Clock tells me to update in 6 days (Windows 10) or else

fj12ryder wrote:
"postage stamp size hard drive (Both literally and figurativelly)"

Literally? About the only thing that qualifies is a microSDcard.

Or it could have been a gigantic postage stamp

These threads are endless and reflect the world.

Can bad things happen? Yes. Are bad things likely to happen? No.

:)

Tom_M wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
"postage stamp size hard drive (Both literally and figurativelly)"

Literally? About the only thing that qualifies is a microSDcard.

Or it could have been a gigantic postage stamp

LOL Good point, never considered that. :)

boston blacky wrote:
this 5 yr. old p.c. might not be able to handle the strain and there'll be nothing more then a 'puff of smoke' - if I go for the free upgrade.

Win 10 will run on what Win 7-8 does. Minimum requirements:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Free hard disk space: 16 GB.
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.

Compare this to your processor and memory. Righ-Click on Computer icon -> Properties.

MS probably have auto-detect-diagnose link to answer this question.

boston blacky wrote:

I'm tempted to risk the late entry fee - as given the age of my current laptop - it might need to be replaced; i.e. in the next few months, or so.

All recommendations and suggestions are welcome.

Never ask whether you should upgrade Win A to Win B. Nobody knows. If your laptop is falling apart already, then you should buy a new or "new used" one.
All new laptops come with Win 10 pre-installed.
Used laptop prices depend more on hardware than on OS version, as I've noticed. Right now half of used hardware still comes with Win 7 (and there is NOTHING wrong with 7), and half - with Win 10.

fj12ryder wrote:
^^^^^^^^That's just silly. I have never had an Windows Update mess up anything on my computer, which is Windows 7. OTOH there are security updates that should be applied, but driver updates that shouldn't. I do all security and software updates but no driver updates. Never had an issue.

:R

Huh..

You HAVE been leading a "charmed" life.

I HAVE delt with multiple borked Win7 updates..

One in particular on a specially built PC for a high end video projection system.. Multiple times that PC has encountered corrupted Win7 updates throwing it into a endless loop of it installing updates, failing the restoring the previous updates.. Boot time of 10 minutes while it messed around and failed.

Finally after multiple attempts of running MS update "fix it" tools I was able to clear out the failed updates.. Took well over two months and a lot of lost hair I was able to BANISH the borked updates..

Updates were set to Win7 OS only, no drivers or other MS software.

The result was eventually disabling the Updates altogether, end of problem.

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of Win7 and Win8.1 complaints of updates taking two, three hrs or even overnight to "search" for updates.. Seems that MS made a change to the Update program and if you didn't update it to the current version it would mess up the updater into some endless loop..

Keep drinking the update koolaid long enough and eventually you will get bit.

Almot wrote:

boston blacky wrote:
this 5 yr. old p.c. might not be able to handle the strain and there'll be nothing more then a 'puff of smoke' - if I go for the free upgrade.

Win 10 will run on what Win 7-8 does. Minimum requirements:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster.
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Free hard disk space: 16 GB.
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver.

Compare this to your processor and memory. Righ-Click on Computer icon -> Properties.

MS probably have auto-detect-diagnose link to answer this question.

boston blacky wrote:

I'm tempted to risk the late entry fee - as given the age of my current laptop - it might need to be replaced; i.e. in the next few months, or so.

All recommendations and suggestions are welcome.

Never ask whether you should upgrade Win A to Win B. Nobody knows. If your laptop is falling apart already, then you should buy a new or "new used" one.
All new laptops come with Win 10 pre-installed.
Used laptop prices depend more on hardware than on OS version, as I've noticed. Right now half of used hardware still comes with Win 7 (and there is NOTHING wrong with 7), and half - with Win 10.

It is NOT TRUE that any PC running Win7 and 8.1 will be able to run Win10..

Win10 may not be able to resolve EVERY piece of hardware, not all hardware vendors have supplied MS with compatible drivers for Win10, not all hardware vendors are going to write hardware drivers for Win10 to support older hardware and even chipsets.

Not to mention third party software that may or may not work in Win10.. You DO realize the MS has taken a pretty Draconian approach to software that does not behave with Win10?

Yep, Win10 not only will disable software that it deems as unstable but will DELETE IT.. So software that you may have paid for can go poof..

"Free" Win10 HAS left a trail of "broken" PCs.. Not EVERYONE has been successful with the upgrade.. This leads to attempting to restore the older OS.. That too also is a hit or miss thing, with many irritated people.

The BEST thing to do is to make a backup image of the HD, lots of free imaging software out there, take your pick and image your current HD to a separate HD.. That way if in any way shape or form the update fails you have a easier way to get back your PC to a fully functional system without the need to buy a new or used PC.

As for as the OPs issue, yeah, do a little googling, there should be several ways to reset or turn off the countdown.. Then while you are at it, there ARE some programs that will prevent you from ever getting the 10 nag and still allow you to get Win7 updates if you are afraid of not getting them.

There is a some adjustments you can make to Windows registry that will stop the Windows 10 nag to upgrade while not affecting Windows Update. Not a big deal, consists of a couple additions to the registry. Very easy to do and saves having to install more software.

"Keep drinking the update koolaid long enough and eventually you will get bit.

Yep, could happen, it's only been 6 years with no issues so far. :) Of course this is my own computer not a factory built so maybe I pick better parts. :)

Gdetrailer wrote:

Win10 may not be able to resolve EVERY piece of hardware, not all hardware vendors have supplied MS with compatible drivers for Win10, not all hardware vendors are going to write hardware drivers for Win10 to support older hardware and even chipsets.

Possibly. Though in 5 year PC - not very likely, not unless it was a knock-off made by some fly by night company that no longer exists.

Discontinued peripherals like printer may start having hiccups or will stop working, there are no drivers since it was discontinued. This sucks, I have old HP printer and scanner that just refuse to die, had to spend time and find "close" drivers for them when changed the OS.

Some third party software will stop working, and it's annoying when you've spent time to locate and install it and now have to do it again.

In total expect to waste at least 8-12 hours of your life to deal with consequences of this "big jump", and few more weeks to get used to it, learn and tweak all the setups to what it should be. I agree with others - upgrade OS when you're replacing PC.

Windows 7 works well, Win 10 works just as well. I don't care for the tiled menus of Win 8-10 so I use Start10 ($4.99) on all my Win 10 PC's.

The biggest bang for the buck upgrade you can make to an old PC is changing out the HD for an SSD. SSD's are now cheap (120g Adata on Amazon for $37) and make bootup and all operations faster...more so than even additional memory.

I just made my grandkids a Win 10 PC from a Dell Latitude 620...probably 10 years old now. 1.67g Core 2 Duo processor and 2 gig of memory I think. Anyway, first installed Win 7 then 10 on it and it's 160g HD...was horribly slow. Threw the $37 Adata SSD into it and it runs great....better than any $300 PC you can get...I know I bought 2 and returned them as they did not perform as well as this old PC.

I say go for Win 10 and update your HD to SSD.

Also, Microsoft updates are mostly for cyber vulnerabilities and are usually released for good reason...I would not turn off my updates. I think the recent slowdown of the update server is because everyone is racing to update to Win 10 before the deadline in 5 days.

Just my 2 cents.

boston blacky wrote:
Looks like I'm now officially old school!! Windows 10 pop up says less then a week to opt in to a "free" version of Windows 10!

Ugh, I really dislike messing with this personal computer stuff. It would be one thing if I were interested in the PC tech side of things, but I am not. I don't care how the computers work, I just need them to work. And having to update this or that, or change this or that is a great frustration. Yeah I know, welcome to the modern world where 'advancing' tech waits for no one. Oh well.

I guess the dreaded date is July 28th?

I have two desktops and one laptop that run win7. All three are quite old and I would guess I'll end up replacing one of the desktops and the laptop in the next 2 years or so. By that time I suspect any new pc will be win 10 so I think I will not upgrade these machines.