Want to get Windows 10?

[Zelig]

The installed base of games plays fine on virtualized Win7. (Though they've recently updated Win7 for similar telemetry as Win10, so you'd want to avoid internet access for it if that's a concern.) If I didn't trust MS, I wouldn't buy any new games for Windows.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

The installed base of games plays fine on virtualized Win7. (Though they've recently updated Win7 for similar telemetry as Win10, so you'd want to avoid internet access for it if that's a concern.) If I didn't trust MS, I wouldn't buy any new games for Windows.

If the only thing I do is play games on my windows pc... I don't see how much that info really is worth for them or if I care about them spying on it. I don't think Apple has gone equally far in 'telemetry'. Otoh, MacOS seems less secure than before and I think the value of apple products are declining severely because of it. Not sure if it's worth juggling different OS:s in this manner for much longer. It must mess up data collecting to some degree, but there's an obvious cost to it also.

 

[Zelig]

Why would it mess up data collecting?

They're not interested in building a profile of what your personal computing habits are, they're interested in knowing how people are using their OS.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It took me a couple of reboots to get things going smoothly, but so far so good. Prior to installing I used Ultimate defragger to clean up my hard drive.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Why would it mess up data collecting?

They're not interested in building a profile of what your personal computing habits are, they're interested in knowing how people are using their OS.

It would mess up data collecting by giving each company only a fraction of my habits. ..not that I have anything to hide.

Of course they're interested of me personally - each individual's data is valuable for specified marketing. The service they provide would of course be better with personal info. I wonder what their ad-plan for win10 looks like. Perhaps a premium version will stay relatively ad-free.

Also - Win10 can search and disable your illegal software

 

[Zelig]

Every version is trivially completely ad free, I don't use any software with ads.

The "disabling illegal software" stuff is nonsense.

 

[Formaldehyde]

But as for how long? I'd say I expect most games from about 1996 onwards to run without issues today on 64-bit Windows, and around 1994 or so onwards for 32-bit Windows.

Well, it just isn't going to happen. Many games directly access the hardware or used weird ways to to get around software limitations at the time.

I recently tried to play Jagged Alliance 2 on Windows 7. The game was hopelessly broken even though it would load and look like it would still play.

And I see them making no effort to get Simcity 4 to work under Windows 10 even though it is on the compatibility list. It seems it might be an issue with graphics drivers so nVidia may get around to fixing it eventually.

https://www.reddit.com/r/simcity4/comments/3digqz/upgrading_to_windows_10/

 

[Zelig]

I wish more software would break more DRM, to make it untenable for publishers to include it in their products.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I decided to switch back to Windows 7. It was remarkably fast to do so. It only took a few minutes. But some stuff I had installed previously just disappeared into the ether.

So now I can play SimCity 4 again and my hard disks aren't on all the time...

But I'll probably switch back in another couple of months while hoping that SimCity 4 works by then.

 

[Zelig]

my hard disks aren't on all the time...

I'm not having any problems with this, my htpc is running Win10 with 14 disks that correctly only spin up if I'm accessing the media on a particular one.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That is strange. It may have something to do with selecting the option that my files should be somehow automatically backed up to one of them when I installed it. I had 2 TB just sitting there going to waste so I figured it couldn't hurt. But I noticed the other one doesn't ever turn off either. Both can be accessed instantly under Windows 10 but not under Windows 7. And I noticed the temps were appreciably higher on both of them as a result: 50 degrees C instead of 30 degrees C.

 

[dutchfire]

Is it known when the period to change to Windows 10 ends? I have 7 now and probably want to upgrade but haven't exactly made it a priority.
Only software that is likely to give problems is civ4+BtS, I have the disc version and I've read that could be an issue.

 

[Zelig]

One year. BTS disc version works fine if it's up to date.

 

[leif erikson]

Yas, BTS works fine because it has no copy protection scheme.

However, Civ4 vanilla and Warlords will not work played from disks.

 

[dutchfire]

Okay, but then can I still install vanilla from disc before installing BTS? Or do I need to make sure the installation is transferred in the upgrade process.

 

[leif erikson]

On my system it installed but would not run. You can read about the issue in this post.

 

[Zelig]

If you own the discs, under the copyright laws of most countries you're probably within your rights to simply acquire a version without DRM that actually works.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I got Windows 10 and it has made all of my MS Office apps really unstable and my digitizer stylus essentially doesn't work anymore. Since I use my tablet to take notes in class, this is extremely problematic.

Just as an FYI - you may want to hold off for a few months until they make Win 10 more stable.

 

[illram]

The free upgrade runs through July of next year, so there is plenty of time to wait for the kinks to get worked out.

 

[Zelig]

I doubt it particularly increases in stability or decreases in kinks in the future. They're adding new features and fixing bugs at about the same rate.

Software is never "finished", it's either in development, or abandoned.