Win 8.1

[Dev One]

Just opened my W10 laptop:

Hit your Windows key on your keyboard, it toggles between Icon mode & Old fashioned.
In old fashioned I have a heading 'This PC' (mine is an ACER laptop) left click on that & a panel should appear listing your Windows edition, Your processor & at the bottom 'Windows activation' followed by your 'Product ID'. This will be different when W10 is loaded to the one shown on the label if it came with W8.1.

I think in Old fashioned mode one can do as before & make a shortcut, then click & drag to your opening (Theme) page.

In Icon (Tile) mode Right click on a tile, it then gives options, e.g. Unpin from Start, Resize (the tile), Turn live tile off, or Pin to Taskbar.

Hitting the icon that shows a list in Tile mode gives me a sidebar of all the Apps, hitting one with a Right click gives a list of options similar to the above.

Have fun & a little bit of frustration, especially if you are like me very forgetful these days, now what was I doing 2 mins ago?......
Keith

BTW the above also applies to W8.1, just a slight change in layout.
K

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

After I'd downloaded the new card games last night..they worked fine but as mentioned.. I could only access them through the Apps page (one click down from Start). The idea was.. I could find the program in File Explorer then simply put a shortcut to it on the old style desktop. Thing is.. while I can see it on that Apps page, I can find no sign of it using File Explorer Since my last post.. I found you could pin it to the taskbar as you've just suggested so at least it can be got at quickly when the guv'nor feels the urge

I've had a measure of success with my TP-Link MFP software too though this was anything but run of the mill. After loading the mini cd.. Windows came up briefly and asked me what I wanted to do with it but before I could do anything.. it faded off the screen I then tried 3 times to manually install it.. even shut off McAfee (which comes with the laptop btw.. I didn't buy it) but nothing happened. I got the warning.. do you want to let X program do this or that and kept hitting yes but nowt. In the end.. I thought BLX and closed the install screen when helpfully.. windows popped and said 'this didn't load did it.. do you want to try compatibility mode'? Well of course I did It then installed fine after I'd told Windows to ignore the Chinese signed drivers. Even prints too

I can't see any little icon anywhere as Dave mentioned asking me to upgrade to Win10 and I've not had to activate Win8.1. Windows says it's activated. It DID pop up and ask if I wanted to upgrade first time I turned it on but nowt since. The chuffin thing already seems to know everything about me which I find a tad unnerving.. I guess because it asked for an MS account during initial setup and I put my Hotmail account in. I thought I was giving it a login name like our Vista laptop but that turned out to be just the pc's name so everytime I log on.. I have to enter my Hotmail password. You know this already of course being on the receiving end already but it's not what I was expecting. I've seen that you can login with a picture but I've yet to try that. Wish it was Win7

ATB
DaveB

[Dev One]

When the little W10 upgrade icon does show I think it d/l's in slow time, which can be days, but as I said I d/led to a usb using the link DaveG gave above. At least then you know its happened, but even then I think you have to stop the auto d/l. Bit of a nuisance if one is on a limited broadband.
Good luck,
Keith

[DaveB]

Hmm.. I like the warnings that link gives about installing onto pc's that came with the OS pre-installed.. it will remove pre-installed drivers and may invalidate the manufacturers warranty I think I'll wait...

ATB
DaveB

[Dev One]

Dave, I'm getting a bit confused, (very easy these days at my age...just you wait!) are we talking changing 8.1 to W10, or just trying to fix(?) 8.1?
I d/led W10 onto a USB from the official M$ site.

When I installed W10 ontop of W8.1 it gave me an option to keep existing files (not sure what they really called it, but thats roughly what I interpreted it as) , & I had no problems with drivers as such, although I did have a blank black screen problem with FSX, cured by deleting the FSX.cfg file & letting it regen itself. Problem was full screen is set as default in W10.
What I've not sorted is the splash screen in FSX where it only shows in the bottom RH quadrant of the screen, but as this is only on my laptop I can live with that at the mo.
Keith

[DaveB]

Hi Keith,

I've tried typing something to you twice (I'm on the laptop) and twice it's disappeared from the reply pane Something here is obviously uber sensitive and I keep clipping a keystroke.. that or the bloody thing is buggered!! I'll try again and not drag it out.
The laptop is brand new. While it was doing what new pc's do the first time they're turned on, it offered me Win10. I declined the offer as I wanted to see if it worked in 8.1 first. The warning I mentioned above is taken off that link Dave gave.
However.. I've found a link on the system page which is also offering a 'newer' version. I clicked on that to see what happened and it does say there that my files and settings will be kept so when I eventually go to Win10.. I'll either wait for the little icon to appear to do it myself from the system page (the one on the pc that is).
Right.. I'll finish quickly before I erase this bloody post again!
ATB
DaveB

[DaveG]

The Win10 upgrade process backs up the old windows folder (plus some other bits) so you can revert back if you choose within 30 days. I think the backups get automatically deleted after that.
The roll back didn't work for me, but I've since found out why. I used the tool on my desktop PC (which already had Win10) to create the installation files on a USB stick ready to upgrade my tablet. Problem was, in doing that it wiped out some of the files needed by the desktop PC to perform a roll back.

Overall I'm generally happy with Win10. Much better than 8.1, but I still prefer 7.

[Dev One]

Hi Keith,

I've tried typing something to you twice (I'm on the laptop) and twice it's disappeared from the reply pane Something here is obviously uber sensitive and I keep clipping a keystroke.. that or the bloody thing is buggered!! I'll try again and not drag it out.

DaveB

Clipping keystrokes.......yes thats one of my bugbears with a laptop....much prefer a separate keyboard as I use with my 'normal' 'puter!!! Lack of tactile feedback, although I am beginning to lose accuracy of placing my middle finger in the right place at times....trying to type faster than brain CPU allows?
Keith

[DaveB]

Well.. here I was sat doing nowt so I thought I'd take advantage of the Win10 icon sitting on the taskbar. It took around a couple of hours to download the 2.8gig and install. I note that the install options were not as shown on the d/l link DG posted but it doesn't appear to have killed anything. I did tell it I didn't want Edge but I've got it anyway

It doesn't appear to have broken anything. Not tried the wifes card games yet I leave it to her and if it doesn't work, I'll tell her she's broken it

ATB
DaveB

[DaveG]

You're a brave man Dave, not only for installing Win10, but for doing it on SHMBO's laptop.