Why should I upgrade from win 7 to win10?

[Puffnstuff]

To each his own but to me 10 + classic shell is the shiznit. I've been running windows since the days of dos and 3.1 and this is the best one yet. I'm glad that I was able to overcome my early issues and smoothly transition to 10 with everything working right.

 

[Elizine]

Yes, I agree that you get lots of bugs which is one of the biggest disadvantage of Windows 10. Here's an article on the technical preview of Windows 10 that revealed the controversies that "Microsoft can collect personal information, information about user’s devices, applications and networks, as well as information about the use”.

URL - http://bodhost.com/blog/windows-10-technical-preview-iso/

 

[Carfax83]

Security and performance improvements alone make the jump worth it..

 

[Mem]

Security and performance improvements alone make the jump worth it..

Yep!.. DX12 is always good news for gamers, also Win7 is on a limited life span and on it's way to EOL and won't last forever. Free as you know if you upgrade within a year and that on its own makes it great value for money.

New features over 7, some old from 8 like refresh and reset options.

As to Win10 bugs?..Well personally not really encountered any, but any new OS will have bugs ie XP, Vista, Win7 all had bugs on their initial release, end of the day they will get fixed and software/game developers will be concentrating on Win10.

Personally some of the issues are overblown as usual.

 

[guskline]

berryracer, you say "bugs, bugs, bugs", but could you be more specific?

What was running fine on your previous OS that fails in 10?

BTW, I have upgraded to WIN 10 on both rigs below plus my Wife's Win 7 AMD 965 with a GTX660TI plus my son-in-law's Win 8.1 AMD 8320 (OC'd to 4) with GTX780 and ALL are running fine.

 

[ronbo613]

Windows 10 failed to install a couple times on my desktop. Not going to dismantle a working computer to get it to work so I've decided to wait until some of the bugs are worked out. I've got no issues with Win 7 Pro so it's an easy decision.

 

[WelshBloke]

What do I get that win 7 doesn't have?

I asked myself that.

Unfortunately I asked myself after upgrading and using Win10 for a bit.

I've reverted my laptop and I'm going to do my desktop later.

 

[owensdj]

Window 10 is faster than 7, especially boot and shut down. Edge is faster than any other browser.

10's Start menu actually works better than it did on 7. It's more organized due to being in alphabetical order, and you can drag and drop shortcuts onto the desktop. Searching for installed applications and settings works well in 10 too.

10 gives you access to the new Universal Windows Platform apps, which are the future of Windows applications. UWP apps run on Windows 10 desktops/laptops, tablets, and even phones, so you can have the same experience on all devices.

10's File Explorer and Task Manager are much improved over what's included on 7.

10 gives you Virtual Desktops.

 

[WelshBloke]

Window 10 is faster than 7, especially boot and shut down.

On the same hardware I'm not seeing a great difference in a usable desktop between 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

Edge is faster than any other browser.

Any browser with ad block is faster than Edge in the real world. Until Microsoft get with the program with browser add ons they are never going to catch up.

10's Start menu actually works better than it did on 7. It's more organized due to being in alphabetical order, and you can drag and drop shortcuts onto the desktop.

User preference. I prefered the start menu in Win7 and installed a start menu replacement in Win8, 8.1, and 10. So did a lot of other people.

Searching for installed applications and settings works well in 10 too.

It works fine in 7 as well.

10 gives you access to the new Universal Windows Platform apps, which are the future of Windows applications.

I bloody hope not! In what way are they superior to traditional desktop apps on the desktop?

UWP apps run on Windows 10 desktops/laptops, tablets, and even phones, so you can have the same experience on all devices.

Which is nice for the dozen or so people with windows phones, its a PITA for the rest of us that dont want a phone experience on our desktops.

10's File Explorer and Task Manager are much improved over what's included on 7.

But pretty much the same as the one in win8.

10 gives you Virtual Desktops.

Yep. It does do that. Although I'd have thought that Windows users have kind of gotten used to not having them by now. They seem pretty clunky to me.

 

[owensdj]

On the same hardware I'm not seeing a great difference in a usable desktop between 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

Well, it's not a huge difference, which would be nearly impossible. It *is* faster in general and much faster in boot & shut down than 7. No point in mentioning 8.x because the OP didn't ask about 8.x.

Any browser with ad block is faster than Edge in the real world. Until Microsoft get with the program with browser add ons they are never going to catch up.

Even without ad block it's still very fast. You can do ad blocking in Edge now by setting up a custom hosts file that points ad domains to local host.

User preference. I prefered the start menu in Win7 and installed a start menu replacement in Win8, 8.1, and 10. So did a lot of other people.

True, but I gave the OP some specific reasons why I thought the Win10 start menu was better than 7.

I bloody hope not! In what way are they superior to traditional desktop apps on the desktop?

You can still run traditional desktop app in Windows 10. The new UWP apps are superior to the legacy apps if nothing else because UWP apps support DPI scaling. You don't end up with tiny, tiny features on high DPI displays like you will with legacy applications.

Which is nice for the dozen or so people with windows phones, its a PITA for the rest of us that dont want a phone experience on our desktops.

You're not getting a phone experience on your desktop. UWP apps are designed to scale to higher resolution displays on desktops as well as take advantage of a keyboard & mouse. They also scale down to lower resolution systems and touch screens.

But pretty much the same as the one in win8.

Like I said, the OP has 7. He doesn't care about what Win8 had.

Yep. It does do that. Although I'd have thought that Windows users have kind of gotten used to not having them by now. They seem pretty clunky to me.

I think it depends on how you want to work. Virtual Desktops are get for getting different desktops set up for different tasks.

 

[readymix]

Security and performance improvements alone make the jump worth it..

Not seeing the performance gains with a hex xeon, maybe a tad slower I'd say. it's early though, a couple hours at most. it probably needs to optimize with the mother ship first.

i'll be shocked if there aren't 100 security updates by this time next year. you think no?

One thing i thought was odd while checking task manager during an update, i hadn't run w10 since last weekend and it was taking longer than i expected. In task manager cpu utilization was going at a 10-12% rate installing updates, cpu speed was bouncing between 1.2 and 2.6 ghz. on a 3.5 ghz chip???

Had a few other glitches, nothing major, such as "not responding" momentarily. However, another time and circumstance I'd be swearing win10 as a pos.

 

[WelshBloke]

Well, it's not a huge difference, which would be nearly impossible. It *is* faster in general and much faster in boot & shut down than 7. No point in mentioning 8.x because the OP didn't ask about 8.x.

Like I said I'm not noticing a meaningful difference in day to day performance nor in time to a usable desktop.

Even without ad block it's still very fast. You can do ad blocking in Edge now by setting up a custom hosts file that points ad domains to local host.

It loses (badly) to Chrome in kraken and browsermark on my desktop.
Ad blocking via hosts is neither a new thing nor is it really a replacement for an ad blocking ad on.

True, but I gave the OP some specific reasons why I thought the Win10 start menu was better than 7.

I could give you several where I think its worse (Also the start menu in 7 is alphabetical plus I dont remember it being difficult to use the {send to desktop} thing to make shortcuts)

You can still run traditional desktop app in Windows 10. The new UWP apps are superior to the legacy apps if nothing else because UWP apps support DPI scaling. You don't end up with tiny, tiny features on high DPI displays like you will with legacy applications.

When I change the DPI setting apps like photos (I presume thats a UWP app?) behave exactly like "legacy" apps.

You're not getting a phone experience on your desktop. UWP apps are designed to scale to higher resolution displays on desktops as well as take advantage of a keyboard & mouse. They also scale down to lower resolution systems and touch screens.

My "legacy" apps scale fine and also work with a ketboard and mouse, so what was the advantage of the UWP apps on the desktop again?
I really dont care how they run on windows handheld devices as I dont have one and am not planning on getting one. Even if I was I dont thing a good video editing suite (for example) would be able to offer the same experience on a handheld as a desktop with multiple monitors, huge amounts of storage and performance in buckets.

Like I said, the OP has 7. He doesn't care about what Win8 had.

Win8.1 is as valid an upgrade choice as Win10 (its not free but there is that adage about things being worth what they cost )

I think it depends on how you want to work. Virtual Desktops are get for getting different desktops set up for different tasks.

Possibly, I never could get into them. I'm just saying that Windows users havent really been crying out for that feature and if they were they would have installed a third party solution by now

 

[pmv]

Having only updated from Xp to Seven rather late, I'm still at the phase of getting annoyed with Seven! I have a lot of teeth-grinding to get through before I'm ready to start the process again!

(e.g. - only belatedly realised why I'm wasting so much time climbing up and drilling down through directory structures - its because unlike XP, Seven doesn't consistently remember the directory you last saved something to. Also, why doesn't explorer search remember more than 3 previous searches at a time?)

In general it is quite annoying how MS seems to design things based on some kind of over-arching ideology rather than on what makes something easier to use - so they will remove or break things that work well for no rational reason other than to fit with their 'philosophy'.

Its not just MS, mind, iTunes also drives me up the wall thanks to Apple's mania for introducing 'new features' in preference to actually fixing bugs that have been annoying users for years. The whole industry seems to have a reluctance to actually listen to users as opposed to the voices in their own heads.

 

[kmmatney]

To each his own but to me 10 + classic shell is the shiznit. I've been running windows since the days of dos and 3.1 and this is the best one yet. I'm glad that I was able to overcome my early issues and smoothly transition to 10 with everything working right.

I agree with this in general - Windows 10 can be quite nice on a desktop, once everything is set:

1. Classic shell to get a more useful start menu (I like the old-school double-column)
2. Turn off all the privacy + telemetry crap
3. Get a decent background (or several for a slideshow), and set the taskbar to blend in with your background color)
4. Ignore all Modern Apps and the App store in general - classic shell makes it easy to do that


The main annoyance is just trying to find all the settings - some things are in Control panel,while other are in the new PC Settings. This is more of a learning curve thing, but it's still an aspect where touchscreen and desktop use still haven't meshed.

My experience with Windows 10 on my Winbook tablet hasn't quite been as good. I really don't like the having to constantly switch between tablet and desktop modes. You need to be in tablet mode for the on-screen keyboard to automatically pop up - however you can't get the desktop when in tablet mode. I still use the desktop for many things, since the Apps are still very buggy.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I haven't tried using tablet mode only because I generally keep the keyboard attached to my tablet and use that rather than the on screen version. I certainly can understand your frustration with swapping modes, perhaps someone will create an app that will allow that sans the hassle. I still use classic shell in desktop mode on it and only go table when I am reading a book and want to switch back and forth between portrait and landscape modes.

 

[JimmiG]

What do I get that win 7 doesn't have?

1. It looks different (some would say prettier, others uglier)
2. DX12

3. No more reasons.

 

[sweenish]

No more reasons?

From 7, 10 plays better with SSD's, is safer, and overall MUCH faster.

Yes, those reasons apply to 8 and 8.1 as well. That's not the discussion.

 

[WelshBloke]

1. It looks different (some would say prettier, others uglier)
2. DX12
2.5 free data mining and erosion of trust.
3. No more reasons.

FTFY.