Windows 10 forced upgrade this month

[Keith Winter]

So the time is finally here for everyone that has been delaying upgrading to Windows 10, per Microsoft you have to upgrade by July 29th 2016, or you will get charged to upgrade in the future.

A couple of questions...

Anyone running reworks v8 on a Windows 10 pc, does it work ok?

Anyone running Trotec Job control on Windows 10? If so what version? Does it work ok?

[Brian Leavitt]

I run RDWorks V8 and Corel X7 on my Windows 10 laptop. I have had zero issues with either.

[Gary Hair]

I am running the latest Job Control on Win 10 and it works just fine. Also running Corel X5, X6, X8, Ezcad, and Rip for my DCS UV printer - all working just fine.

[Kev Williams]

I've been avoiding with a passion letting my win8.1 upgrade to 10.
80% of my machinery and 100% of my office equipment will NOT work with a 64bit Vista machine, let alone 7, and 8 is 99% useless to me.

But then, if 8 = 99% useless, I guess 10 can't be much worse. But we shall see.

I'm going to reluctantly let this stupid win8 computer upgrade to 10 - after I replace it with my idle Win7 Enterprise first, because, I'll bet a buck that once 10 is going, I'll lose the ablilty to run my IS400 with it, which is the ONLY reason I DO use the 8.1...

[Mark Taylor2]

If you're running Win7, it will be supported until 2020. If you want to totally avoid the Win10 upgrade without having to sort through all the upgrades, read tech sites, etc... go install and run this in "monitor" mode: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/201...ly-remove.html

Those of us in IT have had a lot of headaches with the Win10 "upgrade" including drivers not work, upgrades failing, roll-backs failing.... etc.

[Bill George]

If you're running Win7, it will be supported until 2020. If you want to totally avoid the Win10 upgrade without having to sort through all the upgrades, read tech sites, etc... go install and run this in "monitor" mode: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/201...ly-remove.html

Those of us in IT have had a lot of headaches with the Win10 "upgrade" including drivers not work, upgrades failing, roll-backs failing.... etc.

The company my wife works for and she helps provide customer support for a one of a kind software, is preparing for the worst with the forced Win 10. I say forced because customers are duped into the upgrade and the latest trick from Microsoft is clicking on the X to close the Upgrade Window actually does the install!!
Her sister who owns a Vet clinic was duped into it, and even her internet expert was unable to get it to roll back. Her office software will NOT run on 10 and now she needs to pay a couple thousand for a new version that will! Remember if you have Windows Update Automatically check for upgrades and install on your Windows computer, Win 10 is a Recommended upgrade.... ding.
The program above that Mark posted is what I have on all my Windows 7 computers and it works. Pay the guy, its worth it.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Running GWX on 11 machines, I need the trouble win 10 causes as much as I need Ebola

[John Noell]

If you upgrade directly from Win 7 (or 8) to 10 (i.e., no clean install) earlier versions of CorelDraw (usually) work. But if you try to install anything earlier than X7 AFTER doing a clean install, you are likely to get a message saying it won't do it (and it really won't work properly if you manage to force it).

FWIW, I backed up my Win 7 box (complete drive archive), installed Win10, connected to Internet and let it automatically activate, then put the archived Win7 back on. Now, I can wait for a need to switch. Whenever I put Win10 on this computer it will automatically activate again. (Actually, activation seems to be tied to the motherboard alone in my testing.) My laser is happy with Win7 and I like X4 (although I also own a legit X7).

[David Somers]

I am not having any problems with RDWorks 8x on Windows 10 that I didnt have on Windows 7. Windows 7 was relatively stable for me. 8 was misery. 10 is better but worse than 7 in terms of annoying things. RDWorks and Corel have all behaved like they have in Win 7, 8 and 10.

One thought for you folks faced with the upgrade of Windows. Make sure you make a full backup of your machine now even if you have no intention of upgrading. Be safe. And you might consider making the backup a full disk image. It will speed your recovery if you accidentally get upgraded and want to reverse time. Or if you are overcome by some other computer tragedy like ransomware or a full hard disk failure. There are a number of good disk imaging systems out there and they are very helpful when the proverbial Merde and the fan meet.

[Kev Williams]

Backup my machine... lol. There's nothing on my win8 of any importance. Same with my Vista laptop. Never trusted either one in the first place! If both were wiped clean it would affect me zero...

Hmm-- does the free upgrade include Vista too? The laptop is actually a good candidate for win10... Maybe I'll find a reason to use it?

[David Somers]

I would back it up anyway Kev. Especially if you use an imaging package to do it. A disk image can restore the entire machine in a pretty short period of time (20 minutes? Depends on the disk size). Beats having to go through hours of a rebuild if you ever needed to wipe the machine.

[Wilbur Harris]

David's telling it right! If you need it - back it up!!

[Dave Stevens-Vegas]

I've been avoiding with a passion letting my win8.1 upgrade to 10.
80% of my machinery and 100% of my office equipment will NOT work with a 64bit Vista machine, let alone 7, and 8 is 99% useless to me.

But then, if 8 = 99% useless, I guess 10 can't be much worse. But we shall see.

I'm going to reluctantly let this stupid win8 computer upgrade to 10 - after I replace it with my idle Win7 Enterprise first, because, I'll bet a buck that once 10 is going, I'll lose the ablilty to run my IS400 with it, which is the ONLY reason I DO use the 8.1...

If you have instances where you have vertical apps that require an older version of Windows you should always have cloned disks or spares available to swap them. A Torchmate 2 machine (with parallel port no less) is the only thing I use now in the shop that needs to be an old standalone.

At this point Win 7 has been in the wild for seven years. Any apps that require anything prior to that should be evaluated. I still see (but don't use) quite a few machines that require XP and some even an old school parallel port. This shows the mechanical aspects of the machine have outlived the controller/software side of the machine.

If you're running Win7, it will be supported until 2020.

While the end of life date is in 2020, consumer support ended for Win 7 about a year ago. There is the possibility of getting paid, per incident support for single license users. The remaining updates are limited to security patches. Win 7 is done. Time to move on if your app supports it.

[Bill George]

Most of the people on here are using their computers to run machines. You don't need a Windows 10 computer to run a laser that is 2 or 3 or even 10 years old. The only way Microsoft can generate income is to make your old software obsolete. Other than the kids who download music and videos why would someone need a new Windows 10 computer?

[Lee DeRaud]

Most of the people on here are using their computers to run machines. You don't need a Windows 10 computer to run a laser that is 2 or 3 or even 10 years old. The only way Microsoft can generate income is to make your old software obsolete. Other than the kids who download music and videos why would someone need a new Windows 10 computer?

I'm still not convinced there's any advantage to using Win10 (vs Win7) on a non-touch machine.

That said, the one machine I own with Win10 installed is a Surface Book: a truly amazing combination. Win10 and the hardware are integrated rather closely, for obvious reasons...sometimes it really does make sense to get the HW and OS from the same vendor.