Windows 10... should I?

[Dianne-TX]

Today is the last day to upgrade for free.  I keep getting the update notifications.  I know there's always issues with new upgrades.  Should I upgrade?  Thanks.

[Mergath]

If you don't, you'll end up having to pay for the upgrade eventually. They're going to end support for 7 and 8.1 at some point, and then you'll either have to buy 10 or live with gaping security holes.

[Happy]

Interesting....the little ad at the top of my screen on Outlook says the free Windows 10 upgrade offer expires on July 29th.

[hornblower]

Yup, get it. I have some machines that are already done & I'll do the rest this weekend. It's fine. I go back and forth from 10 to 8 (& my old Toshiba is still running 7). They'll all get 10 by the end of the month. 

[KarenNC]

We've had issues with the upgrade failing several times and causing issues when it failed, but mine just upgraded automatically a few days ago and worked (had failed previously on this machine--I missed the 15 min notification until it was too late this time). So far (fingers crossed) it has gone very smoothly. I get July 29th as the last day as well, btw.

[Lady Florida.]

I tried to upgrade my 6 year old Dell laptop a while back and it hung up. Then I read about issues with this particular model and I quit trying. I was thinking I'd just plug along with Windows 7 until I get a new computer. However, this laptop is still going strong and I don't see myself needing a new one very soon, maybe about 2 years, so I will have Windows 7 for a while. I'm happy with 7 so I'm okay with not having the latest OS at this time (and I'm glad to have missed out on the nightmare that was Windows 8). 

 

Microsoft hasn't made a big deal out of it, but quietly extended support for Windows 7 to 2020. I'm sure I'll have a new computer before then, so I'm not concerned. 

 

Dell still has this message on the support page for my laptop-

 

Product not tested for Windows 10 upgrade

Dell is not testing or developing Windows 10 drivers for this product. If you choose to upgrade, some features, applications, and connected devices may not work as expected.

 

 

[Farrar]

It's a gamble either way. Dh's entire computer hasn't been right since he upgraded. He has now had to send it in to get work done (it's still under warranty) twice. It's making us all nuts because he needs it for work and it has special software on it for his job.

 

My computer was a nightmare with it at first, but now it's fine. It had one of the same issues as dh's - the cursor would just randomly jump around - you'd be typing something and suddenly the cursor would be on a different window or you'd be typing and it would click elsewhere. It made it impossible to get anything done that involved any typing. But somehow I managed to resolve it on mine and dh simply could not. Sigh.

[Katy]

As long as you're not using it as a media server, upgrade.  We were using ours and all of the media capabilities were removed.  We ended up having to get third party patches to restore all of those functions. It was super irritating.

[Loowit]

I would do it, but then we upgraded all of our computers when it first came out and didn't have any issues at all.

[Lanny]

<snip>

 

Dell still has this message on the support page for my laptop-

 

Product not tested for Windows 10 upgrade

Dell is not testing or developing Windows 10 drivers for this product. If you choose to upgrade, some features, applications, and connected devices may not work as expected.

 

We have six (6) Dell Laptops that were designed for and sold to Enterprise (Corporate and Government) clients. 5 Latitude E64x0 laptops and one Precision M4500 Mobile Workstation.  When I am on Dell.com and look at them, using their Dell Service Tags, they all have that message.  Dell will NEVER spend time or money to see if those machines can work on Windows 10. There is no way their Enterprise customers would consider upgrading to Windows 10.

 

We also have a Dell Inspiron 660s Desktop that was designed for and sold to Consumers. That one, on the Dell Support web site, does say that it is OK on Windows 10.  It is running Windows 7, in fact it is running on the original installation, from the Dell factory. I've never wiped the hard disk drive and done a "Clean" install on that one.

 

My wife bought a mini  ACER laptop for DIL last August, small and light enough that she can carry it around all day in her backpack, when she is working and have with her at night in school.   In the store it had Windows 8.1 but the salesman asked if they wanted it upgraded to Windows 10 and did that before they left the store with it. As far as I know, there have been no issues with it. 

 

We will stay on Windows 7 (one laptop is on Windows 8.1) as long as is possible.  It is never good to be the first on your block, or, one of the first, with a new OS. That applies to Linux as well as to Windows.  

[Kathryn]

I'm waiting until the last minute. DH is taking two summer classes online and can't afford to have the computer out of commission if things go wrong. He'll be done with all but one final by the 29th.

[kbutton]

One computer upgraded out of the blue when Microsoft suddenly got so pushy a few weeks ago. It works fine, including the CD player, card reader, etc. I don't like that it turns off my number lock every stinking time it goes to sleep, but that's just standard Microsoft bossiness, not a malfunction. I don't like that One Note suddenly has much less functionality. My computer is very old, but it's worked exceptionally well for a long time. I bought with long-term use in mind by buying a mid-range computer with memory and processing on the lower high end. It's lasted long beyond what I thought any computer would, and I guess I was saved by quality--it definitely wasn't an informed or wanted upgrade.

 

My DS's laptop (only a year old) has almost identical specs to my older desktop, but it might have slightly better processing. Microsoft said it's ready to upgrade, and we tried because my son likes it, and we figured with similar specs, it would go well. The upgrade stopped pretty early on. It's an HP, and we'd have to remove some things I am not sure are removable, and the HP website says awful and dire things about what we should do if we want to update it. 

 

Our other laptop doesn't have enough memory to consider upgrading. It also has a version of OneNote that has a lot more options, so I don't want to lose that.

[foxbridgeacademy]

DD did it on her laptop but lost her speakers and a few other things so we rolled it back.  My desktop did automatically awhile back and I thought all was well then I started having issues after about a week.  The PC would no longer talk to the printer.  I couldn't shut down programs or the PC would freeze entirely and I'd have to do a hard shut down. Went back to 7 and I'm very happy.  DS's gaming computer (lots of upgrades and custom stuff) updated a couple months ago and he's never had a single issue.

 

 

Laptop is a Dell i5 (I think) with 6gb memory and a "workhorse" of a processor.  My PC is older but is an HP quad core with 6gb memory and a decent processor.... so not sure why things went wonky.  

[MotherGoose]

I tried to upgrade my 6 year old Dell laptop a while back and it hung up. Then I read about issues with this particular model and I quit trying. I was thinking I'd just plug along with Windows 7 until I get a new computer. However, this laptop is still going strong and I don't see myself needing a new one very soon, maybe about 2 years, so I will have Windows 7 for a while. I'm happy with 7 so I'm okay with not having the latest OS at this time (and I'm glad to have missed out on the nightmare that was Windows 8).

 

Microsoft hasn't made a big deal out of it, but quietly extended support for Windows 7 to 2020. I'm sure I'll have a new computer before then, so I'm not concerned.

 

Dell still has this message on the support page for my laptop-

Product not tested for Windows 10 upgrade

Dell is not testing or developing Windows 10 drivers for this product. If you choose to upgrade, some features, applications, and connected devices may not work as expected.

I uograded my Dell laptop and ended ho having to pay $200 to have it wiped and reloaded with Windows 8. Two different respectable computer businesses told me that Windows 10 has all sorts of problems and don't do it. It wouldn't play nice with my wifi router either. My laptop was only about a year old at the time.

[mom2scouts]

Right now I'm trying to set up things in my new laptop. My old laptop with Windows 7 died and I didn't have a choice. I'm going to scream. I can't find anything and it's a pain getting anything to work. My advice is not to update.

[Guest]

I did it and have had no problems. I have an older Dell laptop that I found out after did not recommend you to update. Oops! My HP desktop is a few years old. Both updated fine; I had to do a BIOS update on one and some printer drivers on another....it was a busy 24 hours, but once we were set up, we were fine. I don't necessarily love it, but I don't hate it. It is an update, which seems to happen every few years.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[emmaluv+2more]

I HATE Windows 10 so much that I am considering ditching all Windows-based devices for good.  It has caused huge headaches on both my HP laptop and my Dell desktop. 

 

And I just don't find it as intuitive as previous versions, but I have said that every time and I got used to them all...eventually.

[Audrey]

It doesn't hurt to try it.  If you hate it, or it doesn't work, you have a short period of time to revert back.  I think a couple of days is all you'll need to decided if it's worth it or not.  Like Lady Florida noted above, Microsoft is extending support for Win7 to 2020.  They just don't want to be loud about that because they're trying to push the new OS. 

 

FWIW, we've had mixed results.  One laptop ran a lot slower with Win10 and so dh just reverted it back.  Our oldest laptop doesn't meet the specs to upgrade and so we didn't try. Ds's laptop (which was an old one of mine) did fine with it, as did his desktop which was upgraded when we bought it. My work tablet/laptop came with Win10 on it and I love it.  At one of my worksites, there were 12 laptops to upgrade and the 3 oldest ones (I think 4-5 years old) completely failed the upgrade and had to be sent in for repair (although I'm hoping for replacements!).  Those of us using Win10 really like it.  I like the features and the tile menu.  To each her own, though. YMMV.

[Lizzie in Ma]

You can always try it and roll it back if you have issues.  It works great on my tower, but both my kids had to roll it back on their laptops.  Too many driver issues.

My work computer was just upgraded as well and it went into an endless boot sequence.  Turned out my Microsoft wireless keyboard wasn't compatible and once I went back to a standard one it worked fine.

[Bluegoat]

My husband and I have had nothing but trouble with it.  I'm not sure what his issues were as it was at work, but I've had a few - random cursor movements, problems typing on some websites, I have a lot of problems visiting any kind of website with a lot of visual content, and the most annoying one was that for a while it just turned itself off randomly.

 

ETA: I did not have all of these problems right away, they would crop up, and then go away, over a period of months, often appearing after an update.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Bluegoat