Microsoft apparently is offering a free upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.

My Windows 8.1 system is running just fine. Is there any compelling reason for me to upgrade? What does Windows 10 do for me that I might find necessary or even useful?

tanstaafl.

I'd recommend claiming the upgrade even if you don't intend to install it right away. The free upgrade offer is only valid for the first year it is out. After that it will be a paid upgrade.

It's currently in public beta testing mode now. Overall think of it as kinda combining Windows 7 and 8 together UI wise (though more with the "flat" style 8 has). The start menu makes a return, with the start screen from 8 banished on desktop computers.

Under the hood, a lot of good work is going on to finally let Microsoft distance it's self from some of it's legacy boat anchors, but not in quite the salt the earth way that the Windows 8 UI took. Windows 10 going forward is going to continue to see updates that add new features and evolve the platform. It's possibly the last "release" of Windows in the traditional sense if their strategy works out, moving Windows to more of a software as a service model.

With Windows 10 being a free upgrade for the first year, software developers may be tempted to move to a Windows 10 only support model sooner then has happened in the past. Hard to say if this will happen for sure, especially since Microsoft is opening their application store to legacy Win32 apps, contained in little VM like isolated containers.

Overall as a non Microsoft person, I'm liking the direction it's going.

I've been playing around with the beta. I like the new look and general direction of things. The tablet mode leaves a little to be desired at this time and is a regression from how it's working in 8.1. That said there are still some changes being made. Overall I wish I could already switch but the beta still has too many issues.

Continuing to remove support for older applications is, to me, a reason *not* to upgrade. I think Doug would be in the same boat. I chose Windows 8.x before I realized that it wouldn't run some of my old games nor run any of my old 16-bit apps.

Since I have a limited internet data plan this concerns me greatly. Also working with a SAAS provider for the last two years this again concerns me. I have a feeling Windows will be locked down more and you will be upgraded and configured as big brother sees fit - "For your own good."

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.

This is how the Apps on iOS are upgraded, and how the OS on Chromebooks are managed.

Yea, I've not been a big Apple fan since I learned Basic on an Apple IIC. Boy I'm old.

I had to use a iPhone 4 at my prior job. It is like new in the box . I need to get it on ebay before it's totally worthless.

I've heard rumors of the updates now rolling out in bits and pieces, thus spreading out the data for those on limited plans. Not sure if this will be something on the user level that can be set however. There's certainly nothing like this in the Insider Preview version (build 10130).

I don't think MS is really worried about bandwidth.

Since Windows 8, Microsoft did add an option to mark a connection as metered. One thing added to this for updates in Windows 10 is allowing computers to share updates to each other, kinda bittorrent style. I imagine someone with multiple computers on a metered connection would end up seeing one system pulling them down, and then distributing them to others on the network.

So far, Windows 10 hasn't exposed a way to schedule an unmetered time though, which would benefit those on connections that are only limited during the day. Some satellite providers do this.

I started on the //c also, and with Basic. Yup, I'm old also.

I don't get the Apple love. The iTunes/iPad behavior is annoying to say the least (I don't want to 'sync', I just want to throw a couple PDFs on the iPad to read on the plane, damnnit).

Hopefully they will still allow you to hold off on updates and then download them all at once. I currently go to a friends house, drink his beer, and update my Android on his unlimited web juice. I could do the same with a laptop.

However the cloud based SAAS company I support (Workday) updates every weekend and then a major update every so often. Some things are option and others are not.

The centralized and distributive computing models have been fighting it out since day one and especially when the mainframe was king. This is nothing new. I just prefer the distributive model.

It's still a Microsoft OS with different editions, and being able to control the updates is now a checkbox differentiator between the editions:

The only real problem with app updates on iOS is, new versions can be disappointing. With no easy way to revert, I'm conservative about updating.

My Mom was thouroughly pissed about the new easy on the eyes theme in the kindle app. With her old eyes, the sharp contrast of white on black was a good thing.

Yes, reserve to upgrade for the same reasons Tom said.

I'd also go as far as actually updating it. You are familiar with windows 7 and Windows 10 UI paradigm is closer to that than 8 is.

The benefit is that you have the latest features and updates, and I'd say, generally, the sooner the better.

I've been using the various previous since the beginning, and overall I really like it. I did like 8 too, so if you did not, take my opinion carefully.

Also, now that you have a VM ready, you'll be able to simply migrate that to the new OS install and that won't change a bit.

My Windows 10 upgrade is now ready to install. It's been two and a half months since I first asked the question, and by now there must be a pretty good knowledge base among you about Windows 10.

Based on your experiences, should I do the update?

tanstaafl.

In a word: Yes.

With some trepidation I clicked on the "Update Now" button and let Microsoft have its way with my precious computer. The results were anti-climactic.

Because I had painstakingly parameterized my 8.1 install to mimic Vista as much as possible, the Windows 10 installation maintained those settings, and frankly the only obvious difference I can find between my 8.1 and my 10 interface is that the icons in the System Tray are smaller.

Oh, it's nice not having my windows go full-screen whenever I inadvertently allow the mouse cursor to touch the top of the screen, and the nonsense that happened in 8.1 whenever I let the cursor wander over to the far right is now gone.

I guess there were enough complaints about 8.1 that even Microsoft came to the conclusion that not everybody wanted a tablet interface, and that some of us Luddites were still computing on a desktop system.

tanstaafl.

That's been an adjustable configuration setting in all versions of windows since the "feature" was introduced to begin with. In fact, I'm surprised that Windows 10 even changed it at all for you.

The setting, by the way, is located in: Control Panel, Ease of Access, Make The Mouse Easier To Use, "Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen."

I have been impressed with how smoothly the upgrades have gone for most people. Still room for improvement, though Windows 10 did a lot of important work in that regard.

Going forward, they plan on future updates rolling out in a similar way. Microsoft's internal goal was to try and match Apple's yearly cycle, but from what I've heard they had to back that down to about a 2 year cycle.

Doug, did you install a replacement Start menu in 8.1? That's one thing you may want to uninstall now that Windows 10 brought it back natively. At least personally, I try to minimize the number of apps that change the stock OS via unsupported means.

No, I was able to get by with right-clicking the icon that would have been the start menu icon in Vista, and selecting what I wanted. Almost everything I do comes from the task bar at the bottom of the screen.

tanstaafl.

After what I saw of the Windows 10 revamped start menu, I would want to use a replacement start menu anyway. My personal fave is Classic Shell, I haven't noticed it causing any problems on Win8 and don't expect it to on Win10.

Well, I looked at it and I don't see where it would do anything for me. Probably because I'm not smart enough to see the advantages.

As I said above, just about everything I do is through the icons in the taskbar, which contains icons/links to Windows Explorer, Firefox, Excel, MS-Word, Paint.Net, Rosetta Stone, Adobe Acrobat, TurboFloorPlan, Nero, Google Earth, Control Panel, the "Run" command, a shortcut to "Documents" directory, Command C:> prompt, Oracle Virtual Box [which I still can't make work properly!], uTorrent, Calibre, and Internet Explorer aka Microsoft Edge. The above list is pretty much in order of frequency of use.

There are some links on the desktop: Accountings, Pictures, Scanner, Games, Music, Utilities, etc., that are shortcuts to directories on other hard drives. I am seldom more than two mouse clicks away from whatever I want to do. So I was never able to understand what all the fuss was about when Microsoft took away the Start button in Windows 8. I never used it anyway.

tanstaafl.

Yeah the only thing Classic Shell gets me is a Win7/WinXP style menu. If you never used that menu on those operating systems either, then classic shell won't help you.

Nor does it get you the holy grail of the taskbar, "always combine, show labels"...

Perhaps for you. I never want the labels.

Most people probably don't, but I run about a dozen things at a time and I've found it's the fastest way to switch apps and get notifications.

Odd Windows 10 bug to be aware of. Fonts won't install unless the Windows Firewall is turned on.

http://superuser.com/questions/957907/unable-to-install-fonts-on-windows-10

All your data are belong to us:

The Reg on Win 10

My Wintendo 10 install threw a weird error trying to save a picture from the snipping tool:

C:\Users\drakino\Pictures\Capture.PNG
You don't have permission to save in this location. Contact the administrator to obtain permission.

Would you like to save in the Pictures folder instead?

Clicking yes just pops the same error back. Guess it's another odd bug.

Yeah, that sort of thing bothers me too. Ever since Windows 7, I've had problems with permissions on the User folder that I'm supposedly signed in as. Lots of the items in that folder give me a permissions error like that when I try to surf to them. It's part of the reason why I still save my documents and other work files in a hand-created "c:\My Documents" folder old-school like Windows 95. I never have permissions problems when I do that.

Of course it means that most backup programs need to be told about the folder instead of automatically finding my files. Which is fine with me. It also has the added benefit of making it so that programs which try to auto-scan for media files never find anything. (Good.)

Has Windows added any sort of permissions repair tool that will correct this? It's not a big concern for me, curious about a quick fix similar to the OS X "Repair Permissions" option for these types of issues.

In W7. I've seen cases where a PDFs doc is open in the preview pane on the right of the file manager. And I open the file in acrobat to redline it - then I can't save the file till I close the preview pane. This isn't limited to acrobat.

The worst part is that it's sort of like putting a fancier lock on your front door. If some one really wants to break into your house, you're not going to be safe just because you have a keypad, or a bump-proof lock. A crowbar or a broken window will do it.

It's pretty easy to get access to the files in a user account on Windows but just changing ownership. I guess they feel like a slight deterrent is enough.

Tom, I'm not aware of such a tool, but would be interested in finding one. I don't see these kinds of issues alot, but just in case...

I wonder if this permissions issue I saw is now causing other problems.

My start menu broke now. Clicking the Windows button, or hitting the Command (windows) key does nothing. Right clicking still works to bring up a different menu. And since all my games are on the taskbar, hasn't impeded the ability to play games, yet.

The only thing I do with this install is boot it, launch Battle.net or Steam and play a game. If the NVidia thing tells me I have a new driver, it gets installed. Windows self updates.

That's not the behavior I was referring to. I hated it whenever the mouse cursor touched the top of the screen it made that window go full-screen. Or maybe that is what you meant.

I have found an annoying little glitch in Windows 10 that I hadn't had in previous Windows versions.

Always before, when I wanted to move a window on the desktop, all I had to do was put the cursor on the menu bar and drag it. Now there is a delay, not every time but mostly, and where the cursor is placed in the menu bar seems much more picky. When I do get the cursor placed where Windows is happy with it, I have to pause a little less than a second until I see the cursor flicker, then I can drag the window.

Is it just me, or do others see this behavior?

tanstaafl.

Tony passed along this which fixed my issue with the Start Menu.

The interesting thing is, that fix worked for everyone else but me. When I had a similar issue with Windows 10, it was when I was running Win 10 in a VM via remote desktop, and via remote desktop, I still didn't have a Start menu after doing that fix.

To fix it in a VM, I had to wipe and re-create the user profile for the affected user. (Make a new user profile, log in as that user profile, wipe the user profile of the affected user, re-log in as the affected user, user profile gets rebuilt, start menu works now.)

I've just yesterday installed Windows 10, and I like it. There's only one thing I got a problem with: I've got a folder filled with videos, collected from the internet over the years. These reside on a second HD, the OS is on an SSD.

Now, some (not all) of the videos don't play any more. (they played fine on Windows 8.1) They show no thumb icon in explorer and when clicked don't start to play. Windows Media Player says it cannot play them because I don't have access to the file or because it's already in use, and VLC says the file can't be opened.

Because I suspected this had something to do with file policies, as a test I copied one of the stubborn files onto a USB stick (obviously formatted with FAT32, which doesn't support file policies), and what do you know: from this stick the file plays perfectly. If I want to copy the file back to the original file and choose "overwrite", I get an error, saying the original file can't be accessed.

So this is obviously some file policy issue. How can I fix this? I want all these files to be completely opened up. I'm the only user of this computer, so I don't care about file policies anyway. My user account is an administrator account, so I would think I'd have access to everything. Turns out I do not.

Can anybody help me please? Is there a Windows equivalent of chmod 777?

Test this out on just one of the troublesome files first. If it works for one, try it on more of the files.

First check to see if it's simply that the file is tagged as some kind of a web download and so it's considered to have come from an unsafe location:
- Right click on the file and select PROPERTIES.
- At the bottom of the properties box look for the text "Security: This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer."
- If so, there should be an UNBLOCK button next to it. Hit that.

If that isn't the issue, then try this.

Try editing the security policies of the file, see if you can Take Ownership and set it to access "everyone" to be "full control".

If those don't work, let us know and we can try other stuff.

Thanks for the help Tony.

I tried what you said, but when I click Properties on the file, there is no text that says that the file came from another computer.

When I go to the security tab, there is a text that says: "you need read autorisation to see the properties of this object - Click Advanced to continue" (roughly translated from Dutch 'cause my Windows is a Dutch version ; the Enlish version of this message may very but I'm sure you get the gist)

When I click Advanced, there is one of those "Admin buttons" (you know, with a little shield icon) which says, "click here to try and do the operation with a higher clearance".

When I click the button I see another menu with "advanced security settings" (see below - in Dutch, sorry about that)



When I get here, I don't know what to do. I don't see a button to "take ownership". There is a button on the bottom, which says "overname uitschakelen" (= disable takeover). If I click that, I get two options : "convert the autorisations taken over for this object to explicit autorisations" or "remove all taken over autorisations of this object".
The first options doesn't make a difference, and the second gives me a popup box that says: "if you continue, nobody will have access to this file any more, and only it's owner may change the autorisations. - do you wish to continue?" If I try that, nothing changes as well. (except I can see that all the 4 autorisations (for Admin, system etc...) disappear. I've also found out that I cannot even delete these files, since (it says) I'm not an Administrator (but I am!).

On the other hand, simply copying these files to another folder on the same harddisk (so it's not necessary to copy to a USB stick) also fixes the issue... I can play the copied file fine. But I cannot copy them back and overwrite the original file because I'm not allowed access to the original file...and cannot delete it... strange!

Edit: I found a utility called TakeOwnershipPro. Using it on a locked file does not make it playable, but from that moment on I can delete it. So worst case scenario, I guess I'll simply copy all files to a different folder, use TakeOwnershipPro on the old folder, next delete it and then copy everything back. It's a pain and will probably take me some time, but most of the process is automated so I guess it could be worse.

Windows 10 finally put an end to my well used Cakewalk Home Studio 2. Rather than being handed the Realtek line in / out ports on my Toshiba P755 (Core i7-2670QM), it is asked to use "WsAudio_Device" which I don't think was there under Windows 7. So, it is probably a logical sound adapter (does that make sense?) that Cakewalk is unprepared for.

That's okay though. It was time to use something else, so now I'm exploring Audacity.

I had a similar situation with an old version of Logic Audio when upgrading Windows versions and audio adapters. I was saved by ASIO 4 All. If there's a chance you can configure cakewalk to use an ASIO driver, then that might help.

Do explore Audacity, though, and also explore Reaper.