I won’t be dropping by to read your posts today and for this, I apologize. But I’ve got a great excuse.
It is the first day of November and autumn is fading into winter. Taking courage in hand … setting aside a whole bundle of concerns about how this upgrade would affect this computer … I upgraded my laptop for which I still owe a ton of money … to Windows 10.
To say this wasn’t an action taken lightly would be a massive understatement. I waited until I could get testimony from people I know and trust that they had done it. That their computers were still working weeks or months after installation. That they hadn’t lost their applications or data. And most of all, that they were pleased with how it worked compared to Windows 7.
It turned out to be as scary as I expected. It errored out during the download. Eventually, I deduced the problem was I had to set “Windows Updates” to allow automatic installation. I changed the setting, after which the download picked up where it had left off.
A bigger scare occurred during the actual install. It stopped, announced a fatal error because it had encountered my video board. This was one of the things I was most afraid would happen. I have some highly specialized hardware and associated software in this machine. But, surprise! It rebooted, apparently found whatever it needed, then continued.
All of this took considerable time, but I knew this was going to be a lost day anyhow.
Finally, when it had downloaded and completed it’s “preparation,” it got lost, couldn’t find the computer’s identifier. I think it was actually having trouble connecting with the router.
Finding the connection has — especially recently — been a frequent problem. Charter Communication’s WiFi is unstable. Not to mention the company is doing a lot of work on the poles and wires all along our road, from here into Rhode Island.
Then, after it rebooted a couple of times, but couldn’t get itself organized, I turned it off and rebooted it cold. After that, it found the WiFi and successfully identified the machine.
So far as I can tell — about 10 minutes after completing the installation — it looks okay. All my applications seem to be where they ought to be, though I have not checked to see if they are actually working.
I started this installation this morning at around 10:30. It finished at 3 in the afternoon. Four and a half hours. I had to be here to monitor it and make sure I didn’t need to answer a question — there were four or five questions to be answered along the way. It’s almost entirely automatic … but not quite.
Questions pop up and if there are any problems — as there were with mine — you need to be there to tell the computer to try again, to reboot, or whatever. Otherwise, I think you might wind up with some serious problems of incomplete or corrupted installation of the operating system.
How is it going to work? I don’t really know yet. Will I like it? I guess I’ll find out. Am I glad I did it? I don’t know that yet either. I’m glad I’m done sitting here and monitoring the process. Talk about watching paint dry.
You will please forgive me if I don’t go and read everyone’s blogs today. It’s late, I’m tired. Tomorrow is another day. I’ve got my fingers crossed that when I got to turn this machine on tomorrow, it is still alive and kicking!
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Categories: #Photography, Computers, Operating System, Software, Technology, Windows
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
ive had all kinds of strange problems with my system. win 7 64 bit wouldnt install. is supposed to but wouldnt.
bot 32 bit. then finally took system in and got them to install 64 bit. but my system locks up periodically. so installed win 10. wouldnt work – not compatible with my motherboard. had to revert back to win 7 64 bit. will buy win 8 and see if that works …
?????????????? hmmmmm …
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Do you know if your system IS 64 bit? Maybe that’s the problem? Because 7 is a pretty stable system and has few known issues … so maybe there’s something going on with your system. I would suspect something at this point. Because all those operating systems not working sounds like you’ve got some kind of problem. You could have a bad memory stick or a damaged hard drive … or any one of a number of issues. Make sure your hardware isn’t the problem before you invest in anything else in the way of software.
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The outfit that put my system together assured me it’s a 64 bit system and were perplexed it wouldn’t load Win 7 64 bit. But I finally got them to install it. Well … you know the rest.
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Yeeks! Mine just sat there and installed :-). It sounds like they wrote the installer with plenty of code to recover in case of unfortunate mishaps, anyway.
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It recovered … but it didn’t really. One of the things I like least about this stuff is that it is SO automated, there’s no sense that you can make any choices at all. AND after you are done, you can no longer choose whether or not to accept updates. You have to accept whatever they send. Which I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t periodically send a pile of crap that locks your computer and requires you back out of it to get running again. Microsoft has be heading towards the thing I don’t like about Apple — removing all control from the use and keeping it all for themselves.
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That’s the one thing I don’t like about Win10 – the loss of control over stuff. Not sure how well it’s going to go over when we switch to it at work. Fine for the normal users but not so good for we IT bods.
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I doubt they will have the same requirement for IT departments. I’m betting that server versions will have different parameters. Oh, and finally, my graphics program JUST sent me a message that they have come up with special new controls to use with Windows 10 and I need to upgrade to their new software before I upgrade to 10. Nice of them to mention it finally.
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Hooray! Now you can try again 🙂
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How exciting! I actually like installing new software, but only because I like how super-clean I get everything first. Whatever Windows is installed on this computer, I am just getting used to. I’m not sure if I can handle a change quite yet, but it is good to know that you are going through the process so I can pick your brain. 🙂
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I’m glad someone enjoys it. It makes me crazy. Especially operating systems. I have some heavy embedded software and it doesn’t like big changes to its ecosystem. So I UNinstalled Windows 10. Four hours was enough 🙂
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Oh wowza! What a chore! Yes, four hours is enough…now time to treat yourself to a little something yummy and veg out on your couch!
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I’ve been using Win 10 since about 2 weeks after it came out — upgraded from XP. It seems much faster to me, and not terribly different otherwise. If there are problems, they seem to fix themselves. It’s less of an upgrade than was Win7 to XP! Enjoy it!
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I just uninstalled it and restored Windows 7 Pro. It was so slow loading, it was making me crazy. I’m sure it’s better than XP and much better than 8 — but 7 is better than both.
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Oh, no — that makes me really glad that I had somebody else install it! I hope it went back to Win 7 more easily that to Win 10!
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It took 15 minutes to restore Windows 7. One click. Yay. I don’t think I would have survived another siege.
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Thinking back, I believe that Win 10 installed to the date that it was first released. When you then boot up the computer, it has to install and configure all the updates to then, which takes some time. Once done, though, it is the fastest booting OS that I’ve used, and a much faster system than XP.
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I’m sure it IS faster than XP. It’s been a long time since I had any computers running it. Whatever installed in this computer wasn’t faster than Windows 7 Professional … which isn’t a super fast system either, by the way. It is very stable and fast once it loads, but this was really really really slow. Windows 95 slow. I don’t think my install went well. I doubt it was working properly. It showed no updates needed.
It was labeled Windows 10 Professional. I don’t think it was what it was supposed to be. Those fatal errors during installation likely corrupted it. This is not a standard computer. It’s got a lot of specialized hardware and software.
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Well done, I am yet to attempt it, I have been putting it off
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Well, I installed it and uninstalled it. It is very slow loading. VERY slow. Five minutes, at least. That’s SLOW.
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My windows 8 system has been updated to 10 for a while now and I love it. I am still waiting to be give permission to update my win 7 system. If it works as well as it did for my win 8 machine I’ll be happy, happy, happy!
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That’s good to hear. So far, so good. i was mostly really concerned about the graphics hardware and software. There were a lot of stories circulating about incompatibilities with certain high-end graphics cards — mine being one of them — AND I had Win 7 Professional, which is a different OS than Windows Home. But they said I was getting Win 10 Pro and people I trust seemed to be happy with it. Now I have three more computers to deal with. That’s a LOT of hours of monitoring. One per week is about all I can handle and I may not do the desktops because we hardly ever use them anyway.
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Is that sinister looking alien part of system 10? If so, I would RUN!!!!!!!!!! At any rate, although I am not religious, I’ll cross my fingers for you !!! I’ve been too afraid to install it. okcforgottenman did and says it is fine, though. Crossed fingers.
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No, the sinister Alien is the symbol of this computer which is Alienware 🙂 My son, my best friend, and Draliman have all given me the green light. And all of them have had it for a while … so I took the plunge. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I’m beat. This was a hell of a day.
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You two sound like my two youngest dogs–chewing plastic and only eating https://widgets.wp.com/notifications/2132614823#meat! Ha.
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I restored Windows 7. It was a very short romance.
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Oh no. After all that????
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It was taking forever to load. I did some checking and discovered well, yes. It runs fine, but it’s very slow loading and MS hasn’t yet acknowledged there’s a problem, so no one knows if or when they’ll ever fix it. I can’t live with a 5 minute boot time. That’s ridiculous.
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Funny you updated because I updated my Windows 8 to Windows 10 last night. So far, I like it.
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If I’d had Win 8, I think I’d have done it sooner, but I really like Win 7 and wasn’t — still am not — sure there’s a significant advantage to 10. I guess I’ll see. I DO notice it seems to be booting faster. I think I’ll have to use it for a while before I feel I am able to comment. Hope yours is going well, too. After Win 8, I should think almost anything would be an improvement.
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As much as I love being on the internet I think that would be enough sitting around the computer for me as well. Let us know how you like it now you have taken the plunge. People I know who have it seem happy so far once a couple of software issues had been resolved.
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The only thing I’ve noticed so far is that it boots a bit faster and that the preview function is gone from the right-click options menu on pictures. I am going to miss that one. But I’ve only had it a few hours, so there’s still a lot to discover:-)
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It seems to be a scary process. Remember the good old days when you could try something to see if worked and return it, with full refund, if you weren’t happy with it?
Leslie
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Software has never been that way. It used to be if you bought it, you could ONLY return it unopened … which seemed a total ripoff since you couldn’t know if it worked until you installed it … which required opening the package. I was told I could “roll back” into Win 7, but I don’t think it’s true. This makes too many system changes and I doubt it’ll roll back. It would be an entire redo of the system.
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They have us by the you know whats.
Leslie
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