Advice on Win10 upgrade

I am happy with my FSX rig using Win 7.

 

Should I upgrade to Win 10?

 

Significant advantages and disadvantages would be nice.

 

Thanks,

 

zach

If you're happy with your current system as is, there is no need to rush into upgrading. Windows 7 will still be supported for a few years yet and Windows 10 is a free upgrade for the first year for Windows 7/8 users, giving you some time to wait and see how it goes. Windows 10 is a decent upgrade over Windows 8 though. There is little in the new version that would benefit FSX and a few people have run into some issues. However others have been running FSX fine. There are a few threads in the FSX forum covering it.

I am happy with my FSX rig using Win 7.

 

Should I upgrade to Win 10?

 

Significant advantages and disadvantages would be nice.

 

Thanks,

 

zach

 

Zach,

 

Run away! Run far away!

 

After reading some posts elsewhere about how easy the upgrade to Win10 was I took the plunge on Saturday and am still trying to find my way back out.

 

FSX experience was awful. Any exchange with ATC or update from AS Next would cause FSX to freeze and stutter. I couldn't even use some addons like FSCaptain because of the frequent audio exchanges that would grind everything to a halt.

 

So I tried to reverse the upgrade according to the info from Microsoft, only that option wasn't available on my computer. Fortunately I had made a mirror image using Carbonite, so I went through a reinstall that takes about 14 hours. And it didn't work. My computer wouldn't even boot up. I talked to Carbinite and they said users have had problems with reverting to Windows 7 because the Microsoft offer of a free upgrade puts something on the computer that interferes. I'm trying a second reinstall now but may have to go back to an image in July before Win10 was released.

 

Oh and if you do upgrade, be aware that the standard install includes some features that will allow Microsoft to personalize ads they will send you. On the off chance you don't want that you can opt out by choosing the custom install. That's what I did, but maybe that triggered the Revenge of Redmond I'm still trying to sort out.

 

One last thing: if you choose to download any free apps you have to have a Microsoft account. And the next time you boot up your computer, Win10 demands that you log on using the username and password you created.

 

It has been enough to make me consider buying a Mac.

 

Good luck!

 

Scott

CYYZ

I have updated my gaming PC, 2 laptops & an Eee notepad to Win 10 with no problems on any. The gaming PC has FSX-SE, Prepard3d v2.5 and X-Plane 10.40 installed, plus several addons including WX, FS Passenger, ORBX and on-line flight utilities. They are all working as advertised.

The main concern with any OS upgrade is wether you have modified your current OS in any way, such as moving default file locations etc. if you have, then you should revert to the original or do a clean install of Win 10.

Another tip is to disconnect all USB devices except mouse and keyboard.

 

In the end, the decision is yours. If your system is running to your expectations, you do not need to upgrade, but remember, the free upgrade offer finishes after a year.

 

Good luck

 

 

Sent from my tablet thingy!

Zach,

 

Well as you can see already its a bit of a mixed bag with users experience of win10. I am leaving my dedicated FSX machine on win7 as there is no reason to make the change on a system that is running FSX superbly at the moment.

I have changed my everyday PC to win10 and I haven't had problems with it as yet but I do recommend the custom install over the recommended install.

I have built 2 FSX systems for customers using win10 and I haven't found any issues as yet and there is a very slight performance gain. However these have been vanilla installs running on dedicated HHDs. I have not as yet had any complaints so I presume they are running ok. For what its worth I would recommend staying with win7 until you need to change, if its not broke don't fix it.

It is still early on in win10s development and there will be teething problems for a while yet, and I would advise that you maybe take another look at changing to win10 early in 2016 if you are still keen on wanting to make a change.

For those of us that have the luxury of having dedicated FSX machines it is a somewhat easier choice to make staying with whatever our OS happens to be. For those with general use machines running FSX as well I can fully understand the dilemmas faced, as my experience like many others has been positive with win10 in doing everyday work on the system, win10 is leaps ahead of win8.1 and has the best parts of win7 along with being less demanding on system resources.

Ok so I have a foot in both camps it may seem, but if I had a system that I used for everyday computing along with FSX then Id stay with win7.

 

Darryl

My Windows 10 update from my Windows 7 was perfect, with my P3D & 2x versions of FS9 working perfectly.

My update from my Windows 8.1 (Celeron, 2GB RAM, 64bit) was not so great, ending up with a non functioning Start button.

Going to Settings, Update (I think) there IS a setting to roll-back to your previous operating system. This worked perfectly, & I did the whole sequence twice, each taking about 20 minutes.

 

As far as logging in with a Microsoft username.... I really do not see this as a problem or issue at all, as I was using one on my W8.1 laptop anyway.

 

I'm sure there are many of us using our username of our gmail accounts to log in to the Android App Store, if we are using an Android mobile phone, so, why should it be any different using a Microsoft username, xxxxx@outlook.com, to log in to the Windows App Store?? The free apps are actually very good, the Money app & Weather apps, amongst many others, are excellent in fact, just the same as using any other free program, downloaded from a site where we probably had to log in anyway.

 

Oh, I'm yet to see any ' personalized ' ads, or any other that Microsoft has sent me.

The Windows 10 upgrade downloaded to my computer today and I authorized it's installation (update). The result was loss of many of my apps, including FSX. Fortunately, reverting back to Windows 7 went okay. The ability to revert back is good for only one month.

If I could just add, the Win 10 upgrade has killed my FSX and FS9 will only run in windowed mode. The various tips and tricks gleaned from here and various other sources have thus far not helped. I'm contemplating buying the SE version but there seem to be enough conflicting reports including responses from the Dovies themselves that they cannot guarantee it will work, or if they can even patch it to work.

 

At the moment I'm seriously considering rolling back to Windows 7 as I have a considerable amount of money invested in FSX add-ons.

 

Unfortunately no-one seems to really want to "own" the problem. MS regard it as old and obsolete software and with Aces Studio gone questionable if the expertise remains in the company to fix it. The Dovies have, in some respect, been sold a pup as unless they can identify and fix what in the source code is causing the incompatibility (without breaking anything else) they are stuck with a white elephant. Rolling back to Win 7 is still only a stop gap measure, at some point our PC's will wear out, break or otherwise expire and need to be replaced - at which point a new box with Win 10 will be the only option.

 

So Dovies/MS/someone from Aces lurking in the community, please try and come up with a solution so we actually have a useable flight sim going forward into the next decade.

"Rolling back to Win 7 is still only a stop gap measure, at some point our PC's will wear out, break or otherwise expire and need to be replaced - at which point a new box with Win 10 will be the only option."

 

 

That's true......but only if you don't have (and continue to make) current image back-ups of your HD.......works for me.

"Rolling back to Win 7 is still only a stop gap measure, at some point our PC's will wear out, break or otherwise expire and need to be replaced - at which point a new box with Win 10 will be the only option."

 

 

That's true......but only if you don't have (and continue to make) current image back-ups of your HD.......works for me.

 

I admire your confidence - let me know how it works out! An all new computer even custom built is going to be a completely different configuration and if you're running an OEM version of Win 7, as most of us probably are, no guarantee it's going to work with a new motherboard, CPU, GPU etc. In the dark and distant future, it's likely driver support for Win 7 would cease. So... it might work for you but doesn't let MS or the Dovies off the hook for not coming up with a solution to the current hiatus.

If that's your worry, just buy a new copy of win 7 now, for the pc you are going to buy in a few years. I just checked the local shop and win7 is still available.

Still a narrow view of the situation as it doesn't take into account future new users who want to get started with FSX but by then would have a Win 10 machine. Without new blood and a declining base of existing users eventually interest in FSX will fall away - what happens to commercial developers when there's no longer enough customers to make new products viable, or even this site? I've already noticed it's a lot less active here than several years ago.

 

The crux of the matter is, "I'm alright Jack", isn't going to cut it in the long term for a variety of reasons and we need to get pressure put on MS and Dovetail to get it sorted. Perhaps people like Nels are already lobbying behind the scenes but it would be nice to know if that or something similar is happening.

 

Edit: Anyhow giving the Steam version a go, worst case scenario if it still doesn't run in Win 10 at least if I rollback I've got the latest version of the program installed.

Further update - have now got FSX SE running.

 

Seems some of the issues arise if you try running an outdated version of FSUIPC (as supplied with some add-on aircraft) and nothing to do with Win 10 per se. Downloading and installing the latest version from Pete Dowson's site solved that problem.

 

Still some work to do as at least one third party aircraft I've installed has no visible external textures in game or the preview panel.

 

Further update:

Reason aircraft don't show correctly is of course FSX SE only runs on Windows 10 with DX10 preview enabled (and then still erratically). As 90% of freeware planes are FS2002/FS2004 conversions they are never going to work in a combination of FSX and Win 10.

 

Bottom line is, Win 10 now booted off and Win 7 restored. To echo the sentiments above, they will have to pry it out of my cold dead hands - or come up with a new flight sim which runs on the new O/S (more chance of a pig flying).

After years of using FSX with Windows 7 and displaying communications and GPS on a second monitor, I built and new computer with Windows 10 and now have to live with showing everything on one monitor. If I run in windowed mode, at least I can display the weather program on the second monitor.