Windows 10, to upgrade or not upgrade? pro's and cons.

Hi all.

I am currently running windows 7 home premium 64bit with NVidia graphics.

My question is, would it be advisable to upgrade to windows 10? I have heard contrasting experiences of people who have upgraded.

What are the pro's and cons of upgrading, would it be easy to revert back to windows 7 if I didn't like it?

Would installing windows 10 change anything on my second drive. (where MSTS, miniroutes and Trainz sits)?

Does routeriter work under windows 10?

Thanks.
Mark

Hi Mark,

My question is, would it be advisable to upgrade to windows 10? I have heard contrasting experiences of people who have upgraded.  
Only you can decide that!

What are the pro's and cons of upgrading, would it be easy to revert back to windows 7 if I didn't like it?
If you are running the upgrade from Win 7, then you can revert, but I've not done it, so don't know how easy it actually is!

Would installing windows 10 change anything on my second drive. (where MSTS, miniroutes and Trainz sits)?
No ... but don't forget that all programs and the default MSTS (and, I assume, Trainz)  will require re-installing

Does routeriter work under windows 10?
Yes! - as long as you have 32-bit Java installed.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged.

What is your personal thoughts on windows 10? do you like it or not?

Would I need to reinstall all programs on drive C: too?

Hi Mark,

I recently went up to W10 while it can still be done for free. The main upgrade went smoothly and so far outside of trainsimming all has gone well. The operating system is a bit different and takes a bit of getting used to and resetting everything as you want. Yes, you can revert to W7 but I don't know about going back up to W10.

I have 4 HDD plus 1 Cd/DVD drive. C drive is the main operating system with all trainsim stuff on the other drives. Open Rails worked straightaway but MSTS needed the AMD patch before it would work. As MSTS is on a separate drive then no re-installation is required - I certainly didn't need to. Trainstore and RouteRiter also seem ok. I haven't yet tried the Activity Editor although the Route Editor again is ok. All programs on your C drive will remain exactly where they are as does everything on the other drives.

The biggest problem was my Cd/DVD drive which went "missing". I asked the question and as ever Ged came up with answer :-

slipperman12 wrote:Hi Stephen,
It seems to be quite a common problem with Win 10!
Try here : http://www.intowindows.com/fix-dvd-drive-not-detected-in-windows-8/
Although it's headed Win 8, the actual page shows Windows 8/10

If there's no joy there, try downloading and installing the driver for your DVD drive : http://www.nodevice.com/driver/company/LiteOn/DVD-ROM.html
- only download the driver for your model of drive!

Cheers,
Ged

As Ged has said the choice of whether to upgrade is yours - I've only tried tried to give my experience.

Hope that this is of some help,

Stephen

Thanks Stephen.

I have nVidia graphics so there should be no problems there.

Did you have to reinstall anything at all? other than your CD/DVD drivers?

Thanks.
Mark.

What are the advantages of Windows 10?

And what are the disadvantages of windows 10?

I am currently doing some back-ups, may give it a go later.

Hi Gentlemen,
If you are upgrading from Win 7 or 8.1, there shouldn't be any need to re-install anything, but if you are installing Windows 10 as a completely new OS, then everything must be re-installed.

Incidentally, I spotted Windows 10 Pro 64/32 bit for £39.99 yesterday, which, I thought, was a reasonable price, even though it is an OEM download version. The bad part is the time needed to download the ISO files (from Microsoft) - you only download the version you want - and then the ISO file must be burned on to a DVD.

Mark, you asked for my personal thoughts on Win10. I think I'm like many folks in that I prefer what I know!! Currently that is Win 7, although that was a big change from XP (I didn't go though Vista)!
There are many things I do in Win 7, almost automatically, which can't be done in the same way in Win 10. There's quite a learning curve to negotiate until I'll feel proficient in it!
The good things about Win 10? It seems to boot up faster than Win 7, although I don't have the quantity of programs installed (and their associated Desktop icons!). MSTS appears to give slightly better framerates, although it's nothing earth-shattering!

Although Stephen had trouble with his DVD drive, I've had no such problems with mine - Samsung - so I think that Win 10 probably doesn't have the correct default drivers for some manufacturers' products.

For the time being, I'm going to stick with Win 7 - yes, I know I'm a coward, or a Luddite, or whatever

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged.

I have backed up my important files, I may do the upgrade later.

I don't have any burnable CD's/DVD's here, is it essential to burn them to a disk, or could they be copied onto an external drive till I get some disks?

Hi Mark,
Yes, you can save the ISO file/s wherever you like - each file is just over 3GB - until you're ready to burn them.  Instead of using a DVD, a USB Flash Drive, of suitable size, may be used.  Download Microsoft's Media Creation Tool; when run, it will give the option of ISO or USB Flash Drive.

Note that Windows 7 was the first to include the facility to burn an ISO to DVD (or CD), so if you are using Vista or XP, you'll need a 3rd party program - there are several good freeware programs available.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged.

I have some USB flash sticks here, I'll use one of those. would an 8gb stick be big enough?

Hi Mark,

would an 8gb stick be big enough?

Yes, there should be enough room for both 32- and 64-bit!

One word of warning - it'll take a long time, compared with the time it takes to download on to an internal hard drive. I think it took me more than 2 hours on to an internal HDD.
If your flash drive is USB 3.0 AND your PC is equipped with USB 3.0 sockets (usually blue), it will be quicker than USB 2.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged.

Mine is USB3.

Once again, thank you, Ged, for words of wisdom. Roderic

I have upgraded to windows 10 and everything seems OK, will have to adjust and set up a few things, but I'm back online again.

It will take a little getting used to, only the default MSTS shortcut is on the desktop, I'll have to create some new shortcuts for the miniroutes etc.

RE: the missing desktop icons above, When I signed in, I got a message that I couldn't access my files as my profile was a temporary profile and suggested I sign out then back in again.

I did that, but after signing back in again, nothing happened for ages and all HD activity stopped, so I restarted the computer and it took ages to log in and it went back to the windows 10 welcome page, once windows loaded, all my desktop icons had returned and I had access to all my files again.

Hi Everyone, I run Win 7 and Win XP in one computer and looking at all the pro's and con's
about upgrading to Win 10, I've decided as I don't use any of the extra's it is definitely not for
me.
Despite not feeling 100% on Monday I went into the computer shop who built this one and
asked about my computer and they agreed with me that as I wouldn't use any of the extra bits
in Win 10, why change over.
Last year I had asked about a new Card which would allow me run TS2016 in the Win 7
partition and they recommended the GTX 960 but I would need a new PSU with the right
connectors to power it.
Whilst in the shop on Monday the lad looked at the box of the 2Gb version and it showed that
this board will run with Win XP and so I could run TS016 in the Win 7 partition and still keep
MSTS in the XP partition.
In light of all this info. I returned yesterday and bought both the Card and PSU and will drop
them all in before I go away on my next week trip away from home sometime during March/April
so that they can be fitted without causing me any bother.

Bob

Before I upgraded, I had MSTS running in the correct aspect ratio, now MSTS is back in its stretched wide screen mode

I have been into the nVidia control panel and cannot find the option to maintain aspect ratio.

Anyone any ideas?

Hi Mark,
Sorry, I'm not currently running my NVIDIA-equipped PC, but if I remember rightly, in one of the NVIDIA Control Panel screens, there's an option to set scaling - this must be set to GPU.

Cheers,
Ged

Thanks Ged.

I'll give that a go.

Thanks Ged.

That has done the trick, there was also the aspect ratio option on that page, I set that to on.

Over all I'm quite impressed with windows 10, almost everything runs faster, and I'm getting to know where things are, it will take a bit of time to find everything but I'm getting there,

Hi Mark,
That's great!!

Glad to be of help

Cheers,
Ged