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Windows 10 desktop

Every i of the half-dozen Windows 8 machines I've upgraded to Windows 10 has transitioned smoothly. One even did it by itself while I was traveling. So I have been pretty impressed by the upgrade process, and have said so. Merely each fourth dimension we write nigh Windows 10, the annotate threads feature lots of horror stories from readers attempting to upgrade all the manner from Windows vii, which is something Microsoft really wants to have happen. So, beingness a full-service announcer, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my piece of work-a-day desktop from Windows 7 — the auto I read my email on daily, and have kept my financials and personal records on since the day I congenital it 5 years agone.

It is exactly the sort of machine that deserves to live on with a new OS: half-dozen-cadre AMD CPU, lots of RAM, an SSD for booting, dual monitors, and more. What meliorate exam of the upgrade process? So, after making a total fill-in, I plunged in — and my feel hither couldn't have been more than different from my experience upgrading from Windows 8.

Showtime, I checked and institute not all of my applications were compatible. In item, I needed to upgrade my PGP software. No small thing, since PGP was bought by Symantec years ago. Goose egg wrong with that, just a reminder that, unlike machines that were updated in the last year or two to Windows 8, well-nigh machines that take been sedately running Windows 7 for many years are more than likely to have former software that needs updating — and more likely to have software that is no longer supported.

Once I had the PGP issue sorted, I optimistically began the upgrade. There are two pretty compelling reasons for Windows 7 users to want to practice an upgrade in identify instead of a clean install. The first is that yous have to do it that style at to the lowest degree one time to get your free upgrade. The second is you've probably got quite a number of old applications on your machine by now, and it wouldn't be a pocket-sized task to track them all downwards and re-install them again. That said, an upgrade is most always going to be more troublesome than a clean install.

It is hard to imagine a less useful error message for a failed install than this oneUnfortunately, as I've written virtually before, Microsoft has non fixed whatever of the horrible parts of Windows Update — and that goes for the Windows 10 Upgrade process as well. The error messages are even so completely inscrutable. I used to curse the long hex codes that Windows Update spewed out, until I experienced several errors this time with no code at all — simply a Vonnegut-esque "Something Happened" in the error dialog. Later on receiving i of these errors, the familiar rabbit pigsty of debugging starts: running the troubleshooter, renaming organisation folders based on vague tips from the web, unplugging devices, re-trying everything, updating the BIOS, changing BIOS settings, and then on.

At no bespeak in this procedure was there any truly useful data provided by clicking on whatever fault links or provided officially past Microsoft that dealt with the issues. In fact, so many of the error codes accept been re-used, or are generic, that looking one up often resulted in tips for installing Quicken or Part, instead of Windows. This is the part I don't understand. Why hasn't Microsoft — if it really wants customers to movement forward — provided the kind of back up information they demand? I can't imagine whatever "normal user" being patient enough to fight through the cabalistic techniques for hunting down update logs, and the voodoo necessary to try and ready things right.

So, later on nearly a day of this (a twenty-four hours in the life of the car, since each step took time, probably an 60 minutes or three of my fourth dimension), I finally got the upgrade to run. Yay! Now I was sure I was on my mode. Windows 10 went through its happy dance, and encouraged me to log in. Except I couldn't. For some reason my Microsoft wireless keyboard & mouse weren't existence recognized. I needed to remote desktop into the organization to work on information technology. Even sticking an old-fashioned USB keyboard and mouse on the machine didn't seem to assist. I'm about certain there is some type of funky interaction with my system'southward motherboard.

I don't envy Microsoft the job of making new code run on over a billion old machines. But that'due south what Windows 10 needs to do if information technology really volition be the OS that gets customers to movement off of Windows seven.

Microsoft helpfully explains that Something happened because, well, Something happenedAfter fiddling around, I noticed that the machine would alternate each boot. Half of the reboots were super-quick, but with no mouse or keyboard support, and the other one-half took over x minutes, but the mouse and keyboard worked. That brings me to the next insane matter Microsoft has washed that will drive Windows 7 users crazy: Whatsoever semblance of communication near whether the system is making progress or simply stuck while booting is replaced with an endlessly spinning set of little balls. There is no way to tell if y'all are seconds abroad from a running system, or destined to spend the next day getting airheaded or wanting to have up juggling. In the latter case it is just a question of man versus machine — equally eventually y'all feel like you either demand to punch the screen or hit the reset button.

Windows 10: The pot of golden at the cease of the rainbow

At some point during this cycle of fixes and reboots, I realized that when Windows ten was running, it was a great replacement for Windows 7. Sure, I'd upgraded a bunch of ugly Metro-based Windows 8 machines, then of course Windows 10 was ameliorate than Windows 8, but I was expecting Windows 10 to seem somehow foreign on my dear Windows vii desktop. It wasn't. The Offset menu is still pretty wonky, but it's by and large harmless. The Taskbar works at least also equally it did before, and adds some new features. All my desktop icons were happily in their places. My gadgets were gone, but a quick download of 8GadgetPack fixed that apace.

The upgrade process unfortunately disabled about of my third-party startup services — such as my non-stop backup and spam filters. Fortunately, calculation them back to startup (Using Run->vanquish:startup and adding shortcuts) fixed the problem.

Life in the fast lane: Becoming an insider

Past this betoken, as happy equally I was with the system while it was running, the crazy reboot issues were still driving me a bit nuts. Equally an eternal optimist, I was hopeful that Microsoft might be well on its way to fixing this type of consequence as part of the run-up to its expected large November update (code named Threshold 2). So, I rolled the dice and registered the auto to become Insider builds, and on the "Fast" band, of grade (why not?). After a couple checks, that got me Build 10547 (which I'm running on several other machines already). Sure plenty, later the update installed, my motorcar booted apace, and happily-recognized my keyboard and mouse. Huzzah!

The progress in these interim builds is an encouraging sign. Hopefully, information technology means Microsoft will exist able to bargain with the bug in a more-polished style for its big November update. In the concurrently, if yous want to endeavour to make the spring from a good for you Windows 7 install to Windows 10 in its current form — and have hardware that is more than than a couple years old — brand sure to have good backups, and exist prepared to spend some time wrestling with drivers, software upgrades, and possibly even replacing some older devices. Otherwise, waiting until Microsoft rolls out its Threshold 2 update (which would have been called SP1 in the one-time days) is likely your best class of action.