Poll: Windows 10- Worth It?

[Thunderous Cacophony]

So my computer is barking at me that I only have 3 days left to upgrade to Win10 for free. I remember back when this program started last year there were accusations of Microsoft spyware, along with it not being very good in general.

However, it's presumably changed since then, but it's hard to find a good, updated review of what the OS is like now. I ask you, fellow Escapists, should I take the plunge? It's for a laptop, currently 8.1, that I do mostly personal stuff on, though now and then a bit of business using mostly the Office suite and some other programs for PDF editing and reading.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I'm in the same boat and I've heard nothing but bad things. Graphics cards needing to be reinstalled, setting being returned to standard, games crashing, files being corrupted, operations and applications glitching and crashing. Nothing but bad news bears.

 

[KaraFang]

Back up your files and make sure you do a clean install -

I have a clean upgrade from a purchased version.

It's slick, fast, and does everything it should.

So, yeah, upgrade. Just make sure you have the drivers for your tech.

 

[DoPo]

I upgraded last weekend. Yes, late, mostly because I was being lazy, not because I was actively delaying it. *shrug* It works. I knew it works from before - I've had friends who already upgraded quite a while back.

Upgrade if you want. Don't upgrade if you don't want. I know it's not much of an advice but...eh, whatever. I'd personally upgrade (and I did) mostly because I think it would be less of a pain in the ass in the long run this way.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Works fine for me. When it first was released, there was a video card problem, where Windows 10 kept pushing a busted Nvidia update. After a bit of tinkering, I got it to stop, and it's been smooth sailing ever since. Only problems I've had so far is that I can't get Mechwarrior 2, 3, or 4 to work on it, but they barely worked on Windows 7, and they're all abandoned software, so I can't really fault Microsoft for that. Backwards compatibility only goes so far, and I'm sure if I really spent a day or two going at it I could make it work.

So, works ok for me! And I see you're using Windows 8, so I would suggest it. Windows 8 has caused a lot more problems for me then Windows 10, on either my rig or the Surface Pro.

 

[FalloutJack]

I would say no. It is not conducive with my personal computer needs, and I do not want its pushy nature or its interface.

 

[axlryder]

The only 2 cents I have that isn't just repeating what others have said: If you have an xbone or plan on buying a Scorpio (and might use the laptop for light gaming) then there is definitely that perk of having your first party microsoft and some 3rd party games potentially being accessible to play on both Windows 10 and on the xbox (as least as far as Microsoft claims). We know they at least have this working for halo forge.

As to WHY you'd buy a Scorpio when XBOX seems to being going the "consoles are basically just PCs now" I dunno. Sooner or later they'll probably start making the consoles modular, so it's just like a slightly cheaper, more convenient, and more stable gaming PC with fewer options.

Sorry, way off topic there.

I'd probably do it on the laptop just to try it and then make it my main OS for my desktop if it was satisfactory.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I already have issues making some of my older games run on Windows 7. I'm sticking to 7 until the security updates die out. Then I'll turn this rig into an offline machine.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The only major problem I had was when I was tweaking some of the network functionality, I accidentally killed mobile tethering (which is how I connect to the internet), had to get a wi-fi network card to fix the problem. But that was on me.

 

[conmag9]

I've had no mechanical problems with it personally ever since it was shipped to me (it was supposed to be 8.1, but I got a free update, it would seem...). Runs fine, design is acceptable. If it weren't for the cooked in telemetry and other bullshit spyware, it'd get my full approval. That sort of thing is NOT acceptable, especially since not all of it can be disabled (or, for that matter, actually disabled even when you tell it to, assuming you even knew to look for it). Kinda wish more of a fuss had been kicked up about that.

That said, apparently some of Windows 7 updates include the same telemetry "upgrades", so not upgrading will presumably not help anyway. Not sure if that holds true to 8.1, but I'd suspect so.

 

[Worgen]

I just did an upgrade and it worked fine. I have had some machines that needed that graphics drivers reinstalled but that was the worst that happened. Overall I like windows 10 too, more than windows 7.

 

[infohippie]

It's not bad. Lighter weight than Windows 7, and has DX12 ready for when games start using it. It puts a much lower load on my media PC's tiny CPU and RAM than Win7 did, and on my gaming PC I'm finding a small frame rate increase. For OP, though, the key is that he's already stuck with Windows 8 so a move to Windows 10 can only be an improvement. If he were on Windows 7 I would say there's no real need to upgrade until DX12 starts becoming common, but get away from 8 as fast as you can.

 

[Doozie]

I think I'm skipping on my desktop for now but it's a damn nice OS on my laptop. Just get the spybot app that kills all the data mining it does on you and you're almost set!

 

[RedDeadFred]

Before the update, my laptop never had videos and the windows button stop working. Now it does on a weekly basis. The only fix is to restart. Not too awful, but annoying enough that I've decided not to upgrade my desktop. Nothing about the update makes me think "yea, this is better than 7."

From what I've seen of the issue I'm having, it's not that uncommon and there doesn't seem to be any permanent fix.

 

[infohippie]

Before the update, my laptop never had videos and the windows button stop working. Now it does on a weekly basis. The only fix is to restart. Not too awful, but annoying enough that I've decided not to upgrade my desktop. Nothing about the update makes me think "yea, this is better than 7."

From what I've seen of the issue I'm having, it's not that uncommon and there doesn't seem to be any permanent fix.

Did you wipe and reinstall from scratch? An in-place upgrade always brings problems. After my in-place upgrade, VLC always crashed on launch and certain games had odd freezes that I couldn't seem to get rid of. So I did a full reinstall, still to Windows 10, and everything ran perfectly after that - better than it did on Windows 7.

 

[Cap'nPipsqueak]

So my computer is barking at me that I only have 3 days left to upgrade to Win10 for free. I remember back when this program started last year there were accusations of Microsoft spyware, along with it not being very good in general.

However, it's presumably changed since then, but it's hard to find a good, updated review of what the OS is like now. I ask you, fellow Escapists, should I take the plunge? It's for a laptop, currently 8.1, that I do mostly personal stuff on, though now and then a bit of business using mostly the Office suite and some other programs for PDF editing and reading.

If what you have now is good enough for your needs what's the point in upgrading? Any new computer you buy'll have it already installed anyway.

 

[Kevin McGechie]

Before the update, my laptop never had videos and the windows button stop working. Now it does on a weekly basis. The only fix is to restart. Not too awful, but annoying enough that I've decided not to upgrade my desktop. Nothing about the update makes me think "yea, this is better than 7."

From what I've seen of the issue I'm having, it's not that uncommon and there doesn't seem to be any permanent fix.

Press Ctrl, alt, del and delete the "cortana" process. This causes cortana to restart and fixes this issue, for me at least.

 

[Leg End]

So my computer is barking at me that I only have 3 days left to upgrade to Win10 for free. I remember back when this program started last year there were accusations of Microsoft spyware, along with it not being very good in general.

Still about right to this day.

However, it's presumably changed since then, but it's hard to find a good, updated review of what the OS is like now. I ask you, fellow Escapists, should I take the plunge? It's for a laptop, currently 8.1, that I do mostly personal stuff on, though now and then a bit of business using mostly the Office suite and some other programs for PDF editing and reading.

I'd say just stick with 8.1 at most. No real benefits while still having the upgrade issues and you get Microsoft forever over your shoulder.

That said, apparently some of Windows 7 updates include the same telemetry "upgrades", so not upgrading will presumably not help anyway. Not sure if that holds true to 8.1, but I'd suspect so.

For that, you just don't install those specific updates.

 

[Kaymish]

Well usually i would say no but 8.1 is crap so crap that i would recommend the upgrade and the problems that come with it but you have to back up your files and do a fresh install cause if you get a bad upgrade you are stuffed i have a little panic when i boot up my machine because it sometimes randomly breaks
but other than it randomly breaking it has been far superior to my experience with windows 8 however i am considering migrating to a Linux build on my next rig