[The E]

hard same

[Rhymes]

Win 10's search bar is the best addition to the start menu in forever.

[CP5670]

I use Windows 10 exclusively with Classic Shell and a custom dark theme. That O&O Shutup tool is also very good. I kept a XP install for a long time on my gaming box for a few old games, but no longer use it for anything. I do have XP and 98 VMs for a few things.

Seriously. Win10 is fine. It's got all the functionality. Everything works. How much more "maturity" do you want?

Win10 has a tendency to mess up compatibility with older games with each update. And I don't mean old games as they are, I mean the gog versions with the fixes and everything.
My experience on the gog forums is that if someone has some weird issue that should have already been solved he probably has windows 10.

I'll still probably need to make the jump sooner or later but I am in no rush.

I find that new video card drivers are often a bigger culprit with this, more than the Windows updates. In general though, it's easier to get old games working today than it used to be 5-10 years ago, due to DGVoodoo, PCgamingwiki, more mature VMWare, etc. Windows 10 has also fixed other issues with old games that 8.1 had, and in general I find the compatibility better than 8.1.

[jr2]

Oh, hey, that reminds me: quick shoutout to 86Box for those that haven't seen the thread on that here (TL;DR: emulate every piece of hardware down to sound, HDD controllers, mobo, BIOS, and CPU).

EDIT: And if you're not using Void Tools' Everything, you're doing it wrong (you will NEVER go back).  For quick text-based launching and running commands, try Launchy (not really updated any more but pretty slick) and / or Wox  (simple gray box, is actually updated).  Want an OSX Launchpad for Windows?  Try WinLaunch.

[jr2]

I created a new 7 partition on both my own and my parents' machines and upgraded them to 10 back when the free upgrade was first announced. I didn't even touch them until this weekend when I used GParted to resize them and start actually using 10. There were some misadventures (GParted nerfed something with booting on both partitions, so I had to use my 7 install disk to repair things), but so far so decent.

BTW, GParted should have set off a chkdsk at next boot after resizing NTFS partitions.  If you skip it it can cause problems.  Might be it, not sure.

[Mongoose]

Yeah it did, and it worked out fine, as did the Windows repair feature beforehand.

[Det. Bullock]

I only have a 500gb SSD that is always three quarters full so a partition is not advisable, perhaps I can get a second one later for windows 10.

[jr2]

I only have a 500gb SSD that is always three quarters full so a partition is not advisable, perhaps I can get a second one later for windows 10.

Probs good idea.  I find 1TB to be ample for storing everything I use semi-regularly (besides larger games, those I put on the spinny disk unless I'm using them all the time).

[Mongoose]

Is it still good standing advice to disable indexing on an SSD?  I have a 5-year-old Samsung 850 Evo, and I did it through the drive properties dialog, but it does seem to nerf Windows' ability to search somewhat.

[jr2]

Is it still good standing advice to disable indexing on an SSD?  I have a 5-year-old Samsung 850 Evo, and I did it through the drive properties dialog, but it does seem to nerf Windows' ability to search somewhat.

Nah, I have the same drive, and an 860.

Just download and install Samsung Magician, and let that optimize Windows settings for you.  In the main screen, I'd recommend flipping on RAPID mode, and somewhere there was an option to optimize Windows settings for the drive.  I can't seem to find it now, probably because I've already run it, but perhaps it's been automated by Samsung or Windows at this point, I'm not sure.  Regardless, you can get Samsung Magician from the category here:
Samsung Magician Software for Consumer SSD(4)   

(should auto-expand for you, you want Magician Software 6.0.0 as of 1/21/2020)

[mjn.mixael]

Windows 10 will automatically handle your SSD as necessary. Limiting indexing was because SSDs have limited read/writes before sectors go kaput and older OS's didn't worry about that sort of thing. Windows 10 is fully aware of your SSD and how to keep it's longevity by minimizing read/writes to sectors all over the disk. The built-in trim/optimize function is specifically for that.

[The E]

Windows 10 will automatically handle your SSD as necessary. Limiting indexing was because SSDs have limited read/writes before sectors go kaput and older OS's didn't worry about that sort of thing. Windows 10 is fully aware of your SSD and how to keep it's longevity by minimizing read/writes to sectors all over the disk. The built-in trim/optimize function is specifically for that.

Plus, modern SSDs have read/write lifetimes exceeding those of most PCs. Even a relatively old drive like a Samsung 850 is rated for a lifetime endurance in excess of 75TB; under normal usage patterns (read: anything that does not involve writing dozens of gigabytes to the drive daily), that drive will be fine for years to come. Anecdotally, I bought one of those in 2012 or so and used it as my main drive for years, when I transferred it to my mom's laptop to give that thing a little boost, it was still perfectly healthy.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, 5 years in and I'm showing 10 TB of lifetime usage in Samsung Magician. I don't see myself still using it 40 years down the road.

[Mito [PL]]

Sheesh, while our talking about SSDs is kinda offtopic here, I'm just going to add one more penny to that.

Yesterday I've replaced a super old 40GB 3,5" platter drive in a CNC machine supervising computer for just your standard 120GB SSD. Cloned the partitions, and there we go - massive speed increase for about $30. Also need to consider reliability, too.

Now that I look at it, there isn't really any reason not to buy an SSD for any sort of new computer you're building, or switch to one on your current one. I've been looking at prices per GB of SSD storage steadily drop through the last couple years to as low as a third of what they were when I started observing them, this is just insane.
Or well, platter drives are still okay for bulk storage due to cost, but seriously, which typical user with steady Internet access does any large scale data collecting nowadays?

[mjn.mixael]

Or well, platter drives are still okay for bulk storage due to cost, but seriously, which typical user with steady Internet access does any large scale data collecting nowadays?

I'm guessing the kind of people that still dual boot Windows XP are the kind of people to save and organize every app they ever downloaded from the internet just in case they need it again 10 years down the road.

[Colonol Dekker]

How is win 10s driver support.  I've got an m17x r4 alienware from 2012 running 7 professional, I've got setup os discs etc so happy to reformat every so often Buuuuuut.

[The E]

Win 10 will happily use any driver from 7 or later.

[jr2]

Sheesh, while our talking about SSDs is kinda offtopic here, I'm just going to add one more penny to that.

Yesterday I've replaced a super old 40GB 3,5" platter drive in a CNC machine supervising computer for just your standard 120GB SSD. Cloned the partitions, and there we go - massive speed increase for about $30. Also need to consider reliability, too.

Now that I look at it, there isn't really any reason not to buy an SSD for any sort of new computer you're building, or switch to one on your current one. I've been looking at prices per GB of SSD storage steadily drop through the last couple years to as low as a third of what they were when I started observing them, this is just insane.
Or well, platter drives are still okay for bulk storage due to cost, but seriously, which typical user with steady Internet access does any large scale data collecting nowadays?

* jr2 looks at his 8TB Western Digital Red drive sitting in his system next to his 2TB WD Green drive

Me, I guess?

FWIW, I do a pretty decent amount of read / write, and combining both of my SSDs CrystalDiskInfo says I've written 30TB since I built this system what, 3, 4 years ago?

EDIT: Oh, FYI Win 10 makes "formatting" a breeze - just search for Reset this PC in the start menu and away you go, no OS installation, it's easy as pie.  99% of the time that's all you need, as it's basically restoring from an always up-to-date restore file.  Sort of like a smartphone I guess?