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fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
Is there any word on how long the "put in a valid windows 7 key, get a fresh windows 10 install activated" thing will work? Is it still the same 1 year timer from the summer?

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fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

wookieepelt posted:

My mother in law has Vista and she wants to go to Windows 10 but there's no direct way to upgrade from the OS. What's the best/cheapest way to get Windows 10 on her PC?

Do you happen to have a spare Windows 7 license? Particularly one from a computer you already upgraded to Windows 10, so it's not using 7 at the moment? Do an upgrade install from Vista to 7 with that, then do a Windows 10 install - it should activate fine.

Geemer posted:

I'm probably talking out my rear end here, but doesn't UEFI have some support for showing a corporate image instead of a default one? Maybe you can find a way to put that in the SYSTEM RESERVED partition or whatever it's called?

That's in the spec as something that can be supported, but any given UEFI implementation isn't guaranteed to have it supported, since it's not critical to booting an OS.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Chuu posted:

From reading some articles trying to figure out what went wrong, I thought Windows 10 doesn't use product keys anymore? .

This is incorrect. You only don't need a key if you're doing the upgrade from 7 or 8 and it's during this first twelve months of release.

Installs that come with new computers, or purchased copies of Windows 10,have their own keys just like Windows has done since Windows 95/NT

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Neo_Crimson posted:

Is Security Essentials now rolled into Defender still the best free anti-virus around? Or should I download Avast again?

Do not use any antivirus besides Microsoft Security Essentials on 7 and earlier, or Windows Defender on 8 and later. Unless you are required to use a different program as a condition of going on a school or work network.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

redeyes posted:

Release 2 of Windows 10 does take windows 7 and 8 and 8.1 product keys directly. After that you have a 'digital entitlement' which means the hardware you own is hashed and the Windows 10 license is connected to that hash.

I don't see how you get "no key is required" out of "you have to put in a key".

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

redeyes posted:

I'm not sure what exactly you are saying but you can simply upgrade from an activated windows 7, 8 or 8.1 and you get a digital entitlement. This requires no key. If you do not boot up with an active Windows, you can put in one of those real keys and get your entitlement. Not too hard to understand.

Thus Windows 10 requires a key. When you do it from a live 7 or 8 install, it's because of the key there already. When you do it on a clean install with a 7 or 8 key.. you needed to insert a key. When you just buy it new, it comes with its own key that will be valid for fresh installs forever.

You can't get Windows 10 to stay activated without a valid key of some sort, and the 7/8 keys should no longer work for new installs by 2017 (due to the year deadline for free upgrades with a previous valid license).

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

WattsvilleBlues posted:

Glad they resolved it so quickly but my sweet Jesus, why do they not just explain these things from the outset?

I'm going to guess they initially didn't know how to fix the issue, so if they got pressed for time it'd fix fewer things, and they would only talk up what it did fix.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

mcbexx posted:

I am currently running Windows 8.1 Pro, but I also have to Windows 7 Home Premium retail boxes sitting on my shelf.

Is there a way I can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro without burning my Windows 8 Pro license?

You never lose your 7 or 8 license. They'll still activate on a different computer while you're running 10. This is a no-no if you're doing this for a business but they don't care if you're just a common user.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
For what it's worth, with Windows 10 Pro, it's never restarted automatically so long as I had a torrent client running. It must interpret that as "being used".


Generic Monk posted:

Is there a way to stop Win10 resizing my windows every time I turn my monitor off? I thought I fixed it but recently (possibly after the november update) it's started again; this time rather than moving all my windows into an 800x600 square in the corner it'll resize them seemingly at random. My browser ends up a quarter of the size, twitter client ends up twice the size and jumps above the taskbar like 50px, and my IM client jumps up but doesn't resize at all. It's bizzare.

I had that problem. Here's what you do:
"Go into the Advanced Display Settings on the Display Settings screen.

Then choose Advanced sizing of text and other items.

Then set a custom scaling level - drag it to 100%."

You'll know it succeeded if the main display settings page says "A custom scale factor is set"

Now if you want a different scale factor, then set your custom scaling level to that.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Generic Monk posted:

This fixed it; thanks!


Great! Near as I can tell, Windows 10 likes to use a different scaling factor when a monitor is turned off like in your case, or closed the lid (for a laptop) as in my case. Presumably there's no change if you let the scaling be what 10 initially suggests, but there will be if you change the scaling your self, and don't set a "custom" scale at the same time.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

The Lord Bude posted:

So my dad did the windows 10 upgrade from the prompt that appeared in windows 7 and for some reason, all his personal files have been deleted. His old apps carried over but none of their settings. His user folder in the windows.old directory doesn't have any of his files either. Does anyone have any idea how this happened? It certainly never happened to me when I upgraded. He had a backup but not his emails (outlook 2013) which he was storing in an offline folder in outlook. Any idea where to look for a slim chance of recovering those?

He probably accidentally changed the option in setup from preserve files. Go use a program like Recuva to scan for deleted but recoverable files, and have an external drive in to save them to.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Is there any way to stop Win10 from requiring the Windows Firewall be active for Windows Updates, and App Store Updates?

It wasn't such a big deal when it was just the app store, but after the last major patch for Win10, it seems regular updates require the Windows Firewall be active before it'll download anything.

Whatever firewall you're using in place of the Windows one should also be preventing Windows from complaining, unless you've done something silly and gotten an off-off-brand one.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

pandaK posted:

Does the Enterprise edition of Windows 10 affect gaming at all? It's probably not a huge thing, but I recall certain server based windows installs in the past resulting in an extra few frames delay in gaming because of different compositing and poo poo like that.

The enterprise licensed version of Windows 10 is not Server branch based, and for that matter neither were the equivalent enterprise license versions for 8 or 7 or Vista.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Faith For Two posted:

I just got a laptop and it came with a $50 gift/credit for the microsoft store. Is there anything I could buy with this that isn't garbage? I seem to only see garbage when I visit the microsoft store. It's garbage all the way down.

You can buy movies, TV shows, and music.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
It might help if you mentioned what the graphics hardware is on your system and who the manufacturer is.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Honest Thief posted:

What's the status on windows 10 and game compatibility? I'm thinking on upgrading my new touchscreen laptop from 8.1 to 10

There's pretty much nothing that ran on Vista/7 64 bit that won't run on 8/10 64 bit. Similarly anything that ran on Vista/7 32 bit still runs on 8/10 32 bit (such as Windows 3.x games) but it's rare that you'd have a reason to run 32 bit Win 10.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

BottleKnight posted:

I'm having some trouble with my new XPS 15 where a couple of times now it's woken up while shut (firmly) in my backpack and I haven't noticed for a couple hours while, fans at full speed, it extinguishes my battery life. I assume this is a Windows 10 issue since one of the times it's done it the bag stayed completely still the whole time so there would've been no bump to wake it up or anything?

Is this a known issue with W10? Sorry if this has been asked before or discussed to death. Just looking for any software solutions.

I haven't had this happen on my XPS 15 (L502x model), but I also have the power options quite customized versus stock. However whenever I'm transporting it I have it in full hibernate instead of using sleep mode, because the battery's gone kinda bad over the years and it doesn't last that long on regular sleep.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
Ever since the November Update, I've been getting this popping up from time to time:


This is Outlook 2010. This happens when I'm not trying to send an email intentionally, just when I'm doing other things. Is there any kind of log or whatever to check to figure out what thing is trying to send email through outlook, but not doing it right?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

mike12345 posted:

I'm getting a new SSD next week, but I'm still not sure if I should simply clone my present Win 7 install, or go with a new one. Win 10 looks a bit like a POS to me, is Win 8.1 good? There are cheap keys to buy on Ebay, so maybe go with that, dunno.

There is absolutely no reason to get 8.1 if you hate 10. 8 and 8.1 are worse in every conceivable way unless you reallllllly love the "metro/modern/whatever" ui design.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Segmentation Fault posted:

That's because System Restore is depreciated. Reset My PC works better.

How so, if you just want to back away from a change?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Segmentation Fault posted:

Honestly I've never bothered with System Restore, I found that when you need to use it it doesn't quite get the job done. Maybe that's changed.

Did you last use it in Windows ME? It's worked solidly since XP, as long as the thing you're trying to recover from isn't "my computer got a virus 6 months ago". It's especially good at bailing you out if the problem starts as soon as something new is installed.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Phobophilia posted:

There is something seriously wrong with my W10 laptop, I'm getting the 100% disk utilisation error at all times outside safe mode. It is almost completely unresponsive. I've tried the usual fixes, I've disabled superfetch, Wsearch, and background intelligent transfer service. No luck. Nothing detected through windows defender or Microsoft safety scanner.

Could it be a problem with the pagefile, or Windows update, or some 3rd party driver?

What's your drive, and how much RAM do you have? Also, do any programs in Details view of task manager show up as having high numbers if you turn on the various I/O columns?

Only registered members can see post attachments!

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Phobophilia posted:

The highest is "System and compressed memory" topping I/O read bytes at ~170-190mb, surely that can't be what's loving up.

What I'm reading online says that if that's happening, you should try to first disable OneDrive (even if you barely use it) and then do a complete shutdown of the computer. Then start it back up and see if you get the same disk usage out of that process.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Phobophilia posted:

Windows 10 home, or at least my edition, doesn't have gpedit.msc. But anyway, I uninstalled via the command prompt. And it's still not working. I'm at a loss.

Did you do the full shutdown and then power on again part? The guide I saw that suggested disabling onedrive said you needed to do that as opposed to a quick restart.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Tab8715 posted:

For the next few months they're only planning on internal changes, nothing that'd you see but was interesting is there's a plan to add Windows Gadgets back which is certainly interesting.

I honestly liked having a weather gadget that could peek out when i hovered over the button to just show desktop, rather then using a tile in the Start Menu, so that sounds promising.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

djssniper posted:

Not sure if anyone can shed any light on this, updated to 10, all was fine then suddenly cannot connect to usual wifi, can connect to other wifi networks and other devices can connect to the router, Acer laptop tried a few google tricks

What's the specific wireless card in your laptop? Go to Device Manager from the Control Panel and look under network adapters, like so:

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Combat Pretzel posted:

How long does Windows 10 last without activating? Is it just disabling the personalization features or will it eventually time out?

If you mean a fresh install without a license, same as 7 and 8.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Jan posted:

I heard on this thread about how major updates ("service packs") are actually installed by a full system reinstall, with a new Windows folder. I always figured I'd get one of those sooner or later, but it's been a while since I last saw it mentioned and it never happened to me. I do get regular Windows Updates regularly, but I'm wondering if I'm somehow out of date? Can I check build version without being on Insider builds?

Simply open the command prompt:

Only registered members can see post attachments!

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

ilkhan posted:

My start menu and taskbar clock frequently take forever to open, but they never actually stop working.

Not sure if that is progress or not.

Seriously though, why the gently caress was windows 3.1 on a pentium 66mhz with 16MB of ram and an ancient spinning 800MB hard drive more responsive than windows 10 on an i5 with 8GB ram and a PCI-E SSD (surface book)?!

Probably because you were running Windows 3.1 on a computer with 4x the RAM (and probably faster ram at that), a significantly better processor which was also significantly faster (66 mhz Pentium vs 16 mhz 386, which is much more than the 4.2x speed increase it seems at first glance), and a much faster and larger hard drive than it was designed around for the original "recommended" specs? And all the stuff you were running expected similarly much lower specs than you were providing?

Hell you probably had a video card in there with 2d acceleration, which really made Win 3.1 faster than the default experience.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

biznatchio posted:

I know their plan was to make Windows 10 free (and the updated-forever 'last version of Windows') and make up the revenue from the store and the like, but at what point do they accept that's simply not going to work and start drawing up plans for a traditional-retail Windows 11 and push people to it? And will they still have the market power to do so by then?


This was never the plan. The only thing that's free is upgrading from 7 or 8, and that's only free until next August, and it's only free to upgrade to the matching version (if you want to go Win 7/8 Home to 10 Pro you need to pay). The boxed retail copies cost money, the upgrades at stores cost money, and the OEMs have been paying license fees to have it as well.

Also lol "will they have the market power", like what do you think is going to happen? Apple finally breaks the 15% OS share barrier for the first time since the Mac came out? (they're currently around 6%) Linux actually takes off with non-nerds?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Sir Unimaginative posted:

Hypothetical? The general public settles for iPads and Chromebooks (and similars/successors) because they largely don't care about what general-purpose computing offers.


They actually don't. The general public has both those and a regular computer, and simply buys regular computers slightly less often, which is typical for a mature and saturated market segment. Those things end up being "companion" devices instead of "replacement" devices.

The much vaunted decline in regular computers still leaves us with a million regular computers sold every day or so.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Col.Kiwi posted:

That doesn't make sense. Sandy bridge wasn't shipping until 2011. Windows 7 shipped 2009. A system with Vista is almost certainly Nehalem (first gen core i3/i5/i7) or older. And yes, the people saying you might have driver issues attempting win 10 on a computer that shipped with vista are very much correct. On a system that shipped with Vista installing 10 might work easily, might be totally impossible. Whereas yeah if it shipped with vista, chances of making 7 work are pretty good.


It'd actually be pretty surprising to have missing Windows 10 drivers for things that shipped with Vista. A machine that shipped with XP only when Vista was around sure, because that often meant no drivers were made past XP at all for one or more core components.

But Vista drivers are near 100% compatible with 7 and almost always work with Windows 10 as well - hell I got a pre-Vista IBM PC working with Windows 10 primarily with Vista and 7 drivers.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Sir Unimaginative posted:

Okay, go try setting up a library on the same drive Steam's installed on.

I'll wait.

"why would I want to do that :smug:": You'd do it to avoid Program Files madness, if you can't spare 90 seconds to install Steam through its actual installer, to somewhere sane, like I just suggested. (And if you can't spare that 90 seconds, once in any given Windows environment - which should last for however long it is between Windows upgrades at least - how do you even have time for video games.)

"that's not how windows works :byodood:": Game programmers are notoriously bad at actually adhering to standards. You can get all granular about it for whatever system development rigor you're championing this week, or you can put Steam somewhere else, once, and not have to worry about it again. I'm not suggesting any other programs be installed outside of Program Files.

Ok, seriously, what problem do you think you're avoiding here? This reeks of "install Windows 2000 on your core i5 so your games go faster!".

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Khablam posted:

Do you have examples? I haven't seen the behaviour you're describing in basically forever. Steam guy is for sure performing a workaround without first gauging whether there's even a problem; I guarantee the overwhelming majority of users install in the default location and never have an issue.

There's all sorts of bullshit business-line applications out there that don't play well with post-2006 program files restrictions. The guy you quoted isn't saying Steam is one of those though.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

ilkhan posted:

Yeah, not sure what you are trying to avoid here. The full permissions steam applies to the common folder bypasses everything you are complaining about, while also treating steam itself like everything else in program files. If you install elsewhere what exactly do you gain?

I guess one time right after Vista came out a single Steam game had an issue because of UAC. Therefore no one should ever install Steam to Program Files ever again?

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Fatal posted:

Trying to figure out if/how I can transfer my Windows 10 license. I originally got a Win 8 from some promo a few years ago and subsequently did an upgrade to Win10. I'm building a new machine (so new MB/proc/hd) and it seems like the key is now just a generic one? I think I still have the Win8 key but not sure. At worst I was thinking of running the insider preview on the slowest ring if I can't figure things out as it seems that doesn't need a key. Is this a viable alternative?

You simply need to install a legit Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 version on the new machine, and then run the Windows 10 updater. This will license the new machine for Windows 10, so long as you do it before August this year.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
So for some reason, my ThinkPad X61 with a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU L7500, which has the NX bit, doesn't have the Windows 10 installer able to notice it.When I try to upgrade it complains that there's no NX bit support. Any ideas on what to do? Nothing I change in the BIOS fixes this.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

redeyes posted:

Install on a different system and transport the disk?

I have no other system to install on for that.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Eletriarnation posted:

I don't recall, does the NX bit require BIOS support? Might be a newer revision for that system that fixes it if so. I know there are a couple other features that started being required for 64-bit in 8 or 8.1 and upgrading from 7 to 10 on systems without them isn't possible unless you move to 32-bit.

I've already got it on the latest BIOS revision possible, which is the weird part.

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fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong
Whether OEM keys from a big vendor will work on other vendors might as well be random chance. That said, I've had a lot of luck doing it with keys printed on Dells (including some Dell OS DVDs that not just had a key embedded, but also successfully installed and activated on all other computers), and the least luck on keys from Toshibas. :shrug:

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