Windows 8 & 10 - Thread Updated

[HelloRaptor]

I got asked about this yet again, so I'm putting it here in its own thread. If you want to dump the Windows 8 Metro bullshit, it's incredibly simple.

• Download Classic Shell in the language of your choice.
• When the setup options come up, check the 'Show All Settings' box at the top.
• Go to the 'Windows 8.1 Settings' tab. The 'Skip Metro Screen' box should already be checked.
• For 'Disable Active Corners' it's probably set to 'Start Screen', but select 'All'. This will completely disable the Charms thing where a menu pops out whenever you mouse near edges or in certain ways.
• Note that if you're doing this on a laptop with a touchpad, this may not disable the charms, as most trackpad software does its own detection and has to be disabled manually through their software, or sometimes through the 'Mouse' configuration in your Control Panel.

This pretty much does it. There's some things you can't really change, like the metro-app style PC Settings and whatnot, but those are pretty minor cosmetic and organization issues to get used to, not complete (and completely ridiculous) interface changes.

If you don't like the default 'Start' image on the task bar, you can replace it during setup. It can be a Classic Shell little clam shell or a custom image, etc. If you google classic shell start button you can generally find image files to download to restore it to the standard Win7 orb, or whatever else you want. A friend of mine uses a Hellraiser puzzle box. In a pinch I can skype the folder I have full of Win7 orb icons in various sizes to whoever's interested.

If I think of anything else I'll add it here. If anybody thinks of any questions or Win8 problems, let me know here and I'll see if I have or can find a fix.

WINDOWS 10 UPDATE

Everything about Classic Shell applies here. It's still a good choice if you don't like the Windows 10 start menu behavior. I'll probably put some more updates here later, but this seemed like the most important one:

By default, Windows 10 Home automatically downloads and installs updates. The intended behavior by Microsoft was that the end user had no ability to stop this in Home, and Pro users could only delay them. Given that this is all a pretty terrible idea, and enough people finally said so:

Microsoft releases tool to hide or block unwanted updates.

Further:

How to schedule when windows 10 updates restart your PC.

EDIT: For those concerned with privacy issues (which are being backdated to earlier Windows versions as far as 7), a tool.

• DisableWinTracking (Github link)

No adware, no tricky installs, just run as administrator and choose your options.

[Luna]

Isn't Windows 10 free?

[HelloRaptor]

Sort of:

• For most versions, Windows 10 will be a free upgrade within the first year after its release.
• This does not apply to those running Enterprise versions of Windows 7 or 8.
• The upgrade path will be like so:
  
• After the first year, people looking to upgrade will have to pay as normal.

If you're using Enterprise you're supposedly shit out of luck unless you want to pay, but there's a way to redo your install as Professional, so it's not too big a deal.

Notably, Microsoft claims that all installations that qualify by edition will be allowed a free upgrade to legit Win10, regardless of activation status or legitimacy. i.e. even the dirty pirates, mostly because they want to push the Win10 market share as high as possible and installation statistics don't care whether an OS is pirated or not.

Honestly Win8 and 10 are similar enough that I'd probably be comfortable just doing an in-place upgrade rather than a clean install. I'll probably do a couple of runs on my test rig to see how it deals with various levels of complexity (drivepool, junction points, etc), but I'll be surprised if it doesn't work fine.

Edit: For clarity, if you upgrade to Win10 for free within the first year, you will never have to pay for it. It's not like you'll only get it free for a year and then have to pay on day 366 to keep your OS.

Edit 2: Also, the Classic Shell thing works for Win10 as well as 8. There's not quite as much reason to use it, but I find the Win10 start menu (which IS present) to still be pretty annoying. I really don't like the blocky Metro-like way it organizes things, or the space wasting alphabetizing shit, myself so I'll probably keep using it.

[Luna]

Ahh that's interesting. I'm a bit out of touch on Windows I admit. I've been on Mac for so long at this point that I quit doing things I had to go to Windows for. I run Quickbooks using VM Ware and gave up on Windows games since I got the Ps4.

Still, good to know because my baby wants a real computer and I'll be building her a desktop over the summer. She goes to her dads all July so if plans go accordingly I'll be all moved and have built her a sweet minecraft machine. She wants to use mods so bad. Her 360 and my PS4 are not for modding obviously. All her educational stuff that's given through the school is browser based but I just get tired of her on my computers.

[HelloRaptor]

First post updated with some Windows 10 info.

[Miss Demeanor]

I have to ask... has the upgrade been worth it? My son has a laptop with 8.1 that's been driving him up a wall... but he mostly youtubes and plays Steam games/Minecraft on it, which seems like one of the things that are being troubled by the upgrade. I was hoping the jump to 10 would help him out with this, but all I've been hearing so far is how much more difficult 10 is making everything. So. Pros/Cons? Is it worth the jump?

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I won't be getting the free Windows 10 upgrade, because I'm perfectly happy with how my Windows 7 machine functions and I don't terribly want to spend a couple days f'ing with various program settings, but I'll be very curious to see how users respond to it. I'll probably need a new laptop before the end of the year and will likely just get Windows 10 with the new machine, unless everybody hates on Windows 10 to Windows 8-levels.

[silentsophia]

I'm going to stick to my tried and true strategy of waiting at least a couple of months. Windows launches tend to be kind of hairy even on a good day. I'm okay with Windows 7.

[ThatGuyThere]

I doubt i upgrade, I mainly use my home PC for websurfing and mushing and I can do those just fine with windows seven. If I gamed on PC i would likely go ahead with the upgrade while it is free but to now i see no reason to until i need a new machine.

[HelloRaptor]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

I have to ask... has the upgrade been worth it? My son has a laptop with 8.1 that's been driving him up a wall... but he mostly youtubes and plays Steam games/Minecraft on it, which seems like one of the things that are being troubled by the upgrade. I was hoping the jump to 10 would help him out with this, but all I've been hearing so far is how much more difficult 10 is making everything. So. Pros/Cons? Is it worth the jump?

Does he have the things set up as detailed in the fist post? If his laptop is still in default 8 mode (Metro at startup, hot corners pulling out charms bars, etc) I can see why it'd be giving him trouble, but there are four desktops and three laptops in my house running Windows 8.1 with the classic shell tweaks going, and we all do varying (but greater than none) amounts of youtube and Steam gaming (along with Origin, Uplay, and standalone games) and have had zero problem with it.

i.e. if he DOES have stuff all set up, I'm dubious the issue is Win8 specifically. We run a lot of different hardware, and have basically no more problems than we ever had with Win7 at this point.

As for Win10, I've only got one machine running it right now and it's been running it since the preview started, and I haven't wanted to install games and stuff on it till the final release. It's preloaded on all our machines now, so I'll be upgrading my laptop and my desktop before touching my wife or housemate's machines to ensure things work as intended. I'll also post here with anything I run across.

Honestly, with the way my machine is set up and the programs I run, if there's going to be a problem it'd probably be on mine. So we'll see. >_>

I can say that as of the last Windows 10 update our media machine (which I was using for the testing) had zero problems with: Microsoft Office/OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Firefox web browser (doing pretty much anything, from forms to youtube to browser games), Photoshop, assorted playback programs (VLC, MPC-HTC, etc). The problems I ran into were pretty well confined to the Edge browser (which does actually look like it has some potential, but IS brand new), and Cortana integration (which I don't really care for or need).

The thing to keep in mind, I think, is that Windows 10 is comparable to Windows 7, as Windows 8 was to Vista. While there are some under the hood changes between 8 and 10, the vast bulk of it is interface based, and by the time 8.1 had been around for a bit virtually all of the under the hood shit had been ironed out. I was a hardcore anti-win8 rager when it first came out, because god was it a smoking pile of ass as far as the interface and compatibility went, but at this point 8.1 is pretty solid once you fix the interface bullshit. It runs faster and cooler than Win7 on all of the laptops I've tested, and as far as I've seen Win10 does about the same as 8.1, which makes sense since again, under the hood it's 90% the same shit.

You could easily keep using Windows 7 for many years to come. I would def suggest upgrading laptops. As for desktops, I'm going to be upgrading all of the ones here for the simple reason that I want them all to be on the same OS so that it's easier to deal with problems when they do crop up (as in general problems over time) without me having to switch gears in my head and waste time while my wife glowers at me to make her machine work. ;D

Plus, it's free and comes with new toys. Mmmm, DirectX 12. Also, it's free.

@Three-Eyed-Crow

unless everybody hates on Windows 10 to Windows 8-levels.

I figure that's pretty unlikely. The vast bulk of Win8 hate was directed at the Metro interface, which Win10 does away with entirely if you're on a desktop or laptop that isn't in tablet mode. There'll be the usual grumbling over unforeseen compatibility issues, but the public testing for Win10 was pretty huge, so a fuck ton of that stuff will have been covered by release.

[EmmahSue]

Seriously, if I have to do something else, like get a drink of water or go check the mail, while he fixes my machine? It better be fucking fixed when I get back to my office. 4reelz.

ES

[HelloRaptor]

@EmmahSue said:

Seriously, if I have to do something else, like get a drink of water or go check the mail, while he fixes my machine? It better be fucking fixed when I get back to my office. 4reelz.

ES

[HelloRaptor]

For anyone who notices they have failed updates and it's the Win10 update failing with error 80240020:

What this error means is, your Windows 10 installation folder is unfinished and/or corrupted. Now, how do you fix that?

1. Go into "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download" and delete everything in that folder.
2. Now, run the command prompt as an administrator. Type in "wuauclt.exe /updatenow".
3. Go to your Control Panel > Windows Update and your Windows 10 should start re-downloading from scratch, hopefully without flaws this time.

Currently updating my laptop and our server, will do my PC next, woo.

[HelloRaptor]

So, like a boss, I forgot to download the Win10 drivers for my video card and network connection. Or rather, I remembered doing so, but was thinking of another machine, and my motherboard is one of the few with issues as far as the NIC goes. Derp.

Preliminary Report:

Installation went perfectly smooth on our home server (which only has a few things installed on it anyway) and my laptop (mostly office/productivity/tabletop gaming stuff). No driver glitches, no real bumps. Windows authentication said it couldn't for some reason (not surprising since they were less than wholly legit copies) but as soon as I restarted it generated the proper win10 key for the hardware and bam, done. Classic Shell installed like a boss, and other doodads and such I had on my laptop (Fences, some tabletop apps, etc) all worked just fine.

My main PC, which is a hellish landscape of high end equipment and windows interface mods, only had the network and gpu issues (basically my second monitor wouldn't display), but both cleared up as soon as I pulled the drivers down through my laptop and moved them over on a usb key.

I had to rejoin our homegroup/reset some networking stuff, but so far no insurmountable problems.

Oh, I did find that Windows 10 is terrible about circumventing your antivirus, which I guess... shouldn't be easily circumvented? But in the case of both the laptop and server the fact that I hadn't shut them off made the first attempt fail with an error message, which when I looked them up just meant 'Shut off your antivirus while you do this.'

[Thenomain]

@HelloRaptor said:

usb key

I love how there are a thousand names for this piece of electronics.

Thanks for the updates. I'm most interested to know how it breaks games that you had to do workarounds for Windows 8. (Mainly Fallout 3.) The usual legacy-ish question.

[HelloRaptor]

@Thenomain said:

@HelloRaptor said:

usb key

I love how there are a thousand names for this piece of electronics.

Thanks for the updates. I'm most interested to know how it breaks games that you had to do workarounds for Windows 8. (Mainly Fallout 3.) The usual legacy-ish question.

I have New Vegas, but not Fallout 3 itself. I can probably grab it to test it out.

I didn't have to do any workarounds for Windows 8, that I can recall, for the record. I came to it as Windows 8.1, which by that point was pretty solid on that front. I'm about to go through my Steam library though (which is....huge), so I'll let you know.

I love how there are a thousand names for this piece of electronics.

I usually call it a flash drive, but I keep running into rubes who don't know what that is.

[Miss Demeanor]

Huh. I didn't realize there were people that didn't call it a flash drive.

[Arkandel]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Huh. I didn't realize there were people that didn't call it a flash drive.

I call it a USB key. Thumb drive is also used frequently around here.

[thebird]

I just bought Windows 8.1 after my desktop imploded, entirely forgetting that 10 was a thing. Ugh. Damnit. Lol. At least 10 is free. Thanks HR for posting this stuff, totally makes me feel less panicky >>

[HelloRaptor]

@thebird
It is free, yeah, and other than a few minor glitches it's been fine. I know peopel tend to disregard the error numbers that come up in windows when things go wrong, because for a long time most of them always seemed to come up with answers too generic to be helpful, but I def suggest having a second way to access the internet and looking them up if something happens, before you get too frustrated. For instance, as I think I mentioned, I forgot to disable antivirus when doing an in-place upgrade and when it failed, the error message came back to that exactly. Which... I guess I wish they'd just say that in the error message, but meh.

For those with less than legal versions, or who have WinXP but and want to upgrade but can't afford it: Basically all of our machines are pirated, even the ones we originally bought Windows for, and so far it's worked fine in both the SLIC insertion method for win7 (i.e. duplicating what a prefab company does to mass install windows with a generic key matching a bios table) which isn't really distinguishable from a legit copy anyway, as well as AutoKMS license activation where a scheduled task checks a remote server for authentication every so often, resetting the license each time (except in this place the remote computer is just redirected to your own and always provides authorization). As long as you're not on an Enterprise copy and it can verify that you're authentic in the moment, it'll switch you over to a 100% legit Win10 license.

So far the only big stumbling block I've hit in terms of games, @Thenomain, is that Zuma's Revenge (old ass game, so...) won't load fullscreen without being supersized off the edges of the screen. I think I ran into this on win8.1 when I first got it, but can't remember what I did to fix it.

So far all my list of (mostly steam) games confirmed working is:

Assassin's Creed (3 and 4)
Bastion
Bioshock Infinite
Black Mesa
Borderlands
Borderlands 2
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequal
Defiance
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Diablo 3
Dishonored
Divinity: Original Sin
DLC Quest
Dragon Age (All)
Far Cry 3
Final Fantasy (7, 8, 13, 13-2)
Firefall
Half-Life 2
Hitman: Absolution
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (1 and 2)
Just Cause 2
Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning
The Last Remnant
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers (Original, 2012, 2015)
Mass Effect (All)
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Neverwinter
Orcs Must Die (1 and 2)
Path of Exile
Planetary Annihilation
Poker Night at the Inventory (1 and 2)
Portal (1 and 2)
Saints Row (3 and 4)
Shadowrun Returns
Shadowrun Dragonfall - Director's Cut
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
Sniper: Ghost Warrior (1 and 2)
Spec Ops: The Line
The Stanley Parable
Starbound
StarForge
Strike Suit Zero - Director's Cut
Team Fortress 2
Thief
Tomb Raider (2013
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine
Warhammer 40,000 Soulstorm

That was some exhausting shit to check out. My Bejeweled is having the same issue as the Zuma's Revenge, so I think it might be something with my video drivers and old ass Popcap games never meant to run on a 1920x1200 monitor in the first place, rather than something about Win10 in particular.