Windows 10: Windows 10 Preview stats: Two-thirds of testers live dange

Agreed.

Buying a spare hard drive is cheaper in the long run than overwriting your existing OS and then buy a new one come 2015. *Smile

But of course nothing can be better than backups. They cost nothing and will save you a lot of time. *Smile

 

I installed mine on a spare machine. So, yep, straight on the hard drive. What's the problem? How many of that 64% did the same, it wasn"t necessarily on ther main machine. Living danerously?

 

Yes....but the Forums would be soooo boring, if everyone did the sensible thing! *Biggrin

 

Any time you open "testing" to the general public, you're going to encounter a large number of folks who make no effort to protect what they have in place prior to jumping into the testing pool. I'm part of the "insider" program myself, and I did the install on a separate hard drive -- to retain Win8.1 as my "production" system.

When I later learned that (1) there is no way to go "back" to the prior Windows version if you "upgraded" that to win10TP, and (2) MS is doing keylogging to "collect user stats" -- I'm especially glad I did it the way I did.

As to complaints from bloggers about either of these two issues -- these are typical side-effects of product testing.

 

But surely all of that 64% aren't using it as their main machine or have I got an unrealistic view of the general level of sense around? Probably. And this is an internet forum *Wink

 

Well, even if you use it as your "main" OS, I still don't quite see how the backups would help. I do backup my files but only for the slight probability of drive failure. If the OS runs into problems and needs to be reinstalled - well, that costs me time, but my files are not affected - what kind of OS failure would damage my files? Some virus perhaps, but to be honest, I never ever had one of those and even if something will seep through, how's that related to OS failure?

Now, of course I don't do banking or any other serious stuff on the test version of the OS, but mostly out of paranoia - who knows what does this thing report "home". OS being possibly unstable has nothing to do with it.

 

No offense, but that's the biggest BS I've ever read on this forum.

There's no better way to test something than use it every single day for every single thing you normally do. The more time you spend testing something, the more you get to know the software (or anything else you may be testing) and more weird stuff you may encounter.

Think about it for a second. Compare new OS with a car you just bought from unknown person - if you take it for a short drive, you will not hear it sound weird after 2 hours of drive or you may not notice one of the front lights isn't working properly if you haven't had the time to drive during the night.

So yeah, there's no better testing than actually testing it on a real PC and using it 24/7 because this way you will not miss ANYTHING. Of course, exploring stuff you normally don't use and doing things you haven't done before with new OS also helps to test the features you may not be familiar with, but if you find something odd, you can ask around about it or just report it right away.

 

We're talking about system backup. The thing that you use when you run into problems with your OS.



We never discuss data backup because that is a given. A common sense. My files don't go on the same drive as the OS. So it doesn't matter if I get a virus anytime. I just restore by image or re-clone the OS and I am back in 15mins like nothing happened. Fixing your OS will not cost you too much time if you know the kind of backup we are talking about.

 

No matter how much we STRESS and talk about it, Imaging seems lost to many. I like to try out software and experiment which sometimes leads to a crippled or broken system. And, yes, my imaging routine has me back in 15 minutes. If guilty of anything in this area, I admit to "going overboard".

 

More overboard than this (400GB worth of images) ? *Smile





I keep both Macrium and Windows version of images in case Windows is really dead and won't boot up. Also a clean (clean installed) and current versions.

 

I've got images (data not OS) dating back to when I first installed W7 (2009).

They probably total ~400GB (one or two surviving images for each year from 2009 to 2013).

Currently it takes >120GB/month to image my main desktop partitions (operating systems, Documents & Pictures).
I don't image my Music or Video partitions each month.

My laptop backups are ~12 GB/month.
I use it as a media centre, so I only have operating systems on it.
I copy media files to it from my main PC (as required).

I have ~12TB of external storage, which is used to hold backup images, VMs and copies of my music & videos.

I guess I should have a "Spring Clean". *Biggrin

 

All my files go on separate hard drives. The important ones go to NAS in RAID 1 mode.



Those images I have are purely OS only. It's a lot faster to create images without any files on it (3 to 10mins) Any hard drive more than 2TB is a no-no for me. I don't put all my eggs in one basket. *Smile

 

I'm not sure what really qualifies as the perfect testing method.

All I did was install W-10 on it's own ssd and dual boot with W-7.
I hunt and for things that I normally use when in W-7 and see if I can find the way W-10 does the same thing.
I try to adjust things to my liking using W-10 methods and report my likes and dislikes.
We are still waiting for a method of adjusting font size in Start Menu.
I would also like to see more options in Personalization.
I think I have figured out what is happening to my Restore Points but I'm still testing to make sure I got it figured out correctly.
I think the right tick on the Start Window is a great thing and have reported so. I like all the things it brings up.
I use W-10 about half the time I using the computer and the other half is on W-7.

Is doing things in this fashion the proper testing method? I have no idea but it's my method.

I have re-indext about 3 time in different ways just to see if I can find things better. So far I really don't see any difference.
Yes I do understand W-10 is pre - puberty.

I can find all my Restore Points using VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWS but I haven't been able to find them in a normal W-7 way or anything like it.
Maybe it's not built into the young testing system yet.
I'm looking for something like the option (Show more Restore Points).

I have also discovered that Real Temp indicates about 3 deg. C different between W-10 and W-7. Bear in my that this is the same computer just two different operating system on two different ssd's.
I do a lot of snooping and trial and error.

My next adventure will be doing a complete back up of W-10 using a eSata ssd. I will try to use W-10 for this instead of a 3rd party program. Wish me luck.

 

Have you successfully completed restoring images created using native windows utility via bootable windows rescue disc on Win 10 TP? I've tried and failed. So far, I've only successfully done so using Macrium bootable USB rescue media ( pre-OS mode).

 

*Sad

Also @lehnerus2000. Ok, I have been "outboarded by you two *Sad. But I am of like-minded. I use Acronis and Terabytes Unlimited Image For Windows. Also use WD My Cloud with added external drive.