Is the "Upgrade" a good thing to get?

I have an icon on my homescreen that's called "Windows Update assistant". When I clicked it in the past, it would tell me that my Windows Updates needed to be current in order to work, so I made sure to do that. Now, I clicked it and it mentioned something about a Win10 "Upgrade". Then it showed the percentage of progress. I had to log off when it got to 76%, but for some reason, when I turned the computer back on later, it showed that it was ready to install, and gave me a 30 minute countdown for when that would occur. It also indicated that the process would take about 90 minutes.

Now the question is whether or not I should go through with it. It sounds like something major. It reminds me of when I had a Win7 computer and was invited to upgrade to Win10. When I did that, I was changing to a completely new operating system. It took about the same amount of time, too. It just seems like something I should ask about before going ahead with it.

Is this upgrade safe? Has it caused problems for others who have used it? Is the upgrade something that is loaded up with useless new features that most people are just going to disable anyway? That's what I ended up doing with most of the stuff Win10 had in the first place. Those extra features just slowed down the computer.

Finally, is this upgrade optional? Or would not getting it cause me problems in the future, such as with updates?

Delly10 said:

...Now the question is whether or not I should go through with it. It sounds like something major. It reminds me of when I had a Win7 computer and was invited to upgrade to Win10. When I did that, I was changing to a completely new operating system. It took about the same amount of time, too. It just seems like something I should ask about before going ahead with it.

The Windows Update Assistant will upgrade you to the latest version of Windows 10, currently the Fall Creators Update (version 1709) which was released on 17th October. A new version of Windows 10 will be release every six months form now on.

Yes, it is installing a completely new operating system, but unlike the major culture shock of upgrading from 7 to 8 (or 10) these frequent upgrades are more of a gradual evolution of new features - this is what Microsoft mean by 'Windows as a Service'.

What version of windows 10 do you have at the moment? Is it 1703 (Creators Update)? Run Winer to find out. 1709 looks little different from 1703, there's little you'll find that's different from what you had before. More of the settings have now moved from the Control Panel to the Settings app, and there are a few new apps (but you don't have to use them).

Bree said:

The Windows Update Assistant will upgrade you to the latest version of Windows 10, currently the Fall Creators Update (version 1709) which was released on 17th October. A new version of Windows 10 will be release every six months form now on.

Yes, it is installing a completely new operating system, but unlike the major culture shock of upgrading from 7 to 8 (or 10) these frequent upgrades are more of a gradual evolution of new features - this is what Microsoft mean by 'Windows as a Service'.

What version of windows 10 do you have at the moment? Is it 1703 (Creators Update)? Run Winer to find out. 1709 looks little different from 1703, there's little you'll find that's different from what you had before. More of the settings have now moved from the Control Panel to the Settings app, and there are a few new apps (but you don't have to use them).

Does it really make that much of a difference every 6 months? It sure seems like a big thing to do in addition to the regular updates that come out each month.

I don't know what version I currently have. I'm not using that computer at the moment, so I can't find out right now. But I've had that computer for about a year now, and this is the first time I've been invited to upgrade.

Do you think it's really necessary to spend an hour and a half to do this upgrade? Everything seems to be working fine at this point. I just hate doing something as major as doing an operating system replacement if it's not necessary. It's like trying to fix something that's not broken, only to risk end up breaking it.

Delly10 said:

Does it really make that much of a difference every 6 months?

That is the way MS works now, as new versions are released the older ones reach end of support. The first two versions, the original release (1507, build 10240) and the Fall Update (version 1511) are now unsupported and get no more security updates.

If you want to remain up to date on security fixes you have to move up to the next version. Each version has a supported life of about 18 months.

Bree said:

That is the way MS works now, as new versions are released the older ones reach end of support. The first two versions, the original release (1507, build 10240) and the Fall Update (version 1511) are now unsupported and get no more security updates.

If you want to remain up to date on security fixes you have to move up to the next version. Each version has a supported life of about 18 months.

I guess that would explain why I haven't been receiving many updates when I go online. I don't go online much with my laptop (the computer of this subject). It's a laptop that I keep at home and I don't have internet of my own to use there, although sometimes I can access Wi-fi from a neighbor nearby. Otherwise, I take it to the library every 3 or 4 months and let it do the updates.

To me, it seems like they're overcomplicating things. They used to come out with entirely new OS systems like Win7 or Win8, and then simply put out updates for at least 10 years. Now we have to upgrade the entire OS every 6 months, and they become unsupported after a year and a half. Maybe for most people, these updates are mostly automatic, but they slow things down and cause the computer to have to shut down and restart, which is not always convenient. Having to wait 90 minutes for the upgrade process each time isn't either.

AddRAM said:

Look at it this way, would you rather have an OS that has 1 million updates on it that you would eventually have to clean install anyway because it starts running crappy ?
Or the same OS that basically gets an overhaul every 6 months which you can update at your leisure ?

I don't know. I just hate having to "overhaul", update, and so forth every time I turn my computer on and connect to the internet. It seems like about 10 minutes into a session, I get pop-ups telling me that I have to shut my computer down and wait while something updates. Usually, it's something like Avast that does it. When the OS downloads an update, the same thing happens. Now the OS wants to do a complete overhaul which not only requires a shutdown and restart, but then 90 minutes of not being able to use it. It's part of the reason I don't go online with it most of the time. Too many pop-ups telling me that one of my programs is outdated (even after I just updated it) and that I need to restart my computer.

AddRAM said:

Microsoft doesn't want to create a new OS

That's understandable. But it seems that every other incarnation has been bad. Windows XP good, Windows Vista bad, Win7 good, Win8 bad, Win10 good. They're due to make a bad one now. Best thing is to stop at this point. Of course, that doesn't mean each upgrade of Win10 will be good. Let's hope the curse has been broken.

Delly10 said:

...Win7 good...

The Achilles heel of Win 7 was checking for updates. It was not uncommon for Win7 to literally take hours to check for updates. The reason being that after years of security patches there were so many (and so many interdependencies) that the process of working out which of the many available patches was applicable to a particular PC was a non-trivial task.

What Win7 needed (but never got) was an SP2. Service packs were effectively an upgraded system that set a new baseline, incorporated all previous updates, adding a few new features and let 'check for updates' work from a much more recent starting point.

The 'Service Pack' concept is now obsolete, but it may help to think of these Windows 10 features updates as regular 'service packs'.

For me, FCU is the best iteration of Windows 10 to date. It's leagues ahead of CU on my system and reminds me of the fluency and solidity of Win7

Hi there.

As the OS becomes more and more stable the upgrade process will become increasingly painless.

I hope in the future Windows takes more of an approach like Linux where you can do quite significant upgrades "in situ" i.e you can keep running the system and don't have to re-boot. Only if you get a brand new kernel do you need to re-boot and that's quite rare.

As hardware improves it makes sense for the OS to make use of new features -- one serious drawback of the non business versions of Windows has been that it doesn't do hypethreading or use several multi-processors (not multi-cores BTW) efficiently or at all.

This never used to matter for home consumers - but now high end hardware is becoming cheap enough fpr people to use at home this type of upgrade will become important - especially if running things like AI simulation or VR.
For standard office type stuff - not an issue - with a modular design Windows will just install features depending on the hardware it finds.

So the answer to your question should be YES - upgrade is worth while and it actually doesn't take long either -- remember to do a backup BEFORE the upgrade and another one AFTER it.

Cheers
jimbo