{"id":108,"date":"2016-03-04T13:42:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T21:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2016-06-19T14:26:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T21:26:23","slug":"to-windows-10-or-not-to-windows-10-that-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"To Windows 10 or not to Windows 10, that is the question."},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the middle of May 2016 or so, I have heard from several people that they were surprised to find that one morning they found that Windows 10 was installed on their system overnight. And they were not happy.\u00a0Others have reported that they have a message that tells them that Windows 10 is ready to be installed the next time they do a restart.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem:\u00a0most system manufacturers are not providing all of the driver software necessary to support Windows 10 on all of their many models. Microsoft says yes, the manufacturer says no. If the upgrade goes badly, you won’t get support from either one.<\/p>\n

I would be\u00a0fairly confident that Windows 10 that is installed by the manufacturer on a new system, should work fairly well. All of the device driver software “should” be good. Upgrading an older system is a bit of a gamble, and Microsoft’s rollback doesn’t work when the system is stuck in a “can’t automatically\u00a0 repair boot loop”.<\/p>\n

So, for the small business owner or a home system user,\u00a0before installing the Windows 10 upgrade on one of your current systems, here\u2019s my checklist:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Check the\u00a0system manufacturer website to see if that particular model is on their Windows 10 support list. Some are and some aren’t.\u00a0If the\u00a0system is not on the Support list, or if you\u2019re using QuickBooks or have some other business critical application, use the\u00a0GWX Control Panel to block Windows 10. Download the installer from : http:\/\/ultimateoutsider.com\/downloads\/<\/u><\/a> . Just be sure to\u00a0send\u00a0the author\u00a0a donation for each PC where you install it. He needs to\u00a0be paid\u00a0for\u00a0development,\u00a0\u00a0website\u00a0hosting and\u00a0traffic. I found his blog to be a good read, so enjoy that too.<\/li>\n
  2. Next, if the PC or laptop\u00a0is the only system that you have for your small business, don’t do the upgrade without having\u00a0a\u00a0second machine that is ready to become your main system. More bluntly, don’t do the upgrade on your only system.<\/li>\n
  3. If you’re ready to go ahead with the upgrade, install all of the current Windows Updates other than Windows 10. Certainly, you don\u2019t need them all, but you do\u00a0need some of them and you don\u2019t know which is which, so get them all. Also note that some systems should have a BIOS\/UEFI upgrade before the Windows 10 upgrade.<\/li>\n
  4. Before installing the Windows 10 upgrade, note that some systems have been rendered useless or\u00a0crippled by Windows 10. If that happens you might want to get support from the manufacturer or from Microsoft. Good luck with either one. So, be sure that you have a system image backup of the PC. Since Microsoft\u2019s \u201crollback\u201d process doesn\u2019t always work, and\u00a0since Murphy\u2019s Law says that if you have the backup, you won\u2019t need it, but if you don\u2019t have the backup, you will need it. So get a full image backup.<\/li>\n
  5. Be prepared to not be able to use your\u00a0system for several hours while the upgrade process runs.<\/li>\n
  6. Also be prepared to have some fiddling to do with the applications that you use in order to get things to work the way you like. Expecting things to come up the way you\u00a0like is totally na\u00efve.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    (Original post 2016-3-4, updated 2016-6-19)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since the middle of May 2016 or so, I have heard from several people that they were surprised to find that one morning they found that Windows 10 was installed on their system overnight. And they were not happy.\u00a0Others have reported that they have a message that tells them that Windows 10 is ready to … Continue reading To Windows 10 or not to Windows 10, that is the question.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourcomguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}