Windows 10 is here! The latest and greatest of Microsoft's operating systems, now for computers of all form factors. Yes, no more free upgrades after July 29th! Update October 2023: That end-date in 2016 was a lie, but now Microsoft has ended the free upgrades from Windows 7 and 8 to 10 or 11 for real. Should I upgrade right now? Windows 10 seems to be over the biggest obstacles, and there aren't many reasons left to stick to older versions. On the other hand, if your current system works well enough and is mission critical in some way, don't upgrade. What happens after July 29th 2016? Do I have to pay to keep using it? No. The free upgrade offer is "grab it now and it's yours forever". I'm running Windows XP/Windows Vista. Can I upgrade? No. You'll have to buy Windows 10, or a Windows 7 or 8 version to upgrade from. You might be able to find 7 and 8 on sale, just beware of super cheap keys, they might not be entirely kosher. What edition of Windows 10 will I get? Windows 10 comes in four editions, but only two are relevant to the free upgrade: Home and Pro. If you have a Professional or Ultimate edition of Windows 7 or 8, you get the Pro edition of Windows 10. Otherwise you get the Home edition. If you're using an Enterprise version, there is no free upgrade for you. You can do that. Use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to install right away, make a bootable USB thumb drive to install from, or even get a full DVD ISO. I have reserved, but I don't want to upgrade right now. Accepting the reservation means you will be upgraded automatically! If you don't want to upgrade right now, cancel the reservation. I did the upgrade. Where's my product key? There is none. You don't get a product key from the free upgrade. Repeating this: You do not get a product key from the free upgrade. When you do the upgrade, the installer sends a "fingerprint" of your computer (motherboard+CPU, mainly) to Microsoft, and that marks your computer as eligible for free Windows 10. However, see next question too. I don't want to upgrade. I want to do a clean install! Cool, you can do that now. You just need your original Windows 7 or 8 product key. Use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to make a bootable USB drive or DVD. Then start the installation as usual. When the Windows 10 installer asks for your product key, enter your Windows 7 or 8 key. It will recognize the key as valid and begin installing the appropriate edition. I already upgraded, but then I had to replace my harddrive. How do I do a clean install now? If you've already had the Windows 10 upgrade done on your system, just press Skip when the setup asks you for a key. When the install is done, it will then activate through the hardware fingerprint that got registered during your original upgrade. If you haven't ever installed Windows 10, enter your Windows 7 or 8 product key when the installer asks for one. Wait, if I upgrade now, then replace my motherboard in 2 months, will my license be invalid? Probably yes. You might still be able to reinstall using a Windows 7 or 8 key, but officially your motherboard is the computer, and the license is bound to the computer. So new motherboard means you must purchase a new license. 2016-06-22: This may be changing! With the Anniversary Update it looks like you will be able to link your Digital Entitlement license to a Microsoft account, and keep it valid across larger hardware upgrades. Something happened! Yes, that's an actual error message some have had while trying to do the upgrade. No-one's reported it for a while, so it's probably solved, but if you get it, the fix seems to involve changing your regional/language settings. More upgrade/install troubleshooting tips below. What's new in Windows 10 The Start screen from Windows 8 has been melded into the olden Start menu, to create a new Start menu with tiles on the right half. The Action Center control panel from Vista and charms bar from 8 have been replaced with a Notification Center that holds notifications from all sorts of apps, as well as lots of buttons and toggles for various things. One of those toggles is tablet mode. This basically disables access to the Desktop, and makes all apps run in full screen. It does make touch-only usage easier. You can switch it on and off quickly, useful if you have a convertible. Cortana is Microsoft's personal assistant. Cortana can search for things, create calendar appointments, and send all kinds of commands to apps. The apps just have to be made for it. However... it's only available for some combinations of language and regional settings. The app store has been enhanced, and can now offer regular old desktop software as well. Microsoft figured out a way to package regular Win32 software so it can be installed and uninstalled safely, and run in an isolated manner without affecting the entire system. Internet Explorer is being replaced with Edge, a new browser. Despite the "e" icon, it has little to do with the old IE, and is generally much more sensible. Definitely give it a chance. (You can still also use IE 11 if you need to.) Rolling upgrades — Microsoft is promising to continually update Windows 10 with new features and general improvements over time. Virtual desktops, almost like multi-monitor but without the need for more hardware. Editions There are four edition of Windows 10: Home: Does most things, but is missing several power user features. Is sold retail and comes pre-loaded. Pro: Can join domains, act as Hyper-V host, and load of other fancy things. Is sold retail and comes pre-loaded. Enterprise: Mostly the same as Pro, but with some more management features. Only sold through volume licensing agreements. Education: Mostly the same as Enterprise, but targeted at students. Sold through volume licensing agreements to educational institutions. Microsoft has a comparison here ...how about Windows RT? It's gone. Microsoft does have a Mobile edition of Windows 10, that OEMs can design phones and small tablets for. Windows 10 Mobile is the closest to a successor to Windows RT there will be, but is perhaps more of a successor to Windows Phone. As a consolation prize for buying a Windows RT tablet, you get a small update with a Start Menu. (Article on Softpedia) Privacy woes? You might have read various pieces attacking Windows 10 for ruining your privacy and control of your computer in various ways. How much of that is true? Forced updates: Yes, the Home edition will download and install updates without asking, and you can't turn that off. This can be an actual problem when a broken update goes out once in a while. However, this is generally a good thing, because it will most likely cut down on support calls from grandma getting hits by exploits due to not getting fixes in time. Although there is a tool to disable specific updates, but you still have to run it before the update in question begins installing. If you want to control your updates, you are a power user and should consider running the Pro edition. Peer-to-peer updates: Yes, by default updates will get downloaded not just from Microsoft's servers, but also from other users and systems on the Internet and local network. You can choose to only let P2P act over the local network. However, this is not a security risk. You cannot get viruses/malware pushed through updates like this. All packages are cryptographically verified before they get installed. Getting updates from other machines on the local network can definitely help save bandwidth, great if you have several computers at home, and a metered connection. FAQ Wi-Fi Sense/Network key sharing: This is a feature that lets you share wireless network keys with contacts/friends on Outlook.com, Skype, and/or Facebook. The claim is that this happens entirely automatically and your network key will eventually be spread to everyone across the world. The truth is, you have to actively choose which services you want to share network keys on, and you have to actively select a network and click a "Share" button for it to happen. If someone then connects to the network you shared, they won't be able to share it further. If you don't want your network key shared, just tell your friends to not click Share. FAQ Predictive loading/search suggestions in Edge: Like every other browser (particularly Chrome), Edge has some features to pre-cache pages before you visit them, show suggested search terms, and more. Some of the settings' descriptions could be misunderstood out of context. You can turn off the predictive features if you don't like it. FAQ Forced anti-malware: Yes, Windows 10 forces Windows Defender to be enabled if you aren't running any other antivirus software. If you don't like Windows Defender, install some other AV on your system. Telemetry: Collecting some basic usage statistics, like how often you launch applications from desktop shortcuts versus task bar pinned icons versus Start menu search, has been common for a good while. If you really don't like it, the Basic settings will basically only report what sort of hardware you use (already done by activation) and send basic crash reports. None of this is used for generating advertising or otherwise identifying anyone, but only for statistics to direct bug fixing and feature improvement to the most important areas. FAQ This post is delivered as-is. No warranties implicit or explicit are given to the correctness, applicability, merchantability or other desirable features of the Content. The Content may not be kept updated in a timely manner. All reading is performed at one's own risk. nielsm fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Oct 7, 2023 |
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:03 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:49 |
More FAQ stuff My Start menu is broken, help! GreenNight posted:Microsoft released a tool to troubleshoot the Start Menu in Windows 10. White title bars are ugly, or, I like my taskbar vertical Lum posted:If you're like me and prefer a vertical taskbar, but want it really narrow, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker is now out of alpha and can be downloaded without being forced to donate. Windows 7 has the best Start menu ever! quote:Classic Shell may be for you. After a full format/reinstall I'm getting a Home edition rather than Pro. Can I get Pro back? wolrah posted:Just did a fresh reinstall on my laptop. I know the OS restore feature should be basically the same, but my install on this machine dated back to the initial public preview and was MBR/BIOS mode rather than GPT/UEFI which I wanted to change so I could enable Secure Boot. nielsm fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jul 3, 2016 |
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:04 |
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Nice work. I think it's a great idea to address the whole privacy paranoia bandwagon that has started due to Windows 10. I'm terribly amused at the tinfoil hat reaction to this whole thing.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:22 |
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What's this about Pro lacking some features that Home has?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:31 |
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Okay, just to make sure I was reading correctly from the last thread: If I want add some new SSD drives to my home machine, I should install the new SSD drives, re-install my copy of Windows 7 on them, and THEN upgrade to windows 10 with a fresh install. I can't download and upgrade to Windows 10, and then use that Windows key to do a fresh install with the SSD drives using a USB ISO. I am just wondering if hard drives are enough of a difference with the fingerprint on the MS servers.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:32 |
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Hard drives should not make a difference.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:36 |
You could upgrade your existing install to Win 10, then do a fresh install on the SSD. But if you're currently using a mechanical drive it might be faster to install a new Windows on that, or perhaps image your old install over to the SSD, then upgrade on that.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 16:54 |
Renaissance Robot posted:What's this about Pro lacking some features that Home has? The only thing I'm aware of that's missing from Pro but is present in Home is Microsoft Spotlight, which is a special lock screen that changes once a day and gives you neat images you might like. Nothing really important but I'd still like it.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 17:16 |
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Renaissance Robot posted:What's this about Pro lacking some features that Home has? If you upgrade from Windows 7 to any version of Windows 10 you will loose media center. So that is something to consider for home theater PCs.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 17:44 |
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Segmentation Fault posted:The only thing I'm aware of that's missing from Pro but is present in Home is Microsoft Spotlight, which is a special lock screen that changes once a day and gives you neat images you might like. Nothing really important but I'd still like it. Spotlight is also supposed to show suggestions for Windows Store apps and Tips & Tricks. Availability could also be region specific.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 17:48 |
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I'm hoping this thread can help me out, because Google is failing me: I can't seem to connect to any of Microsoft's servers. Windows Update shows the loading dots indefinitely, the Windows Store 'stumbles' and returns the error '0x801901F7', and all the games that need to connect to my xbox account hang on their title screens or soon after. (no bingo ) Not sure if this is related or not, but my Facebook and Twitter apps have stopped pushing notifications to my Action Centre. I haven't changed anything (that I know of..) and my internet connection is just fine. This has been happening for a few days, so I don't think waiting it out is going to change anything. I've tried running 'wsreset.exe', but it just opens the store, which fails the same way as before. I've done a thorough virus checking of the pc (rkill, TDSSKiller, Malwarebytes, avast!), so I'm fairly confident there's nothing blocking the connection that way. I imagine I need to clear some cache or something, but I can't seem to find anything. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Killingyouguy! fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Aug 10, 2015 |
# ? Aug 10, 2015 17:48 |
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Antillie posted:If you upgrade from Windows 7 to any version of Windows 10 you will lose media center. Been trying to get rid of that poo poo for years.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 17:48 |
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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/WindowsForBusiness/Compare General feature comparison for Home/Pro/Enterprise/Education. I say general because there's no mention of Spotlight. I've got MSDN keys so I might go enterprise for kicks, and just not use/disable a lot of the funky security bits that I don't require at home.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 18:07 |
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Just to be clear: The upgrade will never kick off without my explicit action, right? I have an old Core 2 that's been approved for the update but its motherboard is even further out of support than my Sandy Bridge (which got through fine) and I'm almost sure the Core 2 doesn't have Windows 8 drivers for a lot of things.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 18:42 |
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Shumagorath posted:Just to be clear: The upgrade will never kick off without my explicit action, right? I have an old Core 2 that's been approved for the update but its motherboard is even further out of support than my Sandy Bridge (which got through fine) and I'm almost sure the Core 2 doesn't have Windows 8 drivers for a lot of things. It'll give you 3 days if you tell it to wait. Or, if Windows Update downloads it first, it'll be just 1 reboot away.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 18:46 |
Shumagorath posted:Just to be clear: The upgrade will never kick off without my explicit action, right? I have an old Core 2 that's been approved for the update but its motherboard is even further out of support than my Sandy Bridge (which got through fine) and I'm almost sure the Core 2 doesn't have Windows 8 drivers for a lot of things. If you have said yes to reserve, then it will upgrade automatically! If you have "reserved" and don't want to upgrade just yet, go and cancel the reservation.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 18:53 |
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I reserved Windows 10 on my gaming PC and it says "ready to go!" but unless I hit Go, it hasn't updated automatically to 10.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 18:56 |
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Since this is a new thread, I guess i'll ask here again: Anyone find a fix for Windows 10 not putting monitors to sleep?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:29 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Since this is a new thread, I guess i'll ask here again: Someone said it was a bug in Teamviewer, so if you have that, uninstall and see if that helps.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:31 |
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GreenNight posted:Someone said it was a bug in Teamviewer, so if you have that, uninstall and see if that helps. No Teamviewer installed, thanks though.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:34 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Since this is a new thread, I guess i'll ask here again: Ya this is the only problem I'm having with Windows 10 right now. I've found that my monitor will turn off if I'm signed out however. It's not a perfect solution but it'll do until they fix it. edit: Just tried uninstalling Teamviewer, no change. XYZ fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Aug 10, 2015 |
# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:36 |
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XYZ posted:Ya this is the only problem I'm having with Windows 10 right now. I've found that my monitor will turn off if I'm signed out however. It's not a perfect solution but it'll do until they fix it. Hmm, this is interesting. I'll test this out. I can't really sign out of my PC when I'm away from it though since I run a Plex server and they apparently don't know how to make it run as a service in the background or whatever and I have to stay logged in to actually run Plex Media Server (or something like that according to what I found on awhile back).
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:38 |
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I was offered the free upgrade from within Windows 7 but I kept getting errors when I tried to upgrade to Windows 10. I stupidly wiped my 7 install and did a clean install of 10, which I was unable to activate because my old Windows 7 key didn't work. I wiped again and installed Windows 7 again, and now I no longer see the upgrade offer. Is there no hope of getting the free upgrade at this point?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:48 |
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MaxxBot posted:I was offered the free upgrade from within Windows 7 but I kept getting errors when I tried to upgrade to Windows 10. I stupidly wiped my 7 install and did a clean install of 10, which I was unable to activate because my old Windows 7 key didn't work. I wiped again and installed Windows 7 again, and now I no longer see the upgrade offer. Is there no hope of getting the free upgrade at this point? Use the media creation tool: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:51 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Since this is a new thread, I guess i'll ask here again: I found this to be a problem with Chrome on my computer. Restarting chrome fixes it most of the time, but sometimes it doesn't unless you do it multiple times. At least, that's for me. Not sure about anyone else.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:57 |
I haven't had problems with display sleeping on Windows 10. I also don't use Chrome.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:59 |
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Just once I want to find a program or app in Windows 10 where the "help" icon does not simply launch the browser to a Bing search result for "How do I get help in Windows 10". Completely loving useless.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:05 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Since this is a new thread, I guess i'll ask here again: Is your lock screen set to show a picture or slideshow? If it's the latter, you could poke around Settings > Personalisation > Lock Screen > Advanced Slideshow Settings. There's some settings in there to do with turning off your screen.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:15 |
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Crotch Fruit posted:Just once I want to find a program or app in Windows 10 where the "help" icon does not simply launch the browser to a Bing search result for "How do I get help in Windows 10". Completely loving useless. Oh, I can help with that! If you click the help link next to the 'defer upgrades' button, you get a Bing search for "Defer upgrades in Windows 10" instead.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:20 |
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nielsm posted:
What? You mean my tiny Surface 2 RT might not blow super amounts of rear end when it comes to functionality soon?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:36 |
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croutonZA posted:Is your lock screen set to show a picture or slideshow? If it's the latter, you could poke around Settings > Personalisation > Lock Screen > Advanced Slideshow Settings. There's some settings in there to do with turning off your screen. Nope, it's set to the default "Windows Spotlight" XYZ posted:Ya this is the only problem I'm having with Windows 10 right now. I've found that my monitor will turn off if I'm signed out however. It's not a perfect solution but it'll do until they fix it. Actually logging out of my name made the monitors go to sleep! This isn't really a good solution for me though because of the aforementioned Plex Media Server I have to run on this PC I wonder if there are any more hidden settings where I can set the PC to turn off monitors even when I'm logged in?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:40 |
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Irritated Goat posted:What? You mean my tiny Surface 2 RT might not blow super amounts of rear end when it comes to functionality soon? No, it still will. There's not going to be an RT version of 10. You'll get one last 8.1 update that will give you a start menu and new lock screen and that seems to be about it before it's abandoned completely.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:01 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Nope, it's set to the default "Windows Spotlight" Power settings should give you the ability to set a period of inactivity that will turn your monitors off. e: This should turn Plex into a service https://github.com/cjmurph/PmsService Da Mott Man fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Aug 10, 2015 |
# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:16 |
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I don't think this happened for a day or two after upgrading my desktop to 10, but now whenever it resumes from hibernation, I first get a notification asking what I want to do with the device in the G drive, then get this window: G is the first available letter for my computer's drives, and I don't have any extra hardware plugged in. I do have a USB cable that I leave in for my phone, but this happens regardless of whether my phone is actually connected or not.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:28 |
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Da Mott Man posted:Power settings should give you the ability to set a period of inactivity that will turn your monitors off. Yeah they're set to turn off after 10 minutes in power settings. I'll check out the github link when I get a chance.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:32 |
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:Nope, it's set to the default "Windows Spotlight" This has been reported by several nVidia users, too. So the cause might be the giant turd they released.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:36 |
Irritated Goat posted:What? You mean my tiny Surface 2 RT might not blow super amounts of rear end when it comes to functionality soon? Yeah sorry. What I mean is, OEMs making new, small form-factor tablets (8 inches and below) will be able to put the Mobile edition on. Really, Win 10 Mobile is more or less Win 10 RT, except MS won't license it for "real computers", and it will be the exact same OS running on phones and small tablets. I don't know if an 8" tablet with Atom CPU could still get a real Win 10 Home. But no upgrades for Windows RT tablets.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:39 |
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Fufo posted:This has been reported by several nVidia users, too. So the cause might be the giant turd they released. Interesting. Maybe I'll try reinstalling my Nvidia drivers later.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:39 |
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Given that I am happy with windows 7 on a desktop pc primarily used for gaming, should I upgrade and if so why?
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:47 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:49 |
awesmoe posted:Given that I am happy with windows 7 on a desktop pc primarily used for gaming, should I upgrade and if so why? For gaming, DirectX 12 would be the main draw. But there probably isn't much reason for you to upgrade right now, especially not seeing some people still have trouble with graphics drivers.
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# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:48 |