Windows 10 install experiences

[ubuysa]

I thought it might be interesting to see people's experiences of installing Windows 10, so I've created this poll. If you wish to comment please add your PC/laptop type.

I'm an Optimus IV (Clevo W35x_37xET). Windows 10 installed ok for me, none of the drivers that Windows update found would install properly, they were all marked as failed but then they were never selected for install again! My card reader never worked at all under Windows 10 no matter what I tried, but the biggest issue (and a show stopper in the end) was an occasional freezing of the mouse pointer when the system was busy.

It seems to me that Windows 10 itself is ok, but there is a serious lack of drivers, especially for older hardware.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm on a Vortex IV 17" (clevo p170sm-a) all drivers worked under Windows 10, didn't have to reinstall anything after the upgrade. Amazed to say so far, no issues as a result of upgrading.

 

[steaky360]

I installed fresh and after a couple of mishaps during the installation (had to reset half way through as the PC hung) its working fine on both my PCs. I've had to install third party drivers for my soundcard as I couldn't find any asus drivers but after doing a bit of googling it appears these third party drivers are almost 'preferred' so I'm not too worried. I'd still consider switching back to proper manufacturer approved drivers if i noticed any issues (and these drivers were made of course).

 

[Pagey]

Everything installed fine for me from fresh, everything works as it should, some old glitches still persist, but not too "breaking".

 

[thisisevilevil]

Those people with Optimus IV issues, see my post here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...ndows-10-error-0xc000000f&p=333689#post333689 - Let's start gathering data/facts about these issues, and see if we can find a solution.

 

[Pagey]

I've given as much as I could for ya. Hopefully it sheds some light.

 

[NilSatis]

Mine installed fine, apart from the fact that Creative's sound card drivers do not want to work at all with Windows 10. Installed some Daniel K drivers and the card works great again. All the time Creative had to prepare for Windows 10 and the drivers from them are still a month or two away for some cards. Not good enough Creative!
Apart from that Windows 10 performs noticeably better for me than 7; as is expected. A few things such as RadeonPro need to be run in compatibility mode for some games, whereas it works fine for others. As RP works for everything in compatibility mode I have left it like that. Everything else worked fine apart from a few games that need their "local files checked" on Steam to install little bits such as the Saints Row games. Games in the main run better too. Not sure if there are actual frame rate increases but the games feel smoother.

I even have a wd black plugged into a pci express port using a pci to sata converter card (I have a Sandy Bridge on Asus P8p67 with borked Sata ports so I was running out of options lol) which i was thinking had little chance of working but Windows picked it up and installed drivers for it; and it works fine. If you need two more Sata ports or two more E-sata ports, these things are great.

This Windows 10 upgrade also worked on a friends Vortex IV without issue that I installed, and several others... but I cant vote more than once of course. Positive experiences all round for me. No mouse cursor bug or anything like that for me or it would have been a direct swap back to Windows 7. This most probably is an issue with Clevo and their chipset drivers. Anyone that has this, it might be worth seeing if a Prema bios mod can overcome some of these things for you if you want Windows 10 as Clevo are likely to be less than helpful with older models. Or at the very least contacting Prema and stating the problem you are having to see if its a common theme.

Annoying things on 10: Cortana....I dont want it on, so why cant I turn it off completely. Still running in the background. Go away you useless Bint!
Windows Defender...if people want to turn it off, let people turn it off without having to go into group policy etc and fiddle with that ("we will turn it back on for you"...erm leave it ALONE!).
Stealth updates that are automatic and installed without you having any control: Not especially bothered about this until Microsoft mess one up, like they did on Windows 7 several times. If they are going to make sure this doesnt happen then the updates will work fine. Will wait and see. We should still have an option without fiddling to a) see what the updates are...which there is no option to do and b) control whether we want them installed.
Strange sound issue. I personally have to keep all of the Realtek audio software running in the background despite having nothing plugged into the motherboards sound card just to use the Creative Soundblaster card (plugged into pci express and separate) as when removed from startup there is no sound at all; despite the Realtek software correctly telling me there is "nothing plugged in". This wasn't necessary before. Not sure why this happens at all to be honest. Left it running.

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

The only thing i use my main rig for is gaming so cannot comment on the features of Windows 10 except from the gaming stability, im finding slightly higher FPS on many games and better stability, GTA5 as the prime example, no missing textures anymore and it runs butter smooth. DOTA 2 also Never drops below 120FPS now, before it would linger about 110.

Just that alone im extremely happy with windows 10 so far.

 

[Wozza63]

I've only installed on my tablet so far and I had so many issues. Mainly with getting the install to start properly in the first place. The download wouldn't start, things would freeze. Kept telling me there was a problem but not telling me what the problem was. Then even once I started installing it it was crashing and reverted back to Windows 8.1. Finally got it installed and now I can't easily log in because the on-screen keyboard won't work properly on the login screen.

 

[ubuysa]

I do hope people keep voting on this thread. So far (on an incredibly small sample size) the results are (for me) not encouraging. Only 50% of the respondents had a clean install/upgrade and I don't see this as good news. Especially since most of the hardware we're using is pretty high spec and not that old and the people doing the upgrades/installs are, in the main, pretty switched on techies. God knows what's happening out there in the bog-standard Asus/Lenovo/HP land and with the average non-techie user........

I'm not knocking Microsoft, Windows 10 looks slick and smart, I liked it and it's a shame I can't run it reliably. It looks to me like the issue is a lack of drivers for some hardware. I wonder whether that's the fault of the very public technical previews? Perhaps vendors have held off updating drivers for older platforms until they see what Windows 10 actually turns out to look like...?

 

[Spuff]

I do hope people keep voting on this thread. So far (on an incredibly small sample size) the results are (for me) not encouraging. Only 50% of the respondents had a clean install/upgrade and I don't see this as good news.

I chose the second option because I had to figure out how to get some things working, but I did figure it out and get them working. What I had to do was no more than I would expect from installing a new OS. I am suprised at how well things are working right off the bat considering it was an upgrade install and not from fresh.

 

[mishra]

First I made sure I have all Windows Updates installed. Then restarted my PC for good measure and then pressed the "Go Ahead" button. It took ~30mins, restarted my PC I think twice, and then it all worked out of the box! I am was well impressed (especially after telling everyone that will not be attempting an upgrade until official SP1 - but hey, I was just too curious).

Install process worked fine, then I was presented with login box. But it never asked me to login or create any Microsoft account (I do not have one, I do not want one, and will not be using one - even if it means I cannot get Windows Store apps!). So was very positively surprised that I can just reuse my previous local admin account! Success! Then was presented with some Privacy setting, on which I disabled all communication with Microsoft... and then voila it all worked exactly as my previous Windows 7 Pro.

Now Windows 10 is activated and working, it shows also as Windows 10 Pro so another success. Had virtually no issues with install process.
Overall first experience? It works, looks pretty nice but it feels just like Windows7 with some nice UI. and to be honest that is exactly what I like about Window 10.

Truth is, this is how Windows 8 was supposed to be in first place.
They should have skipped version 8 completely, and then the 8.1 update and just release Windows 10 instead few years later. I tried to bond with Windows 8, but simply couldn't - lets face it brought nothing new and broke few things along the way. Now seeing Windows 10 going back to Windows 7 roots with refreshed UI feel like a nice change for once.

They changed 'alt+tab', they changed 'win+tab' - no issues there, works nice. They finally introduced "Multiple Desktops" - yeah it took them while (something that iOS and Linux had for ages). Hmm what else. All in all I'm impressed. It broke nothing so far. All works just as fine as on Windows 7.

One little issue, I still do not know how to "Pin to Start bar" programs which are not installed (such as PuTTy) - but did not try very hard to make it to work. Also in the past I could have KeePass pinned to my start bar... and I could see a list of previously opened *.kdbx files. Now this seem to not be there, it just opens last opened *.kdbx file. Small thing, and maybe there is a workaround.

Also if someone can figure it out for me I will buy you a beer. Now, since we have multiple desktops on Windows 10, can I cast Desktop2 to my TV using Chromecast? That would be ace. I know I can cast entire screen using Chrome plugin, but it's not exactly what I'm after. I want to have Desktop1 on my monitor and Desktop2 on TV.

 

[Spuff]

Truth is, this is how Windows 8 was supposed to be in first place.
They should have skipped version 8 completely, and then the 8.1 update and just release Windows 10 instead few years later. I tried to bond with Windows 8, but simply couldn't - lets face it brought nothing new and broke few things along the way. Now seeing Windows 10 going back to Windows 7 roots with refreshed UI feel like a nice change for once.

It's all water under the bridge now but 8.1 was for me better across the board than 7. I would have hated 8 if I'd had to use the native start replacement, but using Start 8 (less than £3.50), made it easy to use. 8.1 performed quicker and better than 7. I'm now using Start 10, preferring that greatly to what I saw of the new start set up.

 

[johnstone666]

hi, I have vortex 4 17 too, and it wont install windows 10, did you change any bios settings?

 

[SpyderTracks]

hi, I have vortex 4 17 too, and it wont install windows 10, did you change any bios settings?

Where does it get to and did you do a full install or upgrade? It installed perfectly on mine.

 

[Androcles]

All the time Creative had to prepare for Windows 10 and the drivers from them are still a month or two away for some cards. Not good enough Creative!

This isn't just an issue with Creative, most stand alone sound cards and a lot of brands of inbuilt sound cards are in the same position regardless of manufacturer, from what I hear it's Microsofts fault, they changed something about how sound works with Windows a matter of days before release without telling anyone and it left the sound card manufacturers behind.

 

[Wozza63]

This isn't just an issue with Creative, most stand alone sound cards and a lot of brands of inbuilt sound cards are in the same position regardless of manufacturer, from what I hear it's Microsofts fault, they changed something about how sound works with Windows a matter of days before release without telling anyone and it left the sound card manufacturers behind.

Guess I'll wait a while as I have an external sound card.

 

[jacmur692]

So far i've only had the time to upgrade my 13" optimus to Win10 (I plan to do a clean install once i get a bit more free time). This process went very smoothly for me, no issues at all. I haven't had a chance to do any gaming but everything else works and haven't had any driver related issues yet!

I heard the clean install process shouldn't give me any hiccups as long as I've done an upgrade first, so fingers crossed!!

 

[Spuff]

Guess I'll wait a while as I have an external sound card.

My firewire Konnekt 24d works fine with its W8 driver released on 01/08/14.

 

[thisisevilevil]

The Optimus IV upgrade issue, errror code 0xc000000f has been confirmed resolved as of now. UEFI BIOS needs to be enabled. Other users with different laptops, might as well also try enabling UEFI in their BIOS, and see if it solves the issue for them. Just be aware when you do this, you have to reinstall your current OS. (It is possible to avoid a reinstall, but the process is quite long to avoid this, and doesn't work for all motherboards/chipset)