[Windows 10 question] To upgrade, or not to upgrade...

Remember, in a year or two all games will require Win10.
So, make install on one drive, use Win7 until games don't force you to jump?

I heard from friends that they went to sleep leaving their PCs powered on and woke up with a new shiny win 10 instead of their old win 7.

I would personally go ahead and do the upgrade. I don't think anything is really that much of an improvement though, except for looks and boot times, as well as the much improved task manager. From Windows 8/8.1, it's a no brainer but from 7 it's definitely a more difficult decision.

I did upgrade this week with a mixed emotions.
It looks good, but it has many strange features like:

• no Microsoft Win 10 default app would start if you disable the UAC
• Microsoft store does not work if you disable the build in firewall
• some of the disabled features will be re-enabled automatically or when an update is installed (like MS Defender)
• you need to run some apps in admin mode even if your account is an admin one

Basically it took me a hour or so to upgrade from WIN 7 to WIN 10 and like one day to tweak and re-tweak it.

Some freeware useful stuff :
Spybot Anti-Beacon ---> https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/
GWX Control Panel ---> http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

Two essential program that I am using on it:

• Auslogics BoostSpeed 8 (careful with auto-tweaks!)
• Windows 10 Manager

Half of Windows are to be skipped since 3.1, ie no 95 (except maybe the latest version OSR2, which was almost like 98 with 95 interface), no Millenium, no Vista, no 8/8.1).
Keepers are 98, XP, 7 and now 10.

So, switching from 7 to 10 is not mandatory while switching from 8.1 to 10 is in my opinion.

Most games will still run as fine with 10 as they do with 7. Some will run better, some will run slower or won't run at all (I had issues with some non-steam games).

If I were you I would stick with 7 with that computer.
You will get 10 with the next computer you will buy anyway, so best is to keep one with 7 for potential compatibility issues of some games.

Personnally I still have a computer with XP (mandatory for old games which CDs have StarForce protection for example), one with 7 and newest one with 10 and I don't plan to upgrade the one with 7 to 10.

certainly the mandatory updates and the new awfull UI that just make things harder are a turn off, i been using it for months and its not that bad, you can program the updates to happen when you want to, and the silly new ui just adds a click or two to the things you want, but they are still there, and RAM management is improved, is not that bad really, today, to game, i would install it over w7 no doubt,

i installed windows 10 in jan-feb 2016, when i got myself an SSD. im pretty happy about win10, disabled all that info-grabbing stuff and never had any problems with it so far. at first i saw an obvious performance boost on games, but im not sure if thats because of the clean OS. go for it, you won't regret it.

Windows 10 is good after you remove the bloatware it comes with, and disable some stuff.

The number in the poll is really not reflected in the comments here... It's almost like there's no real reason to stick with 7 except for "it still works' ;-)
I upgraded from 7 to 8.1 after a year or so, while everyone was still complaining about how horrible it is, and couldn't see the problem. Basically the same OS, superficially at least, once you changed some settings. And it's exactly the same with 10. I upgraded after a few months, because why not? It's the newest version, which you're gonna eventually need to use someday, and free (and not called Vista). Looks fine and to me not even that different, got used to it very quickly. The data sharing stuff can be turned off; of course there might be things you can't turn off, but like you said... What does that really mean these days?
I have absolutely no idea where all the hate comes from, except for the suspicion that, in many cases, it's simply because people don't like change.

Go for it! And, as you said you would, the clean install is always a good idea, I did that too.

And hey, if you absolutely hate it, you can always go back.

I would not recommend Windows 10, but you need it for DirectX 12 gaming (not a problem now, but may be in the future). I still need to upgrade my gaming PC to Windows 10 and that is my sole reason.

Win 10 is good in some ways ,i noticed a big difference running Watchdogs on my very old comp.
There was a noticeable performance jump.
But as you mentioned the privacy thing is just way too much for my liking .
At least you had some control over what gets sent out from your comp. with previous O.S's.
It's all a bit too "skynet" for me ,though i do keep an offline machine with win 10 installed .
It does run well as an O.S.

If you don't care about Windows force rebooting on its own causing changes to unsaved documents to be lost, go for it. I'm using Windows 10 on one machine and have yet to find even one useful enhancement. My advise is to stick with what you're using.

I have a Surface Pro 4 (With Windows 10 Pro) for work now and I couldn't be happier.
Had to shut off some services though because privacy. (Used NoSpy10, if anyone knows a better tool, please let me know :] )

You will gain nothing from it so stick to Windows 7.

As for me I never had 7, I went straight from Vista (which was a much better OS than people gave it credit for) to Windows 8.1 and updated 2 months ago. I don't feel like I gained anything from the update but at the same time I'll never go back to 8.1.

What is a huge dealmaker for me over 8.1 is that some XBOX games have been ported and are getting ported.
Killer Instinct, Quantum Break and Gears of War Ultimate so far. The next FORZA and Scalebound will also at some point become available and that's all we know for now. But those are already some really cool titles.
However the lack of control over the OS is quite annoying. I had to hack my registry to get some control back over updates...not something your average joe computer user can do.

Don't care about the privacy because you're a loon if you think Win7 does nothing and as gamers we have no choice but to keep getting the latest and greatest Windows versions eventually. Windows 10 is no worse than previous iterations in that regard.

A low range gamer like you has no business switching to 10 until they upgrade their entire system and that will require a new OS anyways so there's no point in doing the update now.

upgrade now, no point in waiting. you will have to do it sooner or later.

I;m staying as Windows 8.1. I deleted quite a number of Windows update that contains Windows 10 Spyware.

I don't understand why people ask this question here over and over again. Go with the times, you get used to the new interface and what not. There is no reason to delay your upgrade, unless you want to run Win10 on a potatoe.

You will be asimilated! Join or die!
Yeah, I made the upgrade.

I upgraded long ago and never have problem that I wouldn't have on 8.1. I much prefer the new interface as well, but as said I was upgrading from 8.1.

I was really disappointed with it, it made many of my games run worse, and a few games, though obscure, not run at all. Went out of my way to go back to 7, then Windows 10 raped my computer in the night and forced it to upgrade.... after counseling, I returned back to 7 again.

From my experience, Windows 10 i s a damn fine system, easily as good as Windows 7, XP, and 95 before it.
But, you need to spend approximately a day tinkering with it, to get the configuration right, to customize it, and do things the way they should be done, rather than the way microsoft things they should be done (e.g. folder structures). If you don't put in the time, the system sucks.

Note: first time I upgraded, I didn't do it, and I ended up downgrading within a week. The second time around, I put in the effort, and I was happy with the result

I don't get the "user unfriendly" part at all. I upgraded from Windows 7, and the vast majority of the UI is identical with maybe some theme changes. Where it did change noticably, mostly I prefer the new version; the Start menu is better (once you remove the junk), task bar is better, Task Manager is way better, updates are faster and have no multiple reboots, etc. Also, despite all the FUD I hear, my games work just fine.

First thing i did was install Classic Shell Beta followed by Destroy Windows Spying .

Some questions to ask yourself right now.

Does Windows 10 itself have any features I need?
Do I have a DX12 based video card?
Do I have any games that require DX12?

For me personally, there is nothing in Windows 10 that I need. There is DX12 but I don't have a DX12 card or any games that require it. There is also the really big privacy concerns I have with it, which can be dealt with though I have heard it is a constant fight to keep those things off because Microsoft can and does turn some things back on during updates.

Then there is the part that ticks me off the most, forced updates. I always wait to do updates just because I want to see what it does to other peoples system. There has already been issues where Windows 10 started crashing systems because of bad driver issues.

I'm the one that should decide when I update something. I disliked having that taken away from me and I will put off buying Windows 10 for as long as I can. In the next few years I want to try to put a new system together and I will decide then if I want to move to 10 or not. Depends on how easy it is to turn off updates, and if stuff I turned off, Microsoft turns back on again.