Before You Upgrade to Windows 10...

[Vince53]

Folks, I write on two tech forums about Windows 10, and here are some things you need to be aware of if you plan to upgrade:

1) Make sure you know your passwords. When you upgrade to 10, the internet thinks that you have a different computer. EVERY site that ever required a password (including this one) wants you to sign in. If you don't know your password, you can have it sent to your e-mail account, but you have to know the password to your e-mail account.

2) Do NOT buy a Windows 10 tablet with 32 gigabytes of hard drive! Windows 10 takes up 20 gigs, and other programs take up more. Within the next couple of months, these tablets are supposed to be unable to accept updates.

3) Before you buy a new Windows 10 computer, write down its number and specs, and then go home where the sales clerk can't pressure you. Look it up on the internet. A lot of these "new" computers are unsold Windows 8 computers that have been upgraded to 10 at the factory. They'll still work well, but they should have a lower price than a machine designed for Windows 10.

4) Most people who upgrade to 10 do so successfully. Most problems are due to not understanding how to run a new operating system. Some problems are due to clashes between old software and the new operating system. The few problems due to glitches in 10 can be solved by posting your problem on the web.

5) It's not as bad as Microsoft says: They will support Windows 7 until 2020, and Windows 8.1 until 2013. And whenever Microsoft has ended support for an operating system, free anti-virus and other programs will still support them.

6) When you upgrade, make sure that ALL your peripherals are plugged in and turned on. 10 will then install the correct drivers for them. Printers and cameras are often forgotten, and this causes problems later.

7) Edge is the new browser for Windows 10. While every major browser works well on 10, Edge is the fastest-growing browser in the world. I am using it right now, and I think it's great.

8) Over 200 million devices are currently using Windows 10. There are several good forums to answer your questions.

 

[Wookiee]

1) Make sure you know your passwords. When you upgrade to 10, the internet thinks that you have a different computer. EVERY site that ever required a password (including this one) wants you to sign in. If you don't know your password, you can have it sent to your e-mail account, but you have to know the password to your e-mail account.

I haven't had this issue and I've been using Windows 10 since preview (and done several upgrades from 7). But this is a good rule regardless.

2) Do NOT buy a Windows 10 tablet with 32 gigabytes of RAM! Windows 10 takes up 20 gigs, and other programs take up more. Within the next couple of months, these tablets are supposed to be unable to accept updates.

You mean storage, not RAM. RAM is short term memory (I'd LOVE to see a 10 tablet with 32GB of RAM).

3) Before you buy a new Windows 10 computer, write down its number and specs, and then go home where the sales clerk can't pressure you. Look it up on the internet. A lot of these "new" computers are unsold Windows 8 computers that have been upgraded to 10 at the factory. They'll still work well, but they should have a lower price than a machine designed for Windows 10.

That's not really an issue. But regardless of what tier something is, you should definitely check the prices and specs online to make sure you're not getting ripped off.

7) Edge is the new browser for Windows 10. While every major browser works well on 10, Edge is the fastest-growing browser in the world. I am using it right now, and I think it's great.

It is also worth noting that you can still use Internet Explorer if you wish. They just don't make it easily accessible.

 

[el_toast]

Folks, I write on two tech forums about Windows 10, and here are some things you need to be aware of if you plan to upgrade:

1) Make sure you know your passwords. When you upgrade to 10, the internet thinks that you have a different computer. EVERY site that ever required a password (including this one) wants you to sign in. If you don't know your password, you can have it sent to your e-mail account, but you have to know the password to your e-mail account.

2) Do NOT buy a Windows 10 tablet with 32 gigabytes of RAM! Windows 10 takes up 20 gigs, and other programs take up more. Within the next couple of months, these tablets are supposed to be unable to accept updates.

3) Before you buy a new Windows 10 computer, write down its number and specs, and then go home where the sales clerk can't pressure you. Look it up on the internet. A lot of these "new" computers are unsold Windows 8 computers that have been upgraded to 10 at the factory. They'll still work well, but they should have a lower price than a machine designed for Windows 10.

4) Most people who upgrade to 10 do so successfully. Most problems are due to not understanding how to run a new operating system. Some problems are due to clashes between old software and the new operating system. The few problems due to glitches in 10 can be solved by posting your problem on the web.

5) It's not as bad as Microsoft says: They will support Windows 7 until 2020, and Windows 8.1 until 2013. And whenever Microsoft has ended support for an operating system, free anti-virus and other programs will still support them.

6) When you upgrade, make sure that ALL your peripherals are plugged in and turned on. 10 will then install the correct drivers for them. Printers and cameras are often forgotten, and this causes problems later.

7) Edge is the new browser for Windows 10. While every major browser works well on 10, Edge is the fastest-growing browser in the world. I am using it right now, and I think it's great.

8) Over 200 million devices are currently using Windows 10. There are several good forums to answer your questions.

1. This will happen anytime you try to access familiar websites on a different computer. For users running Google Chrome and are signed into their browser with their Google account, this won't be an issue. Simply sign back into Chrome on the new laptop. If you don't know the passwords to your accounts, you should probably reset them anyway.

2. I hope you mean 32GB SSD. 32GB is a LOT of RAM. It would be generally wise to seek out at least 64GB of storage space for future expansion. However, you can also keep your drive clutter minimized by regularly using a cleaning program like CCleaner.

3. ...what? I hope you're trolling. Unsold laptops are still brand new and would still work just fine. If somebody can get a brand new last-model-year laptop at a discounted price, I'd say that's a pretty fantastic deal.

4. This is actually fairly accurate. Likewise, anytime you upgrade your operating system to a new version (i.e. from 7 to 8, or from 8 to 10) it's generally wise to uninstall and reinstall most of your programs, to make sure you don't run into possible compatibility issues. I worked at a media company and had to do that on a video editor's machine when we upgraded him from Windows 8 to Windows 10, particularly with his Adobe CC programs.

5. 2020 is only 4 years away. Granted, I'll likely use 7 until then, but it comes sooner than you think. You can protect your computer with an antivirus, sure, and that may work fine for general users. However, businesses with enterprise networks will need to upgrade for continued support for the things they need.

6. Again, actually good advice.

7. Edge isn't necessarily the fastest growing browser. Whether it's good or not is largely dependent upon the needs and preferences of the individual user.

8. This seems obvious.


PS: I work in IT and found some of your "important points" (at least it seems like you tried to make it seem that way) to be hilarious (and hilariously inaccurate).

 

[Vince53]

Whoa! I messed up. Don't buy a new Windows 10 tablet if it has 32 gigs of storage on its hard drive! I accidentally said "RAM." Other than that, my information is accurate.

 

[dysert]

I'm running Win7 at home and Win10 at work. I like them both. There's nothing about 10, though, that compels me to upgrade my home machine. Sure, 10 boots faster, but I rarely reboot my 7 machine anyway. So I think I'll stick with 7 until 2020 approaches and then take the plunge.

 

[Vince53]

No problem Dysert. And I do appreciate the courtesy of your post.

Incidentally, today I downloaded the free Windows 10 at Work for Dummies at http://dealnews.tradepub.com/free/w_wile204/prgm.cgi

I knew much of it already, but the problem-preventing section had some good stuff that I hadn't known.

 

[dysert]

No problem Dysert. And I do appreciate the courtesy of your post.

Incidentally, today I downloaded the free Windows 10 at Work for Dummies at http://dealnews.tradepub.com/free/w_wile204/prgm.cgi

I knew much of it already, but the problem-preventing section had some good stuff that I hadn't known.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Qyöt27]

2) Do NOT buy a Windows 10 tablet with 32 gigabytes of hard drive! Windows 10 takes up 20 gigs, and other programs take up more. Within the next couple of months, these tablets are supposed to be unable to accept updates.

This is demonstrably misleading.

64-bit Windows 10 may take up 20 gigs of storage space, but that's a side issue since most of the tablets (or mini-PCs running on tablet hardware, like the Quantum Byte) would be shipping with 32-bit, which does not take up 20 gigs of space. And this isn't even taking into consideration the differences in space to run Pro vs. Home, with tablets and mini-PCs going with the latter, or that Windows 10 will automatically compress system files to save space, shaving off a couple gigs from that base 16GB (for 32-bit) or 20GB (for 64-bit) figure.

Case in point: with a fairly full program load and all updates, the internal 32GB eMMC in my Quantum Byte has just under 5GBs left. The biggest hog of that space: VS Community 2015, which cannot be installed to anything except C: (and I didn't feel like bending over backwards to put the pieces that can be safely put on D: onto there). If I uninstalled VS, I'd easily have 16 or 17 GBs of free space to work with. Not to mention that tablets and mini-PCs have options for fairly easy expandable storage to offset the problem with putting everything on C:. Buy a 128GB UHS Speed Class 3 SDXC card and install whatever programs you can to the SD card if you want to keep stuff off the eMMC.

The *only* possible issue is when the periodic big OS upgrades come along; if C: doesn't have enough space, it'll look for an external USB mass storage device to use as a scratch disk during the process. It unfortunately cannot use SD cards for that . Luckily I could use the NTFS partition on the USB drive I have Linux (Debian at the time; I finally managed to get Ubuntu installing and booting correctly now) installed on for dual booting this thing as a way of giving it enough space to upgrade.

 

[Vince53]

From the previous post:

"Case in point: with a fairly full program load and all updates, the internal 32GB eMMC in my Quantum Byte has just under 5GBs left."

Case closed.

 

[Qyöt27]

The sentence immediately following that one:
"The biggest hog of that space: VS Community 2015 [...]"

By no means is the average user going to install Visual Studio, and besides that, VS is not part of the Windows system. Win 10 Home 32-bit (which is more than likely what those cheap tablets will be running) does not take up 20GBs, it takes up somewhere around 14-15. You'd still have half the drive to use, and the typical thing to do in such cases is - as I also pointed out - expand the storage with an SD card or external USB and flash drives anyway. The point is, if a person is buying a tablet or mini-PC as a replacement for their main or production rig and set about installing all kinds of random cruft on it without concern with what these things are intended for, they're not thinking clearly; the size of the hard drive isn't going to matter at all in that case, since they would have the exact same problem with any tablet or mini-PC - Windows 10 isn't special in that regard. The problem there is with the user, not the tablet/mini-PC. And users that have to make do should already know the ways to easily get around the drive space limitations and/or manage the space effectively.

And then there was this: "Within the next couple of months, these tablets are supposed to be unable to accept updates." Source?

 

[Vince53]

People are reporting on different tech forums that salesclerks are warning them that Windows 10 tablets with 32 gig hard drives are close to being unable to accept updates. The clerks explain that Win 10 takes up 20 gigs of space, programs take up more, and future updates will take up even more.

Some computer stores are discouraging customers from buying Win 10 tablets with 32 gig hard drives (They don't want the refund hassles).

 

[pgp_protector]

Whoa! I messed up. Don't buy a new Windows 10 tablet if it has 32 gigs of storage on its hard drive! I accidentally said "RAM." Other than that, my information is accurate.

5) It's not as bad as Microsoft says: They will support Windows 7 until 2020, and Windows 8.1 until 2013. And whenever Microsoft has ended support for an operating system, free anti-virus and other programs will still support them.

So Windows 8.1 isn't supported or are now 2 post not fully accurate?

 

[Vince53]

Aaaargh!!!! Windows 8.1 is supported until 2023.

 

[ThomasMoreorLess]

Awesome tips! I'm waiting till the last possible time to upgrade to anticipate all these problems.

 

[Vince53]

Awesome tips! I'm waiting till the last possible time to upgrade to anticipate all these problems.

Definitely the quote of the week. (I intend to use it on some other forums).

And Folks, I am not offended at courteous disagreements. We learn more that way.