Windows 10

[sebthi]

Hi

I'm coming to the end of deciding on my spec (thread here).

One thing I'm still trying to decide: Win10 or no Win10 (install Win7 myself). I'm pretty handy with installations, BIOS fiddling etc: but I do see the advantage of having PCS set up the OS with all the correct drivers etc. One option I'm considering is to go for the pre-installed Win10, and then install a dual-boot Win7 instance (possibly also a Ubuntu installation as well). There's nothing in PCS's Win10 installation to prevent multi-boot installation of other OSes, I hope?

In favour of Win10: future-proofing, DX12. Can't say I really care for the UI. (First thing I'd do is trash Cortana and Metro).
Against Win10:
- Bloatware and adware included: can be removed, but don't MS just re-install it again with one of their "updates"?
- Committing myself to living with whatever "updates" MS decides to throw at me. I do play some old legacy games: with Win7, at least I'd know that once I get these to work, they'll always work, and won't get broken by some future "improvement" from MS.
- Privacy issues (can be mitigated, I know).

PCS do offer Win10 Pro for a very good price: £119.

My main question is: have people run into any problems because this must be an OEM version? There are some things you can't do with an OEM version, I've heard (such as re-downloading the OS from MS, for which you'd need a real retail licence).

Any thoughts? Thanks!

Seb

 

[ubuysa]

My opinion is that you should go with Windows 10. Windows 7 is not supported on modern CPUs, although with some hacking it can apparently be installed. In any case support for Windows 10 ceases in a couple of years anyway.

There is nothing in Windows 10 to stop you dual booting other OSs.

I've been running Windows 10 since pretty much day 1 and I've never had any major issues with updates. There have been a couple of minor issues that were pretty quickly fixed by the next update round. My advice would be to never install and upgrade (ie. a newer version of Windows 10) on top of the older version, lots of people get all sorts of issues doing that. Despite the hassle it's always best to do a clean install of each new version of Windows 10 (they're called upgrades rather than updates).

The OEM version has no problems at all. You can legally (and practically) download the OS from Microsoft with an OEM license and it will install and activate if you have had a legal copy of Windows 10 already activated in the past. The only thing you can't do with an OEM version of Windows is install it on another computer, it's tied to the one you buy it with. That said though you can apparently tie your Windows license to your Microsoft userid, but I've not tried that.

Check that you need the extra features in the Pro version. Almost all of those are related to corporate customers, though one or two might be useful in a home system. I have the Home version of Windows 10 on my PCS desktop and the Pro version on my PCS laptop (it's a long story) and I never notice the difference. Personally I think Microsoft should rebrand them because 'Home' sounds simplistic whilst 'Pro' sounds advanced and I think that's why many people opt for Pro....

 

[Oussebon]

Just to add to the above, another disadvantage of Windows 7 is that it stops getting any updates in less than 2 year time (including security ones). So unless all games magically get Linux support in the next 23 months, you're probably going to end up with Windows 10 anyway.

I do have a Windows 7 installation on a small partition of an SSD that I can choose to boot from for certain, very specific older titles. I don't think I've booted it for half a year or more though.

 

[sebthi]

Thank you both very much! I think the best deal I'll get is to go with the Win10 Pro installation by PCS. Hyper-V and the ability to defer updates would be useful to me (in Pro only). Sounds like the OEM version doesn't have any special disadvantages for me. I can add dual-boots afterwards.

For reference, I found this source for how to install Win7 for Coffee Lake:
http://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-motherboards/1642446-how-install-windows-7-coffee-lake-pc-z370-chipset-motherboard-asus-maximus-x-hero.html
(different mobo, but the principle's the same, and the Win7 64 drivers for the TUF Z370 are available).

Oussebon, how much space did you have to devote to your Win7 partition? I've heard anything from 20Gb for a basic Win7 install (64bit), to 70-80Gb once it starts the dreaded updates.

 

[Oussebon]

Mine's 50gb for Windows 7 plus Skyrim, Mod Organiser, and a couple of small demos of other games, with 11.5gb free.

The mods are installed on a different partition, which has the same drive letter under both Win 10 and Win 7, so that I can run the same mod setup under either Win 7 or Win 10 with Skyrim.

Skyrim with mods can use over 4gb VRAM, but is a DX9 game and DX9 games aren't allowed to use more than 4gb VRAM in Windows version above 7. However, my GPU is only 4gb anyway, so it's not really an issue, hence why I haven't fired it up since I got it working and was testing to see if there was any performance difference between Win 10 and Win 7 for the game + mods + ENBs. There wasn't.

You won't come across many DX9 games with a taste for anywhere near 4gb VRAM. And any sensible modder would tell me that if my mods are using that much VRAM at 1080p it's because I'm using placebo res textures anyway and I should just switch from 4-8k to 2k textures, save on VRAM, and not be able to see the difference.

..

probably more irrelevant detail than you needed there..