I'm being hijacked. I keep getting a message that within an hour my system will automatically upgrade to Windows 10. I thought I had postponed that (unhappily) to Tues. at a specific time ... but it continues to do this. Now I've just heard so many horror stories about windows 10. What if anything do I need to do to prepare my system for this inevitable upgrade? Save files ... uninstall programs? This is aggravating. I was a computer guru ... 15 years ago, but it's gotten way over my head since then.

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

Read the post a few times, then do what you need to do to get rid of it permanently.

Windows 10 is not so bad now Boni although on first release it was a bit of a shocker. It would pay to back your files up but I haven't heard of anyone losing them.

The transition was fairly painless and I didnt lose anything at all. Everything ran smoothly for a while.. BUT..now when I try to hit the "Start" button I get "Critical Error" and I have no other option but to log off..I have tried everything I could find online to fix this but nothing works so I live with it.. I have to open Explorer and I can get to my programs that are not on my desktop, and I can navigate to Control Panel thru Explorer too..just cant hit that Start Button or I will be logged out of my account. Such a Pain! I loved Windows 7!

digitell posted at 2:26AM Mon, 28 March 2016 - #4262854

The transition was fairly painless and I didnt lose anything at all. Everything ran smoothly for a while.. BUT..now when I try to hit the "Start" button I get "Critical Error" and I have no other option but to log off..I have tried everything I could find online to fix this but nothing works so I live with it.. I have to open Explorer and I can get to my programs that are not on my desktop, and I can navigate to Control Panel thru Explorer too..just cant hit that Start Button or I will be logged out of my account. Such a Pain! I loved Windows 7!

The start bar should come back on your next update Digi I suffered that as well. They must roll out the updates staggered to regions because I run 3 Win 10 machines here all different regions and one of those is at least 4 weeks behind on the others for the same updates.

LPR001 posted at 11:03AM Sun, 27 March 2016 - #4262856

digitell posted at 2:26AM Mon, 28 March 2016 - #4262854

The transition was fairly painless and I didnt lose anything at all. Everything ran smoothly for a while.. BUT..now when I try to hit the "Start" button I get "Critical Error" and I have no other option but to log off..I have tried everything I could find online to fix this but nothing works so I live with it.. I have to open Explorer and I can get to my programs that are not on my desktop, and I can navigate to Control Panel thru Explorer too..just cant hit that Start Button or I will be logged out of my account. Such a Pain! I loved Windows 7!

The start bar should come back on your next update Digi I suffered that as well. They must roll out the updates staggered to regions because I run 3 Win 10 machines here all different regions and one of those is at least 4 weeks behind on the others for the same updates.

This is great news Johnny! Thank you for telling me..it is so frustrating to have that Error pop up! I look forward to the update!!

My understanding is that the Upgrade is free till at least May. I'm waiting till the last possible micron and past if I can. That new tech will play havoc with my nine year old machine. I actually like my Windows 7 as well! I'm sure the fact that I waited until it was pretty much bug-free has nothing to do with it.

As above, the free upgrade is available until May/June time. After that, it's anyone's guess, market penetration isn't very high as yet so maybe it will be extended.

To install W10 you need an activated W7 install with SP1 and IE11 (no other updates needed). You can do the upgrade install direct from MS page or download and burn to DVD or USB. I am working through my PCs with a spare HD (2.5 will fit desktop and laptop) installing W10 to register the machine,(no probs swapping HD, only CPU or MB change invalidate it). In theory this registration lasts past the free period. I'm then going back to the original W7 HD until I'm ready to jump.

If you use your W7 COA number on the fresh install you may find it has been deactivated and will require a phone call to MS to activate W7.

The W10 upgrade will keep you version of windows (Home P or Ultimate etc) and 32/64 bit version. if you want to jump 32 to 64 bit you will need to upgrade at 32 bit, use the MS tool to create a 64 bit DVD ISO or USB, backup your data, boot from DVD/USB, format, install and restore

My upgrade to 10 on my Poser machine went pretty painlessly. Poser 7 now works again, too. However, I miss the Windows 7 search; the search in 10 is less useful (to me) as it's harder to open results that are folders.

As I type this, I'm trying to reinstall 7 on a new hard drive on my laptop, but Windows Update isn't working; two attempts at the update troubleshooter have not fixed it. I may have to make a cumulative update disk like I did for Vista...

Go for Windows 10. Zero issues here, and much faster.

Ok, much faster ... but ... PP11 crashes after 10 minutes of use ... off to report. sigh

WandW posted at 12:20PM Wed, 30 March 2016 - #4263263

As I type this, I'm trying to reinstall 7 on a new hard drive on my laptop, but Windows Update isn't working; two attempts at the update troubleshooter have not fixed it. I may have to make a cumulative update disk like I did for Vista...

Wanda, W7 updates have been slow since the W10 release. Some people have no probs, others it can take hours. Changing to automatic updates can help. Also search for the Simplix Pack updates at My Digital Life forums. This is all the security updates in one pack (600mb) and is updated each month. MDL forums are free to join and guard your membership details.

Thanx for the pointer; MDL has long been a go-to source for me. The issue with updates is apparently that the latest version of Windows Update needs components that are not available on the original disk versions of Vista and Windows 7. I used WSUS Offline Update to create a DVD as I had for Vista, and it installs most Critical Updates, and allows Windows Update to work normally afterward. It works for Vista through Windows 10...

http://www.wsusoffline.net/

What i did (& tend to always do) is buy a new cheap HD (or move to SSD?), make a 100% duplicate of your old drive, then let the upgrade happen on 1 of the 2 drives.

Worse case, you just swap back the old drive & life returns to normal. Plus if something breaks, you can always mount the old drive as "D" or whatever & access all files. That is also how i rebuild my drive "C" once a year, except I do a fresh install on the new/other/reformatted drive, saving the old working drive as backup. Worstcase, put the old drive back in as C and I'm back to where I was last week.

I guess there was an adjustment period as the system acclimated to my system ... it's running fine now. Even software has a learning curve.

I upgraded my laptop and everything runs much slower, it's now little more than a brick capable of surfing and email only. My graphics card has no drivers for windows 10 I found out when a friend in the IT field remoted in to have a look around. Same with my printer. I had to connect it to the router in order to print anything from my laptop. Poser is considerably slower as are most games. If your system is older than a year I don't recommend it at all. My desktop is windows 8 and I'm not upgrading it.

Kendra, you can force installs on hardware that technically is not supported in Windows 10.

I have Windows 10 running on a AMD 64 bit Turion notebook (single core 1.2 ghtz, 4 gig of memory, snail...) with an ATI M200 graphics card. I had to force a ton of drivers and it was terribly slow without the drivers installed. Windows 10 is faster than Xp was on it, but it was not exactly an easy install.

As far as printers go, most printers can be used without installing any drivers for them. try installing the printer, then set it up as a generic printer and send stuff to it in RAW mode.

If you search around enough, you can figure out which drivers you need to use to get it to work.

Thanks shvrdavid. I may give that a try although I'm leaning towards a new laptop as it's about time anyway. Sorry for the late reply. My daughter is getting married next month and I've been going crazy helping her get it set up. :)