free upgrade to Windows 10 - yes or no?

[AJ]

I'm happily running Windows 7 on my PC workstation. Microsoft really wants me to upgrade to Windows 10. I have Windows 10 running on a little laptop, so I'm familiar with it, and I must say I have no preference of one over the other.

Should I upgrade before the July 29 deadline?

 

[beforeEos Camaras]

I'm happily running Windows 7 on my PC workstation. Microsoft really wants me to upgrade to Windows 10. I have Windows 10 running on a little laptop, so I'm familiar with it, and I must say I have no preference of one over the other.

Should I upgrade before the July 29 deadline?

how old is your work station? mines way too old to upgrade

 

[AJ]

I'm happily running Windows 7 on my PC workstation. Microsoft really wants me to upgrade to Windows 10. I have Windows 10 running on a little laptop, so I'm familiar with it, and I must say I have no preference of one over the other.

Should I upgrade before the July 29 deadline?

how old is your work station? mines way too old to upgrade

Pretty old... about 8 years old I think.
AMD-Phenom-2 X2 550 processor 3.11 GHz
8 GB DDR3 memory

I originally had Vista-64 bit on it, but upgraded it to Win7 home premium 64 bit. The new Adobe camera-raw was incompatible with Vista. Win-7 runs well on my machine.

I own Adobe Creative suite 6. No intention to go on the Adobe cloud, if I can avoid it.
I also have MS Office 2010

 

[weilin]

Like Vista before it, there will come a time when Windows 7 will be retired as well... If you had Win 10, the machine might remain relevant for a little while longer... It keeps options open.

On the other hand, by the time Win 7 is retired, you might just buy a new PC anyways and this discussion is moot.

Food for thought...

 

[Deleted member 91053]

My Windows 7 PC "upgraded" to Windows 10 without issues and it works well for me. My newer, and more capable, laptop (Windows 8.1) refuses to change? Go figure?

 

[Random Orbits]

If you're happy with Win7, then stay with Win7. Microsoft automatically updated my desktop from Win7 to 10, but it was not stable. I tried troubleshooting it for a few hours, but to no avail, so I ended up rolling it back to Win7, and it is about 3-4 years old. I think security updates for Win7 is expected to end in 2020.

 

[YuengLinger]

I have about 10% more bugs, 10% slower performance, and no discernible improvements. Four yr old i7, 24 GB RAM, newer nVidia.

Had to do a full, clean...

 

[rfdesigner]

After M$ behaviour over W10 (not just the forced installs, but the spying, advertising etc), I no longer trust M$ at all.

This machine is running W7.. I'll never run another M$ OS.

I've already got two machines running Ubuntu, so that's my future.

EDIT: I predict M$ will keep W7 going beyond 2020 in some guise.. perhaps only maintaining W7enterprise. There's an awful lot of big businesses on W7 and I can't see them moving for a system that might be looking at what they're doing. (I know you can turn that off.. but only because M$ allows you to, for now, who's to say they don't turn it back on sometime)

 

[TeT]

download the installation file using the option that places it on a thumb drive. Make up your mind later...

 

[kaihp]

I downloaded Win10 to an ISO using the "MediaCreationTool" and used the ISO to install it to a Virtual Machine for testing.

After seeing what kind of GUI monster it is (some dialog windows are from Win7, some from Win8 and yet some from Win10), being force-feed all updates from Microsoft (with a regedit hack I could at least control when to download the updates), and a few other things like lack of privacy, I'm saying "Thanks, but no thanks".

Win7 will get security updates until ~2020. When that time comes, I'll decide how to proceed. Linux, MacOS, Android, staying on Win7? Maybe MS has taken a clue before that time and backpedalled (I'm not holding my breath on this).

 

[monkey44]

I paid extra on a new PC to KEEP Win7 and will not upgrade. Think about the additional cost to update/upgrade the programs too.

Win10 will not accept my PS or Word program, so in addition, I'd have to buy new programs - only now, you can't BUY them, you only RENT them. And if you stop the monthly fee, you lost all use of the processing software too.

Again, good comment above :: When Win7 out-dates, MS will probably sell Win15, so if you wait, then you get five versions or so newer.

 

[tolusina]

If you have a spare drive, in Windows 7 Backup and Restore, create a disk image that you save to that spare.
When the image creation completes, you'll be asked if you want to create a recovery (maybe it's called a start up) disk, do that.

You can now upgrade to or fresh install Windows 10 fully confident that you can replace it with your Windows 7 system complete, exactly as it is now if you don't like Windows 10.

 

[pwp]

After somewhat irrationally clinging to Win7 for some time, I made the upgrade to Win 10 on 3 machines. Windows 10 is perfectly fine, it's a little more efficient and passes the ultimate test of an OS...I just don't notice it.

There are solid arguments from a security viewpoint to run with the latest OS. Both my Macs run El Capitan and will get the Sierra treatment. Like Win 10, I'll wait for a few months for the dust to settle before updating.

-pw

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Microsoft gave me a link to their ftp server, so I've downloaded the iso images for the versions of windows 7 and 10 that I use. I've upgraded two pc's, and bought a new one with Windows 10 installed. I've pretty much customized the interface to look and work like windows 7. It seems a tad slower to me, but pretty much the same. I have not upgraded 4 of my pc's, its a hassle. I upgraded a third pc, but then took a separate disk and reinstalled Windows 7 again, so I can use either on it.

I could not install my old Xerox printer drivers, and the universal driver was pretty basic, so I found a hack online that let me reinstall my old Win 2K 64 bit drivers. When you upgrade, those old drivers remain and work fine, but with a new pc or a clean install, you have to go into the registry and disable the requirement for a signed driver in Windows 10, those old drivers work fine, they are not signed.

Personally, I'd prefer Windows 7, but anyone using my PC would not see the difference in the interface until they dug into the innards a little. I use Start 10 which restores the start menu like Windows 7.

 

[TheJock]

My laptop is only 3 years old, and I went from 8.1 to 10 with no problems at all. It appears to be running faster, but the layout takes a little getting used to.
I upgraded my RAM to 16gb at the start of the year and I would say it has had a better impact since the upgrade, I’m toying with a 1TB SSD to sharpen it up to the max. 8)

 

[LDS]

Should I upgrade before the July 29 deadline?

If you like the UI and can stand the fact it gathers and sends to Microsoft a lot of data - including user data that may be part of an application crash1 - unless you turn off all of the "privacy settings" (but unless you use an Enterprise or Education version, it will send data) - upgrade, there are some improvements over previous versions.

Also, be aware MS may upgrade your system automatically (again, if you're not a business user). That means most "consumer" users becomes automatically testers of new features. The only way to avoid it is to buy "business" licenses.

1 That means, for example, if Photoshop badly crashes often, MS can download - without your knowledge - the image(s) you had open at the time of the crash, to investigate the crash. For details, see here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/configure-windows-telemetry-in-your-organization

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi AJ.
I have upgraded to 10, my biggest beef with it is the updates, having had the update that corrupted my machine and required a full re install I liked to wait a week or two to do mine, now no choice. (or not that I can find.)
Also there are odd occasions when I want / need to do a restart in a hurry, printing a ticket for the ferry so I could get off the Island being the most recent. I don't want to wait for several minutes watching the bloody stupid hamster wheel timer, I want to click restart without update, where did that go?
I am now more concerned after reading here what info it can send back, I don't want my photos stolen from my machine for example. Just off to read the previous link carefully.

Cheers, Graham.

 

[SteveM]

I use the bought and payed for version of CS6 and I ran it very happily on Windows 7. After googling around, and reading a lot of forums I found CS6 worked ok on Windows 10. My big concern was 'will it work on Windows 11 or say 12 in the probable near future as I have little or no desire to rent Photoshop. So I updated to Windows 10 (bought a faster PC whilst I was at it), and I will now be able to run CS6 for several more years.
But (don't you always sense one of them coming), not all of my software was compatible with Windows 10. I lost Sony Movie Studio and one or two other bits of software. I knew what I'd loose before upgrading as I had checked the compatibility of all the software I use, so it was a conscious decision, bit the bullet and bought an updated version.
Check compatibility of all your software first, I emailed the manufacturers on 3 or 4 instances, the only one not to reply was 'Imagenomic' for 'Portraiture'- took a risk there as there was other software available.
Automatic updates are annoying, but I can live with that - better than finding Windows 11 won't run my bought version of CS6.
Spend some time checking compatibility first.

 

[lion rock]

I have users that "love" Windows 10, and many that dislike it for its new UI or "phone home" feature.
One of my user is totally freaked by slight changes in any changes on the screen, regardless of the program. He was frantic to see that his computer was updating to 10. Came to my office to seek help to prevent it from happening.

I got info on a small program obtained from ---
Download and execute GWX Control Panel to prevent Windows 10 from loading:
http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
I tried it on a sandboxed system and it seems to work well without fuss. And then I installed it on his computer as well as several other computers that those users who don't want 10.

The whole idea of automatic updates and patches is bad. Many a times it breaks installed programs requiring time to fix or step back. I, as well as many other users, experienced automatic rebooting after a patch was installed thus loosing unsaved files. And when something like "free" Win10 update, no one can be sure it won't get pushed silently despite the user opting out.
-r

 

[dgt888]

My advice would be to install the Win10 upgrade by 29 July in order to reserve a free upgrade in the future. Try it out and you have 30 days to easily roll it back to Win7/8. The Windows activation server will retain record of the digital entitlement and should allow you to upgrade in the future for free. The upgrade process will advise of any programs that are not Win10 compatible and uninstall them in which case they would need to be reinstalled upon rollback.