Windows 10

[lordlundar]

All versions prior to the Vista version were a different type. When Vista was rolled out they wanted stat tracking and online components so the game got overhauled.

[RealUnimportant]

Oh my word... I've recently flirted with going back to Windows for gaming, as most of the games I want to play are simply Cider-wrapped Windows versions anyway... After reading this, I think I'll stick to my old copy of XP!

[EvilEmpryss]

Spotted recently in the wild...

I am SO printing this up and posting it in the office.

[Ironclad Alibi]

WOW I think???? A OS VERSION check for some minor/small game?????

I know I have copies older versions around and had no problems.

But I was referring to a newer version. To quote from the article I linked:

It’s possible to get the old Windows desktop games from Windows 7 back, although Microsoft has made this a hassle. You can’t just drag-and-drop the old .exe files onto your new Windows 10 system because those games check to ensure they’re only running on Windows 7. You’ll need to either modify the .exe files to remove the Windows version check or download modified versions someone has already removed the check from. (No, just setting Solitaire.exe to run in Windows 7 compatibility mode won’t help. Microsoft really doesn’t want you using these old games.)

[EricKei]

Welp -- My win7 install has been giving me errors left and right all of a sudden, and no amount of searching, av/spyware scanning, etc has proven fruitful...Thus, I allowed the upgrade to 10 go through. Cross your fingers for me...>_< It's been up for half an hour so far, so that at least beats WinMe for duration of installed time on one of my systems...

[otakuneko]

Prepare to be the star of your own reality show, Eric. You'll never get the spyware off your box now.

[EricKei]

No worries. I've been around online long enough -- with this handle -- that The Man has gotten bored with looking into my past. Makes him fall asleep

[Ironclad Alibi]

A friend that upgraded to Win10 told me he has been getting no end of notices to upgrade various drivers, and to pay to do it.

[EricKei]

That would be spyware, almost guaranteed. Install, update & run ADWCleaner (the thing is downright vicious - it's great! One of the few things that can reliably deal with Conduit/SearchProtect), then do the same with Spybot Search & Destroy - free versions of both are fine. Then, run Immunization from the latter (it blocks a shitload of sites via HOSTS and browser blacklists, so even if you click on a scam link, nothing will happen if its on the list). Just be sure to grab them from the actual vendor sites, not 3rd parties.

[Kogarashi]

I tried upgrading a couple months back, but something in my build disagreed with Win10. I had to do the rollback option, and I'm seeing occasional errors now due possibly to stuff changing for 10 and not rolling back properly. Mostly it's certain webpages that don't view in IE properly anymore when they worked just fine before the attempted upgrade.

The two biggest issues I ran into were that I couldn't get my wireless adapter to install on 10 (desktop with USB-based wireless adapter), and one of the two monitors on my setup (dual monitor) doesn't have Win10 drivers apparently. One monitor uses a digital connection, the other uses analog, and I think it might have been the analog that was failing to be recognized.

I may go with Win10 yet, but not until I can get a custom build that I know will work with it. And will be looking up options for games because there's no way I'm paying for the privilege to play Solitaire and Minesweeper.

[EricKei]

I've had some wireless issues, but nothing actually new (my connection goes iffy at times -- this was true even under a fresh install of Win7). I got some constant RAM-related BSODs at first, which cleared up once I looked at my mobo and discovered that the BIOS had helpfully decided to overclock my RAM by 50% of its listed capacity o_O Those went away once I reduced them back to stock levels. Getting rid of AVG Zen (the latest incarnation) seems to have helped a lot, too -- even if their own built-in uninstallers didn't work.

Only thing of note remaining is the odd "IRQL less than or equal" problem, which is so generic as to be useless x.x

[lordlundar]

Aaaand this just put it in the "hell no" category.

Microsoft admits some collection information can't be turned off.

Let me ask you this, would YOU want some random stranger to know what's on your rig? I don't. It's for this reason why I don't use Origin.

[Chromatix]

Indeed, I don't care if M$ "doesn't consider it a privacy concern" - *I* consider it a privacy concern.

[lordlundar]

Then there's the hypocrisy of it. The Enterprise editions (reserved for businesses) WILL have the capability to turn it off because of legal security concerns(banks for example cannot transmit any information outside of their network so even telemetry info is a risk). As such, they KNOW it's a concern but they're banking on home users to be dumb enough to trust them.

[EricKei]

Keep in mind that this was the company that "thought" people would gleefully embrace the XBONE with mandatory Kinect (which was only ever a niche product anyway) for $100 more, permanent-online connectivity (it phones home a lot, too), and the recent inexplicable effort to dilute game consoles' entire primary purpose by trying to turn them into multimedia/set-top boxes. People buy the things to PLAY GAMES, guys...