Free Windows 10 Now Looks A Terrible Deal

Mystere · 21 Jul 2015

Night Hawk said:

I didn't pursue 8 after finding it wouldn't support BCD type dual boots with 7 with either 8 added into 7's BCD store or vice versa since it lead to seeing both OS drives loaded with error resulting seeing both versions need some type of recovery namely a Disk Check run with each version separated where 8 did a PC Refresh adding 7 in after the 8 into 7 went bad.

Who told you that? It's patently not true. All you have to do is disable fast startup. Fast startup can't be used with dual-boot because fast-boot works by "hibernating" part of the OS kernel to the boot partition, when you boot the other OS, it sees this as incompatible and forces a check. Disabling fast boot solves the problem.

Night Hawk said:

The Secure Boot process was part of the problem since that no longer validates older versions or any other OS being set up along with the newer version's boot loader. I passed entirely on 8.1 not even looking at that one's preview but was interested in seeing how 10 was going to look after allowing MS to work out the new desktop/mobile cross platform issues.

Has nothing to do with Secure boot. Nothing whatsoever. And you can completely use secure boot with other os's, even Linux supports secure boot.

Perhaps if you actually ASKED people about things, rather than jumping to conclusions about them, you wouldn't assume incorrect things.

Night Hawk said:

This is one of the main reasons why 10 now would make more sense and offer the corrections and progress that was lacking in both 8 and 8.1 not simply bringing back the Start menu that should have been kept to begin with. Even when looking at 8 I had to remind people that it won't always be on the surface where things count but under the hood as well.

Win 10 is no different from Windows 8 or 8.x in this regard. You still have to turn off fast boot if you want to dual boot.

Night Hawk · 21 Jul 2015

I won't be dual booting by way of boot entries but a bios controlled selection of drive at post time. Originally I didn't go into things as deep as I normally would have and haven't had the op until now to see a regular install of 10 to an HD. I simply had put the Preview on a VM to take notes on the changes to both the GUI dumping the Metro screen and return of Start menu but couldn'tt connect to the web on the then latest version of VM Player. I attempted to see 10 on some other player someone pointed to that didn't even get that far.

As for the initial dual boot attempt with 7 and 8 CP not too many even knew what the Fast boot on/off was since this was the first beta build to come out when all of us had been jumping on it. The dual boot saw the 8 boot entry added into the 7 BCD first until disk errors came up and both versions failed to start up normally after a few days of what seemed a normal working dual boot! After running Disk Check on both drives separately the 7 install at the time was restored while the 8 CP was acting buggy and I opted for the PC Refresh which instead of the familiar Repair Install to replace bad system files nuked the original CP install in favor of a fresh copy of 8 automatically.

That would be great for OEM machines since no recovery disk would have to be included while you could no longer repair the existing Windows installation with now any version newer then 7. Be sure to have plenty of system images onhand since you have to start all over fresh each time you go to repair Windows from now on! That being the one drawback people will now complain about. The rest will be learned once 10 is out and in use here where I will be examining everything in detail in order to evaluate the latest MS offering. That will include the OS tweaks and shortcuts as well as other things over time.

groze · 21 Jul 2015

Night Hawk
You can always use an in place upgrade for the same build. The only thing I would uncheck when doing this is download updates, do that afterwords. So this should work for rtm and other builds as well.

Otherwise, When you are upgrading for the first time from windows 7 or 8.1 I would check the box to download updates, it takes a little longer to install but all drivers and most updates are installed.

Night Hawk · 21 Jul 2015

You can't expect the MS Updates process to located drivers that were never created for hardwares discontinued even before 8 went RTM! That just won't be happening! Instead I know I will be ending up seeing a red X marked on the tv tuner card and hopefully not the PCI type nic card installed on the main build here.

I expect the nic card would however be seeing updated drivers available for 8 and 8.1 that will still work on 10 all being 64bit. It took Server 2003 x64 drivers to get things going on the 64bit Vistas as well as 64bit XP Pro years back. The 7 host clone or if needed fresh copy of 7 with SP1 long enough to see the 10 upgrade will however still preserve the original 7 install since I won't be dumping 7 anytime soon regardless! I have the main 7 Ultimate case synced with a remote 7 Pro x64 build which has a carrying handle on the case for moving that around from room to room using a wireless usb adapter to connect through the router. Team Viewer type set up. I can monitor something running on the main while being away or control something connected to the portable case including security cameras if needed. There's a bit of time invested there and would like to be able to run some of this on 10 as well. :)

Dude · 21 Jul 2015

Night Hawk said:

You can't expect the MS Updates process to located drivers that were never created for hardwares discontinued even before 8 went RTM! That just won't be happening! Instead I know I will be ending up seeing a red X marked on the tv tuner card and hopefully not the PCI type nic card installed on the main build here.

:)

Take an image of your system now. Then do an in-place upgrade. Then you will know

groze · 21 Jul 2015

Night Hawk said:

You can't expect the MS Updates process to located drivers that were never created for hardwares discontinued even before 8 went RTM! That just won't be happening! Instead I know I will be ending up seeing a red X marked on the tv tuner card and hopefully not the PCI type nic card installed on the main build here.

That exactly what I expect because they are letting people upgrade from windows 7 sp1. I got a good example an hp printer didn't work on windows 7 it was made for xp. However, when the first build of 10 came out, the printer worked. Later on windows 7 got the update for the printer and it now works.

Night Hawk · 21 Jul 2015

Dude said:

Take an image of your system now. Then do an in-place upgrade. Then you will know

Did more then take an image lately! First I had to run Disk Check on the main to get the 2010 edition of Acronis TI to complete the task of a fresh image backup as well as.... Clone 7 onto the second OS drive to see if the upgrade will work if no custom install option is available with the reserved freebie. That would avoid the need for going through the updates inplace upgrade process entirely to simply see a nice clean install go on. The installation media tools are only seen otherwise after a complete upgrade has replaced the previous where you can then reinstall 10 if problems come up once the dvd or usb install key creator only then available.

groze said:

That exactly what I expect because they are letting people upgrade from windows 7 sp1. I got a good example an hp printer didn't work on windows 7 it was made for xp. However, when the first build of 10 came out, the printer worked. Later on windows 7 got the update for the printer and it now works.

The present printer here is a problem since I grabbed it when one retail chain went belly up and the copier was used and trashed of course! A newer model printer has been awaiting once the present cartridges are used up since the new one takes another number! I'll then simply recycle the old printer's cartridges by way of a local business that can refill many but not those! The two of them by the way are both HP models first being the C4600 Photosmart with 11x8 1/2 copier that never worked anyways and then the replacement I still didn't get to yet is the ENVY 4500 that should work out nicely!

STEVAE · 22 Jul 2015

Mystere said:

Who told you that? It's patently not true. All you have to do is disable fast startup. Fast startup can't be used with dual-boot because fast-boot works by "hibernating" part of the OS kernel to the boot partition, when you boot the other OS, it sees this as incompatible and forces a check. Disabling fast boot solves the problem.
Win 10 is no different from Windows 8 or 8.x in this regard. You still have to turn off fast boot if you want to dual boot.

while i agree with many of your counter points to night hawk, you are dead wrong about fast start and dual booting. i have been dual booting for a while with fast boot and secure boot enabled.

Night Hawk · 22 Jul 2015

STEVAE said:

while i agree with many of your counter points to night hawk, you are dead wrong about fast start and dual booting. i have been dual booting for a while with fast boot and secure boot enabled.

I think you people have been preassuming things a bit quickly despite the explanation earlier regarding the 7/8CP dual boot issues that had been seen. When using the EasyBCD editing tool after the CP was already clean installed separately to the second OS drive at the time to add a new into the 7 BCD all seemed well until suddenly both version simply refused to start normally. Drive errors were then reported when scheduling the Disk Check tool with 7 and suddenly 7 was back running and I removed the 8 boot entry.

Afterwards I tried the PC Refresh option when then put a fresh copy of 8 on adding 7 into the 8 boot loader and once again all seemed well until drive errors came up all over again! Finally not impressed with Metro and losing interest in 8 fast I simply dumped the CP and didn't look back at the time. That was for the first available CP.

W10 however won't be added into the 7 BCD or vice versa seeing 7 added into the 10 boot loader but each will be kept stand alone installs on separate drives. That allows for any OS repairs to be handle with each version totally isolated from the other as well as setting up other configurations. Next week on the 29th the 7 host drive will have already been unplugged since I am presently booted in the second OS drive with the 7 clone testing the integrity of things. Following the upgrade and once 10 installation media is created the drive will then be wiped clean to see a brand new clean install not another upgrade over copy of 10 go on. That will insure the best hardware detections as well as performance overall.

groze · 22 Jul 2015

STEVAE said:

while i agree with many of your counter points to night hawk, you are dead wrong about fast start and dual booting. i have been dual booting for a while with fast boot and secure boot enabled.

I also had a previous boot issue with windows 7 and windows 10. They didn't get along.

Sorry Night Hawk forgot about you using easybcd. I use grub2 from Xubuntu