f13.net

I never went to Windows 8 (from 7 Home Premium), but I did get my son a Win 8 laptop and it was awful for any game not released after 2010.

I am worried that the few games I play - which are reasonably dated - will fail.

I was just wondering this myself.

That question is impossible to answer in any assured way. Each game is coded differently and one can't make generalizations. Its probably only fair to say that something that's broken in Windows 8 will probably also be broken in Windows 10, since I doubt the underlying architecture has been changed that much.

I thank you for an artful answer that actually provides me the information I need.

At Microsoft, 8 = 10.

Also, 9 = 10.  It makes perfect sense.

Windows 7 is nearly the same age now as XP was when 7 was released and most of the stuff that broke on 8 is stuff that was written on XP (or older).

Expecting absolutely everything that worked on 7 to work on the third major OS release since is a bit crazy.

Also, windows 8 compatibility with applications has been pretty good from what I have seen, it was the interface that caused people to freak out more than anything under the hood. Very little of the core of the operating system changed between 7 and 8.

Thanks for making me feel *really* old, jerk.

Deus Ex is fine. You might need an ini file edit or something.
UFO has a port available.
Vampire Bloodlines has a third party patch.

The 20 year old games that must be saved for humanity have better protection from cultural vandalism than the Valley of the Kings.

I wouldn't worry.

Haven't had any issues whatsoever on 8.1.

What's this about a free upgrade? And how do i find out if i qualify?

They will tell you if you are not a dirty pirate. It must have been one of the Windows Updates that was installed recently, I got the popup yesterday on my Windows 7 machine.

Just a heads up, if you rely on windows media center to record and play copy protected content using a cable tuner card do not upgrade to windows 10. It will no longer work.

It should appear to work, but the resulting recording is always "You Are a Pirate".

That way it would be amusing instead of sad.

They will actually let you upgrade even if you are a dirty pirate apparently, you'll just get an annoying watermark or something till you buy a legit license.

What I want are details.  I don't want to do an upgrade like it's a windows patch.  I want to be able to burn the media since it's not unknown for Windows to need a reinstall.

Nothing about what I posted involves piracy of any kind. It is a completely legitimate way to use media center as a dvr.

The issue is they are removing Media Center not that the DRM is changing. And using a CableCard to record protected shows through MediaCenter is totally legit and here in the US cable companies are required to provide CableCards if requested by law.

As I understand it, for (at least) the first year after it ships, Microsoft is making Windows 10 available as a free upgrade to any Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 installation. 

Apparently Windows 10 Home will make automatic updates mandatory.  Some features (Cortana, Xbox streaming, etc) will be region-limited):
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696949/windows-10-feature-loss

Details still not all there, but it is claimed that once you upgrade a device you will have the ability to do clean installs of Windows 10 on to that device:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9334/microsoft-confirms-you-can-clean-install-windows-10-after-upgrading

My Linux workstation dual-boots Win7, so I'll probably give Win10 a look on there first and then the gaming box can pick up the upgrade if it seems like a good idea.

Any idea if you  get to keep your "upgrade" status?

I caved and purchased a retail copy of Win 7 Professional when 7 launched because it was the best version of windows they had released in years and i was tired of dealing with getting shady copies to work.  Any idea if the free upgrade will get me the "professional" version of Win 10, or whatever is equivilent, or do i just get the vanilla version?

Windows 7 Professional w/ SP1 gets Windows 10 Pro. See the Windows 10 FAQ (http://www.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/windows-10-faq) for the table showing what versions of Windows 7 and 8/8.1 map to which versions of Windows 10.

Maybe this was answered but I'm tired and it's late. I just did the Reserve thing on uhhh a lot of boxes.

When I get a new PC and I will within a year, typically I can just deactivate Windows 7 on an old box and shove it into a new box. How do with Windows 10?

According to the link Torinak posted above, you have untill july 29 2016 to take advantage of the free upgrade offer, so if you get your new box within the next year, you could throw win 7 on it, and then upgrade to 10 for free i guess.

Not 100% sure on how they are planning on dealing with acctivating / deactivating licencces for the free upgrade copies.  Could become something of an issue if it lets you create an install disk / image,  as i have no real clue how you would get it to validate your win 7 or 8 licence after you have upgraded and then needed to do a full system re-install.

That's actually a game killer for me. I'm on mostly limited bandwidth with an unlimited time window, and if I can't schedule updates to that window then I'm just not going to upgrade.

Any third party software out there that might be able to force Win10 to schedule updates?

There are options built in for slow/metered connections. I am pretty sure you also can set it to check/download during your specific window.

I don't know the specifics but I know that the engineers talked about slow/metered connections and updates when they gave us the presentation.

Is that for the Enterprise release? The Pro version is also listed as allowing scheduling; alas the Home version is implied to give no user control...

Who uses the Home version of a Window release besides people who don't know how to computer?

People who don't want to throw away $100-150 to replace the OS already installed on their new laptop? Bumping up the net price of a new computer by 15-20% is a pretty big deal for a lot of people.

Not to mention that without one or more extra computers and a lot of spare time and expertise, replacing the OS on a laptop (or even some prebuilt desktop systems) can be a giant pain.

I am not talking about "scheduling" where you approve/deny if/when particular updates are installed, which is a Pro/Enterprise feature. I am talking about scheduling when they are downloaded and installed (time of day, download and then install when I say so, etc). Even Microsoft is not so tone deaf to assume that everyone will have the ability to download hundreds of megabytes of updates the instant they are released. They realize that a lot of people around the world are on sporadic network connections and may need flexibility.

I honestly would have thought you were correct, and I hope you still are, but this quote from the Verge's  (http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8696949/windows-10-feature-loss)site says:

More annoyingly, perhaps, Microsoft has also changed how updates will work with Windows 10. Although the Pro and Enterprise editions will both be able to defer updates, Windows 10 Home users will not have the option. Updates will instead be downloaded and installed automatically as soon as they're available.

Which appears to be based on/supported by this quote from the Official Windows 10 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications) site:

Windows 10 Home users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to defer updates.

Now on rereading I can see where "automatically available" does not necessarily mean "instantly downloaded," but you have to agree there is some ambiguous phrasing here, especially considering the second sentence.

As for the "Home" vs "Pro" derail, well, my Home Premium does most everything I want it to do, and what it doesn't is covered by third party software, so I really don't get the issue. For a home gaming rig, it's fine. Or at least it was until they decided to class "control over updates" as a Pro feature.

Home is for the plebes.  If it matters to you that much, Microsoft wants you to spend the money to upgrade.

If you think they're concerned about people not having the bandwidth, I'll point out the Xbox One initial requirements and Diablo 3's always online stance.  They live in a world where not having high-speed internet is unthinkable.

"Always online" and "unmetered high-speed connections" are two different things though.

Granted, I could be wrong, but I got a serious impression that Microsoft has put a lot of thought into how to get their installed base onto Windows 10 as quickly as possible and they have been trying to remove as many excuses/reasons as possible that might be barriers.

I'm skipping like most of the posts here to answer: Generally no going 7->10 won't break your games. I'd recommend a clean install anyway but anything that ran natively in Win7 will work in 10. Ancient games from GoG should work fine since they target win7/8.

If you've got stuff like original copies of System Shock 2 which require a rain dance to make work in Win7 you might have issues.

Home shipped with a lot of the low power netbook type computers... I think that's what I had on there before I zapped it so linux could have the whole drive. Still for the people using the most basic version I could see an argument for making upgrades automated and invisible.

I'm not seeing any reason to jump on this early so I'll be waiting for the fine print to eventuate.

I've been running a Minecraft server on a Windows 10 box for a few months now with no issues at all, other than the occasional unannounced restart to install updates, but hey, techincal preview.

So if you want to play games that run in a Java console I can confirm that they'll probably work fine!  :awesome_for_real:

I was able to run Ultima I from GoG without issue.  So far everything's been fine under Windows 10, but there's still plenty of time for them to screw that up.

Thanks Fab.  I'll upgrade my old laptop with 10 and see how it goes.  If all is well I'll ditch 8.1 HOME SERF EDITION for on my new laptop.

From what I understand, Win10 Home will always have forced updates.  Only the Pro (and Enterprise) version will have the ability to prevent it from updating on its own.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications

Sorry for being an ass.

Ahhh, there it is.

So the free upgrade to Win 10 will work fine.  Then a free mandatory update will break all your games.  Then you have to pay for Pro to fix them again.   :awesome_for_real:

Brilliant!

Since I didn't pony up for Pro, looks like I'll be deferring 10 since I can't defer updates.

*shrug*

eta: Because my clean upgrade path sucked, iirc; I had upgraded from XP Pro which gave me 7 Home or something like that.

Yeah, that was kind of my point, in a very passive way. All the laptops I've bought during the win7 cycle (about 5, since I did it for family too) gave me the option of which edition to install. The ones that don't come prebuilt from best buy or the like. If you're buying machines that way you're doing it because you're not big on computering, you're treating them like a device. Expect the OS designer to do the same.

Okay, a bit of Googling around finds that, at least for the current test Win10 release, an easy registry hack will bring up the option to schedule updates as you wish. As long as the full release doesn't try to block this we Home users should be okay.

And even if it does there seem to be enough computer savvy folks out there that haven't fallen into the "Go Pro or get out!" attitude who will come up with another work-around.


[rhetorical outburst] Is Microsoft contractually (with Satan, apparently) obligated to have one dealbreaker with every release that the community has to hack around? One screen fits all for Win 8 (Start button? who needs a Start button?), now screwing with update options...[/rhetorical outburst]

And just a side thought: no option on what gets updated means that, use it or not, you will have a full version of the Edge Browser, and gods know whatever other near uninstallable kludgeware MS is pushing at the moment...

Few years ago I would have this was a silly discussion because there is no way sane people would make it impossible to delay updates. Awkward and reliant on understanding byzantine menus sure, but not impossible.

Then microsoft released a version of windows where the start menu can only be used in full screen mode....

It's just… why would you ever use the home edition of any Windows, ever?

Careful, some people are sensitive on that topic.  :why_so_serious:

Because "free" trumps "whatever Win10 Pro costs."

This.

From what I hear win 10 at least currently breaks rift and archeage due to their hack buster code REALLY not liking win 10.

So sell me. Why shouldn't I?

And please bear in mind that I'm not a programmer, so I use my machines for gaming and media. Some 3D modeling. Gimp. That's pretty much it. And as far as I can tell, any utility I'm missing by not having Pro I can easily fill in for with third party programs, and have more control over what I am getting to boot.

Oh, I do have one copy of Win 7 Pro from a machine I picked up secondhand. Haven't really noticed much difference in it and my regular Home version gaming rig.

But maybe I just don't know what I'm missing. So I'm listening.

I tried Googling for 'why stupid people use Windows 7 Home Edition" but didn't find anything.

How was that bug found?

I have Pro because I get it for free through MSDN, but if it wasn't free why the hell would I have Pro?

A) You are one of those people who want more than 16GB of RAM
B) You want the ability to connect to your machine with RDP
C) You need XP mode
D) You are a weirdo and have your own domain at home
E) You have a two socket motherboard

Pretty sure most people don't fall in any of those categories, even on this board.

I use RDP all the time at home, it's incredibly useful.

At least you're not being a cunt about it. At Windows 7's launch the upgrade path for XP Pro was to 7 Home for $50. Not needing the things Chimpy listed, I decided not to spend the extra $150 on Pro. If you are interested in sending me the $150, I can pm you my paypal deets.

Apoc, RDP is handy but you could also VPN for free, yeah?

There are other options like http://www.tightvnc.com/ (http://www.tightvnc.com/) if that's your only requirement.

Ok, so I currently use Remote Desktop Connection to VPN into my work computer from home. Are you guys saying that if my home computer upgrades to Windows 10 Home, I won't have the RDC software anymore? Or that I can't remote into my HOME computer from somewhere else (which is something I never do).

The feature disabled in the Home editions is the RDP server component so you can't connect in to the Home version pc. The RDP client is still there.

K, then no reason for me not to get Home. Good to know.

I still think that people are getting hung up on "can't defer" meaning "it will install updates immediately and not let me postpone them based on my schedule. Microsoft could very well intend defer to mean "choose whether or not to install specific updates."

I have not seen a clear definition from MS on this so I don't know the answer.

I have Win7 Ultimate and don't plan on updating to 10 on my existing machine because I planned on building a new one at some point.

Defer means postpone, it doesn't mean filter or opt out. So them saying you cannot defer updates is literally

Not necessarily.  It may mean that you can't indefinitely defer *specific* updates and choose which you want installed and which you don't (for example, all the people trying to not install the update that puts in the windows 10 nag application).  It does not necessarily mean that all updates must be downloaded and installed the second your computer is notified of them.

Since MS has always had scheduling for what time of day you want to download and install updates I'd be shocked if they took that out. They just don't want home users to indefinitely put off specific updates.

Thanks Chimpy.

Well, I'm okay with 16G (for right now), I use TightVNC and Splashtop for my remoting needs, I'm not even sure what XP mode is (Win XP compatibility?), I don't have my own domain, nor a two socket motherboard (although that would be neat).

So yeah, looks like my money is well saved.

I do agree that the instant update "feature" is so bizarre that it is hard to believe it would be implemented as stated, but no more than the full screen app "feature" of Win 8. And just like the reaction to the forced tablet-like OS of Win 8 I expect numerous community driven workarounds to be available, so basically it's business as usual for the Home Windows user.

I fall into several of those categories, heh.

He also missed:

F) Location-aware printing; Necessary (imo) if you move between networks, which I do a lot. This reassigns default printers and remembers which network a printer is on.
G) File system encyption - freelancers might want this
H) Network backup (granted, this is Windows backup so, meh.)
J) Presentation Mode - Lock some of the features, like screensaver and auto-dim on your laptop without fiddling in multiple spots.


XP Mode is needed for some folks running legacy programs. Architects in particular know the pain of trying to find someplace to run the certification programs which were written for 32-bit Win98/ XP.

Well the two people I know who have prerelease copies of win 10 who play those games say the games won't launch and error out commenting about that and a person I know who works for trion mentioned it was a known issue. I am guessing that probably gets fixed pretty soon once windows 10 is out but for the moment those two games just don't work on win 10.

The joke was supposed to be who plays Rift or Archage to have found out it doesn't work on Win 10. :-P

Some of those I could see as rather useful, just not for me. You might even say that people who use their computers to Professionally Produce have a use for Windows Pro.

You can be sure I would demand it if I were employed by someone who was supplying me a machine for work.

I don't use any of those features on my home machine.  Also, I seem to have fallen way behind since I only have 8GB RAM in this thing.