Upgrading Vista to Windows 10

Does anyone still use Windows XP ?
I do, on both this Pc and my laptop. Never seen a reason to change as they work 100% fine, I’m experienced in dealing with any funnies that might be thrown up and I always use the principle “if it works, don’t fix it”.

I did have to send Bob’s Dashcam Xmas present back as it needed Window 10 and wouldn’t talk to my XP - I sent it back because I was so cross they hadn’t said so in the spec !

Today my pc is playing up. It has wiped out all my stored passwords which is irritating but not a problem. oh and it’s cleared my bookmarks, all my browsing history… but worse whenever I go into certain sites it gives me a warning message which I have to click off that Google Chrome will soon no longer be supported. Now if that continues that will irritate me enough to have to do something about it.

So first of all, does anyone still use XP ?
and
what experience has anyone had updating to Windows 10 (remembering that both my pc and laptop are quite old but that I’m a very competent computer technician) ?

It may be that tomorrow when I switch on it may feel better but I doubt it will retrieve all the stuff it has cleared and I’ve already tried a restart… I think I may soon have to bow to the inevitable and move my computers (one at a time of course, I’m not touching the laptop until that plays up too) into the Windows 21st century

Don’t worry!! I was on XP for ages but had to succumb to a new laptop at the end of last year. When I bought it it had windows 8.1 which took some getting used to. However I recently changed to Windows 10 and it’s much easier that 8 so I think you have skipped the right ones. I’m sure you’ll be fine with 10!!
Good Luck!
Emma x

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My main PC is XP and so far I haven’t had any messages about Google Chrome and compatibility. The only messages I keep getting pop up at the bottom of my screen to tell me XP is no longer supported and my PC is at risk. It bothers me a little - we had a major virus issue with the PC a couple of years ago and I really don’t won’t to lose everything again. I think if you have the chance to move to Windows 10 I would, for peace of mind if nothing else.

Elaine

Hi Joy, I bit the bullet just before Christmas and upgraded to Windows 10. I put it off for ages but being a true Yorkshire lass decided to do it whilst it was still free. Had no problems so far - the hardest part was waiting ages for it to download - our internet is so slow!!
Good luck
Di

Thanks all. That gives me confidence. I’m away for few days so will pluck oup courage to go for it as soon as I get back as I’ll be doing a full back up before I go as I always do. I’ll leave the laptop until it starts complaining and until I’m sure the Pc has settled in ok.

My main concern is that I use Micrografx for my photo editor. It’s a forerunner of Photoshop and as far as I’m concerned much much more useful. A simpler easier to use version without all the bells and whistles I have no need of (I have Photoshop as well so can compare).
It’s not quite compatible, but it does do what I need it to, with Xp so goodness knows how it will cope with another upgrade.

I’m using windows 7 and I’m getting fed up with the window 10 download now keep popping up.

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Windows XP is a good OS. Windows 7 was fine. Windows 8 yuk! Windows 10 was fine until yesterday when an update took down Chrome (but I’ve sorted that now). I would honestly change to 10 if you can, as I’d imagine that support for XP/ functionality of software on XP will be limited.

Ooh that’s funny. I clicked my folksy icon to come in here to respond, on my laptop this time and for the first time (I’ve been in and out of Folksy for the last hour) the message has popped up on here too to say that support will be going soon. Rats… At least it hasn’t done what it did to my PC this morning which was crash windows leaving all my Chrome cache cleared off. I was hoping the message on the PC might be connected to the crash … obviously not, the crash was connected to the message instead !

Looks like that Windows 10 will be coming to a computer near me sooner rather than later.

Lol, my son was home at Christmas and he borrowed my laptop (unused since he visited 6 months before) and asked if I wanted Win10 installed on it! I went with “yes” and apparently it was a success!

Thanks that’s reassuring. My PC is so trouble free (apart from this annoying new banner which is especially prevalent in Folksy !) that I hate to upset it with new things. It’s quite happily stuck in the past.
I do keep it very ‘clean’ and no viruses or other nasties are permitted and it works at 5* the speed of any other home computer I’ve ever had occasion to access (and I do use other peoples as I’m sometimes asked to sort out friend’s and relative’s ‘slow, snail-pace runners’ because of my IT professional previous life).

I was most concerned that the shock of a full upgrade might cause it to question its longevity / give it a life-threatening stroke !

My old laptop was giving up the ghost in November, the internal memory was going and warnings kept flashing up, so I had to buy a new laptop (Acer) and I was dubious about having Windows 10, it came with the laptop so I had no choice. So glad it did, it’s great! I’ve had no problems at all with it so far and its really easy to navigate. You can always do a weekly back up of all your bookmarks to make sure you never lose them again (one of my big worries!). Or you can sign into your account in Chrome, Firefox etc and go on settings and ‘sync’. It then saves all your bookmarks to your account so you never lose them, you can also then see them on other laptops, I pads, smartphones etc.

For those worried about their laptops crashing and losing absolutely everything, I can highly recommend buying an external hard drive to copy everything on to for back up. I got mine in Argos also in November, it was £50 for 1TB of space. It seems like a lot of money, but well worth it. I’d have been gutted if I lost all my photos and documents etc and the external hard drive can hold about 20,000 photos and things.

November was an expensive month for me! (New laptop is mega fast compared to my old one though, so I’m happy).

Natalie x

P.s Blimey, sorry for the long winded post!

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I decided to bite the bullet and do the upgrade from the Vista on my PC to Windows 10.

(yes I know I said originally it was XP but it’s not it’s Vista :slight_smile: - still the same problem though)

Backed up everything to my external backup drive while I had a Google for the Download.

:frowning: :frowning: :frowning: Ooops - it seems I can’t Just upgrade - it will cost me :frowning: :frowning: and it requires a clean install and even Microsoft suggest the best way is to buy a new Windows 10 computer.

Has anyone done it ? I mean from XP / Vista rather than a free upgrade from 7 or 8 ?

Upgrade costs £85.56 - is it worth the risk or shall I look at a new computer sometime in the next year when Vista support dies completely.
My Pc is 2008 (ish) but a pretty happy bunny - apart from frequent irritating messages about no more Chrome updates soon !

Oh and to make it even worse my laptop is Vista too so presumably I would need to buy the separate licence for that too !

Hi Joy
Following on from my comment earlier on this thread where I mentioned I’d upgraded to Windows 10 - I got the free upgrade and I certainly like 10 better than my previous version but thought it might be worth mentioning that since then I’ve had to buy a new printer!!! My old one which was only just over a year old wasn’t compatible with Windows 10! I tried downloading an HP app off the net but it crashed my computer twice!! So after hours of frustration and wasted time we came to the conclusion that a new printer was the only option.
It’s something I had never even thought about so thought it might be worth flagging it up to you (according to the Internet I’m not the only one this has happened to).
Thought it might be worth mentioning as your upgrade costs might only be the start of your expenditure!
Di

I’m getting a bit annoyed with the upgrade for free to window 10’ ugh

My laptop runs nicely on window’s 7 while DH lap runs great on xp but we have so many different set ups with our individual devices and we have our own server and we are all networked. But then DH job is an IT specialist for a big IT corporation.

I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to throw a spanner in the works here. I have Windows 7, happy with it and I won’t be upgrading to Windows 10. It has privacy issues, worse than Windows 8. The privacy settings default to allow access to a lot of your information. So, if you do get it, you need to go through all the privacy settings.

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Indeed BizzyLiz they don’t make it easy you have to costumize it and not just go with it ‘straight out the box’ as DH says.

Neither of us want it on any of any of the machines in our house of which there are plenty.

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I’ve upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 8 and apart from a few hiccups initially (the main one being, taking ages to receive emails) but that seems to have sorted itself out now. I think it just takes time to get used to the new system and where everything is.

Hi Eileen, we still have XP on one computer! It works fine.

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I started my Google exercise today thinking I could just download Windows 10 for freebie and replace my Vista with windows 10, sort out a few hiccups and away I go…but have now found that is not at all the case…

I have an offer of Windows 7 and can just buy a licence for that for about £20 and use Windows 7 until I replace the pc or stick with 7 for a bit Then do a Windows 10 free upgrade…

or… I can stick with what I have for another year (think support Dies in April 2017) and in the meantime choose my new pc and try not to get too irritated by the banner message in Chrome Every time I open a new tab !

The point about the printer not working is very interesting as my Kodak printer (which was having paper feed problems but is now ok since I changed the paper !) is highly likely to be incompatible I should think. Kodak don’t make printers any more.

Thank you all for your advice. Where would we all be without this forum :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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Windows 10 does take a bit of getting used to but I wouldn’t go back. I had vista for a long time and I really loved it but my laptop died so I had to upgrade. It is easier in the long run as everything connects and new items are compatible, anti virus etc…I did love vista but I wouldn’t go back now. I love windows 10.

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