Your Experience with Windows 10

[Rafael Mestdag]

Try doing a clean install. I could point you to ten or twenty threads, that I myself have helped with, that were resolved by simply ditching the Frankenstein results of the upgrade and doing a clean install.

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2784691/resolve-unresolvable-issues-upgrading-windows.html

I'm considering that as a last resort, but would prefer not to have to start over. Especially with the amount of games and other programs I have installed, it'd take me literally months to get everything back the way I had it before. If it were a constant issues I'd have probably already done it, but when I can get 2-3 weeks of full speed and no issues for 4-5 hours of lag before it just magically fixes itself somehow, I'm putting up with it for now. The computer is still at least functional in this form, and I've got too many projects I'm using it for at the moment to try and risk a do-over that could result in a bigger problem (such as a complete failure for Windows 10 to even install at all and essentially leave me with an expensive paperweight for several weeks until I can sort it).

I'll definitely keep the clean install in mind though, but unless I can get a verification from somebody who has had the EXACT same issue that doing such will have a good 90%+ chance of fixing it, I'm going to try and explore other options for now.

I've been having the same lag/slowdown issue with Win 10 64bit ever since I first installed it a couple of months ago. I know you're probably not going to try this but what has been working for me was installing the 32bit version of Win 10. The system is now very fast and responsive all the time. Of course I have only 4GB of RAM so unless you're willing to get limited to 3.5GB of RAM this is useless to you. Nevertheless it's an interesting solution and I wonder why Win 10 64bit is so slow if compated to 32bit, at least for me.

 

[SpeedEnforcedByAircraft]

Personally? Currently, I run a little Mini ITX build with an AMD A10-7870K and a Radeon R7 250X, in and out of crossfire (yes, it's not officially supported, I make the two do it only for Folding@Home). I had a Windows 7 license from a previous build, and this being my first SSD based build before I make something totally awesome on the Skylake platform, I timed the boot at 11 seconds, cold boot to desktop. Upgrading to Windows 10 felt like a step backwards: Multiple displays became a hassle instead of a convenience, I don't care about apps but can't uninstall them, the Start Menu is super sluggish, the Task Manager doesn't provide nearly enough control as I would like it to, and my computer noticeably slowed down from all these sudden background services that I don't even need, without the option to disable any (touch running on non-touch monitors?). I especially hated the Control Panel, they turned it into a children's toy. I don't know where to find anything in the settings anymore. And don't get me started on Cortana. I didn't even take the risk of pushing the downgrade button; I backed up everything important and wiped the drive, and then reinstalled Windows 7. I'll probably upgrade come June 2016, but it feels highly ignorant of any desktop or power users. I can see myself enjoying W10 much more on a tablet than any desktop computer.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Personally? Currently, I run a little Mini ITX build with an AMD A10-7870K and a Radeon R7 250X, in and out of crossfire (yes, it's not officially supported, I make the two do it only for Folding@Home). I had a Windows 7 license from a previous build, and this being my first SSD based build before I make something totally awesome on the Skylake platform, I timed the boot at 11 seconds, cold boot to desktop. Upgrading to Windows 10 felt like a step backwards: Multiple displays became a hassle instead of a convenience, I don't care about apps but can't uninstall them, the Start Menu is super sluggish, the Task Manager doesn't provide nearly enough control as I would like it to, and my computer noticeably slowed down from all these sudden background services that I don't even need, without the option to disable any (touch running on non-touch monitors?). I especially hated the Control Panel, they turned it into a children's toy. I don't know where to find anything in the settings anymore. And don't get me started on Cortana. I didn't even take the risk of pushing the downgrade button; I backed up everything important and wiped the drive, and then reinstalled Windows 7. I'll probably upgrade come June 2016, but it feels highly ignorant of any desktop or power users. I can see myself enjoying W10 much more on a tablet than any desktop computer.

The control panel in 10 is the same, if you right clock on the Start Button then select Control Panel, minus a few options. And I find it funny you find the Task manager not powerful enough. Compared to the one in 7 the one in 8/10 is vastly better with way more information available.

I have yet to run into any issues with multiple monitors. It is still pretty much the same. Set your primary screen and move them based on how you want your mouse to move between them.

 

[USAFRet]

Differences in Control Panel. Win 10 Pro is on the left, Win 8.1 Pro is on the right:

Or is it the other way around?

 

[nukemaster]

Differences in Control Panel. Win 10 Pro is on the left, Win 8.1 Pro is on the right:

Or is it the other way around?

You have it right because of the flatter icons

I did get a strange thing on 10. A game stopped responding, Ohh, better end it. The task manager would NOT open on top of the black game screen. I had the taskbar and nothing else.

To get out I moved to another virtual desktop and ended the task from that one.

I am glad I could end it, but I do not remember having this issue in 7.

 

[USAFRet]

Oh, I know I had it right. It was just a play on the identical choices in both versions of the Control Panel.
Which is which?

 

[boju]

Differences in Control Panel. Win 10 Pro is on the left, Win 8.1 Pro is on the right:

Or is it the other way around?

You have it right because of the flatter icons

I did get a strange thing on 10. A game stopped responding, Ohh, better end it. The task manager would NOT open on top of the black game screen. I had the taskbar and nothing else.

To get out I moved to another virtual desktop and ended the task from that one.

I am glad I could end it, but I do not remember having this issue in 7.

I had that same issue in Win10 playing FC4, albeit i had the game tabbed out for a couple mins before re-entering. That game sometimes has trouble deciding between windowed and full screen. So maybe related, anyhow it stopped responding and task manager was behind the black non-responding windowed.

I got it to move in view by > taskbar > cascade windows > hold shift on taskbar pinned icon of taskmanager > right click mouse > move. This will ready your pointer top of the window to drag.

 

[Rafael Mestdag]

Differences in Control Panel. Win 10 Pro is on the left, Win 8.1 Pro is on the right:

Or is it the other way around?

You have it right because of the flatter icons

I did get a strange thing on 10. A game stopped responding, Ohh, better end it. The task manager would NOT open on top of the black game screen. I had the taskbar and nothing else.

To get out I moved to another virtual desktop and ended the task from that one.

I am glad I could end it, but I do not remember having this issue in 7.

I'm having the same issue with Euro Truck Simulator 2 whenever something goes wrong and I find myself with a black screen on my monitor I can't seem to get over it by using the task manager. It opens up UNDER the black screen/window and it's always a hassle to get out of it by ending the game's process, I still don't have a solution for this, I simply click, alt-tab and do whatever to try and end the process and get back onto the desktop.

 

[boju]

^ next time that happens, try what i said, it worked for me.

 

[OneFai]

I like Windows 10. It is closer to Windows 7 than Windows 8. For some unknown reason, it takes longer to start up than Windows 7 on my PC. Maybe I need a fresh install but I really don't have time for it.

 

[nukemaster]

My boot times seem to be random too. sometimes it is like 28 seconds(event viewer) others it is over 50(this is a big discrepancy). I have fast startup off.

I thought maybe it was connecting to my network shares, but it does not seem to be the case.

Getting to Windows is always fast, it seems to be slow after logging in(time to get to the desktop)

I am still looking into it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, this is cute. Windows 10 is no longer allowing me to make changes to the "never download drivers automatically from windows update" option in the system, advanced system settings, hardware, device driver settings options. Oh, it will let me change them, but the second I go back in there, even if I reboot, it's changed back to "update drivers automatically". Nice Fricking' touch Microsoft. Anybody else seeing this as well. I can tell you for a fact it wasn't doing that prior to the last patch Tuesday updates.

After much experimenting and "biding my time" to allow some improvements to happen, hoping things would smooth out as they have with previous OS versions, I am seriously just about done with Windows 10. I still can't get Netflix and other streaming media to work without the video freezing from time to time while the audio continues playing fine. Believe me when I say EVERY possible remedy for this has been attempted including clean installs of the OS, clean installs of the GPU card drivers, changing from in browser GPU acceleration to software encoding, displaying the stream on different monitors, updates of all chipset and network drivers with and without removal of the devices.

Microsoft says it's Netflix, Netflix says it's Windows. And now the fracking system won't even allow me to turn off the automatic driver updates. Heh, I'm this close II delivering shoe bombs to both companies it's not even funny.

 

[USAFRet]

So, this is cute. Windows 10 is no longer allowing me to make changes to the "never download drivers automatically from windows update" option in the system, advanced system settings, hardware, device driver settings options. Oh, it will let me change them, but the second I go back in there, even if I reboot, it's changed back to "update drivers automatically". Nice Fricking' touch Microsoft. Anybody else seeing this as well. I can tell you for a fact it wasn't doing that prior to the last patch Tuesday updates.

After much experimenting and "biding my time" to allow some improvements to happen, hoping things would smooth out as they have with previous OS versions, I am seriously just about done with Windows 10. I still can't get Netflix and other streaming media to work without the video freezing from time to time while the audio continues playing fine. Believe me when I say EVERY possible remedy for this has been attempted including clean installs of the OS, clean installs of the GPU card drivers, changing from in browser GPU acceleration to software encoding, displaying the stream on different monitors, updates of all chipset and network drivers with and without removal of the devices.

Microsoft says it's Netflix, Netflix says it's Windows. And now the fracking system won't even allow me to turn off the automatic driver updates. Heh, I'm this close II delivering shoe bombs to both companies it's not even funny.

I just checked this on my ASUS Transformer, and setting it to 'Never install....' survived through a full reboot.

As for Netflix? Works just fine on my HTPC to the Visio TV. Minimalist box....G840 CPU, integrated graphics, 4GB RAM...

 

[Darkbreeze]

Works fine on mine too, until it doesn't. Bounced back to windows 8.1 yesterday and watched five full episodes without a single issue. Changed back to my Win10 image and within ten minutes it was doing the same thing again. Clean installed and updated drivers, etc., tried again, fine for half an hour, then bam, same thing. It's not just me either. There are about forty major related threads on various sites, plus the ones on the Microsoft support site.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/76627/20150814/windows-10-problems-users-report-lagging-and-stuttering-youtube-netflix-video-streaming-issues.htm

I thought, at one point, that perhaps it was simply a Netflix issue, but it doesn't do it in 8.1 at all.

 

[USAFRet]

Works fine on mine too, until it doesn't. Bounced back to windows 8.1 yesterday and watched five full episodes without a single issue. Changed back to my Win10 image and within ten minutes it was doing the same thing again. Clean installed and updated drivers, etc., tried again, fine for half an hour, then bam, same thing. It's not just me either. There are about forty major related threads on various sites, plus the ones on the Microsoft support site.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/76627/20150814/windows-10-problems-users-report-lagging-and-stuttering-youtube-netflix-video-streaming-issues.htm

I thought, at one point, that perhaps it was simply a Netflix issue, but it doesn't do it in 8.1 at all.

Interesting. I shall play with it more and see if this turns up here.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Jimmysmitty was having similar issues as well, seen here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2797930/ccc-windows.html

 

[jimmysmitty]

Jimmysmitty was having similar issues as well, seen here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2797930/ccc-windows.html

I have not run into the never install driver thing BUT Windows 10 is trying to install a 2 month old driver for my GTX 980Ti. It isn't actually installing it but says it needs to run a separate install outside of Windows update to do it. I ran into this with my wife's Microsoft Life Cam, where it ran the actual installed instead of just installing it in the background. Must be the same for this.

As for the Netflix issue, yes my main system was doing it but my HTPC was not and still is not (just watched 10 episodes of TNG without a hiccup. I have also watched some with my GTX 980Ti and it does it but not as badly as with my HD7970GHz did. Now it will freeze for a brief second then continue. With my HD7970GHz it would freeze for quite a while with the audio still playing then either resume or not work unless I clicked on the time bar to change the place it was at, basically reloading the stream.

I guess it is just part of a new OS. I would not be surprised if it is a Netflix issue although I wonder if it could just be a plugin issue. DB, have you tried installing the Microsoft Silverlight plugin? Netflix mainly uses it although they are "transitioning" to HTML5 which might be part of the problem. Maybe that is it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yep. Silverlight is installed and up to date.

 

[Efthimis Vlastaridis]

Well, I have to say that when they will finally become stable, I will 90% install them because I like the new features they come with. Until then, I'm sticking to 8.1!!!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Stability isn't the issue. Win10 is totally stable. It's application compatibility and driver support, most of which are third party vendor issues, that is the main problem. Windows 10 has plenty of issues of it's own, namely what you can and can't configure, but stability isn't really one of them.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I purchased Windows 10 the other day. It works.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Why did you purchase it instead of taking the free upgrade? Did you go with the Pro version instead?

 

[mikeebb]

I've been using 10 on a tester laptop (about 5 years old) and it seems to work fine. However, I've been unable to install my old games on it even using some well-known tweaks like avoiding use of Program Files. MS seems to be more aggressive about preventing "incompatible" software, even that which it published. As a laptop with a (dual-core+hyperthread) i5 and integrated Intel graphics, it's not really suitable for use with VMs to run older stuff.

The note about the disinformation running around is generally correct, but does miss one major point: regardless of whether you have a retail or OEM "qualifying" Windows, the upgrade appears to be locked to the initial hardware just like OEM. Not a serious issue with the laptop, but could be an issue with the desktop (still running 7 SP1) where various parts do change from time to time including the motherboard.

10's quick-start mode (yes, I know it first appeared in 8) does work well. Startup on the laptop takes less than 30 sec. to the logon screen. Again, I know, what it does is log off the user and hibernate the system, but unlike my experience with hibernation in 7 it actually works.

I don't appreciate the forced updates. Appears that the only way around that is to be a commercial account and get Enterprise. Should be a way to limit mandated updates to security and true bug fixes. And the process of getting the personal data collection under control for each account, separately, is a pain - suspect that even if somebody has developed a canned Group Policy for doing that it won't work in Home.

Anyway ... 10 is OK ... and I probably will upgrade the other stuff around the house before the free year dies ... but I also am planning for some serious problems with older games that are still playable and enjoyable in 7, and for which there is no useful substitute/upgrade.

BTW, for most things it's not necessary to buy MS for other software. Every normal application I use in the Win 10 tester (as, with one exception, in my main desktop machine), is free and, usually, open source. And it works fine. LibreOffice BTW is now available in 64-bit form for Windows. And the whine about Solitaire and Mah-Jong being payware now (have been since 8) is fixed by PySol, decisively.

-M

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Why did you purchase it instead of taking the free upgrade? Did you go with the Pro version instead?

I didn't have a free upgrade, I was running the Tech preview on my desktop since like January, and before that ran Linux.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ah, that's a good reason. Just wondered.