I opened a new topic where I will give my impressions on the Technical Preview version. I will update this as I go.
Right now it's late, so I will start posting some info.
First, this was tested on a Windows8 certified and compatible system, here are my specs:
ASUS P8Z77-V PRO (Socket 1155)
Intel Core i5-3570K (rock solid OC 4Ghz)
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (1600)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB 32MB (AHCI)
EVGA GTX 660 Ti SC 2GB
ASUS DVD-ROM / SATA (AHCI)
Mode: SATA AHCI
Version: 64 bit
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Here are some questions / answers I will add further as I go along: These are based on my own experience and observations.
Here is what I discovered so far in this release: This info will be updated as I go along.
- In console, version is 6.4.9841
vs. 6.1.7601 for my Win7 64bit
- After about a minute with a black screen and blue windows logo, the install screen appears. Nothing special there, you choose language, keyboard language and where you want to install your OS......I decided to install the traditional way, as there are other ways to install, to a single file VHD, using shift-f10 and VHD mounting, but I will not get into that right now.
- From there you are asked if you want express install or CUSTOM......Always choose custom if you insist on your privacy as many things are enabled by default that you may not want to, and luckily, in this technical preview, you can turn off a lot of the tracking from apps, tracking from MS, etc. Strongly recommended. From there you can also turn off OneDrive options, and have your PC settings stored locally (AGAIN this option is ON by default) you will WANT to turn it off as any new documents you create gets stored there first.......
- From there, everything else is automatic and installs and configures on its own.....There are far less prompts compared to previous versions (windows XP, 7, etc.).
- Install time took roughly 15 minutes. (NOT BAD !)
- Uses same new GUI boot loader from Windows8, now I would have preferred they kept a legacy boot loader, as there is a delay for this GUI loader to load, THEN the OS.....SO if you have multi OS, you are forced to wait for this to load BEFORE choosing your OS, which sucks, makes loading times longer....however if Windows8/10 are the only OS, then this is not a problem. I have done a second testing installing Win10 along with my Win7, Win7 was seen in the GUI bootloader fine.
BEWARE folks, Win7 uses BOOTMGR, but NOT Win8/10, but I knew this. Fixing this is easy by adjusting MBR/PBR using BootIce and setting it back to BOOTMGR, once finished testing and reverting back to old boot loader. If you don't understand how to manually fix this, then this is why you must install this in a separate physical drive AND unplug your main system drive (must unplug both power and data cable!) NOT just in BIOS.
Moving along,
Boot times are decent but not as fast as my Win7 64bit that loads to desktop within 15 seconds, and it is a fully loaded with drivers and tons of icons, apps.......The GUI bootloader adds to the loading time.....And even though I disabled bootGUI from the msconfig, it still loads it.
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Windows 10: My observations
* Yep, the desktop is back !!!!, start menu is back, and the tiles are combined inside the start menu.....LUCKILY you can unbind them and remove them all! Once the OS detects you are using mouse and keyboard it automatically defaults to desktop mode......otherwise no keyboard/mouse it will default to the tiled UI view......NICE!
Was about bloody time they realise this !!!
* BIG disappointment - no more windows classic in themes. Though you can opt to use solid colours and remove backgrounds, and remove all the fading and effects for max performance but no classic theme!
* BIG disappoint #2 - RIBBON interface that I bloody cannot stand.......You are forced to accept the ribbon interface for the included applications, including explorer, etc.
* The window itself has a new look, I kinda miss the gradient blue in the caption area.
In the final you will be able to tag windows together which is neat.
* Task manager revamped from win7, it's totally different, no complaint there even though I am old fashioned and miss the classic view, this one is easy to get used to.
* Out of the box, memory usage was at 1.0 GB used from my 16GB
with further tweaking, I could get this down to 900-930MB. I'm sure one could squeeze further down to 700-800MB in the final with trimming tools that will be released. Not bad there.
* You will want to tweak and configure many of the options out of the box......Turning off many items you won't use. You can remove all the appstore app holders - you can turn on/off one drive anytime.......AND you can either access windows signed in to a microsoft outlook account/or hotmail OR use local mode, but you will have to dig through settings and configure stuff yourself in the gear icon inside the task bar, PC SETTINGS.
Everything happens there!!! Once disabled you won't need to sign-in to use windows, it reverts to local and you don't need internet.
The app store is obviously cloud, and all syncing and cloud options can be turned off but if you do obviously you won't be able to use cloud apps and the store......
* Detected my NVIDIA DX11 card fine.
Though I saw a D3D12 warp DLL file, so
I guess DX12 will be part of win10
* Benchmark of my SATA drive, HDTunePro:
130MB/s max rate (no complaint there!).
File deletion and copy speed is great, no complaint.
* I went through many things in the control panel, desktop, pc settings and trimmed and turned off a lot of stuff, including firewall, defender, smartscreen, and many of the stuff as I use my own.....Luckily you have control over lots !
* YES FOLKS ENIGMA works in windows 10 ! After installing JAVA of course which took seconds.......Ran without a problem! did not complain of any missing files or dependency.
Things overall were very fast, very responsive, disk access speeds are great.
Network speed out of the box, excellent,
30mbit high speed internet, same sustained transfer speeds as I get in win7, same for file access.......Smooth graphics, motion, no hiccups....With mature drivers and trimming/tweaking in the final I'm sure this will be just as good for gaming.
There are many options that are on such as tracking your location, app tracking, remote desktop, remote access, etc, you will have to look around and turn these off!!!
I will continue testing and further add info and post some screenshots.
Despite the GUILoader and lack of classic windows, I was pleased to be able to have full control over every option in windows, that I could turn on/off anytime. If all holds well through the final, I think this could be an OS, a Windows 7 user could get used to, and it's fast !
So far web browsing, file access, disk access, responsiveness is great.
I compiled an ENIGMA exe it ran smooth as silk, I will be installing some win8 drivers tomorrow for my sound card and update stuff, and try with games........
To be continued.