Windows 10 upgrade notification

Windows 10 upgrade notification

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Discussion

Insanity Magnet

616 posts

152 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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RobDickinson said:
It's also not always reliable.
Moderately O/T: no computing background here but it seems to me that W10 is constantly dicking about in the background during / between sessions.

  • Turn on computer - fine. All programs have been running as they should for a few days.
  • After a few hours Skype or the Nvidia Quadro driver goes tits-up. Reboot.
  • SolidWorks crashes on creating a new file or when opening existing files with thumbnail graphics enabled. Acrobat previews in file explorer screw up... File explorer also hanging randomly.
  • No changes admitted to in notification panel or update history.
  • Reinstall graphics driver and reboot. SolidWorks etc still screwed up.
  • Update graphics driver. SolidWorks, Acrobat working fine. Finish work and shut down.
  • Power up next day. Calculator widget has gone AWOL and 3D Connexion driver now reuses to work with anything but Rhino unless run as administrator...
  • Malwarebytes has decided to run at startup having been temporarily removed from startup for fighting with Defender.
  • No changes admitted to in notification panel or update history.
  • Live with that for a few days then SolidWorks screws up again.
This is a clean installation on a Precision M6800, so reasonably up to date and not particularly shoddy.

My old Precision is used by the OH and she is getting irritated by the nagware. Wants to know what I'm going to do as the W7 installation is about 3 years old and could do with reinstalling on an SSD...



Edited by Insanity Magnet on Friday 27th May 11:21

grumbledoak

31,499 posts

232 months

Friday 27th May 2016
quotequote all
Insanity Magnet said:
Moderately O/T: no computing background here but it seems to me that W10 is constantly dicking about in the background during / between sessions.
That is true. Mine doesn't actually break anything, but the HDD light never stops flickering. I don't remember Win8 doing it.

glazbagun

14,257 posts

196 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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daemon said:
AW111 said:
No one is complaining about the free update, it is the way Microsoft is forcing updates on people.

Let me guess - none of the machines you updated are running legacy software.
Correct. And neither are 99% of consumers, so there is no particular why a consumer user shouldnt upgrade.

Businesses - yes.
You've only adressed (I wouldn't say answered) the legacy aspect, not the method by which Microsoft is forcibly nuking the OS of their previous customers, which has been pointed out as the real issue. Can you defend that?

Theres no particular reason why 99% shouldnt drive only 5*NCAP hybrids without special dispensation, only eat certain red meat at the weekends, become teetotal, stop riding high performance bikes and hand a DNA sample over to the local plod who install a microphone into every room in Britain.

If the government tried to enact this through calling a referendum every week with two tick boxes for yes and one for spoil your ballot, youd be OK with that?

Then, having changed the question a few times, they finally add a footnote that spoiled ballots would now be counted as yes votes.

Jinx

11,345 posts

259 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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I looked to upgrade a spare Win 7 Dell laptop last weekend (i3, 3GB ram, NVidia 520M) - Bios not supported. No problem thinks I, I'll just pop onto the dell website, download the latest exe and flash the bios to a supported version......
.....
...
..
.
So I now have this weekend trying to get my spare laptop running again (win 7)
yikes

caduceus

6,069 posts

265 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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glazbagun said:
Jonesy23 said:
If I wanted Windows 10 I'd have it, I shouldn't have to waste my time actively stopping it from installing any place it can. That's well past the point of acceptability.
I think this is the biggest issue for me.
The fact that I have had to spend time and download after market programs made by God-knows-who in order to stop Microsoft hijacking my security updates in order to wipe my operating system makes me instantly distrustful of their motives and angry at the time they've cost me.
My thoughts too. Just deciding whether to use 'never10.exe' or 'GWX_control_panel'. I suppose they're much of a muchness.

Max M4X WW

4,788 posts

181 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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I've upgraded both my machines this week, one is a ~8 year old Dell XPS420 which went fine (I just have a stuck Windows Update that I can't get rid of, something to do with Windows DVD Player) and the other is an Acer Revo thing which sits behind my TV which has worked, but Windows is not activated (weird as the other one activated!)

zarjaz1991

3,471 posts

122 months

Friday 27th May 2016
quotequote all
This whole thing is a nightmare for many businesses. I look after around 200 staff running a mixture of Windows 7 and 8.1. These are all Windows Pro installations.

Despite email warnings being sent, about a dozen people have ended up with Windows 10 and cannot now revert. What's worse is that in some cases it has converted a Windows 7 or 8 Pro installation into a Windows 10 Home installation! Meaning the machines now cannot be bound to a domain. The only fix for this is a wipe and clean install.
I've even had two machines upgraded that are subject to a group policy that ought to prevent it.

As far as I am concerned the behaviour of GWX is akin to a virus. It uses much of the same trickery and subterfuge.

Microsoft's behaviour with this is completely outrageous.

ZesPak

24,421 posts

195 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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zarjaz1991 said:
Despite email warnings being sent, about a dozen people have ended up with Windows 10 and cannot now revert. What's worse is that in some cases it has converted a Windows 7 or 8 Pro installation into a Windows 10 Home installation! Meaning the machines now cannot be bound to a domain. The only fix for this is a wipe and clean install.
eek
That's horrendous! What's stopping the roll back? Or is the functionality just not present?

TonyRPH

12,963 posts

167 months

Friday 27th May 2016
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zarjaz1991 said:
This whole thing is a nightmare for many businesses.
<snip>
I'm in a similar situation with less staff.

Despite setting (and regularly revising) group policies (as recommended by Microsoft!) to block Windows 10 upgrades and prevent our Windows 7 PCs being upgraded, the dreaded GWX icon still appeared, and I had to resort to other means to block the upgrades.

This has escalated into a shambolic mess IMHO.

Microsoft have clearly not taken into account businesses who cannot upgrade for various reasons. (or they are simply gambling on people just upgrading and facing the issues as they arise)

The GWX icon even managed to appear on a PC that wouldn't have a hope in hell of running Windows 10 at any great speed.

It's an appalling mess, and this has to backfire on them sooner or later.



zarjaz1991

3,471 posts

122 months

Saturday 28th May 2016
quotequote all
ZesPak said:
eek
That's horrendous! What's stopping the roll back? Or is the functionality just not present?
Sometimes it's not present.

A common one though, is that it lets you try, then says it can't proceed because a user account exists that was created after the upgrade. It then lists the account and tells you delete it. However, it's always the only account on the computer and it's been there for years. This doesn't seem to be something you can get round, so I have had to wipe these machines. So, Microsoft achieve what many viruses are trying to do...force you to wipe your machine against your will. Incredible.

A slight bonus though is when people admit they saw the email warning them not to upgrade but didn't think it was important....now they've lost any data on their laptop (though data shouldn't be there anyway), so now maybe next time they won't ignore IT emails!

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 28th May 2016
quotequote all
I have 3 simple views on this.

1 Windows 10 works and works well and it works as well as or better than Windows 7 does/ did
2. There is nothing wrong with Windows 7
3. The way Microsoft are forcing it is a total joke. It should be a choice for people via simple procedure not an arm twisting scenario of dubious means

AW111

9,455 posts

132 months

Saturday 28th May 2016
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techiedave said:
I have 3 simple views on this.

1 Windows 10 works and works well and it works as well as or better than Windows 7 does/ did
2. There is nothing wrong with Windows 7
3. The way Microsoft are forcing it is a total joke. It should be a choice for people via simple procedure not an arm twisting scenario of dubious means
I agree with all 3, although I dislike the Win10 "flat" look, the "search the internet by default", and adverts enabled on a work machine,to name a few gripes.

The forced upgrade is particularly obnoxious as the upgrade itself is not as seamless as Microsoft thinks.
Our software works fine on XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10, but the upgrade from 7->10 routinely breaks it. It's not hard to fix, but beyond most of our customers' abilities, so their computer and the machine it controls is unusable until they can get it fixed.

Digger

14,588 posts

190 months

Saturday 28th May 2016
quotequote all
Downloading now, but will prompt to install. Upgrade for Win7.

Does it try to keep settings, programs, games etc intact?

I will do a clean install (as recommended) once I've saves files, settings etc.

grumbledoak

31,499 posts

232 months

Sunday 29th May 2016
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Digger said:
Downloading now, but will prompt to install. Upgrade for Win7.

Does it try to keep settings, programs, games etc intact?

I will do a clean install (as recommended) once I've saves files, settings etc.
Yes, it keeps everything.

You don't really need the clean install any more - since Windows7 the upgrades put all the old Windows and Users stuff into Windows.old and you get a clean install + your stuff. It works very well. It's a bit like defragmenting - it used to be genuinely necessary but now people just do it because they always have.

Digger

14,588 posts

190 months

Sunday 29th May 2016
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Thanks. smile

Pretty happy, finding my way around and just seems to work.

glazbagun

14,257 posts

196 months

Thursday 2nd June 2016
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Changed again. No way out, apparently.

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/01/windows_10_n...

Facebook has also started diverting my attempts to read facebook messages through my phones browser too, insisting I download messenger. It's a bad day for downloading software you don't want.

ClockworkCupcake

74,401 posts

271 months

Friday 3rd June 2016
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I followed the advice in the following link and ran Never10. Haven't been troubled by it since.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/how-stay...

snuffy

9,660 posts

283 months

Tuesday 28th June 2016
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ArsE92

21,007 posts

186 months

Tuesday 9th August 2016
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Interestingly, I've just upgraded a Windows 7 Pro laptop to Windows 10 Pro, via a v1511 USB stick. It's activated ok.

I was expecting to be redirected to the Store and be forced to pay.

What's occurring?

TonyRPH

12,963 posts

167 months

Tuesday 9th August 2016
quotequote all
I thought an upgrade from 7 was free as well?

I recently upgraded from a Win 7 pro (OEM) and it worked fine for me too.