Windows 10 Upgrade Review, Tips, Tricks, and Traps

[SilvrT]

I'm starting this thread to document the process of upgrading our work PC's for those of you considering this "challenge" or have already done it and are having "issues".

Performing such a major upgrade is no "simple task" and you should prepare yourself with as much knowledge/information as possible. Google the subject and read up on the pros and cons, be prepared so that you won't be disappointed when some things go awry or don't work as you expected. There are some new "features" in Win 10 you might not like but for the most part, they can either be disabled or uninstalled.

 

Minimum specs

• 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.
  
• A Microsoft account and Internet access.
  

 

 

Read this information on Microsoft's site for more info...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/windows-10-specifications

 

I STRONGLY recommend you CLEAN UP your computer before attempting this upgrade. Get rid of crap you no longer use or need. Defrag your hard drive. Run ccleaner to clean out temp files and optimize your registry.

I also recommend, if you can, create an IMAGE of your computer and save it to an external drive.

If you can get it, download the file MediaCreationToolx64.zip, extract the .exe and run that, then follow the instructions I've added in the attached document.

Look down middle of this page for the download link.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

 

 

 

UpgradeWin10.doc

 

.... more to follow....

Edited May 27, 2016 by SilvrT

[SilvrT]

Once the install process starts, it takes quite a long time (appx an hour and a half) downloading updates and completing the install. You computer will restart itself a couple times or so and eventually you will be presented with ascreen that says "Hi there, Welcome back!" and a NEXT button at the bottom right of the screen. Click it.

 

You will then see the "Get going fast" screen. STOP!!!

 

At the very bottom you will see "Customize settings" ... CLICK THAT

 

Turn OFF each item in the screen that appears and click NEXT

 

Turn OFF each item in the next screen EXCEPT Browser and Protection and click NEXT.

 

On the "New Apps for the New Windows" screen, click on "Let me choose my default apps".

 

You can then take the check out of ALL the boxes and click NEXT

 

Windows will now finalize your settings. The screen will go blank for a while and then it will display "This won't take long" as it finishes setting things up.

 

.... more to follow ...

[SilvrT]

Once Windows 10 is up and running, the first thing to do is find Internet Explorer. The new "Microsoft Edge" may not be to your liking (it wasn't mine) so I prefer to use either Internet Explorer or some other browser.

 

Click into the Search the Web and Windows box and type Internet Explorer ... it will appear at the top of the popup.

 

Right-click it and choose Pin to Taskbar so that it's easily accessible.

 

To ensure it becomes the default browser, hold down the Windows key and press R (Win+R) to get the Run screen.

Type in the Run box google.com and press Enter.

You will get a popup that is asking which browser to open it with and there will be a check box at the bottom "Always use this app".

Check the box and click on Internet Explorer.

[SilvrT]

Next thing to do is tweak the Windows Updates

 

Click into the Search the Web and Windows box and type Windows Update

 

Click on Windows Update Settings in the list that pops up

 

In the screen that appears, look for 'Advanced Options' ... it's kinda greyed out and it's on the right near the bottom. Click on that.

 

Change the 'Choose how updates are installed' to 'Notify to schedule restart'

 

Check the box for 'Defer Upgrades'

 

Click on 'Choose how updates are delivered'

 

Click the "Toggle" to turn off this feature and click on the 'Back' arrow top left of the screen.

 

While still on the 'Advanced Options' screen, at the bottom click on 'Privacy Settings'

 

There are several areas in here where you will want to ensure things are turned off.

 

As you move back, you will get to the System settings. There are many things here that you will want to consider turning off as well.

 

Once you gone through all of this "turning things off" process, you are now ready to start testing your various apps and peripherals to ensure they all work.

 

One particular item that I had difficulty with was my copier/scanner (a cheap Canon item). Been a long time since I installed Win10 on my home PC so can't recall where I got drivers from but a great little program to use (and I think it had the drivers) is VueScan. Google it.

 

... more to come ...

Edited May 27, 2016 by SilvrT

[SilvrT]

Now the big challenge ... connecting the computer to a domain and logging in as a Domain Admin...

 

Connecting to the Domain was seamless and the process is no different than in previous versions of Windows.

 

However, upon attempting to log in, I was presented with an error message...

 

The User Profile Service failed the sign-in.

User profile cannot be loaded.

WHAAAAT???

 

So I googled that and what I discovered is that during the upgrade, the "Default" profile somehow becomes corrupted. Even trying to create a local user and logging in to the local computer under that new local user's account returned the same error.

 

The fix for this is to rename the Default user folder to Default_OLD, create a new folder with the name "Default" and ...

 

create following empty folders such that their location became:

C:\Users\Default\AppData

C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local

C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming

C:\Users\Default\Desktop

C:\Users\Default\Documents

C:\Users\Default\Downloads

C:\Users\Default\Favorites

C:\Users\Default\Links

C:\Users\Default\Pictures

C:\Users\Default\Save Games

C:\Users\Default\Videos

Then copy the NTUSER.DAT file from either the Administrator folder or the initial user you created during setting up the computer for the first time.

 

I was then able to log in and the OS created a new user folder for me although there were still some issues as the start menu was missing some things it should have had, I couldn't find Internet Explorer, and so on so .... there are definitely some major issues associated to this upgrade which I hadn't uncovered previously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SilvrT]

so.... back to the drawing board.

 

Following my own advise, I imaged the computer before I upgraded to Win 10.

I've re-installed that image and will look at what my options will be for the next attempt.

 

The boss wants to roll out Win10 to our workstations if possible while we can still get it for free.

 

I have a feeling she's going to be disappointed.

[yamagrl]

so.... back to the drawing board.

 

Following my own advise, I imaged the computer before I upgraded to Win 10.

I've re-installed that image and will look at what my options will be for the next attempt.

 

The boss wants to roll out Win10 to our workstations if possible while we can still get it for free.

 

I have a feeling she's going to be disappointed.

 

For most people (other than advanced users) I would recommend to use the "Get going fast" option. I have upgraded several computers of three different brands and all were seamless, fast and amazingly easy.

 

So don't be intimidated by the Win10 upgrade.

Of course, W10 is going to set it's preferred apps and programs but those are simple settings to assign your preferred apps. And it also tries to gather a bunch of information and usage tracking but this is also easy to configure.

W10 free upgrade allows reverting back to your previous version for 30 days. I presume that it creates an image but I'm not sure. I does create a windows_old.

 

Also, I copied the download file to a jump drive so that I do not have to download it again. It is easy to find but right now I'm on my tablet.

 

Silver, the free upgrade download is likely already on your work computers so just save the file and you can run it later.

 

Edited May 28, 2016 by yamagrl

[SilvrT]

For most people (other than advanced users) I would recommend to use the "Get going fast" option. I have upgraded several computers of three different brands and all were seamless, fast and amazingly easy.

 

So don't be intimidated by the Win10 upgrade.

Silver, the free upgrade download is likely already on your work computers so just save the file and you can run it later.

 

 

Got it already but thanks. FWIW (in case you weren't aware), I'm 30 years in the IT biz ... thanks to Microsoft LOL and I'm still learning every day.

[yamagrl]

My hat's off to ya!

[Sailor]

I had to get a new computer. My old one didn't crash but at 12 years it was getting cranky. Got the new one and it had windows 10 already in it. It is ok but I find the g-mail overly complicated. I had a pro come in and transfer my info.

Problem....my contacts disappeared. A few that I use regularly are still there but the rest no longer exist. I cannot get into my contacts list. I get Google contacts preview instead. Just a blank screen with a ball on it. I let it run for 20 minutes one time but still got nothing. On the internet I follow the directions as posted but at the last step the tab they tell me to click on does not exist. Very frustrating.

[SilvrT]

I had to get a new computer. My old one didn't crash but at 12 years it was getting cranky. Got the new one and it had windows 10 already in it. It is ok but I find the g-mail overly complicated. I had a pro come in and transfer my info.

Problem....my contacts disappeared. A few that I use regularly are still there but the rest no longer exist. I cannot get into my contacts list. I get Google contacts preview instead. Just a blank screen with a ball on it. I let it run for 20 minutes one time but still got nothing. On the internet I follow the directions as posted but at the last step the tab they tell me to click on does not exist. Very frustrating.

 

Windows 10 wants everyone to be "on-line" with various apps. gmail is part of Google and really should not be affected unless, during Win10 setup, it tries to sync or download stuff from other programs into one of it's own.

 

I turned off all those Win10 features.

 

Even though I have gmail and outlook mail (formerly hotmail), I rarely use them. I do everything associated with MS Outlook which is a part of MS Office.

 

A good alternative if you don't want MS Office and/or just can't see spending the bucks is Thunderbird mail ... it's FREE.

 

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/features/

 

Also, as a great alternative to MS Office and also free is Apache Open Office

 

https://www.openoffice.org/

[yamagrl]

I had to get a new computer. My old one didn't crash but at 12 years it was getting cranky. Got the new one and it had windows 10 already in it. It is ok but I find the g-mail overly complicated. I had a pro come in and transfer my info.

Problem....my contacts disappeared. A few that I use regularly are still there but the rest no longer exist. I cannot get into my contacts list. I get Google contacts preview instead. Just a blank screen with a ball on it. I let it run for 20 minutes one time but still got nothing. On the internet I follow the directions as posted but at the last step the tab they tell me to click on does not exist. Very frustrating.

 

It's hard to speculate where your contacts are but it's quite possible they may not have been transferred or they may be there somewhere. If you still have your old computer go fire it up and then open the program where your contacts are located. Somewhere in there you will find an option to "Export" contacts. This is a good place to start. Export them and save the file to a jump drive or save the file to the desktop or somewhere that you can easily find it and then copy the exported contacts file to a jump drive. Then put the jump drive in the new computer, open your email program, find the "Import Contacts" option and go from there.

 

Export and import functions are in most all email programs but may be different from program to program.

 

You can probably email the exported contacts file to yourself or if you use some type of cloud storage like One Drive, Google Drive, Icloud, Dropbox, etc. you can save it there and not need to use a jump drive.

 

[Sailor]

Thanks for the help folks. I know my contacts are somewhere in the computer but windows 10 won't let me access them. If I click on contacts it goes to Google contacts preview which is a dead end. I went online to try to get rid of contacts preview and it tells me how but at the end there is a tab to click on but the tab is missing.

[SilvrT]

Thanks for the help folks. I know my contacts are somewhere in the computer but windows 10 won't let me access them. If I click on contacts it goes to Google contacts preview which is a dead end. I went online to try to get rid of contacts preview and it tells me how but at the end there is a tab to click on but the tab is missing.

 

What program were your contacts in before?

[Sailor]

I was using windows 7 which was just fine. Bear in mind I am a total Troglodyte when it comes to computers.