Windows 10 Upgrade

[Garuda]

I thought I'd share my experiences with the Win 10 upgrade thus far.

I have a small home network with four computers: two still run windows 7. Two ran Windows 8.1.

I upgraded one laptop from 8.1 to 10, without any problems.
I did do the 'custom' upgrade instead of the express upgrade, and that allowed me to
a) keep all the default programs I was using
b) avoid activating those pesky privacy-robbing 'features'.
The whole process took about 1 and a half hours.

Today I upgraded my main PC, i.e. the one I constantly use.
Again, this was an upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.
And again, the upgrade went smoothly, taking the same amount of time as was the case for the laptop.

What is annoying is that apparently none of the settings and data of the Windows 8.1 Metro / Modern Apps (from the Start Screen) are saved.
Each and every one of them gets replaced by a new Windows 10 version, that starts from scratch.
News, Sports, Weather, ... all had to be manually reconfigured.
Worse was that all the 'collections' I had made in the Food App (read recipes etc.) have gone too.
Apparently there are some freeware programs that allow you to keep and/or upgrade some of the old Apps, with their settings.
You may want to install that before upgrading if you have information in your apps that you want to keep.

What is a bit perplexing, too, is that the title bars in all windows now, by default, are white.
The remedy for that is to either use themes, or to use a (freeware) utility like Winaero.

Speaking of themes: none of the Windows 7 / 8.1 themes I had installed seem to work anymore.
I had to manually reactivate the background slideshow, and manually select the folder to choose the images from.
And unlike in Win 7 and 8.1. you can no longer select which images in a folder are shown: in win 10, all are shown.

Apart from that, everything seems to be working fine.

Edge (the new browser) is an oddity. You can't use it to open local HTML files. Well, you can, but it won't read other files it links to: CSS, JavaScript, images... all of which I typically use. So it's useless to open local HTML files.
(And, funnily enough, Edge then offers you the option to open the files in Internet Explorer instead).

[calikid]

Useful info. I too have upgraded from Win8.1 to Win10 on my HP Stream7 tablet. Much smoother than my Win7 to Win8 upgrade where MS Office2007 disappeared from my system! Chosen to wait awhile on my main i7 desktop system running Win8.1Pro with Media Center.
Anyone out there upgrading from Win7 to Win10 that can share your experience?

[Garuda]

Good to note: once the upgrade was installed, there was no loss of productivity.

When I got my first machine with Windows 8, things were different: there was a considerable loss of productivity. because you were constantly confronted with 'what the ...' moments where you either couldn't find out how to do things you wanted, or you were confronted with unpredictable reactions from the machine.

So the transition to Windows 10 is smoother.

[Garuda]

Useful info. I too have upgraded from Win8.1 to Win10 on my HP Stream7 tablet. Much smoother than my Win7 to Win8 upgrade where MS Office2007 disappeared from my system! Chosen to wait awhile on my main i7 desktop system running Win8.1Pro with Media Center.
Anyone out there upgrading from Win7 to Win10 that can share your experience?

I may upgrade one of my Win7 machines over the weekend.
If I do, I'll keep you posted.

(The other one is too old. I would have to add at least 1GB more RAM for it to be able to get the upgrade, but it's 8 years old so I won't bother).

[Garuda]

Further update: Apparently during the upgrade process, some files got corrupted, which caused two programs to crash.
(One of those two was Dreamweaver, which I use on a daily basis).

It's unclear whether it was the newer patches for Win 10 that corrupted the files or whether it was the actual upgrade.

Anyway, a 'sfc / scannow' from an admin command prompt fixed those, and now the programs work again.

[Garuda]

Two useful links with regard to Privacy and Windows 10:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-...ranoids-guide/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/want-to...-app-for-that/

[calikid]

Further update: Apparently during the upgrade process, some files got corrupted, which caused two programs to crash.
(One of those two was Dreamweaver, which I use on a daily basis).

It's unclear whether it was the newer patches for Win 10 that corrupted the files or whether it was the actual upgrade.

Anyway, a 'sfc / scannow' from an admin command prompt fixed those, and now the programs work again.

I just ordered up a new SSD for my primary system.
Figure to preserve Win8.1 disk.
If the Win10Pro upgrade kills my RATs, I'll be out of business!

[Garuda]

Some further updates:

1. Some fonts have gone missing. All fonts that were not installed in the default fonts folder are no longer available.
(It's not really that much of a problem in my specific case, as they're all together in a separate folder so I can just read them all in again).

2. Art work for CD sleeves has gone missing, too. For about a dozen albums Media Player had not found the album art, so I had looked for it on the Net, and then copied and pasted it in Media Player. You guessed it: those were gone, too, and had to be redone.

[calikid]

From this article, sounds like it's best to perform any hardware upgrades you have in mind BEFORE upgrading the software to Win10.
Otherwise, you risk losing your license, and MIGHT have to buy another.

Microsoft quietly rewrites its activation rules for Windows 10

Windows activation is alive and well in Windows 10. Microsoft doesn't like to talk about the inner workings of its anti-piracy software, but it's clear from testing that Windows 10 included a major change in the way activation works.

By Ed Bott
Windows product keys are almost (but not quite) a thing of the past.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has rewritten the rules for how it performs product activation on retail upgrades of Windows, including the free upgrades available for a year beginning on July 29, 2015. The net result is that clean installs will be much easier--but only after you get past the first one.

OEM activation hasn't changed, nor have the procedures for activating volume license copies. But the massive Get Windows 10 upgrade push means that for the near future at least those retail upgrade scenarios are very important.

The biggest change of all is that the Windows 10 activation status for a device is stored online. After you successfully activate Windows 10 for the first time, that device will activate automatically in the future, with no product key required.

That's a huge change from previous versions of Windows, which required a product key for every installation. And it's potentially an unwelcome surprise for anyone who tries to do a clean install of Windows 10 without understanding the new activation landscape.

Microsoft is characteristically shy about discussing the details of activation. That's understandable, because every detail the company provides about its anti-piracy measures offers information that its attackers can use.

But it's also frustrating, because Microsoft's customers who use Windows don't want to have to think about activation. The Windows PC you paid for, and the free upgrade you spent time installing, should just work.

I've had some way-off-the-record discussions with people who know a few things about the subject, and I've also done my own testing for the two weeks since Windows 10 was released to the public. Here's what I've learned.

Your Windows 10 license is stored online and linked to your device.

For more than a decade, one of the keys that Microsoft's activation servers have relied on is a unique ID, which is based on a hash of your hardware. That hash is reportedly not reversible and not tied to any other Microsoft services. So although it defines your device, it doesn't identify you.

Here's how that ID works with Windows 7 or Windows 8:

When you activate for the first time, that hashed value (let's call it your installation ID) is recorded in the activation database alongside the product key you entered with the installation. Later, when you reinstall the same edition of Windows on the same hardware, with the same product key, it's activated automatically. (Conversely, if you try to use that product key on a different machine with a different hardware ID, you'll probably be denied activation.)

Windows 10 goes one very large step further.

When you upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, the Windows 10 setup program checks your current activation status and reports the result to the activation servers. If you're "genuine" (that is, properly activated), the Windows activation server generates a Windows 10 license certificate (Microsoft calls it a "digital entitlement") and stores it in conjunction with your installation ID and the version you just activated (Home or Pro).

It didn't need a product key to do that activation. All it needed was the proof from the Software Licensing Manager utility that your underlying activation was legit.

You can now wipe that hard disk completely, boot from Windows 10 installation media, and install a squeaky clean copy.

The Setup program asks you to enter a product key, but in a major change from Windows 8 and 8.1, it allows you to skip entering that key.

<snip>
The one exception is a motherboard replacement, which will inevitably cause the Software Licensing Management utility to recognize the device as a new PC and require reactivation <READ YOUR WIN10 LICENSE WILL NO LONGER FUNCTION>, typically over the phone. A motherboard upgrade, even if you reuse storage, video, memory, and a case, is considered a new PC. In that case, if the underlying Windows license is from a retail copy, that license can be transferred. If you are upgrading (and not replacing) a motherboard on an OEM PC that was sold with Windows preinstalled, the license agreement prevents the license from being transferred. Story Continues

Note: The comments section grew QUICKLY with a few dissatisfied users, and many questions.
Seems the biggest concern was, "If I swap out a hard drive, will by license become VOID?"
A few commenters were in Tier 2 Support H3LL trying to resolve the issue (FAILED activation after re-install).
Service Pack 1 anyone?

[pontificator]

This particular tool is coming along nicely in terms of being able to disable most of the telemetry: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/Disable...ses/tag/v2.1.1
Be warned it is in a very raw state, so all backup caveats apply.