I came to the forums to see if anyone was talking about the release build of Windows 10 that came out today. Didn't see any threads so figured I'll start it. What do you guys think of it so far? I just upgraded from windows 7 so there was a lot of initial stuff I had to get use mostly with metro titles and what not. I'd say my biggest complaint right now is windows edge and its still a minor issue. Basically there doesnt seem to be any way of opening a new window directly from the taskbar or start menu. That seems crazy to me. I use two monitors and often a full screen video playing on one so having to minimize the video, select a new tab, then drag that tab over to the 2nd monitor is a hassle. It's basically stopped me from using the browser entirely. Also, dual monitor setup seems to be a little different in that when you have displays extended you get taskbars on both screens now which is cool. However it seems like my desktop backgrounds are out of sync from each other and I couldn't figure how to get them to show the same image on a slide show. Otherwise I think the OS is pretty cool.

I've never changed an OS before, I've only installed them while building my PC. So my question is will it be a clean wipe? Will I have to reinstall all my programs and games?

I'm curious as well.

Mainly my curiosity extends to it's compatibility, though. I've been asking around the sites I go to about it to see if anyone has even experimented with it.

I'm just going to copy and paste my question as I wrote it on the Tested video about Win 10 comments section- just in case. Maybe somebody here will know:

"So... will my old Windows 95 games work on Windows 10? [By this I just mean old games that haven't worked since after Windows XP]

Legitimate question (even if Win 95 isn't exactly a worry so much as just the ability to run any older games easier). As a long time gamer and collector of video games for over 30 years now it's always something important to me in an OS, and even Win 7 (while mostly fine due to things like Dos Box for DOS games), has trouble with some older games. Just as an example, for Win 95 games (Diablo 1 for example) you have to create a batch file to end the explorer.exe or you get visual problems.

There is also the concern of some older games which are fickle. Grim Fandango was one, but that was sort of fixed by the re-release, but still... case in point. The original release copy doesn't execute properly because the launcher Lucas Arts used at that time is not super friendly. In return the game couldn't run without excessive research into how to hack it. Curse of Monkey Island uses this menu as well so it is one that can no longer be run on modern PCs (works fine on Windows XP).

There are many games with this kind of issue of course, and most of them haven't worked since Windows XP which is why so many people don't want to switch out of using that (for the record I did switch out of that OS a few years ago, but I miss being able to play some games that worked until I switched).

So, anyway. Sorry, I wrote a long post. Can anyone speak to how well the compatibility on Win 10 works? I heard a rumor a while ago now that Windows 10 would have some focus on that for it to be better than it has been after Windows XP- since Windows Vista really.

Thanks in advance if anyone actually knows. =)"

I'll probably upgrade in a month or so if it's worth upgrading. I get the impression the beta went well and most of the problems are solved or mostly solved.

I heard you can just download the installer from their site or whatever and put it on a thumbstick, it'll just update the os and leave your software and stuff intact.

Edit - look it up but that might just be if you're upgrading from windows 8.1

Double edit - link to article discussing how to get windows 10, wether upgrading or clean http://www.extremetech.com/computing/223602-microsoft-windows-10-is-released-heres-how-to-get-it

@xanadu: Do you mean opening a new browser window on your second screen? If you're using Chrome you could try hitting Ctrl-N to open a new window, and then using Windows+Arrow Keys to snap the new window to whatever side of your desktop you want it on. It's a bit cumbersome, but it might do the trick. When I was messing with the beta a little while back I was having problems with games crashing in a way that I couldn't see the task manager to stop them, so I had to blindly shuffle windows onto my other monitor with the Win+Left/Right shortcuts.

I'm still waiting

Oh, btw @xanadu if you're referring to the Win 10 browser (Edge I think it's called now) in the OP: it is my understanding that it is not feature complete yet and you should use another browser because that one is like a phone browser. It has a lot of stuff missing.

I'll be using Chrome anyway, but that is something people should know.

Apparently as of right now (as an incomplete browser) it's very fast and shows promise. I'm not sold on it yet, though.

@cornbredx: I don't know how you feel about putting in the work to get it set up, but I think a virtual machine is your best bet for blanket compatibility. Personally I've gotten to the point where I don't care about whether or not my OS supports games that are anywhere over 10 years old. It's always nice of course to not have to do any fiddling, but modern computers are usually powerful enough to emulate a significantly older OS without much drama and often it's less work once you have it set up than worrying about individual fixes at all.

@ohnooh: Ya, I've thought about setting up a VM. I haven't super needed to yet, but if Win 10 still has terrible compatibility I might as well haha

It was something I was curious about, though, since it was something mentioned awhile back when Win 10 was first talked about. For whatever reason they talked about improving compatibility a lot as I vaguely recall.

So, anyway, that's why I'm curious.

Nah it's totally functional with other browsers. I use the middle mouse button to open new windows but for some reason this feature works with everything except edge. But I guess as @CornBREDX pointed out its still missing a few features. Still that seems like a silly thing to leave out.

This is the finest operation system available for personal computing devices on the market. Nothing else is even close except for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 and Linux and whatever they have in Chromebooks. You'd be a fool to use any other operating system other than those listed.

YES, you can just install Win10 and most if not all your files will be there, but don't expect them to open properly.

I just reverted back to Win7 since stuff like VLC, OpenOffice, and Notepad(which I use to type stuff) give me errors when trying to open files. I refuse to pay to use Word processor and/or the whole Office suite, as well as set up a Microsoft account just to use basic functions on a computer, that still give me ads unless I pay them extra.

Been using it for half a day now and it feels just fine. No problems so far and it seems to combine the Win7 user experience with Win8.1 performance. I've not yet found any significant features that didn't exist in those two but no massive drawbacks either.

Classic Rorie.

I'm quite digging it myself. Works perfectly on my Surface 3, and being able to switch in and out of tablet mode depending on how I'm using it is really neat. Seems like the perfect blend of 7 and 8.

preach

@subliminalkitteh: All you had to do was just reinstall all of those programs and they would've worked.

I reserved my copy of the new windows for a month now, but I still haven't gotten my notification. My computer says that the update is not yet ready for me. Is this normal? Are they letting some people in now and others in later? My update says that it will be ready after July 29th but I already see some people with windows 10.

@acura_max: maybe it's released by timezones?

@travisrex: After looking through a couple FAQs I found my answer.

We are rolling the upgrades out in phases to manage high demand and to make sure that your upgrade is right for your device. You might not have received a notification because we are working on a specific compatibility fix for your device, or it could be because of the overall volume of devices upgrading to Windows 10. Your upgrade notification will arrive when your device is ready to upgrade. You can check the status of your upgrade at any time in the Get Windows 10 app.

I'm not going to bother until there either there are DirectX 12 games to play, or the free upgrade period is about to expire. Whichever comes first.

@acura_max: or you could go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and download it directly from there. I had a similar problem with the getwindowsnow icon disappearing for me this morning and used that to install the OS

Use it at your own risk though
---------------------------------------------

Microsoft owns Pando Networks, famous for the malware/botnet Pando Media Booster.
Windows Update in Windows 10 utilizes P2P by default, most likely the same P2P technology used by Pando Media Booster.
Essentially it turns your PC into a zombie host server, wasting your bandwidth serving updates to other computers.
This also means Windows Update might be utilized later to spread malware through the P2P system via 0days.
https://archive.is/Tqv7s
https://archive.is/s3BjC
https://archive.is/Yy9JB

You cannot turn off "Telemetry" unless you own Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, This means your computer will continuously leak unspecified information to Microsoft and there's no way of turning this off
https://archive.is/3yo92

You cannot turn off "Real-time Protection", aka Windows Defender. Even if you do it will turn itself on again after a while, this means you cannot prevent your PC from sending random files and information to Microsoft for "analysis".
https://archive.is/Dln44

Cortana has zero local storage functionality and does not function unless you have a Microsoft Account connected, It will even inform you about this if you try using it on a local account, and then shut itself down.
https://archive.is/2Vw55

Windows 10 start menu will have "Content suggestions" which are on by default, which means you'll be seeing ads.
https://archive.is/0ltgw

Windows 10 "Wifi Sense" will be begging for your Facebook account details so it can get to know you better. It will also be sharing your Wifi password with all your Facebook/Skype/Outlook friends, their friends, as well as Microsoft.
https://archive.is/9HETF
https://archive.is/mO3aH

Going to hold off for a few months. Sounds like some of the programs I use may have some trouble on 10, and it doesn't seem like DirectX 12 will have any immediate benefits.

@cornbredx: i've never had to use it so I don't have much experience with it, but Windows 8.1 had a compatibility feature for running programs in which you right click an .exe, go to properties, and somewhere is comptibility where you can select which pst iteration of OS it was most comptible with to run.

Just a heads up for those who Cisco VPN/Virtualaization software(VMWare, VirtualBox). I entered the Windows 10 preview program about a month and a half ago. I tried installing it on two computers and it completely fucked up interenet settings. I simply couldn't connect to the internet; I reinstalled all my internet devices drivers, tried wired/wireless connections, everything. When I would check my ipconfig from cmd it was completely blank. I tried numerous solutions online and all failed. The only solution I found was either doing a fresh install(which removes all software on the drive and starts fresh) or removing all my VPN and Virtualization software. I am 95% positive it was strictly an issues with Cisco's VPN software, but I didn't feel like going through that shit again.

Outside of this one issue, installation was a breeze and I really dig the OS.

Reading about Wifi Sense scares me. It will automatically share your password with all of your Facebook contacts, Skype contacts etc.

"Wi-Fi Sense is designed to automatically share Wi-Fi passphrases between friends, eliminating the need for handing them over the old-fashioned way and typing them in by hand. Whether or not you want to connect to Facebook and share Wi-Fi connections amongst your friends is up to you. If you don’t want your friends sharing your Wi-Fi network, you’ll have to label it with “_optout”."

So you have to rename your SSID just to optout of this shit. I understand that you might want to let select friends have access to your wifi but ALL your contacts?! And they can share it to their friends and you have no way of knowing who ends up using your Wifi.

wow @wifi sense, i'm wired so i haven't seen that holy shit. I need to take care of that shit, thanks for posting that.

I've been using about a month and it's better than windows 7 so far, it's a lot faster (could be because of the ssd), i enjoy the dual screen settings, and i'm excited for dx12 to be implemented. For some reason i have been upgraded to a full account without putting in a code (dual instal on a secondary drive so not sure what's up with that) but hopefully the win7 code i have will work if they ever take that away.

Auto-Update stuff sucks though, but there are ways around it and i'm sure some 3rd party stuff will help block that shit later. Getting to the adminstration tools takes some getting used to as it's a lot more hidden that before. Seems like it's getting a little to big brothery but I'm enjoying the OS.

There are a lot of security things with Win 10 that I can't be sure if they're true or overblown conspiracy theories. Hopefully that stuff is also clarified.

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: Windows has had this for a long while now. It's just always been hit or miss- mostly miss.

Is Steam working well on Windows 10?

Tried installing 3 times today and the installer lagged at 1% downloaded 3 times. Waited 3-4 hours each time with no movement.

From the screenshots I've seen you can disable it altogether (and I most definitely will). If you want to disable it for just specific networks, only then will you need to change the SSID.

No issues at all, i just linked to all my game installs and it worked perfectly

The only issue I had was with UEFI bios switching legacy mode off but after I yanked out my gfx and switched it back on, everything was fine. Everything I have tested is still working. VLC is working(it had to rebuild a font cache or something for subtitles but thats it). The only game I have tried so far is Guild Wars 2 and it launched fine. Steam boots fine and so does Origin. I also didnt run into any issues with nvidia drivers like everyone was worried about, but again I did have that issue with my bios that made my card flat out not work until I changed it. Could just be that I need to update my mobo.

The update did get rid of my phantom second monitor issue and that alone was worth the hassle of messing around in the bios.

*edit* Every game I have tried in Steam has worked without issue.

Against my better judgement I upgraded today. It's nice. I didn't even bother putting it on a thumb drive I just went on the website and upgraded through a download. No hitches and it installed in 25 minutes for me.

GOG say their games will work in Windows 10 at least. I'll also suggest trying Bitpatcher's Direct Draw wrapper, almost all Windows 95 games I've had issues with in Windows Vista and 7 (haven't tried it in 8.1 or 10) have worked with that. Most Windows 95 games are having issues because they try to use DirectDraw, an early DirectX feature that was phased out back in DirectX 5 days.

I can't use my start menu or right-click items on my taskbar. Other than that, it works fine.

It won't until DX12 games are released. It won't do anything for existing games.

On the plus side it does seem to be gaining traction very quickly in the Dev community. I believe Battlefront will support it and that is out at the end of the year, Slightly Mad is also going to be rolling support for it into pCars in the near future.

Something happened

I upgraded today and it was super painless. I followed an imgur guide that I can't find now, but people have been helpful over at r/windows10 on reddit. The snapping is like a fucking miracle! You can do quarter panel snaps (4 windows on one monitor) and you can now snap in-between monitors instead of it floating between them. The start menu just needs to be customized to your liking. I didn't lose any stuff and all my applications work fine so far.

I'm opening a pitchfork emporium for all Intel Pentium G3258 users. In order to install Windows 10 on our machines, we have to cut our processor off at the knees. The system will get caught in a boot loop if you use both cores. You have to disable one of the cores in your BIOS/UEFI in order to get the system to run. Then it runs at 100% cpu utilization at all times. Not a pleasant experience in the least.

I kinda want to upgrade. But I also don't want to upgrade. I have this stupid icon in the icon tray again, and it keeps beckoning me to click on it. But I don't think I want to. Maybe I'll give it a week, or a month.

Rorie with the (not so?) sly mac digs, lol.

But this looks nice and im tempted, but maybe for once i shouldn't rush into a thing.

Who am i kidding ill probably install it tonight.

I upgraded today and use a SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium and my sound runs digitally to an audio receiver with 5.1 speakers. Upgrading put me back to Stereo sound and I can't access any of the Creative programs to get back to 5.1. It appears Creative has no Windows 10 drivers available for their products.

Creative are the literal worst for drivers, I'm surprised you're still using an X-Fi Titanium... I think have 2 of those in a drawer somewhere. Does your mother board lack SPDIF out?

I reserved my copy but the menu icon is no longer there so I can't seem to download it. I redid my computer after reserving if that had any impact, though I don't see why it would.

@korwin: I guess?

Anyone else notice all the different styled right-click menus? Like the designers didn't follow a style guide or something. It's killing me.

@rorie: With Windows 10 you can display up to four puppy photos using the quadrant feature. Microsoft Windows 10 is the optimal OS (Operating System, for the uninitiated) for puppy viewing and pup enthusiasts.

Hey Cortana, look me up some pups, bow WOW

Still waiting to get it, but I'm very excited. OS updates are always super interesting to me for some reason.