neels wrote:Did a fresh install of Win 7 to get rid of it, and got stuck in the eternal updates black hole.

MS quietly snuck out the 'convenience rollup' for Win7 a while back (don't even think of referring to it as a 'service pack' ) - if you install that (and the pre-req servicing stack update) it SHOULD get you to where windows update complete in a relatively sane amount of time.

I've had to do a few clean reinstalls on standalone win7 boxes running instruments lately - just shoving on win7sp1 and letting windows update go can take in the order of 12 hours before it gives a list of available updates - with the rollup it's more like 20-30mins.

follow thru this (avoids having to fire up IE to download the actually rollup) : http://www.howtogeek.com/255435/how-to- ... ce-rollup/

mudguard wrote:Ten seems just like seven, so I have not really had any negative experiences. It does feel a little slower, but I suspect that's more our Internet connection rather than the computer (which was always a little underpowered).

I've got a test box here that's running win10, it's an old core2quad 9550 so far from fast, it's noticably faster both in terms of boot speed and general use running win10. I can only guess having to make win10 work on relatively low powered tablets meant someone at m$ finally bothered to do some code cleanup and optimisation on the bloated behemoth that's the NT kernel

I forgot to mention that because I had a Dell with OEM windows I could not do a clean fresh install to a new drive and keep the win7 drive as a backup, I had to UPGRADE from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and activate. After doing that, I was able to put in a clean drive and do a fresh install of Win 10

Kev wrote:I forgot to mention that because I had a Dell with OEM windows I could not do a clean fresh install to a new drive and keep the win7 drive as a backup, I had to UPGRADE from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and activate. After doing that, I was able to put in a clean drive and do a fresh install of Win 10

Be surprised if I'm not in the same boat...
this Inspiron is a few month's older than 7. it came with Vista with a promised free upgrade to 7, so FFS, shouldn't I just stay with 7???