Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

In another thread, I noticed Fred mentioned he was installing W10.  Ready to do this myself but wondering if he or anyone else has had any issues or has any tips to offer either on the install itself or usage.  Upgrading from  7.

Mel W.
Columbia, Md.

Hi again Mel,
Yes, I installed 10, and the upgrade went flawlessly.
I was expecting the same sketchy results we got on previous upgrades. I always had to do a clean fresh install.
That's not fun for me because, obviously, I have to reinstall everything.
Then, this wont run and that wont run, and I can't find the install disk for Office, and OMG I lost my copy of Photo Shop!!  :'( :'( :'( :'(

It was a smooth upgrade; they got it right this time.

Cons:
Thanks to having our Mike 'hold my hand" through the ordeal, I had the courage.
That means that when It booted up it was a mess on my screen. Resolution was wrong, icons all large and weird, and I was ready to restore my backup of W7.
(Enter Mike)   he advised my wife Marilyn to let me out of the straight jacket, 4 Valiums, and then I should type WINDOWS UPDATE into the search box.
Guess what!   Three updates to install. I installed them. Reboot. All was well.

The only two things I lost were the little GADGET on the screen that showed core usage and core temps,  and my Epson R2000 USB driver.
(I have 26 printer drivers, and that was the only one that was missing. (Perhaps because it was named "Copy 1 is why?))

I just reinstalled the driver... and all was well again.  I did have to rename it back to Copy 1, so Qimage printer setups would recognize the printer.
By  the way, the wireless driver was fine and worked, and also the Epson Workforce printer, also wireless worked fine.

Pro: It took me a day to get used to where everything is located, and placing the icons where I like them to be, and I still have to get the courage for a date with CORTANA.
She is the woman that lives inside W10.
Many of you have Smart Phones that let you speak and ask questions, and get answers from your phone. I think one lady's name was Siri!
I asked CORTANA  "Do you fool around?"
The computer rebooted.
This is my second full day, and it's fun, IT IS FASTER.... no doubt.  I cleaned off all the kid stuff app type icons off the screen. That's not my style.
I really like it. That is saying something because I am an old fuddy duddy.

Fred

Hi Mel,

After Fred's reply you've probably ploughed ahead - if so this may be a little help to others.

Windows 7 checked my system and said everything would be just peachy so I went ahead.  My installation of W10 (upgrade from W7 Pro 64 bit) also went very smoothly, until, after the final reboot my screen resolution was very low - exactly as Fred experienced.  Two further reboots didn't help one bit.  No problem, I said, just go to Dell Display manager and re-set it.  Problem: DDM had disappeared, as had my Nvidia GeForce Experience.  I then went to the Dell Support page, only to be told that "Dell does not support the Windows 10 operating system for this device" !!   >:(  What - Dell doesn't support W10 for my 8 month old P2214H, which they are still selling?

At this stage with my blood pressure almost off the scale I shut down and went for a coffee break (usually works) before reverting to W7. When I returned after half an hour and booted up - voila - everything OK - resolution, desktop layout exactly as it was in W7, my GeForce experience has returned with an updated driver and the DDM was again back in my taskbar and working (although Dell still say they don't support W10 for my monitor).

I can only assume that W10 did automatically what Fred did manually (and perhaps did some kind of W7 compatibility thing for the DDM).  Whatever, everything is just fine and W10 definitely is faster all round, so I guess the lesson is to be just a little patient and let W10 do its thing in the background for a while / follow Fred's example.

One final thing if you're not aware - during installation opt for Custom rather than Express installation, then turn off just about everything that allows Microsoft to collect information about you (unless you want targeted adverts., pop-ups and your emails analysed to "help" offer you goodies) - I also don't want my passwords stored, encrypted or not!  You can also do this from "Settings" later if you missed it on installation.

As Fred said, once you've finished housekeeping all the daft app type icons W10 is good.  So is Edge, once you've learnt how to set your own preferred start page and search engine, imported you Favourites and Favourites bar and found out what each of the new buttons does.  Personally, I'll be using IE11, which also comes with W10, until Edge includes a setting to automatically delete History on Exit.

Oh - one final thing, don't mess with Cortana - you might catch something (Google Windows 10 security) !

Glenn
(I'm also an old fuddy duddy)

My Nvidia Gforce was also missing.  and my Viewsonic driver. I forgot to detail what was fixed.

The Three updates fixed it all.
Glad to hear they come in  automatically if you have coffee.
I did write to them when they asked me what could improve the experience; make the updates automatic.
(Should have told them to dress Cortana in a French maid outfit.)

fred

Thank you both - very helpful.  I wont be doing this for a few days - the Florida cousins are visiting through Wednesday.  BTW, how long did the install actually take?

Send them back. There's no traffic at all. We need them to help change the traffic lights to green

I think it took about two hours...
Maybe Glen remembers better.

Fred

I was surprised - mine only took 25 minutes up to the point where it said it was finished (not including the time it then took itself to update to fix the drivers for the monitor & graphics card).  I guess it depends on your system - mine uses an i5 3330 with 8 Gb ram and a GeForce GTX750.

Glenn

Mel
After playing with 10 for many hours (rainy season-SW Florida), over a couple of days, I am rethinking... with less emotion and more clinical judgement.
I AM having a few second thoughts.

So far, I ask myself what have I gained?
Cortana to whom you speak, and who is your virtual "gofer" or personal butleress.
It runs file transfers faster.
It loads a bit faster.
It's prettier.


What have I lost?
I lost my FREECELL game. That might sound like small potatoes, but My wife is a Freecell expert, and I struggle. Been in daily Freecell contests with her for years.
I find a Freecell for Windows 10 download from Microsoft, and it is all full of ads.... distracting, irritating ads.... then a pop up. Would you like to get rid of the ads?
Click here to PAY .... No refunds... I cancelled out.
But now I am seeing steam arising from my ears.
Another item that annoys me a little is the emphasis (not subtle) on Smart Phone type of computing.
It starts by calling everything an "APP". ... and it moves inexorably to being a computer for the new generation with the user living his life with someone else at the controls.

I have a Kindle, and love my Kindle, and it comes with ads..
The ads show up when you open the cover. Press the power button to turn it on, and the ads are gone.
W 10 wants  to torture me until I agree to pay to get the ads removed?

I lost my  comfort zone. It's like My old dog died, and this new puppy is peeing on my floor and chewing the furniture.
Eventually, I will house break her, and I will be able to leave her alone at home without chewing the furniture, but am I too old to do that again.


My wife says I should do what I did with W 8.1 Install 10 on a different Hard Drive, and use a dual boot system; asking me on computer start, Do I want W 7 or W10.

Not fully convinced.
Fred

If you still have your Win 7 files (or even a computer with XP), you might try running/copying the old FREECELL.EXE (in Windows/System32) and see if it works.

It is a good idea. The problem is I thought of it earlier, and moved the game folder from one of my W 7 backups to W 10.
It will not open... I get error messages and it just wont accept it.

There's another problem for me.... maybe it's my eyes, but I am not the only octogenarian trying W10.
With the standard W 10 install, text is default size at 100%. I can barely read my mail or my browser.
I adjust to 125%... which I always used with all previous Windows
When you do this in W 10, it warns you that this change will now affect not only text, but the entire app.
My text is now at 125% and the same size as it was in W7, but not sharp and clear.

Working on it. Thanks for jumping in. Any ideas are helpful.
Fred

Fred, if you haven't done already, try this:

Click the Start button in W10, then type Cleartype.  Click on the first item of the box which opens "Adjust Cleartype text".

Then work through the five pages which follow, clicking on the option on each page which looks best for you, then click Finish.  That should sort it; I had to make one adjustment only to get the best for me.

Hope this helps,

Glenn

Thanks Glen. I did that and selected the clearest box for me and it still isn't as good as my W7n screens

Fred

Guys,
My fuzzy fonts are fixed, and I even got my Freecell from W 7 going, courtesy of our resident genius who will be along to tell any of you who had to use 125% like I did, how to solve it.

Fred

Thank you all again - good stuff to know before I do this.  Would like to hear how the font issue was resolved.

I was waiting for Mike to post, but he got busy.

Ok basically, this is how he did it.
Control Panel/ Display
Leave the text size at the default 100%.
See two screen snaps.

That should get you there. Now, I changed the default 9 point to 12 point (IN EVERY ITEM IN THAT DROP DOWN MENU)
Worked fine for me
Fred

I finally did it.  All went very smoothly. Only glitch is in the backup.  It says I can continue to use the W7 backup function, but it crashes.  So now trying to use the W10; it is running right now, but doesn't seem to give me quite the flexibility or visibility into what it is doing that the W7 backup did. Which brings me into complete agreement with Fred's comment above.  The UI is really a bit too dummed down - especially the control panel aka settings.  I want to see and understand what I am doing.  I am not playing a video game. BUT - I'll get used to it soon enough.

So the first thing I did after the dust had settled was to print a photo using QU to make sure everything was still working and there were no driver problems.  I could not get a good print no matter what I did - tried adjusting everything under the sun and wasted 7 sheets of 8.5 x 11. Then it hit me.  Even I have limits on how much self deprecation I am willing to take, so I wont tell you what really was going on - but let's just say the fix was quicker - logistically - than posting this comment. QU works great and it does seem even faster than it was in W7 (but I did not do before-after timing)

Mel W

OH come on Mel,
We are old buds.... Write small, about what you did, and I promise I wont tll a soul.
Write it like is was a whisper.

Mel, I have to tell you about a Backup program which we bought after a Free Trial Version gave a us a taste.
It is called EASEUS... and it is.
I bought it about 9 months ago, but my wife was using the Free version.;
I had a disaster a few days ago. A real disaster. Computer would not boot, and told me I messed up the configuration of the C drive (which I did)
I wont tell you how dumb I was, until you tell me what you did with the printer.

I had a backup file of 10 but I needed to get to it.
I put in the Easeus Rescue disk, and all that did was tell me I effed up the C drive.
I rumagted around and found a Disk that said EASEUS RESCUE PAID VERSION...
TADA!!
I restored sector by sector which took close to 2 hours, but I'm here.

The whole PAID version is about 23 bucks...

It is so simple to use, it puts Acronis to shame.

183 is the opening screen
185 and 186 are what you get if you want to customize the backup to include various drive. (I scrolled down so you can see some of the drives I can include.

As you can see from 183, you have some button choices. That was DISK PARTITION BACKUP

I use SYSTEM BACKUP, 3rd button, and that gives me snap 184. One click more on Proceed, and I go find Marilyn for a quickie.
At my age, that's a sandwich and coffee!
My System backup, includes the entire C drive including the partitioned boot partition.
Find it on line, and install the free version.  When ready, click Yellow bottom strip where you upgrade. That's where it is 23 bucks.
Or buy it now: http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/download.htm

Fred

Fred

Well, after procrastinating for a week or so (I was busy with other stuff) I updated to W10 using Windows update.
It went remarkably smoothly. Everything worked (except Gadgets of course), even programs claiming not to be compatible with W10. I think they want users to upgrade at a cost!
I got rid of the junk in the Start menu and stopped all the items that want to spy on you.
I've fiddled with fonts and icon sizes and I'm not yet quite satisfied when the scaling level is set to recommended 100%. Trouble is, if set higher, some text is fuzzy so I'll keep at 100%.
Now  I have to get used to the differences with W7 but that should not be a big deal.
Terry

Picky Picky

Fred

I upgraded from Win 7 to 10 on my Desktop and its amazing experience but when I upgraded it on my Laptop from Win 8.1 to Wind 10 facing sound issue on the plug in of any hand-free or headphones. Sound goes off automatically after plugging in any headphone.