Author Topic: Windows 10  (Read 2977 times)

NightWolve

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #45 on: July 30, 2015, 02:44:16 PM »
http://www.tabletroms.com/forums/winbook-tw100/7314-custom-reload-tw700-800-801-win-8-1-win10.html

Well, no go, I had to upgrade the normal way with a 32-bit version. My tablets are of the "fortunate" ones that came with 32-bit UEFI “ONLY” apparently so I'm stuck with 32-bit OS versions. Ah well...

MNKyDeth

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #46 on: July 31, 2015, 01:25:26 AM »
It's a good thing you mentioned UEFI Nightwolve, it reminded me of something, maybe some advice for others.

Never ever buy anything that is UEFI only with secure boot.

Go ahead and buy UEFI products but if they have secure boot on them stay clear of them. Most likely that device if it's a desktop, laptop, phone or tablet will be locked into the OS it comes with no changes at all.

Going form Linux to windows or windows to linux or a BSD just isn't possible on locked devices. Don't support the companies that force this draconian non-secure method that only hurts end users. People that want to harm you're computer will still do it even with secure boot.

BigusSchmuck

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #47 on: July 31, 2015, 04:19:09 AM »

NightWolve

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #48 on: July 31, 2015, 04:27:51 AM »
It's a good thing you mentioned UEFI Nightwolve, it reminded me of something, maybe some advice for others. Never ever buy anything that is UEFI only with secure boot.

Yeah, it locked me into staying 32-bit which I guess is OK - I haven't run into a 64-bit only app that I really wanted or something. I think the secure boot is off by default (what I heard) but yeah...

Well, I have my progress report on the upgrade...

The one failure that will occur with Microcenter branded WinBook tablets revolves around a file called "TouchSetting.gt" in the "C:\Windows\INF" folder! You must copy this file right now, save it, upgrade to 10, and copy it back to the "C:\Windows\INF" folder and reboot. What happens is the tablet touch mousing operation will be inverted. If I touch the center, that works, but as I move outwards like say to the upper right, the mousing action will occur on the bottom left... Spent an hour or more to figure it out but luckily someone in the MicroCenter forums learned the trick messing with the preview versions of Windows 10 months ago!

http://www.mctsol.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1372

So all the models from TW700 to TW100 (I have both, it's 7" to 10.1") need to have that done for them to work properly... If I didn't have a USB Keyboard and a wireless USB mouse, it would've been pretty hard to control the tablet after I did the upgrade, pretty much would've been stuck. You needed another computer to research what the problem was...

This wasn't that big of a deal compared to say upgrading an Android phone... You have to completely rely on fans to make a new build for your particular model and sometimes that may never happen, so your phone will pretty much be left behind... But yeah, these tablets were sold at great prices because of lacking all the extras that come with the big boys like HP, Dell, etc. You need to be a bit techy for something like this.

Anyway, I always enjoy an upgrade actually just to see how things progress. But I also like to keep all my old computers with multiple partitions that are able to boot to older versions. My 2nd PC tower which is mostly retired can boot to Win98, NT4, NT2K and XP with a simple boot manager I found ages ago by a good programmer. Sometimes it's good for testing, but on my current PC tower, I get by with Microsoft Virtual PC and emulating 98 or 2K for such tests of my software.

Well, good luck to anybody else! My problem is not really a problem if it was a desktop or tower that always has a USB keyboard and mouse connected to it actually. It would've been a totally smooth upgrade if not for the touch screen aspect.

Dicer

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #49 on: July 31, 2015, 06:10:31 AM »
Might want to wait a bit before installing:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/31/windows-10-microsoft-faces-criticism-over-privacy-default-settings


Nothing that isn't already being done by your smartphone, and there is ways to opty out of a good chunk of it, it's a "free" Os they had to make that money back somehow, it's shit but it's not unexpected or New, hell even Ubuntu has a shitty privacy setting, but that's easily remedied.

If Microsoft wants to know I look at retro gaming shit and modern porn, so be it...




turboswimbz

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #50 on: July 31, 2015, 12:40:39 PM »
Well I upgraded, and after taking time to read and stop all the privacy issues.  Which honestly people should know by now NEVER use the default install settings. hitting the custom screen pops up the privacy defaults and you can easily turn them off. 

However,

Mine is glitchy as hell.  I am experience it not recognizing the antivirus.  and severe screen flashing.   There does not seem to be a cure for this.  Except rolling back.  If anyone hears of a cure I missed, let me know.  My computer is essentially a brick with it flashing, since you can't click anything.   
NW: Hey, I made it on this psycho's Enemies' List, how about that ?? ;)

BT: Look at how the fake SFII' carts instantly sold out and were immediately listed on eBay before the flippers even took possession. Look at Nintendo's overpriced bricks. Look at the typical forum discussions elsewhere.

You can't tell most retro gamers anything!

Spenoza: The wannabe masculinity just overwhelms.

BigusSchmuck

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #51 on: August 01, 2015, 03:35:55 AM »
Well I upgraded, and after taking time to read and stop all the privacy issues.  Which honestly people should know by now NEVER use the default install settings. hitting the custom screen pops up the privacy defaults and you can easily turn them off. 

However,

Mine is glitchy as hell.  I am experience it not recognizing the antivirus.  and severe screen flashing.   There does not seem to be a cure for this.  Except rolling back.  If anyone hears of a cure I missed, let me know.  My computer is essentially a brick with it flashing, since you can't click anything.   
The nice thing about that upgrade it automatically upgrades your Windows 7-8.1 key into Windows 10. I usually suggest doing a fresh install instead of a upgrade as upgrades always seem to have some lingering issues...

NightWolve

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Re: Windows 10 - Clean Install Protips for Tablets
« Reply #52 on: August 01, 2015, 06:03:25 AM »
Funny you mentioned that, Bigus, I got to feeling "lucky" so I decided to do a nice clean install after the upgrade... Was a lot more work, it's not for the faint of heart! Feel better about it though, but still missing one driver at present - FIXED with DriveForLife's help!. Don't try this unless you're reasonably techy with experience!!

0) You will definitely need a USB keyboard and mouse, and likely a USB hub to connect both at the same time! I used the microUSB port for power, but then I had to use it to boot off my USB memory stick! The touchscreen mousing drivers are not likely to be included with Windows 10 and popup keyboard might be flaky even after!! My tablet is nice in that I have a 2nd full size USB port, and a microUSB port which is normally for power.

1) First do the upgrade with the popup Windows app normally! This will associate your product key with 10. After a full upgrade, if it works reasonably well and all drivers are accounted for, then you can try for a clean install! I hadn't used my tablets long enough to care too much about established settings and apps, so I didn't care.

2) If your system has no Windows product key sticker, then it's embedded in the BIOS or the UEFI partition by the OEM, etc. It's also stored in the Windows registry in binary form so you need an app to decode it to readable form - a link to one that works is below! Write it down because on a clean install it'll ask you for it and not find it on some custom partition.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html#DownloadLinks
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/produkey.zip

3) For tablets with restore options, you'll have to make a decision about the ~4GB of space that was allocated for a clean copy of the original OS! I deleted that partition and joined it with the main one for a full 28.9 GB of space - My WinBook TW100 is a 32GB tablet! Only 100 MB is allocated at the start for the UEFI. So yeah, the Windows installer gives you a basic Partition Manager screen for deciding where to install it. You can delete/create/format/etc. It'll likely refuse to touch the custom reserved partitions as it did for me. (I wasn't feeling THAT lucky to research other fan software or maybe Linux to nuke that UEFI and upgrade it to 64-bit - don't need to risk bricking my tablets!)

4) Download "Win10_English_x32.iso" or "Win10_English_x64.iso" from Microsoft. It will ask you for edition, choose the FIRST one, "Windows 10" (the others are hacked versions for Europe due to their crazy money-stealing legal courts!), then choose language as "English" and you should get buttons for 32-bit or 64-bit.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

5) Making a bootable 4GB (or more) USB memory stick with a Win10 32/64-bit ISO was easy enough with an app called Rufus.

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

a) First you browse for the Win10 ISO, "Win10_English_x32.iso" or "Win10_English_x64.iso"
b) Select MBR partition scheme for UEFI
c) FAT32 (default) for File system
d) 4096 bytes (default) for cluster size
e) MAKE SURE to type something short for volume label like "WIN10" - if it generates its own long one, it might error out on formatting and not tell you why it failed.
f) All other settings leave to default

With your USB memory stick plugged in, it should've detected it and pressing the "Start" button will begin. If it succeeds, your memory stick will be load with win10 and be bootable.

6) Booting off a memory stick for a tablet could be tricky... I HAD to use the microUSB port, so I needed a male microUSB to female full-size USB cable to plug the memory stick in! This means I had to rely on the battery of the tablet since I couldn't have the power cable connected to it!

But before that, you need to change the BIOS Boot Order! You can do this 2 ways! Windows 10 can do it for you in Settings or you can use one of the F keys when you turn your system on with keyboard connected (mine was F2)! On Windows, click the new start menu, hit Settings -> Recovery -> "Restart Now" and that'll take you to a menu to "Use a device" where you will choose "USB HDD." So Windows will change the BIOS order to boot first off a USB memory stick before the internal flash drive and that should do the trick!

7) THE REALLY BIG PROBLEM: You need to copy your existing "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore" folder as one way to *help*, find driver detecting and installing apps as another way...

a) Here's one app that found 2 drivers for me: http://drp.su/
This one is also freeware: http://www.drivethelife.com/free-drivers-download-utility.html

b) In my case, Intel made many driver installer programs that you have to find for things like the camera, microphone, speakers, etc. I got it from this link: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds040016

Now everything is working, except I only have one unknown device driver and I don't know what it is just yet... So this MAY or MAY NOT work out well for you, it's a tad risky and it puts you in the same situation as upgrading an Android tablet/phone, you need to research a bit simply because a clean Win10 install will not have ALL of the drivers in it for every known piece of hardware out there... Microsoft just isn't that good and even the Windows Scan/Update feature will not detect everything and find a driver for it, etc.!

Additional Info for Drivers:
http://answers.microsoft.com/how-to-install-and-update-drivers-in-windows-10/

Conclusion: If you're not a techhead, just stick with upgrading. All Win7/8.1 drivers present are imported, upgraded if a Win10 version was created, and things are just more likely gonna go smooth! If you're like me and got to feeling lucky plus have experience in this, then give it a shot, but FAIR WARNING!

EDIT: With the help of http://www.drivethelife.com , I was able to determine what the final device was! It didn't install a working driver though, so I grabbed the files from a Win8.1 install, picked the correct INF file and installed over with the Device Manager. This concluded my full upgrade and everything is now fully working and looking in order! It looks like this software is what you need, it can backup important driver sets such as from Intel, and you can save that on your USB memory stick for a clean install attempt.

Either way, good luck should you attempt this yourself!
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 01:13:45 PM by NightWolve »

turboswimbz

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #53 on: August 01, 2015, 06:49:57 AM »
Well I upgraded, and after taking time to read and stop all the privacy issues.  Which honestly people should know by now NEVER use the default install settings. hitting the custom screen pops up the privacy defaults and you can easily turn them off. 

However,

Mine is glitchy as hell.  I am experience it not recognizing the antivirus.  and severe screen flashing.   There does not seem to be a cure for this.  Except rolling back.  If anyone hears of a cure I missed, let me know.  My computer is essentially a brick with it flashing, since you can't click anything.   
The nice thing about that upgrade it automatically upgrades your Windows 7-8.1 key into Windows 10. I usually suggest doing a fresh install instead of a upgrade as upgrades always seem to have some lingering issues...


That would be nice, except it requires imput of a password.  The issues won't allow for this, I've gone ahead and rolled back to windows 8. 
NW: Hey, I made it on this psycho's Enemies' List, how about that ?? ;)

BT: Look at how the fake SFII' carts instantly sold out and were immediately listed on eBay before the flippers even took possession. Look at Nintendo's overpriced bricks. Look at the typical forum discussions elsewhere.

You can't tell most retro gamers anything!

Spenoza: The wannabe masculinity just overwhelms.

esadajr

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #54 on: August 03, 2015, 07:22:05 AM »
:mrgreen: I still use Windows 98 ( to play Army Men II and I haven't got a reason to upgrade so yeah.. ).

There you go. Win98 forever! Nothing beats running your legacy apps on "real hardware".
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 07:25:34 AM by esadajr »
Gaming since 1985

esadajr

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #55 on: August 03, 2015, 07:32:41 AM »
I was using it during the insider preview phase, till my test laptop died. Promising in a lot of aspects, my biggest concern comes from how app oriented it is and the potential for monetization (and other nasty practices). I think the Solitaire scandal proves it. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

If everything is nice and dandy under Win7, then by all means just keep it.
Gaming since 1985

NightWolve

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #56 on: August 03, 2015, 08:43:53 AM »
People with 16GB Windows 7-8.1 tablets will have a helluva time upgrading! For my small Winbook 7", I failed about 5-6 times with the upgrade app downloading the 3 GB installer files each time, then failing by running out of disk space, deleting everything it downloaded, and you having to free up every last byte thinking you gained enough only to try and fail again! Hah! You need at least 9 GB free, and a 16GB tablet usually only has like ~10 GB total with half taken by the current OS, and where 4-6 GB has been taken away by the manufacturer to store a clean image of the default OS for disaster recovery!

But yeah, it took many hours across a few days to get it right... I basically tricked it on the 5th time into running off an external 16GB microSD card to work, and after upgrading, I did a clean install, got to the partition manager, and nuked that recovery partition, so now I have a full 14.3 GB available for the internal SD and can use an external 32 GB microSD card or the USB slot for more space for other stuff!

I do NOT recommend you trying the full format+clean install afterwards because of the driver tracking situation you'll be left with!!! There's a whole industry out there for both payware and freeware software to detect your devices and offer info on where to grab the driver software for them! It took many tries, many pieces of software whose trustworthiness could be questionable to finally get it working right and have all drivers accounted for. So it is booting proper now, touchscreen is fully working, audio has been restored with Intel/Realtek drivers, etc. but with all that difficulty, most people don't need all that headache so just stick with upgrading!!

If there was a universal website that handled driver detection and installation, it'd be great! Microsoft's update service is surprisingly not that powerful and it's weird to see that this whole industry has popped up surrounding this area! Anyway, it's cool to have upgraded both my tablets and gotten a chance to regain the partition space for their internal drives to maximize space. The 16GB tablet really needed it! It just means for disaster recovery, you need to make an external bootable USB memory stick or SD card and that's what you'll have to use instead of relying on the manufacturer's recovery partition idea which basically replaces the disaster recovery CD/DVD that you get with a full PC.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 08:54:17 AM by NightWolve »

BigusSchmuck

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #57 on: August 03, 2015, 09:57:01 AM »
People with 16GB Windows 7-8.1 tablets will have a helluva time upgrading! For my small Winbook 7", I failed about 5-6 times with the upgrade app downloading the 3 GB installer files each time, then failing by running out of disk space, deleting everything it downloaded, and you having to free up every last byte thinking you gained enough only to try and fail again! Hah! You need at least 9 GB free, and a 16GB tablet usually only has like ~10 GB total with half taken by the current OS, and where 4-6 GB has been taken away by the manufacturer to store a clean image of the default OS for disaster recovery!

But yeah, it took many hours across a few days to get it right... I basically tricked it on the 5th time into running off an external 16GB microSD card to work, and after upgrading, I did a clean install, got to the partition manager, and nuked that recovery partition, so now I have a full 14.3 GB available for the internal SD and can use an external 32 GB microSD card or the USB slot for more space for other stuff!

I do NOT recommend you trying the full format+clean install afterwards because of the driver tracking situation you'll be left with!!! There's a whole industry out there for both payware and freeware software to detect your devices and offer info on where to grab the driver software for them! It took many tries, many pieces of software whose trustworthiness could be questionable to finally get it working right and have all drivers accounted for. So it is booting proper now, touchscreen is fully working, audio has been restored with Intel/Realtek drivers, etc. but with all that difficulty, most people don't need all that headache so just stick with upgrading!!

If there was a universal website that handled driver detection and installation, it'd be great! Microsoft's update service is surprisingly not that powerful and it's weird to see that this whole industry has popped up surrounding this area! Anyway, it's cool to have upgraded both my tablets and gotten a chance to regain the partition space for their internal drives to maximize space. The 16GB tablet really needed it! It just means for disaster recovery, you need to make an external bootable USB memory stick or SD card and that's what you'll have to use instead of relying on the manufacturer's recovery partition idea which basically replaces the disaster recovery CD/DVD that you get with a full PC.
Unless you got a recent Lenovo or a Dell laptop, those guys have Windows 10 drivers already. I'm currently virtualizing it on my Windows 7 desktop at work, going to wait a bit methinks..

NightWolve

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #58 on: August 03, 2015, 10:06:48 AM »
Yeah, I mean if you decide to repartition, format, and then boot off a clean Win32 or Win64 image, you will not get the benefit of driver importation as you did when you first did a basic upgrade... Just in case people misread me, you MUST do the regular upgrade so that your Windows Product key is converted to Windows 10 and then see how things work, and then if you wanna try a format/clean install you can go the next step, but like I said, you'll be faced with driver hunting and will need the help of other software if you hope to be successful! I think http://www.driveridentifier.com/ might be OK trust-wise and you can log in with your Google account with them, just click that you're not a commercial entity, and they'll let you get to a needed driver download after their app detects what's needed on your system. But yeah, that's all a big headache and probably not worth it for most people, so just do a regular upgrade with their popup app and leave it be...
« Last Edit: August 03, 2015, 10:15:26 AM by NightWolve »

ClodBuster

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Re: Windows 10
« Reply #59 on: August 03, 2015, 10:09:43 AM »
YES, Dell confirmed that they tested the Win10 upgrade for my Vostro 3360 and thus officially support it.

Now I just have to check all important programs and peripherals I use for compatibility. It would be a shame if my PCE Flash cart software (not Everdrive) wouldn't be supported by Win10.

They tried to make me do a recap
I said no, no, no