Windows 10 problems

[Pieere]

it wasn't on my Win 10 program the first day; So I downloaded and all i use it for is the News and to boot into WIFi with. I use Chrome as my main browser. It works and that is all I care about as i'm not a Techie, yet!

[tjones1935]

Well, logged in today and all email accounts are there just like Surface. But today IE that I had pinned to task bar is missing. Used Search and it cannot find it, just keeps opening Edge. I use IE because it lets me use Roboform Start Page and that you can show all sites that you must use password in one place.

 

Still have not learned how to forward an email as the contacts do not come up. I am getting too old for this or perhaps it is keeping me young just the mental anguish I am going through each time I log on... Wonder what is in store for tomorrow's log on...

 

Today had a big update to 10 but then could not install so then it removed itself. Well have about 3 1/2 weeks to play around getting it working or I will revert back to 8.1

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Had my first problem on PC number 6. It was a Dell All-in-One with Windows 7. The install ran okay but at completion, after the login, I only had a black screen with cursor. I could get to Task Manager with Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

 

The result fix was an application called Fast Access that had added facial sign-on to Windows 7 even though the user was not using the facial login. Once I deleted that app, not needed with Win 11 as it is built-in, that were fine.

 

The learning exercise uncovered that Microsoft has made getting into safe mode a lot easier. Shift-Restart will reboot to the Diagnostic menus. Advanced then Start options.

[budeneighe]

Had not seen that, Mark. Great find! Thanks

[wildmandmc]

Thanks pieere, i didn't get win 10, but good to know my customers when they call to complain, they can go back in 30 days to what they had prior.

[Pieere]

This past Sundays' cumulative update Reboot Loop that RV had me concerned so I reverted back to Win 8.1 for a few months. I am not high Techie enough to deal with a registry fix!

[DJW]

I did that update without a hitch. I guess MS fixed it or I did not have a driver that was a problem.

 

Dennis

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Maybe we should have everyone that successfully installed the Windows 10 Upgrade respond instead of just hearing the people with problems.

 

I did 6 with one that had a problem with a POS software app.

[budeneighe]

All mine have gone in just fine so far. The one problem I have had was due to an NVIDIA driver and a Logitech driver that were carried over from 8.1. Since I removed them, no more problems.

 

My clean installed Win 10 never had any problems so far.

[lenp]

My upgrade went without a hitch BUT every day for the first four days my laptop would crash with a "USB error" and restart. Finally figured out my my mouse battery was dying. Changed the battery and everything has been fine.

Now I am paranoid having said that!

 

Lenp

[chirakawa]

For the benefit of those of us who have not upgraded to Win10, would you who have done so please list some of the benefits? What can you now do that you couldn't before. In what ways has it become easier or better to do those things, etc.

 

Thanks.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

For those who have been on Windows 8/8.1, a big benefit of Windows 10 is that app windows are no longer only full screen. They can be sizeable windows.

 

I observe that programs start faster.

 

I had no problem with the Windows 8/8.1 Start Screen but the Windows 10 Start Menu is a return to being Windows 7 like while still retaining the customizable features of Windows 8/8.1.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

A comment on staying current with Windows releases. I had a friend who like staying with Windows 95 (this was a few years ago). He wanted to stay with Win 95 because he knew it and didn't want to learn anything new. As I remember, Vista was the current Windows at the time. So he was content staying with Win 95.

 

But he was also frustrated because every USB device he tried had problems. Windows 95 was not written to handle USB and the add-ons were dealing with an interface not designed for devices like USB.

 

All his USB problems went away when he switched to a version of Windows that was written for USB.

 

Every Windows release it written for almost all the device interfaces present in the marketplace and those on the near horizon. The futures can be tough if the standards have not be settled. Things like USB-C are just coming out. They may work with Windows7/8/8.1 or they might be flaky.

 

One reason to stay current with Windows releases is to be available to use new devices and software technology. Sometimes the advantage is not at the moment but in the future. This is the one time in Windows history where you can upgrade to the current operating system at a price that even an RVer can handle, free.

[Bill Joyce]

My 11.6" touchscreen Acer lost its touchpad when going to Windows 10. I installed the 8.1 touchpad driver and all is well. I was glad to find our wifi was set to metered when I got back to the motorhome.

With 8 and 8.1, you could track the bandwidth usage for each wifi network, now it just tells you how much bandwidth you used on all wifi's for the past month. Not nearly as useful.

[chirakawa]

A comment on staying current with Windows releases. I had a friend who like staying with Windows 95 (this was a few years ago). He wanted to stay with Win 95 because he knew it and didn't want to learn anything new. As I remember, Vista was the current Windows at the time. So he was content staying with Win 95.

 

But he was also frustrated because every USB device he tried had problems. Windows 95 was not written to handle USB and the add-ons were dealing with an interface not designed for devices like USB.

 

All his USB problems went away when he switched to a version of Windows that was written for USB.

 

Every Windows release it written for almost all the device interfaces present in the marketplace and those on the near horizon. The futures can be tough if the standards have not be settled. Things like USB-C are just coming out. They may work with Windows7/8/8.1 or they might be flaky.

 

One reason to stay current with Windows releases is to be available to use new devices and software technology. Sometimes the advantage is not at the moment but in the future. This is the one time in Windows history where you can upgrade to the current operating system at a price that even an RVer can handle, free.

 

Thanks. Good points all. I generally take a "wait and see" attitude with most OS upgrades and wait until the major bugs have been worked out. I do believe that the overwhelming argument in favor of doing the upgrade now is the fact that it is free.

 

In the past, I generally have gotten a new personal computer every three to four years and typically just go with whatever OS is installed on it. The only time that approach has caused me problems is when I bought a laptop with Vista on it. Eventually, the problems with Vista were worked out and I got good service out of that device.

 

My computing needs are pretty basic, so I don't generally feel the need to have the latest software or hardware available. For example, I'm still using Quicken 2000 for my finances. I haven't seen a single feature on the newer versions which appeals to me and the 2000 version does every thing I ask of it.

[Jack Mayer]

I think most installations go well. HOWEVER, I do NOT want to mess with drivers, debugging flaky issues, tracking down stuff, etc. So I am waiting awhile. IF I lose another system to upgrade issues like I did with the W8 upgrade I will totally abandon Windows. There are lots of options to it that work for me.

[tjones1935]

Again today when logging on Win 10 tried to update but could not so had to remove it. For me that was the last straw so I rolled back to 8.1.

 

Surface using 10 is still good to go so will not roll back that.

[budeneighe]

I have not found anything that has a problem on win 10 but ran OK on previous releases. I have found a few things that are much better, though. Both 8.1 and win 10 are 64bit installs, for reference.

 

For instance, Bluetooth finally seems to work OK. Setting up and pairing with a new device is much, much faster on win 10. I can connect, disconnect and it just works. First release of windows ever that some of my Bluetooth devices would work consistently.

 

I did have some sudden crashing problems which took awhile to figure out on the upgraded 8.1 to win 10 install. That turned out to be due to Logitech drivers for my cordless trackman (like on NCIS). I also had a problem with NVIDIA drivers that were carried over.

 

In both cases, it was a matter of just uninstalling them from the programs list AND going to the DEVICE MANAGER, setting the VIEW to HIDDEN DEvices and uninstalling everything that was greyed out and telling it to delete the configs and modules when it uninstalled.

 

After that, it all comes up clean and fast.

 

Boot time went from about 7 minutes to a little under 3 when booting from the same SSD. I am sure that some of that is because of the removal of older hardware drivers and some is probably due to a much tighter shell. I know that a lot of that time was between login and usable desktop. That is pretty quick, now, with the same desktop.

 

I am not fond of big icons (at least not until I really can't see any better than I still can). Some of the defaults win 10 imposes for views are really dumbed down to broad strokes and very unhelpful during problem diagnosis and data scrubbing. So far, though, I have found the "good views" I am used to but they are not always where they used to be.

 

For example, troubleshooting connectivity problems always has me spending a lot of time on the hardware adapters page where I can see and manipulate the hardware properties of each physical and virtual adapter. That still exists but the default NETWORK CONNECTIONS view isn't it, anymore. It's now called Change adapter options under RELATED SETTINGS off of the Network and Internet page. Same stuff just a slightly different way to get to it.

 

For the other stuff, I am finding it the same or better as 8.1 and way better than windows 7 and before.

 

Yes, a user will have to learn a handful of new things but most of these are about finding where they relocated the handles to.

 

I am not going back. I have 3 old (and I mean old) systems on the rack in the basement of the house in Ral. They are currently still running various versions of pre win 2000 OS. 2 were servers and 1 my personal system. I occasionally fire them up just to see if they will still run. So far, they do. I even still have the BBS system I hosted back in the late 1980s that boots and runs frontdoor.

 

If I ever have the time I am just curious whether these systems will be able to run win 10. I suspect that as long as I have enough RAM, they will.

[budeneighe]

I think most installations go well. HOWEVER, I do NOT want to mess with drivers, debugging flaky issues, tracking down stuff, etc. So I am waiting awhile. IF I lose another system to upgrade issues like I did with the W8 upgrade I will totally abandon Windows. There are lots of options to it that work for me.

In the "things going well" category, the biggest risk is doing an update rather than a clean install. For this reason, I have learned that it is worth the trouble to carve out a smallish partition to do a clean install into. This serves as a chance to really see the new OS in action without expecting to just "Get on with business" as I am used to. It lets me have a clean opportunity to safely play with it and I can still boot back to my existing system for doing my regular work. Once I am satisfied that the clean new system is handy to me and I really want to use it, then I will update my regular system to it (after proper recovery cautions, of course).

 

Still retaining the clean install really helps sort out most glitches by giving me a baseline to compare to. It really helps me not blame a new OS when the real problem is some latent garbage that was carried over in the update. In the long run, I really would not want to have such risks just sitting there waiting to bite me.

[Jack Mayer]

Good advice, Budd, and what I intend to do if the automatic installs do not get me first.

 

On my T100 I'm going to let the automation do as it will.....MS should have this stuff RIGHT if they want everyone to upgrade. However on my new primary machine I will partition it off and manage the upgrade. I have to protect this machine.

[Medico]

I would definitely recommend disabling AV before starting the upgrade. I believe that is what cause me some minor problems. My DW's PC is identical to mine and the upgrade worked perfectly for her PC.

[skp51443]

I think most installations go well. HOWEVER, I do NOT want to mess with drivers, debugging flaky issues, tracking down stuff, etc. So I am waiting awhile. IF I lose another system to upgrade issues like I did with the W8 upgrade I will totally abandon Windows. There are lots of options to it that work for me.

 

I'd like to totally abandon Windows at some point but I keep finding reasons to have a copy around even if I only need to run it on rare occasions. I'm getting better at buying hardware that doesn't require Windows for some task but all too often you'll find a need to do something to your hardware from within Windows or some obscure task that you can't find a program to accomplish except under Windows.

 

Last two examples here were an update to one of my older SSD drive's firmware and a CD surface analysis program that reported details of the raw sectors and the error correction.

 

So while leaving Windows for daily stuff is not a problem for many folks there are instances when you'd like a copy available without the hassle of installing it. A dual boot setup is usually the simplest option and doesn't take that much disk space, around 20 GB for a minimal copy of Win 7 if I recall correctly.

[budeneighe]

Interestly enough, Stan, that is exactly how I feel about Linux. I keep several bootable versions installed for quick boot to them but my serious stuff stays on windows because I don't relish the hassel of learning enough about LInux versions to figure out how to get certain obviious things done. At some point, I expect the two to just come as a package and one switches in/out of each when certain things are initiated. Opening Word or anything in the Office suite just automatically opens under windows.

 

Though common default OS' should be available much like the filetype defaults are in WIndows, they should be overrideable, just like setting the default browser. I could make my default browser Chrome and when it comes up, it comes up in OpenSuse. Now that's interoperability.

[hiljoball]

I am happy with my move from Win 7 to Win 10 on two laptops. Both installs went fine, and it was easy to turn off all the stuff I did not want to share.

 

I had a initial problem with the Windows default drivers for the synaptics touch pads that lost some of the features. I reinstalled the Win 7 drivers and that fixed the problem initially. I have noticed that since I updated the drivers, Windows has now updated the synaptics drivers again with new ones that work fine. WIndows also updated an older driver that I installed from WIn 7 for my USB headset.

 

I gave up on Edge, as it seemed slower than Firefox and is missing several features that I like.

 

All my existing programs work, including even and old copy of MS Streets 2005.

 

John

[Pieere]

Reverted my newer Acer computer back to 8.1 and now have installed Win/10 on my Gateway which had win/7. It's only the Home premium edition and 64 bits but seem to work OK for the programs i use! We will see have 29 days to go back if necessary.