Some Windows 10 Questions

[darth_damian_000 8]

I am currently running Windows 7 on my system. I am satisfied with it, and for the hardware that I have, my P3D runs smoothly. I have zero OOMs under my belt after flying for about a year. The Windows 10 Free Upgrade offer is expiring in a month, and I am leaning toward upgrading. Windows 10 is the future, and all future upgrades will be made for that environment, so I am thinking I will take the plunge.

 

My situation is that I have P3D V3.3 and I have...A LOT of add-ons, mostly airport sceneries and some PMDG and aerosoft planes, as well as the whole ORBX FTX enchilada (global, vector, open lc europe and alaska/canada). All of these are installed somewhere in C:\Lockheed Martin.

 

1) Do I simply upgrade to windows 10, and things remain as is? Do I have to uninstall and install my P3D and all of their add-ons?

2) For those of you who upgraded, are you regretting it? How was the transition for you?

 

Thanks!

[Bobsk8 12,489]

Windows 7 works great.  I guess that is why the overwhelming majority of windows users are still on it. 

[Samaritano 303]

I did the upgrade around 6 months ago. I went with a clean install of Windows 10 so I had to fresh install P3D and all the addons. I'm not regretting it one bit. I like it and I don't notice a whole lot of difference when it comes to the daily use of the OS.

[johnman 7]

Did the "Upgrade" to Win 10, Fs was a Slide Show, Waged War, and Found all New Drivers ect, improved things Considerably, but could Not Achieve Pre Install Performance. Swallowed My Pride and Reverted back to Win7. 24 Hours of Much Aggravation !!, glad I did try, and I think that if it was a Clean Install without all the Old Baggage, things would have been OK, I'll stick to Win 7 for Now !! Being an OLD A&P Mechanic, I try to live by an OLD Axiom, If it ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

 Johnman B)

[vgbaron 3,485]

you seem to be saying you are going to do it anyway so try the in place upgrade and if it doesn't work, reinstall everything.

 

FWIW, I have two systems, one with w7 and one w10. P3d runs just fine on either but I feel I get a little better performance from the w7 system. No hard scientific evidence, just feels better. My main annoyance with w10 (home premium) is that although I've run all the tools to turn off the phoning home, I still get occasional stutters due to some background windows activity. Quite annoying at times.

 

I also know of many people who really love W10 and P3d.

 

A suggestion - save yourself a whole lot of aggravation - do a fresh install of the OS AND a fresh install of P3D and addons - you will be better off in the long run.

 

Vic

[sgreen91 182]

I purchased Windows 10 first of this year after building my system (No upgrade option available).  Personally I've had no issues or complaints with the OS but YMMV.  If I were still using my older system I would have also stuck with Windows 7 as many others have.

 

If I were you I'd stick with what works and that your happy with.  Windows 10 will have another big update on August 2 so things may go completely sideways or upwards.  I can only hope for the best as its the only OS i have to use.

[Peter Webber 339]

I upgraded to Windows 10 from 8.1. Select the option to keep all settings when upgrading. No problems at all with PMDG, ASN, and all other addons. I had to re-register with PMDG. No need to reinstall any products. Just have to install the latest Windows 10 graphics drivers.

[ErichB 3,637]

Hi Damian

 

I went through this very process last weekend. I upgraded to W10 from W7. The process itself is very simple, and went by without much issue.

 

Cut a long story short, I decided on a clean install of W10 and P3D (long overdue anyway) - the upgrade alone caused P3D to pause quite often and I had blurry textures. But once installed from scratch, everything was good. There are no driver compatibility issues, everything is as it was much as before.

 

However, as my PC is purely used for flightsimming, the benefit of W10 is not obvious. If your W7 isn't broken, I'd say, don't bother. It'll cost you two days of re-installation and patience with little appreciable benefit.

 

Make sure you invest the time to shut down all of the intrusion which W10 brings.  There are a number of Youtube videos on how do do this, some better than others.

[howevr 39]

My take.

 

Windows 7 Service Pack 1. End of extended support is 14 Jan 2020. So in less than 4 years Windows 7 SP1 will no longer be supported, in other words, no more security updates.

 

Windows 8.1 End of extended support is 10 Jan 2023

Windows 10 End of extended support is 14 Oct 2025.

 

Windows 7 was generally available for sale 22 Oct 2009. After nearly 7 years it's hardly surprising it has more users than Windows 10. And like XP before it, Win7 went through its fair share of teething problems and upgrade issues. It was also a time when 64bit went mainstream and the wait for drivers particularly from printer manufactures was pretty bad.

 

Most licenses are OEM and tied to the PC purchased. Should the PC motherboard fail you are supposed to get a new Windows license - enough said.

 

In Australia Windows 10 Home edition on DVD is about AUD$125.00 exc 10% GST so about US$93.00

 

As we all know the free upgrade from Win7 and Win8 to Win10 ends 29 Jul 2016.

 

At some point you will upgrade to Windows 10. No question. Whether by choice or due to hardware failure or desire to upgrade your hardware. Or to take advantage of the cool things that will only be available in Windows 10 such as DirectX 12.

 

To me the choice can be broken down as follows.

 

1. I have a good system and I think I will get at least another 1-2 years use before I consider an upgrade. Even then I'm likely to pass the system on to a family member.

Then upgrade to Windows 10 for free. You get a Digital Entitlement tied to your hardware and Microsoft ID that will see you through till the system dies.

 

2. I have a suspect system and I intend/hope to upgrade in the next few months. In this case there is no point in upgrading to Win10 as its tied to your hardware which you will be getting rid of. You will no doubt get Win10 with your new system.

 

There is no point worrying about upgrade problems. Face them and resolve them as they occur the same way you solve problems with your sim installs. There are no guarantees regardless of what choice you make.

 

As for me. I have a very stable Win8.1 install that's gone through 2 motherboard replacements, several video cards  - GTX 670 SLI then  GTX780TI currently GTX980TI. Addon sound cards and addon SATA for additional drives. I have 4 SSD and 5 HDD installed in a huge Cosmos case with 3 ext USB drives. Plus other addons. Programs and Features tells me I have 493 programs installed.

 

During July I will do a clean install of Windows 10 Pro. I love free.

 

Cheers,

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Staying on Windows 7  :smile:

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Upgraded an HP 23" A-I-O PC from Win 8.1 to Win10 and an 8 year old HP laptop from Win7 to 10 and I must say the more I use 10 on them the more I like it.  Been testing with them for months just my regular routine to see if I would come up with issues.  Surprisingly the old laptop is working great, just made sure I had the latest drivers it offered the ol' gal.  She does take longer to boot than the Win7 but that is not an issue.  So far I have found no need for the "fresh" virgin install.  Upgrading has posed no issues at least for me.

 

I have left the AIO completely Win10 with no programs other than what came with the PC.  The laptop I have been able to make it look work just like Win7 so I like that it is flexible that way.

 

So I will probably upgrade one of my sim PC's to 10 next week.  But first I'll make a complete partition back-up before.  The only issue I  might have is that my 2nd sim PC also serves as my home entertainment PC which means I run Windows Media Center which is no longer available in 10. But I read up on a 3rd party unofficial WMC that does work with 10 so that may finally win me over if I can find someone already using it.

[Bobsk8 12,489]

 

 

 
Windows 7 Service Pack 1. End of extended support is 14 Jan 2020. So in less than 4 years Windows 7 SP1 will no longer be supported, in other words, no more security updates.
 

 

One of the windows experts, Paul Thurrott, says  that the support time for Windows 7 will most likely be extended well past 2020, due to the very large number of users of that OS.  https://www.thurrott.com/

[darth_damian_000 8]

Thanks for all of your input guys. The reason I am considering the upgrade is because it is free, I assume this "free" deal is off the table if I have to do a clean install. I do understand the benefits of a clean install. After reading through these posts, it seems like it is the best thing to do.

 

I just hear rumors of a 64 bit P3D, perhaps optimized for DX12 (not available on windows 7), and I figured this is a golden opportunity. Though I figured that I don't really feel sound knowing how all my system files will be merely migrated from an old OS onto a new one.

 

Last night I was so ready to upgrade, but the fine insight I received here makes me think that I should wait for another PC upgrade that I will do sometime in the near future, which is when I will buy a fresh copy of Win10 and install it.

 

Thanks again for the responses. I would still like to hear more of course

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

The free deal is not off the table if you clean install. But the time limit on it's offer is approaching.

 

I suggest that if you want to clean install without upgrading over you Win 7, let Windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10 just to activate your W10 license. The license is stored in the BIOS so you only have to do this once. You can now download an ISO Win 10 installer to a USB on the MS website, format your disk and run the USB installer to get a completely clean vanilla W10 setup with no worry of rubbish, including orphaned registry entries left behind from W7. Windows will be registered immediately, no activation required.

 

I would suggest that unless you are having issues, hold off until around 2 August when the next major update for Win 10 will be released. This will also be made available as a ISO, usually a few days after it is released to Windows Update. Means you get the cleanest possible installation that does not require a huge pile of updates off the bat.

[mokeiko 39]

Hi Damien,

 

In your position I would do the upgrade to get the Windows10 license. Then I would do a full reinstall (Format hard drive, new Windows10 OS).

 

Fly safe