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

I think I need to do that on my system, just install it as a dual boot with 8.1.1. For some reason, I can't get Windows 10 to activate in my VM, nor use my Microsoft account which means I can't tell them what they need to do and add. *Sad

 

Is this the thread you're thinking about?
https://www.tenforums.com/installatio...h-preview.html

Edit: Note that it's apparently a bad idea to use your own specific, purchased Media Center key at this stage:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...3-d9eddc293d09

 

Worst case scenario, I have to reformat and reinstall. Oh boo hoo, whatever will I do.

Hardly what I would call living dangerously.
No, I don't really back up, but everything of importance in located on other drives, not my os one, so...

 

I'm using it as my main and have no worries about it. I have everything on external drives. Doubled up the backup and use Onedrive specifically for everything but video. The few desktop programs I use, can be reinstalled new again too. I've switched to IE for complete browsing duties so everything is synced up too including favorites across my pc, Surface Pro 3 and phone.

Should the os fail, Onedrive has my settings backed up through my MS account and I still have my W8 key. I'd be back up and running in no time with the preview again because at this point, there's no reason to go back.

 

My boot drive could go belly up at any point and in less than 3 hours, I can have it back up and running without any worries and very little loss of data or backups.

The trick is that I keep all of my truly important files and program installers on two 3TB hard drives. I now have 4 hard drives, 3 of which I clone once a month and for now my old Win8.1 SSD. On one is just movies and TV shows. Pictures, Music, Ebooks, Magazines, and Games are on another.

My Utility folder is my MOST important folder. It has every single program that I have purchased over the years including .iso of all my windows OS back to Win7. it has every mobo downloads for the past 6 years. It has my password tracker programs. It has weekly backups of my FireFox profile, my documents folder, my password folders, my Quicken file, and the Settings to Directory Opus and True Launch bar, and a few game saves backups. This backup folder and my picture folder go onto a couple of cloud sites AND are occasionally burned to DVD. It has a setting sheet in a text file of things to remember to do when loading in a OS (turn off indexing on drive? Check. Check device manager for errors and what files to load to fix them? Check. Turn off UAC during install? Check).

As long as these other hard drives remain intact, building ANY MS OS from a formatted (bare metal) SSD drive onto the drive is simply a matter of 3 hours or so, tops. I install games in a piecemeal basis. As for worrying about which OS, it does not really matter. I skip File Explorer with Directory Opus. I skip the Start menu with True Launch Bar. I skip Internet Explorer with FF. WinX runs almost the same as Win8.1 and control panel I skip by using a TLB folder with my most common Control panel shortcuts are enough that I can do what I need to do.

Using WinX as my boot drive has simply no downside. Next week, I wipe my Win8.1 OS SSD and its cloned backup completely and stay with WinX unless I am forced to go back for some reason. 3 hours to rebuild from a clean install is not a huge problem.

 

Couldn't agree more. . .big deal so I have to reinstall. On an SSD that is really no problem, and all the applications that need to be reinstalled are on a SSD. . .*Party

 

Hi there

I hope THOSE drives are backed up too in some way or another - HDD's do (fortunately less often than you think) fail and you can also accidentally wipe critical data too.

User data doesn't have to be backed up as often as an OS for example - but I'd sure hate to have to re-rip 100's of CD's for example if I lost my music library or I'd really hate to lose some photos or work type documents.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Me, I digitized every freaking photograph and slide in the house. That included a dozen photo albums, scrap books, high school photos, wedding photos, the works. then I clean them up, crop and unscratched them, brightened them, whatever. It took weeks. I have them on DVDs, a computer drive, a cloned drive, the cloud, and on one of my sisters computers. No way would I ever want to do that again.
My friend has all of his and his dead wife's photos on his computer. He is getting older and has no kids or real family to bequeath them to. Those photos are going to the grave with him. I wish there was a site where old photos could live on, royalty free.

 

Please John, no disrespect, but the immediate but temporary solution is with you.

Rich

 

It always seems we forget we are not normal users, that's why we frequent these forums. The article was talking about the average Joe, who has no backups, and really shouldn't be trusting an Alpha OS with all their data. Of course one has to wonder, how many average Joe's even know 10TP exists *Wink

 

My friend was saying that some people at his workplace think that W10 (Final) has been released. *Smile

 

I think that this point is well taken. I have backups to DVD, archival BluRay and separate HDDs. All my time with computers has given me a fair take on installing an OS, including Linux to MS.

I make a lot of mistakes, but I learn from them and carry on. As for testing, Win10 is installed and tested like I would use a fully developed OS. If I find any bugs or annoyances, I report them, otherwise I enjoy using Win10 as a day to day OS.

 

Yes....but the Forums would be soooo boring, if everyone did the sensible thing! *Biggrin Ah, at last a sane person...*Wink

I had two boxes at home running 8.1 desktops--I did an in-place upgrade on one of them to the original 10TP build, then successfully updated that to the 9860 build. No problems detectable. People think Win10TP is some sort of "ground-up new" Windows code base or something--it's not. Foundationally, it is very much Win8.2--it's sort of funny as well as revealing that Microsoft tells you right on the TP sign-up "Insider" page to use the 8.1 Upgrade Adviser to determine application compatibility and that if "it ran OK under 8.1" there should be no problem running it under 10TP. I ran the Upgrade Adviser and it said: "You are already running 8.1" and refused to go further--except that I am running Win10TP--so immediately Microsoft says not to expect many if any compatibility differences between 8.1 and 10TP.

What Microsoft is doing is much-needed desktop GUI resuscitation and tacking on features to 8.1, basically. Some of the newer features, of course, will be buggy for a time, maybe. But I can see little reason for anyone with a *desktop* to be afraid of jumping into the TP at this point.

 

One thing which caught some people out with one of the earlier previews (was it 8.1?) was that when the final released version came out, you couldn't upgrade from the 8.1 Preview to the released 8.1 version without losing applications (and perhaps other settings?).

So people had to reinstall their software/ apps, even if they hadn't needed to do that when they installed the Preview itself.

I've not spotted so far whether MS have published what happens when you go from 10TP to the released 10, but I wouldn't assume it will be seamless.

 

Surprisingly no posts concerning security, the fact remains that W10 previews are "Active".
If you are running your computer with multiple drives or O/S,s..then your computer can be accessed by anyone on the internet as my a/v keeps advising.