Windows 10 Upgrade Stories

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

I've been splitting my Windows 10 upgrade progress reports between the "Things that make you {x}" threads. I figure I'm not the only one who's going to be dealing with Win10 upgrades leading up to the deadline, hence the creation of this thread. Please post your experiences, good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, here.

My scorecard to date:

One Win7 Home Laptop (mine) — success, no issues
One Win7 Home Desktop (Mrs. Prof's) — success, but I had to track down a "roll-up" July 2016 fix for Windows before I could get Windows Update and the upgrade to work.
One Win7 Pro Desktop (my main music system) — stuck on the "upgrade circle" screen at 99% (configuring features at 96%) for most of the day
One Win7 Pro Desktop (reinstalling Win7 Pro from scratch onto a replacement boot SSD) — stuck at 99% of the Windows Upgrade Assistant "Upgrading Windows" page

Is anyone experiencing the same hangs that I am? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[mlooney 3,417]

Have you thought of saying "screw it" and loading Linux on the machine?

[banneret 45]

Not always a choice. This computer runs Linux, but for my workhorse laptop and my gaming desktop, I need Windows. My workhorse, 8.1 to 10, now gets continuous hangs after the upgrade, but I haven't ruled out HDD issues. Nothing else has been upgraded yet.
 

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

I use three different computers on a fairly regular basis. The one I'm on now is Windows 7. It's mostly fine for my purposes, though I occasionally miss features of XP.  The other two were Windows 8, which I despised, but Win 10 filled me with fear and loathing.  I forgot to lock down the least used of the Win 8 machines, the one I travel with, and it got the stealth upgrade while I was at a science fiction convention.  I liked it so much more than Win 8 that I installed it on the remaining Win 8 machine.

Win 10 is actually pretty good if you have a touchscreen, but this machine is a desktop that can't take advantage of it.  It stays Win 7 for now.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

7 hours ago, mlooney said:

Have you thought of saying "screw it" and loading Linux on the machine?

Can't on my music machine. I've got hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of music software installed on it, most of it copy protected by an iLok dongle or internet validation. It's Windows or nothing on that sucker.

I have thought about it with the "spare" system, but for the sake of consistency I'd like to get both using the same OS.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Progress!

The music machine just needed a hard reboot. It went right into the last part of the Win10 Pro setup on power-up. My son reconnected the two data drives for me after I got Stardock's Fences and Start10 installed. However, once the drives were hooked up, everything sans the C: drive was given the wrong drive letter. Cakewalk Sonar and Native Instruments Komplete did not like this one bit. I had to go into the Disk Management app and reassign the drive letters. Once that was done, things worked. Hell, even my iLok USB dongle seems to be working, and I didn't lose any of my Waves plugins.

The "spare" machine required a bit more effort to get working. It kept hanging at 99%, no matter what fix I'd try. I finally downloaded the Win10 Media Creation Tool on my laptop, built a Win10 disc, and installed from that (took two tries — the first didn't work because I told it to grab updates before starting. Kill process, reboot, restart install w/no updates until after the install). The downloaded media installation eventually worked without hanging on any part of the process (on round two). That's not to say I didn't have problems, though. One of my hard drives is formatted as a GPT drive. Win10 didn't assign a letter to it (and no, I didn't disconnect my data drives before installation—don't ask me why, I forgot to do it). Disk Management to the rescue again. I assigned a letter and was able to see it, although I'm still having issues with accessing bits of it because I created a different username to do the install (again, I forgot something—in this case, what my old username was).

I guess you could say that I'm 100% complete on all four installs, although I'm only 85% complete on the transition (got to re-establish drive sharing, etc.).

My advice? DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE 29TH IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO THE UPGRADE! START NOW! YOU'RE GOING TO NEED THE EXTRA TIME!

[The Old Hack 2,448]

I will upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 only over my dead body. I found applications on the Internet that disabled the nagware and helped me switch off all update options. Right now my computer works and I want it to keep working properly.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

the last time i updated this laptop (Vista to 7) it completely shat itself due to barely adequate hardware. I don't think it would survive 8 or 10.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

21 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

the last time i updated this laptop (Vista to 7) it completely shat itself due to barely adequate hardware. I don't think it would survive 8 or 10.

Hmmm....I have a pretty old laptop, but it was quite good when I bought it.  Now I'm wondering whether I should update it.  I'll have to track down minimum recommended system requirements.  Before the deadline?  Ack.

Of course, given that the power switch is sticking out by wires, what I *should* do is go buy a new laptop and retire this one.  But, my iPad has a cracked screen and stuck volume button, and my average phone loses signal if it gets warmer than sitting-untouched-at-room-temperature, so I'm not quite sure what my priority should be here.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

Of course, given that the power switch is sticking out by wires, what I *should* do is go buy a new laptop and retire this one.  But, my iPad has a cracked screen and stuck volume button, and my average phone loses signal if it gets warmer than sitting-untouched-at-room-temperature, so I'm not quite sure what my priority should be here.

Obviously you should get two more kittens and buy them lots of toys and a kitty bed.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

7 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Obviously you should get two more kittens and buy them lots of toys and a kitty bed.

*sigh*  Give me some time.  I finally said goodbye to Hobbes about a week ago, almost a year and a half after he was given 3-6 months to live (intestinal lymphoma).  CCNU every six weeks or so got us a lot of good extra time together.  I'm sure another fuzzy or two will show up at work needing a home before long!

Hmm, actually, I might get to spoil kittens sooner than that, at least in short intervals -- my parents lost their last cat and dog in close succession (basically both to old age) earlier this year, and as soon as Mom gets done breaking in her new knee, they're going to be getting either a little dog or a pair of kittens. Or, I suppose, both....

 

Back on-topic, or at least one digression closer to it, I guess I use this iPad a lot more than I do my laptop, and my cell phone cutting out is higher risk, so I guess a new laptop is bottom of the three.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

*sigh*  Give me some time.  I finally said goodbye to Hobbes about a week ago, almost a year and a half after he was given 3-6 months to live (intestinal lymphoma).  CCNU every six weeks or so got us a lot of good extra time together.  I'm sure another fuzzy or two will show up at work needing a home before long!

My apologies. I know how hard it is. *sigh* I should really get around to getting new cats myself.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

My apologies. I know how hard it is. *sigh* I should really get around to getting new cats myself.

I tell clients all the time, there's no "correct" way to mourn, and different people need different space to do it in.  Some people are in our office for a euthanasia one day, and a New Puppy Check-Up the next day.  Others leave saying, "This is my last cat, it's just too hard losing them!" (and usually are back about a year later....)  Even pet to pet for the same person, it's different every time.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Okay, I've run into a problem with Windows 10. I've got a HomeGroup set up that's being accessed by four computers at the moment—one laptop, two wired desktops, and a wireless desktop, a.k.a. the problem system. Said system can see and access the other three computers. However, although the other three can see the problem system listed in the HomeGroup (and in Networking as general), none of the other three systems can actually access any of the files on the problem system. I get an "unable to find path" error message when I try to access the problem system.

I've researched the issue to death and haven't found a solution. Has anyone had a similar problem? How did you fix it? HELP!