Your Experience with Windows 10

[Someone Somewhere]

Many of the issues that are cropping up with 10 are the first time we're seeing them, so we can't say for certain. I haven't seen any people with your exact issue.

That often fixes graphics driver issues on other OSs, is about all we can say. If you want guaranteed stability and solutions proven to work, staying on a brand-new OS probably isn't the best idea.

 

[James Mason]

So far, not good. GeForce Experience is timing out with an error and Steam keeps telling me to connect to the internet or check my internet connection when I AM connected. I'm so upset, because given my PC is for gaming only and quite a few games require you to be connected to Steam is ruining what I built my PC for to begin with. I've even done a clean re-install of Windows 10, and all that did was clear up an issue I was having with NVIDIA Control Panel, but my other issues are still present. Feeling very remorseful for upgrading, been a waste of time and effort, HUGE headache.

If nvidia is still a problem use DisplayDriverUninstaller (google) to remove it and then reinstall it.
Also, go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and download the windows 10 drivers if they have them.

My GeForce drivers are up to date I do believe, but it just won't connect to the GeForce Experience :/ Ill look into my MOBO drivers when I get home

It doesn't matter if they're up-to-date, if they're still causing problems use DDU.

Curious, has this actually FIXED the issue for some people? Or is this just something you're recommending. I don't want to uninstall and end up in a worst position I was to begin with, because everything IS working (what games I can open), just not GeForce Experience.

It fixed the issue for me when my geforce experience was crapping out after upgrading to windows 10.
Windows has basic drivers that will allow you use windows (but not games) till you can get the right drivers. Nvidia's drivers get corrupted during the windows 10 upgrade, and they need to be cleanly and COMPLETELY removed, that's what DDU does, Nvidia's uninstall isn't good enough.

 

[theeverydaydude]

Many of the issues that are cropping up with 10 are the first time we're seeing them, so we can't say for certain. I haven't seen any people with your exact issue.

That often fixes graphics driver issues on other OSs, is about all we can say. If you want
guaranteed stability and solutions proven to work, staying on a brand-new OS probably isn't the best idea.

See, I don't think it's a driver issue as much as I think it's an issue with the program itself. My drivers seem fine, there was even a Windows update I downloaded yesterday that was specifically named "Update for GeForce GTX 970", and the GPUs are working, SLI and all, but my question is whether or not this has worked for someone yet using Windows 10, which isn't unreasonable, and if there hasn't been then I'm stuck playing th waiting game.

I'm way more concerned with Steam not working and telling me it can't connect and to check my connection. My hardware seems to be working despite the GeForce Experience not opening up, but if Steam isn't connecting then that leaves quite a few games unplayable.

 

[russellhill1981]

It's free if you purchase.......

If you buys Windows 7 or 8 in the next year, you can upgrade to 10 for free.

 

[xaephod]

Installation was a nightmare. The installation would fail literally an hour into it, and the MS site was pathetic, don't they have anyone there who can write a help file? I had to search and after disconnecting all my additional hard drives, I figured out I should try to disconnect my external USB wifi adapter. That works. Why didn't the installation program tell me to unplug it? Sounds so simple and I figure at least 10-15 million people use external wifi adapters. None of the testing brought that up as a possible issue?

Also, wtf is with the stupid Windows update that installs an older Nvidia driver than the one I already installed? Had to reinstall it, but my Nvidia experience is not working.

As for after figuring it out, so far Win10 has been really cool. A few things I would change, but maybe the stuff I want changed is already there but I have to find it. All my programs are working.

 

[theeverydaydude]

Okay, UPlay doesn't work either. The Edge explorer is the only thing connecting to the Internet. GeForce Experience, UPlay, Origins, Steam, Internet Explorer are all saying I'm disconnected. Odd, it says I'm connected, and I've tried disabling my AVG firewall and the windows firewall, but still nothing. This is such a pain.

 

[nukemaster]

Okay, UPlay doesn't work either. The Edge explorer is the only thing connecting to the Internet. GeForce Experience, UPlay, Origins, Steam, Internet Explorer are all saying I'm disconnected. Odd, it says I'm connected, and I've tried disabling my AVG firewall and the windows firewall, but still nothing. This is such a pain.

That is very strange. You do not seem to be alone. So far I have been doing fine.

Note the SteamOS sale(wonder why?).

 

[dimar]

Windows 10 start menu is still not good. I need to have Control Panel as a menu, that expands to the right, like with classic Start Menu or Classic Shell. MS needs to give users total control over customizing the Start Menu.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Installation was a nightmare. The installation would fail literally an hour into it, and the MS site was pathetic, don't they have anyone there who can write a help file? I had to search and after disconnecting all my additional hard drives, I figured out I should try to disconnect my external USB wifi adapter. That works. Why didn't the installation program tell me to unplug it? Sounds so simple and I figure at least 10-15 million people use external wifi adapters. None of the testing brought that up as a possible issue?

It may only be that specific chipset, not WiFi adapters in general.

Also, wtf is with the stupid Windows update that installs an older Nvidia driver than the one I already installed? Had to reinstall it, but my Nvidia experience is not working.

10 likely uses different drivers to 7/8. If you tried to use the drivers that were already installed, stuff would be broken. So MS uses whatever the newest drivers for 10 are that are WHQL-certified and in Windows Update.

 

[Archgaull]

I have a Rosewill RTL8191SU adapter, I didn't have to unplug the adapter while installing, and didn't even have to download new drivers, it worked right away.

Also had no issues with installing, aside from it taking slightly longer than I would have expected.

 

[PHgraphicsguy]

arhg.. win 10 definitely is a cool update for me... I am running in on my 3 year old HP Envy 17T right now. The only issue i encounter was the AMD + INTEL (enduro) driver. My brightness adjustments aren't working anymore but i had figure out a way to reduce and brighten my screen manually(odd thing to do). But so far so good. Win 10 impressed me IMO. Plus the new drivers boost up my old laptop's performance! I will upgrade my workstation today hopefully it will run smoother on the upgrade side compared to my laptop.

Cheers!

 

[xiiliea]

Upgraded to Windows 10 from 8, 2 days ago, and it's a averagely positive experience for me.

Upgrading:
-No problems at all, except that the upgrade took a little over 1 hour. I was expecting it to take a lot lesser given my i7 processor.

Compatabilty:
-No problems at all. My favorite games work totally fine (Aion and Dota 2).
-All my apps work fine. No need to reinstall or update anything (except my NVidia graphics driver).

Improvements from Windows 8:
-Windowed Fullscreen programs don't have the missing tab at the bottom of the screen anymore, it's totally fixed in Windows 10 (in Windows 8 when I run games in Windowed Fullscreen sometimes it won't show up in the taskbar at the bottom, and I have to hold down alt-tab to slowly select them.)
-Start Menu.
-Able to make color theme change automatically based on my desktop wallpaper. My desktop wallpaper is set to change between over 50 pictures and therefore the colors keep changing which is really nice.

Things I don't like:
-The new calculator. It's so obviously designed for touchscreens which I will never use. The buttons are so hideously big which makes it harder to navigate with a mouse.
-Overall UI. Microsoft keeps forcing touchscreen UI to everyone now. I really miss Windows 7's UI where everything looked so epic, with the crystal-like design of menus. In Windows 8 and 10 they downgraded the UI which now looks like it was made in Paint, since everything is now one-color and squarish. Now every menu is so big and fat with so much wasted space, my mouse has to travel further to click each button now.

 

[ToineF]

-Overall UI. Microsoft keeps forcing touchscreen UI to everyone now. I really miss Windows 7's UI where everything looked so epic, with the crystal-like design of menus. In Windows 8 and 10 they downgraded the UI which now looks like it was made in Paint, since everything is now one-color and squarish. Now every menu is so big and fat with so much wasted space, my mouse has to travel further to click each button now.

it's amazing how Microsoft couldn't hire a good designer for their new system. It's so ugly it's insane!

I can't wait for the skins to come out!

I noticed the new calendar is not even connected with my account. very stupid

 

[Dvx67]

I've upgraded my pc and my laptop to Windows 10 this past week. I used the flash drive upgrade option from Microsoft. I didn't have any problems with the upgrade process, and so far everything is working just fine. I also installed the latest AMD Catalyst (15.7.1) on my pc without any issues. I've been playing GTA V and it's running just like before. This is the only game I've played so far.

My PC - built in 2009 with a few upgrades:

i7 920 Bloomfield 2.66 Ghz
ASROCK X58 Extreme
MSI R9 380 Gaming 4G
12GB DDR3 1600 triple channel
250 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
640 GB WD SATA
Antec Earthwatts 750
Antec Nine Hundred Case
Windows 10 Home

 

[USAFRet]

it's amazing how Microsoft couldn't hire a good designer for their new system. It's so ugly it's insane!

People said exactly the same thing about Win95 and XP.

 

[Archgaull]

I guess it's all just a matter of opinion, I love the look of the UI.

 

[ToineF]

it's amazing how Microsoft couldn't hire a good designer for their new system. It's so ugly it's insane!

People said exactly the same thing about Win95 and XP.

I remember, ppl loved windows XP, it wasn't ugly at all.

the feedback back with XP was that you needed a very high end machine. I dont remember about windows 95, but compared to apple, it was ugly indeed.

 

[USAFRet]

it's amazing how Microsoft couldn't hire a good designer for their new system. It's so ugly it's insane!

People said exactly the same thing about Win95 and XP.

I remember, ppl loved windows XP, it wasn't ugly at all.

the feedback back with XP was that you needed a very high end machine. I dont remember about windows 95, but compared to apple, it was ugly indeed.

google for 'xp fisher price interface'

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/memory-lane-before-everyone-loved-windows-xp-they-hated-it/
"Memory lane: Before everyone loved Windows XP, they hated it
Back when it was new, Windows XP was the worst thing imaginable—ask Ars readers."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.techhive.com/article/117427/article.html
"As for Classic View, more than 700 of you demanded its survival--as opposed to 3 who liked the new Windows XP look. Many complained about XP's "Fisher-Price interface" and noted that the first thing they do on any XP machine is switch back to Classic View. I wholeheartedly agree"

 

[ToineF]

it's amazing how Microsoft couldn't hire a good designer for their new system. It's so ugly it's insane!

People said exactly the same thing about Win95 and XP.

I remember, ppl loved windows XP, it wasn't ugly at all.

the feedback back with XP was that you needed a very high end machine. I dont remember about windows 95, but compared to apple, it was ugly indeed.

google for 'xp fisher price interface'

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/memory-lane-before-everyone-loved-windows-xp-they-hated-it/
"Memory lane: Before everyone loved Windows XP, they hated it
Back when it was new, Windows XP was the worst thing imaginable—ask Ars readers."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.techhive.com/article/117427/article.html
"As for Classic View, more than 700 of you demanded its survival--as opposed to 3 who liked the new Windows XP look. Many complained about XP's "Fisher-Price interface" and noted that the first thing they do on any XP machine is switch back to Classic View. I wholeheartedly agree"

A couple articles doesn't describe what i saw around my environment.

Even to this day ppl create themes for windows that are similar to XP.

But ugly or pretty, when XP came out, you could simply change back the style to the classic one with just a few clicks. Something windows 10 doesn't do. It forces you to use their stupid features and use their ugly interface.

 

[USAFRet]

A couple articles doesn't describe what i saw around my environment.

Even to this day ppl create themes for windows that are similar to XP.

But ugly or pretty, when XP came out, you could simply change back the style to the classic one with just a few clicks. Something windows 10 doesn't do. It forces you to use their stupid features and use their ugly interface.

Did you want me to copy/paste all 79,000+ links for that specific search?

All I'm saying is, XP was not loved initially. It eventually grew on people, and now, they don't want to give it up.
But it was hugely ridiculed on first release, whether you remember that or not.

No one is forcing you to use Win 10. If you don't like it, keep using what you were using before.
It's been in public beta for almost a year. There/s been plenty of time to look and see if you like it. And provide feedback on what you did NOT like.

People want 'new', and then complain when it doesn't look exactly like whatever old version they are used to.
Oh well.

And no, they didn't hire any professional designers. One day, the CEO and the Windows head said "Oh wait!, We need a new interface for this new OS. How do we do that?"
And then looked out the window, and snagged the first eXtreme skatr dood that happened to cruise by. "Hey...you want a job? Design us some new icons"
'Uh, OK!'

 

[nukemaster]

Things I don't like:
-The new calculator. It's so obviously designed for touchscreens which I will never use. The buttons are so hideously big which makes it harder to navigate with a mouse.
-Overall UI. Microsoft keeps forcing touchscreen UI to everyone now. I really miss Windows 7's UI where everything looked so epic, with the crystal-like design of menus. In Windows 8 and 10 they downgraded the UI which now looks like it was made in Paint, since everything is now one-color and squarish. Now every menu is so big and fat with so much wasted space, my mouse has to travel further to click each button now.

It appears the calc.exe opens the modern calc app(this seems to result in random open times[fast sometimes slow others. I use my keyboard shortcut to open calc.exe]). A patch is available on the net that adds the Windows 8 calculator to 10.

Use at your own risk(works for me).
http://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from-windows-8-and-windows-7-in-windows-10/

I noticed the new calendar is not even connected with my account. very stupid

I think it is just slow. I know my outlook calender works, but it does not sync fast at all.

 

[ToineF]

A couple articles doesn't describe what i saw around my environment.

Even to this day ppl create themes for windows that are similar to XP.

But ugly or pretty, when XP came out, you could simply change back the style to the classic one with just a few clicks. Something windows 10 doesn't do. It forces you to use their stupid features and use their ugly interface.

Did you want me to copy/paste all 79,000+ links for that specific search?

All I'm saying is, XP was not loved initially. It eventually grew on people, and now, they don't want to give it up.
But it was hugely ridiculed on first release, whether you remember that or not.

No one is forcing you to use Win 10. If you don't like it, keep using what you were using before.
It's been in public beta for almost a year. There/s been plenty of time to look and see if you like it. And provide feedback on what you did NOT like.

People want 'new', and then complain when it doesn't look exactly like whatever old version they are used to.
Oh well.

And no, they didn't hire any professional designers. One day, the CEO and the Windows head said "Oh wait!, We need a new interface for this new OS. How do we do that?"
And then looked out the window, and snagged the first eXtreme skatr dood that happened to cruise by. "Hey...you want a job? Design us some new icons"
'Uh, OK!'

Sorry, but yes, I am forced to use windows 10 as I have to learn it because of my job and I will need DX12 for gaming.

So ya!

 

[ToineF]

I think it is just slow. I know my outlook calender works, but it does not sync fast at all.

My outlook calendar works, I am talking about the calendar we can find on bottom right corner in the taskbar.

 

[USAFRet]

Sorry, but yes, I am forced to use windows 10 as I have to learn it because of my job and I will need DX12 for gaming.

So ya!

The words 'gaming' and 'need' do not really go together well.
But whatever...

 

[Diplocaulus]

I took the plunge and upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 yesterday. That turned out to be a bad idea. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I ended up restoring my desktop back to Windows 7 (which seems to be okay now).

After nursing the upgrade through what turned out to be about a 5 hour process (the first installation Windows 10 refused to boot at all and automatically reverted to 7), I finally got Windows 10 running. Unfortunately, immediately after performing the first system update, Windows 10 decided that my USB ports were somehow incompatible... and disabled them. ALL OF THEM. And without USB, I of course had no functional keyboard or mouse. All I had was that handsome Windows 10 login screen--mocking me, and no amount of coaxing could persuade Windows 10 to unblock my USB ports.

In the end I dug up an old keyboard that used PS/2 and was able to navigate the UI well enough (just barely) to first diagnose the problem, then activate the Windows 7 restoration. Colossal pain in the posterior.

Blocking USB ports? What's up with that??

UPDATE: It appears that what Windows 10 doesn't like is my Intel ICH10 Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 3A3A. When I try to update this driver Windows 7 says, "The best driver software for your device is already installed."

Okay, what to do now?

******************** SYSTEM SPECS ********************
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit

Asus P6X58-E WS LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz
GeForce GTX 780 v353.62
12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600

Primary monitor: Dell UltraSharp 27 QHD U2715H 2560x1440
Secondary monitor: NEC 90GX2 1280X1024

Realtek High Definition Audio.
Power supply: 750w

G602 Logitech Wireless Gaming Mouse
Logitech G510 USB Wired Gaming Keyboard
HOTAS: Saitek X52 Pro Flight System (throttle & joystick)
Razer Tartarus Gaming Keypad
Wacom Intuos tablet model PTK-440
******************************************************