Should I upgrade to Win 10?

[KEW]

Is it ready for prime time yet?
A search led me to many concerns about buggy/usability issues, IIRC.
Has it been improved to be a worthwhile upgrade (this is the free offer).

If so, any cautions?

 

[fuzz092888]

Do it. I upgraded my parallels machine with the free upgrade and it's just humming along. Well worth it over 8 and 8.1. And this is from a guy who may have bricked his desktop trying to install Win 10 on it this past summer. Very different situation from simply doing the free upgrade, so you should have no worries.

 

[TLS Guy]

Is it ready for prime time yet?
A search led me to many concerns about buggy/usability issues, IIRC.
Has it been improved to be a worthwhile upgrade (this is the free offer).

If so, any cautions?

I transitioned from Windows 7 to 10 just over 3 months ago. This is an excellent operating system for an HTPC. It natively decodes most programs. I have had Flash player disabled for weeks.

There are useful apps including for Netflix, which decodes Dolby Digital Plus.

I have not had any issues. It has been very stable. I strongly recommend it.

 

[GO-NAD!]

One of my friends upgraded from 7 to 10. However, a recent Windows update bricked it. I'll hold off upgrading my wife's laptop for now. Besides, she doesn't like change, so she probably wouldn't let me anyway. It'll probably have Windows 7 until the laptop dies or the program is no longer supported.

 

[herbu]

We did it on 2 Thinkpads... no problems. BUT I have 2 cautions:
1) It takes a pretty long time. Allow a few hours.
2) At the first boot after the upgrade, it will show you several screens listing the cool new and "improved" features of Win10. Each screen will have a big "NEXT" button at the bottom to continue. If you click it, each of those new features will be installed.

But if you read about the features, many of them involve reporting your every move back to Microsoft or other people to whom they sell your info. Not cool.

Look closely at the bottom of each of these screens. The big "NEXT" button is on the right, and a little "Customize", (or something like that), button is on the left. Click the "Customize" button, and it gives you the option to install or not install each of the new features. We told it "NO" for almost every one. I figured it would be easier to install later than to uninstall if I changed my mind. So far, we haven't changed our mind on any of them.

Do this on each of these screens. I forgot how many there are... 2, 3, 4? Our Win10 looks very much like our old Win7. Some things are different and take a little getting used to, but I'm starting to think those things really are an improvement. All old programs still work. So yes, I recommend it. Just don't be in a hurry, and "Just say no".

 

[Rickster71]

Besides the usual issues with new software and early adopting.
The Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) is huge in Windows. So it has to play nice with many more programs and hardware, compared to an Apple, for instance.
It also depends on what programs you're running or plan to run; check compatibility ahead of time.
We just got a new workstation/laptop and went with Win 7-Pro and the 10 upgrade disk. Since win 10 isn't compatible with all of our business and accounting software yet.

 

[slipperybidness]

So far, I'm very happy with Win10!

My tower crashed recently (HDD crashed), so I decided it was time for a SSD and Win10. Been working great.

After about a month of that, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on 2 laptops. And again running great.

 

[rojo]

10 is not as polished as I would expect a released OS to be. Do I use "Settings" or do I use "Control Panel"? Is "File History" meant to replace and deprecate "Backup and Restore", or is it merely a simplified companion to make it more likely that technotards will automate backups where they were intimidated before? Because File History definitely isn't as flexible, and the "Settings" version of File History settings don't always seem to sync with the "Control Panel" version of File History settings. There are other inconsistencies that hint of a transition period of some sort -- the inability to manage advanced settings for existing wifi profiles, for example (although wifi management is much improved over Win 8).

Be that as it may, 10 is ultimately the prevailing force. You can't run Windows 3.1 all your life, you know. 10 will be supported much longer than 7, and as such, will receive security patches and new features for much longer. According to some, 10 is faster than 7. I'm not sure whether that's true. It's not slower in any case. Even though 10 is a work-in-progress, it's still highly stable, aggressively maintained, and capable. All operating systems have their quirks, and most users would not be hindered in the least by those that I've mentioned. All my Windows machines will be upgraded to 10 before the free upgrade offer expires.

The cause for biggest concern is privacy. Turn off Cortana. Turn off location reporting. Turn off sharing data with trusted partners. Turn off sending your contacts to Microsoft so they can improve their Cyberdine T-1 or whatever. For goodness sake, don't auto connect to wifi hotspots just because someone in your contacts has connected to that same hotspot. Don't you know that's how herpes is spread? And the problem with turning all this stuff off is that it could enable itself again whenever you update to a new build -- but the OOBE doesn't run when you install a new build, so you aren't prompted or warned that this is going to happen. If I were a Tea Partier I'd organize a class-action lawsuit. As it is, I just disable all the send-to-Microsoft settings (except for error reporting -- that one stays enabled) as I stumble across them.

 

[Seth=L]

Only thing I will note is that both Internet Explorer and the new Windows Edge browser are wrought with little glitches and problems. I installed Firefox shortly after discovering problems with both of Window's browsers and almost all of the problems I was having stopped occurring.

With Edge I had a problem that while typing the browser would cease and would not accept input for a couple moments. This wouldn't be a major problem if it was just a "catch up" issue and the input I made during the freeze was added after it ended, but literally no input you make during one of these freezes is accepted. This problem usually was persistent once it started happening ever few 5-10 seconds lasting for up to 2-3 seconds at a time. I found this unacceptable.

I then switched to Internet Explorer (which was still installed) and the input problem was resolved, but had a problem with it blocking pages of benign websites like here and craigslist because it was assessing them as a threat to Windows. The best part was that the only way to get the browser to do anything after "blocking you" was to close it entirely and start over again.

Firefox has yet to put up any impossible to pass brick walls or freeze while using it. I've had one small issue which was similar to the problem I had with Internet Explorer where it identified a page as a threat even though it wasn't. It was easily rectified and did not require closing of the entire browser.

 

[KEW]

Basically, Microsoft has been pushing me to get Windows 10 on my main PC for awhile.
I have two others that I generally keep off of the internet.
If the install goes well on my main machine, I would like to install on the other two so everything uses the same platform.
Is there a way to get it free, or would I have to pay for the others (which I won't do anytime soon).

 

[rojo]

As long as your other two machines have Windows 7 or 8 with a valid license and activation, there's no limit as far as I'm aware to the number of machines a single owner can upgrade to Windows 10. XP and Vista machines would have to be upgraded to 7 or 8 before being eligible for the 10 upgrade.

 

[KEW]

Great!
I guess I can just log into the Win upgrade site on the other machines and go from there.
Thanks for the help Rojo!