Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit Upgrade Review

Received My FREE Windows 10 Upgrade a few days ago, so here is my review on the upgrade and install process and how it works for me.

In a nutshell W10 64-bit Pro upgraded my old Windows 7 Professional 64-bit operating system nearly perfect the 1st time.

Like many of you that have been waiting for your reserved upgrade to be downloaded, mine finally came in on August 06 2015.

My suggestion is to fully back up your old Windows installation to a USB portable hard drive before beginning the upgrade process. If you’re running W7 use it’s included backup utility (the same as in W10) backup all user accounts and drive C:. And be sure to create a system repair / boot dvd or disk so you can recover your old system if necessary.

I’m really not all that impressed with Windows 10. And actually other than the new start menu it looks pretty much like Windows 7.

I found all my old software worked the 1st time, including an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro 9 that i’ve used for over a decade. Only one program did not work (Webcam XP5 Private) but using Windows 10 compatibility assistant and setting it to run as Windows 7 cured that problem.

Windows 10 prompts you to sign into your Microsoft Account on installation. Then after the upgrade was finished after several reboots, i found my old Windows login password didn’t work. To log into my computer i had to use my Microsoft Account Password.

Big Brother – Bill Gates is watching everything you do online! Guess that’s why Microsoft is giving Windows 10 away for FREE! 😆

Windows 10 just looks blah to me. No styling to the windows themselves. I have read Microsoft is bringing Windows Aero Glass styling back to Windows 10 but not in my install. Also after Googling the subject i found one article that claimed a registry key change would enable aero glass styling but my install did not have the key mentioned. I’m not that comfortable poking around in the registry either. So that will have to wait until another day.

Also the desktop widgets are gone. Microsoft claims they were a security vulnerability. Searching the net you can find them and quickly install the old widgets into Windows 10 very easily. (I like the calendar and cpu/memory usage widget.)

Windows 10 comes with a new web browser called Microsoft Edge that takes the place of Internet Explorer. In my personal opinion, Microsoft Edge Sucks just as bad as Internet Exploder! Personally i prefer either Google Chrome or Firefox, actually called Waterfox for 64-bit operating systems. But Mozilla keeps adding more crap onto Firefox and it’s getting slow!

Windows 10 features the old backup utility from Windows 7. It has always worked great for me. After tweaking my screen resolution and a few other settings i did a full backup to a different external hard drive, and made a new Windows 10 recovery DVD. Note the recovery dvd for W10 is different from W7, so if you install and backup your system don’t forget this step.

I like the apps feature and installed the Facebook app. It worked great, but i am used to using a web browser. Maybe it will grow on me as time goes on.

In summing it all up, I’m not sure if i will keep Windows 10 or go back to Windows 7. It does seem a tad bit faster than W7, but it sure is a data miner for Microsoft.

I kind of suck at writing articles about technical details. So here is a well worded article on Polygon.com that lays the privacy and other setting out well. I suggest reading this before you install W10.

This computer is an Intel Pentium 3.10 quad core with 16GB of ram. I’m beginning to dislike W10 but plan on keeping it for a while longer to thoroughly evaluate it.

Update 08/10/2015: While writing a blog post this morning i noticed my cpu usage display was nearly pegged. I had one Google Chrome window open to login to this blog. And another Firefox window open searching for information on the article i was blogging. With no activity on my part, i watched the cpu fluctuate between roughly %20-100. Seems excessive to me.

Update 08/17/2015: A few day ago i decided Windows 10 Pro had to go! Rather than use the rollback option (that’s only good for 30 days) i popped my Windows 7 Pro recovery dvd into the drive and rebooted. Boy was i surprised after my pc skipped the dvd boot and booted straight to Windows 10. I’m saying (WTF) and rebooted again and hitting the delete key to enter my award bios. My pc booted to Windows 10 again. Another reboot while hitting F12 for the boot menu was skipped, and once again booted direct to Windows 10. Damn you Bill Gates! And to think i have always been a faithful follower of Bill Gates and Microsoft Corporation.. Now Gates has hijacked my boot menu with his FREE (It Really Sucks) Windows 10 Pro Upgrade.

I have Googled my ass off and have not yet found a way to boot to my W7 Recovery DVD. It’s is said that using Windows 10 boot manager will allow booting from a recovery DVD but mine just blinks a couple of times and loads Windows 10 again. Maybe it will only boot to a Windows 10 recovery disk. Got some time left on my 30 day rollback option, might do that and then boot to W7 recovery, reformat and restore my backup done on 08/06/2015. Arrrrrrrrrr!!

Update 08/18/2015: Looks like my only choice to go back to Windows 7 Professional will be the rollback Windows 10 option. It’s not a big deal, but i would prefer to bios boot from my Windows 7 recovery disk, reformat my C: drive, then restore my previous Windows 7 Professional backup.

Another tidbit has to do with this new Windows 10 activation routine. From what i am reading, it appears since my Windows 7 DVD is an OEM version (custom built hardware, where i bought Win7 from the computer store that built my computer.) A major hardware failure (mother board) might render this Windows 10 installation unable to be activated. From what i am reading here and there, I would have to install Windows 7 First then restore the Windows 10 from backup. The snafu would be the activation hardware signature on Microsoft’s servers will be from the old hardware.  Here is an article on Microsoft.com that explains the new Windows 10 activation routine better.

Update 08/19/2015: I’m back to Windows 7 Pro. Ended up running the roll back option in Windows 10. The rollback process took about 20 minutes. After logging back in to my computer i found everything was pretty much like it was before updating to Windows 10.

I see two directories and 3 root directory files that have been zeroed out. Figured it was best to get a full backup before deleting any left over files / directories, but then i found out Windows 7 backup utility would not run.

Have not figured out what is causing the backup error yet. Also when starting Windows Live Mail 2012 a window pops up saying (Recovering Windows live mail database) every time i check my mail. Not sure what’s up with that either.. Google search here i come..

Update 08/21/2015: Rolling back Windows 10 to Windows 7 did not go as i had thought. After trying to update Skype i was told the Skype application was not in it’s stored path (or along that line.)

Still couldn’t figure out why my backup would not run, then made the decision to restore my backed up system image. Booted to my recovery dvd, reformatted my C: drive, and ran the restore that took about 35 minutes. Installed a few Windows updates and all is well once more.

Windows 7 Pro is a great reliable operating system. 😉