Samsung: Don't install Windows 10. REALLY

Samsung's fault, plain and simple.

I have Windows 10 installed on a Toshiba laptop more than 7 years old. Everything is running perfectly, including 5GHz wi-fi. Only Windows-related problem is the BIOS doesn't support UEFI boot. Also, startup is a little slow even with SSD since the laptop predates SATA III. But there are worse problems with Samsung?

All of this is likely out of Samsung hands. All the components are usually 3rd party. Like most have an intel chipset, realtek sound card, nvidia/amd/intel video card, perhaps marvell sata chipset too. These 3rd parties need to release the drivers not Samsung.

orlbuckeye said:

Yes but the components makers release their components and the OEM's modify them for their specs. Example if you go to the component makers site like Nvidia they will have a disclaimer to advising laptop drivers from the OEM and not from their site. This is why MS has RTM (release to manufacturing) right before a product release.

I really doubt the companies modify them much, if you extract the drivers you'll see they have the exact same date stamps and file sizes. It's just Nvidias way of not being held liable if something happens, gives them an out saying to talk to the company that made your PC/Notebook/Tablet etc.

True enough, most of the time you can skip the OEM drivers depending on what they are for, and go with the HW manufacturer's.

PJLLB said:

After a almost a year as a released product and the significant preview ahead of that, Samsung has dropped the ball for drivers. For anyone with one of their Smart TVs, this is no surprise -- their software writing abilities are the worst.

Yes, whenever a company asks customers not to upgrade to a particular OS version it has nothing to do with the OS and everything to do with the hardware company being far behind the curve in creating drivers for its products that support the new OS version, whatever it may be. It is decidedly not up to Microsoft to create drivers for the hardware other companies manufacture and sell. It took almost a year from the Windows 10 trial Microsoft shipped IIRC for Samsung to create a Win10-compatible version of Magician for my EVO 850 that supported Samsung's SSD Rapid Mode. Rapid Mode works now in all versions of Win10 I've used, but I don't think anyone really needs it--all it does is use a large pool of system ram to cache the drive--denying it to applications or games that may ask for it. It allows the running of really, really fast benchmarks, but in actual practice the drives run no faster than they do with with Rapid Mode disabled (disabled is the default setting anyway.) Unless you have 16GB's or more of ram installed I wouldn't even try it temporarily. Some companies are simply better than others at creating OS drivers for the hardware they sell--Samsung has enormous room for improvement.

RWOne said:

True enough, most of the time you can skip the OEM drivers depending on what they are for, and go with the HW manufacturer's.

A bit of semantics...the Original Equipment Manufacturer is the Hardware manufacturer... The drivers that Microsoft ships with the OS are rudimentary drivers meant only to get you booted and up and running so that you can connect to the Internet and download and install the OEM drivers... Also, if the manufacturer of the hardware doesn't send Microsoft a basic driver then that hardware will not be supported at installation by Windows and will have to come from the OEM via the Internet before the device will be useful in the new OS.

waltc said:

A bit of semantics...the Original Equipment Manufacturer is the Hardware manufacturer... The drivers that Microsoft ships with the OS are rudimentary drivers meant only to get you booted and up and running so that you can connect to the Internet and download and install the OEM drivers... Also, if the manufacturer of the hardware doesn't send Microsoft a basic driver then that hardware will not be supported at installation by Windows and will have to come from the OEM via the Internet before the device will be useful in the new OS.

But in all fairness, let us face it, Windows 10 has been like a moving target for the past year. I can't keep count the number of different versions and changes they have put into place. How on gods earth, can any manufacture be expected to try and keep up with that. As I stated time and again, I usually never switch OS until it has been on the market for at least 2 years. That is what I did with 98, XP and my move to Windows 7. With Windows 10, I could be waiting for 5 years to switch (I doubt I ever will), until they decide to stop tinkering.

Making statements like these (by Samsung) is like shooting themselves in their feet. And what a lazy attitude for a big company like that.