Thoughts on Windows 10?

[Haz311289]

I have been using Windows 10 for the past couple of days, not really enjoying it.. seems a bit sluggish compared to Windows 7.. Contemplating buying Windows 7 again and reverting to that
Does anybody have any tips for Windows 10 or suggestions on whether to go back to 7?

 

[Oussebon]

It shouldn't be inherently sluggish compared to Windows 7 - it 'feeling' slower might just be subjective.

Spending a load of cash to revert to an operating system that isn't as well supported on modern hardware as Win 10 and will stop receiving support including security updates in less than 3 years (we all just saw what very real consequences that can have) doesn't sound like the best plan. Not to mention the absence of DX12 which will presumably be getting used more and more in games coming out over the coming years.

If it were a layout / aesthetic issue there's always classic shell: http://www.classicshell.net/

 

[SpyderTracks]

If it's sluggish, there's an issue with the installation. Windows 10 is a lot more responsive than windows 7.

 

[Haz311289]

Maybe i will stick with it for now and see how i get on,
Thanks for the replies

 

[ubuysa]

If it's sluggish, there's an issue with the installation. Windows 10 is a lot more responsive than windows 7.

I completely agree with is. Did you upgrade to Windows 10 from an earlier release of Windows? if so, did you do an upgrade-in-place (ie. from the previously running version of Windows)? If you did then that will be your problem.

Upgrades-in-place work for many but for a huge number of others they cause all sorts of niggly problems. If you did do an upgrade-in-place I strongly advise you to do a clean install of Windows 10 from the installation media.

 

[Tony1044]

I completely agree with is. Did you upgrade to Windows 10 from an earlier release of Windows? if so, did you do an upgrade-in-place (ie. from the previously running version of Windows)? If you did then that will be your problem.

Upgrades-in-place work for many but for a huge number of others they cause all sorts of niggly problems. If you did do an upgrade-in-place I strongly advise you to do a clean install of Windows 10 from the installation media.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

But also it's imperative you have the right drivers - certainly, chipset, graphics and network can all contribute to make the system feel underwhelming. At the very, very least I'd start with the first of those three - you will usually find that your system then suddenly finds a whole raft of other drivers that are required.

 

[Haz311289]

I completely agree with is. Did you upgrade to Windows 10 from an earlier release of Windows? if so, did you do an upgrade-in-place (ie. from the previously running version of Windows)? If you did then that will be your problem.

Upgrades-in-place work for many but for a huge number of others they cause all sorts of niggly problems. If you did do an upgrade-in-place I strongly advise you to do a clean install of Windows 10 from the installation media.

No, it was preinstalled with my new laptop, i think i'm just expecting everything to be lightning quick to be honest

 

[ubuysa]

No, it was preinstalled with my new laptop, i think i'm just expecting everything to be lightning quick to be honest

What is your hardware spec? How fast Windows appears to run is partly going to be down to your hardware, but it's also possible the installation has been corrupted somehow. Try running the system file checker; open an elevated command prompt and enter the command 'sfc /scannow' (without the quotes). It will take a while to run and if it reports any errors that could not be fixed you have a corrupt installation. Let me know if that happens, there is still a possibility of repairing it without a reinstall.

 

[Haz311289]

What is your hardware spec? How fast Windows appears to run is partly going to be down to your hardware, but it's also possible the installation has been corrupted somehow. Try running the system file checker; open an elevated command prompt and enter the command 'sfc /scannow' (without the quotes). It will take a while to run and if it reports any errors that could not be fixed you have a corrupt installation. Let me know if that happens, there is still a possibility of repairing it without a reinstall.

I will run that now thank you
i will post my results
Specs are :
Chassis & Display Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ (2.6GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2133MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1, G-SYNC
1st Hard Disk 1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)

 

[Haz311289]

Results are as follows:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. Note that logging is currently not
supported in offline servicing scenarios.

00005d59 Hashes for file member \??\C:\windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg do not match actual file [l:8]'img0.jpg' :
Found: {l:32 vYE5vSgymNtafRRVq5CCjpKhpE5D2NvNX2fdR7talfA=} Expected: {l:32 G0kTaIUh7EgKi/yukw0CilLpVVOA8ZimCNxmCmQYdFY=}
CSI 00005d5a [SR] Repairing corrupted file \??\C:\windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg from store
CSI 00005d5b@2017/5/20:11:32:35.07 Primitive installers committed for repair
CSI 00005d5c [SR] Repair complete

 

[ubuysa]

Results are as follows:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. Note that logging is currently not
supported in offline servicing scenarios.

00005d59 Hashes for file member \??\C:\windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg do not match actual file [l:8]'img0.jpg' :
Found: {l:32 vYE5vSgymNtafRRVq5CCjpKhpE5D2NvNX2fdR7talfA=} Expected: {l:32 G0kTaIUh7EgKi/yukw0CilLpVVOA8ZimCNxmCmQYdFY=}
CSI 00005d5a [SR] Repairing corrupted file \??\C:\windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg from store
CSI 00005d5b@2017/5/20:11:32:35.07 Primitive installers committed for repair
CSI 00005d5c [SR] Repair complete

Is img0.jpg your desktop wallpaper? If it is that might have been a problem since that's the file sfc has repaired (replaced from a store copy actually). How is the performance now?

The hard disk you have is not a particularly fast one, despite the biggish cache (which only helps for some types of data). Poor hard drive performance is often the cause of performance problems and that might be what you're seeing. You could run the Windows performance monitor to get a feel for your resource utilisations, if you want to know how to run the performance monitor let me know.

Downgrading to Windows 7 is not going to help there I'm afraid.

 

[Haz311289]

Performance wise since the scan i have no complaints, do you think adding an SSD may help?
I haven't had any problems running games since i've had it either

 

[Oussebon]

If your system doesn't have an SSD already, adding one and installing Windows and your programs onto it should make loading the OS and the feel of generally using it a good bit faster.

 

[ubuysa]

If your system doesn't have an SSD already, adding one and installing Windows and your programs onto it should make loading the OS and the feel of generally using it a good bit faster.

I believe the Defiance has M.2 slots, so if you do decide to add an SSD, and you only need one big enough for your system drive/partition, add an M.2 SSD (128GB at a pinch or 256GB for comfort). If you can stretch to it get one of the Samsung PM series M.2 SSDs, the difference it will make to the speed of Windows is like turning night into day.

 

[Oussebon]

I think the 2nd M.2 slot will only work as Sata, and that if it's populated the 1st slot will also only work as Sata rather than PCIe x4.


This seems to be indicated by the configurator and the Clevo website:

Expand to MAX. Dual M.2 SATA SSD or one PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD
http://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=989&lang=en

So you'd probably want at least a 256gb PM961.

That said the Defiance also has 2 2.5" drive bays, so if you got a PM961 now you could always buy another 2.5" sata SSD in the future and install it into one of those. I assume you only have the 1 HDD in there atm.

 

[Tony1044]

I think the 2nd M.2 slot will only work as Sata, and that if it's populated the 1st slot will also only work as Sata rather than PCIe x4.


This seems to be indicated by the configurator and the Clevo website:


So you'd probably want at least a 256gb PM961.

That said the Defiance also has 2 2.5" drive bays, so if you got a PM961 now you could always buy another 2.5" sata SSD in the future and install it into one of those. I assume you only have the 1 HDD in there atm.

Hmm that's interesting...I wonder if that's true of my DII as I have a pair of m2's in RAID0 for out and out performance. Compared to my SATA SSD's they're much much faster but now you have me wondering if that's because they're RAID 0 rather than m2....hmmm

 

[Oussebon]

What kind of drives are they?

 

[Tony1044]

They are 500GB Crucial MX200 M.2 2280 SSD's

At the time I didn't know there were potentially even faster M.2 drives around but I like Crucial - used a lot of the RAM & SSD's over the years and had great reliability and service from Crucial when the only one that died was replaced (SATA SSD from another machine)

 

[Oussebon]

Then they'll be faster because of RAID rather than M.2. They're just Sata SSDs with a different connector as I understand it.

 

[Tony1044]

So they are...

Well that's an upgrade down the line.

Not that I've ever currently thought "y'know what...my M2's are woefully slow"