How to delay upgrading to Windows 10 after the July 29 deadline

[Larry Browning]

I ran across this article explaining how to delay doing the free windows 10 upgrade of your Win7 - 8.1 PC indefinitely. As you probably know Microsoft has set the deadline for the free upgrade to Windows 10 at July 29, 2016. After that, if you haven't upgraded it will cost you as much as $199 to do it.
The article explains it way better than I ever could. This may still not make you happy because it does involve doing the upgrade and then backing it out, but it will allow you to keep your old Windows for a bit longer if you are wanting to upgrade at some point, but not before July 29.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-lock-in-your-free-windows-10-upgrade-and-keep-using-your-old-windows-version/

I have already upgrade both my PCs, and don't want to go back, so I can't tell you how it worked for me, but I thought I would share this for those who might want to do it.
(http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-lock-in-your-free-windows-10-upgrade-and-keep-using-your-old-windows-version/)

[Dennis Peacock]

So....who's running Windows 10 and really liking it?
I wished they'd offer a way to get the DVD to install from.

[Dale Coons]

Or, if you don't ever want Windows 10 (I'll keep Win 7 thank you very much), download this little free utility (GWX Control Panel--just google it) to turn off the constant nag, delete any bits and pieces of Win10 that have already been downloaded and prevent it from happening again. It's reverseable if you change your mind.

[Brett Luna]

So....who's running Windows 10 and really liking it?
I wished they'd offer a way to get the DVD to install from.

I was satisfied with Win7 for a good long while but started having some very frustrating difficulties after an update. A couple of drivers (including graphics) went wonky and my PC started "waking up" in the middle of the night. So I gave Win10 a try. Not only did it solve the driver and BIOS issues, it also recovered quite a bit of disk space. I haven't noted any adverse issues that I can associate with the upgrade.

[Larry Browning]

So....who's running Windows 10 and really liking it?
I wished they'd offer a way to get the DVD to install from.
Dennis,
I am running it and really liking it. WAY better than 8.1 I just couldn't live without the start menu and the desktop. I think Windows 10 brings the best of win 7 and 8 combined.

You do know about the Windows Media Creation tool, right? This allows you to create a bootable DVD or USB stick and do the upgrade from that. It gives you the additional option to do a clean install, install saving only your data files or upgrade savings apps and files. Are you talking about something other than that?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[Mike Henderson]

I'm running 10 on three computers and am happy with it. Easy to use and stable.

Mike

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

I use 7 Pro at work, 8.1 Pro on my main PC at home, and 10 Pro on my laptop that I travel with.
To be honest, there's really not that much difference between them.

I was planning on keeping 8.1, but after using 10 on the new laptop, I'll be upgrading to 10 to stay current.

I downloaded 10 and burned it to a DVD. I'll do the upgrade, then wipe it clean and do a clean install.

I updated my wife's laptop from 8.1 to 10 last week, and it was quick and painless.

[Art Mann]

I have two win 10 computers, one of which came with it and another that was upgraded from Win 7. I have been happy with both.

[Keith Westfall]

Any issues with 'earlier' software being compatible? I've heard there may be.

Spent the day with a computer tech cleaning up my laptop, and decided to stay with 8.1 because of that reason. Didn't want (if there were any) the issues of reloading/finding etc software that no longer worked.

For what I do, 8.1 seems ok - never tried anything with 10.

Too old to changed i guess...

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Any issues with 'earlier' software being compatible? I've heard there may be.


I have a copy if AutoCAD 2007 installed in Windows 10, and it works fine.

[Larry Browning]

Any issues with 'earlier' software being compatible? I've heard there may be.

Spent the day with a computer tech cleaning up my laptop, and decided to stay with 8.1 because of that reason. Didn't want (if there were any) the issues of reloading/finding etc software that no longer worked.

For what I do, 8.1 seems ok - never tried anything with 10.

Too old to changed i guess...

It is pretty straight forward to go back to 8.1 after upgrading (the article I linked to shows you how). Why not try it? If you don't like it, just back out the update, then if you ever want to upgrade again you can even after the July 29 deadline.

[Chuck Wintle]

So....who's running Windows 10 and really liking it?
I wished they'd offer a way to get the DVD to install from.
Agree! Why not a DVD upgrade to those who qualify?

[Jim Becker]

So....who's running Windows 10 and really liking it?
I wished they'd offer a way to get the DVD to install from.
I have Win10 active (under Parallels) on both my personal iMac (to support Quicken) and on my BYOD work MacBook Pro to support corporate applications that require Windows. In general, I like it a lot. There's a minor learning curve for a few things, but otherwise, it's MUCH closer to Win7 behavior than v8.x was and easy to use. Seems to be pretty efficient, too. My employer just "released the hounds" and is upgrading 13K machines to Win10 before the deadline for cost control, too.

You can download the ISO and create your own DVD. I built my VMs from the ISO.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I have been considering upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but am concerned about security. I have heard that Windows 10 has built-in overlord (Microsoft) access to the data on my computer. Is this true ?

[Chuck Wintle]

I have been considering upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but am concerned about security. I have heard that Windows 10 has built-in overlord (Microsoft) access to the data on my computer. Is this true ?
There are many opinions about whether true or not. My first question is always "Why are they giving it for free?"

[Mike Henderson]

There are many opinions about whether true or not. My first question is always "Why are they giving it for free?"
Because they don't want to continue supporting the old operating systems. This way they can drop support for the old systems earlier - they can say "We gave you the opportunity to upgrade for free."

Support of existing systems is expensive and engineers don't want to do it. They all want to work on the new stuff, not fixing somebody else's work. It doesn't help your resume to say "Worked on supporting Windows Vista." (unless you're a very junior engineer, just getting started)

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

I have been considering upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but am concerned about security. I have heard that Windows 10 has built-in overlord (Microsoft) access to the data on my computer. Is this true ?
I can't imagine that Microsoft would want to access non-operating system data on everyone's computer. It would be a public relations nightmare.

Mike

[Dan Friedrichs]

Agree! Why not a DVD upgrade to those who qualify?

It's just not necessary. W10 does a great job of installing itself neatly and cleanly without the hassle of needing to do a "clean install" like prior versions benefited from. Just let the auto-upgrader do it's thing and you'll be happy.

I often think: if you're "fighting the system" and trying to do something that no one else is doing....you're probably doing it wrong.

[William Adams]

Still staying on 8.1 on a small tablet since there's no consensus on whether or no Windows 10 is nice on tablets --- rather divergent and strongly held opinions on this.

I would kind of like to get Windows 10 so as to test out the Affinity Designer beta for Windows when it becomes available, but that will need a clean install of the 64-bit version.

[Larry Browning]

Agree! Why not a DVD upgrade to those who qualify?

What am I missing here? There is a very simple way to get the DVD that has already been explained.

[Brian Elfert]

My computer got upgraded to Windows 10 when I wasn't really ready, but everything works just fine except my Acronis True Image 2014. I am reluctant to upgrade to True Image 2016 since they changed to a subscription based model and doubled the price.

[Lee Schierer]

Sooner or later Microsoft is going to stop supporting versions 7 and 8 just like they have all the other previous versions.

[William Adams]

Yep: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

Windows 7 January 13, 2015 and January 14, 2020
Windows 8 January 9, 2018 and January 10, 2023

[Curt Harms]

I have Win10 active (under Parallels) on both my personal iMac (to support Quicken) and on my BYOD work MacBook Pro to support corporate applications that require Windows. In general, I like it a lot. There's a minor learning curve for a few things, but otherwise, it's MUCH closer to Win7 behavior than v8.x was and easy to use. Seems to be pretty efficient, too. My employer just "released the hounds" and is upgrading 13K machines to Win10 before the deadline for cost control, too.

You can download the ISO and create your own DVD. I built my VMs from the ISO.

Does the July 29 deadline apply to Enterprise versions as well? I thought that was home/small business users only.

[Curt Harms]

I can't imagine that Microsoft would want to access non-operating system data on everyone's computer. It would be a public relations nightmare.

Mike

If they don't they worded some screens poorly. If I do a custom install rather than express, there are quite a few items that talk about sending personal data to Microsoft. They don't specify what personal data is in play on those screens. I don't spend time trying to find out because my Windows uses are very plain vanilla, WordPerfect Office for legacy files and Garmin GPS. Nobody is going to learn much from those.

[Chuck Wintle]

Because they don't want to continue supporting the old operating systems. This way they can drop support for the old systems earlier - they can say "We gave you the opportunity to upgrade for free."

Support of existing systems is expensive and engineers don't want to do it. They all want to work on the new stuff, not fixing somebody else's work. It doesn't help your resume to say "Worked on supporting Windows Vista." (unless you're a very junior engineer, just getting started)

Mike
Can you provide a link where you have read this.

[Larry Browning]

Can you provide a link where you have read this.


Chuck,
It is my understanding that this is a new direction for Microsoft. Here is a NY Times article from last July (Just before Windows 10 was released) that tries to explain this new direction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/technology/windows-10-signifies-microsofts-shift-in-strategy.html?_r=0

[Yonak Hawkins]

Is anyone else having problems loading Windows 10 ? My installation gets hung on "checking for updates". I have tried loading after a clean boot and still no luck.

[Curt Harms]

Is anyone else having problems loading Windows 10 ? My installation gets hung on "checking for updates". I have tried loading after a clean boot and still no luck.

How long did you wait? Checking for updates can take longer than 15 minutes, sometimes quite a bit longer. Once it 'decides' what it's doing the upgrade goes fairly quickly with a good internet connection.

[Yonak Hawkins]

How long did you wait? Checking for updates can take longer than 15 minutes, sometimes quite a bit longer.

Way longer than 15 minutes. Of the several times I tried, the longest I waited was 20 hours. I have a very good internet connection with no other connectivity issues.

[William Adams]

Try d/l'ing the ISO and installing from that?

Apparently that's what I have to do if I want to get to 64-bit Windows from 32-bit so as to be able to run Affinity Designer for Windows.

[Larry Browning]

Try d/l'ing the ISO and installing from that?

Apparently that's what I have to do if I want to get to 64-bit Windows from 32-bit so as to be able to run Affinity Designer for Windows.

It is my understanding that a 32bit OS can only access a little over 3gig of memory, if yours has more than that, it is not being used and you should upgrade to 64bit. If you have less than that, any software that is requiring 64bit probably won't run on your computer anyway. And if it did run, it will be very slow.

Downloading the ISO is the best way to go if you want to do anything but a simple upgrade. I wanted to wipe out all installed apps and start over because I had not reset my computer in several years and had a bunch of crap that I just wanted gone. I wanted to reinstall only the apps I really needed.
This is really a pretty painless process just follow the online prompts and you will be up and running 64bit Windows 10 with very little hassle. It will take a bit longer and you will have some decisions to make that you would not have to make with the icon upgrade, but it is all pretty easy.

[Curt Harms]

It is my understanding that a 32bit OS can only access a little over 3gig of memory, if yours has more than that, it is not being used and you should upgrade to 64bit. If you have less than that, any software that is requiring 64bit probably won't run on your computer anyway. And if it did run, it will be very slow.

If I have it right, you can only upgrade to with Windows 10 equivalent of what you have now. In order to upgrade to Windows 10 64 bit, you'd need to start with Windows 7/8/8.1 64 bit. If you have the home version, you can't upgrade to the pro version for free. Actually 32 bit O.S.s CAN access more than 3.25 GB(I think) RAM using something called PAE. Any one application can access only '4 GB'. RAM. Some 32 bit Windows Server editions used PAE but Microsoft chose to not make it available in Windows intended for desktop use. Microsoft claimed it would cause problems with some applications.

Most 32 bit Linux distros available today support PAE with no issues though it is regarded as something of a hack. PAE was included in 32 bit windows but it was disabled. Perhaps Microsoft has changed their tune re PAE. The page only refers to Win XP & 7 so don't know about 8.x & 10.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366796%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[Larry Browning]

Curt,
I was thinking that you could switch from 32bit to 64bit if you used the media creation tool to get the win10 upgrade rather than doing it through the taskbar icon. Going that route gives you a few more options in how you upgrade. Of course I have been known to be wrong a time or two.
BTW: What exactly is this Affinity Designer for Windows Mr. Adams speaks of?

[Larry Browning]

Here is an article explaining how to upgrade from windows7/8/8.1 32bit to Windows10 64bit.
https://www.infopackets.com/news/9649/how-upgrade-windows-7-8-32-bit-windows-10-64-bit

Looks like you have to upgrade to 32bit Windows 10 first then do a clean install from the downloaded ISO. It could get i bit dicey with the drivers and the like. But that is a 32bit to 64bit thing and not necessarily a Win10 thing.

[William Adams]

Affinity Designer is (currently) a Mac OS X-specific vector drawing app modeled on Macromedia Freehand. They've announced a beta version for Microsoft Windows which is supposed to be available later this year.

As a guy who used FreeHand, since it was Altsys Virtuoso on a NeXT Cube, this appeals to me.

[Larry Browning]

Ah, Ok, this is yet another great program that I have no practical use for.:confused:

Did you check out the article on how to upgrade to 64bit? I haven't had a computer running 32bit windows since XP, so I really have no knowledge of upgrade issues.
I guess the first question you have to answer is if your hardware is 64bit compatible.

[Curt Harms]

Curt,
I was thinking that you could switch from 32bit to 64bit if you used the media creation tool to get the win10 upgrade rather than doing it through the taskbar icon. Going that route gives you a few more options in how you upgrade. Of course I have been known to be wrong a time or two.
BTW: What exactly is this Affinity Designer for Windows Mr. Adams speaks of?

A fair bit of monkeying but yup, looks like it's possible. Microsoft is being pretty generous, I wonder what they have waiting down the road if their projected future sources of revenue don't pan out?

[Larry Browning]

A fair bit of monkeying but yup, looks like it's possible. Microsoft is being pretty generous, I wonder what they have waiting down the road if their projected future sources of revenue don't pan out?

I think they are just trying to get more in line with Apple's model of all OS upgrades being free. Windows was the only OS where you had to pay to upgrade. They will now make their money on new PC licenses.

[Curt Harms]

I think they are just trying to get more in line with Apple's model of all OS upgrades being free. Windows was the only OS where you had to pay to upgrade. They will now make their money on new PC licenses.

I think you're right though I've read the big OEMs pay something like $10 or $20/copy. They're supposedly doing okay on Office365 & Azure.

[Frederick Skelly]

Geez. My machine just upped and restarted, telling me it was configuring for Win 10. I didn't see any window asking me or anything. Perhaps there was a pop up open somewhere and when I hit 'return' in my word doc, the machine took it as a response to that pop up. Dunno.

I hope like heck that Win 10 doesn't stink as badly as Win 8 did. I never did get the hang of Win 8. But I guess I'm gonna see, huh? :mad:

[Curt Harms]

Geez. My machine just upped and restarted, telling me it was configuring for Win 10. I didn't see any window asking me or anything. Perhaps there was a pop up open somewhere and when I hit 'return' in my word doc, the machine took it as a response to that pop up. Dunno.

I hope like heck that Win 10 doesn't stink as badly as Win 8 did. I never did get the hang of Win 8. But I guess I'm gonna see, huh? :mad:

I think most people view 10 an upgrade over 8. Windows XP was viewed as Windows 2000 done right, Windows 7 was Windows Vista done right etc. The biggest complaints I see is the inability to turn off or choose updates and how much personal information may be sent back to Microsoft. I can sort of understand Microsoft's position regarding updates. A lot of people turn off updates and never install security patches because it might cause problems with some outdated or obscure software. The user gets bit by malware using an exploit that Microsoft has had a patch out for months (or years) but the user never installed. The user then blames Microsoft for the malware infection caused by the user not installing the update. There might be less resistance if there were a choice to install only real security related updates and not 'we think you should have this' type updates. As far as how much personal information is sent back to the 'mother ship' and what they do with it, I not sure how many people outside Microsoft know that answer.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

The biggest complaints I see is the inability to turn off or choose updates


I just got bit by this a little while ago.
I'm sitting in my camper right now, using my cell phone as a mobile hot spot.
With my Virgin Mobile cell phone, I have to pay $10 for 2 gigs of data.
Well, my windows 10 laptop decided to download and update and used my 2 Gigs of data in 10 minutes.
After that, I found a solution. If you have Windows 10 Pro, which I do.
Windows 10 Pro will not download updates if you're using a metered connection, and you can define any wifi connection as metered.
So, $10 later, my Windows 10 laptop will not download updates while using my cell phone hotspot.

What's even more annoying, is that the update it was downloading is from November, and there's an issue with this update where it downloads, attempts to install, fails, and starts the process over again,including the download.
I need to resolve this when I get home.

[Curt Harms]

Very good advice about metered connections. I've had to download the entire Win10 file multiple times to complete one upgrade. I've discovered another 'surprise' though it shouldn't apply to too many people. The last couple upgrades I've done Windows 10 has created another partition of about 500 MB. - type 27h - outside the space allocated to Windows 10. It's been just after the desired Win10 partition. It doesn't matter what's there, it gets overwritten. I've not seen this on clean (not upgrade) installs. I delete the newly created partition with no apparent ill effect but what was overwritten is not easily recovered.