. That's why driver and software compatibility is becoming less and less of an issue. So can you safely use Windows 10? Most likely yes. You'll have limited compatibility issues when you upgrade assuming you're using Win7 or better. There are some cases where there are issues but that's more down to stupid developers than Windows. For example, older versions of Corel don't play perfectly with Win8 or better. The menu bar doesn't show up.

As for the interface, I personally like the way Win7 looks. As a result, I install Classic Shell on Win8 or Win10 machines. It looks very very similar to Win7. Honestly, I can jump from a Win7 machine to a Win8 or 10 machine and forget which OS I'm using.

 

[Bly]

So much tinfoil headwear in this thread.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Since Windows Vista, from my understanding, Windows has been building on a very similar platform. That's why driver and software compatibility is becoming less and less of an issue. So can you safely use Windows 10? Most likely yes. You'll have limited compatibility issues when you upgrade assuming you're using Win7 or better. There are some cases where there are issues but that's more down to stupid developers than Windows. For example, older versions of Corel don't play perfectly with Win8 or better. The menu bar doesn't show up.

As for the interface, I personally like the way Win7 looks. As a result, I install Classic Shell on Win8 or Win10 machines. It looks very very similar to Win7. Honestly, I can jump from a Win7 machine to a Win8 or 10 machine and forget which OS I'm using.

It's my understanding that how Windows communicates with security devices has changed between Win 7 and Win 8. I know my embroidery software had release a patch for the HASP device, so it will work on Win 8 and Win 10. For Win 10 that only applies to the latest version though.

If you are upgrading a store bought computer, drivers for your hardware may be a concern. I've known some video cards that aren't supported any longer that qualified (and supposedly compatible with the upgrade) went very hinky post upgrade on an unsupported card). Some were so bad that I think would give nouveau driver a good rep.

I've personally never known a Windows upgrade to go well, rather you are talking about the old 9x systems or as recent as Win 7 to Win 8 (and these was with CS6 that I knew from a fresh install of the program worked fine, but got broken on an upgrade from Win 7 to Win 8).

 

[player]

A friend upgraded to W10, with a nice clean install, then went back to Windows 7 clean install, and it bricked his computer. My friend is really technically skilled, and after tons of testing he removed his battery and then the computer is working perfectly again. So it appears Microsoft may be altering the CMOS to brick the older computers trying to go from W10 to W7. He searched this and many others are also experiencing the DOA bricking when returning to W7. So remember if this happens to you remove the CMOS battery and put it back in and restart your computer.

A bigger issue he has discovered is Microsoft's agreement allows them to monitor and search everything you do in the name of improving their ease of use of their system. However they also admit if they discover any potential illegal activities they have the right to search your computer and hand it over to the police. They can search all your computers on your network. This gives them permission to sniff around and find anything about anything...

There is also a class action lawsuit in the USA and you must read the terms. This would stop anyone who agrees to the W10 upgrade from participating in any class actions against Microsoft.