P-166: New Computer Build: December 2015: Part 5: Configuration
I have completed the build of my new system, and have begun the configuration phase.
I had planned, initially, to install Windows 7 on the new machine, since that is what I am using on my development machine now. However, while conducting research, I decided to give Windows 10 a try. Windows 7 is now two operating systems behind the current standard (Windows 8 and 8.1) and so it is close to being “obsolete”. There are also installation issues with Windows 7 and Intel skylake chips when installing over USB, since Microsoft have removed support for an “EHCI host controller”. THIS site goes into much more detail. There are ways around this, such as installing from a bootable DVD, but this has it’s own problems, and optical drives themselves are becoming obsolete (on my current machine, I disconnected my Optical Drive for some reason, and didn’t realise it for over a year!).
I have heard relatively good things about Windows 10 (and some concerning things, regarding privacy) and I have decided to try it, and if I don’t like it, I can revert to Windows 7. From what I understand, Windows 7/8/8.1 users can upgrade to Windows 10 for free, so I won’t have wasted any money if I do go back to 7.
I had some issues getting a bootable USB stick working. The Microsoft “Media Creation Tool” took several hours to download the Windows 10 image, and then failed while writing that image to the USB stick (although this may have been due to issues with my antivirus, which I didn’t disable). I then tried to download the ISO manually, twice, but the download failed, likely due to the very slow download speed I was getting.
Eventually, I used the Media Creation Tool to download the ISO, and then used Rufus to burn that ISO onto a USB stick. This worked great, Windows 10 installed very quickly and with no hassle at all, and my first impressions of it are exceptionally good, it is a very slick, fast, and nice looking operating system. I have Windows 8.1 on my tablet, and I have to admit I don’t particularly like it, but Windows 10, at least from what I’ve seen so far, is a major improvement.
It seems to combine the best of Windows 8 and 8.1 with the best of Windows 7. I get my Start menu back, which is essential, but I also get a much more modern, more interactive user interface.
I have not been using it much yet, I still have to install a lot of drivers and updates, and then install and configure all of my software, so it will likely be a few days at least before I will be using it as my main machine, but so far, I am very impressed with Windows 10.