Windows 10 incompatibilities for EEVBLOG fans

[VK3DRB]

It would be useful to record any successes/failures with Windows 10 working on your legacy software. This will help others in making the decision whether to upgrade or not. Microsoft does test for compatibility for a lot of "secular" software like Word, Excel, Grand Theft Auto 5 etc, but I doubt they will test it with electronic engineering/enthusiast software.

Software related to electronics, such as:

Altium
Diptrace
Saturn PCB Toolkit
Eagle
MPLAB
Codevision/AVR
WinAVR
JTAG programmers
USB-RS232 converters
FPGA tools
etc...

I was caught out some years ago upgrading form Win XP to Win 7 64 bit... Canon laser printer  , Microsoft's (Sysinternals) Procmon  and a TV dongle .

[tech5940]

Great idea!  I'm excited to get rid of 8.1 but worried about compatibility issues with Windows 10. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[XOIIO]

I got a couple modifications for windows 8.1, first being aero glass and second being a start menu mod, which cost around five bucks or so, and I'm loving windows 8.1, I got those mod maybe 8 hours into my new laptop, probably a lot less. It makes it way, way better.

I did reserve an upgrade of windows 10 but I'm going to hold off until I see if there are issues.

[Mechanical Menace]

Microsoft does test for compatibility for a lot of "secular" software like Word, Excel, Grand Theft Auto 5 etc, but I doubt they will test it with electronic engineering/enthusiast software.

While I do get and appreciate the point of the topic I think placing the emphasis to fix these things on MS* isn't fair, especially given how much work they do actually put into backwards compatibility even when the devs have done "naught things" with their code. I personally wouldn't go that far. The most I'd do is have a warning dialogue come up saying something along the lines of "This program is raping our APIs, future bugfixes to Windows may cause the program to behave unpredictably. Please contact the developers and request they get their act together."


*And I'm hardly a fan of MS lol.

[kingofkya]

7 to 8 and 10 is not really a big jump api wise.

Now driver signing requirement on 8 and 10 thats what will get you.

The big jump on xp to 7 that people got caught on is the 16bit compatablity layer that was almost entirety removed.

[gaijin]

I'm not going to move from Windows 7 until I'm sure everything is stable for what I am using it for.

FTDI USB-COM232PLUS4 worked without any issues with the Windows 8.1 driver.
Keysight IO libraries and BenchView seemed to work with 34461a over ethernet
and a couple E3646As over the above USB to RS232 converter.

[CatalinaWOW]

Microsoft does test for compatibility for a lot of "secular" software like Word, Excel, Grand Theft Auto 5 etc, but I doubt they will test it with electronic engineering/enthusiast software.

While I do get and appreciate the point of the topic I think placing the emphasis to fix these things on MS* isn't fair, especially given how much work they do actually put into backwards compatibility even when the devs have done "naught things" with their code. I personally wouldn't go that far. The most I'd do is have a warning dialogue come up saying something along the lines of "This program is raping our APIs, future bugfixes to Windows may cause the program to behave unpredictably. Please contact the developers and request they get their act together."


*And I'm hardly a fan of MS lol.

This thread can be valuable without assigning blame.  As a user, I don't care.  I just don't want to have to buy new software, learn new software, buy new hardware and or keep tons of old gear around so that I can keep something running.   

On a non-blame note, for our small market products, Microsoft has little incentive to make windows compatible with our favorite bits of code.  The vendors of those code bits are the ones with the incentive, and reports of incompatibility may help keeping that pressure on.

[codeboy2k]

Windows 10 is pretty good, I've got the pre-release running in a VM.  I haven't tried all the software yet, but I don't expect the software to fail.  What might fail is the device drivers needed for dongles or programmers.

As pointed out by @kingofkya, drivers need to be signed now.

[Howardlong]

Windows 10 is pretty good, I've got the pre-release running in a VM.  I haven't tried all the software yet, but I don't expect the software to fail.  What might fail is the device drivers needed for dongles or programmers.

As pointed out by @kingofkya, drivers need to be signed now.

The 10 release tried from three or so weeks ago on a couple of machines at my clients' on their request (used for remote access) were an unmitigated disaster. They barely installed, let alone getting as far as being authenticated by the remote access infrastructure.

[wraper]

What might fail is the device drivers needed for dongles or programmers.

As pointed out by @kingofkya, drivers need to be signed now.

On x64 versions, drivers need to be signed since Vista. And if you want to use more than 3GB of RAM (any modern computer in other words) then you didn't have a choice anyway.

[G7PSK]

I run a Panasonic CF19 Toughbook and many of the special drivers for that are unsigned a window pops up when installing them but Windows 7 64 bit still allows me to install them, all 34 all of which have to be installed in the right order for them to work correctly. I reserved W10 for it but Windows say that some of the hardware is not compatible thing like the digitiser screen the GPRS card and GPS apparently wont work, so I might well skip W10 on that laptop for now. Trouble is a new one costs several thousand pounds so I will keep running 7 until the machine breaks or longer, security wise I see no problem after all most security software still supports XP so even if Microsoft pulls the plug on 7 it will still be of use for some years after that especially if I don't keep bank details on the computer which is something I don't do anyway I will never bank on line as the banks hold the customer responsible for any loses however they occurred go to the counter for cash if they lose your money then they have to replace it.

[wraper]

I run a Panasonic CF19 Toughbook and many of the special drivers for that are unsigned a window pops up when installing them but Windows 7 64 bit still allows me to install them

If they are really unsigned, regardless if they seem to be installed, windows 7 x64 won't load them unless you force it to do so. But then again, if you force to load unsigned drivers, you will see "Test mode" mark in the low right corner of the screen. That mark can be disabled too, but IIRC the method I tried didn't work on my PC.

[Mechanical Menace]

If they are really unsigned, regardless if they seem to be installed, windows 7 x64 won't load them unless you force it to do so. But then again, if you force to load unsigned drivers, you will see "Test mode" mark in the low right corner of the screen.

I just need to install them in safe mode, never had "Test Mode" come up afterwards. And the driver in question definitely installed and loaded as without I have no sound at all on any version of Windows.

[wraper]

If they are really unsigned, regardless if they seem to be installed, windows 7 x64 won't load them unless you force it to do so. But then again, if you force to load unsigned drivers, you will see "Test mode" mark in the low right corner of the screen.

I just need to install them in safe mode, never had "Test Mode" come up afterwards. And the driver in question definitely installed and loaded as without I have no sound at all on any version of Windows.

Then they were not unsigned or your OS isn't x64. You can install them as many times as you like but they just won't load on booting. https://www.raymond.cc/blog/loading-unsigned-drivers-in-windows-7-and-vista-64-bit-x64/

After enabling Test Mode using one of the above options, you will notice that there is a watermark above the clock at the bottom right of the screen saying “Test Mode, Windows **, Build ****”.
Windows 7 test mode watermark
That is normal after you’ve used Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider, BCDEdit or OpenFilesView64 to enable the Test Mode. If you disable Test Mode again, you won’t be able to load the unsigned drivers. In short, you will need to be in Test Mode in order to load the unsigned drivers.

[nfmax]

Has anyone tried Agilent/Keysight BenchLink Data Logger 3 on W10? I need to drive my 34970A over GPIB using a 82357B and the Keysight IO libraries (17.1 or whatever the latest version is)

[G7PSK]

I run a Panasonic CF19 Toughbook and many of the special drivers for that are unsigned a window pops up when installing them but Windows 7 64 bit still allows me to install them

If they are really unsigned, regardless if they seem to be installed, windows 7 x64 won't load them unless you force it to do so. But then again, if you force to load unsigned drivers, you will see "Test mode" mark in the low right corner of the screen. That mark can be disabled too, but IIRC the method I tried didn't work on my PC.

Have to force load them but until they are loaded the equipment will not work as there is no windows generic driver. I have never seen any notification of test mode but after the last windows update the WLAN drivers had been tuned off and I had to reload them

[codeboy2k]

The issue with Windows 10 is that drivers need to be signed with EV certs now (Extended Verification Certificates).  This means driver developers must pay Microsoft vetted Certificate Authorities (CAs) (currently only Symantec/Verisign and DigiCert) to get a new EV certificate to submit to their signing portal so that Microsoft can sign your driver (which you first sign with your EV Certificate).

EV certs are like military background checks on you.. a much more extensive verification of the requester is done.

According to what was announced at WinHEC, Windows 10 drivers MUST be signed this way, and cannot be disabled. There is a 90 day grace period from Windows 10 public release, during which it will still load drivers signed "the old way" and after 90 days will require all drivers to be signed with EV certificates.

Under Windows 7 and 8 I was able to use bcdedit to permanently turn off windows signature checking:

C\> bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

Under Windows 10 the bcdedit command appears to work fine, and installs the flag properly into the database, but it seems like Windows 10 ignores it on boot, and does not disable driver signature checks -- the driver does not load.

Drivers can load in Test Mode (with the test mode logo on the screen).

You can also force load a non-signed driver at each reboot, but this must be done manually each time the system is booted.

From what I can tell, there is no longer a way on Windows 10 to permanently disable driver signature checks.

 

[justanothercanuck]

I can't get the software for my network switch to run properly on Win7.  It runs, but won't connect to the switch at all.  Doesn't even see it.

Sad thing is, now with XP gone EOL, I probably can't even reinstall XP on a virtual machine and activate it (not that I expect any updates, past or EOL-current).  My only hope if I want to keep using that switch, will be to manually copy that whole system over into a virtual disk, and hope it re-enumerates all the hardware okay.  (and piss away any idea of a clean install with only the switch software installed)

All that said, I doubt it'll work on 10 either.  Not even going to try.  Yeah sure, I could get a new switch, but why drop $1000 when the one I have works perfectly fine (and I don't really need gigabit at home)?

[VK3DRB]

...According to what was announced at WinHEC, Windows 10 drivers MUST be signed this way, and cannot be disabled. There is a 90 day grace period from Windows 10 public release, during which it will still load drivers signed "the old way" and after 90 days will require all drivers to be signed with EV certificates...

This is not a good sign.

A number for Chinese and Taiwanese brand USB TV dongles and USB cameras are not signed and therefore will be rendered useless. I have a USB PCB inspection camera (reviewed by Dave in EEVblog #566), and it works a treat. But I hope it works in Windows 10! I guess I should check if the driver is signed. If not, it might be end up as another useless piece of equipment.

One thing that really annoys me about Microsoft is they dictate to large extent what they think is good for us. Win 8.0 was rubbish because they got it badly wrong. As was Vista. As was WinME. Recent copies of Word has gone the same way with their illogical menus. There should be a way to permanently switch off this signing malarkey for us hackers who like to work under the hood.

[NiHaoMike]

Is there any real disadvantage of just using test mode? That said, I just stick to using Linux.

[digsys]

Sad thing is, now with XP gone EOL, I probably can't even reinstall XP on a virtual machine and activate it (not that I expect any updates, past or EOL-current) .... 

I still run many PCs under XP, and rebuild and activate them. As long as you have a valid Key, MS will activate them, possibly for many years yet.
Heck, I activated a W98 a few months ago. You can get all updates until it was "officially" EOL'd, and they still do minor new updates as well,
not that I ever needed them. Some ppl have fiddled the registry to get the ATM updates, but I don't bother, it all works fine :-)

[justanothercanuck]

Sad thing is, now with XP gone EOL, I probably can't even reinstall XP on a virtual machine and activate it (not that I expect any updates, past or EOL-current) .... 

I still run many PCs under XP, and rebuild and activate them. As long as you have a valid Key, MS will activate them, possibly for many years yet.
Heck, I activated a W98 a few months ago. You can get all updates until it was "officially" EOL'd, and they still do minor new updates as well,
not that I ever needed them. Some ppl have fiddled the registry to get the ATM updates, but I don't bother, it all works fine :-)

Cool, I'll have to get off my butt one of these days and do it before I run out of time.  Thanks for the info. 

[codeboy2k]

Is there any real disadvantage of just using test mode? That said, I just stick to using Linux.

I don't think so.  It disables the code that checks up the signing chain to a root CA.  So it means that it will load any driver that is signed with any certificate, and does not need to end at a CA.

So you could self-sign any unsigned driver you created or any 3rd party driver you needed, and always run in test mode .  It's just insecure, and you get the 'Test mode' logo in all 4 corners of your desktop.

( There might be a trick to remove that Test mode logo )

[warp_foo]

This bothers me quite a bit:

Windows 10 shares your wifi password: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

Basically, this makes Windows 10 incompatible with security.

[Mechanical Menace]

This bothers me quite a bit:

Windows 10 shares your wifi password: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

Basically, this makes Windows 10 incompatible with security.

Not really, it just means you better trust everyone in your Hotmail contacts or change your SSID 

I don't even like WPS but see that it has it's uses. This could be a good idea if you had finer grained control of who got your passphrase (if you're only using a password on WiFi you're incompatible with security anyway).

[VK3DRB]

Good news. The PCB inspection camera Dave reviewed EEVblog #566, the Andonstar, has a digital signer called Microsoft . So I guess this won't become junk if and when I upgrade to Windows 10.

Two more sleeps to go for Windows 10  , but I will be holding off until no tales of woe with Windows 10 shows up on this thread after a month  .

[VK3DRB]

One feature of Windows 10 reported by the media... you HAVE to install updates when Microsoft tells you to. You have no option not to install updates.

Dangerous for four reasons:

1. If they release an update with a bug or a security flaw, you might be stuffed.
2. Over time, Microsoft can morph their business model to introduce revenue raising schemes, such as forced cloud subscriptions.
3. Some PC's need to be isolated from the Internet, such as test systems. No internet.
4. Some PC's used as monitoring systems should not be rebooted automatically.

I remember a few years ago, the clowns at Microsoft introduced an update that overwrote your settings not to reboot after an update and they did not tell you they had done it. Next update, the PC rebooted whilst I was at a meeting. I lost 4 hours work thanks to that stuff up by Microsoft and that I had not saved my work in the meantime). Ever since then, I don't trust Big Brother to know what is good for me.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"


 

[BravoV]

One feature of Windows 10 reported by the media... you HAVE to install updates when Microsoft tells you to. You have no option not to install updates.

Does this mean Win 10 can not run "offline' for a very long period ? Whats the max time before it complains that it needs to call "home" ?

Say like for example, at the 1st time installation from the scratch is fine, like updating/downloading from internet with the latest patches. Once finished, I'm going to bring the machine offline for very long period say like for years in an isolated environment, so no luck for such example case ? 

[c4757p]

So you don't even have the option?

Nope. Was going to give it a try, but that's as much of a try as I need.

[Lightages]

I am definitely not going to try it until a few months have passed and people discover all the "gotchas".

[janoc]

Only the "home" edition (for now at least). Business has got the option to hold and reject updates and enterprise is going the full custom WSUS route, same as W7/W8. It seems that you can also enable full control over updates via group policy setting.

So basically it is auto updates for casual users. Generally a good idea in my opinion, although some pitfalls await.

Microsoft has backtracked already because they have managed to release a broken Nvidia drivers to their pre-release users, causing an uproar - even before the product is officially out 

There is an optional patch/tool that will restore the ability to disable/hide an update for the home users already:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930

I guess this tool comes preinstalled with the higher versions of Windows 10?

[Jeroen3]

1. If they release an update with a bug or a security flaw, you might be stuffed.
2. Over time, Microsoft can morph their business model to introduce revenue raising schemes, such as forced cloud subscriptions.
3. Some PC's need to be isolated from the Internet, such as test systems. No internet.
4. Some PC's used as monitoring systems should not be rebooted automatically.

1. You're already have Google Chrome and your antivirus fetching automatic updates. You don't even notice, until... https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/10/bad-definition-update/
2. Yes, they will force Bing down your throat.
3. People using windows to test their application should have a developer or pro versions, these have more control over updates.
4. These systems should not be allowed to run Windows at all. Or should run Window Embedded if they insist in using Windows.

On topic:
I can confirm Qt 5.4.1 mingw compiled applications work in Windows 10.
The Kvaser Leaf Light also works.

[Mechanical Menace]

One feature of Windows 10 reported by the media... you HAVE to install updates when Microsoft tells you to. You have no option not to install updates.

Well it's a good thing automatic updates have never worked for Windows then. Or have they finally fixed that?

I remember a few years ago, the clowns at Microsoft introduced an update that overwrote your settings not to reboot after an update and they did not tell you they had done it. Next update, the PC rebooted whilst I was at a meeting. I lost 4 hours work thanks to that stuff up by Microsoft and that I had not saved my work in the meantime). Ever since then, I don't trust Big Brother to know what is good for me.

That the one where you can only put off the reboot a few hours?

[electrolux]

Great idea!  I'm excited to get rid of 8.1 but worried about compatibility issues with Windows 10. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Tried Tapatalk and I don't like it.

[tech5940]

Well I installed Windows 10 this afternoon. It was installed as a upgrade from 8.1. Went really smoothly to be honest. Took about 30-45 mins.  I haven't used it long enough to review it but for the sake of this forum I tried several electronics related programs and no issues yet. Programs I tried were:

MPLAB X IDE (whatever the newest version is) with Pickit3. Was able to program a micro without errors.
Arduino latest version. Uploaded a sketch to a UNO with no problems.
Circuit Maker, opened my last project without problems.

Anyway this was by no means an extensive test, just a simple launch the application and see if it loads.  To anyone installing it if your not a fan of "report home" features then I don't recommend using the default express settings as there seems to be a lot of them turned on by default.

So far I'm happy I upgraded to Windows 10. There is an option to revert back to Windows 8.1 should I need to, although I haven't tested that out yet and for now don't intend to.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[TerraHertz]

Relevant:
  https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal-data-abused/
Microsoft’s new small print – how your personal data is (ab)used
By Heini Järvinen

Microsoft has renewed its Privacy Policy and Service Agreement. The new services agreement goes into effect on 1 August 2015, only a couple of days after the launch of the Windows 10 operating system on 29 July.
  ...
Summing up these 45 pages, one can say that Microsoft basically grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write with and on your devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties. The company appears to be granting itself the right to share your data either with your consent “or as necessary”.
  ...
“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to”, for example, “protect their customers” or “enforce the terms governing
the use of the services”.

Why does anyone even entertain the idea that Microsoft can be trusted? At no point in their entire history could they be trusted, and they are not going to change.

Sad thing is, now with XP gone EOL, I probably can't even reinstall XP on a virtual machine and activate it (not that I expect any updates, past or EOL-current).  My only hope if I want to keep using that switch, will be to manually copy that whole system over into a virtual disk, and hope it re-enumerates all the hardware okay.  (and piss away any idea of a clean install with only the switch software installed)

Check out nLite
  http://www.nliteos.com
  http://www.msfn.org/board/
  http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/34-windows-xp/
  http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/177-ntlite/

[Howardlong]

I installed the release build on three machines yesterday and it is far better than the builds of even three or so weeks ago. Amazing what can be achieved in just a few weeks, although one wonders if the releases of such a short time ago were really recent builds.

The UI is oodles more intuitive and I'm finding it very responsive. I am predominently a Windows 8.1 user (woth Classic Shell) and some Windows 7.

Only negative so far is I can't figure out how to reverse the two finger scrolling on the trackpad of one of the devices.

[corax]

I've been running the Windows 10 developer previews for a while now, and presumably I now have the final build installed.
Altium versions 14 and 15 seem to run fine on it (as well as they did on Windows 7, at least).

[VK3DRB]

Why does anyone even entertain the idea that Microsoft can be trusted? At no point in their entire history could they be trusted, and they are not going to change.

Of course, they can't, or shouldn't, be trusted. No more than any one of the other corporations that collect data on you.... I'll be looking out for more info on what I should be aware of before committing to Windows 10.

But I'm not surprised about this, I knew Microsoft weren't giving Win10 away because they like me.

They might not like you, but they love their shareholders. Microsoft exists for money. Nothing else. Hence one reason why I am a little skeptical of Windows 10 and the Cloud.

Is Big Brother is Watching You? On one hand, we have nothing to be afraid of if we are not doing anything wrong. On the other hand, Big Brother dictates to you what is right, what is wrong and how you need to be controlled. I am afraid we have already entered Brave New World, Winston Smith, and we are not even fully aware of it.

[amyk]

More about the privacy (or the lack thereof)...

https://jonathan.porta.codes/2015/07/30/windows-10-seems-to-have-some-scary-privacy-defaults/

[Mechanical Menace]

More about the privacy (or the lack thereof)...

https://jonathan.porta.codes/2015/07/30/windows-10-seems-to-have-some-scary-privacy-defaults/

I even check all the default settings on a default Debian desktop install, if you're not going to do the same on any OS you can't really complain. Stupid mistakes can be made by clever people, not every dodgy default is an act of malice.

[rdl]

From what I've been seeing and reading about Windows 10, that crap is never going to be on any of my computers. Looks like nothing but subscription spyware.

[Bob F.]

Everyone makes you opt-out of everything - Apple, Google, Facebook, etc - and that's only the things you *can* opt out of - most things you can't opt out of if you still want to use their service or software. 

Not to get political, but I laugh myself silly every time someone goes on a rant against the NSA or GCHQ collecting metadata  when google is highly likely to know where you live, where you work, your health, much metadata obtained from what searches you have made and from many of the websites you have visited and, quite possibly, what you had for lunch last Tuesday.  It's almost impossible to be active on the web and not give personally identifiable information to a subsidiary or data-sharing partner of google.

To be honest, if you are concerned about privacy, stop using the internet and your smartphone.  Failing that, run Ghostery or similar in your browser - it blocks most tracking which is about the best you can do.

[Bob F.]

More about the privacy (or the lack thereof)...

https://jonathan.porta.codes/2015/07/30/windows-10-seems-to-have-some-scary-privacy-defaults/

I'd be more impressed by that article if the page he wrote all that on didn't have both Disqus and Google Analytics trying to track me 

[ivaylo]

... Microsoft exists for money. Nothing else...

Not the first opinion I see that if they really want to keep making money they should get out of the OS business altogether - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/microsoft-capitulation-end-windows-everywhere-benedict-evans
Yeah, blasphemy huh...

[nctnico]

... Microsoft exists for money. Nothing else...

Not the first opinion I see that if they really want to keep making money they should get out of the OS business altogether - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/microsoft-capitulation-end-windows-everywhere-benedict-evans
Yeah, blasphemy huh...

At least Nokia did the smart thing: they shoved all their excess luggage somewhere else and start something new. But that has been Nokia's MO for decades. The list of things Nokia produced is very long.

[OZ1LQB]

Hi all..
CH340 usb to serial (arduino clones) works fine
STM nucleo and discovery(st-link) also works
Pickit 2 and 3 works fine
so i am going to stick with windows 10 for sure
all the best from Claus

[eas]

Everyone makes you opt-out of everything - Apple, Google, Facebook, etc - and that's only the things you *can* opt out of - most things you can't opt out of if you still want to use their service or software. 

Not to get political, but I laugh myself silly every time someone goes on a rant against the NSA or GCHQ collecting metadata  when google is highly likely to know where you live, where you work, your health, much metadata obtained from what searches you have made and from many of the websites you have visited and, quite possibly, what you had for lunch last Tuesday.  It's almost impossible to be active on the web and not give personally identifiable information to a subsidiary or data-sharing partner of google.

To be honest, if you are concerned about privacy, stop using the internet and your smartphone.  Failing that, run Ghostery or similar in your browser - it blocks most tracking which is about the best you can do.

Your fatalism is depressing. Governments, institutions, markets, they can all be influenced. It is rare that withdrawing or capitulating is the best way of exerting influence. More often, it is only the first step in a long shrinking retreat. I think the world works best when power is widely distributed. Cynicism and fatalism works against that, and only serves to concentrate power.

I think people often underestimate corporate power and influence when they obsess over government overreach, particularly because they are often entwined, but insisting that because people may (grudingly) accept a little of one they have no standing to voice concerns about the other is, plain and simple, dangerous bullshit.

There is no simple solution, so don't pretend like running Ghostrey or similar and STFU is an answer.


I'm going slow on Windows 10 for a variety of reasons. I certainly don't need it. My hardware is kind of old. Software compatibility is an issue. Even if everything went perfectly, I'd still have to devote some effort to upgrading, with minimal obvious upside. On top of that, Microsoft has created a cloud of doubt regarding upgrades, updates, etc, which is yet another cost to me with no upside. Indeed, it is a reminder of one of the main reasons I was so happy to get as far from Microsoft as possible. A key part of their business model was and remains creating confusing interlocking licensing terms designed to make you spend more money than needed in order to avoid the hassle. Completely user and customer hostile, and clearly still baked into the DNA of this newer, humbler Microsoft that I'd otherwise be interested in giving a second chance.

[Jeroen3]

There is no hurry. Windows 7 will continue to work to 2020 and beyond. I'm expecting they'll extend to 2025, but I'm not sure how the the corporations are adapting to Windows 8/10.
We've only just banished the last workstation with xp (yes, there are still many xp machine controllers), and we only have 2 Windows 8 users, and those people have ton's of compatibility problems with even the simplest stuff connecting with Windows Server 2008.

Meanwhile, I "upgraded" my old laptop. It was cleaned up, but the "upgrade" worked 100% fine. You just have to untick that it transmits everything to Microsoft.
And Microsoft just turned WPA2 encryption useless by sharing it with Outlook Contacts and Facebook Friends, I can't wait to see the shitstorm caused by that. Not everyone has IEEE 802.1X.

[bingo600]

More privacy problem disclosure.
http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/by-downloading-windows-10-you-are-allowing-microsoft-to-spy-on-you.html

Whoaa ... I'm glad my primary OS is Linux

/Bingo

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just building a new PC as part of an upgrade from XP - I don't see any reason to put anything later than W7 on it - I have W7 on my laptop and everything I need runs fine.
Being unable to load unsigned drivers is a total dealbreaker for me - Things like devboards often come with unsigned drivers.
I also use quite a lot of older stuff like MPLAB8 on the basis of "ain't broke, Don't fix"

[rdl]

https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal-data-abused/

You would have to be an absolute idiot to install Windows 10 and agree to Microsoft's new "Privacy Policy" and "Service Agreement".

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just building a new PC as part of an upgrade from XP - I don't see any reason to put anything later than W7 on it - I have W7 on my laptop and everything I need runs fine.
Being unable to load unsigned drivers is a total dealbreaker for me - Things like devboards often come with unsigned drivers.
I also use quite a lot of older stuff like MPLAB8 on the basis of "ain't broke, Don't fix"

Why won't the same reason you're upgrading from XP apply to W7 eventually?

Eventually, yes, but the same can be said for anything. I need to get stuff done now. As things stand, W7 is good enough, W8+ has problems that I don't need to spend time dealing with.

[miguelvp]

https://edri.org/microsofts-new-small-print-how-your-personal-data-abused/

You would have to be an absolute idiot to install Windows 10 and agree to Microsoft's new "Privacy Policy" and "Service Agreement".

I'm an idiot and taking the plunge, 58% done. This is for my electronics dedicated computer, so MS can have a lot of fun sending me more advertisings about electronics, I really wouldn't mind

Hey, after all Google recommends me stuff all the time and I really don't mind it at all either.

[Lightages]

I am glad I have waited, and I will wait even more. I would like to see if the privacy thing is all FUD or real. I suspect it is real. Win7 is the best MS OS I have used so far and I can't see how blindly jumping into Win10 is a wise thing.

[miguelvp]

well, to be honest I do have other reasons for taking the plunge. I like what they've done with their websockets and new http libraries. So I guess I also use it for development and I want to be able to use their latest sdk's.

[BravoV]

... <sniP... "ain't broke, Don't fix"

Sign that you're old Mike, youngster these days have different pov .... "ain't broke, break it"    ... j/k

[miguelvp]

... <sniP... "ain't broke, Don't fix"

Sign that you're old Mike, youngster these days have different pov .... "ain't broke, break it"    ... j/k

Sign that I'm old is that I'm going to a Social Distortion concert on Tuesday.

Edit from Windows 10, so far so good. Was using my Android tablet while my system was upgrading.
So far the only thing I miss is minesweeper, not a big loss.

[wraper]

So far the biggest issue I found is that if installing Intel AHCI driver (x79 chipset) from 2013 (newest version at all normal places, ASUS, Intel, other motherboard mfg websites), PC just shuts down instead of sleep or hibernation. This is rather strange. Usually, if such issues, PC either fails to wake up properly or crashes while going to sleep. But this one just shuts down and even no "shutdown properly" popup after boot, like nothing happened. No such issue if using legacy driver or on Asmedia Sata 3 controller (slower than built in into the chipset).
Usual Intel AHCI drivers which are available in newer versions are not compatible with X79, so only enterprise drivers would do. Sticking with generic driver was either not a good option as I have SSD and MS driver would limit the speed.
So after a few hours of googling and trying to install everything, finally found this forum:
http://www.win-raid.com/t2f23-Intel-RST-RSTe-Drivers-newest-v-WHQL-v-WHQL.html
This it the only place I found with win 10 AHCI/RAID drivers for X79/C600, INF files only, no installer.
Installed them and whoa la, sleep/hibernation works  .

[retrolefty]

Well I've been running W10 for three days now with no problems. Installation seemed to take about an hour but no problems seen. It did seem to remove my Norton anti-virus app
(only desktop shortcut it messed with) but I suspect that just requires an update from Norton?

[hamster_nz]

Upgrading to Windows 10 caused my aged Xilinx Vivado license to expire.

Rolling back to Windows 8 did not resolve the issue - the license still showed as expired.

I had to get a new license file form Xilinx's licensing site to resolve the issues.

I'm not brave enough to give it another try with this fresh license....

[VK3DRB]

Well I've been running W10 for three days now with no problems. Installation seemed to take about an hour but no problems seen. It did seem to remove my Norton anti-virus app
(only desktop shortcut it messed with) but I suspect that just requires an update from Norton?

Probably a good thing. Norton never worked well on ANY platform since Symantec took over. Norton's bloatware that is only rivalled by Apple's iTunes bloatware on the scale of software. Both are suited more for old age pensioners and politicians who know nothing about anything technical.

Try Bitdefender instead of Norton, assuming it works with Windows 10.

[ccs46]

There some issues with the Microsoft Virtual Miniport Adapter. Such as it saying it's not even there or something like that.

[Dr. Frank]

Well,
after shut down of the AVIRA virus scanner, the download finally worked fine, after many failed trials before, on all of our five W7PRO machines.

I am using a low power desktop , 20W, AMD E350M1, µATX, with Samsung 128k SSD plus 1TB Seagate.
Purpose also is to log data from Lady Heather from the Thunderbird GPSDO on low cost.

I always had problems, to watch Daves 1080p50 videos with the Internet Explorer, had to use 720p50.

Anyway no chance at all with Chrome or firefox, as their video machines require too much graphics power..

The migration to W10 also copied the old IE11, and what a wonder!
Even the 1080p50 runs absolute smoothly, with usage of Flash player, or with the built in HTML5 features!

Great improvement!

Edge is not yet running stably, there's often a video error from YouTube, but once I could also watch these 1080p50 there, smoothly.

During the first sessions , the machine was very slow for boot up (40sec instead of 26 before), and the start of any program was very slow.

I completely removed the virus scanner, using the W10 firewall and virus protection only..

So latter problem improved greatly, and obviously got better and better when using the machine more often.

Only the boot time still was too slow.

But there are nice new features to check out the problem..

Call msconfig => Start , this will redirect you to the Task Manager.

There you can see, which autostart program are slowing down the boot process.

In my case, there were two National Instrument programs (for GPIB card), and that horrible Samsung phone manager KIES, which had "High" impact, so I deactivated them from autostart.
 
(Galaxy II phone is used for Keysights BenchView ;-)

After that, the machine now boots and works like a charm.. naked W10 boot time (w/o BIOS) is 17sec 14sec 12 sec only!
Engaging energy saver mode and back is also faster than before.

For sure, you have to disable these dangerous modes, like P2P SW updates  , and the whole "spy" programs and features, which are common on tablet and phones... For the rest of MS conditions , I'm not really afraid of..

Done that, this more modern W10 is highly recommended, especially as the upgrade is free and will last the next decade(s).

Frank

[Mechanical Menace]

True, and Linux is just an NSA plot to make us install their backdoored code. Only FreeBSD is safe, and only on SPARC because x86 and ARM have backdoors too.

SELinux isn't a must, just don't use that kernel module. You can check the code if you don't trust it, and if you're really paranoid compile it without it. The US Government has contributed plenty of code to the BSDs as well...


EDIT:Quick question, if I say upgrade from Win 7 Ultimate do I get 10 Pro or Home?

[technix]

Just upgraded, Atmel Studio and AVRISP Mk. II are working, as well as my M180v3 USB to UART adapter (anything using CH340 and CH341 really). PICKit 3 and Arduino's not tried yet.

[ElektroQuark]

Quote from: Mechanical Menace on Today at 15:09:13

Quick question, if I say upgrade from Win 7 Ultimate do I get 10 Pro or Home?

Ultimate upgrades to Pro.

[VK3DRB]

Spoke to two blokes today and both said their machines ran slightly SLOWER with Windows 10, on the boot-up and the time it takes to open files. One had an older laptop. The other had a fairly new i7 machine with an SSD.

Who knows why it runs slower. Maybe Windows 10 is gathering intelligence for the CIA (just joking... maybe).

I cannot see why I would even bother updating Windows 7 to Windows 10 except that Microsoft will end support for Windows 7 in the not too distant future.

Can anyone say if there is ANY advantage they have seen going to Windows 10?

[Len]

Can anyone say if there is ANY advantage they have seen going to Windows 10?

Many people have said they prefer Windows 10 to 8.1 because they hate the Start screen and apps that take over the whole screen. There are a couple of comments like that on this forum.

I've upgraded one of my PCs to Windows 10. No problems so far. I can't tell if it's any faster or slower than 8.1.

[netdudeuk]

I upgraded mine this afternoon and an hour later, it's back at 8.1 

The system is pretty old but I added a SSD recently and it goes pretty well.  However, it felt obviously slower with Windows 10 so it had to go.

[chicken]

After upgrade, Win10 seems to (re)index the whole drive, which can take an hour or a few and might cause slowdown on older systems. So before judging speed and even reverting, let it sit for a while and check in task manager if the search indexer is done.

That being said, my old (2007) and cheap laptop needed an upgrade to SSD and 4GB RAM ($170 investment) before being bearable to use right after (quick) startup. In Win10's defense, it wasn't a speed daemon under Win7 either.

[CatalinaWOW]

So far upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 is OK.  I wouldn't bother switching if you haven't, but I probably won't switch back.

No absolute incompatibilities so far.  I've got a fairly eclectic mix of hardware, some going back 15 or more years, and a similar mix of software.  Some programs from XP era look weird in the latest windows dressing, but I can learn to live with that.  By running in compatibility mode the weird look is diminished, but requires a mouse click approving running a program with an unknown publisher.  Some of these programs are from Microsoft, so I guess it is another case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. 

Pluses from Windows 10 - On my system it seems somewhat faster, and video seems a little better integrated.  I am running a dual monitor system with a midrange Radeon card, on a system that includes integrated graphics on the mother board.  When first installed it took half an hour or so for Windows to listen to the bios and get things right, so displays were constantly blinking in that interval.  Software updates over time had reduced but not completely eliminated the problem.  W10 seems to have got it right straight off of the install. Microsoft Edge (the IE replacement) seems a little quicker and more stable than IE.

Minuses.  I don't find the new windows visually appealing.  There is a heavy handed push to Edge and Bing.   In the classic windows mode the power down is now three mouse clicks away.  Don't know if it is easier in the "new" layout.  Many personal settings were slow to transfer and slightly bollixed in the transfer.  Things like playlists and favorites.  The upgrade took significantly more than an hour.  Lots of searching and clicking to get MS out of your knickers from a privacy standpoint.

[pretenda]

I quite like Windows 10. It has a few stability problems on my laptop so far, video drivers for the crappy intel graphics card in it aren't great, but the benefits so far outweigh the cons. I've been running KiCad no problem. I just tried to run ltspice and it doesn't want to go. It just says: 'This app can't run on your PC'. Not the most helpful error message. I'm downloading it again to rule out a bad download, but it is coming down at 10KB/s at the moment. Perks of living in Australia. Go Tony.

Edit: Downloading it again worked. I love dialup speeds.

[unitedatoms]

Just for All to know:

AVRISP MkII USB drivers will fail to load in Windows 10 after upgrade from Windows 8.1. This drivers work well before upgrade and after rollback to 8.1.

[VK3DRB]

Just for All to know:

AVRISP MkII USB drivers will fail to load in Windows 10 after upgrade from Windows 8.1. This drivers work well before upgrade and after rollback to 8.1.

It's a gotcha! They are popular programmers too. Not good, but not surprising.

I wonder if it also affects the JTAG ICE MK2. I won't upgrade until I know, or Atmel releases a statement or upgraded driver about it, or someone here has tried the JTAG ICE MK2 with Windows 10.

[GreyWoolfe]

I installed Win 10 a couple of days ago on a  Dell Inspiron 3520 with 4 Gig of ram and a mechanical hard drive.  There doesn't appear to be a boot time or speed difference.  I spent some time tuning it up based on reading.  Internet connection was good, speedtest.net  showed almost 29 Mbps on a 35 Mbps service, my wired desktop with Win 7 did about 39- I expect the wired connection to be faster.  I really don't use it much besides playing with Arduino, programming Chinese handhelds at club meetings and surfing the internet in the living room.  I haven't yet decided to see if I can get SWMBO to upgrade her 8.1 laptop yet.  She will probably resist, having grown used to it.

[Richard Crowley]

Some folks with wav files on CF and SD media are experiencing problems with Windows 10 corrupting files making them unusable and/or destroying the metadata.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-things-audio/529395-windows-10-corrupting-wav-files.html

Microsoft isn't being much help.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...882e9bf&page=1

[VK3DRB]

OK, I installed Win 10 on one of my machines...

PROBLEMS:

The audio makes a loud single "pop" sound when going from audio mute to audio on. Driver problem there from Microsoft.

Also, Microsoft calls my applications, "apps". There are NO apps no this machine. They are APPLICATIONS or better still PROGRAMS. This is not a mobile bloody phone, its an IBM-compatible personal computer. This is another case of Microsoft-double-speak. Microsoft introduced us to folders rather than directories, and their faulty Arial font. Now they are telling us to talk like Big Brother TV show mobile phone addicts.

If you can't beat them, join them. maybe? OK, its happening...

IMHO, OGM, TY MS.

LOL... LMAO... ROFL!

GTG!

[Richard Crowley]

I have found what appears to be a legitimate source of information for removing the "entangled" built-in Windows 10 apps (including Groove Player, aka. "Zune")

https://thomas.vanhoutte.be/miniblog...ndows-10-apps/

I followed the directions for:
"Remove Groove Music and Film & TV from Windows 10" and
"Remove Solitaire Collection from Windows 10"
and they appeared to complete without anything that looked like an error message.

When I did...
"Remove Xbox from Windows 10"
it showed a big mess of error messages in red, however the Vanhoutte instructions say those "error messages are normal"

Note that this appears to remove the alleged offender (Groove Player aka. Zune).
HOWEVER, I have not seen the problem and have NOT been able to test whether it may prevent the reported problem.

The Vanhoutte website also contains other useful things like "Find your Windows 10 product key" which I plan to investigate.

[Lightages]

Some folks with wav files on CF and SD media are experiencing problems with Windows 10 corrupting files making them unusable and/or destroying the metadata.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/all-things-audio/529395-windows-10-corrupting-wav-files.html

Microsoft isn't being much help.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...882e9bf&page=1

Thanks for the warning. Another reason to stay away.

[technix]

So far my installation of Windows 10 performed smoothly.

Booting time is fantastic even just with a small SSD used as cache drive with Intel SRT (everyone should use this if you are not running SSD-only, have a spare SATA 6Gb/s port and your hardware support this, and the 64GB cache drive capacity cap means you can use those cheap Kingston 60GB SSD for this.)

For smooth video playback you will need some video card. If you have a recent Intel processor the integrated Intel HD Graphics, if you have it, should be able to hold up. My machine used a Xeon E3-1231v3 (BTW, when you are buying your next desktop computer, keep an eye on those Xeon E3-1230-Series, they can have really good cost-performance ratio if you use dedicated graphics) that does not have integrated graphics, but the GTX 650 Ti graphics card held up relatively well.

One downside so far, maybe a weird bug, start button can stop responding (just the button, not the entire system) after a few days of continuous use.

[G7PSK]

There would appear to be problems with some Asus laptops touch pads after installing WIN10





https://youtu.be/tjLi0K3Ad1g