W10 or not...

[SYN_Vander]

I haven't noticed any reduction in performance going to W10 so far. I'm pretty sure the memory limit for RoF -as set by devs- is lower than 4GB (2GB?) and this maybe the same for BoS?

[SYN_Mugue]

ok, against my better judgement, I've succumbed to my penny pinching nature and installed this OS.(If nothing else just to make my own evaluation so I don't regret throwing away a $139.00 value) So far I can't say I'm in love with it, but it's "working" for the most part, and I'm learning. (just upgraded, not a clean install...)

In the interest of saving some time, dose anyone have a link to a good setup guide, so I can find all the hidden bits and maximize my performance and security etc.? The MS site is practically useless and I have searched around a bit and not found anything super helpful yet. Any help would be appreciated.

[SYN_Bandy]

Not sure, but Koroush may have something for you here http://www.tweakguides.com/, IMHO he wrote a definitive Win7 guide that was free in the beginning, but now that he's made a name for himself from his good work is selling a "deluxe edition" of his guide for a reasonable fee, "around the price of a cup of coffee". I've extensively used his game guides and nVidia card advice, Win7 etc, and they are all well researched and presented with understandable explanations so you learn something. You're getting the OS for free, so maybe use a little of that saved cash for...

Ah hah!

Note: A TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows 10 will not be released as explained [quote below] http://www.tweakguides.com/newsarch_mar16.html#NoWin10. Aside from interface changes, Windows 10 is similar to Windows 8.1 in terms of features and tweaks, so you can use the TGTC for Windows 8 if you wish.

Site Update
28 March 2016

Let's talk about Windows 10, my least favorite subject right now. At the end of last year I announced that for personal and professional reasons, I would not be doing a TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows 10, but that I would try to compile a brief Windows 10 tweak guide. Well I've tried, and I'm just not finding it possible to write a decent but brief guide. Windows 10 is an ever-changing, non-transparent, disjointed mess of an OS. Many of its annoyances can't be successfully tweaked away, and those that can require pages and pages of explanation. Furthermore, any such guide would require constant editing over time as Microsoft alters Windows 10 on almost a monthly basis now.

But perhaps the single biggest reason I'm not motivated to write a Windows 10 guide is that I've rapidly lost all respect for Microsoft, and consequently have lost a great deal of interest in anything to do with their products. Microsoft's clumsy, desperate, visionless push to get PC users to adopt dumbed-down mobile-oriented apps purely for their own commercial benefit; the unrelentingly persistent, unethical, and highly deceptive way they're trying to trick less tech-savvy Windows 7 and 8.1 users into "upgrading" to Windows 10; and their insistence on reducing user choice and control over Windows have all left a very bad taste in my mouth. This is an inept company struggling for relevance in the mobile era by shamelessly abusing its monopoly on desktop operating systems, and I don't want to play any part in helping them do that.

Oh my. I did not read that when I wrote the first part of this post, but have to respect his opinion given he has demonstrated an extensive knowledge of Windows OS and in particular with a gaming perspective in the past. Take it for what you will.

And please remember, I signed on for Win10 beta in spring 2015, and likely had this OS installed before all of you, but just ran into too many problems with my system I suspect because my Win7 install is a free educational upgrade version from XP, or maybe just because it was early beta. But it was enough for me. I tried to like Win10, but I'm going to wait until it otherwise becomes impractical to continue without it, i.e. some game I want to play requires Win10...

[SYN_Mugue]

Thanks Bandy. U da man!

[SYN_Bandy]

Look for the Win 8.1 guide he mentions here: http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
I really don't know if 10 is that similar to 8.1, but maybe turning off some of the more annoying features are the same. Let us know.

Just in case you thought what Koroush wrote was just another anti-M$ rant (well it was a rant but...)

I want to clarify something: I'm not in the habit of blindly criticizing changes in Windows, and this was not just another generic ill-considered anti-Windows 8 rant, which are a dime-a-dozen on the Internet. If all I wanted to do was have a pot-shot at Windows 8, I could have done so over a year ago, when I was using the Release Preview version, and subsequently, when I sat down for several months and wrote the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Windows 8 book. I wasn't terribly thrilled with Windows 8 at any time over that period, but I always maintained some faith that Microsoft would set things right, once they saw the widespread negative feedback translate into relatively poor sales.

People should also keep in mind that I don't have a history of attacking Microsoft. Quite the contrary, I was one of the few people defending Windows Vista, when almost everyone else was still cashing in on the anti-Vista craze. I wrote the lengthy Vista Annoyances Resolved article, which not only attempted to debunk many of the silly untruths about Windows Vista, it also went further by providing some practical solutions to common problems. So what prompted my outburst against Windows 8.1? Allow me to explain in detail... http://www.tweakguides.com/Windows81_1.html

Again, take it any way you like, just not in KoolAid TM form...


Geez, at least they could have given him something other than a specimen cup to drink it from...

[SYN_Mugue]

Again, Thanks for the reading material Bandy.
I seem to be resonating with what that guy says about M$'s product development practices. My preliminary view is forming up as, "The emperor has no clothes." and if he does it's a fig leaf made of Dx12 and that OneDrive feature.(but I've got like 5TB of free HD space, so why do I want/need to put my data in the cloud again?)

After doing a small amount of reading about Vulcan and some other API's.(please correct me if I'm wrong)But, I see no reason why DX12's new graphics functionality should be limited to W10 for other than M$'s marketing reasons.I read(sorry didn't save the link) that Vulcan could give the same graphics boost to a Windows XP system! (in theory at least )

I'm going to continue to screw around with W10 for a while longer.(27 days left on my trial vers.) But in the end, I think, I might very well be switching back to my W7 64bit pro. The dumbed down features, lack of controls and the(to me) ugly esthetic of the thing, is leaving me flat. And worse, I see no visible performance gains. As of yet, I haven't found a reason not to let this OS pass me by.

[SYN_Kollwitz]

Well, in the end I didn't do it... Figured everything is working fine atm and I don't have a DX12 GPU anyway.

I'll get w10 when building a new machine, later this year probably.

[SYN_Mugue]

Don't feel bad Kol. I couldn't last three days with it. I'm back on W7 and happy again. You're not missing much imo.

[SYN_Kollwitz]

haha, good on you! at least you tried