Microsoft deploys full screen Windows 10 upgrade nag

[trgz]

I just went back to Win 7 from 10, but installed on a brand new drive and just dumped the old one. Wonder if that is considered a "downgrade" and I wont get nagged... We'll see I guess.

Windows 10 interface is crap, they have removed so many features it is a pain in the a$$ now. It has less options than Mac for christ sake.

What windows 7 features are you missing? You have them all and then some. Don't tell me that you could not find the control panel or something stupid like that.

If you are either a gamer or a developer you are pretty much better off upgrading. The benefits far outway the cons.

Agreed. I cloned my Win 7 SSD install before upgrading and can still happily boot into that if I so wish but I've had no reason to do so since upgrading to 10 (albeit it was the second upgrade attempt after the initial hiccups). I've disabled all the snoop settings and have installed Classic Shell/Menu and, as an avid gamer (Steam account > 200 games, most FPS or driving), I have had no problems. The only thing I miss is running a 16-bit screensaver (Johnny Castaway) not easy to do in a 64 bit OS (!) and I never managed it in 7 either.

 

[fktech]

Questions for the tech experts:

1. Once upgraded to W10, how do I restore W10 when the OS crashes?
2. How do I perform a clean install after an upgrade to W10?
3. After upgrade can I create W10 boot USB? CD? DVD? Online Boot? Other?
4. Recommended method to recover a corrupted / crashed W10?

 

[Reehahs]

There is absolutely no reason to end the upgrade off on the 29th July (They will run out of copies?). They should instead prompt user who use outdated OSes to consider upgrading due to lack of security upgrades. Offer carrot not stick.

 

[bazz2004]

"In general you can't really break your computer by interrupting the upgrade process. it will just revert back to the previous OS if the upgrade fails (hard reset, power failure, etc). what exactly did he do? "
It's a she and I'm staying well clear of any involvement apart from having said some time ago that she should just go with the flow and let W10 install. (I'll try not to say I told you so.) My own W10 upgrades were early on because I was keen to get it and I used the Media creation tool from Microsoft which handled everything beautifully on three occasions. There are masses of updates that need to be installed after W10 starts so that will also be causing problems with folks complaining yet again. It's been available for almost a year now.

 

[amstech]

I just went back to Win 7 from 10.

Myself and a few buddies had some issues to.
It's not the invasive behavior or some programs not working right that caused me to go back to 7 though, I just didn't like the method. I might do an upgrade but I want the complete ISO so I can wipe and install myself.
Only reason I want W10 is for DX12 gaming and it will be years before you see DX12 utilized correctly, think DX11 took about 4-5 years before it made any difference.
That and my old 670 only runs DX11 anyways.

 

[bazz2004]

"I might do an upgrade but I want the complete ISO so I can wipe and install myself." A W10 ISO must be available for download direct from Microsoft. When I used the Media creation tool I had the option of installing on that computer or another one so the second option must have been for an ISO to save for later use.

 

[DaveBG]

Once the upgrade offer ends the install base of 10 will start going down when people start reinstalling windows from CD. Remember most users have no idea they are on 10 ... they were tricked.

 

[RustyTech]

Questions for the tech experts:

1. Once upgraded to W10, how do I restore W10 when the OS crashes?
2. How do I perform a clean install after an upgrade to W10?
3. After upgrade can I create W10 boot USB? CD? DVD? Online Boot? Other?
4. Recommended method to recover a corrupted / crashed W10?

All good questions.
The answer is that you're SOL and no one seems to want to talk about it.

And to answer another person's question from above, when you upgrade from a Win 7 PRO or Win 8 PRO you only get Win 10 HOME. I know this to be true 100% as I've done this.

Having said that, and even though I'm using Win7Pro, I did buy win10Pro a while back "just in case".

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

What windows 7 features are you missing? You have them all and then some. Don't tell me that you could not find the control panel or something stupid like that.

If you are either a gamer or a developer you are pretty much better off upgrading. The benefits far outway the cons.

You can't change the window title bar inactive color, or change the size of borders (and yes I use these features). Lack of colors to choose for the window title bar, only about 40 different colors. Can't individually adjust the text and colors of text of various UI elements, which results in some issues of black text on dark colors or white text on light colors. In Windows Explorer they removed (or simply didn't add it back in) the function that when you select multiple items and then change sorting your selection is lost. They also removed the free disk space indicator on the status bar (and don't say it confused users, it had to be manually enabled). Granted I know these are somewhat small things but they are advanced settings that advanced users liked to change. Why remove customization?

And in general I feel the newer interface elements aren't complete, particularly with control panel items. Some stuff is the new style GUI, yet a lot of it still can only be done for the old. It is a messy mix of settings in both new and old UI's and it is confusing and frustrating. And in addition to that the new interface doesn't allow double-click the left side of the title bar where the Windows 3.x and earlier versions had to close the window. This still exists in the old UI based applications but not in the new "metro" UI applications. I'm sure a lot of people didn't even know about it but again, some of us advanced users still used that feature to this day. All of these little things add up to wasting time trying to customize your computer to your liking so you could get work done quickly and efficiently. Windows used to be all about customization, you could set it up pretty much however you wanted. It is starting to become like MacOS, with everything locked down and limited features, and you can only do things the M$ way. Pisses me off.

While yes games are as far as I'm aware performing better in Windows 10, Windows 7 is still no slouch. We still have a few years before DX12 games require us to move to 10. In the interim I'm going to kick and scream in an effort to get M$ to give us back the customization that made Windows such a great OS. Right now, the benefits of W10 do not outweigh the benefits of W7.

 

[Sancticide]

"I might do an upgrade but I want the complete ISO so I can wipe and install myself." A W10 ISO must be available for download direct from Microsoft. When I used the Media creation tool I had the option of installing on that computer or another one so the second option must have been for an ISO to save for later use.

Yeah, I was able to download the ISO from that tool as well. You NEED to upgrade to get the digital entitlement for Win10 (IME with OEM keys, Retail is likely fine to clean install), but once you upgrade, you can just boot to your flash drive and wipe/reinstall clean. Activation will recognize your hardware profile once you're done.

 

[Sancticide]

Questions for the tech experts:

1. Once upgraded to W10, how do I restore W10 when the OS crashes?
2. How do I perform a clean install after an upgrade to W10?
3. After upgrade can I create W10 boot USB? CD? DVD? Online Boot? Other?
4. Recommended method to recover a corrupted / crashed W10?

All good questions.
The answer is that you're SOL and no one seems to want to talk about it.

And to answer another person's question from above, when you upgrade from a Win 7 PRO or Win 8 PRO you only get Win 10 HOME. I know this to be true 100% as I've done this.

Having said that, and even though I'm using Win7Pro, I did buy win10Pro a while back "just in case".

What are you talking about? Here's the ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

That was a hard 3 seconds of googling, let me tell you.

 

[RustyTech]

What are you talking about? Here's the ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

That was a hard 3 seconds of googling, let me tell you.

I still think it won't work. I have a new laptop that I installed Win 7 Pro on and when I used this tool, it installed Win 10 HOME. After a long time of researching, MS knows of this issue and is ignoring it - all thanks to "digital entitlement" BS (aka when activation recognizes your hardware profile).

 

[Sancticide]

What are you talking about? Here's the ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

That was a hard 3 seconds of googling, let me tell you.

I still think it won't work. I have a new laptop that I installed Win 7 Pro on and when I used this tool, it installed Win 10 HOME. After a long time of researching, MS knows of this issue and is ignoring it - all thanks to "digital entitlement" BS (aka when activation recognizes your hardware profile).

The issue I had with a friend's laptop was when I tried replacing his toasted HDD with a new SSD then clean installing Win10. We couldn't activate with Dell's OEM key because they said they don't support a 5 year old laptop for Win10 (and I couldn't do the upgrade on the old HDD). So, ****-move by Dell and MS there. He just moved on to the laptop he'd just purchased and left this backup laptop on Win7. Out of curiosity, did you upgrade the laptop from Win7 Pro to Win10 or do a clean install? Admittedly, it's more broken than it rightfully should be, or rather, "it works until it doesn't, and then you're screwed."

 

[Sancticide]

For my desktop, I plan to capture a disk image -> upgrade from 7 to 10 -> clean install 10. The upgrades I've done for others (aside from that OEM activation issue) were pretty smooth. All applications worked as did the printer/scanner. These were done last month.

 

[texasrattler]

I just went back to Win 7 from 10, but installed on a brand new drive and just dumped the old one. Wonder if that is considered a "downgrade" and I wont get nagged... We'll see I guess.

Windows 10 interface is crap, they have removed so many features it is a pain in the a$$ now. It has less options than Mac for christ sake.

They're no main features missing. Just right click on the start menu, all the features your looking for are there.

Stop listening to your friends and actually use Windows 10. Win 10 is faster than 7 and it's even more secure.

 

[Sancticide]

Don't see why. Microsoft are the ones sneaking malware style prompts into recommended updates for the first time. When have they done things like this before? What would have been worse was if an upgrade was automatically scheduled and occurred while on air!

Group Policy has a setting to disable OS upgrades and the "Get Windows 10" prompt (GWX.exe) responds properly to this setting, so it should not have appeared, unless something went sideways. Windows Updates should be filtered through WSUS or SCCM.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

They're no main features missing. Just right click on the start menu, all the features your looking for are there.

Stop listening to your friends and actually use Windows 10. Win 10 is faster than 7 and it's even more secure.

What part of I don't like the interface do you not understand? Do you work for M$? Seriously... what the hell man. I don't like the 10 interface. I explained several reasons, all of which were valid and true. You aren't going to convince me to like what I've been using for quite some time now.

Stop assuming you know everyones problem and pretending you have the answer. I have been using Windows 10 since the first beta and was with it through the entire beta. I was still part of the Windows Insider program up until a week ago before I switched back to 7. I am very familiar with W10 and don't need people basically telling me "you're holding it wrong". M$ is becoming just as bad as Apple, and you are one of their best (worst) sales people.

 

[Puiu]

You can't change the window title bar inactive color, or change the size of borders (and yes I use these features). Lack of colors to choose for the window title bar, only about 40 different colors. Can't individually adjust the text and colors of text of various UI elements, which results in some issues of black text on dark colors or white text on light colors. In Windows Explorer they removed (or simply didn't add it back in) the function that when you select multiple items and then change sorting your selection is lost. They also removed the free disk space indicator on the status bar (and don't say it confused users, it had to be manually enabled). Granted I know these are somewhat small things but they are advanced settings that advanced users liked to change. Why remove customization?

And in general I feel the newer interface elements aren't complete, particularly with control panel items. Some stuff is the new style GUI, yet a lot of it still can only be done for the old. It is a messy mix of settings in both new and old UI's and it is confusing and frustrating. And in addition to that the new interface doesn't allow double-click the left side of the title bar where the Windows 3.x and earlier versions had to close the window. This still exists in the old UI based applications but not in the new "metro" UI applications. I'm sure a lot of people didn't even know about it but again, some of us advanced users still used that feature to this day. All of these little things add up to wasting time trying to customize your computer to your liking so you could get work done quickly and efficiently. Windows used to be all about customization, you could set it up pretty much however you wanted. It is starting to become like MacOS, with everything locked down and limited features, and you can only do things the M$ way. Pisses me off.

While yes games are as far as I'm aware performing better in Windows 10, Windows 7 is still no slouch. We still have a few years before DX12 games require us to move to 10. In the interim I'm going to kick and scream in an effort to get M$ to give us back the customization that made Windows such a great OS. Right now, the benefits of W10 do not outweigh the benefits of W7.

So your problem with windows 10 is that you can't change some colors. Color me unimpressed by your "problems". Just install a third party program.
For the general population (aka the grandmas and grandpas) you don't need to upgrade your OS, but if you are a gamer or developer (of any kind) then staying on windows 7 is a huge mistake. There are just too many improvements that can't be ignored. (the latests builds also removed the 256 character limits so developers who use NPM are really happy)

 

[fktech]

What are you talking about? Here's the ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

That was a hard 3 seconds of googling, let me tell you.

My questions were intended to generate discussion on how other resolved their W10 problems. By 2 other accounts W10 was a failure for them... Read on if you can contribute positively:

Yes, I have tried to fix issues with a clean W10 install but who wants to hang on the phone for hours with an unskilled MS techie. After which time the answer was "sorry I can't help you let me elevate this problem" and then it's another lost period of my productivity to solve a MS problem. Problem was never resolved so I'm back with trusty reliable W7 Pro.

 

[RustyTech]

Out of curiosity, did you upgrade the laptop from Win7 Pro to Win10 or do a clean install? Admittedly, it's more broken than it rightfully should be, or rather, "it works until it doesn't, and then you're screwed."

I first did a clean install from the upgrade screen, then I re-installed win 7 pro and tried to just upgrade it, then I was like WTF!!! and tried the clean install again (after re-installing win 7 pro) and went on a long google adventure. There is a key that MS provided that Forces Win 10 from a Home to Pro if you have a Win 7 Pro key.

Complete BS.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

So your problem with windows 10 is that you can't change some colors. Color me unimpressed by your "problems". Just install a third party program.
For the general population (aka the grandmas and grandpas) you don't need to upgrade your OS, but if you are a gamer or developer (of any kind) then staying on windows 7 is a huge mistake. There are just too many improvements that can't be ignored. (the latests builds also removed the 256 character limits so developers who use NPM are really happy)

Again, why remove customization from the user? Also again, I just don't like the new interface. I've been using it for well over a year and I still hate it. Does it look cleaner and prettier, sure... depending on who you ask but that isn't the only point of a GUI OS. The Start Menu is still horrid I think, which I didn't go over earlier but the whole thing is not easy to use. And don't go off about I'm afraid of change or can't learn because that is crap. I'm always trying out new things... I was in the Windows 7, and 10 betas. I've tried so many Linux distributions it would make most Linux/Unix administrators cry, and I've used various versions of the Android OS on my phone. I've just recently started learning MacOS. So I'm perfectly capable of adapting and learning. I can use Windows 10 just fine... I just don't like to. It takes longer to do many tasks and I just don't like it. So I don't have a problem trying out new things, but just because it is new doesn't mean it is better.

Saying staying with 7 is a huge mistake, well that depends on who you ask. For me, it isn't a huge "mistake". I admit 10 is more efficient with memory and in many other behind the scenes area resulting in faster response but some of that gets washed out by the inefficiencies in the GUI if you ask me. Yes I know DX 12 is coming and soon it will be impossible to play newer games on 7, but we aren't quite there yet so I still got a little time before I have to suffer the M$ wrath on my home PC. As for software development I don't know anything about that. Now I still use 10 every day at work on my Surface Pro 3. I don't like it, but I use it.

 

[OgnDulk]

I'll wait until M$ works out all the bugs or pirate release groups fix them.

 

[Sancticide]

My questions were intended to generate discussion on how other resolved their W10 problems. By 2 other accounts W10 was a failure for them... Read on if you can contribute positively:

Yes, I have tried to fix issues with a clean W10 install but who wants to hang on the phone for hours with an unskilled MS techie. After which time the answer was "sorry I can't help you let me elevate this problem" and then it's another lost period of my productivity to solve a MS problem. Problem was never resolved so I'm back with trusty reliable W7 Pro.

Well, I was replying to Rusty's (later clarified) claim that you can't clean install period. HTG also did a few article on this topic: http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-to-clean-install-windows-10/
http://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/

Anecdotally, people seem to have more trouble with their upgraded installs which they then fix by doing a clean one: corrupt file explorer, control panel, etc.

 

[Sancticide]

Again, why remove customization from the user? Also again, I just don't like the new interface. I've been using it for well over a year and I still hate it. Does it look cleaner and prettier, sure... depending on who you ask but that isn't the only point of a GUI OS. The Start Menu is still horrid I think, which I didn't go over earlier but the whole thing is not easy to use.

Saying staying with 7 is a huge mistake, well that depends on who you ask. For me, it isn't a huge "mistake". I admit 10 is more efficient with memory and in many other behind the scenes area resulting in faster response but some of that gets washed out by the inefficiencies in the GUI if you ask me. Yes I know DX 12 is coming and soon it will be impossible to play newer games on 7, but we aren't quite there yet so I still got a little time before I have to suffer the M$ wrath on my home PC. As for software development I don't know anything about that. Now I still use 10 every day at work on my Surface Pro 3. I don't like it, but I use it.

It's definitely a mixed bag of great changes and wasted potential, between the lack of customization and the "we're Microsoft, we know best" mentality that pervades it. I'm in a love/hate relationship with it currently, for sure. All I know is that it's better than Windows Dumpster Fire- I mean 8.

 

[RustyTech]

... and wasted potential,...

This right here is most accurate.