Why is windows 10 so bad ??

[gimbal]

Change is always very annoying. I upgraded the MacOS version on my work machine from Sierra to the latest Catalina - I skipped two OS releases because I dread upgrading things that work perfectly fine. But eventually you just gotta, because security risks wah wah wah.

I can describe how busted my setup was by comparing it to a meteor crater in the ground. Everything was broken. I had to reinstall almost everything, reset my keychains (which is the least fun thing you can do on a Mac), fix numerous OS settings that defaulted to the worst choices possible, had to find work arounds for new "features" that are absolutely terrible...

Cost me the better part of a day just to have a functional machine.

ugh. Why.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, it's annoying alright. Have most of it sorted, though icons for most applications (basically anything non-Microsoft) are blank white document icons and associations have changed here and there. But, joy of joys, Solid Edge won't be fixed here, so now to edit any of our legacy models or drawings, I have to trek over to IT where they have one airgapped Windows 7 machine dedicated to Solid Edge. Pants.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Change is always very annoying. I upgraded the MacOS version on my work machine from Sierra to the latest Catalina - I skipped two OS releases because I dread upgrading things that work perfectly fine. But eventually you just gotta, because security risks wah wah wah.

I can describe how busted my setup was by comparing it to a meteor crater in the ground. Everything was broken. I had to reinstall almost everything, reset my keychains (which is the least fun thing you can do on a Mac), fix numerous OS settings that defaulted to the worst choices possible, had to find work arounds for new "features" that are absolutely terrible...

Cost me the better part of a day just to have a functional machine.

ugh. Why.

Upgrading an OS is always asking for trouble. I did a clean install of Catalina. No problems whatsoever.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Gah! Turned up today to work to find my PC has been upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7. First thing I do after decluttering the task bar and start menu is try to fix my application keyboard shortcuts. For example, I had set calculator to open on pressing F8. It turns out this is no longer possible, and I have to clutter my desktop with shortcuts for each app I want to tie to a keyboard shortcut. That, along with Solid Edge no longer working, has properly annoyed me this morning.

First thing I did when I started at college was install windows 10 across the site I worked at and that was 4 years ago, think you should be grateful your IT department are slack and gave you a few years grace.

[Anubis]

I don't think we gave an option with upgrade. Everyone was upgraded as soon as possible and we did not experience a lot of problems, except fixing office here and there.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, our CAD machines were amongst the last to be upgraded due to the issues with software like Solid Edge, but the powers that be have decided that my time is better spent walking between buildings when I need to modify models. I'm a firm believer in "if it ain't broke" sort of thinking, but hey ho, such is the price of progress.

[Anubis]

Not sure if you checked, but just as engineering software that we use, Solid Edge is 64bit only and newest version is Win10 only. (Windows 10 Enterprise or Professional (64-bit only) version 1709 or later)

In our case, engineering department is what is driving changes, as to be able to open all latest version of drawings from customers, we need to upgrade ASAP, and software requirements are constantly going up - latest version of windows, selected video cards (usually nVidia Quadro), faster processor and more memory...

I am surprised you guys didn't upgrade before. Were you behind in SE version??

As for don't fix it if it ain't broken - would you rather work on DOS version of AutoCad? Still works and ain't broke.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Not sure if you checked, but just as engineering software that we use, Solid Edge is 64bit only and newest version is Win10 only. (Windows 10 Enterprise or Professional (64-bit only) version 1709 or later)

Yeah, I know, it's more about our particular situation. For us, Solid Edge is considered legacy and therefore money can't be spent upgrading it. The version we have does run on Windows 10, but trips over on the more complex operations and models. Our mainstream development moved over to Solid Works a few years ago (which works fine on Windows 10 of course), but we have thousands of legacy models and drawings that need to be maintained, reviewed and / or recreated in Solid Works format.

In our case, engineering department is what is driving changes, as to be able to open all latest version of drawings from customers, we need to upgrade ASAP, and software requirements are constantly going up - latest version of windows, selected video cards (usually nVidia Quadro), faster processor and more memory...

All the latest hardware makes a lot of sense of course, and you'd be hard pushed to run any decent CAD software from the past decade in a 32-bit environment. Similar to you I'm sure, these machines are all relatively recent Xeon-based workstations with 16-32GB RAM, and I've a couple of those Quadro cards at home from the last round of hardware upgrades we got earlier this year (which reminds me, I must stick them on eBay or something...) Any less than those specs and I couldn't do my job. But we don't have drawings or models from customers to deal with, since we're the starting point of the products we design and manufacture. Besides, as I pointed out above, moving to the latest formats is one of the reasons Windows 7 worked better for me, since that's the only OS that could run both the legacy and current applications on the same machine.

As for don't fix it if it ain't broken - would you rather work on DOS version of AutoCad? Still works and ain't broke.

Clearly a ridiculous extreme, but anyway, I'll bite... The sort of modelling we do simply isn't possible under older software, but is perfectly doable in both Solid Edge and Solid Works. So yes, for our use case, it is broken because the vast majority of features needed simply don't exist. Conversely, there's nothing intrinsic to Windows 10 itself that makes any of this modelling more possible, so upgrading isn't necessary to access additional features.

[Anubis]

Yep, sorry for bit of ridiculous extreme there, tell you the truth, just wanted to check if you Steve @ work, who clearly would prefer still to work on AutoCad and BendCam. Every upgrade with him was the same, explanation why we have to do it, and it is like this since we moved from DOS/WfW3.11 to WinNT back in second half of 90s.

We are using SolidWorks since earlier 2000 and is major force behind upgrade. What is interesting, often you will have to run not latest drivers for video cards, but last one that work well with SW.

It is already huge package and it will just get bigger since they purchased an ERP company recently.

[SquawkBox]

I could finally manage to find the time to install x64 Windows 10 Pro Redstone 5 on one of my "production" machines. It sits there in dual boot with 32-bit Vista. CPU is Quad Core q9550 (technically, specific CPU was intended to run on servers, but it amounts to being a q9550), system hard drive is 10k rpm SCSI (I am not inclined towards SSD for x86, maybe later on), GPU is old mid-range IceQ Radeon. Boot time is short, relatively speaking, now it's (almost) ready to roll. That's me hoping it will breathe new life into this old clunky machine ! Thing is, browser support has become quite hazardous on Vista to say the least (I have kept it there for both nostalgia & compatibility purposes).
The good news is that the Classic Shell project finally got a maintainer, now it's called open-shell-menu. I would advise those of you who use it to replace / update Classic Shell asap, as Windows 10 subsequent updates will make it buggy eventually.
Version of Windows 10 is not bog-standard. For those of you curious about it, it contains last February updates, reg tweaks, netfx 3.5, netfx 4.7.2, DirectX 9 (and 12) and a bunch of third party programs. Team behind it (harkaz & scarface) called this iteration the Tunisian edition. I know for a fact some people wouldn't touch a Windows ISO bearing such additions and core modifications, but it seems a rather competent job. Some fat was trimmed, but supposedly updates can be initiated if necessary.
Finally, before actual install took place, I had to load up compatible (how fortunate!) Windows 7 host adapter SCSI drivers, these were downloaded from Adaptec web site, or else my SCSI HDDs partitions wouldn't show up. Here it is, so sleek a wallpaper that I could almost smell the camels fleece from outside the screen :

[van_dammesque]

The main thing for win 10 was the menu (afeer deactivating everything including telemetry etc...). So install Open Shell and replace the start menu!

[SquawkBox]

Well said, except Classic Shell / open-shell-menu both feel a bit stiff. I don't think you can pin programs shortcuts or most used features (e.q. add / remove programs) to the left side of the menu like you could in previous Windows versions. Also, the revamped start menu merely hides the numerous dumb items pre-installed by Microsoft, there are still here, underneath the cover (other threads in OT lists a few handful programs aiming at cleaning it up, so I won't go into through that again). Strangely enough, many users don't mind at all the original menu, probably got used to it at the time they were using (struggling with ?) 8.1.
Anyway, done with installing the remaining drivers, inflating the swap file and fully updating through Windows Update. So, they removed the Windows Experience Index assessment feature, heh.

[SquawkBox]

Originally Posted by nobody

Diablo 1/2 / Most are using directdraw that ms pulled out in win 7/8/10.

Most likely, I won't look for fixes / workaround solutions for the other games you mentioned, reason being I don't care much for any of these although I must admit Icewind Dale was quite an achievement, visually speaking.
For Diablo I, gee, that's an oldish game, playing it briefly reminded me of all the gibberish hero or heroine gets from speaking with various NPC ("gossip") before entering the dungeons... Anyway, you may use the unofficial patch called DiabloPatch, grab it here, more of a launcher than a patch, which means it will run from memory. Of course, it requires latest official patch.
For Diablo II ~ LoD, game won't run properly in DirectDraw mode, you're right about that. So, simply put, switch to Direct3D or to Glide, the latter becoming available once latest nGlide wrapper is installed. Once you're done installing Diablo II, you will notice it won't let you run again the executable that is supposed to test video capabilities of the GPU (it consists in a test tool, but also a video mode switcher). Applying Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode to it (or to a shortcut leading to it) is required, so that you can proceed to test and then switch to Glide (or switch back to D3D), should that be necessary. I know, DirectDraw makes D2 a little prettier, so, failing that, there's always VirtualBox at your disposal. Both games do require the ISO to be mounted in virtual drive in order to work properly.