Iggy wrote:Our IT department at KCL has advised not to install Win 10 for the moment and to stick with Win 7 for the time being especially if we have old equipment, such as my 5 year + old laptop.
Did the KCL IT department give a reason for this statement? Not knowing this information makes it hard for you to come to a decision.
Windows 10 has not been an unmitigated success for Microsoft, although much of that is due to the company lacking a clear strategy which is a longstanding problem for it*. Moreover, IT support teams tend to resist change as they like to keep their networks stable and upgrades are expensive. However, I am not aware that the computing demands of Windows 10 are greater than for Windows 7. If your laptop runs Windows 10 OK, then your laptop should be OK. That said, and maybe this is the reason for the advice you have received, you might experience problems with older versions of software or incompatible drivers for components which are no longer supported by their vendors.
There is one way to find out. Take the free upgrade to Windows 10 and see what happens. If you do not like it or it causes problems, you have the option to revert. Just be aware it could take some time to make such a round trip durng which your computer will be unavailable. Windows 7 has been in what is known as "extended support" since the beginning of 2015, which sounds great until you realise that Microsoft has two distinct support periods for its older operating systems. The first five years includes bug fixes and security updates, whereas during the second "extended" five year period only security flaws are fixed unless the problem is deemed critical. It means that there will be limited support for Windows 7 until January 2020, by which time you will probably need a new laptop anyway.
Iggy wrote:Have all those who have installed Win 10 had trouble free use of software such as Photoshop or LightRoom?
So far, I have updated one of my computers, my desktop which is around four or five years old. Apart from the SSD which I had to replace a year or so ago, all the components date to the time when I built it. Most of my software is reasonably up to date, including Lightroom and Photoshop, which are the subscription versions. In theory, older software should be OK, but see my earlier point.
So far, I have experienced a few issues with Windows 10, but none have affected the applications I run. While not outrageously complex (although some might think so), my setup is definitely not typical and the problems I have encountered to date would not affect most people.
The printer issue I have already addressed in an earlier post and was not difficult to resolve. The main drawback was that my wife discovered it when she wanted to print something, which lent a certain urgency to determining the fix. Fortunately for marital harmony, the IT support team was up to the task.
The next problem related to my use of multiple disk drives. I have a SSD from which, for reasons of speed, I boot the operating system and applications, with my data held on conventional hard disks. By default, Windows places the default locations for standard libraries such as Documents and Pictures on the drive on which it is installed. I had changed this in Windows 7, but the Windows 10 update did not pick this up and reset them. It was no big deal to alter them back.
The other issue concerned my NAS (Network Access Storage) device, which is my main backup for data. The settings, which worked with Windows 7, stopped following the Windows 10 update. I'll not bore you with the full details, but the initial configuration two or three years ago had proved quite frought as it involved setting up a network, which until that point had been outside of my experience. The NAS no longer functioning was unwelcome news. After spending some time checking all the various settings without success, I realised that what initially seemed like a complex situation actually had a simple resolution. I had never bothered to protect my Windows 7 userid with a password, since there was no point as my wife and I are the only users. Windows 7 is OK with a remote device on the network requesting data without proper access credentials, Windows 10 is not. I did try specifying just the userid, but Windows 10 was having none of that and I had to add a password as well.
Windows 10 has not been a totally smooth update for me, but neither has it been disastrous and I currently have no plans to revert. That said, the next machine I plan to upgrade is a laptop which dates to 2010. If that goes wrong, there definitely will be trouble as it is my wife's main computer.
* Arguably Microsoft has been a very lucky company. It was fortunate to be selected by IBM to provide the operating system for its first PC, which went on to be widely adopted by corporate users and later individuals. It exploited the situation by indulging in anti-competitive practices which enabled Windows and Office to become ubiquitous. A number of good companies which might otherwise have enjoyed long term success went out of business as a result. In the US, the Department of Justice brought a law suit against Microsoft which it eventually won after several years, but by the time that the protracted legal wranglings had concluded Microsoft's software was in wide use. Some years previously a similar case had been successfully brought against IBM and severe sanctions were imposed. Had Microsoft received similar punitive punishment, it would have restricted its ability to support its customers with possible repercussions for the US economy. Microsoft has attempted other IT related business ventures, which it has conducted within the law, but none have enjoyed the same commercial success of its core products which date from its earliest days.
