I've recently done the free upgrade to Windows 10, so I thought I'd post my experiences in case they help / tally with anyone else's.
First of all the tool advised I couldn't upgrade because the older of the two graphics cards (a 7300 GS), was compatible. I only had that card in there to run my third monitor, as I couldn't get all three ports working on the 7700. So I did a little research, established an active adapter was needed on the DisplayPort, bought one, then was able to run all three monitors from the newer card. With this working, I removed the older card and vainly hoped the upgrade tool would rerun an assessment. It wouldn't and despite trying various way to force it, I couldn't, so instead I just reinstalled Windows 7.
After going through the various updates the Windows 10 tool soon popped up again, this time the system was all compatible, then the notification to upgrade arrived a few days later. However I wanted to ensure it was a clean install, so it was a slightly long winded process. In order to do a clean install I needed an activated instance of Windows 10 running first, so I went through the upgrade process as normal which was painless.
On firing up the new Windows 10 installation, the first thing I noticed was that the fonts were terrible, blurry and rough. Changing Cleartype settings made no difference. I also noted an upgrade install over my two year old Windows 7 install took up over 60GB - ridiculous.
Now to the clean install. I downloaded the Media creation tool, which then downloaded another copy of Windows 10 (but with my previous activation embedded), which I put on a USB flash drive. I then booted to this, wiped all the previous partitions and reinstalled Windows 10. This time the fonts were slightly better (I think the graphics driver is different but I didn't take a note of the previous version), however they still leave a lot to be desired. The new install occupied a more palatable 18GB.
All was OK and I started setting the OS up, mapping Docs / Pics etc across to my NAS. Then I found all the folders stopped working and I couldn't backslash to the NAS either. Windows refused to connect and complained: "A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated", WTF??
Some more searching revealed that incredibly, setting up a PIN to login, as Windows encourages you to do and I duly had, breaks local network access! Furthermore, there seems to be no way to remove the PIN. However, logging out then logging back in with your full password does fix the issue, so now I can access the NAS again and subsequently, the mappings are all good. This seems ludicrous to me, so hopefully I've missed something or if not, it will be fixed shortly.
Other than that it's early days. The font issue is really annoying and nearly reason enough to go back to Windows 7, however it looks like it might be a Radeon problem so I'm hoping it improves soon with a driver update. Groove music seems decent, as does the new Photo app. Due to the complaints about the Windows 8 layout, we're back to the Desktop being a large and pretty much redundant empty space - I'm not sure this is a good thing to be honest, but it seems I'm in the minority. Instead an abbreviated version of the Windows 8 tile system appears in the Start menu. The Edge browser doesn't have addons yet - this is a PITA as it means Lastpass won't work, however there is a two click option to load the current site in IE, which gets around it. Other than that, Edge seems clean and fast so hopefully add on support will be added shortly.
First of all the tool advised I couldn't upgrade because the older of the two graphics cards (a 7300 GS), was compatible. I only had that card in there to run my third monitor, as I couldn't get all three ports working on the 7700. So I did a little research, established an active adapter was needed on the DisplayPort, bought one, then was able to run all three monitors from the newer card. With this working, I removed the older card and vainly hoped the upgrade tool would rerun an assessment. It wouldn't and despite trying various way to force it, I couldn't, so instead I just reinstalled Windows 7.
After going through the various updates the Windows 10 tool soon popped up again, this time the system was all compatible, then the notification to upgrade arrived a few days later. However I wanted to ensure it was a clean install, so it was a slightly long winded process. In order to do a clean install I needed an activated instance of Windows 10 running first, so I went through the upgrade process as normal which was painless.
On firing up the new Windows 10 installation, the first thing I noticed was that the fonts were terrible, blurry and rough. Changing Cleartype settings made no difference. I also noted an upgrade install over my two year old Windows 7 install took up over 60GB - ridiculous.
Now to the clean install. I downloaded the Media creation tool, which then downloaded another copy of Windows 10 (but with my previous activation embedded), which I put on a USB flash drive. I then booted to this, wiped all the previous partitions and reinstalled Windows 10. This time the fonts were slightly better (I think the graphics driver is different but I didn't take a note of the previous version), however they still leave a lot to be desired. The new install occupied a more palatable 18GB.
All was OK and I started setting the OS up, mapping Docs / Pics etc across to my NAS. Then I found all the folders stopped working and I couldn't backslash to the NAS either. Windows refused to connect and complained: "A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated", WTF??
Some more searching revealed that incredibly, setting up a PIN to login, as Windows encourages you to do and I duly had, breaks local network access! Furthermore, there seems to be no way to remove the PIN. However, logging out then logging back in with your full password does fix the issue, so now I can access the NAS again and subsequently, the mappings are all good. This seems ludicrous to me, so hopefully I've missed something or if not, it will be fixed shortly.
Other than that it's early days. The font issue is really annoying and nearly reason enough to go back to Windows 7, however it looks like it might be a Radeon problem so I'm hoping it improves soon with a driver update. Groove music seems decent, as does the new Photo app. Due to the complaints about the Windows 8 layout, we're back to the Desktop being a large and pretty much redundant empty space - I'm not sure this is a good thing to be honest, but it seems I'm in the minority. Instead an abbreviated version of the Windows 8 tile system appears in the Start menu. The Edge browser doesn't have addons yet - this is a PITA as it means Lastpass won't work, however there is a two click option to load the current site in IE, which gets around it. Other than that, Edge seems clean and fast so hopefully add on support will be added shortly.
