Some further thoughts on Windows 10 upgrade, having 6 computers/tablets running various versions of Windows. The two most important parts when I upgrade anything is to back up my data/email files and more recently run a program called Belarc Adviser. Even without upgrading, I have had hard drives fail a number of times, after the first time, I learned to periodically back-up critical data/files. Portable USB hard drives or adding a second hard drive is simple, and they are pretty inexpensive these days. The Belarc Advisor, a free program, will pull all the program license information and give you a very complete run down of your machine. This is really helpful if you have lost, or do not recall your registration license information. Ken, I would try to run this on your upgraded machine, as this information may still be in files on your machine.
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Most of my machines were running Windows 7, and worked decently after the bugs were worked out. It was/is a big improvement over XP and Vista. The biggest problem is all the add on antiviral malware programs, especially anything that is free, slows the machines down significantly and loads tons of crap software without even telling you. I am forever cleaning/fixing my wife's PC machine. Everybody is collecting your data, and eventually we will/are all sheep getting fleeced and their is no such thing as privacy. Two of my PCs were running Windows 8.1, hate their stupid menus, charms and all their media windows loading tons of crap continuously. This also holds true of cell phones and all those "free apps", scary. If you use these machines for business or a dedicated purpose, it is incredible that you cannot simply specify what to load and what not to load, and a simple menu interface. Computers software seems more oriented to shopping, gaming, booking travel...... and a few more nefarious activities.
Since I am familiar with computers and software, I started reading up on windows 10. Several of my computers were getting glitchy from all the prior "software updates" to the point that I eventually had to shut this feature off. Of course Microsoft would not be straight forward and give you the option to directly update Windows 10 like a normal program, they had to make it as an update icon through their obscure patches that mysteriously popped up one day. Six machines, not one had the update icon, and took some web surfing and multiple patches to get the icon on the desktops. A month after the Windows 10 roll out and no update, I decided to install Windows 10 on a few machines with their Media Creation tool. Had some issue with that too, but was able to do some work arounds. Once again, Microsoft seems like they cannot do anything right the first time. I always customize my installs to see what is being installed and what is being changed to your default programs, if you let Windows 10 have it's way, everything will be reset to use Microsoft programs and turn on all the data gathering features routed through Microsoft. Of course it is free, it is an enormous cash cow of data mining and redirection.
Is there any upside, well it does away with all your antiviral software that was collecting data from you without your knowledge, and a gamish of previous patches. The 3 machines I updated, run faster. But you need to play around with machines drivers to get everything functioning correctly. This should work itself out in a couple of months when other companies catch up with their updates. That is about it. The first thing I do is revert to an old style menu system, or use something like Classic Shell,
http://www.classicshell.net/ . I hate the default Windows screens with feeds about everything, that I could care less about. I use Firefox browser, as I have more control over what it does and does not do. The Microsoft Edge is a POS, and everything Microsoft does with this upgrade is to make it next to impossible to reset or use other browsers or start pages, as well as a host of other program resets.
Go to the action center through the notifications icon on the lower right corner of your screen. Hit All Settings, and turn off just about everything that is tuned on under each sub menu. Under default apps & features, I uninstall most of the Microsoft installed apps like stocks, movies, .... blah blah blah, unless you like to watch this stuff. Leave these on, and your CPU/hard drive will be running continuous in background with a constant stream of data garbage (this is also true of cell phones). Do the same under Update and Security, try to minimize what is being sent out unchecking or turning off as many features as possible. Even with this some will reset, so you may need to recheck them. Another tricky dick feature is that information and updates is shared between machines without your knowledge "PCs on my local network, and PCs on the internet". Essentially your machine is no different than a viral mule for any other machine on the internet to feed it Microsoft BS. According to a computer buddy of mine, all this data sent to Microsoft is not encrypted, a security nightmare. So on the Feedback & Diagnostics menu, set to Never provide feedback and only send Basic data back to big brother. Privacy, start out with everything turned off. This stuff is just for Microsoft add-ons, unless you want all this stuff.
Unfortunately when it comes to Microsoft 10 installing patches and whatever else, you no longer have any control over this. So a bad patch roles out, or some feature Microsoft thinks you need, and you might be looking at a locked up machine, or another feature you cannot remove. Already had that multiple time with the previous versions of Windows. I thought of rolling back to a prior Windows version, but the bottom line is the older versions will not be supported in the not to distant future and older programs will cease to work or be supported. Like the Linux option, my computer geek friend mentioned that most of his larger clients are moving in this direction. I need to look into this more in the future. Next I need to figure how to fix our Android phones with a new installed operating system that kills the battery in a day, bah bah bah.
