Windows 10 upgrade?

[drz]

I had a horrible experience with Windows 10 upgrade and lost a lot of data in personal files. The upgrade hides your old data in new places. Some is fairly easy to find and some like data for some programs very hard or impossible to locate. I found Windows10 often froze my screen and was much slower to load or respond than windows 7. Then when it did one of its automatic updates, all the documents disappeared again. Any data I added under Windows 10 in the 20 days I used it also seems permanently gone and lost for good. The Windows 10 updates filled my hard drive to the point I could not do any roll back either so I put in a larger hard drive and reloaded Windows 7 and have to reload all my programs and try retrieve as much data as I can from my back ups to restore my computer to good functioning again.

What experience have other people had with Windows 10? I don't like windows 8 since it seems harder to use and 10 seemed a bit better but was less stable for me and performed much slower.

[PattyL]

This is great information! Thanks so much.

[Pete]

I bought a new computer a few months ago as the old one was dying. I upgraded to Window 10 from 8.1 with no difficulty. I did spend a bit of time making Windows 10 look like Windows 7 so my wife could navigate it ok. I didn't experience any data retrieval problems, probably thanks to a new machine that's not cluttered with old updates -- yet.

[Birdie]

What experience have other people had with Windows 10? I don't like windows 8 since it seems harder to use and 10 seemed a bit better but was less stable for me and performed much slower.

On the day Win10 was released I spent a couple hours in the Windows store at the local mall. I've been a software developer since long before Windows so I've got a different perspective. I look at a new version to see what they've changed behind the scenes rather than interface changes. I stuck a microSD card in one of the tablets and ran my own program off of it, while nobody was watching. It allows me to expose all the stuff Microsoft has hidden, things a user would never be interested in and couldn't look at anyway.

Windows 10 is not even close to being ready for release. Short story is: it will run slower because it's full of new junk you don't need and old junk you can no longer disable. There are a bunch of limitations like it won't run on a 7" tablet. Bigger or smaller is OK but not 7". I couldn't disable things like antivirus software, it won't let you, you have to install something else to disable Windows Defender.

They could have just put the normal start button back in Win 8.1 as an option, or reverted and added the new bios support to Win 7.

[MaxD]

Birdie, Why disable windows defender and install another AV software you may have to pay for? Despite the hype, all AV are equally good (or useless, really).

[Birdie]

Birdie, Why disable windows defender and install another AV software you may have to pay for? Despite the hype, all AV are equally good (or useless, really).

I don't want to install another one. I want none. I have never run antivirus software and I've never had a virus. But that's just one of the things you can't control in Win10. Plus there are a bunch of new "things" running that you can't identify, yet, and I don't know what they're doing other than hogging processor.

I carry a 7" Windows 8.1 tablet everywhere I go. At the Windows store I handed it to the tech guy and asked him how to disable the automatic updates, and can you do it in Win10. (It's not actually possible even tho there are settings for it, I just make certain wifi is off before turning off the tablet) He poked at my tablet for a couple minutes and declared it was off, would no longer do automatic updates, and returned the tablet to me. I immediately pressed the off button and got a blue screen telling me not to turn it off until it finished updates... installing update 1 of 89... You can't turn it off. My only option was to put it in my lap and wheel my chair out of the mall and down the road until I got out of wifi range, as fast as possible. Or sit in the mall for hours waiting which there is not enough battery to do anyway. I was ready to go home rather than sit there waiting for my computer to be messed up with updates. Once it lost wifi, and after several minutes, it gave up installing updates up and let me turn it off.

So I went back into the mall and to the store where he sincerely appologized. I let him give it another try after resetting Win8.1 to factory since it would no longer run. He still insisted it was possible but he couldn't do it. Turned it off again with wifi connected and it started updates. I got home and reset it to factory, again. I just make certain the wifi is off before I turn it off and I don't keep anything in the tablet memory, it's all on a microSD.

[Dirty Don]

Here's a 'fight': did I hear anyone say Apple????????? No problemo!

[Birdie]

Here's a 'fight': did I hear anyone say Apple????????? No problemo!

Lemme tell you... I gave up on apple years ago. It was far worse.

[mishb]

We haven't had any problems with it installed on the desktop.
I'm not keen to install it on my laptop because, for one, Ancestry and My Heritage are not compatible with Windows 10, and I'm not prepared to lose my access to these/

[drz]

We haven't had any problems with it installed on the desktop.
I'm not keen to install it on my laptop because, for one, Ancestry and My Heritage are not compatible with Windows 10, and I'm not prepared to lose my access to these/

One down side for me is having to upgrade my Legacy Genealogy program to save my genealogical records because I can't down load the version 7 anymore that i was using since they have a newer version 8 now so I will have to buy that to recover my data. Right now I am working with some rescue CD programs to see how much info I can get off the hard drive that Windows 10 messed up so badly.

I also had a lot of trouble with some malware program that kept changing my home page and search engines after re-installing my programs again. The good thing about doing a fresh re-install is getting rid of lots of old junk that accumulates on a computer just from daily use.

I also will be more diligent about data backups and ability to restore my operating system if it crashes again since this was a good lesson.

[andrew]

I also will be more diligent about data backups and ability to restore my operating system if it crashes again since this was a good lesson.

Yeah I was going to say something :) My Mac initiated the emergency smoke release system a couple of months ago. Totally fried (it was old and crotchety). Guess how many backups I had? Yup. Zero. I have an external drive now backing up incrementally every hour.

Anyhoo...back on topic: Dad bought a new PC earlier this year. It came with Win 8.1. I spent some time setting it up so it looked somewhat similar to 7. It's an absolute turd to use - it even stumps me sometimes although I'll say that my 86yo Dad is gradually getting the hang of it. The thought of upgrading to Win10 makes me cry (particularly after reading DRZ's experience) so we don't be doing that :)

[mishb]

I was so eager to update my new laptop to 10 because 8.1 is the worst thing ever :predrage::crying: but when I found out that it wasn't compatible with my ancestry stuff, I didn't bother.

I'm glad your dad is getting used to it Andrew, he is doing way better than me.

[Birdie]

Yeah I was going to say something :) My Mac initiated the emergency smoke release system a couple of months ago. Totally fried (it was old and crotchety). Guess how many backups I had? Yup. Zero. I have an external drive now backing up incrementally every hour.

Anyhoo...back on topic: Dad bought a new PC earlier this year. It came with Win 8.1. I spent some time setting it up so it looked somewhat similar to 7. It's an absolute turd to use - it even stumps me sometimes although I'll say that my 86yo Dad is gradually getting the hang of it. The thought of upgrading to Win10 makes me cry (particularly after reading DRZ's experience) so we don't be doing that :)

Actually, there is no Windows 10 upgrade available, it a downgrade even from 8.1

[drz]

I spent over a day trying to get my old hard drive working enough to get some data off after Windows 10 messed it up so badly. It sort of works slowly sometimes so i was able to recover most of the data I needed off it. I had most of it backed up but not anything added in past three weeks since switched to Windows 10.

I deleted some files like Itunes after I copied them to a new hard drive to free up some space thinking I then had enough space to return to Windows 7 but still couldn't because those files were erased when the Window 10 updates filled the hard drive. I learned if you are going to trying upgrading from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 that you need a large hard drive that is less than half full. The new Windows 10 takes as much room as you current system which in theory is backed up in case you wish to revert to it within 30 days so you need to have room for over double your current hard drive usage to try guard against losing any data. YOur hard drive needs some free space to run and to add new updates and data. Prudence also dictates that you have a full clone of your current system before trying the upgrade to Windows 10 unless you enjoy reloading all your programs and data.

I tried every program I had and any new free program I could find to scan for malware, viruses, cleaning registry, deleting garbage files, check hard drive for errors etc to try get Windows 10 to operate in a reasonable manner but had no luck fixing it. It still takes several minutes to load up even with my SSD hard drives and a minute or two to open any program. My last ditch effort will be to try reload Windows 10 if possible to try repair it. Everytime is boots up it goes through a disk check and disk repair that takes several minutes but doesn't seem to fix anything.

I don't like the way Windows 8 operates but at least it sort works OK so I am going back to Windows 7 and plan to work harder on trying to become more proficient on some Linux program like Ubuntu. My sister has a Mac but says after a year her computer doesn't work very well either most of the time. My favorite Genealogy program was also only available on Windows but one can run windows programs under Linux if you know how.

[Birdie]

Prudence also dictates that you have a full clone of your current system before trying the upgrade to Windows 10 unless you enjoy reloading all your programs and data.

I use an old 1 terabyte USB hard drive. It takes a while but I'm asleep when it does it.

[drz]

It took another day of trial and error and searching for much needed info on internet and trying out various suggestions but I thinking I finally got a clean install of Windows 10 on a new unused SSD hard drive and so far it is working. I haven't tried to restart computer yet and that will be the big test. I lost all my apps but did get my personal documents backed up so I can add them. I also got Windows 7 on another identical SSD hard drive so I can switch off till I determine which version seems best for me.

It was very frustrating to accomplish it since the advertising for Windows 10 and supposed help on M$oft made it all sound very good and possible to re-install Windows 10 again but it was not easy. I learned far more about trouble shooting Windows 10 and fixing it than I ever wanted to know but eventually it had a pay off, sort of like finally solving a difficult puzzle or discovering that elusive geocache that you searched for several times.

All the diagnostic tests I ran usually indicated everything was fine except it just didn't boot up or work right. Every time I tried to use any suggested upload or re-install method M$soft listed the computer said it couldn't be done since files were missing, or it couldn't determine if my computer could run Windows 10 or just run for a n hour or two and end up back where I started. But I finally found a work around listed from some computer guru that wrote tech info on Windows 10 that finally worked and after several tries it seem to slowly reload Windows 10 once I put in a clean hard drive. Maybe the other one went bad although it passed all the tests I ran on it.

I don't know yet if I will like Windows 10 but some things about seem appealing like the ads indicate. I am concerned about the privacy invasion of Windows 10 features but then there is no privacy anyway on the internet and all the major browsers are trying to do the same thing by having you set up an account and then following and recording your internet usage.

My main advice is if you wish to try Windows 10 is not to try any upgrade from an existing version if you can avoid it. You may have to do this to get the free version but then set up a recovery file from it and then re install it on a clean blank hard drive. You lose all your apps and have to reload your personal documents, data, music etc that you need to back up first. I will now find out how my various apps I like work under Windows 10. I also created several Linux rescue CD's and plan to try set up one or two hard drives with some Linux programs to see how they work for me too. Maybe some day I will get M$soft free.

[vdub]

I upgraded on release day. No problems with the upgrade, but after using it for 2 days, I saw no advantages, so downgraded back to win7. I didn't have any problems downgrading. Didn't loose any data or anything. Both up and down went very smoothly.

[drz]

I upgraded on release day. No problems with the upgrade, but after using it for 2 days, I saw no advantages, so downgraded back to win7. I didn't have any problems downgrading. Didn't loose any data or anything. Both up and down went very smoothly.

I read about a lot of people having problems like mine but also lot of people really like it. I think it might be better than Windows 8 if it works on your computer. I think much of my problems came from having a smaller hard drive that was 80% full and thus not enough free space to save all the backup files needed to roll it back. But computer usage experience like our Wegs is very variable so as the old saying goes "your mileage may vary" from another's experience.

So far Windows 10 is still working for me and I am slowly reloading all the aps I lost during the new install of the OS. But I might also go back to Window 7 if I encounter serious operating problems again. usually it takes awhile for any new OS to work the bugs out.

[drz]

I had used Windows 10 on a new hard drive for two weeks and was starting to become familiar with it. It took me two days back then to get a fresh install on a clean hard drive to get Windows 10 to work. I had reloaded about half of the programs I wanted on it and and was planing spending a day to add more and then clone that hard drive today. But it wouldn't boot up this morning, It starts to boot up after the initial screen and then goes blank when trying to load Windows 10.

I figured I probably developed a hard ware problem like losing a video card or my power supply problem or some thing. I was getting ready to try trouble shoot it and then decided to try the back up Windows 7 Hard Drive i made two weeks ago and voila, it booted up right away. So the hard ware must all be working and it looks like I need to go back to Windows 7 to have a functioning computer. Now I need to reload all my programs on it since I only got the operating system on it

I liked some things about Windows 10 although I did notice it was generally slower to boot up than Windows 7. I figure one of the automatic upgrades on Windows 10 screwed some thing up so it no longer works. I will spend some time to try get it working again but it might be a frustrating waste of time.

I guess there a remote chance that the other hard drive failed, it is twin to this one since I bought two identical ones planning originally to run them together in RAID formation.