So, what does one do? Well, there are a couple thoughts and here’s my bottom line recommendation: One, there’s no rush still to upgrade to Windows 10.
Newer machines, if you get a new machine with Windows 10, you’re great, you’re golden, but if you’ve got a machine that’s actually just over a couple or years old or if you’ve got peripherals that are especially over a couple of years old, there’s this additional risk that even though Windows 10 upgrade will work or appear to say that it’s going to work, it won’t work completely. I have seen failures where the upgrade process would claim the things you’re going to work, and it actually fails the actual upgrade of Windows 10.Īgain, it varies a lot but the one common thread, the closest thing I can say to a common thread is that the machines are a little bit older. Naturally, the upgrade can fail in other places as well, but peripherals are the most common one that I’m starting to see. What your left with is maybe a computer that works but a printer that doesn’t because you’ve upgrade to Windows 10.
Perhaps they don’t even have any plans at this point to supply those drivers.
Where most people are running into this are with peripherals – be it printers or other external devices that are connected to their computers for which there are no Windows 10 drivers and for which the manufacturer is not yet supplying Windows 10 drivers. Unfortunately, it’s simply not always or not completely right. Here’s the common thread that I’m starting to see and it’s simply this: The Windows 10 upgrade process will make it appear as if your machine is compatible, is supported and will work. I couldn’t really discern pattern between one machine’s failure and another and another’s. You may recall in some of my earlier comments on Windows 10 that failures seemed somewhat I’ll just say “random”.
Now, let’s talk about that “doesn’t work” scenario, because one of the things that I’ve started to see is a bit of a trend. If you just don’t like Windows 10 after the upgrade, or if your upgrade actually fails in some regard, and I’ll talk about that more in a moment, an image backup taken immediately prior to performing the upgrade is a safety net that basically protects you from all possible outcomes.Įither you’re happy with Windows 10 and move forward, or you’re unhappy and it doesn’t work and you simply roll back by restoring that image backup to the state your machine was in prior to even trying Windows 10. So, one of the things that I want to point out today before I even make a recommendation is that image backups can rescue you from either of those two situations. In that case, you’re left with a machine or peripherals that don’t necessarily work. If we step back, of course, the other thing that can happen when you upgrade your Windows 7 or Windows 8 machine to Windows 10 is that it won’t work. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that they’re just not happy with Windows 10. If people aren’t happy, maybe because they just aren’t comfortable with the amount of change that Windows 10 introduces, or they just don’t like some aspect of it – anything from the software itself to maybe the privacy controversy. Now, once it works, however, something else comes into play. In reality, that’s actually happening most of the time.Īt least my sense is that it is in fact working most of the time.
Naturally, either of two of things will happen when you perform the update or upgrade to Windows 10. Let’s take a look at what the results might be when you update your Windows 7 or Windows 8 machine to Windows 10. The initial reports haven’t started coming in yet, but since I’ve been promising an update every couple of months or so with respect to my recommendation on what you do with Windows 10, I thought I’d take this opportunity (while they’re updating the software) for me to update my recommendation. It’s the middle of November, 2015 and as I speak, Microsoft is apparently in the process of rolling out a fairly major update to Windows 10. Is it time to update my recommendation for Windows 10?