I know that this thread started a few years ago now - but it seems to continually be commented on.
For starters, I am soon to be a retiree. I have a few good old computers in my possession - at least two of them are over 12 years old. My actual computer experience is from a long time ago when I worked with industrial automation (Gould Modicon and Greysoft or Modsoft) It was mostly DOS based back then. In the early 200s, I got a relatively new computer for home use finally. When I finally upgraded it to run Windows XP and I got things figured out, I thought it was the closest thing to being in heaven I could experience. I have doggedly stayed with XP more or less ever since. Well, for obvious reasons, that is no longer as viable of a plan as it once was.
So, in the early summer of 2018 - When my daily use lap top had a crash, I took it to my friend who has a computer store. He told me that I should just "bite the bullet" and plunge in to Windows 10. He installed a new HDD, CD/DVD R/W drive and upgraded the RAM. Then, he installed Windows 10 and a couple of my other programs. Thankfully, he also retrieved everything in the my documents, my pictures and two other folders from the old drive. At first, I was not pleased with it but it kind of grew on me.
Now - in early 2019, my wife has an old IBM (made by Lenovo) thinkpad with Windows XP from about 2006 that she had been using for skype, the internet and Fakebook and their Messenger. I had not seen it in a while and I asked where it went. She had put in a box of old computer parts because it was "flakey". I retrieved it and discovered that the battery was bad - it would not charge and the icon kept flashing...and, yes, it was flaky. I removed the battery and running only on the adaptor though the flakiness went away....Hmmmm...
I got looking at that computer's specifications and I was surprised to see that everything in it was compatible with Windows 10! I got thinking that she wants to use it again now that the flakiness was figured out so why not try Windows 10 in it. I had an ISO file on a DVD that was fairly recent (July 2018) so I set about making a bootable disk in order to install it. I also partitioned the HDD so I could keep the old XP OS.
Issue Number ONE with Windows 10 was/is the unfriendly interface and lack of easy to use Help Info for the ISO Burn feature! I had a lot of trouble making it though. I tried several different things in order to get a copy that would work. Several failed attempts to burn a disk seemed to leave me with unbootable copies. I tried the Microsoft install program - it did the same. I tried a utility program - it did the same. I even tried a USB flash drive version - it di the same. My friend at the shop said to reread the info he had sent me and follow it carefully! I figured out finally what I had been doing wrong, I burnt yet one more disk and LO & BEHOLD - that one worked! I had tried a lot of "fixes and tweaks" in between each prior attempt.... He instructed me also on what NOT to accept from Microsoft on the install and when I got through it, I was to bring it to him for activation (His more or less exact words were for me to do the "dirty work & heavy lifting" myself) ...Mostly, he was busy with family over the weekend. He looked it over, said that I did it all correctly and did some strange thing with a batch file to activate it....and charged me $25.00 (for the license I guess). So far - and I have only had it activated since this morning, that old computer is running well - and faster than my newer one too.
I am still playing with Win 10 though.... I can do everything I need to do so, it will be fine in the long run.
There is another (second) Issue though - my first computer to get Windows 10 Often has a problem with bogging down to painfully slow. Looking at the task manager shows that it has 100% disk usage - which can last for sometimes an hour or even more. I have not been able to find a fix yet. So far the new installation has not started to do it so....
All in all, I say - although it does not have the same effect on me as what XP had, I am, so far, pleased with windows 10.