Got a new laptop coming, its got keyboard + touchscreen and has 8.1 installed.

Should i just upgrade straight away to windows 10 or stick with 8.1?

Am running XP still on my current one so no experience of the more recent versions.

I have 7,8.1 and 10 going at the moment. 10 feels much simpler in some ways than 8.1 but not as easy as 7 had become. Going to move everything to 10 once I’ve done some more testing on work stuff.

I’d probably go for 10 but some things like printers might not have caught up depending on what you have.

Just been in similar situation. I’d say yes, go for it.

From 8, yes. From 7 it’s a decision.

Although I’ve just gone from 7 to 10 with only one driver to change.

Went from 7 to 10 a week ago, no probs there.
Only issue so far is that no steam games will run. 🙁
Haven’t found a solution yet.

YES! But go for a clean install as opposed to an upgrade.

I did with my low/mid-range laptop, aged, battered netbook (which dual boots with Linux) and also the powerful desktop.

Win 10 is great and I believe that Win 7 drivers will work with all win 10 machines i.e. no need to worry about waiting for hardware to catch up with software.

From 8, yes. From 7 it’s a decision.

I’d agree.

YES! But go for a clean install as opposed to an upgrade.

Do not do this until you’ve done an in-place upgrade at least once, or your upgrade eligibility won’t be registered and you’ll have to start again from scratch.

Loving 10 here. Had a few printing to PDF issues but seems fine now.

Only issue so far is that no steam games will run.

Is that because there is an installer problem or have you made an arse if copying over the files? I took a few attempts to get it riight when I did mine.

I prefer 8.1 to 10 on a tablet, the touch version of Internet Explorer is much more refined than Edge (which doesn’t even have Tracking Protection Lists).

Otherwise generally Windows 10 is better (when correctly configured). There’s a big update to Windows 10 imminent so I would wait at a week or two though….

Bought a new Lenovo a couple of months back and just did the direct upgrade. No problems at all to report and most importantly (to me anyway) you can control+v in command windows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it is deserving of that many exclamation marks.

and don’t forget windows + x

Windows 10 is fine, as long as you have touch screen.

Touch screen? Not on any of the three installs I have, never felt the need, not sure where you get that idea from as its certainly a lot better in that regard than 8.1.

I ditched Edge in no time flat as its utter toss, IE is still installed on Win 10 and is easy to configure as default.

Gifferkev – do you need to install Games For Windows Live to get things working ?

How do i know whether to install 32 bit or 64 bit windows 10, its giving me a choice!

Spec is

Intel ® Core (TM) i3-4010U Processor
Windows 8.1
NVIDIA ® GeForce ® GT 745m DirectX ® 11 graphics
500GB hybrid hard drive including cache (8 GB flash memory)
4GB RAM
39.6 cm/15, 6 “multi-touch HD display

Windows 10 is fine, as long as you have touch screen.

eh??

I’d go 64 regardless of spec. It’s the future.

Or was that garlic bread?

(64 will allow you to use more RAM if you want to upgrade later, and has been no slower in 4Gb in the few machines I’ve tested so unless you know you have a reason to stick to 32 bit, don’t.)

I used to advise 32 for 4GB or less – 64 only comes into its own when you have more, but then I have 4GB and 64 bit here out of choice, and in testing I didn’t find any problems with that. If you’re 100% sure you won’t ever want to add more memory then still 32 on balance, but otherwise 64 (I’m expecting to upgrade at some point). Even with 4GB you will get slightly more usable memory, as part of the address space is taken up with memory mapped stuff.

How do i know whether to install 32 bit or 64 bit windows 10, its giving me a choice!

As above, but if you have any older software that you’ll want to install, it’s safer to stick with 32.

Win 10 is OK. My DVD drive stopped working after the upgrade, and the Edge browser is awful, but other than that it’s OK.

I’ve got lots of old software. Part of my testing before doing a clean install was to check that (I’m talking about stuff like CMR2, designed to work with W95) and all was fine. Unless you’ve got really old software then I don’t think you should have a problem with 64.

Do not do this until you’ve done an in-place upgrade at least once, or your upgrade eligibility won’t be registered and you’ll have to start again from scratch.

Threshold 2 (which is the big patch due this week) is meant to allow activation using a Win 7/8/8.1 key.

Oh, excellent. I’d missed that, ta.

Unless you’ve got really old software then I don’t think you should have a problem with 64.

Early Autocad was my case in point.

Thanks for the info – I’ll hold off on faffing with upgrading in a VM as I already have a non-activated one with a clean install.

Windows 10 is fine, as long as you have touch screen

Got any reason for that, 2 here with no touch screen and it’s not something I’m looking for really. They just lead to greasy finger printed screens

Going from 8.1 to 10. What I meant was that, it’s designed with Touch Screen in mind, so a lot of the features are designed with touch screen in mind.

My wife has her Surface with 10, for use more with the mouse, and I think it looks cumbersome.
Mine is set to use with more touch screen layout, and I find it’s smoother, and looks neater.
Not so cluttered.

well it didnt go quite as planned :oops:!!

Started the windows 10 install and it gavem em the options of keeping everything, something else, or keeping nothing.

Yes i selected keep nothing, thinking ah new laptop, nothing i need on it, this will be a better install! Didnt realise i’d then have no drivers or software for things like trackpad, sd card reader, dvd burner. There is a driver and application disc but i though this will lead to me messing things up big time, so i restored 8.1 again!

Todays task was to install windows 10 (keeping all the preintstalled stuff) at work where there’s less distractions from kids / wife and i could leave it chuntering away but went and brought the wrong charger in for it Doh.

Didnt realise i’d then have no drivers or software for things like trackpad, sd card reader, dvd burner.

So did you install and these things didn’t work? I’d be amazed if Win10 didn’t have drivers to drive that lot. I clean installed on my 9 year old Dell Precision and everything works fine. Had to dl an Nvidia driver to get proper high res. on the display but other than that everything ‘just works’.

Except Edge browser which is amazingly rubbish. Not the end of the world as I use Chrome, but tried Edge to begin with. Hopeless, crashy, slow, laggy.

Is that because there is an installer problem or have you made an arse if copying over the files?

Possibly at first, i uninstalled steam, cleaned out the folder and re-installed. Still no worky.

Gifferkev – do you need to install Games For Windows Live to get things working ?

I’ll give that a go tonight.

You wont need Games to get Steam working.

Did you copy the manifests over as well as the contents of steammods or whatever the main install folder is called? If not, thats your problem. Its not a simple as just copying the files I’m afraid. Will have a look later and see if I can find the guide I followed. Either that or just redownload everything as a last resort.

Edit : actually have I got this all wrong? Is it a copy problem or that it just straight up doesn’t work?

meeeeee@ did you then instal updates? With Win 7 at least, the updates following an instal included drivers. Without them, resolutions would be wrong etc.

Full procedure for transferring Steam to a new installation:

Download Steam client and install as normal.

Shut down steam client

Copy the following from your old directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common (copy all contents or individual games as required)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps (copy all appmanifest files or for individual games as required)

If you need to figure out what each appmanifest file is associated with use the number on the appmanifest (bolded) as in this hyperlink: http://store.steampowered.com/app/377160/ or open the manifest file using notepad, the game will be ID’d somewhere.

Assuming the directories are stock then thats it. Otherwise open each appmanifest file and edit the “installdir” path to your non-standard location.

eg.

“installdir” ‘Left4Dead’
will install to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Left4Dead

but of you want it somewhere different then

“installdir” ‘D:\awkwardplace\justcos\Left4dead’

I think that bits right.

But yeah, it should just be a case of launching Steam and it will recognise everything. I just tried this for Deus Ex in standard install location so it definitely works. Remember to copy over save files as well from your user folder!

Anybody else signed up as a Windows Insider? The blog says that build 10586 is now available to the slow ring, but I’m only seeing 10565 at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewiso (I presume you need to be logged in for that link to work at all).

Am I on some special tortoise ring, or am I missing something?

Yes, installed 10586 yesterday (which was 24h after I initially downloaded it, as having an SD card in was crashing the update). It’s meant to have been released to the public but my dad (who isn’t signed up to the Insider programme) tells me it’s not showing up in Windows Update yet.