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I read a few lifehacker articles that said that Microsoft was auto-scheduling updates of windows 10,or had that annoying pop up reminding you you are eligible to upgrade. A buddy's father,that I helped him out with his computer over several months,emailed to tell me his windows 8 machine got auto-installed to windows 10.It's the 1st time I knew of someone it happened to.

Did you upgrade to windows 10?

How do you like it?

Are you planning to take advantage of the free upgrade? (if you've not already done it)

After suffering through trying to get my render farm P.C. to work with Mint Linux,because I'm too cheap to fork out a bunch of money for the operating system on a P.C. I built out of my old parts for a render farm. I bought a sketchy copy of windows 7 off Ebay,used my install disk I bought the Day windows 7 came out,the used the sketchy serial number.

I upgraded the render farm to Windows 10,I'm not a fan of it,I find it to be real nuisance. I admit I only turn the render farm when I want extra horsepower to render stuff out faster.I don't use it as my daily desktop. I turn the P.C on once a week or so update the anitvirus,antispyware,run it,update the browser,and any other software.

I'm very on the fence about upgrading my main system.

Here is a very simple set of questions I ask myself when considering an OS upgrade:

1) Are you currently able to run all the programs you would like to run?
2) Would you like to change the answer to #1?

If the answer to #2 is "no," then do not perform an OS upgrade.

I have upgrade to Win10 on my home system.  It's largely the same thing as 7, from my limited experience.  My wife has a touchscreen laptop and Win10 allows our daughter to use it without assistance because it is also app driven.

At work, I'm still on 7, but some of my staff have upgraded to 10.  It's a slow roll-out and we haven't had problems except that it forgets some settings on the transfer and I have to re-map drives or something like that.

All in all, as OS changes go, I find this to be relatively minor in terms of actual usability.  It's more likely to offer features that help developers but the end user doesn't really see too much.

You are forgetting one:

3) Will the answer to #2 change in the foreseeable future forcing you to fork over money for an upgrade that is currently free?

Presuming that you meant "will the answer to #1 change in the foreseeable future," I'd have to say the odds of that are... remote.  Outside of cutting-edge PC gaming, the overwhelming majority of programs today will still run on 15-year-old Windows XP.  It is much more likely that Windows 7 will outlast the computer you are currently running it on.

If I'm not mistaken you can upgrade to 10 while it is still free and downgrade back to 7. That leaves you an option of moving to 10 if needed and not having to shell out any money. I guess you could also dual boot 10 and 7, which might also be a good option. I think once your system id is registered with MS servers you can reinstall 10 on that machine at anytime in the future.

After a Win10 upgrade, you have 30 days to revert back to Win7.

I mean...couldn't you reinstall with Win 7 if you really had to?

The word is that previous keys will NOT be invalidated, meaning your Win7 should work just fine, although there are some claims to the contrary (I've yet to find any *confirmed* cases and all claims seem to refer to the 30-day roll-back period, but that's just a timer that deletes a folder on you local system).

Depending on the type of key (Retail, Upgrade, OEM slp, OEM non-slp) it isn't even technically possible for MS to do so without affecting other systems.

I have not upgraded to Win 10 yet, but was considering it.  I thought someone on this site previously said it took up less space and improved performance a little bit.  I had been waiting to hear if there were any horror stories about upgrading, but I haven't heard of any.  I run older versions of some programs so I am always fearful of losing access to them.  I have an old computer at work that I keep around just to run two programs (they run on XP).  I think I'm going to upgrade one of my personal laptops to see how it goes.  My other laptop is much older and runs vista, so that can't be upgraded to 10; I was looking to upgrade that one but it doesn't seem there is anything out there for free for that one.

This may have been me.  The benchmarks I saw were to this effect.

Win10 is great. I'm by no means a power user, but I feel like it has better performance. I have no complaints whatsoever. I didn't really have any problems with Win7 either, but a free upgrade to the newest OS was difficult to pass up.

I like 10.  It's a new skin of classic windows or Windows 8 or both.

Long story short- For me upgrading my computer to where It really needs to be $$$$$ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>versus my talent in 3d modeling.

This plays big into my willingness to upgrade,For me the going from XP to Windows 7 had more to do with more memory,and going to 64 bit.

Windows10 - I'm ok with the start menu,tiles,etc...It reminds me of a free google play store app,and wanting access to the storage card,media files,browsing history,call history,contact list,etc,etc....Everything has it's own permissions,and because of all these I've turned them off,and don't use any of the bells and whistles.

Added to the fact it automatically updates windows updates,and constantly reinstall all the crapware I uninstall. I get it I'm the oddball when I run windows update I click the more info,and want to know all the crap they are adding to my system.

 Yes, my tinfoil hat is on,with this,most companies don't give you something for nothing,unless they are getting something.

I use the spybot search and destroy plug in to stop all the tracking crap on the windows 10 machine.

In my humble opinion, Win10 is a solution looking for a problem.  I don't want touchscreen-style controls on my mouse-and-keyboard desktop PC.

I don't know how Win10 is supposed to improve on the shortcomings of Win7; it seems to me that it's change for the sake of change.  If I'm lucky, I'll be able to skip Win10 (and Win11) entirely, and I won't be forced to upgrade until Win12.

In a traditional upgrade/downgrade process you are correct. However, if you upgrade to 10 and back up everything you want to save. Then reformat/reinstall with 7. After that you then have the option to go back to 10 whenever you want to since a snapshot of your system is registered on MS servers. I've done it on a couple machines for friends. On one of them I actually didn't even have a legit 7 key. Just activated a 64bit windows 7 iso using DAZ loader, upgraded to 10, reformated back to 7, then reinstalled 10 and it activated automatically. As far as I know the machine is still running fine.

I read that you could also clone a cheap SSD with your current system and set off to the side. Then upgrade to 10 on the current drive and set to the side and put the windows 7 SSD back in. You then have a drive with 7 and a drive with 10. I haven't tried this, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Or as I said before, just set up a dual boot 7/10 system.


I thought that I read somewhere that MS said that 10 would be the final version of windows and that they would just keep updating going forward.

Even if MS did make that statement, I wouldn't believe them until at least 10 years had passed since Win10's release.

You will likely notice no change.

Win10 allows ease for developers to create apps that run on your desktop.  If you don't work like this and don't want to use them, don't...no difference for you.

But for example, we run a Netflix app on wife's PC at home.  It's a touchscreen environment build for touch.  It works the same on the iPad, phones, etc.  My 4 year old daughter can use it without assistance. 

So, it allows Netflix to basically create one instance of their software that will work across all these platforms. 

But if you don't want to use Netflix like that, you can just go to the website.

Windows 8 was a jarring change, because it defaulted you into the app environment and took away the comfort tools that people used by default, like the start menu.  Windows 10 is essentially the same as Windows 7 but it integrates apps into the start menu.

I, like Spider, am going to wait until I'm forced to upgrade. I installed Windows 10 on my wife's, and my father's computer. And there are definitely some bugs that need to be ironed out seeing that I had no problems before the upgrade. My wife's computer freezes from time to time while watching streams online, then, after about 3-5 minutes it reboots telling me that 10 ran into some problems and it needed to be rebooted.

My father's computer (even after all the fixes I've found online through Microsoft), from time to time his start button and task-bar are disabled. I have managed to fix his issue each time it comes up, but the bug is getting rather annoying.

I did try upgrading my system three times (Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit) but for some reason there was something blocking the installation and it kept reverting back. I guess it's a good thing it did after the annoying bugs that I've encountered. Whatever, I'm all good with 7.

I had heard that Microsoft was backing off on the idea that they would discontinue the ability to upgrade to Windows 10 for free after 1 year. I think they expected that would ensure that most people would upgrade within a year, but that's been far from the case. Microsoft DOES NOT WANT to support any version other than Windows 10. That doesn't mean they won't, it's just that they would prefer to have only 1 version to support, but it's not going to happen. That's pretty evident now. Making you pay to upgrade to Windows 10 is NOT going to help with that, it's pretty much going to ensure that no one who hasn't already upgraded will.

So I wouldn't worry too much about the 1 year anniversary coming. There's going to be a way to upgrade to Windows 10 after that date and most likely it will still be free.

Having said that, it's silly not to upgrade. It really is. Windows 10 is the best Windows yet. Most people that upgraded are very happy they did. I've upgraded 2 desktops and a laptop and have had no major issues with any of them. Now there are those people that had problems with Windows 10 and went back to Windows 7 after upgrading but only because they had issues. My son upgraded to Windows, had some issues with his video card and reverted back to Windows 7, but after getting a new video card he went back to Windows 10 and has stayed there since. Most likely you will not have issues and will be very happy. If you're not you can go back to Windows 7.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-happens-free-windows-10-upgrades-after-july-29-2016/

There will be no Windows 11 or Windows 12. Windows 10 is the last version of windows that Microsoft will ever make at least If you believe what they have said anyway. From now on all upgrades will just be to a better version of Windows 10. Microsoft is calling it "Windows as a service". I expect at some point they will drop the version number and just call it Windows.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows

But why would anyone who isn't having issues with Win7 now want to roll the dice?  In exchange for the risk of having issues that require you to spend even more time reverting back to Win7, what is the reward?

Either MS is lying, or they are implicitly acknowledging that they will be moving Windows to a subscription plan like they did with Office 365.

I say this with complete conviction: I will uninstall every Microsoft OS and switch fully to Linux on every PC I own before I pay a recurring fee for a Windows subscription.  (And I do see where this boat is headed with the SecureBoot feature creep between Win8 and Win10: use SecureBoot to permanently lock other OSes out at the hardware level, then switch Windows to a subscription fee and collect coins.)

A monthly/yearly OS subscription fee is exactly the kind of doomsday scenario that motivated me to learn Linux in the first place.

Another option is Chrome OS. It currently is an online only OS, which obviously limits its usefullness for some users. However, I've read somewhere lately that they are going to merge Chrome OS and the Android play store which will open up a lot of apps. Chrome OS isn't a resource hog like Windows. A Chromebox desktop with a Celeron and 2 gigs of ram is pretty snappy for general use. I would drop in another 2 gig stick though. It supports dual monitors and you can pick it up for $125 lately. Not to mention it 5 inches x 5 inches. You're definitly not going to game on it. But for what most people do with a PC these days, it would work for 75% of the population.

I've been wanting to do a new skylake build, but if they actually do merge the play store into Chrome OS I'll probably just buy a couple Chromeboxes and be done with windows because I don't run any programs like I used to and there is pretty much an android app for everything I need these days. And starting with Android N, it will be the the first version of the Android that asks developers to deal with having their apps resized for different screen sizes. So that will help with the desktop experience.

EDIT-

Actually just read an article and they said that play store integration will be around September. Also, I found the following quote interesting.
 

The way MS is handling all this windows 10 stuff may actually be hurting them in the long run.

Sure, Chrome OS might be one way to migrate to Linux.

I currently maintain a modified version of Ubuntu, so I'd likely just switch to that.

I tried a couple versions of Linux a few years ago when I had to reformat. I'm sure it's not too complicated, but I didn't really feel like learning (too lazy) all the in and outs of it and just reinstalled Win7. I also tried Joli OS. It was interesting, but they discontinued it a few years ago. Zorin OS was pretty cool also. I think they both were based on Linux too.

You mean OTHER than the fact it's a better OS? Just because someone is happy with Windows 7 doesn't mean they won't like Windows 10 even better. I do. Most gamers do. A lot of people that have tried it do. There are advantages that Windows 10 brings over Windows 7. There were some bumps along the way which are to be expected anytime you enhance software, but they have been smoothed out and now it's just a smooth transition. I haven't seen any reputable sources calling for people to avoid Windows 10 lately. It's no longer a question of should you, it's now a question of why shouldn't you?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/windows-10-vs-windows-7

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-the-hell-wouldnt-you-upgrade-to-windows-10/

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/should-i-upgrade-windows-10-advice-win7-win8-chrome-3618139/

From your first link:

"We touched earlier on how gaming performance hasn’t changed much on Windows 10, but it’s worth elaborating.

In fact, there's a slight drop in performance on average, with Windows 10 tending to be about 0.5% slower than Windows 7, particularly with older games – Crysis 3, for instance – although there are some instances where the roles are reversed. Of course 0.5% is a ridiculously small amount either way, so much so that it’s not worth worrying about."

"There's only a very small drop in gaming performance" is not a compelling reason to upgrade to Win10 from Win7.

I read your other links and they seem to written primarily from the perspective of people who were unfortunate enough to be running Win8.  Upgrading from Win8 to Win10 is certainly understandable.  Upgrading from Win7 to Win10 is, as I said, a solution in search of a problem.

Now, if you're the kind of person who wants to search for a file on your computer and have Windows also provide a list of related websites in the results, then sure, I guess the changes might be welcome.  And if you're the kind of person who likes to have an active microphone all the time and have your computer start doing things when it hears what it thinks is a command, then I suppose that Win10 would be good for you, too.

Most of the new "features" that Win10 offers (like putting your computer into Hibernate mode when you tell it to Shut Down, to present the illusion of "faster booting") are of no interest to me, and I would end up spending a not-insignificant amount of time learning how to turn them off, and then turning them off.

I haven't done much research on it but the biggest thing for me are the privacy issues. No one knows what they are doing in the background. I know that you can do a custom install and turn much of the data mining off. However, already one update to the OS reset privacy options to their defaults, even if you had turned them off initially.

You missed how Windows 10 provides exclusive access to DirectX 12 and honestly most gamers aren't too worried about performance "particularly with older games". They're more worried about taking advantage of the latest technology with new games and Windows 10 does that.

Yeah I understand some people would rather NOT have options than have them and have to figure out how to use them, but for those people actually willing to learn new things it's not such a horrible thing to have options.

I'm not trying to convince you Spider, you've made up your mind and I respect your decision, but I want to give the others reading this thread a chance to make up their own minds and I think I've done that.

windows 10 gets a native ubuntu bash shell which is pretty nice

MS has done this before; they used DirectX10 to try to force gamers to migrate to Vista.  It was unsuccessful, as game developers continued to make games for WinXP's DirectX 9 (many popular games still have DX9 support today).  In any case, every retail game that ships (and is not made by MS themselves) will have DX11 support, until long after all the currently-existing hardware is obsolete.

The idea that "most gamers aren't too worried about performance" is almost too ridiculous to even address.  PC gamers are the single group of PC users that are MOST concerned about performance, which is why high-end PC components are usually targeted at gamers.

Very few of these things are actually new technology.  They are already-existing programs that MS has decided to shoehorn into the OS.

I think it's obvious that both of us have made up our minds.  What I'm trying to do is to tell the prospective reader that they shouldn't feel pressured into breaking their currently-working system for some loosely-defined "improvements" that they may not use, or even want.

If you have a currently-working Win7 system today, and you're thinking about doing a Win10 upgrade, then you should find out EXACTLY which new features Win10 offers that you are interested in and then weigh those new features against the possibility of breaking your currently-working system.  And anyone that tells you that you don't need to worry about your system breaking is not being honest with you.

As a person who works on computers for a living, my #1 priority is not breaking working computers.  And my advice reflects this priority.

You took that out of context. I said they aren't too worried about performance "particularly with older games". That last part makes all the difference in the world. Sure there are some gamers still playing Crysis 3, but most have moved on and the ones that are still playing, well chances are that Crysis 3 plays better on their Windows 10 hardware then it did on their Windows 7 hardware when it came out. You said it yourself, high end components are targeted toward gamers because game performance is linked directly to your hardware, the OS you are playing it on has about zero to do with it. And those high end components are typically speaking the ones that will take advantage of something like DirectX 12.

Agreed. For anyone willing to risk the very small chance that you will end up with a broken computer the benefits are tangible. There are lots of things that can break your computer. Anytime you load software onto it you could break your computer. Just connecting to the internet has the potential to break your computer if you happen to get a virus. Many take the risk everyday anyway (like everyone reading this forum for example) and don't end up with a broken computer. Approximately 15% of desktop computers in use today use Windows 10 which is 2nd highest percentage behind Windows 7 at approximately 45%. At some point Windows 10 will surpass Windows 7. The consensus of most reputable sources is that Windows 10 has proven to be a highly reliable, secure, fast, easy to use operating system, in fact the best operating system that Microsoft has ever produced and it's a free upgrade from Windows 7 and above. The choice is yours.

They said the performance was about 0.5% worse on average.  So, on average, you will lose gaming performance by upgrading to Win10.

If the roles were reversed and on average you GAINED performance by upgrading, I'm certain you would be pointing that out.  But unsurprisingly, you lose performance by upgrading to from Win7 to Win10, just as you lost performance by upgrading from WinXP to Win7.

If MS did not start the policy of tying DirectX upgrades to OS upgrades, they never would have been able to get gamers off of WinXP.

When I install a program on my computer, it's because I specifically want to use the features that program offers.  I evaluate where I got the program from, what it does, and weigh that against the possibility of it being spyware or malware.

When I connect to the internet, I evaluate the risks of possibly being infected with a virus or other malware vs. using a computer with no internet connectivity; it's a short and lopsided evaluation.

So, again, when considering an OS upgrade, you should weigh the rewards (e.g. prettier menus, voice commands, getting to re-learn where all the settings are, MS getting detailed reports on your everyday activity) against the risks (e.g. many hours lost trying to repair your broken system), and decide accordingly.

Still taking it out of context.  Here's the exact quote.


The average is .5%, but you see the "where the roles are reversed" part, that's on newer games where there tends to be a performance improvement, it's just that older games tend to bring down the average. On average you will lose gaming performance but not if you play mostly newer games, then you might actually see a performance improvement. Gamers tend to player newer games, not older ones.

Yep, I just did, on newer games you might, but it's really that last part that is the most important. ".5% is a ridiculously small amount either way, so much so that it's not worth worrying about" and gamers don't. They are much more interested in being able to take advantage of DirectX 12 rather than any imperceptable performance change.

Given that the number of games that support DX12 today is still hovering around the single-digits, that seems to be a hypothetical gain.  Maybe when there is a considerable library of real, existing DX12 games to play, Win10 might be worth the upgrade.  Of course, in that future, you probably already have Win10 installed on the new PC you've bought.  (Keep in mind that unless you go out and buy a new DX12-capable video card, installing Win10 will not give you DX12 capabilities, and if you're talking about a laptop, you're definitely going to need to buy a new one to use DX12 anyway.)

I'd also point out that you are inferring that Win10 does better on newer games, which is not stated; all that was stated is that Win10 tends to do worse "particularly on older games."  In any case, 0.5% worse is the total average, which (again!) is not a compelling reason to upgrade, because worse is worse than better.

Do you play World of Warcraft?  League of Legends?  Minecraft?  Counter-Strike?  Diablo III?  These are all "older games."

Agreed. Still if you own one of those games or purchase one in the near future...

Not sure where you are getting this information. I'm no expert on DX12 but from what I have read you do not need a new video card to take advantage of DX12. Now you may not get the full advantage of everything that DX12 provides, but if you have a fairly recent graphics card it can handle DX12 API calls at least that's what NVidia and AMD have said. There is a long list of cards on NVidia's website that support DX12. Has something changed?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2873545/dont-panic-directx12-wont-require-a-new-graphics-card-after-all.html

Well if older games do worse on average and the average is about the same then newer games must make up the difference and do better on average. In fact they did mention that the roles were reversed in some cases meaning that in some games performance is better on W10, but really what I have been saying all along is that W10 performance is really no different then Windows7. .5% average performance loss is not even worth discussing. Keep in mind for the most part those are benchmarking numbers. In reality most games you will see no difference playing on W10 then W7.

I've never said that gaming performance was a compelling reason to upgrade, I've said all along it's simply not a reason NOT to upgrade. Being able to take advantage of DX12 when game developers take advantage of it on the other hand is a reason to upgrade. How compelling can be debated.

I play D3, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft2 on occasion and host of other games that have all been released in that past 4 years or so, so yes I do play "older games". And I noticed no change when going from W7 to W10 on any of them. Not just performance wise mind you, absolutely no change whatsoever. Games play EXACTLY the same way on W10 that they played on W7. That's why gamers like W10, because there's no difference from W7 (which hasn't always been the case with new operating systems), not because it's markedly better. As I have said from the beginning the thing about W10 which has gamers excited is the prospect of better things with DX12, nothing more, nothing less.

I will also be playing Overwatch when it comes out today on W10. I've been in the beta, game works great on W10. I don't plan on uninstalling to see how it works on W7.

Microsoft makes relatively little money on sales of Windows to consumers, so even giving it away wouldn't be a disaster.

The big earners for Microsoft are Office, Server Tools, and Business licences.

Direct revenue from consumer Windows licences is not critical and in terms of profits, Microsoft almost certainly stands to make much more money from a Windows 10 consumer in the Windows Store than from the price paid for the operating system itself. The more Microsoft can shift software sales from physical stores or other online sites to its store, the greater the potential for huge profits. Profits that just aren't going to happen if a consumer stays on Windows 7, making it imperative for Microsoft to shift those consumers to Windows 10 even to the point of making the upgrade free.

Windows 10 is trying to push users into their sales environment.  It's exactly why Apple doesn't charge you for upgrades to the iPhone's OS.  They want you on the latest model, so you're likelier to buy apps from their store, of which they get a cut.

I much prefer this business model.

...and the free Windows 10 upgrade is extended indefinitely (i.e. no given end date) if you use "Assistive Technologies" like screen readers or voice recognition.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade

Note that the web page doesn't actually check that you are using any assistive technology software, so all you have to do is answer in the affirmative and you can upgrade for free if you have Windows 7 or greater.

Well at least the pop windows stopped appearing today!

Sometimes, an "I told you so" needs some time to take root and grow into a mighty oak:

Introducing Windows 11 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11)

It was such an obvious lie from the very start that I can hardly feel much satisfaction in having called it.

Is Win11 a free upgrade for Win10 users?

yes*


* probably .. right ?.. right?