Is Windows 10 right for you?
Tips and tricks to have a successful upgrade experience “Free upgrade” from Microsoft ends 07/28/2016.
Full price if you building a new PC - if you’re building a new PC and need a brand new Windows license you can purchase Windows 10 for $119 (or Windows 10 Pro for $199) Practically speaking though, buying a full price Windows 10 key, of either flavor, is a bad deal considering that you can purchase a cheaper key for Windows 7 and upgrade (or just scrounge it off the bottom of an old laptop or computer). You could, for example, buy a horribly dated (and possibly broken) Windows laptop at a garage sale for next to nothing and use the key to upgrade. Fortunately, getting Windows 10 on your computer (whether you’re performing an upgrade or a clean installation) is a straight forward affair. You download the Windows 10 installer tool from Microsoft, you run the installer, and you work your way through the installation wizard with a reboot here or there, and boom, you’re running Windows 10. It’s really a surprisingly simple process and we’re impressed with how smooth upgrading is. You can go from running Windows 7 or 8.1 to running Windows 10 pretty much as fast as your connection will download the update. Getting stuck – what now? - If the update fails, the process will put you back the way you were. No harm, no foul…. How to have a successful upgrade experience ….
Make sure your hard disk where your system resides (usually C: ) has enough hard drive space. (Add 16/25gb free for upgrade..MS says 8). Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster. RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit) Free hard disk space: 16 GB. Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver. A Microsoft account and Internet access. According to Rob…Also, it is easy to setup a local account after setting up the microsoft account. Just go to accounts in setting and there is an option in the first selection - Your Email and Accounts -- to sign in with a local account instead. It will set up a local account with access to the same files but no login to microsoft (you have to tell the app several times you don't want to sign in with an account or create email login or anything else) but you get a local account. then you can change the type (during creation or after) to standard user. Easier than creating it from scratch like you have to do to add other accounts. How to have a successful upgrade experience continued….
1) Get all updates, especially drivers, 2) Make an image backup of your system just before running the upgrade (Macrium Reflect is a good free imager) 3)Check out the upgrade compatibility report in the Get windows 10 icon (see: http://www.zdnet.com/article/will-your- pc-run-windows-10-use-this-well-hidden-compatibility-checker-to-find-out/). A MS employee’s view on why you need to upgrade to Windows 10. A MS employees view on why you don’t need to upgrade to Windows 10. Before you upgrade…. How to clear off hard drive space
Go to the Search Windows and type in “This PC” and type enter. “Right click” Local Disk (C:) Disk Cleanup Clean up system files Can I Downgrade Back To Windows 7 or 8 If I Hate Windows 10?
You can absolutely downgrade from Windows 10 back to the previous version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. You can even totally wipe your machine and reinstall your old version of Windows with the old key. But, and this is a very big but, you can only do so within the first 30 days. After 30 days two things happens. First, the rollback files stored on the PC are deleted (thus no downgrade is possible without totally reinstalling the previous version of Windows). Second, and less visible to the user, your previous Windows key is used as a golden ticket of sorts to approve your transition into Windows 10. If you rollback your machine in that first month you get your entire old Windows installation back. If you rollback after the 30 days you aren’t as much rolling back anymore as you are just releasing your Windows 10 license and freeing up your old key to be used for your older version of Windows. You’ll still need to totally reinstall Windows and use your old key to get your old installation back up and running. Now what’s interesting is that upgrading to Windows 10, even if you roll back to your previous version of Windows, secures you a permanent copy of Windows 10 linked to that license key. If you decide to upgrade two years from now, at least according to Microsoft at the time of this article, you’ll have a Windows 10 download waiting for you for free. Does Windows 10 Report Back To Microsoft?
Windows has, for ages, reported back to Microsoft in various forms. The most obvious and enduring reporting is the basic Windows authentication process. There’s also the equally as old error reporting service that phones home when your programs crash and things fall apart so Microsoft can, ostensibly, prevent such problems in the future. Windows 10 takes all that a step further, moving beyond the simplicity of verifying installation and reporting software problems, to more intimately integrating the online experience with the local computer experience in a way that ensures Windows 10 has a higher degree of communication with Microsoft and Microsoft properties (like Bing) than any previous version of Windows. The short of it is that, yes, Windows 10 is really chatty with ol’ Man Microsoft. The long of it is that nearly all of the privacy settings can be bent to your will if you’re willing to dig for them. We’d strongly suggest checking out our article Digging Into and Understanding Windows 10 Privacy Settings for more information. http://www.howtogeek.com/221864/digging-into-and-understanding-windows-10s- privacy-settings/ Credits
Thanks to howtogeek.com for providing some of the details about upgrading to Windows 10. Tech Stuff What is the registry review?
According to Microsoft…. The registry is a database in Windows that contains important information about system hardware, installed programs and settings, and profiles of each of the user accounts on your computer. Windows continually refers to the information in the registry. You should not need to make manual changes to the registry because programs and applications typically make all the necessary changes automatically. An incorrect change to your computer's registry could render your computer inoperable. However, if a corrupt file appears in the registry, you might be required to make changes. We strongly recommend that you back up the registry before making any changes and that you only change values in the registry that you understand or have been instructed to change by a source you trust. Saving your BACON…….
Viruses, malware, and ransomware all do the same thing…..they attack your registry. They add things like key loggers (capture passwords) or gain access to your machine (bots) through the registry. Audience question – if someone or something had control of your PC – could you tell? We are going to discuss how to in affect “backup your registry” quickly, easily and automatically. Now – this is not a magic pill that will ALWAYS work….but if you have nothing in place this could be the fix. And it is built right in! Type “restore” in the search windows box First turn on system protection, about 5% of disk space is needed If I could turn back time….. Questions on restore points?
First thing to do after upgrading to Windows 10. Set up restore points. When to use – when a patch downloads and doesn’t function properly you can go back to an earlier version of your OS. You get attacked by virus or malware – sometimes you can go back to the unaffected state. Applications can get funky after restoring an earlier version of the OS. Maybe you might have to reinstall the application. The Cortana Settings Box Other cool stuff about Windows 10
Click once on the Search Windows box on the lower left side taskbar. Type Cortana
Any Questions?