Open the Windows of Upgrades
Free upgrade to Windows 10! This is the catch cry many retailers are using to help sell their wares. If you are in the market for a new PC then this is nothing special. Anyone who purchases a new PC from now until the next version of Windows is able to get Windows 10 without any further expense.
So once again – be wary of misleading advertising making a ploy for your wallet. Simply put – If the PC comes with Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 then the upgrade to 10 is totally free and has nothing to do with where you purchase the product from! In fact anyone who has already purchased a PC with Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 can get the upgrade to 10 for free for the next 12 months.
So is it any good? We have been evaluating pre-release versions of Windows 10 for many months now and since its official release on the 29th of July we have upgraded all of our own office PC’s across to Windows 10. However this has not been without hitch. When upgrading an existing operating system there have been a number of problems with varying degrees of severity.
As an example the upgrade will often stop your email package from being able to send new emails. This can be fixed but is well beyond the expertise of the average user. In contrast to the upgrade problems we have encountered, if you are able to do a fresh installation of Windows 10 onto a clean or reformatted hard drive then no problems have been encountered. However this last option is also well beyond the average user.
This is exactly the same as I have seen with previous operating system upgrades such as 98 to XP or Millennium to XP or even Vista to 7. In all cases the final result is much better if it is a fresh installation. It is almost like changing the colour of a room by painting over the top of the previous, without first sanding back to a solid surface. You end up with a few chips and bumps from the prior arrangement!
For the above reasons we performed fresh installations of Windows 10 on all of our own office PC’s. Then we set about performing lots of extra tweaks to control the way Windows 10 looks and drives. The results of all of this are brilliant, with Windows 10 starting quickly, running flawlessly and offering a very fresh look and some useful new options.
So what are we offering to people in the market for a new PC? When it comes to our own custom built PC’s, we are offering Windows 7 or 8.1 or 10 right from the start with our preference now being for 10. With the laptops that we sell it is the same (we have a preference for 10) however in all cases it is a fresh installation instead of an upgrade from a previous operating system.
For people that already have a PC and are interested in upgrading to 10 we suggest extreme caution if considering doing the upgrade yourself. In most cases we prefer to examine the existing installation and suggest the best course of action – which has to be done on a case by case scenario.
The bottom line – Windows 10 is looking like a fantastic operating system but users need to be careful not to hobble its performance by bringing across problems from a previous Windows version.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
For more advice and assistance from Kerr Solutions, like and follow us on Facebook