Windows 10: If you have Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you will
have seen the Windows 10 icon at the bottom right of your screen. Having
clicked the icon to register for the Windows 10, you will be able to
download W10 into your
Downloads folder. Apparently you
need not download it immediately although some people report that the
Install later button just installed it anyway.You have until July 28th 2016 to
download and install the new version free of charge. After that you will
have to pay for it (about £100).
If after a month or two you don’t see the W10 icon, access this website:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-upgrade
WARNING
Bogus Windows 10 email: If you receive an email offering a Windows 10 installation kit, delete it immediately.
It has the email address update@microsoft.com which is nothing to do with Microsoft; it comes from criminals in Russia, India, France and USA. The email contains an attached zip file. If you open the attachment it will lock your files and demand a ransom of nearly £400.
What to download: If you have the Home version of Windows 7 or 8.1, download
the Home version of Windows 10. If you have the Pro version, download the
Pro version of Windows 10.
Windows 7 must have service pack 1 installed. To
check this, click the Start button and then RIGHT click Computer. Click
Properties. On the next panel, view the line below the copyright statement,
if you see SP1 then the service pack is installed.
The best news about Windows 10: Microsoft say Windows 10 will be the
LAST VERSION of the Windows operating system. There will be no Windows 11.
Future updates to Windows 10 will download automatically and unobtrusively
in the background.
Emails: Don't be bullied into using web
mail for your emails such as g-mail. Resist this unless you enjoy obstacle courses and
you don’t mind your email being stored on a remote server that might allow any Tom, Dick or Hacker to harvest information from your emails.
However, if you use outlook.com, Microsoft has promised that the
content of your emails will not be sold to other organisations. By far
the best solution is to download and use Windows Live Mail which replaced
Outlook Express.
The new browser that comes bundled with Windows 10 is no longer Internet Explorer, it
is now called
Edge. Comments on this browser so far, say it knocks spots off the competition, i.e., Firefox, Chrome. Pity about the daft name.
Unfortunately Microsoft have copied Chrome and Firefox and
buried all the useful tools in remote places. To change the home page to
your preferred page, click the three dots on the top right of the browser
and then click
Choose settings. Under
Open With choose
Custom. In the next field type your preferred home page
address, for example http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
To remove the need to logon with a password click
HERE
To shut down a W10 computer, the button has moved to the
lower left of the Start panel and is now labelled
Power.
The shut-down button is the same as Windows 7 on the Classic Shell version
of the Start panel.
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Upgrading to Windows 10: If you registered for the upgrade to W10, you may not have received the program yet because it is being rolled out gradually.
For instance mine arrived on 24th November 2015, four months after the
launch date.
Don't fret about the delay
because later downloads will have more of the
initial bugs removed.
When the download is ready for you, a notification will appear in the
right hand corner of your screen.
When you have downloaded Windows 10 into your computer you can can save it
into your downloads folder or you can install it immediately. You have
until 28th July 2016 in which to install it.
Warning: Download and install when you have plenty of
time to spare. The downloading and installing will take approximately
one and a half, to two and a half hours depending on your broadband speed
and the speed and age of your computer.
You must not interrupt
the process.
If after installing W10 you find you don’t like it, you have one month in which you can revert to W7 or W8/8.1. You will not have a recovery DVD, so what should you do if the computer needs a re-installation at some future date? Microsoft says you will be able to reinstall it using a program on your computer that is part of W10.
When downloaded and ready to install: You will be told
that several automatic restarts will occur during the installation.
During the installation period the process sometimes appears to stick.
It has not stuck so be patient and WAIT. You may see a progress report
in small font at the bottom of the screen. When the "Agreement" pops up,
accept it. In the next stage The installation process will configure the
W10 settings. Accept the
Express settings and click
Next. You will then see occasional messages and the
background colour will pulse slowly from dark blue to a lighter blue.
The installer will announce that it has removed some programs that are
not compatible with Windows 10. It may even offer to download a
compatible
version of the removed programs; accept the offer.
The Start button: The panel that appears when you click the
W10 Start button is not to everybody's taste. I hate the ugly square icons and
the grim black background, also I have
no use for those daft Apps. To revert to the Windows XP or Windows 7 start
panel and to get rid of those Apps,
download and install Classic Shell for Windows 10 and choose your favourite appearance
(Windows XP or Windows 7 or customised). Classic Shell is free and can be downloaded from
hhttp://classicshell.net
The confusing Windows 10 panel
The clean Classic Shell panel