Things seem to be moving in that direction and a few bits of software are exclusive W10.  I am really happy with Win7 Ultimate and have loads of software for P3Dv3 and v4.

How difficult is a changeover? Upgrade to W10 without clearing hard drives or start from scratch? Or leave Win7 on my Pc and ignore W10 as long as possible?

Thanks in advance for advise and suggestions

Neal Howard

My view: I don't recall any issues with the update. However, that was quite a long time and a new computer ago.

Make sure you have plenty of free space on your boot drive. Maybe 100gb free at least? Make a restore disk/usb stick before you start; just in case. Back up your critical documents.

I'm not sure why people claim to have heartburn over Windows 10. I like it and have had near zero problems. It's better than Win7, imo. I guess people like to hate and if there's something other people hate, so much the better.

Nike!

Just make sure there are Windows 10 drivers for your motherboard before making the jump over to Windows 10.  You're motherboard's website will have them if they exist.

I think it's far better to start from scratch.

 

 

Edited February 4, 20197 yr by DaveCT2003

I don't love W10. Besides forcing updates all the time with occasionally bad results, it's always running all sorts of background junk, esp. after booting . If I didn't have to use W10, I'd have stuck with W7 myself. My W7 machine wss very lean and clean. But those times are gone.

Edited February 4, 20197 yr by odourboy

Well the compelling reason to switch is Microsoft is ending extended support for Windows 7 in January 2020, less than 1 year. How easy it will be to make the switch depends on lots of things, age of your hardware, how much stuff is on your hard drive, how old your software is, etc. RichieFly's advice is sound. I upgraded to Windows 10 very early on and I started from Windows 8, not Windows 7. My upgrade was very smooth with very few issues. I'm also a member of the Windows Insider fast ring, and all of the updates I get have been compatible with all of my P3d and add-ons with very few exceptions. I'd say you would probably want to start planning the switch soon though, Windows 7 will soon go the way of Windows XP, Windows ME, etc.

I occasionally rebuild my sim computer, and at that time I change OS's.  In other words, I am like Dave -- I prefer to start from scratch, less problems for me overall doing that.

I recently upgraded to an i7-9700K with all of the bells and whistles, including going from Win7 Pro to Win 10 Pro having vowed never to change OS. I have to say, I have no complaints. Auto update is turned off which was my biggest issue and I have become used to the differences.

I had to go to W10 because I wanted to use a WMR headset. Samsung Odyssey+

I don't have any regrets but had it not been for that I would have stayed with W7.

I say stay put until something really compels you to change and when you do Start from scratch.

2 hours ago, Avidean said:

I say stay put until something really compels you to change and when you do Start from scratch.

Hi Neal,

......or, take the more leasurely approach and install Windows 10 under a Dual Boot arrangement - see my signature.

I have always remained sceptical about rushing to make the change and so this option seemed to me to be eminently sensible. I have preserved and continue to use my superbly performing and stable Windows 7 installation (no forced updates, indeed no Windows updates, including the much publicised Spectre and Meltdown patches, for the best part of a year now) while affording me the opportunity to explore what Windows 10 has to offer. 

I was able to preserve the consistency of all my secondary drive letters under both o/s. This has many advantages, e.g.:

1. All drives are accessible from both o/s (Win10 appears as Drive ‘T’ under Win7 and Win7 appears as Drive ‘S’ under Win10).

2. The ability to access and run many Steam games under both o/s without the need to reinstall specifically for Win 10. The assumption here is that Steam games make little or no use of the System Registry. Of course, this does not apply to Prepar3D (300-400GB) which will continue to run only under Win7. My intention is to install Version 5 under Win10.

3. X-Plane 11 (installed under Win7) seems to run fine when accessed from Win10. Again, no reinstallation was necessary.

3. Many products allow the use of the same licence under both o/s so no need to repurchase. This would not be the case with Prepar3D. LM would require you to purchase a second licence should you chose to run under both Win7 and 10.

So, for the next year or so I can slowly build on my use of Windows 10 in the knowledge that everything installed under Win7 remains intact.

Unlike others, my enthusiasm for Win10 remains somewhat muted. Currently I can’t say that it offers anything I need or want that is not already available under Win7. If you get the Pro Version there is much you can do to determine when updates should be applied. I do find it slightly annoying to see the motherboard light, signalling SSD activity, flickering away for many minutes at the beginning of a Win10 session. You can decide when updates  are applied, but you can’t stop Windows from downloading those updates. There is a way to hide certain updates (Microsoft provide a utility) and you can prevent driver updates. This is all well documented on the Internet.

Like Windows 7, I have elected to install Windows 10 on its own dedicated drive. In the case of Win10, it’s a fast 2TB drive which is allowing for the installation of a few games or apps that have been designed for that o/s. At some stage I am intending to explore VR and it is known that the Oculus software is now being optimised for Win10. I doubt whether I will use VR with Win7. 

Just something for you to consider without losing any options or exposing you to the nightmare of having to reinstall everything. When I decide to make the change to using Win10 exclusively then all that drive real estate will still be available, including the 1TB Win7 drive. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon 😉

Regards,

Mike

I'm no fan of Win 10, but had to go there because hardware driver support wasn't there in Win 7 for the new chipset.

My two cents...stay with Win 7 until something forces you to move...P3D works just fine in Win 7, there really is no advantage running it in Win 10.  Just start planning for the move in a year or two, and when you do I also recommend a clean install from the ground up...no good reason to bring over the registry clutter, and everything gets built on the platform it's going to run on.

Regards

29 minutes ago, w6kd said:

My two cents...stay with Win 7 until something forces you to move...

He's trying to get into VR, I think.

17 hours ago, odourboy said:

it's always running all sorts of background junk, esp. after booting

Such as what? Windows 10 continues loading parts of the OS after you get to the desktop but this is just to speed up the booting process and allow you to use the OS quicker.

11 hours ago, DavidP said:

Auto update is turned off which was my biggest issue

Turning updates off completely means that you don't get any of the important security updates. It's much better to just turn off driver updates which are usually what cause the problems.

I don't know what the heck it's doing... it seems to be scanning my system for updates status, based on the process names. It routinely hogs 10 to 15% of the CPU along with lots of disk and I/O activity. Whatever it's doing it can often take 15 or 20 minutes to settle down before I'm comfortable to fire up my sim. 

5 minutes ago, odourboy said:

I don't know what the heck it's doing... it seems to be scanning my system for updates status,

go to settings, privacy and work your way through the column on the left; turning off/ disabling or 'minimalizing' everything on the right. this should drastically reduce background activity to the extent your OS should feel like win7 again.
if not, set it back to defaults.

Edited February 5, 20197 yr by jpf

Been there, done that. Early on, I combed the internet and applied ever setting that applied to W10 Home, including some registry settings, designed to minimize background activity and hold updates at bay. Spent days tweaking. It worked great for a long time, then somehow Microsoft managed to forced a massive update on my machine that I was powerless to stop, (took about I hours go apply it all), undoing much of the work is done and removing some of the back doors, I'd exploited.

After that it was clear I couldn't win. So I've got all the obvious stuff turned off and just live with the rest. Thus my statement of I have no love for W10 and would gladly still be on W7 if I could.

Edited February 5, 20197 yr by odourboy