Should I switch to Windows 10?

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BlinkofanEye
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Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Have been running Windows 7 on my HP laptop for as long as I've had it. Before that Win XP. Somehow, I lucked it to have lived in the woods or been too poor to experience all the gimmicky shit Microsoft has put out in the past 20 years (Vista, 8, 10.)

But recently I bought a new tenkeyless keyboard (I currently use a logitech wireless keyboard that has a number pad, and it pushes my right hand way to the side for mousing)...but...apparently Logitech's newest wireless keyboard require Bluetooth Low Energy, which is not compatible with Windows 7 unless you go into the "stack" (whatever that is) and edit code manually. And even then it's somewhat iffy.

So anyways, Windows 10 is the minimum required for this keyboard and level of bluetoothing, and I've been totally avoiding upgrading because I really know and like Windows 7, and from what I've heard, especially from you guys, is that it just complicates playing. I enjoy being able to alt+tab whenever I want in-game without any hiccups. And I've found the exact combination of workarounds to get DC to run how I want it, at the resolution I want it, on my Win 7 machine.

I'm also wondering how much of a performance hit (for gaming or otherwise) I'll take upgrading from 7 to 10. I have an old 2nd gen i5 2.5Ghz in my laptop, and 8 gigs of ram. It's like an 11 year old machine, but does everything I need pretty much. At the same time, my hipster cousin in Florida who builds PCs offered to build me one with his spare parts, and I'm guessing I'd get a sweet desktop that could run all the newest stuff.

Or I could buy or pirate Windows 10. I've never purchased a copy of Windows in my life, but I'm a bit suspicious of how shady it seems the Windows installs are. I'd have to do a bunch of research so I don't fuck up my computer with spyware.

Or I could just suck it up and keep using my wide-ass keyboard...
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Trench
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by Trench »

I would go Windows 10 without even thinking twice, but that's certainly not the consensus you would get from a wider poll. People are old and farty about their Windows preference just like they are about anything else, and will give you a whole list of reasons why they don't think you should do it. A couple of them might even be true. But most of the resistance is just resistance, and you're no less screwed with Windows 10 than you already are with Windows 7.

My suggestion is to involve a new hard drive in your experiment, and make it so that you can see what living on Windows 10 would be like with your existing hardware, but still be able to get back to your existing Windows 7 machine "in the blink of an eye" should that really end up being your choice.

Meaning rather than making a backup of your existing Windows 7 machine (although that's still a good idea regardless), just pull out the existing hard drive and carefully set it aside. If and when you decide you would really rather be back on Windows 7 again, put that hard drive back into your machine and continue where you left off.

Meaning you would install a brand new and empty hard drive to install Windows 10 on. And it should definitely be an SSD if you weren't already using an SSD. I don't know how much space or data you generally need to store all your RiceGirlsGoneWild subscriptions, but a 500GB SSD is about USD$50.

You will need to make a bootable USB drive or optical disc with the Windows 10 installation set on it, but that's easily done now in your Windows 7 machine using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I haven't had to do it in quite a while, but I expect that Microsoft still gives you a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. They "advertised" that the program had ended, but they really want to keep encouraging everyone off of Windows 7, so I suspect it keeps working "forever". Just enter your Windows 7 key into the Windows 10 installation process. No need to assume or pursue install hacks or key purchases yet.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/


One other thing to at least be aware of:

Windows 10 has five years left before it's in the same position Windows 7 is in of no longer receiving support or updates. Windows 11 really is "still just Windows 10 with a different user interface", but the installation-time hardware requirements are how Microsoft is trying to start pushing people towards buying updated hardware and the accompanying Windows licenses.

But just like Windows 7 to Windows 10, upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is also free right now, and you enter the same license key for either one.

As mentioned, Windows 11 really is just Windows 10, and the hardware requirements for Windows 11 are "artificial" installation-time blocks. There are multiple ways you could get around those installation-time blocks, and install Windows 11 on any machine where Windows 10 is currently able to run. But who knows how long Microsoft will leave those back-doors open, and running Windows 11 on non-Windows 11-compliant hardware could become a hassle when Windows wants to perform one of the major every-6-months updates.

So I would probably shy away from running Windows 11 on non-Windows 11 hardware, but "you definitely can" if you wanted to. It just takes a customized, non-standard Windows 11 installation set.

"System built from spare parts" may or may not achieve what's needed for Windows 11. The UEFI Secure Boot might be easily achieved, and an "eighth generation or better CPU" might be possible that way. The TPM 2.0 requirement may or may not be something that would be satisfied by "whatever is sitting around in spare parts." Just FYI that such a system may or may not run "the latest version of Windows."
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Trench wrote: November 4th, 2021, 7:14 pm My suggestion is to involve a new hard drive in your experiment, and make it so that you can see what living on Windows 10 would be like with your existing hardware, but still be able to get back to your existing Windows 7 machine "in the blink of an eye" should that really end up being your choice.
Sold! But what would you have said if my name was buttbreath or cyberdemon or screaming eagle?

And yeah I run a 240 SSD, which is just barely big enough if I'm good about file management (and with my ~6Tb in backup drives.) I'd be glad to get a new bigger SSD as the cost has come way down. I could get one of those external casings too so I can easily move my old files to my new drive. Most of it is pirated software that is either portable or still with the originals install exes.

And I have a pirated copy of 7, so no freebies for me. I could always buy one of the licenses from a third party site, if it's cheap enough why not try it and skip on the $100 fee.

Ah, yeah, I dunno if he'd have the TPM security chips and shit but I'm fine just actually getting a valid copy of windows for once I guess so I can actually update the fricken thing instead of firewalling it. Maybe I'll pull the trigger and do both - buy myself a hard drive and some form of Win10, and also get the speed machine for xmas from cuz.

You know anything about cheapest way to get licenses Trench?
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

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100% of the licenses on my personal machines are simply the OEM sticker and/or the embedded SMBIOS key, since upgrade to Windows 10 was possible for free even if the machine hadn't been purchased with Windows 10. I did pay full retail for a key when taking my wife's laptops from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro, just to not risk any interruption or hassle on her machine.

But there was one occasion where I used SCDKey (https://www.scdkey.com/) to buy a license for someone's old machine they wanted to squeeze more life out of. In no way do I think those licenses are legit. As I recall, after they sent the key, attempting to use it actually returned "key already in use" or something like that. But they issued me another one that worked. No idea if it ever "went bad later" for the person who had that machine.

I would certainly choose that route over trying to get a "hack activation tool" that does who knows what else to your machine. At least with the key, even if it's still not legit, worst case is it just doesn't work; either immediately or some point in the future. So I don't want to say "I endorse that method", but if you're not going to buy a legit key, at least pay the ~$20 for a presumably-non-legit key rather than going straight warez.

And pay for a full license in the future once you're sitting on all that rice money.
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by HairyRussianDude »

I built a new PC when Fallout 4 came out and bought 10. Hate it but it this is the way of the future.

10 and I assume anything else in the future hates my old games. Had a hell of a time getting BF1942 running on it (now resolved by the community. can install and play within 10-20 minutes now) and some games like Red Alert 2 can't even be read by the optical drive I picked up. That is a me issue though with my old games.

My other biggest gripe is there is so many things out there with questionable compatibility that Microsoft support is basically nothing more than a guy in India telling you re-install your entire OS. No problem, except the days spent also re-installing massive games and a million programs.
I had an issue with sound once that resulted in Microsoft blaming Intel, Nvidia, Asus... every manufacturer of every part in my computer. They told me to get everything replaced essentially over what turned out to be 10 not liking having my default Asus driver and Nvidia graphics card sound driver installed at the same time.

I miss XP SO. MUCH.

I think Win 11 is rolling out sometime soon isn't it?
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

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HairyRussianDude wrote: November 7th, 2021, 2:55 pm I think Win 11 is rolling out sometime soon isn't it?
Happened on October 5th. You can download Windows 11 just like you can download Windows 10 with the link I mentioned to Blink.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

Does not require a unique license key; whatever key you use to activate your Windows 10 installation can be used to activate your Windows 11 installation.

As mentioned to Blink, the main hurdle is that Windows 11 installation will fail if you haven't met the hardware requirements that Microsoft more or less arbitrarily set for Windows 11 versus Windows 10. Even though both operating systems are essentially still Windows 10 currently.
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Alright, well i resisted the urge to upgrade to a super new processor and GPU so I can play the latest garbage game of the day with teenagers that cuss me out. lol...

I've been running one of those sexy thicc HP elitebooks for years, replacing various parts as they fail, and really like them. I've got like 5 100 Wh batteries for mine, plus a docking station that works great for my desk setup. Mines the 14" i5-2nd gen model with 8 gigs of ram, and I found a 17" i7-3rd gen with 16 gigs of ram on ebay for slightly more than it would've cost for me to update mine to Win10. Their 17" elitebooks are like 9 pounds lol but it mostly will stay on the docking station on my desk, on a stand, acting as a 2nd monitor. Will get that in a few days and see how it goes. Will upgrade ram to 32 if necessary. What's the latest and greatest for Win10 DC installs? On my Win7 machine I had to run it windowed in compatibility mode with a program called Borderless Gaming to get it to work at full resolution on my external monitor.

And all this for a facking keyboard that'll probably have me butchering words even more for a while....
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

here's the one I got:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/194468292200

Buying the 500gb SSD separately. What's super convenient about these beefcakes is they have 2 hdd caddies installed, so I can just image over the existing Win10 onto my new SSD, then throw in my existing 256ssd for extra storage and to migrate whatever pirated programs I want to have on my new machine (office, photoshop, etc.) Plus my wife's donkey porn collection.
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

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BlinkofanEye wrote: November 15th, 2021, 10:36 am What's the latest and greatest for Win10 DC installs?
I've never used anything different than http://ea117.com/dcinstall, but that's because I have my CDs / ISOs of my CDs. If you need a downloadable installation set, see the link Hairy gave further down in the comments to those installation instructions.
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Okay...so I'm well into my buyer's remorse. Should I have just stayed with my wide-ass keyboard?

Windows 10 has definitely made my gaming experience more choppy. I am, yes, deactivating, manually, through the command prompt, Windows 10's update processes.

Also...today I got my new LG 1440p monitor (which, on my Windows 10 computer, crashes DC when I switch to 1440p, but runs 1440p fine on Windows 7, fack me...) The monitor has caused significant tearing/Vsync problems in DC, to the point that it makes the game rather unenjoyable. Tonight I played with this same new monitor on Win7...worked great...

I'm on the verge of eBaying my new/used laptop, but will do more experiments first...
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

The answer is no. No, Blink, you should not switch to Windows 10.

Pretty sure I'm gonna return/re-sell my laptop and the keyboard. I love me my Win7 and my old keyboard that i CAN TYPE SO FACKING SAAST ONNN!!!
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

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Well that's too bad... would have been nice to have you join us up here in the 21st century. 😜 Hopefully Windows 7 is able to continue for as long as you need it.

(Obviously no issue here running on Windows 10, but certainly could be something more unique to the laptop or video chipset to contribute to your seeing a different result.)
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Yeah the laptop has a different GPU that is clearly affecting the visuals somehow. Tons of weird artifacts like glowing edges around humvees, humvee tires sunk into ground, etc. There was a lot of tearing at first and I messed around with monitor + GPU settings to get rid of that. But even still, it's not quite right.

That, combined with Win10 quirks:
-Alt tab from game works but is unpredictable and not at all smooth
-At start of every map I get a black screen and have to alt tab out and then back into game to make it work
-Manually shutting down Win10 updates every time, and still the ping/latency is much more predictable on my Win7 machine.

But the biggest let down is, unsurprisingly, typing and gaming is way smoother on the Logitech keyboard I wrote and edited a 500 page book on, than the new one that changed the key design and crunched things together a bit more to make it ergonomically narrow. Oh well, stick with what you know I guess.

Also, strangely, I'm a bit annoyed at my new 1440p 24" monitor because it seems just a little bit too wide compared to the 21.5" I was used to. But the sharpness and brightness is much improved.
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

Trench wrote: November 26th, 2021, 8:27 am Obviously no issue here running on Windows 10
Your punctured head
hanging from your lifeless body
on the roof of one of the hummers
parked in the USA's base in nas
would disagree

[Win7]BlinkofanEye
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

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BlinkofanEye wrote: November 26th, 2021, 1:12 pm Your punctured head
hanging from your lifeless body...
Well yeah... but with zero screen tearing and no lag! I see every single cycle of your tea-bagging my corpse...
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Re: Should I switch to Windows 10?

Post by BlinkofanEye »

you're living a blessed life
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