Is it time for Windows 10 yet?

I've been holding out from upgrading from 7 to 10 because of possible problems associated with 10. Is it now o.k. to upgrade, or should I just forget about it? The "free" upgrade offer expires in a couple of days. Thanks for your suggestions.

Hi Mark,

I am far from an expert on this issue, but here goes. I have upgraded seven systems, all of which were using Win 7. Three were at my home, and four at my business. We have had absolutely no issues at all, either with the computer's operation, or with software. We use Photoshop, Capture NX-D, Capture NX-2, View NX-i, Quickbooks, and Rhino for CAD work. The systems are completely stable, and seem to behave perfectly. There are several small things I was unable to do in Win 7 that I now do with Win 10 installed. An example: I could not (no matter what I tried) update my graphics card driver from Nvidia on a new system since I bought it. It was completely frustrating, and a known issue. After installing Win 10, it now updates perfectly.

I have heard some negatives about upgrading, but I have not experienced any. Just my $.02. Good luck. 

I did the same as Mark R did and upgraded my five year old desktop from 7 to 10 several days ago. The cobweb-filled machine is due for replacement and I just sort of figured, why the heck not? Everything went fine, but noticed some slowing down and minor glitches with NIK's Color Efex Pro 4 filter in Photoshop CC. Silver Efex also seems to run slower in 10. Viveza 2 works like a champ.

Otherwise, the OS appears to be stable and I'm quickly getting used to it.

My experience is similar to Mark Robinson's experience above.  My wife's computer about 3 months ago automatically upgraded itself to Windows 10.  Since I wanted to upgrade all our computers to Windows 10 eventually I felt it was a good time to see if we would encounter any problems.  Both my wife's and my computer are set up to process images, same software similar computer configuration.  We did not experience any problems with my wife's upgrade to Win 10.  I recently upgraded a laptop that was running Windows 8.1 to Win 10 and this morning I upgraded my computer from 8.1 to 10.  The upgrades went flawlessly but I would caution that you should make sure that all your software is up to date so that it is totally compatible with Win 10.  If you aren't currently a user of CCleaner I would recommend that you download the latest version and run it prior to any upgrade.  CCleaner will get rid of any unwanted files e.g. recycle bin, Internet caches, etc. you should also run the Registry Cleaner part of CCleaner as well to eliminate the garbage that's left behind in the registry when software is installed and uninstalled.  Microsoft updates to the OS leave lots of garbage behind that should be periodically cleaned from the registry.  CCleaner does an excellent job of this allowing your computer to run at peak performance.  E. J.  Is a firm believer in CCleaner and I've been using it for years upon his recommendation.

In other words you want to make sure that you have eliminated all the dead wood from your current computer configuration so you don't reinstalled this crap when you upgrade.  It should make for a faster install.  Make sure your connected peripherals are all compatible with Win10.  If they aren't compatible you'll need to locate Windows 10 drivers prior to the upgrade and download these so that they are easily installed after the upgrade otherwise the peripheral may become inoperable upon the upgrade.  

Microsoft has a Compatibility Utility that you can run to ascertain whether all your software and peripherals are compatible with Win 10, if you have any doubts about compatibility.

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's intrusiveness/nosiness.  Therefore when the new screens that first appear after the upgrade allowing you to customize Windows 10, I recommend that you NOT use the Express Configuration.  Instead click the small text in the lower left-hand area of the screen saying "customize" (or something like this).  This allows you to review each one of the settings that Microsoft automatically clicks as ON with the Express Configuration.  I turned off almost all of these settings as I didn't want Microsoft to have access to my To Do List, Location or documents etc.  This at least allows you to reduce Microsoft's nosiness.  In fact the only thing that I allow Microsoft to do is to automatically receive error reports but I'm thinking I may even turn that off. By leaving these default settings in the on position you give Microsoft access to almost everything you do, from your choice in music, the photographs you download, to all the info on your phone if you sync your phone with your computer, where you go, the hotspots that you connect to etc.

Two FREE apps that I recommend to new users of when 8 or 10 are:
Classic Shell
Ultimate Windows Tweaker
Classic Shell allows you the configure the start screen similar to what is used in Win 7 and it gets rid of the Metro interface which I find to be a pain in the butt.
Ultimate Windows Tweaker allows you to easily customize the win 10 interface e.g. remove the shortcut arrow from desktop icons, configure the way you log on to the computer etc.

I have 3 older machines:
Desktop Intel DP35DP MB, Q6600 processor, 8800 GTS video card, vintage 2007
Dell E 1505 laptop, vintage 2006
Desktop SuperMicro X8SAX MB, Xeon W3550 processor, GTS 450 video card, vintage 2011
All three machines upgraded from working Win 7 Pro to Win 10 OK, except for the following:
Occasional BSOD reboot on the DP35DP machine when resuming from sleep, seems to be related to a timeout problem associated with the video card.
The really nice Epson Scan Utility seems to not be compatible with Win 10, any way or any how.  Have to use the crippled Win 10 scan utility which Epson supports.  Otherwise, all of my applications work OK.
The worst thing is that the old Backup & Restore GUI in the Control Panel that was carried over from Win 7 does not work in any of my machines. I have to set up the backup engine using wbadmin on the command line, which does permit me to set up automatic backups. A friend who is a Microsoft Tech Rep has looked at the problem and has not been able to fix it.  The Backup & Restore GUI works on his 2 year old laptop.
After installation, go through EVERY item in Settings and get rid of all the junk MS has pushed on us with this.

I upgraded my Wins 7 to Wins 10 from fresh last Jan and have only very minor problems; so far so good. One of the problems that affects me is on viewing jpeg files and is depicted as below.

1. Windows Photo Viewer on Wins 10 would display image unsharp/(slight) blurry; Wins 7 and XP has no such problem however.
I found that as long as your image is sized to even number pixels on the height it would display sharp. For examples,
1200 (W) x 800 (H) px and 685 (W) x 1024 (H) would be fine but not 1024 (W) x 685 (H)! Go figure.
This is viewing on my 24" monitor with 1920 x 1200 px resolution.

The blurry display on Photos Viewer problem is still unresolved todate. Similar findings to mine can be found here ...
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... e=1&auth=1

2. Camera Codec for displaying RAW thumbnails is not updated from Wins 7 or not available for Wins 10. For example, RAW file from Fujifilm (RAF) can't be displayed.

I wouldn't go there unless you have a real reason to go there such as a laptop with a touch screen or some app you need that will only run on Win 10. Why bother upgrading to something that is probably going to give you some headaches at least initially. Sure you can make it emulate Win 7, sort of, but there are some things that simply can't be undone. Win 10 gives you no choice on doing ALL of the updates that MS pushes for example. Voluntarily upgrading to Win 10 from a perfectly good running machine on Win 7 seems uneccessary to me in most circumstances. You will be forced into it soon enough when it's time to get a new computer down the road.

I wouldn't go there if you don't have to.  I bought a new PC and it came with Win 10.  The navigation is different; some good; some not so good.  What I don't like about it is it automatically downloads MS updates despite the fact that I have the settings on manual update.  This especially matters to me because I live remotely and I'm on a limited data plan, and wait until the last few days of my plan month to see what can be updated and what has to wait.   I've tried to set all programs to manual update, but Win 10 just disregards the setting. They blew my data plan last month and who's to say they won't do it again this month.

I have been told that most development of new security measures in Win 7 has ceased, and all of Microsoft's effort in that area is now on Win 10.  That's not to say Win 7 won't get security updates for the next four years, but they will only apply to a system that may be inherently less secure than Win 10.  That's the reason I upgraded my machines to Win 10.

Charlie Woodrich wrote:I wouldn't go there if you don't have to.  I bought a new PC and it came with Win 10.  The navigation is different; some good; some not so good.  What I don't like about it is it automatically downloads MS updates despite the fact that I have the settings on manual update.  This especially matters to me because I live remotely and I'm on a limited data plan, and wait until the last few days of my plan month to see what can be updated and what has to wait.   I've tried to set all programs to manual update, but Win 10 just disregards the setting. They blew my data plan last month and who's to say they won't do it again this month.

Charlie, in your case, since it's a system that doesn't move around like a laptop, simply set the updates to not be allowed from your IP address.  That will work on a home system but not a mobile system since the second you connect to another network the update will happen.

E.J. Peiker wrote:I wouldn't go there unless you have a real reason to go there such as a laptop with a touch screen or some app you need that will only run on Win 10.  Why bother upgrading to something that is probably going to give you some headaches at least initially.  Sure you can make it emulate Win 7, sort of, but there are some things that simply can't be undone.  Win 10 gives you no choice on doing ALL of the updates that MS pushes for example.  Voluntarily upgrading to Win 10 from a perfectly good running machine on Win 7 seems uneccessary to me in most circumstances.  You will be forced into it soon enough when it's time to get a new computer down the road.

Thanks everyone for your advice! I really don't want to update, and I was waiting to hear from you E.J. with your highly valued opinion. I guess that's what I was subconsciously hoping to hear from you. So that makes my decision that much easier - I'll wait! Hey, anyway, if I do decide to do it in the future I'll just have to pay instead of it being free! Besides, I've had ZERO problems with Windows 7 Professional to date, making that "no Windows 10" decision that much easier.

Windows 10 did not work for me, I had so many problems with it that I decided to trash the PC and go Mac. In particular many problems with multi-GPU setup. Windows 10 does't bring anything useful to the table for professional photographers compared to Windows 7. I wouldn't upgrade.

Dave Kocher wrote:I have been told that most development of new security measures in Win 7 has ceased, and all of Microsoft's effort in that area is now on Win 10.  That's not to say Win 7 won't get security updates for the next four years, but they will only apply to a system that may be inherently less secure than Win 10.  That's the reason I upgraded my machines to Win 10.

It's a scare tactic that MS uses to try to get you to upgrade but as long as the business world is on Win 7 and it is more than 80% on Win 7, MS will continue to issue all of the security updates on Win 7 as they are currently doing regardless of what they are trying to get you to believe.

Mark Picard wrote: Thanks everyone for your advice! I really don't want to update, and I was waiting to hear from you E.J. with your highly valued opinion. ...

With respect, if that was what you were waiting for, then you should have done a search on Windows 10 on this site. EJ does not like it (he stated it more than once I think  ), and Ahazeghi has called Win 10 a POS before (apparently it doesn't work on his computer). All that while many people in the world including some on this site have been using Windows 10 largely without incident. Let me guess, you are not up-grading  


Just wanted to add that you can rollback to Win 7 if you don't like Win 10 after the upgrade. You have to do it within the first month though from what I read.

And I've been using Windows 10. Just so you know I'm not saying Windows 10 would run well in every single computer on this planet (but that's just like many other computer programs out there).

Requesting suggestions from a community for one person's validation of an opinion seems a rather inefficient way of going about things. But I suppose it comes with the internet forum territory.

I think the real waste of time is making harsh judgements on the OP or any other OP for that matter, for asking a question that likely applies to others as well. Whereas I too value EJ's opinions on the computer/software technical end, I also (as I am certain Mark does too) value the opinion of others here as well. Dick Ludwig gave a thorough and thoughtful comment on his process of safely and successfully adopting the Win 10 OS. That type of experience from one who may not be as technically expert as EJ and others is extremely valuable to me precisely because I'm not technically expert. It's one thing for the experts to install and handle some software, it's another for some like myself who struggle with the glitches. I still remember the nightmare of installing the XP Service Pack 2 that crashed and corrupted my Photoshop color management files so bad that I had to uninstall PS and reinstall it - and then wait while it took all day to retrieve all the thumbnails back. Why did it happen when others were successful with the XP SP2? I still don't know, but it sure made me cautious when installing anything new.

If we are going to criticize and diss others for what and how they post questions, we will kill this forum. It will become something that for me will be a waste of my time.

Thanks for your post Mark, it is relevant, and I get the context of your appreciation of EJ's technical expertise.

Robert wrote:I think the real waste of time is making harsh judgements on the OP or any other OP for that matter, for asking a question that likely applies to others as well. Whereas I too value EJ's opinions on the computer/software technical end, I also (as I am certain Mark does too) value the opinion of others here as well. Dick Ludwig gave a thorough and thoughtful comment on his process of safely and successfully adopting the Win 10 OS. That type of experience from one who may not be as technically expert as EJ and others is extremely valuable to me precisely because I'm not technically expert. It's one thing for the experts to install and handle some software, it's another for some like myself who struggle with the glitches. I still remember the nightmare of installing the XP Service Pack 2 that crashed and corrupted my Photoshop color management files so bad that I had to uninstall PS and reinstall it - and then wait while it took all day to retrieve all the thumbnails back. Why did it happen when others were successful with the XP SP2? I still don't know, but it sure made me cautious when installing anything new.

If we are going to criticize and diss others for what and how they post questions, we will kill this forum. It will become something that for me will be a waste of my time.

Thanks for your post Mark, it is relevant, and I get the context of your appreciation of EJ's technical expertise.

I, in fact, WAS seeking everyone's opinion on this matter. If I only wanted E.J.'s opinion I would have PM'd him. I wanted a general, overall opinion - I was leaning on not installing the upgrade initially anyway. E.J.'s response I thought was a good case for not installing, while others had no apparent problems with the install. Dick did a wonderful and thorough explanation of his own personal experience with his upgrade that I appreciated very much. And on the other end of the scale, I try to reciprocate other posters questions by offering my own opinions, experience, and advice as often as I can, whenever I can. I think that's what makes this site and it's forums so valuable and appreciated over the years. I don't use the site just for my own gains.  Many times someone else will ask a question in these forums that I've been wondering about myself and it gets answered through someone's other post. That's what it's all about!