Making Windows 10 look like Windows 7.

Eindhoven · December 23, 2019

26 minutes ago, BigStar said:

And don't care or need to. Up 2 them.

But the OP didn't--and doesn't. He just wanted his future Win 10 to look more like Win 7, poor man.

You don't need to mother him. He is big enough and old enough to take care of himself.

BigStar · December 23, 2019

2 hours ago, Eindhoven said:

You don't need to mother him. He is big enough and old enough to take care of himself.

That's merely further personal insult to the OP on your part. Me, I'd have reported you for trolling and flaming already. "Dinosaur" indeed. I'm merely agreeing with him and disagreeing with you. Is that a problem? In general, though, I uphold and defend the rights of dinosaurs wherever they are. When it comes to phones, for example, I'm also proud dinosaur by choice. Saves SO much time. ????

Along the way I also answered a number of your false assumptions and assertions, for the good of the general public. I imagine we have more than a few members who'd also like to civilize their Win 10, get it outta their faces, retain more of their privacy, jettison the bloatware. Without having to buy an SSD, lol.

Funny you can't see that you're doing all the attempted mothering--entirely gratuitously. Try taking your own advice and stop projecting your own tendencies onto others.

Eindhoven · December 24, 2019

14 hours ago, BigStar said:

That's merely further personal insult to the OP on your part. Me, I'd have reported you for trolling and flaming already. ...

It seems that you are more concerned with arguing with me, than helping KhunHeineken.

You may have reported it as Trolling and Flaming, but clearly no one agreed with you.

It's clear to all that my advice makes sense. Some may need more convincing than others before they understand the whys and wherefores.

It makes good sense for him to do both things at the same time. He can, equally, ignore my advice. I won't take offence, as I know that I am imparting the best advice possible. His choice.

There are others reading who may choose to follow my advice. It's there for all to read.

At least he is taking my comments and advice in the spirit they are meant and replying with good nature. Perhaps you can learn from him, rather than simply trying to make trouble.

Though I won't be replying to you again, as I have used the Ignore function. Since you are insisting on arguing with me, rather than contributing to the thread positively.

Notwithstanding, have a pleasant Christmas.

tgw · December 24, 2019

On 12/22/2019 at 2:12 PM, KhunHeineken said:

I remember the global uproar when Windows 8 was released, and users noticed there was no Start Icon. This prompted the development of Classic Shell.

Dinosaurs, the lot of them. ????

Hello Heineken

I too was angry with Windows 8 which I considered a total failure. Not only the missing start button, but it also made my computer look like a phone. The user interface was just horrible, and back then ClassicShell was the first thing I installed.

And I am an IT professional.

Regarding Windows 10, I was very skeptical at first, but all is good.

It looks more like Win 7 than Win 8 did.

There are user interface changes, but all in all, Windows 10 feels similar to Win 7 and is comfortable to use.

The exception are maybe the computer settings, part of which have been moved from control panel to "settings", but it's not too hard.

Upon Windows 10 installation, you will be asked about privacy settings, everything can be turned off, except for some basic telemetry.

Don't worry about privacy, there are many independent privacy advocate groups scrutinizing what Microsoft sends back to headquarters.

Members of the Chaos Cumputer Club for example would catch up quickly if something was foul.

The SSD advice is sound, it just doesn't really make sense today to run a computer without one.

Just accept the advice, a discussion isn't even possible, the SSD has only advantages and may even give second youth to older computers in terms of speed felt by user.

yes, one system disk and one data disk is the way to go.

of course, if you don't want a SSD, you are free to carry on with the 10 to 20 times slower disk.

Edited December 24, 2019 by tgw

topt · December 25, 2019

On 12/24/2019 at 2:47 PM, tgw said:

Don't worry about privacy,

I guess you are also happy about the amount of info Google collates on everybody as well......

When companies install telemetry/slurp data without explaining exactly what they are doing and why then many people believe this is an invasion of their privacy. Especially when added late in life to Win 7 for example when originally it did not have any.

For an "IT professional" I am surprised.

However I do agree regarding a SSD

tgw · December 25, 2019

1 hour ago, topt said:

I guess you are also happy about the amount of info Google collates on everybody as well......

When companies install telemetry/slurp data without explaining exactly what they are doing and why then many people believe this is an invasion of their privacy. Especially when added late in life to Win 7 for example when originally it did not have any.

For an "IT professional" I am surprised.

However I do agree regarding a SSD

read my previous posts on this forum and you will see that I am a staunch privacy advocate.

about Windows, just opt out of everything and the remainder shouldn't pose much of a privacy problem.

I don't see how the type of CPU you use or which graphics card is very relevant for privacy.

topt · December 26, 2019

14 hours ago, tgw said:

I don't see how the type of CPU you use or which graphics card is very relevant for privacy.

I must have missed this - where was this mentioned?

tgw · December 26, 2019

32 minutes ago, topt said:

I must have missed this - where was this mentioned?

this type of information is included in technical telemetry data.

BigStar · December 26, 2019

On 12/24/2019 at 2:47 PM, tgw said:

Regarding Windows 10, I was very skeptical at first, but all is good.

All is not good. Needs some tweaking and usability improvements.

Quote

It looks more like Win 7 than Win 8 did.

There are user interface changes, but all in all, Windows 10 feels similar to Win 7 and is comfortable to use.

More like Win 7, yes. Not enough like Win 7, however, to feel really comfortable to use, as it still has the "designed for tablet" feeling and inconvenience. Open Shell etc. takes care of that, fortunately. ????

Quote

Upon Windows 10 installation, you will be asked about privacy settings, everything can be turned off, except for some basic telemetry.

Don't worry about privacy, there are many independent privacy advocate groups scrutinizing what Microsoft sends back to headquarters.

You aren't asked about quite a few things, however. No need to waste time going thru all those settings (YAWN), some of which are not really documented, when you can run a program to fix them all at once automatically. ???? And get rid of as much telemetry as you can, since M'soft didn't ask or explain. Manners count if nothing else.

Get rid of Candy Crush, too.

Quote

The SSD advice is sound, it just doesn't really make sense today to run a computer without one.

Millions all over the world survive well enough while not making sense, including many a poster here. You won't notice you don't have an SSD except when booting up or starting a big application or copying large files. But retirees have plenty of time.

That said, yep, they're quite nice to have. I have 4 of them, one just for Linux, and I'll always use an SSD for a system drive at minimum. However, OP didn't ask for that advice, it's off topic, and he, like all other posters, doesn't deserve to be browbeaten and called names by other posters obsessed with SSDs.

Eindhoven · December 26, 2019

2 hours ago, BigStar said:

All

Millions all over the world survive well enough while not making sense, including many a poster here. You won't notice you don't have an SSD except when booting up or starting a big application or copying large files. But retirees have plenty of time.

That said, yep, they're quite nice to have. I have 4 of them, one just for Linux, and I'll always use an SSD for a system drive at minimum. However, OP didn't ask for that advice, it's off topic, and he, like all other posters, doesn't deserve to be browbeaten and called names by other posters obsessed with SSDs.

Nonsense. ????

How would you notice that you don't have one? You only notice once you do have one.

It not just on boot up and transferring large files. That is just more nonsense. Every aspect of display is improved.

But nice you added that you actually use them on your every computer as a system drive.

So why are you trying discourage Khunheineken from fitting one?

Let me guess, because you are desperate for an argument with someone...anyone.

He doesn't need to have asked about it, to be given the advice to fit one at the same time as changing OS.

It is sound advice. Whereas your argument, about him being a retiree and having time to waste, is truly pathetic and insulting. Not only to him, but to any other retiree.

Why don't you just stop digging for a while?

No one here agrees with you. They all agree that fitting an SSD at the same time makes good sense. Even you think it's a good thing, but yet here you are arguing about the fact that it was suggested.

Perverse.

Eindhoven · December 27, 2019

HDD on the two at the top. SSD the two on the bottom.

Says much more than the ridiculous statements of a certain member.

metisdead · December 27, 2019

An inflammatory post has been removed.

BigStar · December 27, 2019

27 minutes ago, Eindhoven said:

HDD on the two at the top. SSD the two on the bottom.

Says much more than the ridiculous statements of a certain member.

Who said anything inconsistent with that video? What was it you thought was said? ????

BigStar · December 27, 2019

12 hours ago, Eindhoven said:

How would you notice that you don't have one? You only notice once you do have one.

Not appreciably after your applications are loaded into memory, with the exceptions I noted. CPU, RAM, and network run at the same speeds as they did with those limitations. But never discount the placebo effect. ????

I'm speaking of course for the average desktop user, which the OP seems to be (like most posters coming here for support), doing his his web surfing and email checking, basically, editing text documents sometimes. Different ballgame of course if you're, say, creating and editing large video files. In fact any benchmark will include intensive disk access, which will favor an SSD. But the exceptions I noted encompass such scenarios. I project on the basis of reasonable probability.

12 hours ago, Eindhoven said:

Whereas your argument, about him being a retiree and having time to waste, is truly pathetic and insulting. Not only to him, but to any other retiree.

Not at all. I had thought it quite common knowledge that retirees have more free time than working stiffs. Why do people retire anyway? ???? For most, that's an enviable situation to be in.

And who said anything about wasting time? Be productive, man. A common scenario, one followed daily by a dear respected friend of mine, is to turn on the computer in the morning, first thing, and then go prepare the coffee or tea. Come back with the cuppa and it's all ready to go. ????

Besides, I'm just telling you what retirees have told me. OP could be an exception of course, and may not even be retired. But you see he's expressed not the slightest concern about a time shortage or the slightest complaint about his computer being slow or expressed any interest whatsoever in having an SSD to save him time, despite all the browbeating. In fact, he's explicitly denied any such interest.

Therefore he does seem to have chosen to accept his current boot up etc. times. So be it. He just wanted to make his future Win 10 look more like Win 7. Fortunately he got some good on-topic answers from helpful, knowledgeable members here, bless 'em. ????

13 hours ago, Eindhoven said:

you are arguing about the fact that it was suggested.

Ah, no. Suggesting is one thing, no problem.

I hope that's all sweeter now. ????

Eindhoven · December 27, 2019

No point in continuing to clog the thread with pointlessly long winded posts that ruin the thread, making it unreadable.

When KH is ready to make the change, he can revive the thread. Wherein we can guide him through any questions to do with activation of the new OS if he chooses the clean install/upgrade path.

As agreed by every other contributor, including BigStar, SSD is the way to go.

If, as some claim, that Windows 10 uses more resources, it makes sense to do something to mitigate that.

Allowing his current device to perform to the best of it's ability is clearly the most sensible solution.

I've had so many people ready to scrap their PCs in order to buy new, as they thought their machines were as good/bad as they were going to get.

Once they fitted an SSD, all ideas of a new machine faded away.

I understand people like to do things at their own pace, so I suggest he takes his time and asks questions about the possible new procedure. So at least he has the knowledge and option of going forward.

Perhaps BS had KH's interest at heart initially. But BS has clearly lost their way and are now arguing for the sake of arguing.

What might have been a helpful discussion to KH, is now littered with misinformation and veiled insults.

So hopefully KH will come back when he is ready to move forward, either way.

KhunHeineken · December 27, 2019

My plan is to upgrade to Windows 10, early New Year, when I have some spare time. Basically, in a few days time.

I will be upgrading all my Windows 7 machines, so there will be a bit of work backing up, and reloading programs and settings, on all the machines.

I haven't decided which program I will be running to make Windows 10 look like Windows 7, but it's between Classic / Open Shell, and Start Menu 8.

I will then run the program suggested to me in this thread to debloat and disable privacy settings.

I am surprised how cheap SSD's are these days. Last time I looked, they were quite expensive. I do not doubt they are faster.

After the upgrade, reloading of programs and settings, changing the UI, and debloating and tweaking privacy settings, I will shop around for a SSD, and eventually clone the HDD to the SSD, and install it. This should not be a problem with the desktop, but I may have to take the laptop to a shop for this.

I am in no hurry for a SSD, and I don't see the need to install a SSD at the time of upgrading the OS. I can also keep the HDD as back up in case the SSD fails.

The SSD aside, I would not be surprised if many people have done, or will do, prior to the 14th January, the above, and when I mean "many people" I mean millions of people, all around the world.

My reasons for the above configurations are:

As one member, said Windows 8 looked like a phone. I agree. I don't like the tiles in Windows 10. It's not about getting used to them. I simply don't like them, so Classic Shell, or similar, will be used.

As for the bloatware, well, Candy Crush on my machine, because Microsoft say so, really? I looked at the list of bloatware. About the only program on there that I use is Skype. The rest of the bloatware will be uninstalled.

The privacy issues with Windows 10 speak for themselves. I will be disabling most of the settings to regain some privacy.

I see the benefits of a SSD, but the SSD can wait can wait for a while.

Edited December 27, 2019 by KhunHeineken

KhunHeineken · December 27, 2019

On 12/24/2019 at 6:47 PM, tgw said:

The user interface was just horrible, and back then ClassicShell was the first thing I installed.

Out of interest, I would really like to know how many people with Windows 8 or 10 are running a program like Classic Shell.

Of course, we will never know, and I can't see how many times Classic Shell has been downloaded, but I am thinking it would be in the millions.

You would think with such a demand, Microsoft would listen, but no. You have to use a third party program.

bendejo · December 28, 2019

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

Out of interest, I would really like to know how many people with Windows 8 or 10 are running a program like Classic Shell.

I haven't installed Classic Shell, but I've managed to make my interface look pretty much like it did back in XP, or maybe even versions before that. I did the same thing for Win7. Yeah, the Start Menu now pops up that little dashboard thing, and I've come to like it, I use a lot of little programs that are not on the system partition and it's easier to organize than stuff on the Desktop. Otherwise, going from 7 to 10 was pretty much a back-end thing that didn't involve a learning curve.

I never even tried the whizbang stuff, can't remember the names of these things (one was Aero). I have yet to sign up for a MS user account, and hope to keep avoiding that, so, other than the updates/fixes, I don't dl anything from MS.

Probably the most annoying thing about Windows these days, for me anyway, is all the junk that has to be seen to in order to keep info from being transmitted, and it's not just what I had to do when I first install, but sometimes I find things that I've turned off have been re-activated, and I'm pretty sure it's done by things getting updated.

tgw · December 28, 2019

6 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

Out of interest, I would really like to know how many people with Windows 8 or 10 are running a program like Classic Shell.

Of course, we will never know, and I can't see how many times Classic Shell has been downloaded, but I am thinking it would be in the millions.

You would think with such a demand, Microsoft would listen, but no. You have to use a third party program.

I know there were about 30 million downloads for classic shell in the Win 8 and Win 8.1 era.

But I expect there is much less need for it since Win 10 - Microsoft did listen and as I said, I really think Win 10's interface is okay.

Eindhoven · December 29, 2019

On 12/28/2019 at 5:54 AM, tgw said:

I know there were about 30 million downloads for classic shell in the Win 8 and Win 8.1 era.

But I expect there is much less need for it since Win 10 - Microsoft did listen and as I said, I really think Win 10's interface is okay.

Microsoft might listen, but some of their users do not.

Eindhoven · December 29, 2019

On 12/27/2019 at 11:24 PM, KhunHeineken said:

My plan is to upgrade to Windows 10, early New Year, when I have some spare time. Basically, in a few days time.

After the upgrade, reloading of programs and settings, changing the UI, and debloating and tweaking privacy settings, I will shop around for a SSD, and eventually clone the HDD to the SSD, and install it. This should not be a problem with the desktop, but I may have to take the laptop to a shop for this.

I see the benefits of a SSD, but the SSD can wait can wait for a while.

I'm sure that it all makes sense in your head. But it seems just yours and BS's.

Why bother to buy an SSD at all? You buy one to unleash the performance of your PC.

If you recognise the benefits, they why not save yourself the time and hassle of backing up, then upgrading over the top, reloading programs and settings....when you can simply install cleanly to a new storage drive and then reload programs and settings....

Why take the extra steps, to get a lesser performance, only to have to replace the drive later anyway?!

It just seems totally irrational.

Swapping to an SSD now, achieves the same result in less steps.

You don't need to run the Windows 10 upgrade over the top of Windows 7, so that is an unnecessary step.

Secondly, since you won't be doing anything on the HDD, there will be no need to make a back-up at this time. So another unnecessary step.

Then later you planned to clone the finished setup to an SSD, so another unnecessary step.

So three extra steps to achieve almost the same result. I say almost exactly, as the clean install will result in a better installation in the first place.

I told you, this was never about Classic Shell or the like, but your wont to hold on to the past, however irrational.

Yes, fitting the SSD will transform the performance of your devices.

But that's not the only point that I am making. It's that not doing so, actually makes more work for yourself and exposes your install to more risk and more risk of complications.

Further to that, you also miss out on the Reserved Space allocated to device that run clean installs of Windows 10.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

BigStar · December 30, 2019

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, KhunHeineken said:

My plan is to upgrade to Windows 10, early New Year, when I have some spare time. Basically, in a few days time.

Great! Good luck w/ that.

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, KhunHeineken said:

I will be upgrading all my Windows 7 machines, so there will be a bit of work backing up, and reloading programs and settings, on all the machines.

Um, you should have current backups of all your data on a disk (or whatever) other than the system disk anyway. That’s a must no matter what.

But you may well not need to restore anything from your backup, pay for a new Win 10 key, or, contrary to misinformation here, reinstall any programs or settings. SO boring and time-consuming.

Try this method to get the free upgrade and fewer steps still:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/you-can-still-upgrade-to-windows-10-for-free-heres-how/

And take a look here, at the last paragraph:

https://www.howtogeek.com/266072/you-can-still-get-windows-10-for-free-with-a-windows-7-8-or-8.1-key/

Know your old Win 7 key just in case.

Quite likely it’ll work. If it doesn’t and you must clean install then you’ll have to pay for a Win 10 key. That probably doesn’t sound very agreeable, unless you already have one.

Purists will of course demand a clean install. That’s better, true, but strictly speaking not necessary unless you’re very short of disk space: Win 10 will want to rename and keep your old Win 7 folder. This will serve as your backup and you can rollback to it if you don’t like Win 10. Later you can run Disk Cleanup to get rid of it. You don’t need any 7GB of Reserved Space unless you're incapable of maintaining plenty of reserve anyway.

Yeah, messier to upgrade a current installation but much easier if you can. Millions are running a Win 10 upgrade perfectly well from an older version just as M’soft persuaded them to via its free offer.

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, KhunHeineken said:

I haven't decided which program I will be running to make Windows 10 look like Windows 7, but it's between Classic / Open Shell, and Start Menu 8.

I will then run the program suggested to me in this thread to debloat and disable privacy settings.

You’ll appreciate the convenience of Open Shell. Can do so much with it out of the box w/o having to fool around. NO, I don't want to create a new submenu and drag in the shortcuts to my Control Panel and Administrative Tools applets.

There’s whole industry of paid AND unpaid professionals devoted to cleaning, debloating, repairing, patching, and optimizing Win 10. Welcome to the endless fight against bloat and intrusion. (By M'soft; so much to be said for Linux.)

BTW, if you have portable apps you want to put into the Open Shell menu, you can just create shortcuts for them and move the shortcuts into the c:\Users\[YOUR LOGIN NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ folder. These will remain in the Win 10 menu should you later decide that tiles turn you on.

You can create folders for them as desired first.

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, KhunHeineken said:

I am in no hurry for a SSD, and I don't see the need to install a SSD at the time of upgrading the OS. I can also keep the HDD as back up in case the SSD fails.

Right, no need. And you can later use the HDD for cloning, or creating backup archives, of your SSD. Be aware that when SSDs crash, they crash hard before you’ll have time to do anything. There’s no “stick it in the freezer” trick to revive it briefly, either. So with an SSD backups are even more important.

Fortunately the name brands are quite reliable, but just as with an HDD, an SSD can fail whenever it damn well pleases.

Now on the very important question of time spent:

If you put in an SSD first and then clean install of Win 10, tweak Win 10, then install all your programs, then copy over data—that will take a lot of time, obviously. You will, however, have a backup of your old Win 7 that’s probably useless but since you already have an SSD you can then spend time cloning it over to the SSD if you don't like your Win 10. ???? Different sizes may become an issue but solvable esp if your SSD comes w/ helpful software for the purpose.

If you had cloned to SSD first, then succeeded in an upgrade, you still have no clone/backup of your Win 10 installation, which you’ll soon want. On a laptop, at least, you’ll do that clone/backup to your old HDD through a USB port. VERY slow.

But suppose you upgrade/install Win 10 etc. on your existing HDD as you plan. When the shop later clones it, you’ll already have a “painless” backup of your SSD. And if you’ve upgraded, you’ll have a Win 7 backup on both that you can restore or delete at your convenience.

BTW, you can't clone an upgrade to another machine and expect it to be activated. You'll have to upgrade each separately.

So in the end you may well save more time & effort by going w/ your HDD first. But we'll also assume you have time management and multitasking skills. I work with probabilities rather than absolute certainties.????

Hence, trying out Win 10 for a while first before taking further steps is a perfectly rational course of action. Who knows, you may decide that you don’t need a faster boot time or faster app loading times, though they’d be nice.

So you haven’t been distracted by all the noise to take the off-ramp after being assured the topic of your post wasn’t its topic.???? Kinda par for the course around here, though. Yet I’ve often thought it funny how very liberal posters here are with spending other posters’ money, and on their own schedules, too.

Edited December 30, 2019 by BigStar

Eindhoven · December 30, 2019

Starting with the SSD in the first place is undoubtedly the best way forward. Saves the whole cloning process on both devices and the other steps mentioned earlier.

Really no need to take the laptop anywhere, unless you have the kind of laptop that makes it difficult to fit/swap drives.

No need to make life more difficult than it needs to be, unless it's for fun. But if you think you would need to take the laptop to a shop in order to complete the process, that doesn't sound like fun.

I guess you still need time to convince yourself that I am right. ????

Telling yourself that it was your idea in the first place should do it. ????

Edited December 30, 2019 by Eindhoven

BigStar · December 31, 2019

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, KhunHeineken said:

but I may have to take the laptop to a shop for this.

When you buy an SSD at a shop like Jib (reasonable prices) just bring along the laptop and they'll certainly install it for free and probably clone your HDD for free as well if you act like it's a deciding factor in the purchase. In any case it'll be a nominal charge and well worth it to avoid needless bother. That's what I'd do out of sheer laziness. Usually a coffee shop nearby for a good cuppa. ????

Edited December 31, 2019 by BigStar

KhunHeineken · January 4, 2020

Update.

I will reply to some recent posts when I get time. This post will be a brief account of my upgrade to Windows 10, and the debloating and disabling of the spyware, and the use of Open Shell.

Over the last couple of days I upgraded five machines. They were all running Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Two of the machines are Core i7, one is Core i5, one is Core 2 Duo, and the other one is an Intell Atom. These last two machines are quite old.

All of the machines have genuine Windows 7, except for the Core 2 Duo, which had a Thailand pirate copy.

The Core 2 Duo is the oldest machine and least used, so I started with this one. Unfortunately, it also proved to be the most problematic, but what I learnt from upgrading it helped me with the other four machines.

I will not go into every little quirk or tweak of each upgrade, as each machine had its own little bugs to deal with, but will touch on some common issues I had across all of them.

I can confirm that if you had a genuine Windows 7 license, you do still get Windows 10 for free. All four machines that had genuine Windows 7 were all upgraded for free. Microsoft were not honest with users when they said the free period was only for a short time.

I gave the "keep all" option a try on one of the machines and the upgrade worked quite well. So, the other three machines were upgraded in the same way. A fresh install is always nice, but a lot of work over fire machines, so took the least time consuming option.

The machine with a Thai pirate copy of Windows 7 had to have a fresh install, and I have not completed loading it as yet, but there is no hurry as it's an old machine an rarely used these days.

Before the upgrade, I bought some Windows 10 Pro license keys. They were cheap. I got Windows 10 for free, but as I already bought the keys, I used them anyway and upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. There's not a lot of difference between Home and Pro, but I read about not being able to delay big Windows Updates, unless you had Pro, so went with Pro. I'll probably use Bitlocker as well.

I had a small problem with one license key. I entered the key and when I checked the key for activation it was for Enterprise, not Pro. I contacted the seller and was sent another key, so went through the process again and now have Pro across all machines. Just on this point, all the sellers say Windows 10 Pro must be a fresh install. This may be true if you want to go straight from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Pro, but if you do the free upgrade, then enter the Pro key to upgrade from Home, you do not need to do a fresh install.

The first new program to install was Windows 10 Debloater and I selected the usual settings. That is, debloat and stop the spyware. It definitely debloated, but when I manually checked on some privacy setting, I found they were not disabled, so I also installed Shut Up 10.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

After running Shut Up 10, I manually checked some privacy setting and they were now disabled. To the members only using Windows 10 Debloater, you might like to check the privacy settings, and maybe also run Shut Up 10. Also, this program did not stop Microsoft Edge taking over reading documents, so I had to change some default settings for this, even though I clicked on this option when I ran the Windows 10 Debloater software. It worked good for disabling Cortana.

After watching some Youtube clips, I decided on Open Shell. Well, what can I say. What a great piece of software. You can customize the Windows 10 UI as much or as little as you like to make it look like Windows 7. It's free, but knowing what I know now, I would have paid for it. The only things not included were the Windows 7 Start icon, and the Windows 7 Classic background or wallpaper, but I sourced them easily off the internet. There are unimportant, but I challenged myself to make Windows 10 look as much as Windows 7 as I could, and with the help of Open Shell, and some extra tweaks, I think I have achieved that goal.

Some quirks were my VPN software had to be uninstalled and reinstalled, and my DNS settings were the same on only two of the machines. The other machines I had to enter them again.

It sounds all pretty easy, but was actually a fair bit of work, across all five machines. What was easy to tweak on one machine, was not easy on another, and then the opposite would have for other tweaks.

A surprise to me was my desktop gadgets. I frequently reference these in an online session, and I was able to get these running on four out of the five machines, but with some more work, I am sure I will get them going on the fifth machine.

A minor pet hate of Windows 10 is the scrolling slde bar. It collapses, and you have to hover over it to expand it, and then slide / scroll with it. I don't like it.

For me, I have not noticed and speed advantage of Windows 10 after the upgrade.

Watching some Youtube clips on Classic / Open Shell, Windows 10 Debloater, and Shut Up 10, there were hundreds of thousands of hits. There is obviously a big demand for some, or all, of the configuration I am running. As the end of support deadline nears, I am sure there will be a big increase in the number of Youtube hits, and downloads of the above software.

As another member put it, all my machines now have a new engine, in a perfectly good chassis, that has the same paint work, and just like a classic car, it's time to go cruising, or should I say, surfing, again. ????

BigStar · January 4, 2020

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

I can confirm that if you had a genuine Windows 7 license, you do still get Windows 10 for free. All four machines that had genuine Windows 7 were all upgraded for free.

Excellent. Way to go.

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

To the members only using Windows 10 Debloater, you might like to check the privacy settings, and maybe also run Shut Up 10.

Yep. Debloating and enhancing privacy are separate specialties.

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

A surprise to me was my desktop gadgets. I frequently reference these in an online session, and I was able to get these running on four out of the five machines, but with some more work, I am sure I will get them going on the fifth machine.

Personally I don't care for gadgets as I rarely return to desktop once I get started. I even have all the icons hidden, so that only unobstructed wallpaper is to be seen. ????

If you're into desktop customization you might take a look, if you haven't, at https://www.rainmeter.net/.

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

For me, I have not noticed and speed advantage of Windows 10 after the upgrade.

That I would believe.

3 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

After watching some Youtube clips, I decided on Open Shell. Well, what can I say. What a great piece of software. . . . The only things not included were the Windows 7 Start icon, and the Windows 7 Classic background or wallpaper, but I sourced them easily off the internet.

Open Shell, bee's knees. ????Heh. Consider a wallpaper like:

https://www.deviantart.com/kirill2485/art/Better-Windows-10-Wallpaper-553255264
https://get.wallhere.com/photo/Windows-10-Windows-Vista-operating-system-technology-Windows-7-Windows-8-glass-design-Microsoft-Microsoft-Windows-logo-1537535.jpg

Me, I never liked the Win 7 start orb sticking out beyond the taskbar. Here I think Win 10 made an improvement.

Over time you'll probably come to agree that overall Win 10 is in fact better than 7. But I too could have easily stayed w/ 7--or 8.1. (I think we got one guy here who's a big fan of XP!) The biggest annoyance about 10, once you've got it halfway civilized and reconciled yourself to dealing sometimes w/ the "apps" interface, is in the update/upgrade process.

Digitalbanana · January 5, 2020

On 1/4/2020 at 3:07 PM, KhunHeineken said:

A minor pet hate of Windows 10 is the scrolling slde bar. It collapses, and you have to hover over it to expand it, and then slide / scroll with it. I don't like it.

You can turn hiding scroll bars on or off, I prefer on myself but depends on how fast your CPU is.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-keep-scrollbars-always-visible-windows-10-april-2018-update

Eindhoven · January 6, 2020

At least you did something. ???? Long winded in the extreme, but, at least in your eyes, it is done. Congratulations.

Clean install is less time consuming than an in place upgrade and results in better performance.

ATOM device will be next to useless without an SSD. I doubt that you use it much because of that.

Core2Duo would likely need that too.

You can get away with it with your 'high end machines'.

kekalot · January 6, 2020

with just Classic Start Menu 4.3.1 and a few clicks (to modify taskbar down, arrange system tray and add back Quicklaunch bar), you can make Windows 10 look like this

if i want the ugly start menu I can click on Start Menu (Windows) at the top but I have never used that once. Control panel option brings the left window, right one is PC Settings

KhunHeineken · January 28, 2020

On 1/5/2020 at 9:16 PM, Digitalbanana said:

You can turn hiding scroll bars on or off, I prefer on myself but depends on how fast your CPU is.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-keep-scrollbars-always-visible-windows-10-april-2018-update

Thanks. Hiding scroll bar disabled on all machines.

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Making Windows 10 look like Windows 7.

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