I forgot to mention that i do have a pretty major issue with using a dual shock 4 controller. Right now you can't set up exclusive mode so certain games (like USF4) you will get double input. It only happens in games that support Dinput and Xinput(xbox). You can set it a profile to use Dinput only though(Ds4windows not sure about input mapper) but for games like streetfighter the buttons are still kinda jacked up since it's not fully supported for whatever reason. I am reading about a temporary fix by disabling network list service but i haven't tried it yet https://inputmapper.com/forum/4/614?start=20

Just a heads up

Finally got this up and running after fiddling around a bit. I'm liking the overall look of the menus and the functionality for the most part. It seems better than Windows 8 at least. One issue I have is all these privacy settings that I had to go in and turn off. Microsoft really wants to spy on me evidently.

I've had the same experience. 9 failed install tries so far. becoming very frustrated.

@peleus: Ended up downloading the iso with the tool and install it with that. Would have done so sooner if I'd known w8 can mount isos natively.

i am trying the ISO now with a USB stick and hopefully it works. Been a very frustrating 2 days especially since my Dad's PC upgraded in like 45 minutes with no issues

well i got to copying files 35% and 10% upgraded before it stopped working. It is farther than i have made it before but ultimatly frustrating that this upgrade is such a hassle.

Installed Win10 yesterday and am still undecided. At the moment it feels like Windows 8, with a start menu added and the charms removed.

I am done trying. Could care less at this point, The fact that this upgrade process is such a piece of crap has really turned me off of Windows 10 right now. I would go to the Windows support forums for help but all you get is MS robot employee answers and no real actual help to fix anything

I like it quite a lot. Had a few issues when I first entered the OS after the upgrade, but once I restarted once or twice it was fine. Shame to hear about people having issues though, I hear many are (including yourselves). I suppose this can be expected though, especially with early adoption (?).

Don't upgrade. Just do a clean install, people.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

That's what I did. Had no issues. It will verify your product key.

I heard you cant do a clean install until after you upgrade because that is when it associates Windows 10 with the Product Key for Windows 7/8/8.1.

Doesnt matter now for me since after my last fail it would not restore to windows 7 so i am doing a clean install of everything

This is another chrome add-on that is supposed to do the same thing. Remember that Chrome has to be your default browser. You have to set that in the control panel now, for whatever reason.

@wikitoups: i was getting errors, yeah. It was telling me it would activate when it connected to the internet like I wasn't connected and giving error codes when i manually hit the activate button in the system settings. It's their servers not your key. Just keep hitting tbe the button and it will eventually activate. Took me about 10 to 15 tries. I was upgrading from 8.1 pro to 10 pro.

It works but only if you already have a chrome window open. Which defeats the purpose of the extension imo. Also, that other extension might work the same way as I didn't test it with a chrome window open.

@xanadu: You have to enable background apps or of course it won't work, you silly goose.

1. Go to Chrome Settings

2. Click "Show Advanced Settings"

3. Scroll down to System

4. Check "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed"

@franticrain: That option was selected by default in my settings so that's not it

The upgrade program downloaded its 6GB to a hidden C:\$Windows.~BT directory yesterday morning but is still telling me to wait for notification before upgrading. I dodged Windows 8 but am looking forward to 10. I'm in no rush though. An OS upgrade is nothing to shake a stick at especially when jumping two major versions. I'm happy to let the bleeding-edgers work out the big issues before I take the leap. My work machine will remain Fedora.

@xanadu: As far as I can tell, Chrome has to be started once before Cortana will redirect searches. It doesn't matter after the first launch whether chrome is open or not, because it enters its background state where it will handle all of that stuff just fine. So you could just put chrome in your startup folder, and that would probably fix it, but the extension works fine for me.

@franticrain: Yep its working now actually. There's a chrome system icon that wasn't showing up before.

This is partially correct. If you do a clean install without first upgrading, your copy of Windows 10 will no longer be legitimate once the final preview build expires, and you'll have to purchase a Windows 10 license key once the free upgrade period expires. You need to upgrade to Windows 10 through the free upgrade program from your previous OS during the free upgrade period to get a legitimate product key that will continue to work indefinitely. After upgrading and securing your product key, you are free to do a clean install of Windows 10 whenever you want without your license expiring.

Having trouble installing mine.....just locks up about 1/4 the way through while "preparing for installation".

You can just download it manually.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Coincidentally my parents just bought one of those 2 in 1 laptop tablet things and it was delivered today. As soon as I went through the basic setup it immediately asked if I wanted to upgrade to win10 and I took the chance to do it now before my parents started installing god knows what and got used to how win8 worked. I have to say it's a pretty nice looking layout and I like how the start menu and desktop changes when I fold the laptop into tablet mode. My only problem being that it doesn't have a gyroscope sensor in it because the screen wont flip automatically when I put it in the tent position. Oh well with that... The other thing I really hate is how the microsoft store makes it so you HAVE to have a microsoft account to even download apps. I really don't want to link my account with it sense it's you know... not mine? Edge seems pretty cool though even if it does try to force Bing down your throat. I will probably install Chrome tomorrow though just so I can use a browser that I'm more familiar with and that has adblock plus and all that.

For me, upgrading was a bit of a hassle. I had to use the Mediacreationtool from Microsoft instead of Windows update, because that kept failing.

Even that didn't go as smooth as I hoped. I live in Belgium and Windows 8 is sold in Dutch in my part of the country, but I set it to run in English (US). That interfered with the update and I had to change my "administrative language", set it to English (US), because I kept getting the "Something Happened" error in the Mediacreationtool. More info here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/30/windows-10-something-happened-error

After all that was taken care of , Windows 10 installed without a hitch.

My games are all still there, but I have them installed on a second HDD in my pc (I'm running my OS of an 128GB SSD). They aren't registered under the installed programs, but Steam and GOG Galaxy still finds them, so I'm good on that front. Still haven't tested Uplay or Origin. I'm also going to test DX9 games and I will try to update this post after trying.

Other programs that I had installed in my Program Files didn't come over, but are still there to be found on my SSD in the Windows.Old folder. I tested foobar2000 (a music library manager and player), and that worked fine, again not showing up as a registered program.

All my files that where stored under my user account folder (Music, Videos, Documents, etc.) are still there, and it also respected the fact that I had these folders on a different drive. Again, running and SSD for the OS, I changed the location for these folders to my bigger HDD. This did end up with the creation of a second and empty Music and Video folder in my library, that Windows 10 happily ignored ( why create them in the first place?).

GPU drivers weren't an issue, at least up to this point. I run an Nvidia GTX 680 (yeah, she's an old gall but she still does the job), and I installed the Windows 10 ready drivers beforehand, and they worked fine. It did take a reboot after the initial setup for Windows 10 to find my native screen resolution, it could only display in 1600x900, but after that no problems at all. Granted, the only game I tested is World of Warcraft, but running that on Ultra, in 1080p with MSAA 8X, wasn't a problem at all, so I'm pretty sure my drivers work just fine. I did have to reinstall GeForce Experience. Installation went great though, and it confirmed I was running the latest Windows 10 drivers.

And that's the end of my way-to-long post :)

Ok, so far it's basically Windows 7 in a new dress with lots of confusing menus (like Windows 8) that do the same as other menus.

Also it's still a shitty tablet OS without connecting a keyboard and mouse. The normal mode is just Windows 8 without annoying tablet start screen and the tablet mode is a bad tablet OS without the desktop. But it still uses the desktop, you just can't access it fully unless I'm missing something. (like no idea how to access the wastebasket in tablet mode) Don't care though, I'll continue using it once every month when I'm too lazy to turn on my PC.

So initially mine failed 4 or 5 times in windows update which i then found out was due to Mcafee so uninstalled that but also deleted my download folders contents to be doubly sure and it downloaded fine. Whole thing came down in around 20 mins, installed itself and then felt like it was running in tar, couldnt seem to get the start menu to pop up, if i clicked an icon it took 2-3 mins to actually respond, i started to curse MS.

Then i rebooted and everything was perfect, the OS is super fast to respond, slick (save for the start menu that i dont personally like but it works so hey..) and all of my Win7 stuff still runs. The only other probem i came up against was the NVidea driver set, i downloaded the win10 set, tried to uninstall the old ones but it kept failing, i then tried to install the new ones on top but that failed too, in the end i uninstalled the graphics card, told the machine to search for new hardware and within seconds it pulled the new drivers in and set up the card using the recommened settings.

Not bad so far, seems like they spent a lot of time getting it right, feels like they took the best of win7 and 8 and fused them together, i haven't had a chance to use Cortana or any the Xbox stuff thats built in but seems super easy to use so far. I didnt know about that wifi stuff but i'm wired in because playing games on wifi would drive me nuts.

Threw win10 on my laptop to give it a test run before doing so on my PC.

Already disappointed by my sound drivers not being supported. Didn't have any issues with the install, though

July 31st was a pretty good day, I thought. I said goodbye to my best friend who's moving countries, then I bought Destiny, hung around town with a friend a bit and then spoke to someone about a job at my favourite restaurant. As my days go, it was a pretty good one!

Those are my impressions of the release date.

That said, I've been running W10 beta on another partition on my macbook for a little while, and my overall impressions are that it's pretty solid. The only real complaints I have is how disjointed some of the settings seem to be. Settings in the settings app would end up just opening a windows 7 style control panel at certain times, and that was super jarring and unpolished looking. I hope they've fixed that in the final build.

I've been running the preview build for a couple months as VM and fully switched over to 10 as my main OS a few weeks ago.
My preview build got upgraded to Windows 10 release yesterday, no issues with that transition.
Start menu gets a thumbs up, even better than before with tiles in my opinion.
The Witcher 3 seems to run at a more stable 60fps so that's a bonus!
I've had no software conflicts what so ever so that basically means Steam and Origin seem to be functioning. : )
Xbox app is a nice addition which I'm sure will get better over time.
Still feeling out Edge, was snappy at first during preview then got buggy (hangs), seems better after release update so far.
I've been reading that all the major DirectX12 benefits won't be felt till games releasing this winter and beyond but will help improve games patched to use DX12.
So far I'm pretty happy with Windows 10 and it's future.

@ottoman673: Stupid question...
Did you check for new audio drivers for your laptop?
I have an ASRock motherboard and the only official windows 10 drivers they had were audio and 2 Intel/chipset related drivers.
Maybe there is a known audio issue.
Just an idea, good luck!

So paying for Solitaire and Minesweeper is a thing now...

I would rather program my own version of each game which I could probably do it in a week.

Has anyone used Ableton with Windows 10? That's the only reason I don't want to switch yet.

Questions for those who already upgraded: How did you handle your GPU drivers?

1. Did you remove the old drivers before upgrading or did you install Win10 version onto the Win7/8 ones?

2. Did you use some kind of third party software to delete the old drivers after upgrading and do a clean install? Which driver cleaning software would you recommend?

I'm on an AMD card.

I got an email this morning from MS saying the prompt for my upgrade may happen anywhere from several days to a few weeks from now, so I guess they're really staggering this rollout. My machine hasn't even started preloading the install yet.

@mak_wikus: I think that if you just do the update everything should be okay. You can always do a clean driver install after you updated to win10 to be sure:

1. Remove the catalyst driver from the control panel.

2. Use Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode to remove all remaining traces and reboot back to normal.

3. Do a fresh install of the drivers.

That's what I do with every graphics card driver update anyway.

@gundogan: Cool. Thanks!

Upgraded all 3 of my machines, went perfect for one that had windows 8.1 installed clean on it's existing drive. The other two had both seen full data migrations to larger SSD's at one point in their life and had started out with Win 7 images a few years back so I ran into a problem with the system reserved partition not having enough free space. Simple enough to fix, just needed to delete the excess languages from the boot loader and compressed what was left. Upgrade went through just fine after that.

@korwin: How much space is required exactly?

I'm liking it so far. The upgrade was a huge hassle because I'm running it on a secondary SSD in a optical drive caddy inside a MBP, and it failed to upgrade its license properly the first time.

After installation, I began the extensive and necessary privacy permission changes. Microsoft wants to collect as much (or more) information as Apple does, so it's about a three minute marathon of disabling location services, P2P updating, WiFi key sharing, diagnostic reports, feedback requests, ad catering, Cortana--nice idea, but I'll pass on a wholesale data free-for-all--and on and on.

But it boots faster than any OS X I've used--literally two seconds from the MBP's firmware handoff to a login window--they smoothed a lot of the rough edges in the OS itself (less pop in, more slide in), and even the "metro" layer feels like a natural and integral aspect.

I installed it, secure knowing I could downgrade within the month to retain my Windows 7 key. But for the moment at least, I'm genuinely willing to give it a shot.

It seems like geforce experience is still busted for me even with the latest version. Hoping nvidia has more driver updates/hotfixes soon.

Seems fine. Had the "Something happened" bullshit so just brute-forced my way into making a USB installer, then installed clean. Didn't like the idea of an in-place OS upgrade anyway.

Can anyone help clarify the multiple graphics adapter stuff for me though? I enabled my Intel HD Graphics via BIOS and installed the latest driver, hoping I could use it for PhysX with my Asus Strix GTX970 as the primary card via PCIE, but the Nvidia control panel isn't letting me use the Intel graphics for PhysX. Is this not something we should be able to do now? If I stick in my old GTX670 it lets me use that for PhysX just fine, but I don't want another PCIE card in there. I would like to make use of the Intel GPU though.

So what exactly are the upgrade options? Am I able to do a full clean reinstall from 7 to 10? This is a bit important to me, as I planned on finally getting an SSD and dumping 10 onto that.

In any case, I'm not doing the upgrade until I can be certain that most of my programs, especially stuff like my anti-virus, will work correctly.

13 failed upgrade attempts and I am done. They can keep the hunk of junk.

@adequatelyprepared: First you have to upgrade 7 to 10 and activate it. Then you can do a clean install without fuss.

A good guide for those looking to upgrade. http://hothardware.com/reviews/making-the-jump-to-windows-10-a-migration-guide

@brad: If you are keen you can pull the image down from them onto USB and make some installable media rather than waiting for Windows update. - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I believe that prior to 8.1 Windows allocated 100mb to the system reserved partition, these days it allocates 350mb to avoid problems. Because I was updating with a not full but at least somewhat utilized system partition i had to squeeze things down, it will install with a 100mb part provided that it's empty enough.

An update to all of those suffering a SAFE_OS failure on a G3258: Check for a BIOS update. Unfortunately, certain overclocking features have to be disabled to allow dual core operation with Windows 10. It is all based in some microcode optimization that Intel made. I updated the UEFI on my Asrock H97 Pro4 to 1.90 and it runs like it should now.