Windows 10 - was it worth it?

[Paid_Peanuts]

For those of you who have implemented Windows 10 in your environment - was it worth it?

 

Has Windows 10 brought anything new to your environment which has made an impact over Windows 7?

 

I'm considering the potential for upgrading Windows 7 this summer to 10. However, when I sit back and think about it, I am having a hard time justifying it. What would we gain?

I know it would result in a lot of additional support calls from staff and students unfamiliar with the new Windows interface.

 

If people had the choice again to move from a previous Windows version (especially the last known good version - 7) would you still move to 10 knowing what you know now?

[Sagima]

I was asked this very thing by my manager earlier in the week. Would love to know what is gained by moving from 7 at the moment.

[sparkeh]

Yes! The simplified DirectAccess is worth it alone!

[Michael]

Immediate thoughts come to mind -

 

- IE11 and .NET 4.6 as standard, a clean install of Windows 7 won't include these

- Much better driver support out the box, typical examples are:

- USB 3.0 Chipsets

- Intel HD Graphics

- Windows 10 loads considerably quicker than Windows 7

- There isn't the large volume of updates - Microsoft are moving more towards single, bigger, cumulative updates

- Office 2016 works on Windows 7, but don't be surprised if the next version doesn't

- Includes the Microsoft Edge browser - not a selling point at the moment, but will be in future

 

- Downfalls of Windows 10 - the Start Menu, it's not Enterprise ready, but I have a workaround here

- If you've deployed build 10240 (the original RTM release), the upgrade process to 10586 is painful -

- It takes approx. 45+ to install even on a decent spec workstation

- Upgrading renames the Windows folder to Windows.old, which in my view means it's a new OS, not an upgrade

- You can't Sysprep an upgraded workstation, you have to start with a clean install - even if you installed build 10240 (as new) and then 10586

- If you have many applications to install, this new policy is a nightmare as it'll mean you'll need to build a completely new image every 12 months.

[sparkeh]

@Michael I am very surprised to hear that your installs take that long. I find that it's the quickest version yet. I'll time it next time but I'm sure it's nowhere near 45mins

[Michael]

@Michael I am very surprised to hear that your installs take that long. I find that it's the quickest version yet. I'll time it next time but I'm sure it's nowhere near 45mins

 

Try it - install a fresh copy of build 10240, then proceed to upgrade it to 10586 via Microsoft Update - once downloaded, it does take approx. this time. It very much depends on the spec of the machine of course, but it's by no means a quick process.

[sparkeh]

Try it - install a fresh copy of build 10240, then proceed to upgrade it to 10586 via Microsoft Update - once downloaded, it does take approx. this time. It very much depends on the spec of the machine of course, but it's by no means a quick process.

 

Oh sorry misunderstanding. I thought you meant a straight install of the latest build. I was thinking of installing build 10586 on its own.

[Michael]

Oh sorry misunderstanding. I thought you meant a straight install of the latest build. I was thinking of installing build 10586 on its own.

 

By all means, if you're starting a new image now, then yes I would certainly look at 10586. In saying that, it really doesn't add anything to the table - it's mostly internal workings or improvements, rather than anything majorly noticeable to the end user.

[GuyJD]

On the whole I'd say I'm happy the only problem I have with 10 is Edge browser is pants but a quick deployment of Chrome sorts that right out, I've done all of our classrooms and some of the Teacher laptops, I still need to do our laptop trolleys and suite.

 

I find 7 quite clunky to use now if I'm honest.

[LeMarchand]

I find 7 quite clunky to use now if I'm honest.

 

I find it frustrating when I go to use Windows+X and then realise it doesn't work on Win 7.

[sted]

from a personal point of view i still think 8.1 is a better os 10 just feels like a work in progress

[mthomas08]

I am currently testing two laptops, one slightly old okay spec and another a simple i3 spec.

 

The i3 spec imaged perfectly fine, drivers, software and no real issues - except our Admin account refuses to load Edge "Due to it being a built in Admin" which we will sort out.

 

Not a fan of 8 or 8.1, I hate not having the Start Menu or having to "Enable it" plus I hate the tablet screen and the way they have setup the main menu from the right etc.

 

Still, W10 seems much more stable now and although I wont be pushing it out yet I am testing it to see if we can get perhaps PE on with SIMs Teacher App. I don't want them to suffer W8/8.1 but instead W10 seems generally better looking in my view - but don't get me started on Edge because I really don't like it.

[LeMarchand]

from a personal point of view i still think 8.1 is a better os 10 just feels like a work in progress

 

Must say that I'm sticking with 8.1 at home until close to the "free" deadline, if not longer. That said, the last "big build" of 10 was a definite improvement on the rather premature initial release.

[Paid_Peanuts]

Must say that I'm sticking with 8.1 at home until close to the "free" deadline, if not longer. That said, the last "big build" of 10 was a definite improvement on the rather premature initial release.

 

I kind of wanted to keep this discussion away from what people have done at home on their own machines and look at it more from the perspective of:

Have teachers/students seen any kind of tangible benefit for the upgrade? How has it affected the support you offer - do you deal with more/less/about the same queries that you did before the upgrade? Did Windows 10 kill any software you used to run? have you found any other quirks that you've had to resolve?

[Michael]

Must say that I'm sticking with 8.1 at home until close to the "free" deadline, if not longer. That said, the last "big build" of 10 was a definite improvement on the rather premature initial release.

 

Do you mind me asking, where has 10586 improved on 10240? Other than a few GUI changes, I can't tell the difference. The Start Menu's still quirky, so I can only speculate it's just inner workings.

[LeMarchand]

Do you mind me asking, where has 10586 improved on 10240? Other than a few GUI changes, I can't tell the difference. The Start Menu's still quirky, so I can only speculate it's just inner workings.

 

Sure. Driver support seems much better and it seems to run on my older hardware more smoothly. The settings menu seems better integrated and the whole thing now feels more like a finished product. Some of the latter may just be down to me learning to live with its foibles!

 

Put it this way: prior to this build I was the only one I'd have subjected to W10, but I was going to put it on the Admin Officer's laptop until I remembered that SIMS wasn't officially supported.

 

Have just noticed that it's installed "Acer Explorer" though!

[Paid_Peanuts]

Is anyone successfully running Windows 10 on older hardware i.e. Core2Duo's with no updated drivers since the Vista era?

[LeMarchand]

Is anyone successfully running Windows 10 on older hardware i.e. Core2Duo's with no updated drivers since the Vista era?

 

Typing on an Acer Aspire 5736Z, but they did W7 drivers for it. Will check my machine at the site I'm heading to now. It's an old Dell tower that probably is of Vista if not XP vintage.

[foofighterjim]

Is anyone successfully running Windows 10 on older hardware i.e. Core2Duo's with no updated drivers since the Vista era?

 

I have standalone test Windows 10 install on an old Acer Extensa 5630, boots to desktop in 25 seconds. All drivers except for the card reader found by Windows, spec:

 

Intel Core2Duo T5800 @2.0GHz

2GB RAM

Standard 5,400rpm HDD

 

Its not exactly slick straight after boot but given another minute or so it will happily handle most tasks, I wouldn't try and have too much open at once!

[Paid_Peanuts]

I have standalone test Windows 10 install on an old Acer Extensa 5630, boots to desktop in 25 seconds. All drivers except for the card reader found by Windows, spec:

 

Intel Core2Duo T5800 @2.0GHz

2GB RAM

Standard 5,400rpm HDD

 

Its not exactly slick straight after boot but given another minute or so it will happily handle most tasks, I wouldn't try and have too much open at once!

 

Was this a clean Windows 10 install or an update to an existing Windows 7/8?

 

I am looking at potentially testing some older Dell Optiplex 755 (currently on Windows 7 with Vista drivers) with build 1511 (10586) by means of SCCM upgrade https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt426642(v=vs.85).aspx

Core2Duo

4GB RAM

SSD

Edited January 15, 2016 by Paid_Peanuts

[LeMarchand]

Is anyone successfully running Windows 10 on older hardware i.e. Core2Duo's with no updated drivers since the Vista era?

 

Dell Optiplex 740. Only driver problem is with the graphics card - a Quaddro FX 550 which was the only spare in the school - which occasionally plays up at boot (and once in a while during use, but it's hardly a powerhouse). Looking at my driver stash it looks like I had to find an audio driver too.

[foofighterjim]

Was this a clean Windows 10 install or an update to an existing Windows 7/8?

 

It was a clean install, I only actually built it to get some screen shots for my Windows 10 BYOD guide. Now I am playing with it in general, I find I use the search bar more than the actual start menu.

[jmak]

Do you mind me asking, where has 10586 improved on 10240? Other than a few GUI changes, I can't tell the difference. The Start Menu's still quirky, so I can only speculate it's just inner workings.

Probably only minor for professional use, but the way you can now do a clean install without having to upgrade first where the machine had an OEM licence for windows 7, 8 or 8.1 is a help.

 

Just bit from the media and no requests for a key, auto activates.

[speckytecky]

I have it on a Lumia 550 phone and one old i3 laptop with 2GB OF RAM at work. I much preferred W8 on the previous Lumia phone I had and I detest W8 on school kit so that's saying something! On the laptop it seems very happy despite the low quality processor and minimal RAM. That said our domain having a creaky old 32 bit Windows Server 2008 domain running 4GB of RAM (yep honestly!) won't take newer versions of nowt. What I have noticed with W10 though that concerns me greatly is OS updates ha become Apple like and take an absolute age to delay. I can't see that being acceptable on a live domain so guess the updates have to be planned for out of hours installs. Given that our domain shuts down the workstations when they are not in use I can't see that being a workable situation once we eventually get a server that brings us into the 21st century and enables deployment of W10.

 

Immediate thoughts come to mind -

 

- IE11 and .NET 4.6 as standard, a clean install of Windows 7 won't include these

- Much better driver support out the box, typical examples are:

- USB 3.0 Chipsets

- Intel HD Graphics

- Windows 10 loads considerably quicker than Windows 7

- There isn't the large volume of updates - Microsoft are moving more towards single, bigger, cumulative updates

- Office 2016 works on Windows 7, but don't be surprised if the next version doesn't

- Includes the Microsoft Edge browser - not a selling point at the moment, but will be in future

 

- Downfalls of Windows 10 - the Start Menu, it's not Enterprise ready, but I have a workaround here

- If you've deployed build 10240 (the original RTM release), the upgrade process to 10586 is painful -

- It takes approx. 45+ to install even on a decent spec workstation

- Upgrading renames the Windows folder to Windows.old, which in my view means it's a new OS, not an upgrade

- You can't Sysprep an upgraded workstation, you have to start with a clean install - even if you installed build 10240 (as new) and then 10586

- If you have many applications to install, this new policy is a nightmare as it'll mean you'll need to build a completely new image every 12 months.

[sparkeh]

The build updates are something to think about. As I understand it, with pro or enterprise you can defer the build updates for 12 months before it becomes unsupported for security updates. Therefore I plan a summer update to take our machines to the latest build rather than during term time.