Windows 10 is Almost Here!

Requirements

There are some limits as to what hardware Win10 will run on. If Windows 7 or 8 is running the chances are good Win10 will run on the device. You do have to have Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update installed.

According to this offer you have 1 year to update. This is a basic marketing strategy to move people now. I am certain Microsoft wants to get people out of older Windows OS’s so they can stop supporting those. Also, as we enter an age of war computing devices are weapons. Trojans and viruses that can turn devices into zombies under the control of a malicious entity are a very real threat.

Money is always a concern for a corporation. So, the update and support issues are very real. But, long term Microsoft employees have to realize their personal lives will vanish down the drain if China or Russia engages the US and we cannot with stand a major cyber attack in which Windows is revealed as a major weakness.

There are some OS’s running that are not included in the free offer: Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise, and Windows RT/RT 8.1. These are more complex systems and probably will require manual upgrades. The RT devices are likely to have some hardware issues. But, depending on your company’s upgrade licensing with Microsoft you may have a free upgrade path.

They have a link in the information to a Windows 10 Specifications page, it is broken… embarrassing and disconcerting. I Googled to get this link. The requirements are:

  • Latest OS: Make sure you are running the latest version either Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update.
  • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
  • Display: 1024×600

They also tell us:

  • For Anti-virus and Anti-malware applications, during upgrade Windows will check to see if your Anti-virus or Anti-malware subscription is current. Windows will uninstall your application while preserving your settings. After upgrade is complete, Windows will install the latest version available with the settings that were set prior to upgrade. If your subscription is not current, upgrade will enable Windows defender.

We are warned:

  • If you have Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro with Media Center, or Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center and you install Windows 10, Windows Media Center will be removed.

There are other warnings. You will want to check them to see if they apply to you and how you use your computer.

Second Life?

Will Windows 10 run Second Life?

There are a few people running preview versions of Win10. Firestorm is said to run well. The ones running it have not said which version of Firestorm or whether 32 or 64 bit. That makes me think they are non-techy users. So, it should be easy.

A few people have had a problem with Win 10 and the Linden viewer. I am not finding much positive or negative regarding Win 10 and the Linden Viewer. My guess is it will run fine on most systems capable of running Win10.

I will eventually try a Win10 install. But, I plan to wait to see how Second Life and Adobe users fair before I make my move.

8 thoughts on “Windows 10 is Almost Here!

  1. First thing you need todo with windows 10. Install Classic shell to dump that terrible start menu and replaced it for how a start menu need to look and work. A start menu is not advertising space with free puzzle.

  2. I installed Windows 10 last night on a lightly-loaded computer I keep for guests which was previously running Windows 8.1 and it took about an hour to update. It preserved all of my programs and settings except an nVidia video driver and Dropbox, which I had to reload.

    I started up Firestorm Viewer, and it seemed to work fine.

    My next test will be a Windows 7 computer with a standalone installation of Opensim.

    • As an update to my previous post, I have updated my Windows 7 Diva Distribution Standalone grid computer to Windows 10. Surprisingly, it went even cleaner than the Windows 8.1 update I did earlier. My grid is now running on Windows 10 (Sorry, the grid is not externally accessible due to issues with my DSL modem / firewall).

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