Your Experience with Windows 10

[James Mason]

Not my key.

As I said, it's a generic key. Googling it yields a few thousand results: https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=VK7JG-NPHTM

Ahh, I see now, I get the same key as well.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Looks like if you've installed Win10 once and gotten the free copy, it sticks that in the BIOS or something. I can now boot off a Win10 disk, install it, skip all the key prompts, and it's activated anyway.

Awesome. MS is finally being more consumer-friendly.

 

[James Mason]

Looks like if you've installed Win10 once and gotten the free copy, it sticks that in the BIOS or something. I can now boot off a Win10 disk, install it, skip all the key prompts, and it's activated anyway.

Awesome. MS is finally being more consumer-friendly.

Hmm, I'm wondering what will happen when i build my new computer on friday/the weekend, cause I'm planning to "transfer" my windows 8/10 license to it with entirely all new hardware. It's a retail license, and I'm going to "retire" the computer it's on currently.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If you haven't already, I'd say don't upgrade to Win10 yet. I don't know that it's transferable.

I was testing with a retail 7 license. I'm about to try installing 7, and then I might try using the same license on something else.

 

[ToineF]

Looks like if you've installed Win10 once and gotten the free copy, it sticks that in the BIOS or something. I can now boot off a Win10 disk, install it, skip all the key prompts, and it's activated anyway.

Awesome. MS is finally being more consumer-friendly.

Hmm, I'm wondering what will happen when i build my new computer on friday/the weekend, cause I'm planning to "transfer" my windows 8/10 license to it with entirely all new hardware. It's a retail license, and I'm going to "retire" the computer it's on currently.

the license of windows 8 is linked to the user (not the computer)

My suggestion is to install windows 8 on your new computer and make sure everything works and than do the proper upgrade to windows 10.

I did the same thing with windows 8. I built my new computer a while back and used an old windows 8 licensed I had bought previously for my older computer. You might have to do the phone activation, thats the only unusual thing I had to do.

 

[James Mason]

Yeah, i think this post from Microsoft says I'll have to install windows 8 and then upgrade it to 10 on my new PC when i't built, not a big deal.

You upgraded to Windows 10, but didn't have a previous version or the correct edition of Windows installed (error 0xC004F061)

If you see error 0xC004F061 when you try to activate Windows 10, it means one of the following:

You're using a product key to upgrade to Windows 10, but a previous version of Windows wasn't installed on your PC. To update, you need to have Windows 8 or Windows 7 already on your PC.

If you formatted or replaced your hard drive, you won't be able to use a product key to update to Windows 10. You'll need to install your previous version of Windows, and then reinstall Windows 10.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/why-activate-windows-10

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, i think this post from Microsoft says I'll have to install windows 8 and then upgrade it to 10 on my new PC when i't built, not a big deal.

Right. This is an Upgrade. It needs to see a qualifying previous OS install.

 

[Evan7899]

Is there any way to get rid of that stupid search web and windows crap at the taskbar because I cant even navigate this horrendous settings menu.

lol edit seconds after i post this i accidentally right click on the taskbar and disable it...my settings menu hate remains

Is there any way to make those 8 bit icons bigger?

 

[James Mason]

Is there any way to get rid of that stupid search web and windows crap at the taskbar because I cant even navigate this horrendous settings menu.

lol edit seconds after i post this i accidentally right click on the taskbar and disable it...my settings menu hate remains

Is there any way to make those 8 bit icons bigger?

Go to Settings > Systems > Display.

It's really not hard if your not indignant about it and explore to see what's where.

 

[ern88]

Gmail won't sync with the mail app. Keep getting error 0x80072726. Anyone know of a fix?

 

[James Mason]

Worked for me, but others seem to have the same problem:
http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/3f0ni1/windows_10_error_code_0x80072726_when_trying_to/

 

[Evan7899]

Is there any way to get rid of that stupid search web and windows crap at the taskbar because I cant even navigate this horrendous settings menu.

lol edit seconds after i post this i accidentally right click on the taskbar and disable it...my settings menu hate remains

Is there any way to make those 8 bit icons bigger?

Go to Settings > Systems > Display.

It's really not hard if your not indignant about it and explore to see what's where.

I was wondering if there was a way to make just the icons in the taskbar bigger not almost everything on my PC. I would just like some of those stupidly small icons to be larger and not make the rest of my PC look like it belongs to an 80 year old.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If you right click on the taskbar and hit Properties, there's a checkbox for making them smaller - make sure you don't have that checked.

Haven't seen anything to make them larger, though.

 

[Evan7899]

If you right click on the taskbar and hit Properties, there's a checkbox for making them smaller - make sure you don't have that checked.

Haven't seen anything to make them larger, though.

Ya I saw that as well, I hate how when you make the taskbar taller it keeps the ridiculously small icons but lets you have 2 rows, like the taskbar is supposed to be frequently used applications not your entire PC. It has regular, then double that, no inbetween.

 

[theunliked]

Can someone have a look at this question I just posted? I'm seriously confuzzed...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2741594/winver-shows-build-10240.html

 

[Evan7899]

Is there any way to get the things I pin to start menu to actually go to the start menu and not to those tiles?

 

[loz2966]

Just installed windows 10 over the top of windows 8.1 and so far so good, everything appears to be working fine!

This sticks in my throat to say, but I even like Windows Edge, it's clean and fast, so I'm going to give it a chance and make it my default search engine! but I do use LASTPASS which doesn't seem to support Edge yet, so this might be deal breaker for me!

Just a word of warning to all you MS Outlook users out there, the Search Index engine which is actually part of Windows and not Outlook has started all over again, I have over 90,000 emails and it looks like it's going to take all day to re-index! so if you are like me and store all your mail locally think about updating Windows 10 last thing Friday night so that on Monday morning you are not wondering why you can't find your searched mail!

Is the experience any better than 8, too early to tell but as I used START8 and Chrome before, there's nothing here that has set my pulse racing, but it's good to see that Microsoft are at least trying to keep up with the competition and it's FREE!

 

[randomizer]

Well the upgrade itself was painless. However, once I hit the desktop things were a bit wonky. The resolution was wrong (generic drivers so that's expected), but what is even more strange is that about 10 minutes after I started browsing at a low resolution Windows decided to adjust my desktop to 2560x1440... or at least it tried. I ended up with my visible viewport squashed to 2/3 the height of my monitor and centred, with garbled text. Fortunately it was easy to resize it back to a lower resolution again, but then I couldn't resize it back. I should really install some drivers.

I've also noticed some other weird things.

• 
  ■That the clock/calendar and network widgets overlay the whole desktop in a very faint translucent overlay that creates nearly invisible vertical lines. The other system tray widgets don't do this.
  ■The volume control, network and clock widgets take several hundred milliseconds to open, which is quite annoying.
  ■Repeatedly clicking the icons for the network or volume control widgets exhibits unpredictable behaviour. If they are open when clicked, sometimes they will close and other times they will close and then open again. This is something I'd expect from a hastily assembled Linux distribution, not a commercial product that has gone through months of QA.

Note that all of this is without installing updates, just a fresh upgrade.

 

[ToineF]

I installed it on a slow computer thinking it would speed up a bit since MS said it would be faster than windows 8. Not true at all.

My photo app keeps crashing so it's useless.

The overall idea is good. but just like windows 8 you keep changing from the metro style to the old one. It's still very confusing.

My suggestion is not to be in a rush to install this thing.

Edge browser is surprisingly fast on my slow computer, but can't play youtube videos for some reason. I guess it's a matter of time.

I'm not a big fan of the design tho... I don't know, it looks amateurish. I guess I will wait before installing it on my gaming rig.

 

[nukemaster]

Well the upgrade itself was painless. However, once I hit the desktop things were a bit wonky. The resolution was wrong (generic drivers so that's expected), but what is even more strange is that about 10 minutes after I started browsing at a low resolution Windows decided to adjust my desktop to 2560x1440... or at least it tried. I ended up with my visible viewport squashed to 2/3 the height of my monitor and centred, with garbled text. Fortunately it was easy to resize it back to a lower resolution again, but then I couldn't resize it back. I should really install some drivers.

I've also noticed some other weird things.

• 
  ■That the clock/calendar and network widgets overlay the whole desktop in a very faint translucent overlay that creates nearly invisible vertical lines. The other system tray widgets don't do this.
  ■The volume control, network and clock widgets take several hundred milliseconds to open, which is quite annoying.
  ■Repeatedly clicking the icons for the network or volume control widgets exhibits unpredictable behaviour. If they are open when clicked, sometimes they will close and other times they will close and then open again. This is something I'd expect from a hastily assembled Linux distribution, not a commercial product that has gone through months of QA.

Note that all of this is without installing updates, just a fresh upgrade.

You think that is strange, try the calculator(launched from calc.exe. I do not think my keyboard can launch metro apps). The open times seem random, but it looks like calc.exe opens a modern app(instead of just being a modern app) so that adds to the time and it seems fast sometimes and slow others.

Overall I like the OS(On the edge of making it primary on my gaming system[not my most used system, but used fairly often]), but I use the calculator all the time(multiples sometimes). They have made many improvements to it, but some steps backwards too.

I think holding out a bit longer may have helped. Even with all the insiders, You will run into other issues after release. Edge allows taking notes on sites and copying those to the clipboard(I was doing some manual ad removal ). If you use mouses without borders, the image will be corrupt more often than not. Turn it off and it works fine. It is a very strange bug, that I do not think will be fixed(how many people use that program after all).

Rammap also does not work.

 

[IaMaBooZeR]

So.. MS listened to their customers and brought back the start menu? Except that it doesnt have PROGRAMS on it, just those bastard apps. none of the stuff I'm familiar with... just a scaled down version of the Win 8 start screen that i hate so much. oh.. and we sign away our files, document and passwords to microsoft... this sux.. I really want the DirectX 12 for improved graphics, but screw this.

CAn't assign a download location in Edge. this really sux for those of us using a low GB SSD as a boot drive

 

[nukemaster]

If you have the insider hub, make suggestions.

I think you can move your actual downloads(or any User folders) folder(to another drive or even a memory card[best to keep the card in after that]) so at least then when edge downloads it will go to that location. This has been like this since Vista(XP could do it with other software too).

I am sure in time Edge will get some of these issues sorted out.

 

[guanyu210379]

OK, here are my experience about Win10 sofar (about 1 day).
The upgrade (not clean installation, simply over my Win7) and activation went well without issues. No driver's problem or whatsoever. Win10 runs stable.
The activation has some issues yesterday evening, perhaps because Microsoft server was overloaded. The activation went in a jiffy this morning without any problems. No new keys or whatsoever was required.
I had Win8 and 8.1 but rolled back to Win7 due to massive GUI issues, I hate it totally.
Win10 solved quite many but not all, some settings jump between normal Windows settings (control panel) and Win 8/8.1 Metro UI settings without you even really notice it. If you accidentally landed on Metro UI settings you can not go back to normal control panel that easily but you must click control panel again all over again from start.
The active apps on Metro UI and normal Windows applications are still separated just like on Win8 /8.1.
The issues, which I hate on Win8/8.1, are still there.
The Metro UI not as dedicated screen but only part of start menu, well, I kinda like this. The normal Windows apps are also there, good job here.
The stupid gesture e.g. moving mouse cursor to certain edges and pull down, etc. are gone on my PC settings, I like this.
Turning off/on your PC is a bad implementation on Win8/8.1 but the one in Win10 is back ok.
The Win10 GUI stuffs give me a bit of a mixed feeling, it is better than Win8/8.1 but not still as good as Win7.
I agree with those who said that Win10 is actually only Win8.2. Win10 still sucks in GUI point of view, just like Win8/8.1, although the GUI on Win10 is still better than Win8/8.1.
I hope Microsoft will still patch things to fix those I hate. It does not have to be like Win7, something new is ok but just not like the current Win10.
At the moment, the killer implementation on Win10 for me, which I really hate on Win10 is the update service is that you can not control the updates like on Win7. I guess the update will be set always to automatic (at least I have not found a way to change the settings). I wanna have it to inform me and let me choose which updates to install.
Now to the question, if I want to keep Win10. Well, I dunno yet, I wanna let Win10 active for a couple of months first than decide.

 

[nukemaster]

Please remember the uninstall and go back to 7 only stays for a month(strange decision if you have the space.) so you would have to reinstall 7 most likely after 2 months.

 

[ToineF]

So.. MS listened to their customers and brought back the start menu? Except that it doesnt have PROGRAMS on it, just those bastard apps. none of the stuff I'm familiar with... just a scaled down version of the Win 8 start screen that i hate so much. oh.. and we sign away our files, document and passwords to microsoft... this sux.. I really want the DirectX 12 for improved graphics, but screw this.

CAn't assign a download location in Edge. this really sux for those of us using a low GB SSD as a boot drive

I'm with you on that one! The more I use windows 10, the more I hate it. I'll kill that stupid new start menu.

https://www.stardock.com/products/start10/