Windows 10 install experiences

What was your Windows 10 installation experience?


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ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
You do make good points about Windows Update finding drivers, but I only install drivers if a component doesn't work.

My rule of thumb for fresh installs is:

1: Install OS.
2: Run WU a few times until no more update are available.
3: If a "feature" at this point does NOT work, THEN install the relevant drivers. (All features are and should be operational at this point, apart from the two in step 4.)
4: Install Chipset and Hotkey drivers.

Do not install drivers that aren't designed for W10, even though they are essentially compatible, it's best to let WU find them. Yeah I know I still install Chipset and Hotkey, but these drivers aren't OS level, but hardware level and are modified by the laptop manufacturer to ensure you get all features for the particular machine. I found this out by looking for the chipset drivers through Intel, and found they only supply it to computer manufacturers, in which turn they modify it to work exactly how they want it to.

Drivers for components that WU finds:

Audio
Touchpad
GPU and iGPU
Cardreader
WiFI (assumably) as WiFi is functional as soon as W10 has installed.

I can't actually think of any others, but you get the jist of things.

I really hope this is of some help. :)

Well I never, you learn something new every day! Pagey you are the man, I salute you! :)

It's all working, no stutters or freezes and it's been running for 2 hours now, in the past I'd have seen a few freezes by now.

I reinstalled this morning (you knew I couldn't wait) and followed your method. All seems to be working, though I do note that the NVIDIA GPU light is lit all the time now, previously I would get the green or orange light depending on which GPU was in use, so the Optimus feature is not working fully. Still, if it's running permanently on the NVIDA GPU I'm happy with that!

In the past I have been very wary of applying drivers via Windows Update, I've had several issues with bad drivers from Windows. I have always (and only) manually installed drivers myself from either the PC manufacturer or the hardware manufacturer, I guess with "Windows as a service" I'll just have to get used to Windows providing drivers....

I did again see that most of the driver updates were marked as failed and after a reboot Windows Update reported no new updates. On checking the driver versions of the devices affected, the updated drivers had all been installed. This is an update glitch that needs to be fixed.

For any other Optimus IV owners wanting to upgrade to Windows 10 and following this thread, here's how to get it to work:

1. Logon to the PCS website and navigate to the Downloads section in Tech Support. Click on Windows 10 and see whether there is a BIOS update in there for you. If there is download it and flash your BIOS with that update. You need to be on the latest BIOS version for Windows 10.

2. Follow Pagey's advice (he's the man!) and allow Windows Update to install all drivers (ignore the failure messages, you can always check the driver dates in Device Manager after a reboot to verify the drivers were installed). After Windows has installed all updates, then install the Windows 8 chipset driver and then the Windows 8 hotkey driver (you should reboot after each one as asked).

That's it....!
 

Androcles

Rising Star
You do make good points about Windows Update finding drivers, but I only install drivers if a component doesn't work.

My rule of thumb for fresh installs is:

1: Install OS.
2: Run WU a few times until no more update are available.
3: If a "feature" at this point does NOT work, THEN install the relevant drivers. (All features are and should be operational at this point, apart from the two in step 4.)
4: Install Chipset and Hotkey drivers.

Do not install drivers that aren't designed for W10, even though they are essentially compatible, it's best to let WU find them. Yeah I know I still install Chipset and Hotkey, but these drivers aren't OS level, but hardware level and are modified by the laptop manufacturer to ensure you get all features for the particular machine. I found this out by looking for the chipset drivers through Intel, and found they only supply it to computer manufacturers, in which turn they modify it to work exactly how they want it to.

Drivers for components that WU finds:

Audio
Touchpad
GPU and iGPU
Cardreader
WiFI (assumably) as WiFi is functional as soon as W10 has installed.

I can't actually think of any others, but you get the jist of things.

I really hope this is of some help. :)

That's good advice for Windows 10, I would never have thought of doing that because in the past it has been well known and documented that Windows Update only ever installed very basic generic versions of hardware drivers that didn't have all the features, even MS themselves used to recommend only using manufacturers drivers.
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
Just a quick heads-up: DO NOT install Insider Previews as they've broken it again.

Confirmed: Going back to build 10525 fixes it.
 
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Pagey

Bright Spark
It certainly does now.

I need to do more testing, but as I've now reverted, I cannot install the latest build. XD

For what I can gather: New builds seem to be either over-writing the drivers or causing the new OS build to ignore the INF's and whatnot that the Chipset drivers installed. Because of this, the Chipset drivers won't install again as they are still there, and there is no overwrite option once the drivers are installing. But after a quick fiddle this morning, I can over-write all the files by adding on a command to the exe file. I need to over-write the drivers on the new build to see if that fixes it. If it does then Microsoft need to sort this issue out as it's now pretty serious.

In the "readme" file in the Chipset driver folder, I found this very interesting:

************************************************************
* 1. OVERVIEW
************************************************************
The Intel(R) Chipset Device Software installs Windows*
INF files to the target system. These files outline to
the operating system how to configure the Intel(R) chipset
components in order to ensure that the following features
function properly:

- Core PCI and ISAPNP Services
- PCIe Support
- IDE/ATA33/ATA66/ATA100 Storage Support
- SATA Storage Support
- USB Support
- Identification of Intel(R) Chipset Components in
the Device Manager

So, from that, It's safe to assume it was a PCI/PCIe issue.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
It certainly does now.

I need to do more testing, but as I've now reverted, I cannot install the latest build. XD

For what I can gather: New builds seem to be either over-writing the drivers or causing the new OS build to ignore the INF's and whatnot that the Chipset drivers installed. Because of this, the Chipset drivers won't install again as they are still there, and there is no overwrite option once the drivers are installing. But after a quick fiddle this morning, I can over-write all the files by adding on a command to the exe file. I need to over-write the drivers on the new build to see if that fixes it. If it does then Microsoft need to sort this issue out as it's now pretty serious.

In the "readme" file in the Chipset driver folder, I found this very interesting:



So, from that, It's safe to assume it was a PCI/PCIe issue.

Nice work. TBH that's probably the best result because it makes it a Microsoft problem and one they really will have to fix. How was this not picked up in the Technical Previews I wonder?
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
I always had the problem in the TP's, I honestly thought It was going to be fixed once it was RTM. Never realised this was what the problem was...
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I always had the problem in the TP's, I honestly thought It was going to be fixed once it was RTM. Never realised this was what the problem was...

Ahh. I ran the TPs in a virtual machine (VirtualBox) so the problem never appeared. I guess tons of others did too.
 

Ardderchog

New member
Windows 10 panic FYI.
I have installed Windows 10 easily on two PC’s but my laptop has proved to be a problem.
Windows updated listed 6 failed attempts to install Windows 10.
I then used the media creation tool. This install seemed to go well but stopped saying “unable to verify windows key”. I was not attempting a clean install, and was not asked for the key.
Following the instructions on the Microsoft help pages I deleted everything in the Windows download folder and used the command prompt to “updatenow”. This seemed to work well and even got to the “sit back and relax page”. A few minutes later a black page with “attempting repair” appeared, then a blue page with three options. I selected the “roll back option”. The computer immediately switched off. When I switched back on I had the same page. Regardless of which option I selected the result was a switch off.
I decided to boot from my Windows 7 installation disk so that I could get at a disk image I had created a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately just as the boot up was getting to the page where I could choose my image…BSOD. This happened a number of times. PANIC, then I had the idea of unplugging the power and removing the battery for a short while. Luckily the Windows 7 disk booted properly and I was able to restore my disk image. I think I will stick with Windows 7 for a while.

PC Specialist Optimus Series Purchased Oct 2012: 17.3" AUO Matte Full HD Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3360M (2.80GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s
2nd Hard Disk 500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
Have you checked the guides I've been posting in this thread?

Ideally I only use the W10 update app to just download the ISO I require, then burn it off once it's downloaded, then install from that.

I've not actually had any installation problems with W10. There must be an issue with your original W7 installation. If you're doing it to just get W10 installed, It might be a better idea to back everything up W7 and install W7 fresh, then do the W10 upgrade.

A lot faffing about, but it should yield better results.
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
Heads-up again!

New Nvidia drivers have broken the sticking again! It's now either a W10 thing of a Nvidia thing... Definitely something to do with the Optimus feature.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Heads-up again!

New Nvidia drivers have broken the sticking again! It's now either a W10 thing of a Nvidia thing... Definitely something to do with the Optimus feature.

Did you get them from NVIDIA? I've turned off checking for NVIDIA updates.
 

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
Haha yeah, I regret ever turning off my system restore. My graphics driver froze mid install and corrupted an important file making PC unable to boot. Tried repair with disc and everything I could but nothing worked. Would have been a simple fix had I left system restore on but the last restore point I had was 3 years old D:
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
Ouch, I didn't even know it was off.

And on the topic of the freezing/pausing issue on the Clevo laptops, it IS the bloody Hotkey drivers. I was hunting around the logs and noticed the PowerBiosserver kept flagging something up, (not an error that I can make out), but something and always coincided with the "issue". After a quick google, I found that it's not just us and mostly pertaining to the lame hotkey drivers that Clevo are pumping out.

So it appears they'll have update their hotkey drivers so they don't get broken so easily. I may even see if I can cludge a newer file from a newer hotkey driver and install it over the old one...
 

Pagey

Bright Spark
Unfortunately, the Optimus V Hotkey drivers had exactly the same BiosPowerServer files as the Optimus IV. the Optimus VI drivers on the other hand were in a cab file which i can't access.

No cookie for me. :(
 

mdwh

Enthusiast
Upgraded my Vortex 3. I noticed that two-finger scroll didn't work for Windows Store apps, but this was fixed by upgrading the touchpad driver to the one PC Specialist provide for Windows 8 (I was still using the original Windows 7 driver, dated something like 2010).

Interestingly I had a similar two-finger drag issue on my Asus Transformer Book T100 (even though they use their own driver rather than Synaptics), again fixed by updating the driver.

Some older software (Opera, Notepad++, UltraVNC) on my Vortex seemed to have fuzzy text, seems to be issues with dpi scaling (I'm running at 125%; my understanding is that Windows has changed how this works to better accomodate tablets where the view might rotate), this has been fixed by updating those apps. (Somewhat annoying that the latest version of Opera is dumbed down and removes lots of useful little features/options, but that's not the fault of Windows.)
 
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