Upgrade to Windows 10, or stick with 8.1?

[Danariel]

I'll be receiving a "Like New" SP3 with an i5, 8gb ram, 256 gb sdd on Wednesday.

I've been reading a bunch of threads here over the past 3-4 days, and it seems like most of the problems I've been reading about have stemmed from Windows 10. It looks like Windows 8.1 is pretty stable on the SP3, but Windows 10 needs more work. Would that be a fair assessment?

I guess what I'm looking for are responses from 1) Folks who upgraded to Windows 10, had bugs, downgraded again, everything ok (or not?) 2) Folks who upgraded to 10, whether they're having problems or not, and what those problems are. 3) Folks who stayed with 8.1.

I love Windows 10 on my desktop, and I'm hoping to find that the latest updates have fixed most/all of the initial problems with battery life, fans constantly running, and overheating - and if not fixed by the updates, if there were settings (like turning down the brightness) that did it. I guess I'm looking for a "State of Windows 10 on SP3 as of Feb 28th."

 

[etphoto]

I love Windows 10 on my Surface 3 and think you should upgrade to Windows 10. UNLESS you are a OneDrive user. Without placeholders OneDrive on small drive devices like the Surface is useless.

Sent from my Surface 3

 

[Zulfigar]

I love Windows 10 on my Surface 3 and think you should upgrade to Windows 10. UNLESS you are a OneDrive user. Without placeholders OneDrive on small drive devices like the Surface is useless.

Sent from my Surface 3

Just tell OneDrive not to sync then make a network drive that's pointed to your OneDrive.
Boom, done.

 

[Danariel]

Does this article include the instructions to do what you're talking about, Zulfigar? (sorry, still don't have the required posts to do links, you'll have to Google it.) If this is the procedure, maybe someone could provide the clicky-link for future readers. Otherwise, I'll do so once I've posted enough.

OneDrive Tip: Map Your Cloud Storage as a Drive in File Explorer

 

[Danariel]

I've never used OneDrive (always used DropBox and Google Drive for the few things I wanted to be able to access anywhere, or share with others) so I have no idea what Placeholders were, and whether I'd need them or not.

On my desktop, I have a 256gb SDD that holds the OS, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, CCleaner, and drivers. There's 190gb/237gb free. I'm planning on leaving it that way. I have Adobe CC and all my computer games installed on a 2tb HDD. I've re-mapped my Documents, Music, Photos, Videos, and Downloads folders to point to the D:/ drive as well.

I have a 64gb microSD card that I plan to put all my music and the pictures I want available on the SP3 on to. Of course, I'll be installing Adobe PhotoShop CC on it, and Office 365 as well. I don't plan on installing games on it (that's what the nice new desktop gaming rig is for) so 256gb internal memory should be adequate.

Ok, from reading up on them a bit, since I don't have anything in my OneDrive yet, and don't anticipate putting that much in it in the future, I think I can do without Placeholders until they put them back into Windows 10.

 

[Zulfigar]

Does this article include the instructions to do what you're talking about, Zulfigar? (sorry, still don't have the required posts to do links, you'll have to Google it.) If this is the procedure, maybe someone could provide the clicky-link for future readers. Otherwise, I'll do so once I've posted enough.

OneDrive Tip: Map Your Cloud Storage as a Drive in File Explorer

If it's going to a Thurrott website, then yes, that's what I'm talking about.

 

[Danariel]

It was, indeed, going to Thurrott - fell into a nice internet black hole for about an hour there, listening to podcasts. Learned that the latest Fast track Insider Preview includes some "teasers" for OneDrive Placeholders returning pretty soon.

 

[eusty]

I used 8.1 on my SP3 and it was fine, a lot better than using it on a desktop. That said W10 has been fine...actually it's very good!

As has been said the only thing I really (really, really) miss are the OneDrive placeholders.....

Upgrade to W10 as you will have a month to revert back to 8.1 if you wish, although I doubt you will :smile:

https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/micr...onedrive-placeholders-to-return-with-redstone a clicky link!

Another link with how to map OneDrive, although even with a fast connection this is far, far slower if you have quite a bit of stuff in OneDrive.If it's just a file or two I want to upload/download I find it far quicker just to use a browser.

How to overcome the placeholder limitation of OneDrive in Windows 10 | Windows Central

 

[Leonel Funes]

Besides the placeholders (which should be coming back later this year), I think you'll really enjoy using Windows 10. It came a long way since the very first previews (looked like Windows 8.2 or something...) but it's doing great now. Even the issues that Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book users had are now fixed!

 

[Danariel]

Ah, leo, your last 2 sentences are exactly what I was looking for. I've been on Windows 10 since the week after they started rolling it out - I didn't wait for it to actually get to me, I used the Media Creation tool to upgrade my machine, my husband's, and my parents' laptops, too. I'm even on the Insider Fast Track. The only thing I was worried about was that I was seeing a bunch of reports regarding problems with it specifically on the Surface Pro 3 and 4. As long as they are cleared up, I'm upgrading.

Thanks for all the responses!

 

[v535]

I'd recommend staying on slow track rather than fast build on SP3. On your desktop, you can stay on fast/slow or even wait for stable builds.

 

[Leonel Funes]

Ah, leo, your last 2 sentences are exactly what I was looking for. I've been on Windows 10 since the week after they started rolling it out - I didn't wait for it to actually get to me, I used the Media Creation tool to upgrade my machine, my husband's, and my parents' laptops, too. I'm even on the Insider Fast Track. The only thing I was worried about was that I was seeing a bunch of reports regarding problems with it specifically on the Surface Pro 3 and 4. As long as they are cleared up, I'm upgrading.

Thanks for all the responses!

Glad I could help!

 

[EMitchell]

I fall into the 3rd class mentioned in the OP. I've got the same HW, 8GB, 256G SSD, i5. I added a 128GB uSD for media files, so no issues with disk space. I'm still running 8.1 Enterprise, so I'm not eligible for the free Win10 upgrade, although I've still considered upgrading, just haven't done it. Win8.1 is rock solid on this system, and since this is my only work system, I hate to change it.

 

[Danariel]

I'd recommend staying on slow track rather than fast build on SP3. On your desktop, you can stay on fast/slow or even wait for stable builds.

Since I've just had back-to-back-to-back BSODs on the latest Fast Track build on my desktop today, I'll probably stay off previews on the Surface - unless I can get OFF previews on the desktop, then I may allow slow track on the Surface.

Looks like the latest Insider Preview for Fast Track doesn't play well with Kaspersky. I was hoping they'd fix it with a new release yesterday, but I ended up having to uninstall Kaspersky in Safe Mode, roll my system back to the previous build, then it BSOD'd on the previous build, too, so I had to uninstall Kaspersky again. Once I got it stable, I tried to reinstall K, but the install kept failing. I have a 3 year sub to K for 5 devices, so I'm pretty peeved right now. Installed the trial version of AVG until I can get off the preview somehow.

Do I have to reinstall Win10 to get off preview entirely? I've got all my games, Graphic Design stuff, and other programs on another drive, so if I do, I hope they'll be recognized without a reinstall.

 

[v535]

Can you roll back to stable build on Advanced Bootup option in Control Panel? I think you're stuck with preview version ATM. As for uninstalling Kaspersky or other AVs completely use this tool

 

[Danariel]

Yeah, I was able to roll back to 14267 and uninstall Kaspersky again (since I'd had it installed when I last used the build.) I'm still unable to reinstall Kaspersky. I ended up installing a trial version of AVG. Hopefully Windows and Kaspersky can hash this out before the trial ends.

Since I had a device that wasn't being used, I installed Kaspersky on the Surface Pro 3 that came in today, and then I updated it to Windows 10. NOT going to go with previews on it.

 

[Adam_ation]

I really wouldn't bother with any 3rd party anti virus software, windows defender has been working great for me, i even had a year left on my norton and still didnt bother with it since upgrading to w10 on all 4 of my machines