Windows 10

ED E · 19-08-2016 12:17am

Ugh. Anniversary is a steaming pile of excrement.

Yes MS, uninstall 5 high use applications because they're "incompatible" (they're not).

Also, break my f'cking VPN. So glad I did this onsite and realized before leaving for two weeks.

2017, year of the Linux desktop? Please lord gaben, grant us that miracle.

degsie · 19-08-2016 12:19am

ED E wrote: »

Ugh. Anniversary is a steaming pile of excrement.

Yes MS, uninstall 5 high use applications because they're "incompatible" (they're not).

Also, break my f'cking VPN. So glad I did this onsite and realized before leaving for two weeks.

2017, year of the Linux desktop? Please lord gaben, grant us that miracle.

You're just doing it wrong

19-08-2016 8:28am

I'm getting a laptop next week, not a new one but new-ish. And I'm considering just putting Windows 8.1 on it. There's nothing in 10 that I'll miss and I'm just fed up with the constant updates and having to upgrade it every 6 months or so.

_Kaiser_ · 23-08-2016 10:55pm

Karsini wrote: »

I'm getting a laptop next week, not a new one but new-ish. And I'm considering just putting Windows 8.1 on it. There's nothing in 10 that I'll miss and I'm just fed up with the constant updates and having to upgrade it every 6 months or so.

Strongly thinking the same... every time a new version update is pushed it messes with Bitdefender's firewall settings and in turn screws up NLA and my domain settings/group policies until I fix it. It's a small thing but it's annoying all the same.

At least 8.1 is stable and with a decent start menu (Start8 being my preference) it's perfectly usable.

Dair76 · 24-08-2016 4:58pm

Hi all. I recently bought a Dell XPS laptop with W10 installed. I generally like it, but I have one irritating issue with it. I'm wondering if anyone else is having the same problem?

Essentially, the Google Drive icon in the task bar is completely unresponsive to right clicks. I can double-left-click to open the Drive folder on the laptop, and sync seems to be working okay. But right-clicking, which I use to exit the program, has no effect whatsoever.

It's probably a Google issue rather than an MS one, but thought I'd ask anyway. There are no issues with the W7 machines in the house.

ItHurtsWhenIP · 24-08-2016 6:34pm

Dair76 wrote: »

Hi all. I recently bought a Dell XPS laptop with W10 installed. I generally like it, but I have one irritating issue with it. I'm wondering if anyone else is having the same problem?

Essentially, the Google Drive icon in the task bar is completely unresponsive to right clicks. I can double-left-click to open the Drive folder on the laptop, and sync seems to be working okay. But right-clicking, which I use to exit the program, has no effect whatsoever.

It's probably a Google issue rather than an MS one, but thought I'd ask anyway. There are no issues with the W7 machines in the house.

First Google Search result :rolleyes::
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/drive/c2H-TDyyoCE/1AwQD5P9CQAJ

I found a solution!! The problem was the LOCALE of the program - I checked the log file. So I entered this command into CMD: set LANG=en_US and then: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Drive\googledrivesync.exe", restarted it and now it works! Weird... I wonder why it has a problem with my location. I hope Google fixes this soon so other people don't have to deal with this problem. In the meantime, this is a workaround.

Now there are some on that forum saying that it didn't solve it for them. But it seems others have different suggestions.

Dair76 · 24-08-2016 7:48pm

Edited for diplomacy.

Not the same issue as me unfortunately.

feelgoodinc27 · 26-08-2016 11:35pm

I bought a retail copy of W8 and my understanding is that retail keys are converted into W10 OEM keys when you upgrade. If I rollback to W8.1 will I get my retail key back?

The laptop I am using is fairly old so I'd like to have a copy of windows that I could transfer to another computer.

Capt'n Midnight · 27-08-2016 7:14pm

feelgoodinc27 wrote: »

I bought a retail copy of W8 and my understanding is that retail keys are converted into W10 OEM keys when you upgrade. If I rollback to W8.1 will I get my retail key back?

The laptop I am using is fairly old so I'd like to have a copy of windows that I could transfer to another computer.

If windows came with the laptop the the OEM licence, even when upgraded, lives or dies with the laptop.

Few windows licenses are transferable, and even then can only be used on one computer at a time.

DaireQuinlan · 31-08-2016 9:22am

feelgoodinc27 wrote: »

I bought a retail copy of W8 and my understanding is that retail keys are converted into W10 OEM keys when you upgrade. If I rollback to W8.1 will I get my retail key back?

The laptop I am using is fairly old so I'd like to have a copy of windows that I could transfer to another computer.

No-one ever provided a satisfactory answer to this. MS wouldn't give a definitive answer. The general consensus I got from random forum posts and what not is that if you do something on a machine which invalidates the activation (i.e. new motherboard) that you can ring up MS and re-activate through support, because they're aware of the original retail license. But it's on a case by case basis.

None of this affects your 8.1 licensing. You bought it with a retail license, you still have that retail license. You can de-activate your current machine* and install that 8.1 on a different machine.

*or not, I forgot to do this when I swapped out the guts of my machine. When I went to re-install 8.1 it just de-activated the other license automatically though I did have to jump through a few more hoops.

Eire Go Brach · 07-09-2016 9:37pm

I built a new computer and used my Win 8 License from the Laptop it was installed on. But I had upgraded the Laptop to Win10.

DaireQuinlan · 08-09-2016 9:07am

Eire Go Brach wrote: »

I built a new computer and used my Win 8 License from the Laptop it was installed on. But I had upgraded the Laptop to Win10.

was the original Win 8 license an OEM license ? How did you activate it on the new machine ?

Eire Go Brach · 08-09-2016 10:07am

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

was the original Win 8 license an OEM license ? How did you activate it on the new machine ?

It was a new License. I had bought it of MS when win 8 was released and I upgraded from win 7. Bargain at €30

I activated it by using the Key I got when I purchased it as a download.

There are tools you can get to get the Key from Win 8 if you have lost it.

cunnijo · 15-09-2016 9:39am

While Windows 10 is a good OS I have an issue with it that I hope someone may have a solution for. This is a result of a clean install not an upgrade from Windows 7.

When I power up the PC it goes past the POST sequence, shows the windows logo but then restarts and then goes through the POST sequence again but this time goes on to load windows.. Once in it works very well. I never had this issue with Windows 7.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so were you able to resolve it?

CatInABox · 15-09-2016 10:19am

cunnijo wrote: »

While Windows 10 is a good OS I have an issue with it that I hope someone may have a solution for. This is a result of a clean install not an upgrade from Windows 7.

When I power up the PC it goes past the POST sequence, shows the windows logo but then restarts and then goes through the POST sequence again but this time goes on to load windows.. Once in it works very well. I never had this issue with Windows 7.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so were you able to resolve it?

If you've only installed it recently, and haven't loaded it up with all your stuff, then it, may be worth it to "reset" your PC. Go into Settings>Update and Security>Recovery and click the reset button.

I haven't had your problem, but I have sorted out problems that arose during a new install with the above. It's counter-intuitive to think that a fresh install over a fresh install would change something, but it did, and the ease with which you can do it makes it something I can recommend easier these days.

beauf · 15-09-2016 11:23am

Might be a driver issue either.

cunnijo · 15-09-2016 11:29am

CatInABox wrote: »

If you've only installed it recently, and haven't loaded it up with all your stuff, then it, may be worth it to "reset" your PC. Go into Settings>Update and Security>Recovery and click the reset button.

I haven't had your problem, but I have sorted out problems that arose during a new install with the above. It's counter-intuitive to think that a fresh install over a fresh install would change something, but it did, and the ease with which you can do it makes it something I can recommend easier these days.

Thanks for that. That route was tried before without success unfortunately. So I done a complete re-install of Windows 10 adding the anniversary edition (1607) and loading all the latest drivers and updates and it is happening again. But to track where the cause is could be tricky.

Is there anything in the BIOS settings that could be causing this? My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z97-D3H if that is any help.

beauf · 15-09-2016 11:56am

Sometimes the latest drive is the one causing the problem. An older driver might be more stable.

I'd strip the system to the minimum hardware, and see where the problem is.

kearneybobs · 16-09-2016 6:14pm

cunnijo wrote: »

While Windows 10 is a good OS I have an issue with it that I hope someone may have a solution for. This is a result of a clean install not an upgrade from Windows 7.

When I power up the PC it goes past the POST sequence, shows the windows logo but then restarts and then goes through the POST sequence again but this time goes on to load windows.. Once in it works very well. I never had this issue with Windows 7.

Has anyone else experienced this and if so were you able to resolve it?

You booting using UEFI or BIOS?

cunnijo · 16-09-2016 10:01pm

kearneybobs wrote: »

You booting using UEFI or BIOS?

I am bootong using BIOS (Legacy setting).

riclad · 16-09-2016 11:26pm

GO to bios, set fastboot =off .
see if it makes a difference .

learn_more · 20-09-2016 10:53pm

I have a general question about windows 10 performance.

I have an old desktop with a E6600 intel processor. It's a dual core 2.4 GHz, and 4GB of RAM. And a low end 1GB Radeon Graphics card. I have a dual boot system with 10 and 7.

7 runs flawlessly performance wise. I have a minimum of software installed on 10 as I don't use it much.

However I find 10 lags from time to time which is putting me off from using it as my main OS, although I do like it and would prefer to start using it now.

I sense that it's more a software issue with 10 that's causing the lagging rather than my machine is not capable of running it ?

Any thoughts? My machine is above the specs required to run 10 so I can't understand why it's not running okay.

54and56 · 23-09-2016 9:32am

Hi all,

Hope this is the right place to post rather than start a new thread, if not please feel free to move Mods.

So I have a Win 10 Lenovo X1 Laptop. I'm self employed and use my laptop daily (plugged into a large screen and keyboard at the office).

As usual I was using it last night and left it logged in when I went to bed. When I came down this morning I was greeted by the blue update screen announcing that an update was +/- 20% in progress which could take some time and require several restarts so I left it alone and went off to do some domestic chores. I came back about an hour later and the screen was blank, it wasn't powered off as the screen had that backlight hue but there was nothing happening and moving the mouse or pressing the space bar didn't pop up anything on the screen. The HDD led flashed intermittently for a split second every 30 seconds or thereabouts so I decided it must need more time and left it alone for another 45 minutes but it was still in the same state i.e. blank screen and HDD led flashing for a split second very intermittently so I decided the update must have hung. I tried hitting the ESC button and ctrl + alt + del but nothing happened and I therefore decided to hard reset/power off by holding down the power button until it shut off completely and then powered it back up again which popped the usual white "Lenovo" logo on the initial screen but it doesn't boot up and reverts to the "hung" status I referred to above i.e. the screen is powered up but blank with the HDD led flashing like mad for a short while but then settling down to a brief flash every few seconds.

Thankfully I use Dropbox for all work files and can access them via an old family PC (which I'm using right now) but I really need my laptop back working ASAP and I haven't a clue what to do.

Any suggestions?

kleefarr · 23-09-2016 9:45am

Restart by holding the shift key are clicking restart. This should give you options to run different solutions, like restore points etc.

54and56 · 23-09-2016 9:49am

kleefarr wrote: »

Restart by holding the shift key are clicking restart. This should give you options to run different solutions, like restore points etc.

Hi Kleefarr, thanks for the suggestion.

I'm a little confused, do you mean power off then power on again whilst holding down the shift button? I can't "click" anything as the screen is totally blank.

kleefarr · 23-09-2016 10:08am

With it already powered on, hold shift key and then restart if you can.
This should bring up various options including safe mode and recovery options.

Don't you get anything at all on the screen? POST?

Try this?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/14106/windows-10-troubleshoot-black-screen-problems

54and56 · 23-09-2016 11:23am

kleefarr wrote: »

With it already powered on, hold shift key and then restart if you can.
This should bring up various options including safe mode and recovery options.

Don't you get anything at all on the screen? POST?

Try this?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/14106/windows-10-troubleshoot-black-screen-problems

Looks like I'm in trouble here.

When the Lenovo logo is splashed on startup there is a message displayed very briefly below saying "To interrupt normal startup press Enter"

When I press enter it brings up this blue screen

and when I click on the highlighted "see advanced repair options" I get this "Option" screen

When I click the Troubleshoot option I get this screen

and when I click on Advanced Options I get this screen

I tried the Startup Repair but that failed with the message "Startup Repair couldn't repair your PC" and I also tried the System Restore option but got a pop up saying "No restore points have been created".

It seems like the only two options left to me are:-

1. Reset the PC which means I keep my files but lose all my installed programs and settings which would be a major pain in the ar$e

or choose the option "Go back to previous build" which is under the "See more recovery options" link in the screen above which states that "If you're running into problems with your current preview build, going back to the previous build might fix them" and that "This won't affect your personal files, but you'll lose any changes you've made to apps and settings since your most recent upgrade" Given my most recent upgrade is presumably the upgrade which failed this morning I'm optimistically hoping going back to my previous build means going back to how everything was when I went to bed last night but I'm concerned about the bit in bold above. Is this option only for people on a beta/preview program and if so will it not work for my case?

Proper confused.com now and almost half my day gone with no productive work done.

C'est la vie I guess but I'd sure appreciate a steer before I make a bad choice or do something I'll later regret!!

kleefarr · 23-09-2016 11:34am

I would go back to previous built. It'll take you back to 1507 probably.
I actually did that yesterday trying to solve a driver issue. It's ok and will update to current version again later.

ressem · 24-09-2016 12:30pm

Agree, choose go back to previous build.

Backup, download the ISO version using the media creation tool to create a bootable USB http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209

or if you have a DVD drive and disk to spare from the website...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO/

and there is a better chance of success.

rant...
These windows 10 build updates have a ridiculous failure rate especially through windows update. I've seen one windows 10 laptop demanding it's updates monopolize and saturate a medium sized business's internet for a day before being discovered. Enough time to download an ISO 10 times over. And don't suggest WSUS as a solution.
If Microsoft don't get their update act together, the entire Microsoft cloud will have to be throttled back to a dribble during work hours.

54and56 · 24-09-2016 5:59pm

Apologies Kleefarr, I thought I'ld posted a thank you to you yesterday.

I went ahead and rolled back the build and 10 minutes later I was back up and running.

I've now created a restore point which should automatically update prior to future "upgrades" being installed.

All good for now and thanks again, you were very helpful.

Thanks to you too Ressem, sound advice.

BigEejit · 24-09-2016 10:56pm

learn_more wrote: »

However I find 10 lags from time to time which is putting me off from using it as my main OS, although I do like it and would prefer to start using it now.

I sense that it's more a software issue with 10 that's causing the lagging rather than my machine is not capable of running it ?

Any thoughts? My machine is above the specs required to run 10 so I can't understand why it's not running okay.

I have a few windows 10 virtual machines on a low power hypervisor and i have to tweak the paging file on all of them or they run poorly.

Right click start menu, select system. Then select advanced system settings on left and in the system properties box select advanced and in the performance box click on settings button. In the next performance options box click on advanced and in the virtual memory section click the change button. Make a note of the recommended paging file size in the bottom and then untick the "automatically manage paging file size" box. Then click on the custom size radio butto and put the recommended paging file size in both the initial size and the maximum size. Click set and then ok and it should prompt you to reboot, do that and you should notice a change.

There are other things too like adjusting visual effects, which is once again right click start menu, select system. Then select advanced system settings on left and in the system properties box select advanced and in the performance box click on settings button. You should be on the visual effects tab, you can click the radio button for "adjust for best performance" but it is possible to just turn off some of them to get a performance boost without windows looking like something from the 90's.

You can adjust services that are started automatically but you dont really need. Have a look at this page: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ but be careful and read it all before making changes.

kleefarr · 24-09-2016 11:22pm

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Apologies Kleefarr, I thought I'ld posted a thank you to you yesterday.

I went ahead and rolled back the build and 10 minutes later I was back up and running.

I've now created a restore point which should automatically update prior to future "upgrades" being installed.

All good for now and thanks again, you were very helpful.

Thanks to you too Ressem, sound advice.

Glad you're back up and running.

learn_more · 25-09-2016 4:49am

BigEejit wrote: »

I have a few windows 10 virtual machines on a low power hypervisor and i have to tweak the paging file on all of them or they run poorly.

Right click start menu, select system. Then select advanced system settings on left and in the system properties box select advanced and in the performance box click on settings button. In the next performance options box click on advanced and in the virtual memory section click the change button. Make a note of the recommended paging file size in the bottom and then untick the "automatically manage paging file size" box. Then click on the custom size radio butto and put the recommended paging file size in both the initial size and the maximum size. Click set and then ok and it should prompt you to reboot, do that and you should notice a change.

There are other things too like adjusting visual effects, which is once again right click start menu, select system. Then select advanced system settings on left and in the system properties box select advanced and in the performance box click on settings button. You should be on the visual effects tab, you can click the radio button for "adjust for best performance" but it is possible to just turn off some of them to get a performance boost without windows looking like something from the 90's.

You can adjust services that are started automatically but you dont really need. Have a look at this page: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ but be careful and read it all before making changes.

I think your a really nice person to tell me all that.

If you ever want to go out for a pint with me sometime just PM me your number.

riclad · 03-10-2016 11:00am

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/81659/microsoft-delivers-yet-another-broken-windows-10-update
Windows update caused major problems for preview users .
And they still released it without a fix or a warning this might cause a problem for some users .
I using windows 7, i see no reason to go to windows 10 ,
with its constant update problems .I have never had one problem with
any updates on windows 7.A previous update caused millions of webcams to stop working .
it Must be difficult for a business with dozens of pcs if windows update causes
pcs to crash.

The_B_Man · 05-10-2016 2:22pm

Is anyone else noticing that their fonts are really blurry on most apps?
Chrome browser here is fine, but if I open something like Steam for example, then the fonts are all blurry as hell, as if the resolution is lowered. Is this something that is app specific or is their an OS change I can make to fix this? It's happening on a number of apps.

d31b0y · 05-10-2016 2:26pm

I think that happens with very high resolution displays. Here's a fix;
http://lifehacker.com/fix-blurry-fonts-in-windows-10-with-this-utility-1734246822

**I haven't applied this fix to any computers so your mileage may vary and I am not responsible for any dodgy stuff you end up with.

The_B_Man · 05-10-2016 2:27pm

Thanks, I'll have a look.
FYI, my laptop is 1080p.

d31b0y · 05-10-2016 2:30pm

Probably not the above in that case. Guess no harm trying it anyway.

The_B_Man · 05-10-2016 2:45pm

Ye that actually did the trick. Madness!!
It shows where Microsoft's focus is now. Everything is going mobile!

05-10-2016 3:02pm

The_B_Man wrote: »

Thanks, I'll have a look.
FYI, my laptop is 1080p.

d31b0y wrote: »

Probably not the above in that case. Guess no harm trying it anyway.

1080p on anything smaller than a 17" screen will trigger DPI scaling. Hence why I stick to 1600x900 on a 15" but it's not easy.

CatInABox · 05-10-2016 3:14pm

The_B_Man wrote: »

Ye that actually did the trick. Madness!!
It shows where Microsoft's focus is now. Everything is going mobile!

It's not actually a mobile thing at all, rather it's Microsofts attempts to sort out a problem that has been growing since Windows 95. Basically, the developers of programs weren't taking the time to update their software for an era with high resolutions displays, so programs started to look terrible on Windows (Mac moved to a different way of rendering a long time ago, and avoided some of this problem.)

Microsoft created a workaround that scaled old programs, which actually works quite well, however, it obviously clashes with the software/hardware mix of your machine. You may have been able to fix it without third party programs, there's a slider for scaling in the actual settings app, Settings > System > Display > Change the size of text, apps and other items. It may or may not work, as it scales everything as far as I know.

As an aside, to give you a hint of how slow developers are at supporting high resolutions in Windows, it's only in the last six months or so that Chrome has support for high resolutions.

CatInABox · 07-10-2016 11:25pm

Some good news in the latest Windows Insider build, if you have over 3.5GB of ram, then task amanger is going to split out the svchost.exe processes, so you'll be able to see what's taking up memory better.

Also, regedit is getting an address bar, so that you can copy and paste a location. Handy.

AlmightyCushion · 07-10-2016 11:58pm

CatInABox wrote: »

Some good news in the latest Windows Insider build, if you have over 3.5GB of ram, then task amanger is going to split out the svchost.exe processes, so you'll be able to see what's taking up memory better.

That's not even the big advantage. This should help make Windows more stable and less likely to crash. Before this change, if a process in svchost started misbehaving and needed to be killed you had to kill all the processes in that svchost. Now because they are all split out, you only have to kill the one process that is misbehaving.

CatInABox · 08-10-2016 12:16am

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

That's not even the big advantage. This should help make Windows more stable and less likely to crash. Before this change, if a process in svchost started misbehaving and needed to be killed you had to kill all the processes in that svchost. Now because they are all split out, you only have to kill the one process that is misbehaving.

Well, all except the system svchosts. They're still clumped together, and are probably the ones that caused the most crashes. Hopefully it works out that it's more stable, I' really like that.

AlmightyCushion · 08-10-2016 12:50am

CatInABox wrote: »

Well, all except the system svchosts. They're still clumped together, and are probably the ones that caused the most crashes. Hopefully it works out that it's more stable, I' really like that.

The ones they haven't split out are ones that need a system restart to restore them. So, you get no benefits to splitting them out but still get the downsides of increased memory overhead.

5rtytry56 · 10-10-2016 10:58am

Anybody notice their Touchpad function in quite a jittery fashion after the Microsoft Windows 10 update of around 2 October?
I am using an Ideapad Z500. I contacted Microsoft Oniine support and the technician took over my screen. He could not resolve it. He then asked me to clean my touchpad.

.
So then I gave up, and made an excuse that I would have to leave the chat.
I have resolved the issue for now by doing a System Restore.
I have created a restore point just in case it returns btw.
Will report back here after I apply the next windows update.

jca · 10-10-2016 12:00pm

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Anybody notice their Touchpad function in quite a jittery fashion after the Microsoft Windows 10 update of around 2 October?
I am using an Ideapad Z500. I contacted Microsoft Oniine support and the technician took over my screen. He could not resolve it. He then asked me to clean my touchpad. .
So then I gave up, and made an excuse that I would have to leave the chat.
I have resolved the issue for now by doing a System Restore.
I have created a restore point just in case it returns btw.
Will report back here after I apply the next windows update.

One of the main reasons I dumped it and reverted to 8.1. I found going to the Lenovo site and downloading the w10 driver restored normal operation until update time rolled around again and Ms replaced it with their "better" driver. One by one I've returned my machines to either 8.1 or W7, I think it's a dreadful os.

10-10-2016 12:34pm

jca wrote: »

One of the main reasons I dumped it and reverted to 8.1. I found going to the Lenovo site and downloading the w10 driver restored normal operation until update time rolled around again and Ms replaced it with their "better" driver. One by one I've returned my machines to either 8.1 or W7, I think it's a dreadful os.

+1

Microsoft's workaround is to run the FixIt tool from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930 but it doesn't always last. I wasn't comfortable with forced driver updates so I too reverted to 8.1.

5rtytry56 · 10-10-2016 3:54pm

Well, I have re applied the Windows Update after going into settings and unticking "Give me updates to other Microsoft Products" (like the msmouse.inf driver I saw in Device Manager)in "Advanced Windows update options".

The Touchpad is ...OK. There is a TINY jitter again though. Ah well, I can row back to the restore point I made if it really starts to annoy me again. Or go back to Windoze 8.1.

irishgeo · 16-10-2016 8:44pm

win 10 deciding its driver was better forced me to linux.

Windows 10

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