Help me decide if I should upgrade to Windows 10

Oldnewb · 11 May 2016

Honestly guys I haven't done any research or thinking about it till recently I realized the deadline was coming soon. The couple of negatives I believe I've heard mentioned is you no longer have a lot of administrator privileges to modify and tweak things and that I probably will find that my nice barely used HP Printer won't have a driver available. Basically tell me what to base the decision on. Curious as to what percentage of the "sevenforums" users are not upgrading and why.

Also let it be known that I would hate to think Microsoft is bullying me into it.................but at the same time if its does actually have more pros than cons then what the hell its free.

I mainly use my computer to self educate myself about DIY projects and tutorials on topics that interest me. And as far as programs I use are Cad drawings, Engineering programs. Design layout. And my hobby of high powered rocketry requires the use of various simulator programs. etc.

And I do not use it for social media at all.

If this debate has already been had just tell me the results and my decision will be easy. Thanks for your time guys and gals.

bawldiggle · 12 May 2016

Hi OldNewb ... welcome to the forum :)

From one oldie to another (I am gone 70)

Win10 is only free until July this year, after that you will have to pay for updates from July 2017 forward. So it is not free forever.
- I am avoiding Win10 because my AutoCad (2006) is happily working on WinXP and Win7 on various machines
- some of my machines are ancient (2003) and still happily run AutoCad
- I also don't want MS deciding what I will have on "my" PC, with Win7 I have choices.

This thread, also on SevenForums.com might be helpful, I would also suggest you have a look around TenForums.com too, see what types of questions people are asking.

The web is full of articles, opinion pieces, and threads ... a mixture of pros and cons.
This DDG search results might be a good start
DDG = DuckDuckGo search engine ... very good for technical research

There are a lot of people who are embracing Win10 for their own reasons, as a dinosaur I only fix things that are broken and I don't need new stuff to keep me entertained. But then that is me.

Social media leaves me cold, so I am only using my PCs for internet, email and pursuing my interests.
I basically use my PC for research and Win7 suites me fine

Any questions, please feel free to post back here :)

z3r010 · 12 May 2016

bawldiggle said:

Win10 is only free until July this year, after that you will have to pay to upgrade but all updates are free

Fixed that for you :)

ThrashZone · 12 May 2016

Hi and welcome to SevenForums,
I believe it's more straight forward to buy win-10
I use one of these to dual boot the old fashion way just by swapping out the ssd's with 7 or 10 on shut down works with 2.5" hdd's as well :)
Amazon.com: Vantec 2.5-Inch Dual Bay Trayless SATA III - 6G Mobile Rack (MRK-225S6-BK): Computers & Accessories

With win-10 auto updates it is just a matter of time before M$ sends out a bad one and you could be out of business for a while.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...8-b5c5a69be530

Could still happen to win-7 too but at least we have more options to exclude recommended updates from being mixed in with Important updates
This one caused quite a bit of panic :)
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3133977

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...mus-VII-Ranger

So I suppose it really depends on how win-7 is now operating and if funds are an issue as to the best way to get and use win-10 and win-7 in harmony

FerchogtX · 12 May 2016

I've tried W10, drivers are a pain and don't work as offcial ones (AMD is an example).
If your PC is newer than 2012, you have better chances of getting drivers from official sites, and improving performance... if not, better stay with your current OS, W10 will not improve anything (in fact, it makes it worse... for example, downgrading you from DX11 to DX10 for no reason).

ignatzatsonic · 12 May 2016

You have to decide if Win 10 being "free" is a big deal to you--retail cost is 120 to 200.

How much of an incentive is that?

If you don't mind spending the money, why bother with the free offer? When Win 7 becomes unsuitable for your purposes, buy Windows 10 outright. That might be in August 2016 or in August 2023 or whenever. Win 7 might become unsuitable for a variety of reasons: you have a hardware failure, newer versions of your software won't run on Win 7, you become spooked about Microsoft's lack of support for Win 7, etc.

If not spending 120 to 200 is enough of an incentive, you can always take the free offer and then go back to Win 7--either by restoring an image of Win 7 that you made before upgrading to 10 (no time limit) or by using (within 30 days) the "Go Back To Windows 7" option found in Settings > Update & security > Recovery in Windows 10.

I'm not sure how foolproof this 30 day roll back option is, so I'd definitely make an image. Nor have I dug deeply into any other roll back snares that might be found, but that's how it's supposed to work.

I'm in the middle of building a new machine right now and I did put Win 7 on it. I'd say there's a 50-50 chance I'll take the free upgrade before July 29 and immediately roll it back to 7----and presume I could go back to Win 10 in 2018 or 2020 or whenever I want. Worst case scenario would be that I can roll back to 7 but cannot later roll forward to the previously installed Win 10 and must pay for it.

Judging from your stated purposes for Win 7, the path of least resistance for you is likely to stay with Win 7 for as long as you are comfortable with it. You'll eventually come to a point where it's not suitable or not available for one reason or another and at that point you'd have to decide if you want to stay with Microsoft at all.

I wonder what the adoption rate for Win 10 would be today if there had been no "free upgrade" offer and everyone had to pay 120 minimum? I'd guess well under half of whatever it is right now.

AddRAM · 12 May 2016

There is no reason to go to 10 if you like 7.

GEWB · 13 May 2016

You have many specialized applications which are likely "tempermental" - you have them working so why take chances?

With Win10, Microsoft may one day decide for you that your applications are no longer "safe and acceptable" to run in Windows 10 and either block launching or totally delete them for you...for your own good.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

Regards,
GEWB

strollin · 13 May 2016

IMO, Win 10 is an OK OS but there's no compelling reason to upgrade either a Win 7 or Win 8.x machine, even for free.

I have Win 7 and Win 8.1 machines that I won't upgrading but recently purchased a new laptop that came with Win 10 and I'm perfectly happy with it.

Win 10 isn't fantastic enough to bother to upgrade to, nor is it bad enough to warrant downgrading from.

Oldnewb · 19 May 2016

Thanks for all your inputs of this guys. I have decided that I am going to keep my Win7 build just like it is. I am curious though that if I pulled my hard drive and put in one of my many spare 1TB drives and installed Win7sp1 on it and then did the upgrade, if say 3 months down the road I booted up my original Win7 drive if Microsoft genuine validation would flag it as an non-genuine due to the key number being shown in their files as upgraded to Win10. In other words will they let you have both in a dual boot setup. If so then I might try it. If not I am fine with Win7 for now and maybe buying Win10 for a future new build. ???