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Several users have posted messages here, complaining about Win 10. I was apprehensive at first, and wanted to wait, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try it. I roughly followed these steps:
1. First I created an image of my systems drive, In case I decided to revert to 8.1.
2. I upgraded my existing installation to 10. This step is essential, because it gives you an activated Win 10 setup. When you later do a clean install from a "OEM" disc, Microsoft will recognize your computer as eligible for 10 and you will have no trouble getting the setup activated. I much prefer a "clean" installation on a blank drive, rather than an "upgraded" setup.
3. Then I downloaded the ISO file to create a Win 10 install disc from Microsoft and burned a DVD to do the installation.
4. Backed up all data on my systems drive. There wasn't much, as I use a second internal drive to store my data.
5. Using an old Active@ disc I bought years ago from LSoft, I deleted all partitions on my systems drive.
6. Created a new recovery partition on the drive. If you don't create this partition, the Windows installer will create it. However, Windows is inclined to make this partition so small that after time, it will not have enough space to create a shadow copy of itself and you will not be able to create a shadow image of your entire systems drive. I make the recovery partition 2 GB, which is plenty.
7. Mark the recovery partition as Active (important). There is no need to assign a drive letter to this partition.
8. Create a second partition, using the entire remainder of the systems drive. Make this partition a Primary partition. Do NOT mark it as active. Assign drive letter C.
9. Using the Microsoft disc, install Windows 10 on the second, large partition. Skip the two steps where it asks you for an activation code.
10. As soon as Windows runs, assuming you have Internet access, the installation should become activated, provided you did not skip step 2.
11. Install all your Apps and updates.
I had absolutely zero issues with 10, and I am very pleased with it.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Wow, this sounds like a lot of work. I can't recall the last time I used a DVD to install Windows, let alone booted into normal setup. I always use a USB pen drive, boot into WinPE, use a diskpart script to create the partition layout and just apply a personalized image (that hopefully works...) that is already configured the way I want, and with all update packages integrated (I started this with Windows 7 because I got sick of downloading 150 updates when you install it from the vanilla image). It requires a little work to initally set this up, but if you have to do it pretty often (friends, etc.) it's really a time saver.
I think Windows 10 is okay, you can still configure it to minimize all the telemetry/privacy issues (if you care) and remove all the mobile/cloud stuff you don't want/need. Plus, it runs pretty smooth in general.
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It's not as bad as it sounds. Keep in mind that Win 10 is new, and there are not many updates for the OS yet.
What also helped me, is that I have a SSD systems drive, that just about doubles your write speed. The entire process took me about 8 hours, and a big part of that was setting up Visual Studio with all its updates.
I believe it was worth my while.  I like to have full control over aspects like partition sizes, etc.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
modified 14-Nov-15 16:27pm.
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I installed 'Destroy Windows 10 Spying[^]' ...it's mostly a bunch of firewall rules and entries in the HOSTS file to redirect telemetry to nowhere...seems to be working, only had it going a couple of days.
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Looks interesting, thanks!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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You're welcome!
I figure they aren't going to let up on the spying thing, which was their whole rationale for 'free' Windows 10. In addition, they are deploying the same things to Windows 7 & 8.x. It's time to deploy countermeasures!
I would love to know which file(s) do the keylogger thing which is what freaks me out the most...them capturing my online banking passwords.
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Just had an idea 
They want some telemetry, why not give them some ?
What a bout a flood generator sending random data
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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That is a really cool idea! 
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Excellent you should start getting advertisements shortly and they'll track you to make sure you're making the best use of your new OS and well they might give it to a few other people but they're responsible right, they wouldn't give it to anybody you wouldn't right?
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!
New version: WinHeist Version You didn't fall from the stupid tree you got dragged through the whole dumbass forest.
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Time for counter-measures as Dave suggests above? 
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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I'm still at 7 and intend to stay there for some time.
New version: WinHeist Version You didn't fall from the stupid tree you got dragged through the whole dumbass forest.
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Here Here.
Daughter got a new Tablet with windows 10.
After a few days, she has to reboot to get her speed back.
It just DRAGS from time to time.
I hate the integrated search/web search.
Windows 7 got EVERYTHING RIGHT IMO. A small adjustment at first from XP,
but better overall.
Windows 10 still makes finding my programs harder, and I have to guess at how to do things!
Beats windows 8 to death! (BTW, I bought my first Mac after having to work with Windows 8
for the first time!!)
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Kirk 10389821 wrote: Beats windows 8 to death! (BTW, I bought my first Mac after having to work with Windows 8
for the first time!!)
Yes it does beat 8, or I as I fondly refer to it H8 but that's a story for another day.
I would image a lot of people are bailing on uSoft and if they don't get there elephant together it'll get a lot worse.
New version: WinHeist Version You didn't fall from the stupid tree you got dragged through the whole dumbass forest.
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i let the auto-installer do what it was written to do.
worked perfectly.
zero problems.
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That's nice. I just tried the upgrade to Windows 10 and cannot, for the life of me, get the keyboard and mouse to work. I've tried everything for about 3 hours now.
Next step, reverting the machine back to Win7...
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That is strange! Is there anything special about your keyboard and mouse?
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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No, but apparently it's a VERY common problem. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to revert the machine without a keyboard to hit Shift-F8 on. The USB hub driver goes dead when Windows never sees that your hitting Shift-F8 to go into the maintenance menu and tell it to revert. 
My MoBo doesn't have PS/2 ports, so a USB keyboard is my only option.
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You don't have a Win 7 image and the associated boot disc? If yes, you will have the ability to restore 7 without having to "undo" 10 first.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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I've got the Win7 boot and I just started the Win10 boot disc. The Win10 boot say when telling it to go back to the previous build, "We ran into a problem and won't be able to take you back to the previous build. Try resetting your current build instead". ELEPHANT!
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The Win 7 boot disc I refer to is not the Windows 7 system install disc, but the bootable media that Windows can create when you make an image of your systems drive. If you don't have such an image, it seems to me you may have to install Windows 7 from scratch?
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Yeah, I've got that disc too. Was trying to give Win10 a chance, but it's not looking good.
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ELEPHANTING piece of sh*t! My Win7 recovery disk will not boot. It worked BEFORE I tried to install Win10, now it doesn't. "Non-system disk or disk error".
The Win10 tools will not load the drivers I need to get at my backup image. I can't restore the backup at all.
Trying to install Windows on the same drive as the f'd up Win10 installation won't work either. It says it has to wipe the drive to do an install. Something I can not afford now that my backup is completely useless.
After fiddling around with thing all day, I'm down to installing a new SSD in the machine and trying to install Windows on that. ELEPHANTING can't do that either! Errors out because the old drive is still in the machine and has boot crap on it and Windows doesn't like it! I have to remove the old drive to get Windows to install on the new one ... in theory anyway. Everything I try Windows is shooting down for some reason of another.
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Dave, there's been a development this morning that may affect you: My Win 10 informed me that it needs to "Upgrade" itself. Note: It said 'upgrade' not merely 'update'.
The upgrade was massive. It took over an hour on my fast SSD. A big part of it was apparently an extensive new set of drivers. Now I'm thinking: Maybe the initial version of 10 had USB drivers that caused issues with some USB keyboards and mice? Can it be that this issue is fixed in the latest version of 10?
I give you this information for what it's worth. Since both versions of 10 work great on my machine, I cannot say for sure whether the latest version is going to help you.
By the way: Samsung makes an excellent SSD, but many Amazon customers complain that the Samsung software that accompanies the drive, will offer to upgrade its firmware. However, the upgrade process totally fries the drive. I am very happy with my Samsung, but I totally avoided the software that came with it. You do not need it!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Thanks for the heads up on the Samsung SSD software. I installed a 500GB one in the machine last night ready for a new batch of approaches to try and recover the machine.
I've also read that the upgrade, "Threshold 2", pack won't download for at least a month if you install Windows 10 now. I'll have to go over to MSDN and look at picking it up over there.
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