Saturday, August 22, 2015

My Windows 10 upgrade experience

Not that long ago, Windows 8 offered me a chance to save a spot in line for the free upgrade to Windows 10. I accepted that offer and waited for my turn to get it. So, on the 6th of August 2015, I noticed that Windows 10 had already downloaded and was ready to begin the installation process. Having heard very few problems from friends, I went for it.

The process took not more than an hour. I don't know for sure how long it took, because I did the unthinkable and left it unattended. I know. Invitation to disaster, right?

By the time I got back to my screen, everything was done and I was presented with a login prompt. Once I logged in, it just finalized a few settings. I was asked if I wanted to use the newest default Windows 10 apps for pictures, video, music, and web browsing, and I chose no for each category, already quite happy with my own, non-Microsoft choices for those types of media.

Once the final settings were finished, there was my desktop, pretty much just as I had left it. AMD Catalyst update went straight into action and updated itself, but not enough to actually get the latest version (go figure). I had to do that myself. Somehow, Raptr got installed. I investigated what it is, determined that I don't need it, and uninstalled it. It probably got added by the AMD Catalyst update.

I went to explore the new sign-in options, because I had heard that you can now log in using an image of your face via any connected camera. Unfortunately, as soon as I clicked to take a picture, Windows blue-screened. A reboot didn't show any lasting issues, but I steered clear of that option for now.

I started opening all my day-to-day programs. Chrome, Office, my password manager, all good. I tried X-Plane and realized that my Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick was not working. A little investigation revealed that it didn't install properly. My web research on this device scared me, as a lot of people have been having trouble with this joystick ever since Windows 7 came out, but I had been using it in 8.1, so I remained calm and removed the device from the device list. This seemed to allow the other devices to complete their driver installs as indicated by some rapidly moving progress bars beside each device.

Once that was over, I unplugged and reconnected the USB cable for the joystick and Windows instantly recognized and installed it. Whew. I guess Windows still has issues installing a lot of devices at the same time as it did in older versions.

Once the driver issue was settled, X-Plane ran smoothly.

After a few days, I tried opening the camera app again (it had blue-screened on me before) and it's still doing the same. But this seems to be the only lingering problem.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any trouble with photos? A friend says her folders have all become sorted by date or something, not the way she left it, not sure what she did to try to change it back ( I would think it a simple switch), but she seems to be saying it messed up her files. You? Heidi

Karl Plesz said...

No trouble here. I already had my photos sorted by dated folders, and it didn't seem to add anything new aside from app-specific folders.