The latter I expect. That's assuming that your machine was upgraded from a Genuine copy of Windows 7/8. If not as I understand it, the preview build will eventually time out and give you 14 days warning, after which it'll refuse to boot.
Windows 10
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Caporegime
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Quick question, there are no Windows 10 drivers listed for my chipset and I'm about to reinstall all of my drivers when the installation of Windows finally finishes. Would it be okay to use Windows 8.1 drivers when there isn't a Windows 10 version available?
Left my computer on last night and I wake up to find Windows 10 has installed itself. I was hoping a reboot happened for some reason and my dual boot selected my Win10 install instead of 7, but no.
[EDIT] Ok, it did select the Win10 boot, the Win7 boot is crashing. Boot is hanging and in Windows it cannot find the Win7 SSD. I suppose it's dead. I'll replug it and see if that picks it up. I hope it does.
[EDIT] Ok, it did select the Win10 boot, the Win7 boot is crashing. Boot is hanging and in Windows it cannot find the Win7 SSD. I suppose it's dead. I'll replug it and see if that picks it up. I hope it does.
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Caporegime
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The same happened to me, did the upgrade from Windows 7 and then followed that up with a fresh install, after I'd done the fresh install the Catalyst Control Centre was already installed. I've updated that to the latest version, installed the Realtek sound drivers (not sure if I needed them) and that's it. I was going to install software for my wireless Corsair headset but they don't appear to be needed as it's working fine and also the drivers for the wireless Xbox 360 controller were apparently already installed but I haven't tested it yet.
One thing that's bugging me is previously I could control my CPU and GPU fan speeds through CCC but now I can't find that option anywhere even though I'm in the advanced view. Before the functionality was added to CCC in Windows 7 I'd tried Speedfan but never worked out how to use it.
EDIT: Don't worry I'm stupid and didn't go into the AMD Overdrive options.
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Been doing a fresh install of w10 too. Upgraded motherboard BIOS and VBIOS, without any windows activation issues. Windows downloaded a lot of driver stuff including AMD, Realtek, Intel Management Engine. Can't recall what the graphics driver is but obviously it's not the beta version. I found a slightly higher version of the Realtek driver from motherboard website. Found a higher version of the Intel LAN driver from Intel's website. Windows didn't recognise the additional 3rd party Asmedia SATA controller so that had to be done manually.
Before I started, I wiped my SSD as my first fresh install was to a HDD so I could use the SSD toolkit software and secure wipe it. Then I changed it to GPT along with my other HDD. Now got a fresh install on the SSD with the GOP VBIOS on the 7970, installed under UEFI for the first time and now got secure boot enabled. Takes about 15 secs from a cold boot to get to the windows lock screen. Not far off what I saw a guy using ASUS stuff achieve on YouTube.
One thing I don't like is them default save locations in the settings menu. It allows you to change where a user has their documents, pics, music etc stored but only allows the selection of the root of a different drive. I've set my HDD up with a better folder structure with correct permissions so I'd prefer it if there was a way to either change the locations that Windows defaults the alternative locations to or disable that functionality.
Before I started, I wiped my SSD as my first fresh install was to a HDD so I could use the SSD toolkit software and secure wipe it. Then I changed it to GPT along with my other HDD. Now got a fresh install on the SSD with the GOP VBIOS on the 7970, installed under UEFI for the first time and now got secure boot enabled. Takes about 15 secs from a cold boot to get to the windows lock screen. Not far off what I saw a guy using ASUS stuff achieve on YouTube.
One thing I don't like is them default save locations in the settings menu. It allows you to change where a user has their documents, pics, music etc stored but only allows the selection of the root of a different drive. I've set my HDD up with a better folder structure with correct permissions so I'd prefer it if there was a way to either change the locations that Windows defaults the alternative locations to or disable that functionality.
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I use W7 Home ATM. Perfectly happy with it for the browsing, video watching and gaming I do. I have W8 as well, but didn't like it. I keep getting bugged with adverts on my taskbar to take a free upgrade to W10. Why should I?
because its free!
even if you upgrade you get 30 days to roll back to your previous OS so give it a try and if you don't like it use the roll back option to go back to W7.
Caporegime
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I was one of those who hated Windows 8 and was very pro-Win 7 but Windows 10 has won me over after only a few days of using it. Windows 8 felt like a mess to me, Windows 10 feels like the natural progression that 8 should have been from 7. After a few minutes of getting rid of the crap I didn't need like OneDrive and some of the pre-installed "apps" I've got it feeling like a modern version of 7. I don't even mind the Edge browser, it's what I'm using at the moment and I haven't encountered any problems with it yet. 
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Sorry. What I meant was, what does it offer over W7 to make the change worthwhile? I am not interested in the cost - it must do what I need better or there is no point. Or perhaps offer some new functionality.
As with previous versions of windows, you can set the default locations to whatever you like. Right click say documents, select properties, select "location" and browse to wherever you want and store them. Only difficult one is pictures and I think that's something to do with cloud storage of pictures. Certainly worked for me. One of the very first things I do with a new install.
PS. Mine takes around 8 seconds to windows login screen.
Yeah there are two areas for doing alternate locations. The one I was referring to is what you get to from going into the 'All Settings' option from the bottom of the notification pane and then choosing 'System' and then 'Storage'.
Here it gives the user the option to switch between 'This PC (C)' which actually relates to 'C:\Users\' but when you choose a different drive from those drop down selection boxes under 'New documents will save to:' etc, it only allows the selection of the root of one of your attached drives. Thus the name of the user's folder will be placed at the root of the chosen drive rather than grouping multiple user's folders into a folder like the 'Users' folder on the C drive. Since I also map the public folders off my SSD onto the HDD it's a shame the above method doesn't have more customisation to force any user using this method to have their top level user folder placed in the directory an administrator has set aside for that purpose.
This is how I set up an additional drive, so I also have some folders for programs to install to. Then I use Game Save Manager to shift anything between the HDD and SSD plus I put a Steam Library on the HDD.
8 seconds boot up is great!
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Caporegime
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I only really use mine for web browsing and playing games and in that respect it doesn't do either of them better than Windows 7, maybe that will change when DirectX 12 starts to be used more, I don't really know much about it. The main reasons for me upgrading was because it was of course a free upgrade and because at some point down the line I will have to upgrade so I may as well get it over with and start learning the OS now.
3.3gb
Thank you!
So would booting from CD and formatting the drive before installing W10 work?
have you activated your copy of win10 yet? with an upgrade from say win8 or 7
Yep, upgraded from 8.1 and it's showing as activated. It does display an Product ID: xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Would I use this key to reactivate? Also another question, does this copy of Windows needs deactivating before clean installing with the same key?
Would I use this key to reactivate? Also another question, does this copy of Windows needs deactivating before clean installing with the same key?
don't do a fresh install as I found out the hard way, you need to do a reset/refresh
(The official way of doing a fresh install is to reset after upgrading. )
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