# Windows 10 now available FREE!



## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Just to remine everybody that the Windows 10 OS is now available for download. I just installed mine & it looks like it really has put a premium on streaming HD movies & music. I have an HP labtop & I know they recently released new drivers for its wireless streaming...I wonder if it was in preparation for this software. Will have to explore it more, but it's looking good out of the box. And for a limited time it's *FREE*! My IT guy tells me he loves it, best OS he has seen so far. Anybody have any experiance with it yet?


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

It is available for one year... I am waiting to upgrade until Silicon Dust gets their DVR software up and running on my NAS, and Openelec/Kodi. Then I will make the jump too. :T


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

We have a Lenovo laptop with windows 8. Garbage. 
PC has windows 7 professional. That's been great. I've read "10" is a mix of both. I'm seriously considering using it on the PC.


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

The free Win 10 offer is so they can provide an operating system that can gather information about you to deliver targeted advertising. 
For a rundown on their "privacy" policy read this article.
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/windows-10-security-settings-need-know/


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Yeah, I read that in the set up screens. You have to read the "more information" link. They do offer the option to disable it though. I thought that was noble of them.


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## prerich (Mar 26, 2008)

ellisr63 said:


> It is available for one year... I am waiting to upgrade until Silicon Dust gets their DVR software up and running on my NAS, and Openelec/Kodi. Then I will make the jump too. :T


Same here! I've been using it on a laptop for over a year and I love it!!!! I just need the SiliconDust DVR software so I can deal with Media Center being gone (I need my ESPNs :heehee: )!!!


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Windows 10 is good however it defaults on installation with all privacy settings set to off meaning that Microsoft has full access to all your keyboard strokes, webcam, microphone and much more. Its a real pain to turn them all on again.


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## Lumen (May 17, 2014)

tonyvdb said:


> ...Microsoft has full access to all your keyboard strokes, webcam, microphone and much more. Its a real pain to turn them all on again.


Keyloggers? And we thought the NSA was threatening :sneeky:
Uh, oh. Am I being logged now?


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Ha...No government can compete with Google on data collection and privacy invasion.


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## BoredSysAdmin (Mar 6, 2011)

Ars Technical and several other publications recently pointed out how much exactly information Microsoft collects.
While some of it inevitable and needed for functionality (ie: Cortana), some of it you can't even turn-off (without Enterprise Edition)
You can stop most of it, but expense of loosing some of functionality:
http://arstechnica.com/information-...-much-privacy-by-default-heres-how-to-fix-it/
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/windows-10s-privacy-policy-is-the-new-normal/


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

I went ahead and did the Win10 upgrade yesterday.
The good news is it didn't break my computer.
As far as I am concerned the UI changes from Win8.1 are for the most part less friendly to use.
I guess I am an oddball, but I liked Win8.1 because it brought a completely new way of doing things to the PC.
It was so different that comparing it to Vista or Win7 was really pointless.
I thought the use of apps was worthless in Win8, they were / are just less functional than the real programs they emulate.
So once I got Win8.1 setup to use the desktop programs by default I thought it was a very good OS and the UI worked fine. Switching between the Metro and the desktop was really very easy and you could pin whatever type program icons / charms where ever you wanted them.

Oh well on to the initial Wn10 experience.
The upgrade executed without incident, so that is a huge positive.
As has been pointed out privacy is by default is gone, 
To use the Cortana (a highly touted feature) you have to give away all the privacy settings, I did not try it.

The vaunted bringing back of the start button is a whiff, the Metro start screen ribbon was just moved here. 
So now instead of having the charms on a large screen where you can group them and see a bunch of them they are crowded onto essentially a much smaller vertically aligned pop up metro ribbon you scroll up/down with the mouse wheel, I liked the Win8.1 method of switching between a Metro screen and the desktop much better.

On the Start button the all programs is the metro all programs screen in vertical scrolling list instead of being spread out across the metro screen, again less functional for me.

The OS still boots to a screen you have to click on to get to the login screen, I thought this was an odd feature of Win8, and I still think it is an odd feature in Win10.
I will have to time the startup to make sure but it seems like it takes Win10 longer to boot than Win8.

For the most part I don't understand the dealio of using apps on a real computer, they are less functional than a real program and the loss of functionality makes them a real pain for me to use.
Ok on to the new apps that are being advertised as huge new features....
The Edge browser app is pretty much worthless with the way it displays your favorites, I really don't know why anyone would use it vs whatever your real browser of choice is.
The email app can't make folders to save received messages in, for me this makes it worthless. At least the old Outlook mail from 2010 still works. 
The music app has much less functionality than Media Player, iTunes, jRiver and it does not support gapless playback. I really don't know what it is supposed to be used for, the other apps really are not any harder to use.

I had to remap the default startup programs away from the apps and to the real programs that I wanted them associated with, this is no different than it was with Win8.
There is still more messing around I have to do but the computer is functional and not driving me crazy at the moment.

The good things.
Win10 did not break iTunes so that is a plus for me. 
I have not messed with Media Player in a long time, I don't know when it was implemented but it now properly supports gapless playback (only tested with mp3) and it supports playing/ripping in ALAC, FLAC as well as mp3 and the WMA. I would like to see some more sorting options added, but the additional codecs and gapless playback are nice to see.
Photoshop Elements works fine.
Printshop works fine.
Office 2000 works fine.
HP 6300 and 8610 all in one printers works fine.

The Start button is growing on me.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

My install did not go so smoothly. Getting error messages & working so slow! Gonna try to do a clean install tonight. I did notice last night an option to make the app sceen..."full screen."


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Sorry to hear the switch to Win10 has some issues for you.

I messed around with it some more and it's OK, I can't really say it's better than Win8 as far as the UI is concerned but for everyone that couldn't function without the start menu this will be less jarring than the Metro was.
I do not know if Win10 is simply a reskinned Win8 or if there are significant changes under the hood.

Oh yeah, I don't know if it makes much difference or not but I went from Win8 pro to Win10 pro.

One thing I mentioned was that it seemed like it took longer to start up than Win8, I looked into this and a restart of Win10 takes over 2 minutes, however a cold start takes 32 seconds.
Win8 took 30 seconds to boot from a cold start, unfortunately I do not have info on Win8 for a restart.
I may fiddle with my wife's computer and time a Win8 (home edition) restart just to see how long it takes.

Good luck beating your computer back into submission.


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## paulbell (Sep 2, 2015)

Tonyvdb .... Is there a simple 'how to' thread showing how to switch them all on again?



tonyvdb said:


> Windows 10 is good however it defaults on installation with all privacy settings set to off meaning that Microsoft has full access to all your keyboard strokes, webcam, microphone and much more. Its a real pain to turn them all on again.


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## gdstupak (Jul 13, 2010)

Several articles state the worst feature of Win10 is that automatic updates CAN NOT be turned off in any way and updates are causing crashing as usual. The Win10 Home computers will be used as unsolicited testing grounds before the updates are released to the Business or Pro versions of Win10....

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/08/17/windows-10-new-crash-loops/

http://www.howtogeek.com/219166/you...-or-delay-windows-updates-on-windows-10-home/


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Well I finally got tired of trying to get Windows 10 to work right & reverted back to 7 HP. I would not have minded continuing to work on fixing it (live chat works pretty good with them). The kicker is my Radeon HD 6250 graphics card. No driver update to allow video playback. In spite of all my calls/emails, can't get MS, AMD or HP to commit to developing a driver update.

My only issue now is with MS Update. It still wants to install Windows 10 & deselecting it does not stop its download. So I'm not able to install the updates I want! Looking like another "live chat" session as nobody on the forums have posted a solution yet.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

paulbell said:


> Tonyvdb .... Is there a simple 'how to' thread showing how to switch them all on again?


Not that I have found, I personally have not upgraded yet as Im waiting to see how other do however My cousin and a number of other relatives work in IT and have upgraded on some test machines and have cautioned me about these privacy issues.


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## gorb (Sep 5, 2010)

I'll probably wait until I build a new computer before getting a new operating system. I'm still using an old AMD Phenom II X4 920 with DDR2 ram


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

My computer is Intel Q6600, 4g DDR2 (2g was added in the last year) if I remember correctly the Phenom processor you have is at least equivalent and probably benchmarked much better than what I have. 
Vista 32 bit was the current (and most compatible) OS when I built the computer and I kept that OS until about a year ago when I was bored and wanted to see what Win8 was like. 
The hardware I have is fully capable of running the new OS and with the fresh load the computer responded much faster than it had been with the old Vista load. I don't usually jump into a brand new OS but I had all my files backed up and figured I would go ahead and try Win10 since Win8 users got the upgrade for free. 
The Win10 upgrade worked perfectly for me, but it seems like that is hit or miss with some installations being completely hosed. 
One thing I don't really understand is the current trend of using apps instead of programs. 
The apps are IMO far and away inferior to the programs they emulate but the apps are set as the default in the file associations.
If you don't know a little bit about this type of stuff you will need help to get the computer working the way you want it to or be very frustrated with it. 
Once the apps are killed off and the normal programs (which are installed as part of Windows just like they have been for years) are set as the default programs Win10 works fine ... If you are moving from XP, Vista, or Win7 it has a significantly different look (but not as jarring as Win8 ) but you will still have to learn how to use it. 
From the user interface point of view Win10 is more similar to the older OS than Win8 is so I think people will find it easier to transition to. 
From a cold boot the login screen is active in 32 seconds on my computer, that alone is a remarkable achievement over Vista which was taking close to 3 minutes before the computer was actually usable, the improved boot time makes turning the computer off when not in use a viable option. There is no Media Center so if you use that just know going in you have to figure out something completely different. 
Programs that work perfectly....Office 2000, Photoshop Elements 4, Printshop 15, Half-Life 1, Dragon Age Origins, HP 6310 printer. 
Quake 2 does not work. 
I just loaded the games to see if they work, I guess I played to much in the old days because I have mouse hand issues today and cannot play anymore. 
I am not trying to endorse Win10, but if you have 'good' old hardware I think Win10 is a very viable OS.


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